I love soulmates but also this-
dirt enthusiast
noise dept.
YOU ARE THE REASON

Andulka

⁂

PR's Tumblrdome
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

if i look back, i am lost
AnasAbdin
TVSTRANGERTHINGS

oozey mess
almost home

★

ellievsbear
Sweet Seals For You, Always
RMH
One Nice Bug Per Day

he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Monterey Bay Aquarium

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@andrcmeda
I love soulmates but also this-

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when e.e. cummings said “i’ll live my life if it kills me”
when andrea gibson said “i suppose i love this life, in spite of my clenched fist.” & when ellen bass said “to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it”
when james baldwin said, “this is why one must say yes to life and embrace it wherever it is found-and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it is;”
when Mary Oliver said “it is a serious thing / just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world”
I learned a new concept
Graceful degradation is the ability of a computer, machine, electronic system or network to maintain limited functionality even when a large portion of it has been destroyed or rendered inoperative. The purpose of graceful degradation is to prevent catastrophic failure. (Tech Target, first result on the search engine)
Literal opposite of planned obsolescence. I love you graceful degradation.
Oh neat the first time I heard of the concept the guy described it to me as "catastrophic functionality".
He was talking about it in the context of designing robots that would go in and stop nuclear reactor meltdowns, something that would 100% destroy the robot, but they would be designed to keep functioning and fighting the meltdown for as long as possible. He had some designs where over 80% of the robot has died and it was functionally dragging its corpse around by its one working arm because one more minute of functionality might save thousands.
I've been having a few bad years mental health wise, and thinking about those robots a lot .
My ancestors, watching me dump an entire stick of cinnamon, two cloves, an allspice berry, and a generous grating of nutmeg into my tea, sweetened with white sugar and loaded with cream, while I sit in my clean warm house surrounded by books, 25+ outfits for different occasions, and 6 pairs of shoes, in a building heated so well I have the windows open in mid-autumn:
Our daughter prospers. We are proud of her. She has never labored in a field but knows riches we could not have imagined.
I like this so much better than the idea that our ancestors would be embarrassed or ashamed of us for being “soft” or some crap like that.
My ancestors, watching me stuff my face with fried chicken while studying: She eats like an imperial concubine and can afford to study like am imperial scholar. WE MADE IT
She eats like an imperial concubine and can afford to study like am imperial scholar
My ancestors watching me use my stand mixer while living in a small apartment and attending university: Thou hast kneadeth bread in FOUR hail marys??? FOUR??? And thou ist poor as a churchmouse, yet liveth in a fine cottage with four pounds butter and fresh berries in thy larder!! And two featherbeds! And thou attendeth the King’s college, as a lord!!
My ancestors being like:
Look at this fine young lady! She can paint she can sew and embrody, she sings and read
And without a wealthy father to pay for that, plus she is florid in the body! She doesn’t know hunger!
We did it!
Me: /wearily studying/
My Ancestors: TRULY SH— what? They? A little unorthodox, but reasonable I suppose. TRULY THEY PROSPER, FOR THEY LIVE IN A DWELLING WITH MANY ROOMS AND ONLY THEIR SPOUSE TO SHARE IT WITH! THEY HAVE DOGS WHO DO NOT PERFORM A FUNCTION! THEY HAVE MANY BOOKS AND DO NOT HAVE TO SPIN THEIR OWN YARN! THEY BATHE AT A WHIM WITH GENTLE SOAP FREE OF LYE! OUR DESCENDANT BRINGS HONOR AND PRIDE TO OUR LINEAGE!
Me: /yawns and sips my coffee/
My Ancestors: /cheer wildly/
Me: *hunched over at my desk nursing a headache.*
My Ancestors: “Truly, we prosper; see here, our infirm descendant need not even work on her poor days, but has the luxury to rest as she sees need! A doctor attends to her illnesses; her clothes are warm and free of pests; she cares for exotic and dangerous animals within her own home! We have found the height of luxury!”
Me: *treats myself to a pineapple and a bunch of bananas*
My Georgian ancestors: ZOOTH SHE HAS BOUGHT A PINEAPPLE! NOT MERELY BORROWED ONE! TRULY SHE HAS ACHIEVED FAR MORE THAN WE COULD KNOW!
me: [puts on warm socks and a blanket, is now warm regardless of the weather outside]
My impoverished Russian Jewish ancestors:
Me: [learns to knit from youtube videos]
My ancestors: Our descendant, the heir to all our hopes and fears for a far-off future… She can buy fine clothes woven and knit by automatons, with but a fraction of a day’s earnings… and she does… she has so much free time to do as she pleases… and she uses some of that time to do what we did.
One woman from rural Poland, who died from smallpox in 1717 CE, a grandmother at 35: I knit roses and peonies into my and my children’s gloves… it wasn’t much extra work to dye the red, once I had already cleaned the wool and spun the yarn, and to knit in the designs… and I wasn’t a gifted knitter but I was a good knitter, and I thought, well, it might not make a difference to how warm the glove is, but it made the children happy and it made me happy. I liked to make things beautiful when I could.
Another woman, a peasant from what’s now France, who died from getting kicked by a mammoth in 8995 BCE: [Patting her on the back] I made my family’s clothes too. Every day my sister and I wove and wove and tended our children. We went out of our way to make the cloth lovely. Not a trace of it remains anywhere on earth now… But it mattered to us. And she might not know our names, or know it was us, but evidently, it matters to her too. She has so much beauty available to her, in every direction, and she wants to make it where we once made it.
[everyone sobbing and high-fiving each other.]
A man from Britain, 1104 CE, sitting at the trans-temporal telescope, reporting on my doings: She’s stopped knitting and now she’s playing minecraft.
The other ancestors: Ah, yes, the dream of building. We know this one well. What vision doth she design now?
Telescope man: Looks like… Some kind of floating temple?
Everyone: [Goes completely apeshit]
Me: studying Marine Biology, out in the middle of the Elkhorn slough absolutely fucking covered in the most foul-smelling mud and swamp scum you can imagine, deliriously happy as I spot a tell-tale bubbling in the mud. I jump off the small dock and drive my entire arm into the mud like a Mortal Kombat Character ripping someone’s heart out of their chest, and pull out a 4lb, two-foot long Geoduck Clam and hold it aloft, triumphant.
My Homminid ancestors, who were doing exactly this with much smaller clams 900,000 years ago: *going absolutely literally apeshit over my flawless technique and the marvelous size of my quarry* CLAM! CLAM! CLAM! CLAM! CLAM! CLAM! CLAM! WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!
OH MY! I love this.
9-8-23
i want to get a master's degree i want to take a cake decorating class i want to dance i want to sing i want to write and remember how to think i want to swim i want to be free

