It’s good to reflect sometimes.
I myself am feeling a bit dull lately. I’m working so hard at both my place of work and for the party that I forget that life has more to offer than communist propaganda spreading lol. I need to go out and touch grass more often. Today, for example, started at 6 and ended at 23 after cleaning, working, cooking and having a meeting with the party. Currently decompressing with wine and Harry Styles.
How about you guys?
It is always important to take some time to relax, your effectiveness in your productive life will seriously deteriorate if you don’t give yourself ample space to be human.
I’m doing very poorly. I’m trying to keep pushing and pushing. I lost all my money my apartment my car my sanity and my girlfriend of 7 years. She is the one who understands and appreciates me the most and for much of the last 7 years my only friend functionally. It’s complicated and poetically tragic. I feel very numb, I expended all my emotions the last year and last 6 months. I’ve only ever wanted to help other people and I fear this situation will do me in in a way that I can’t function let alone effectively help others. I am not giving up yet I just hope this mega-corporate talent scout I’m talking to is the real deal and isn’t yet another scam.
I am sorry comrade. We are all in your corner.
Thank you, and I in yours and everybody else’s.
the only people I know IRL are reactionary anticommunists and I’m consistently anxious about meeting them in case they go on an unhinged political rant
aside from that it’s ogey I guess
this sounds very unfortunate comrade. It’s tough not having people you can talk to in real life about the events unfolding in the world especially in times like these. I often take for granted having ML friends and family to discuss politics and economics with.
Fortunately there are boards like this but hopefully you can connect with some IRL comrades soon !
Tired. Playing peacemaker amongst my family, playing peacemaker at work, and between my friends. This Western culture we’re steeped in prides itself in tolerance but it’s the complete fucking opposite. People justify cold hatred on the basis of the slightest disagreement. There are days I think humanity deserves to end. Let other life live in peace without us.
Yes, we are trained to discard people the second the out themselves as imperfect. We are all commodities under capitalism and socialization here is just another form of financial speculation, valuing assets and determining what to invest in and what is a “sinkhole.” It is anti social and psychopathic and it is subtly baked into nearly all social interactions. Guilt by association runs deep and if you are linked to a leper people assume you have the disease as well.
As someone who lives on the border of East and West, do you see less of this culturally within the Eastern mindset?
As someone who lives on the border of East and West, do you see less of this culturally within the Eastern mindset?
The difference is palpable. Not just between locals and newly-settled Mainlanders, but also between affluent, Island-side locals who tend to be more heavily westernized, and the more rural people in the New Territories - with the difference becoming more subtle in the New Towns and Kowloon.
What are some ways you have seen this palpable difference? It’s very interesting to me as someone who I feel like hasn’t really seriously talked to people outside of Western framework of thinking, and I want to believe in the idea that all people aren’t as rotten as they are here in the States.
I can’t give anecdotal examples without doxxing myself. Just the more nebulous stuff, like Mainlander fashion sense. It’s pretty wild. Some of them have terrible fashion sense and they don’t care. Westerners and Westernized Hong Kongers are too self-conscious to wear the kind of ensembles that some mainlanders don’t think twice about. (edit:) and just to clarify: they wear what they like, they don’t care what other people think, they live in a society that doesn’t castigate them for it. They’re happy.
Whenever I hear liberal friends comment on a Mainlander’s dress sense it pisses me off. Those same hypocrites will watch Western high school movies where the nerd/loser/outcast is portrayed as achieving some sort of triumph when they stop caring about other people’s judgement, when in reality in a liberal environment they’d get relentlessly bullied to the point of having their self-esteem damaged to a degree that they’d never recover from.
Same
I’ve got a date tomorrow so that’s like the first thing I’ve had in a while to look forward to
Good luck on your date!
Thanks. Hope it goes well. He’s just the sweetest thing
Congrats!
That’s nice.
Not well. I’m in a crossroads in my life, which is why I haven’t been active much lately, and everything will bank off of my work, luck and next week. There is a large event that’s going to happen in my life that will determine nearly my entire future and life trajectory.
There is no plan b if it fails, and I am scared of what I’ll do in that worst case scenario.
My health is also failing. The immense stress that I’ve been under for the past several months is not helping, but I have no choice.
Such is life in a capitalist hellscape.
Good luck comrade salad!
