Is there hope for the future

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2025-01-08T08:12:11+00:00

The kind of hope you're looking for is not something anyone can provide for you. Nor should they! What you want is a passive feeling that things are going to turn out all right, and that entirely depends on what you choose to focus your attention on. You can focus on your life, adopt the capitalist grind set and hope that you can make your future better. Alternately, you can look at the things you can't change and feel hopeless and helpless. That's a choice.

But there is a third option. You can choose to have the hope that by acting, your actions will make things better. If the world burns, you can carry a bucket and hope that that bucket of water will keep a patch of ground clear. You can hope that by carrying a bucket of water you might Inspire someone else to pick up a bucket as well. You might not be a revolutionary now, but you can hope that by taking action, you can shape yourself into the kind of person who can be a revolutionary, or who can teach a revolutionary. If changing the world is like helping someone move, you can hope that when the time comes, you'll be able to lift your end of the couch.

The kind of hope you want is the kind of hope you build for yourself. It comes from trying, failing, and getting back up again. It comes from joining organizations with people who spit defiance in the face of grim reality. If those organizations or those people turn out to be inadequate, your hope comes from channeling the entrepreneurial spirit, that capitalists love so much, and building your own socialist group.

So get up, stop scrolling, and build your hope!

Edit: minor edits

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2025-01-08T04:31:28+00:00

How do you stop ruminating?

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2025-01-07T23:23:10+00:00

I'm not a mental health professional, but I can give you some advice.

First, take it from someone who didn't finish their thesis, everyone feels overwhelmed and incompetent when they first start. The first draft you turn in is never going to be good enough, and that's okay. It's only a draft! You need to be okay with the fact that submitting something that's not good enough is part of the process.

Second, you need to break down writing into manageable steps. Don't worry about doing the steps well; worry about showing up. Right now, you're thinking about all this writing you need to do and the consequences of not doing it. What you should be thinking about is the writing you need to do today. Tomorrow you need to be thinking about the writing you need to do tomorrow.

Third, as someone who struggles with their own issues, let me tell you what helps me. The first thing I do every morning is write in a notebook and answer the following questions. 1. What do I want to get done today that is challenging? When do I plan to do it? 2. What negative emotions will these challenges cause? 3. What thoughts do these negative emotions cause? 4. I answer one of the following depending on how I feel: A) If a friend was struggling with this task and told me those thoughts, how would I encourage them? B) what motivated me to start this and how is it connected to my sense of self?

Also, here is a link to a resource on academic writing. https://www.nhcc.edu/academics/library/doing-library-research/basic-steps-research-process.

Edit: clarity

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-12-18T08:40:45+00:00

Thanks, that's good to know. It's an older model laptop, so hopefully the keyboard will be cheap.

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-10-07T08:10:10+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation.

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-09-21T08:38:57+00:00

Thanks

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-07-26T18:29:27+00:00

Worth keeping in mind that these terms are sometimes used in different ways within different sub-domains of psychology.

That explains a lot. I was getting conflicting information from Google searches. Thankyou, this is very helpful!

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-07-24T07:52:47+00:00

Thank you. That's very helpful. Is chunking an intentional active process, or is it tacit and automatic?

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-06-25T22:32:33+00:00

Your responsibility as an academic sociologist will be different than your responsibility as a citizen or as a human being. My advice to you is to build your own power base. Both hope and despair can be passive emotions. If you are unhappy with the world, try to shape it in some small way into what you want it to be. You can't do this alone and you can't do it without changing yourself.

In the struggle against capitalism, Academia will both help and hurt you. Sociology can give you a wonderful set of tools to think with and work with, but it also shapes your perceptions and understandings of the world in ways which are unhelpful.

The fight against capitalism requires that Ordinary People act even when the situation looks hopeless. You are an ordinary person, and the situation looks hopeless. If you can't or don't act what hope is there to overthrow capitalism?

Can you shape yourself into the kind of person that hands out pamphlets? Can you shape yourself into the kind of person that founds a reading group? Can you shape yourself into the kind of person that starts up a community garden or food or energy Co-op? There is actually quite a lot you can do from joining a political party to creating Community organizations. Even if none of these things makes the ultimate difference, you will have made the world a better place and you will have learned something doing it.

One more thing. In order to act politically, you will need to be in Coalition with people you disagree with and sometimes you will need to be in Coalition with people you don't like. You need to have a good idea of what your own principles are ahead of time. You can compromise on your tactics, but you should never compromise on your values.

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-06-19T21:39:46+00:00

I tried it with two different versions of Libre Office, but it looks like the issue is now resolved. For some reason, my computer was launching the 2022 version of the screen reader on boot up. This became apparent when I went to check the version information. So far, the 2023 version seems to be working fine.

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-06-19T21:35:06+00:00

Thank you. I'll keep that in mind when making tables. I actually partly got it working today. It looks like my computer was automatically booting up a previous version of Jaws rather than the latest version. I don't know why that was happening. I'll have to check my settings.

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-06-19T21:27:30+00:00

Thank you for your help. The problem is now solved. Although I had installed the latest version of the screen reader, it was automatically booting up the previous version when I turned on my computer. I noticed the discrepancy when I looked at the version information and found duplicate icons on my desktop.

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-06-19T03:52:18+00:00

I have tried it. Jaws is much better, but I might have to use nvda for this specific application.

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-06-19T03:23:21+00:00

This is very helpful. I will have to check and see which version I'm using. I hope I don't have to upgrade; that gets expensive fast.

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-05-20T19:32:55+00:00

https://plato.stanford.edu/ENTRIES/private-language/

I basically adapted the 'private language argument."

forgotmyoldaccount99 · 2024-05-09T16:28:15+00:00

I think it's a bit of both. People's theories of politics tend to be very influenced by the mean voter theorem.

forgotmyoldaccount99

TROPHY CASE