&mdash; [@gemmacorrell](https://www.instagram.com/p/CIytiNhjyaJ/) --- # Christmas special ---  Note: It has been a year. The world was going to hell in a handbasket already and now there seems to be a highway. People have been dying due to the inadequacy and soft balls of governments, who seem to have **all the balls**, when it comes to discriminating against everybody except themselves. This includes women, trans people, queer people, people of colour, poor people, fat people, disabled people and all of theirs access to basic human rights, including adequate and timely medical assistance. Heaven forbid you'd belong to several of these categories and things get exponentially worse. Spoiler alert: it is not you, it is the patriarchy [ugh.]. ---  Note: To recap some of the lowpoints: white people, including 55% of women, in America said 'I'll have four more years of that, please' after the twat in the White House had let 250,000 people die, has now pro-life anti-maskers running the Supreme Court and has only occasional contact points with the reality. This might not seem like a no biggie here, but in the same vein, the Estonian government - now in its fifth year - is actively looking ways to limit marriage and abortion rights, access to mental health care, a person's right to choosing their name and cutting child maintenance pay (*elatisraha* in Estonian). ---- <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="et" dir="ltr">Läti kuulutas tervishoiusüsteemi ülekoormuse tõttu välja eriolukorra. Leedus on arstid sunnitud valima, kes pääseb intensiivravile. Kuna Eestiski viiruslevik kasvab ja haiglaid ähvardab ülekoormus, koguneb esmaspäeval Riigikogu, et arutada abielureferendumit.</p>&mdash; Poliitilised Pildid (@PPildid) <a href="https://twitter.com/PPildid/status/1337401793425379334?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2020</a></blockquote> ----  &mdash; Poliitilised Pildid (@PPildid) <a href="https://twitter.com/PPildid/status/1318538683373539331?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 20, 2020</a> ---  &mdash; [@theorispresent](https://www.instagram.com/p/BwZVR0tl2OC/) Note: At the same time, the global North's problem with overconsumption has steepened over the last few decades to a point where the global South is simultaneously reprieved of human rights in the manufacturing process and at the same time smothered by the waste and the brunt of the climate crisis. Just like in the Medieval narratives I research, the making of textiles is marginalised and kept out of sight. ----  &mdash; [@theorispresent](https://www.instagram.com/p/BwUOe0el6Mm/) ----  &mdash; [@theorispresent](https://www.instagram.com/p/B68-5rAhpgQ/) ----  &mdash: [@aboubakarfofana](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh7NYx5BEHJ/) ---- Excellent reading on fast fashion - [@ajabarber](https://www.instagram.com/ajabarber/) ---  Note: As we discussed last time, acknowledging the state of things can be empowering and I believe recognising that there is no point in damselling is even more so. --- > "[S]urvival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." > &mdash; [Audre Lorde](https://http://s18.middlebury.edu/AMST0325A/Lorde_The_Masters_Tools.pdf) Note: My name is Kait and I am a bricoleur. According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, a bricoleur is essentially a forager. Everything can be adapted and repurposed for the project at hand. There is a Estonian folktale about a man from Hiiumaa, who comes down the road, sees a dead crow, picks it up and stuffs it into his pocket with the words: 'Äkki läheb taris.' or 'Might need it.' Come autumn, he goes to pick up his fur coat and finds said corvid. And he throws it out with the words: 'Ei läind taris' or 'Didn't need it.' This is another way to say that everything I do, read, or otherwise engage with, somehow finds its way into my research. I have long resisted this idea and reasoned with myself that repurposing procrastination and my lack of focus as a research methodology is improper. Instead, in a true forager manner, I am now embracing the process and proudly incorporating whatever necessary into my research. Everything goes: ----  ---  Note: Everything goes: - the academic reading, - the spinning, - the tweets that don't seem radical, but aggregate into a mindset, - the microaggressions, - the mending, - the feminist self-help, - the feeling of being stuck, - the daily smashing. Especially after the gender conference, where Susanna Paasonen gave an insight into her own methods. ---- > ###### The ‘bricoleur’ is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks; but, unlike the engineer, he does not subordinate each of them to the availability of raw materials and tools conceived and procured for the purpose of the project. > ###### His universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with ‘whatever is at hand’, that is to say with a set of tools and materials which is always finite and is also heterogeneous because what it contains bears no relation to the current project, or indeed to any particular project, but is the contingent result of all the occasions there have been to renew or enrich the stock or to maintain it with the remains of previous constructions or destructions. > ###### &mdash; Lévi-Strauss [*The Savage Mind*](http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/levistrauss.pdf), pp. 11-12 ---- > ###### The set of the ‘bricoleur’s’ means cannot therefore be defined in terms of a project (which would presuppose besides, that, as in the case of the engineer, there were, at least in theory, as many sets of tools and materials or ‘instrumental sets’, as there are different kinds of projects). > ###### It is to be defined only by its potential use or, putting this another way and in the language of the ‘bricoleur’ himself, because the elements are collected or retained on the principle that ‘they may always come in handy’. Such elements are specialized up to a point, sufficiently for the ‘bricoleur’ not to need the equipment and knowledge of all trades and professions, but not enough for each of them to have only one definite and determinate use. They each represent a set of actual and possible relations; they are ‘operators’ but they can be used for any operations of the same type. > ###### &mdash; Lévi-Strauss [*The Savage Mind*](http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/levistrauss.pdf), pp. 11-12 --- It is all a side-effect > "I came to Twitter for the science, but now I am an anarchist." > &mdash; Someone on Twitter Note: My skill set for researching clothing depicted in the Medieval Icelandic literature, is quite a bricolage in itself. I