Your favorite word

42, technically female. Zelensky, Les Mis, Hannibal, Letterkenny, Dylan Moran oh, and i sell vintage US postage stamps: postage.store

[charlesoberonn]

The boulder pushing punishment is iconic. But I think more people should know the reason Sisyphus was punished to begin with, which was for cheating death, twice.

The first time he cheated death, Sisyphus had just angered Zeus by revealing the location of the Asopid Aegina whom Zeus abducted. Which is super valid, fuck Zeus.

Sisyphus knew that Zeus would send the god of death Thanatos after him, so he prepared a trap and trapped Thanatos in the chains meant for him.

After that, nothing on Earth was able to die so long as Thanatos was in chains. Which meant no animals could be sacrificed to the gods. This angered the gods, who made Sisyphus' life so miserable with pain and illness that he would beg for death. And so he released Thanatos.

But then came the second time Sisyphus cheated death. As he was dying, he asked his wife to dump his naked corpse in the middle of the public square. Denied a proper burial, his soul ended up on the far side of the river Styx, unable to cross.

He complained to Hades and Persephone about how his wife disrespected him, and begged them to let him return briefly to the world of the living to scold her and make her bury him properly. They agreed, and Sisyphus returned to life. He then embraced his wife, and refused to return to the Underworld.

It's only when he finally died of old age that he was sent to Tartarus and punished with the boulder.

I don't remember where I've seen it, but I like the interpretation that Sisyphus doesn't have to push the boulder. He can choose to stay in Tartarus and rest. But he was promised that if he managed to push the boulder to the top of the mountain, he'll ascend to Elysium.

And Sisyphus, in his stubbornness and cleverness, refuses to give up on a challenge.

One must indeed imagine Sisyphus happy, planning and scheming about how he'll cheat the gods next.

[bethanydelleman]

I have been listening to this podcast called Betwixt the Sheets, The History of Sex, Scandal & Society, and it's really reminding me of the main reason that you should listen to experts. It's not because of the reason media usually shows, them having encyclopedic knowledge of their subject (though many do have that) it's their ability to sort.

This podcast demonstrates that ability really well because sex scandals tend to be used as propaganda, so it's difficult to tell if they are true or not. The host will ask the historian guest, "Did he have sex with men?" and the guest will say something like, "Well four sources say so, but three were written after his death and the one from his lifetime was from a dude who REALLY hated him, so I'm going to conclude no."

That is what an expert can do, that we've perhaps forgotten about because we have so much information at our fingertips, an expert can tell which information is good & valid vs. bad & unreliable. An expert can sort much faster than a layman because they've been doing it for years.

It's the same for my field. Some things I am absolutely sure are wrong, like if someone says "We only use 10% of our brains." No, we use all of it and I can even tell you what every part does. But other claims, if I see a news article claiming something that sounds fishy, I can read the research article behind it and judge the validity of the source. I can sort. I know which parameters to sort on. That was the entire point of my education and it was pounded into my head.

Knowledge isn't enough. Researching isn't enough because if you don't know how to sort you'll just be led astray down dangerous rabbit holes. That is why experts are so important.

[bellamyblcke]

they want to fuck each other so bad it makes them enact increasingly complex crimes against each other in order to prove that they’re actually the one with the power that they’re one DOING the fucking & not the one getting fucked over

[badamore]

(op's tags)

[hobbies306540111]

women should lift weights because it prevents osteoporosis in old age and makes you a more capable person in everyday life please shut up about butts and waists and hourglasses i'm going to fucking kill

[endangeredlove]

;___;♡♡♡♡

[mothric]

genuine question from someone who would rather chew their arm off than go to a public gym, and also doesnt have a lot of money: how do you safely get into strength training? are there youtube channels, apps (android), etc anyone recommends that makes it approachable and don't lean into diet culture / body shaming?

also the biggest thing that keeps me from working out is that I already have joint and spinal issues and moving the wrong way can fuck up a knee or a shoulder or my spine for days. I really don't want to injure myself, and have unwittingly done so before. resources that are extremely clear on exactly how to move and offer gentler / alternative ways to move for people with limited range are vital.

[feenyxblue]

Okay, so this may not technically be strength training, but muscles are dumber than bricks and cannot tell the difference between your own bodyweight and actual weights.

So, may I recommend:

Hybrid Calisthenics

Hey everyone! My name is Hampton and my brand is Hybrid Calisthenics. You can find me by that name pretty much everywhere on social media.

He runs a YouTube channel where he goes over how to work your way up to more complex exercises (for instance, his pull-ups videos start with using a door jamb and moving your weight back and forth) so it's good for easing yourself into things.

[bundibird]

You also don't have to fork out for expensive weights and such if you don't want to/can't. Substitute with stuff you either already have at home or can get from the supermarket and build up the weight you can exercise with. 500 gram cans of butter beans then 750 gram bottles of pasta sauce. 1 litre drink bottle then your 1.5 litre milk bottle. 3 litre bulk-buy bottle of laundry detergent. Etc. One of my dogs weighs 13 kilos and I pick her up on the regular (to her delight). One weighs 16 kg and I pick him up too (to his consternation and mild disapproval). You don't have to fit out some fancy home gym before you can start strength training.

