Conflicted

There's a part of me that feels really conflicted about the celebrations.

I know, on the surface, the obvious things. Many of the things happening are good and unprecedented. Many of the things that are happening could have been so much better, and we've all been under tremendous burdens in the past four years. 

Many people have been under these burdens for much longer than that, and this celebration offers hope and reprieve-and a deep concern that returning to normal will mean the same racism, classism, ablism, sexism and transphobia that this country was founded and built upon, and it's only recently that these issues have been even partially acknowledged publicly by the people in power.

I need to work through my own feelings. There's a part of me that feels it's unfair to jeer like this, that feels it's mean to mock. And if I work through this, I don't see it as helpful to bring up the jeering of four years ago, of people telling me to suck it up, that we lost and they didn't, to fuck my feelings. I think it's unproductive to have this rationalization that is, essentially, "Well, they did it first!!"

I think it's been unproductive to focus on Trump throughout the presidency. For four years this small minded and small hearted man pretended that reality tv show laws held firm outside of the television, and that consequences were just what happened when the director asked for a different take, a free do-over. For four years we watched the circus and pretended along with him.

It's not about him. It's about the system, which is harder to hate in a productive way. He has been a voice of the racist, the sexist, the ablist ideas and thoughts within each one of us, and externalizing that helps us to duck consequences. It's not about him. He doesn't matter.

It's hard to see this sad old man as the same person who allowed so many people to die, to be hurt. It's easy to let my inner voice tell me that it isn't fair to be gleeful, and it's easy to be gleeful anyway. It's still true, though, that atrocities happened. It's true that the system that supports me actively permitted and encouraged these atrocities. It's true that Trump, as both a nationalist and racist figure AND as the elected president of the united states, encouraged and benefited from the harm and death of hundreds of thousands of people, who don't need to be innocent of all wrongdoing to be mourned.

I think in some ways I shy away from the idea that he could be put on trial. I shy away from the idea that these things could be put to the light, and possibly I also shy away from the idea that I will see in his trial, moments that I could and should have done more than what I was doing. It's always difficult to see a person who has done terrible things and know that not only am I also capable of those things, but so are my friends. So are my family. Not only capable, but culpable. By being white, I benefit from the system that gave us Trump. By presenting as ablebodied, I benefit from the system that gave us Trump. 

I imagine that if Hitler hadn't killed himself, if he had actually gone to trial for his crimes, my feelings now would reflect those of many people in germany.

depression in the time of covid

I know I'm not doing great. Like, when I have to download an app so I can force myself to shower every day (before noon gets me more points but I don't know if I'm making that today) and when I start genuinely considering, 4 months before February (the typical real low spot of my year), that maybe I need to take meds for this round, instead of just whiteknuckling it through, then I'm pretty sure intervention is a real and valid thing. 

I'm just tired of everything. I want to cut loose and sail away, and I don't have a boat so instead I'm thinking about the next best thing. Connections are frustrating to me, it feels like there's sharp bladed focus three steps away but I have tough strong spiderwebs on my arms and legs.

Don't get me wrong, I guess I'm glad they're there.

I was trying to think about phrasing, like, "in the overworked I'm glad they're there" vs "in the code I'm glad they're there" and which one was more true to use, but honestly I think both levels of me are just tired and resentful. I want to be done being this. I feel like I've learned all the lessons I want to. Sure, there's brighter things coming but fuck the idea of getting to them is so exhausting. I want a break from all this fucking pushing for nothing. 

Even when I'm happy I'm tired, and I wonder if maybe that's why my moods can be so volatile, because the big empty sea is just that flat curled up on the bed thinking about how crying would feel to my eyes, and I'm floating about above it, seeing it below, tossing small things overboard, and gaining a brief euphoric bump before the wind changes and I start sinking down again.

I don't know. I'm not gonna kill myself, I think I've been brainwashed enough to pretend that that isn't an option for me, but I'm resentful of that and I'm pissed about it. 

I should talk to my doctor I guess.

Mourning

 I've been in mourning a lot lately.

I think any other time, I might just categorize this as a particularly weird spate of depression, but... it tastes different to me.

sometimes grieving can just come out of the blue

I lost my grandpa a little more than 3 years ago - on the near-anniversary, I wrote this:

"it's about my three year anniversary at Trupanion which also means it's the three year anniversary of my paternal grandpa's passing - I started working there about 2 days before my mom called me and told me to find a place to sit down so she could give me the news.

my sister walked me through figuring out bereavement time off. his funeral was the first time I saw my extended family as Moss, without any dresses or skirts.

I wore a tie.

I remember talking with my cousin about how we both wish we could have talked to him about our lives better before. I wonder what my cousin wanted to tell him.

I came out to my extended family really Firmly this year because of how much that's been a regret for me, and I'm glad I did it. I wish I'd done it sooner.

anniversaries here are always really weird because of this. I still have the brochure from the service on my work desk.

I dunno. I feel like this is always a sore spot for me, and I'm not sure how to move forward. I'm not sure I want to yet.

thanks

I don't think I want a solution here. I think the grief just punched a button tonight after remembering it's pretty much my work anniversary in a week. just, solidarity."

Today I've been thinking about how grief can continue to impact you in these weird little ways. like a tide coming in, there are more and more small things creeping up the shoreline, until you're underwater.

at least I know the tide will go out again.