I’ll just leave a brief comment, too: I have had several of these tipping points in my life, where it seems that if they don’t go right, it’ll all fall apart. Some went well, most didn’t. Things still worked out all right. It still hurts sometimes knowing what I missed, but as you say, that’s life under capitalism. The plan B is the fact that you got yourself here once so you know you can do it again. I hope things go well for you, not just next week but in general. If they don’t go to plan next week, take as much time as you can to rest and recover. You deserve it, and something else will come up. If it doesn’t go to plan, know that it’s not you, it’s capitalism. But you don’t have to worry about this rn, because next week will go as planned 😁
Wish you the best of luck then
Thank you comrade, I’ll do my best.
We know you will
Good luck, Salad. I hope all goes well.
Thank you Dank. I hope all goes well too, and while it is somewhat pure luck, knowing I have the thoughts and hopes of the people here means quite a lot to me.
What large event?
I’m sorry for being a bit vague purposefully. The event in question could be very identifying and I’m not sure I would like my account to so dangerously and easily be linked to my real life person and my location.
If you’d be interested we could talk about it in DMs or somewhere else.
Not a worry, I completely understand that! I’m nosy 🥸
Tired, depressed, dysphoric. I’m always on edge about developments in the US/NATO proxy war against Russia, which makes it harder to focus on my studies/work at a pretty crucial time - I’m meant to be contributing to my first paper soon™ and it’s really difficult to get a full day’s work in on it.
Plus I always feel like the dumbest person in the room whenever I’m discussing work with others, and frankly it’s gottne to the point where I’m often too embarrassed to admit that I don’t know what they’re talking about.
Remember that the media is doing this on purpose. Previously, it did the same with Covid. Before that it was something else. Some time before that it was the housing crisis. Before that it was terrorism. It’s constant and purposeful. Try not to let it get you.
What’s the paper, like journalism or a school assignment? The blank page is your worst enemy. Write whatever you can for ten minutes. It will be rubbish. That’s fine. You can edit it later. Once you’ve written for ten minutes, two things happen. One, no more blank page. Two, ‘just another five minutes, while I finish this point’ and before you know it, you’ve done a days work.
embarrassed to admit that I don’t know what they’re talking about.
We all feel like this! There’s two options. Stay quiet and occasionally nod, and everyone assumes you know more than them. Or ask questions. I do both, depending on who I’m talking to. If you do lots of the nodding, over time, when you ask the question, you make the other person feel like they don’t know something—why would this genius who usually just nods along ask something now, unless I’ve been unclear or made a mistake? Use responsibly your power of being known as the one who knows everything.
There’s a knack to asking questions without making it look like you know nothing at all. I’m sure it’s just a few specifics that you don’t know about. In which case, ask very specific questions and people will assume that you know the broader picture. Or ask to make something clearer. With both ways of asking questions, your interlocutor will usually give enough context for you to get what’s going on. And you make them feel that they’ve had a constructive conversation, because most people like to show off what they know.
I’m doing a PhD so it would be a research paper, presumably in a journal. There’s no requirement to write anything yet, as we’re (me, my supervisor and another postgrad student under my supervisor) are all sort of working on this. The work at the moment is mostly on figuring out the problem still. Thing is, the other student is in their final year and so there’s a natural experience gap which makes it harder for me to contribute as they can do stuff faster and better than me. That ties in to the “I feel stupid” thing because they’re already learnt all this stuff. The plus side is that he does like to explain stuff as, as you say - it reassures him that he knows it (nicer way of saying showing off)
As for the news media, yeah I remember all the way back to Kosovo - that was the first act of international terrorism by the US I can recall clearly, but of course, I was a kid and didn’t understand the politics so it was just easy to accept whatever the news said. Since I’ve become a communist it’s so much harder to deal with this stuff.
Nice one! PhDs aren’t great for mental health. Keep active, eat healthily, and drink water so that you don’t compound the effects!
Have you come across Pat Thomson’s website? https://patthomson.net/ Loads of advice about writing your PhD and your first article, plus links to other blogs, etc.
She wrote two good books with Barbara Kamler, too. Detox Your Writing: Strategies for Doctoral Researchers and Writing for Peer Reviewed Journals: Strategies for Getting Published. These are both broad enough to cover most disciplines, but they might be more helpful for some disciplines than others. The second one has great advice for forming an academic identity and writing ‘tiny texts’ (abstracts written in such a way that they also do much of the heavy lifting for the first full draft).
I get that, about the news, and I experienced something similar. It got easier for me, after a while, as I started to see that the front story doesn’t matter so much. The real problem is capitalism, and it’s been the most lethal threat to us almost since it’s inception. So whatever the story in the cycle, it’s just a distraction, and not much more dangerous than the subject of the previous story. It’ll (almost) all be fixed with revolution.
