At the Bottom of the Box was Hope

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We grow up and we are not paying attention because there was no luxury to feel everything that happens, the houses are empty, friends travel, and the streets that we were afraid of at night became empty during the day, a moment comes to look at yourself and then laugh at all the difficult circumstances you went through in Omar, you are supposed to live the best days of your life, then eat, sleep, plan for tomorrow and be surprised by yourself

The topic is not forgetting to forget, the luxury of memory has become a busy staircase, every time you open it, you close it, so you learn to live in the text, half an eye on tomorrow and a half an eye that is still hanging at a closed door, they ask us if you will see new colors, maybe, but the new colors hurt because they remind you of what went

The voices have changed, the names have been erased, the places have become pictures, and no one is talking about everyone, I ask now how are you?

So you reply to them, okay, because there is no word to explain that you are tired, but complete and that you are lost, but not dead

Maybe after years we talk about it quietly, not because it's light, but because we're tired, we remove it every day, so we put it on the side and continue

And so we grow up in my country and you may see us smiling at all the losses because it is an instinct in us

“Anti-Jedi” fans try to excuse and legitimize their misinterpretation of the Jedi teaching by arguing, "attachment" has a very specific meaning in Buddhism, so once non-attachment is “taken out of its Buddhist context,” for the average English-speaking Star Wars fan, it can only be interpreted as “non-love.” By contrast, many “Pro-Jedi” fans have a tendency to simply stop at “respecting the Buddhist inspiration” of Lucas’ Jedi doctrine, and insist, what it really means is clinginess and obsession (implying, Anakin was like Joe Goldberg from You.)

Both kinds of fans are mistaken. When they hear that in Buddhist philosophy non-attachment does not mean the absence of love or connection, rather, it connotes clinging, grasping and the inability to let go, they're quick to conclude that the kind of attachment the Buddha warns against has nothing to do with their “normal attachments” or “normal love.”

This is not so.

Buddhist teachings highlight a simple fact of life we all know at some level but we don’t wish to face with: whatever we think we have, we can never truly have it. No matter how deeply we want to have a mother, a spouse, or anyone we love, who makes us feel good, we can never truly have — or own or possess — them. Everything changes; nothing lasts forever. All that brings us happiness must eventually pass beyond our reach. Any kind of love that resists this — any kind of love that has the element of the desire for someone or something to stay in our lives, to stay as they are, to not to change — is an attachment, a grasping, a clinging a Buddhist must cease. The Buddha taught that attachment is the cause of our suffering: all reality is impermanent, yet we want the things we like or love to be permanent.

“In our society,” the Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, born Diane Perry, writes in her book, The Heroic Heart, “we believe that the more we are attached, the more loving we are. But it is simply not true. Attachment is tricky, but basically it means ‘I want you to make me happy and to make me feel good.’ Conversely love says, ‘I want you to be happy and to make you feel good.’ It doesn’t say anything about me… The important thing is that love allows us to hold things gently instead of grasping tightly. It is an important difference.” She explains, “The test of whether we are attached or not is how we feel if we lose something or someone we love. Are we holding on with both hands or are willing to let go? Inwardly, we need to be able to let go. It’s only when we grasp tightly that we have a problem.” 

“Attachment” is a sticky word. In its literal sense, it refers to a tie or a fastening. Figuratively, it denotes an emotional fastening. When gentle, it’s seen as love, liking, or connection; when strong, it’s seen as clinging. Here, we encounter the first, basic problem: what exactly do we mean by “love”? Tenzin Palmo observes: “In English, ‘love’ is a very multifaceted word. It’s very misused, as we all know. We say, ‘I love my parents, I love my children, I love my partner, I love ice-cream, I love walks in the country, I love television, I love football, I love to meditate…’ All these words for love have very different connotations. We are talking about very different emotions: romantic love, altruistic love, mere pleasure, etc.” Attachment is a kind of love, but what kind of love is it? In simple terms, attachment is a kind of love that says, “you make me happy, so I care for you, I want to be close to you, I don’t want to be without you.” The English word attachment refers to the feeling that you like or love someone or something and that you would be unhappy without them – a feeling of affection or fondness that is characterized by a resistance to be without the person or the thing you like or love. Whenever feelings of loving or liking have the shadow of the fear of loss, we’re talking about attachment.

