sonia | Happy Pride Month, day 18, functional

18. I'm proud of working hard to heal from trauma. I'm proud of having been through the amount of shit I've been through and still be a reasonably functional human being. (Even though a lot of the time I also feel shame about all the ways I feel like I fall short.) Ok, trying again - I'm proud of being a reasonably functional human being.

Functional is another one of those things that I was taught to equate with value. I've learned over time that everyone is intrinsically valuable. I wish we as a society didn't have so many ways of ranking people and deciding to throw away the ones who don't make the cut.

I continue to think that Universal Basic Income would go a long way toward solving most of the big problems. Everyone deserves food. Everyone deserves housing. Everyone deserves medical care. And when people have those things, they can turn their attention to solving the problems that remain.

I'm proud that I have managed to procure those things for myself (with lots of helping hands along the way) and desolate that they're not available to everyone.

I'm reminded of this hopeful video from October 2020, A Message From the Future II: The Years of Repair. Watching it in 2024, some of it is remarkably visionary. Are we going to see a big turning point toward a better future? We won't know until we're through it and looking back.