Lark Ballinger

@emilystjams.bsky.social Hi! I hope you see this. I just sent you a direct message on Reddit, but you've not posted there in some time. If you've the time, would greatly appreciate you reading my message there. Many thanks for your consideration. 🙏🏽

I'm really grateful for the friendships that can pick up where they left off because all parties have invested enough that they can just reap the dividends when life calls for it.

On Threads, I got called an "anti-Christian bigot" in response to this. But it's only "anti-Christian" if you believe being anti-LGBT is *necessary* to Christianity. But *that* is itself condescending towards Christianity, for many correctly view their faith as supporting LGBT rights and acceptance.

PSA: the CDC has a program that pays for your COVID vaccine if your insurer won't. The guy at CVS told me that my insurer had not added the new vaccine to its formulary yet, so I'd need to pay $190. I told him about this program, showed him the website, and paid nothing. 🤗

Yep.

This is a great event and a lot of fun. I participated in it last year and found my agent through it.
#bvm
#writingcommunity

I'm preparing to revisit a WIP and begin laying the foundations for a new one!

And yes, being surrounded by loving folks in life's car makes those speed bumps bearable.

I've been away for a bit but was just coming by to see how you're doing. And of course, you're modeling the #BlackExcellence we know so well. Get it! 🙌🏽

"Introduce yourself in three bullet points."

* My core values are compassion and logic.

* I recognize the humanity of each homo sapiens sapiens individual, regardless of identities or politics.

* I think, write, and read.

text of a poem, © 2023 by Lark Ballinger Looking around our home (no longer)/ My place (temporarily)/ This increasingly empty space (forever), I keep getting the sense That there's both a lot and also quite little to do to leave here. What, Exactly, Would it have taken For us to remain To grow And not shrink Into lesser versions Of our precious, previous selves? My memories Are O U T S I Z E D When compared To the mere boxes These objects Of our life IN(fit)TWO. - © 2023 by Lark Ballinger

New poem by me, PACKING UP
🖤✏️

Ouch, that's rough, I'm sorry. Let us know what you need and how we may help. ❤

As for your question about empathy, when folks are focused (understandably so) on their own unacknowledged, unaddressed, unresolved problems, expressing empathy for others is challenging, especially when those others are seen as Other (capital "O").

Agreed, exposure therapy *doesn't* work for all, but it's also practically impossible to prevent exposure to every single potential trigger (or even trauma) we might encounter in daily life. That's not to say prevention shouldn't be attempted, but rather that it shouldn't be the exclusive focus.

Both the complete 8-hour work as well as a 1-hour sampling are available on Spotify.

I'm not so naive as to suggest something that will work, as I presume you've tried damn near everything, but if music doesn't disrupt what sleep you do get, you may enjoy listening to Richter's 8-hour opus SLEEP until you do finally pass out.

A relatively nascent thought of mine is how I've been failed not just by oppression, but by a Left that teaches folks to lead with weakness (as opposed to vulnerability) and provides few tools on how to thrive in a world that's still unjust. 3/3

Another thought that I think deserves more space than this medium allows ('cos nuance is challenging enough when not adhering to the party line) is that the Left arguably coddles folks. This isn't praise for the Right, mind you. Both sides would do well to learn from the other. 2/?

I hear you. My bias is partially due to being a survivor of multiple traumas. Life's hard. We can't protect ourselves from everything. That's why it's important to heal.

As for your example, BARBARIAN comes to mind. Yes, it's in a particular genre, but going in (as) blind (as possible)'s the point.

Something that comes to mind is a play which I won't name so as to avoid spoilers where there's "strong language" used but it's only a single utterance late in the play. Ergo, the impact on the audience when that word drops is immense but could be lost if there was a warning in the program. 2/2

In the context of something that someone would post here that didn't involve linking to a larger work, a content warning would *not* take away from my experience. 1/2

I absolutely LOVE it when folks disagree with me, especially when we're friendly. I infer trust and comfort in the relationship when folks are comfortable speaking up in opposition. I also love being challenged. It's one way I grow and am given the chance to change my perspective.

I'm realizing that there was no specification of whether we were discussing content warnings as mandatory or voluntary.

If content warnings aren't visible to those who don't wish to see them (and not mandatory for those presenting the content), I say have at!

Where I'm most acutely opposed to content warnings is in academic contexts. There are some unpleasant things in life and to avoid engaging learning about them on a macro level can have less than ideal consequences. 4/4

For longer works, such as film or books (yes, the latter is a text context, but length is important context, I think), I think it somewhat appropriate for there to be a heads up on general themes, but content warnings could potentially be spoilers, robbing folks of an intended experience. 3/4

…and that includes content warnings. In a text context, including your own post about suicide, the content warning literally contains the topic being warned about, so I'd think once seeing that, the topic is already on someone's mind. They can hardly avoid thinking about it after being warned. 2/?

I love, Love, LOVE facts, but I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that I currently don't know of any research on the effectiveness of content warnings and haven't looked for any.

That being said, I'm generally opposed to blanket statements qualifying anything as wholly "good" or "bad"… 1/?

While we may disagree on many of the particulars around content warnings, I'm saddened that your calls for empathy fell on deaf ears, though perhaps the blocks were others practicing love for themselves and/or avoiding a reality they didn't want to engage with.

Something I've been writing on for a decade now is our society's overemphasis of identity at the expense of acknowledging activity. We prefer to label individuals instead of focusing on what they're doing, which frequently goes hand-in-hand with intellect shaming and other forms of dehumanization.

"don't you
miss
me?"
their ghost whispered
in the stillness of the empty room
being left
behind me
as i continued forward
my response projected
in the direction of my gaze
on the path ahead of me
"i missed
you
when you were
still here"
🖤✏️

"…and other people who hope." ❤