I stayed up into the wee hours reading the article itself and the discussions where you 'wasted' (many hours indeed by the looks of it! of) your life. I came back home yest. to see that I had been tagged by sm1 in the VYB tribe and there I saw your +ve comment first up (read the rest too). I had actually intended to mention VYB to you but I guess all roads lead everywhere!

Anyhow, wanted to say thanks for linking me to that July 2021 post. I've reblogged it for all-round excellent discussion and it's relevance to current discussions around the same issue! It does indeed make the present appear a remake of the recent past! I did notice that the quality of the interaction on the July post - as it appeared to me, was different somehow from what has gone on recently. There seemed to be more serious attention paid to the content of the discussion rather than - as I seem to have noticed a lot in the present debate - the emotions that may have been triggered by the discussion. I guess folk all round are now rather tired of the circularity of much of this, shorter fuses and all! In any case, you appear to me to be highly alert to certain things that seem to slip most people's attention and you call them out superbly I must say! When I was reading through the July comments I saw that some elders of the POB/VYB tribe were chatting with you and acknowledging food4thought and it seemed to me as if that convo would've had an influence on the thinking behind what is now being rolled out with VYB. It was an influential discussion IMHO.

I also clocked the convos further down the page, with LZ (+OP and a few others too). My HIVEbrain feels expanded...but I am not sorry I entered THIS here conversation in the manner I did. I now see my intention as naive, sure :), but in a goodhearted kinda way (the stuff behind the cliche). I think maybe your vote acknowledges something along those lines...and thanks! Part of what drew me to BOTH your and LZ's accounts (and still does) was... How you guys Speak your _respectiveTruth_s (whateverTF that may mean as a cliche lol, or even as a measure of any Complex Combo of Concepts we may wanna label with the T word)...and ALSO, something about the manner in which you seem non-aligned-speak-for-self kinda folk....as it looks to me from where I've been sitting and watching the show. I feel I've learned Really Good Stuff in both Zones .. I'm grateful.

So, read the lot, most of it anyway. Skimmed technical discussions and followed your chat through its contours and colours, down the yellow-brick page. Quite a ride!

Observation _{if I may}
Scathing Critique? _{(topical joke)}
You commented on the July post (I cd get the comment if you like, speaking extempo atm) something along the lines of 'you can't really understand a situation/argument/issue if you take sides'.

Sometimes, over and around the wonderful metaphors - and I loled and marvelled plenty - it seems to me that there lurks a sense of fighting something, encased within a hypersensitivity machinery with tankloads of armed and multicoloured paints, shades very rarely seen these days I declare! The NNLTU sensometer homes in with dead accuracy (can't say I've seen a lower fail-rate anywhere on Hive but I'm a stoner and may be stoned in my observing). Does NOT appear to 'attack' first but has a Long Memory of past tenses.

Words now fail me, so I ask my Dawg, @flamistan for some help and she obliges (IOW, don't shout at me :): Yo Hyumi if u b faytin' u b takin' sides innit?, she sez. But what if one is non-aligned?, I ask her. But what if one is fighting oneself?, she replies. An artist? The Artist Himself!, she continues....isn't ART also fed from painful inner colour-bursts of Polarities clashing? She continues yet further...and then stops, coz like whatever innit 🙏

I acknowledge that aspects of your WORK have been much misunderstood. Also unappreciated. I acknowledge the effort you have put in. I acknowledge the validity of what you have to say. I acknowledge that I have not seen you express an opinion on the 'covid drama' per se and so any accusations against you on this matter appear to be assumptions. I support your voice tho' I may not agree with everything it expresses - claro!...jusslike with LZ (or another friend of mine whom you also know, and who recently chucked some sizzling Bacon at you on a buzz-generating 'Boring' comment somewhere; he is sm1 I also respect for his voice and speakingOwnTruth stance and sm1 I just like anyhow).

....also wanting to show you some heartfelt appreciation in this comment!

May Art, Creativity, Self-Expression take Centre Stage over DRAMA....this, or something like it, I picked up as one of the core-kinda messages of what you were saying back in July....I think.

<sub>ps.gota go coz Flame is pushing me off the keyboard and I've spent a long time composing this. I know you've said you spend AGES on your WORK, so I guess you'll dig the vibe (did you spot my lack of spot placement/promotion there? My Dawg hangs about in that space btw). Also a PLEASURE to meet you.

pps. as I stated somewhere above, at an ideological level I am closer to one 'side' - I mean I may call it a pLandemic and others may call it Peter Pan, for example. I don't wanna fight, I don't wanna take sides...AFAIC, we're all in this (insert fav. descriptor) together. I don't wanna walk paths towards what seems to me to cause more division. That's the view from where I am...and recently, I've kinda got the impression that things may have calmed down on this BLOCK of late. I hope I'm not wrong!</sub>