#muppetbones

The most productive thing I could do—the absolute best use of my time—is to rest. God, how unsatisfying of an answer is that? You're telling me the best thing I could do, and in fact, the thing I must do to take care of my body is absolutely nothing. What kind of bullshit is that?

And yet, it's the truth I'm hit with on a consistent basis. I do other things too, of course. I read and watch things online, I write and journal, I text and call my friends. But the majority of what I'm to do is rest. Not just physically, but mentally too. Somehow, despite every bone in my capitalism-raised body resisting—wanting to be the beacon of productivity, even inside my broken body—the truth hits. My body demands I rest.

Maybe I'm lazy after all. And I truly just don't want to contribute to society. But I know that's just internalized ableism. And I know it couldn't be further from the truth. I want to spread love and laughter and light. I want to resist oppression and fight for the freedom of every peoples. I want to make art, I want to travel. I want to experience the world.

But my job is to rest. I can't do any of those things if I don't rest first. It is what my body demands of me, and I must listen. I must take care of it if it is to take me anywhere or do anything at all.

It's such an entirely different reality than what any of my friends go through. My body gets so tired so quickly. And I know it can very, very, slowly get better as I try to change the circumstances around me. I can start to do incredibly adapted gentle exercises to strengthen my body (obvi this isn't true for everybody, but I think it's true for me). Swimming would be good bc it's so gentle on the body. But I still have to be very careful, and I still have to rest the majority of the time if I want to get to a better place physically.

Eh, I think I've gotten off track a little. Point is, disability is a threat to capitalism bc we are (often) people who can't hold a job and yet we must be taken care of despite making little to no money. Our existence proves a major flaw of capitalism. It simply will not care for anyone who it can't steal labor from. Yet we continue to have value outside of its narrow confines. We are teachers, we are lovers, we are leaders, we are engineers, we are artists, we are everything possible under the sun.

We hold value and deserve to live full lives despite having no value to capitalism.