ethical & honest life changes
in the past year i've made some lifestyle changes, both big and small, to live more closely to my values. the technology and general comforts i'm given as a person living in the west relies on the pain and blood of people who are dehumanised and seen as disposable by the empire. we have to do as much as we can to reduce our influence in this machine and take care of each other - including ourselves!
sooo i will occasionally report what i've changed and the progress of these changes.
here's some things i'm doing:
bought an mp3 and cancelled spotify.
buying music from bandcamp, finding it on soulseek or ripping cds/tapes is infinitely better in every way. once you have a little system going with how you organise music, you don't really lose out on much by not streaming.
music feels more special to me now. could write a whole bit on this honestly, this has been one of the best decisions i've made all year. BUT in the first few weeks, i knew i was so cooked when i went through a tunnel on the train and was confused that my music didn't cut off. i've unlearned a lot of those habits since.
also i feel like i can't really listen to any punk n hardcore if i've got spotify advertising joining the military to me the entire between each song.
slowly getting away from google for more privacy
i made the switch to proton calendar and just replaced my blogspot with this website. i don't see much of a reason to give them any more information on me.
keeping shit on my hard drive!!
i don't want to keep my precious shit on some random company's servers. my lovely hot wife got me a 2tb portable hard drive that i can keep as a remote backup. got everything from my fav wwe matches to my cv to every family photo. buying physical storage has gotten much cheaper so i could even store precious files on an 1tb sd card if i wanted to do that for some reason.
bds and other boycotts (such as uae)
i avoid giving money to brands and countries profiting from exploitation and genocide and NEVER buy new tech because there's congolese blood on the cobalt necessary for all electronics. always go for repairing old tech or buying refurbished / secondhand instead.
in case anyone stumbles onto this blog, here's some resources to understand why boycotts are happening and what to avoid! will update with any new information i find.
see the bds movement and decolonise sudan's toolkit for understanding the boycotts behind uae, israel and their affiliates.
logging out of instagram on my phone and signing in through my laptop instead
i've just started doing this, so i can't report on how much of an effect its had on me yet but so far it's been pretty nice :) feels like i have more time on my hands suddenly.
occasionally using a film cam / camcorder
it means i get to focus on what taking footage actually means to me - which is having cute pics of my friends to put on the wall.
exercising!!
been really excited about this one. muay thai, skating and enrolling in this strength training class has kept me feeling better about my body.
next plans:
figure out how to remove google photos from my life entirely. i have most photos backed up on my hard drive, but it would be nice to have a system going from phone to backup immediately (i'll figure out nas setup someday in the far future).
make dvds out of every little camcorder movie i make and either get scrapbooking or get a photo album to put my film pics in. it would be nice to dedicate time and energy to make physical media like that and i've just been gifted a bin bag of 50 empty dvd cases recently so it really works out.
keep exercising and stay committed to it!
make these life changes as easily communicable as possible to other people. and that starts with making sure everyone has adblock lmaoooo