#and he always ends up going on about spiritualism or how much he hates trump

[coolcoelacanth]

bruh my dad comes home drunk everyday and it makes me uncomfortable bc he acts so weird

[voidingintotheshout]

Tw: transphobia

Oh my goodness, I hate that man so much! He’s just frustratingly stupid. Listen to this shit:

“I'm the father of a two-year-old daughter,” Vance said. “I don't want her going into athletic competitions where I'm terrified she's gonna get bludgeoned to death because we're allowing a six-foot one male to compete with her in sports,” Vance said.

Like, that’s not how this works. Your two year old child is not going to get beaten to death by anyone. Like that’s not how it works. Two-year-olds are not in competition with like I don’t know… College students? Like what the fuck? He knows that’s not how this shit works. He knows this is not how gender affirming care works. He’s just taking advantage that the people who he’s trying to get the votes of don’t know anything about how this shit works.

But I know this is where I lose everybody, but as a Muslim, I absolutely hate this, because in the Middle East, they don’t talk about gender and all of this kind of stuff. It’s just not considered an appropriate topic of conversation and most Muslims know someone who they are pretty sure is gay and as long as that person doesn’t make a big deal of it, they don’t say anything (not that that’s perfect but it’s better than lgbtq witch-hunts). However, since the freaking Republicans feel like they should have opinions on everything, even if it’s just an opinion based on their own bigotry, now, increasingly, every single mosque, and every single Imam feels the need to offer their two cents on whether being trans is valid and whether it’s sinful, and whether it’s a problem or whether it’s a danger. Like literally, just today some bro centered Islamic discussion, called the “Imam Cave“ is doing a conversation about whether gender is assigned at birth or is a social construct. Why?!? How is this helping anyone? 

Like I know that I’m just some nobody gay Muslim convert, but it just drives me crazy. Like it’s completely meaningless because most of the LGBTQ people I know are not Muslims and doing this armchair quarterback about the good and evil of these people is just gonna end up getting people hurt. It’s just gonna end up making parents feel like “doing the right thing“ means throwing their kid out until they “live right“.

I love Islam, I know that doesn’t make sense to most people, but it’s just as beautiful thing That gives purpose and direction in my life, but increasingly because of this rhetoric from Trump and all of his cronies, every single person in Islam, feels like they need to be commenting on LGBTQ issues, and specifically about trans people, and whether they are a “danger”. They’re not a danger?!? They’re just trying to leave their lives! I hate this because it’s just something I see you again and again in American religions that, unlike a lot of other countries, Americans can’t have a religion that’s about their own spiritual path. The American way of practicing religion always ends up being about what everyone else is doing wrong. It’s like the Gladys Kravitz school of religious dogma. I actually wrote an Islamic parable earlier today about this very topic.

It bothers me so much that so many of these Muslims are are becoming just is outwardly focused and judgmental and hypocritical as the Christians that have always been their acting like their crap doesn’t stink. It’s just so irritating. I think maybe it’s just because the mosque I go to is not attended by a lot of people who are born and raised in Muslim countries, who don’t really talk about it as much, but even in mosques with mostly people from Muslim countries,  The Imams are still doing the scare tactics in their speeches about these dangers that you need to be aware of as a parent. It makes me so frustrated and so sad because it’s just like – the trans person that works at Trader Joe’s is not hurting anybody. They just want to have a life that is full of joy and satisfaction and they had a harder road to get there than most people and it doesn’t have anything to do with some Imam who just wants to get people to put more money in the plate by making them scared. 

I just wish Americans didn’t need to ruin absolutely everything. Everything America wants to engage with they turn to shit.

Stay safe out there y’all.

Jummah Mubarak I guess.

[sunjaesol]

the smile you gave me (it’s magic)

juke | meet-cute au | tw: alcohol + annoying men in bars | written for @alexjulies as we have the same headcanons about luke

What Julie Molina was about to do was horribly unfeminist and Flynn would hate her forever, but really, it was all the man’s fault - as usual.

She rejected his advances three times now in the last hour. The bartender gave her a drink on the man’s tab and she sent it back, the man brought it himself (introduced himself as Levi) and she politely declined once more. The third time he asked her to dance and then she fled to the bathroom. Julie wasn’t the biggest partygoer, occasionally joining Flynn for happy hour - like today. Her friend was late however, due to an emergency meeting at a magazine she worked at and Julie had to endure the bar alone. Grave mistake. She should’ve just waited at a McDonalds or something; even if she’d look out of place in her cocktail dress.

im there in 15!! hang in there <3 <3

Julie groaned. Great. Fifteen more minutes in a smelly bathroom stall as women outside were drunkenly crying in front of the mirrors and babbled about their own grievances regarding men. For such a universal problem, she had hoped all men would’ve taken the hint by now.

No, she didn’t want to dance. No, she didn’t want a drink. No, she wouldn’t give her number to someone that kept pushing and coming into her personal space. Levi could fuck off. It was bad enough how he had given her a suggestive once-over like he was deciding whether he wanted brunette or blonde tonight.  

The reminder angered her, pushed her out of the stall with a scowl. Was she really going to let a dumb man (nay: boy) ruin her night before it even started? Her songwriting session with Hayley Williams had gone really well and she deserved to celebrate that! She deserved to end her day on a high note! A quick look in the mirror to assure her make-up hadn’t smudged, she marched out the bathroom back into the dimly lit bar.

Her eyes scanned the room, relieved to not catch Levi close-by. Did he give up and leave? Was he cornering another girl? Whatever. As long as he wasn’t bothering her, she’d be able to breathe and maybe forget about the altercation.

If he did bother her again, she’d use her privilege as a girl and yell at the top of her lungs that he was harassing her. Surely then security would kick him out, right?

Over by the bartop was clamour, two men pulling each other into a laughing embrace as one hauled their backpack over their shoulder as the other dropped it. Changing shifts, Julie noted, halting on the man that had arrived. Well then. The theory that bars only hired attractive people seemed to be correct, the guy straight from a CW show. Mussed up brown hair, sharp features, big eyes, cute smile. A ten out of ten.  

He shrugged his red shacket off, fully black outfit beneath and began washing off discarded glasses. His muscular arms made her throat dry up; he wasn’t attractive, he was hot.

(Oh God. Was she just as bad as Levi, gawking over a stranger? But wasn’t part of his job that girls were supposed to gawk over him? More tips and all that? Julie decided she shouldn’t feel too guilty.)

Her feet moved on their own accord towards the bar, sliding into a leather high stool and wondering what she’d order as she waited for any of the bartenders (him?) to approach her.

Luck was on her side, the new bartender pressing his hands into the counter, brows raised expectantly. “What can I get you?”

Her lips tutted, debating between a margarita and a strawberry mojito. Both were appealing and at a marginally low price. “What’s better?”, she asked. “Margarita or mojito? Honestly.”

He grinned. “Honestly?”

“Yeah.” She crossed her arms atop the counter, a brush away from his hands. “I’ve bartended before. I know you have to lie a little.”

His muscle tee shifted around as he chuckled, slivers of tattoos peeking through on his chest. Her eyes averted, hoping she was a bit more subtle than she felt, and kept them trained on the stacks of whiskey in the glass rack.

His fingers drummed on the wood. “The mojito, then.” Leaning in as if imparting a secret, he added: “We’ve been buying the cheaper tequila. Gotta pay those bills.”

Satisfied at his reply, she gave him a pleased nod. “Okay. A mojito, please.”

He pushed himself off with a click of the tongue, as if he auctioned her something, and turned to grab the ingredients. As he poured the rum into a tall glass, he fell into casual conversation she was all too familiar with.

“You here alone?”

“Waiting on a friend.” Eager to distract herself from the reason why she waiting, and what caused her to wait in a fucking bathroom, she asked: “What’s the tattoo?”

The bartender paused for a beat, as if momentarily forgetting he was inked up, and then tugged his shirt out the way to showcase more skin. Had she not been so curious, she’d focus on the fact that he was defined as hell. The tattoo was a detailed sun with an ocean wave drawn inside. More uncovered: a play and pause button, ‘now or never’, a stick and poke tattoo of a lightning bolt. It was as if she herself doodled onto her skin and then left it there, but it somehow worked. It was personal. Maybe she was also a bit intrigued since he seemed especially interested by music. Granted, it was LA. Everyone was some type of artist with varying degrees of success. Still - she was curious.

“They’re cool,” she complimented, him going back to making her drink with an appreciative grin.

“Thanks.”

“Was the lightning bolt a drunk decision?”, she teased. The only instance someone got a stick and poke tattoo was when they felt chaotic or impulsive.

His grin widened, throwing crushed ice in the glass. “That obvious? Yeah, me and my boys all got one. This whole idea of-” He waved his hands around, trying to find the right words. “-bonding us together for life, I guess.”

Warmth thudded in her chest at his story, endeared by the way his voice became lighter when he talked about his friends. They must be like brothers to him.

As he placed the completed drink in front of her, she contemplated her answer. She’d rather keep talking to him than wait for Flynn in silence. “That’s nice. Having friends like that, it’s special.” Twisting her wrist, she showed her own tattoo. “I got this one when I turned eighteen.”      

They were two, small butterflies dancing on the inside of her forearm. When her mother passed away, she always knew she’d get something to commemorate her. Doodles of butterflies marked her skin in high school, finally becoming permanent when she was allowed to. Knowing everyone inevitably asked about the why, she continued talking.  

“It’s, you know, it’s about metamorphosis and beauty and transcendence and I just-” She caught herself before blabbing her sob story to a stranger. With a chuckle, she muttered: “It’s a reminder that change is good.”

When Julie looked up at him, she was struck by the wonder on his face. He didn’t look as confident as he did before, probably taken aback by her sudden spiritual spiel about butterflies - or by her, in general. The thought let a quiet thrill course through her.  

He snapped out of it, a smirk falling on his lips as his nail chimed against the glass. “It’s on me.”

“Is that a move?” Her head tilted, amused.

“You want me to lie or be honest?” The man leaned across the counter again, much closer this time. “Cool tattoo, by the way.”

She laughed, biting back a silly grin from blooming. This was his job, she reminded herself. Act all cute and get her to buy more drinks so that eventually, her tab would be enormous. It was like winning once at a game of poker and then becoming cocky.

Coy, she ripped her gaze from his and sipped on her drink. She’d let him simmer for a bit.

That was when it happened. Her unfeminist deed that would make Gloria Steinem shudder. Levi, the devil reincarnated, shot her a smug look from the other side of the bar. Swerving past people to the beat of the music, he tried approaching her again.

Julie groaned behind her glass, her good mood instantly shattered once more. Why couldn’t this idiot take a fucking hint?!

“Damn,” bartender mused, “I thought my mojito skills were good.”

The brash words tumbled out at a rapid pace, her need for a solution trumping her pride. “There’s a guy coming onto me right now and you need to help me ward him off. Please.”

He grimaced. “Yeesh. Ex-boyfriend?”

“Worse,” she bit. “A fool.”

A stressed smile pinned itself on her cheeks as Levi sidled beside her, one arm bracketing her left. Her back tensed as she shot a quick, pleading look at the bartender. He zeroed in on Levi, mouth curled downwards.    

“There you are,” Levi grinned. “Thought you left.”

Julie didn’t entertain him anymore. “I’ve told you. I’m not interested.”

He dismissed her. “I see you got yourself a drink? What is it?”

“I’m not interested,” she snapped, eyes flickering once more to the bartender. Was he really not going to help her?

It spurred him into action, his arm reaching over to create a barrier between Levi and her. “Dude, you heard her. Back off.”

Levi snarled. “Can you not? This is between me and her.”

“No, actually,” he exclaimed, blunt. “I’m her boyfriend.”

Her vigilance got her acting swiftly, shifting her expression into a believable nod and placing a hand on his outstretched arm.  

“He is?” Levi was gobsmacked, a hint of anger lacing his voice.

“Yeah,” Julie bit, silently thanking him when he played along and enveloped her hand with his. Her final strike spit his venom right back in his face. “So can you just leave us alone?”

The man rolled his eyes with a scoff, kicking one of the stools and mumbling a string of curses. “Bullshit…”

When he was out of sight again, having stormed off like a petulant child to a shadowy corner, Julie let out breath of relief. “Finally!” Shooting the bartender a bright smile, she kept babbling. “You have no idea how annoying that is. And smart idea - the boyfriend card always works!”

He squeezed her hand, worried. “You sure you’re okay? That was fucked up.”

“Yeah…” She trailed off, the soft touch reminding her of his words from before. Squeezing back, she watched as the pinch between his brows vanished. “I’m okay.”

They kept their stare for a beat, the revolving pop music and excited chatter merely background noise. Neither have let go of their hold on each other. She didn’t want to either; his hand was warm and gentle and a calloused thumb absentmindedly caressed her skin. Levi should learn from this.

Sometimes, a connection just happened.

He let go first, collecting himself into a casual stance that was far more amusing than it should be. Ducking beneath the bar and grabbing a beer, he tapped it against her glass with a cocky nod. “My name’s Luke.”

Julie matched his expression. Luke. Luke, the bartender. It fit him perfectly. “I’m Julie. Are you supposed to be drinking on the clock?”

“I work in a bar,” Luke deadpanned. “It’s expected. And I’m sure Jack can handle it.”

“Why would he have to serve alone?” she inquired teasingly, eyes glimmering with challenge. If there was one thing she loved, it was getting the upper hand in a fun game of flirting.  

He lifted his bottle with a wink. “I’m drinking with you.” A pause, his gaze matching her intensity. Damn. He was a good opponent. “Unless you want me to go?”

She shook her head, took a sip from the mojito and wiggled her brows. “Cheers to warding off annoying men, fake boyfriend.”

“I better get some good karma from this,” he joked. “Cheers!”

(Later that night, she’d realise Flynn never came by. When she asked what happened, Flynn told her she had walked in and saw Julie completely wrapped up in a conversation ‘with that cute bartender’ and left. The joyous announcement that Julie got his number made her friend screech over the phone.

Julie went back to the bar many times. Drinking and talking bled until deep in the night, once till closing time and then he walked her to her apartment. He didn’t resist when she kissed him, his lips kissing back with hunger.

It didn’t take long for the ‘fake’ to be scrapped from that label.)  

🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸

@blush-and-books @willexx @bluefirewrites @ourstarscollided

[rainbowsmilesz]

I just woke up from the dream from hell...

I am in this empty room with a male and we both understand that we are each other. He's the male version of me, I am the female version of him.

I can't see his face, he's just a blur from my end yet I am clear as day can be seen by him. He's excited and I am annoyed. I am annoyed for two reasons: 1. I can't see him like he can see me and 2. I have to use the bathroom badly.

He can sense my frustration and now he's annoyed with me. We never swap names so.. He kept referring to me as female which we argue about.

We just argued about anything and everything in my dream. The worst one in my opinion is and how I should use the bathroom. We both understand we are dreaming yet this dummy is telling me to just used the bathroom on myself. 😒 after arguing I want to leave, so yelled "I am leaving." and a door appears. Thinking I can leave and wake up, I walk through the door and he's following me.

We look around he and says I am in his dream now. Which makes no sense because this is MY dream, and yeah we are going back and forth. And he says to me,"This is why you have no friends. You have to be in control and always question everything. This is why you will never truly connect with anyone because you HAVE to be controllingl." That shut me up and really stared at this blur of a human being. I didn't dwell on it too much because that's too much to unpack at the moment...

What I said was no better. "YOU go with the flow and never question anything because it was beating out of you. You gave up control and didn't try to take it back." I can't remembered the rest but that part just stuck with me. We both stood there and both had an deeper understand of each other. It was weird. I walk through his recent memories and notice he living a totally different life than I am.

There wasn't any Regan economics, they have Hillary Clinton twice as their president and she dealt with Covid sooo much better than Trump ever did.

He has recent memories of my grandmother who passed away around Christmas last year. She was lively and cussed like a sailor. She was cussing out male me out over something.. I can remember, i was just so happy to see her cussing me.. well him out.

