/reader

In order to survive, or to do anything more than survive, I need to turn chaos, trauma, pain, loss, upheaval into little gifts I can carry with me, blocks I can build with.

This is our fundamental job as humans.

We’re given the raw material of life. Genetics, biology, environment, both nature and nurture, and a world which is mostly out of our control. We’re surrounded by people who have their own motives and methods, and we live out days where things happen to us, sometimes mundane and sometimes wildly unpredictable. And we have to do something with all that.

We have to take it all in and build ourselves from it, and construct a life we can inhabit.

We’re given tools to use, and blueprints: Beliefs handed down, structures imposed, skills taught or picked up, ideas that seep in, systems we can’t escape, and a whole myriad of habits, reactions, cues and triggers and corresponding reactions.

And we end up kind of shrugging and getting to work, because what else are you going to do? So we start building, even if we don’t really know what we’re building. Will it be a home? Or a prison?

Sometimes we build for a long long time before we know for sure.

And then we have to think about what it means to be trapped, and how important it is to stay alive, and what we will do to keep ourselves going, what we’ll pay to survive.

Because maybe you built a prison, accidentally. And maybe you don’t want to be in it. But leaving is risky. A prison is not fun or good or where you want to be, but it’s predictable. It’s terrifying to walk away because maybe you’ll end up somewhere worse.

Maybe you’ll end up in a desert. In a pit of despair. Penniless, on a street corner. Maybe you’ll end up lost in a never-ending storm. Maybe you’ll fall and keep falling. Maybe you’ll fail and keep failing. Maybe you’ll end up ostracized, sick, broke, alone.

Of course, any of that could happen to you no matter what you do. No guarantees around here. Outcomes are wild things. Wild not in a skip through the meadow way but in a get chased by ravenous wolves way.

How bewildering and terrifying to stand at the edge of everything you know and realize you have to start from scratch, and there are no rules, and there is not a structure you have to follow, you can make anything up, and you won’t discover a Truth that will save you, shelter you, guide you. You will create a path, and you will walk it, and you will mold truth out of chaos. You don’t get to choose the materials but you get to choose what you shape out of them.

That’s all life is.

Feeling a weight that comes out in words like nothing matters will happen to everyone who does not keep careful walls built around their experience of reality. Defensive walls for their belief systems, their societal systems, their structures and classes and economies and mindsets. We have this way of remembering things we’ve never experienced, a biological remembering and a fundamental terror: Everything we see here, the structures and systems and identities we cling to, are all things we invented, we built, we put into place to give ourselves harbor from the chaotic and never-ending storm. We did it well, so well, that generations can look back and not hear the howl of those winds.

Unless you mess up. Or something messes you up. Unless the walls crumble or something barges in or maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe you never could stop peering around the edges. You keep peering and looking and asking and wondering until the solid things reveal themselves to be not just malleable but fragile. The world you experienced as fundamental, true, a basis for being, turns out to be a cardboard construction, a flimsy shelter.

If you crave adventure, you might think: Yes. Freedom! That would be amazing.

But even adventure requires structure. You can climb a mountain, or sail an ocean, but you can’t do anything in a vortex of swirling bits except fall and fall and keep falling.

So you have to build something. If you lose the structure you trusted, you have to construct something new. Tough work. Slow work. Nice work, if you can get it.

You’re welcome, all of you. 

You may think this is too much for me, a mere middle-class straight white female U.S.A-tian to accomplish, but you are wrong. Because I am a heartfelt and meaningful, sheltered and privileged white woman. When I see someone in a community which is not my own being oppressed or potentially oppressed in some way, I know that I am, indeed, the person who understands their situation better probably than anyone else. Perhaps even better than they understand it, given my deep insight and vast imagination.

I can understand their feelings in a way that no one else can, because I, a cishet white woman, am sensitive. I am thoughtful. I am so deeply sensitive and thoughtful and better than most people that I can understand what it is like to be not cis and not het and not white and (even) not woman. I certainly do not need “lived experience” other than my own to understand, because I am a woman and a woman is an empathy machine. Trust me. It’s true. And that is why I, a cishet white woman, feel certain that I—by my contribution to any and all conversations which come to my attention— will be able to turn the tide of whatever is unfolding that I think is not okay. 

This is both a gift and a burden. 

