The Problem With Being Fair-minded Is That When Something Is Hurting Your Feelings But It's Something

one of my more unhelpful qualities is that i kind of genuinely prefer getting zero response to a ~bid for connection~ over getting one that feels, like, dutiful and abbreviated and rote

because like. at least in the absence of a response you can kid yourself that a matching enthusiasm will eventually arrive, you know?

(this is of course very much a lesser-of-two-weevils thought exercise because of course really what one always wants is engagement that's both enthusiastic and prompt. however one must recognize that in the adult world Other People Have Lives, &c.)

it also doesn't help that like. i'm very primed Due To My Upbringing to interpret neutral cues as negative and so am very much that stereotype of the young person who wants an exclamation point and can't stand a 'sure,' which—is objectively just a neutral cultural preference, but since i'm not actually gen z or whatever, i always end up excoriating myself for being too much of an immature baby to be appropriately chill about other people's Offhanded Working Person stylings. which is rather a disproportionate pile of bad feelings to be stacking on one maybe-not-even-intentionally snubbed bid!

also. as long as i'm telling you guys silly little things. look at my absurd gluttonous beast who shoved her face into my tomato-y lunch leftovers and now has. well.

anime blush only orange.

Window bench with wood work that matches the exposed ceiling. Bench aligned with adjacent steps.

Doing really great so long as I don't think about anything

Braun T52 // transistor radio (Germany, 1961)

[ID: Tweet by kelsey weekman @‍kelsaywhat that reads:

me when i fall short of a goal: agony me when I meet or exceed a goal: ok

/end ID]

nuance in all things but

sort of think it's a red flag for someone to be too sure that in any given interpersonal conflict there's a single Right Answer

like obviously there are plenty of things i personally think there's a single correct stance on (trans rights, 2 plus 2 equaling 4, etc) but i also think like. okay. so in my personal opinion people who disagree with me on these issues are Wrong. however! i can't wave a magic wand to erase that wrongness from their mind—and moreover my own ethical convictions mean i shouldn't even if i could, because i believe that a society which bans wrongthink is a dangerously repressive one. i think it's critical that people have the freedom of their own thoughts, to arrive at their own self-determined conclusions—even if i vehemently disagree with where that means they end up! because the alternative is worse! both because any weapon i condone could ultimately be used against me—the current US administration would very clearly say that my belief in trans rights is wrongthink!—and because if someone espouses a stance i endorse without thinking it through, they won't be firm in their conviction: no chain of reasoning will convince you in any lasting way unless you've personally tested all its links, and seen for yourself that they cohere. you see this all the time with eg bad casual trans allyship that just find-and-replaces 'women' with 'afab' and then doesn't understand why that isn't satisfactory, because the speaker hasn't actually rethought which of the many slippery concepts hegemonically filed under 'woman' they're actually trying to reference ('is targeted by misogyny'? 'has breasts'? 'has a uterus'? 'menstruates'? 'can get pregnant'? none of those are perfectly overlapping circles!), they've just reskinned-but-retained their original cissexist perisexist ableist white supremacist etc concept.

but so like. okay. the wrongness can't be magically erased: it must be combatted. but already with that choice of language i'm heading down the wrong path because if you bring aggression it will be met with defensive aggression. ultimately you only get people to back down if you approach slowly and gently and leave them room to save face. and also like. in a close-relational context it's extremely obvious that you ought to care not only abt who's Objectively Right but abt treating the other person respectfully and tenderly and abt trying to enter into their experience a little and hear them out abt it and sympathize with whatever suffering it contains instead of dismissing it out of hand. in a not-close context that becomes less obvious but i don't actually think it becomes less true—because like. cf that one post abt how you shd only critique people to the same extent you're actually willing to sit down with them and help them, but also the flipside of that where like. i do basically think it's reasonable for people to only incorporate critique from others who are willing to engage in extended sympathetic dialogue with them, because what's the alternative? you just automatically assume that anyone who's tearing you down is right about it? i think it was earlgraytay who pointed out once that like. that's not actually mentally healthy behavior—people should have a healthy self-regard and not immediately jump to 'you're probably right that i suck.' like i'm personally much too willing to assume that i suck and (1) it's entirely bc that was the message i got from my emotionally abusive mother for decades (2) believing that has not, shockingly, actually empowered me to make positive changes! so i really do think we have to work out how to get people to embrace humaneness without, and i really don't think i'm actually speaking hyperbolically here, abusing them into it. the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house, etc.

anyway i don't think this is some brilliantly radical line of thinking on my part but it's also like. well basically no one believes it as far as i can tell, or if they do they aren't actually willing/able to set aside their own pain long enough to practice it. it's always like 'well here are the reasons i'm ontologically permanently a victim and so have no obligation to try to set aside my own woundedness and meet other people halfway.' and i'm not even immune to that myself! like look at me talking about my cptsd-inducing childhood as if that excused me from any obligation to try to rejigger my own psyche now that i'm an adult! but like. idk. bitch we're all wounded. okay. it sucks in this crab bucket. how do we build a ladder.

[disclaimer of course that like. no you don't have to feed the sea lions. yes you get to take breaks from activism. no we almost certainly can't and shouldn't take a gentle parenting approach to all bigotry. see original 'nuance in all things' header.]

continuing my research into "what is the most bullshit thing you can call a 'book'", i present: one sheet of paper and three pinback buttons.

pretty excited by these, i've wanted to do a turkish map fold zine for a while and the little case is cut from the same sheet of paper so the whole zine can be printed on one 8.5x11 page. i'll have these at seattle art book fair at washington hall next weekend!

at first when i was remaking i thought 'now i can voice all the controversial opinions i felt obliged to keep mum about before!' (to be clear, my controversial opinions are things like 'it's possible to oppose monarchy in real life AND still enjoy a fictional king from time to time.' 'i don't entirely reject the idea of so-called cultural christianity, but i feel strongly that the label should be reserved for patterns of behavior, rhetoric, etc, and not applied to individual people.' idk i don't keep a running list but you get the idea probably.)

but un/fortunately i've been so selective in my refollowing (which to be clear is still very much a work in progress) that i'm not actually encountering any of the discourse to which i'd previously built up all these objections! which is very restful, but doesn't exactly stimulate me to articulate my positions…

The Battle of the Frogs and Mice, from Up One Pair of Stairs of My Bookhouse by Willy Pogany (1920)