Elky Ramirez

wrong

good news, you can! the company’s called Tony’s Chocolonely and their entire purpose is to make slave-free chocolate and reform the chocolate industry.

A list of slavery-free chocolate companies:

​i feel like some people are missing the point of this post entirely so to make things abundantly clear: this has nothing to do with being naive, “delusional” or living in some “romantic” fantasy world. the point of this post is a very specific, very withering, insidious sort of nihilism in which any gesture of kindness is dismissed as inherently pointless. it’s cynicism for the sake of it and it doesn’t challenge a thing - all it does is affirm and maintain the same shittiness that made you bemoan the world to begin with. it contributes nothing other than telling people that trying to be good is a wasted effort because sometimes people are deliberately shitty. yes, sometimes people are shitty. spectacularly shitty, mind-bogglingly shitty. but that’s the choice that they have made. and i am not going to sit here and dismiss all the good that has been done, that can be done, because of someone else’s choice. that’s not living in denial or ignoring that terrible things happen - it’s about acknowledging the terrible things, being angry (viciously, incandescently angry) and acutely aware of them, yet actively working to make the world a better place regardless, in whatever way you can. that’s not naive, and it certainly isn’t some frivolous little game - it’s fucking exhausting. it’s very, very difficult to remain hopeful in hopeless times, to keep fighting for even a fraction of the things that need to be fought for - but it’s very easy, incredibly–dangerously–easy, to wash your hands of the whole thing, to turn your back on it because “oh, there’s no point. that’s just the way the world works”. that’s not profound. that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that fools itself into thinking it’s in on some grand, dazzling secret that everyone else is too much of a naive, doe-eyed idiot to grasp: “the world is terrible, why bother?” fine–and then what? the world keeps being terrible, because no one bothers. people have died, keep dying, over and over, because no one bothers.

one of the hardest things to learn as a depressed former Gifted Kid™ is that half-assed is better than nothing. take the 50%, 40%, even 20% job. scrubbing your face is better than not taking a shower at all. picking up your clothes is better than never cleaning. nibbling on some bread is better than starving.

One of my college professors used to say “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.”  I didn’t understand that for years because I didn’t do anything poorly, I couldn’t do anything poorly, I had to Do Everything Perfectly.

Yo! @staff

Ruddy duck! that’s my favorite duck!

king eider!

Buffle heads! They’re all over the marsh and bay right now!

yeah I love ducks