me to the leftovers i just reheated in the microwave

you came back wrong and i am racked with guilt because i cannot bear to see you like this and i should have let you rest. i loved you so much that i defied death itself but i do not think either of us are happy

*lights a cigar with a match and leans back in my plush leather chair, looking out through the blinds at the city. my fuckin city.*

doomscrolling is not activism

doomscrolling is not activism

doomscrolling is not activism

"don't look away" is a meaningless phrase. who are you benefiting by inundating yourself with misery porn?

DO something about things you care about. Go to a protest for something you believe in, if you can. Donate money to a cause if you have it to spare. Volunteer your time to help people if you have the energy. Write a letter to your political representatives if that's something you can do. These are meaningful ways to try to make change in the world.

And then? don't feel bad about insulating yourself from horrible news. Don't make yourself look at images that make you feel sick. Don't read endless things that depress you. Because frankly it gets harder to actually do the more you doomscroll. Reading constantly about things you can't change because they're happening at a systemic level or on the other side of the world is paralyzing. It makes you less able to help where you can.

I'm not saying be willfully ignorant. I'm not saying pretend horrible things aren't happening. I'm saying don't destroy your mental health going in-depth and cycling through horror after horror on your phone. I'm saying there is no virtue in making yourself experience other people's traumas because mere awareness is not activism. you inflicting suffering on yourself is not activism.

doomscrolling is literally sapping your energy and focus away from doing anything useful to help other people. you can burn yourself out without ever lifting a finger by exposing yourself to all the bad news in the world and who does that help? no one.

legitimately so scary that i just made a doctors appointment for 2025. you mean the far distant sci fi future 2025? you mean the pacific rim 2025? you mean i have to go to the doctor while giant robots are fighting the fucking kaiju? fuck all the way offfffffff

Refaat Alareer, If I must die, written in 2011, published online on November 1, 2023

If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings, (make it white with a long tail) so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in a blaze— and bid no one farewell not even to his flesh not even to himself— sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above and thinks for a moment an angel is there bringing back love If I must die let it bring hope let it be a tale

(transcript by the American Friends Service Committee)

so much of being an ok person is just 1) not panicking, 2) not taking things personally, and 3) not letting the vindictive gargoyle that lives in your head tell you what to do. this sucks because brains love doing those things

I’m going to unlearn shame *bursts into tears and beats my head against a brick wall*

ive gotten so much mileage out of this tweet. every time i see something on the internet that makes me mad i just think to myself "people in real life: hey man how's it going" and i keep it pushing

now that i am a real adult i am starting to realise. media lied to me about the availability of rooftops to go hang out on. every day i wish i could be hanging out on a rooftop somewhere looking cool as fuck

ever since i was a little girl i knew i wanted to be the snarky preteen boy protagonist in a middle grade fantasy novel