“Good night white pride”
Sticker in reference to the Montgomery Brawl, seen Victoria, British Columbia
I just saw someone say the words "jokingly gaslight" this might be a good time to reintroduce the internet to the terms "lying" or perhaps "pranking" or even just "joking" on it's own
Okay, say it with me guys…
If you are giving someone wrong information in the hopes that they'll believe that it's true, then that's lying.
If you are giving someone wrong information under the assumption that they'll ultimately realise that it's false, and that they will find this funny, then that's joking.
If you are giving someone wrong information in the hopes that they'll believe that it's true and that their response will be funny, then that's a prank.
If you are giving someone wrong information in the hopes that they will notice the differences between your presentation of reality and their perception of it, and come to doubt their ability to judge what is and is not real, then that's gaslighting.
now dont leave this in the tags
If you are giving someone wrong information and you assume they will know it is wrong, in hopes that they will play along, then that’s a bit.
i think queer people should be more confusing actually. i think we should make everyone as confused as possible until they give up and realize that total understanding of other people isnt the gateway to respect and compassion
Anonymous asked:
do you have tips for distracting yourself from thoughts you don't want to have?
drdemonprince answered:
As we all know intellectual repression does not work, so I try thinking of a problem that I actually do want to solve rather than worrying about a hypothetical problem that doesn’t exist yet or one that cannot be solved.
Like so: “okay, let’s stop worrying about this writing project that I am not able to work on right now because I’m not even near a fucking computer, and instead let’s worry about making a shopping list and a meal plan for this whole week of groceries.”
Or: “Okay, I’m not gonna be able to fix the guilt over my role my dad’s death at the moment, so let’s think about when I am going to hang out with XYZ person I’ve been meaning to see for a while, and what I could invite that person to go do.”
I also try throwing my brain a challenging problem or intellectual exercise related to a topic that I am interested in, or reading about. Like so:
“Okay, I’m worrying a lot about the future of my job, but that isn’t helpful right now, because I don’t even know who my new boss is gonna be yet and I won’t for another year. But here’s something I do want to think deeply about: I am reading this very interesting book by Freddy deBoer right now about how the left fails to build large enough coalitions to achieve real political power, and he makes some fair points, but doesn’t that concern of his seem to contradict his earlier point about how the neurodiversity movement is too large of a movement and too big of a tent, with not enough focus on those with really high support needs who hate their mental illness? I wonder what Freddy would say to that question?”
And then I’ll spend a good long while pondering that question.
Another way that I cope with intrusive negative thoughts is to ask myself if a line of obsessive thinking or worry is going to bring me closer to the kind of person I want to be. And if it won’t, what is something that I could be thinking about that might help me better embody that person.
So if I’m reenacting a fight with my mom over and over again in my head, I might notice this, and tell myself: hey. This thing we are thinking about is only making us a more angry and resentful person, which we don’t need any more practice on. We are already good at being angry and resentful. Where do we actually need to grow? Oh! I remember, I wanted to start doing more volunteer work. I’ll spend the duration of this bus ride looking up some local mutual aid groups and putting their events in my calendar. And so on.
I really think of using my brain as a form of exercise, if you’ll excuse me for sounding a bit sigma male – everything we think about, we get better at thinking about. Every thought process we engage in with our brains, we make more reflexive and natural-seeming for us. So if I want to be a more compassionate person, I can just sit and think about people in a compassionate light to slowly expand that skill. I’m bored of my own misanthropy, anxious worrying, fault-finding, and work-related stress at this point. Rather than telling myself to stop thinking about those things, I try offering my brain something else to exercise with.
Another thing I’ll do is just turn on a podcast that will keep my mind engaged. True Anon, Trillbilly Worker’s Party, Anime Sickos are all favorites. Sometimes that’s enough to quiet down the noise, especially if paired with a vigorous activity like cleaning or a long walk.
