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rhetoricandlogic · 9 months

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Vital and Urgent: System Collapse by Martha Wells

Alex Brown

Tue Nov 14, 2023 11:30am

Martha Wells returns to the Murderbot Diaries with the seventh book, System Collapse. It begins immediately after the events of the fifth book, Network Effect (book six, Fugitive Telemetry, actually takes place before book five and seven). Murderbot is just beginning to deal with the trauma of the earlier events, which I won’t spoil but involve a deeply unethical megacorporation, reckless human settlers, and invasive ancient alien technology. But before it can deal with its own mental health issues—or even acknowledge that it has any—it has to deal with representatives from said unethical megacorporation. Barish-Estranza has sent rescuers to the planet, and by “rescuers” I mean mercenaries who plan to indenture (forcibly if necessary) the surviving colonists and strip the planet of whatever resources it can extract. If they have to kill Murderbot’s humans to do that, they will.

Complicating matters are the colonists themselves. They don’t trust Murderbot’s crew anymore than they do Barish-Estranza. Furthermore, decades ago another set of colonists vanished on the other side of the planet. Are they alive and hiding, contaminated by killer alien technology, or plain old dead? Murderbot, a pack of humans, and a piece of ART the spaceship’s AI head off to find out, with Barish-Estranza hot on their heels.

The only thing I found frustrating with System Collapse was how it felt less like its own novella and more like 240 pages cut from Network Effect. I spent the first half of the story having no idea what was going on or why until I finally put the book aside and went back and read reviews and plot summaries of Network Effect. Murderbot went through a pretty traumatic experience in book five that directly impacts its life and job in book seven. Because of that trauma, Murderbot doesn’t want to engage with those memories and interrupts its own narration with “[redacted]”. Eventually Murderbot reveals enough that the reader can piece together the parts that they’ve forgotten to get the gist. It’s a stylistic choice that makes total sense with a narrator like Murderbot and feeds into readers’ own forgetfulness in interesting ways.

However, it’s also somewhat annoying for readers who haven’t been in this story since spring 2020. I struggle enough with books coming out a year apart, but three years—especially these past three years—means I basically came into book seven as fresh as newly fallen snow. I think the book needed a more thorough recap and much earlier in the story. Anyone who hasn’t read Network Effect yet should wait on System Collapse until they’ve caught up. This really is a story for current fans rather than new readers. (Newbies, I suggest the first novella, All Systems Red, obviously, or Fugitive Telemetry, a fun standalone hardboiled detective noir set on a space station.)

Really, if that’s the only complaint I could muster, you know it’s a good book. I enjoyed every moment of it, even the frustrating ones. Martha Wells has a way of writing that makes me want to crawl into the pages and live in the world she’s created. The world feels so tangible, its history bigger than the sliver we see and its cultures complex and colorful. So far I’ve only read her Murderbot series and Witch King (which I also adored immensely), but I found both to be rich, vivid worlds populated with realistic characters in riotously diverse cultures and societies.

She also does something with her fantasy and sci-fi work that I don’t see as often as I’d like: ignore the gender binary. There aren’t queer characters in the sense of queerness we have in our world. In Wells’ books, queerness isn’t a marginalization or something that exists outside the “normal” or the binary. There just isn’t a binary. Some people use he/him, some use she/her, and others use any of the countless other pronouns available across the galaxy. Pronouns and gender identities are as vast and personal as there are types of people. No one treats pronouns like anything special, no one speculates about what body parts they have under their suits or what bathrooms they use, no one challenges anyone else’s pronoun usage based on their own personal, social, religious, political, or cultural preferences. Her stories imagine worlds where queer people get to be people, in all the mess that entails, without having to justify, explain, or fight for our existence. In real life I can barely get cis people to remember to use they/them for me, so yeah, I get outsized joy at reading about a world where everyone gets to be who they are without anyone else barging in to try and make you feel bad about it.

