ἀποθέωσις

You need to change. Right now. Quietly. Maybe you are entirely silent. Like a thief in the night. But you will change, or you will perish. And I do not wish you to dissolve into the ether, tonight. It is not your time to go.

and because that kicks in between apps, too, i'm not doomscrolling as much. i'm intentionally seeking out posts or videos or whatever that actually mean something to me. when i'm not satisfied i walk away or pick up a book instead. most subtle yet impactful change i've gone through in years

i'm putting my tags in the post because the above addition happened when the post was at, like, idk, a few hundred notes??? and the one above that when it was at, like, a couple dozen. and that's the version that popped off, where i was thanking people for that dozen notes. lmao

and i'm pinning this so if you clicked my blog you can see that fun tidbit, and because i want to remember what an incredibly positive experience this has been. this is my second viral post (on any website, ever), and my first one was a shitpost about the frustrations of being sleep deprived. every single tag i see on this post is like "i've been doing this too and it improved my life" or "i want to get better at this" or "nice job OP."

this has, as you can imagine, been ridiculously validating.

and honestly, you know, i was just posting about a subtle habit i'd picked up that i'm not even that consistent at yet. i'm not good at this! the word "mindfulness" still makes me go eww. but here we are. turns out it still matters

the overwhelmingly positive response has really encouraged me to keep at this and continue finding little ways to bring more agency in my life.

so, seriously. thanks

💖

if you're wondering how to start this kind of habit for yourself...

Inner Mongolian Child

The little girl’s name is Butedmaa and she was just 5 when this picture was taken in 2003 by Han Chengli.

I realize now that it was a book about me dealing with depression before I even knew it. Looking back at how blatant the projecting was, it’s obvious now. It wasn’t then.

In the story, the middle-generation people are lost. They’re apathetic. They’re just a placeholder. The only job they have is to keep the ship running, have kids, and die. As the middle generation of people began becoming adults, suicide rates were skyrocketing. Crime and drug rates were jumping. This generation was completely apathetic because they felt that they had no use.

In the story, a small group of people in the middle-generation create the Weather Project. They turn the ship into a terrarium. They make magnificent gardens and take the DNA of animals they took with them and recreate them and they make this cold, metal spaceship that they have to live their entire lives on into a home. They take what little they have and they break it and rearrange it into something beautiful. They take this radical idea and turn the ship into a wonderful jungle of trees and birds and sunshine.

And I realize now how much it reflects my state of mind as I transitioned from a child into an adult while dealing with depression. You always hear “it gets better” and “when you’re older things will be easier” and I was so sick of waiting for it to get better. I was in the middle-generation stage. And I was sick of it. I was so sick of waiting.

When I was in highschool I didn’t know how to end the story. I didn’t know how to have a happy ending. I didn’t have the life experience then to finish the story in a meaningful way. I didn’t know how to make it better for these middle-generation characters.

But now that I’m older, I’m learning. That if you sit and wait for things to get better, it never will. You have to take your life and break it apart and rearrange it into something beautiful. You have to make the cold metal ship into the garden that you deserve. You have to make your own meaning. You have to plant your own garden.