#but now i realise how many bad rabbit holes i almost went down due to black and white thinking

[wild-at-mind]

Tumblr moves so fast, and rewrites its history so fast, I just can’t keep up. What I mean is, the whole debate about the word queer used to have people who were really, really pro trans and often trans themselves on the side of ‘please don’t call me queer’ and ‘I have concerns that this umbrella term may be used to conceal differences in our marginilisation’. Or even just ‘if you like the term qu**r you must be a white bigot because it’s a slur!’ (With this one I have a specific person in mind, a trans woman who is a youtuber and twitter commentator, who I won’t name but if I say she made a very famous video essay about SU then you will probably know who it is. She used to often say things like this, to the point that the SU video essay even blocks out the word queer in an image of different identifiers that she uses to illustrate an unrelated point. I believe her neuroatypicality makes her fixate very strongly on issues in a black and white way, so that may explain her stance on a number of issues, and if she doesn’t think this way any more she certainly did a few years ago.)

I’ve been there for years of this endless debate happening on tumblr and don’t recognise the version a lot of people are talking about. I feel like my head is on backwards when people essentially use the argument ‘well TERFs hate the term queer so......you’d better start liking it’. I feel like some people who are queer agnostic will say ‘ok say no more!’ to this argument because they don’t want to be like TERFs, but it’s not actually a good pro-queer stance, it’s manipulation, in the same way as that one (pro-trans btw) communist blogger on here used to yell that anyone who liked the term queer must be middle class, educated, and have never faced any real hardship in their lives. Being faced with manipulative language like this, a lot of people will change their views, but it’s not particularly fair, especially when you weaponise the ways people really want to do the right thing by other marginilised groups against them.

It’s very easy to say ‘well don’t listen to their manipulation, listen to MY manipulation because I’m right!’ It would be harder but ultimately more honest to use real arguments. If someone doesn’t like something you do like, or vice versa, they are probably just someone with a different opinion formed by their different set of life experiences (used in a morally neutral way not a ‘maybe you/they are overly privileged!’ way). I don’t read people like the above two examples who use manipulation and social justice language like this any more, because I realised that I didn’t have to in order to be a good social justice person who listens to marginilised people. (FYI that idea also from tumblr, for a long time it was very un-nuanced and also gave the strong impression that the more uncomfortable a marginilised person’s writing makes you, the better, leading those who were more exrtreme in their views to get more airtime.)

Let’s not forget the history of emotive writing on tumblr used to manipulate. Let’s do better.

[dailydnp]

Daniel Howell on Depression and How to Get Through The Night

Daniel Howell is the YouTube star breaking boundaries about depression, who has now released a book to help people with mental health issues.

Daniel Howell is one of the most popular YouTubers out there, with millions of followers and a refreshing line in self-deprecating humour that has made him stood out from much of the braggadocio on that channel. He is also someone who dared to go beyond the jokes and gaming on his channel to reveal his battles with depression to his young audience a few years ago, producing a huge response from people. Now he has written a book about mental health, called ‘You Will Get Through This Night’. A mix of information, advice and laughs, the book is a welcome addition to the elevation of mental health as a national issue, and it manages to be so in a way that is going to connect brilliantly with young people. We grabbed a word with Daniel over Zoom to find out more about it…

When did you decided to write the book and what was the process like?

It was a very serendipitous journey I never planned. All this talking about myself and mental health, and sharing these quite intimate details about my own life, was never the plan. I started my career trying to be funny, just being a clown on the internet, but as time went on two things happened: one, a sense of responsibility creeping up on me where I realised anyone with a platform has an impact on people, and even if you think you’re just being funny, if you do share yourself, people relate to you and you end up resonating with them on some level.

Also just for me, I have always been so career focused, I’m one of those guys that pushes their well being to the back, and after years of me doing that it just got to the point where I couldn’t do it anymore. It was not only affecting my ability to be good at my job, and be friends with people and nice to be around, but creatively it was this real hump where I felt like if I don’t sort my life out, and get on top of these problems that I know are lurking behind me, I’m not going to be able to go forwards.

It was that which led me to talk about my experiences with depression in that YouTube video ‘Daniel and Depression’ that I uploaded in 2017, and that was a huge moment for me. Even five years ago, there was such a taboo around mental health. These days people go, ‘ aren’t we all open about mental health now?’ but just five years ago, it was a completely different world. I thought me bringing up a word like depression would destroy my career. ‘Are people not going to want to work with me? Are my friends going to think I’m strange?’

