I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.
I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:
Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)
Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)
Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often
Eat dessert first
Celebrate well, and often
Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)
Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.
Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate
Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)
Walk without having a specific destination or goal
Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.
I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.
There was a TikTok post about an advertisement for “blood-making pills for weak women” someone found in a newspaper from the 1890s and everybody seemed to think it was just an example of the weird misogyny of the day and age but no. Anemia was a massive public health concern. It always has been through history but part of the reason we have this idea of old timey women thought history being physical weak, chronically cold and pale and fainting is because they often they were. Anemia was also a massive problem for men in that day but even now it disproportionally affects people who menstruate. So tonics full of stimulants and “healthful vitamins” were marketed at young women in pages upon pages of advertisements in every newspaper. People generally felt like shit all the time back then.
Personally, I am going to tax my thoughts of doom.
In the past I used to donate to LGBTIQ+ Military (Ukrainian NGO) whenever I saw something stupid said about the war online. Today I am donating a fixed amount for every hour I spend thinking how we are fucked.
Donation link: English version, Ukrainian version.
Congratulations to Thailand 🏳️🌈
Countries Where same-sex marriage is legal: ⏬
2001: Netherlands 🇳🇱
2003: Belgium 🇧🇪
2005: Canada 🇨🇦, Spain 🇪🇸
2006: South Africa 🇿🇦
2009: Norway 🇳🇴, Sweden 🇸🇪
2010: Argentina 🇦🇷, Iceland 🇮🇸, Portugal 🇵🇹
2012: Denmark 🇩🇰
2013: Brazil 🇧🇷, England 🏴, Wales 🏴, France 🇫🇷, New Zealand 🇳🇿, Uruguay 🇺🇾
2014: Luxembourg 🇱🇺, Scotland 🏴
2015: Finland 🇫🇮, Ireland 🇮🇪, USA 🇺🇸
2016: Colombia 🇨🇴, Greenland 🇬🇱
2017: Australia 🇦🇺, Malta 🇲🇹, Germany 🇩🇪
2019: Austria 🇦🇹, Ecuador 🇪🇨, Taiwan 🇹🇼, Northern Ireland
2020: Costa Rica 🇨🇷
2021: Chile 🇨🇱
2022: Switzerland 🇨🇭, Slovenia 🇸🇮, Cuba 🇨🇺
2023: Andorra 🇦🇩
2024: Estonia 🇪🇪, Greece 🇬🇷, Thailand 🇹🇭
Happy Pride Everyone 💐🏳️🌈
My transmasc experience was being fine being seen as a girl but growing up and hating the idea of being seen as a woman. “Young woman” was too much for me even before I knew I was trans. Womanhood seemed to come with so many more expectations for gender conformity than girlhood. As many other trans men and mascs have shared, about when I hit puberty was when I started being gifted makeup and spa kits that I was so uninterested in and never used, instead of toys and books and art supplies like before. I understand what people mean when they say “child” is treated like a separate gender.
We celebrate David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Prince for their gender-nonconforming amazingness as we should, but let us not forget
Annie Lennox
Grace Jones
Sinead O‘Connor
Dolores O‘Riordan
Patti Smith
Tracy Chapman
Please add if you like, i do not own the photos
Yeah sure i was seen as ruining my body and myself when I started to present more and more masculinely yeah sure I was told all my masculine haircuts were ugly and I had horrible clothes and no man would date me with unshaved legs and short hair and my grandparents didn't want a granddaughter with a buzzcut and facial piercing and that women were losing such a valuable young lady but yeah you're right masculinity is never seen as degrading or bad
"it's easy for trans men to pass, every trans man i know passes super easily"
Yeah I love manipulating my friends for my own gain, the gain is called "hanging out", obtained via such cruel tactics as "showing interest in stuff they like" and "being generally complimentary and charming"
Yknow when you figure out you’re trans you start to realise things you never knew before
Like how that bad feeling you get about a part of your body isn’t because that’s a normal thing to feel due to it being overly sexualised but instead because you probably have gender dysphoria
shit(and sometimes serious)posts of a 22yo trans man
389 posts