The reason that repressing an unwanted thought does not work but deliberately finding something new to worry about does is because the latter strategy redirects the existing energy and emotions you're experiencing toward something practical, rather than working against it.
It's almost impossible to stop thinking of an elephant when you're already think of an elephant, and you can't make yourself un-feel something, so it's doubly difficult to try and stop doing both at the same time.
telling yourself that a line of obsessive negative thinking is stupid and damaging and that you should be thinking happy thoughts instead is just never gonna work. instead, you need to accept that for that moment, you will be thinking about negative or difficult things, but that you get to choose which negative thing you direct your attention to.
When you're ruminating, your brain is in problem-finding mode. It wants to obsessively tear an idea to absolute fucking shreds and then grind those shreds into the carpet fiber. So instead of trying to make your brain calm and serene, you just... give it a new problem.
It can be a complicated math problem, if you like math, or it can be a practical life challenge you really need to solve, or it can be a really sad element of the plot in that novel you're working on. hell, sometimes i'll think about a real tragedy in my life that used to make me miserably sad, but which i'm more or less over, because thinking about that is more enriching for me than obsessing over the heartbreak i suffered two years ago and still am not over yet and need a break from thinking about. if i've been worrying about my latest book project for too long, i'll deliberately tell myself to worry and get stressed about the new classes i have to teach in the fall instead.
and it's actually better! i'm still experiencing some stress, but i'm not trapped in a hell dimension of repeating thoughts concerning the one subject i least want to consider. instead im directing all that nervous energy wherever i could benefit from it being.
every moment of every day i am thinking about this tiktok
Lumpfish come in a variety of shapes and colors.
[He scoops up the fish, it spits water and he turns it toward the camera]
This one is stumpy and green. Very beautiful, very powerful.
[He picks up another fish and turns it toward the camera]
This is what a normal lumpfish looks like. It is more elongated, but still a vibrant blue color. Very beautiful, very powerful.
[He picks up another fish and turns it toward the camera]
This is one of the stumpiest ones we have. Its hump is very high. It is very stumpy, but yet very beautiful, and very powerful.
[He pans over a lot of fish, all looking up at the camera]
My fish army is ever growing, and soon I will over throw the world. Very beautiful, very powerful.
because of this tiktok, i frequently murmur "very beautiful, very powerful" at myself, and i cannot recommend it enough.
I have thoughts about the whole feminist anti-interrupting thing. Like I agree, men do talk over people and it is disrespectful, but I also think there are cultures, specifically Jews, where talking over each other is actually a sign of being engaged in the conversation. It’s something I really struggle with in the south, because up in New York, even non-Jews participated in this cooperative conversation style, but down here, whenever I do it by accident, the whole convo stops and it gets called out and it’s a whole thing. Idk idk I feel like there’s different types of interruptive like there’s constructive interrupting where you add on to whatever is being said - helpful interrupting, and then there’s like interrupting where you just start saying something unrelated because you were done listening. I have ADHD so I’ve def done the latter too by accident, but I’m talking about being more accepting of the former.
I think a lot of the social mores leftists enforce around communication tend to be very white. Like Jews are not the only group of people that have distinct communication styles. Like the enforcement of turn-based communication, not raising your voice (not just in anger but also in humor or excitement), etc. it’s always interesting that the most pushback I get about how I communicate come from white people (mostly women actually, white men just give me patronizing looks because they don’t feel like they can call me out in same way). Like I’ve been teaching these workshops, and a few of them have been primarily black people, and I’ve noticed black people will also engage in cooperative interrupting (and I love it!). This isn’t a developed thought and I welcome feedback. Idk I think there should be space in leftist organizing for more diverse communication styles.
Here’s a source:
As a linguist: overlapping talk is not the same thing as an interruption!
An interruption is specifically intended to stop another person from speaking so you can take over. Other reasons that talk might overlap:
- close latching -- how much time should I give between when you stop talking and when I start? Very close latching can feature a lot of overlaps.