But I was honestly surprised, for the first time in my life, by the reaction I got from humanity. Because my upbringing led me to being very cynical, to be very defensive and to protect my vulnerability. Actually when I shared something that was so raw, people appreciated it. On some level people were like, wow you articulating it made me understand something I didn’t get about myself, or my mum’s been through this and I finally get it, or now I know what my friends are going through.

When you open yourself up, despite the fear, people appreciate it because this is how people think and feel. We’re all vulnerable, we’re all trying to protect ourselves, we’re all putting on this front, focusing on our careers, pushing everything to the background; but then it’s a truth that when you open up about how you really feel, not only is that a weight lifted for you but it lets other people in.

Then I became the mental health guy. I didn’t ask for it, it became my thing.

The book always had the question of what it might be. People always want to write their life stories, but firstly my entire life story is already out there on the internet, it was there in real time. I thought if I’m going to do this, I want to do a mental health book that just gets straight to the point, it’s not going to be too scientific, it’s not going to be too spiritual or flowery, it’s going to give you the information you need, the tools, the tips, the life hacks, the stuff that science has shown will make a difference, as bare as we can, in bullet point form. And then my job is to make it stupid and funny by using myself as a punching bag doing everything wrong in terms of managing your mental health. For me it’s the book I wish I had five, ten years ago.

Was putting it together enjoyable, once you’d given yourself permission to have fun with it?

Yeah writing a book and collating all these life saving tips on mental health, was good for me. The process of writing the book was like reading it. I needed the experience of putting it together so I could learn from it myself.

What I’ve learnt from just being funny is it’s a bit of an excuse to give yourself therapy. You’ve set yourself the task of telling this story, making this point or joke about something, and in the process of trying to find out whatever this point or joke you’re making, there’s a bit of a moment of self reflection in there.

So it’s fun to have an excuse to tell a story and be funny but for me it’s been emotionally cathartic too.

What are the main things you learned or that even changed you?

One thing was the 360 around your lifestyle. The book is structured practically into 3 parts. The first part is what are things you can do right now to change the way you feel, the second is lifestyle, what changes can you make, and then the third part is looking deeper, at more long term things about readjusting your mindset and working out what makes you as a person.

The process of going through the lifestyle for me felt a bit like a roast. Things like the importance of your social life, the importance of your nutrition, the importance of how often you move, and it was very difficult to be aware of what might just be my personality and preference. I’m an introvert, I’m a bit of a nerd, I like to stay inside, I don’t like to party a lot, and I just learned that if you don’t go jogging you’re going to have more anxiety than someone who doesn’t. It was good to have all that shown up.

A nugget that was quite profound is that you can always change the way that you feel. I was always having days where I was really stressed from what I was working on, or a period where I’d be really depressed, and sometime I would wake up and immediately know I’m not having a good mental health day. When I’m not going to be able to perform, I’m not going to be a very helpful friend. I just used to say to myself ‘this day is a write off’. But what I learned from this book is you can change how you feel by doing something. Your activity directly influences how you feel.

It got rid of the excuses because sometimes it was like, ‘I’m having a bad day I simply cannot do that task’  when you probably can. It’s empowering for yourself to say, ‘Actually if I eat something, if I get a change of scenery, if I talk to someone, if I problem solve to question my thoughts and readjust my mindset, you can change how you think and feel on any day.

With mental health so many people ego through their life thinking it’s this weird mysterious fog that they can’t impact on. Sometimes you feel bad and there’s nothing you can do about it. But actually we’re just weird hairless apes, we’re not that complicated, and there are little things we can do to snap ourselves out of it.

How do you think it’ll fit into the current times?

The idea that this book is coming out when our society is opening up again is almost a divine intervention! There is literally no better time to sort your life out. We’ve all gone through so much, this collective trauma, and the dent to our lifestyles and ability to self-care. Not only have we had all the joy ripped away from us, but people haven’t been able to go to the gym, to get support from friends, and this is a new chapter for everybody.

I’m seeing it as: can take this next step and not fall back into bad habits? This is a good time to put a pole in the ground and move forward in a good direction.

What are the key things you’ll be taking forward?

It’s not just the lifestyle stuff, it’s also about mindset changes. I’m a worrier, one of these people that thinks myself into oblivion. It means I’m analytical but I’m not very present, I spend a lot of time in my head prophesising my own doom. One of the things in the book is realising that you are not your thoughts. If you get a negative thought in your head actually that’s just your brain’s suggestion that you should feel stress about this, that and the other but we don’t have to stay fixated on these worries.

