In a way, I guess most of what we do is filling a need. Me writing this, because I need to post something once a month. Me writing it quickly, because I need to go eat dinner soon. Working, voting, Me writing things for other people, because I need money. What can I say, I guess I’m more needy than I thought.*

You can get more details in my latest (until tomorrow) newsletter about Doing the Needful, where I discuss things like voting (fellow Americans: please vote if you haven’t already!), because the next week or two will probably be very stressful.**

I, as usual, will be managing that stress with large amounts of video gaming and tasty food***, because those are my needs. But I have other needs as well, such as clean and drinkable water****, which is why last month I wrote a column against the clear-cutting of our local forest. Of course, they don’t call it that, they call it “forest management”, because they’d like you to believe they’re just Friendly Forest Flatteners.

They don’t think we “need” all the trees we have, but what is a need anyway? I recently had two poems published on Mecella, one of which asks us to consider what things are really Necessities.

And I don’t have a universal answer. Everyone has to find their own, naturally, although at the moment my second-biggest need is probably to find a way to stop doomscrolling for the next week until the election. My biggest need is food, which I shall go consume presently to celebrate autumn.*****

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* Baker argument: “You’re too kneady!” “I just want you to stop loafing around!” “You mean you want my dough.”

** I was going to say “for Americans”, but since American foreign policy continues to have an outsized affect on the world, I suspect it’s stressful for many non-Americans as well.

*** Yesterday I managed to burn the roof of my mouth, and not even with pizza. It remains one of life’s more stupid injuries, taking something that it way too hot, and then not just touching it, but inserting it into your face hole.

**** So picky!

***** Of course, what I really need is for fascism to likewise have a delicious fall.