Just Fuck Me Up

Flamingos can survive in low oxygen, high altitude, high temperatures, low temperatures, high alkaline, they can and will drink boiling water and they can be completely frozen at night and still get up the next morning

(animal death) this is a real undoctored photograph (*though the body was stood up for the shot) of a dead flamingo on the surface of lake natron, a lake so salty and so alkaline that it’s naturally carbonated like soda and would eat through your stomach lining if you drank from it.

When this photo went viral years ago, most people assumed this poor flamingo must have been killed by the lake.

It is actually the lake where 75% of its global population are hatched. This is a photo from the same lake:

RATING: RELIABLE

Flamingos can survive in high altitudes, hypersaline conditions, and caustic lakes.

Source: ‘All flamingo species have evolved to live in some of the planet’s most extreme wetlands, like caustic “soda lakes”, hypersaline lagoons or high-altitude salt flats.’

They can survive water so alkaline it burns human skin.

Source: ‘More than a million lesser flamingos breed in Tanzania’s Lake Natron, for instance, a lake fed by hot springs with water so alkaline that it can strip away human skin (one pioneering flamingo researcher named Leslie Brown spent months in Nairobi General Hospital after burning his legs wading out to observe where the birds nested).’

They can drink water at near-boiling temperatures.

Source: ‘They can drink water at near boiling point to collect freshwater from springs and geysers at lake edges. If no freshwater is available, flamingos can use glands in their head that remove salt, draining it out from their nasal cavity.’

The lakes they inhabit can freeze overnight, and the flamingos can survive once it thaws in the morning.

Source: ‘The birds may seem to epitomize the tropics, but they also live in the Andes, 15,000 feet above sea level, where they rest on lakes that freeze around them overnight.

“You’ll see them sitting there like snowballs, frozen on ice,” Dr. Arengo said. “And as the temperature warms up, they thaw out, fluff themselves up and go about their business.”’

The photo is indeed from Lake Natron, taken by photographer Nick Brandt. The content of the lake chemically preserves animal corpses that die there. You can see more photos of this here.

It is also true that 75% of Lesser Flamingos are hatches on Lake Natron.

Source: ‘The lake’s landscape is surreal and deadly—and made even more bizarre by the fact that it’s the place where nearly 75 percent of the world’s lesser flamingos are born.’

Some species of Flamingo eat cyanobacteria or algae.

I still hate most of the foods that I wouldn't eat as a kid. Almost all the variation in my diet came from trying foods I wasn't exposed to as a kid.

In fact, there are lots of foods I would force myself to eat as a kid that I don't bother with anymore because I don't like them

"you have to stop being a picky eater and learn to tolerate new foods..."

gagging is extremely stressful. it is such an intensely, sharply unpleasant experience with the added stress of trying not to spit your mouthful of food all over yourself/the table. The sweating and heart palpitations of trying to force down a swallow of something that is viscerally repulsing you is an exquisitely negative feeling. My palms are sweating just thinking about it.

This experience can cause novelty itself to cause fear and apprehension. Just the prospect of eating something unfamiliar can cause fear and nausea, because past experiences were so incredibly negative

now, the physiological effect of fear is that it suppresses the activity of the digestive system. this deadens your appetite and makes it more likely that eating will make you feel sick. So the negative experience is compounded

but on a milder level, the depression of simply not enjoying food is very negative for your life. I can say confidently that the low quality of cafeteria food at my college increased my day to day depression. eating is one of life's pleasures and when it becomes a repulsive chore, that builds a slow resentment of being alive

therefore, it is not good to force yourself to eat things you do not like, instead it is better to cultivate greater curiosity and adventurousness regarding foods you may have never been exposed to before. importantly, you must do it in a safe enviroment because before you can enjoy food you have to undo all the negative experiences of being forced to eat food you hate

cooking recipes for yourself can be a good way to do that because it is creative and active which gives a sense of playfulness which leads to power and agency

do not try new things in social gathering where there is pressure from other people

foraging and gardening is incredibly helpful because the food is fresh and there is a great sense of security and connectedness in it. you know where the food comes from you know that it is good you know it came from the earth beneath your feet. eating something right off the plant is an experience that unlocks your inquisitive and animalistic side instead of making you feel pressures and stresses from social expectation.

You feel like an animal trying to bite something investigating whether it is food. Does a wild animal get yelled at when it bites something that is not edible and spits it out? of course not.

Also once you have had positive experiences eating things from outside your instincts tend to be more accessible to you. humans in the modern world are taught that outside things are not for eating, generally, so they silence the instinct that urges them to eat plants.

Personally i think this is a big part of many aversions to vegetables, if you are told that leaves outside are all poison and bad, it is hard to turn off that apprehension with a leaf on your plate. but if you experience eating plants that grow out of the ground in the world around you, that can awaken that instinct toward plants as food again

❌ False

✅ True

And you know what is "visual shorthand" for evil and ugliness, for entirely racist and VERY antisemitic reasons?

my face.

Only at specific points in the last few centuries of history, in specific places, am I allowed to be Beautiful.

in almost all of the last century and ALL of this one, my face is "striking" at best. If they've never seen European paintings from the 1800s or the works of Charles Dana Gibson, they'll just think I look Odd. But I don't get to be Beautiful, and neither does anyone who "doesn't Fit" the tiny narrow white-centric antisemitic bigoted eugenic standards of what makes someone Look Evil or Look Ugly or Look Pretty or Look Moral/Righteous.

I know an artist who does a lot of religious work. He did a nativity scene with a hundred angels in it. Every last one was some shade of White. You could tell he never even questioned it. not once.