#it scares me how much we’ve devalued creativity

[vacantgodling]

got emotional about how much i love humanity and how curious and wonderful we are but somehow we lost our way and created a society that wants to destroy everything about us that makes us human

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

so this morning, while scrolling through my fb feed, i came across an nyt opinion/advice piece from a 27yo (ie basically me lmao) who is obviously lucky, in a sense, to finally land their “dream job using my (their) skills” etc. like obvs i can’t read it bc of the stupid “you get one free article a month if you either don’t have an account or subscription” (my one free article was used up reading an article about adult adhd like last week)….. thing that nyt does.

but anyway. back on topic lol. the crux of the article in both the headline and the quote snippet was that the advice asker was really dissatisfied with the 40 hour work week that came with her “dream job”. with how having this 40hr workweek gave her no time to do her busy chores like house cleaning or laundry or didn’t even give her time to let her have her hobbies/creative pursuits (whatever they were/are).

however, in the comments on the article (and apparently from those who read the article on the comments, the advice/opinion column writer) a good bunch of like gen Xer’s and baby boomers (im assuming) were ganging up on the asker like “suck it up princess, it’s what life is!!! i work 70+ hours a week and LOVE IT and have just resigned myself to the fact that i have NO time left over to do my “chores”! learn to O U T S O U R C E these life admin tasks to someone else!!! everyone MUST LEARN this in america!!! it makes life so much easier ☺️” and such.

of course, there were plenty of the same bs comments that you see on anything about careers or home ownership towards millennials/gen Z’ers about “learn to go WITHOUT and save save save and squander your time so that you NEVER live and HAVE FUN or TIME FOR HOBBIES! my bet is that your parents did that and they survived just fine while also raising your ungrateful spiteful ass (not including any type of health issues they might have picked up from such long hours/shitty working conditions) so why can’t you just L E A R N to do the same you precious spoilt brat!!! because the reality of Real Life™️ is that you can’t have it both ways!!! then you’ll have early retirement guaranteed, hopefully!!! and know that hobbies really are time wasters most of the time ☺️ or at least they were for me!!! and your precious so-called “creative pursuits” most definitely are time wasters. no one needs THOSE.” and so on so forth.

they also had jibes for her bc the asker wanted to start a family at some point apparently… and apparently it’s “much worse” once you have kids. like. thanks geraldine and henry. you’ve just told us how much you’ve resented having your kids/family in one fell swoop. your opinion which you’ve framed as unhelpful, condescending advice is now voided.

like. i don’t know how rhonda or paul or deandra or philip could miss the point so fucking entirely. why the fuck should anyone- nay everyone (bc that’s what they make it sound like)- learn to outsource their busy chores like laundry/house cleaning/grocery shopping or god knows what else- to someone else???? why is that apparently a standard expected to be learnt in the US???

like why the fuck are you so desperate for people not to have free time to do these things (unless of course they live in some of those shitty nyc or other big city apartment blocks that don’t come with individual private laundries in the self-contained flats or a communal laundry on like the bottom floor or w/e for example) frank????

deidre why the hell are you so bitterly hankering about “be grateful that you have it easier than most and learn that hobbies mean jackshit and just sell your soul and time to your boss!!! when will the generation stopping being “me me me!!!” and “work life balance!” and think about the company’s bottom line!! learn that “work life balance” is never important! work like a slave for 50 years and see if your valuable experience is needed then! that’s when you’ll learn that those hours where you were never being lazy, instead of just expecting life to be handed to you, will have paid off!” or whatever other ridiculously toxic capitalist bullshit they were spitting out.

obviously there were FAR MORE people actually supporting the question asker and echoing the idea that the 40hr workweek is now redundant. they were also putting down the opinion/advice piece writer’s advice to the asker….. that was apparently similar to the all the bitter people on the comments saying that the 27yo was just “asking for too much” and had to “learn to suck it up instead of being a petulant and overly selfish dick!!” etc etc etc. we all know the spiel as thoroughly as the macarena now.

because whats so fucking wrong with wanting time to yourself and wanting time to do your busy chores??? why the fuck should i be outsourcing these to other people (unless of course you’re still living at home and your parents are still like “hey what clothes do you need washed i’m doing a load rn” or you have a partner that works from home or has some type of parental leave etc)???? i want to do my own laundry. i want to do my own gardening (ok lawn mowing or tree lopping (if needed) i’d actually outsource bc i can’t lift or push lawn mowers bc they’re heavy af for me or and i obvs can’t use a chainsaw)… but i want to do my own grocery shopping. i want to do my own cooking (although i would consider the meal kit services once i had job that allowed me to afford like $50 a month for one of those meal kits sub services) i want to do my own cleaning.

