Solitude as a way of life

Forest Pool by M.K. Hajdin

There are two kinds of people:  those who have spent most of their adult lives partnered, and those who have not.

I’m one of the latter, and I feel like we’re a minority among all the happy (or happy-seeming) couples out there. But I have found a number of other people who have spent their adult lives alone, too, and it helped me to feel less weird about it.

I wonder if there are any reading my blog and if they’d like to share their stories. It doesn’t matter if you are willingly or unwillingly without a partner.

Art of the Day: Chloe Holt

By Chloe Holt.

This is a painting of sunlight falling on preserve pots, by UK artist Chloe Holt.

Chloe Holt can be found on Twitter as @ChloeHoltArt

and her website is here.

Not okay

I’m not okay with men trying to tell me how to do feminism, or that my kind of feminism is wrong, or that I should stop thinking and talking about the oppression of women and be more “positive” so they don’t ever have to endure any discomfort or think about what it means to be a member of a dominant class that is actively hurting and killing women every day.

On oppression

Drained Dustbowl Oceans by M.K. Hajdin

Oppression is a very specific social condition related to resource extraction on a class-wide basis. It has nothing to do with personal feelings or individual experiences.  — Jonah Mix

Men do most of the killing, especially men in the power racial castes. If you are not in a socially defined caste that does by far most of the killing, you have no ethical obligation to fix this. If you are in a caste that catches much of such violence, you are under no ethical obligation to do anything other than protect yourself, and indeed that might be the best strategy. — Miep Rowan O’Brien

 

Oppression: not a feeling.

Also, people can’t oppress themselves.