have a Master's in Scandinavian Literatures and Languages plus a vocational degree (*kutseharidus* in Estonian) in traditional Estonian textiles and not least, I am constantly making and mending my family's everyday wardrobe. In addition, I am now striving to become fluent in digital humanities, because I find it instrumental, but it is bloody hard, when there is no community to turn for help, there is only one Google to rule us all. ---  I made these slides like a fancy programmer! Note: In any case, here I am and suddenly everything has come together in the sense that I have a shiny digital corpus with 1.5 million words from different genres of the Icelandic sagas, it is all lemmatised and machine-actionable. I have considerably upped my skills over the past three years I have kindly been allowed to spend as a first-year student gathering my supplies. Now it simply remains to work the magic, but as it has turned out, the path is still very much undiscovered and often, when I ask for guidance, the answers range from 'I don't have the answer' (and nobody has the bandwidth to look for answers) to accusing me of having badly formatted data. ---  Note: It is exhausting. Existing as a woman and refusing to be gaslighted constantly is exhausting. The pandemic is exhausting. The burden of expected productivity is exhausting. So, what to we do? ---  Note: I would like to invite you all to the church of Burnout. It is a self-help book, but it is not the type of 'love thy neighbour, don't beat your wife too often, wash hands', but of the more practical type. If somebody is later interested in joining the congregation, then I have a spare copy, plus Hella, Sven and Marika should have a copy each. Otherwise, I suggest supporting a local business, such as the Krisostomus bookshop which also offers free shipping to your nearest *pakiautomaat*. ---- [Official homepage](https://www.burnoutbook.net/) Order from [kriso.ee](https://www.kriso.ee/cgi-bin/shop/searchbooks.html?field=keyword&database=english2&keyword=Burnout+nagoski) ---  Note: These are the authors, twin sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski. Who wouldn't want to smash some patriarchy with them? ---- tl;dr: [Self-care is not the answer](https://www.powells.com/post/original-essays/the-answer-is-not-selfcare) ---- For more smashing: The Feminist Survival Project [@fsp2020](https://www.instagram.com/fsp2020/) ---  Note: There is no secret, there is science. A lot of it. --- The patriarchy [ugh]. Note: The book openly acknowledges that the game is rigged - we need help now, not sometime in the future. We need to fix ourselves in order to be able to beat the system. --- Complete the cycle Note: One of the most eye-opening things in the book is the distinction between the stress and the stressor. Getting out of a shitty situation or escaping a lion deals with the stressor, but the stress is still in the body. This needs to be removed from the body by means of physical activity (crying will do). --- Persist. Redefine goals. Note: The Monitor keeps a running tally of goals and gets frustrated when things do not progress as expected. Guidelines for goals: soon, certain, positive, concrete, specific, personal. Such as 'smash daily'. Know when to give up. --- Engage with your something larger Note: The something larger is something we engage with in order to leave the world a better place than it was. I am currently talking to you about this book. Other times, I mend clothing. It's not always fun, but it gives me a sense of purpose as in there is less waste and there is less money given to gigantic multibillion corporations. ---- <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Making stuff is powerful. Making stuff gives you agency. Making stuff transforms. Making stuff makes something out of nothing. Go make stuff</p>&mdash; Karie Westermann (@kariebookish) <a href="https://twitter.com/kariebookish/status/823467431381336064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 23, 2017</a></blockquote> --- The Human Giver Syndrome Note: This is the internalised belief that there are Human Beings and Human Givers. Human Givers need to be attentive to others and remain calm and pretty in spite of anything they get thrown at. Believing that failing at that, we deserve to be punished and believing this is **normal**. The Monitor is adjusted to the goal of being happy and attentive to others. The mending pile grows or the article sits unwritten --- > The stress responce cycle, the Monitor and meaning are all resources you carry wtih you into the battle against the real enemy. > &mdash; Nagoski & Nagoski *Burnout*, p 74 --- The Bikini Industrial Complex Note: This is the industry that says 'Because you're worth it' and then asserts you are worth nothing if you do not chase the next goalpost. It is the industry that perpetually bodyshames - but it is not the bodies, it is the industry that despite making oodles of profits, chooses to exclude larger bodies and make limp excuses. Our bodies are not the problem, the Bikini Industrial Complex is. Again, this is the whole framework which gaslights us into thinking we are wrong, whereas the game is rigged. ---- Excellent reading on fatphobia - [@yrfatfriend](https://www.instagram.com/p/CGNO7NaFANB/) --- The Bubble of Love Note: We are not made for doing great things alone. We need a herd. The herd can be intentionally built. We are made to flow between autonomy and connection, exactly like we are meant to flow between stress and calm. The Bubble can be built with intention. There can be several. "Blood is thicker than water" has always seemed to me with interesting family dynamics a bit patronising to say the least, but apparently, the quote is supposed to be "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." THIS IS NOT SELF-CARE. THIS IS COMMUNITY CARE. --- The Madwoman in the Attic Note: This term is inspired by Jane Eyre and the madwoman is the screeching voice that tries to manage the chasm between the Human Giver Syndrome and our own selves. She is exhausted. She wants compassion. And when we are compassionate towards the madwoman in the attic, we are compassionate towards ourselves. Be kind to yourself. --- <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Do not let capitalism and white supremacy gaslight you. <br><br>You already divine. <br>Rest is your right.</p>&mdash; The Nap Ministry (@TheNapMinistry) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheNapMinistry/status/1338619295287439360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 14, 2020</a></blockquote> ---  ###### [Anything really is possible.](https://twitter.com/i/status/1290019013917990912)