How do you people maintain your sanity in the imperialist core?
How do you people maintain your sanity in the imperialist core?
Hi. I'm alienated, living in the imperialist core, I have no political representation, and none of my friends are communists. Except from this website I feel extremely isolated. How are the rest of you faring?
I'm an indigenous non binary person. It's very hard. My parents are reactionary ten o clock news juice drinkers. My older siblings are hardcore Trump lovers. The town I live in are full of "you will eat bug because woke" fascists. All my income is vacuumed by landlords and greedy corporations while being slashed by my hog boss who'd rather sink his workers than sacrifice endless first class flights to vacation in Singapore. Every corner I turn it seems like Guy Debord was right.
I cry myself to sleep sometimes and every day I wake up wondering how tf did I make it yesterday.
Not an option for everybody, but I had to make a very difficult decision (at the time) to leave the only place and people I ever knew to go live somewhere with opportunity and generally political beliefs that wouldn’t kill me/see me as subhuman.
It was the best thing I ever did for myself even though I had to restart my “career” if you could call it that at that point. I still miss the place I’m from very deeply. It’s like I live in a completely different world now, which I love in its own way, but every time I go back to visit I think about how I could just not leave this time. I love it. But there’s nothing and nobody for me there.
I was in a similar situation to you. No friends with tolerable politics, feeling isolated. Now I don’t have a single friend who would hear the words “I am a socialist” and think anything poorly about it. It’s been life changing. I know that really there are shitty people everywhere, but in areas with a lot of people you’re far more likely to find some who aren’t.
Stop taking western media outlets seriously. Recently, I stopped getting mad about the media's spins on current events. Occasionally one annoys me, like the BBC posting a sob piece about blatant Azov patched Nazis wearing Kolovrat earrings. But I can only really laugh at it. Otherwise, just take the spin as 'the usual' and either get on with your day, or truly do something to counter it. Don't just mald in solitary confinement.
Most people aren't communists, but you can make friends with people who are mostly sympathetic to that sort of thing, or are interested in imperialism and stuff. All of my closest friends are. But then again, I live in a big city, which makes it easier. I'm in the arts, so everyone is at least lib-left.
I see your pronouns are they/them. If you're in a big city, LGBT groups tend to swing left and are generally very accepting.
Join an org. I don't regret leaving the last one I was in but having the work to do and feeling like I was doing something I cared about with people like me was extremely helpful and I do miss that feeling.
Seriously though, it's hard and for me, I do find people I can check in with to make sure I'm not being too off in my perceptions.
I don't
I just started reading Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat and so far it's the only book I've seen that really, really attempts to answer this question.
I do party work and spend my spare time digging for the remnants of the CPUSA archives, that CPUSA tried to destroy, scattered through out the country on top of my own personal hobby of researching the historiography of the Stalin period of the Soviet Union
Focusing on my health, improving my finances, reading theory, waiting for the Cool Zone that will never arrive.
Joining an org is a good shout but also just regular volunteer work or even cleaning up trash at the park is a good outlet.
I don't. I try to do all the usual shit like being in nature and going to the gym or whatever, but it all feels hollow. I also hate my job and am lonely as fuck, even when I'm with the few friends I have, so that doesn't help. And most people around me are either full reactionary or vaguely libertarian. If there's anything actually worth pursuing, I've yet to find it.
I guess my one outlet is reading history and shit so I feel marginally more aware of why current circumstances are what they are, but idk.
I re-educated myself so I can work in something where the work is helping people navigate this hell. That puts me face to face with the Othering and violent practices of said hell for all working hours of the day, but I still am able to remain saner than I was before, because I can at least help other people (within the parameters of said hell, which is incredibly taxing sometimes). I try to spread class consciousness in a way that doesn't lead into being fired. Will write my masters from a Marxist perspective as I am still not finished with my adult studies degree.
Have given up most treats or stuff that feels hollow. Thanking covid for that as it helped me drop a lot of the anxieties of what life should look like. I tend my tiny garden and spend a lot of time in nature, berry picking or just hiking. I exercise at home and have learned to enjoy it. I don't watch tv or read mainstream news, have quit corporate social media. I read a lot of theory. I am lucky in having a commie partner and a commie kid with leftist friends, so I have somewhere to vent. I spend way too much time on Hexbear to medicate my still present alienation.
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Antidepressants
I am having a hard time in this specific moment though. Feeling a lot of existential dread.
Regular prayer and self-flagellation
I don't. It probably helps that I don't know how to conceptualize what an appropriate failure mode would be or how to enter it.
Ahh, poorly
I tried giving up and not paying attention but that's not helping either
Join an org, union, or so forth. Try to have interests beyond politics, work out and focus on improving your personal existence.
Oh, I'm not well lol!
