Honestly I especially support self-absorption in cases where someone comes from a negative, broken home life and has practically needed to be their own cheerleader to wrench themself out of whatever self-deprecating thought loops their family has contributed to. When all you’re taught is negative self-speak, when you grew up being constantly compared or verbally berated or told you’re not good enough, you literally need to go out of your way to outgrow that thinking. And I do think that starts with turning the lens on yourself, romanticizing your life, constantly affirming to yourself that you are worthy of space and time and whatever your heart desires. You literally have to constantly hype yourself up where no one else has. It’s quite literally necessary.

Day 2143 - a fine oak tree on Wimbledon Common, London

it is a parents responsibility to play good music during their child’s formative years. make sure the nostalgia playlist is a banger

when the character is obsessive and desperate and guilty and scared and ashamed and traumatized and repressed

On this day, 19 August 1953, Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh of Iran was overthrown in a coup organised by the CIA on behalf of the UK and US governments.
Mosaddegh's government had instituted a number of social reforms in the country, like unemployment benefits, compensation for injured workers and the abolition of forced labour in the countryside. He planned to nationalise the British-owned oil fields to fund things like rural housing, public baths and pest control, so the British intelligence agency, MI6, asked the CIA to overthrow him.
Unrest and violence began in Tehran, threatening to destabilise his government, and protests by his supporters broke out. But Mosaddegh ordered political party leaders not to join the protests and sent police units to “restore order”, not realising that many of these unit commanders were in the pay of the US.
The left-wing Tudeh party offered to fight to defend Mosaddegh if he gave them weapons, but he replied: “If ever I agree to arm a political party, may God sever my right arm!”
Eventually, the violence reached Mosaddegh's house. While his guards killed dozens of attackers, eventually, a column of tanks arrived and shelled the house. A crowd then stormed it and set it on fire, while Mosaddegh and his defenders fled over a wall.
The exiled Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was then reinstalled in power and established a brutal, pro-western dictatorship.
We are working on a podcast series about the 1979 revolution in Iran which overthrew the Shah, in conversation with participants. You can support its production and get first listen by joining us on Patreon at https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory
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Pictured: president Truman with Mosaddegh, left, a celebration of the coup in Tehran, right

"People with depth are often lonely, because shallow connections no longer satisfy them."

-Arthur Schopenhauer

On this day, 15 August 1845, British artist, book illustrator, and socialist Walter Crane was born.
Like his friend William Morris, he sought to bring art into the daily life of all classes and was involed in the Arts and Crafts movement. He produced art for a number of socialist and anarchist papers and publishers, such as The Commonweal and Freedom Press.
His political art touched on such subjects as international working class solidarity, the Paris Commune of 1871, and the anarchist Haymarket martyrs, who are commemorated by the May Day holiday – the latter of which caused some controversy among the bourgeois art world in the US.
We have reproduced some of his artwork to help fund our work: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/walter-crane
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So many women have internalized the idea that being difficult makes people think less of them, when in my experience the opposite is almost always true. Every single time I have spoken up, voiced what I actually need and refused to shrink the moment in order to be more comfortable for everyone else in the room, I have been approached afterward by people who wanted to know me better. There is no reward waiting for you on the other side of making yourself smaller. People do not love you more for taking up less space, they simply get used to you taking up less space and adjust their expectations accordingly. Every time I have been exactly as audacious as the moment required, it has opened doors rather than closed them and I have made real connections directly because of it rather than in spite of it.

Please remember that almost everyone around you is traumatized. I didn’t understand this when I was younger. I wondered why people acted so strangely and irrationally. Maybe all children wonder this. The author Robert Anton Wilson said (paraphrasing), “We have never seen a completely sane adult human.” No one makes it out of this life alive. It’s not their fault. Mercy, kindness, forgiving — these are what makes one human. They are other names for love. People break in the strangest of ways.