Even though I, a cishet white woman, a strong woman with a strong and pure womanly voice, was not allowed to be a preacher in the evangelical denomination in which I was raised, I feel certain that had the ban on the females preaching been lifted, my strong and pure and womanly voice would have led our humble yet backward denomination forward into the glorious light of acceptance and equality, the light in which I currently bask.

At times people have even remarked that I seem to glow as if lit with this holy light from within. I don’t say it, of course. That would be prideful. I only listen to what others say. I am very good at listening, because of being an empath. 

I am also very good at connecting with people.

See, you may not know this about me, but I have traveled to at least one or perhaps two foreign countries. They all loved me. I fit in really well. Also I have made friends who are not just exactly like me. Well, not friends, exactly, but I have met many people. And more importantly, I, a woman, a white woman, a white straight cis woman, I have feelings. I have words and I have feelings and I am so fucking sincere. You have no idea. 

I, a cishet white woman, would like to tell you, people who are different than me, that I. Am. Your. Friend.

You can count on it.

I am your Friend. I am on your Side. I am in your Camp. In fact, I have noticed that your Camp could be improved, so while I am here I am making a few changes. Updates. For everyone’s good. Because I know that things are hard. I know that life is challenging. I know, I understand, that oppression will wear you down. And worn down, with all that oppression, how can you see what the best decisions are for you, the oppressed? Don’t worry. I am Here. I will Help. I have Plans. I have a Voice.

And I understand. I do.

I know deeply what it is like to be marginalized, because I, a cishet white Woman, am not a cishet white Man. And we all know women have had it hard. So hard. I have lived my entire life a mere step away from the locus of power, one might even say coddled by it, yet I have suffered. Oh how I have suffered. It’s true. You may not realize it. But yes. It’s true. Even I, a privileged and sheltered woman raised in a comfortable home in suburbia, living always in the majority, my legitimacy as a participant in society never questioned, I too have encountered hardship. Even though I have never encountered violence, I understand its grim reality. And I will fight it for you. It’s true, I have never gotten really dirty except for that one time we went camping but it’s okay. Because I learned so much through that experience. I really felt what it is like to be unhoused. I now know what it is like to have that uncertainty. Which is why, I, a cishet white fully housed woman living in an affluent area with a steady job and a large support network of cishet white friends, will tackle and solve the unhoused issue after I am done tackling these other issues for All My Friends. When I’ve wrapped up the housing issue, I’ll take a look at climate change. Because who could understand better than I, a cishet white woman who is also a mother, the grief and pain of our great Mother Earth? 

Yesterday I wrote about some other people. Today I am writing about me. Reflection is always important but in these particularly perilous times we (I) have to learn faster. I can’t be precious about my own hubris. Gotta see it, gotta learn from it, gotta grow. Gotta recognize my internal little savior complex that won’t quite die. (To be clear, I meant every word I wrote yesterday. And also, I need to pin a few mental reminders up so maybe I can be better about amplifying the voices of others rather than my own.)

Except, oh wait, online shit is real-world shit. That’s part of the problem here, I think. Putting a pin in that thought for a minute. 

Anyway just to be very clear I am talking about the recent conflict between Manton of Micro.blog and Adam of Omg.lol. I’m not sure if I’m capitalizing those correctly. Whatever. I’m naming names publicly and I’m voicing thoughts on my blog instead of in an email (I did think about that) on purpose because: This is a public disagreement about public things that happened in public spaces. I think it’s kind of important to acknowledge that public issues can’t be resolved in private places. Private issues can! And that’s appropriate! But when a mistake is made publicly, the resolution must also be made publicly. When a conflict happens publicly, it can’t be de-escalated to private. The turkey has flown the coop, or the ship has sailed, perhaps with the turkey in it. Maybe the turkey is the captain. I am avoiding serious thoughts right now. Okay. Moving forward. 

Here’s a thought: Community is messy. People in a big sprawling poorly defined communities like “the indie web” are of course going to have disagreements and there’s gonna be conflict and that’s all fine and healthy. It might get ugly and uncomfortable because you know what? Conflict is difficult and most of us are not good at it. I think that’s because most of us are taught to avoid conflict rather than being taught the skills to approach it with maturity but I’m losing the point so hold that thought, too. 

