I got a hotdog at a food truck that appeared near my house a few years ago. I asked for just ketchup on the dog. She laughed and said “You’re a little boy! That’s OK, little boys get hotdogs too.” I’m like, lady I am giving you money right now, is there a version of this encounter where you’re not judging me?
Developmental psychology (Erik Erickson’s theory) teaches us that adults tend to go one of two ways as they approach and hit mid-life - generativity and stagnation. People who have a purpose, who are considering leaving some sort of mark or legacy, to contributing to society tend to fare better. They are happier and more satisfied as time goes on. Folks who become self-absorbed and preoccupied with their own comfort and convenience will then stagnate, which you can imagine is the cranky old person stereotype.
I do subscribe to this theory which is why at 43 I am running a non-profit I started, working to empower other leaders in my community, working on changing legislation for my community, working on building the community itself. I want to be the kind of person who is generous and kind and open-hearted, and be fulfilled. I don’t want to be the person who is counting the ways life did them wrong, using that as a justification to lick wounds and retreat from life, jaded and alone.
My boss claims it has “no effect” to choose where to spend your money.
I remind him, voting with our wallets is literally the only mechanism Capitalism provides for consumer ethics.
It’s Prisoner’s dilemma. When we think 5m people are going to take the action either way, we don’t think our singular efforts matter. But as there are 5m of us taking the action, there are 5m singular efforts that DO matter. If people just don’t give up on the idea.
Says the guy who still has an Amazon account :/
Class warfare will be the foundation it’s all built on. Any tech developed for the moon, Mars, whatever - anything we gain in knowledge in return - is going to go to benefit rich fuckers, not you. One day there will be more space tourists. Rich people, not you. Maybe one day Man will even colonize another world. Rich people, not you.
I have met Hunter Biden. I will take that bet.
If you wait long enough the government just does it for you
Oh come on, everyone is excited to see current star Minnie Driver play some bible lady
I am working to build queer community in my Southern red state. It’s hard, and everyone wants more from me than I can deliver. Trying to help a volunteer write a grant proposal. Trying to keep my shit together. Trying to move a thousand small boulders up a thousand small hills.
I do feel valued when I see my son, and he comes running up to me, and gives me a huge hug, which will happen tonight.
But I am also terribly lonely, and it’s the kind where plenty of people are around me, but I am still lonely, because I am not able to be open and authentic to them. They want a leader . Being vulnerable has caused problems with that.
Every once in a while I can buy a bag of weed and then, for a while, none of it matters and I can just roll the boulders all day.
10 years of child sexual abuse is worse than just a single rape, if her reports are to be believed.
And just try reading it over the phone to someone, especially a non-native-english speaker.
My personal email is first initial with last name, which I can simply tell them without having to try to spell anything out.
I have a state job tho, and there it’s first initial and middle initial and last name, why the hell… now I can’t email a colleague without looking at a sheet to find their middle initial. Stupid.