jwiggler

cool! i never knew

I heat it up and pretend its a hot drink (it is)

Don’t listen to people who say it’s not possible to have fun learning about this stuff. It can be. I can be boring, too, depending on your interests. Sounds like you’re worried about wading through things like Capital, Communist Manifesto, etc. Totally warranted – they were written in a different time and for a different audience. That’s not to say that there isn’t good stuff to get out of primary sources, but it’s more difficult.

I recommend listening Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life to get some context as to who he was, what movements he was a part of, the state of the world he grew up and lived in, and a breakdown of the things he believed, things he changed his mind on, etc. It gives you important context. You don’t need to slog through it or do a ton of mental work. Just listen and absorb it. If you don’t understand a section, replay it and try to do some mental work to “get it,” but if it doesn’t click, move on and keep listening. Over time, you will begin to understand.

I also recommend listening to Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds. Very accessible.

Chores for sure. Throw on an audiobook while doing the dishes.

Reading is fun too because you can get a little more absorbed in the world, if you can manage to stay focused.

Watch Baraka.

Go for a walk around the neighborhood.

Wake and bake. If you have a yard, go into it. Look at it. Look at the plants. Differentiate the plants. Take a picture of one. Use your phone to identify it with Google lens or iNaturalist app or something. Find the scientific name (evidently called “binomial nomenclature”, huh). Use bonap.org to find out if it is native to your geographic area. If it is, keep watching it day to day. omg it is blooming. Look at the insects doing stuff on them. realize holy shit that’s their home. they feel peace, like i feel when i hear running water. this is an ecosystem. If it isn’t native, find out if it is invasive. If so remove it as best you can without disturbing your other plants. If it is non-native established or something else, consider keeping it depending on how dominating it is in your yard. Keep watching the natives. Identify others. Read their wikipedia page. Find out they attract monarch butterflies. Prune away the non-natives. Admire your yard. See a monarch and cry with joy. Continue into the fall. Keep taking pictures. Watch the petals turn in and shrivel a little. Witness death. Snow comes. See the stalks remain. They poke out of the quiet blanket. In other places, hard mounds of snow ice envelop. It melts to dirt. Brown yard and sticks are seemingly inert. Somehow it’s all gathering momentum. Imagine next season. Those stalks weren’t there before last summer. They’re gonna explode and even more are gonna pop up. Get excited. Hell yeah. There’s gonna be so many goddamn natives in my yard next season.

I’m just so tired of seeing 1984 and Brazil and Idiocracy and every other political warning and satire played out in the real world every goddamn day of my life

I hate silicon tips usually but these are my preference too. I have ccx brand ones though.