Yeah, my problems are actually being compounded by distance - I’m working remotely, and I have kind f a bad lifestyle, I’m not active enough, not eating terribly, but probably a bit too much, etc.
But I actually have some experience with writing - my MSc was pure research so I had a reasonably lengthy thesis. Obviously nothing as long as for a doctorate but still, I feel I have more practice than most STEM folks as I actually came from more of a humanities background before switching. So many STEM folks are… awful at communicating lol. Cheers for the link though, I will check it out. :)
As for news - rationally I know that the media is constructed in a certain way, that I have to ignore the sensationalism, and all that. But it’s one thing to know and another to grok. That bit’s hard.
I’m feeling the same, but its almost spring here, and I plan on starting a garden with a bunch of seeds I got started… so I got that going for me.
I here ya tho, let’s make a touching grass resolution to do more outside activities.
Look at you actually touching grass. A garden is always nice.
Could be better, not going to lie.
Mentally, I’ve always been unwell (lots of issues in my head from factory), but unemployment, poverty and my shack literally falling apart (and no money or means to fix the issues) are really taking a toll lately. The fact my family is also far-right and drags itself down even more by hoarding animals means I also cannot ask or receive help from anyone but my (also unwell) fiance.
Physically, I let myself go. I used to be fit, now I am fat. I sometimes lift weights just to keep some strength, but it’s hard to motivate myself to leave the bed and even harder to motivate myself to exercise more. Truth is… finding out a lot of the people in my town love Bolsonaro - or even if they don’t like him, they like his ideals - left me so throughly disgusted that I can barely see them without feeling enraged. So I’m becoming a recluse.
Spiritually, I suppose I’m trudging along. I make my prayers and offerings to Ogum every Tuesday as I always did and I don’t have many hangups or regrets in that area. Besides that, I occuppy my time with reading and trying to get a job.
Exercise is hard to keep up when things are dark. I try and make myself walk through the woods every now and then it’s also spiritual and a moment of peace.
There is a beach and a jungle nearby, but one is crowded with people (and garbage) and the other is dangerous (can run into some people and things you really shouldn’t see).
I spent some time in Wales with my fiance in 2021. Couldn’t emigrate, but it was nice, since his cottage was 3km from the nearest village, so every day, I did walk through the woods just to go get the newspaper. And I was surprisingly content with the life in the fields, working around the property, helping grow potatoes, and so on. I know things may get better, but they’ll still get a little worse before they do. I look forward for the day I feel happier again to get back to exercising - even if the exercise is simply living the life where he lives.
I’m thankful you understand. More often than not, people just tell to ‘just do it,’ or ‘just be happy,’ and such empty phrases.
Yes I am living somewhere currently with little privacy to be alone in nature and it makes me miss my private spots back in my apartment.
There is something really nice about simple life stuff like that.
I hope things can get better for you sooner rather than later. Focus on healing! Because once you feel mentally/emotionally functional tackling the rest of the problems will come much easier.
What sort of stuff have you seen in the jungle?
Indeed, and thanks for your well-wishes.
Well, because it’s a swampy mangrove in the bigger part of it, it’s easy to dispose of corpses if you want to be a few days before someone stumbles upon them. They’ll rot fast, making identification with the Third-World CSI means the Brazilian police has (if they bother to try) nearly impossible. Some drug cartels like to use spaces in between the trees to grow weed, and you don’t wanna stumble upon such a spot. They also will use the space to go to and from the metropolitan area of São Paulo. Many uncharted, unofficial paths there.
Edit: Fixing autocorrect issues.
I’m very optimistic. Maybe it’s because of spring. But I’m working out, eating well, reading theory, world events aren’t really improving but at least aren’t worsening and it makes me happy that at least a multipolar future is finally starting. Which is something.
It’s starting to happen more and more that people ask me for reading suggestions, mostly where I get my news but a few who have even been like “pill me like one of your communist French girls” asking for theory, always about Chinese socialism which is interesting. I’ve been linking them the collected works of Xi since I think it’s a curiosity about what really is driving China, and because the collected works of Xi are based.
This makes me feel good because it strokes my ego (which needs some love, to be fair, after a year of getting spat on for not slava ukraning) and also because it makes me feel hopeful. A change is really in the air. It’s not yet a big change, but I can feel it.
Eat right, work out, touch grass, read theory, stay connected.
That’s good to hear. Keep up the work comrade.
Damn people ask you for info? Are you charismatic or are these people particularly susceptible to the messages or both or what?
