Salon post: November 9

[jenett]

Hello!


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Topic of the week
It's been a week! (besides the US politics, it has been a week of mildly tedious not at all dire medical appointments.)

What's going well for you? What are you looking forward to in the near future?

What I've been up to
Since last week, I had a great Samhain ritual with my witchy students, two medical appointments, the first conversation with other staff on a project I'm now sub-contracted to, and we're starting to interview for a part-time position we've been able to create because of that sub-contract. (All of which is very busy, but also good.)

I am continuing to NaNo, and while I'm not as far ahead on wordcount as I want to be (but not, y'know, behind!)

I'm planning on going to my first writein tomorrow, so that's exciting! And will, I hope, improve my wordcount.


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Comments

[author_by_night]

Here's a topic... in these contentious times, how does one find the balance between caring and distractions?

I find that even when it comes to non-political matters, the internet has almost adopted this habit of solely focusing on the negative. At all times. While I absolutely think it's important to be honest and talk about problems - past and present, personal and political, you name it - sometimes I just want to write or make a joke or otherwise enjoy myself. Even fannish circles are constantly critical. I feel as though I either become irritable or overly invested (sometimes to the point of getting anxiety symptoms), neither of which are fair or healthy. I've tried to restrict myself to only a few negative posts a day, but... everything is negative anymore, so save becoming a Luddite, I'm not really sure what to do. I just want fun posts about fun things again, I want genuine excitement, and honestly, I want to feel less out of place when I attempt fun and excitement on my end, rather than wishing I hadn't bothered.

So I guess my questions are:

1. Does anyone else feel this way? (My guess is yes.)

2. How does one navigate the balance? And how do you justify being told that posivitiy is bad? Because I've actually seen a lot of memes saying "I hate people who post positive things online because they clearly don't want to admit the world has bad in it." Is it hard for people to understand that you can be both very angry and still think the last episode of The Good Place was amazing, and would prefer to talk about that for five minutes instead of discussing Donald Trump for the 1,000th time this week? That yes, maybe you're posting positive things to Facebook and hiding that your life is going to hell - specifically because it IS going to hell, and you need something to be happy about?* I don't get it.

* The "going to hell" part fortunately no longer applies to my life, but it did a while back, and yeah, it sucked when I felt like I was supposed to be talking about it when what I really needed was to talk about the 10th anniversary of the seventh Harry Potter book. I didn't actually think freaking Harry Potter was more important, but it made me think of much happier times in between some pretty bad stuff. So that's one example.

ETA: And so we're clear, because I'm worried about backlash, I'm not saying never talk about bad things. I just mean that it's rough when all you're seeing is bad things, and I also find the idea that you're almost supposed to focus on the bad (rather than the good) very tiring.

[jazzyjj]

I tend to just not listen to or read the news, and I think I'm going to turn off all my push notifications that have to do with the news. I'm by nature not much of a negative person, if at all. But one of my neighbors is. Not to other people but to himself. Everybody's tried and tried to change this, but he is just incredibly stubborn and refuses to change. Although, recently he's been saying to me that he finally does want to change this behavior, but at the same time he's been saying that it'll take a super long time. I only wish I could help him more, but I really can't other than just overwhelming him with support and friendship. After all, he's a great guy and has helped me out a lot on numerous occasions.

[alexseanchai]

I think a lot of it is, places like Facebook that get more ad money the more time you spend on their site and that have algorithms to manipulate, and have figured out that negative shit gets more attention than positive shit? Are manipulating their algorithms to get more engagement by showing you more negative shit.

...I keep trying to tempt my FB friends to DW but nobody's biting.

Also I honestly get so sick of THINK POSITIVE! people who think that's gonna solve everything, but also in moderation they do have a point.

[author_by_night]

I think a lot of it is, places like Facebook that get more ad money the more time you spend on their site and that have algorithms to manipulate, and have figured out that negative shit gets more attention than positive shit? Are manipulating their algorithms to get more engagement by showing you more negative shit.

Yeah, especially if you've interacted with it more, probably. And admittedly, I have. Because I do very much care, I just... maybe in my case, that's also part of it, and something no one's really understood about me specifically, that I have to watch how involved I get, or else I start fixating and fretting. So it's better if I say "okay, we need to talk about this. This is bad. Okay, now let's move on."


Also I honestly get so sick of THINK POSITIVE! people who think that's gonna solve everything, but also in moderation they do have a point.

I think it's especially an issue when people either do it to completely deny a problem, or when it's that sort of forced positivity. I want to be able to say "I am not okay", but I don't want to have to cheer up by turning not being okay into a kale smoothie with yoga music in the background. You know? Not to knock yoga, yoga is great if you're into it, but the world isn't broken into the really bad and yoga music. It's okay to have a place in between, and to find other ways to distract yourself that have nothing to do with inspirational quotes and kale smoothies.

[finch]

I've been doing a LOT of curation for the last two years. Limited Facebooking, ruthless maintenance of my Tumblr list (and periodic breaks from it), and just in general not staying friends with people who get mad at me for not being outraged every gd minute. Like, I have friends who are varying levels of negative in general, even! But they can respect my boundaries when I say I can't even today, so I can respect that they just need to rant and that's how they deal with it.

[jenett]

I'm with finch - I curate pretty heavily, and I make sure the bulk of my conversation time is with either people who have pretty much the same mode as me, or have compatible boundaries about it.

(The two places I spent the most online chat time, one has a no-politics rule, and the other has a 'venting and negativity is fine, but if it's more than very brief, check with other people, because they may want a space that's free of that right now. If so, take it to page or a private room. And y'all have probably noticed I don't talk directly much about politics here.)

