personal, mental health negative, activism, tech
My mood tends to cycle through a few distinct phases, over and over again:
1. Desire for solitude, working on projects.
2. Feeling like social interaction, let's go seek it out!
3. Once again rediscovering that I just do not feel comfortable with most people, and the only community I've found that I feel comfortable with beyond my partners, is one or more countries away.
4. Back to step 1, but now with a longing for people I cannot find to actually build stuff with.
Steps 3 and 4 are where the loneliness and depression hit, where I realize again how I just do not have a local support network, and I cannot find them either, even though the right people *must* exist here too.
Like, I want people around me who are strongly politically conscious *and* willing to self-reflect *and* have the ambition/desire and ability to actually build up new things. Those three properties seem impossible to satisfy together.
There's the anarchists, but they're largely apathetic around here. There's the non-anarchist leftists, but they are generally ableist and racist. Neither of these groups are very good at reflecting on their own behaviour.
Then there are the people who are politically conscious *and* self-reflecting and constructive... but who are usually stuck working an exhausting job and so can't spare time to work on anything else.
Then there are the tech people, who I *should* be able to collaborate with a lot, given the large overlap in skillset. But oh boy, let's not get started about the tech people.
It sometimes just feels like there's nobody here, in this entire goddamn country, who I could actually get along with well enough to make things happen together.
And like. They *must* exist. Somewhere. But *where*?!
personal, mental health negative, activism, sort of a request I guess (part 2)
hey, where are you based?
I definity can relate to what you describe.
I experience the exact same thing.
One thing that I have been blessed with is a partner who is in a similar mindset, but apart from that, the situation is more or less the same.
I would love to chat about things.
Sure, we might be countries apart and I'm not sure how you would classify me, but based on what you wrote - i feel chances are
personal, mental health negative, activism, sort of a request I guess (part 2)
@joepie91 ...that we have a similar mindset and similar goals.
personal, mental health negative, activism, sort of a request I guess (part 2)
If you've noticed me suddenly disappearing from social channels for a while every so often, that's step 3.
So many people wish to talk to me. A lot of them with the best of intentions. But I ultimately get so little out of many of these conversations. They are often very one-sided.
Sure, it often inspires people to change their minds. But it doesn't usually inspire them to start *doing* something. It doesn't usually inspire them to offer to collaborate. It rarely inspires them to take the initiative on something. So what good are those conversations to a better world, really?
In some cases, this can be explained by spoons shortages, autistic burnout, and so on. In many other cases, people simply do not feel the impetus to do anything. Sure, I can get along with them conversationally, but they are not 'my people', for lack of a better phrase.
I don't think this is what I really want to be spending my time on. I don't want to always be the person driving an effort, pushing the conversation forward, suggesting things to do. It brings me nothing but work and frustration.
I need people, preferably in the Netherlands, who I can rely on to want to actively improve society. Who are also willing to pull the cart themselves, instead of just expecting me to do it. I don't care that much about *what* exactly they want to build, as long as it is on anarchist or equivalent principles.
I need someone who I can talk to and collaborate with, and be left with more energy and spoons than I had going in.