Mastodawn

@anarchiv hello I just saw this. How are you doing? I know a response is long overdue to your last email. I'm sorry I disappeared. I hope you're well! 💖

@sushi oh, so it was you who owed me an answer, I felt under pressure lol. thanks for giving a life sign :)

also I should tell you that in your absence, there has been some beef surrounding koyu and a lot of instances have muted or defederated from it as a result, so your timeline might not be as rich as prior to that

just write to me when you've got the time and feel like it 💚

@anarchiv yeah it's all different now. So weird. Feels so alien. I'd join another instance but I'll never be fucking regular with it so 🤷‍♀️
Please please please come on insta, if you feel upto it. It's the only social media platform I'm active on at the moment.

@sushi hmmm I'll consider doing that just for keeping in touch with you.

btw there's a "move account" function in your profile, it reduces the amount of effort needed to move to a different instance to a minimum.

@anarchiv oh cool I'll figure this out and I'll check with you with regards to which instance to move to. I remember i did make another one but I can't for the life of me remember anything about it at the moment.

@sushi it's on this instance, todon. your username is sushi90 ;)

@anarchiv haha yeah I just found it. We're okay so far but who knows what the fuck goes wrong when. I mean I'm not surprised AT ALL with how bad things are virus wise, I expected this mismanagement, it's the perfect excuse for population control. What worries me is how relationship is souring with China. Wait, I mean it already is sour now i guess. They're attacking India's Northern border, India is banning Chinese apps, now who knows what happens next. I just hope we don't get nuked. I mean honestly survival is a joke now. It's like the only aim now is to survive, literally.

@sushi oof. I remember reading about India's war with China over the Northern border about a hundred years ago but if shit goes down this time it'd be a million times worse and I get how helpless you must feel in the face of that. All I can do is hope and pray I guess. If there's any other way I can support you personally from half a world away, let me know.

@anarchiv thank you, you are kind. The best you can do is take care of you and yours, hopefully we'll be fine and will survive. I think sometimes we forget that the world has ALWAYS been a violent place. I don't know if its just me but I have been feeling like more and more people are waking up to the realities of how fucked the world really is during the crisis. All we can do is pray and take things one day at a time. I am so done with being stressed and depressed, so I've honestly been chilling to the max in the last three months since the lockdown began here. They're opening things up now, just when we're on the drink of a peak. LOL @ MODI. Dumbest fucker I have ever come across running a nation. God bless him.

Montessori Space Programme 🛸

@sushi I agree with your assessment that more and more people appear to be waking up to these realities. We can only do our part and hope we're right, you know, the age-old curse - "may you live in interesting times"...

@anarchiv that curse needs an update, may you survive these interesting times 😈

@sushi which would imply that not surviving them was more desirable - ultimately a matter of attitude, but surely an intrusive thought that a lot of us are dealing with, especially people like you and I who have been struggling with their mental health even in times of perceived normality...

@anarchiv I've been doing super well mental health wise. At the risk of sounding like a total douche, I've been on a spiritual journey since I left my job. First I had a total breakdown after I quit and then things got SO MUCH BETTER. I still have bad days, but that dark cloud of depression doesn't follow me like it once used to. Also kind of why I would be so happy if you felt like joining Instagram, I have so much to share and tell you when it comes to this. It's a long and slow process and healing isn't pretty but it's been onwards and upwards for the last few months and I've begun experiencing synchronicity with the universe. It was super strange for me because naturally I scoffed at the 'spiritual types' and now I'm one of them HAHA.

@sushi Still doing your thing, I see.

@anarchiv what's going on with you work/uni wise

@sushi I work at the pub, well this week I'm going to have my second shift since the lockdown. I dropped out of uni for the time being but I made a three-year plan to fix the most pressing problems in my life and maybe enroll again by the time I'm 30.

Are you still working in film or is the industry shut down at the moment? Or did you quit? I can't remember. I'm guessing there's not much going on in terms of event photography and other commissions.

@anarchiv Mumbai Union is a lot more strict so things are completely off over there at the moment, they've revamped how they shoot. They're shooting over video calls now, only the actor and cinematographer on set, director, producer on zoom call. No clients or extra people allowed. Delhi they're starting to shoot again, because they're fucking stupid. So a lot of Mumbai clients are now outsourcing shoots to Delhi. Because brands are also re-strategizing now, want to show they're adapting new safety measures according to the virus, so there's a lot of work to be done. I got a call for a couple of shoots but I refused to go. I've also been re-strategizing myself & so am now experimenting with digital art & a couple of other things as well. Currently I'm all about revamping & upping my game.

@sushi Well this sounds like I'm not the only one with a plan. I'm proud of both of us for how much more goal-oriented we've become in the time we've know each other.

@anarchiv haha yeah true that! But I've dropped the word plan from my vocabulary now. I made so many plans in life, and nothing ever went according to plan. The secret is to do what you want to do and then detach from the outcome. Way easier said than done, I'm still struggling with it. But I've also noticed results happen on their own when I do something with no expectations.

@sushi I'm trying to make it a habit to work backwards from distant goals to immediate means instead of wondering what I can do and to what end.

@anarchiv you're on the right track!

@sushi 💗

@anarchiv 💖💖
How are your mum and sis doing

@sushi My sis isn't doing great, she's got a kidney stone that can't be removed because hospitals have severely limited capacity due to the pandemic, also she's been screwed over by her new landlord, meaning she'll have to make expensive additions to her new apartment that she didn't reckon with.
My mom is... doing good I think? She's weirdly reclusive lately but I think that's just her workaholic brain trying to process this whole "stay at home" situation.

How's your fam?

@anarchiv damn you sisters situation sounds like a handful. What kind of kidney stone does she have? I had them too. They were small and there was 5-6 of them, but they're the kinds that could be dissolved over time, by drinking lots of water and beer also helps cuz barley helps break them down. There's different kind of stones, some need surgery, but if they're putting it off because of the pandemic, then I'm guessing they're not the kind that need surgery. Try to do a little more research to find out what kind of stones they are, cuz if they're the kinds thst can be dissolved, then she needs to be careful about being hydrated or she might have pain attacks, but over a few months they'll get excreted out of her system. That's what happened with me. I don't have them anymore.

@sushi I dunno but I don't think the doctors would have scheduled surgery in the first place if it was the kind that could be dissolved. For now, she has a kind of splint that keeps her ureter clear, but of course that doesn't help with the pain.

@anarchiv yeah this whole stay at home situation has been tough. We were at loggerheads the first 2-3 weeks of the lockdown, it was like being jailed together in the big brother house. There was lots of fights and screaming but by now we've all found our groove. So far, so good.

@sushi Good job on that! I bet it didn't go so well for a lot of families. The fighting, the cabin fever - that's exhausting but normal. The important part is you made it past that stage without clawing each others' eyes out.

@anarchiv haha yeah. It's been tough but we've managed to survive.

@anarchiv also, take it from someone who's even completed post grad, unless you plan to be in the academic field, uni will do you no good. Overrated and a waste of time and money.

@sushi still, there are two Master degrees in my home state I'm after. Society, Sustainability and the Environment in Kiel, or Transformation Studies in Flensburg (right at the Danish border). Chances are I'll go back within the next three years because I believe my chances for employment to be better back home.