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faithfromanewperspective · 6 months

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I think something they never teach you how to deal with is growing up as a teenager when every single person you know is having their own mental health struggle and you’re well educated enough in mental health to see that, you’re also grounded and secure enough in simple things like being loved and having worth that sometimes your own struggles become pale in comparison. simply a tool for connection, you learn how to listen and you suggest getting help but no one’s earning any money and there are difficult parents and no time and no one has a car to get places anyway. you grow up doing this and you want to create something for the generation after you to make it better, or at least try to, but now you’re in your 20s and used to putting your struggle after everyone else’s, used to functioning and doing all the things that mean no one believes you when you say you’re struggling, because you have no choice but to function if you’re going to make sure the youth of today have it better than you did, if you’re going to put in the work and prove there are adults who will be there for you when your parents won’t. no one tells you that sometimes it’s when you do everything right that things only get worse. you take on more than you can carry and it’s worse to take it off than if you never thought you could do it in the first place. never let anyone down.

but you have to realise that the problem was structural, systemic, a world that lied to a generation before you about what success was and told them using fear that fear might help the next generation achieve it. who shot down their ability to connect and replaced it with a hunger for control just to have that security that meant it was only another thing the children had to go without. who told them to hide who they are, it’s shameful, how the hell could they ever love their children and the children of the community for who they are then? what community? no one chooses to live near their friends anymore. do life together anymore. of course they wouldn’t if that’s what they grew up to believe. they’re just trying to survive and you’re trying to pick up the pieces, leaving nothing left to survive on. you’re brave and passionate and caring and stupid but who can blame you really, if part of your illness seems like a superpower until it gets stuck on and the ideas and compassion can’t stop even if you know you have to, and it leaves you in the dirt with nothing? I certainly can’t blame myself. for seeing all the pain around me and thinking it made mine seem easy in comparison. when really, all I was doing was making it harder for myself.

#and that’s how I became a youth pastor guys #ministry burnout #bipolar awareness #seriously how did no one notice I was hypomanic the whole time #western sydney to conservative middle class qld was a very interesting cultural trip #that gave a certain work ethic and resilience that just made things worse in some ways #I think I just grew up fast tbh which means. more time to learn to do better #and design better communities because sometimes zooming out and not condoning the sustem #Is the only way to make any meaningful change #faithfromanewperspective #why I say this is if you don’t go to parties was a whole community that was lost

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ashcreepcluster · 2 years

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I wish that liking anders wasn’t such a fucking litmus test for freaks

#words #i have seen ppl characterise him perfectly just the absolute understanding of #hes an incredibly ill individual #who has had two instances of stability #and one of those was with the fuckin. warden at amaranthine #and then the other is like. two weeks during his time knowing hawke #where hes like hypomanic and having a GREAT time #like he’s so fucked up #and his writing is so hatefully unsympathetic #hale is a freak #but hes also like. a fuckin christian lmfao #like hes one of those white male leftists who think theyve got it all figured out #but still operate under a xtian morality #and are very afraid of cultures that arent their own #bcoz they never ever self reflect #and then ofc theres the absolute mess w fenris n merril #girl idk hes a mess the writings a mess the games a mess #but theres so much salvageable stuff

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borderline-culture-is · 3 months

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Bpd (and bipolar) culture is being hypomanic and your fp goes to sleep so now you’re nauseous and you feel like there’s a hole in your chest because nothing is right in the world. Also having a million mood shifts in a day and earlier today I threw a lamp across my room because it doesn’t fit the character I’m currently basing my identity around. Also having violent fantasies about being brutally killed all day. And screaming at my mom and feeling so angry that there’s lava in my veins one second and laughing and smiling the next

#bpd + bipolar culture is #bpd + bipolar culture #bpd + bipolar #borderline culture is #borderline personality disorder #bpd #bpd culture is #bpd culture #bpd safe #actually borderline #actually bpd #actually bipolar #bipolar disorder #bpd fp #fp #fp bpd

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ndcultureis · 2 months

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hypomanic culture is knowing you're fucking up a social situation but not being able to stop yourself. when it's over you feel like shit and know everyone is mad at you, and you ask yourself "are you satisfied?" /vent