We end up going back to the room and waited until one or both of us woke up. We didn't really get to know one another at all. We set down on the floor facing each, eyes closed and try to wake ourselves up. We kept talking about spiritually to one another. He would start off a sentence and I would end the sentence.

Last thing we said to each other was that we weren't a duality of a spirit but the oneness of a soul.. which woke me up at 230 in the afternoon scared of my own subconscious now because what the fuck. I didn't need that... I'll be thinking about that for the rest of my life.

I hate it here 😒

[aurora-daily]

AURORA On Greta Thunberg, Singing On Frozen 2 and Why Introverts Should Be World Leaders

Interview by Jovi Ho for Popspoken (November 25th, 2019).

Amid the wet and stormy weather this weekend, about a thousand people witnessed a burst of the northern lights at Fort Canning Park.

The wild and exuberant display came in the form of 23-year-old Aurora Aksnes, one of just a handful of artists who go by the same name on and off the stage.

“We came on Friday, so we had the whole day,” said AURORA, her hands fluttering freely as she spoke. “But I slept all the day and I only woke up yesterday afternoon.”

Much like the aurora borealis, the Norwegian songstress has held her own in the saturated skyline of the music industry. Since her debut in 2015, some have noted elements of Björk in her frenzied rhythms and ethereal, vowel-led toplines, but the soft-spoken singer reveals that she instead holds the reclusive Irish artist Enya close to her heart, and very little else.

“I don’t really like music,” she said, almost apologetically. “I like to be quiet.”

“I make music all the time, so I’m so afraid that I’ll be disturbed by other music. I need to focus on what I have in me first.”

Between wild gestures and a fragrant cup of instant coffee, which she offered to share, AURORA stopped for a quick chat with Popspoken before her show-stopping set at the Neon Lights Festival 2019.

Popspoken: We last caught you at Laneway 2017! What draws you half a world away on this little Asia tour?

I really love Singapore. I love the people here; they’re so enthusiastic. They really enjoy the show, so I was really eager to come back.

I like that Singapore looks like a city that can live in harmony with nature. You have all these trees, and all these buildings and plants. It’s really nice to see this balance between humans and nature.

And it’s good that the area is so… wet. It’s easier when the area is so warm and wet.

PS: Now you live in a quiet area in Norway, while most Singaporeans grew up in a busy, packed city. What do you think are some of the best things about growing up in nature?

The nature where I come from is very different; it’s not as varied. We have like Christmas trees, but we have a thousand of them, in the woods. And it’s very cold and there’s no one there.

Where I grew up, we were the only people, so it was very quiet. I loved being in nature as a child; it meant a lot to me because you can just be yourself in nature and I was a bit different from my classmates in school, so I liked that I could be in the woods and feel very comfortable and accepted.

PS: Tell us more about the message of Infections Of A Different Kind and A Different Kind Of Human.

I focus a lot on the way I say things to people. I feel like now we’re at a time where we really have to do something before it’s too late, so our children will have a beautiful world, like we have.

But it’s not about blaming each other, and I think we shouldn’t focus on what we did wrong, and say, “You did this” and “You did that”. We should focus on what we can do and the positives; that there is hope, still.

Many of the young people, both young of mind and young of age, are willing to do and sacrifice things to save the planet. I think it’s a really moving time to be alive because people are actually working on something together. We’re united all around the world. I think it’s a hopeful time and I want to focus on explaining how beautiful the earth is through music, rather than being negative and blameful about it.

PS: Who is the focus of your song Apple Tree: Greta Thunberg or an entire generation?

I’m talking about all people. Greta is definitely and example that every small human being can do big things, but it’s up to everyone. She’s done a brilliant job in spreading more awareness, but now everyone has to be willing to help.

It’s like the big trial of humankind. We have to be on the same side and work together as one, which we haven’t done so often.

I actually wrote the song long before Greta was in the spotlight, but I think everyone can make a lot of change. We just have to believe that we are important because we are.

PS: It’s a very big thematic shift from your first album. Where do you think you’re going next, because I heard there are more albums on the way.

Yes, I’m already making it. I’m making two albums, actually. But of course, one of them will have to come first.

I care a lot about perspective and seeing the big picture of things, seeing everyone and how things connect and why we are the way we are. So it’s also important to see the small things and appreciate the small things. I guess it’s easier to be happy when you realise you have small problems, and they’re not that big.

With every album, I feel like the perspective is a bit bigger. All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend, my first album, is about your personal pain. Infections Of A Different Kind is about building yourself up and figuring out if you can help other people. A Different Kind Of Human is even bigger; it’s about helping the world and all the people and the animals.

I guess I’m going even wider with that perspective, more spiritual. And then maybe I’ll go back really, really small again. It’s really exciting.

PS: Congrats on the new song from the Frozen 2 soundtrack! Now, which Disney character do you identify with the most?

I love the, what’s the English name, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I don’t know why, but as a small child, I just loved him so much. /laughs/ He was so strange. I loved that he had his treasures up in the small room in the Notre Dame, which now has burned down, which is horrible.

I really loved that movie and I love the way it points towards some of the dark side of religion, with the villain. I thought that was interesting because those themes don’t usually appear in children’s movies.

What I love about Disney is that they don’t underestimate children, because children are not stupid. They can understand a lot, especially emotion. They’re very smart, sometimes smarter than adults because they go by instinct, like the animals.

PS: With Frozen 2 coming out, do you see yourself as an icon for younger children? There’s a whole new audience listening to you.

I don’t know. I don’t see myself as an icon, but I think it’s important to be the best you can for the children. No one is the same, everybody is different, but still we pretend that there is this one thing that is “normal” and everyone who isn’t like that is strange, which is not really true because everyone in some way is an outsider.

I try to be the best for the underdogs, the children, the introverts. I feel like the world doesn’t listen to quiet people, the quiet children. I think they have a lot to say, and I think they will become great leaders, because they know how it is to be forgotten, and how it is to be an underdog, instead of like Donald Trump, which is the opposite of a quiet person. But I think it’ll be good for the world to make room for the quiet people.

I think it’s important to do the best you can to build up children and make them believe in themselves.

PS: You mentioned that Queendom had themes of fighting for feminism and the minorities. What is one message you would like to send to those in countries where minority rights may not be protected?

I’m a big fighter for love and I send my support to all the people out there in love, no matter what kind of love it is. I feel like there are so many things in the history of humankind that have been so cruel and horrible but then we have this one thing and it’s just pure. This one gift that we have the ability to feel love.

Love is the only thing that we have that’s beautiful, no matter what. In the long term, love will always win. If people try to fight against love, I think in the long battle, they will lose because love is stronger than us, stronger than hate. I would just say that there are people all over the world fighting for the right to love and I don’t think we will stop before we have won.

It’s important to fight for the right to be who you are. It’s a basic human right. And you are not alone. People out there, you are not alone.

PS: You mentioned that you like the music of Enya and some metal bands as well. Who do you think are some exciting acts you look forward to right now?

I’m really bad at this because I don’t listen to music so much, because I don’t really like music. I like to be quiet.

I make music all the time, so I’m so afraid that I’ll be disturbed by other music. I need to focus on what I have in me first.

But I have a friend from Norway, she makes really, really good music. She’s called Iris, like the eye. She’s a secret still, very up and coming, but it’s very good music. I would recommend listening to her. She’s also a bit different, which is very cool. So that’s one act I can recommend that’s still /whispers/ a secret.

But yes, I still listen to Enya and heavy metal.

PS: You have a few more show planned in Japan till the end of the year. Your shows are very high-energy, so how do you prepare for them?

Yes, I don’t know. It’s so strange; I don’t know where it comes from, this energy. I think it must be the crowd. I just did a show a few weeks ago where I was really sick before, but I forgot. I feel like I’m dying after every show, no matter if I’m in good shape or not, I’m still dead after every show.

But it’s bigger than me because it’s for everyone. I play for the fans, so you kind of have to give more than you are. If you do it every day, it’s easy to forget, but every show is important. You have to be worth people’s time, and to be the best you can be for them.

I don’t get nervous anymore. The first year I was touring I felt I was going to die before every show and puke, because it was horrible. It’s very against what’s natural, to be in front of people and do things; it’s very strange. But then I got used to it and now I’ve done it for years. I don’t get nervous, which is nice, but I get excited.

I’m really bad at warming up; I don’t really warm up. I just tell myself, “This show is important; as important as every other show. You have to do your best.”

I try to tell myself that I’m doing something good and important. At least for one person, I have to sing for them.

[clearrevelationstarot]

1st Reading 7/4/20 (& Tumblr post!): PART 1:

Clear Revelations Tarot:

RE:  Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse (July 4th/5th; July 7th) & Summer Solstice Reading:

INTRO: Hi Everyone! There’s lots of diff. astrological changes happening rt now, at the same time as we move into Summer 2020, …  Because of this, I used various pathways to look at the information re: the things that are happening around us during this timeline, for this reading not just Tarot. I did a very detailed reading (Tarot), & also used a few ‘Wisdom Oracle’ decks AND a rune stone! • There are also many planetary energy shifts going on right now, & this also plays into how it all affects us, & in our world today.. (Re: our planet Earth w Covid; how these energies will be affecting us as a people, & what dynamic we will or won’t be standing for; & what to expect in the months ahead) =

• What was profound was, out of 11 original cards (that are in this Celtic Cross), 7! of them were Higher Life Lesson cards, (=the 22 Major Arcana tarot cards that correlate to different life lessons, we as people can experience at different points in our soul’s lifetime.)  Readings rarely ever happen to have this many Higher Life Lesson (Major Arcana) cards, within 1 reading. = I feel this means as a humanity, we asked for these lessons to occur specifically at this time, in order to spiritually grow as a species.. or as a humankind.. (not man or womankind, but both together as well).   •• NOTE:  Usually when Higher Life lesson cards show up, these life lesson cards have no time periods associated w them; or there’s supposed to be no timeline on them; & they all occur at the same time- From this “slice of life” reading, this is showing why so many people are feeling overwhelmed right now; since these Major Arcana cards, always speak about higher truths, & bring up issues RE: where we all are in life vs. where we feel we need to be OR, where we want to be… a LOT to be thinking about all at once…

• My question was asking for clarity for all humans (the collective) & what we were to expect in the months ahead, re: the pandemic, our lives re: work, our concerns re: survival, our world, & to show us anything we may need to know… (for our near future).   So, let’s get into the reading: ———————————————————————————————— THE READING 7/4 - 7/7/2020: Picture #1:

• So, I always show an overall card for the reading, & this one wanted to come out for the reading (at the top, the 1 picture of the Tarot card with the stones), & that showed up as “The Sun” card, which is for the time of Summer leading up to & esp. in the time of Leo (July 23- Aug. 22 ).

• So, first of all, imho, many truths that have been hidden which started back w 2 Higher Life Lesson cards showing up in this reading: the original sign for “The Moon” energy, & also Re: The “High Priestess” card below (both ruled by the sign of Pisces, which is Feb. last yr.), but shown in the cards ahead, these secrets will be coming out into the light, definitely much, much more (it feels) by end of August..

These truths feel like info. that was hidden by our Govt. & other countries, & also info about health concerns. (The actual “RX sign” per se, also has shown up  as a specific symbol in the “2 of cups” card & on “The Chariot” card as well- that I’ll explain as we go in chronological order, in more detail..) ——————— Picture #2 (general overall pic) & Picture #3 (showing specifics):

• The first 2 cards are the “5 of cups”=The ‘Present Energy’ surrounding the people now; & then the “2 of wands” reps the ‘Present Environment’ position. • The 5 of cups is dismay, sadness, working through grief at what’s been lost, in the middle of a change (the “#5”) that has cost us dearly (the 3 cups that can be seen that are spilt in the foreground..), but there are 2 more cups, of the full 5 of cups, that are okay (that are behind the cloaked person on the card.) = It means if we just turn around, some things can still be salvaged. We just need to be in the mindset to see what may be coming, as a new perspective.

• The 2 of wands is the present environment & what’s your focus (& that correlates again w a period of 2=around 2 months ahead- around mid/end August til the beg. of Sept.); saying we all will be searching/weighing the best course to take, w regards to work, or any creative ideas we are wanting to manifest, even dreams..  We are thinking of the best way to start those projects, or it’s a new chance to let people know what other talents you may have - but we’re all putting ourselves out there.. & that includes putting our truths &/or our opinions of how we feel about the changes we are wanting &/or speaking out about, (protesting) as a united people.. • I always find it interesting he’s actually holding a globe in his hand as he looks out.. as we all are thinking of the global impact of what’s happening w our world now…

• The next card has the Higher Life lesson card of “Judgement” (#20) coming across our path..  (placement) • As earlier mentioned, these Life Lesson cards have no time periods associated w them, but in this instance, again it wants us to know it’s happening now, thus numerology-wise, the same period of 2.  As a species, all of humanity, esp. people that have not behaved honestly, will be under a judgement of sorts from above. (G-d; Higher Spirit; etc); - People that were “sleeping” to the problems happening amongst us (factions within our society, (ie) racism, hate, greediness, dishonesty within separate govts., etc.) will be awoken to these issues, (ie.) Here, Archangel Gabriel is blowing his horn to make this happen; He also blows his horn to aid those in need of help, & to others who need a ‘wake-up call’..) & how this will all be played out is starting now, & continuing to culminate, esp. at the 2 month pt. from now.. (til Sept.).. ——————- Picture #4:

• I clarified the “Judgement” card, (for more details) & another Higher Life lesson, the “Justice” card showed up! (#11, factoring down to a period of.. you ask?..2!) • This card, came out, to tell us, these “judgements” will specifically play out in the courts, deal w ‘good vs evil’ scenarios, & finally the beginning of a spiritual  “Karmic Justice” of sorts.. laws to try & get the dishonesty of Trump (on paper, or proof of his illegal activities) out there further; more specific Laws may even be passed about Covid - in order to try & not have people continue to contribute to the rising number of deaths. (By just running around, without masks, & not social distancing etc.) • Very sorry to say, but specific laws as a Nation, may need to be passed to keep people in line more, but it feels like this will be debated in the courts further. After the 2 month pt., I feel we’ll have to re-stay inside because people that didn’t believe the facts about this virus, will now be forced to see its’ effects..   only necessary jobs out there will be the ones allowed to work.. ——————— Refer back to Picture #2:  (Overall picture, for these next 4 cards, the “3 of Pents”, “The High Priestess”, & “The Fool”, & “The Death” card):

• The next card is the card at the top of the Celtic Cross, the “3 of Pents” card. This position reps the Goals position. • The “3 of Pents” is the best case scenario after everything that is going on right now= it is a card that usually reps working with others, sometimes in groups, and a feeling of coming together. Also, nuts & bolts speaking, it can represent a job or employment of some sort. Workwise, this is hopeful; but I feel it has a deeper meaning of us all as a human race, to work together to overcome this health situation right now. (Covid).

• The next card is the card at the bottom of the Celtic Cross, “The High Priestess” (#2). This position represents Difficulties in the Past.   • This card reps the astrological sign of Pisces, so from back in Feb. what we were being told, or not told: I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but in detail, she represents things that are not yet revealed, or things that may have been hidden from us. Because of where this card landed position-wise, it feels like it’s saying this is all the info. We still don’t know the full story on, re: how our President has handled Covid, & other world issues involving politics. I feel these issues will be coming more and more into the light, esp. in these Summer months. (from now through August, & into Sept.)..

