Flutterby™! : A Unified Theory of Fucks

Something to ponder, as I put energy into building institutions and social structures: A Working Library: A Unified Theory of Fucks.

Because here’s what I’ve learned: if you give your fucks to the unliving—if you plant those fucks in institutions or systems or platforms or, gods forbid, interest rates—you will run out of fucks. One day you will reach into that bag and your hand will meet nothing but air and you will be bereft. You will realize the loss of something you did not know you ever had. But if you give a fuck about the living, about all your living kin in all the kingdoms, they will give a fuck right back. Maybe not every one of them; maybe not every time. Some people’s bags have been empty for a long while, and they may feel the need to ration whatever they have; some people have been taught that to give a fuck is to lose something, not realizing that to withhold is what it means to lose. But I believe—I know from having given and received, from having lost and been renewed—that enough of them will come back that you can keep on giving, for a while at least, for as long as any of us has time to give.