why, if i lived in the US and not australia, am i just expected to learn to outsource all of these tasks even if i don’t have the money for it??? like why the actual fuck are so many of you so fucking weirdly proud of being absolutely worked into the fucking ground for your “great country” (although this is actually bleeding through to australia too and i hate it); working like literally close to 100 hours a week???

because i wasn’t aware you had to be whatever the fuck his name is from 127 hours and cut your fucking limbs off just to fucking survive a job in either corporate america or just let alone any goddamned job in america….. all so they can supposedly “learn to like working for free and devaluing your worth even more to your employer through overworking yourself and always being available!!! mental health is for those who aren’t built for the Real Adult World™️!!! this person is a prime example of the younger generations being weak and dissatisfied with life so often because of their “oh poor little me!!! care for me!!” act. NO ONE CARES FOR YOU today. stop being so over-expectant/demanding and juvenile!!! only YOU care yourself and you should NEVER expect someone else to pick you up from YOUR bootstraps!!! you’re fucking whiny and conceited babies. the lot of you!!!”

because i honestly don’t know who the fuck would enjoy working 70+ hours week with no time to themselves to do what they enjoy doing…. or enjoy having zilch time to catch up on errands and life admin duties or just general house chores; especially if you’ve moved cities or an entire fucking state/s away from your family and support network. let alone doing the same thing on 40 hours a week.

and on top of everything, let’s not even get started on the time spent commuting to and from work or even commuting for life errands/tasks etc etc- especially if you’re like me and you’re nowhere near the capital city’s centre (ie sydney australia for me) for there to be reliable enough public transport and longer commute times to certain places in those cities (that i’ve bitched about plenty before on other posts on here about work/jobs).

get your head out of your asses warren and viola et al and realise that work life balance is literally NOT ASKING FOR MUCH and is asking employers to just have basic respect for their employees time if they work fulltime. it’s literally detrimental to ones health if they have to sacrifice what feels like (or what is literally like) their entire fucking existence to their employer just for meagre pay and just to fucking survive.

because i read a heart-breaking article last night from huffpost (posted by buzzfeed on fb) about a woman in the US who literally hid her having a second baby from her employer for an entire fucking year (literally the entire pregnancy and birth of the baby and the first 6 months post pushing the baby out) during the pandemic all because she was scared she would get demoted or lose her leading of a project and lose her bs “temp” job which had really turned into full time work although the employer never said anything about it being actually full time hours or whatever…. and plus the lady herself was apparently to scared to ask to be put on the books fulltime too for some weird reason.

like honestly. fuck capitalism. fuck thinking that “work life balance is just too hard for employers to add and regulate. it’s an excuse and ploy for workers to be unprofessional, unproductive and lazy!” or whatever the fuck. everyone deserves time to themselves to pursue their interests/hobbies and busy chores/life admin. no one deserves to waste their entire life working 70+ work weeks for those employers who literally have no respect for their employees personal lives and time.

and particularly during the time that is the pandemic as we’ve seen so many companies having to learn to wholeheartedly embrace working from home and more flexible schedules for their workers. worklife balance is absolutely fucking beneficial for everyone involved.

america fix your bullshit work ethic right now lmao.

[living-deciduously]

I can’t sleep.

I’m definitely having some elevated hormones or something right now, because I’m feeling all of my feelings at once. And I keep telling myself that that doesn’t make what I’m feeling less true or honest, that devaluing my feelings based on hormones is a product of social conditioning and emotions ARE hormones...but sometimes I think that makes it worse. But I also believe I need to get them out, and address them without fear or embarrassment. So strap yourself in and bring some fucking high protein snacks because this might be a long one. 