#neurodivergent culture #mod milo

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kaizey · 9 months

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I had a hypomanic episode at 3am and theorised an irish historical reading of Hoziers 'Foreigners God'

So while I listen to alot of variety while working, Hozier is a common part of my weekly background, and while I was researching for an article on wells in gaelic culture after going out and taking photos of local Sí mounds aswell, I feel like I got hit with the conspiracy theory beam that sent me into an epithany hyperfixation while listening to Foreigners God and how you can read it as a lament for the last millenia of irish history

The first verse talking about a romantacism of pre-christian, or specifically, pre-protestant plantation Ireland (before the Tudor conquest in 1536), given even early irish catholicism was by papl standards, basically pagan, as a wilder, more free place without the stigma enforced through religious and planter society ["She moved with shameless wonder. The perfect creature rarely seen"].

With the arrival of the english "liar brought the thunder", with the lie being able to maybe be read as the lie of "civilising us" ["Since some liar brought the thunder"]

In this, you could view the "She" as being an anthropomorphism of Éire, with the spirit of the people looking towards the author, either a singulr or collective representation of native irish, whos been continuously emptied out spiritually and culturally under colonialism, and now is filled with a growing hatred for not only the planters, but protestantism itself , even at personal cost ["But still my heart is heavy. With the hate of some other man's beliefs"]

The pre-chorus could be seen as a reinforcing of the scorn for the colonial planters, who especially in the 18th and 19th century, would have been mostly interacted with via the landlordism of wealthy protestant english aristocrats who maintained that their actions were justified in the name of "civilising" us, which would always hinge on violence ["Always a well dressed fraud. Who wouldn't spare the rod. Never for me"]

The second verse could be read as the most forward and lamenting, since it opens with the speaker rhetorically questiong their attempts at conforming to the heirarchy and imposed british way of life, and how often for the likes of peasant and working class irish, would mean performing the role of the simple, obediant but charming worker, to cling onto both employment and avoid potential backlash from the planter ["Wondering who I copy. Mustering some tender charm"].

The line returning to the state of Ireland and, assuming this vague time around the 1700's- early 1800's, our country had in essence been stripped of the majority of its natural and cultural resources, let alone any autonomy held by our people. And in that state of oppression, with minimal success in terms of organsed large scale revolution or uprising (e.g the 1798 uprising), Ireland could be read as having little hope of gaining freedom ["She feels no control of her body. She feels no safety in my arms"].

The last stanza of the verse could by far be the most emotional, especially for gaeilgeoirí, with the author lamenting his lack of language to express his pain for whats happened to the irish people. Explicitly, this could be read as being through the massive, systematic decline of Gaeilge. At the end of the 1700's, our population of ~5 million had estimated 3.5 million irish speakers. By 1851, following the famine, this had dropped to 1.5 million, and by 1900, only 600,000 remained on the island. This targeted attempt at cultural extermination had been going on for centuries, largely through the implimentation of Na Péindlíthe, or Penal Laws, specifically and extension of the staute of Kilkenny, which banned the use of irish when natives spoke to colonisers, and in 1851, banned any use of Gaeilge in areas under english rule. And any attempts to use or express our native language, music or culture was met with either legal, or often, violent rebuttal. All which you can read the author as expressing how with all that leaving them increasingly unable to truly express or show true love for the old Ireland that irish people and growing republicanism at the time wished to return to ["I've no language left to say it. But all I do is quake to her. Breaking if I try convey it. The broken love I make to her"]

It then just gets outright literal with the pre-chorus. English was and is not our language. The english cultural, historical and political weights placed on us were not ours. They were foreign words, and foreign ideals of a coloniser forced upon us ["All that I've been taught. And every word I've got. Is foreign to me"]

In no way saying is this valid or a well informed reading, but it was hard not to get sucked into the theorising and seeing serendipity betwen the sadness and loss in our history and the lyrics from one of our best musicians. Anyway. Hope if you enjoyed the mental ramblings if you got this far

#irish language #irish history #ireland #gaeilge #hozier lyrics #hozier #foreigners god

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narcissisticpdcultureis · 3 months

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NPD and bipolar 2 culture is is this a grandiose episode or a hypomanic episode

