Honestly, in my work as a therapist, I’m seeing this A Lot, and tbh I still don’t have a satisfactory approach to it. A heavy dose of Existentialist “create your own Purpose” tempered with “when the plane’s going down, put your own oxygen mask on first”, but… yeah, there is no ethical way to work on individual emotional distress without acknowledging the systemic socioeconomic, geopolitical fuckery going on at the moment, and the sheer grief that comes with it.
I’m a guidance counselor/psychologist for teenagers and it’s getting really hard to motivate young people to work for a future they don’t believe in.
They look at ther future and see global warming, wwIII, unemployement, political unstability, poison in everything they eat, the earth and animals dying all around them.
I saw this video where someone was asking french teens in the 50s how they imagine the future would be. The war hadn’t been over for long and yet it was all positive with like peace and flying cars and such. Then they went and ask the same questions to nowadays teens and hell that was depressing. Some still had hope, but it was just that “well I hope I’ll have a nice house and maybe some kid” but there was such a hesitancy to it, like they didn’t dare to hope too much.
People mock Greta Thunberg but what they don’t get is that when she said “you stole my dreams”, it was the truth.
Young people don’t get to dream like they used to. They don’t dream anymore, they grief all that won’t be anymore and that’s just so fucking sad.
The fact that both the tweet and these reblogs are pre-pandemic makes this post even worse
actually you know what that’s exactly it i would rather someone add 5 parantheticals after every sentence than use tone indicators it’s 1. accomplishing SO much more in terms of clarity 2. extremely funny to look at depending on how they’re used
observe:
“is this real? /gen” — i thought /gen meant “general” for ages. i would not be able to understand this on first sight a few years ago and is thus ineffective
“is this real? (genuine question)” — i fully understand this without issue
“is this real? (genuine question) (can’t tell) (very realistic) (looks real) (scary) (photoshop?)” — is not only incredibly clear it’s also very funny to read all of these thoughts stapled together while also in their own parentheses. it’s also the most useful because now i can actually address all parts of what they are asking me with as much specificity as BOTH of us need
my brothers share special interests and my favorite thing to do is walk in a room and be like “hey guys can you tell me about the mariana trench” and then sit there for an hour while they both infodump to me about the ocean it’s extremely entertaining
and my parents are always like “oh my god why would you do that” bitch. I want to learn about the ocean and these two thirteen year old boys r my most trusted source
fr
I mean, I could google questions I have about medieval weaponry and horsemanship, but on the other hand I could message my sister the simple statement “have question about historical saddles” and get both a phone call and a comprehensive 3 page google document within an hour
Seriously, if you know someone who has a special interest you’d like info about, go ask them! It costs zero money, you make them happy, and you learn way more than a basic google search would tell you.
“No one can love you until you love yourself” is like the worst possible way of articulating “if you don’t respect and value yourself, it’s very easy to become attracted to people who don’t treat you right and then justify their mistreatment, so be careful.”
so THAT’S what it’s supposed to mean. that actually makes sense.