New essay: art, care work, productivity culture, and who gets uninterrupted time.
Post goes live 2/25 at 2:22 am PT.
25.02.2026 08:15
👍 0
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
New essay: art, care work, productivity culture, and who gets uninterrupted time.
Post goes live 2/25 at 2:22 am PT.
Uninterrupted time is a privilege.
Creative freedom follows power — and power has never been evenly distributed.
Power itself is neutral. But its distribution has been shaped by racism and sexism from the beginning.
substack.michellelasley.com/p/uninterrup...
#BalanceShared
If we want more creativity, we have to redistribute time.
Post goes live at 2:22am PT.
Connections
Puzzle #988
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
It just made sense to me. But I failed #987.
Appreciate the relevant poetry in this season of our lives.
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Stay free
Can we say late stage capitalism without… oh never mind.
Child care is women’s autonomy.
Exhaustion is structural.
The social contract was a lie.
I wrote about it here:
🔗 substack.michellelasley.com/p/the-social-contract-we-never-agreed
#BalanceShared
“I grew up in a tourist town. I understand what that economy means.”
Dr. Melissa Bird on coastal communities, tourism, and economic erosion.
From Let’s Gossip About Dr. Bird.
Full episode live now.
#BalanceShared
Three moments from today: prep, dog walk, dinner.
And in between, today’s conversation went live.
🎙️ Let’s Gossip About Dr. Bird — on lived experience, leadership, and governing for something, not just against injustice.
Link in bio.
Listen before the year is out.
#BalanceShared
No. No no no.
But we’re also at a choice point. Patriarchy’s last stand is loud, and so is the call toward regeneration and collective care.
I wrote the deeper arc behind this moment in my latest Substack essay.
#BalanceShared #healwomenhealthew
Domination feels normal because empire trained us to see hierarchy as common sense. These patterns aren’t “history.” They’re a lineage — one we’re watching return in real time.
Patriarchy is in its death rattle, and we’re at a choice point. Do we reinforce the old story, or build something different?
More in my latest Substack essay.
#BalanceShared #healwomenhealtheworld
Empire is saying the quiet part out loud. The Doctrine of Discovery, the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny — these aren’t relics. They’re the backbone of how power has worked for centuries, and we’re watching their resurgence in real time.
But systems like this crack, and we are in the cracking. One of the most important things we can do is talk to each other, name what’s happening, and refuse silence.
More reflections on Substack.
#BalanceShared #healwomenhealtheworld
Link: substack.michellelasley.com
The quiet part is being said out loud. Trump’s new strategy document literally revives the Monroe Doctrine — an open claim to dominate the Western Hemisphere. It’s patriarchy’s logic in full view: us vs. them, fear as governance, endless war as stability.
LinkedIn as well. I reported as hate speech.
If someone repeats the old myths tomorrow, you don’t have to debate. Curiosity opens doors that arguments usually close.
Gather honestly. Honor the Original People of this land. Refuse to pass down stories designed to hide harm.
Decolonizing Thanksgiving doesn’t mean rejecting gratitude. It means grounding it in truth. Learn whose land you’re on at native-land.ca and let that knowledge shift how you show up.
Most of us grew up with a Thanksgiving story that wasn’t real. The Original People — including the Wampanoag — faced land theft, disease, massacres, forced removal, and generations of attempts to erase their cultures and languages. Those harms didn’t end centuries ago. They’re ongoing.
Did you know many of the Original People — the First People of this land — observe Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning?
Creators like Blair Mani, LandBack Baddie, Bmahtowin1, 7thGenPodcast, and Feminist have been naming this truth all week.
I wrote about all of it — the fear, the history, the political will we’re missing, and the work we can no longer avoid.
If you want the deeper dive, it’s here:
👉 substack.michellelasley.com/p/a-viral-post-a-terrifying-report
We can’t numb out anymore. We have to organize.
The report about this administration planning raids on Spanish-speaking churches shook a lot of people this week. And when I posted about it, tens of thousands of folks showed up asking the same questions:
How is this possible? Why hasn’t he been stopped? What do we actually do?
Seeing reports of planned church raids? Confused? Angry?
I’m writing a full breakdown on Substack — what’s real, what’s exaggerated, and what communities can do.
If you want the full story, it’s dropping tomorrow.
👉 substack.michellelasley.com
Poverty is a policy decision.
Concentrated wealth is a policy decision.
Inequality is a policy decision.
Remember this.
The only way we get there is if we organize. Talk to people you care about about the values important to you. That’s how we start.
We must ORGANIZE. What group in your city or state are you aligned with that’s working on building a base of directly impacted people on the issues you care about? Work with those groups to bring more people together. Organizing is how we will defeat this insanity.
Billionaire tax cuts are a policy choice.
Cutting healthcare for millions is a policy choice.
Cutting food assistance for children is a policy choice.
Taking from the poor and giving to the rich is a policy choice.
Make no mistake: Trump and the GOP just chose to do this.
Noah catalogued every living animal in pairs and was hyperfocused on boats.
Don’t tell me autism started with Tylenol.
