If I think something is a good idea and/or I want to do it, I just... do it.
It's hard to explain how revolutionary this is for me. Every action I take feels loaded with "would people judge me for this? Am I doing this right? Will someone laugh at me?"
I don't just mean big decisions. It's things as simple as how I scoot my chair out to stand up. What if I make a bunch of noise or I'm clumsy? I have to get it right!
All my life, every time I move, every time I speak, I worry I'm "wrong".
It's absolutely wild that it's possible to just move through the world doing whatever I want and whatever I think is right without first passing it through every filter imaginable to decide if it will cause people to look down on me.
I think this way when I am ALONE and no one is with me. Because I still remember times when I have been embarrassed or scolded, and I can't handle that feeling. Or so I thought.
TBH, I think some other people in my life projected their insecurities so hard onto me that it has had me living in cognitive dissonance ever since.
In my "natural state" I'm not very concerned what people think. I'm not a follower, I don't need to be cool, none of that.
But people who DID feel the need to "fit in" decided to teach me to feel ashamed and afraid because it made them feel better. It feels so "wrong" to obsess over those little things, but I was told that I must.
I don't know why tf someone who feels ashamed of themselves needs to make someone else feel ashamed too, but I can do without that baggage, thank you very much.
Like, I'm sorry you're so very insecure and don't dare make your own decisions and can't just do what you like without reference to other people's opinions, but why on Earth did you think I needed to feel that way?
Sometimes I think about all the other highly intelligent species we "share" this planet with: orangutans, orcas, crows, elephants, and more, and I really feel the weight of the damage humans have inflicted.
It's been shown that we have not even gotten close to understanding the complexity of these creatures, what they are capable of, and what they understand, and it's depressing that we don't respect them as conscious beings simply because their consciousness is not like ours.
@mozz
My jaw dropped because I watched that movie, but I don't think I fully grasped that as an interpretation. It makes perfect sense now that you say it. I should rewatch it with that in mind.
I have a lot of sympathy for men as fellow victims of the patriarchy, but something that I think doesn't really get directly addressed when talking about helping guys deprogram from that is that if you are someone who experiences misogyny, even having a conversation with someone who is genuinely trying to do better can be like getting a caustic substance on your skin. It burns on contact.
If you're a victim of misogyny, helping guys out of it can be absolutely appalling for your mental health.
BTW, if you're a dude looking to examine how the patriarchy harms men and how it must be dismantled for all of our sakes, The Will to Change (bell hooks) is a great place to start.
@BlackAzizAnansi
Thank goodness for that. Clip-shows are a drag, even shows that play with it and actually alter things or make stuff up like the Always Sunny one. It's not just having nothing new...I find the entire format exhausting. Write an episode with a plot for god's sake!
This professor, who is Jewish, was suspended for posing a threat to Jewish students, AKA participating in a protest (where he was violently arrested). Now he's in a kind of limbo.
@JoshuaHolland@Thebratdragon
>>We have a lot of students going to med school, who I've promised letters to, and I outlined in the suspension appeal letter that this would be — they would be essentially collateral damage in this,” he says
This is a serious issue for those students! If you're applying to any kind of graduate program, you NEED good recommendation letters from faculty (who are not on suspension). This is literally punishing his students.
I’d be curious to see how these racist fucks would fare when they have no social security or medicare and their house gets destroyed by climate change weather. Oh yeah, they’ll just die.
@JoBlakely@StillIRise1963
I have to think that the most successful propaganda in this country has just been the messaging "there are exactly zero alternatives to the way things are right now."
It's this huge, collective failure of imagination. Most people seem to hate how things are going, and yet, if the choice is not doing anything vs any substantial change, it seems they will choose doing nothing every time.