Don't neglect your personal wellbeing for politics. It's OK to switch off now and again to focus on other things.
Yup. You gotta help yourself before helping others
Like drugs!
Which can also be politics, but whatever.
God I love drugs, the spice of life. Comedowns on the other hand..
“Being a leftist…” who talks like that?
probably someone on reddit seeking to engage with likeminded peers just a guess though
idk, makes me think of this guy.
It is pretty awkward, but it could be a teen, or someone who's just recently been radicalized, or someone who's just not as comfortable with writing as some of us are.
... Literally everyone? Is English not your first language? Are you from space? Talking about your emotional state and what influences it is normal human behavior.
How do you do, fellow leftists
Fakes as far as I've seen. Very "as a black man" energy.
A lot of leftists spend a lot of time on pure critique of the system, especially early in their radicalisation, which can lead to a pessimistic outlook. It's true that the system is unrelenting and the effects of capitalism and domination seep into every aspect of our lives, and that can feel overwhelming. I really hope I haven't sabotaged myself by assuming that everything around me is cynical and only trying to exploit me at every turn, because that just isn't true. The system works that way, but there are lots of people living under it who don't collaborate with its goals.
Also, a message that doesn't get emphasised enough is hope. That's because algorithm-driven social media - even the fediverse is subject to this - tends to push ragebait and hit pieces over constructive narratives.
I'm really enjoying a lot of Anark's stuff lately on youtube. I'd really recommend his work on Hope and Constructing the Revolution.
Also I would recommend thinking about how you can join the anarchist practice of prefiguration, or building the new in the shell of the old. A lot of revolution talk focusses on toppling the enemy system, but equally important is building our own alternatives that make people's lives better now. That alleviates problems now, it wins people over and helps radicalise them, and it necessarily involves building community, which can hugely help with the feelings of isolation and depression.
I've often wondered if the horrific anxiety people experience in our society is our ancient monkey brains trying to figure out what we did wrong that isolated us from our tribe, when the thing that did it is communities being atomised by capitalist property markets. That observation on its own has helped me reach out more, and also to better accept when I don't have people around me.
Edit: I read this as the OP's question and I answered it as such. That's okay though, if this question relates to you, then you already know who you are.
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I liked your paragraph on focusing on building something better that will draw people in.
When Occupy was huge, I had wished they had not focused so heavily on camping in parks and instead bought cheap land in the middle of nowhere and built "Occupy town". Somewhere people can come and join the movement with their family and not worry about living in a tent.
Make our own jobs in federated worker co-ops like Mondragon, our own community defense organizations, our own public housing, our own city government. If we had picked a state like Wyoming, it would only take about 15k people from each state to move there to take over the entire state government.
I get people were trying to do that in every park and also stay visible in the media, but I felt like it was just to limiting to stay in such locations.
I think the point was to occupy places where powerful people were, to show them that they're not untouchable. One thing I've heard Anark talk about is that communes that separate themselves from society don't tend to have much revolutionary potential. They're just kind of checking out.
Also, David Graeber said something very interesting about Occupy, that although the narrative was that they failed, the main thing they were trying to draw attention to was the IMF and the World Bank, and how their structural adjustment policies were laying waste to whole societies. He said that despite the fact that Occupy ended and was driven out by cops with bulldozers, the IMF and the World Bank don't have anything like the power they used to, and that has a lot to do with the visibility that Occupy brought to them.
Who knows how much death and suffering was averted globally thanks to their actions? If they had focussed only on making a place to live within the US they wouldn't have been able to achieve that. I think that's a pretty good legacy.
Also with the coops, Anark has covered a different federation of coops in Venezuela called Cecosesola: https://youtu.be/xfE6Nsuaf50?si=MbXZ3kpTNI2-mTUm
It might be a better template than Mondragon, who seem to have reduced membership considerably, with non-member workers making up a huge percentage of their ranks.
I second Anark's content. Haven't seen those two videos yet, but do feel like the focus on building a community that does good and does better seems like the way out of leftist depression (or at least to less of it)
I really like Anark's work. He actually has a well-defined conception of the society he wants to build instead of a vague idea, and a concrete program to advance the goals.
The thing is, they want us depressed. Depressed peons doesn't want to fight injustices, they just hide under the covers and doomscroll the internet. We aren't built to handle the massive amount of info we are constantly force fed through all available channels. Our lizard brains are not good at prioritizing between threats and media and astroturfing are constantly overstating the importance of the current threat. There are SO many threats and issues to choose from that it seems insurmountable. Where to even start? If you are the kind of person that cares and have a bit of empathy it can be too much to handle.
I don't have a fits-all solution to combat care-fatigue, I really don't. That said, it might help to list the shit that needs dealing with that are important to you. Prioritize engagement from that list. How much effort and/or money can you spend? Where can it have the most effect? Put it there and do something. Anything. Just try to be a force for good in this fucked-up world. Helping others will lessen the despair, it really will. Again - you can't help everyone, but you can help someone. Let that be enough.
Also - eat the rich, it's all their fault. Don't let them tell you otherwise.
*kill the rich.
Fixed that for ya, big guy.
No I think eating them alive is best.
Becoming a communist has greatly improved my mental health because I’m no longer constantly disappointed by liberal politics. Now I put my motivation into helping my org grow which feels very fulfilling.
This is the way.
It is because communism (in the sense being tankie) is far less radical than what we actually need. It is just imperialism with some red aesthetics. This is not the way, this is surrender.
F tankies. Be gay, do eco-trolling crime. Stay based fren.
I mean, realizing how good the United States is relative to many other countries and especially adversaries does help put things into perspective. Things could be better but at least we have the hope to make things better. Many people don't have that.
Until the crushing realization that much of our relative advantage and comfort is due to the outright exploitation of much of the disadvantaged.
"Peaceful, orderly, democratic transition of power": One of our top exports.
Bullshit, our insane technological advancement in the last few generations gives us comfort. Imagine the good we could do with this tech if we lived in a equitable and sustainable way. Instead, the vast majority of this benefit is captured by the respective 1%ers of various nations.
Not feeling depressed (euthymia) and feeling depressed (dysthymia) are emotional states that can be influenced by but exist independently of someone's circumstances. I encounter people who are homeless a lot in my work, and a good chunk of them are euthymic af, while there are a ton of people who have all their needs met and who are dysthymic af.
Emotional states have a lot more to do with genetic predisposition and learned behavior than most people would care to acknowledge, rather than situational factors
Just because I'm a leftist doesn't make me depressed, I'm depressed because I have crippling gender dysphoria and I'm not allowed to express myself
I find that when I'm feeling depressed and lefty, singing out loud helps me. Maybe you too can sing along!
"Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music of the people Who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart Echoes the beating of the drums There is a life about to start When tomorrow comes!"
Don't feel shame, be heard, be loud, and beat the drum!
(Yes this is les mis)
feeling down
fuck it
pop a les mis
le mis make the pain go away
Ah yes... the classic feel-good musical Les Misérables.
One of my friends sent me a physical copy of this book. It's helping me look at some things in a new way.
It's so easy to slip into doomerism, especially if you already cope with things like depression, anxiety, and trauma.
I'm only about 1/3 into the book because I'm reading it in tiny bits, but I think I'd recommend it.
The thing keeping my sanity holding on is knowing that I'm not going to get what I actually want, so any bits of progress feel great because I'm not expecting the whole thing
Nope, sorry, you can't not be depressed. It's the price you had to pay for your university degree in truth.
In this world, in this system, love is rebellion
