#we're all having a terrible time

[donnerpartyofone]

Due to my various disorders I often feel like I am living the same day over and over and over again. This effect is created by any combination of A) my inability to learn something, B) my inability to form new habits, C) my lack of awareness/memory of something I did, and D) my failure to execute on something I keep meaning to do--along with my basic inability to just fucking pick my battles and let some shit go--but lately the Groundhog Day experience has been dialed up to 11 and this exacerbation is definitely compounded by problems of enshitification.

Like a few times a week for the last several weeks, I remembered something--a fact, a piece of media, an excerpt from a book, something I personally wrote, etc--that I wanted to reference or revisit. In most instances Item X is something that I gave a lot of thought to, and perhaps something that I actively researched or workshopped; it's almost never just something that I passively absorbed then half-forgot. I may remember everything about it, and everything about the time when I was working on it, and I just need the citation...and now there is no evidence of it at all, anywhere. I look for traces of Item X everywhere I can think of: I'm sure I talked to Person Y about it, I'm sure I took a screencap and sent it to Person Z, I posted about it. My phone won't find it, it's not in my email; am I using the wrong search term? Or misspelling something? Or did I delete it by accident? Or is the actual search function I'm using just finicky? Or did I send the screencap without verbalizing what it was and just saying like "Dude check this out!"? Even though I know what's going to happen, I search for Item X on my Tumblr. What usually happens is that Tumblr gives me like 3-5 results it has deigned to index that are NOT the one I want; you'd think that this is a "numbers game" and that eventually the thing I want would be in the indexed set just by coincidence, but it NEVER IS. Like how am I so strangely lucky to have this perfect consistency? It seems impossible! Then I try using the syntax I learned to search my blog via Google, and this also never works. It doesn't work on Duck Duck Go either, although it's interesting to me that each search engines gives me different undesirable output. I search my computer and my external drives, but Windows 11 makes it very hard for my dumb ass to distinguish between searches of my local machinery and searches of OneDrive which is incomplete and which I prefer to never use because I hate the feeling that I'm renting my own files from somebody else and I just like to know where the fuck my shit is--I don't even like to use the coat rack in an office, I want all my shit where I can see it--so when my computer says "No Results" I have absolutely no confidence that I'm getting a full account of the facts.

........................................so now I'm back at square one, repeating the same agonizing detective work I slogged through the last time I referenced Item X, only now it's worse, because Tumblr is worse, and Google is worse, and possibly I have been subconsciously sabotaging myself between last time and this time to make all my own systems and tools worse. And I HATE that I'm wasting this amount of time and energy--two things I don't have a lot of!--but if I don't do it my broken mind is going to torture me more and more with each passing second of inaction, so I am FORCED to do this by reason of insanity.

The thing I'm trying to look up now, PLEASE TELL ME IF THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR, is what I THINK is an excerpt from a piece by Rainer Maria Rilke in which he says SOMETHING LIKE:

"Jesus is pointing to God, but like dogs, we look only at the finger."

I remember what a hard time I had finding this before. After a long drawn-out process of testing different search terms, I found it in a Google Books preview of a page from I THOUGHT BUT APPARENTLY AM WRONG?! Letters to a Young Poet. Now I'm trying that again and finding No Results for "jesus" or "finger". So maybe like, Letters was the last thing I looked up before I found the correct volume OR the correct author, and that's the last thing my brain recorded on this topic. Or maybe I'm looking at the wrong edition with incomplete previews on Google Books. I don't fucking know. But the reason I want so badly to cite this now is that it has relevance to the Aaron Bushnell conversation.

I'm feeling really bad about the fact that Aaron Bushnell's desire to underline the Palestinian genocide has had the almost exclusive result of underlining the actions of Aaron Bushnell. And before you get excited to talk to me about that, I must be very clear that this is exactly what I don't want to talk about. I understand the discourse. I have my own strong opinions about his suicide and what it means, and what are the right and wrong ways to talk about it. Whatever aspect of this you are itching to bring up, including the buried reports of previous self-immolations, I promise I am aware of them. I'm not saying that these conversations don't matter. I am just deeply concerned that energy that was once fully devoted to protest is now being shoaled into this ideological cul-de-sac about Aaron Bushnell specifically. This happens on the left all the fucking time and it's exhausting and disheartening. The right seems to stay congealed in a big blob of generalized solidarity, furthering its broad-strokes agendas persistently, while the left gets mired in theory and semantics and purity testing and academics and all this stuff that, while it is very stimulating, has no measurable effect on our rights, our safety, or our efficacy. Or rather, if it does have an effect, it's to drain our resources and destroy our focus and, at worst, "help the enemy".

So while it may be easier and more immediately satisfying to bicker with each other about Aaron Bushnell than it is to wrap one's mind around the enormity of genocide and the incredible imbalance of power that perpetuates it, I really don't think this particular bit of discourse is actually helping anyone. If you're one of the people who is trying to think of this in terms of "what Aaron Bushnell would have wanted", I think it's a good bet that he didn't want people to stop talking about Palestine and start talking about him alone. Don't look at the finger, look where it's pointing.

And for God's sake if you recognize the approximate quote I'm struggling to fully recall PLEASE DM ME.