Batja Mesquita, the social psychologist and affective scientist who studied how the concept of “love” is tailored to interactions and relationships in particular cultural contexts, pointed out that in the Western/Westernized world, “for the most part love is felt for people who offer something we want, need or like; who are psychologically or physically attractive; and who need, love or appreciate us back.” In this context, “Love means giving attention to your loved one — sometimes at the expense of attention for other things — wanting to be close to them, expressing your positive feelings for them, to hug, hold, cuddle, touch, pet (if it is an animal), kiss, and, in case of romantic relationship, have sex with them.” Love “singles out and elevates one particular individual” and it’s ultimately built around the goal of “to be united in mutual admiration, attraction, or longing.” It should be easy to see, why, in this cultural landscape, the notion of not having attachments is so often and so quickly equated as not loving family, friends, pets, possessions, and decried as unhealthy, even malicious. After all, many people insist, what is love if not attachment? “I think it’s fair to say that Americans have some unhealthy concepts around the ideas of love and relationships” says Alex Kakuyo, Buddhist teacher and a former marine “For us, love is attachment-based, almost to the point of obsession.”

The real difference between Buddhists and non-Buddhists is that a Buddhist would recognize the difference between the feelings and relationships lumped into the board category of “love,” and identify attachment - the kind of love that’s characterized by a desire for the things and people we love to not to leave our lives - as grasping and clinging, an unrealistic and self-centered desire for coming and passing things to stay as they are so they can keep us happy.

In Attack of the Clones, when Padmé tells him, she thought, to love is “forbidden for a Jedi,” Anakin discerns two kinds of love: attachment, grouped together with possession, and compassion, which he says, he would define as unconditional love. Unfortunately, many viewers opted for the interpretation that Anakin tries to convince Padmé that compassion would include passionate love, with some Tumblr users even altering the quote, changing “unconditional love” to “unlimited love." Anakin’s statement, meant to convey Lucas philosophy that love is compassion and not attachment, is way too often dismissed as nonsense. Alex Kane wrote in a now-deleted article for StarWars.com:

Anakin is Orpheus, and Palpatine is Hades. Anakin succumbs to his nightmare visions, loses his faith, and therefore loses everything he tried to hold on to -- mother, Padme, his dream of becoming a Jedi and freeing all the slaves.

The advice given to Anakin by Obi-Wan was correct. Dreams pass in time. ALL things change and pass. All things are transient. That is the message. It is spoken on the level of deep insight to the source of Anakin's struggle -- that Anakin is refusing a fundamental truth about all things and that is why he is struggling with dreams. The message is not "ignore your dreams, they will pass" it is "you need to use the transience of dreams to realize the transience of all things." Anakin hears Obi-Wan on a "householder" level, not on an enlightenment-seeker level, and he reacts accordingly. As do many viewers, to be honest.

Likewise the advice given by Yoda. Yoda does not speak to Anakin's fears. It's obvious that Anakin is withholding information in that conversation. But Yoda, as a Jedi, speaks, not to the specifics, but to the fundamental and universal.

"You must learn to let go of everything you fear to lose."

These are beautifully profound words, and the door to liberation. But Anakin is fixated on his attachments and forcing fate to his will, and so he cannot see liberation. (This is honestly a hugely tragic irony -- the slave clinging to his shackles. )

Three times in the Prequel Trilogy, Anakin receives words from his Perfect Teachers: Shmi, Obi-Wan, and Yoda. Each of them spoke directly to the heart of his matter. But Anakin, although he could intellectually understand and repeat the noble truths, he remained in the householder realm.

This is what the Council felt when Qui-Gon first brought Anakin to the Jedi. He is too old. The roots of attachment habit are already strong. To let go of them will be hard. And the fact that the boy is so strong in the Force actually make it HARDER for him to accept the noble truths. Because time and again (starting with his pod-racing) he will directly experience being able to bend events to his will. This is so strongly expressed in every thing Anakin says to Padme about his own powers.

