Hey. Look at me. Please leave yourself a note somewhere you'll see it later that says "it is going to take years if not decades to get the United States government to the level of functionality it had in November of 2024." If we elect a democrat in 2028, we are not going to be up and running by 2032.
Please make sure you have a reminder in your phone reminding you to not look at 2028/32/36 Democratic candidates and say "why are they not promising/delivering Cool Shit?" because you are going to understand that to get Cool Shit we must have competent people running a decently funded government, and we are not going to have that.
We are not getting UBI. We are not getting single payer healthcare. We are not getting free college or free preschool. We are not redistributing wealth on a large scale. We are not getting free internet. We are not getting ranked choice voting.
If we are lucky, we are going to get an IRS that can collect taxes, qualified schoolteachers, research grants, Social Security, and a government that thinks maybe it should be a priority for people around the worlds to not have AIDS, malaria or TB.
There no shame in never becoming fluent in your target language(s). Learning a new language even a little bit is great. Having the ability to communicate even a little bit is great. Learning about the culture(s) is great. You're doing great. Enjoy the experience.
i’m proud of you for facing the days you really don’t want to face
It's oddly cute that Leonard thinks of Spock as a part of himself but also a whole like actual living being
Saying that a certain group of people is too privileged to complain about the way that things are is its own sort of defense of the status quo
STOP! are you operating on an arbitrary set of terms and rules known only to you? have you created an ultimatum or specific if/then scenario for someone else without communicating it to them? have you considered making a decision and calculated all the consequences and potential reactions to those consequences and consequences for those reactions before you actually made the decision? it may be time to say some words out loud to another person!
your life is not an optimization problem
i cannot emphasise enough how much you need to create something. anything. it doesn't matter if you suck. you don't need to monetise it, or make it your career. you can restart an old hobby; you can start from scratch. it doesn't matter. you just need to hold something and be able to say "i did that". baking, drawing, painting, writing, coding, crafts, whatever. make something ! you cannot have all your hobbies be a form of consumption. it's fun, it's great in its own right. but the single best action to make yourself feel better, to calm your mind, to gain self esteem, is to Create
Like, the tariff thing got us mad, but the 51st state thing? It's got us seething.
Liberals, progressives, even most of the Conservatives are all united on this.
We're sharing lists of Canadian-owned alternatives to American brands.
We're cancelling tourist trips to the US (one lady in a news story said she cancelled a trip to Florida for six and doesn't regret losing $1,300 due to the cancellation).
And if we have to go to the US, such as the couple who's selling their California home? We're taking Canadian flights instead.
Some travel agencies have seen as much as a 40% decrease in bookings of flights from Canada to the US, and it's estimated it'll affect at least $2.1 billion dollars of the travel industry alone (not counting the tourism side of things like Disney trips and hotel bookings).
I've also heard of people from the Commonwealth cancelling trips to the US to visit Canada instead, and the same from people in Europe.
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