Look, there’s not much to say about Martha Wells’ System Collapse that hasn’t already been said before about the rest of the Murderbot Diaries books. It’s wild fun, action-packed, and reflective in unexpected ways. The strong undercurrent of critique on capitalism and colonialism, the themes of trauma and mental health, and the unencumbered diversity take a relatively harmless science fiction series and turn it into something vital and urgent.

#Martha Wells #System Collapse #mahreviews #long post

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cyclopstm · 3 years

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DISABILITY && MENTAL HEALTH

This post will cover items such as disabilities, mental health, PTSD and trauma in relation to Scott. These are things which are either canon for him, or headcanons I want to pay more attention to on my blog.

I do not have any personal experience with any of the items I will address in this post, which means that most (if not all) of my information is gained through reading and research online. If there are items I missed out on or have described incorrectly, you may contact me about this to kindly help me figure out a new/better way to put things into words. It’s in no way my intention to upset anyone, or bring forth wrong information.

To me, it just feels like Scott is a good opportunity to improve the representation of characters and people who deal with visual impairment because the narrative that disability is binary caused that most blind characters in popular media have no vision at all. Blind characters in heroic roles like Daredevil, have powers that completely compensate for their blindness while blind people who don’t have these compensations are usually portrayed as helpless.

As a team leader and a superhero, Scott offers a good opportunity to include people who are visually impaired, yet often ignored or left out of the heroic narrative.

Needless to say, do NOT reblog this post && don’t interact with it if you’re not a RP blog.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS : 1. Scott’s brain trauma and injury 2. Scott’s PTSD during his youth 3. Symptoms and signs of PTSD for Scott 4. Scott is (legally) blind 5. Scott cannot distinguish colours 6. How Scott deals with his visual impairment 7. The X-Mansion and dealing with trauma 8. Additional notes

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1. SCOTT’S BRAIN TRAUMA AND INJURY When Scott was a young boy, he went on a travel with his parents and his little brother Alex. The family’s private jet was ambushed by an alien Shi’ar scouting ship. The boys lost their parents on that unfortunate day and in the crash, Scott took a hit to the head after his mutant powers manifested for the first time and allowed Scott to break his fall and allow him and Alex to survive. The head injury Scott suffered on that day would permanently disable the part of Scott’s brain which would have enabled him to control his optic blasts. Additionally, Scott (as well as Alex) suffered traumatic amnesia regarding the accident. Unlike his brother, Scott was forced to remain hospitalized for up to a year.

As a teenager, Scott began to suffer from severe headaches and he was sent to a specialist (Mr. Sinister in disguise) who provided him with lenses made of ruby-quartz. Scott’s mutant power erupted from his eyes as an uncontrollable blast of optic force and the only means to control it ever since have been the ruby-quartz lenses Sinister gave him. Sinister knew the lenses would help due to experiments and research he had been doing on the boy while Scott lived at the orphanage where Sinister had feigned being the owner.

2. SCOTT’S POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER DURING HIS YOUTH After losing his parents and waking up alone at the hospital after the plane crash, Scott was placed in the State Home for Foundlings, an orphanage in Omaha (Nebraska) where he was subjected to batteries of tests and experiments by the orphanage’s owner, Mr. Milbury (alias, Mr. Sinister). He placed mental blocks on Scott and took on the role of ‘Lefty’, who was Scott’s roommate and bully at the orphanage. During his time spent at the orphanage, Scott was subjected to several occasions which would leave him traumatized — such as the attempt of one of the other orphaned boys at taking his own life, and Scott’s failed attempt at saving him. Any time anyone came close to adopting Scott, Sinister intervened.

At some point, Scott demolished a crane with his optic blast, by accident. He had saved a crowd of people by using his blast again to destroy the crane before it would crush the people, but they believed he was out to kill them and chased the young mutant boy. Scott woke the attention of a mutant criminal who sought to use Scott’s powers in his crimes, but abused the kid when Summers refused. At that time, he had also attracted the attention of Charles Xavier who tracked down Scott and took him in as the first of his team of X-Men...

