Something Good

To the tumblr user who I just blocked, I hope you at least know (if you're not a bot, which I suspect you might be) that 'can I get your mom's linkedin' is, like, a generational innovation in negging

Got thrown out of the tarot reading for counting cards. fuck this place

Okay. For my money, the entire thesis of Chris Nolan’s 2026 film The Odyssey is that society chokes and sputters and dies when we abuse, ignore, or violate social norms like the laws of hospitality. That is not really what The Odyssey (the book/poem) is about, but I can clearly see why in the horror that is the 2020s, someone could read The Odyssey and go oh my god that’s a lot of bad dropping in. That’s a lot of bad visits. That’s a clear vision of how the loss of social norms and cohesion fucks you up and how war, literal, brutal war, is a terrible wound that destroys your humanity and your understanding of what civilization and society is. I don’t know that the iteration of Greek society that ultimately birthed the poem would agree with Nolan’s take, but I think this movie is quite ideologically coherent, that Nolan knew exactly what he was trying to say with each and every adaptational change, and I think he wasn’t nuts for using one of the most famous classical western civilization works as a way to make that argument.

THIS.

There's really this strong temptation that everyone has which basically says "to have interiority is to be like me; ordinary people are surface everywhere." And this manifests in different ways in different spaces, and becomes really pronounced when you cluster together with similar people. So tumblr users often act like straight people don't have any interiority because it helps you feel the deepening of social bonds with other gay people. This happens professionally too. I think it was Summer or Sharks who was saying that programming people think that intelligence is just being really good at writing code. Not surprising but very strange to me! I am (equally ridiculously) used to thinking that intelligence is being really good at philosophy, having command of a lot of sources that you can use creatively, etc. This reflects a kind of dynamic on tumblr and reddit. On reddit to have interiority is to be a science guy and on tumblr to have interiority is to be a humanities girl (and the dynamic is gendered in exactly this way). And I think there is something dangerous about habitually regarding other people as automatons. It's good to have people outside of your niche to remind you that other people from different walks of life are quite deep and complicated. They are full of love and fine grained attention to things you never thought to care about. And I think a lot of people go through life thinking of themselves as perpetually victimized by basically empty people rather than having genuine confrontations with full, genuine people who are committed to subtle, complex and real values, who have detailed and intricate histories, and who have a bond to you that you might never quite fully understand. But we rarely even try at understanding these things. We just decide that they're stupid and ridiculous and unreasonable.

Always always always tell people you love they are so smart and capable. I will die on this hill. More often than not people are raised in unforgiving environments that tell them they are inherently “stupid” and not good enough for things, whether that be parents or cruel bosses or unsupportive friends. An underrated way of supporting people is reminding them they are brilliant no matter what anyone has ever said about their intellect and potential. People can do wonders when it’s affirmed to them their limiting beliefs are just that: limiting beliefs.

World Heritage Post

eeby deeby... i haven't heard that name in years...

Odysseus saying that “the age of Bronze is collapsing” is just utterly absurd bc the term ‘Bronze Age’ is a relatively modern term used in archaeology, it wouldn’t be used by ancient ppl to talk about themselves. It would’ve make more sense for Odysseus to say that “the age of heroes has ended” bc the Ages of Man would be a concept that the Ancient Greeks would know.

Even funnier, because Nolan hates color, not a single person is wearing bronze in the Odyssey so you have to question why these dudes wearing iron armor self identify as the "Bronze Age"

The concept of the ages of humanity (gold, silver, bronze, heroic, iron) was first written about by the ancient Greek poet ⁠Hesiod in 700 BCE. Not contemporary to the time of the Trojan War (if it happened at all) but hardly modern. The line was still silly.

dads LOVE to say shit like "please call home when you have the chance tonight." and then you call and it's "we put ya on our triple aaa plan"

it’s amazing how women are able to navigate crowded rooms without ever touching a palm to a man’s lower back