thinking of the world, thinking of our fates, thinking of what it means to be an "optimist" or a "pessimist" in addressing ongoing collective pain, and the role this all plays in communities and hand-made corners of the web that are committed to language of gentleness and hope. some words.

against my more vocal instincts, i find i am often berating myself into staying more silent, more withdrawn on online platforms when it comes to all these big, cruel, larger than life matters we are now constantly having to face, the scope of which is almost exponentially escalating by the day. in part because i can never find the right words, and in part because i find myself always trying to tread with compassion to not agitate, to not spread distress and discomfort. sometimes it is a lot more simple, sometimes i feel guilty of being perceived as the negative one, as the downer. sometimes i struggle in taking up the space (a task so trivial and so necessary) to bear bad news and reminders like a reaper or omen of what will not wash away. although i continue amplifying the words of others, there can be a hesitance in what i do and don't. a discreetness. always meticulously thought-about and analyzed. trying to weigh whether the important knowledge in that twitter thread surmounts the anguish, anxiety or even annoyance of everyone reading it on the other end when i do share things. every breath i have spent talking or sharing about long covid, or about hate, or about violence, or about abuse, or about the vulnerable communities that take the brunt of any and all conflicts around our world. i find myself feeling...guilty? that i am somehow saying too much, taking up too much space, bringing down others who already have enough happening in their lives. but also knowing that all along i am still not doing or saying nearly as much as these matters truly deserve.

i find that this is particularly the case with covid, now that the novelty has worn off and policymakers forced people to get on with their lives, so for me to keep raising the alarms of something that feels so helplessly out of our control makes me feel like a nuisance to the people around me. i am committed to keeping up to date with what disability activists, engineers and immunologists have to say, what long covid haulers have experienced, and am a firm believer in community care, collective sacrifice and communal thinking. i have continued talking about this, particularly on twitter, but am often hyperaware of the reality that it's been long since most people my age, or of any age really, have unpaused their lives and returned to gathering and partying and engaging in hedonistic luxuries we are thankful to have been privy to most of our lives. i think about the conversations i would want to be having with them, but feel there is just so much dissonance i end up with guilt instead. i am concerned for all our futures, recognizing covid to be a mass-disabling event that will end up impacting us all. ability, health, youth all wane. if it was not already enough, this has never just been about some inconvenient sacrifices just for the sake of our more vulnerable community members, it is just as much about any of us. you can wake up any day and have your health and lifestyle drastically shattered. i get so conscious discussing these things with my peers who are actively going to superspreader concerts or partying on holiday, both of which were frowned upon by them at the beginning of the pandemic. the only thing that has really shifted was time, as i know the vaccines have not been enough. i, too, want my chance to be young. but don't we also have a responsibility to our community, to ourselves and to each other, to leave no one behind? everyday i wonder how we got here, what forces and needs govern us, how things got so normalized, how it went from policymakers forcing people to keep working and placing more value on the economy than on human health, a reality most do not have the privilege of escaping from, to socially-conscious folks saying they are so burnt out they give in and resist any sacrifices beyond just masking in some public spaces and vaccinating (2023 update: they are no longer masking in public/public transport/classrooms/supermarkets/events/businesses anymore, and even healthcare settings are not sacred or spared 💔 an instance that has been more shattering than any that come to mind in this pandemic. nothing could have prepared me for that). with the new policy changes, it's unclear how this may be affected too.

this is also the case for the online spaces and communities i frequent, Are.na included. everyone speaks so delicately and mindfully, of love and of light and i am so often in-awe. i am always inspired by the people i encounter in these spaces, and am thankful for their wisdom and commitment to learning, sharing resources, engaging in intellectual conversation about tenderness, about community, about vulnerability. i no doubt owe my literacy on topics like radical care, relationships, and technology to these places. but somewhere amongst all these hopeful and idealistic sentiments, i start to wonder about my own internet presence, or about the state of the world, and how it meshes. the guilt carries over. i fully understand that abstaining from bringing that pain into these safe spaces is a choice. people want a space free of doom-scrolling, where they feel they can still dream. their social media accounts also play a role in this, and it is their choice to continue to control their online identity and exist in small ways, in small words, in warm sentiments. but somehow i feel so guilty trying to share ugly, painful truths on and off the screen to them, scared of sullying this landscape they have tended to. i am carrying so much and i don't know where to put it down.

i'm thinking about the role numbness plays as a coping strategy. it's the only way to make it through the society we have ended up with. i have forced myself to do it too. i will never understand how the primary method to get by in our daily lives is supposed to be to just care less. this can really be applied to anything. i know it is not news but still, if everyone is numbing themselves to cope, how glaring is it that this system, this... everything is failing us? my family tell me to lay off my phone, not doom-scroll, to take care of myself, to nourish myself, to come into the kitchen and cook together. i often become overwhelmed, want to delete all my social media, struggle with the weight of knowing. other times, i can be selfish. in essence, sometimes you just have to forget in order to even manage to get up and get on with things and that is simply the only way. but is it? should it be? doom-scrolling is a direct symptom of there being doom to begin with. we are victims to something that is not our fault and none of this is beautiful and it is happening to all of us, and our love and care for our communities should shake us awake and anchor us and force us to see it. i feel it in my veins everyday when i wake up. i know there are countless takes on virtue signaling, on how we shouldn't feel forced to only talk about a conflict or a problem while it is happening, breaking down what it means to show support, performative activism, and that is not at all what i am attempting to touch upon. i want people to take care of themselves, i want people to be able to lead their lives with fullness. i want people to be genuine and never coerced into speaking or taking action. instead, what i am attempting to say, perhaps weakly, is that i also wish we were all more open about the grief and the fear and everything that is wrong, and i wish there was a shared sentiment of community and more people being worried or devastated when there isn't. asking who gets left behind and then listening to them, tending to them. sometimes speaking of hope or of play or of compassion in a vacuum we create for ourselves can have room for more reality, at no expense of guilt or fears of disruption. we can pierce some holes in the bubble and still breathe. reality can look exceedingly ugly. discussing it in its full image does not make you a pessimist, it is out there and it is alive and we should be inclined to care for our sake and for each other's. and continuing to speak on something terrible that hasn't gone away falls into that, we should not feel weathered by time into normalizing it. i feel it so sharply in my chest, my veins and throat aflame, this strange, desperate, corporeal urge to lead with care and think of community, even at the expense of my own mental health these past two years during the pandemic. i feel so hopeless because i know i have barely done enough, i feel so useless and so small, but that weird burning ache is still there and everyday it is pleading me to at least care.

i feel very self-conscious sharing something like this publicly. this started as a single tweet i was going to write but instead i began typing into my notes app an hour ago and somehow it grew to this. i fully expect there to be plenty of mistakes in this, and i hope it doesn't come across as me downplaying the concerns or fears people do have, there is no hierarchy for empathy, we are all just trying to get by. i don't have any answers, but in saying all this i guess i'm just trying to let myself feel, fully be, and most importantly, care.