3. SYMPTOMS OF SCOTT’S PTSD — Reliving the traumatic event (during his childhood) :: as a boy, Scott was fond of airplanes and dreamed of becoming a pilot himself one day. But when he was taken to an air show by one of the orphanage’s nurses, he had a violent traumatic reaction in the middle of the show, reciting things he otherwise doesn’t consciously remember. — Negative Thoughts and Feelings :: Scott often deals with feelings of anger, guilt, fear or numbness. He’s prone to blame himself for things going wrong on missions with the X-Men. When someone comes to pass, he’s quick to take up responsibility and the blame for it, and occasionally even deals with survivor’s guilt. Scott also feels cut off from his friends and family and hardly keeps much interest for day-to-day activities. He hardly does them to relax, but rather only when they become necessary. — Avoidance :: Scott feels like he has to keep busy at all times, he doesn’t want to think or talk about anything in relation to his past, feels emotionally cut off from his feelings, struggles to express his emotions or affection towards others and thus comes across as numb and cold and very serious and occasionally does risky things which could be self-destructive or reckless. He’s often the first in line to sacrifice himself for the X-Men not only because he’s their leader, but also because he has little to no value for his own life. — Disturbed sleep and lack of sleep. — Taking risks and hypervigilance. — Intrusive thoughts. — Nightmares. — Trust issues. — “No one understands.”-mentality. — The sense of never being at peace.

4. SCOTT IS (LEGALLY) BLIND While Scott was born with perfectly normal eyesight, and perfect vision, he no longer has the ability to see without his ruby-quartz lenses ever since his optic blasts came to manifest. Only ruby-quartz can keep the optic blasts under control, meaning that any other means of vision such as regular glasses or lenses would not be of help for Scott. Scott literally can’t see without his ruby-quartz shades. Opening his eyes would prove incredibly destructive to his nearest surroundings.

Someone who is completely blind can’t see any light or form. Of the people with eye disorders, only about 15% can see nothing at all. If you’re legally blind, you can still see, just not that clearly. Normal vision is 20/20. That means you can clearly see an object 20 feet away. If you’re legally blind, your vision is 20/200 or less in your beter eye or your field of vision is less than 20 degrees.

In addition to being unable to distinguish colors due to the red tint in his glasses, they also reduce his low-light vision, which means Scott deals with low vision.

5. SCOTT CANNOT DISTINGUISH COLOURS I’m not using the term colorblindless in this post for the main reason that Google gives me too many search results in relation to racism, and I do not intend to use a term that has a double meaning that could be taken the wrong way.

Scott’s ruby-quartz lenses cause him to see the world through a veil of red. The lenses are tinted in red which alters Scott’s general, every day perception of the world. He sees the world in shades of grey, white, black and red and can no longer distinguish any other colours. Maybe rather than ‘colourblindness’, Scott deals with something alike to monochromacy. Though, Scott’s monochromacy is perhaps not of a kind that has been officially diagnosed in real life cases before.

The comics and movies rarely acknowledge Scott’s eyesight aside from him claiming to have an ‘eye condition’ as an excuse for him to wear sunglasses all the time. Scott’s adaptations to being unable to distinguish different colours would be mostly rather subtle and maybe it doesn’t inherently add onto the story a comic book or movie wants to tell, but they shouldn’t be ignored in how I wish to bring Scott in my writing...

6. HOW SCOTT DEALS WITH HIS VISUAL IMPAIRMENT — High contrast text and browser extensions for reading. — Color coding his outfits. He labels them with what color they are and organizes his closet by items that go together. — As a prodigy at billiards, Scott has a special billiards set adjusted to his specific needs. — Large prints for letters, books, digital fonts, etc. — Increased brightness on any of his devices’ screens. — Assistance from ‘self-driving’ tech when flying the Blackbird or riding his motorcycle. He knows the majority of controls through muscle memory by now. — Assistive technology to improve contrast, especially at night. — Scott owns a touch-based Rubik’s Cube. — Help from his closest friends.