Anyhow, contrary to the way I was raised, conflict is itself not an unhealthy thing. It’s good. It means people are different (Diversity???!!!) and they have differing opinions and experiences and they feel safe enough within the community (Inclusivity???!!!!) to voice those differing opinions even when they run counter to those who hold power within said community and they know it’s okay to do that because they understand that within their community, every voice is of equal value (equity????!!!!!). THAT IS A GOOD GODDAMN FUCKING COMMUNITY. 

[Side note: Hey sorry not sorry about the profanity. I curse frequently and even moreso when I am having strong feelings! And right now I am full of them! So if you are offended by profanity perhaps do not read a blog post titled Fuckity Fuck Fuck! Okay that is all!]

I’ll tell you what’s NOT healthy: a community with zero disagreements. You know what that is? A family like the one I grew up in. My family was pretty awesome in a lot of ways. My parents were affectionate and fun and good and wise in many ways. But we weren’t allowed to argue. My sister and I were not allowed to argue. My parents apparently had the same rule for themselves which of course was dumb but I was like 11 before I heard them actually argue and I was convinced they were going to get a divorce. That is NOT HEALTHY. You know what happened? I grew up and got married and did not know how to engage in healthy conflict. So instead of standing up for myself when I needed to, I tried to make myself smaller and more agreeable. Of course there’s a limit to how long this can go on. I’m divorced now so you can draw your own conclusions.

Put a pin in that thought, too. I’m trying to get all the thoughts out. 

I missed the whole whatever-happened-in-July thing with Vincent. Lucky me. So when this whole recent thing popped up I didn’t have any context except, Oh here’s a guy who likes Elon: Elon, the space nazi who is the apparent de facto president of our country who in addition to doing a whole shit ton of shitty things over the last few years (publicly) also just threw a sieg heil at the inauguration of the current named president of our DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC (just emphasizing that to point out that as of today, Jan 23, 2025 at 9:05 PM, we are not living in a dictatorship or fascist regime but still inhabit a DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC in which throwing the well-known and easily recognizable hand signal of nazi scum (not capitalizing that one on purpose) is a deliberate move borne either of deeply concerning immaturity or deeply concerning nefarious motivations or (most likely) both. Anyhow). Elon, that space nazi trump crony assholey guy. So I’m mildly interested. First off: Who is this guy in the screenshot, why does he like Elmusk, who cares, why is Adam posting about him? Cuz obviously a lot of guys like Elon and that’s not interesting to anyone because we know what kind of guy likes the kind of guy that Elon is. The kind of guy who likes that kind of guy is the kind of guy I’m not friends with! So who cares! 

OH WAIT I SEE. This guy is saying he’s not that kind of guy. This guy is an Indie Web guy! This guy is the Scribbles guy! This guy is a guy who works on microblog! Okay this is weird How is he not THAT kind of guy but he still likes the King of That Kind of Guy. CONFUSE? AM I CONFUSE? AM I MISUNDERSTAND? MAYBE SO PROBABLY SO LET ME CHECK.

Listen. I’ve been taught my entire life to distrust my own intuition and elevate the voices of the authority-men over my own understanding of a situation, so I did not jump to the immediate and obvious conclusion, which is: If a guy publicly admires a certain King of That Kind of Guy then he is most obviously and apparently also That Kind of Guy himself (this is that Occam’s Razor thing, I think). Anyhow, I ignored the easy common-sense conclusion and was like: I maybe am misunderstanding? Am maybe conclusion jumping? Am missing the real story buried under the easy obvious one being kind of undeniably demonstrated right here in front of me? 

So. Off I go. Read some threads, look up old shit, learn about old kerfuffles, be sad, see more discussion, more commentary, be more sad, read more threads, keep hoping for some sort of clean road out of the obvious conclusion which I am actively avoiding. Okay honestly at this point I was looking for any sort of road out: a dirty one, a clean one, whatever! I’ll take it! I just want a way out! I don’t want to conclude that the obvious conclusion is probably the correct conclusion because now I understand that conclusion has implications. 

Fuckity fuck fuck. 

When Adam posted this thing about this guy, my first thought was: Wow, that’s pretty immature to go around just randomly dragging on people. Waste of time. 