[theygender]

I second Hybrid Calisthenics, that's the program I use. It's run by one guy who's taken it upon himself to make exercising more accessible and it's completely free! Each exercise has different variations based on your ability and each variation is further divided into different levels of difficulty so you can work up to where you want to be. If you can't do a single push up for example then this program will help you work up to the point where you can, and if you're a master of push ups then there are more advanced body weight exercises you can tackle so you can keep moving forward in your training without stagnating. The routine offers a full body workout with absolutely no equipment required for the beginning levels. The only reason you would need to buy anything is if you want to work up to a full pull up, at which point you would need actual pull up rings

Here's his actual website which I feel is easier to navigate than the YouTube channel on its own and organizes things in a way that's easy to understand. He explains everything you need to know about the routine and each individual exercise has both a text description and a video tutorial

Hybrid Calisthenics

[aroaceauri]

@movementnudge

[doomhamster]

I just saw someone say "I thought everyone knew that right-wingers never seek to understand, and in fact don't WANT to understand, the things they rail against, like gender identities" and that's true.

But I wish more people would grasp that this isn't a function of being RIGHT-wing, it's a function of being any-fucking-WING. The idea that you don't have to understand how something works in order to judge whether it's Good or Bad, and in fact trying to understand something Bad is going to contaminate you spiritually, is very much in evidence on the left as well.

It's just that the left-wingers have a different list of "I don't want to know about this and you knowing about it makes you suspect at best" topics.

[boghermit]

Happy May the Fourth to this tweet specifically

[buttpoems]

[frogmood]

500 years from now there’s gonna be some film historian who’s entire career is built off of searching for a copy of goncharov

[rainstormyday]

and they're never gonna find it cuz they fucking took it off poob

[sncrlynwtms]

fandom etiquette as a whole died when people who didn’t grow up on fandoms became stans during lockdown, yes, but why am i seeing people openly mocking fics on twitter. why am i seeing screenshots of fics with captions like “bro what is this 😭.” why am i seeing people mock fic writers for not knowing how sports or theater or college or any other organization operates in the real world.

“college is absolutely nothing like this” “why are we writing four people on the team scoring a hat trick in one game” “so tech work is nothing like this, hope that helps!”

if you don’t like a fic, and if you can’t suspend your belief enough to enjoy a fic that exaggerates or ignores real-world orgs, you don’t have to read it. you don’t have to screenshot it and put it on blast for twitter. you don’t have to post a link to it in the replies. the back button is literally there on your phone. it’s not giving baby’s first fandom anymore, it’s giving entitled asshole and it isn’t as cute as you think it is.

[dungeonmastersconsortium]

Me stepping onto the balcony to address my followers

[notecardpasta]

I think when you correctly identify a trauma that is the base of a woe of yours it should just disappear. It should be like "aaahh. you got me" and vanish and leave 100 dollars behind

[countthelions]

#if you line up several neuroses and identify the interlocking connections between them they should all vanish like clearing a line in tetris (via @karliahs)

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]

🤪

[byjove]

I never thought I would be siding with the pope’s involvement in politics and cheering him on. I will say that.

[byjove]

[ratcoffin69]

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

[creatingblackcharacters]

And what is it we just talked about in book club?? THIS.

[corrucyst]

[blaquesails]

some replies:

[serps-up]

so happy and free

[reachartwork]

this is going to be a silly reblog but i have kind of a fixation on animal qualia and the idea of an animal's umwelt, so i ended up wondering whether pudding was actually "enjoying" this.

which meant i went and read about snail brains.

here's the bad news, at least by human standards:

snails do not have anything like a centralized brain. their nervous system is made up of small clusters of neurons (ganglia) that mostly handle very local tasks. they don't have a cortex, they don't build big integrated models of the world, and they almost certainly don't experience things like appreciation, anticipation, or savoring.

pudding is not looking at the sky and thinking it's beautiful.

snail eyes are basically light sensors - they can tell bright from dark, but not form images. snail "taste" is done through chemoreceptors on their tentacles and around their mouth. those receptors don't produce flavor the way ours do; they just detect chemical compounds and sort them into "approach," "ignore," or "avoid."

so there's no evidence that snails enjoy food, or wind, or views, the way mammals do.

and that does sound kind of sad. but then i thought that maybe we are asking the wrong question.

snails do have valence. they detect aversive things (like salt or dryness) and withdraw from them. they detect non-aversive or beneficial conditions (like moisture) and stay extended. when pudding is stretched out like this, it means his nervous system is basically saying "this is safe; nothing is wrong."

if we define pleasure not as our human experience of dopamine and reward chemicals but instead as "the absence of aversion" - a state where the organism is open to its environment instead of defending itself - then this does count as something positive, even if it's extremely nothing like human enjoyment.

pudding isn't appreciating the wind. but his body is registering humidity, safety, and the ability to keep functioning, and that matters to him in the only way his nervous system can make things matter. he does not think "this is great, this is awesome, i love the weather", because he doesn't think in the way we do at all, but the neurological action in his ganglion tell his body that he is safe, that the moisture is an acceptable level, that it's not too dry or windy, and that there's nothing imminently threatening.

i think a lot of the sadness comes from assuming that a good life has to look like ours: full of enjoyment, meaning, and aesthetic experience. but a snail isn't missing those things. its world just isn't built to include them.

snails don't have a sense of flavor. they don't even have tastebuds. this seems like a gimme, right? but again that might be asking the wrong question about what "taste" is. biologically speaking, it's chemoreception. we taste sweet because it indicates high value, high calorie sugar molecules. we taste salty for salt, umami for proteins. so in what way does pudding's chemoreceptors differ from ours instrumentally? we can say "by our human perspective, pudding can't experience "preference" or "savoring" or "anticipation of delicious food"", but from pudding's perspective we have radically overengineered ourselves for the task at hand. pudding can tell what's salty, what's high value, what has the chemicals he needs. the functional outcome is that he can discriminate food souces based on their composition. is that not taste?

so maybe the point isn't "this is sad because he can't enjoy it," but "this is a reminder that minds come in radically different shapes, and value doesn't have to be rich to be real."