delightfully weird
Reminder to myself:
Many are lying down, never getting up again. Not moving, always ordering takeout, dissociating, numbing, filling the void with addictive online content, reality TV, para-social relationships. It’s safe, it’s comfortable, with less disappointment, less awkwardness. Missed opportunities normalized. Going for less encouraged. Doing the bare minimum accepted. Pathologizing every whim and mood before (self-)medicating it away into dullness and no energy, before reading a cute infographic Instagram story that says “It’s okay to just lie around waiting & exist.” Sedated. In your bubble.
What you can do instead is to feel something unbearable and shock yourself awake, prove to yourself that you can do it. Feel the urge to learn, the frustration of creation, the pain of connection. Do not become complacent and reliant on a digital pacifier. Do it by doing the hard work, by consistently moving, by journaling, by writing poetry, by studying, by reading the difficult books, by choosing to believe in people. Letting ourselves fall in love or imagining better for ourselves. Moving away. Taking chances and saying “yes” more.
Or being weird. There are delightfully many ways to be weird in ways that harm no one and bring light into your life and the people that love you.
And also:
Succumbing to your passions, tending to your relationships, reading and learning and writing and painting and cooking and baking and taking care of little plants and creating a little mini garden with herbs and tomatoes makes you not give a fuck about your asymmetrical face and flat side profile and stomach and cellulite and stretch marks and keeping up appearances online. This is the life hack social media companies and the beauty industry don’t want you to know about.