[A vent and flow of consciousness letter to the system and those that might relate]
I don't think it is fair that those who have become high functioning because of sheer survival often find themselves in the situation where being mentally ill becomes an option and thing they can turn on and off via dissociation and repression
Because when you get to that point, it no longer becomes a "you are mentally ill and because you can "choose to not be disabled" you should choose to NEVER be disabled and anytime you turn that off to vent out the passive build up, you are choosing to be mentally ill and disabled and you dont get the same consideration or care as those "not so fortunate"."
If I could not have a mental breakdown / meltdown that could stress and hurt those around me, then I should choose to right? If I know how to turn it off, not turning it off is reflective of me being an inconsiderate and abusive piece of shit right? But at the same time, when that is always an option, when do we get the chance to let the inherent mental illness we have and all its ugliness get a chance to air out so we can heal and live?
When do we get the courtesy that "less functioning" individuals - those who never developed the ungodly ability to cancel out any genuine experience and repress it so heavily - get? When do people start giving us a break and the understanding that we have over 5 Very Serious Mental health issues when we slip up and struggle? When is the decision to NOT cancel our experiences stop being considered a reflection of our personal character and values?
No amount of pain or personal issue excuses abusive or harmful behavior that is true. Nobody on any form of coping gets to use it as an excuse, but no one reassures those that are high function and "low support needs" that its fair to struggle and fair to take support and care. It's okay to NOT be high functioning and that it should not be a reflection of your personal character. It's okay to be sick and make an effort like other people have to inorder to make amends.
High functioning labels are bullshit. Low functioning labels are bullshit - thered a reason aspergers was thrown out of the book.
Just because we look good doesn't mean we aren't sick. Just because people buy into and cant see past the compulsive external beauty and perfection and hold you to a higher standard than your peers doesn't mean you should hold yourself up to their blind vision of who you are. You deserve the same level of respect and understanding your peers get. You aren't special because you look special. Those that treat you as some messiah, some perfected angel and saint of life - thats their issue.
If they deserve the patience you give, you do too. If they deserve the understanding that sometimes people are stupid and fuck up regardless of their intent, then you deserve that too.
If they deserve the benefit of doubt that when they make a mistake and hurtful decision that you assume and accept that they are just human, so do you
And anyone who says otherwise? Anyone who looks at you and judges you? Assumes that you aren't doing your best? Anyone who holds you to a higher standard than your peers? Fuck em. They can apologize, they can make their mistake for holding up the double standard and struggling, but if - even after hearing how unfair the double standard is, they insist that you are not due the same courtesy and benefits of doubt you hand out to others?
Well, fuck em.
You can be hurt even when you might have been in the wrong, even if you should have known better, whem you make a mistake. Honest mistakes don't have blame. You don't judge others when honest mistakes are made, they should return that lack of judgement.
If they disagree with this basic principle, then we aren't compatible and they aren't needed to be kept around.
If they don't like the real you, the you with ALL your garbage, then they dont deserve the usual you. Let them be gone, let it be a good riddance.
I'd rather live alone with myselves than live with those that demand we hold ourselves to their perceived standard of functioning based on our trauma sourced coping.
XIV said, if people hate you for being angry, for being cringe, for caring about something, then fuck them
I say, if people judge you for doing less than your best, for being vulnerable and weak, for making mistakes that are inherent to what they knew when they chose to be involved with someone with an extensive amount of hurt and pain to heal, then fuck them.
We do our best, we usually are astoundinf, amazing, an inspiration, goals for many and that can hold true while leaving space for us being Ugly and Hurt. There is no value in feigned strength built on false premises. The strongest strength comes from authentically knowing your pain, holding it up and persisting against all the ugly.
No radical acceptance exists without radicall acceptance of your wounds.
XIV says you can be ugly and hated and still love yourself and feel beautiful in your ugly ways.
I say you can admit you feel ugly and hated and still be beautiful.
And you know what? Riku says the world is beautiful - that everything in the world and everyone in the world - it is inherently beautiful.
Nothing needs to change about anyone to have beauty in the moment.
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the rise of AI art isn't surprising to us. for our entire lives, the attitude towards our skills has always been - that's not a real thing. it has been consistently, repeatedly devalued.
people treat art - all forms of it - as if it could exist by accident, by rote. they don't understand how much art is in the world. someone designed your home. someone designed the sign inside of your local grocery store. when you quote a character or line from something in media, that's a line a real person wrote.
"i could do that." sure, but you didn't. there's this joke where a plumber comes over to a house and twists a single knob. charges the guy 10k. the guy, furious, asks how the hell the bill is so high. the plumber says - "turning the knob was a dollar. the knowledge is the rest of the money."
the trouble is that nobody believes artists have knowledge. that we actively study. that we work hard, beyond doing our scales and occasionally writing a poem. the trouble is that unless you are already framed in a museum or have a book on a shelf or some kind of product, you aren't really an artist. hell, because of where i post my work, i'll never be considered a poet.
the thing that makes you an artist is choice. the thing that makes all art is choice. AI art is the fetid belief that art is instead an equation. that it must answer a specific question. Even with machine learning, AI cannot make a choice the way we can - because the choices we make have always been personal, complicated. our skills cannot be confined to "prompt and execution." what we are "solving" isn't just a system of numbers - it is how we process our entire existence. it isn't just "2 and 2 is 4", it's staring hard at the numbers and making the four into an alligator. it's rearranging the letters to say ow and it is the ugly drawing we make in the margin.
at some point, you will be able to write something by feeding my work into a machine. it will be perfectly legible and even might sound like me. but a machine doesn't understand why i do these things. it can be taught preferences, habits, statistical probability. it doesn't know why certain vowels sound good to me. it doesn't know the private rules i keep. it doesn't know how to keep evolving.
"but i want something to exist that doesn't exist yet." great. i'm glad you feel creative. go ahead and pay a fucking artist for it.
this is all saying something we all already knew. the sad fucking truth: we have to die to remind you. only when we're gone do we suddenly finally fucking mean something to you. artists are not replicable. we each genuinely have a skill, talent, and process that makes us unique. and there's actual quiet power in everything we do.
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I've been thinking about the templars lately. they were promised honor, virtue, told that they would be charged with protection of the innocent... And then those same people are systemically exploited and abused, abuse others because they're taught to regard everyone else as either sheep who need to be lead or potential threats. Never equals, except in their brothers/sisters-in-arms. They act as the guard-dogs and military arm of an entirely different organization that they're only a functionary member of but have no governing say in. Even the chantry aren't their equals- they function as the templar order's supervisors! And all this isolation and closing of ranks ends in disability, addiction, death, and abandonment by the system they spent their bodies in service of.
To top that off, retaliations against them just confirm the paranoia they were taught to embrace. It's probably a long hard road to get out of that hole.
Like, listen. the dichotomy of mage vs templars is a satisfying and easy one, but the system is tearing them apart too. have you ever heard of a retired templar?
at the end of it, mages and templars need to unite against the real threat. the chantry.
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