Can't even fucking talk to any of my various therapists about this shit. No I can't just "not think about stuff I can't control". I'm autistic, have severe general anxiety, and pretty bad ADHD that medication only marginally helps. I've already improved immensely and stopped worrying about most things.
Except this one.
I organize too don't tell me to do that
Also texts about revolutionary optimism didn't help either. All that shit was a hundred years ago in a completely different state of world
I've reflected that most of the friendships I've made throughout my life were made largely because I thought they were a good person, and deep down I enjoyed being around them. And that meant that on some level they had a progressive valueset. If they had a liberal valueset, the friendship wouldn't be very strong, and if they had a reactionary valueset, I would avoid them. Progressive values are kind of a baseline for being a good person in my book.
People I thought were "just nice"? Disproportionately made up of socialists and some social democrats or broad "progressives", and largely people who are but don't realize it yet. People I thought were "just mean"? Overwhelmingly reactionaries.
Philosophy underlies values, and values underlie politics. Something on top can run the other direction, but it will eventually be steered by the current. This cannot be stopped, only delayed.
Also because of how I've made connections in 5+ years of organizing in radical scenes, most of my friends are radicals.
Most people are primed against communism, where even if they would support it if you described it without labels, as soon as they see the label they'll bail on it. So, maybe talk about equality and affinity and solidarity and altruism and realizing human potential, in broader terms. That's probably what Che would do.