I’ve spent the last ten years in therapy, deeply going into myself asking questions about authenticity, confronting my sexuality, but also it’s been about just day-to-day having a better relationship with my own mind. That when I get these emotions that want to spiral into a panic, or make me feel very stressed, just to talk back to myself with the right attitude and say I don’t need to go down this rabbit hole due to this thought. I can just acknowledge it was an idea my brain had to think about and I can choose to do whatever I want with it. I can choose to solve the problem and break it down, I can ask for help I can give myself a reality check, or I can just acknowledge the thought and say ‘No thank you I’m going to do something else with my day.’

Back to the first depression video – are you aware of the difference between you then and now?

It’s profound, I would say me aged 26 was someone who didn’t question anything. You think you have a career priority and if I have any emotional baggage, it’s just not important right now.

Obviously there was the huge issue of my sexuality which had a huge impact on my mental health. My entire life story from childhood to how I was perceived as a public figure, how I operated day to day, and even my acceptance of a thing that I knew was true deep inside me, I had an incredibly toxic view of that at the time. I needed to understand it. I went to therapy and learned a lot about the way I would talk to myself, the way I would beat myself down and tell myself that things are the way they are and there’s nothing I can do about it. I should tolerate certain situations, and that was all wrong, so I’ve become much better at being fair to myself. Accepting my own vulnerability instead of building up a huge wall; letting it down, being honest with myself which is important if you ever want to change anything for the better. Also you get closer to other people when you feel like they can really see you.

How have conceptions of masculinity affected that?

The whole concept of masculinity was huge in my life. I had a very macho dad, he didn’t emote, he didn’t share anything, it was all jokes and all on the outside. I got to 16, 17, that age when you notice adults for the first time and cotton on to it. I could see the pain he was going through but he didn’t want to confront it. I also went to an all-boys school where there’s no vulnerability, you can’t give a small opening for someone to jab a compass in. That was the culture that shaped me. That continued into my late twenties when I had the moment when I realised being honest with yourself about something going wrong is bravery. It’s not weak to admit vulnerability if it’s going to help you grow. It’s not a sign of weakness to go to the uncomfortable place. Life is a series of uncomfortable obstacles that you put off, but every single time you go over them, you look back and go, ‘oh why did I waste so much time not doing that sooner?’

Is masculinity shifting do you think?

Definitely, roles in society have been so Neanderthal. If you have a personality with a stiff upper lip and it works, good for you, but someone else may feel pressured to hold things in and eventually they’re going to crack. It’s ok to ask for help and to let go of that, that’s what we’re learning in society. Conversations in mental health are so much more normal. There’s a long way to go in terms of judgment and misunderstandings, but I hope the book will spell it out for a lot of people. The book has been fact checked by a psychological professional, Dr Heather Bolton and all of the advice in the book is from evidence based practices that have been shown to have a good effect. It’s not just a nice sounding idea. We all have that friend on Instagram who’s like, ‘Positivity! Yeah here we go!’ And you go, ‘Wow that image had great graphic design it must be true.’ No it isn’t. So we’re in an age of people opening up but there’s also a lot of nonsense on Facebook so when we’re thinking about how we feel and making changes to our lives, we need to trust the experts.

[occasionaltouhou]

i had to look up gardening tips on the internet for this. i don’t think i actually ended up using any of them either

Youmu had only been to Eientei a few times, so she was surprised when a youkai rabbit came into the depths of the Netherworld to invite her to visit. But whether due to curiosity or politeness, she wasn’t the type to refuse, so she followed the rabbit back into the world of the living, through the Bamboo Forest, until she came upon the house hidden away in its depths.

Two of its residents were waiting for her -- Yagokoro Eirin, a tall woman with a deceptively youthful face, dressed in her usual red and black; and Reisen Udongein Inaba, a much shorter woman with long violet hair, currently dressed in a long, dull brown dress with specks of dirt across its surface.

Eirin smiled at her as she approached, then nodded at Reisen. “Udonge here was wondering if you could assist her with a project of hers.”

“A project…?” repeated Youmu.

