Month: March 2020

perpetual-allegory: I kind of wish that the idea that you can just be was a little more…

perpetual-allegory:

I kind of wish that the idea that you can just be was a little more mainstream.

Like, having drive and ambition is great. But it gets drilled in kids’ heads that there is some pressure to constantly be looking for the next move up, to be bigger than life. It wears you down to never be satisfied.

Not everyone is destined for greatness. It just doesn’t suit some people.

There’s nothing wrong with having a quiet life, making enough to get by, having a small apartment where you’re comfortable, and just living. You don’t have to constantly be looking to go onward and upwards. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to just be.

“I do not see ruin as a negative thing […] What else is there to love, anyway? One cannot love a…”

“I do not see ruin as a negative thing […] What else is there to love, anyway? One cannot love a monument, a work of architecture, an institution as such except in an experience itself precarious in its fragility: it hasn’t always been there, it will not always be there, it is finite. And for this very reason I love it as mortal, through its birth and its death, through the ghost or the silhouette of its ruin, of my own—which it already is or already prefigures. How can we love except in this finitude? Where else would the right to love, indeed the love of right, come from?”

- Jacques Derrida, Force of Law.

terpsikeraunos: terpsikeraunos: terpsikeraunos: hwaet! memory-mother, in meadhall sing the hatred,…

terpsikeraunos:

terpsikeraunos:

terpsikeraunos:

hwaet! memory-mother, in meadhall sing
the hatred, from heartlocks broken,
of achilles peleusson, cursed by his people,
wreaker of woes unending.
often his spear made the mighty
drink to dogs, food for the feathered,
strong souls banished to breathe in the dark.

deep it was driven, the doom of zeus,
since they stood sundered, bitter in boasting,
atreusson the people-king, and sun-bright achilles.
but who in heaven struck up their strife?
the son of leto, livid at the king,
spelled sickness, and the people perished,
for atreusson harmed his holy priest, chryses.

spear-greeks he sought by the swift sea-steeds,
daring, undaunted, his daughter to ransom,
bearing garlands of the arrow-guiding god
on a golden staff. he sank before spear-greeks,
saying to them and the sons of atreus, people-guides:
“sons of atreus, and strong-scaled spear-greeks,
may the mighty gods in their mountain-helming halls
give you priam’s gore-gold, and glorious homecoming.
only unchain my child, in exchange for this ringhoard,
with honor for him, the arrow-hailing son of zeus.”

“I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things…”

“I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.”

- Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

pluckyredhead: cheskamouse: higgsboshark: The thing about knitting is it’s much harder to fear…

pluckyredhead:

cheskamouse:

higgsboshark:

The thing about knitting is it’s much harder to fear the existential futility of all your actions while you’re doing it.

Like ok, sure, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’ve made any positive impact on the world. But it’s pretty easy to believe you’ve made a sock. Look at it. There it is. Put it on, now your foot’s warm.

Checkmate, nihilism.

This is a powerful positive message..

I’m literally reading a book right now (Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski) that says this is scientifically sound.

There have been studies done on rats and dogs where they develop learned helplessness in the animals by giving them impossible tasks. Eventually the animals stop trying, even when the task stops being impossible. (I.e. put a rat in a maze with cheese it can’t get to until it develops learned helplessness, then put the cheese somewhere it can get to it and it won’t even try.) But once they show the animals they CAN do something - i.e. physically moving the rat to the cheese - the learned helplessness goes away.

No one can move you to your cheese for you, but the book says DOING something - which they define as “anything that isn’t nothing” can help. Make a food. Work in the garden. Clean a thing. Do a favor for a friend. Call your elected officials.

Knit a sock.

If you feel overwhelmed by existential despair, do something. It doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be anything that isn’t nothing.