srry i fell off our megathread convo about this! the truth is i personally just didn't really lol, i just noticed i was overall more able to Do Shit and felt that was good enough. it's probably good to be more intentional about it than i was though!!
DoomBloomDialectic
joined 2 weeks ago
fucking INSULTED that my "not gonna overshare" post got nearly tewnty (20) upbears. just to spite u f*ckers ur gotnna get an ATOM BOMB of an overshare
JOURNALPOSTING, NOT FUCKING AROUND THIS TIME
i'm sleepy. and capitalism, wage labor? yeah, you guessed it - still freakin hate'em
fuck now that you mention that, i remember that i do actually want to complain about my job & my growing sense of misanthropy/depression (related) but that would require a bit of oversharing... 
thank you i think you should feel free tho (if you want to that is, im not ur boss)
yall should feel free, tho 
instead of oversharing in the megathread, i'm simply gonna not do that 
best of luck comrade 
and nothing wrong with the pipeline, it's an increasingly common story among newer members. it means PSL's online reach/cred is growing, and hexbear, r/trueanon, and r/deprogram types need to be reached & activated too!!
not out of your ass at all!!
2: We talk about the mental illnesses of artists in a way we often don't talk about the mental illness of other famous people. When you have a mentally ill artist, their mental illness often ends up being central to the popular narrative about them in a way that the mental illnesses of a other high achievers typically isn't. No one is going to tell you Gödels mathematical discoveries were reliant on his severe mental illness, no one is going to pretend we couldn't have had the theory of gravity without Newton's bouts of melancholia. Meanwhile assuming Sylvia Plath could only write as she did because of her suicidal depression is the norm.
this is a point a friend of mine brought up actually when i was talking to them about this subject, i think there's a lot to it. i guess just in my own personal anecdotal experience though - through my friendships & dating life - even hobbyists are more drawn to these types of outlets as i guess a vehicle for certain inner hurts/mental illnesses, so even outside of (notable/mainstream-ly successful) high achievers it feels like there's something there. anecdotes be anecdoting though!
I can tell you my experience! I'm in one of the larger west coast branches so YMMV in a small branch, or in the handful of branches even bigger than ours. I applied online August of last year, then what followed was:
nuts and bolts of onboarding, kinda long
- Intro phone call getting to know you a bit - your political journey, interest in the party, etc. Then in my case, I was directed to the easiest way to plug into volunteer opportunities.
- Was an active volunteer for a few months. This period varies wildly in length depending on a bunch of factors (recruitment needs, other competing priorities, etc). The party does tend to prioritize non-white, non-cis-male-presenting comrades in onboarding to avoid the chauvinistic tendencies of a lot of Western left groups, and to recruit from the segments of the working class with the most revolutionary potential. But the entirety of the applicant is considered, and I know people who volunteered for the better part of a year before joining, and some who were onboarded quite rapidly. Not something to take personally! And also, nothing wrong with staying a volunteer.
- Two more meetings where you learn about the party's positions and what's expected of members, and after the second one you're a candidate member. Sometimes a meeting or two between these if they have further questions about you (again, not personal, just doing their job vetting). Unless you're interested in formal leadership, candidacy is much closer to full membership than not (def closer to it than being a volunteer).
- You take roughly 9-12 months of classes on the party's organizing strategy & the 101 of socialist history and theory, and then you're a full member assuming all goes well. This candidacy period is to ensure ideological alignment, to educate comrades who are new to socialism, and to train cadres on how PSL organizes. If you're already a theory head, a lot will be repeated and maybe even oversimplified info, but there is learning to be had regardless in collective study with comrades across all knowledge and experience levels! (For context, I'm currently still a candidate).
I followed the Alienated Too Online Communist to Touch Grass pipeline, but a lot of people are recruited through pre-existing organizing and the path might look ever-so-slightly different there (I think they probably skip the phone call screening?) Also in smaller branches/before streamlining some back end stuff, online applications were falling through the cracks a bit more often - if that happens to you, check out your local's Instagram and hit up an irl volunteer meeting to express interest there!
As far as workload expectation, while you can't be an "on-paper" member, there is a lot of flexibility in terms of what regularly showing up looks like for you. They understand that as a working class party, we have busy lives outside organizing just in terms of the daily hustle to survive. As long as you communicate about availability you should be good - I almost didn't join because I was scared of the commitment level, but A) a few comrades assuring me there's no quota and that there's flexibility and B) just realizing I was showing up as regularly as a volunteer as plenty of full members, made me decide membership was right for me (I still have intermittent self doubts though, that is extremely normal!!)
And as far as social anxiety, that is an incredibly common social hurdle many of us face and a muscle that is built through practice and the collective support of your comrades. Social anxiety and other types of neurodivergence are insanely common in my local, I can't speak for everyone but I've always felt the Party is good at providing the structure and support systems to help build this skillset. And if you were to be around for the long haul, while I believe you'd definitely build a baseline aptitude with this, you may also find a more behind-the-scenes niche that plays to your more organic strengths.
Hope that was all helpful! Feel free to hmu with any questions and I'll try to answer to the best of my abilities and social capacity.
lol oooooooh purple man, good old purple man, always looking at things that aren’t meant for you
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eternal death to the DEA