7. THE X-MANSION AND DEALING WITH TRAUMA Scott and Ororo both (among others), are hyper aware of the traumas some of their students have experienced. They recognize behaviours and reactions in trauma survivors because they have been in such a position themselves as well. They made sure the school has a clear set of rules and policies on the safety and comfort of students. The school faculty received training in mental health first aid, there’s places students can retreat to when they feel anxious or suffer from power meltdown.

People like Scott, Jean and Rogue would know how to handle students who have gone through different types of abuse. As trauma survivors themselves, they’d take extra steps to reassure students who have every reason to distrust adults. They would announce themselves when approaching students from behind, maintain wide personal space bubbles and refrain from initiating physical contact such as hugs or touching students without asking them first. They see there’s no use in raising your voice to the kids, and won’t tollerate any kind of jokes about trauma. Scott is rumoured to be very strict on the rules of the house concerning mental health.

8. ADDITIONAL NOTES While Scott is aware that there is no shame in any of what he deals with every day, he still keeps it under wraps a lot. He doesn’t ever want for his visual impairment or his trauma to become his only and main personality trait other people associate with him. This is why a lot of people may not even know that he is dealing with these things on the daily. He’s very subtle about everything and only those who get to know him better may begin to see and notice things which indicate that he’s disabled. Scott has grown so adjusted to living with his disabilities that they commonly no longer cause him trouble.

The only people who know Scott is visually impaired because he told them himself are Charles (confidant and father-figure), Jean (lover, the person he maybe trusts more than anyone else), Hank (as the resident scientist), Ororo (as his fellow team leader) and Emma Frost (as his therapist).

Scott has been able to take therapy sessions with Charles during his early years, and later on with Emma Frost. Jean has also helped him an incredibly great deal on coping with his trauma and PTSD, lack of self-esteem and dealing with his emotions and expressing them more openly.

To this day, Scott still suffers from migraines and occasional moments of memory loss. His brain injury does not always allow him to maintain or store knowledge accurately. His migraines are a result of his optic blast building up surplus energy. When Scott can’t use his optic blast regularly, he will build up a surplus energy which manifests into migraines.

#( META. )#( SAVED. )#tw ptsd #tw mental health #tw disability #tw trauma #tw abuse