#npd culture is #npd + bipolar culture is #npd + bipolar 2 culture is #npd #actually narcissistic #actually npd #narcissistic personality disorder #cluster b #bipolar #bipolar disorder #bipolar 2

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anghraine · 1 year

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I was just thinking about the discussion of historicism I had in my exams, and why the closest thing I have to a theoretical position as a literary scholar is "reluctant historicist." I'd been hypomanic during my written exams and written screeds about how I have a lot of reservations about the tendencies of historicists to be ... second-rate historians more than literary critics, basically. In the oral exams, I was asked about it and talked about how I feel like literary critics treating literature as primarily artifacts left by a historical/cultural moment tends to undercut the worth of literature as literature—the value of storytelling for its own sake and not simply a vehicle for other, "actually important" things.

I do think historical/cultural context can be relevant and important to consider, especially for critics (I also said this!), but also that context is secondary to the literary qualities of a text when it comes to, you know, literary criticism. Something being historically normative may or may not tell us anything helpful about a particular text or character or theme—it depends! Particular, even obvious details are important. Storytelling is important.

The point of all this is that I've also been thinking of how this relates to the moralizing over fiction, and all the discourse around what results or doesn't result from literature "in the real world," what it achieves in those terms, how it can be useful for XYZ purpose. And, okay, those are sometimes worth discussing. But they're not the only discussions worth having. Stories have value as stories and not only as historical relics or training grounds for Real Jobs or vehicles for moral messages.

#tfw you're a historicist who dislikes historicism in practice ninety percent of the time #i absolutely care about ethics and implications as represented or conveyed in literature. i just don't care ONLY about those things.#anghraine babbles #long post #ivory tower blogging #general fanwank

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bipolarcultureis · 15 days

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Bipolar culture is hearing people say delulu and wanting to scream at them that delusions are things you genuinely believe even though every fact that's available points in the opposite direction. It is not simply wanting something that is untrue to be true

#bipolar culture is #bipolar culture #bipolaire #bipolar #bipolor #mania #manic episodes #manic #depressive episode #mood disorder #hypomania #hypomanic #bipolar depression #bipolar disorder

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notnarvvhal · 2 years

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@sylvctica

YES MORE ELEMENTAL ORIGIN IM SUCH A SUCKER FOR THAT LORE ITS WHY I MADE SYLVIE BORN OF THE DENDRO ELEMENT OUUUUUU STUFFS INTO MY MOUTH AND CRIES ALONGSIDE U OVER ZHONGLI THANK U FOR THE GOOD FOOD

@snowtombedstar

// omg yes I super agree with the last part, similar beings just referred to differently/adapting to different roles based on where they manifested

@adversaryss

(ME SHOVING THIS IN MY MOUTH BECAUSE SAME THANK YOU I think Dragon Zhongli is sexy and cool but like that's a ceremonial form he takes on and never mentioned in his stories otherwise or used for battle historically? So it's basically popularizefanon, because in canon Morax is strongly implied to be an Elemental Incarnation similar to Barbatos, Baal, and Beezlebub. These gods are neither beasts nor men, they are the strongest because they are pure elemental power baby!!!)

(That was probably riddled with typos but I am a bit hypomanic rn over L O R E dsfsfs)

HANDSHAKES U ALL TO OBLIVION. IM IN THE SAME STATE RIGHT NOW SO DONT WORRY I PROBABLY MISSED ANY TYPOS

BUT YES YES YES i love the concept of zhongli as a dragon but I believe that he is NOT a dragon, per say. But more of an elemental creature that took said shape in its beginnings, and began using it as a ceremonial vessel the humans themselves took as an image for their deity (which would explain why he was able to just discard it so easily). The reason he’s so powerful is because he’s the incarnation of RAW geo energy, just as any of the other elemental beings that have taken a seat as archons.

I personally also think Baal and Beezlebub don’t have real shapes themselves either, because they’re incarnation of thunder and electro. And unlike Zhongli himself, they were more involved in reigning over the lands they were assigned archon to and fully involved themselves within the human affairs. I’m not as personally invested in Inazuma or Mondstadt, but I do have a general view of the archons as beings similarly born of raw energy, but influenced in shape and attitude from the cultures and regions they developed through.