My housemate killed herself 2 years ago. It's hard not to take on responsibility. someone you live with, see every few days...but we all see friends and family, and we all go through hard, difficult, even cataclysmic times inside our own heads. She was assaulted by a guy in a sport she played, in our house, and was going through the process of reporting it. I don't know what internal switch flipped, what came up for her that left this door open, what made that decision become more and more real to her.

we once had a coffee date where we talked for almost an hour about personality tests, because we both love them. when i got a silly possum plushie to give to my partner for our first valentines day together, she was in the room when i opened it, and i excitedly told her about it. she lamented to me about her love of costco and buying in bulk - especially, weirdly enough, whole cases of mint gum. she quoted me on twitter once about my then-obsessive love of dominos pizza.

"So I've become friends with some of the Domino's delivery people, which might be a sign that I need to stop ordering Domino's." Mar 3 2018

I struggle with being too close to people. I know that sometimes my own internal switch can flip, that I push people away so that I don't over-rely on them. I struggle finding a middle ground, and so aloof-ness is usually safer, emotionally. We were new housemates to each other, and I don't think I pushed her away, which is a relief to me. I know I have hurt people by being intentionally unavailable, because I am myself afraid of becoming overwhelmingly invested in them. It helps to know this about myself, and it helps to have such a clear view of this tendency, because I know that I gave her the friendship that I would have wanted in a new friend.

Sometimes all the support in the world isn't enough.

In the same ways that I don't believe in the idea that a person could be a monster - or wholly good - I don't believe that anyone is safe from these sorts of personal tragedies. Whatever we do in life, however we protect ourselves, something can always slip through. No matter how we rebuild, no matter how supported we are, we have no guarantees of permanence or protection. 

It's hard to mourn for people. It's hard to still be struck by these feelings. It's hard to navigate anger and grief, matter-of-factness and frustration and intensity. Knowing Chelsea is now a part of my own history, one of those things that I have to balance how and if to tell people. I want to respect her memory, and I want to respect that we all approach death - especially suicide - in different ways. 

I'm still building how to mourn. In that days after, I tore out all the carpets in the house, pried out staples and nails, swept. I did this with housemates and without. and still, at the end of it, there's no end. There's no final ending nail that tells you that you're done mourning, no final scrap of carpet that wipes away the grief. 

Ghosts are just memories. We build up what we think people are like, and we talk to them, and we reinforce those models. And when those people leave our lives, in whatever way is available to them, we are left with those echoes in our heads.

Grief comes in like the tide, and goes out again in the night.

There's a sort of achey breathless weight in my chest that I'm not totally comfortable naming right now

Hi diary

Well, this has been pretty weird, hasn't it. i'm hiding out from covid in an apartment furnished by my company because my normal apartment's space and wi-fi capabilities are laughable at most. i have to go up there about once a week to check my mail because forwarding addresses for the duration of a national emergency doesn't really have a solid precedent in the USPS.

the apartments are unsettlingly big for one person, and I've also realized that they're kind of unsettlingly big for two people. we've set up in the living room where we do our best to stay productive in a traumatic bewildering environment (the current administration)

when we want to be unsupervised we hide in the other bedroom like i am doing now.



I think anxiety - my anxiety - seems to thrive best in routine. when everything is upside down and on fire, I'm fine. i have a plan, and i'm able to figure out where to next put my feet. when it's a matter of knowing that the plans are changing constantly and that i just have to stay on top of what the next step is going to be, it's fine. it's almost a relief when everything goes to hell.

(the fact that my contingency plan has always included suicide, for when everything is truly fucked beyond what I see my capabilities, probably has to do with that, to be honest. at this point it's more of a well-trodden path in my brain than a real plan. why am i trying to convince my blog, readership 0, of my mental well-being. it doesn't matter. this part of me will always make people vaguely uncomfortable and I can, haha, live with that)

But when we have a plan, when there's a solid day to day routine, my ability to cope with anxiety takes a nose dive.

brains are weird, full of expectations.

all i have to do is make sure I don't let mine shoot me in the foot

Reentry

I'm sitting in an incredibly weirdly branded coffee shop/AT&T store in Cap Hill, listening to the music on my laptop because AT&T's open wifi doesn't quite have the gumption to allow me youtube. I haven't listened to the music on my laptop since at least 2018 because it's ridiculous. There's maybe three decent albums on here. There's at least 100+ albums total.

Because it's Monday, most adult humans here are at a job, going to a job, or WFCS (Working From Coffee Shop). I have carefully curated the worst 4/10 schedule I could have ever designed at my job, which is essentially data entry in pet insurance, and I have Mondays off, which means that I frequently get the benefits of nearly completely quiet coffeeshops, even in Seattle.

there's an ugly block of apartments across the street that also hosts a lone black and white pigeon, who keeps flying back and forth across the street to what I can only assume is its nest in the concrete chunk above the door.

I've been sitting here trying to figure out what constitutes a proper introduction post.

My previous self managed to keep up with blogging for 5 years, and then stopped, and I'm not hugely confident that I'll be able to keep up with blogging for that extent of time, but that's fine.

They were, in many respects, a totally different person. It's important to think about what they did and thought and said with compassion towards myself, and it's important to me to remember that they were me - but they were me in 2010. People change, and not nearly in the ways you expect them to.

So, five years later, diary? or should we go for the full decade?

Ten years ago I was in high school. Not even a real person yet. Less said, the better. high intensity pressure only turns you into a diamond if you start out as coal first.
I graduated, worked at a factory, took a chaotic and confused path through college, graduated with a major in psych, went to americorps nccc, was both intensely depressed and dysphoric for most of that time. realized I was trans, got diagnosed with both anxiety and global hypermobility, moved to Seattle, changed my name. Worked on not being quite as sad. In college I got published in a small peer-reviewed spec fic anthology, in seattle I got an essay published in a book you can even buy on amazon. Somewhere in there, I stopped writing this blog. I think in October 2015 I was halfway through NCCC.

