#no bc i was just doomscrolling one day and then i am confronted with the knowledge that

[bluberimufim]

I just discovered that there's a biblical figure named Seth who has absolutely nothing to do with the Seth that I named my protagonist, Seth, after

[olivieblake]

hey I don't have Tumblr but I constantly read ur works bc u make me feel safe and at home which is silly because I don't know you but really I just am so so so so scared im in high school and a female and I feel like my childhood has been ripped out of my hands and that I won't have a future and rbg just like was the final straw? I don't know - I feel so hopeless and angry about being hopeless.

it’s not silly to take comfort in fiction. what you feel while reading or watching something is a real emotion you’re actually experiencing, so let me open by assuring you that there’s nothing wrong with coping with the world by processing in other ways; safe ways, like fiction, have lower stakes and allow you to deal with your emotions in a manageable way. you do know me because you know the way I see the world. and if seeing the world I see is something that brings you comfort, that is something I am unbelievably happy to do

as for the rest: I was just recently thinking how powerfully helpless it would feel to not be of voting age in this election, particularly with all the messages seeming to revolve around some obscure call for action by young people. youth activists like malala, greta thunberg, emma gonzalez are so incredibly admirable, but they are also proof that the burden of producing tangible results can’t simply fall to the young. as frustrating as it is, policy change comes from lawmakers and institutions. direct action can help a community, but as a nation we are shaped by much more than what any individual can do. which is not to make you feel better necessarily (I doubt it does lol), but to be clear that the stress you may feel is not only unfair, but a form of suppression; disillusionment that will keep you from actively participating when the time comes.

you’re not wrong to say you’re being robbed of childhood, and your fear of not having a future is a valid one. there’s not much I can say in that respect because I’m scared, too. for me, the fear doesn’t come from 45 or his political disciples, but the unfathomable schism between the ideologies of the two political parties. how do we resolve this? it’s one thing to elect a new president, to flip the senate, to take the institutional steps necessary to heal all this scorched earth—which are all things we need to do, without question—but how do we confront the ideologies that seem so incomprehensible? the loss of rbg is so painful precisely because we have already witnessed how little some of this country seems to care for the rights and dignities of women and minorities. it is hard, and harder every day, to wonder how it could be possible that what’s right will prevail when institutionally, systemically, we are at a disadvantage. we have no way of knowing whether meaningful change will ever occur, or whether things will worsen. we have to find the energy to believe in, firstly, and then work towards, the progress we aren’t guaranteed.

this should not be happening. the entirety of our political problems stem from a subset of society that feels something has been taken from them, because it has. redistribution of social power is a good thing because it was in one group’s hands for far too long. straight white christians are angry because not-straight not-white not-christians have gotten this crazy idea they deserve a fucking voice, which is why every argument feels so spectacularly dehumanizing. I know it’s hard to see any of this as a good thing—I know everything is hard to see as good right now—but it is, more so than ever before, a long-justified revolution. you are living through a revolution, and that is why you feel stressed, it’s why you feel scared, it’s why you feel robbed. and I wish there were more to say on the subject to ease that for you, but believe me, each day that you choose to be optimistic, to believe that people and communities and societies and countries can change for the better, is a day you’re making an incredibly brave and world-altering choice. 

don’t doomscroll. social media is alarming, twitter especially, because it’s impossible to tell what’s real, what’s trolls, and what’s just people screaming into their computers for lack of anything real to do or say. your algorithm is feeding that little monster in your head that tells you the world has never been like this before; it has, wars and genocides and economic depressions and natural disasters and worse. but change is possible. I can’t promise you when it will happen, but history proves that progress is not a straight line. you have to have faith in the anomalies, the bizarre chance that everything that seems to be going wrong might somehow, with enough effort, go unexpectedly right. there are so few certainties in life; that you will find love or find your passions or find where you need to be are all equally mysteries your life has yet to reveal to you. have faith in action, have faith in conviction, have faith in your value. 

that is revolutionary, and so are you