grape [none/use name]

I intend to (though I'm not unfamiliar with the ideas) and would encourage people to engage with these materials as well. The meaning of that last line is to address the overall idea that you can't have a position until you meet X criteria (often self-imposed)--specifically addressing common criticisms related to "reading". I'm very new to these ideas still and want to emphasize the partially ignorant individual's ability to have the correct position before knowing everything. It, for me at least, makes the learning easier when I have a intuitive ideological picture to fit it into.

When I first began to engage with this stuff, my frame of reference was being completely determined by the lists of rules I was given to live by. As I began to read this stuff I was feeling like, how could I have been so wrong about everything? If all I ever wanted to do was help people and I still believed so many harmful things, how can I trust myself to be right in the future? If everything I know is just another cherry in the basket then I won't trust myself until my basket is full. I can't start laying out the puzzle until I had all the pieces--that at some point I would learn enough "truths" to see the picture for myself.

The problem was I was still writing lists except now they didn't say "Violence is wrong", "listen to minorities", and "Vote blue no matter who" but "Obama is bad for drone strikes", "Guns are okay actually", and "idpol is bad". I would do the work to pick apart a liberal opinion and walk right into another--why? When will I finally know enough to know the difference? The rabble of disagreement and ping ponging between macro and micro issues becomes overwhelming. Where to focus? Where to try? Being the only person in my immediate life to vocalize these concepts, whenever a liberal idea would come up I would challenge it. Not aggressively, just saying things like "you know what I read an article recently that said..." in a way that's asking them to verify, not telling them it's true. Since no one thought of me as a leftist, it's amazing the amount of good faith I was met with. As the weeks wore on and my vocabulary got bigger, I started hearing things like "what are you a socialist now" and I was really confused. I still hadn't read a word of Marx, I was just being informed of better ways to accomplish our goals and was confused when the ideas were dismissed and not challenged.

As this tension came to a head I would get flustered when the conversation turned back on me, feeling so fragile in my new ideology and waiting for some liberal fact to drop on my head an destroy it. But it didn't happen. As soon as I stopped centering myself I was able to take a step towards battling my ego and say the words out loud "I don't know, teach me". "Obama is good" "I heard he's not" "that's ridiculous" "Oh okay, teach me why". This has shut down more conversation than anything else. Become baby. If I felt that anxious panic that usually precedes yelling declarative statements, I would take a deep breath and just start asking questions. Feeling ill prepared to say I "knew" something, I just started asking people what they knew. And it was very, very little. It wasn't that I had learned enough true fax to own them, they were owning themselves because no one ever digs in past the declarative to see the deeper contradictions. It's not about the things we know, but how we argue. Understanding what logic really is was very helpful--it's not the things we believe but the methods we use to believe them.

Eventually as people became more annoyed with me they started doing the whole "well if you're so smart convince me that nothing bad will ever happen under socialism" which is of course ridiculous. At first I would sputter out scattershot defenses I would see online, later I would ask "why would something need to be perfect to be worth doing?" Don't get stuck on the facts, they're just used to justify feelings. Ask people what they feel. I had to "rip the wires out" on what I thought I knew. Trying to find where I put the wrong number in the sudoku was driving me nuts so I eventually I just started over. You're probably still believing things you don't realize you do and those won't change with facts but understanding what you want.

I am no better or worse, less deserving or more deserving of anything than any other animal growing like mold on this slo mo roiling ball of liquid minerals. If I started a new save file and tried to forget anything socialized I'm returned to by basic instinct--to not feel pain. This may just pertain to me, but I don't believe in God, I don't believe in a soul or the afterlife. I didn't ask to be born, but I don't want to die and almost every single human on this planet is in the same boat (starting therapy really helped to put this in perspective--if you have access I recommend it). Even Donald Trump is just an animal drawing on his trauma to decide what to do. Human brains, human ideas, human needs, they're all nonsense. Life is an absurd accident, not built to do or be anything. All that is "true" is what exists, how we decide to feel and take action is determined by what we each value. Most people couldn't tell you their ideology because they probably don't really have one, just a list of rules to live by backed up by the Trojan biases we call "opinions".