“We’ve been trying to grow trees from the Lunar Capital,” explained Reisen. “But… not very successfully. Lady Eirin, are you sure--”

“The Netherworld and the Capital are both Pure Lands, even if the Capital is merely an artificial one,” interrupted Eirin calmly. “In lieu of taking the seeds to the Netherworld and attempting to grow them there, the more reasonable course of action is to bring its gardener here and see if she has any advice. Now, I’ll leave you to it, Udonge. It’s your project, after all.” She nodded at Youmu once again, and then walked back inside, leaving the two of them staring at each other awkwardly.

The most words that Youmu had ever exchanged with Reisen was probably during their first meeting, in which she and her Lady Yuyuko had come to restore the full moon that Eientei had stolen. It was a simple matter of necessity -- outside of parties, which the residents of Eientei rarely attended anyway, they only really entered the village to sell medicine; and the residents of the Netherworld naturally had no need for medicine.

After a moment, Reisen said, “Well, if you’ll follow me,” and began to walk around Eientei, Youmu following. She led her around to a small clearing behind the mansion, where a pair of plots had been dug into the ground. Small signs in a language Youmu couldn’t read stuck out of the dirt, but nothing else was growing.

Reisen sighed. “We got a bunch of seeds from the Capital a few years back, but they haven’t been growing…” she said. “We even tried using soil from the-- Hey!”

Youmu had walked over to one of the plots and, before Reisen realised what she was doing, stuck her arm straight into the dirt next to one of the signs, and pulled out a perfectly intact seed. It was almost completely round, and a dull silvery colour that sparkled in what little sunlight penetrated this far into the Forest.

“Seeds from the Moon…” murmured Youmu, and then placed it gently back on top of the dirt. “How many are there…?”

Reisen blinked at her in disbelief. “Uh… ten. Five on each side.”

Youmu sat down on the rough ground looking at the two bare rectangles of dirt. “We need better soil…” she said quietly. “There’s not enough life in the soil.”

“Enough life…?” repeated Reisen.

Youmu nodded. “I don’t think these are going to grow without a lot of life energy, and there isn’t much of that around Eientei… But if we could get some soil from the Garden of the Sun, and bring along some fairies, that should help a lot…” She blinked, and stared up at Reisen. “We need to take the seeds out before we can dig up the soil.”

Reisen blinked back at her, and then nodded. “Do you want me to go get a shovel, or…?”

“I don’t know where the other seeds are,” said Youmu. “So, um, I was hoping you could do that, and I’ll ask… if you told me you wanted me to help with this, I’d have brought my own tools…”

“We did tell the rabbit we sent to get you,” remarked Reisen, “but it seems like she forgot.”

“Ah…”

---

It took a few minutes for Youmu to gather all of Eientei’s gardening tools together and carry them, but by the time she was done Reisen was carefully extracting the last of the Moon seeds. They sat in a small heap on top of the dirt where Youmu had placed the first of them; and from a distance the pale silver seeds seemed more like tiny moons than anything else.

Youmu gently moved them off the dirt and onto the ground next to them, then handed Reisen one of the larger shovels she had been able to find, and they began digging, each to their own plot.

“So when did you get these…?” asked Youmu, as they dug.

“Oh, uh, Lady Sagume gave them to me,” replied Reisen. “During the aftermath of the Urban Legend incident, I went back up to the Capital for… reasons… and I was given these as a reward. A reminder of home, I suppose.”

Youmu frowned. “Why didn’t you stay there, then?”

“It’s not really my home anymore,” said Reisen quietly. “Eientei is. Gensokyo is. The Lunar Capital… isn’t where I belong anymore.”

Youmu was quiet.

“Have you lived in the Netherworld your entire life?” asked Reisen after a while.

“Huh? Uh, yes!” The question took Youmu by surprise, and she swung her shovel out too early, throwing the dirt behind her into the excavated section of her plot. As she resumed her rhythm, tidying up the pile she’d created, she continued, “I’ve been there my entire life… I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, though. I don’t know how you did it.”

Reisen frowned, more to herself than to Youmu. “I only came down to Earth because I was a coward. I heard the Wakatsukis talking about an invasion, and thought I was going to have to fight. It’s what we were trained for, but when it came down to it…”

Youmu was silent again for a long while, but just as Reisen was about to start another conversation, the half-phantom spoke.

“If you like it more here then it must have been worth it, though.”

Reisen laughed quietly. “It was, I suppose. It’s just a bit embarrassing. At least the Moon rabbits that came after me have an excuse. All I can really say is that I got here first.”

Youmu didn’t reply to that either, but Reisen was beginning to understand that when she went quiet, it wasn’t because she didn’t have anything to say -- rather, she was quietly thinking to herself about the best way to say things. If she was half-baked, it was only because people didn’t give her enough time.

