Little joys of the finite

Jess • 22 • they/he • credit for header image to @autumnalwood on Instagram

[littlejoysofthefinite]

Hi! I’m Jess! This intro post is a work in progress!

I’m a disabled butch lesbian, and I love seeing people like me represented in music and theatre.

At the moment, I am loving Six The Musical (one day we will see a Disabled queen, I just know it!). If you have any theatre recommendations, please let me know

Jess | TikTok | Linktree

Linktree. Make your link do more.

[creature-wizard]

The real secret to being an effective activist isn't to hate yourself. It's learning to love and cherish everyone. You must learn to appreciate everyone's humanity, to make yourself able to see their potential and their inherent deservingness, and to value their perspectives and their feelings. You must learn how to lift up the marginalized, not put yourself down.

[kirbywithaknife]

I think what a lot of people aren't understanding is that: the fact that they're in a relationship isn't as much of a surprise as the fact that they finally decided to talk about it openly

[itsgonnabeanofrommedawg]

dan and phil publicly forgiving their audience for ripping their private life apart. chronically closeted dan following that up by asking "phil do YOU forgive me for years of dealing with my bullshit?" and phil saying he doesn't need to forgive him. literally peace and love on phanet earth

[lesvegas]

A few years ago while trying to find ways to commit suicide as painlessly as possible, I came across a PDF of Dr. Paul Quinnett's The Forever Decision. Thinking it might go into actual methods of suicide (I read an article once that actually did that and was trying to find it again) I started to read it, and I think I only got about two pages in before I was crying too much to actually see the words.

I downloaded the PDF to my hard drive and I open it again whenever I'm feeling too suicidal to do much else, but not enough to start booking a ride to the hospital. And every time without fail I only go up to a few pages before backing off and choosing to live another day just because suicide suddenly seems even more unbearable than whatever the hell upset me in the first place.

All the book really does is [I'm pulling a summary from GoodReads here as, again, I've read no more than 5 pages] "discusses the social aspects of suicide, the right to die, anger, loneliness, depression, stress, hopelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, the consequences of a suicide attempt, and how to get help."

But it also starts with the author kindly asking the reader to complete the book before going through with anything, and for some reason I'm compelled to really just try to read it all before finalizing everything. Despite not yet completing it (hopefully never will) I think I can safely say it's saved my life at least a few times now.

It's intentionally legal to copy and redistribute this book to keep it as accessible as possible, and it's very easy to find, but here's a link for it anyways.

[thesweetiepienovels]

Actually, you are enough. Even if you don’t work. Or study. Or go out. Or have friends. Or have family. You’re enough because you exist and your existence is enough to be enough because you are not a product. You are not a sum of output. You are not a task to complete. But because you are something the universe wanted and put here even if you’ll never understand why. Somewhere in the cosmos your existence makes a difference, even if it’s not the way others existences do.

[teethwasbones]

Sometimes art, writing, the internet are the only voices, the only outlet, the only community a disabled person has. It is important and it is of value.

[chronicallycouchbound]

PSA: Box breathing isn’t safe for everyone!

“Box breathing” and similar breathing exercises that call for breath holding, even for a few seconds, can aggravate respiratory conditions such as asthma and COPD. In some cases, even deep breathing can trigger respiratory symptoms.

(ID: an animated gif showing a diagram of box breathing, where you breathe in for 4 seconds, then hold for 4, then breathe out for 4 and hold for 4, in a continuous cycle. End ID.)

I didn’t learn this until a couple years ago, and a lot of people still don’t know! Talk with your medical providers about alternatives!

I personally use in through the nose, out through the mouth exercises (like “smell the roses, blow out the candles”). Inhaling through the nose is best for asthma, since the nose filters some particles and irritants, and warms and moistens the air going to your lungs, all of which can help reduce symptoms. I specifically don’t hold my breath in between those steps!

Alternatives to breathing exercises include techniques such as distraction, identifying 5 sensations, fidget tools, listening to music, putting on a favorite show, or guided meditation.

Distraction is great when hyperventilating, most people, when mentally distracted, will fall back into a normal breathing pattern naturally. Sometimes focusing on your breath and body *isnt* the answer or even necessary.

[our-trans-punk-experience]

Do you have advice how to not get burned out protesting? Like I just wanna be able to sleep, but ICE is still kidnapping my neighbors

Someone recently shared a zine with me on avoiding activist burnout (it was a very pointed gift), so I am going to transcribe it here and then tag who I believe the original artist was

TIPS FOR DEFYING THE END OF THE WORLD

(from people who were right before)

pg 2-3

In 2000 (when I was 8), I heard about 2012 - THE END OF THE WORLD. I curled up by the radiator and I sobbed. what was the point? why go to school if I was gonna die at 20 anyway? But my mum came in and said, { "But what if the world doesn't end? What if you live? Then, if you quit now, you'll have to catch up."}

And I persisted. And I didn't die.