But I saw Manton’s comment too. And it brought up more questions. At this point I’d ridden the investigation train long enough to connect the context dots (I’m so sorry about that sentence but I’m not deleting it) and now I’m wondering: Huh. Why is Manton here? 

Cuz that’s kind of weird.

I have Shrinking playing in the background as I’m writing this mind-vomit of a post (I’m so sorry) and this scene just happened where Pam accosts a young Black man who is outside doing something. She accosts him for no reason except that he is Black. Then the other characters are like Pam Stop It You Are Racist and then the one lady’s husband drives by (sorry I forget the names, whatever) and is like Hey Pam etc. and his wife says: “There’s no, Hey Pam. We don’t like Pam. Pam’s a racist.”

And he says, “Got it. Eat a dick, Pam.”

And Pam huffs off, and scene. 

Anyway, that’s how we do it. 

Elonious Fartusk? No. I don’t wave and play nice and say Hi and I certainly don’t fan-out over whatever rocket or self-driving shit he’s made lately. I go: “Bummer. You’re an asshole. Eat a dick, Elon.” EASY PEASY. 

I do this in the same easy-if-disheartening way I no longer consume media made by people I understand to be terrible people. I don’t stop because I feel guilty about enjoying the things they made. I stop because I’m no longer able to enjoy what they made. The knowledge of their character overwhelms the beauty of their creativity. What you made, you can destroy. 

God I hope I’m almost done writing this, I’m so tired and I need to go to bed. 

Here’s what I would expect from Vincent: Nothing much, really. Just a cease-and-desist on being a fan of the obvious King of That Kind of Guy. Guys who are into shit like controlling media, subverting elections, being racist and homophobic and transphobic and misogynistic etc. That (which is not doing something so much as not doing something any longer; a cessation) and a simple, clearly worded apology like: “Hey I am sorry I said these specific dumb awful hurtful things that one time. I was wrong, and I am learning. I will do better.” THIS IS SUCH AN EASY FIX. 

Here’s what I would expect from Manton: First of all, NOT to defend Vincent for liking the King Douchebag??? Why?? Why would you defend this? I AM CONFUSED. If the idea was to defend him from Attack, then let’s be clear: Publicly stating on a public forum what someone has already publicly said on another public forum is not an attack. An attack is when you: 1) Stab someone with a knife 2) Shoot someone with a gun 3) Make up some shit and say it like it’s true to lead people to believe false things about someone, or possibly 4) Give someone some sort of mushroom tea when they ask for coffee. These are the Four Pillars of Attack. There may be more, this is not an exhaustive list. But what’s not an attack is when you repeat what someone’s publicly said. That person said that thing (publicly). If you think someone repeating the public thing someone said on a public platform IS AN ATTACK, then you’re kind of admitting you realize that there’s something wrong about the public thing they said, aren’t you? Because if it was all A-OKAY, then someone repeating it publicly, elsewhere, would be No Big Deal. Like this: What if Vincent had posted about how much he loves the indie web and Adam had posted a screenshot of that and been like: Hey everybody look at this thing Vincent said! We’d look and be like, Hey cool! Look at that cool thing Vincent said publicly in that other public place, neato! We like that!

We like that because it lines up with the values we espouse and share in this, the indie web community! And that would Not Be An Attack. Because: It isn’t. And repeating publicly what someone said publicly is also not an attack. It is an amplification. If the thing amplified is positive, NEAT. If the thing amplified is negative, Uh-the-fuck-Oh. 

Oh my god this is the most annoying thing I have ever written. I have to finish this so I can never ever write anything like it again. Good lord. I continue to hate everything about this. 

Moving on. 

A point I should have made smoothly somewhere earlier but didn’t so I am making it unsmoothly now: Straight White Men Over 40 Do Not Get to Tone Police Other People. There are like seventy-dozen reasons why this is a point. By point, I mean Rule. By Rule I mean, an agreed-upon behavioral standard shared in certain circles which shares certain values,  like for instance The Indie Web. (That’s said with some irony okay but you get the point.) I don’t think I should have to explain why this is a Rule to people who are in circles that purport to support and protect minorities.

So here’s what I would expect from Manton, someone I’ve personally never had an issue with and have seen handle a lot of other disagreements in ways I respected: The Same Fucking Thing. By which I mean, I expected that he would handle this issue in ways I’ve seen him handle other tense discussions: By not focusing on the tone of the conversation, but by overlooking tone issues and addressing the Main Point. 