[teddybeartoji]

realized that i have never given any thought whatsoever to the consequences of period sex . shgdasgdhgasdgashg knowing myself i'd be knocked the fuck out i'm honk shoo mimiming i am letting out the most peaceful quiet snores while HE'S forced to clean all of that upshdajksdfjadhsah that's so embarrassing oh my god

[moeblob]

having a stressful time at work but i think it's very important to point out the other day i was asking a guy for help and he's like aight gotcha and then we go to this freezer room and he, from somewhere beyond a mound of boxes, just goes "you like anime right?"

sir this is the FIRST TIME we have spoken how did you clock that.

(he claims i had the vibes of someone who liked it then i was like oh like the woman in the deli wearing a jujutsu- and before i can finish the series name he says "no not her, she just liked the shirt. she's never watched anime". . . oh. i see. you have already had this debate with her then. okay.)

EDIT UPDATE:

So I got clocked AGAIN as a weeb by a coworker because I saw part of her outfit and was like "oh, Attack on Titan?" and while I then said I've never watched it she said that's fair then "do you know anything about vtubers?" and I just. Are you kidding me. I mean yeah but like. Why is your safe question with me "do you know about vtubers".

WHAT AURA DO I BRING TO A GROCERY STORE TO BE CALLED OUT LIKE THIS?

[ecos-syscourse]

"Stop saying traumagenic" this "endos are" that

What about us?

We're a non-disordered traumagenic system.

We have a system formed from trauma, but we don't have a diagnosis—we don't have a CDD.

so please remember that we exist when you form your opinions ^^

[fromtheseventhhell]

I've noticed that Stansas take criticisms towards themselves as "hate" towards Sansa, they're really never beating the self-insert allegations 😭

[halamshirals]

woke up and immediately started thinking about post-game solana and their relationship with the crows. being a crow is the only life they've ever known, but there's just no way i can imagine a post-game where they can stay with the crows. the year they spent with harding and varric was, easily, one of the best in their entire life simply because they were able to make actual decisions and be a person in some capacity. and it was followed by the bestworst year of their life since they released a double-blight and had to fight gods. but again, they were in a position to make choices of their own volition.

BUT ALSO. i cant imagine a way for sol to leave the crows without managing to convince lucanis to not be first talon. which i have thought about at length but still dont quite know How That Would Go

[tippifunandprose]

If you're new to the platform, you may not remember that the year Trump was elected, there were a ton of Russian bots here on Tumblr specifically working to get him elected that were, to quote Tumblr, "engaged in state-sponsored disinformation and propaganda campaigns" and pushing a variety of fake ads and disinformation to help Trump win.

You also may not remember that these Russian sockpuppet accounts specifically encouraged people not to vote or to vote for Jill Stein or another third party because they knew it would lead to a Trump victory.

But, of course, for some mysterious (😒) reason Tumblr couldn't tell anyone they were following or had reblogged one of these disinformation accounts until after the election, when they sent a notice to each person individually letting them know they'd fallen for propaganda. So people didn't realize they'd been duped or that their "friend" was a Russian asset until it was too late.

And no one likes to admit they've been tricked. I get it. Sunk costs are a real jerk.

But when you notice how many of the people pushing a message not to vote or to vote third party are blue checks or how the algorithm on pro-Trump Twitter is favoring them by showing them even when you block the users. How these accounts are always using the same phrases every time. How quickly certain accounts pop up to comment the same things on every post with election keywords. Or how sometimes they don't even bother to switch between their pro-Trump account or their "leftist" account... please just take a moment to remember that this has all happened before and be critical about who, on these platforms owned by conservatives, it benefits most to convince you to vote third party or not vote.

In the words of super grainy Garfield...

[regular-lord-reckoner]

so i took my car in today because i thought it might just need some more brake fluid and although i tried to just look at it myself i couldn't for the life of me figure out which part under the hood was the brake fluid reservoir without having to lean all over my car and get all dirty, so i figured i might just have to pay a service fee and whatever for the fluid itself...

turns out i need all new brake pads !!

ahaha

haha

ha

yay

[ratatatastic]

i just personally think its so funny how maffhew is just worming his way between every little group on this episode of finns + him! maffhew!

[loverboybrightsideghost]

the will to practice leaving my soul after i get good jury comments

[sentimentalmachine]

It's wild to me that people can be out in the sun, especially warm or hot sun, and not only enjoy it but also not feel sick and in horrible pain from it. Like people just go outside when it's 80f+ and don't instantly feel like they will perish!? What do you mean sunlight makes you feel happy when it hits your skin? You don't experience searing pain that feels like you set your exposed skin onto a hot grill?! It must be really nice for all the people who can get happiness from the sun. It could never be me, but I'm happy for the rest of you.

[discoreptile]

As of yet unnamed game card art!

[our-inspire-verse]

Embarrassing as fuck for no reason to talk in my real voice. I'm going to go crazy rn.

[mantisgodsdomain]

Slowly, yet painfully realizing that we're probably the exact type of person that random fandom guys would miscast as a father.

[immortalsins]

if someone could hit me round the head and make me unconscious from maybe 23rd december until the 27th or something that would be a huge help

[boyapologist]

lmao are All members of big time rush terrible people irl