Small things

  • I should probably take a second try at making a recipe that went badly the first time. *cringing face*
  • Someone said something nice about one of my posts on Tumblr! On the one hand I’m really happy. On the other hand, it would be even nicer if they’d actually talk to me about the topic of the post.

Short story:

I was captioning a video in which the speaker said something about “transgendered” teenagers. In the captions I changed it to “transgender”. It’s not really a big deal, but the best way for people to learn the most accepted language for these sorts of things is to see it more often, right?

In the hopes that the QA person wouldn’t just change it back, I added a note explaining that I intended it as a grammar correction and what the correct usage is– we’re allowed to make minor changes to correct grammar. Much to my surprise and relief, the QA person commented to agree, and support my changing it! Phew.

Come to think of it…

Not only is spontaneous empathy not necessary to make moral decisions and be a good person, in fact, the majority of morality is learning how to treat people well even when you don’t have empathy for them.

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This is just one example, and it’s very Christian, because that’s how I was raised, but:

The story of the good Samaritan: When you see someone who might be in trouble, and instead of thinking “Oh, that poor person! I’ll help them!” you think “Ew.” … you should still help them.

We tend to think of this as teaching people to have more empathy, but I don’t think that’s what it is. No matter how many times you train your subconscious to stop going “ew” at a particular group of people, there are always more people out there who you’re going to feel that way about. What we need to teach people, ideally, is to even try to care in the first place. To reconsider their gut reaction. To not assume that who they happen to feel empathy for is an accurate guide to who deserves their regard. To make a habit of thinking “What if I should care?” when their subconscious doesn’t care.

Sometimes I really just need time to be upset. I know, both in retrospect and while I’m upset, that there isn’t really anything to be upset about, but I still need to take some time. And now I’m fine.

Though today, to be honest, things would probably have gone a lot better if I’d eaten dinner at a remotely reasonable time. That probably contributed a bit.

More Rambling about Polyamory

Something just reminded me of the period of time when Sparkly and I were both in high school, and Sparkly was dating a guy. And. Heh. My (non-jealous) reaction to that, in retrospect, predicts pretty well that I would end up polyamorous.

I’m not sure if I was aware of polyamory at the time, and I definitely wasn’t thinking of my feelings for Sparkly as either romantic or sexual then, but. Still.

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So, for the majority of the time before we both left for college, Sparkly and I saw each other only once a week for choir rehearsal, and only got to actually talk to each other for maybe half an hour total? A few minutes before and after rehearsal, plus the fifteen-minute break. That was the only time in which I saw or talked to em at all. I saw my only actual friends for half an hour once a week, plus a concert or two.

At this time, I had a cell phone and Sparkly didn’t, and eir mother heavily limited and policed how much ey could use the phone at home. When ey started dating this guy, that meant ey had no regular way to talk to him outside of school. So– I don’t remember who first suggested it, but I let em use my phone during that fifteen-minute break, so ey could talk to him. And as I remember it, ey would spend pretty much the whole fifteen-minute break on the phone, and sometimes I’d sit by em and keep em company, and I felt a bit sad about not getting to talk to em as much, but mostly I was genuinely glad that I could help em talk to this guy, who ey really liked and who made em happy. I was really glad that I could make that happen, even though it meant significantly less time with em for me.

And now, of course, I feel the same way, except that I can spend plenty of time with em, and I have the knowledge that ey is committed to me and considers me equal to Numbers Guy to fall back on when I do feel lonely, and it doesn’t feel even a little bit like a sacrifice.

So I’ve actually been inclined towards polyamory since well before I ever experienced real sexual attraction or fell in love. Like several years before. Huh.

Sparkly is home, very tired and headachy from spending so much time in the car. Apparently ey felt left out during a lot of the trip, because Numbers Guy jumped into seeing all his old friends and didn’t include em very well, but they ended up having a good talk about that, and the last day went better.

Language confusion

I always interpreted the term “slut-shaming” as “making someone feel ashamed by calling them a slut”.

A lot of people are now trying to avoid that term because they see it as meaning “making someone, who is a slut, feel ashamed of it”.

I have been known to interpret language in weirdly convoluted ways, I know, but ??? It never would have occurred to me to interpret it that way.