The Main Point being: Why does This Guy who works for/with you and act/speak/present like he is One Kind of Guy also actively admire and currently fanboy over the King of The Other (Directly Opposed) Kind of Guy? And are you, a guy who says he is One Kind of Guy, okay with this obvious and unavoidable conflict of fundamental viewpoints? 

Because that’s what this comes down to. Fundamental views. Fundamental values. 

It is 100% not about the tone or the approach or the platform or the community. It’s not about personal attacks or social media or feelings being hurt. Those things are important things and it’s actually (believe it or not) really hard for me to type those things I just typed and not add a bunch of qualifiers (Wait am I adding qualifiers now? Dammit) because I do care about people’s feelings being hurt! But I care MORE about fundamental values. I care about whether we prioritize our fundamental values over our own feelings and preferences and desires for smooth happy comfortable community experiences. 

Good god I love a smooth happy comfortable community experience. 

But you can only actually build that by having bumpy messy uncomfortable community experiences, and wading into them, and pulling the shit out and saying, Ummmm yep, that is indeed shit! and then throwing it out, and then working through the repercussions and reverberations, and growing together in ways that are not easy or pretty but are real and raw and true and vulnerable and open and humble and a little unhinged, probably. 

(Reminder: Straight White Men Over 40 Do Not Get to Tone Police. I know you were thinking about it! Don’t do it!)

There are a lot of white men over 40 on microblog whom I like and follow and enjoy interacting with and frequently learn from. But holy motherfucking goddammit, this was a chance for you all to do something different with the easy authority you’ve all taken for granted for so long you don’t even realize you wear it like a robe. When someone speaks out on behalf of a group that is NOT STRAIGHT CIS WHITE MEN, the absolute last thing you should do is say,  “Ummmmmm your TONE was OFF.” 

SORRY WHAT? 

The TONE was off? THE TONE WAS OFF? THE MOTHERFUCKING TONE WAS OFF? 

Sorry, what? YOU WERE UNCOMFORTABLE? IT SEEMED UNFAIR? YOU WERE NOT GIVEN DUE REPRESENTATION? THINGS WERE NOT SOFT AND FLUFFY AND PRETTY AND APPROPRIATE?

Goddamn right. Welcome to what it’s like to exist in this world as anything other than a straight white man. I am a privileged and sheltered middle-class white woman and I even get it (kind of, I think). 

Anyway I have to end this now. I’m disappointed and sad. I hate this post, I hate writing it, if I felt like I could sleep tonight without writing it I certainly goddamn would. 

1. Oppressed groups have been oppressed for a fucking long time (i.e. the entirety of human civilization) and they’ve only very recently been starting to see some headway out of that oppression. 

2. The recent regime change in the country formerly known as the United Democratic Republic States of America has not only halted that headway but has within mere hours actively begun dismantling any progress made and, as a direct result, ensuring that anyone belonging to any of those groups can no longer expect to feel or be safe in this country, land of the free &c &c &c. 

3. I don’t care whose feelings are hurt (that’s a lie, I do care, but not as much as I care about other things); I care if the people I love who are not STRAIGHT CIS  WHITE MEN or the fucking STRAIGHT CIS WHITE WOMEN WHO LOVE THEM will SURVIVE. I care that people of all kinds will be able to live without fear in the 21st century. I don’t want them to just survive, I want them to feel safe and be safe and just be able to live their lives without having to calculate the risk of every single decision they make. I care that the specific communities who say, “We are for YOU,” will take the situation we’re in seriously and respond swiftly and throw the niceties out the window because at this point we absolutely do not have time to make things look pretty or sound nice. I care that we won’t mistake having good manners for being good allies. We have no time to fuck around. We have no room for our little personal preferences here, we are beyond that. We have less than zero-time. We are moving backwards. We have to be loud, we have to be direct, we have to be bold, we have to fight the small mincing steps that we tend to overlook because overlooking them is what got us here, to this point. 

I wanted, hoped, expected this: that Manton would post something direct and clear, a statement, simple, like the one I’m about to make—

I unequivocably support the freedom and equality of all people, regardless of their race, gender, or sexuality. I state here and now that I specifically affirm and not only support but wholeheartedly LOVE the existence and beauty and value of the LGBTQ+ community. Y’ALL ARE AWESOME AND YOU MAKE THE WORLD BETTER.  

