MEHLANCHOLIA

Eating and moving are the two things I struggle to do the most when I'm alone. My body feels like a burden. I wait until my needs become so urgent that I have no choice but to get out of bed, eat the few foods in my fridge, open the window to get some air, take a few steps outside my room. When I get out of bed, my blood rushes to my head very quickly, and suddenly, I can't see anything. I'm anaemic, I'm tired, I have so little strength, my body is weak. I am weak.

I spend a lot of time on Instagram watching reels. The other day, I came across a video that I was able to focus on for more than 15 seconds (huge). The video simply pointed out, without any real pretension, that a bird that doesn't fly, a horse that doesn't run, and a monkey that doesn't climb are sick animals.

Had it slipped my mind that I'm sick too? I already knew it. But this time, it was different. Because it's never been so obvious to me that I am in a morbid state. So, I said to myself: "I'm going to move my body". And since it is very common for me to plan things that I never do, I asked my wonderful lover for help. I told him: "I want to move my body".

We plan to go hiking very soon (as soon as the weather becomes a little gentler) to realize one of my dearest dreams (or rather, a fantasy): yes, I'm finally going to live my cottagecore/earthcore/goblincore/forestcore/fairycore life. More seriously, I really liked walking in nature as a kid until the very beginning of my adolescence, right when I fell into internet addiction (and depression too). I often dreamed of getting lost in the forest, so much that I sometimes deliberately took hazardous paths in the hope of not finding my way back. I haven't tried to understand this strange desire yet, but I would like to reawaken my love for large organic labyrinths.

I don't blame myself for being so static and passive. I think it's a natural consequence of my mental state, obviously, but also of my painful memories of PE classes in high school. I ended up considering that sport wasn't for me and either way, it attracted me very little. I don’t like sports for sports’ sake, ball games, running, etc. I want to hike mountains, explore forests, overcome obstacles and control my body instead of being controlled by it. That’s what I loved when I was younger, and that’s what I’ve forgotten over time. Anyway, I can’t wait to go hiking (and find out if this drivel was pure romanticization or if I really like this shit…).

In the meantime, my boyfriend encourages me to slowly get back in shape, especially by dragging me to his bouldering sessions. Turns out I love it. Its only flaw is its price. It is incredibly expensive, and the only available discounts are quite ridiculous. Thank goodness I found a way to pay them (my man). We also plan to go walking for a few hours in the forests on the outskirts of Paris, but again, we're waiting for the weather to be good! One (or more) blog posts will be dedicated to my hike. I can’t wait to write about it!

Notre voiture a été incendiée. La veille, des voitures avaient déjà été brûlées à quelques centaines de mètres de chez moi. On s'attendait à ce qu'ils renouvellent leurs conneries le lendemain, mais on n'imaginait pas qu'on en serait les victimes. Je suis tellement désespérée de voir comment les cités s'autodétruisent. Je ne partage aucune forme de sympathie envers ceux qui osent s'en prendre à des personnes qui sont déjà fragilisées, y compris lorsqu'elles font partie de ma communauté. Mais le fait est que, justement, on appartient à la même communauté. Ce n'est pas seulement une question de race (au sens de classe), mais aussi d'une condition socio-économique partagée. Et donc, autant je condamne ces imbéciles, autant je sais que la faute reviendra toujours ultimement à un Etat qui rend possible ce genre d'aberrations. L'insécurité, c'est un fait, et je ne laisserai jamais ceux qui n'habitent pas les cités en diminuer l'ampleur. Le problème c'est que certains (la droite et l'extrême droite) croient que c'est par la répression qu'elle se résoudra (et accessoirement, ils instrumentalisent ce sentiment pour diffuser leur idéologie raciste en essentialisant ces comportements). Mais la réalité nous montre que c'est absolument inefficace. Des opérations policières de grande envergure ont déjà été menées pour soi-disant "sécuriser" (mais nous savons tous que l'objectif est purement punitif) les quartiers difficiles de ma ville. Bilan : les points de deal ont été légèrement déplacés, les conflits armés ont repris progressivement, et les victimes continuent de se multiplier. Ce qu'il faut, c'est donner aux générations futures les moyens d'éviter d'être aussi pathétiques que leurs aînés. Cela passe bien évidemment par l'éducation, avec des interventions très tôt à l'école pour sensibiliser les enfants, mais ce qu'il nous faut avant tout ce sont des conditions de vie dignes pour toutes et tous. Parce que quand on n'a déjà rien à perdre, on n'éprouve pas de regret à détruire le peu qu'on a.

C'est bien modeste comme demande. Et pourtant.