• The next card has the Higher Life Lesson of “The Fool” (#0). This position (to the left)  is the Last of the Present. • This card reps the astrological sign of Aquarius (Jan. 19-Feb. 18th); this “Fool” card correlates to a person or situation taking a leap of faith into the void of the unknown. This is the timeline of when everything started re: our health situation, and all of the independent searching for the truth re: the pandemic, & all of the human issues this brought up between all of us as a people, & striving for equality for all mankind. The reason I say this, is because Aquarius is ruled by the planets Uranus & Saturn, & this placement of the planets right now, is supposed to have us looking at what Aquarius himself represents: he’s a human rights advocate: & demands freedom, liberty & equality. But Aquarius also is ruled by the planet Saturn which is in direct opposition to Uranus. Saturn is the planet of orthodoxy & tradition. (ie) He’s cold, selfish, conservative & fearful of change.   So.. because of the alignment of these planets right now, the upheaval & turmoil forecast by their radically worldview has arrived, just as expected.

• The next card has the Higher Life Lesson of the “Death” card. (# 13). This position  (to the right) represents the first of the future. Meant to bring radical change, Death represents a major transformation of sorts! This can represent renewal, but this transformation is supposed to purge the personality and the physical body at this time. The renewal is supposed to be so devastating that the new form (of us as humans) will bear no resemblance to the old form. This was supposed to occur so that it perpetuated growth & stimulated creation. “Old attitudes & and behavioral patterns must be destroyed, & purging them may be painful and uncomfortable.” —————————— Picture #5:

• I clarified the “Death” card & another Higher Life Lesson, the “Lovers” card (#6) showed up! • This card paired with the Death card, is asking us to bring change to how we treat each other here on Earth. Archangel Raphael is showing up, looking over Adam & Eve, in the Garden of Eden (where it’s referencing where Life first began), vs. where we are at now.  In the best outlook of this pairing of 2 cards, we can see this as a major transformation will be occurring between all peoples- a new way of looking at each other- a new understanding & openness; in the more serious look at this paring, it’s saying there still will be further loss incurred re: our loved ones, (a loss of life) due to the transformations happening re: the pandemic.  

NOTE: Again, normally I wouldn’t project a time line w a Higher Life Lesson card, but in this instance of the majority of Higher Life Lesson cards, it feels like this will be from now til a period of 4-6 weeks from now. (taking us to a little later than the middle of August). —————————- These next placements are the future lineup cards, going vertically upwards. Here, I laid the initial card, with the clarified cards in the same pictures:

Picture #6:

• The next card has the “2 of Cups” in the position of the Future Environment. Going in chronological order timeline -wise, this feels like it takes us from now, to a period of 2  from middle of August (beg. of Sept).  The “2 of Cups” card represents all significant pairings or partnerships of people. This refers to close friends, family, partners in business, or creative ventures, etc.  As a Higher Life Lesson, this card shows up to either show us of a close union coming in, or it asks us to make a choice between 2 types of people, that represent 2 archetypes in your mind: positive loving partners, or negative, destructive partners. I feel this is referring to how we will be treating each other as a people. (& asking which way will be acceptable in the future..) •Also, interesting to see, the 2 of cups has the “RX” (health sign for Doctors; health issues symbol, etc.) in between the 2 people in the card- so it’s all about health between all peoples we are having to deal with, & that this pandemic is here for a while longer… 


• I clarified the “2 of Cups” card, & another Higher Life Lesson card, “The Empress” (#3) came out! • I thought this was interesting! It literally was saying, we need (as a people) to take care of, or love the Earth more! (since “The Empress” reps literally Mother Earth. We will be asking the question of how are we going to be doing this in a more substantial way in the near future.. • She also symbolizes us as inspired and enlightened adults, & whose emotions are rich w love & aliveness.  She also is describing a period of time creatively, that there’s a high level  (your own deep resource) of inspiration within, at work, or for a certain project. • The astrological sign that is correlated to “The Empress” card also is Libra, so I feel we’re going in chronological order here. This will be around the timeline of Libra (Sept. 23- Oct. 23rd). ———————- Picture #7:

• The next card was the Higher Life Lesson card of “Strength”(#8) card in the position of Influences from the Outside. • Here, I feel the “Strength” card is asking us to have the strength to get through this next period of things that may be affecting us and how it will affect our outlook coming in (in the near future).  Also, we’ll be asked to use direct force to overcome any weaknesses, & can signify a fight between 2 aspects of yourself: the weaker & lower self, and the stronger, higher one.  “It’s time to let go of this lower instinct & you must overpower your own negativity.” • Because this has to do with the “Influences from the Outside”, I feel we will have to be very careful to watch our attitudes towards others at this time; Also this can be speaking about all of us seeing these aspects, as it applies to our Gov’t right now, & asking which side (the negative or positive side) will win.

• I clarified the “Strength” card, & got these 3 cards, which will be a quick combination /summation of what they mean: (kind of like looking at a string of movie cells together, that tell a story…) : • First, the Knight of Cups clarified “Strength”, & clarified again, & the card “The Devil” (#15) showed up. This feels like there will be an attempt at an offer that will be made to or by the person or thing representing “The Devil”,  here.   • “The Devil” is another Higher Life lesson card which represents a toxic individual or a toxic situation or behavior that’s needing to be pointed out, revealed finally, &/or then overcome.   (ie) possibly any lies that were told re: Gov’t or the pandemic, will be majorly exposed more, & decided upon. • I clarified again, and the “6 of Cups” card showed up; this usually reps something from the past- this feels like this toxic behavior, health scenario etc. was looked at in the past, but will be re-looked at in fuller detail, &possibly with some kicking and screaming, exposed. • Also, because there’s 2 cups signs in this line-up, I feel it will be during a time of a Water sign, & from the 6 cups, it could possibly be 6 wks later, (from the beg. of Libra) which takes us to ~Nov. 4th… or around Scorpio (Oct. 24th - Nov. 21st). —————————— Picture #8:

• The next card was “The Moon:” card, clarified, then the “Queen of Swords”,  clarified again, to the “Temperance” card.  This position reps the Hopes & Fears. • So, “The Moon” is the fear that we will not find out any enlightening information, as we were the last time from a year ago, since this card reps the astrological sign of Pisces. (Feb. 19-March 20th).   • BUT, the “Queen of Swords” represents cutting through any BS, and making sure that only the truth is told in this situation & the people involved that are responsible for it. She also can rep lawyers &/or judges, or courts. Another sign that these huge changes in our society will all be taken very seriously. • ”The Temperance” card clarified with “Queen of Swords”.  Next, the Higher Life Lesson card of “Temperance” means “allowing the passage of time to be a healer & a balancer.”; This card reps equal shares of a liquid substance going back & forth until moderation is achieved & extreme conduct eradicated. • I feel it means there will be a major balance finally re: all issues we as a human race have been fighting for lately; hopefully laws put in place to offset anything illegal that was done to us as a country &/or lies that were told to get away with whatever was trying to be gotten away with.   • This next thing, is just a feeling I get, but because “Temperance”  reps the astrological sign of Sagittarius (Nov. 22- Dec. 21st), I feel we are continuing our timeline onwards. —————————— Picture #9:

• The next & last cards in the reading, representing the Outcome is: (again, as if looking at a story playing out here): ”The Chariot” is the last outcome card. This is a Higher Life Lesson card too, representing “there is nothing you can do to hurry the outcome of a situation.” So, patience is required here. The lesson is no matter what you do, you cannot alter the course of the vehicle within which you ride. “The Chariot” reps being taken as fast as you can toward your destination, but you can’t make it go any faster. Though it tells you ‘everything is taken care of’, you must not be fooled into inactivity. “Use the time well as you wait. Gaining distance from the predicament of your life, reassessing it from the vantage of a solo journey.” • Once again, the only other card in the deck (“The Chariot” here) that also has the same “RX” symbol as the “2 of Cups” did, we are at the last row of cards of the reading, and the health situation is still going to be present in our lives, so this is interesting to note.

• I clarified with many cards, & the last lineup of cards in the reading formed this story: • “Knight of Pents” clarified “The Chariot” & because pents represent Earth signs (astrologically), & the next Earth sign after Sagittarius is Capricorn, I feel this will take us to the end of the year. (time of Capricorn=Dec. 22-Jan 19th). This card also reps a standstill during this time, since the “Knight of Pents” is a slow or no moving Knight.

• Next, 9 cups (9) means not sitting on our past laurels, but trying to head towards our wish fulfillment or what’s best for all (all people); this then will lead towards another Higher Life Lesson “The Hermit” (#9) card, standing for A Huge Spiritual Life lesson (usually these are asked for, by our soul); this is how our soul evolves.; Anyway, this is clarified by another (9), the “9 of Pents”, which usually stands for breaking out and being independent, on our own, working on being self-sufficient, & wiser.

• NOTE:  At this point, because of the paused Knight, & then 3 Nine cards in a row: (9), (#9- Hermit) (9), I definitely feel there will still be the temporary halting or ending to our goals moving forward; we will be at a pause still…

• Clarified this again, & got the Higher Life Lesson card of “The Tower”, where life seems like at this point that there still will be disruptive changes occurring, as if the rug is still being pulled out from underneath us- still more unexpected changes coming… not just in America, but on a world level.

• I clarified again, & the “Queen of Wands” was the last card. This energetic Queen, to me gives us hope that we will still be putting ourselves out there, since she’s known as a fiery, and passionate Queen, who works hard, & doesn’t give up easily. So this is hopeful. ——————

• Lastly, when there isn’t an ending timeline to a story, I always look to the overall energy of the reading on the bottom of the deck, and continue to look at the story there, to get more info: Picture #10:

• So, as a quick lineup, this overall energy started with the Higher Life Lesson of “The   Magician” (#1) who is known to be the “Manifestor” of the Universe.  He continues to explore all ways that he can do that in order to eventually succeed.

• This leads to the “4 of Pents” - a card that shows us holding onto what we have, & trying to continue to build foundations.  (possibly 4 months into the year…=April)

• The “King of Wands” continues the energies of seeking out more stability in our work lives. (This may be starting up again around the time of Aries (March 21st- April 19th & correlates with the “4 of Pents” here). I know this seems far away, but it definitely will be after it shifts into 2021. This timeline may be where it continues to be more & more positive news…leading to more hope.

• The next card clarified is the “6 of Swords”. I feel we’ll get news of further help finally, and be lead to a safer environment, perhaps towards more healing. This feels like during the time of Gemini= the next time of air (May 21st- June 21st)

• Then, the “Page of Cups” , I feel we’ll hear good news, like a vaccine for the pandemic; this could perhaps take place during a time of a water sign (the next one chronologically at this point is Cancer= June 22- July 22nd).

• Then, the Higher Life Lesson “The Wheel of Fortune” (correlated to the freedom-expanding planet Jupiter), shows us that Destiny & Karma are turning in your favor. Expect some information of good luck to come your way, and for the forces of nature to finally turn in your favor. “This is not an action card, but rather, the message of this card is that to ‘just wait for it’ because your karmic reward is on its way.”  This wheel reps the 4 fixed astrological signs: Aquarius, Taurus, Scorpio & then Leo, so if we continue chronologically, perhaps this is referring to the time of Leo again. (By next Summer, we as a society may be back to a new normal type of life, still being careful, but slowly with more and more people getting the vaccine..?) I am hoping this is a distinct possibility of our future. Let’s hope it’s even sooner!!

• Because… the very last card is the “3 of Cups”, and this is a celebratory card, where friends gather together to joyously & be with one another. So this feels like we will have a lot to be celebrating by this point! ——————-

• OK, this definitely was detailed, but was more of a teaching way of looking at tarot, for anyone that wanted to read this in this way.  This was just to share the details of this profound time that’s happening in the world, and thought it was important enough to “get down to the nitty gritty” with anyone that was interested.

•• Thanks for checking this out! My next blogs will be more succinct, and probably not about the Earth & what we’re facing right now… since we are still in the midst of working all of this out on the 3D plane!  :-)!!  ••

•• The rest of the Oracle cards, & Rune stone (& cool pics)  I also got referring to this same question to add onto this reading, (abt the same question) will be added into my next Blog for you all!!  So, thanks for checking back tomorrow, & also for your patience as I learn more about being on Tumblr!! :-)!!

••Plse. come to PART 2 of this initial reading- Now posted on 7/12/20! Thank you!  :-)!

[ld61061]

Of NotDonalds & The Rest of Us

The issue confronting our nation is not what to do about Donald Trump, with all due respect to everyone making a name for themselves by being NotDonald.

Donald’s an important side effect, but that’s all.

We have made a monolithic culture and economy with no room for most people. I’d argue that the only reason we aren’t in a state of complete collapse is that there are still huge blocks of the working class that can’t see what that monolithic culture has in store for them. The over-the-road truck drivers, the radiologists, virtually every retail worker, bank tellers, fast food workers, front desk clerks -- most do not believe what small farmers, cobblers, coal miners, bakers, blacksmiths, grocers and candlestick makers already know to be so: our ability to make a decent living is more fragile than we can allow ourselves to believe.

We must take conscious steps to expand our culture and preserve space for humans in the economy or we are going to have a war. Soon.

If the fact of Donald’s continued existence and the fact that he will win again in 2020 -- yes, I said that -- if Donald’s political existence illustrates anything, it is that there is a huge and growing sector of our nation which understands itself to be on the defensive. The resounding response from progressives and centrists to Trumpeters is that they aren’t entitled to feel oppressed. Not only that, say the NotTrumpers, if Trumpeters do feel oppressed, it’s because they’re white supremacists, deluded by Fox News or good ol’ evangelical freaks. Or maybe all three.

Let me humbly suggest that isn’t true.

We created or continue to create room for the protected classes due to race, country of origin, sexual orientation, age, family status, disability and now nonbinary genders, but we have never so much as nodded to those adults who cannot construct an argument or process data. Yet they are with us and always will be, unless we are going to embrace eugenics and/or genocide.

We just don’t have a word for garden-variety people whose intelligence doesn’t work in our economy. Plenty of insults, nasty memes on facebook (which might as well be magic to most of us) but nothing neutral. Even “average” doesn’t really fill the need. Those so truly devoted to their spirituality that they voluntarily limit their own freedoms are not much better off.

We should know by now that if the human brain doesn’t have a word for a concept, the concept may as well not exist. We don’t have words for well over half of the people on the bell curve and we wonder how they can hate. Really?

We have long since created a world of narrowing options for those bored by concepts, who feel most comfortable with a tool in their hands. The disempowered feel that disregard, even if they can’t explain it or provide data to support it, and they’re angry. Legitimately and reasonably angry. Increasingly, in the absence of a tool they can use to make a living, the tool they pick is a vote for an extremist. Or a weapon which they then turn on whomever is nearby.

Simply put, I don’t give a shit how smart or dumb we are, we don’t have time for this. Mother Nature has us on the clock. We need to either get humanity off this rock or fix the environment -- or both -- or she’s going to fix the problem. We’re fighting instead of fixing because more than half of us are terrorized by an economy we don’t understand and can’t say why, get shouted down when we try to contribute and really have no recourse but this moron in the White House.

As long as we have angry people who are unheard -- or worse, heard but disregarded -- we will have angry masses for the Trumps of the world to lead as surely as the rest of the world has Wahhabists. We will have mass shooters. We are growing shooters as fast as the Saudi Royal Family grows terrorists.

So what do we do?

We need a new Bill of Human Rights added to the Constitution. Quickly.

Minimally, we need to legally preserve people’s right to make decisions based on whatever criteria they deem worthy. Sovereignty of Choice. Yes, that will validate and protect haters, but validated and protected haters don’t hate for long -- there’s no traction. And really? When it’s your child starving because the economy has passed you by or the climate has rendered you unworthy of being fed, you won’t care about data either.

Secondly, the basic needs of the least of us must be elevated over even the most important needs of any corporation. Put another way, the right of any human being anywhere to live their life unmolested and to meet their own basic needs should never be abridged or denied by the property claims of a corporation.

Thirdly, the Constitution must preserve and nurture human diversity, even if that means we end up with states full of haters who are determined to terrorize anyone that isn’t them. We can have a strong central government without trying to legislate love and tolerance. Put another way, we can make slavery illegal -- that is within our ability as a society. But to make people tolerant of those with differences? It simply doesn’t work, no matter how brutally we suppress the intolerant. We can tolerate the existence of the intolerant and use their economic clout in a domestic manner in much the same way as we currently work with foreign dictators we might despise.