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topicprinter · 7 years

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Hi, I’m Manny. After going back to school, a few failed attempts and finally learning how to code myself, I’m finally officially launching Pocketcoach today: A chatbot for people who struggle with stress and anxiety. 🎉 Here’s how I did it and the lessons I’ve learned.For a long time, it bothered me that a topic as important as mental health isn’t getting the attention it should. It’s not taught in schools, not on the job, and only the luckiest among us learn from their parents what it takes to live a happy life.But mental health is a huge issue. Everybody on this planet is trying to live a happy life — one way or another. Nobody chooses to suffer. But so many of us are struggling with our mental health. It’s not as obvious as other problems because it can often be hard to see what’s going on inside a person. But it’s everywhere — whether we acknowledge it or not.I wanted to do something about that. It became clear, the only way to do this is going back to school again and get some psychology training. Specifically, I enrolled in the most fascinating course imaginable. Applied Positive Psychology. Instead of mainly focusing on what’s wrong with people, positive psychology is an umbrella term for research that wants to figure out what’s right with people, what makes them happy and what we can do to become happier. Learning all that was great and I really loved it but there’s this strange problem: All these interesting insights that could really help people in their daily lives didn’t really make it out of academia. Many academic papers are never even read by anyone except for their authors and journal editors. That’s what I wanted to change; I wanted to make all those fascinating insights and tools to live a better life available to as many people as possible. And the best way to do this, I thought, was to use technologyStep 1: Goal-coaching via WhatsApp. I started off with WhatsApp-based coaching to help people reach their goals. The idea was to text people twice a day — once in the morning and once in the evening — to help them set goals, check in with their progress, help overcome obstacles and everything else that’s important for reaching one’s goals. (There’s quite a bit of scientific research on this topic, and that can be really useful if you want to make a change in your life.) The goal was to learn about text-based coaching and then automate it. A nice idea but I ended up with a lot of conversations but no way to automate them at all.Messaging with each user twice a day cost me a lot of time. I also had to create graphics and gifs along the way, do marketing and go over old conversations to improve them. My early adopters were happy but this simply wasn’t a scalable solution. I couldn’t go on texting people every day for little money. It was a hard decision but I realized it was time to move on.Step 2: Typeforms to the rescue. I had also learned that you can’t just guide people through the same process regardless of whether they’re starting a business or want to lose weight. The obstacles, the timeframe and almost every other aspect of a conversation will be quite different. It might seem obvious, it wasn’t back then. At least not for me. Anyway, I decided to focus on the one goal that matters most: living a happy life. And where better to start than with those of us who are currently stressed, anxious and unhappy. From that point on, my focus was to help people build the skills to better cope with anxiety. There are scientifically-validated therapy approaches out there, but how could I make people learn the skills they’d learn in therapy if there was no therapist? I knew I had to make it both simple and engaging. And ideally, add a bit of fun. So here’s how that went: I created a series of lessons and exercises and wanted to bring them into an interactive format. Typeform was the perfect tool for this. In case you don’t know, Typeform is a form-building tool, probably the most elegant and beautiful solution out there. I had to re-purpose it but it worked. Was it interactive and fun? Well, kind of. Could have been better, that's for sure. All kinds of people tried it though— some even kept using it for a long time. But without the technical skills to take this to the next level (and without finding a co-founder who’d go along), I eventually hit the same road block as before. I had developed something that a handful of people liked — but nothing more. And I lacked the skills to improve what I had.Step 3: Do it yourself. At around the same time, Facebook opened its Messenger API for chatbots. I wanted to make use of this new platform but stick to the same concept (small but daily interactive lessons and exercises). That’s when Jemil, a friend in San Francisco who had just gone through a few months of training as a software engineer, agreed to help me get Pocketcoach off the ground. Next to his part-time job, he spent his free time building an initial version of the chatbot. He soon got a full-time job and was out of time but this really made me (finally!) realize: I needed to learn to code if I wanted to create something that really works! And that’s what I did. As Jemil’s version was built in JavaScript, that’s what I started with. I began to learn with freeCodeCamp. It’s simple and free, which was exactly what I wanted. I also started to go through online courses (mostly on Udemy), some of which are truly helpful. And yea, you can also find great videos on Youtube, for free obviously. Reading books on Python helped me the least, I think. What worked best was getting my hands dirty and struggling with real code from day one. After a while, I switched to Python and built Pocketcoach from scratch again. If that was such a smart move or not, I can’t really say. At that time, it seemed like the right decision. Along the way, AWS (Amazon Web Services) really gave me a hard time. Jemil had built the bot on a serverless architecture and I tried to stick with that for as long as I could. AWS really isn’t made for programmers who just get started and there are lots of things that can make it feel overwhelming. Not least their terrible documentation. I eventually decided to abandon the serverless architecture in favor of Python’s popular Django framework. In hindsight, I can say this: I’ve spent way too much time optimizing things that turned out to be irrelevant and I was much too willing to start from scratch just because it seemed like I had run into unsurmountable problems. But the one positive lesson I have learned is that it’s so much easier to learn how to code if you have a project that you truly believe in. I don’t want to bore you with much more detail but this much needs to be said: Along the way, I had help from some of the most amazing people without whom this would have probably been impossible. Just to name the most important ones: Thank you Alex, Ashwin, Gabe, Jemil and Johannes.How Pocketcoach works. So today, I’m finally officially launching Pocketcoach: A chatbot for people who struggle with stress and anxiety. Pocketcoach ‘lives’ in Facebook Messenger and it will message its users once a day. Just like a friend that wants to check in.In small, daily conversations, Pocketcoach users learn to deal with repetitive thoughts and uncomfortable feelings. Step by step and through a combination of exercises, background information and some fun, users build the skills to cope by themselves. And in the end, they will have the tools to live a bit more happily. That’s basically it.Is it going to make a difference? I’m confident it will. No single approach is going to be right for everyone but Pocketcoach clearly does its job. While some people really need the help of a therapist, not everyone wants, needs or has access to professional help. I’ve been testing the beta version for a long time and the most motivating moments were when beta users shared genuinely encouraging feedback.During the last months, this message from a user has been featured on my personal victory board. A place where I save little and big wins to cheer me up when I feel down and need something to get back on my feet again: “I also want to thank you for putting your time and effort into creating Pocketcoach; your help is more valuable than you may realize. I think it’s important to let you know how much it means to have someone be there to help you fight the anxiety. Even if it’s a bot, there’s a team of caring people behind it — so thank you.”Where do things go from here? Truth be told, things are still not perfect. I’ve been working on Pocketcoach for so long that I’m even kind of embarrassed to admit it. I’ve failed before and part of me is scared I might fail again. But I’m doing my best and I keep working towards my goal. I’m truly happy I finally have something to show to the world. But in a way, that’s just the start. My hope is that today’s launch is the next step in making Pocketcoach into something that really makes a difference in some people’s lives.Originally published here: https://medium.com/@pocketcoach/how-i-struggled-failed-then-learned-how-to-code-and-now-finally-launch-on-producthunt-4cbf728c9220

