Megan's Monthly Musings

It takes a village to ride a bike.

You usually get these notes from me at 10:15am (or somewhere thereabouts; UTC+Military time is really difficult for me to calculate for some reason, and that's the time my newsletter service is set in); so I apologize for the delay. My schedule is a whirlwind now

I road my bike 200 miles, but I really didn't think it was a big deal.

I'm not trying to be fake humble or dramatic. I really thought I was going to finish - or at least attempt, since I wasn't 100% confident I could finish - the STP, or attempt the SPT and maybe not finish, and be done with it.

"I'm not an athlete," I just road my bike 200 miles.

As I mentioned in my last note to you all, which I scheduled for the day after this event, I participated in the STP. This annual 206-mile bike ride from Seattle to Portland, which takes place over a weekend in July, has intimidated me since I moved to Seattle in

"Just get new friends" isn't empowering or healthy.

You're receiving this the day after I will have hopefully just completed a 206-mile bike ride in two days called the STP. I'm writing and scheduling this post early as I'm planning on sleeping in and then having some much-needed quality time with a

"I have nothing to hide" misses the point.

June's posts on technology made me think of another really common recitation I keep hearing when it comes to the alarming lack of privacy that the constant "connectivity" of modern life - aka, life online - creates. It seems many people believe that the continual loss

Technology is not neutral, part 2.

The first reason we should stop repeating "technology is not neutral" is because it, as we talked about in the last post, is not true. The Department of Defense has its own purposes and agendas; what they make will align with that agenda, and there is nothing about

Technology is not neutral.

The internet became commercially available in the late '90s - anyone else have the AOL dial-up sound forever in their head? Just me? - with the scourge of social media not far behind. While that's enough time for an entire generation to grow up entirely in the

Affirmations might not help, either.

You may have noticed in my last post about venting that I refrained from committing to the opposite of venting, which could arguably be affirmation. Part of the reason is that, in my experience, affirmations don't help in situations of extreme upset, either. Weird, right? Let me explain.

Venting doesn't help.

There's this popular idea about getting stressful things off your chest. It's even the mark of a good friend/partner to allow someone to "blow off steam" until they feel better or something. This seemed to work for me as well...until I started

Maybe you shouldn't follow your heart

In The Age of Feelings Are Facts, it's not a surprise that the faulty advice to "follow your heart" is having its moment in the sun. I've been hearing this advice since I was a kid, and I didn't follow it even

Mainstream ideas about healing are wrong

Fortuitously and unfortunately, Glenn Greenwald (the journalist who published the Snowden revelations ten years ago) wrote about grief last year when his husband passed away (at the age I am now) after a long, hospitalized illness that "came out of the blue" (not even Greenwald could voice suspicion

It's time for my generation to lead and we're not ready

Tim Keller's death last May made me realize a) why I've always liked older people and b) that we're starting to lose our leaders. I disagree with a lot of Keller's views, but also, he was my pastor of sorts when I

Gratitude is not a competition

When you were growing up, did your parents encourage you to eat your green beans "because there are starving kids in China?" When you're going around the room (as an adult now) at the beginning of a meeting or a gathering and the ice breaker is

No, not "everyone" needs to be in therapy

Related to my last post about friendship, part of the hollowing out of friendships has been because of the professionalization of intimacy and the massive push for widespread therapy attendance. Seems like every influencer, podcast host, and Facebook ad is about how "everyone" can benefit from therapy and

Making friends is hard as a grown up

This culture is not great at affirming the value of friendship. Whenever even the smallest thing goes wrong in a connection between two friends, there is very little messaging other than that person is toxic and if they aren't for you or serving you then you need to

The passing of time is hard

He has put eternity into man’s heart... ~part of Ecclesiastes 3:11 I've never related with time well. I feel every second like Velcro, even now as it feels like it's all going way, way too fast - just like the adults around me as

Results are okay to want

Happy new year! My only resolution this year is to stop gaslighting myself. And one way I've been doing that is by allowing others to dictate where my joy/happiness "should come from--among other things, traveling versus arriving. If you're frustrated by the constant exhortation

End-of-the-year reflection 2: what I don't need to hear any more

I was reviewing my reflection from around this time last year, and it was eerily similar in terms of relational struggles. I want this pattern to end. I know I'm definitely contributing to it: probably the biggest way I'm investing in this cycle of intense relational

End-of-year reflection 1, or what I needed to hear ten years ago

I'm shifting without the clutch from my Left/Right series to looking back on this year because I'm tired of being angry, screaming into a void, and taking responsibility for trying to help people out of the trap I was in for so long. One of

What the Left gets Right: censorship is bad.

Since October 7th, universities across the nation have been the host of "Free Palestine" demonstrations and professors, administrators, and academic bureaucrats have stood in support in the name of "free speech." Reporters, journalists, writers, artists, etc. who have gotten censored or cancelled for their pro-Palestine pieces

What the Left Gets Right: we are unsafe.

Society has gone mad (I mean that figuratively; I’m not contradicting what I wrote a month ago in my mental-health crisis post) with its obsession with safety the last three years. Masks, testing, track and tracing, censorship of “harmful” information (which the Left conveniently gets to define)—all of

What the Left Gets Right: women are being exploited and threatened.

One particularly malignant aspect of the mental health crisis I wrote about last week is the rapid and seemingly thorough takeover of all major institutions of the transgender ideology. If you ask any questions at all about this soft-suicide stepping stone to transhumanism, you are the problem: you’re “hateful”

What the Left Gets Right: our society is in a mental-health crisis.

It’s so bad, I think most people on the Right would agree with those on the Left about this. I’ve written extensively about this crisis on Mad in America, though it’s a fairly focused and Left-leaning outlet, so I haven’t gone into much about the pandemic-related

What the Left gets Right: Caring for the poor is imperative.

Fair warning: friends, because this issue rends my heart daily, I tried real hard to be calm while I wrote this. I failed. This is the best I could do. Poverty is heartbreaking. I have been on the front lines in social work in Seattle, which is one of the

What the Left gets Right: Inequality is real.

I ended our last post by advocating for capitalism, flaws and all. Three years ago, I would never have imagined myself doing so. I was All. In. on universal basic income (which I'm placing bets will be rolled out with the rapidly incoming central bank digital currencies AKA