I also think really hard about what I let into my living space, in particular. I don't have political stuff, or negative stuff, as background sound or background in the space: I make time to read it deliberately, and then I go do other things.

For me, knowing what's wrong in the world is important, but letting it overwhelm what's good in the world is even worse than the wrong by itself. Because then we lose all the good *too*, and at that point, why are we keeping going?

[author_by_night]

For me, knowing what's wrong in the world is important, but letting it overwhelm what's good in the world is even worse than the wrong by itself. Because then we lose all the good *too*, and at that point, why are we keeping going?

Exactly.

[rmc28]

I try very hard to not be negative in my own postings online (primarily here and Twitter) and also to be careful what I signal-boost. I cannot function well if I get too negative, and I cannot afford not to function, because I am the higher-earner and primary organiser in a 2-adult, 2-child household where the other adult has depression and anxiety, and both children have additional needs.

I'm also pretty explicitly on Team Hedonism: not to the neglect of my responsibilities, but I will take what joy and pleasure I can out of every day, and I make space in my life (daily, weekly, monthly) for the things I know give me pleasure. This has a practical basis, it's part of my self-care and keeping myself functional and able to do what I must do, and to have a hope of doing what I'd like to do, but it's also a goal in its own right, to enjoy life. I firmly believe that making space for my own pleasure makes me more, not less, able to do what work I can.

[havocthecat]

I've been writing! Not the scene I wanted, but a decent scene regardless.

[alexseanchai]

\o/

[alexseanchai]

Hellenion's online Khalkeia festival yesterday (which I did most of the work for) went great. Would have liked more member participation...

I need 4K today to get to the 15K par mark for NaNo. Heeeeere goes!

[alexseanchai]

It would help if I did not have a caffeine headache.

Which is to say, it would help if I had made sure there was a fresh thing of milk or half-and-half or something in the house yesterday. Y'know, instead of simply pouring the last without comment. (Coffee and tea are both too bitter without, and idk if there's a single drop of caffeinated soda in this house.)

[rmc28]

Thank you for the reminder I need to pick up milk on the way home :-)

[alexseanchai]

Glad to help!

[auroracloud]

Meeting my daily writing goal for this month is going well! And, I just managed to make myself do some editing on the ficlets I've been writing over the past weeks, so I might get some posted eventually.

Also, I made nice dinner today. It took an hour longer than I expected to, but it's yummy, will give me several meals, and considering it's mainly quinoa and beetroot, it cost hardly anything.

[rmc28]

A thing going well for me: I have been cooking!

I impulse-bought a recipe book that matches my preferences very well, and I am exploring the recipes one or two at a time and getting them right. I am getting to remember that I do know the basics of how to cook even if in practice I have left everything more complicated than making porridge to my spouse (and children) for a very long time.

Things I am looking forward to: I am seeing Dessa live tomorrow night (and going to an Ethiopian restaurant beforehand), and on both Sunday and Tuesday I'm seeing ballet live at the cinema (different ballets by different companies). It is a very cultural week!

[jenett]

Yay cooking! Yay Ethiopian food! (Which I haven't had in ages, I should fix that sometime). Yay ballet!

[rmc28]

I am pretty sure I have never had Ethiopian before, which is one of the reasons for picking this particular restaurant from those in the vicinity of the gig. I have been perusing the menu now and again with anticipation.

[jenett]

When I was in college, I and another friend used to meet up with three friends from an online space (a MUCK, for them that know such things.) who were also in the (broadly defined) area. We usually met in Central Square in Cambridge, which at the time had a huge string of small restaurants from a wide range of cuisines.

(And then we'd go find a place in the MIT student union to hang out until the next bus back to our college.)

One of the people was vegetarian, so the Ethiopian place was in high rotation, because it was good food, not expensive (see also, all of us in college) and it had great vegetarian options.

A lot of it is "Use injera (a specific kind of flat bread that's sort of vinegary) to scoop up mouthfuls of stew-like combinations"

[jazzyjj]

My week was very good. I have mainly been spending time with, ya know, my neighbor from across the hall. He got a delivery of new furniture on Tuesday and it is very nice. A new couch, ottoman sp?, and a love seat. Then just yesterday he asked if I could create a website for his cooking business that he is starting. We have been talking tech a lot, and I told him I have some experience with website building but not a lot. Think Dreamwidth and WordPress, not very much of the latter but I'm helping run a site over there all about audio description. While I'm on the subject, here's a plug for that site: http://netflixproject.wordpress.com . I've not been on there though much lately due to time constraints.





Helped celebrate a sister's birthday on Sunday. We went for brunch at a local place. I had heard great things about it so was glad to try it out. Both the food and service were excellent, despite being rather packed at the time. We got there right when they opened for the day.

[silveradept]

I'm late, but there has been a few things going well for me, even though it's sometimes hard to pay enough attention to them to acknowledge it.

As of right now, I'm caught up on drafts for writing in exchanges, and I'm slowly getting caught up on some television shows that's I've been meaning to. Work might be starting to turn to the less terrible, at least in people relations, and every time we check on the politics results, it looks a little more like we might pass our ballot measure.

I might also need to start thinking about the December Days for this year, as I've used my two big ideas in previous years.

[alexseanchai]

December Days: writing about writing?

[silveradept]

Specific suggestions welcome, if you have any.

[alexseanchai]

process, themes, tropes, structure? each with or without 'favorite' prepended? etc