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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stephanielyon88music · 7 years

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LIVING IN MADNESS: AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBBI ZANA

~ By Stephanie Lyon

Most of us were introduced to Madness by Lewis Caroll through Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland… One of my favourite books for sure but now that I’m older the rabbit hole no longer takes me to Wonderland. I’m not complaining though because these days the rabbit hole leads me underground into the high energy, raw, and always exciting world of rock and roll… We may not hear much rock and roll on commercial radio anymore, but Melbourne band ‘Shadowqueen’ are well and truly proving pure rock is still very much alive. Their first album took Europe by storm and now their back with their second album ‘Living Madness’.

I recently spoke to Robbi Zana Shadowqueen’s singer and bass player about the making of 'Living Madness’, love songs, and music.

“Tough call, but 'Tonight’ would be my favourite song on 'Living Madness’. Love playing that song! I love the riff, and I especially love the feel of the song, it has such a driving beat. The lyrics are revolved around power from another realm and experiencing Déjà Vu. A bit of fantasy flavour. Growing up I loved reading Raymond E. Feist books such as the 'Magician’. I still love fantasy and science fiction. I’d love to do an awesome clip to that song, but need to wait and put together some more funds.” Robbi replies when I ask about her favourite song on the new album.

“To tell you the truth, there isn’t much of a theme with love in regards to our album 'Living Madness’. I actually find love songs quite difficult to write lyrically, because I read it back as I’m writing them and usually think it’s too chessy, so I usually scrap them. My lyrics are just as eclectic as the music itself. I address universal themes that people are usually curious about. Like science fiction, fantasy, history, astronomy, ancestry and mental health issues. There are two songs on the album that are different to these themes and are more about relationships about love. 'Unconditional’ is a song that teases or ridicules unconditional love. I remember writing that one after I heard someone had divorced their parents! Love obviously has conditions! The other song you would be referring to is 'Ruin Me’, which would be about a painful relationship but you still love it and go back for more. Tell me you haven’t heard of someone in that situation or been in one yourself!” Robbi responds when I question her about a possible theme regarding love and relationships on the album… I can definitely relate to the kind of painful relationship of 'Ruin Me’ we’ve all been there. Love is an addiction after all.

“I’m glad you acknowledge our many eclectic musical influences. 'Living Madness’ has musical influences from Queens of the Stoneage, Royal Blood, Muse, Soundgarden, to a variety of old school 70’s rock bands like Led Zeppelin. As I am a bass player and vocalist I can admit some riffs can be difficult to play and sing at the same time. I believe we had more technical riffs from our first album which were much trickier to perfect playing and singing at the same time. As we have written them I guess it’s no longer a challenge playing them live, however, during the writing process I certainly had to think hard about what I was playing against the phrases of some of the melodies.” Robbi says when I ask if the eclectic elements of their songs are challenging LIVE.