#sylvctica #snowtombedstar #adversaryss #; ooc #; hc #AGOO i love talking about this hello friends

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girldraki · 2 months

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idk you can like. look at the last two pages of the chapter and draw your own conclusions — she does describe what we consider the more obviously negative aspects of (hypo)mania (severely reduced impulse control, physical side effects, hair-trigger temper) but this is how she closes the essay and i would say the most consistent throughline. it’s presumably supposed to be countering the pop cultural assumption that mania is fun and great/secretly fun and great but i would REALLY not cite “think you’re a genius but you’re not” as like. a top five downside of hypomanic episodes

#txt

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ao3dorian-gay · 3 months

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works cited

general works cited, kept updated, that I've used in research for my fanworks.

[not all of these were fully read, and some I read years ago; I just have a Zotero full of the books, articles, etc. if I ever typed or copied something into my worldbuilding masterdoc]

Mental health and psychology:

Fast, Julie A., and John D. Preston. Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder: Understanding and Helping Your Partner. 2nd ed. New Harbinger Publications, 2012.

Gartner, John D. The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (A Little) Craziness and (A Lot of) Success in America. Simon & Schuster, 2011.

Jamison, Kay Renfield. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. Reed Business Information, Inc., 1996.

———. Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. Reed Business Information, Inc., 1996.

Phelps, M.D., Dr. Jim. “The Basics of Bipolar Treatment.” Psych Education (blog), October 8, 2014.

Rantala, Markus J., Severi Luoto, Javier I. Borráz-León, and Indrikis Krams. “Bipolar Disorder: An Evolutionary Psychoneuroimmunological Approach.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 122 (March 2021): 28–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.12.031.

Wallon, Henry. “The Role of the Other in the Consciousness of the Ego.” In The World of Henri Wallon, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Marxists Internet Archive, 1946.

Wootton, Tom. The Bipolar Advantage, 2005.

For my research on the Ainu history:

Dubreuil, Chisato. “Ainu-e: Instruction Resources for the Study of Japan’s Other People.” Education About Asia, Spring 2004.

Fitzhugh, William W., and Chisato O. Dubreuil, eds. Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. Washington, DC: Arctic Studies Center, 1999.

Isabella, Jude. “How Japan’s Bear-Worshipping Indigenous Group Fought Its Way to Cultural Relevance.” Hakai Magazine, October 18, 2017.

Knight, John. Waiting for Wolves in Japan: An Anthropological Study of People-Wildlife Relations. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006.

Sakata, Minako. “Possibilities of Reality, Variety of Versions: The Historical Consciousness of Ainu Folktales.” Oral Tradition 26, no. 1 (2011): 175–90.

Siddle, Richard M. Race, Resistance, and the Ainu of Japan. London: Routledge, 1996.

For my research on East and Southeast Asian history, culture, religion, and politics [for worldbuilding]:

Bohnet, Adam. Turning Toward Edification: Foreigners in Choson Korea. University of Hawai’i Press, 2020.

Bossler, Beverly, ed. Gender & Chinese History: Transformative Encounters. University of Washington Press, 2015.

Brook, Timothy. The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. History of Imperial China 5. Belknap Press, 2013.

Chen, Shangsheng. “The Chinese Tributary System and Traditional International Order in East Asia during the Ming and Qing Dynasties from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Chinese Humanities 5, no. 2 (2020): 171–99. https://doi.org/0.1163/23521341-12340079.

Choi, Hyaeweol. Gender and Mission Encounters in Korea: New Women, Old Ways. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

Chung, Sung-il. “Foreign Relations between Joseon and Japan Seen from State Letters and Sogye in the Late Joseon Period (1600-1870).” Journal of Ming-Qing Historical Studies 52 (2019): 107–42.

Dai, Yuanfang. Transcultural Feminist Philosophy. Feminist Strategies: Flexible Theories and Resilient Practices. Maryland: Lexington Books, 2020.

Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, and Anne Walthall. Pre-Modern East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History, Volume I: To 1800. 3rd ed. Cengage Learning, 2013.

Franceschini, Ivan, and Christian Sorace, eds. Proletarian China: A Century of Chinese Labour. London: Verso, 2022.

Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation. Harmony, 1999.

Hinton, David. Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China. New Directions, 2005.