There’s work to be done if we’re going to survive the mistakes we’ve made in getting our civilization this far. Our resources and energy must be concentrated on cleaning up our mess, restoring corporations to a deeply second-class existence, orienting tech to restore and preserve a sustainable living environment and most importantly, to point us towards new planets, or quite simply every last one of us -- average or amazing -- we are all going to end.

[c0smicgem-blog]

‘Ghosted by the Love of My Life,’

Ghosting: when you simply disappear from someone's life without a word or explanation. Everyone’s done it and I’m sure most people have also had it done to them. Sometimes it’s not so bad. For example, you’ve been talking to someone on Tinder for a couple days and after somehow ending up on the topic of politics, you find out they voted for Trump. In that case, a message back may not be necessary. You realize you’re not interested and you have no obligation to them anyways, you never even met them in person! Similarly, in situations of abuse or toxic relationships in general. Maybe an ex came back into your life but they’re showing the same toxic behaviours that led to the breakup and they just won’t leave you alone. So you stop responding at all, maybe you even block them with no explanation. See, all of those examples are understandable and oftentimes the consequences for yourself are worse if you don’t leave the situation - and the consequences for the person being ghosted are usually minimal because no one is invested in the situation to begin with (except maybe your toxic ex…).

However, these are not the cases I’m interested in. Ghosting, to me, becomes a problem when it’s used as a method of avoiding necessary confrontation with people that you have some sort of obligation to. And I’ll even go as far as saying: Ghosting, in these cases, is emotional abuse. Now I’m sure some people reading this might be thinking “I don’t have any obligations to anyone but myself!” or “I don’t owe anyone anything” but that just simply isn’t true. As a grown-up member of society, different communities, friend groups, and families, we owe people we have established relationships with basic kindness and respect. Ghosting is a child’s way of running from their emotions and hiding when things get tough - it shows selfishness, a lack of growth and development, and also an overall lack of empathy and respect for the person that’s being ghosted. When you leave a person high and dry, out of the blue, to wonder what they did or why the relationship ended, you’re putting them through unnecessary emotional turmoil that could easily have been avoided if you owned up to your feelings. To put this into perspective, I’m going to give my own personal account of being ghosted by the love of my life. Or at least, the love of my life… right now.

First, let me give some background information. I have never been the type of person who’s interested in love. I never really had any crushes growing up, I hated being touched, and I began expecting that love and a “normal” intimate and romantic relationship would never be a part of my life. I came to terms with that, even though it disappointed me, and I wasn’t looking for love until I found him. I was on Tinder, swiping left on practically everyone until I came across someone who caught my eye. We started talking, and I immediately felt drawn to him - something about the way he communicated with me was different, and he piqued my interest… which was something no one had really done before him. We added each other on snapchat, and for the next couple of months we would talk occasionally but not too much, and I would watch his stories and tell my friends about how cute he was and how nice his voice was… To put it simply, I was smitten. A few months into talking, we decided to meet up. I was so nervous because I knew that something about the way I felt for him was different and that’s why it took months to muster up the courage to see him in person, but once I did things started moving very quickly.

As soon as he saw me he gave me a hug, held my hand, and I had never felt as comfortable with anyone as I did with him. Over the next couple of months, things were going great. I was doing things with him I never thought I would, and even more than that I was feeling things that I’d never felt before. It wasn’t long before I fell in love.

He became my boyfriend, and the relationship was always intense. Our highs were high, and our lows were low, we loved just as hard as we argued until we broke up. We stopped talking for two months, and it was awful. I was heartbroken but something in me knew that it wasn’t the end… and sure enough, two months later, I got that “I miss you” text. He poured out his heart, which he had never done in the past, and he told me that he was ready and willing to put in the effort that he always knew I deserved. Although I was scared that old patterns would repeat, I was happier than I’d ever felt because he was all I ever wanted and being away from him for those two months felt like being away from my favourite part of myself.

Everything was going so well, we were finally on the same page. We were in love, making plans for the future, I was smiling and telling all of my friends…. but then the messages were less frequent. They were still sweet though, so I told myself he just needed space and I did my best to give it to him. But then he started dodging my affection. The “I love you’s” in the messages were avoided, and then the messages were avoided, I was avoided. And then he went silent.

Now here I am, two weeks with no word and a few days until Christmas: my boyfriend, the love of my life, ghosted me.

When you’re ghosted by someone you have an established connection and relationship with, it does something to you emotionally. At first, I was thinking “what did I do?”… I knew I had done nothing, but that didn’t matter because why would he abandon me for no reason? It didn’t make sense to me that someone who claimed to love me, and who seemed so willing to work towards a positive future for us, could be so cruel out of the blue. At first, it lowered my esteem. I questioned my own worth and wondered why loving someone isn’t enough to make them stay. Or, why I wasn’t enough to make them love. And then you worry about them. You think “maybe they didn’t ghost me… maybe they’re hurt, or… maybe they died?” because nothing you can think of rationalizes how they could hurt you that bad.

But they did. And that’s what ghosting is.

Ghosting is a tactic used by emotionally under-developed, immature, selfish people who lack empathy and the ability to self-reflect. My (ex?) boyfriend could not own up to the fact that his behaviours directly caused me pain, and so instead of trying to, he simply detached. He left, without any explanation or closure. Without any consideration for my feelings, the person I love who claimed to love me back, cut me out of their life with less than a “Goodbye”. He left me not only second guessing myself, but second-guessing him and our entire relationship.

I want to make one thing clear though before I end this post, my ex is not a bad guy and in this, I am not attacking him. I have come to terms with his lack of personal, emotional, and spiritual development and I wish him nothing but the best in his journey forward in life. What I am attacking though, is ghosting, and more specifically I would like to draw attention to the fact that our behaviours have a direct impact on the people that we surround ourselves with. Although I agree that we should make ourselves a priority, it is just as important to practice empathy and know when to be selfish and when to be selfless. It’s damaging to yourself and to others, to think that we “don’t owe anyone anything”. That’s not how life works, and if you’ve simply lost interest in a relationship that isn’t toxic, and you have any respect at all for the other person, own up to your feelings. Ultimately, do what you need to do to live a happy life but at least confront them like a grown up, provide whatever closure you can, and allow them to heal.

I’m moving forward, celebrating Christmas, and trying to be the best version of myself that I can be but he broke my heart. And I have to admit, there are moments more often than not, when I wonder where he is or what he’s doing, and why he left me, or what I did.

But I can’t torture myself with the why’s, or the what if’s, because you can’t bring a ghost back from the dead. Sometimes, they’re just gone.

b.

[sunnysynthsunshine]

My letter

(Note: I’m aware I can’t personally directly send this to him, but I still felt like sharing this with you, my dear comrades, I was feeling really rubbish yesterday but after typing out all of this I felt a lot better, a lot of the thoughts in this letter are what has been buried under the subtext of some of my poems and that one writing piece I did, some of the topics discussed reference mental health, personal aspects of my life and spirituality so TRIGGER WARNING!..you may keep reading)

Dear Doctor Rik Mayall

Hello!,

I’m Kelsey, I’m a huge fan of your work, old and new, a 17 soon to be 18 year old from Northern Ireland I, unfortunately, wasn’t around to see your Bottom stage shows when they came to Belfast, I was too little at the time.

I did know some of your work though, that short-lived King Arthur cartoon was a show I’d frequently watch, and I remember when you’d voice the Andrex puppy and narrate who let the dogs out!

In later years I’d eventually watch that Young ones show you did, I fell in love with that show, your character too, that show helped me at a time after I finished secondary school when I was feeling really depressed because of drama going on with someone who used to be my so-called friend who I had learned later was manipulating me.

Your show made me realise a lot about myself and the world around me, as someone raised tory you helped me express the true  socialist and anarchist views that I wanted to show, I’m now the me I always wanted to be,I’ve met a lot of my new mates the ones in my college and the ones off the internet because of you, because of either them and I mutually liking one of your shows or me introducing them to your shows and them enjoying it.

I used to study drama as you did, but then I had to study media instead, my dance instructor really tainted my confidence, however, I did get a good grade in LAMDA, the drama school that Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson went to, I just did the exam though,I still love drama and I write poetry (like your character did) and my own comedy monologues while it took time to realise I lowkey wanted to be a comedian as well as an actor and artist,but I used to think I wasn’t capable enough, but I’ve written 7 monologues since last summer up to now and I’m quite proud of my progress.

My media course is going well too, I’ve often referenced you in some of my sources for projects like my Moving Image class and one time we had to pitch a film idea and poster, so I chose that Drop Dead Fred film, because it’s one of my favourite films of all time and I felt like the only reason it didn’t get the proper praise it deserved at the time was due to bad marketing.

Outside of that, times have been less than stellar, a bloke last October manipulated me, I just wanted to be friends with him, but he ended up being very mentally abusive,I have Autism so sometimes I hyper fixate *gush* about my interests too intensely,and sometimes I overshare and make weird pop culture references only a few people get,it’s ok at times but other times it can weird people out and it makes me seem annoying to others when I don’t intend to be.

That and my childhood was quite lonely, and often I get traumatic flashbacks from old and modern incidents, and some of the flashbacks are made up and create “intrusive thoughts in my mind, I hate that, I haven’t had my other issues diagnosed, because I’m too busy to find therapy, my country has a backwards mental health system, and some people in my life don’t completely understand the issues I go through.

You and other icons in my life, help encourage me to keep going through the tough times and I’ve been able to help others going through similar problems too, I am so thankful for my friends and I’m so thankful for your presence in my life.

Barbara is a very lucky woman and so was Lise when you were with her and your work has heavily inspired my own.

I feel like whenever I’m acting or when I watch you acting, I see a spiritual philosophical wall beside us, I’ve read and watched all your interviews, most of your tv and filmography and your book is fantastic.

I feel like our personalities are similar, we are both kind, but cynical, we have our cold  moments and times when we just want to be cuddly teddy bears, we love audiences but we’re also shy and sometimes timid,I can’t list all the traits here basically I can go from entranced and hyper-fixated to Pessimistic and Quiet and Timid to Mellow and Loud to dazed, relaxed and happy. Quite a mix of traits, in the past I was an ignorant coward, now though I’ve learned from that and I’ve grown a lot as a person literally and figuratively.

I have taken your mantras to heart, after I got kicked out of my old performing arts course I reenacted your Theatre monologue and posted it on the internet, It got lots of positive feedback not too long after that I continued the poetry,eventually the monologues and in between I got my first job as an assistant stage manager on a local theatre production of West Side Story.

I have a lot in common with both you and your characters,well mainly the positive traits, the negative traits I try to work on, even through our appearances, people have said I look like you, that has helped me accept myself, my identity and my own appearance, I’m far from a portrait but if I’m compared to you then I’m also very gorgeous,I also sort of scrapped through my GCSE’s, technically some of them were BTEC’s, they’re like extension course things, but then some of them I was average at anyway and the performing arts course didn’t let me show my full potential while there I mainly did villain and minor character roles. I shouldn’t be defined by a piece of paper, I should be defined by who I am, a wonderful, creative, smart, kind and beautiful person...like you.

Some of the “poems” I’ve made were tributes to you, and how while yes you had your flaws too, you to me are the perfect person, never before have I been so inspired or so connected to someone who wasn’t a Japanese cartoon (apologies, if that sounds odd, while I liked celebrities not many of them were relatable to me)

I even sometimes dream about you, I dream about being apart of the comic strip, I dream about performing alongside you, I dream about simply hanging out with you, going to pubs, Bowie concerts and that Groucho club you were banned from.

While there were some moments in my life, that I can’t remove or were learning curves for me, to have been around at the time, would’ve been interesting, yeah there’s the political rubbish but that hasn’t changed in the 2010s either, we still have Thatcher but her name is Teresa now, and a talking orange called Donald Trump is ruling America but he’s also literally just a white blonde Hitler.

I understand there are time rifts and time zone differences in the universes around us, but I do really wish I could’ve met you in person, sometimes the lucid dreams give a similar experience except you in those is like an animated hologram,I often try to “spiritually communicate” with you,sometimes it works other times I just end up talking to an imaginary clone of you,I can tell because they look like how you did in the 90s, and not the chill grey-haired grandpa you are now, sometimes I see your real self in those dreams, other times I only hear your voice.

I want to carry on the legacy, I don’t just want to spread my own ideas while teaching the world about your masterpieces, I want to spread the love, I want to remind the world to laugh at misery,I want to bring more light into where you left off,you aren’t dead,your just not physically with the world anymore, your mind, spirit and memory are still alive, in most people,your memory lives on

People still talk about you, I think about you, while the tories are still twats, the young revolution of the new generation is getting more attention.

I’m going to be one of the youths leading it, I’ll never lose my wisdom and you’ll always have a presence in my life and the world.

 as long as I, your kids and all your fans try to retain your memory, you’ll never “die”.

After all, you're the Rik Mayall, are you going to let God prevent you from occasionally visiting earth, visiting your family and friends? Of course not, I’m sure they miss you very much, and I’m sure Ade is sorry about that drama he caused about the Bottom spin-off.

Making the universe more bright and colourful

Lots of love as a fellow fan, performer and admirer but also as someone who sees you as a philosophical figure

xoxo

Kelsey

a.ka

That twit on earth from Northern Ireland who will never stop thinking about you

You utter pan-global phenomenon

I could only be talking about the one, the only, the Doctor Rik Mayall~

[littlelovelymemes]

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[backstorywithdanalewis]

Back Story with Dana Lewis and  confronting American radicalization podcast link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/7372033

