Iryna Kosse on Respect the Marble

This piece resonated deeply. I’ve lived through the same Intellectual Doom Loop, and still do — but with an added layer that’s hard to put into words. I live and work in a country that is actively under attack. Not just metaphorically or through headlines, but literally — with air raid alarms, drone strikes, and sleepless nights. The kind of background noise that shakes the windows. I live in Ukraine. And yet, every morning, we get up and go to work. Teach. Write. Answer emails. Because life doesn’t pause, and neither does the war. What makes it stranger is the dual reality: everyone is going through this, so on one hand there’s a deep, unspoken solidarity. On the other, people act as if it’s “normal” now — because it has to be. You show up to a Zoom call right after a drone alert, and someone asks how your weekend was. Like you, I’ve developed my own coping strategies. I’ve learned to tune out most of the news, and focus only on what directly informs my work. I try not to dwell on what I can’t change. But that doesn’t mean the anxiety, the guilt, the freeze, goes away. So thank you — truly — for putting words to this cycle. For naming it. And for reminding us that writing is a form of care, even when the world is burning. Especially when the world is burning. Subscribed with gratitude.