“From memory, I believe 'Burning’ was the first song we wrote for 'Living Madness’, however, we had written some songs during the first album such as 'Stars’ that didn’t make it onto our first album that we happened to rehash and rework. Lyrically, 'Burning’ is about dealing with mental health issues, and 'Stars’ was inspired by astronomy and fortune tellers. We never stop writing, and have many ideas down, but as you know not all songs make it onto album releases. One of my favourite song ideas didn’t even make it onto 'Living Madness’. You never know, it might make it onto our next album. We are a three-piece band and we have decided that we need to unanimously agree that we love it or it gets placed on a back burner.” Robbi responds when I ask how the writing process began for 'Living Madness’.

“This process is never the same. Sometimes just lyrics, or at least a concept of the story line or short story. Sometimes lyrics and chords flow out at the same time. Sometimes just the music. All three of us contribute to the music, and sometimes ideas aren’t made in the rehearsal room, and sometimes they are. We have no rules, and there are no boundaries to how or when we are creative.” Robbi replies when I ask about their creative process. “Alex Deegan (drums), Simon Hopman (guitar) and I have been through a lot together. Even through a marriage and divorce. Simon and I got together at a young age, and we divorced during the making of our first album. Yet our band is still together. We believe in our music more than words can explain. Vocally it is quite distinct, and musically we sound huge as a three piece, and our music sounds like all your favourite classic rock music influences put together. We will release more songs in the future and make more clips as we love this process. If you get a chance, please come see us live.” Robbi adds.

'Living Madness’ is in a world of its own, it’s the originality we’ve been craving. It’s eclectic in style with something for everyone. Beats which will have you tapping your feet, power chords and guitar riffs which will have you in awe, catchy lyrics which will have you singing along before you know all the words; whilst Robbi’s pitch, vocal range, and the rock attitude in her voice is something Australian rock has been waiting for. Shadowqueen are a band you’ll want to keep your eye on.

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invalidatxd-blog · 7 years

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03.01.2018

Same day same me

Talking to someone who has moderately little mental health issues is so interesting. I mean I think that I am fairly empathetic in general so maybe there is that. And I am not trying to put myself on a pedestal, but I think that being mentally ill gives you a very different perspective on humans in general and especially negativity. Emma is good because she doesn’t have any pretence of understanding. She doesn’t try and sympathise with something that she can’t relate to. Which is great. But I think having the understanding, realising that people aren’t always as lucky as you are and they cant always communicate the way you do, and that you wont be able to feel the way that they feel. I think it’s important to acknowledge that it comes from a certain level of privilege. Also I read something really interesting on the internet about people who are depressed or mentally ill sometimes can’t help they’re actions, but that doesn’t mean that their actions are justified. But it can be frustrating listening to emma who will acknowledge that she doesn’t have that understanding but than try and explain your feelings to you. She likes to label things and explain them away and put them in a box. I think that it is a part of her need to have structure and order in her life and.

I have to finish that mid thought because my computer crashed and I don’t remember what I said. I actually lost like 400 words but that’s ok because I think it was mostly garble anyway. I think I need to start working to make my thoughts in this more coherent and more ordered, I think that will help me order and work through my own thoughts in real life. It’s almost as if this is a tangible mind. I guess that’s what most writing is, people putting their thoughts and who they are into something that is accessible for others. Tangible self-expression. It’s so interesting when you think about how you are accessing parts of people’s souls through their choice of expression, whether it be music or art or books. Thinking about sharing this word document makes me realise how much courage it must take to share those parts of yourself. Even fiction novels give such an insight into the author, it shows you what they think about and how they think. When you listen to the lyrics of a song there is so much that is being putting out there. But I think it must also be so liberating to share those aspects of your mind with other people, and having people who relate to it as well. I am not into the idea of putting things out in the universe but I do believe that internalising things is so dangerous and I think that it’s human nature to share, to comfort and to find people who you can relate to. The sharing of stories is so deeply personal, even though it may not be a personal story, and I think it is a really crucial aspect of the fabric of human nature. Entire society’s and cultures live on through the telling of stories, the sharing of songs. It is so interesting to me that arts and creativeness are almost discouraged in society, people should pursue more “academic” pathways. But art and the creativeness of the mind is such a crucial part of what makes humans so human. I think that as integral as science and mathematics and academia is to society, it doesn’t breed love or passion like writing or drawing or creating does. It doesn’t have the ability to make people feel the way that music can. Not that there aren’t people who feel passionately about those parts of life, it’s just a more clinical aspect of humans.