Eric Kruglanski (00:00) Then narrative tells you how to do it, do it by fighting the deep state, fighting the Jews, fighting the Muslims, fighting the refugees. And there's a network that supports it, including high powered people like leaders, the country, like the president of our country. Then you have a social movement and that becomes very dangerous. And you've seen the culmination of that kind of process in the assault on the Capitol on January 6th. Dana Lewis: (00:33) [inaudible] hi everyone. And welcome to backstory. I'm Dana Lewis. The attack on the Capitol was evidence of organized radical groups, threatening the state, make no mistake about it. There was nothing spontaneous about the attack it had been talked about on the web for weeks. The groups include dangerous white supremacists with international leaks, driven by what some of them consider to be their spiritual leader of the outgoing American president. Donald Trump. Think about that. I mean, it's beyond bizarre to me, an American president holding radicals to Washington, to storm the Capitol and lynched the vice-president and killed other lawmakers because he didn't like the outcome of the election. He lost, he didn't openly call for a lynching, but he pointed those groups to the Capitol after firing them up and telling them they had to fight. He called them to Washington in the first place. And he knows those groups by name. Dana Lewis: (01:50) Trump has given them a narrative breeding, their hate for immigrants, minorities, and the government. They believe cuddles them at the expense of what they falsely believed to be true. Americans. There were police in their ranks and firemen and army vets wearing body armor and carrying bear spray and firearms and pipe balls. The fact is police and some military are deeply infiltrated by white supremacists and the FBI knows. And some of those white supremacist groups organize internationally. For example, in September over two dozen police officers who were suspended in Germany after the discovery of 126 violent Neo Nazi images in WhatsApp chat groups, there's been a resurgence of white supremacy in that country's military and law enforcement groups and a resurgence of civilian supporters over recent years, the North Rhine Westphalia officer's shared images of get this swastikas Dana Lewis: (03:00) Refugees in gas, chambers, and reportedly an image of a black man being shot. This is a country that led us into a world war and America fought the Nazis. So what on earth are we doing tolerating these groups within the America of today? What is wrong with people who indulge in this hatred? Well, the fact is if America was a psychiatric patient, I suspect it would be deep in therapy right now. So on this backstory, two psychology professors on the topic of radicalization and disinformation, and we talked to a philosopher on public discourse and just how ugly that's become. Dana Lewis: (03:50) Eric Kruglanski, uh, is a distinguished professor of psychology at the university of Maryland. And is the co-author of three pillars of radicalization hiring. Hello, good to be with you. Thank you. I don't want to give away the three pillars, but they are in the title, which are the first one is, needs the need. The second one is the narrative and the third one is the network. Let's start with needs the needs, Dana Lewis: (04:17) the need that underlies much of social activism and a violent extremism in particular is the quest for significance. It's the human quest for dignity and respect. It's a universal need can be accomplished in many different ways. All people have it. Uh, the way it is accomplished is determined by the two remaining ends of the three and triumvirate then narrative and the network. The narrative basically tells you how to satisfy the need. Dana Lewis: (04:53) What do you need to do? Uh, do you need to, uh, embark on a constructive career? Do you need to fight for your race for your country against the enemies that are taking over, uh, that are promoting injustice to your group? And the third end is the network, the importance of the network, it's the social movement. Uh, and then the it's importance is that it validates the narrative. We are social beings. We need validation by people who we respect and whose good opinion we seek. Uh, so th the importance of the network it's leaders, uh, people who we admire and who want to be admired in return is very important. So the three ends once they come together, once the need is aroused by humiliation or opportunity for glory, and then narrative tells you how to do it, do it by fighting the deep state, fighting the Jews, fighting the Muslims, fighting the refugees. And there is a network that supports it, including high powered people like leaders, uh, of the country, like the president of our country. Then you have a social movement that becomes very dangerous. And you've seen the culmination of that kind of process in the assault on the Capitol on January six, Dana Lewis: (06:24) Was president Trump, the author of the narrative, or did he simply pick up on it and understand what he was feeding? Dana Lewis: (06:32) He was not the author of the narrative. The narrative existed for many years before the white supremacists, the Neo Nazi movement, the conspiracy theories have been thriving throughout the decade. There has been a huge uptick in a far right plots by 320% on recent count, but he accelerated that process by legitimizing it who, if not the highest person, uh, in the realm, uh, the most powerful, uh, leader in the world, uh, is credible as an endorser of a narrative. And so he joined the narrative. He, uh, encouraged, uh, its supporters. And, uh, the rest is history. The rest we've seen the acceleration of the movement over the last four years. And in the last phase, following the elections that it entered the new, highly accelerated phase that finally led to the events of January. Dana Lewis: (07:38) You draw some parallels with history like Adolf Hitler, who, um, you know, went back in 1918, that Germany was in fact, he said was winning world war II. Uh, and then he started betraying, uh, you're only to be betrayed by Jews and socialists and et cetera. Dana Lewis: (08:01) Yes. Uh, you know, Dana, it's always a dangerous draw, historical analogies. However, uh, the leader is not to party it's dangerous not to, and there is a good justification to do it because even though the circumstances, historical circumstances are always very different. They fundamental human nature does not change since the homosapiens appeared on the scenes. We have been pretty much, uh, uh, endowed with the same nature. And that nature is vulnerable susceptible to a process that culminates in extremism. And w what, what particularly, uh, troubles me is that, uh, a fringe group, like the Nazis in Germany, uh, that started as a small group of stags, uh, you know, embracing the idea that there was a knife in the back of the German nation, by the Jews and socialists. Uh, then over time, gradually crept into the mainstream, through the pooch in Bavaria, in Munich, uh, on November 8th, 1923, slowly, it gained momentum failure, Bavaria. Dana Lewis: (09:24) Yes. Finally it gained momentum to the extent that it overpowered the entire German nation. And we have seen the outcome of that, the second world war, the Holocaust and the rest of it. So, you know, what troubles me about the current events in the United States is that this fringe movement and now commanded a large chunk of the American population, 74 people voted for Trump. Many believed that, that in the conspiracy theories, that the elections were stolen, uh, clearly that narrative, that the conspiracy theory, uh, crept into the Republican party, a large chunk of the Republican party still insist that there were problems with the election and it was legitimate. So, you know, whereas not everybody in that crowd was violent and some people are, we're just protesting the fact that over 60 million people supported this stop, the still narrative, uh, creates a huge recruitment pool. Dana Lewis: (10:37) They shared with, with, uh, the most violent, uh, demonstrators, uh, the idea that there was an injustice done to the American people, that there was, uh, a plot against America. So this creates a recruitment pool. These events are glorified in a sane as, as a great achievement. Uh, so, you know, th th the process of creeping into the mainstream is probably intensified by these events. How do you counter that? You just shut their network down and, and drive them underground, or how do you reach out to these people? Do you need to reach out to them? You need to reach out, you need to, uh, to, uh, first of all, cool down the rhetoric, uh, reduce the vindictiveness on the one hand, you need to hold people accountable. On the other hand, it should not occupy the center stage, and you should, uh, put together, put in place a process to [inaudible] the, the American population. Uh, it has to start in schools, communities, churches, uh, the police, uh, a large initiative needs to be taken a place, uh, in which the whole society is involved. It's going to be a very difficult process to put that genie back into the battle. Dana Lewis: (12:02) Arie there really isn't a call for that. There is a call for justice. There is a call for making people pay and putting them in jail and arresting them there. Isn't a call for that dialogue. Dana Lewis: (12:13) Yes. Well, at least it's a minority call. What is encouraging is that the president elect by then seems to be of that mindset of, of reducing the, the heat of the rhetoric, inducing the vindictiveness and eh, becoming pragmatic about the problem is the beset, the country pragmatism, as opposed to, eh, ideology, uh, dealing with, uh, with the vaccination, with the coronavirus, dealing with the economy, uh, and hopefully, you know, he will need in that enterprise, eh, co cooperation of the Republican party who alone can maybe put a stop or at least slow down the process. We haven't seen much evidence for that. There is some, but perhaps, you know, with Biden, Biden is by the way is a, uh, a very good choice this time and age, because he's a pragmatist. He has plenty of experience. Uh, he knows everybody, uh, and he knows the ropes, uh, with these experience, uh, in the Congress and in the white house. And he's a very likable person. Unlike Hillary Clinton that somehow, uh, was, was perceived in negative way by many people, it's very difficult to dislike Joe Biden. So I think all of these elements bode well for the possibility of cooling it down and the back to pragmatics and cutting down the ideological heat that has been overtaking America. Are you a fan of Dana Lewis: (13:51) The fact that some of these social networks were pulled down and other people, including the president were banned and lost their accounts or had them suspended? Dana Lewis: (14:02) Well, you know, it's a, it's a moral Dana Lewis: (14:04) Dilemma. Do you revoke Dana Lewis: (14:06) People's freedom of speech, uh, is, uh, the, the, the speech that is being propagated, uh, in the category of hate speech, uh, this is always a very soon line. Uh, so I think that banning Trump for speaking from speaking is a good thing at the end of the day, especially at, at this moment, especially at this moment, but one has to be very careful, uh, with, you know, not being too much of a sensor, uh, of, of, uh, expressing opinions in the United States. They Dana Lewis: (14:41)  Thank you so much. Dana Lewis: (14:44) Thank you very much, Dana. It's been a pleasure. Dana Lewis: (14:51) All right. IRA Hyman is a doctor, a professor of psychology at Western Washington university. Hi IRA. Good morning, Dana. You wrote a lot of a disinformation campaigns, and it seems like you are living, um, in, in, uh, in that movie right now because the American public, um, has been, you know, their head spun around by president Trump talking about false elections and cheated boats, and people don't know what to believe. A lot of them would you agree? Ira Hyman: (15:24) Yes. To a certain extent, right. I think that what happens is we get into an information ecosystem and within that information ecosystem, things hang together. There's a coherent and constant set of information, uh, that people come to believe and they tend to, uh, rely on certain news sources. So sane people thinks people don't know what to believe. Most people have made up their mind. Um, and it has to do with, uh, the environment in which they have found themselves. So it's not that they're comparing alternatives to these sorts of things. Uh, if they're stuck in the information bubble that tells them that the election has been stolen, they're not seeing the other information so that they're not being exposed to it. And when, and when they are, it's, it's only if it's dismissed. So it's, um, uh, I think that their critical thinking works against them here in an odd way when they're in that environment. Dana Lewis: (16:22) Well, I guess they, they need to have their head spun around maybe, and be a little more open to being a better news consumer. But at this point, you know, people follow presidents and, uh, for instance, I mean, uh, convinced of, of false information from president Trump in terms of not, not wearing masks and, uh, that, that was dangerous as was, you know, that your vote has been stolen and March on the Capitol. Ira Hyman: (16:49) Yeah. I mean, the, um, the, the election, uh, disinformation stuff about, uh, the, the votes not being right and about there being fraud and all of this was a disinformation campaign with the political goal, and it has consequences. The COVID misinformation and disinformation campaigns are killing people. Um, I think we can just bluntly say that, uh, because what we've done is, or what some people have done, and Trump has been the single most, uh, responsible individual for sharing misinformation about COVID is we've given people wrong information. We've told them it's not that dangerous. It's not communicated in this fashion. And then maybe you don't need to wear masks. Um, and, and all of these things are incorrect and they, they lead people to behave in such a fashion once they're in that environment. And that same information they hear that increases the spread that puts themselves and people they care about at risk. So it has, uh, been responsible for not all 400,000 deaths in the U S but a large proportion of them. Dana Lewis: (17:56) You wrote the people have been swimming in a sea of lies. Ira Hyman: (17:59) Okay. Yes. Um, I think that's a good way to phrase it. And so, you know, your comment a few moments ago about maybe people need to be better consumers of information. Yes. However, um, there's this phenomena in psychology referred to as the fundamental attribution error, where when we look at, uh, a situation where somebody makes a decision or behaves in a certain way, we could say it's because of who they are and the way they are, and the way in this case, they approached news and information. But we can also reflect on the fact that it's, it's about the context about the environment, about the system in which they're working. And in this case, for many of these people, the system in which they're working is what's really driving this because they're constantly exposed to misinformation and misleading information, and they rarely get exposed to accurate information. Ira Hyman: (18:54) And in that environment, I mean, you can look at people and say, well, they shouldn't be there, but everybody that they know is in that environment. And they they've shut themselves off from other sorts of things, but it's because that environment hangs together. And so, um, yes, people are somewhat responsible, but they're in a world that is more responsible. It's the people promoting the disinformation campaigns that we need to focus on. Um, it's the, the, the people spreading the misinformation that we need to focus on. It's on disrupting that flow of disinformation that we need to focus on disrupting the disruption. But yeah, Dana Lewis: (19:32) The immediate environment in which false beliefs are repeated, um, is because of these algorithms. So if you express an opinion that that algorithm will likely bring you more of your own opinion in your online peers, who you've never met and probably will never will your online peers who would agree with you, they are Ira Hyman: (19:57) It. Then that is a big part of the cycle, right? Is that once you, you start down this pathway, the algorithms that the, that pretty much every internet company is using it is going to continue to feed you more of the stuff you like. And to keep you engaged more extreme versions of some of the stuff you like. I know that some of the companies are working on this, right. And they're, they're trying to, uh, to tweak their algorithms to a certain extent, but, but let's be clear, it's this isn't, uh, I think you mentioned free speech before this, isn't an issue of free speech because the algorithms are already choosing for you though. We're already picking and choosing from amongst all the stuff out there, what to present to you. And so for that reason, you know, you talk about just tweaking the algorithms a little bit. It would tone down, uh, you know, uh, the disinformation campaigns and increase your access and your exposure to more accurate information. Dana Lewis: (20:51) I'm sure people, look, I tend to agree with you, but I think people who would disagree with us, I would say it's, it's censorship. Um, and at, at a certain point, it becomes dangerous programming. It means first you ban a president from a platform and then who is next and what is next. Ira Hyman: (21:10) So, um, due to re look, I'm not a constitutional scholar. And so, um, I'm not going to play cause you don't have to be so sorry. I'm not gonna, I'm not going to play one. Uh, but I think that you have to recognize that the internet companies are already picking and choosing what to show you, because we're not going to show you everything. Um, and so in that sense, it's a question of what, what you want that algorithm to be based on. And to what extent you want, uh, accuracy and reliability to play into that outcome. Um, the second part of your comment about if, if you, you know, deep platform, some people move them off of the platforms, um, you don't just do it to, to anybody and everybody. And actually the data, you know, that I've been looking at. There's some really nice work by Kate Starbird and her team down at the university of Washington. A lot of the misinformation and disinformation campaigns go through just a few narrow nodes on that internet. Right? Uh, uh, Dana Lewis: (22:12) I love this because, I mean, I, I've kind of been overwhelmed doing stories about Q Anon and right. People who, you know, are, are finding some pretty wild cult, like things to follow on the internet and your, you, you have said and written that you and, and quoting her. I think that you think it comes down to like the mob that moves down the street. That's probably a central core of people that really drive the trouble and that would be a hundred people. Ira Hyman: (22:46) So when we're looking at, I mean, there's two aspects of that. It seems to me, one is trying to stop the wide spread of disinformation on the internet. And that wide spread of disinformation starts with a few people who post something. And then it gets shared widely from those few people. And they may not share that many things, although Trump chaired a lot personally, but it's the fact that they are both the people who share a lot of misinformation and conspiracy theories, and they have a wide sphere of influence so that they touch on a lot of other people. So are a few really just remove, uh, you know, a couple of handfuls worth of people. You can see pretty meaningful effects, uh, in terms of disrupting that, that sort of starting point for a lot of the misinformation campaigns now, in response to your other point about, yeah, there are some, some places on the internet where conspiracy and disinformation is, is the, the main part of what happens in those discussion groups, but they're not, um, they're not the main platforms that the internet. And so in order to get to those places, you actually have to go looking for them. Um, and as you noted, Dana Lewis: (24:03) Which brings us to another question, but which would be, is it better to have these huge companies that you can then pressure and try to get them to police, or do you break them up, which a lot of people are calling for. And then you have, you know, some real outliers in terms of, you know, who they're going to appeal to and how bizarre that that forum may get. Ira Hyman: (24:25) Uh, I, I, I'm not going to answer, I'm not going to touch that question because, you know, I'm thinking about those Dana Lewis: (24:32) Questions and breaking up the big tech. All right. Ira Hyman: (24:34) Yeah. I mean, um, you know, I, I know my areas of expertise. I know a lot about the spread of disinformation and how people adopt it and the fact that it has consequences. I do know that disrupting the spread of that can be effective and, you know, leading to a better set of information that people are relying upon, um, the actual pathways in terms of legislation about, you know, how it fits in with constitutional structures in any given place. Yeah. Dana Lewis: (25:04) Um, after the, the assault on the Capitol, do you think that people who didn't want to pressure companies and didn't want to go down this road of first amendment debate now say, if we don't do it, we're not going to have a country. Ira Hyman: (25:17) Um, you know, I think that maybe we've been coming to this, and it's hard to, to know for sure if you turned the corner, I, you know, I've seen numbers on the internet, uh, you know, reports of some studies that people have done in the last week that showed that there was a 73% drop in misinformation at related to the election after, uh, the social media companies removed, not just Trump, but a few, few other people and some of the Q and on conspiracy groups. Um, I mean, it's, it's, it's hard to attribute it directly to their actions, but it, it seems that it's part of, uh, decreasing the spread of the misinformation. The reason I say it's hard is because, you know, things were kind of clear that everything about the election of certified, so maybe we would expect anyway, a drop off of conversations about that. Um, but I mean, I am hopeful, you know, I, um, and it feels a little bit hopeful to me for the first time in a while that maybe, um, the success of some of that, and the willingness to recognize that, uh, not everyone is a good faith actor and when they're not good faith that there's, maybe they shouldn't be treated as good faith actors, uh, so that if they're constantly spreading disinformation and they have a wide appeal, we need to, to address those sorts of things. America was your, Dana Lewis: (26:44) Um, from a psychological point of view, would you say that you have a, you have a pretty ill, uh, patient right now, Ira Hyman: (26:52) Um, in terms of, uh, the sort of adoption of misinformation. I think that we have a problem with, with misinformation, disinformation campaigns broadly in the U S yes. Um, and it's not just the election, it's not just, COVID, it's the issue of, uh, whether or not there's climate change, uh, and, and how to address those sorts of things. And, and one of the features here is that the people who spread one set of disinformation and misinformation spread the other ones as well, and the people who adopted one get exposed to all the other ones as well, so that it it's a, um, a nasty information environment right now in the, Dana Lewis: (27:37) As a media person. When I said, be a good news consumer, I should tell you, you brought up, um, global warming. As an