Good third-party apps.

I’m a nerd about translation, translation choices, and differences in cultures. I find it fascinating that the tiniest details in your language choice are capable of changing the meaning entirely. I also happen to be a Russian, so maybe this example for the Russian-English language pair would be interesting to you:

Given: комната = room мальчик = boy одна из = a (one of) эта/этот = the (that) в = in вошел = walked

В одну из комнат вошел мальчик. A boy walked in a room.

Этот мальчик вошел в эту комнату. The boy walked in the room.

В эту комнату вошел мальчик. A boy walked in the room.

Этот мальчик вошел в одну из комнат. The boy walked in a room.

English uses a/the to define what’s known/unknown, and Russian doesn’t have a similar tool but it can change word order and add some extra words for more precision. Russian also uses a lot of cases to define who does what and when, and English just doesn’t need that, the word order does it all.

Looking at all that makes me feel like I’m watching something beautiful. Like I find solace in the fact that there is more than one way to see things.

I’m foreign, so I googled Puerto Ricans and man do those guys have a rich history and culture. Man they have so much to offer the world, and queer folks too, they all have so many things to tell if you just ask, so many out-of-the-box things I bet you’ve never thought about. You clearly don’t want to ask though, so okay.

This weird feeling when another group is around and shining is an underlying cause of xenophobia. It’s natural for some people to strive to belong to a group, and it’s natural to be cautious of a group you don’t belong to because the animal part of your brain can take the group as a threat, and rightfully so in some cases.

In other cases, when there’s nothing threatening about a group, that animal part should be kept at bay by conscious effort, by understanding both the group and its pain and the origin of your feelings. Many people don’t know how to do this, and this is the biggest problem. Especially when instead of teaching how to build bridges, instead of learning new things about the other, people just go into defense mode. I’m so devastated to observe this everywhere now.

That said, LGBTQ people still have to fight for their rights, because lots of people still get murdered even in the US and that’s unacceptable. ‘Shoving it in your face’? I personally would love to stop it once people finally get accustomed to the idea being different doesn’t mean being a threat and we stop being bullied and harassed and murdered every frickin day.