K Moss feels, in many ways, like a younger sibling. Maybe even a younger sister. I can see the ways that they became me, and I can see similar paths, similar phrasing. But I think in many ways we've lost each other. Maybe in twenty years I'll read this and have that same sort of disconnect, a kind of temporal Venn's Diagram.

Today, I'm Moss. I'm 27. I've made art and stories. I live in Seattle. I'm trying to stop apologizing and doing a generally bad job. I'm in love with a fantastically weird man and with pigeons, on slightly different levels of intensity. I'm trying to understand passion, and I'm trying to develop hobbies (bead lizards? redesigning a studio apartment to be functional? tiny tiny books?). I'm trying to pay attention to myself more, and I'm trying very unsuccessfully to grow a moustache. I'm going to post stories and essays here, along with more personal rambles, and I'll include a link to my gofundme (in case you'd like to help me out with top surgery) and to my other projects.

Who were you even
what did you think about the world

Letting it stand

5 years after the last post on here
10 years after the first post on here

It's surreal.

I'd forgotten about this blog. I'd come across my old email account, or the word "pique", and think "Oh yeah, remember your old blog? Wonder if it's still up."

Well, I guess so.

I've been working on the site set up for a wordpress blog, but the learning curve is a bit too intense when all I really want is to be able to type whatever comes into my head in a way that isn't on facebook or tumblr (so, in a way that isn't too reliant on other people's feedback). I don't need a central webpage, I just want a text box.

So I guess I've come back here.

I think my plan is going to be to see if I can share this blog between two users: K Moss and Mossifer (name pending). K Moss will be the legacy poster here. It's weird to see all of their posts and thoughts up, but I don't think I'm going to delete any of it. It's important to me to see this sort of history that I have with myself, regardless of how frequently ignorant or biased I was, as a younger person. This will be the last post that they make, though, barring tech issues.

Mossifer will be me, the same person 5 years later.
Man, that's weird.

I guess it calls for an introductory post? A re-introductory post? I'm unsure of the semantics here.

Let us be friends again, internet.

drag shows and long days

I'm not gonna lie, I kind of hate going to drag shows with people.

like

I know that many people often are able to question their gender in a safe way at drag shows for the first time

and that many performers feel happy or exhilarated or whatever while doing the shows

and that many people are able to at least see or understand another idea of how to live

but to me it feels like a circus, with the audience laughing and shouting and throwing peanuts at the performers, who dance the same tired inoffensive gay anthems over and over while pretending that it's ok to be a joke

and someone in the audience sees someone they know down below and say something like "that's gross" or even just "that'll take a while to get out of my head"

and the rest of us

cowards because we aren't performing, aren't putting ourselves out on stage for the audience to shout at

sit there quiet and bowed under the weight of knowledge that this is how life is, that you will always have to explain, that you will always have to be tolerated, and that you will continue to put on a constant show to demonstrate how harmless you are

I don't like thinking about this this way. I have friends who are straight, friends who are cis
but this doesn't mean that I understand them, and it doesn't mean that I have to accept all of them as allies and friends out of pity

I just kind of hate knowing that I will always feel like this

that nothing will stop me from feeling strange and unsettled when I am gendered, when strangers explain to me that my birthname is beautiful and so they will continue to use it, that I will always have to explain myself and have to weigh the professionalism of using a name that doesn't fill me with self hatred


I'm just tired tonight.

Update

I graduated college

This week I'm packing

I turn 23 in a day or so and I have no one to celebrate it with

This is my own fault

I forget to tell people things and I don't ask for help enough


growing up is realizing that not every year has a birthday party with streamers and cake


fuck it

I'm just going to go pitch a tent in the woods and get horrifically drunk

It'll be fabulous.

Food

I have money issues almost perpetually.  Largely it's because one part-time job should not be relied upon to pay rent, cell phone bill, academic expenses, and still be able to get food.

((I feel like this contributes, in a large way, to people thinking that I am unreliable, or that I am kind of a flake.))

One of my old roommates offered to help me budget better, but I know where all of my money is going. It's just that the amount of money I have just barely covers that things I need to survive.

(I've tried working multiple jobs.  One semester, I had 21 credits and 2 jobs. I also had one shaky, panicked breakdown in the shower, a truly spectacular depressive episode, and an entire semester's worth of anxiety over scheduling. I am a perfectionist, and this means that I put things off until I can do them perfectly.)

Food is a necessary thing that I need to think about more

During one month in that semester, I spent 25 dollars on groceries.  I survived off of ramen and frozen dinners.  It's tough, but doable.

I also never want to do it again.

I have issues with food. My sensory issues with food don't affect me enough to make me stop eating, but I have difficulty remembering to eat.

Sometimes I am just genuinely not hungry.  I have learned a lot about things like "mindful eating", and a lot of that seems to involve paying attention to your body and interpreting that into what is healthy.  Whole wheat bread makes me feel better. So does salad.  And sometimes I am really not hungry.  If I don't have a lot of food, and I'm not hungry, why should I eat?

((waste not want not))

My parents came from the Baby Boomer Generation. Their parents came from the Depression age generation.  Being fat meant that you had enough food in the house, that you weren't starving. Meals were scheduled at breakfast, lunch, dinner, at specific times. My grandmother was a big lady. Big heart, big body, and, we thought, big bones.  When my grandmother died of congestive heart failure, my family found out that she had a petite bone structure.

