winter

thinking about that toni morrison quote that went to the effect of ‘you’re looking in your children’s face to make sure their face is clean and their hair is combed and they’re looking in your face to see love.’ because it’s saur true.

your life is not an optimization problem

as in you'll never achieve the perfect daily routine, sleep schedule, coping mechanisms, mannerisms, fashion sense etc. even after years and years of healing and improvement and self-discovery. you will never be so good at life that you manage to utilize every waking moment. its great to be productive and all but sometimes you'll suck ass. sometimes you'll take eight hours to be done with a twenty minute job. you'll prioritize the wrong thing. you'll sleep for 12 hrs just to avoid being awake. you'll relapse. and you'll relapse again. you'll forget to turn in the assignment. you'll order too little food. life is far too large and complex for you to even experience it completely, much less try to make sense of and control it. you can't. please give up on that and be at peace with the hours you lose. they are not separate from your life.

"came back wrong" what about Came Back Afraid. You used to be brave. Too brave maybe, defying the odds at every turn, a fighter, cocky, playing with fire, first to throw yourself at the enemy. Until one day it all caught up to you. You came back, somehow, but now you know all too intimately how it feels to lose, to die, to be destroyed. Now you flinch and freeze and cower at the slightest provocation. Who even are you now if you can't be brave? The grave may have let you go, but the mortal fear still grips you tighter than ever.

i always recommend 'how to hide an empire' by daniel immerwahr to usamericans as an intro to imperialism because of how it looks at the history of the us empire and its peripheries in a way that is pretty accessible to newcomers of the subject. if i recall correctly it touches on the history of us involvement in puerto rico, mexico, the philippines, the pacific islands incl hawaii, alaska, and chattel slavery as the construction of an internal colony, as well as on manifest destiny and indigenous genocide on the mainland. it provides a solid overview and you can choose to delve into further research from there

when it comes to consciousness raising you can spend time telling someone “crazy” is a slur or you can spend time explaining that what looks like “care” or “cure” or “mercy” to them is actually eugenics or abuse. one of these projects has to precede the other and i bet you can guess which one i would prioritize

you’re either going to build a base of clueless liberals who learn by rote to nitpick their language for anything with the remotest connection to ability, or you’re going to help them develop the alertness and critical eye necessary to recognize eugenics and abuse. i don’t think those things are mutually compatible in an immediate timeframe, because one locates both the root and branch of oppression in a disembodied cloud of language and thought, and the other locates it in the real material structures that we need to confront immediately in order to save actual lives. not saying “crazy” isn’t going to get anyone out of forced institutionalization

reminds me of the cover of norman erikson pasaribu's my dream job

someone: don’t u think it’s disturbing how in the past few years the level of femininity women are expected to perform and the industries they’re expected to contribute to in order to be taken seriously, especially on platforms like social media, has skyrocketed to the point that perfect makeup, contouring, acrylic nails, and eyelash extensions have become almost a social expectation and when women express no interest in adhering to those standards they’re met with vitriol and scorn straight woman who thinks Legally Blonde is the apex of feminist media: okay but it’s my choice? if i want to be feminine i should have the right to choose to do that because feminism is about choice