pg 4-5

And when I was real depressed one time, I told my doctor how overwhelming it felt to try and fix all the world's problems when I'm just one person. Activist burnout. And he said, {"You ARE just one person. So you can't fix it all. But you can pick small things in your small radius and start working on the small wins instead."} And he was right. I've done so much more with less stress since then.

pg 6-7

And now, I look after some folk who are younger than me. They also fear the future. They fear politicians, and they fear hatred, and they fear climate change. They're burnt out. But what if it works out? What if small changes today make tomorrow better? Hope is a tool. Hope is a weapon. Hope is a plant we must nurture.

pg 8

Even if things go wrong, we can at least say we tried. But we hope for more. Because if we can picture it, we can work towards it

@nariarts (I THINK)

I hope that conveys the point well, but to put it simply, you don't need to give 100% 24/7 because that isn't sustainable. The point of community, the point of humanity, is there will always be someone to take the night watch.

going to tag @trans-zines @hopepunk-humanity

[hopepunk-humanity]

I was born with a chronic illness. I didn’t realize how painful it was because I had no reference for what life was like without it. As I got older we tried treatment after treatment, trying to make it better, and they all failed and the illness got worse. A few months ago, my doctor and I finally found a treatment that worked. I still have symptoms occasionally, but I’m hardly ever in pain now. Exercise is so much easier and more fun now. This treatment didn’t exist when I was born.

Something about the connection with other people, who I’ll never meet but did a world of good for me by helping make this medicine, and the optimism of finally finding relief I thought I’d never get struck me as fitting this blog.

I thought I was going to die sick and in pain. Now I get to live the rest of my life healthier than I’ve ever been.

^^^

None of us make it alone.

[byjove]

whenever I see archeological remains of a human who suffered from a terrible disease that couldn’t be treated in their lifetime but could be fixed now, this wave of sorrow and mourning washes over me. a woman in the 14th century who spent her 35 years of life bent at the waist because of congenital scoliosis. a man from the 18th century who died because of a non cancerous mass on his jaw that made eating progressively more difficult. remains of a woman from the Neolithic who died in childbirth having evidence of peri-mortem trepanation on her skull.

and yet she survived to 35. and yet the physicians in his time tried to strengthen his jaw. and yet someone 4,000 years ago tried to save someone they loved from dying of preeclampsia/increased cranial pressure. we tried. we tried and we tried and we tried. we failed and we learned but we tried. that’s what makes humans so beautiful.

[lyricwritesprose]

My mom sometimes talks about a child in her neighborhood who was born with hydrocephaly and died of it. His parents strove to keep him alive for years, but he ultimately passed after a long decline. No treatment available. No hope at all, and the parents knew it from his birth.

Several decades later my sister had an MRI, as a long shot, to try to figure out why she was sick and deteriorating with a number of symptoms that were close to being written off as anxiety. She was sent straight to the hospital for adult onset hydrocephaly. Two days later she had brain surgery to put a shunt down her neck into her stomach and drain the fluid out. (No, you cannot usually get brain surgery that fast. Yes, it was that urgent.) Recovery was long and squiggly but it happened.

I think of that boy every once in a while. The one who died. I have no doubt that treatments developed for people like him, and tested on people like him, saved my sister's life.

He never knew he made the world better. His condition was severe, he never knew much of anything, I don't think. I think if I ever track down a God or something like one, that'll be somewhere on my List of Wishes. To make sure people like him know that they helped.

[mutedtempest]

I think about this a lot.

I've been type 1 diabetic since I was about one and a half, and was incredibly sick. If my mother hadn't also been type 1 and recognized the signs I likely would have died.

I was born in 1982. Insulin was first given to a patient in 1922, and he survived. Before that, type 1 meant death, often very slow and agonizing. Before insulin, doctors advised a super strict "keto" diet to prolong life, and it could work for awhile - up to a year, I believe. But it was a miserable existence as the body was literally eating itself as the blood turned acidic until the patient eventually died.

60 years. Only 60 years before my birth did that procedure work for the first time. That's absolutely nothing given the span of human history and I think a lot about the people who died from it throughout time.

But yes, people tried. Healers and doctors of all sorts tried all manner of things to allow these (mostly!) kids to live. The fact that it was accomplished at all is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that I've been alive 42 years is fucking insane considering my body doesn't produce a hormone necessary for survival. If you think that doesn't blow me away on a regular basis you have another think coming. It's nothing short of a miracle.

Every medical advancement is. The amount of work that goes into it and the vast amount of luck necessary to get it right even when all the research and information is sound is just astonishing.

Thank you, humanity. Thank you ingenuity and determination to save lives and make them better. Thank you to every medical practitioner and medical researcher in existence now and through all of time. Thank you to all the people who died so I could live.

