This Feeling Of Nullification. I Felt It When I Couldn't Contain My Giggle After Someone Unironically

This feeling of nullification. I felt it when I couldn't contain my giggle after someone unironically stated that a Leftist American Revolution would occur after the new Hunger Games Movie about President Snow came out.

I didn't know they were serious.

And I didn't have the heart to tell them.

I've got some of the easier parents for this kind of thing. And it's still tough. They know I'm open to romance and having children, but they also allowed me to be a picky little bastard. And once you develop a particular taste for things, and rarely find fulfilling engagement outside of yourself and the *very select* slice of humanity you consider friends, it gets tough. Because those friends are also picky as hell, and don't flirt around, because they're picky as hell. And so yeah I'm addicted to the internet because that's where the weird picky people go. And then they post weird shit I wouldn't be able to see walking around (I like walking around.)

Uh.

Shit.

I'm open to finding someone who's company is preferable to my own, but it's quite hard to tell the almost everyone that I'd prefer to be sat in a room with a mirror, a good book, some paper to draw on, some music to dance to, some of the selected voices I like to hear.

When you crunch the numbers for yourself it can make quite a lot of sense to do what is enjoyable and not what makes you miserable.

In case that helps.

Ben

Venting here- I love visiting family but all the "Do you have a boyfriend yet? Do you have a girlfriend yet? Are you seeing anyone? Have you met anyone? What's your romantic life like? Who have you been with? Anyone you like?" stuff gets exhausting, doesn't it?

Like

How do you tell people who are worried about you being lonely that "I don't want sex, I don't need romance, and I haven't met anyone whose company I find preferable to my own" without worrying them *more*?

Assuming Non-Malice and Deciphering Intent

A real quick sprint of a mini-rant before I shuttle myself off for social activities.

As an edgy little rat human, a creature who's diet is ironically inclined, a thing who revels in a joke never making sense and laughing at that [because so much of life and science is not making sense]: I care a lot about intent.

When many of the jokes you say are as a character, said flatly in your voice. Making a statement no sane or well adjusted human should ever say, the people who have context for me know to recognize it as a bit. The joke doesn't need to be funny, many jokes are not. But at worst it's recognized as an earnest flub.

On occasion the place my joke is coming from isn't as shored up as I thought it is. Often this happens around someone I can let those out around. The drafts often need editing. Those people I hold very dear. They assume I hold no real malice, or that I might be horrified at what my words may have implied. It's a balancing act.

On the other side of things, assuming non-malice does wonders for me. I get to give people loads of rope with which to hang themselves if they are wrong ("I'm not quite sure I see the humor in the joke. Would you care to explain it to me?" is often enough to decipher between someone who made a blunder and someone trying to disguise their bile as humor.)

Malice exists. But to better combat it I think it valuable to properly weed out the actually non-malicious. And as a bonus I find assuming non-malice and seeking clarity often gives the real freaks the chance to out themselves, while allowing most others a chance at redemption.

You can assume malice. It makes sense with enemies, but it does put strains on people who you would otherwise like.

Shit is complicated. Clarifying questions are in short supply these days.

Stay safe. Stay lovely.

Ben

I'm printing this out and putting it next to Who Goes Nazi in my bag. My friends are going to get a new print out. Thanks.

Watching the “you will excel at what you measure” trap devour basic moral practice in real time is fascinating in a terrible kind of way

I once described voting in an argument as "taking a shit." I just do it. I generally don't brag about it. Don't always like the smell. Sometimes the stall is stinky. But I do need to shit. Sometimes I feel half decent about it too. I FREQUENTLY TELL PEOPLE ABOUT MY SHIT, AND THE PROBLEMS I HAVE WITH MY SHIT. AND THE THINGS THAT MY SHIT SHOULD BE DOING. AND SOME WAYS TO HAVE A MORE MANAGEABLE SHIT IN THE FUTURE. But taking a shit isn't a deep moral statement, it's taking a shit. I think taking a shit is healthy, so I do it.

all of the USamerican people going "bbut if i vote in the election, im culpable for the unjustifiable evils of the american imperial machine!" just love to paint people who realize that you still need to vote as like, too naïve to understand their oh-so-principled moral stand, when the reality is that if you live in america and you're of voting age and you're realizing for the first time just now that you live in an evil country that runs on the blood of millions and always has, and if you somehow think that you can live here and work here and earn & spend money here and somehow none of that makes you culpable for the horrors that are done on your behalf, but voting does, or would, then you are so stunningly naïve that you need to shut the whole fuck up.

like. yes, the united states is a machine that turns colonial vampirism and for-profit genocides into capital, thanks for noticing, and welcome to the conversation. the rest of us have already figured out that 1. this centuries-old machine that kills people is not gonna just go away, or collapse spectacularly all at once, it is gonna need to be dismantled, and 2. it is not gonna be dismantled by november, and 3. i don't fucking know who told you that if enough people don't vote, nobody becomes president, but that isn't fucking true.

somebody is gonna be the president, and the president is gonna keep doing war crimes like the president always has because that's the president's job, and it will remain that way until we break the whole machine down. now who would you rather be in charge of it while we're trying to break it down: a senile old man who thinks he still needs to behave in ways that are decorous and won't cause bad press, or an angry old man who thinks cops should be able to shoot protesters with live ammo?

you are being offered the chance to pick your opponent in the biggest hardest fight of all time, and you're bitching that you don't wanna because it would make you feel icky to act in a way that is strategic instead of emotional & performative. if you actually cared about the vulnerable people you claim you're doing this for, you'd be willing to suffer a moral injury to keep the evil destructive monster you live inside of from going extra-berserk mode, but no, you want to posture about how you can't taint yourself by "participating" in a process that you are already part of every single day. let us know when you're ready to join us at the grown-ups' table, shitheads. do not @ me idfc

I just heard that Timothy Mcveigh grew up watching Gumby.

I've made 'jokes' about Gumby being a domestic terrorist.

I'm currently conflicted.