@gwynnion@mastodon.social
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gwynnion

@gwynnion@mastodon.social

Formerly from Twitter and Mastodon.lol. Trans, bi, she / her. Writing, dreams, politics, science, metaphysics.

Blocking and muting you is the easiest thing in the world if you mouth off at me.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

gwynnion, to random
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Part of "Navigator" is me explaining how many different (potential?) versions of me there are in my head. Sometimes I'm one, sometimes I'm another. Sometimes we argue. But we all agree there's something deeply broken about people and existence itself is out to get us.

Further, I think everybody is like this, only they each have their own One Big Thing they're about.

That's the metaphysics in a nutshell.

gwynnion,
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People think they have one consistent self across time, ignoring all the different hats we wear, the personas we adopt in different situations, and all the ways we could have turned out differently if even little things were changed.

I can't not be aware of it.

But that's why all my characters are Navigators.

gwynnion,
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I'm different people on the page and in dreams but it's still always me.

Whatever "I" exists to experience these things.

gwynnion,
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I guess where I broke from Buddhism was over the idea that all this flotsam we call the self is fake because it's fleeting -- when ephemerality is the nature of existence itself.

Maybe the underlying "I" has no traits and is just a shining mirror of pure consciousness.

Or maybe it does. Maybe it reflects what it wants. Because we can't experience pure consciousness anyway. Life is lived in the transitory, not the eternal, and one self is as real as another in the moment.

gwynnion,
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Jennifer Taggart and Alice Raikes aren't "real" but I'm them whenever I'm writing or thinking or dreaming about them.

@gwynnion isn't "real" even though you're reading her post right now. She's a version of me with a particular filter on.

There's a "real" me with a driver's license and social security number and a credit score. But she doesn't feel real either. In fact, she usually feels like someone other than what people see. She wishes she was someone else.

Someone real.

gwynnion,
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And maybe Buddhism is right that "real" is an illusion and there is no "real me" for me to become. But illusions are where we live. I can't just up and ascend out of here like Daniel Jackson! I've tried. Still do.

But the social pressure to conform doesn't make anyone more "real" either, as just about everything in our culture can attest, from video game escapism to alcohol use.

We're all trying to get away from that shit.

Towards something real.

gwynnion,
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As a trans person, I'm well aware socially imposed expectations don't make a person except as we allow ourselves to be bullied, manipulated, and broken trying to avoid even worse abuse. So there is something, someone inside screaming to get out.

gwynnion,
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Anyway, this is what happens when I talk metaphysics.

gwynnion, to random
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The thing is Biden sees all the same pictures we do coming out of Gaza. Probably worse. And he tells himself what Israel is doing is righteous, necessary even, for the sake of all Jewish people everywhere. That's literally what he means when he says no Jewish person in the world would be safe if Israel didn't exist. He believes that. I don't know why. But he clearly does.

And he's surrounded by institutional actors who don't care either way but who see Israel and genocide as a means to an end.

gwynnion,
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Biden is a Catholic conservative millionaire with some blue collar pretensions.

He's better than Trump and the modern GOP. That goes without saying.

He might be willing to put aside his beliefs occasionally for political expediency or because someone gets through to him.

But that's always been who he is.

He doesn't even seem very nice in person, especially if you disagree with him.

But he gets unearned deference for being an old white man.

gwynnion,
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I'm not telling you not to vote for Biden.

I'll vote for him against Trump. Sure.

But stop pretending he's someone he's not.

gwynnion, to random
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Everyone else in the world has learned that if you shit in someone's mentions, you get blocked, so it's a waste of time.

But Mastodon has a lot of reply guys who are like, "But maybe it'll work for me."

gwynnion, to random
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There are people who think the only thing we need to do to save America is defeat Trump. Everything else will take care of itself.

These people are tremendously privileged and seem to think everything is within 5% of perfection otherwise.

And some of them use this rhetoric to shut down any discussion of how to make things better otherwise. Because there will always be a Trump who takes priority.

And I have nothing polite to say to these people and they have nothing to say to me.

gwynnion, to random
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I want to see Trump get sucked into a jet engine.

I want Biden to be less shitty.

These are two very different things.

gwynnion, to random
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I don't agree with it but I occasionally find myself thinking about 'Twin Peaks: The Return" and David Lynch's suggestion that the sheer hubris and violence of the Trinity Test and the creation of the atomic bomb is where our reality took a swerve into a morally empty hell world where bad things increasingly just happen for no reason.

gwynnion,
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I don't agree with it because Lynch was operating from a nostalgia for his childhood, for an America that never existed and then only for the benefit of straight white people. But also because there's no one moment where history "turned evil." History is full of atrocities, some of them extremely American.

gwynnion,
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But there's a poetry to the idea reality is getting shittier as it falls apart around us, if only because it's true and manmade. Capitalism and climate change are steadily erasing beauty from the world and our lives are increasingly steeped in misery and hate without any sign of relief. There don't seem to be any good guys anymore. Maybe there never were. Only the dream. We're all waiting for a ghost to save us before we become ghosts ourselves.

gwynnion, to random
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"Joe Biden has done more than arm Israel. Leaked documents reveal his own officials see him as complicit in Gaza’s devastating famine"

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/gaza-famine-biden-israel-hamas-b2542961.html

gwynnion, to random
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"The most chilling thing about this era isn't the growing number of explicit fascists, it's the way elite institutions refuse to even attempt to stop them."

https://bsky.app/profile/michaelhobbes.bsky.social/post/3ksowrqbmmk27

gwynnion, to random
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The Very Serious Person perspective on Israel-Palestine is predicated on several interlocking beliefs:

  1. Palestinian lives don't matter and are automatically forfeit because of Hamas or whatever,

  2. Arabic and Muslim lives and perspectives generally don't matter,

  3. Israel is necessary for the US to project power against its Arabic and Muslim neighbors, and thus,

  4. Israel must always be allowed to "win" the "peace" process on its terms for that alliance to continue.

gwynnion, to random
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Most Americans think the false civility surrounding our politics is bullshit, but it's Trump's violation of that norm of civility that most upsets centrists and it's almost all we ever hear about him in the media, not his criminality or authoritarianism, which alarms everyone else when they're allowed to hear about it.

gwynnion, to random
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"First They Tried to 'Cure' Gayness. Now They’re Fixated on 'Healing' Trans People."

"Conversion therapy is alive and well, even in places where it’s been banned."

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/05/conversion-therapy-lgbtq-anti-trans-gay-gender-affirming-care/

gwynnion, to random
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I don't trust anyone who sneers at service industry employment because those workers are disproportionately women and minorities, which is also why those jobs tend to pay poorly.

But there's nothing wrong with someone working at a fast food place and having a comfortable lifestyle and it's only your internalized racism, misogyny, and classism that makes you think otherwise.

Everyone deserves to have nice things.

gwynnion, to random
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Every once in a while you see these stories of right-wingers who suddenly realize everything they believed in was bullshit, followed shortly by realizing how most of their fellow right-wingers prefer to believe or at least profess to believe in the bullshit anyway because it serves their agenda to do so.

"Courtney Gore, a Granbury ISD school board member, has disavowed the far-right platform she campaigned on."

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/15/texas-granbury-isd-school-board-courtney-gore/

gwynnion, to random
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A fundamental problem with this entire discussion is so many straight white Democrats think it's enough just to say good things, to nominally support them in principle, even if nothing is done to make them a reality -- or worse, turning around and doing the opposite. There's a lot of women and Black, Hispanic, and queer people who keep telling you empty promises aren't enough. They don't believe you or your politicians anymore. Because they can see what you really care about.

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