I take meds - of which I specifically requested. I exercise, I eat well, drink a bit (don't do this), see a therapist, meditate, and I have healthy hobbies. I have a good job too! Fortunately I have an amazing spouse and we support each other really well, and we have really fun pets. All of this culminates in me still just keeping my head above water. I feel like I'm surrounded by hell, and everyone around me is waking around like everything is normal and okay.
I don't!
Mostly liquor, drugs and being an absolute clown, constantly joking and not giving a single fuck about anything.
I find other bits of community praxis where I can, even if it's with libs and socdems; I help run a local community garden, assisted in setting up a clothes and food bank (with some other 'socialists'), have volunteered for (kinda lib) refugee orgs, am a member of a walking group for men to discuss depression and other issues as I have some Samaritans training and could have used a group like that when I was younger and struggling, I got involved with my local non-league football club that also does some local aid and met people through that etc.
I go and watch cheap local bands, lots of little hardcore all day gigs, that sort of thing. Non league football away days. With some friends we do a weekly/bi-weekly night where we watch a bad movie and play board games and potluck the food.
Just by myself, I do a lot of crosswords, watch movies, dig my allotment, go for long walks, play video games with interesting audiobooks and podcasts on, sometimes cook or bake something interesting for fun (although I'm not great).
And of course, post here for a break from the reactionary hegemony of national media.
I can still feel alienated or hopeless about positive change sometimes, but it all goes a long way to helping most of the time.
hang out with my baby and build communism with
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society
That said, for me it's drugs and hanging out with friends
Organizing and grilling.
Weed. Lots and lots of weed. And my new gf
sorbet. yes, really.
Random thought, but have you thought of posting some sort of Marxist reading club on social media.
By successfully minecrafting the
and 
government servers while blasting "Son of al-Qassam". I would like to believe that the iSSraeli MoD network getting 
'd "by a bunch of 16-year old online communists" has at least resulted in a Palestinian family escaping to South Africa or wherever and a 
taking a Yassin-105 into their shit-loaded nappies. 
Also doing a little bit of jihad on some South African zionists too for Nelson Mandela Day on Thursday.
Death to AmeriKKKa
I think I've slowly gone insane, and it's one of the only things that bring me Solace. (Seriously tho, I've stopped giving so little fucks that things are falling apart, luckily I work at a really lax job or I would probably be on the streets. I see everything around me as a joke, why take anything seriously in this pathetically fucked up system.)
That and getting outside away from everything, bht even then there are signs everywhere that remind me about how shit things are.
It's hard to find a truely isolated place to enjoy.
general drug/alcohol addiction, ymmv with this strategy
A mix of jokerfication and grill pill.
I don't.
100mg spiro 4mg estradiol per day (joining an org helps too)
I spend way too much money on weed
I'm not American but I live in the EU. I don't stay sane, I just am insane like a lot of people here and comrades in general. I'm deeply depressed and suffer from autistic burnout which has prevented me from working for some time. I try to vary my activities but a lot of my time is spent just getting high and playing videogames, which isn't the most harmful cope I guess but it can be mind numbing. alcohol is the mind killer, I'm an alcoholic too but have had a good amount of control over it for the past year or so. I just take things one day at a time. i try to keep learning, reading theory and history as well as fiction when I have the energy. i think the best thing you can do is go outside and foster real human connection but it's hard. I'm lucky to have my gfs who I love, I couldn't go on in this struggle without them.
Step one be born petty privileged
There's no step 2
most important factor in staying sane is doing something that you think is politically worthwhile. go join an org, you'll also get some friends who are communists
Wellbutrin, Buspar, and a fuck ton of weed
I don't think I am
That's the fun part
A mix between distracting myself with media and coping with spirituality.
In the current world, we're stuck in the middle of a dark stormy ocean being thrown about by forces beyond our control. The most we can do is to attempt to build a raft and wait out the storm. Maybe you'll be picked by another's raft tomorrow and be fine. Maybe you'll drown before you even have a chance to build your own.
I don't know that I stay sane, but mostly I focus on my hobbies when I can. Having hobbies is nice. Making things is nice.
Short answer: Denial.
Better answer: I have one short term goal to keep myself busy, becoming financially independent enough to move out and finding out just wtf I want to do with my life. In the meantime, I've just taken the grillpill. I need to be less online and the more I try some politics-adjacent hobbies like history or literature, the better.
The righteous determination of someone who knows that capitalism is unstable and that we will win.
The knowledge that every step of the way most of our ancestors from the working class each fought and struggled to make life a little better for their children, and sometimes they succeeded.
Never stop trying to improve the conditions of the entire species, it is a fundamental quality of life that capitalism tries to squash.
Channel the rage that won us the weekend
I have gone back to school so that I can eventually leave. I flip back and forth on duoloingo between Spanish and mandarin so when it comes time to pay back student loans I will just deffect
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