Max Wolf Valerio, Matthew Rice and David Harrison (left to right both photos) standing in front of a picture of them all marching in the first ever FTM pride contingent in San Francisco Pride 1994 (July 2023)
I have no patience for negativity toward "boomers" anymore.
Almost everybody doing the work to restore ecosystems, grow native plants, and preserve rare species is 50 or older
The people I work with IRL have told me that my presence is encouraging because it means "the younger generation is getting involved with this stuff too." There's really not very many people my age
Who do you think was fighting this fight in the 1970's
I'm saying this as a Gen Z who is woefully lacking in these skills
Social media and the internet have really decimated my generation's ability to network and organize with people IRL
Not in the sense that That Damn Phone causes your skills to atrophy, but rather, Gen Z has no idea how people organized before social media, and no idea what anyone over 40 is doing for good in the world
The vast majority of local native plant, wildlife, and gardening organizations have NO social media presence
I could never have understood this until I started working IRL with people who are absolute powerhouses of knowledge, resources, and action about plants, animals, ecosystems, and conservation...who simply, barely know how to email
Google is not a resource
It can link you to a few resources, but it is ultimately a complicated device to make you Buy Product
Google will not even show you the best websites out there for learning about the ecosystem. At all. Google recognizes few possible interpretations of your query other than "Google, show me a bunch of advertisements for [thing] so I can Buy Product." If your research doesn't end in Buy Product, Google has no interest in helping you.
Many people think that the way of finding things out before Google was books
But that's more wrong than right.
The way of finding things out before Google was community.
Because there's some old lady in your community who has been gardening and observing wildlife for 40 years who is somehow running a sprawling native plant gardening organization and providing everyone else in your town with seeds and random produce, and she has a library's worth of knowledge absorbed from reading every book and talking to every guy who has any experience about plants, and this old lady has 87 close friends who are somehow involved in every local governmental department and private organization and business, and if she can't answer your question herself, she will be able to hand you a little scrap of note paper with the name of the exact person you need to talk to. She doesn't have an email address
Gen Z seems to regard "having connections" as a bad thing and a way of cheating your way into opportunities that you don't deserve
In reality, it's "opportunities" and "deserve" that indicates something deeply wrong and dysfunctional with our society. Outside of the numerous artificial competitive scenarios we are placed in where we strive against others to perform the ideal persona of worthiness as a human being, "having connections" is just how things get done.
Same with "being a Karen." Taking out your petty frustrations on a powerless retail worker is one thing, summoning every ounce of Upstanding Member Of Society in your middle aged white woman body to rend asunder the guy who approved of bulldozing a wetland is another
@false-binaries I mean honestly that's not far off
1. go to physical place that seems closest to the thing you want to learn about (community garden is great, nature center or farmer's market is also great)
2. observe a person that seems open to chatting with others
3. ask something along the lines of "Hi, I've been trying to learn about [thing], but I'm pretty new to it, do you happen to know anything about it?" Express curiosity about the work done by the place you are in
4. If you manage to hit it off with someone, just kinda hang out. Other people will show up to chat with the person you are talking to. You are now talking to those people as well.
to be fair this works very well for me partly because it's the south and people will talk for 30 minutes after meeting in the middle of the grocery store. but we need to normalize community
Libraries are great for this! Also, just hang around places you know there's people interested in what you're interested in.
I used to participate in a knitting circle at my library. Met all sorts of people there without a email or any social media. At the aquarium I volunteer at, there's an old dude who is very passionate about whales and he sits in front of the beluga exhibit every Thursday. He knows everything about local ocean conservation and collaborates with the local river keepers. Again, no social media and only has a joint email with his wife.
Thing to keep in mind is these people love to talk about their interests so you'll get lots of info. You can also check local news papers as many people put community events in there!
Years ago I met a lot of older people in my community by going to a monthly first aid training held at a local school in the evenings.
I’d say about 20% of the people there were learning first aid because they were young parents worried about how to keep their child alive and the other 80% were older volunteers at everything from sport clubs to community gardens to an entirely volunteer run and donation funded ride service for elderly people in small towns without public transport.
I convinced the ride service to also service an isolated refugee community, but other than that I did not end up 'organizing' with most of these people. However the connections made a huge difference. They knew they could call me if they need me and four other younger adults to move a heavy sofa up some straits, I knew I could call them to help me with stuff related to sports, gardening, rides, etc. Sometimes that helped me in my activism, sometimes just in my life.
you know what? I WILL play with jpgs like dolls. what if life could be dream
♡ littlest petshop digital keychain game ♡
"im a Boogey monster that live in your dreams" 💀🖤😱
I have been trying to redesign valentine in a way that fits g3's vibes bc I doubt he will be brought back so gotta try it myself 😭 here is.. attempt 1 !!!! i will most definitely change things abt him later if i ever draw him like this again but yknow it was a fun thing to try i think it was a decent first attempt