My liberal view made the world feel as if it was too scattered and disparate to understand. I thought I was looking at a puzzle full of holes of things I didn't know, that I was unable to see the picture because I didn't have enough pieces. But it was never a puzzle, it just looked flat because I'd been standing in the same place for so long. All the important pieces were there, I just had to reorient my position to see it. The point at which I'm standing now is the very base of my ideology--I hate pain and don't want to feel it and as such would not want other to feel it either. I don't need to know a fact to know that what someone is saying or presenting isn't going to meet that goal and if I don't' have the information I need to make that determination, then I ask for more. Stop thinking of things as good and bad and think of them as things that help your goal or don't.

Capitalism and socialism became nearly meaningless terms for me for a long time and I think it was helpful. Language has a funny way of delivering ideas when we're not paying attention and most people don't use them in good faith. By taking the talk away from labels and definitions, we can actually begin to see where our paths are better aided together. When you're not sure where to start, look for the helpers. When people tell you to organize it's because when all the dialectics are past, people will still be hungry and in pain. Talking about macro helps define the micro, but the core of what we want is just better lives and "organizing" is the act of reconnection with your human community. It's not about a paternal need for "peace", it's about acting for mutual benefit in a common cause.

I still have not read Marx.

It's the pupils casting a shadow

Nothing is ever TRULY necessary, I'm sure plenty of people have fully healed with no aftercare at all--the question is will you and do you care? Saline rinses are the best way to help clean the extraction sites since you can't brush or use mouthwash at first (mouthwash until much later). Saline is a natural disinfectant. It's easy to make, just buy some non-iodized sea salt (specifically) and add enough salt to a mug of boiled or hot distilled water (around 1 tsp) so that it's no saltier than a potato chip. Don't have to rise long, usually 30 sec-1min

Just hit the week 4 mark on a tooth extraction. I lived off of mushy and liquid foods for about 3 days, but I only had one tooth out so it was easy to just chew on the other side of my mouth. In essence, the longer you can go without agitating the extraction sites the better. If you knock loose the blood clot, as I'm sure you know, you can get dry socket. If I had all four corners extracted then I would probably stay on a liquid diet for as long as I could stand to. Technically dry socket can happen at any point during the healing so just be gentle and keep your mouth closed when possible. Only other thing I can recommend is be diligent with saline rinses after eating, just don't swish too hard or suck as it could increase the likelihood of removing the blood clot (I tipped my head back and forth). If you smoke, do it through your nose lol.

The thing that's got me farther than anything else is "why?". Every time I've asked someone why Socialism won't work (or analysis in the area), I end up 45 minutes later talking about their childhood traumas. Mental health and politics is so interconnected it's scary--begins to clarify the web of assumptions we keep whole for the sake of protecting our identities. Your brain hardens around the last thing it understood when you stopped learning and adults don't like it pointed out to them that they HAVE stopped. So many of our opinions are just the spreading roots of ego.

Another lame chapo convert.

I was a lib my whole life, started down the SJW track as my bff started a sociology degree. First revelation was unifying my personal view of how people should be treated, trying my best to weed out as much cultural hard wiring as possible. Once I felt comfortable in that space, the anxiety and alienation grew--If everyone says we're supposed to treat each other equally and fairly, but we're not, then what are we going to do about it? I didn't have a good perspective on the resistance I was seeing. Everyone seemed to agree what good was (in my bubble), but no one had any ideas of what to do about it. We have cars and space ships and smart phones and governments that seemingly know everything and know exactly what to do right all the time (or else why would we trust them so much) so if there was a way to fix it then it would be fixed already. We're the most advanced country with the most money and opportunity in history--if we can't help people it's because the technology to help people doesn't exist yet. Don't worry though, we all know we need to clothe the poor and feed the homeless and close the income disparity, it's just a matter of time. As soon as we can get rid of those pesky republicans it'll all be okay.

The background hum of discontent sent me further into depression as my material conditions worsened and all I could really interpret from the world around me was "tough shit, vote". So you guess that's just it and you find a way to cope or fade away. Life was never meant to be fair.

