Nietzsche believed that you’ve gotta be able to think about suicide before you can move beyond wanting to kill yourself because only once you’ve accepted it as an option can you make the choice not to do it, and the alternative, to deny the urge and ignore it, would inevitably cause you to cave to the unaddressed desire you have for it.
And the dude was right.
The rogue’s gallery of psych students and junior practitioners on this hellsite have hijacked my post about not being mean to yourself to explain to people how actually what I’m talking about is cognitive-behavioral therapy, and how it involves disciplining yourself to never talk negatively about yourself and how it’s important to check with a therapist that you’re doing it correctly, and like, this is why I don’t trust and can’t stand these people.
Being your own friend is a holistic process, there aren’t exercises you can do or therapy methods you can apply, which is why most people relapse almost immediately after stopping CBT or DBT, because they haven’t actually made any progress in how they look out for themselves, they were merely thrust into a disciplinary regimen where they are taught to engage in habits which their therapist then holds them accountable to, and so, without that therapist, they fall apart again.
Not being mean to yourself doesn’t mean censoring self-deprecating humor, it doesn’t mean snapping a rubber band on your wrist when you have a negative thought, it means taking time to sit down and think about yourself as if you were another person, to really take stock of who you are from as objective a perspective as you can muster, and if you really want to grow, realizing that this person you see can’t grow if the person closest to them, which is you, spends all their time berating them and making them feel like shit.
Being friends with yourself is not a series of therapeutic exercises, it’s challenging yourself to evaluate why you’re a dick to yourself in a way you aren’t to other people, or maybe you are a dick to other people, and maybe you want to be a dick to yourself, which is goofy as fuck, but if you’re still suffering, maybe ask yourself why the fuck you want to be such a dick, the answers may surprise you.
That thing of “always avoid negative thoughts” actually does more harm than good, in a lot of cases. It can actually lead to a system where you pretty much scold and punish yourself for not thinking “right.”
“Control the uncontrollable and scary (like suicidal thoughts) by purging all impure thoughts and punishing yourself if you fail” is… never gonna work.
And to be honest I don’t think the people that advocate it are all that interested in making you feel better, even if they think they are. I think
it’s more about a way to control all the scary brains out there to make their own lives safer.
Such a desire to banish all negativity is more about creating a stable, controllable society where the depressed and the angry don’t go around sharing their sadness and anger and rage with the world, or god forbid, lash out at the things that are hurting them.
Here’s the whole video. It’s called “Don’t Be A Sucker” and it’s 17 minutes long.
don’t just scroll past this actually watch it, it’s only 2 minutes long. If you re-recorded this today word for word with modern actors and places, it wouldn’t even look out of place as a PSA
the NYT 2018 midterms morning-after narrative, with all the chin-stroking about mixed results and the bland end of the Dems driving the successes, seems really wrong to me and frankly kind of enraging. obviously there were disappointments but, net-net, this is not a morning for wailing and gnashing of teeth. I compulsively wasted hours and hours of my life following this shit last night, so I’m just going to lay out some of the story points supporting a more robust and optimistic narrative real quick
the objective was always to take the House; the Senate was always an almost hopeless moonshot
we did take the House, decisively
the things that follow from that are now going to be realized. it means not only more robust Trump oversight, the tax return subpoenas and protection for the Mueller investigation and so on, but also much needed brakes on the runaway GOP legislative agenda. the Republicans are not going to get to try to repeal ACA again, or kill Social Security, or defund Planned Parenthood, or have their way with the 2020 census or the budget. those things are all huge
the >9% popular-vote D advantage is comparable to or bigger than past midterm “wave” elections, including 1994’s Tea Party wave. that’s literally how we fucking took the House despite 1. the disastrous 2010 census gerrymandering and resulting structural 5- to 7-point GOP advantage and 2. the more recent horrifying surge of strongman fascism. excuse me but we 110% fucking deserve wave status
got a bunch of governorship wins that really fucking matter! Scott Walker, don’t let the door hit you on your way out of Wisconsin! welcome home, Michigan! fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Kris Kobach!