 It started a few hours ago, when I was tagged in one of those question memes that float around Tumblr. The third question down was “Talk about someone you have been in love with.” It broke me.  Romantic love is so starkly defined in our (human) culture, and I’ve never experienced it the way I’ve been told that I should. I have loved and been in love with more people (men) than I can remember, and I firmly believe that love can be defined in infinite ways and looked at from infinite angles. I’ve loved so hard I hurt myself, and so lightly that barely felt it...    I was in love with a friend of mine when I was 13, as much as you can be in love with someone at that age. As it turned out, he was/is gay. We’re still friends, and I still care about him even if we don’t see each other or even talk that much. Personal history is enough for me to keep caring about someone, even when I run out of things to add to it.  I probably loved a hundred different guys in high school, but don’t we all?  I loved a man in college, who I never “officially” dated, but we had a...something. It ended very badly, and I’m not going into it. But I did love him while I was with him, and that counts. We’re on decent terms now, and he’s married. I am truly happy for him.  Ironically, I barely liked the first guy I kissed. I told myself I did, but I did it because he was good-looking and somewhat interested in me--and god actually normal enough to take home to my parents. But that ended before it even began, and honestly I’m grateful for it.  I loved a guy I made-out with at a party, a friend of a friend who I’d been attracted to for a while. I was thrilled to actually have someone genuinely like me back, for real this time! But I got scared. Really irrationally crazy scared to the point where I couldn’t make it to a second date. We had real chemistry and I was terrified of it. We reconnected briefly last year, but that chemistry was gone.  There’s a man I’m only in love with when he’s onstage. But in the real world I just like him, and I think that’s okay.  I could have fallen in love with a tall, smart, creative man I met incidentally, but I didn’t have enough time to do so before he moved in with a woman that he loved already. I don’t resent that. Sometimes timing is just bad.  I love a man who I’ve had long discussions with on why a relationship between us wouldn’t work out. He has a debilitating mental illness, and I am not emotionally equipped to deal with it on that intimate a level. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. We stay friends. Sometimes we cuddle, in his words, “for that sweet dopamine rush.”   I love one of my dance partners, but not enough to act on it. He has the clearest eyes I’ve ever seen.  I loved the former coworker I dated for two months. I’d already known him for two years, so my feelings didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. He and I clicked mentally, which for me is very rare. When we got together we talked for hours, and were naturally honest and direct with each other. But I broke it off because I couldn’t see a real future in it, and I didn’t want keep seeing him “for fun” or to “see where the relationship goes.”  There were other places where we were incompatible that mattered, and ultimately it was pretty mutual. I do still miss him sometimes, but less and less. He was also the first man I ever enjoyed being (non-sexually) physically intimate with. I’m asexual, I should mention that. Not everyone who reads this will know. But I wanted this to be written and read as truthfully as possible. By the way, none of what I’ve written so far is how I answered that third question. I actually thought of one person instantly, and at the time completely hated that I did. Here’s what I wrote: I do have this one friend. I’ve known him for several years, and I’ve never not had feelings of some kind for him. They have varied from simple friendly affection to wanting to pin him to a wall, with a stop on every part of the spectrum in between the two. That said, my feelings make absolutely no sense at all. We only see each other once or twice a year. We are absolute garbage at having a conversation when we’re alone together. We’re social opposites. And he has no romantic feelings for me. I’m not hypothesizing here either, I KNOW. But despite all of these things, my feelings for him never entirely go away. Even recently, when it seemed like he started to avoid interacting with me on social media (which is still kind of happening), they didn’t disappear. I did get angry because I didn’t think I’d said or done anything to make him want to ghost me, but under all of it the feelings were still there. ARE still there. Every time I see him showing manic fanboy enthusiasm for something, or making a stupid facial expression, or talking about how much he loves his grandma…I just crumble. I slide right back into the stupid irrational place I started. The worst part is I want to tell him all of this so badly, but I’m not willing to risk potentially losing his friendship and hurting myself that much.  It was admitting this^ to myself that broke me. Rereading it still hurts more than writing about all of those other men did. Here is my most stubborn and vulnerable self, and I hate her. I’m crying while I type. I feel so stupid and small for investing so much emotional energy into someone who barely sees me. Someone who likely doesn’t want or care to look harder. I don’t hold him accountable for that. I have no grounds to make demands.       There’s a decent chance that he and I will drift completely apart, and only do the online FB friend thing where we acknowledge each other’s birthdays and make witty comments back and forth. I mean, that’s actually what we’ve been doing for a while. I just have make myself come to terms with it. I can do that, right? This was incredibly hard to write. I often feel empty, or listless. I feel contentment too, but not often happiness. So when my brain decides to turn all my emotional dials to 11 at once, well it’s a fucking ride if anything. But as I get older I find I’m learning how to really think about those emotion dials and how they effect how I interact with the people and the world around me. I’m learning to acknowledge, and even slowly change the things about myself that I don’t like. What I wrote here was a fraction of me, but it’s a step forward. Lastly, my friends, if you read this and recognize yourself, please be kind.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ashton Applewhite: Let's end ageism

What's one thing that every person in this room is going to become? Older. And most of us are scared stiff at the prospect. How does that word make you feel? I used to feel the same way. What was I most worried about? Ending up drooling in some grim institutional hallway. And then I learned that only four percent of older Americans are living in nursing homes, and the percentage is dropping.What else was I worried about? Dementia. Turns out that most of us can think just fine to the end. Dementia rates are dropping, too.The real epidemic is anxiety over memory loss.