((i don't want to die))

My life seems crazy and out of control a lot. I need specific numbers on recipes. I need specific dates. I need specific guidelines.  I need my lists and my calendars.  When I was in second grade, I didn't have enough information to supply sufficient nutrition. Now I am in college and I have information and people still tell me I don't know what I know.

((knowledge will give you control))

Sometimes I trace the lines of my bones under skin. Sometimes I trace the edges of scars over it. Sometimes I trace the thin sharp lines of tendons. Sometimes I trace the curve of muscle over bone.  I used to do it with metal, and now I do it with ink and fingertips. I feel that I am made up entirely of lines, and that the places in between the lines are nothing but smoke and air. My lines weigh me down. My lines keep me from blowing away.

((definition is existence))

Today I was able to go shopping for free in an old manager's basement. She "adopts" college students and lets them go grocery shopping in her stock of bought-in-bulk food. When I got there, she had already filled up a bag, and had me fill up another bag and a box with fruit and nuts and soup and instant dinners.  I was worried I didn't say thank you enough. I have a full shelf of food now.

((it's funny how having enough food makes you feel loved, how asking for help doesn't make you feel useless, how eating food when you don't have to worry about the rest of it can fill in the spaces between the lines))

and they let me be their friend

Okay well apparently I can’t focus until I write this

I keep getting the feeling that people are just tolerating me, that one day I will say something wrong or do something wrong and then pam I’m out of their life

This is frustrating

Things that I do wrong:

I get angry at things and people a lot even though I’m getting better at pretending I’m not. Sometimes I have a bad day and I can feel everything tipping and anger balances it out again.  I think I heard that people react to anxiety in different ways and one of those ways is anger, and that’s how I react. 

(sometimes I feel very similar to a lot of the portrayals of bucky in fanfiction, because everything is loud and unpredictable and everyone expects you to know what the rules are, and you know some of them but if you get them wrong then everyone thinks you’re an idiot, and anger can reset that.)

I tell jokes that are rude and offensive, but sometimes the rude and offensive jokes that make me feel bad make the people who don’t like my rude and offensive jokes laugh.

I think I worry too much and too vocally about getting left behind or left out of things, and that makes people not want to include me in things

I went in to get tested for adhd and apparently I don’t have it, I just have a “creative personality” that means that I find it difficult to justify doing things that I don’t want to do. My big thing is novelty. If I have novelty and control, then I have motivation. If I do not, then I am fucked.

So I know I am broken but not in a way that I can fix.

I am bored almost all the time and I know some of this is depression and some of it is anger and some of it is both but the only times I can break through that is with violence – either in paper or skin

Sometimes the things other people do make me angry and then I feel bad for being angry, but I am still angry.  I don’t like it when other people breathe too loud, or break my schedule, or aren’t interested in something that I think they will be interested in.

I can tell when people think I am being an idiot about something, and that makes me angry, which makes them nervous, which makes me angry again.

I don’t like it when other people remember something that I can’t remember because I have a bad memory and if I don’t remember something how can I apologize for it? I used to have friends who would remember things I said that I didn’t remember saying, and I still don’t know if I actually said them or if they just said I did to gain advantage over me

I don’t trust people, I think, is the biggest issue, but I don’t see any way for me to trust people when people are generally untrustworthy.  I can usually trust people to do what I expect them to do, but if someone tells me they will or will not do something, I have to make plans in case they don’t.  What does “trust” mean? How do you do it?

I had a very good day today until I was suddenly having a slightly less good day. I want to leave. I want to move away from here. I feel like I make people uncomfortable here because I am wrong. It makes sense in the story in my head for me to be the anti-hero, and so I don’t know how I portray myself to everyone else.  I am an awkward adult growing out of a broken child and I wish I had the manual.

Things I do right:

Lying

Being manipulative

These are the two things, I think, that you need to be good at in order to hold a conversation and have friends.  “No, I don’t mind.” “It’s ok if you say no.” are pretty good examples of this.  I don’t see much difference between “bad” manipulation and “good” manipulation, because manipulation is getting other people to do what you want. I also don’t see much difference between “bad” lying and “good” lying, because lying means you aren’t telling the truth, and I don’t think anyone wants to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth except maybe our most idealized version of the justice system.

I am good enough at lying that I do it to myself all the time and sometimes I don’t notice. When I was twelve, I said to myself I know you lie to other people and that’s ok I guess but stop lying to yourself so I did that for a while, and then I started telling the truth on the outside and realized how much I still lied on the inside.

Facial expressions unless I am sad and angry, and I guess I do those right because I am communicating very well that I am sad and/or angry.

Finding connections between people or things. Sometimes if someone is looking for help with something, I am able to find them help with that thing. It makes me feel good.  I like buying people things. It makes me feel good not to be selfish.

Being selfish is like white bread, I think. When you eat it, it reminds you of your childhood, and it is so tasty that you could eat a lot, but when you do, it sits in your stomach and you regret it. Sometimes it is better to pretend you are eating white bread while instead you have wheat bread or a salad, because you feel better about yourself.

I do sometimes think the people around me would be better off without me, but I think that is a white bread thought. It’s okay to think white bread thoughts but still eat salad.  The truth is that there are a few people who were worse off before I was here, and there are a few people who were better off before I was here, and there are a lot of people for who it wouldn’t have mattered either way.

The way I am writing is the way I think when I am sad or off balance or angry sometimes. I didn’t intend to write this way, but it helps me to tell the truth better than if I wrote long flowing sentences.