Well these are friends. It’s not like random people in the street are like “hey it’s the guy”, it’s people in my friend group and workplace who are familiar with my views, like maybe I don’t really reveal that I’m a Stalinist, there’s too many layers of ideology and propaganda in that onion to bother peeling it, but I don’t bother hiding the fact that I think China is good, and I actually think it’s easy enough to get people to recognize they’re doing something right.
Sometimes I’ll hide my power level and say stuff like “well clearly they’re doing something right” with a knowing smile, but lately I’ve just been more overt “I think our democracy isn’t real and we’re ruled by corporations. While our ruling class has been impoverishing us, the Chinese have been becoming wealthy.” That’s my favorite red pill.
The daily routine of work and sleep is killing me. I need something new. Like a wild vacation where it’s only me traveling by train across a country.
Still in the best shape I’ve been in over six months but not back to that near elite level I once was at so to not have that anymore is kind of depressing too, but I think it will come soon as I can see the progress almost every week.
Intense reading of hard subjects seems like it helps against monotony. I guess it helps the mind escape while also forcing it to work, which is different than watching youtube videos. Definitely need to keep reading the class analysis of rome, and further solidify my understanding of unequal exchange.
Kind of want to get a venus flytrap too. Seems like a good pet to have. Bit more “alive” than most other plants lol.
I hope you can escape your repressive routine.
In my 1st and 2nd hand experience Venus fly traps are very hard to keep alive, but none of us are botanists or even very responsible pet owners by any stretch of the imagination.
Yeah I’ve done a little reading and they seem like very sensitive plants. What was the part you found hardest?
Not feeding them bugs I found 😅 because everytime I would they would die! Maybe it was a bad bug choice 🤔
That don’t like bugs at all. It’s a myth. They like whole bourgeois.
Why not start planning the trip? Doesn’t have to be now but let’s say, summer 2024?
I want to do something similar as well where I will now save some money, keep working and go on a 4 or 5 month long hike next year. I don’t know where I’ll hike to, nor do I really care tbh. I just want to get away for a while and be on the road, having adventures.
Sorry for the late response comrade. Sleep has been scarce lately. I think I might just do what you suggested. Looking forward to planning. Where have you been thinking of?
My father in law does these trips where he goes away for months. Last summer he biked from his house in The Netherlands to the most northern part of Norway, took him four months. He also walked from his house to Rome and that sounds fun to me as well, so I might do that.
Or I´ll just leave and make a plan from day to day. Just walk, doesn’t matter where, as long as I’m going. South to Spain through France sounds fun. Or West to Russia lol.
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Yeah that’s kind of where I’m at lol. I have no prospects and now I don’t have any energy to dedicate towards something new. It’s hard to build energy when I spend every morsel of it just to continue to fall sideways.
Why do you say you fucked up at life?
Wasn’t a meme posted recently about a race between a crab and a shrimp? Sideways could very well be the right direction, KiG V2.
I will say, if my life experience and the narrative I seem to be on are any indicators, I will find my best success by ham fistedly bludgeoning myself into it.
I just hate how much of this shit feels like it is based on luck. I try and “make my own luck” as much as I can, I try and adapt and evolve, but man I am so exhausted right now. Hopefully I’ll be back in the race soon.
I’ve had a rough few weeks and a lot of self-reflection in that time. I’m not very good at certain aspects of my job and I feel that I’m just not up to task sometimes despite getting good feedback from my superiors. I’ve spent a lot of time analysing my own cycle of self-hatred and thinking about why I do it to myself. Recently I came across a page on Facebook where this guy makes webcomics talking about the experience of him and others with autism. I saw one comic and found it to be quite relatable which led me to check out more of what this guy was saying. I messaged him and explained my experiences to him throughout my life, he messaged back and we had a lot of discussion about a lot of different things. Suddenly I’m able to re-examine my whole life, all of my social mistakes, my inability to logically process instructions from others at times, the times when I get sensory overload, the way I employ masks in social situations to suit different people in order for me to be as socially acceptable as possible, it all made sense for the first time and I finally felt like I could stop blaming myself for the first time ever since I was like 7, I’m now almost 31. I always considered myself a neurotypical who just has something wrong with them but now I can understand and accept myself as someone who is neurodivergent. I’m a normal zebra and not a strange horse.
