7/6/17

i'm thankful for nice moments amid shitty days, which are always there in the mud if you look hard enough for them (and i'm thankful you don't even really have to work so hard). i'm thankful that i got a very helpful and nice answer about the API i was having trouble working with the other day. i'm thankful that though i didn't have much time to work on a project, i was able to get the skeleton of some new functionality working in the small amount of time i did have. i'm thankful for a coworker who taught me a very helpful trick about how our app works that will be helpful in the future (and was helpful in the moment yesterday). i'm thankful when i have customers who are polite and kind and understanding and generous and i'm thankful that that's true of a much larger percentage of customers than those who aren't. i'm thankful that in a meeting where i felt shitty i spoke my mind (and then documented it in writing) rather than swallowing how i felt—i'm thankful at this stage in my life to know that even if honesty is difficult and scary, it's better to find a way to be honest than to bottle up feelings.

i'm thankful that though i thought, after my booster antidepressant backfired a cloud of emotional exhaust, that i might try to stick with my current doses of my current medicine for a while, i'm thankful to have observed myself and to know i should ask for something else at my next doctor's visit. i'm thankful to have a supportive and friendly doctor and the insurance to be able to afford frequent doctor's visits and medication. i'm thankful for the weirdness of being on mood-altering medication and how that affects how you think about your feelings, how hard it is to tell whether a feeling you're having is a product of your neurochemistry or how your consciousness interprets a given thing on a given day (a thing which might have been innocuous if it hit you at a different time and place) or a "valid" reaction to dealing with something difficult.

i'm thankful to understand the basic leftist argument i have heard against antidepressants, the idea that the various bad feelings we have on a daily basis are reflections of our subjugation and oppression and stress under capitalism and antidepressants are medications created by the pharmaceutical industry as a way of convincing us that our emotional reactions to the chasms that the strain of capitalism opens in our lives are actually illnesses that these expensive medicines can "cure" by making it possible for us to continue to handle the increasing strain of this system instead of facing its horrors unmedicated doing things to change it and make it better, and i'm thankful to believe that is on some level valid, but i'm thankful to know how much my life and the lives of people i know have been changed for the better by these medications, without which i honestly don't know if i would be alive. i'm thankful to admire simone weil and other people who put their money where their mouth is re: the suffering of others and the world, even if i don't feel like a strong enough person to be able to do that all the time. i'm thankful to want to be alive and happy and functional to see our world become a better place and i'm thankful that even on shitty days (for the world, for myself), i retain hope that this is possible.

i'm thankful for the rise and fall of d.o.d.o, which so far is a light and relaxing novel about magic and time travel. i'm thankful that though i got nauseous yesterday evening because i didn't eat enough, i recovered and was able to eat a slice of cake. i'm thankful that i beat a divine beast in zelda without consulting a website strategy guide, which was satisfying. i'm thankful for the new power i received for beating the boss, which i think will have a radical effect on the things i can do in the game. i'm thankful, after playing for tens of hours, to have learned that there is a run button. i'm thankful that d fell asleep yesterday evening while playing persona and i'm thankful for the picture i took of her sprawled out on the couch, her hands loosely holding a controller. i'm thankful that i have band practice tonight, which is such a comfort, like knowing that after dinner you are going to eat a lovely dessert. i'm thankful i will probably eat dessert too, so there will be two things to celebrate.