Hello comrades and welcome to the first improvement megathread of October! 
The spooky season has officially started 
Some discussion ideas:
+ How was your week?
+ Do you have some plans for next week?
+ Do you have some plans for October?
Poster caption
“Long live the 30th anniversary of the great October socialist revolution!”
(The tall building on this poster is the conceptual “Palace of the Soviets” in Moscow proposed to be built on the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. This “Palace” was never built.)
Ive spent the last week recovering from surgery, so I’ve not been very active. That said, I’ve done a few things I’m happy about.
I went to a comicon this weekend which was fun, but seeing all the cool cosplays made me wish I was a cosplayer. I’ve always been afraid of judgement and very anxious, and I really want to move past that.
What’s more, I’ve been thinking about who I want to be and the life I want to lead.
cw for depression, SH. Long ramble about my thoughts on life and conclusions I've come to revently
When I was a teenager the idea of living a life under capitalism depressed me so much. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was an undiagnosed, closeted communist. The idea of having to get up in the morning and go to work for someone I hate, just to pay rent, made me want to die. I planned to kill myself after reaching the age of 18.
However, my cripplingly low self-esteem meant that I couldn’t do something as selfish as committing suicide. I recognized capitalism as a massive problem and became a communist, thanks to some prompting from a friend and the Internet. I wanted to throw my life away, devoting it to a heroic cause like communism. As such, I decided to study politics. I decided that I would never be happy, and so I should dedicate the rest of my life to allowing others to be happy.
Then I kept living. I went to college, studied politics, and though things were really hard for me, especially in fourth year, my depression changed. I started to want to be happy. And I found that what makes me happy is, and always has been, pursuing art. Nerdy art. I love fantasy, I love anime, I love cosplay, I love manga, I love video games.
I’ve felt guilty every second that I’m not advancing the cause of communism, not throwing my entire being into changing the world. The world needs to be changed, and I’m as capable of doing it as anyone else. But I think I have to want to be alive first to want to change anything.
So I’m making a decision. I’m going to live my life for myself, out of interest of the things and people I love. I don’t think I can be a very effective communist if I can’t love the world. I’m sure that rapidly, the time will come when we all have to step up. The world is dying and things are only going to get harder. But for as much of my life as I can, I want to live for me.
So I’ll make art. I’ll still be politically active, but I won’t try to kill the person I am to become the person I think I need to be. I’m going to live how I want. I doubt this will make the world a worse place.