example, I can tell you that there was a long debate about it here, and the BBC decided they are no longer going to treat the debate as two sides anymore. That 99.99% of scientists around the world, believe there's no question that there's global warming, and they're not going to give equal time to the people who say there's not. And so media has had to mature a lot. The old, you know, when I went to journalism, journalism school was just giving two sides all the time and then let the public figure it out. Unfortunately, we've been pressured to kind of go beyond, Ira Hyman: (28:18) Well, I was duty. The question is whether both sides are acting in good faith, um, whether or not both sides are relying on the actual state of the world and presenting the actual state of the world. What's the, what's the bit that if you're a journalist and you've got one person who say that it's a beautiful day outside, and the other person say that it's pouring down rain, your job isn't necessarily to give them both equal time, but they'll look out the window, right. And to prioritize the one who's given you accurate information, perhaps. Um, I mean the other way to think about it. And I saw this last week with, uh, uh, the attack on the United States, Capitol news companies had a choice about which voices to feature at that moment. Um, and then again, in the debate, uh, uh, about whether or not to impeach president Trump again, so many congresspeople spoke, the news companies have a choice about which voices to present. Um, so which one should you prioritize? You're not going to show all of them, you know, if you're, if you're Dana Lewis: (29:21) To show some of the dissenting Ira Hyman: (29:23) Voice yes. Dana Lewis: (29:25) Equal time with those who are overwhelmingly voting to impeach Ira Hyman: (29:30) Well, or, or even when you're presenting the dissenting votes, should you, should you present someone who is, uh, a fountain of lies that everything that they say is misinformation, or should you present someone who says, you know, other reasons for doing this, that aren't based on, uh, spreading further disinformation theories? I mean, it's, uh, it's, what are your ethical obligations as a journalist? Um, I think that that is a critical question that journalism has to, to address in this moment. Um, the, the, the treating both sides equally is reasonable when both sides are, um, equally good faith actors. Dana Lewis: (30:11) Last question to you. I think the last paragraph of an article I wrote was kind of inspiring in a sense that yeah, people are, you know, locked down and going through a lot right now. And you said your suggestion would be change your information feed for the next month. And, Ira Hyman: (30:33) And this is particularly for people who, who thought that everything that I wrote in that was wrong, right. That Dana Lewis: (30:41) Those comments, I will note, because you thought that some people would be not. Ira Hyman: (30:45) Yeah, no, really receptive, right. Not receptive. And so the, and I, I generally leave comments open on things I write, and I'm usually willing to, to, to reply to people and I will respond to people. Um, and, and in part it's because as a white man, I don't get attacked as much as some other people do. Um, but here, I don't need to, to give a platform to people who just want to spew more information. And so if you're that angry at me for saying that, no, the election wasn't stolen. Yes. COVID is dangerous. Yes. There's climate change. Then maybe what you should do is switch your information feed for awhile, because, and this is something that worries me deeply when we're talking about this. Many of the people who have gone down these pathways have lost touch with friends and family. Um, and I think that we need to recognize that human component of it as well, that they have now found a group where they feel comfortable, but it's a group that shares these beliefs that are not consistent with the state of the world. Ira Hyman: (31:49) And because of that, they, they no longer necessarily in touch with friends are no longer in touch with families. They've, they've lost some of the other connections. Um, and maybe because they drop them, maybe because their friends and family really just gave up, uh, and talking to them. And I've, I've heard stories like this. I've seen it to happen to people who I know on social media. Um, and so, you know, wouldn't it be lovely if changing their, their information flow for awhile, led them back, uh, to some connection with reality and allow them to reconnect with friends and family. Um, you're not going to break a single individual. You Dana, you're not going to break through that environment for one person who's completely inundated in it flooded by that tidal wave, but disinformation, it's going to take more than that, um, to do that. And so they're going to have to move back out of that, uh, flood of disinformation. Dana Lewis: (32:49) Yeah. I mean, I come from a family where people were political views were a blood sport at the dinner table, you know, but I think in general, you still had, we still taught each other to be generally respectful, not always generally respectful of other people's views at the table. And they actually tried to listen to them. Right. Because otherwise, why are you holding the conversation at all? If you just go on the internet to give your opinion, then, uh, you know, you're, you're really not engaging with anybody you're just engaging with you. Ira Hyman: (33:16) Yep. I would hope people would be able to do that again in the future. Dana Lewis: (33:20) Yeah. Well, great advice from you to change your information for a month and re re-engage with people that maybe you don't agree with. Right. See how you feel at the end of the month or six months or wherever it takes you. Right. So I would Ira Hyman: (33:34) Hope that we might see some progress that way. Dana Lewis: (33:36) IRA Hyman, a professor of psychology at Western Washington university. It's really important to talk about where we are within information and to get people to think and just reopen themselves. I think so. It's great to hear you. Thank you so much. Ira Hyman: (33:50) It's a pleasure talking with you. Thank you. Dana Lewis: (33:55) Todd may joins us now from Nevada. Uh, and he is a former professor of philosophy here in the UK. He was at Kent university where he was a professor and he's now living in America and he has philosophy to you, philosophical counseling, facilitation, and coaching in meaningful work and business ethics. Hi Todd, I Dana pleasure to be here. Your head must be spinning, right? Because you left the UK in September and you've landed now in the middle of what was an election campaign. And America's just been spinning on its head ever since. Todd Mei: (34:33) DYes, it's been sort of crazy. Um, and obviously a lot of things have changed for both the us and the UK since September. And I think what stood out mostly, uh, when we first got back, it varied state to state just the different practices and guidelines and policies that were in place for social distancing and being safe. And to give you an example, we're not in place or not in place and on the law. On that point, we had to trouble through Utah, one point by car, and we stopped off in a small town. I won't say which one, but nobody was wearing a mask. We, uh, my wife and I were the only two people wearing a mask. And when we went in, uh, to a restaurant to get some food, to take out, uh, we, we got stairs probably for various reasons, but no doubt because we were wearing masks and it felt very unsafe. Todd Mei: (35:18) And just going across the border to Colorado, we had to stay in a hotel and then it was entirely different. There were signs up, um, you know, make, making sure that people were social distancing and wearing masks. So very different cultures and climates, depending on what state you go to. And, um, my own point of view, uh, anecdotally is I often wonder outside of large cities, why there's such a problem in the United States, because unlike most European countries, there is so much geographical space. And it seems like it's so easy to social distance and keep to oneself, uh, because of, of, of the way in which, um, one's houses are located, the amount of property you have outside of big cities, it just seems like there should not be a problem with social distancing, but, um, that's obviously not the case, given the infection rates in the United States, Dana Lewis: (36:04) Philosophically, since you were the philosopher. I mean, this was generated by a president who saw mask wearing, um, as some great infringement on people's rights or at least he sold it, believing that that would bring him more votes. Todd Mei: (36:26) Yes. And I suppose the problem from my own perspective is that there's a real lack of understanding and awareness of what philosophers like to call public reasoning public debate. And it's exacerbated by the fact that social media is most of the social media companies are aware of this kind of thing. In fact, I, I emailed one of the, um, legal officers of Facebook at one point, um, trying to, um, ask him whether I forgotten his name. Now I've asked them about whether they had Facebook had an interest in this idea of public reasoning and how it, what it meant practically for something like Facebook is that there would be clear rules of how the people on Facebook would engage with one another. There's a, in a simple sense, there's etiquette, uh, there's ways in which you respond in ways in which you, you speak or, or write to one another on these kinds of things. Very basic rules of engagement in conversation that many generations prior to ours are probably very much aware of. Um, and there's just no interest on that. On from social media companies Dana Lewis: (37:25) There might be now taught, right? Because I mean, for a long time, it was first, well, you know what I think first amendment was an excuse, but before first amendment freedom of speech issues, it was simply Facebook didn't want to police this stuff. Um, and neither did Twitter and they didn't want to bring in the manpower and the women power to, to go through all these horrible, uh, you know, messages and messaging and, and groups of people. Um, and now suddenly they've really been brought to the precipice. Right. I mean, would you agree now that probably you should be calling them back? Todd Mei: (38:00) Yeah. Maybe I'll try that after, after the podcast. Cause, cause like, yeah. So I think, um, there is some kind of social corporate responsibility that has to take place and they really have to focus on that. But there's also the other side. It's not just the companies because you hear a lot of blame about company, social media being a problem, and it is problematic. And I have to admit I'm a little cynical on that side, but it's also the responsibility of citizens and the idea of public reasoning and in public debate is that you're very much aware of the kinds of claims you're making in the public sphere. A lot of people today, when they're out on social media or they're out in public, they like to express their convictions very strongly, either way, you know, it can be right or left and foster is, are interested in the way in which a lot of our beliefs and attitudes don't have the kind of grounding and certainty that we often think they do. Todd Mei: (38:49) So we often teach philosophy students about what's technically called forms of skepticism, but it's not skepticism where you just throw your hands up and you say, well, there's nothing I can, I can say or do because it's very difficult for me to prove something rather than the role of, of skepticism as it comes from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy is that you're very much aware of the weaknesses and fallibility of your reasoning. So you can't just go out there and say, this is, this is true, no matter what that's fake news, or this is a violation of my rights. Mass scoring is a violation of my rights. Now there's always a kind of awareness of you might be speaking from a certain point of view. And when you, when you engage with another person, they're speaking from a certain point of view, and it's the idea that knowing comes from an in cordial or certain, um, point of view that has some kind of access to irrefutable knowledge, but what you get a lot in the public sphere is the lack of that lack of awareness of what knowledge is and how to justify beliefs. Todd Mei: (39:47) And so what replaces that are a lot of emotive comments are a lot of emotive reactions, uh, and that tends to galvanize people. And I'm not against emotions. I think emotions have a very important role in our, in understanding others. But when you have too much of that, you get what we have today, not just to, Dana Lewis: (40:04) How do you go about teaching, you know, humility and respect for other people's opinion, um, in, in the climate that the political climate in America, right? Todd Mei: (40:17) Yeah. There's gotta be a lot of approaches. I'm always a big fan of a liberal arts education. Um, but, and I don't, and the problem with that is that Dana Lewis: (40:25) You said the liberal arts, liberal arts liberal word, Oh my God, Todd Mei: (40:30) Well, it's, it's, it's very different. It's not political. So it means, uh, technically or originally liberal arts is the liberating arts. So you engage in these forms of, um, academic disciplines, like philosophy history and the imaginative arts, uh, literature and so forth. And it's the combination of all those, um, exposure to that that actually liberates your mind. It makes you more capable of engaging with one another. And what we have today is the lack of that capability of people to engage with one another. It's just people throwing up walls, um, being angry, um, condemning people for, for holding a point of view, or you see someone and you have this reaction of, Oh, that person must be a socialist or that person must be a right-wing fanatic, that kind of thing. And there's, there's, it's just, it's too reactive. And so the role of, of reasoning helps to space things out a bit now. Todd Mei: (41:18) So there's, there's the liberal arts education, but a lot of people don't have access to that. And so that I don't want that to be a kind of isolating or alienating view. I mean, it'd be great if education were universal in that sense, but there are other things that people can do just on a daily practical basis. And it's, um, making sure that when you engage with someone you hold off on any quick reactions and you try to understand the point of view, um, from which someone else is speaking. And there are certain kinds of questions and phrases that can help facilitate that. And simply asking, I don't quite understand what your view is. Um, in, in here are some simple questions and in turn, instead of antagonistic questions, they can be open-ended questions. Um, and the other thing I've noticed in conversations with people who hold different views is there, there tends to be a lack of patience in space. And so I think the other thing is identifying those kinds of conversations where that patient's is simply not there and just removing oneself from that. And that, that happens a lot on social. Dana Lewis: (42:18) It was the whole digital world, but that, I mean, it's interesting some of the analysis where, where people talk about the fact that, you know, in the end, you used to interact with your neighborhood. So your neighborhood, now you probably close the door, especially in a pandemic, but we've closed the door to a lot of our neighbors and more kind of human interaction. And now we're in these chat rooms and, and digitally, and there's something about that environment that gets people not to listen, but to express opinion, Todd Mei: (42:50) Yes, very problematic. And, um, it, it comes down to self restraint and discipline and, and understanding how to be virtuous on social media, which is very difficult, uh, very hard not to react. And then again, excuse me, it comes back to the social media companies and they have to ch I mean, at the very least, I don't know too much about the tech side, but they've got to change the algorithms by which the only things that appear are things that seem to be your peers. Dana Lewis: (43:17) I hate Trump. I'm not saying that personally, but that will bring you a lot of people who hate Trump or I, you know, I hate Biden that will bring you a lot of people who are in that echo chamber of, of, of the technology to keep you engaged. And they try to keep you engaged by bringing you opinion that they think will, you know, agree with yours. And there's lots of things that are dangerous about it in a bigger scope in terms of democracy. Um, do you think that we're entering this period of kind of like mob rule in democracy that, that Plato talked about, and maybe you can, he wasn't, from what I could understand, the Play-Doh, you, you spend a lifetime studying this stuff. He didn't seem to be a huge fan of democracy in the sense that he felt that it would degenerate into anarchy. Todd Mei: (44:05) Yeah. So the, the comments on democracy, uh, often are taken from the Republic, which is a very interesting text and, um, got a lot of different ways. You can understand what's going on there. Um, Plato, let me just say Plato is very egalitarian in many ways. I mean, it seems to advocate a form of feminism or protofeminism, um, depending on how you read them and then the, the public philosopher, Martha Nussbaum comments on that, but it played a, had two worries about democracy. And I don't want to pigeonhole miss saying, he's just out now, antidemocratic, uh, someone like Karl popper might say, but it's two concerns are one, is that the amount of freedom that occurs in a democracy can while it's a strength, can actually be its weakness. Now I'll come back to that in a moment. And the other weakness that, uh, played a worried about was that there could be the dominance of the emotions and the lack of what I spoke about earlier, the lack of public reasoning to help balance that out. Todd Mei: (45:01) So going back to the first one about having too much freedom, so it's the best way to capture that is this idea that everyone seems to want more choice, and you often hear people, if I can say proponents of neo-liberalism saying that choice is good, the more choice, the better. And, um, it sounds on the face of it. That sounds really nice, but what it presupposes or what it presumes is that the people who have the choice have some kind of either perfect rationality or access to perfect information, or that they themselves are capable to reason about the choices. And that's not always the case. I mean, you can just, when you go to buy a used or new car, you might have a lot of information, but you don't have all the information to make the best choice possible. So the choice can often be, um, uh, can often cause a lot of problems and we might make the wrong decisions. Todd Mei: (45:48) And, um, also what, uh, Hannah rent comments that what you have in these kinds of situations is there tends to be a lack of concern for the common good and for concern for others. And what tends to replace it is this form of just following the freedoms that arise in society, whether they're brought about by companies or whatever it might be. And so Hannah rents is what replaces this concern for the common good is a form of consumerism or behaviorism that just simply follows the choices. And so we're not very discriminating in the things that are presented to us. And so going back to play to what happens is you have, uh, an erosion of the civil society. That's no longer focused on what is authentically or genuinely good for everyone or for, for the city state, but just simply panders to our appetites. Dana Lewis: (46:37) And it doesn't help if you're making choices based on false information, such as the president telling you that the choice you made in an election didn't count or was cheated. Um, so do you roll disinformation in there? And, and, uh, chaos becomes supercharged. Todd Mei: (46:55) Yes. And we need, um, not just institutions, but individual citizens need to know the ways in which they can vet information that's coming across their computers or the TV screens and, um, your, your, the journalists and media. And, um, one of the big differences I've noticed between the United States and the UK is that, um, in the UK, whether you're listening to the BBC or sky, for example, which tend to be both left and right, um, just left and right of center, you can listen to either of them and they tend not to yell at you, or they tend to let in a lot of the, the major programs will often, it's an op-ed piece. They'll let the new speak for itself. They won't comment, comment on it and try to sway the audience. When were the other back in the States Dana Lewis: (47:37) Watching I was watching Pierce Morgan this week. So I'm not sure you're right. Todd Mei: (47:41) Yeah. Well, I, I, I suppose, um, you know, there's exceptions everywhere. I, maybe I can, if I can generalize, it seems on the whole, um, the bit more civilized, a little bit more civilized, whereas here, I just feel like you can turn on anything from Fox to CNN, and they're just yelling at you constantly Dana Lewis: (47:56) Question to you, Todd. I mean, if you reach deep in your philosophical soul and roots, and you look at what's happening at the Capitol, um, and where America is headed, uh, what do you draw on to be positive or to be negative? Todd Mei: (48:12) I think, um, uh, and I think it's reflected in some of the comments you've made on social media is that we have to find a way to stop this divide of, of just thinking that's either us or them and that's it. And, um, there are different philosophical tools that we can use to, to help initiate that. But let me just end on a practical note, and this is not my idea. I wish I could take credit for it, but I was speaking with a former senior officer who we used to work for the FDA here in the United States. And he recognized that look, the reason why this is happening, um, is largely due to the socioeconomic divide. And we have to find a way to bring different citizens of different classes, socioeconomic classes, and races together. And he thought that the idea of mandatory national service, which could either be military or civil with bring the different classes together and work together and do different projects. And I thought that was a wonderful idea. And it was in view of something called, you know, your, your nation, whether it's United States or not. And it's those kinds of experiences that can open many doors and can expose people to things they'd never been exposed to before. It can bring people together, Dana Lewis: (49:15) Tough sell, tough sell America, but Todd may, um, thank you so much. Good to talk to you. Thank you, Dana. Thank you for having me in there. Dana Lewis: (49:23) That's our backstory on radicalization in America, the guardian newspaper here in the UK reported that as many as two thirds of us adults between the ages of 18 and 39 didn't know that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Another 23% of respondents said they believed the Holocaust was either a myth or had been exaggerated, or we're unsure time to roll out a reality check for those with radical views or people that just don't know anyway, keep your sense of humor. And look forward this week, Trump was out of the white house and the pounding of the drum of division and disinformation has been replaced to some extent by some normalcy in Washington. I mean, with the suspension of his Twitter account, it feels less stressful, but online, online, we have to snuff out hatred. I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening. Please share our podcast and I'll talk to you again soon.