Why can’t you give me a clear answer to my question? Please, think. Please, look at me, listen, think, then answer. Think while you answer. Think with me. I want to think with you, but you don’t want to. Stop using your storage. I don’t care about your storage. Please, answer me. Why do you believe what you believe? Why do you do what you do? Be honest. Be honest, please. No no no I don’t understand your answer. I can’t accept your answer. I don’t know how to do this; I am so sorry. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to talk to you, I won’t be able to. I feel lonely. I am crying. I might be insane.

I finally switched to Ubuntu after hesitating for six months and I am… disappointed. I deeply resonate with the open-source movement, and I love being more conscious and in control of my electronic devices – which Unix-like operating systems encourage (at least more than Windows or macOS lol). When I first installed Ubuntu I absolutely loved it: the interface is aesthetically pleasing, my laptop doesn’t lag at all (which it did with Windows 10) and it is very beginner-friendly. However, it drains my battery so fucking fast that I can’t even watch a 2-hour movie without having to charge it. I read from several forums that it is most likely because laptops are tuned for Windows and I can’t do much more than some tweaks that will give me a slightly better battery life (this also applies to other distros). I cannot imagine how tedious it will be to charge my computer every two hours as a college student whose main working tool is her laptop. I’m afraid I will return to Windows – which I’m definitely not keen on.

I swear I’m looking for the slightest bit of inspiration to write because I love having a personal website and it would absolutely break my heart if I abandoned this project. But I sincerely do not have anything important to say. So I thought of simply sharing what a typical day in my life looks like at the moment. (This is for all my depressed homies, dwelling in the summer boredom or anything of resemblance).

• Get up at 10 am.
• Breakfast.
• Learn modern standard Arabic (productive activity count: 1).
• Brainrot to compensate for brain effort.
• Eat.
• Complain to someone about how much I hate the current state of politics.
• Complain to someone about the shitty weather (la pluie en big juillet) and using it as an excuse for not leaving my house (I would have stayed at home anyway).
• Nap for 1 or 2hrs.
• Eat.
• Eventually watch a movie after browsing my watchlist for 30 minutes.
• Listen to music. Optional: think about the problems I’m distancing myself from and cry.
• Brainrot until brain battery is drained.
• Sleep.

Jokes aside, I genuinely wonder what the fuck people do with their time, especially in summer. It can get so boring, so empty, so, so lonely. Maybe it is because people have friends they see regularly and I... don’t.

Are you lying? The words you use are not the right size for your thought. The words you use are too big for the things you’d like to express. Why do you use big words if your thoughts aren’t as big? Why do you use those words? Is it the truth you want to tell? I think you just want to tell something beautiful. But truth and beauty are not the same thing. It doesn’t imply they are incompatible, for they can meet (see mathematics). But they also are often mistaken with each other (see philosophy). Truth and beauty, they are not the same. I know a lot of words that sound beautiful: eternity, absolute, God. But they are almost always used to tell lies. Choosing to use big words is no innocent decision. Because truth requires clarity, while playing with ambiguity is the perfect way to lie.

Nine months have passed. But they don’t count. I don’t want them to count. My life completely fell apart nine months ago. Yet I remain under the rubble of the brittle structure which held my life together. I swear that I tried to get out. But perhaps I was too naïve to rely on the good old methods of dealing with my problems. “You have to start all over.” Change everything around you. Hope that it will change you, too.

  But it never did.

     But that’s all I know.

I usually avoid talking about my position on animal rights if nobody asks, but whenever someone brings the topic to the table, whether by joking about eating "meat", i.e. corpses of sentient beings, or by simply asking me why I refuse to eat a certain dish, I can't help but talk about my veganism. Today was one of those days where the topic was brought up in a very displeasing manner.

I was half-listening to my epistemology lecture when my professor said something that caught my attention: "the fact that plants and animals have certain abilities doesn't imply a moral duty towards them". To him there was a risk of making a naturalistic fallacy: inferring a moral duty from a natural fact ("animals and plants have x ability"). The ability discussed was the one to communicate, but he then said that even if we discovered that they were able to suffer (and animals do suffer, although we don't know much about plants), the conclusion would be the same. And, not very surprisingly may I say, he proceeded to mock those foolish vegans who, God forbid, say that we shouldn't eat (I correct him: exploit) animals because they suffer. According to him, when trying to justify the choice to not eat animals, we end up lacking rational reasons to support it. If you're even slightly familiar with moral philosophy, you already know that the same problem arises when you try to justify any moral decision.

During the pause between the two hours of his lecture, I presented my objection to him. He said that he agreed, but then added that veganism is a matter of the privileged and that by affirming what he probably saw as an identity (it isn't, it is an ethical and philosophical position), we would be claiming our moral superiority to those who eat animals. I will show what's wrong in his answer (a longer article about veganism is already planned for my thoughts page) and move on to rant about the type of person he represents: deeply politicized and involved in the mainstream social justice causes (feminism, antiracism, blah blah) while also completely ignorant or disregardful of the controversial ones (even when they are theoretically coherent and accepted by the intellectuals that bother thinking about it).

