First Of All, How Dare You

To put it very bluntly.

You will always make a better impact helping people who need it than trying to hurt people you think deserve it.

Chai tea bag + lil but of brown sugar + apple cider packet + 16 oz. mug of hot but not quite boiling water

it will not Fix You but like. maybe. maybe.

i cannot emphasise enough how much you need to create something. anything. it doesn't matter if you suck. you don't need to monetise it, or make it your career. you can restart an old hobby; you can start from scratch. it doesn't matter. you just need to hold something and be able to say "i did that". baking, drawing, painting, writing, coding, crafts, whatever. make something ! you cannot have all your hobbies be a form of consumption. it's fun, it's great in its own right. but the single best action to make yourself feel better, to calm your mind, to gain self esteem, is to Create

pup star

Good strangers ✨

Public comment has been opened on changing passport forms. It's important that people who aren't trans please take a minute and say "hey this is bad". Please help. :)

I don't know if I think this will change anything, but it's a 5 minute investment of time, and it can't hurt.

I’ve seen some people on here claiming that voting democrats in the election won’t stop republicans and like…yeah, duh. Voting democrat won’t make the republicans disappear but keeping them from as many venues of power as possible is good thing.

Things don’t get better from just one election. It takes sustained effort and that’s what I think the issue is. Some people don’t want to put in the effort because it’s not just this election and it’s not just the president. It’s all elections and all electable positions of power.

There is this idea that social progress is a one way street but it isn’t. The US had black elected public officials DIRECTLY after the civil war but without sustained effort to support the cause of equality the rights of black folks were scrubbed away for almost a century. The US Revolutionary Army was an integrated force something that wouldn’t happen again until 1948.

Republicans won’t stop trying to degrade our democracy if they lose this election and, if we care about our communities, we have to be there to counter them every time. I guarantee you progress will never be a one and done effort.

This FB post by Rebecca Solnit is the thing keeping me sane this morning,so I’m sharing it here in case it helps you all, too:

“They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.

The Wobblies used to say don't mourn, organize, but you can do both at once and you don't have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning. You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who's upset and check your equipment for going onward.

A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.

People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it's sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.”

If you consider yourself self-aware but only acknowledge the things you need to change and not the things you do really well, you aren't self-aware you're just being mean to yourself.

counsellingwithnic on ig