A few years ago I was working every day of the week, 70h/wk, for 6 weeks. Even with a committed organizing group around me, and even earning much more than ever before, it put me in a really dark place mentally. Sleep well and eat well and hug someone and expose yourself to lots of plants.

Having a horizon of life achievement to look towards does a lot, as does being in a group of well-aligned people. I believe that this was the biggest difference between myself and the majority of my worn-down, empty-feeling coworkers. I have a straight shot to house acquisition which will lower base living costs to less than $2k/yr per person when shared, and to expanding this into a constellation of collective houses with dozens of the socialists in my life, and to starting businesses that I could turn into workers’ coops, and if everything falls apart I would still have a rural commune to bug out to. Not saying this to brag so much as “I want to connect every Hexbear to this who wants it”.

It feels like I have found a resonance between the path of my own life and my socialist politics, I call this finding the plot, and I want this for every political accomplice. If you ever want someone to talk to about personal circumstances and analyzing what can be done with them, or just for someone to cheer you on, I’d love to chat.

Come shooting with me

I’m right there with you. Vocalize it, let others know they’re not alone, inspire some modicum of solidarity. Our day will come. Socialize, organize, strategize. Make it count.

I think you have most of your explanation there. If you do some silly mass shooter adventurism or something, the things that are really upsetting you – these reactionary institutions and their reactionary culture – will be completely unbothered and in fact will probably use it as a pretext for escalating further, and you get to be the reichstag fire that gives reactionaries a blank check that, believe it or not, they do not have just yet but have been eagerly waiting for for years. They’ve unsuccessfully tried with the various shooters, but all the shooters have been Republican types (and that CIA asset), so it hasn’t really worked out even if they still pantomime as though they proved it was The Left that did it. If you want to actually destroy these people and end their crimes, you can’t accomplish it by being a kamikaze pilot or many, many people would have done so already.

Anyway, regarding libs, I think maybe it would be good to ask them what they think, since most people don’t walk around with a sign hanging from their neck telling you their opinion on whichever issue you (quite justifiably) happen to be most concerned with at the moment. It could be a basis for a productive conversation about the government lying about something we have on camera to murder a mere observer in cold blood.

I’m feeling similar. I hate it when first-worlders are like “ohhhh I can’t use the internet anymore it’s so scary for ME” but fuck it I just wanna play video games until my door gets knocked down by the gestapo

I hate having to see hundreds of twitter posts by MAGA hogs and having to think each time that this person NEEDS to die. I don’t think it’s healthy to understand how many people NEED to fucking go.

What gets me too is how this is going to get like 100x more people to protest than the US military killing 80+ people in Venezuela. Absolutely no international solidarity among cracker Americans

These people won’t live forever, that’s all we know. It might be sooner, it might be later, but time eventually eats us all. The status quo might change, slightly. I saw these inhumane ghouls generate AI porn of that dead woman. Do you think people will forget the evilness? The anger? The hatred? Good people won’t forget. There’s a saying that goes like: “Those who beat, forget. Those who are beaten, remember.”

Keep that in memory. Even if these people are anonymous, people won’t forget what these people did as a collective.

This is a normal and valid reaction to the horror and seeming apathy of everyone else.

IMO if you don’t want to feel this way - driven to despair - I think that on an individual level, learning to introspect/meditate is effective. It’s not about numbing (which requires dissociation through cynicism, distraction, or substances) but about feeling through it and learning how to let it flow out of you

Before you address anything on how to survive and get through the day, first take a moment to remind yourself that the feeling you are experiencing is valid! News like that should have people out en mass, tracking that guy down, and [redacted]. That said, unless you are in a position to have direct impact on the situation, the best you can do is to acknowledge that it is very upsetting news that should not be normalized and then maybe work towards finding a group to organize with, or if that’s not possible today, finding a way to disassociate for a few minutes to survive the day. I offer the biggest of electronic hugs, as that’s all I can offer at this moment. Take care of yourself and then, if you have the ability to, take care of someone around you today, too.