1) There is no naturalistic fallacy in saying that if animals suffer, we have a duty towards them. Firstly, because the naturalistic fallacy takes the next form: "x is natural, thus x is good". The argument discussed can't be reduced to this form. Secondly, because in this case, the moral duty comes from the negative value we give to suffering, whereas the naturalistic fallacy gives moral value to whatever is natural. Not only his argument was wrong, but also, I have yet to encounter a single moral theory that doesn't give suffering, in and for itself, a negative value.
2) Veganism isn't for the privileged, it is for anybody that cares about suffering. Firstly, if you really, really didn't have the choice (which is seldom the case), then you should already know that ethics presuppose freedom of choice. No freedom, no moral judgment. Next question. Secondly, plants are cheaper than corpses. You don't have to eat avocado toast to be vegan. Eat salad. Eat vegetable couscous. Eat fucking pasta and rice. Thirdly, if you care that much about the unprivileged, why don't you fight for vegan products to be cheaper? The problem isn't: "oh, it takes privilege to be moral so I'll stop being moral so that I can role-play as an unprivileged person", but "how can we make ethical options more accessible to everyone?".
3) Claiming you're vegan doesn't make you seem more morally superior than claiming you're an antiracist, a feminist, an anticapitalist, etc. I think my professor brought this up because, perhaps for once, he was in the supposedly morally inferior club. It is a common reaction from carnists to feel immediately attacked when I say that I am vegan or that I support veganism. It is quite clear to me that if people get this uncomfortable discussing this question it is because they somehow already know that there is something wrong with eating animals. They feel as if I'm accusing them of being immoral because I was probably shedding light on a painful truth - a moral truth about themselves. But in fact, I am not here to judge you. I don't know who you are. But I can know what you do. So if you eat animals when you could avoid it, you are doing something wrong. That's it.

Although I already had plenty of debates with stubborn, often arrogant carnists, this one was particularly annoying. My professor loves giving a political twist to his lectures, and I appreciate it. He frequently shows how seemingly harmless ideas might be oppressive. But what about the idea that veganism is foolish? The irony in this is that he talked about how animals could be subjected to epistemic injustice when we refuse to recognize them as individuals who possess knowledge, consciousness, or a form of rationality. But my brother in Christ, you eat a fucking tortured chicken every two days and that's the best example of injustice towards animals you could find?

There is a huge moral "blind spot" in our societies. But I refuse to look away from reality. Animals deserve respect.

I dreamed that I was late for an important class. I missed half of it. Yet I forced myself to go to the 30 useless, mind-numbing remaining minutes.

While walking to university, I noticed red droplets falling on my shirt. My nose was bleeding. Suddenly, my face, hands, and clothes were completely covered in blood. I had two options. 1) Call for help and return home. 2) Don't miss my holy, sacrosanct class. I chose the latter. "At least my professor would know that my lateness was genuinely justified."

Imagine how miserable I looked. A young woman covered in blood, barely managing to stand up, desperately trying to walk while her body screamed for even the slightest attention. If a passerby tried to help me, I might have answered that I just needed to be taken to university as soon as possible.

I woke up feeling pitiful. Replace nose bleeding with severe depression: it's no longer a dream I'm describing.

We always end up alone. Seldom before death, but always afterwards. I am 20 years old and my flesh is already rotting.

It's a Sunday afternoon, 2:43 p.m. I'm quietly lying in my bed. The curtains are closed.
One minute passed.
One more now.
Three. When time passes it means that we can distinguish a before and an after. There is movement. There is change.

Time doesn't exist for me.

I always dreamt about having my own personal space on the internet where I could share whatever I wanted without any format restraints. I am mainly using my website as an alternative to social media. However, both function in very different ways. Almost nobody is going to read what I post here, whereas I always had an audience in my socials that I knew would interact with me at some point. I don't know if I will be able to keep my website going if nobody visits it. And at the same time, it is necessary to put aside my expectations and purely post without having constantly in mind who will see it, what they'll think about it, etc. Social media pushes these thoughts to their very extreme: we all know how people can end up staging their lives online. They are permanently aware of the Other's gaze, and they want to appear as appealing as possible to them. Perhaps, in a very narcissistic fashion, they only post so that they can see themselves being watched.

This is less likely to happen in the indie web, since the moment you post you already know that only a tiny bunch of people will give a fuck about you. You have to post for the sake of it. Merely curating a superficial digital identity is not sufficient to make you stay here.