Can I watch a great film knowing the actresses in it were terrorized and mistreated the entire time? Can I watch a football game knowing that the players are getting brain injuries right before my eyes? Can I listen to my favorite albums anymore knowing that the singers were all beating their wives in between studio sessions? Can I eat at the new fancy taco place knowing when the building that used to be there got bulldozed eight families got kicked out of their homes so they could be replaced with condos and a chain restaurant? Can I wear the affordable clothes I bought downtown that were probably assembled in a sweatshop with child labor? Can I eat quinoa?
Can I eat this burger? Can I drink this bottled water? Can I buy a car and drive to work because I’m sick of taking an hour each way on the subway? Whose bones do I stand on? Whose bones am I standing on right now?
On one hand, it’s a privilege to be able to choose to acknowledge these horrors or not–we’re going to acknowledge that privilege. On the other hand, I once attended a lecture by the explorerer-conservationist Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s daughter and son and they had a lot of opinions about what we could do to help the environment and the ocean and I talked about how in my country, we have to drink bottled water, because it’s a desert and there’s only salt water all around, but we’re contributing to pollution and all of these things…
And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of “activist guilt.” I couldn’t remember the exact words, but, it was the first time I’d heard the term and it took a weight off my shoulders.
We do what we can. It’s so much better than giving up entirely or not doing anything at all because we can’t do it perfectly. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the end if we just sit around feeling guilty about every little thing in life. I’d just joined tumblr back then (haha, so like, eight or nine years ago at this point?), I was being exposed to way more than I’d ever been before (I was previously just into feminism and animal rights/wildlife conservation/environmentalism since I was a kid), and it was weighing on me.
As long as humans are humans and living flawed lives, many consumed by greed, there will not be anything in this world untouched by evil.
I usually avoid stuff that says it was made in China or other cheap looking knockoffs, out of fear of them being made in sweatshops (now, I know even a lot of big brands use those…), it’s exhausting. Then, I read something about how people who actually lived and worked in those would still buy this cheap stuff and how this shocked the foreigner reporting on it, but they just looked confused like, it’s what they can afford and them avoiding consuming it isn’t going to change the whole system from the ground-up.
… it went on about how “money talks” and choosing where to put your money still feeds the whole capitalist system and is nearly a way of comforting yourself, but you not buying doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t. What needs to be tackled is at a much higher level than any of us can reach.
Of course, I’d still, given the choice, give my money to companies I agree with and I’ll boycott what I know to support awful stuff, but I also feel no superiority over this and know now it’s not as black and white or easy as I thought it was.
This is the same reason that moral purity “you can’t enjoy [x] because it’s Problematic ™” is such nonsense, because nothing is pure. There’s something bad about everything if you dig deep enough. As long as we lived in flawed human societies we’ve got to make the best of what they offer us. If you have the choice and means, please, do support those who do good, but also, don’t beat yourself up over not living up to an unattainable ideal.
No one can. You’ll just make yourself so miserable, you either burn up and stop fighting entirely or you’ll make yourself a non-productive, depressed heap just out of a bleeding heart left unchecked. You can’t make a change to this world if you refuse to engage in it.
Purity is one of the worst, most harmful myths humans ever invented.
Rebloging for this amazing reply telling us how to actually handle this, because yeah, sometimes I’ll simply shut down trying to find something that doesn’t cause harm to anyone
My mother used to mutter “I want a WIFE” angrily from time to time.
Later, after my parents split up and my mom’s bff’s spouse died, mom’s bff moved in. Mom would come home from work and the house would be clean! Dinner would be ready! Laundry done! Homework checked!
She called me up, delighted, a few weeks into it. “I was right! I DID want a wife!”
i remember the blissful 14 months when me and my friend shared a nanny, and coming back into the living room to find she had spontaneously tidied up the extreme chaos. That must be what it’s like, being a man, that you can just walk away from some mess to get ready for work, and when you come back somebody else has dealt with it without any physical or mental effort from you.
Gabrielle:
That everything is written in advance? That we follow a trajectory?
Naoufel:
Yeah
Gabrielle:
And that we can’t change anything?
Naoufel:
We think that we can, but we can’t. It’s an illusion. Unless we do…
Something completely unpredictable and irrational. It’s the only way to
conjure the spell for good.
you’ve gotta stat romanticizing your life. you gotta start believing that your morning commute is cute and fun, that every cup of coffee is the best you’ve ever had, that even the smallest and most mundane things are exciting and new. you have to, because that’s when you start truly living. that’s when you look forward to every day.
live your life like a ghibli movie where literally everything is charming and beautiful
so this guy followed me yesterday after I posted some selfies and then this happened. At first I just wanted to say ‘anyway men are awful’ but I figured I might help especially younger female followers identify a douchebag when he starts a seemingly harmless, friendly conversation so let’s go through it shall we
First off, I have a big nose. Growing up I was very insecure about it but I’ve learned to not care about it now. Fact is it is something that is generally considered unattractive and this dude knows it. So he compliments me on something that he thinks I am insecure about but doesn’t get the expected reaction of ‘omg noooo it’s so ugly, thank you!!!!!!!!’
so he keeps digging: ‘do others compliment it?’ and ‘what do you think of it?’ He was waiting for me to confess that I’ve been insulted or laughed at because of it and that I cry myself to sleep every night. So he can be the one guy to find me attractive despite my tragic fate.
He picked a feature of my face that is not conventionally attractive, counting on my low self-esteem so I would be grateful and he’d prove that he’s ‘not like all the other guys’
and as soon as I made it clear I don’t have vulnerability to exploit he blocked me lmao
TL;DR men will use your insecurities so don’t give them the opportunity and don’t open up to them
hey uh this post is 4 years old but since people keep reblogging it I just wanna say that terfs don’t get to touch this post and can fuck all the way off, you don’t get to align yourself with me
Recipe developer and video host Claire Saffitz (@csaffitz) believes in the power of baking. “Now is a really important time to be doing any kind of activity that makes you feel good.” 💖#TakeABreak with Claire on our IGTV. She’s making a batch of “babkallah,” a hybrid recipe that combines chocolate babka + fluffy challah = one delicious treat.
Tune in to @bonappetitmag’s Live Dinner Party this Friday (May 8th) starting at 1:30 PT. Learn more on today’s menu (ahem, story). 🍽 [x]
