: The Mean Admin @[email protected]

racism is known symptom of drowsiness. this can be seen both with anna and her dog, and roseanne taking ambien

wish people would accuse me of being anti-white 😭

@magicalmilly my gametheory is that they should just stop

@Gargron it’s a decentralized federated social network

@evan Ah, thanks Evan. Fuck you

@magicalmilly honestly there was a point at which i'd get upset by such statements but honestly it has been one of the nicest things i've ever done to myself to identify why i was upset and why i'd gotten on the wrong track

i'm disabled. i can't volunteer equivalent to a full-time job. heck, i can't even really volunteer equivalent to a part-time job, because bad pain days are bad at coming on a schedule, and i'm aware that taking on an ongoing responsibility and then not doing any of the work is not so much helping as it is making extra problems for someone else.

and i will admit, reminders about this hurt! it feels bad to not be able to do things because you are disabled! especially when you recognize there's so much work needing to be done!

but then i kinda... got over myself a bit.

okay, so i can't do long ongoing projects. it would be disastrous non-helping if i, say, volunteered to be a guardian ad litem for a kid. it's important work that needs doing but i'm unable to put in the regular hours and regular work and stick to a schedule, so i'd just end up letting a kid down when said kid has already been let down enough. i also can't do things like go and volunteer for a day building houses at habitat for humanity. physical disability is physical disability, and the houses don't need to be built with me and my shaky hands not able to properly wrangle a nail gun to do the work correctly. sure, maybe i could push myself, but that's going to be doubly mean. i would be cruel to myself by forcing my body to do things it currently cannot do without causing me massive pain. and if all i can really do at some point to help is "throw up in a corner because i'm hurting that bad", i'm not really helping, i'm taking away resources in that moment that could be used elsewhere more effectively (to, y'know, build the house).

all of this sucks and is frustrating, but that doesn't mean i am entirely useless.

it just means that i need to look for other ways to help. i need to be aware of when i am having a good day. i need to be on the lookout for smaller projects that i can complete.

sometimes that means spending time educating myself, so i can do better work in the future.

sometimes that means just fuckin being available to help when i'm available to help.

can i, the token cishet, cure all transphobia? no. that's a task way beyond me. can i, the disabled bitch, regularly volunteer at a local charity that is interested in trans rights? well also no, i can't put in ten hours a week doing stuff there, it sucks but that's where i'm at.

so what can i do?

i can listen and be ready to help when i'm able to help.

maybe it means something small, like seeing a trans friend who is overwhelmed in trying to figure something out and offering some help. maybe it just means being aware that i have some areas of expertise and i can help people out with them. sometimes it can be just... being around to listen and be kind!

and being able to have that little bit of agency is lifechanging! being disabled is just an endless conga line of ableism reminding you of how little you mean as a person by society. to the point where you can start to believe it yourself. it hurts keenly in my case because i can remember a time when this wasn't so.

that's why it's so important to cling to and recognize what i can do, and make sure i do that.

it's part of going forward with kindness and compassion. you have the compassion for other people. you also have the compassion for yourself.

sometimes that compassion can be not just giving up and deciding it's time to die because that's what your oppressors say you should be doing. sometimes it means valuing your own life, your own input, your own agency, when the oppressors are telling you all of that is nothing.

turns out it's pretty important to do this!

turns out agreeing and promoting the oppressors as having absolute power is also not particularly revolutionary nor will it bring about the revolution any sooner!

i may be only able to do little things. i may be only able to do things sometimes.

i know i cannot be any rosie the riveter, pulling long days building ships to help crush the nazis.

but i can be like the kids helping gather scrap to turn into things to help defeat the nazis. or i can be at least give up the things i can give up, like bumpers on my car, in order to help the effort.

or i can simply be the equivalent of that housewife who puts on another sweater instead of turning up the heat, because she knows the oil she burns to stay perfectly toasty is oil that isn't going to be available for defeating the nazis with.

and with that, i can know that i'm in the fight, too.

here's a summary in meme form of those last couple of replies lol

dk64 is only good cause of "Ohhhhh baNAna" and the fact that you are monky

@magicalmilly it's all excruciatingly self-defeating

and it makes it really clear that people who do this aren't actually interested in changing the world, even/especially when that includes "persuading other people to see the merits of your side"

it's people who want to be smug about being right, not actually changing anything. they're in it fundamentally for that conspiracy theorist rush of having the secret knowledge, so they can sneer at other people for not having the secret knowledge they've got.

it turns out that's not actually a good way to treat people. it's also not a particularly good way to treat yourself

@magicalmilly tbh i tend to see this exemplified by doomer accelerationists and i feel like that says a lot about the level of praxis they are interested in actually doing (which is to say, next to none)

even if i'm not healthy enough to commit to a regular thing, i feel like i can at least recognize the value in being ready to jump in when i can when i'm able to do so. simply having the attitude of being willing to do some work as opposed to "well it's all useless because things must get more miserable for The Glorious Revolution to happen, therefore i will do nothing" means a lot. even if all you're able to do is support and uplift your friends who are struggling.

getting some skin in the game means a lot. and it's also honestly really helpful to one's own self, too. for all this shit it can too often feel like everything is out of your control and it will be forever. that the task is so huge, so why even start on it, because it is impossible. you get buried under the weight of your own lack of agency, and paralyzed into non-action. and, well. who does that benefit? not the side of the angels, that's for fucking sure. it especially doesn't benefit one's own self. it is ultimately handing a freebie to the oppressors, and to absolutely nobody's surprise, that's not super great for one's mental health and well-being. (nor is it super great for communities at large.)

giving yourself the agency and power to not just drown, but to at least doggy paddle, is pretty powerful. even if it doesn't completely solve the problem, even if you still need a life preserver floaty to cling to, you're still exercising your agency and still demonstrating that you believe this stuff is worth fighting for.