———. The Four Chinese Classics: Tao Te Ching, Analects, Chuang Tzu, Mencius. Counterpoint, 2016.

Hui, Wang. The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity. London: Verso, 2009.

Kerr, George. Okinawa: The History of an Island People. Tuttle Publishing, 2018.

Kim, Hyunchul. "The Purification Process of Death: Mortuary Rites in a Japanese Rural Town." Asian Ethnology 71, no.2 (2012): 225-257.

Mair, Victor H., ed. The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2001. [did not read this full thing]

Maltsev, Vladimir. "Lessons from the Japanese ninja: on achieving a higher trade equilibrium under anarchy and private constitutions." Constitutional Political Economy. 33 (2021): 1-12.

Mizoguchi, Yūzō. “The Ming-Qing Transition as Turning Point.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 17, no. 4 (2016): 526–73.

Ono, Sokyo, and William P. Woodard. Shinto the Kami Way. Tuttle Publishing, 2004.

“Re: ‘Why Was Pyongyang Once Referred to as “Jerusalem of the East”?,’” April 11, 2021. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/mokqsq/why_was_pyongyang_once_referred_to_as_jerusalem/.

Richey, Jeffrey L. Confucius in East Asia: Confucianism’s History in China, Korea, Japan, and Viet Nam. 2nd ed. Key Issues in Asian Studies. Association for Asian Studies, 2022.

Smits, Gregory. Maritime Ryukyu, 1050-1650. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2018.

Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.

Sung, Sirin, and Gillian Pascall, eds. Gender and Welfare States in East Asia: Confucianism or Gender Equality. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Tham, Chui-Joe. “The Transnational Historiography of a Dynastic Transition: Writing the Ming-Qing Transition in Seventeenth-Century China, Korea, and Japan.” Modern Asian Studies 57, no. 3 (n.d.): 776–807. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X22000245.

Tran, Nhung Tuyet. Familial Properties: Gender, State, and Society in Early Modern Vietnam, 1463–1778. Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning, and Memory 6. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2018.

u/AsiaExpert. “Re: ‘The Respective Roles of Ninja and Shinobi,’” November 4, 2012. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12lwoi/comment/c6w7qva/?context=3.

u/EnclavedMicrostate. “Re: ‘As I Understand, It’s Well-Established That Gunpowder and Guns Were Invented in China. Why Didn’t This Lead to a Legacy of Chinese Primacy in Terms of Innovation and Dominance in Firearms Production?,’” October 7, 2022. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xxsk8r/comment/irdw04c/?context=3.

———. “Re: ‘Were the Ming and Qing Courts Actually Unaware of the Satsuma Invasion of the Ryukyus and Subsequent Japanese Incorporation of the Islands as Vassal States?’” R/AskHistorians, December 18, 2022. reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/zofi5x/were_the_ming_and_qing_courts_actually_unaware_of/j0oyc4k/.

———. “Re: ‘Why Didn’t China Splinter into Different Countries like Europe Did?,’” R/AskHistorians, May 31, 2018. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8nh0yv/why_didnt_china_splinter_into_different_countries/dzvl249/?context=3.

u/huianxin. “Re: ‘Is There Any Particular Reason Why Korean Queens of the Joseon Dynasty Were Preferred to Be Older than Their Husbands?,’” R/AskHistorians, April 24, 2020. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/g797c7/comment/foi86re/.

u/Iphikrates. “Re: ‘Did Ancient Civilians Get PTSD? What Do We Know of the Psychological Effects of War on Noncombatants, and How They Dealt with Them?’” R/AskHistorians, December 15, 2019. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/eaupqm/did_ancient_civilians_get_ptsd_what_do_we_know_of/fb01xji/.

u/Julius_Maximus. “Re: ‘In Ming-Qing China, a County Magistrate Was Basically Police Chief/Judge/Jury All Rolled into One. Was There Somewhere Commoners Could Report Abuse of Power or Appeal the Ruling of the County Magistrate?,’” July 12, 2016. reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4sckd6/in_mingqing_china_a_county_magistrate_was/d58ym1r/.

Walthall, Anne, ed. Peasant Uprisings in Japan: A Critical Anthology of Peasant Uprisings. University of Chicago Press, 1991. .