Once I sat down at a table and the other people at the table said so what’s wrong with you

And I was confused

And they said oh basically all of her friends are screwed up somehow, so what’s wrong with you

And I said I get depressed and then I get depressed for being depressed and then it turns into a big spiral of badness

And even though I sounded like an overdramatic 18 year old (which I was), they said oh, ok and they let me be their friend

Updating

I'm brushing this off again

I'm graduating in less than a month and I have so much stuff to do
But there's less stuff every time

Because

This week I’m done with everything.
For a change, it’s not depression.
It’s stress and tiredness and a little bit of grief.
My maternal grandmother died this week, see. When everyone else was drinking and laughing and counting down the seconds to 2013, my mother sat in a room with my grandmother and her family counting her breaths.

In.

Out.

I haven’t had the best of relationships with my mother’s parents. I hadn’t seen them for something like six years. At least. The problem wasn’t most of the common ones, I guess. It isn’t because of my religious views or my political views.

The problem was just because my grandparents are were are old and ill and a little paranoid and worried about losing their daughter, so they lashed out at her husband.
The problem was just that even though my grandparents have so many other relatives, they couldn’t handle losing one.
Which I guess I can understand. My mom and I aren’t always on the best of terms, but she’s an amazing woman, and everything makes me think of her. She sees the best in everyone and worries too much. She loves gardening and drawing. She looks like a movie star – a gracefully aging one. So I can understand how it would be difficult to let someone like that go.

In.

Out.

I’m still working through a lot of this in my head, and I’m still trying to figure out why.
My grandmother died of a brain tumor. She’d been through four years of on and off chemo, and couldn’t do it anymore. So they disconnected the tubes, gave her morphine, and let her rest.
And at the end, my mother arrived in time to sing her to the final sleep. They let her have that. My mom was tired and had been driving all night. She was worried about the reception with my grandparents. She was worried about our family, because we were a state away. But she stayed up all night (my mom who goes to sleep at 8 pm in the middle of movies) and sang to her own mom.

In.

Out.

At the funeral we had speakers. I learned more about my mom’s mom in a few hours than I ever had. I got to meet my mom’s cousins, and my second cousins. I didn’t make an idiot of myself, nor did any of my family. My mom and I had been up the night previous reading through old genealogies and family histories.

My mom tells the stories, you see. She remembers the funny things, the weird things, the touching things. And it felt like the first time I got to know my grandmother was after her death.

In.

Out.

So this week I’m just going to cope. I’m going to sit here and watch Supernatural, and drink. I’m going to go to the movies with my parents. I’m going to pet my dog.
Because it’s the little things that are important, but you can’t get over-cluttered with them. Because there will always be time until the time that there won’t be.
Because.

The third

In the last reply to my original question (first reply is here), I remember wondering if the general "of course" response to my question was due to our generation, or to our colleges, or maybe just due to the general public growing disaffected with authority. Well, I don't know if this one answers my question but:
I was surprised this week when I got an email from someone who I know who was born in the 50s. And this is her take on it.

Has media's influence on your view of politics changed it for the better?
In several ways, media's influence has changed my view of politics for the better. 

I feel there is always someone out there who can put what I am thinking into words and language better than I can. Like you sometimes don't know what you think till you hear it come out of someone else's mouth. These "someones" are often the 'average Joe's' that the newcasters push a mic in front of. I feel this is a better influence towards politics because it stretches me to dig into what I really think.
Another way is in TV shows where actors seriously or humorously actually "say it out loud". Which may be something you thought but never put out there in words. I think of the show Last Man Standing before the election where Tim Allen plays the husband who is clearly Republican and his wife obviously Democratic. These shows make it feel ok that you can have different political views than that of your family and friends. This to me makes the media influence a better influence since if you have ever actually been in a political argument with someone it NEVER feels ok. 

I also feel that media influence clearly gives us as "we the people" a way to spread the word. I believe there are many instances in politics where it is important for "we the people" to actually have an idea of what is happening in the political venue. Cover ups, not telling the whole story and hiding our heads in the sand really don't make for a very good image of our historical "we the people" image. What good are the "people" if we don't keep an eye and ear to our "governors". I think that the media investigations into politics is a very good influence for us to keep track of the people we elected into politics.

For the worse? 

Without being too ying/yang, I believe that media has also changed my view of politics for the worse. I think of ALL of the negative ads yet again before yet another election and I find myself not only "not liking" the other candidates but also "not really liking" my choice of candidate either. Here, for me, those negative ads turn me off from all partisan aspects of politics. Many people I have spoken to as well are turned OFF by this negative media influence. It may not be the media writing the material but shouldn't they be accountable for what they broadcast.

Another very negative influence the media has for me regarding politics is when newcasters and papparazi splash us with personal issues of politicians that are not related to politics. This results in defaming said politicians by conditions in their personal lives that have nothing to do with their jobs. As the years go by the media seems to know and tell more about these people than "we as the people" really need to know. It is a fine line as to what we should know and what is splashed about.

Just this year I happen to notice another negative aspect of media's influence on my view of politics. An out of state friend mentioned a political billboard along his travels. The negative ad not referred to in my state was now here at home. I refer to how close we all have become. We not only converse with our co-workers, family and friends locally but also state and globally making what is happening far away known all over and quickly.

Another aspect of the negative view of political media coverage pertains to "news" put forth before facts and accountability are even considered. Is is just me that thinks NEWS is synonymous with TRUTH...it should be, did it used to be? Where ever the news comes from...paper, radio, tv, internet sources, I believe it SHOULD be synonymous with TRUTH and not GOSSIP. We rely on media to be the voice for the rest of the people other than ourselves, therefore I believe truthful it should be.
Can you recall a time when your view of politics hasn't been defined by what's on television or are there other strong influences on your view of politics? What are they? Note: Media defined as TV shows, magazines, new-paper, radio and TV (Assuming internet sources as well?) 

