#every stoppage and intermission I was on my feed or checking for updates

[the-ships-to-rule-them-all]

It’s late so I have no real positive inkling about how coherent this will be.

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts engaging with the concept of “don’t look away, bare witness” and how anyone looking away by not reblogging or engaging is privileged and therefore a bad person. I reject this premise wholeheartedly for one very critical reason: the world will not get better if the only emotions we have are anger, exhaustion and trauma. None of those truly lead to anything productive in the long run.

This is not to say don’t engage with different perspectives, unlearn things or simply sit in the uncomfortable nature that comes from our global society. But learn to take breaks.

There is massive difference between “looking away” and “hitting pause”. It needs to be more acceptable on the internet to hit pause. To seek joy, to sleep and wake up rested. There is also the fact that our brains are not able to process the 24/7 news cycle - if we try, we end up making the nuanced into simple paradigms.

#abby speaks #my thoughts #barely anyone will see this #but I think it’s important #to know that you can and should allow time to NOT engage with the worlds problems or social justice #this isn’t saying don’t work to make the world better #or that taking breaks isn’t hard #hell I was just at a hockey game and the 30 minutes where I truly took a break was the bus ride #every stoppage and intermission I was on my feed or checking for updates #but you need those moments to remind yourself that better days are possible #we owe things to our souls #our bodies our families our friends and our communities before we owe a half empty vessel that is our being to strangers #those are my two cents