That's great, I'm glad it's going well for you! I've also been teaching myself Spanish and have been really enjoying the process of learning it.

I agree that it helps a lot to immerse yourself in the language. So in addition to Duolingo lessons daily, I've been reading news websites completely in Spanish (TeleSur in particular), reading short stories on https://www.fluentwithstories.com/, and have a browser extension called Toucan that changes many of the words on webpages into Spanish.

Definitely. I'm not sure who to attribute this quote to, but I've heard it said a few times that "cooking is more like an art, baking is more of a science."

This article goes over some of the history of the Baltic states: 'The Baltic Roots of Russophobia: Neoliberalism, revisionism and U.S. imperialism' https://mronline.org/2025/12/24/the-baltic-roots-of-russophobia-neoliberalism-revisionism-and-u-s-imperialism/

I listen to podcasts or YT videos while playing a simple flash game called Bubble Spinner. Because the game doesn't require any real thinking, it actually helps me to focus on what I'm listening to.

Samir Amin's essay on Contemporary Imperialism: https://monthlyreview.org/articles/contemporary-imperialism/

And chapter 17 'Imperialism' of Sweezy's book Theory of Capitalist Development: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.461479/page/n313/mode/2up

Just started Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? by Gabriel Rockhill.

Also am working through the reading list for Critical Theory Workshop's online course on Imperialism and Underdevelopment that's starting January 21. So far I've read Samir Amin's essay Contemporary Imperialism, and still need to finish Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.

That wouldn't make sense though, as the book was just published in November 2024, and Hakim has been a communist for many years.

It looks to me like the western press is reporting this as bad news because it fits their "Putin = dictator" narrative. Every article I'm seeing goes something like "anti-Putin activist jailed, says charges against him are fabricated," etc.

Growing up, I struggled greatly with making and keeping friends, and was also targeted mercilessly by bullies; so I spent most of my time alone, reading books mostly. I never understood why everyone at school hated me, or at the very least seemed to think I was super weird and avoided me, a painful pattern that persisted into adulthood and the workplace. There just seems to be something about me that neurotypicals find off-putting; my best guess is it's some combination of my inability to make eye contact and my communication style, which is very honest and straightforward.

There were other aspects of autism I had also been struggling with my whole life as well. Before I realized I had autism, I just thought I was weird or something; people would often tell me I was "too sensitive" and needed to just "get over" these issues. These are just a few examples.

• I have sensory sensitivities and get overstimulated easily (noises and the feeling of clothing on my body are my two main struggles).
• Verbal directions are usually very difficult for me for me to process (this was a big problem for me at work), though if I'm given the same information in written form I rarely have issues because I'm hyperlexic.
• Similar to above, I literally can't understand what people are saying if more than one person is talking at once or if there is background noise like a TV.
• Facial blindness is a real struggle for me (meaning, I can't recognize most people based on their faces, with the exception of people like my partner who I've known for over ten years). So when people post memes with a picture of some famous person, and understanding the joke depends on recognizing that person, the joke is almost always lost on me.

About a decade ago, when I was in my early twenties, I was searching the internet for what felt like the millionth time to try and figure out what was "wrong" with me. That's when I found an infographic detailing common traits of autism and how they often present differently in AFAB people compared to what researchers or professionals are expecting, because the vast majority of autism research focused on AMAB subjects. As an AFAB person, most of that infographic deeply resonated with me, and it prompted me to start researching autism. The more I learned, the more it seemed to fit; I finally had an answer for why I had always felt so different and alone. Then, about two or three years ago, I went for psychological testing and received my formal diagnosis of autism.

I do want to mention though, that you don't necessarily need an official diagnosis. It's a personal decision, and will be different for everyone depending on their circumstances. It can be prohibitively expensive to pursue, especially without insurance, and in some cases it may not even provide any meaningful benefit. It's still possible to seek help from a therapist or psychologist to address issues relating to autism without the diagnosis. I decided to do it because I'm on disability and wanted to have that documentation.

Also, I think it's worth mentioning that being autistic can have positive aspects as well (though personally, I don't care for the "superpower" cliche that some people use). For example, I can hyperfocus on topics I'm interested in for extended periods of time (very useful for studying theory), can process a lot of written information quite easily, and am great at research projects. Of course both the positive and negative aspects will look different for each individual person though.

This is a nice reading list that I bookmarked a while back, you might find it helpful: https://lemmy.ml/post/22417306

I'm honestly so excited for this course on Imperialism by the Critical Theory Workshop.

Edit: website source for the image: https://criticaltheoryworkshop.com/upcoming-events/

This discussion makes me think of a concept from Mao's On Contradiction,

Changes in society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society, that is, the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the contradiction between classes and the contradiction between the old and the new; it is the development of these contradictions that pushes society forward and gives the impetus for the supersession of the old society by the new. Does materialist dialectics exclude external causes? Not at all. It holds that external causes are the condition of change and internal causes are the basis of change, and that external causes become operative through internal causes. In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis.

Mao is talking about changes in society more broadly, but I think this idea can be applied on an individual level as well. A person's internal state needs to be such that they are open to new information, in order for that information to meaningfully shift their perspective.

So my hypothesis is that you were able to change your mind when you learned more about the Iraq War because, for whatever reasons, your internal state was receptive to new ideas. Some other people may be presented with that same information, but then just mentally discard it if they aren't in a place where they're ready to hear it. So essentially I'm agreeing with what some other commenters have already said, that organizing is most effective when it's focused on people who are sufficiently agitated and open to hearing what we have to say.