I think it’s going to be a long process for me to fully deal with all of this. I feel like right now I’m still letting go of all the negativity I’ve heaped into myself for so long, reliving all these memories and instead of mentally flagellating myself for every mistake I’ve made, I can now just accept that it wasn’t really my fault as it wasn’t fully under control. All the mental self-abuse I subjected myself to never worked anyway. What I think is going to be the next big hurdle is how to start thinking positively about myself. My self-esteem has never been good, I’ve never had an idea of my own self-worth beyond how much other people want me around for whatever reason, be it love, friendship or work. However, I also struggle to internalise positive remarks made about myself as there’s always a cynical voice in the back of my head telling me that people only say nice things to me just to be nice, it’s not sincere and sadly that voice has been proven right too many times in the past. I discuss my issues with my parents and they always try to reinforce to me all the positive aspects of myself that they like but I just can’t truly accept it in myself because in my head it’s like, of course they will say nice things about me because they’re my parents. It’s a real mental conundrum where I’m fully cognisant if a problem in my own head but still unable to fix it. Hopefully with time I’ll have the answers I need.
“Normal zebra not a strange horse” is a good quote! Relate to the jadedness towards compliments. I hope your period of analysis brings you good fortune.
It sounds like you’re on the right path to accepting yourself.
I am not a psychologist or any other type of health professional. So this is not professional advice. Still, I think I have helped others to see themselves positively, so this might be useful for you. It can go two ways.
(1) If I’m there in person, I’ll ask them about themselves and make notes about all their characteristics, traits, etc. (This would be too personal for us to do online and I don’t want you to dox yourself.) Then I will go through this list, make it abstract, and talk through it. For example, they might at one point say, ‘I helped so and so with her work.’ I’ll talk in the abstract about helping others and get the other person to think about what it means to help others, etc. Then I’ll make the connection explicitly and say, ‘you said that being a good person means helping others, etc [include details of what they told me about the abstract idea], and look, you did this today and last week; therefore as a matter of fact, you are a nice person, regardless of what I think, so you don’t have to take my word for it.’
(2) If I can’t be there in person, I’ll suggest doing it the other way. Make a list describing the characteristics of a good person who should be proud of and pleased with themselves. Then consider whether you do anything that fits into the described categories. Then you have written evidence that you are a good person, regardless of whether other people are just saying things to be nice (which they probably aren’t; because people only tend to say things to be nice to make people who are genuinely nice feel better).
It can also be useful to do this with ‘bad’ characteristics, too. Because if there are things that you dislike about your actions, which you would like to change, then direct reflection will help you to act differently. I know that I can be quite blunt sometimes. I reflect on this and try to be less blunt (to little avail so far, but we’re all works in progress).
In the meantime, you might find this amusing: https://web.archive.org/web/20130131005649/http://isnt.autistics.org/ and this: https://web.archive.org/web/20130121084304/http://isnt.autistics.org/dsn.html
Edit: typo
I’m not doing so great. I’ve been neglecting myself more and more since the start of the pandemic. The past few months have been especially bad. I barely get out of bed except for when I absolutely have to anymore. I have little/no desire to do things or talk to people. I’m surprised I’m even still able to keep up with my job.
The part that drives me nuts is that I have more than enough time and resources to put in the work to fix this. For the longest time though, I’ve just been putting off doing anything while all I do is lay down and rot.
We all hit rough patches. You’ll get through this. You’re stronger than you think you are
I deliberately took a sledgehammer to my life. All things considered, I’m doing great. Fitter, happier, more productive. Using the e-reader every day on long walks. Not afraid of nuclear war. Laughing and laughing. Not insane.
Badass.
How’d you sledgehammer?
Also do we mean insane “not insane”, actually sane “not insane”, or insane but in a way that is more sane than everybody else “not insane”
whoa, whoa, whoa
how are you reading while walking?Holding it up right in front of my face like a weirdo and switching attention. This area is secluded so it’s not that embarrassing. I walk this path very frequently. It’s not like I’m doing this around cars.
I envy your multi-tasking powers
One of my only skills ty
It’s good to sometimes say: ‘fuck this all, I’m out’. Good on you for having the nerves to do it.
I’m doing better than recently. I’m very tired and somewhat anxious, but I’ve gotten back into reading which is great. I’m eating a bit healthier and trying to exercise more. I’ve also finally gotten into Buddhism, which is interesting, but I can’t find the time to meditate.
I like to meditate during other activities. Such as walking through the woods, sitting on the porch, driving, waiting in a line, etc.
Ah, I knew walking and sitting meditation were a thing, but I haven’t thought about doing it in a line or something, also a deep meditation might be dangerous driving since if you’re doing it right the only thing you are conscious of is your breath.
That is true, for me meditation is just a state I enter of deep neutral thought or of total thoughtlessness, I’ve done more serious official stuff sometimes like where I’m consciously choosing to meditate e.g. focusing on breath but what I like best is when I’m not even aware that I’m in sort of a positive zonked state. Although even without going too deep I’ve definitely hypnotized myself once driving 😵💫
