Hades

Everything I’ve Ever Let Go Of Has Claw Marks On It

In a city, like the pic above, they represent rebellion, and efficiency. The messiness of humanity. We like to imagine we're oh so logical and neat so we design our cities to be logical and neat an then real humans literally trample on that idea. The ego required to think you can design something perfect that checks every box. Life is all about compromise and patching stuff when some new problem arises. Though people have certainly tried! Ohio state univeristy let students carve their desire paths, and then paved them over. It looks pretty artsy.

Some people will try to discourage desire paths, but this is almost always going to fail.

Eventually, people just have to accept them. Humans are too dang stubborn.

Certain desire paths are just adorable. A 0.5 second time saver. You just can't design for maximum efficiency, humans will always find shortcuts!

Though on occasion a desire path can actually be the least efficient way...especially if you're superstitious.

In a wilder area, such as below, they show us the curiosity of humans. A desire path somewhere natural often tells you there's something interesting just ahead. (Though remember some ecosystems are fragile and will suffer if trampled! Stick to paths in these sorts of areas)

And how about desire stairs? I always think these look so cool. We get see humans determination to climb, to traverse every kind of terrain.

And for something really crazy...a desire path used for centuries will create a 'holloway'

reblog this post if your account is a trans safe space or owned by a trans person!

“Every generation inherits both wounds and remedies”, a proverb repeatedly sung by those who sew the wounds of the next generation, an affirmation of plausible deniability, a normalization of their cruelty, an appeal to tradition which they take as a cleansing of their sins. 

“This is how it's always been done”, they say when faced with the consequences of their actions and the ever changing tide of the world, clinging to the wreckage of their sunken world and trying to submerge us alongside them.  

“Mutiny!” They cry as we struggle to remain afloat, they stay rooted in their captainship no matter how many times they demonstrate their inability to navigate the oncoming tides. 

“Tradition” they claim as they jam square pegs into round holes, brute forcing our society into what was, instead of what is.

“Inexperience” they smear across those who are not of their kind, those who will inevitably be forced to clean up their generational estate.

They focus on our origins, the seed we were, not the flower we are. Siting a world long outdated they write of the shadows that flicker across their wall as if that reflects the outside of their cave. They believe that one size fits all when presented with a kaleidoscope of creatures completely unique to each other. They say that those below them are not trying hard enough while they comfortably sit atop a mountain of wealth and power. Our houses are assets, our lives are numbers and statistics, to be anything else is disrespectful. They claim they’ve been around long enough to learn the game, when in fact they have been around long enough to rig it. 

We are hipsters, thugs, extremists, heathens and naive, until they grow frail and turn in their chips for retirement. Our problems are our own, but theirs are ours too. Our burning world, our tainted water, our sickness, our rot, is irrelevant through the lens of our short term masters.

They claim wisdom, yet dwell in ignorance.

They claim culture, yet tread on ours.

They claim kindness, yet sew scars upon us.