Productively Crying From Stress

Like, you look at rates of serial killers by country and no one else is even fucking close. If you look at American movies and television that are considered "high culture", it's all stuff like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, The Godfather, etc. I actually happen to like a lot of those shows, but they are about men who kill other people. You can make the case that "if you idolize [Homelander / Scarface / Patrick Bateman] then you're missing the point" and you wouldn't even be wrong, but my god are there ever a lot of people who do idolize those guys, and that seems worth interrogating.

And it's not recent American culture either. Think of every famous gangster and bank-robber and Old West outlaw that you've ever heard of. Other countries...really don't do that, at least not to the same extent.

This even goes for good people who are generally anti-violence! I would have described myself that way a couple of years back; but last year, totally on accident, I stumbled on a piece of media that made me reevaluate all of my thoughts and feelings about violence and I realized that I too, despite being against violence in general, still saw it as kind of cool, in some weird and twisted way. Like I'd watch action movies and be like "woah, cool move." You know? And I don't think those kinds of feelings are unique to USAmericans, but I would say that USAmericans seem to somehow be bathing in the "violence is cool" kool-aid that other folks are maybe just drinking from time to time. IDK.

"I can't run as fast as I used to" running is sweaty & gross hard pass

"i miss having stamina" you had STAMINA???

"ugh back pain" my inner teenager-with-scoliosis-and-mysterious-bone-pain is unphased

"ugh neck pain" do most people not spend the majority of their lifecycle hunched over screens from puberty onwards? if not that's my bad

"I used to be able to pull all-nighters" chugging energy drinks and depriving your brain of sleep to perform miserable labor is fucked up actually, and shouldn't be normalizd in or outside of college. given half a chance corporations would have your 60-year-old aunt hopped up on caffeine pills retouching powerpoints at 4am. thank fuck we're not expected to be 21 forever

"I used to be so flexible" why

"my metabolism 😭" kill your inner fatphobe, enjoy the comfy extra padding/circulation, buy a cool new wardrobe, and go forth, eat well, and GIVE NARY A FUCK.

"I miss having young knees" that one's valid

fitness & excercise should be about improving your day-to-day life. which means fitness needs vary a lot by individual, age, medical conditions etc. here are just a few examples of what practical fitness goals can look like:

stretches/exercises to reduce pain in daily life (e.g. carrying groceries up a flight of stairs without being sore the next day)

increase mobility (e.g. walking around a museum with fewer rest periods)

increase stamina (e.g. running to catch a bus)

increase muscle mass e.g. to prepare for your 60s/70s, bc apparently that stuff sticks around and makes getting older waaaaay easier

increase balance/flexibility to prevent falls

build/preserve bone density to prevent osteoporosis

general injury prevention, bc that shit sucks

basic maintenance, to help preserve a lifestyle that works for you

She was trying to the best for her kids and just didn’t know how to interpret the validity of information or its sources, an actual skill that can be actually difficult and that is under-taught and a necessary first step to being able to trust vaccination research, so chose no action over taking an action she wasn’t sure of. She kept looking into it with family and friends and even eventually came to the right conclusion before her kids became sick, but it was still too late.

Honestly it was pretty brave of her to publicly admit she was wrong. She could have just quietly vaccinated her kids and not become a national news story, but instead she spoke out, even saying “I’m writing this from quarantine, the irony of which isn’t lost on me.” and also “I am not looking forward to any gloating or shame as this ‘defection’ from the antivaxx camp goes public, but, this isn’t a popularity contest.  Right now my family is living the consequences of misinformation and fear.  I understand that families in our community may be mad at us for putting their kids at risk.”

The movement is pushed by women, especially suburban moms, because they know damn well you cannot trust doctors. You cannot trust the medical industry, the billion-dollar corporate zone of “you should lose some weight and maybe the pain will stop.” Cannot trust the ones who keep changing diet advice - is it no sugar? No carbs? No fats? Is it dangerous to let kids eat things in wild colors? Food pyramid: good or bad? They cannot trust the BMI chart that says they should lose 75 lbs to be “healthy.” (Whether or not they “should” lose 75 lbs, they know damn well that “healthy” does not describe any part of the journey to getting there.) Cannot trust the ones who keep giving them incomplete and sometimes incorrect information about contraception. The ones who said “that’s false labor; you have two weeks more” 12 hours before they gave birth. And so on.

So they have their kids, and they want so much for their kids to be safe, and the doctors and nurses say: Get them vaccinated.

So they ask: What about if there’s complications? An allergic reaction? Side effects?

And the doctors and nurses say: Get them vaccinated.

This is… not reassuring.

And they ask, My sister-in-law’s cousin had a really bad reaction to the MMR shot and I want to know how I can tell it’s safe for my kids.

And the doctors and nurses say: Get them vaccinated.

Throw in the right-wing/libertarian faction yelling YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO and the insurance companies saying “hey um you need a specific type of coverage for that; we probably cover those vaccinations but you’ll need this special paperwork to be sure” - and then you have the actual anti-vax propagandists yelling some combination of cherry-picked statistics and outright lies, and you get a whole lot of moms willing to say BUGGRE ALL THIS FOR A LARKE.

There is no amount of facts that can fix this. They’re swamped with facts from 300 directions. What they need to fix this is empathy and the kind of connections that lead to trust.

Kindness doesn’t just matter because it’s more ethical - it'salso a more effective strategy.