Sorry about the rant I'm just SO sick of this "we have to be on all the time never look away if you aren't upset about politics and traumatizing yourself watching people die on Twitter you're wrong and complicit and evil" like I know things are fucked and we need to stay angry but we can do that while also taking a minute to crack open a cold one with the boys or have gay sex or get tipsy at the line dance, we HAVE to have joy to remember why the fuck we're refusing to give up in the first place. Fight like hell for your loved ones and then also go home with them to smoke weed and drink sweet tea and make biscuits covered in honey and butter please, please don't deprive yourself of joy, you're allowed to be happy BEFORE the work is done. You're allowed to be happy.
The lady I used to live with was adamant that there be a party at any opportunity. They weren't always big, but if there was an occasion in the slightest, there was something done to celebrate it. Sometimes she literally would just say, "this deserves a Diet Coke!" And she would pass me a can from her stash in the closet.
It's important context that she had a very hard life into adulthood. Very poor family. Abusive father. Mentally ill mother. She often had to miss school as a teenager because she had to go find her mother, who would wander off for days into the woods. She also made sure her other siblings were fed, clothed, and at school while she herself was missing out on them.
I once asked her why she did so much celebrating.
She told me that people can choose to celebrate the small stuff if they want to, or not, but life was hard enough and the celebrations, no matter how small, made the other hard things easier. "If two people lead hard lives, and one of them celebrates and the other doesn't, which do you think will survive longer? Get more done? Make it farther?"
Your despondence and self-flagellation doesn't help anyone. Your passion and drive do. So you need to do things that ignite your passions and keep them ignited. Recognize that there is pain and awful suffering in the world. Do what you can to change that. Then do what you need to do to make sure you can keep doing it.