Then almost exactly two years ago, the same bff told me about a juicy thread on a sub I'd never heard of before (subreddit drama I believe, I didn't use reddit much two years ago). The original thread is immaterial, but I was excited to dip into more drama so I went to the sub itself and the pinned thread was a timeline of the chapo takeover of r/libertarian. I already hated r/libertarian but had never in my life heard of chapo. The people in the comments said chapo people were trolls and just as bad, but I hated libertarians so I didn't give a shit (had no dog in the fight) and spent the next few hours peeling apart drama.

Well, of course that funneled me straight into the sub. At first I was confused because it was implied that chapos were a bunch of extremist edgelords, but the community there seemed to hate the same people I did and had a style of humor I wasn't used to seeing that drew me in. Not that chapo is super special or amazing in that way, I'd just never been the hugboxing sensitive type and being a woman in sjw spaces (not being sensitive as a woman apparently sticks out the people as a negative trait) I figured I didn't relate because I needed to work harder on my empathy. Don't get me wrong, I'll take a crying hug circle over edgy bullshit every time for its sincerity--there was just a part of me that clicked in right away with the tone of the sub. I was feeling a lot of anger that lengthy discussions on feminism, racism, and identity weren't touching on. I figured the anger was learned and the best way to make progress was with calm, gentle, and persistent understanding. But it just left me more confused, if I'm supposed to have empathy for everyone, why can't I have empathy for my white, cis, father who grew up dirt poor in the boonies of upstate New York? Why can't I feel empathy for the people who voted Trump because politicians have lied to them their whole lives? Why can't I feel empathy for my homeless friend who is racist in ways she doesn't understand but fundamentally acts with love and good faith? I didn't know what I was reading on chapo most of the time, I was essentially politically illiterate; I had a hard time reconciling that it was one of the most pro-trans and queer place I'd been on reddit, but I was also seeing Obama hate posts (I loved Obama) and disdain for "identity politics" and liberals. I was taught to tune people out when I heard certain words or cliches, but being predisposed to curiosity (and at the time undiagnosed ADHD), my need to get all the cool kid jokes overturned my learned aversion to certain uses of language.

There was a feeling that everyone on chapo was smarter and wittier than me, that they all knew some secret smart thing that made them so confident they were right. I knew the jokes were funny but I didn't know why. Having my ego developed in a highly educated and wealthy place (though I grew up poor which is hilarious--cultural "class" heritage without the money lol), I had intense insecurity about my level of intelligence and generally hated the idea that I didn't understand something enough to have an opinion on it. That in combination with my natural obstinance and growing frustration with liberal moral dissonance led to simply engage in good faith. I was there a couple days when I saw a meme of oscar the grouch and kermit as zizek and peterson, had no idea who zizek was, felt super dumb and spent the next day watching zizek lectures on youtube. Not long after, the dominoes had begun to fall and the rest is familiar to us all.

It was a painful time for me, learning what "good faith" really meant and suddenly found myself on the outside of political discussions with family and friends. I was learning new perspectives that made so much more sense than what I was taught, wouldn't everyone else be just as excited to know as well? My liberal extended community all seemed to have the same goals as me, wouldn't they like to hear the there are more effective ways of accomplishing our goals? Not, apparently, as the first few months of my new political observations were met with eye-rolls and "oh, so you're a communist now?" When I realized I didn't have to have a fully realized political ideology to challenge people, it made political debate a lot easier. Having just learned so much of what I knew was wrong, how best could I decouple myself from the part of me that held me back for so long in the first place? Just accept ignorance. It's okay to be ignorant and still want healthcare. It's okay to be ignorant and still want to end racism. It's okay to be ignorant and not like US imperialism. Okay, I'm an ignorant baby, mom. Tell me why we can't have universal healthcare.

I've turned more people on the same path just by asking THEM what THEY believe. My sjw bff (now roommate) and I continue to argue to this day, but he's reluctantly joined me on this journey (as much as he's capable). I was radicalized by my ego's need to be right (the advanced stage of needing to FEEL right lol) and I try to appeal to it in others when I can. You can be like the FAKE smart person you make fun of all the time for CHOOSING their facts, or you can be a real smart person and engage with me in good faith. From there, I just keep asking the next question because--honestly, I really am just trying to find the answer.