Now that HBT is so much easier to read on a small screen, we have a few new readers. I bid you a very warm welcome.
Somehow, September felt even busier than August. The mountain is alive again! When the mist clears long enough for our eyes to adjust, you’ll see pure magnificence. Flowers showing off. Healthy, vibrant new growth and about fifty shades of green filling every available square meter. And I am loving it!! What a gift it is, to live here. How was September for you?
I would have loved to report back and share the name of my cape-wearing, pancake-making hero. But alas… No such luck. Cognitively, we know this, we’ve heard it, read it and… if we’re lucky, experienced it: No one is coming to save you.
So I had to be my own hero and make my own pancakes. By the time the rain, my schedule and my groceries finally aligned, we had no comms. (Dramatic sigh accompanied by a truly teenage eyeroll) “You don’t need Vodacom to operate a stove, Miki.” I know, but I do need to call my mom.
I know how to mix and make my perfect pancake, relax. I’ve been doing it for years; but for years, calling my mom and asking for her better batter mix has been part and parcel of making pancakes. It’s not about the recipe of course…it’s more than that…It’s like I’m five again, it’s raining and we’re standing in the kitchen together, making pancakes; and she’s letting, rather – allowing, me to Help HER.
Anyway…For the first time since I left home, I thought I was making pancakes without my mom. I had about five scoops of batter left when the phone rang…Vodacom back…And there she was. Core memory preserved again.
In this month’s packed HBT, I broke several of my own rules. I said we’ll never advertise, yet this month we’re advertising office space. I said, no article/ submissions about ‘The great beyond’; only Hogsback based, Hogsback related – by Hogsback for Hogsback; yet we have a short story about another town and an actual map proving we’re not the real center of the universe (Bathurst’s claim is irrelevant right now). I also ranted a bit about AI posters, I repeat: of course you are allowed to take offense (as long as you remember I never gave you a fence, or any fence, you decided you want to take one).
I am not 100% in the anti-AI camp, there’s immense benefit and constructive uses…But I still want to ask questions. Sometimes stupid ones. Sometimes questions I already know the answer to… and I want to ask humans! Whether it’s my mom for pancake batter or sewing direction, or you, about whatever it is I feel you can teach me; I appreciate human answers way more than a neat summary of world consensus.
Ask the stupid questions, ask the obvious questions, if the subject matter is real life, find the answer in real life. By all means use AI for your existential crisis questions if you want to.
And if you’re the one they call, please, I beg you: “I don’t know” is a perfectly good answer. Please don’t tell someone to Google-it, don’t send them to Chat GPT…Sometimes people aren’t looking for an answer.
They’re looking for you… so let’s not become so efficient that we forget what a privilege that is.
Enjoy the September issue.
Love,
Miki