I believe that the Council reluctantly decided to accept and train Anakin because his power in the Force made leaving him to grow up without their teachings also a great danger. They had to do their best to guide him to a good path, and place faith in the Force that this was the right decision.

Just as, 10 years later, they had to accept and lead the Clone army, because to refuse to do so would not stop the death and destruction of war AND it would leave a huge and powerful military force unguided. They had to do their best to take on this army and try to guide it to protect life as much as possible under the circumstances. And place faith in the Force that this was the right decision.

Camus believed morality begins when justification ends. You don't do good because it saves you, or earns approval. You do it because suffering exists and you refuse to add to it.

He called this ‘the modest heroism of the absurd.’ In a meaningless world, the only meaning left is what we create through compassion, courage, and presence.

Camus saw that people want cosmic justice, rewards, closure, divine order. But decency doesn't need a witness. True morality, he said, is doing what's right when no one's watching.

In an age obsessed with saving the world, Camus reminds us that goodness isn't grand. It's quiet. It's the everyday rebellion of kindness in a world that's indifferent.

You can't fix chaos. You can't end suffering. But you can refuse cruelty. You can choose integrity. You can make one small corner of existence less unbearable.

Maybe that's enough. Maybe the most moral life isn't one that saves the world but one that quietly refuses to make it worse.”

Federal agents with the Department of Homeland Security sent undercover agents to observe a climate group and into churches, and obtained financial records for labor unions, as they sought to crack down on mass protests in Minneapolis following the Trump administration’s surge of federal officers into the city, attorneys alleged in a new filing. The effort began in earnest four days after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. On Jan. 28, Homeland Security Investigations, ICE’s investigative arm, started what it called “Operation Puppet Master,” the filing says. That investigation was targeted at “an organized network of conspirators operating through online and in person who are providing material support to violent opportunists and agitators involved in impeding federal law enforcement, rioting, destruction of Federal property and assaults on Federal agents and Officers.” The filing was filed by the defense in the broad conspiracy prosecution that the DOJ’s Joint Task Force Vanguard brought against fifteen Minnesota activists in June. Federal prosecutors channeled Trump administration messaging to dub the group “Antifa.” Locals have started to call the group the “Minneapolis 15.”

13 August 2026

Newly disclosed records reveal the US government extensively spied on prominent leftwing organizations and on protesters as part of a vast operation into groups opposing the immigration crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year. Internal investigative reports show the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent undercover agents to community meetings in the Twin Cities and New York City, infiltrated Signal chats and obtained financial records of mainstream unions and left-leaning non-profit groups. Nearly 30 internal law enforcement reports were released on Thursday as part of a criminal case the Department of Justice (DoJ) has filed against 15 Minneapolis protesters. The defendants are accused of a “conspiracy” to “impede” US immigration officers during the Trump administration’s surge in the region. The DHS investigative reports were disclosed by the government and submitted to the court by an attorney for one of the defendants. The records show that in January, DHS launched an inquiry called “Operation Puppet Master” to identify a “network of conspirators” organizing against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The operation came as community organizing against ICE was swelling in the region in response to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

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Please help Maryam and her family!

At the same time, we kindly ask you not to stop here. Our situation remains extremely difficult, and we still desperately need your continued support. Please keep helping, sharing, and reminding others about our situation.

August 9, 2026 - Two members of People Against Genocide broke into the Aberdeen facility of Ultra Intelligence & Communications (I&C), a supplier to Elbit Systems and the Israeli military directly.

The activists destroyed equipment, recorded documents and barricaded themselves inside, where they had to wait for 7 hours before police managed to get in and arrest them.

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Now they finally have a chance to continue.

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Just reblog it.

It costs nothing, but it might reach someone who can actually change everything.

The constellation Orion is framed by two Perseid meteors on Aug. 12, 2018, in Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah.