[hyperactivehedgehog]

Diabetes is one of these illnesses that really throws medical history into perspective. It's so common, everyone knows someone who has it, people live pretty normal lives with it. And yet, a hundred years ago, it was an instant death sentence. And then we were able to treat people with insulin and yet - it was extremely disabling. The insulin was extracted from animal pancreas had severe side effects, even with how similar the hormones are, there is always an averse reaction to proteins from foreign species, especially during long-term treatment. Injections had to be given every few hours, at-home-tests were only available from the 70s onwards. Insulin pumps entered the market in the 80s. Genetically produced insulin - humanized insulin - was first available in the US in 1982, in many countries only around the year 2000.

In 1930, having diabetes type I would basically mean being hospital bound, being woken every few hours for regular injections.

In 1965, you'd be able to live at home and get by with a very strict diet and a few timed injections. You'd struggle with chronical side effects. Having children wasn't done - passing on your genes would be immoral, and it might not even be legal for you to marry.

In the year 2000, you'd have a device clipped to your belt that would measure your blood sugar and distribute insulin, you only need to change the needle a few times a day. You might even be allowed to join in P.E. class

In 2025, you stick on two patches that do the same thing. They're synchronized through your phone.

That wasn't fate. It's not natural development that made diabetes a common chronic illness. It was hundreds of people who cared. It was the people who created the keto diet. It was the people who came up with tests. The ones who went through different species, trying to figure out the closest analogon to human insulin. It was the people who fought in court to get genetically produced insulin approved for medical use. It was people who looked at a rare, incurable disease and said "but what if it wasn't?"

[dragonmasque]

Trees evolved and lived and died and did not rot long, long before the organisms that can break down and metabolize their corpses ever came along.

And now, humans are working with fungi that can safely break down petroleum plastics, and with techniques that allow us to actually recycle these materials.

The world is full of difficulties... Medical, mechanical, environmental, so much more. But the world is also full of change, and humans are capable of working with that change purposefully, intelligently, cumulatively across time and populations. There is always a value in trying, in learning, in making an effort or building a community. Even if we don't succeed, every effort helps build the support for the thing that will, even if we can't always see how.

We owe it to those who did the best they could with what they had then, to do the best we can with what we have now, so that those who will come after us will have even better, more useful, more humane tools for the problems they will face. Who knows what we can accomplish together, for each other, when we don't give up?

[mitchipedia]

[ghostieking]

HUMANITY WIN

[fae-fireflies-wildflowercrowns]

@joy-and-whimsy-official

[joy-and-whimsy-official]

Joy and whimsy detected! This post is joyful and whimsical!

[unyieldingsilence]

‎

[batteredblueberry]

[ID: a reddit comment by SierraSeaWitch that reads "Just this week I fell asleep on my morning commute and nearly missed my stop. All of us on the early express bus are technically strangers but know each other based on our unofficial assigned seats, ect. Well, one guy rushed to wake me up. The other asked the bus driver to wait. The bus driver himself was like "doesn't someone get off here?" And when I nearly forgot my coat in my race to get off, they passed it forward. It was incredibly kind and considerate. I brought kit kats for them the next day in thanks. Reminds you that you have a village even when you don't know it". End ID]

[elisamaza]

"being autistic is not an excuse for doing/saying something bigoted without holding yourself accountable" and "there are times when autistic people cannot deduce when something they did/said was wrong because something that may not be innocuous to you can be innocuous to them and them asking for an explanation is not the same as dodging accountability" are two things that can and should co-exist.

[becauselovingisareward]

Despite it all, trees are still pretty

[infectiouspiss]

kids deserve so much more respect and it turns out that saying that is a great way to locate the horrible people in any community <3

[infectiouspiss]

you'll say something as simple as "no child deserves to be hit" and people will crawl out of the woodwork to explain why they should be allowed to beat a 6 year old for spilling some water

[infectiouspiss]

you'll say "i think it's weird that adults literally have control over when children are allowed to use the bathroom" and up pops a teacher to say that when they're not shouting at the kids they teach, they're trying to stop them from hiding in the bathrooms

you'll say "i think children shouldn't be forced to eat food they hate" and here comes someone who feeds their kids plain rice and boiled chicken (while eating a nicely seasoned stirfry) claiming that it's okay actually and kids shouldn't be allowed to taste things

you'll say "i think kids should have bodily autonomy" and in comes someone who pierced their babies ears before it was even 24 hours old, frothing at the mouth because their kid wanted a haircut and thats somehow an insult

[infectiouspiss]

children are an oppressed class and everyone should be looking back at their own childhoods and making sure they don't ever make a child feel the same way they felt.

[life-on-our-planet]

Although it was once extinct in the wild the takhi has been successfully reintroduced to its native territory in Central China and Eastern Europe. ©ChornobylWild

[hope-for-the-planet]

This species only exists because many, many humans cared enough to invest tremendous effort in stopping it from going extinct. And now they've been de-listed from extinct in the wild to just endangered.

I believe these gifs are specifically from the herd that was released into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone when the species was still extinct in the wild. That herd is estimated to be about 100 strong now.

Something, something, life finds a way.

[owltoes]

Call me Napstablook the way im depressed in headphones 24/7