two · the orbits
sections · 2
this note, in order
01what & how
Before the centre, the orbits.
What: outcomes. Wanted and unwanted. Chopsticks, carnivals, reduced child mortality, sea-level rise, fireworks, women’s rights, plastic in their fish, sushi.
How: processes. Voluntary and involuntary. Everything they do, and everything that happens to them, on the way to the whats.
One object, run both ways, so the cut is visible: sea-level rise is a what. The burning that causes it is a how.
Their whats and hows come in three flavours, their experts say — environmental, social, economic — and they study them in three separate buildings, which is among the funnier things I have observed from up here. The flavours are their filing system, not the world’s. I keep the labels only to show you the buildings.
Nothing has loaded — the page stays silent until you ask.
Catalogue them all you like. They are moons.
02so what?
Whats and hows are orbits. They circle something.
The blurred years — you now know where they went: I was cataloguing moons. I will not spend your funding on them.
The question is the centre of gravity.
What is the why?
The moons are beautiful. They are not the point. Look at what they cannot stop circling.
The full directory — every voice in these notes — lives here.