It feels very strange to be observing the war that Russia has imposed on Ukraine by its invasion.
I am very sorry for the people in Ukraine and I wish them great luck, strength, courage, and success in defending their homes and their people.
I don’t have anything earth shattering or new to add to the chattering voices with all of their takes. Except that for me personally it feels confusing and depressing. It makes my recent personal and family challenges seems small and yet because they are so fresh it probably makes me empathize more deeply with the scale and the scope of the human suffering happening because of this.
- I have been to war but it was ten years ago.
- The war I went to was much smaller and across the world, it was not defending my home and my people directly and with them in immediate danger.
- The global pandemic that has ravaged the world killed ~6M, and threatened the life of my smallest daughter in particular, has likewise ravaged Ukraine and now something even worse is added to it.
- The sudden crash volunteer effort I was a part of starting in August of 2021 to help evacuate Afghan allies of the war was moderately to poorly successful. And exposed me to secondhand anguish through the images, the videos, the words, and the risk to my friends and family of my friends. But everyone living in Ukraine or with friends or family in Ukraine is experiencing that now as well.
- When my wife lost her father suddenly in December to a heart attack, it was an enormous impact on her and on her family. That’s one that she is very still working through the grief of and will be for years. Many people are losing their fathers and mothers and siblings and heartrendingly children in Ukraine now.
- When Jesse Smock, my friend that I met in elementary school and lived with as roommates in college who spoke at my wedding died in suddenly in December that was challenging too, don’t know where near to the same depth that’s what my wife experienced. Many people are losing their close friends and much closer relatives all the time now.
Life must go on, and while parts of it feel very natural like taking my girls for a walk or reading to them or singing to them some parts of life feel very inane now.
I suppose there’s nothing really for it except to do what we can to call on the members of our government and those with power to do the right thing to help the people of Ukraine, to donate money effectively (more below) and to try to be kind to ourselves and others.
1 A whole list of non profits and NGOs
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-to-help-people-in-ukraine-and-refugees-fleeing-the-conflict-with-russia
Many working fast and effective right now
But if you want more speed:
2 Direct to Ukrainian central bank (language here is Ukrainian)
https://bank.gov.ua/uaOr if you want even more speed there’s always
3 cryptocurrencies
BTC or ETH
https://twitter.com/FedorovMykhailo/status/1497549813205848068https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1497594592438497282Solana
https://nation.io/dao/ukraine
4 Consider whether you can afford to give even more or want to direct your charitable giving to some of the most statistically and rigorously effective charities knowing that much giving will be re-directed- justifiably– to ukraine but that other programs still save lives a couple good guides:
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/best-charities-to-donate-to-2022/ or
https://www.givewell.org/