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Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Altemps
this site definitely doesn't allow you to paste the link to any article blocked by a paywall (say, a NYT article) so that you can read it free of charge! that would be illegal and would benefit broke college students too much. it definitely does not do that. promise.
quotes that help me survive:
“You are not lost. You are here. Stop abandoning yourself. Stop repeating this myth about love and success that will land in your lap or evade you forever. Build a humble, flawed life from the rubble, and cherish that. There is nothing more glorious on the face of the earth than someone who refuses to give up, who refuses to give in to their most self-hating, discouraged, disillusioned self, and instead learns, slowly and painfully, how to relish the feeling of building a hut in middle of the suffocating dust.” — Heather Havrilesky, Ask Polly
this tumblr text post:
“To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.” — Mary Oliver
From an interview with Kazu Makino:
Instructions On Not Giving Up, Ada Limon:
And this poster by Yumi Sakugawa
“You have to believe, in your heart, that even if you don’t work hard and exercise and think positive thoughts and make new friends and march triumphantly into the future, you are still enough. You will always have bad days. Being broken doesn’t make you a loser. You can crumble, and you will still be enough. Make that your religion moving forward. You are here to feel this moment. You are not here to become someone better. You are not here to impress or compete. You are not here to prove yourself. You are here to savor this life. Let down your guard. You are already enough. Believe it.” — Heather Havrilesky
“The first feminist gesture is to say: “Ok. They’re looking at me. But I’m looking at them.” The act of deciding to look, of deciding that the world is not defined by how people see me, but by how I see them.” -Agnès Varda
lyrics from the song Grow by The Oh Hellos:
“The world’s otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.” — Mary Oliver
“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you,and that you will work with these stories from your life--not someone else's life--water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. That is the work. The only work.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estes
You should be proud of yourself, too. How strong you’ve been through all this? It’s pretty inspiring. Or whatever. You always know what to say. I know. I’m really smart. No, seriously. I mean, you act like you don’t care about anything, but you might be one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever met.
FELIX and PILAR in LOVE VICTOR, SEASON TWO (2021)
I was thinking about this quote I found digging through my likes from Euripides’s Helen. The quote is as follows: Ἑλένη δ᾽ ἐκλήθην. ἃ δὲ πεπόνθαμεν κακὰ λέγοιμ᾽ ἄν, and in English: “I am called Helen. Let me tell you of the evils I have suffered.”
It’s interesting that she uses that passive form of the verb, ἐκλήθην, or “I am called.” She is called “Helen,” stating that “Helen” is the name others use to address her, with all its negative connotations. “I am called Helen,” or perhaps alternatively “I am called whore” or “I am called witch” or “I am called destruction of many men.” Her use of the passive voice makes me think that Helen understands what it means to be Helen and what people perceive Helen to be. Her own perception of herself doesn’t come into play here, and thus the use of the passive also makes me wonder what name Helen uses to call herself. I hope she uses other names than the κύων (dog) she uses in the Iliad.
The quote also reminded me of Seneca’s Medea, in which he has the titular character declare “Medea nunc sum,” or “Now I am become Medea,” once she has decided to carry out the revenge for which she is famous. Here again Medea understands what it means to be Medea, what people perceive Medea to be, and only at that point in the play does she truly attain the status of Medea. It’s as though Medea knew all along what she would have to do to become the Medea expected of her, and that she had to take certain steps to fill up the role.
The line has such a spookiness to it. Like the audience, the character knows the story, or at least hints of it. Indeed, as Helen tells Hektor in Book VI of Iliad: “εἵνεκ᾽ ἐμεῖο κυνὸς καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἕνεκ᾽ ἄτης/οἷσιν ἐπὶ Ζεὺς θῆκε κακὸν μόρον, ὡς καὶ ὀπίσσω/ἀνθρώποισι πελώμεθ᾽ ἀοίδιμοι ἐσσομένοισι,” and in English: “Because of me being a dog and because of the infatuation of Alexandros (Paris), on us Zeus has placed the bad fate that we will be sung of by men yet to be.” Imagine hearing those words as your bard sings to you the story of Troy. Helen is not only correct, but speaking to you about you. She knows that you are listening. She knows what you expect to hear.