I love having the conversation about what makes humans different from other animals or beings on the planet, why are we different, what makes us human. Some people say that the ability to love but there’s proof that other animals have the same ability. Ritual also exists in other animal kingdoms. Intelligence is probably a fair argument, human intellect. My favourite argument is that humans can feel compassion, and empathy. Although it seems almost arrogant to assume that we are special in that nature. I think that the fact that the humans need to demonstrate our superiority, to be quantifiably the most superior is probably the best demonstration of what separates humans from other animals.

I still am trying to convince myself that humanity is good, there is so much evil that exists in the world, so much inequity and so many people who are willing to ignore the suffering, or even cause the suffering of others, to further themselves, for money or power. People say that hate is taught and whilst I think that may be somewhat true, how did humans become so hateful initially. I think that prejudice is taught but I think that hate is inherent, so is selfishness. It’s so much easier to be selfish, so much easier to pretend that the world is not such a bad place, ignore the suffering the others. It’s kind of terrifying how easy it is for people to do. I sometimes wonder if power or money is the more prominent motivator for hateful behaviour, but at the moment at least, they seem to be indivisible. You don’t have people with lots of money who don’t have some form of power, and once a person becomes more powerful they almost always end up with more money. I mean I could go into capitalism because realistically that’s the most likely explanation. But what started it.

I’ve heard people argue that because white people had the most civilised society first. Which probably isn’t even accurate, but regardless, what is civilised about massacre, about wiping out entire populations of the planet because they are different. I hate thinking about this, it is depressing and really hard to think about because I am constantly and consistently benefiting from it.

In other news, it turns out that Alex’s New Year’s Resolution is to get rid of me, cut me out of his life. Which is fine. But I do wish that he would tell me first. I mean it’s not really fine, it’s kind of really fucking devastating. But at least it means I don’t have to have false hope anymore. Although I am sure I probably still will. Because I am a fool. I hate saying fool non-sarcastically. But I don’t know how else to describe what I am. An idiot. A loser. Pathetic. All could be used. I am trying so hard to not think about it, but of course that only makes me think about it more. I think this is probably the longest he has gone without replying to a legitimate question from me in a really long time. We have of course gone longer periods without speaking but it’s always because the conversation has stopped or come to an end. I am probably way over analysing it, but he hasn’t watched either of my Instagram stories or snapchat story either. And then comes the fun game of whether or not I should just reply as I normally would or if I should not reply or acknowledge him when he does respond to me. Would that be petty and childish? I mean unless he is just wanting nothing to do with me, there is probably no reason to care that he’s not replying. He has family and friends who is almost definitely spending time with. And I feel like a crazy person and I am thinking like a crazy person and I just need to relax. But it fucking hurts my heart when I see him replying to emma and I get nothing back. It is shit. But also in his defence he is not obligated to reply to me, he doesn’t owe me a response, he’s never once indicated that we are more than just friends. (lol)

I don’t want to leave this entry talking about him because I think that it is toxic and unhealthy and obsessive and I hate myself the most when I am like this.

I am going to list the nice things that happened today:

- I woke up and I wasn’t hot

- I saw Elle and had a delicious lunch

- I like my outfit and how I presented myself today

- I bought a really good smelling candle

- I bought a TV which will be so exciting to have.

#text post #trigger warning #journal #thoughts

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topicprinter · 7 years

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#/r/startups #reddit

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