00:49

(Laughter)

00:51

I also figured that old people were depressed because they were old and they were going to die soon.

00:57

(Laughter)

00:59

It turns out that the longer people live, the less they fear dying, and that people are happiest at the beginnings and the end of their lives. It's called the U-curve of happiness, and it's been borne out by dozens of studies around the world. You don't have to be a Buddhist or a billionaire. The curve is a function of the way aging itself affects the brain.

01:18

So I started feeling a lot better about getting older, and I started obsessing about why so few people know these things. The reason is ageism: discrimination and stereotyping on the basis of age. We experience it anytime someone assumes we're too old for something,instead of finding out who we are and what we're capable of, or too young. Ageism cuts both ways. All -isms are socially constructed ideas -- racism, sexism, homophobia -- and that means we make them up, and they can change over time. All these prejudices pit us against each other to maintain the status quo, like auto workers in the US competing against auto workers in Mexico instead of organizing for better wages.

02:05

(Applause)

02:07

We know it's not OK to allocate resources by race or by sex. Why should it be OK to weigh the needs of the young against the old? All prejudice relies on "othering" -- seeing a group of people as other than ourselves: other race, other religion, other nationality. The strange thing about ageism: that other is us. Ageism feeds on denial -- our reluctance to acknowledge that we are going to become that older person. It's denial when we try to pass for younger or when we believe in anti-aging products, or when we feel like our bodies are betraying us, simply because they are changing. Why on earth do we stop celebrating the ability to adapt and grow as we move through life? Why should aging well mean struggling to look and move like younger versions of ourselves? It's embarrassing to be called out as older until we quit being embarrassed about it, and it's not healthy to go through life dreading our futures. The sooner we get off this hamster wheel of age denial, the better off we are.

03:13

Stereotypes are always a mistake, of course, but especially when it comes to age, because the longer we live, the more different from one another we become. Right? Think about it. And yet, we tend to think of everyone in a retirement home as the same age: old --

03:26

(Laughter)

03:28

when they can span four decades. Can you imagine thinking that way about a group of people between the ages of 20 and 60?

03:36

When you get to a party, do you head for people your own age? Have you ever grumbled about entitled millennials? Have you ever rejected a haircut or a relationship or an outing because it's not age-appropriate? For adults, there's no such thing. All these behaviors are ageist. We all do them, and we can't challenge bias unless we're aware of it. Nobody's born ageist, but it starts at early childhood,around the same time attitudes towards race and gender start to form, because negative messages about late life bombard us from the media and popular culture at every turn. Right? Wrinkles are ugly. Old people are pathetic. It's sad to be old.

04:16

Look at Hollywood. A survey of recent Best Picture nominations found that only 12 percent of speaking or named characters were age 60 and up, and many of them were portrayed as impaired. Older people can be the most ageist of all, because we've had a lifetime to internalize these messages and we've never thought to challenge them. I had to acknowledge it and stop colluding. "Senior moment" quips, for example: I stopped making them when it dawned on me that when I lost the car keys in high school, I didn't call it a "junior moment."

04:48

(Laughter)

04:50

I stopped blaming my sore knee on being 64. My other knee doesn't hurt, and it's just as old.

04:56

(Laughter)

04:58

(Applause)

05:00

We are all worried about some aspect of getting older, whether running out of money, getting sick, ending up alone, and those fears are legitimate and real. But what never dawns on most of us is that the experience of reaching old age can be better or worse depending on the culture in which it takes place. It is not having a vagina that makes life harder for women. It's sexism.

05:23

(Applause)

05:25

It's not loving a man that makes life harder for gay guys. It's homophobia. And it is not the passage of time that makes getting olderso much harder than it has to be. It is ageism. When labels are hard to read or there's no handrail or we can't open the damn jar, we blame ourselves, our failure to age successfully, instead of the ageism that makes those natural transitions shameful and the discrimination that makes those barriers acceptable. You can't make money off satisfaction, but shame and fear create markets, and capitalism always needs new markets. Who says wrinkles are ugly? The multi-billion-dollar skin care industry. Who says perimenopause and low T and mild cognitive impairment are medical conditions? The trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry.

