psychms

[psychms]

hope is a skill

[psychms]

Everything feels awful right now but it isn't really. We still don't officially have a winner, but regardless of how the presidential election ends up, I wanted to take a minute and find what lights I can in the 3 a.m. darkness. Here's what I know:

* Kentucky overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to undermine the public education system by offering private school vouchers:

* Delaware has elected a transgender woman to the House of Representatives, the first out trans person of any gender ever elected to congress:

* For the first time in history, two Black women will be serving in the senate at the same time, and they are only the fourth and fifth Black women ever elected to the senate:

* New York State has passed a constitutional amendment enshrining the rights of pregnant people (including the right to an abortion), LGBTQIA+ people, the disabled, immigrants regardless of legal status, and other at-risk groups:

* Democrat Josh Stein has beaten self-avowed Nazi Mark Robinson to become governor of North Carolina:

That's everything I know off the top of my head. It's not many bright spots, but it's not zero. I'm going to try to find more and I'll add them to the post. It's the only thing I can think of to do that isn't sobbing and throwing up or looking up Canadian immigration rules.

If you know more good news, I encourage you to add it in reblogs.

[psychms]

[psychms]

PROJECT 2025 MUST BE STOPPED 🛑

Vote Accordingly.

[psychms]

If you're a writer you're supposed to write a lot of bullshit. It's part of the gig. You have to write a lot of absolute garbage in order to get to the good bits. Every once in a while you'll be like "Oh, I wish I hadn't wasted all that time writing bullshit," but that's dumb. That's exactly the same as an Olympic runner being like "Oh, I wish I hadn't wasted all that time running all those practice laps"

[psychms]

scrap heap (computer country)

[psychms]

POV: You remember the 21st night of September

[psychms]

one of the best ways i’ve found to combat that inherent depressive pessimism without veering into toxic positivity territory is simply the phrase “i’m open to the possibility”

this particularly works with anything negative i’ve forecasted. “i woke up feeling like shit today, so my day is gonna suck” isn’t a particularly helpful thought, but “it’s a great day to be alive!!!!!” feels hollow and insincere when i have a pounding headache & am running on three hours of sleep

instead i’ll tell myself, “i really don’t feel good right now, but i’m open to the possibility that coffee and breakfast might perk me up a bit.” or “i’m in a lot of pain today, but i’m open to the possibility that my workday might still have fun parts despite that”

sometimes, when your impulse is to slam the door on anything good, but you’re not exactly up to going out & hunting it down yourself, leaving the door open just a crack makes all the difference

[psychms]

I used to do cross country in high school, and there was this guy on the team that was wonderful. Great guy. But his advice to everyone that asked how to get good was to run 20k a day.

If you don't run, I'll just tell you, most people's bodies cannot take that kind of abuse. No matter how much you train, you will not be able to run 20k a day. It's like how you can't train to make your cuts heal faster. You recover as fast as you recover. So while a big part of what made this guy so succesful was the dedication and mental toughness needed to actually run 20k a day, an equally big part was that he healed like fucking Wolverine. And that's fine, but it would've been nice if he knew that and stopped telling new guys to commit suicide by jogging.

Different guy on the team ran like, 5-6k a day, which actually isn't all that much. His problem when he gave advice was that he didn't really get that 5-6k a day doesn't generally produce elite results for most people. He was lucky in the sense that he didn't have to work all that hard to get great results, and unlucky in the sense that if he pushed himself much further than that, he fell apart.

I think about those two whenever I get advice from succesful people. The very things that make them outliers also make their advice useless to most people. Worse, they're often outliers on totally separate ends of the same spectrum, so their advice will be contradictory.

[psychms]

“i asked chatgpt-” ohhh ok so nothing you are about to say matters at all

[psychms]

Watching videos talk about the Clean Girl aesthetic and its racist history. And a quote from a writer discusses that "As Western minimalist and elitist propaganda send signals of calling no-makeup makeup looks clean, it Carrie's the connotation that grandiose measures of beauty, experimental glam, and cultural signifiers are dirty."

And god YES that hits it so god damn nail on the head like god!!!!!! I don't usually care too much about tiktok trends but so many have insidious histories underneath. It's not like white girls can't do what they want and can label having expensive skincare routines as "being clean"

But of course a large demographic of white women catering the idea of effortless and "clean" beauty actually has an inaccessible and racist angle to it. Even without it being intentional.

Acting like upholding expensive routines without effort and "not doing too much" makes you cleaner than others. When in reality that takes so much money and time most people won't have especially marginalized ones. Women are supposed to be demure and effortless. But also the past trends of white girls with big hoops slicked hair and big lips that was taken from bipoc latine women, it's coming full circle and going back to being "ghetto" because it got popular and was being reclaimed again.

So now its "too much" you have to be "clean" and it's no makeup makeup because you want to highlight the features you already have. Which is white features. Predominantly. Not big gaudy earrings like so many black arab latina woman wear. Not overdrawn big lips. No more braids and slicking baby hairs. Now its curling and blowing out natural hair and starting to accept white hair patterns. Bring back vintage styles. Clean better vintage natural effortless REAL AND TRUE beauty

It really does start sounding heinous the second you start thinking about it harder

The answer is not that white women can't do anything. But always remember what is being marketed to you. What our cultures look like. Because the "unclean" is just the things that signify our beauty and pride in our cultures. The "crazy makeup" and "doing too much" is just the lip crayons, dramatic eye makeup and hair products white girls used to want because they make us look good. They want bipoc beauty without any aspect of us as people.

Reminder of just how easily tossed aside bipoc features will be. Like our lips and noses and hair are just things to pick up and try on like costumes. To sell back to us even. And then discarded once we start taking pride in it again. The goal posts will always move. Yall can be clean girls. And there is bipoc clean girls or whatever the hell.

But always remember where marketing comes from and take pride in your beauty. And take time to be educated so that white people can't just sell you back the idea of yourself. They'll take a mirrors reflection of yourself and convince you that they made it.

[psychms]

This is temporary. You have not stagnated. You are not a failure. You will heal, you will recover, you will have a beautiful life. It is waiting for you.

[psychms]

My Yellow version Charizard, whom I will never forget.

[psychms]

biblically actuate angel eeveelution??? :^

Why just one? Have 4 of them

[psychms]

🌙 𝑨 𝑴𝒐𝒐𝒏 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔 🌟

[psychms]

poem by gazan poet nadine murtaja—(nadine.with.dr on instagram) shared on ig by majazz project