[dipulb3]

How people of color can cope with Capitol riot hypocrisy

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/how-people-of-color-can-cope-with-capitol-riot-hypocrisy/

How people of color can cope with Capitol riot hypocrisy

At the protest, attendees chanted and held signs. They were standing on the sidewalks, not antagonizing the police, when hundreds of protesters were pepper-sprayed, pushed down, shoved into cop cars or shot with rubber bullets, he said.

A fellow activist called an Uber for Horn, who “remained blind for the rest of the day” and went to bed because he couldn’t see anything. “You hear stories and have family that have run-ins with law enforcement, but it’s another thing when you have personal experience,” Horn said. “Even if that cop’s gone, you’re always going to remember that.”

Their fight was the “bare minimum Black Lives Matter,” Horn said. “And the fact that that gets challenged, that we get beaten … and then seeing people … get grace, get escorts, get selfies and don’t get the back end of a police stick for a protest or for a mask mandate shows that there are two different Americas.”

“I’m just asking for police to give us grace,” he added, “the same way they do with Trump supporters.”

If witnessing the insurrection took a toll on your mental health, there are ways you can try to manage alone and with others.

Why the insurrection was triggering for some people of color

What might also be disturbing and stressful for people of color to hear are statements that equate the Capitol insurrection to protests for racial justice. The fundamental differences lie within the motivations of the movements.

“Black Lives Matter protesters are protesting for justice and equality,” said clinical psychologist Monnica Williams, a Canada research chair in mental health disparities and associate professor at the University of Ottawa. “If your candidate doesn’t win in a society where you do have an ability to assert yourself … OK, sorry. You try again next time. That’s very different from protesting a situation where your voice doesn’t matter.”

One movement “is to protect our rights and to push for democracy,” said Helen Neville, a professor of educational psychology and African American studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “The other is to dismantle democracy.”

The boldness of those who stormed the Capitol with weapons and lived likely would have been a “death sentence” for Black and brown people, Williams said, and that may have happened on the front steps, not inside the building. “It really reinforces what we as a Black community have known all along, that rather than being respected and valued members of our society, we��re mostly hated and feared.”

The potential impact of witnessing the imagery of the noose and gallows, Confederate flags and anti-Semitic garb on the mental health of people of color is not yet measurable, Williams said. She and her colleagues, however, have seen how shaken, emotional and depressed many of their clients are from observing those historical symbols of hate and violence.

“The images are painful because they’re intended to be painful. They’re symbols of hate,” Neville said. “They can have a visceral effect on people, whether it makes them feel physically ill as they look at it” or whether that adds to their trauma.

Many Americans who care about the function, race relations and leaders of this nation were affected by what happened that day, but “a lot of White people seem to be surprised and shocked,” Williams said. “A lot of people of color are not so surprised as much as disappointed and maybe feeling a little more defeated than they did before.”

Some people cope by ignoring events or numbing their emotions while others become fearful. As Inauguration Day and threats of riots draw closer, Williams worries for her children’s safety. “A lot of us feel worried like, what if this doesn’t settle down?” she said. “You hear rumors about other protests that are planned (and) being organized regionally. Does this mean that law enforcement is going to take such a lax approach when people like this act out? It’s scary.”

What both ignites these fears and potentially had underlain the inadequate police response at the Capitol was “a combination of White-skin privilege and ideological coherence,” meaning that some police shared the beliefs of the insurgents, said Sundiata Cha-Jua, an associate professor in the department of history and in African American studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Now they’re unleashed,” said Luis Zayas, the dean of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin. “If they could do that to a fortified place like the Capitol, what it would be for a small community. You could be subject to being attacked by a much larger group that’s unruly and even the police could not control them.”

How to cope

One of the most important ways of coping with prejudice-based trauma is social support, these experts said. That includes from people with whom you can share your feelings and fears, and receive validation, Williams said. “There’s a lot of really strange things that have been going on these last four years that have become normal, but they shouldn’t be normal,” she added. “It’s almost like noise in the background,” but acknowledging these abnormalities is part of not dismissing fears.

“A cultural way of coping could be to talk to an older community member … to hear stories about how they have dealt with racial oppression and discrimination,” Neville said. “People have lived through Jim Crow in the South. Hearing those stories about resilience and about resistance can also be helpful.”

Stay informed as you need to but limit your news exposure if it becomes too much to handle, Williams said. When you are checking in, read clear analyses from credible sources, Neville said, so that “we are not buying in to analyses that blame us.”

Also try to set aside time to engage in spiritual comfort or relaxing activities as temporary distractions, which can be healthy if balanced with social awareness. Horn, the community activist, puts his phone on do not disturb while he exercises for at least an hour daily. When he’s feeling exhausted or defeated, he talks with his family and is honest about his struggles.

As you distance yourself from news, try not to log into social media feeds inundated with the same content. Social media can be a source of support, Williams said, or a black hole of contention, negativity and hate. Limit the time you spend in online conflict zones unless you have the capacity for constructive debate, and limit your viewing of visuals depicting police violence, which can be traumatizing.

Educating yourself on your heritage and the trailblazers in your history can help you heal from any internalized White supremacy you may be dealing with, Neville said.

Also, create safe spaces with others. “What we’ve seen in the past is that communities like this will create their own means of communication, where the safe places are, where to walk, where not to walk,” Zayas said. That could be via phone, text or Facebook group.

Emblems of hope

When President-elect Joe Biden was projected the winner of the 2020 US presidential election, some people of color celebrated, finding hope in the fact that there is a new, more diverse administration coming at the end of another challenging few years for racial justice.

At the same time, there are caveats. “Realistically, our country has been controlled by White men since its inception,” Williams said. “So, although yes, Trump’s reign has been traumatic, Joe Biden’s not a savior. And I think that we will be setting ourselves up for disappointment if we think that he’s going to fix everything that’s broken, because our country has been broken for maybe 300 years.

“Yes, we celebrate the end of the Trump trauma, but keep in mind we still have a lot of work to do.”

That work could be spurred by radical hope, which is the belief that our collective future will be better than it is now, Neville said. It requires reimagining what a “multiracial democracy” looks like.

“The ways in which democracy is working is not working for Black, Indigenous and people of color,” Neville added. “This radical hope incorporates our critical understanding of our past oppression and our resistance to that oppression. … We, as BIPOC folks, are going to have to carry on the traditions of our ancestors (and) work incredibly hard so that we can leave this country better.”

“Then people can feel like they’re taking the bad things that have happened and are using that energy for good,” Williams said. “That’s really important that people can make meaning from their pain.”

Appradab’s Nicquel Terry Ellis contributed to this story.

[a-halfblood-named-coin]

With Korra coming to Netflix, there’s been this whole WAVE of “no more korra hate!” And I’m gonna be honest here, I do, I do hate the legend of korra. Not because it’s more sexual or because Korras a headstrong women but I feel like they tried to be so different from ATLA, more mature and realistic that it lost a lot of the charm. It has other charms but I just don’t like them as much. So to prove I don’t hate the show without reason here are 3 things I liked in concept that they handled poorly in my opinion.

1. Korra herself

Having a headstrong, egotistical, women waterbender with lots of muscles and bravado was AN AMAZING choice to constrast from Aangs pacifist, peaceful and calmer mindset. I loved that part of Korra. But my problem is in her character development, or how I don’t think the writers remember what development means, development =\= pain porn. A lot of Korras ‘development’ was her getting beat to a pulp, having her bending removed, being wheelchair bound, etc. and by the end of the show she becomes more wary and scared of everything around her. Instead of what I personally wanted, which was for her to be underestimating the effort and work it takes to be a good avatar, get knocked down a few pegs by Tenzin or someone and come back stronger and more grounded. Still cocky but now she has the power AND understanding to back up her claims. I never wanted her to lose her ego entirely, or to fall so far she never comes back the same. Speaking of avatar stuff...

2. The removal of an avatars journey

This one is hard, because I understand why they did this but also removing it took a lot away from what made avatar so good. I think they removed the journey as to not just repeat the structure of the OG show, they didn’t want to seem like it was just Ctrl+ v with a new lead. But a big part of ATLA’s charm came from the world building , expescially since it drew so much from different parts of Asia and other groups, making a fantasy world with that backing and exploring it was SO cool. In Korra most of the show is set in Republic city, they leave a couple times to visit the various bending nations but they always go back to that damn city. I don’t hate the idea of modernizing bending, I wouldn’t place a show there but the thoughts are cool. Stuff like electric benders being 9-5 workers is funny and pro bending is an interesting thought but I think the overall setting is...tired. I have read/seen so many pieces of media set in either 1920s America or INSPIRED by 1920s America it isn’t even funny. It was an aesthetic time that’s for sure but I have seen it before and I’ll see it another million times. I don’t know why they would take a fairly unique setting and make a mainstream, Americanized version of it that is arguably more boring and less compelling. But this point is supposed to be about the avatar journey I hear you say and yourre right. The lack of a journey adds to the boredom, in ATLA they could continually have new locations and new people to keep the interest of that episode because they were almost always on the move. In Korra everything comes back to republic city, I got bored of looking at those city streets after the first season! Plus I think Korra as a character could have really benefited from a journey of her own, less focused on bending and more on connecting with the people she’s supposed to protect. In my dream version of this show, Korra gets knocked down but tenzin or smth and as a last ditch effort he sends her on a shorter version of the avatars journey to help her connect with the people and the spiritual realm. She could bring her merry band of idiots (except you bolin) and they could bond over their travels, learn about each other and actually have some meaningful conversations outside the parameters of the weird love thing they all have going on. We could see an updated but familiar world space, run into some familiar places and get into plenty of trouble and Korra could really bond with her people. Learn that understanding and listening are important skills for the avatar to have just as much as bending all four elements. It could all culminate in a trip to an air temple, she could speak her piece in a cool but honest rant about herself and her life and maybe as she leaves the wind could pick up and it would just...click. She would get her air bending in a hopefully more satisfying way than what was shown in the show,speaking of...

3.Changing up the bending/AS . Listen the way the treat bending in Korra is so fucking weird. 1st of all I cannot come up with any reason why a 5 year old Korra would be able to bend 3/4 elements. The thing about bending is that it is a lot harder than some of the characters make it seem (because they are all using their skills at an extremely high level) part of bending is innate skill, that’s true but you would be awful at it if you only relied on instinct. Take Katara from season 1 of ATLA, she can bend of course but it’s shaky and poorly balanced, she can’t do it for long and can barely move any water. This is because she has never been properly taught, once she gets some teaching she becomes one of the best waterbenders in existence, it took training to get her there. So I could buy (kind of) baby Korra bending them innatly when she is found by the white lotus, but a 5 year old who has only ever interacted with water benders should be bending all the elements as if they were water. Bending is all very different, each form is based on a different form of martial arts. The styles are different and require different points of concentration and movements to execute properly. Our little tyke is seemingly doing actually fire/earth moves...now where the hell did she learn those?? Anyway continuing into probably my biggest gripe with Korra is the treatment of Air bending. I like the fact that it is emphasized how much of air bending is about spirituality, more so than other bending forms. I like the struggle there for Korra. But I feel like she never actually listens to Tenzin, never admits he is right and takes on his teachings properly. She ignores his advice and fucks of during training (which is very Korra behavior) but there is never a point when she has to listen to him. She gets all her bending taken in another form of pain porn and when she gets it back, instead of having her realize how much her bending means to her and finally fucking listening to Tenzin and learning air bending the real way, she just goes into the avatar state (which is the least satisfying version of that display) and just...has airbending. And now for my last point, wtf was up with the avatar state?? In ATLA the AS was a dangerous state to be in for Aang and everyone around him, it caused him to lose control, kick ass yes, but lose his sense of self and him struggling with those complicated feelings about his biggest trump card was amazing. Korra however uses hers to beat children in racing games...I am not joking. They toned down its abilities so that Korra could use it more often but not beat the crap out of everyone... you could have just not had her use it for stupid reasons and kept it a power level at 3000?? Like why? Why does the fucking avatar need to have weakened avatar state so she can use it more often, should she be powerful enough on her own?? Maybe it could be harder for her to activate (because Korra does seem like the type to use it too often) maybe she has to talk to her past lives to figure out why she’s having such a hard time using it and it’s revealed that Aang in specific locked it away because she couldn’t be trusted. It could be a whole thing!! But no she just uses for stupid shit and never learns...

So that’s the end of my rant, 3 things I could get behind in theory that, in my opinion, they handled pretty horribly. If you like Korra, that’s great! Tbh I’m kinda jealous, I wish I could enjoy it more because I love ATLA it was a huge part of my childhood and I’d love to have more of that world. I have so many other feelings on Korra if anyone cares. Like the romance fucking with the show, the half assed rep, explaining the magic, side characters being wet paper towels with 1 character trait or Bolin being highkey romantically abused and no one caring but that’s for a different extremely long tumblr post.

[peek-mag]

Sex, Lies and Stereotypes: Week of 10/29

Thoughts, notes and links to things read, worn and watched this week.

As NY grapples with the aftermath of the largest terror attack since 9/11, and a new sexual assault allegation seems to appear every time I hit refresh on the browser, this week I’m brought round to the age old question… why are men trash?

