theo van gogh was the one who suggested that his older brother vincent start seriously painting. as soon as theo was gainfully employed he gave vincent around 15% of his own yearly salary for art supplies, lodging, and food. about 2/3rds of vincent's surviving letters were to theo (including vincent's earliest and last letters), all of which were found stored in theo's desk. theo's child, vincent willem, was born on january 31st, 1890, and vincent was so delighted by his nephew that he painted almond blossoms for him. vincent shot himself half a year later on july 29th, 1890. theo's distress at his brother's death worsened his syphilis symptoms and he died half a year after his brother on january 25th, 1891 (four days before vincent willem's first birthday). theo was reburied next to vincent in auvers-sur-oise at the request of theo's wife johanna.

^mental gymnastics of the forcefield denier

The hymn to the goddess Nikkal is the oldest piece of music known to humankind. It’s engraved in cuneiform on a tablet from 1400 BC.

the human stress response seems so maladaptive!

To be fair 99% of our evolutionary stress response was meant to deal with far more immediately conclusive scenarios than the tedious bullshit we put up with these days.

very very slow tigers are chasing me

not to leave a serious comment on a silly post but one of the best pieces of advice I ever got about stress was to SLEEP but secondly, when overwhelmed, lay in a bed and intentionally hold all your muscles clenched. clench EVERYTHING. hold it for a few seconds, then let go. It tricks your animal fight-or-flight monkey brain into thinking it had, and won, a fight, and some of the stress response will leave you

#turn a slow tiger into a fast tiger with this fucked up trick

I need everyone to know that when I am educating clients on tension release exercises in therapy all I can think of is this post. It takes everything out of me not to say "let's try the fucked up tiger trick" in session.

just say it queen, let's make it happen