Without Fear

The following diatribe appeared in my weekly newsletter THE TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE – a place wherein I collect my weekly progress update, mental health, thoughts about writing, links to cool reads or Kickstarters, and general thoughts about writing/teaching/parenting/living through 2020. Sub if you’re keen on more.

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Apparently e-waste is on the rise, just junk and gadgets throw into the landfill that time forgot, and I have no idea where this shit will land us in another decade. If you ever imagine a future where Mad Max style cars are built out of five thousand little Anko gyros from K Mart, then I guess we’re well on our way.

The solution, buy less of this shit. And what you buy, use it.

Am I guilty of doing this wrong? Yep, probably, sure, almost certainly. Am I trying…every day. Having kids means you open yourself up to a tonne of fads, and bullshit, and plastic, and gyros, and it could be never ending. Those little LOL Dolls…they’ll be waiting for us all “downstairs” with pitchforks as we burn for eternity. My kids go through these fads, and I try my best to mitigate them. I’ll admit, buying those Ooshies is awesome when it’s obscure Marvel characters, but otherwise they’re just $3 junk that gets lost in the garden, I mean, the garden if you’re lucky. They’re semi-solidified petroleum junk. But I own plenty.

I’m lucky my kids love Lego, the toy that lasts forever, and we use every single week. It’s brain food, it’s awesome, and while it’s expensive, we’ve never sent any of it to landfill for nearly a decade. I can’t say the same for…pretty much every else we’ve bought our kids except for the best balance to Lego…BOOKS! Even when we’re done with books, we swap/gift ’em with other families, we donate to charity, I take them into my classroom, something. No book is ever wasted, and while that’s a lot of paper, it’s also a whole lot of literacy skills, and empathy, and imagination, and experience, and I will buy books for people until the day I die. They’re always be the perfect present because even if they aren’t wanted, burn ’em to keep warm, you can’t do that with a small reindeer that poops jelly beans [hilarious as it is].

Lego and books. Usually the latter, and this year they’ve been a massive help. I’ve read more books, a whole mess of comics, and they keep my brain sane, my heart full, and my ability to go on buoyed. I’ve noticed the same with my kids, we’ve read WOLF GIRL, and ARTEMIS FOWL, and 5 trades of USAGI YOJIMBO, with AMULET as a chaser. Copious D&D manuals have been devoured, stats memorised, characters created, stories pondered. In fact, after having finally gone back to school for 5 weeks, we are in the midst of a 2 week break, and the whole house is reading more than usual and I think it’s to help us cope with what’s going on. The world is in a weird place, the kids know it, everyone with a phone or social media account knows it all too well, and switching off from the world and into a book is a great solution [I think, don’t quote me, I’m not the counsellor in the family].

I know when I was young, after my father died, I dove so far down into books that I probably smelt like the binding most days. I read/played the FIGHTING FANTASY books so many damn times, and I devoured every Roald Dahl book i could find, and I read comics at every turn, and it helped me hide, and helped me process, and helped me grow like a branch that’s been cut, badly, but still has more to offer. So I advocate for books for mental health, and books for presents, and books for the home, and books to stop e-waste landfill.

I know, a writer pushing books, who would think it? But I’m genuinely pushing books as a person of the world, first, and a teacher, and a father, and a mate. Order online – from local booksellers, because F Amazon and their shitty practices [and they own Book Depository, so F them, too] – or from an independent creator if they have stuff online, and if you’re in a position where you can travel outside, visit a book seller, or a secondhand book store, I did the other day, or even hit up the library. On the last day of school, I walked outta there with a shopping bag of books for me and the kids because 2 weeks is a long time, and books are medicine, and…thanks for coming to my TED talk, I guess. Here’s the pic of my secondhand haul the other day as I got to sneak out for some mental health retail therapy!