like 3 months later my boss goes "you know I was reading a story about how breathing in wildfire smoke can actually cause a ton of health issues. I had no idea! I hope I'm okay..." and I was jus sitting there like
We get that too, fairly often actually. Most of the summer and fall we get nice pink sunsets and if there's big white floofy clouds they look neat. Sometimes the sky is still blue early in the sun set but the clouds are pink, it's neat.
This unlocked something in me, a kind of aesthetic I've been craving for at least 10 years. The orange, Blade Runnery sunset sky over a city. Something about seeing these sunsets allows me to finally process the dystopian moment we inhabit, and accept the present.
Maybe some little part of me was still holding out hope that the horrors I'm seeing somehow weren't era-defining, that it could all rubberband back, but for some reason, seeing instead the kind of beauty that signifies a universal lateness of the hour is what locks it in for me.
I can see the people sitting alone in darkened highrises, pondering their options in the fading rays.
Well the secret of my success is that my job has me at hours of the day where I get to see the sunrise or sunset - and so much more - no matter what season it I'd because I spend 12+ hours trapped on the clock at different times of the day
So I get to see the beauty of nature daily in a way most people won't experience unless they want to be inconvenienced by changing their sleep schedules or their animal comforts.