Wang, Tianjun. "Brain in TCM Origin and Short History" in Acupuncture for Brain. Springer, Cham. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54666-3_1.

Yamakage, Motohisa. The Essence of Shinto: Japan’s Spiritual Heart. Kodansha International, 2012.

Philosophy/theory:

Caudwell, Christopher. Pacifism and Violence: A Study in Bourgeois Ethics. Oriole Chapbooks, 1960.

Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York, NY: Grove Press, 2004.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline. Marxists Internet Archive, 2005.

Marx, Karl. Wage Labour and Capital. Edited by Frederick Engels. Marx/Engels Internet Archive, 1999.

Trotsky, Leon. Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It. Revised. Pioneer Publishers, 1969.

———. The War and the International. Marxists Internet Archive, 1914.

Tuck, Eve, and C. Ree. “A Glossary of Haunting.” In Handbook of Autoethnography, 639–58. Left Coast Press, Inc., 2013.

Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, & Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 1–40.

Zedong, Mao. On Guerrilla Warfare. Marxists Internet Archive, 2000.

Vibes:

Liston, Bonnie Mary. “The Wildness of Girlhood.” Overland (blog), July 2, 2019. https://overland.org.au/2019/07/the-wildness-of-girlhood/.

Peyton. “Notes on ‘Feral.’” The Niche (blog), February 4, 2019. https://the-niche.blog/2019/02/04/notes-on-feral/.

#ref #i'm aware this is one of the more unhinged things i've posted.#you ever see like. painfully tangible proof of the whole 'stop researching and just write' thing.#posting so i can link to this. deeply embarrasing.#mine

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faithfromanewperspective · 7 months

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When did my ambitions change? When did they grow? From wanting to do something, anything, for the dozen or so people sleeping rough I meet in my city on my daily commute to the statistics I see of homelessness, of asylum seekers? When did thousands start not to feel overwhelming, oh no I have to fix it all, to what if? What if I could really be part of catalysing this? I watch fashion styles out of the window of my bus. Read body language, who is included, who isn’t? I complain about the train line and how far away it is, but, oh, if we let buses take over all of our streets, replacing the trams we tore up last century? Oh, if we replaced the automotive with something kinder, gentler, to our macropods and the little joeys we see out on the streets, if we connected our suburbs for every animal just like I’ve drawn pictures of a thousand times over the course of my uni degree. What if we capitalised on our amazingly functioning ecosystems? What if we were the next Shanghai, but better, better in so many ways, what if they saw what I did, whoever I work with, what if someone wants to work with me to do something similar for the orang-utans in Borneo? My mother and grandfather were born on those lands, among the jungle. What if?

I know I have to watch my mood, keep me on the ground. But I feel calm, it’s not worth stressing over, I haven’t had any caffeine and I’m not even buzzed. How much better I feel when I’m off all of that, when I let my mind wander and solve things like it does best. I said I’d work on my fic on the bus, this is good enough. I need to get a second job, this one is making me hypomanic. But I know I can handle it, I always do. I need to find what grounds me and I’m going home to that. Never really considered much about whether I can support myself, not when I’m only one person—who really cares? I know people do. And I wish they’d stop, I wish they’d let me be free. Maybe that’s why I look through millions of pages for characters who I see myself in. Maybe I should go back to my roots, Southeast Asian collective cultures, or is that what I’m running away from, people who worry for me, just so I can worry for a much larger table I call family? I’ll bring honour to the clan, the hodgepodge scatter of genetics I carry in my cells, but I’ll do it my way. In a way that builds up everything and every organism I touch. I’ve got seven hundred dollars in my bank account, once I pay my bills, to carry me into the next month, and that makes me poorer than most of Southeast Asia. I do need a second job, to take my mind of the impact a few times per week. I seek out community. I find only lost sheep. People searching, just like I am, who don’t know what I do. I think I can help them. I know I can. No wonder I never did care if I had a roof over my head, not when I’m starving for love I can stomach. Why bother looking after myself when I could look after millions instead? Then treat myself like a machine and a vessel towards this I have to cherish and care for, as if I’m the planet that sustains us itself?