06:12

(Cheers)

06:13

The more clearly we see these forces at work, the easier it is to come up with alternative, more positive and more accurate narratives.Aging is not a problem to be fixed or a disease to be cured. It is a natural, powerful, lifelong process that unites us all.

06:32

Changing the culture is a tall order, I know that, but culture is fluid. Look at how much the position of women has changed in my lifetime or the incredible strides that the gay rights movement has made in just a few decades, right?

06:44

(Applause)

06:45

Look at gender. We used to think of it as a binary, male or female, and now we understand it's a spectrum. It is high time to ditch the old-young binary, too. There is no line in the sand between old and young, after which it's all downhill. And the longer we wait to challenge that idea, the more damage it does to ourselves and our place in the world, like in the workforce, where age discrimination is rampant. In Silicon Valley, engineers are getting Botoxed and hair-plugged before key interviews -- and these are skilled white men in their 30s, so imagine the effects further down the food chain.

07:20

(Laughter)

07:22

The personal and economic consequences are devastating. Not one stereotype about older workers holds up under scrutiny.Companies aren't adaptable and creative because their employees are young; they're adaptable and creative despite it. Companies --

07:38

(Laughter)

07:39

(Applause)

07:41

We know that diverse companies aren't just better places to work; they work better. And just like race and sex, age is a criterion for diversity.

07:50

A growing body of fascinating research shows that attitudes towards aging affect how our minds and bodies function at the cellular level. When we talk to older people like this (Speaks more loudly) or call them "sweetie" or "young lady" -- it's called elderspeak --they appear to instantly age, walking and talking less competently. People with more positive feelings towards aging walk faster, they do better on memory tests, they heal quicker, and they live longer. Even with brains full of plaques and tangles, some people stayed sharp to the end. What did they have in common? A sense of purpose. And what's the biggest obstacle to having a sense of purpose in late life? A culture that tells us that getting older means shuffling offstage. That's why the World Health Organization is developing a global anti-ageism initiative to extend not just life span but health span.

08:41

Women experience the double whammy of ageism and sexism, so we experience aging differently. There's a double standard at work here -- shocker --

08:50

(Laughter)

08:52

the notion that aging enhances men and devalues women. Women reinforce this double standard when we compete to stay young,another punishing and losing proposition. Does any woman in this room really believe that she is a lesser version -- less interesting, less fun in bed, less valuable -- than the woman she once was? This discrimination affects our health, our well-being and our income,and the effects add up over time. They are further compounded by race and by class, which is why, everywhere in the world, the poorest of the poor are old women of color.

09:29

What's the takeaway from that map? By 2050, one out of five of us, almost two billion people, will be age 60 and up. Longevity is a fundamental hallmark of human progress. All these older people represent a vast unprecedented and untapped market. And yet, capitalism and urbanization have propelled age bias into every corner of the globe, from Switzerland, where elders fare the best, to Afghanistan, which sits at the bottom of the Global AgeWatch Index. Half of the world's countries aren't mentioned on that listbecause we don't bother to collect data on millions of people because they're no longer young. Almost two-thirds of people over 60 around the world say they have trouble accessing healthcare. Almost three-quarters say their income doesn't cover basic services like food, water, electricity, and decent housing. Is this the world we want our children, who may well live to be a hundred, to inherit?Everyone -- all ages, all genders, all nationalities -- is old or future-old, and unless we put an end to it, ageism will oppress us all. And that makes it a perfect target for collective advocacy.

10:43

Why add another -ism to the list when so many, racism in particular, call out for action? Here's the thing: we don't have to choose.When we make the world a better place to grow old in, we make it a better place in which to be from somewhere else, to have a disability, to be queer, to be non-rich, to be non-white. And when we show up at all ages for whatever cause matters most to us --save the whales, save the democracy -- we not only make that effort more effective, we dismantle ageism in the process.

11:15

Longevity is here to stay. A movement to end ageism is underway. I'm in it, and I hope you will join me.

11:24

(Applause and cheers)

11:28

Thank you. Let's do it! Let's do it!

https://www.ted.com/talks/ashton_applewhite_let_s_end_ageism