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The Trial by Kafka

*Spoilers if you want to read*

If you think you're oppressed, you are.

In the story the main character Josef K (referred to as "K") gets arrested at the start. Through out he learns drips and drabs about the legal system he's being accused by. He does not learn what he's accused of, when his court date is, and what his punishment might be. But rest assured, he is told his case is very serious and he is in a lot of trouble, so best behaviour yeah? During the year that follows he becomes a shell of what he used to be and what he stood for, becoming unfocused on work and no longer making meaningful relationships with those around him.

At the end he is unceremoniously killed at the middle of the night with a knife in the chest on a rock under the moon. K was strangely at peace with this.

K suffered more in the year leading up to his execution, every minute looking over his shoulder, wondering what, where and when any of the process would take a step forward. What a relief when it finally came to an end.

Most of our daily life is spent worrying bills, rent, relationships and anything under the sun. Worrying that the sky is going to fall causes more harm than the sky actually falling.

oranges from my backyard

so true, tell my four month old

Franz Kafka, 1912

little man

birds flying high

i know it sounds made up but studying Marxism will save you. like, understanding how and why society works the way it does and being able to have the knowledge that it wasn't always like this and one day this too will be surpassed will do wonders for your mental health. not to mention the tools for analysis and understanding can give you insight into yourself, because it does also do that, it's just that the knowledge and understanding that comes from studying socioeconomics derived from class struggle (rather than bourgeois intellectualism) recontextualizes so many of our issues and struggles that things no longer feel like they're explicitly you're fault nor do they stretch beyond our imagination infinitely into the past and beyond our futures. If you feel hopeless or confused, reading theory can genuinely help. it will solidify your understanding of the world and how to move forward, rather than simply pointing out all the problems (as many social media posts tend to) the answers are in theory.

the crazy thing is it's not just beneficial to our mental health but to our external, physical health too. learning these things can uplift the Proletariat as a class and start to bring us closer to those futures you'll become able to see. theory is a map to a better future, not only is it relieving to see there is one out there, we can actually follow it, and that's the best part.