Ask Me Anything...
...but like, for real.
As a kid, I used to love reading Dear Abby. Yes, I know. I’m surprised I had friends too. But I felt soothed by DA: there is comfort in seeing a life problem crystallized down to a column-length solution. Dear Abby operated as a black and white monument to gentle empathy, a tiny bastion of hope hidden amongst newspaper articles denoting countless acts of global violence and loss. The entries felt like a vestige of a simpler time, the journalistic equivalent of how it felt to watch Mr. Roger’s untie his shows and put on his favorite cardigan.
I recently finished a book (Ann Napolitano’s “Hello Beautiful”, highly recommend!) in which a character discusses the importance of “infrastructures of kindness.” Small acts of listening and responding to our fellow man’s need without expecting anything in return.
I gravitated towards this phrase because I believe it is a flexible concept. In my field, we often create large infrastructures: something that is exported to the masses. Be it a sold-out audience in a theater, or thousands of people sitting at home watching on television, the 1:1 impact ratio is rare for actors. Indeed, one of my favorite things about stagedooring and attending conventions with Hazbin Hotel has been having 1:1 conversations: moments where I am able to focus in on someone’s specific story and feel like we are sharing a human connection.
Nonetheless, stagedoors and conventions are still bound by time-constraints. There is never enough time to truly lock eyes with someone and say, “That sounds like a difficult story. Tell me more,” or, “I hear you’re struggling with XYZ. Here are some thoughts I have that might help.”
So…that’s what this is for. An online infrastructure of kindness, where you can ask me anything and I will try to, on a weekly basis, give my thoughts/advice/empathy with no judgement and no time constraints.
I’ll choose one entry a week, and write my response in a post that will be shared on the Millennial Bohemia main page (if you wish to remain anonymous, please let me know in the message!). Hopefully, we can foster a community and feel a little less alone with our problems by sharing them here, in our tiny corner of Substack.
Do you know where it is Ecuador and if you kwon what do you think about that country :))