P.S. A link to this video upload with auto-generated captions is available at the bottom of the newsletter.
It me- sending this later than I planned because my first week on-call here was v tiring. But here I am doin’ my best & trying to not to tell myself that I have to “produce” at a X rate to be worthy of support (but I still do? It’s a process I guess?)
It’s really difficult to break from capitalist, colonial conditioning while having to engage with these systems on a daily basis to survive. It takes practice to live your life divested from oppressive norms while plugging back into systems when you absolutely have to for survival & still try your best to embody your political values within them. It takes practice to realize what your “systemic boundaries” are & accept that you don’t have to thrive in every system that wasn’t built for you.
You might also KNOW logically in your head that capitalism/ colonialism make us feel alone & isolated but we are not, they socializes us to conflate our worth with “success” or productivity but we are worthy of support/ love/ resources merely because we exist, they make people curate illusions of “perfect” lives on social media but we are all struggling, they force social norms & constructs onto us but we are complex non-binary beings that don’t have to conform & take on labels, they build hierarchies to divide us, make us feel inferior or superior to others but there are no hierarchies in nature except those that humans build to dominate it etc etc. BUT, emotionally BELIEVING these things is a whole other ball game.
In Part I of the newsletter on this topic, I broke down a personal crisis I’m navigating & explained all the sociopolitical factors that have shaped why I feel like a failure in life if I’m not “exceptional” & why I’ve believed for so long that I am unworthy of survival, love & care if I’m not “the best” at something. Feel free to read that if you haven’t.
In the video above, I breakdown how political values of abolition & anarchy can be applied as a crisis or distress management tools & how I’m trying to devise long-term strategies to build a sustainable foundation for my life that I can call “home”. It’s long but I know many folks have asked for these concepts to really be broken down in a way that allows you & your loved ones to translate it into your own life. I will capture some major points from the video below for folks who learn best by reading ~
Self-reflection questions that serve as tools for you to understand the political context of your distress
Some of these are big picture Qs & some are specific to crises related to struggling with your worth being “judged” by capitalist metrics of success (either way if you sit with the “type” of Qs, how I frame them, you’ll be able to apply it to any crisis)
Just like what the political process of abolition is about not just tearing down oppressive systems but also simultaneously building community-based systems of care, the personal process of abolition is also about dismantling yourself while building yourself more intentionally. If you’re not defined by oppressive norms, who are you?
