Navigating Solutions and Darkness

In circles she goes, running out the clock of her life. Why me why me why me why me why why why *whining continues endlessly* 

I've been looking forward to this for days. 

 If thinking is wrong, I don't wish to be right. If dreaming is wrong, I don't wish to be right.  

A while ago I made an alt purely for talking openly about heartbreak and love.  

This has been THE most frustrating morning. 

  A few years ago, I tried my hand at freelance subtitling. I was fresh off a year of subtitling experience and had spent most of that time as the best final QA in my office. Freelance subtitling should have been a breeze. 

  Who are you, mortal, that I must dream of floating forever in your arms? 

I close my eyes and reopen them in a different life.  Clay Banks on Unsplash

  Show me a beautiful thing, and I’ll show you the deepest yearning within me, to be able to replicate it. To make it my own.

I made a cup of coffee today and it was the hardest thing ever. 

In those days, there was less of me, and more of everyone else. I was a shadow, a sliver, an unimportant cameo in movies starring everyone else. I was the disembodied narrator, recording, remembering, unspoken commentary lining the walls of my skull.

Photo by  William Isted  on  Unsplash I wanna say I had a productive social media cleanse, but considering it was punctuated by horrifying real life situations, I'm not so sure it comes out to a net win.

Black women are the most incisive, insightful people on the planet (and with good reason - they seem to end up having to deal with an even greater amount of garbage than normal). A lot of the best advice I've gotten in recent times has therefore come from black twitter, and the greatest of them is this: Stop trying to preach to them. They hear you. They just don't want to do it for you.

Photo by  ActionVance  on  Unsplash Therapy can be frustrating for multiple reasons. On the one hand, you have to talk about things you really don't want to talk about. You have to talk about them to someone else, when you won't even give them thought-form inside your own head. Trying to get past that means turning on honest-mode no matter what, which can lead to... blabbering. Because you're so uncomfortable, and now you're forcing yourself to talk and god knows what the hell you're saying anymore. Yes, I'm confusing myself AND my therapist. That's great. But as I said during the session today, I want to write things down so that they may be made sense of. If I'm being honest, I would rather NOT be the person who has to go back and make sense of this stuff. I would rather NOT be in touch with some of my thoughts? Why is that though, because I've been telling myself that I have no thoughts I'm ashamed of - I accept myself, flaws an...

Photo by  Alejo Reinoso  on  Unsplash We were having a discussion recently about having a dude beaten up (he more than deserves it.) This is the sort of thing we (I) regularly discuss as half a joke but I came to a couple of conclusions last night:  That inflicting violence, however well justified, would impact the perpetrator as well as the victim. How even if it doesn't affect such monsters and even if they get pleasure out of it, we aren't like that because if we were we'd already be out there inflicting violence. That our empathetic nature would be affected by the pain we ourselves inflict. That there would be no going back from something like that, and you might irrevocably become someone else. It puts the prospect of revenge in a clearer light - I have been very consumed by the idea for a while, and I cannot honestly say I have completely given up on it even now. Something needs to be done about such people... but should that something come at the furt...

Photo by  J CS  on  Unsplash All your life, you read about things and think about the things that intrigue you. There are societies, and their rules. If you're not intrigued by these rules, you will accept them, and live by them all your life; never once questioning them. If they're intriguing, you begin to wonder why they were placed there in the first place. Who put them there, and what do they stand to gain?  What happens when you break these rules? I've thought about these rules all my life. They're not always set by an external authoritative figure. Sometimes  they're just there, in your heart. Call it social conditioning or what you will. The further you think about them, and the deeper you question them, the faster they begin to fall apart and disappear.  Once I had established that the rules were gone, I realized that I couldn't afford to follow suit. Sans rules, it was a short drop and a sudden stop; before you know it, you find yo...

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash At the end of the movie Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers faces off against former mentor Yon-Rogg and all his henchmen. She smashes the crap out of Yon-Rogg's ship and his allies and chases him down to the group. We then get this gem: Yon Rogg : I’m so proud of you. You’ve come a long way since I found you that day by the lake. But can you keep your emotions in check long enough to take me on? Or will it get the better of you, as always? I always told, you’ll be ready, the day you can knock me down as yourself. This is that moment. This is that moment, Vers! Turn off the light show, and prove, prove to me, you can beat me with… [Carol uses her photon blast on him and blasts him away] Carol Danvers : I have nothing to prove to you. [she offers him her hand, Yon-Rogg takes it, and Carol drags him off] I could hardly believe he had the audacity to repeat his bullshit from the beginning of the movie, where he consistently beats her during their spar...

Quelle journée ! Je suis mentalement épuisé. Tant de choses se sont passées. Plus particulièrement, les chats se sont échappés. Tous les chats, sauf V entus. Ils étaient au dernier étage, derrière le tapis roulant. Et quand j'y suis allée, Kali a paniqué. Il est passé devant moi, mais je ne l'ai pas suivi, parce que je m'inquiètais pour les autres. Puis, j'ai pris Lydia, et je l'avais amenée en bas, quand j'ai vu Kali. Il était assis sur le rebord de la fenêtre, chantant. Quand il m'a vu, il a paniqué à nouveau. "Non, Kali," dis-je. "N'ose pas sauter." Il a sauté. Quelle pagaille ! J'ai décidé de ramener Lydia à la maison d'abord. J'ai regardé Kali par la fenêtre et il avait l'air d'aller bien. Donc, je suis rentrée chez nous. Mais, la porte a été fermée, et Alan ne pouvait pas m'entendre. Je frappais et sonnais désespéréme...

So many things to talk about in the coming month. Inspiration. Determination. Love, and associated imagery which I never tire of. Silence, Dreams and Fears. Things I did, and will do... and would want to keep doing forever.

Let's talk solutions. In a recent and ongoing conversation among many, many people, the moderator repeatedly urged us to keep the discussion solution-centric. As it turns out, it's a little difficult to do so when people don't even understand the problems involved. And it's a little difficult to point that fact out in a tactful manner. The problems are so myriad and so diverse, that even talking about them, and their resolutions doesn't fit all together into my head. So maybe this is going to be a series. Maybe I can work them out on paper and put them back together so I know the right words to say. Stay tuned.