what’s not the matter with Kansas, multiple excellent results there with both Laura Kelly and Sharice Davids winning upsets. possibly they’ve finally put it together that austerity is terrible and are positioning themselves to start fixing the damage. good going, Kansas
this whole weird line that it was moderate Dems that drove all the key successes and dynamic progressives only ever have any chance in the very bluest coastalest elitest cityest races is bullshit. I can’t believe the NYT can say that with a straight face. Sharice Davids is NOT your bland straight white guy DINO, and Kansas is, um, not the Bronx? Pennsylvania is literally going to have a DSA caucus? Beto O’Rourke lost what was, come on, a moonshot race by a high-suspense hair, he clearly has cemented his rising-star status and generated real excitement and momentum
meanwhile DINO “moderate” poster children Heitkamp and Donnelly lost us two (2) Senate seats. wtf with this narrative?
several of the highest profile GOP wins were in states with especially flagrant and egregious voter suppression. we’re all looking at you, Georgia, North Dakota, TEXAS whose Senate race was still close as hell. this is one of the things a Democratic House is well positioned to make a goddamn fuss about.
also Michigan and uh I think another state passed anti-gerrymandering ballot initiatives and, may I goddamn repeat, official face of ‘voter suppression is actually good’ Kris Kobach is out on his ass. plus, granted Florida is a trainwreck by a hundred thousand or so people again, they’ve also just reenfranchised 1.4 million ex-felons, so that may be goddamn changing in future
Virginia is a blue state now btw
New York internal state shit here but the state senate has finally thrown off its shackles so maybe we can actually get some good goddamn legislation passed, seriously if you don’t live here you have no idea the bullshit that’s been going on in Albany thanks to so-called moderates
is everything in the garden lovely? hell to the fuck no, shit sucks in abundance out there, but we knew that! that’s not the surprising bit!
give hardworking blues the credit they deserve 2k18
What I like best about this is that we know Eliot doesn’t commit hair-trigger violence over minor things – if someone bumps into him and spills his coffee he’s likely to be annoyed, but he’s not going to automatically break their arms.
Which means that what’s happening here is Hardison, in bringing up the coffee, is giving Eliot explicit permission to break arms, and Eliot is playing into it. And the only real reason for playing into the coffee schtick is that it will amuse Hardison.
American people in Amityville, NY : this house is haunted because people died here.
French people in Paris, living atop old limestone quarries filled with six million dead bodies : what
tbf, I think for North American hauntings, it’s less “people died in this house” and more “people died here and are still kinda pissed off / did not get put to rest properly / have unfinished business, and also they may or may not be actively hostile to the living inhabitants”. Whereas for European hauntings, it’s generally more “yeah, people died here, but it’s cool, we’re all chill with each other. Just don’t fuck with the Grey Lady’s painting / don’t rip up the garden or let it get neglected / be a good housemate, and it’ll be fine”. The actively malicious ghosts have either been dealt with, or everyone knows their triggers and how to avoid them by now.
The Parisian crypts are literally lined with bones, which was done by the monks who were supposed to be caretaking, and they’ve existed for centuries. And the crypts are…weird. Like “people are discouraged from going down there at all without tour guides, even the tour guides do not go outside Super Specific areas, sometimes people who disregard this just straight up go fucking missing down those tunnels and are never heard from again and then we get found footage of possibly cryptids being pissy” levels of weird.
Also, I’m pretty sure that Paris does have a lot of folklore about ‘there’s ghosts wandering the streets and haunting these houses’, so y’know. It’s less that they’re not aware of the hauntings, and more that they’ve come to terms with it and figured out how to cope. Whereas North America’s big enough that if you don’t want a house that’s got ghosts in it, you can generally take steps to specifically avoid that shit.
Don’t be. You’re hearing media do what it does: harp on one person’s lack of enthusiasm and make it seem that that one opinion is held by thousands.
This race went precisely as I thought it would. Precisely.
And it was absolutely a massive success.
So let me tell you why, so that you feel better and can easily put down the annoying crowing that republicans are going to do, because they managed to cling to a few things.
If the votes fall as I believe they will, the democrats will have retaken the house by some 30 seats. This is impressive and somewhat unique in our country’s history. The GOP, upon taking the house originally, jerrimandered these districts in impressively screwball ways. Wherever that rigging has been overturned, the districts have gone blue. Which is, of course, why they did it. Democrats have the house now, 30ish flips in republican rugged districts. 15 of those being female candidates.
That is absolutely impressive.
