Un-Depress Yourself 18: Avoid sad thingies, more

 This is installment #18 of an ongoing list I've been keeping for several years, and now I feel the need to share. I am only including things like movies, books, TV shows, and songs on here-- if I included actual events and phenomena from reality, this list would never end and I'd never stop thinking about depressing shit. Unavoidably, some of the items on this list touch on depressing stuff from reality, and that's part of what makes them so depressing. I am also not devaluing the quality of any of these artifacts; many of them are quite good, even great: touching, well-made, intelligent, and so on; but nonetheless, they bum me out. I'm sure it's at least partly because of the high quality that they depress me so.
   And these choices are all subjective, of course. If any of these things happen to not depress you, maybe you're just having a less depressing life than I (wink, wink). Lucky you! Also, some of the items on this list were suggested by friends (Thanks, Larry & Bobby!).
   I've alphabetized the items in each sub-list. If I tried to rank them some other way, that would depress me further.
   Maybe this list will help you avoid some things that could depress you, too. Or maybe not. Enjoy.

More Movies to avoid

Heaven Knows What https://www.netflix.com/title/80016426

The True Cost http://www.netflix.com/title/80045667

S'all for now.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Civil War Two, Part 1

by Randall Collins

Giveaway ends May 24, 2018.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

More depressing stuff: Read Part 2 here.
And here's Part 3.
And Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12 
Part 13
Part 14 
Part 15 
Part 16 
Part 17


As always, I welcome your suggestions for More Depressing Shit. Please comment, and I'll include any good suggestions in a future update.

Depressing Shit To Avoid, Part 13

I recommend you see part 1 of my Depressing Shit series and read my original disclaimer here; now here's installment 13.

I'm only telling you about these things for your own good. Unless you have the problem of too much happiness and too little awareness of bad things, AVOID! AVOID!
 

Movies:

About Schmidt
(my man G says it's depressing; I haven't seen)

Ararat
(haven't seen, don't wanna)

Maybe:
Beasts of No Nation
(think I might actually break my own rules and watch this one, 'cause, you know, Idris Elba. Has he ever been in anything bad?)

Blackfish (have I said that one already?)

Bunny Game (Thanks to Bobby Wilks for tipping me off to this.)

Maybe?:
Harry and Tonto (mixed  reports from Netflix reviewers)

The Road
from http://www.slashfilm.com/films-leaving-netflix-november-2015:
"John Hillcoat‘s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy‘s pitch-dark novel is one of the most miserable movies ever made, but it’s wholly intentional. By stripping the inherent romance, adventure and excitement out of the post-apocalypse, this film showcases a world dying with a whimper. The whole thing is essentially plotless, following Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as an unnamed father and son duo on a episodic quest through a dead world, which means it can drag. Some sequences are better than others. But when The Road connects, it really connects. This is the best movie to watch if you’re ever having too good of a day."
[sounds like the book's no fun, neither]

Another Maybe, for some people:
Snowtown Murders (Definitely disturbing and would probably depress a lot of people, though, surprisingly, it didn't really depress me. I guess I'm too fascinated by the dead-on filmmaking and the eery crime-y-ness of it all.)

Una Noche (didn't watch, as I was warned that it was depressing by reviews on Netflix)

Books:

The Tears of Olive Trees (autobiographical, about Palestine. Yeesh.) 


More depressing stuff: Read Part 2 here.
And here's Part 3.
And Part 4! Are you depressed yet?!
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12 


As always, I welcome your suggestions for More Depressing Shit. Please comment, and I'll include any good suggestions in a future update.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Civil War Two, Part 1

by Randall Collins

Giveaway ends May 24, 2018.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Use Your Powers For Good (For Those Who Love to Argue)

I love to argue.

But sometimes I just wanna go home.

Have you seen the internet? My, but people love to argue.

But I also like to DO stuff.

I want to support all marginalized people. But some of the arguments on the internet, like one I skimmed recently among lesbians and trans activists on a Facebook page [which I'd link here, except that it's disappeared] yesterday, make me sad because it's hard to see how it helps any good cause rather than harming it.

I could read and read... or I could just stop reading and start singing to myself to get the arguing out of my head. You could call that privilege, that I don't have to argue or pay attention to arguments all the time.

Do you/your social category have big problems? Undoubtedly. Are your problems bigger or more important than other people's problems? Impossible to say. They are to you, of course. "All suffering, however multiplied, is always individual," said Gandhi, possibly. (I read it somewhere and am having trouble finding the original quote.)

Do you have the right to be offended? Yes, at anything and at any time, and neither I nor anyone else has the right to tell you you shouldn't be offended at something. Maybe I don't think you should, maybe I think you're annoying, but that doesn't matter. Getting offended is free, free, free.

But what is the point of all the arguing? Changing minds is important, yes. But berating potential allies for your cause, people who may have some very major enemies in common with you-- e.g.,  THE PATRIARCHY!-- can be massively counter-productive. It's beneficial to limit your arguing to what is actually doing good, I think, which, though it sounds good, is also hard to determine.

But I'd offer everyone fighting for a cause this simple-ish advice: Take at least some of the time and energy you could spend arguing with potential allies and spend it on taking REAL action in the real world to benefit actual people. Fighting online may feel righteous, but there's a good chance a lot of the effect will NEVER result in any positive change for the people you claim to champion. Like real transwomen suffering real violence out there.

Let's lessen the arguing and try to DO SOMETHING.



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 Napoleon Never Slept: How Great Leaders Leverage Social Energy  

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