I don't recall, of course that doesn't mean it wasn't there, the negative display of politics thru the media when I was growing up. I remember the news was the NEWS and you respectfully paid attention to the professional individual on TV. From the news announcer to the politician I believed it all to be factual. Was this a youthful obscure memory or is indeed the media these days taking us on a roller coaster ride?

Besides tv, the internet has brought to my home many aspects of politics. Articles coming from any and everywhere are at my fingertips. It is no longer "if you see it...it is so" however and the negative side of this is that often by the time I have read the article I have already formed some sort of opinion and I assure you that due to my source I am not confident it is entirely based on the truth. 

In summary, I find that media's influence on my political views are some good and much not so good. I feel the media has one of the most valued jobs to do in our global society today. I believe that if we are informed by facts and followed-up articles with accountable reporting and researched topics we can be a connected community. As time goes on overall I feel their influence on us has run amuck due to their often unnecessary, slanderous and haphazardous ways and styles of reporting. I would challenge media to report and advertize as I remember as a child....NEWS = TRUTH. 

Thank you Moss for this discussion question.

Reply 2:

Here's the original Post.

And the first reply.


And now, the second reply is by my very good friend Anna, who has survived half a decade of being my friend:

Dear Moss, 

Here is my opinion on this matter, 

Over the course of my life, until very recently, I have not really done too much with politics. Once I got to be in high school and through college my response to politics has changed more. I have become more involved. After taking an introduction to sociology class and studied how media is everywhere and that it influences almost every way we think I do think media has changed how I view politics. I know for the most recent election there was a radio commercial that skewed how I was going to vote for president because it dealt with an issue I am currently involved, college. When campaign teams turn to issues like that I do not know how I could not fall for campaigning of that nature. As I sit here writing this response I cannot think of a time when media changed my idea of politics for the worse. I think how nowadays with all the campaigning that people do is a bit ridiculous and at times makes me want to not vote but I do not think the media advertising them has affected my view of politics. For the most part I think the media has done a very good job of conforming to my view of politics. While I was growing up I saw myself as a liberal but now that I am in college and trying to make my own life I see myself more conservative. For our society today I think a lot of what is presented in the media for political view does have a lot to do with liberal or conservative views. Some examples that I have seen presented in media are television shows, radio ads, stories in newspaper, and some magazines. Most of these sources of media are things I found interesting or examples of how other people with similar political views were expressing themselves.

Thanks Anna!

I'm starting to see a trend here: For one, only college students have replied. Right now, admittedly, that's two out of two. But I am seeing that we have noticed how much media changes our opinions of politics. Now, that could just be the classes we're taking. But Anna goes to college in Wisconsin, whereas Cthulhu goes to college in North Dakota. So it's not one specific class or professor. It could also be the admittedly liberal views of most of the colleges that I've been in, but acknowledging media's influence isn't the realm of the liberal, exclusively.

Media's influence is a fairly obvious assumption to make these days, which I say says something rather important about the skewing of details in the news.

One of the questions I have is: Has this always been around? Or is it a fairly recent development going hand-in-hand with the proliferation of media?

First Reply

Thank you to Cthulhu (name changed by request), who was among the first to toss me an answer to my question. Earlier this month, Cthulhu actually did accidentally write a research paper. Funny story.


At any rate, here was the original Plea For Help post.


And here's what Cthulhu has to say about it.

Hi Moss, 

"...but should you accidentally write a research paper, I won't judge." had better not be a jab at me! ;) As for your questions: there aren't many sources for political information that I'm aware of that have not gone through one of the various media you mentioned above. My view on politics in general have been shaped by what I've read, seen, and researched. If we are talking about a single issue, there is the potential to find information about it if one looks hard enough (interest groups and journals come to mind), but usually the most accessible source is one of the media you listed above. I cannot recall a time in my life where my views on politics have not been at least somewhat influenced by the media. I do try to at least research what I hear and verify facts, but when not all the facts are revealed through these sources, it makes it very difficult. Again, this is my view on politics itself, not the issues being raised for vote. 

If you mean my political views, I would argue that my political leanings are NOT shaped much by the media (different than my view on politics), though there is definitely some influence. As mentioned before, I look for facts when choosing what side of an issue I'm on. It takes time and a BUNCH of Google-ing to find unbiased sources (usually I compare and contrast what I see on the various candidates/issues websites/distributed literature and then look for outside studies, depending on the issue). This is difficult and requires a lot of effort to make sure I'm not reacting to the stories and appeal to emotions rather than the data and logic. Essentially, it's a bunch of (sometimes really fun) critical thinking. I firmly believe that when given this freedom to choose our leaders and our rules, it is our responsibility to inform ourselves, not to just rely on others informing us. It's a little like bedtimes as an adult: I'm completely free to stay up as late as I wish, but my choices have consequences that I need to understand and acknowledge. 

This part has changed since college. After doing some honors coursework, I've learned that I cannot take information presented at face value (we cite things in papers for more than just avoiding plagiarism!!); I must do my research and reach my own conclusions. Before college, my views were shaped by largely what I heard on the news and read in the papers. My views themselves haven't changed much, but I am definitely more informed (and more confident in the information I have) now than I was four years ago. 

Sorry for the rambling; I didn't edit. HA! No accidental research paper for you! (please read that last sentence in the Soup Nazi voice, if you'd be so kind) 

Hope this helps! 

Cthulhu

Thanks, Cthulhu, that helped a lot!