A few key candidates to whom many people were paying close attention did not perform as people desired. Abrams, O’Rourke, Gillum. Well…I’m not surprised. Abrams faces absolute state wide fraud. Her opponent being the person also in charge of voter registration, withholding some 50k votes of which 70% were black. Voter intimidation. This is blatant corruption. And yet still…her race was very close. So too with Beto. Ted Crews was a presidential candidate! When he took Texas, he did so with a wide margin. Last night in Texas he was fighting tooth and nail. Gillum’s goobenatorial race for Florida was a figurative dead heat. 99% of the vote in—49% Gillum, 49.7% DeSantis. These are CLASSICALLY and FULLY republican regions in which Trump took the presidency by huge margins. That these races, with all those challenges, were as close as they were PROVES that something unprecedented happened.
3-400% voter turnout increases for a midterm election. Mostly with the youth.
But let’s talk about what it means to have the house.
Now I know you’re probably concerned about the federal judgeships that are about to pop up for consideration, and it’s true that the Senate was needed to stop approvals of those candidates, but…
Control of the house means that Democrats now take hold of some critical committees. These committees are the very ones that will be overseeing corruption allegations. Ways and Means, energy and Commerce, Financial Services, Intelligence, appropriations, foreign affairs, armed services, judiciary, transportation and infrastructure, and…government reform.
How do you feel now?
The worst political fallout of a GOP controlled government, the worst sound bites that weren’t Trump’s, the worst slaps across the face? All came from footage of those very same committees. Those committees now belong to Democrats.
Massive policy shifts also occurred in many classically conservative states—legalizing marijuana votes, Florida giving the vote back to former criminals who’ve served their time thus giving the vote back to a HUGE portion of the African-American Community that has been held in check by a racist and classicist policing method, then there were upsets in many small ways too.
I promise you…this is all excellent and it will have truly important and forceful impact. In 2020, if we can keep that same enthusiasm and rage, the entire government will shift. But that can only happen if we keep moving forward, if the candidates who won keep their noses to the grindstone and push back hard, if you and I and everyone on the ground continues to talk about this and force out bigots and greed.
Do not be discouraged. I promise you…this was an amazing election. Don’t focus on a few bright stars and think that all is lost because they fell. There is a great deal happening here, and one thing I know from being at sea—when a wave is building, there is first a terrifying shift, as the water level begins to build. The ship will begin to dip and then of a sudden, the swell will begin. The ship raises and passengers suddenly realize that the were much higher than before, with an incredible view. Then the wave crests and destroys what’s in its path.
We didn’t see a wave crest tonight. So what. That means it’s a much larger wave than we realized. It will crest in the future. But only if that fluid pressure is maintained.
This is good. It is. So long as everyone keeps working. This is good.
Calm down. Have a glass of champagne. A cup of tea. When they Trumpet all their noise…say nothing. Nothing needs to be said. You’re higher than you were with an excellent view of the ending. So relax. Don’t fret.
Listen to Simon, y’all. Simon is wise.
Simon is divisive.
I’m starting to notice a pattern on both sides. And I’m probably guilty of it somewhere to.
This whole “ we need to take all the power from them” rhetoric across the board, needs to stop. The left, on every level, has me afraid to go outside to the point that I felt the need to get my conceal carry permit and buy a full size handgun to protect myself with.
“let’s take control so we can get them” is a dangerous game to play. And the game ends when the first militia fires first. And the left has already had one shoot up a country music concert in Vegas and a baseball game.
Things are very balanced now. The fun and games is over. Let’s all calm down and be Americans again before people start getting hurt.
…
I am not divisive. I am apparently not speaking to you, so you are in fact, involving yourself in a conversation intended for others.
Let’s not calm down. Most of GOP policy is egregious and amoral. It is funded by corporate interest and led by financial con artists. It is unified behind a banner of xenophobia and codified racism. It vilifies the free press and calls its own constituents a mob, whenever they disagree. That is unAmerican.
For the record: a democracy exists to allow people to exercise their opinions. When it fails to allow this or discourages it, it is not a democracy.
I said nothing about “taking power” or “getting them” but that’s what you heard, which means you feel in some way personally attacked. If that’s true, then perhaps you should analyze why, instead of attempting to accuse people of saying and doing things they never would. You don’t know me, friend.
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