They continued to dig, until they’d dug rectangular holes roughly a foot deep.

“Aren’t these too deep…?” asked Reisen, climbing out. “I thought you should only plant seeds a little bit so that they can catch the Sun…”

Youmu shook her head. “We don’t have any trays, so we’re planting them directly. But we’ll be using soil from the Garden of the Sun, and that should infuse it with enough life energy to get them sprouting. We just need to make sure that the roots can get a lot of that soil before they get into Eientei’s.”

“Is it really that bad?”

Youmu nodded without looking up at her. Then, she pulled herself out of her own hole, dusted herself off, and looked up at the sky. The Sun was hanging high above them, its rays barely piercing the thick bamboo that clustered around Eientei.

“We should get going…” she said. “It’ll take some time to get to the Garden and get what we need…” She suddenly looked around. “Do you have a wheelbarrow?”

“We’re doing that today?” asked Reisen. It’s not that she was tired, but she’d been expecting Youmu to get the soil the next day, or something like that.

Youmu frowned at her. “I can’t leave Lady Yuyuko for too long,” she said. “And I have my own responsibilities, too.”

Reisen nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, then.”

---

In the end, she managed to find a large empty bathtub, and, with the help of a few of the other youkai rabbits, placed it on top of one of Kaguya’s Moon Exploration Vehicles and dragged it with Youmu to the Garden.

When they returned to Eientei, with a bathtub full of top-quality soil, and trailed by a handful of curious fairies, the Sun was already beginning to vanish behind the mountains that surrounded Gensokyo.

And they began to shovel again.

“What makes this dirt so much better than the dirt here, anyway?” asked Reisen.

“It’s full of blood,” stated Youmu matter-of-factly. “According to Lady Yuyuko, it’s been a popular place for youkai to battle for a very long time, so there’s been a lot of blood spilt over it. Makes the youkai plants grow faster, and those types of plants make other plants grow, too. I always go there when I need to replant a tree.”

Reisen frowned at the soil that she was shovelling. It looked like regular dirt to her. “This isn’t going to turn our seeds into youkai trees, is it?”

“Not if you don’t feed them any more blood,” replied Youmu.

---

When they had filled the holes about two-thirds of the way, Youmu and Reisen carefully placed the seeds in. And as they resumed piling on the dirt, Youmu asked, “So why are you planting these?”

Reisen blinked at her. “Because-- because Lady Sagume gave them to me.”

“Is that all?”

And it could have been left there. If Reisen had confirmed herself, Youmu would have believed it.

“--No.”

Youmu continued to dig.

“When I was back at the Capital, I realised -- a few things. It’s not where I belong anymore, but I couldn’t stay there if I wanted to. They reject beings of impurity, and by exposing myself to Earth, I’ve become impure. Which is… fine. But then, why did Lady Sagume give me these seeds? Seeds that could only grow on the Moon?”

She frowned to herself.

“It was either a gift or a challenge,” she continued. “But… Lady Sagume accepted that I’d become an Earth rabbit. I don’t want to let her down.”

Youmu paused in her digging. “You don’t want to let her down?”

“I think so. They’re my reward.”

Youmu nodded. “That makes sense,” she said, and continued digging.

---

By the time they were done, and Youmu was drawing careful grooves in the surface of the soil with a small trowel, the moonlight was already shining through the bamboo.

The two of them looked down at the two patches with satisfaction.

“Hey, Youmu,” started Reisen, “thank you.”

“We don’t know if it’ll grow yet…” replied Youmu quietly. “I’ve never grown something from the Moon… um, just make sure they get watered regularly. Or, um, does it rain on the Moon…?”

“I’ll water them as much as they’d get watered on the Moon,” replied Reisen. “I used to do a bit of the Wakatsukis’ gardening, just… never the planting. Things on the Moon didn’t really grow or die, after all. They just… continued.”

“But these are going to grow,” said Youmu thoughtfully. “They’re going to be something different to what would grow on the Moon.”

Reisen glanced up at the moonlight, and then turned away from it, back towards the front of Eientei. “I think that’s fine. Hopefully, they’ll end up alright. I did, after all.” She paused. “--Anyway, you’d better be heading back. And I should go wash up…”

They gathered the tools together into the now-empty bathtub, and, dragging it back into Eientei, left the small patch, and its ten seeds, to steadily grow under the impure moonlight that only Earth could see.