- participatory listening -- how do I signal to you that I’m engaged with what you’re saying and paying attention? Do I make any noise at all, or do I limit myself to minimal “backchannel” noises (mm-hmm, ah, yeah), or do I fully verbalize my reactions as you’re going? Maybe even chime in along with you, if I anticipate what you’re about to say, to show how well we’re vibing?
- support request -- this can shade into interruption as a form of sealioning, but if someone interjects a request like “I didn’t catch that” or “What’s that mean?” it’s not really an interruption, because they’re not trying to end/take my turn away, they’re inviting me to keep going with clarification/adaptation.
- asides -- if there’s more than two people involved in a conversation, a certain amount of cross-talk is probably inevitable.
The norms around these kinds of overlaps vary -- by context (we all use more audible backchannel on the phone; an interview is not a sermon is not a casual chat), by culture, and yes, by gender, which is why it’s a feminist issue. But gender doesn’t exist in a vaccuum! Some reasons overlaps might be mis-interpreted as interruptions when they’re not intended to be:
- norms about turn latching: someone who’s not used to close-latching conversation might feel interrupted or stepped on when talking to someone who is. The converse is that someone who’s expecting close-latching might feel the absence of it as awkward silence, withdrawal, coldness, etc.
- norms about backchannel: if you’re not expecting me to provide running commentary on your story or finish your sentences (or if I’m doing it wrong) then you might feel interrupted. But if you’re expecting that level of feedback you might feel ignored.
- neurodivergence: If I have auditory processing problems, I might take longer to respond to you than you’re expecting. If I have impulse control problems, I might blurt something out as soon as I think of it, but I don’t necessarily want you to stop. If I have trouble with nonverbal or paralinguistic cues, I might not latch my turns the way you expect, or my backchannel might be timed in a way you don’t expect.
- Non-native speakers of a language may need more time to process speech; may speak more slowly and with pauses in different places than native speakers; may not pick up the same cues about turn-latching and backchannel, resulting in a timing difference; may need to make more requests for support.
Norms around conversation tend to be super white/Western/male/NT; even among linguists, the way we talk about analyzing talk usually presupposes discrete turns, with one person who “has the floor” and everyone else listening. It even gets coded into our technology -- I thing the account’s gone private, but someone recently tweeted, “For the sake of my wife’s family, Zoom needs to incorporate an ‘ashkenazi jewish’ checkbox” because the platform is programmed to try to identify a “main speaker” and auto-mute everyone else. Most of the progress on this front in linguistics has been pushed by Black women and Jewish women, or else we’d probably still be acting like Robert’s Rules represent the natural expression of human instincts.
And it’s very White Feminism to recognize how conversations styles have disparate impacts across gender lines without also recognizing other axes along which conversation styles vary, once that empower us as well as oppress us. Just because I feel interrupted doesn’t mean I am interrupted, and it definitely doesn’t mean I have the right to scream “EVERYBODY SHUT UP!!” until I’m the only one talking.
I don’t ... have a great way to end this? Just that it’s good to recognize competing needs in communication, and have some humility and intentionality about whose needs gets prioritized and how.
Another thing; as someone who expects overlap because of my cultural upbringing, when someone doesn't overlap me I just start looping and repeating myself because I'm waiting for them to interrupt and they're "politely" waiting for me to finish speaking.
Okay nobody ever put that into words but the looping is exactly what I do in therapy - I should tell my therapist about this so I don’t need to say the same thing over and over again lol
This is fascinating to me. I love the recognition of competing needs in communication. One of the layers that I have noticed is what I think of as conversational pacing. Enthusiastic discuussion and cross-talking can absolutely work for everyone if the conversational pace allows for it. This is often the difference between an interactive discussion and someone “sea lioning” relentlessly. Another layer to this is reading body language;; tone of voice. Having one or more people in the room (either via Zoom or in person), who feel comfortable saying things like, “Wait - I think Sarah had something to add there.” is much more productive than the “EVERYBODY SHUT UP” model.