I'm so happy you're having fun with it! :D :D And you picked some great ones I haven't answered, thank you so much! 25 What headcanons do you have about Minashee? 

YESSSS!!! :D I’ve been thinking a lot about Minashee this year since it's something Sifo-Dyas thinks about a lot in Mock Orange and is... significant to the plot. I've got a big post of Minashee headcanons here but I’ll add a few things more for you! 

I really love the contrasting difference between Dooku’s birth planet backstory (horrific, traumatic) and Sifo-Dyas’s (cheerfully ordinary, as far as we’re told.) I think a lot about how Dooku seems almost jealous of Sifo-Dyas’s little breezy answer about Master Maota finding him on Minashee in Dooku: Jedi Lost; I love exploring/playing with that. 

Young Sifo-Dyas being portrayed as super curious and into everything, he probably did some of his own research into Minashee and knows some basic things about customs and culture there through basically space-googling it. I like to think of him experimenting like a lot of Jedi with aspects of their birthworld culture - maybe incorporating shell beads into his braids, or my headcanon about his distinctive hair style being a Minashee men’s cultural look (although looking at that concept art and Ronhar Kim’s look, I almost like it better as a classic Jedi style.) I love writing his takes on it being kind of surface-level because of that. You know, he's all like "that reminds me of a beautiful saying we have on Minashee.." *goes on to spout some basic Hallmark card ass bullshit no one actually from Minashee would ever say*

And I feel like Dooku would see that and be really shitty and sarcastic about it because it’s this thing Sifo-Dyas can have with his birth planet that he could never touch with his own. 

27 ‎Who do you ship Sifo-Dyas with?

I am all about 💫Them 💫- the holy trinity, Jodooksy, or whatever Dooku/Jocasta/Sifo-Dyas ship is called. 

That said, I mainly write Sifo-Dyas/Dooku (Syku) because they’re so fucked up I can’t stop putting them into situations to study. I want to see them have a fistfight; I want to see them kiss. In both scenarios, someone definitely cries. 

31What is your favorite/wildest/most interesting Sifo-Dyas AU? (your own or from another Miner)

Unfortunately, I lost my PayPal account 😔

I am begging the UK trans community and its allies to attend the rescheduled Mass Lobby at Parliament, now on Wed Sept 9th, 1pm-5pm, organised by Trans Solidarity Alliance.

The new EHRC Code of Practice pushes trans people out of toilets, hospital wards, and community spaces. It normalises gender policing based on appearance and stereotypes. It became statutory guidance in the UK on August 5th, 2026.

Trans people are now legally their assigned gender at birth and must join gendered spaces accordingly, but if they are perceived as their lived gender, they can also be ejected from those spaces. The guidance says: either break the law, or don’t pass too well.

A mass lobby is where you invite your MP to discuss your concerns with you in-person. Our demands have changed. Ask your MP to:

Write to Ministers and Prime Minister Andy Burnham to say they are profoundly concerned by the rolling back of trans rights, and that they believe that it is time for Parliament to legislate to protect equality for trans people.

Ask parliamentary questions focused on protecting trans people’s rights and defending trans people’s abilities to live safe and dignified lives.

Speak up both inside and outside Parliament in defence of trans people’s rights.

Meet regularly with trans constituents to understand their lived realities. 

Your MP does not have to be an ally, they do not have to respond to your email for you to show up and greencard them (details below the cut.) What matters is that as many people as possible show up.

I cannot stress this enough: Showing up in person matters. It is much more effective than petitions, emails, and letters.

We have already had some wins because we took action. The 2026 EHRC guidance has already rolled back its most harmful elements because of mass campaigning by individuals like us, and groups like The Good Law Project. This summer, 166 MPs signed the Early Day Motion 240 to reject the EHRC Code of Practice, because of our campaigning. That is 1 in 4 MPs.

It is a horrible, stressful time, and I am so sorry if you're trans and live in the UK. But I was at last year's mass lobby and the line for greencarding alone stretched around the back gates. It was a record breaking mass lobby and made us impossible to ignore. Let's do even better this time. Details under the cut: