#impossible tasks

Psyche Abandoned (also known as Psyche in a Faint) (c.1819) by Pietro Tenerani (Italian, 1789 – 1869), inscription rear, left side: “P. Tenerani”, marble, 120 x 48 x 63 cm, Pitti Palace, Florence

“I don’t want you better I want you fucking perfect.”

ETA: I actually started doing it but she stopped me at thallium

There’s probably some lesson I’m supposed to learn about beauty or expectations or something but really I think I’m going to throttle someone

― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

it reminds me of the biohacking thing, specifically the kind where if you just eat and exercise and take supplements on a rigid schedule, you will reach this incredible level of health that you’re almost not human anymore. it hinges on supernatural/spiritual transcendence,. and that’s what therapy is doing. you can’t therapy hack or mental health hack or emotion hack a life under oppression and capitalism and all the other horrors into one that is excellent out of controlling your thoughts and emotions with therapy skills and rituals. feeling bad in a shitty world is normal and you deserve to feel better, but in order to improve how you feel, we need to change the world into one that’s worth living in instead of using thought and emotion stopping techniques to silence the pain. 

Jan Tregeagle is a demon of Cornwall, a ghostly figure that wails on the coasts and moors. In life, in the 17th century, he was a magistrate who amassed great wealth by making a pact with the devil. To keep his soul out of hell until Judgement Day he sought help from churchmen, who set impossible tasks for him such as draining Dozmary Pool with a limpet shell and spinning ropes out of sand at Gwenver Cove.