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ZOYALAI NATION HOW ARE WE FEELING?
Y’all ever think about how there are universal human experiences that art connects us to, but there are also human experiences so painfully specific that it takes possibly decades for you to find art that speaks to them?
And you finally find that poem or story or song that’s like “I know. I have felt this before. I understand. This is real.” and you’re struck all of a sudden by the obscurity of being human. Art is a shining tapestry of commonality and understanding, but it’s also just small voices pulled from the abyss and us stumbling around in the dark to grab at them.
Don’t get me wrong. It is a beautiful, powerful miracle that it’s possible. But it’s not easy. Sometimes you’ll be lost and alien for many years before a piece of art comes to you that says I know, I feel this too.
as much as i love the trope of a character falling fast and hard for someone, i also love the subtle descent where they don’t really think about it; where that person is just kind of there until one day they realize that person is so ingrained in their lives and they cannot do without them. where there is no conscious effort on either ends to become romantically involved but somehow the thought of them being with someone else is disconcerting. where “i enjoy being with you” unwittingly turns into “i want to be with you”
having a lot of thoughts about this week’s ask polly
👀👀 not gonna name names but SOME of u are sweet and kind and deserve the world and i am rooting for u

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Photographed by Andrew Nuding for Simone Rocha S/S 2021
Valentine’s day is NOT a day for lovers, couples, or people in relationships. Valentine’s day is exclusively for elementary school students who each buy their entire class cute little cards with cartoon characters on them, messily scrawl their classmates names there as an act of love, and give them a tiny little candy packet.
that is the height of the holiday.