I live for the impact. Visible disabilities, I’m looking out the window again, on the arterial road I have grand plans for. It’s like a major river, delivering droplets, billions and billions of them down from the mountains to a massive fanning delta. It’s the Mekong, the minor city us commuters are heading for is Ho Chi Minh City and my parents’ suburb is Saigon. I see people along the river, people like droplets of water, with various physical disabilities and I’m reminded, no matter how I feel about this, all this, and whatever it might lead me to, it’s still a disability, I still have to manage it lest it sweep me off my feet again and I get frustrated because, what about my impact? Sugar coated brain. The fluid ain’t to blame. Living our lives, dancing on empty wallets. Spend it all on you. I want to be as sonically diverse as this song. I want my cities to reflect that. Generosity. I always believed in second chances, I always believed in you. Millions of you. Do you believe in me?

Maybe I’ll bring my favourite characters along for the journey. Maybe the fics I’ve written for them, the headcanons I made, the friends I bonded with who are so much like me, are because I see myself in them. This idealism. No room for self-preservation. I’m not the only one experiencing this, living like this, hoping no one finds out lest I have to face their criticism. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten more things to change. You can’t change me, only kill the only part of me I have driving me forwards. Mirror in the text, I was enchanted to meet you. Can you tell my song library is making its way through the letter E? Is this the very first page of my arc? Don’t let the storyline end without me saying the words I held back. Here they are. I’m not crazy, right, no crazier than the next person (fingers crossed I’m reclaiming this word properly and using it properly) because this stuff has to happen. I don’t—can’t—do it all on my own. All I have to do is a little sketch there. A little post that someone sees who thinks something who tells someone who builds something that helps millions. A little idea, a little drawing, a little bit of the monotonous grind because when it comes down to it, my company might be as idealistic as me but I do have an employer. And I’d wager a bet that I’m a lot less sheltered by wealth and unrepresentative connections than nearly anyone else there. And I still believe this is possible.

I’m tired, so tired, because as I work to convince them I know they all think of filling their own stomachs first before anyone else’s. I can’t help it. I can mask it for a bit while I pull on my own oxygen mask but I didn’t do that naturally, I did that because I was told to. Because someone explained the logic to me that I can’t help anyone else if I’m dead. And now I’m doing the same, back on it again, educating, opening eyes with logic all around me: you can’t feed yourself on a planet that’s dead. They’re just like me aren’t they? Just got a few things plugged in the other way around. So I’m in a good place to help them see. But I’m tired, because no one even tries to see things from my perspective. No one knows they have to. Why would they? I’ve got a million things to help them see first. Maybe I should do this the other way around, maybe that would be more productive, but I don’t trust it. I mask to connect, it’s the only language I know. I don’t mask more than anyone else. I don’t know how all of them survive it. Barely, clearly.

The traffic is getting heavy as the bus pulls into its little station between the two shopping centres. I forget Christmas is coming, a stupid consumerist holiday I no longer see the connection with my religion. Can’t we bring back connection instead of this? I can. It’s the four letters keeping me from coming undone. It’s the thing that people admire most about me, but they don’t understand. I have to. I have to do this. I’m sick of pretending I can be okay just going through life when I have all these things holding over me, things I care about that won’t go away. I’m calmer when I face them head-on. The way we were in Saigon. Maybe I can rewrite my story with my parents’ suburb. The things most people turn away from. I’m sick of the way that I had to fill every waking millisecond with exciting distraction until I lost my ability to sleep in order to attempt to distract myself from it. I simply won’t do that anymore. Look at me, looking after myself for the first time ever. Maybe I can be the girl from End Up Here. Maybe when I acknowledge my burdens and process them enough to realise they need to be handled collectively and I have the skills to drive the machine, I don’t have to use my shoulders instead, I actually feel less burdened for the first time ever.

And it’s reflected in the choices I make. How long have I felt that my time is running away from me, how long have I longed for more free time, just to have it taken away from me, so incrementally that I was supposed to get used to it, but instead each step up was a micro-aggression that built up inside my uterus and left me hurting and unable to move? Unable to use the part of my body designed to create life, to do anything but hurt? Is it because I finished university and don’t have that starting line hanging over me anymore and I feel like I’m moving for once? Why did I require this level of privilege just to start living?