A request for help:

A plea for help:
For one of my Hon. classes, I'm doing a blog-related thing. I'll ask a question; all you have to do is answer it. I won't even ask for references, but should you accidentally write a research paper, I won't judge. This can be from anyone. I'll put your answers on my blog. And hopefully I'll get an A.
I've also got a share-able link here, for anyone who wants to share it with friends.

However, here is the question:

For the purposes of these next few posts, we’re looking at media’s influence on your view of politics : has it (media’s influence) changed it (your view of politics) for the better? For the worse? Can you recall a time when your view of politics hasn’t been defined by what’s on television, or are there other strong influences on your view of politics? What are they?
Note: Media in this case will be defined by such things as television shows, magazines, and the news (paper, radio, and tv)

I would enjoy it if you emailed it to my yahoo email at taimeloche @ yahoo . com

Then I would read it and post it here!

If you have any requirements for posting, I would also follow those. 

Thanks!

Depressed-You is an Idiot

I'm going to say first that if you have depression, and you think talking about it will be triggering, then stop. And go here instead.
Or here.  

For the past few years, I've been having issues with depression.
Apathy and insomnia is the worst of it lately, but it's all bad.
I like to say I'm a writer, but I can barely explain what depression feels like, because you read books about it and look at web md's symptom pages (warning, going to web md's symptom checker may cause you to think you have leukemia), and you still can't quite grasp it.

But, okay. Here's my attempt at explaining depression - for me, at any rate.  For those of you who already know, skip down a few paragraphs.  Go ahead.  That's where I'm talking about how I'm dealing with it.  Shoo.

I find it easiest to compare depression to a migraine, because I've had my fair share of them (that's a lie.  The only "fair share" of migraines a person can have is none.  I have had way too many migraines.) and it's easier to explain a migraine (ow, ow, my brain is broken and I can't see) than it is to explain depression (ow, ow, my brain is broken and I can't see because I've been crying for the past week).  For one, it's easier to be funny.  You can be more open about migraines, because we don't have the same stigmas about physical pain than we do about emotional pain.  With depression, I feel like I can't be as funny about it because while I can compare a migraine to evil little gremlins driving spikes into your brain while playing *shudders* country music, I can't say the same thing about depression without sounding, ha ha, crazy.

Depression is like having a migraine for three weeks months years and not having any Excedrin.  Straight up.  Sometimes you're listening to music that you like and the migraine goes away for a few hours, or you're talking with people that you actually like and you forget that your head hurts.  But the one surety for those entire three weeks is that it will come back.  

Depression is like all of those scenes in horror movies where the heroine is bashing away at the villain with the baseball bat screaming "Why won't you die?"  And then the villain stays around for the next 8 terrible sequels.  

The important thing to know about depression is that sometimes it does go away, and sometimes, with help, it stays away.  But in my experience, it comes back.  And sometimes it creeps up on you, so that you don't realize you have depression until you're lying on your friend's couch staring at the wall crying.  And then you can talk about it, because depressed-you isn't the same as you-you, and you-you has the ability to talk about what's wrong.  Depressed-you is a proud idiot with a mental illness.  Don't Listen to her.  

Here's the part where I talk about what I do.  What I've been doing.  Those of you who skipped down, welcome back to the party.  The depression party.  We have black balloons, but our confetti is made out of glitter, which is the prettiest confetti, and we stay up all night because when we go to sleep we have really bad dreams.

What I do is I figure out what triggers me.  And I avoid it.  I tell my closest friends that I have issues and we work on it.  Together.  Community is the thing that helps me the most, honestly.  Lately I've been working on a blog where I talk about the sort of things I avoid talking about here.  It's depression-me's blog.  Even though I'm fairly sure no one reads it, I like thinking that when I'm older, and better, (and famous and popular and rich, because this is my fantasy, dammit) maybe some kid will hear me reference that blog, and look it up, and maybe they'll read it and think, "Dayum.  If this lady is so effed up, and ended up so cool, then... I guess there's hope for me."

That's what helps.  That's what keeps me going.  I don't want to change the world.  Just someone in it.  I make goals for myself.  I want to be at my cousin's graduation.  I want to write a book.  And one day I want to read the last book of the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss.    And it's going to be awesome.

Jaded

This was written for a class November 15th 2012:

"I wrote a small piece during class October 15th: 'Let me posit a theorem: None of this fucking matters.

Everyone in politics, media, public, it's all just grand gestures and petty thievery on a stage.

Real life continues on as normal; the winter comes sooner every year, the weather changes, people die and live and farm and breathe. And it doesn't matter who wins because nothing really changes. I hear people say that “in the old days...” what? The nature of people remains the same. There is always a minimum of voices for a majority of votes and very little individuality.

Say Candidate A and Candidate B are running for office. Say Candidate A wins. Guaranteed, there will be a war (well, a conflict. War isn't politically correct). There will be a scandal (potentially life-changing for someone). There will be at least three protests per term about an issue that everyone will think will change the world in some deep, ineffable nature. Change is set in stone.

Now, Candidate A won't be able to do anything, because the new rising feeling in the nation will be the politics of Candidate B's party, and even a portion of Candidate A's party will be stricken by an uneasy feeling that perhaps...just perhaps...all of their posturing and strutting about change and bettering oneself, all of the acting onstage about traditions and in morality plays is just that: Acting.

Off-stage, our candidates behave just like people. They make mistakes, they lie, and - possibly the most unforgivable sin in America - they are wrong.

And nothing will change.'

This was before the election; and I find that nothing has really changed. I came into college angry, ready to fight the evils of the world and raise up justice to its previous place on top of the world...only to find that it's an impossible task to raise up thin air. You can't fight yourself.