In keeping with that, I’m not able or willing to work closely with people whose views are antithetical to my own. It doesn’t work for me to support equality for all and also be in partnership with those who don’t share that support. 

That’s it. That’s the statement. It could have been shorter, too. And in that statement, please note: No need to say “XYZ person’s views are antithetical.”

That statement is actually a separate one. The first and most important statement is one of public accountability. Here I am: Here are my views: Here are my standards for how I live those views out in this public sphere.

Then it’s up to (in this case) Manton to determine whether Vincent (or whoever) does or does not share that support. Step 1 is having the standard. Step 2 is stating it publicly and clearly. Step 3 is living it out in all the messy ways needed, both publicly and privately, and you can be sure that they will be messy. 

Like this long-ass convoluted mess of a post. Not pretty. Not neat. Not well-organized. Not polite. Perhaps not making any sense at all. I can’t tell, at this point. Not soft, not nuanced. There will be and should be nuance, in the living-out-the-standards step. And I do think that’s where the WOKE MOB (hey gang! 👋) needs to cool their fucking jets. You get to call out what you see (publicly), and you get to have your own standards. You get to and should hold people in your circles accountable for having and living up to their standards. But you don’t get to claim some absolute unbiased knowledge in all situations. You don’t get to pretend everything is clear; it isn’t. You don’t get to be the ultimate authority. You don’t get to decide for others how to respond as they deal with the messy situations of their own lives. You do get to decide your response if you think the standards aren’t being met. Nobody has the whole story, ever. Call shit out and then maybe sit the fuck down for a goddamn minute. Be bold and be outraged and be humble. 

Oh my god I’m so tired. I will 1000000% regret this in the morning so I better publish it before I lose my nerve. Not that anybody cares. But I care. This is me, defining my own standards and then very awkwardly and poorly trying to live up to them. I don’t like it. Fuck this timeline. Okay goodnight. 

Life is much too wild and raw and chaotic and frankly doesn’t make a lot of sense. So, we add structure via narrative. We live a series of stories.

…the brain is telling us stories about the smallest things we perceive, like the motion of objects. But it also tells us stories about some of the most complex things we think about, creating assumptions about people based on race, among other social prejudices.

The stories our brains tell us about reality are extremely compelling, even when they are wrong.

—Brian Resnick

We choose the story we know over the one we don’t know

Usually. 

We mistake what is familiar for what is good because we like to feel safe. 

Predictability makes us feel safe. 

Often we will choose to keep believing and living bad stories—stories that could be infinitely better—because being able to predict the characters, the roles, the dialogues, the outcomes makes us feel safe. 

It’s not about whether those stories do, in fact, make us safe. It’s about whether they make us feel safe. 

We tend to get stuck in stories

Because change is scary. Because we don’t realize we’re stuck. Because we’re not consciously aware of the story. Because it’s a story we’ve been hearing for so long we don’t realize it’s a story. Because letting go of a story you’ve depended on can feel like letting go of reality. Because we’re safer in the story. Because we can predict what happens in the story. Because we can’t think of a different story.

We do what the stories tell us, mostly

The easiest way to lead people is not with demands or threats. It’s with stories. We all love stories. The stories we love most are the ones in which we play a central role.

If you want to manipulate someone, you tell a good story. You make them part of it: a main character. A protagonist. A hero.

You hook their interest. You lead them into a narrative. You get them emotionally invested. Then you tell the story you want them to believe about themselves and the world they’re in. After that, you don’t even have to tell them exactly what to do. Just remind them of the story and their role in it. They’ll fill in the blanks.

We have to get bad at old stories to get good at new stories

To move out of the stories we’ve been living, and into new ones, we have to unlearn the things that kept us safe and alive in the old stories. We have to let go of who we were in the old story. We have to change so much that the old scripts no longer work. 

Nature abhors a vacuum.

If you’re getting bad at an old story, you better get a new one ready to step into. Otherwise, someone else will supply one for you. It might not be a good one. 

Almost all stories are about power

Not all the stories. Not the best ones. But most of them.

All stories are fantasies

Some are much better than others.