“If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it — some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed. People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them, or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder. Maybe you weren’t always able to look at human behavior this way. That’s okay. Now you are. Give it a try.”
(And a footnote I didn’t see explicitly covered in the article: laziness still doesn’t exist when it is you yourself making no progress and not knowing why. You deserve that respect and consideration, too, even from yourself.)
“The concentration camp was never the normal condition for the average gentile German. Unless one were Jewish, or poor and unemployed, or of active leftist persuasion or otherwise openly anti-Nazi, Germany from 1933 until well into the war was not a nightmarish place. All the “good Germans” had to do was obey the law, pay their taxes, give their sons to the army, avoid any sign of political heterodoxy, and look the other way when unions were busted and troublesome people disappeared. Since many “middle Americans” already obey the law, pay their taxes, give their sons to the army, are themselves distrustful of political heterodoxy, and applaud when unions are broken and troublesome people are disposed of, they probably could live without too much personal torment in a fascist state — some of them certainly seem eager to do so.”
Maybe my favorite dead relative episode was the time my mother felt a need to call and pass on some information from her uncle who had died the year before.
Apparently he told her that (a) I was having some trouble, and (b) that was because my grandmother–his sister–was basically some kind of psychic vampire who didn’t want to let people go. That was also apparently urgent enough to call for a dream visit specifically to tell her, the only time she ever mentioned hearing from him.
I didn’t really know what to say to that. But I’m still not sure any of it was actually wrong.
It’s so funny to see bumblebee behavior, how they basically have to learn what is and is not a flower through example.
For months the bumblebees were totally ignoring my garden, despite an ample supply of delicious Catnip, Lavender, and other assorted goods. Then, I put in the Russian Sage, a tall stalk of ample amounts of purple flowers, that can be seen in my garden from the hillside, and suddenly, a few tentatively showed up to that, then they realized the Hyssop next to it also had nectar, then the Lavender, which they had so quickly snubbed before, then the Borage flowers quickly became their favorite, which last year saw no bee activity at all, etc.
I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re trying to attract bees, consider putting in the botanical equivalent of a runway flag for your garden and see what happens.
Why are there so many stories abt the ghosts of Confederate soldiers, but nothing abt black slaves coming back to haunt the fuck out of their former slave owners. Even ghosts on plantations are usually white people who died there. Like, given just how much death and destruction America is built off of, you would think that there wouldn’t be an inch of this country that wasn’t haunted by the spirits of black people or native Americans. You have whole cities like New York built on mass graves, all these places where white people rioted and murdered black people en masse, entire tribes of Native Americans who died because their way of life was destroyed…and yet ghost stories are disproportionately focused on white people. What the actual fuck.
This is because you’re listening to white people.
Like, white people tell ghost stories to scare their kids, and they do so from their own world view, with references they relate to. Above all, they tell these stories with a perspective that they aren’t true, because ghosts aren’t real to them. And because America is white-centric, that becomes the model if the ghost story. But it isn’t.
I can’t speak for all CoC, and I can’t speak for all Black people but I can say this; in my experience, when we talk about ghosts it’s vastly different. Black people talk about ghosts as though they’re as factual as gravity. They’re treated as an inherent part of life and the world. No, they aren’t bring them up all the time, but when spirits are mentioned, it’s often done so in a passive manner unless dealing with an actively spiritual problem. When we tell stories of those that have passed, it’s very rarely about trying to scare each other, and more than often it’s done to encourage people. Ghosts exist to watch, help, and protect people. Sometimes they’ll play a trick or get at you for being disrespectful, but they won’t harm you. And stories of ghosts of enslaved people? Those are extremly popular. They serve as a way to provide closure to their descendants. And yes, sometimes there are stories about us coming back to haunt the white people that victimized us in life.
Stories of Black ghosts exist. They just operate differently and white people don’t tell them.
Also, if you can find them, there was a show on TV for a brief period called Ghostbrothers, about four Black men who hunted ghosts on plantations, or brothels ,or places where they knew Black people had been killed ,and were said to be haunted.
Their approach to ghosthunting was very different than the usual type of hunting in that they insisted on being respectful to the presence of ghosts. As one of them said in an interview,”Why would we want to disrespect our ancestors?”
even in my own family, after my grandparents died, when something unexpected and good happened to me or my mother, they’d say “that was your grandfather”. for instance, my mother and i were on the verge of homelessness, with no help and no nothing, on the day my grandpa died, the city was suddenly able to help, AND we got in apartment in the area my mother had been dreaming of before i was born. we moved in the NEXT day. and one of my cousins goes “that was your dad” (to my mom) and i have a hard time believing it wasn’t true.
and on the other hand, i had thieving, awful aunt and cousins, who stole his home (and were the cause of that impending homelessness) who lost everything, the house, and money they stole from him and us and even my grandmother they kept in the house…within a year.
they’ve been homeless for 11 years!!! and have to literally beg for money.
every time i think of them and the shit they’re going through, and the home, my mother now has, i think of him. these things are tied.
The next time somebody gives you shit about your late autism diagnosis, remember that Anthony Hopkins was diagnosed as autistic when he was 70 years old.
People can go almost their whole lives and never know they’re autistic, but recognize they feel different from their peers.
And BTW Anthony Hopkins stims by rubbing his hands together, and being autistic is exactly why he’s such a good actor. He studies people’s mannerisms with an analytical mind, adopts those mannerisms for characters and turns out awesome performances. He’s a chameleon.
And he’s one of us, autistic community.
This is also important as a reminder that, while most mainstream discussion of autism focuses on autistic children, autism doesn’t magically go away when you become an adult. Many autistic adults are less visibly neurodivergent than we were when we were children. That doesn’t mean that we’ve become neurotypical. We’ve simply learned through years of experience how to act in a way that society deems “normal.” A surface-level change in behavior does not necessarily reflect a fundamental change in the way we think and perceive the world.
“This premise is just [insert Terry Pratchett story here], because [thing that’s actually quite common in fantasy literature, including the particular source material the cited Terry Pratchett story is openly parodying, which I’m totally unaware of because I have literally no exposure to fantasy literature outside of Terry Pratchett stories].”
(And don’t get me wrong – I love Pratchett’s work, and I have
everything he ever published in hardcopy. The Pratchett fandom,
on the other hand, is often less endearing, particularly with respect
to the perennial habit of
certain segments of said fandom to go about loudly declaring that things
are derivative of Pratchett’s work owing to the presence of shared elements
that Pratchett himself unashamedly lifted from other sources, typically
for the purpose of parody. In many cases, they’ll even insist that
things that entirely pre-date Pratchett’s body of work are somehow
ripping him off, which is just baffling – like, you’d think such hardcore fans would at least be aware of the period during
which their idol wrote!)
I actually love reading Pratchett specifically because it’s clear that every other thing on the page is a parody of something — only I’ve never encountered the original. It’s fun to guess how the unsuberted version might have gone, and just how much Terry was done with it.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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