I've been taking too many classes designed to make me angry, designed to make me stand up and say “This isn't right and here's what I'm going to do about it”. But here's the thing. No one person changes anything. People are agents of change; that is to say, change will happen no matter what one single person does. Because the human race is, while fairly static in some respects, remarkably fluid in others. The existence of change is something that is guaranteed; something that is, in fact, never going to change. King Arthur's knights existed nowhere but in the imagination of a lonely child. Don Quixote is a better comparison for the human race – endlessly tilting at windmills.

The difficulty lies in the fact that all media, at heart, is a story, and all stories try to explain something. It doesn't have to be a story that's true. What matters now is our pleasant fiction that a story that meets all of the pieces of evidence is true. What matters now is how badly we want to believe certain things. There are no monsters under the bed. You will walk home safely (and if you don't, you're obviously doing it wrong). No one really dies (And it's almost certainly someone's fault if they do). All of our parents are understanding and innately born with the gift to lead (and if they aren't, they're doing it wrong). At some point in your life, you too will transform into this rare creature, this adult, and you too will have the authority to solve the world's problems. And if you don't, well. You're obviously doing it wrong. With this much privilege, (we are the golden children of the world, after all), this much wealth and opportunity – if you don't take advantage of it, there is obviously something wrong with you. You're a deviant, a radical, worse, you are lazy.

The media gives us certain images, certain archetypes of people: the hero, the warrior, the bright protector, against the sneaky, the conniving, the small and the dark. We aren't expected to choose favorites, like in a football game; why should we have to, when it's already done for us?Yes, I am cynical. I am jaded, I am angry, and I am perversely proud of it. And I'll cheer for anyone who I know isn't trying to manipulate me. Which isn't a long list at all anymore."

Meaning

I wrote this a while ago on Facebook for a few friends. I figured I might as well post it up here as well.

Life does have meaning.
I know that sometimes it is hard to see it, and sometimes it is harder still to know that you do, but it does.
There is meaning in the way that branches curve against the sky, in the way that the sunset sometimes lights up the horizon in a last burst of color before dropping down, in the way that sometimes it doesn't. There is meaning in a child's laughter and a grandmother's tears.
There is meaning in the way that a dog will sometimes look up at you with such a look of devotion... and immediately afterward eat your favorite pair of slippers.
There is meaning in the knowledge of friendship and in the possibility of friendship.
Life has meaning.
People might read this and completely get what I mean.
People might read this and not understand it at all.
And you know what? There's meaning in that, as well.
The quest to find meaning in the world is everywhere in history and myth - it's a common human striving.
Some people have to find meaning on their own, and some people have to be shown it, but it is for everyone.
Usually this quest for meaning takes the whole of your lifetime, and too many people are brought low by hopelessness long before they ever find it.
Do not be brought low by hopelessness.
Your life is your own.
Your life is what you make of it.
The human life span is something like seventy years and it is a waste, a waste, in not appreciating that length. Too many people are influenced by the romanticism of suicide, the lure of helplessness and hopelessness, and they splinter those seventy years into fragments.
And I have no sympathy for them.
There is always hope if you are willing to take it.
The possibility for failure lies only in your willingness to quit.

So don't give up.
Find your own meaning in the feeling of a friend's hand in your own, the smell of the air after it rains, the bright colors of the sunsets and sunrises in your life. When it seems as though everyone is trying to shape you into a mold, think about hope and perseverance and the bright future that lays ahead of you if you are willing to make it.
The future is never set in stone, and you are never what others tell you that you are.
You are what you make of yourself.
The responsibilities, the joys and the sorrows, the highs and the lows, the hope and the moments when it seems that all hope is gone, the friends, the lovers, and the mentors wait for you, at a point somewhere up ahead in your life. All you have to do is reach out and take them.

Chik fil a: My sentiments

Alright.

My sentiments on the Chik-fil-A debacle:

-Everyone. Calm the HELL down.

-Personally, I wish that everyone liked each other, and respected each other's views. While I'm at it, I'd also like a pony and Venezuela.

-That said, that would be really boring. You get the most interesting things from the edge of conflict. The desire of something that's impossible can make possible the improbable.

-The main problem with both sides of this issue is that we don't want to be tolerant anymore; we want to be *right*. And we want the other side to admit it. And maybe grovel for a few years. It's the human condition to be an overbearing jerk.

-The idea of free speech is being dramatically overplayed here. While I have the freedom to say one thing, everyone else has that same freedom to disagree with me publically. The line is drawn where we start actually becoming a menace to society: like if I yelled "Fire!" in a theater. Because that creates more conflict. Don't bitch about free speech and then turn around and tell me that I can't say what *I* think, because that isn't how the world works. It's at such a point of conflict right now that it's essentially a non-issue, because it feels like everyone this thing has the same opinion on it. And I'm pretty sure that opinion is "I do what I want."

-I believe in gay marriage. I believe in free speech. I believe in a lot of things. I also believe that my moral stance has NOTHING to do with what I use my wallet for. I am a college student. I work so that I can afford school. If the food that I eat happens to come from somewhere that is run by a person whose opinion doesn't align with mine, I. Don't. Care. If that makes me a hypocrite, then so be it, but I am not at the point in my life where I can afford to care where my 5 dollars are going.

-That said, I've actually never heard of chik fil a before this past two weeks. Every time you protest something, you run the risk of giving it the "underdog image". And people love the idea of championing the underdog.

-But really, my main point is:

Everyone. Calm the Hell Down.

-I welcome responsible comments and discussion.

My definition of responsible is subject to the cruel whims of whichever book I happen to be reading at the time, but feel free to play the lottery and tell me why I'm wrong. Or right.