Either way, all it is is fodder to the ambition. Everyone should get to experience this. Everyone should get what they need. So I’m letting my mind wander, letting my time be free, choosing to trust that I will get done whatever needs to be, organising my schedule to allow for this to happen. For the first time, I feel like I have some sort of control over this. Everyone should get to have this experience. I can work towards that dream.

So my bus got me home at exactly the right time. I’m tired, in the bedroom of my teenage years, my rowdy birds making a fuss outside (who dumped who? Or was it a miscommunication to begin with? Or did he just want to go to bed, Violet, but you still want to be outside so you’re calling for him but he’s chosen you everyday for the last four years, let a man get some rest). But I’m a little less tired knowing that this can come out. I don’t have to hold it all in and pretend. I can work towards solutions, one step at a time.

#silver bridges #neurodivergent liberation #sustainability #sustainable transport #sustainable lifestyles #bipolar awareness #personal mental health tag #songs to understand this:#saigon (luke hemmings)#enchanted (ts)#empty wallets; end up here; emotions; easy for you to say (5sos)#i think that's it. maybe emperors new clothes

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nikgannonphotography · 8 months

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The Man From Canton, and the Importance of Perspective

An excerpt of this blog post was originally posted on the website BOOOOOOOM and can be found here. I wanted to share it here as it definitely qualifies for this blog, and I put in a lot of time writing this before realising there was an 840-character limit.

It was around 5 am and I hadn’t slept the whole night. The hypomanic fixation with photography I have experienced over the last few weeks had kept me awake through the night, but I wasn’t even close to being tired. After inhaling some caffeine, I decided to go to a trusty photo location in Sydney - Haymarket. Haymarket is home to Sydney’s largest Chinatown and the biggest demonstration of Chinese cultural influence in Australia since the 1920s.

That is until I was approached by the Man From Canton, asking me to take a photo of him with his iPhone. I happily complied and even asked for a shot with my own camera, he gleefully said yes and I got a few portrait shots in front of the paifang. We exchanged a few words - he told me he was born in Canton in China and had arrived in Sydney 38 years ago. He now lived in Adelaide but was staying at the nearby casino as he planned to visit his 95-year-old mother in Sydney.

As we ordered and waited for our food we got to talking again. He explained how he had travelled to Australia in the 1980s and had worked and owned a store in Ashfield, just around the corner from my house. He went on to describe his busy work schedule and how important the money he made in Australia was to assisting his family back home.

What stood out to me was what he shared with me about Chinatown. There was sadness in his tone as he described the isolation of Chinese Australians in this part of the city when he arrived in Australia, and how they were the victims of constant hate crimes by white Australians.

He explained that Chinese people (who were mostly of Cantonese descent throughout the 1900s) had been forced to divide themselves from white Australia as a matter of protection. There were no English signs and posters surrounding the Chinatown streets, no night markets where people of all walks of life gathered to watch live performances and eat a wide range of culturally diverse foods, and there was definitely no way a white photographer from the suburbs could walk through streets of Haymarket on his camera at 6:30 in the morning.

While I have walked through these streets I have never stopped and asked “how did this area come to be?”. How did the Emperor’s Garden on Dixon Street grow to be so large? Why are these buildings designed the way they are, and why are they all faded? I have so many questions, and as a photographer and historian, I will continue to search for these answers.

I have been trying to learn more about Chinatown from the locals, and while this man wasn’t living in Chinatown at the moment his perspective and insight into the history of Chinatown were surprising, to say the least. This was the first time that I had realised that Chinatown, like anywhere with a rich cultural heritage, has had to go through its own social and cultural development in a predominantly white country that was ultimately against its success. I was completely aware of the racism experienced by so many non-white Australians in other communities of Sydney, yet I was naive to think that Chinatown’s shopkeepers, restaurant owners, and long-time residents have experienced anything but racism while building this beautifully diverse area.

So to the Man From Canton, I say thank you. Thank you for opening up about your experiences, and opening my eyes to something I was too blind to see. As a photographer, I always try to capture the essence of a location, but until I allow myself to understand the area’s origins and history, the photos I have taken in Chinatown will remain soulless.

#curators on tumblr #street photography #photooftheday #photographer #chinatown #blog #blogger #sydney #portrait #street photographer #photography blog #art blog #bloggingcommunity

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