• “Netflix Suspends House of Cards” - NY Times

• “Top NPR accused of Sexual Assault While at the New York Times - NY Times

• “In a Superstar Economy, a Bull Market in Superstar Harassers” - NY Times

It’s not an oversimplification to say that mass acts of violence and terror are nearly always enacted by men. Nor is it naive of me to predict that we won’t find many women on the predator side of these evolving sexual assault cases.

What is it about the gender that makes them–as a generalization– violent, angry and prone to grope, corner, and proposition? I’m of the belief that the hand that grabs ‘em by the pussy is the same hand to detonate the bomb. To pull the trigger.

• “Trump’s Female Accusers Feel Forgotten. A Lawsuit May Change That.” – NY Times

Sex is the first thing, as humans, that divides us – before class, color and creed. And until we heal the earth of patriarchy, until the true equality of the sexes (in social, economic and political spaces) humans will continue to be our own biggest threat to survival.

The wisest woman on this subject, to me, continues to be Miss Virginia Woolf, who in her 1929 essay “A Room of One’s Own” offers the following as she seeks to understand the sentiment of anger she observes from the scholar and the patriarch, both arguing the inferiority of the female sex:

“Possibly when the professor insisted a little too emphatically upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority, but with his own superiority. That was what he was protecting rather hot-headedly and with too much emphasis, because it was a jewel to him of the rarest price. Life for both sexes is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to one self. By feeling that one has some innate superiority—it may be wealth, or rank, a straight nose—for there is no end to the pathetic devices of the human imagination—over other people. Hence the enormous importance to a patriarch who has to conquer, who has to rule, of feeling that great numbers of people, half the human race indeed, are by nature inferior to himself. It must indeed be one of the chief sources of his power…Under the spell of that illusion, I thought, looking out of the window, half the people on the pavement are striding to work. They put on their hats and coats in the morning under its agreeable rays. They start the day confident, braced, believing themselves desired; they say to themselves as they go into the room, I am the superior of half the people here, and it is thus that they speak with that self-confidence, that self-assurance, which have had such profound consequences in public life and lead to such curious notes in the margin of the private mind.”

Were I dictator (as I often daydream to be) A Room of One’s Own would be required reading. I urge you to at least digest chapter two, which is where the quote from above, and many more artfully articulated arguments of Woolf’s, can be found.

• “A Room of One’s Own: Chapter Two″ - ebooks

If it’s hitting you that this essay from the 20s feels like it could be a modern Jezebel think piece, now may be a good time to channel that rage into concentrated reading of the latest from The Cut’s advice columnist Heather Havrilesky:

• “Ask Polly: I Hate Men” - The Cut

Taken with Heather? Samesies. Her latest novel is a collection of fan favorites and never before published essays from her beloved advice column Dear Polly. Freshly checked out from the Brooklyn Public Library, but should you find yourself compelled, Amazon link below:

• “How to be a Person in the World” - Heather Havrilesky

While eagerly awaiting your new parcel, pop in two earbuds and listen to the Fresh Air interview with New York Times columnist Lindy West, who covers feminist issues and body positivity.

• Columnist Lindy West Sees ‘Straight Line’ From Trolls Who Targeted Her To Trump - NPR

But! I’m never one to dwell in the negative. A perpetual optimist (especially after a few glasses of Chardonnay) I do have faith that we are, more or less, heading in the right direction. Should we collectively find the ability to look inwards, understand ourselves and the larger function we serve in a cosmic ecosystem, we may just be alright.

I return faithfully to spiritual principles that have always guided me. Sometimes it’s the connection you feel to something much grander and eternal to yourself that puts you in your place.

Typically October/November signal the creep of seasonal depression for me, a spring baby, who only feels truly alive half-naked and under the sun. But something about this November feels…energizing.

If you’re curious about the cosmic current running through month I suggest the following:

• “Mystic Mama Theme for November: Turning the Soil”

“When one has focused only on what is seen and shows up on the surface, what is beneath that surface becomes less and less fertile as time goes on. This month is it time to dig down deep and turn up what is underneath, bring it to the surface, inspect it, break it up, feed it, aerate it and fertilize it in preparation for new seeds.”

And if mystic ju-ju isn’t your vibe, may I prescribe some retail therapy?

A couple good buys this week were the perfect Halloween treat for a hard-working, independent twenty-something ;)

• MIU MIU Eau de Parfum

• J Crew lodge coat in vibrant flame

• Marc Jacobs Beauty Velvet Noir Major Volume Mascara

Not in the shopping spirit? Maybe you just suck at it. Best brush up your skills as the holiday season is fast upon us.

• Why are we so Bad at Shopping?” - The School of Life

And, as all bad bitches must do, I will now ride out to a soundtrack of funky noise.

THIS WEEK’S VIBE

• My boy, Billy Eilish

• Second Nature, Stalking Gia

• La Luz, Coastal

Peace, love and an educated electorate.

Yours, 

Nomi 

[hooryayy]

TWO YEARS TO THE DAY LATER and I am finally ready to share the story of when I fangirled hard enough to Edward James Olmos that he gave me a free autographed photo of him and Mary McDonnell

So this might get a tad longish, so I’ll be under a cut, but here is a brief summary: a Trump supporter pissed me off so much that despite me being high as heck on adderall, I had to go talk to EJO

In July 2015 I got my then romantic partner and his roommate to watch BSG with me so when I found out EJO was going to be at San Jose Comic Con in August, it only took a little bit of pestering to get them on board.

It was a 2-day convention and my always broke ass had to work late Friday night so we were only going to make it for half of the first day. Saturday morning rolls around and the boys are tripping out because our usual drug guy fell through. It was kind of a ritual for us to pick up some uppers anytime we went out of town, and tbh we were all heavily drug dependent back in those days SO you bet we took 2 extra hours to pop in and out of the city to pick up.

Finally dosed and got on our way, hit the usual weekend bay area traffic and arrived to the con at 3pm. We walked in and the line to meet this guy stretched wall to wall and I was immediately intimidated and tried to walk back out lmao. An announcement was made that they were ending for the day at 4, so I felt a lot less pressured to overcome my anxiety yet. Spent that hour in Star Trek collectors heaven though..

Rest of the eve/night we spent doing things GROWN ASS ADULTS shouldn’t be doing like sneaking into mini-golf and climbing trees with bottles of Jack and hot-boxing our hotel room while watching the series finale of Hannibal...

OK so Sunday. This was my day. We were having breakfast at the Red Robin in Morgan Hill with all the white families that just got done with church, the three of us doubled-down on 60 extended (okay this is a pretty big dose) and I’m starting to get anxious again (with or without the drugs it wouldn’t have mattered) like “I’m not/I can’t meet this guy, I don’t know how to approach him or even what to say blah blah blah” and the boys are getting mad at me because I talked about this for weeks (and planned what i wanted to say) and I’m being lame and I’ll be fine..

We show up to day 2, 12pm.. and literally no one is in line and now I am hella freaking the fuck out because literally it is only me that is stopping this from happening. My friend immediately walks up and shakes his hand and chats for a second and comes back and says the obvious that he is a nice dude, and I am like frozen, second hand embarrassment even though nothing bad happened. But my scared ass walks to the exact opposite corner of the building to slowly browse and psyche myself up for this.

so I got sucked in to this guy’s 90s scifi trading card collection, specifically the x-files binders lol and then he starts to make small talk and stuff, he asks what I study. OK I studied Political Science and Religious Studies, and it LITERALLY does not matter which answer I give it always starts something. but I choose the easier one and say politics.. and hooo boy

This fucker just goes off on me, saying shit like how stupid and lazy my generation is and that we don’t work hard, are entitled and have no idea how the real world works (the usual propaganda), and if we did we would be thinking about voting for Trump in the 2016 election (mind you this was VERY early on where Trump was still considered a joke even to the republicans)

Remember I am HIGH AS Shit. I am 2000% extra aware of and feeling the aggressive and hateful energy coursing through my veins from this interaction. Now Im sure he said other things I don’t remember because all I could do is focus on my breathing as to not get manipulated into whatever space this guy was trying to create but I heard a break in his rant, looked up, smiled and said “Thanks for sharing your collection with me” and dipped for the back exit to smoke 18 cigarettes.

Here is where I am letting myself get fucking pissed off, pacing and chain smoking. Neither of the boys are answering their phones. Then I realized how badass I was just then, and proud of myseelf for spiritually blocking out a nazi (again this is before they identified as such and punching them was a thing). I was like if I can handle this asshole, I can go meet Edward James Fucking Olmos no. problem.

I march back in and go straight to his table but then I took a detour to sit in a white folding chair about 20 feet away for 25 minutes first. Eventually one of his security dudes comes up to me and is like “Are you waiting for an autograph?” and I’m like “no, but I do want to talk to him for a minute if that is possible”

The guy asks for my name and we walk up to EJO together and he goes “This is Amy. She would like to talk with you.” And now I am realizing that everyone here is trying to gauge how severe my social handicap is.. but he puts out his hand to shake

“Hi, I am Ed.” I shook his hand!!

“I’m Amy. I just had the most awful interaction with a Trump supporter here so Im a little put off. He kept telling me how stupid me and my generation are and it makes me very grateful that you are a humanist and philanthropist. I’d recently watched the UN Panel and you talked about the invention of race as a tool for genocide and it means so much to me that you would use your voice and influence on that platform to address these kinds of things...”

and I trail off cuz Im about to ramble and shit and I noticed how he was just taking everything I said very seriously, like wasn’t expecting any of that at all. HE pauses and looks back up at me and says how special that panel was to him, that he’ll never do something as important again in his life. Then he asks me where I go to school and what I study, so I tell him and he is impressed with all the creds. Asks me if I am planning on going into politics.

“Not in the public sense. I want to do policy research targeting intersections of poverty, race, and education” And I swear to god his eyes snap up so fast to meet mine, like he is in admiral mode here and I am captivated. Straight in the eyes to me he goes

“We need you. All of us needs you up there doing that, fighting for that, for us. I have a feeling we are about to enter some tough times. I can tell you are special and it takes special people to make things happen”

I said thank you but I am about to burst into tears. I mean we all know this but let me reinforce it.. Ed is such an intense human and I had all 100% of this guy in my presence, overwhelmingly so, and I am mostly shook because he literally had no obligation to say anything. This guy fucking met me 5 minutes ago but he is ready to say that, and I sense he isn’t the kind of guy to just say shit. Also I AM STILL VERY HIGH lets not forget

So I change the subject because that other stuff is getting too intense for me, and I switch over to BSG lol and I ask him about Adama’s tendency to punish himself physically when he feels he has played some role in pain or negativity coming into his loved ones’ lives. He talks particularly about Adama’s alcoholism in season 4 and how he approached it as a combo of punishment and escapism (which let me tell you is..accurate). He finishes up his answer and all of a sudden I fucking blurt out for some ungodly fucking reason

“I love you and Mary, you are so cute together, I hope to meet her too”

Mortified. I am overstepping boundaries. I am dying inside and I can’t believe I got 3 thoughts out before I stopped.

He smiles and giggles and grabs this pic to sign for me for freeee and says “I hope you will too”

Amy- all of my love to you.

Like is that something he would normally sign for someone? Is that something anyone would sign to a random fan?

Anyways he gave it to me, I said thanks and I literally ran out of the convention clutching this picture to my chest and sat down against the building and started crying of the ultimate level embarrassment I could personally possibly be on. My boys find me and laugh at me and I cried the whole way home.

I still get major embarrassment even today just thinking about this interaction, no matter how well it turned out and how much of an impact EJO had on me.

Feels good to finally share my story in its entirety!! Thanks for reading

[ruchalus]

Vent post time woo~ (just scroll past this)

Sometimes there’s just no arguing with my mom. She starts yelling at me like its my fault she can’t find her social security card for her job orientation. Is it MY fault you were on Facebook nonstop for several hours straight making political posts? Would taking 10 minutes away from Facebook hurt you so you can get your things together ahead of time? If I know I have an important thing coming up, I keep track of what time it head of time so I can jus and have it packed up ahead of time so I can just pick it up and go when I need to. How am I supposed to know where your things are in your files? How am I supposed to know when your things are at? You don’t tell me these things, don’t yell at me like its my fault.

Yes, I understand the kitchen is a mess and I’m fully aware that its my doing. I was going to clean it. I’ve been cleaning the kitchen all day yesterday as I was working, why would I stop now? You know just as well as I do that its been a very tough week since we almost became homeless. I. am. tired. Stressful events like these are extremely draining for me. Not just mentally but physically. As I went to clean up the kitchen, I sat down on the couch for a minute to find someone ton tv to watch while washing the dishes and ended up falling asleep right there. I’m sorry but I am still tired much like you.

I know I’m not the most organized person but one reason I don’t always get on it is because I always feel I can’t do it in peace when you’re home. I feel like I’m always being watched and judged. I don’t ever leave my room because you have a history of going through my things snooping around. I’d hate to break it to you but not everything is Grijalva’s fault. Not everything is the government,illegal immigrants, isis or some other conspiracy theory’s fault.

I tell you day after day after TO NOT TALK TO ME ABOUT POLITICS!!! IT HAS DRIVEN ME TO MENTAL MELTDOWNS BEFORE LIKE THAT TIME A FEW YEARS BACK WHEN YOU THOUGHT MICHELLE OBAMA WAS A TRANS PERSON AND YOU THOUGHT POORLY PHOTOSHOPPED LIZARD EYES ON OBAMA WAS PROOF HE WAS A REPTILIAN!

Honestly, what fucking difference would it make in the alternate universe if Michelle Obama was a trans person? It would make no fucking difference. You tell me you’re in the middle but to everyone else you say you’re conservative? WHICH IS IT?! I asked you ahead of time to not bring up politics at the birthday party to my nephew. Because one time a while back when you saw him, you kept asking him if they were trying to teach him about converting to islam at his school because of some conspiracy theory you read online that said muslims were infiltrating the american education system.

If you want any hope of patching things up with Gabe and Anjelica, you need self control. You have to actively think about avoiding these topics until it becomes habit. You’re free to talk about politics but you need to realize that your children HATE talking about it. It’s not Grijalva’s fault gregory lost his job at the bookstore. He doesn’t have spies and people working for him everywhere, maybe its because the bookstore hasn’t exactly treated him well before in the past?

I just want to go one day where we go out for something be it groceries, errands, etc and you DON”T bring up politics, trump, obama, etc. YOU NEED TO REALIZE WORLD'S”S WOES AREN’T THE FAULT OF  ONE ENTITY WHEN YOU NEED TO REALIZE ITS A BUNCH OF VARIOUS FACTORS OF VARIOUS SIZES INTERRELATING AND INTERCONNECTING THAT FUCKS THINGS UP IN THE WORLD.

I can’t tell her any of this because apparently, feelings outweigh logic and reason. She will often think that she’s right because G_d told her so or if she’s losing an argument she’ll just start saying that we’re ungrateful children, she sacrificed so much, etc etc. YOU WERE LEGALLY REQUIRED TO TAKE CARE OF US WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN!!!. 

There are many people out in the world who are self proclaimed prophets and do crazy things because they say G_d told them so. Just to clarify, I believe in G_d but I don’t look into this spiritual stuff because I work better with precise answers to things rather than saying “demons did it”.

I really wish I had more friends in real life that I could roommate with so I can just move out into a 2 bedroom apartment but I don’t know anyone. I’d say it would be a good deal for them because I’m legally disabled with autism, I by default bring in 750 a month which would be good for rent, bills, etc. Well, I only get 750 when I move out but w/e... I feel I could be more at peace if I lived alone or lived with someone that uses logic and reason over feelings and instincts.

Despite all this, I love my mom and I know she’s a good person who we could always turn to if we’re in a time of need. She’s one of the most caring people I know and would do anything to help her kids but she can be really fucking overbearing and pushy.