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Somehow it feels extremely awkward to type this, since 1) writing anything about war as a Ukrainian feels like click-bait and 2) I am safe and nothing particularly interesting has happened, thankfully.
But I have to write something about the war because I want to add more stuff to the gemlog, and I can't write anything without at least acknowleding that me, my friends, and my family are okay.
...as the person who posted to Antenna a "call for action", inciting DDoS attacks on Russian government websites. Looking back, this seems very cowardly, telling strangers on the Internet to do semi-illegal activities while hiding with my laptop in my backpack. Very ineffective way to feel effective without doing anything. Only one person responded to the request, I hope they are okay.
For the record, I still have not done any "cyber-attacks" on Russia myself, though I know a bunch of people in Ukraine who did.
What follows is essentially a rant about the war, this is either the best or the worst part of this post depending on the reader.
Education started up about a month ago, one excuse for it was "everybody should do what they can at this moment, and it's better to be a student than be a soldier". the other was "kids should focus on school instead of war, the distraction will help their mental health". At first I thought both of those excuses were absolute bullshit ("I have to worry about rockets *and* exams, wtf?"), but since rocket strikes in most regions have gotten much less frequent, it really did become easier to focus on other things, with a positive effect overall.
I seem to be naturally averse to nationalism, at least much more so than the average person. After months of living in a full-time war-mode media landscape, I still get a gag reflex whenever I hear "glory to Ukraine". I am proud of Ukraine as a symbol of freedom and democracy, and I like the nature here, but I've never considered ourselves all that special as a nation.
What bothers me about the phrase "glory to Ukraine" in particular is the cult-like nature of it. I am okay with Redditors and the like saying it (as weird as it is), but the way it works in real life is, it's a call-and-response thing. One person says "Слава Україні!" ("Glory to Ukraine!") and everybody else is expected to answer "Героям слава!" ("To the heroes, glory!"). The social ritual-ness of it unsettles me to this day.
Just don't let Russians hear this, okay? Their retarded propaganda loves to say they are "liberating us from fascism", when in fact the only reason why this ritual became popular in the first place was to respond to Russian aggression.
Speaking of "don't let Russians hear this", I was thinking to myself whether or not I should mirror this capsule on the web, and I have decided to not do it for now. This little "apple garden" will be a safe space, where I can be more honest than I would be in Google-indexable territory. So I am rebranding it to a "secret garden". Spooky~~~~~
The first few weeks spent in Kyiv were quite scary, all I thought about was safety. Then we moved to a more remote location in a village in western Ukraine. I was so glad to be safe enough that I actually started thinking "hey, could I get something positive from this? Maybe I will start getting physical excercise, learn some skills, or maybe the brief internet outages are a good excuse to get to learn Offpunk, or...?"
In the end, university started back up, so I was busy with that; when I was not busy with that, I was busy with downloading anime and DRM-free video games and consuming entertainment when briefly offline. So my routines have not changed. I don't know what's more silly, thinking that war is an excuse for self-improvement, or actually expecting myself to follow through with that.
Of course it's not all bad, I also have time to dedicate to my little free software projects, as well as actually practice farming. Hopefully growing our own food will not become *strictly* necessary, but it will still be useful nonetheless.
I don't listen to anybody who says they know where this war is going. I am too optimistic to think Russia will achieve anything in the end but I am too pessimistic to think this will be resolved quickly. Notably, I am also much more pessimistic about "alternative" politics, these days I am thankful to based NATO for providing us with lethal aid.
Somehow I am surprised even though I really shouldn't be.
Unrelated, or perhaps slightly related, I have removed pronouns from my homepage, and currently rethinking some things.
I dunno, war is bad!
(I am glad to be able to say this semi-jokingly, though it has to be said that a lot of people have been deeply hurt by these events and understandably do not share the same attitude. War is the worst.)
-- gardenapple 2022-05-04
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