as someone who wants to make Every Art And Craft, Ever, All The Time it's actually suuuuuuch a relief when I come across a technique that I don't vibe with aesthetically. my pile of Things To Learn is endless and ever-growing and normally every time I see a new thing it's like well. there it goes. on the infinite pile. so on the rare occasions i see something i DON'T have a fervent and immediate desire to learn I'm just oh wow I don't like this. thank fucking god.
not using AI genuinely feels like the rest of the world is experiencing some kind of mass amnesia. if someone says they never use it, the immediate response is that can't be true because "everyone" uses it to write their emails or answer their questions. saw a comment suggesting that not using chatgpt to write an essay is "like the 90s". girl I graduated in 2021 and we weren't doing that! how is it that everyone has suddenly forgotten that they were entirely capable of doing these things all by themselves for their entire lives up until the past few years!! am I going crazy!!!
reading up on the concept of Trial By Ordeal and this is so fucking funny to me. imagine watching a man walk up to a blazing inferno, only for a sudden change in the weather to put it out, and thinking “well obviously this proves that God doesn’t like him.” I would have been so mad.
A lot of people seem to mix up ‘community’ with ‘friend group’ so when they read ‘no one should be abandoned by the community. No matter what they did’ they think it means ‘you have to be friends with abusers’. When in reality it means ‘no matter what someone does they shouldnt be left to go homeless and be denied financial, housing, medical, etc aid’
You don’t have to be friends with these people, no one is saying that. It’s just saying that you should support rehabilitative justice, support programs that help homeless people, support funding for free medical services, and make sure they don’t turn away anyone who needs help.
But it is not your own Shire," said Gildor. "Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out."
As soon as he set foot upon the far bank of Silverlode a strange feeling had come over him, and it deepened as he walked on into the Naith: it seemed to him that he had stepped over a bridge of time into a corner of the Elder Days, and was now walking in a world that was no more.
Cullenstown (Irish: Baile Chuilinn) is a townland and small village located on the south coast of County Wexford, in Ireland. A small beach, Cullenstown Strand, is located nearby.
Cullenstown is home to the “shell cottage” (also known as “cliff cottage”), a 19th century thatched farmhouse which was decorated with shells by Kevin Ffrench. The house took over 30 years to decorate. The area also contains a Gaelic handball alley, a pub, and a number of holiday homes
In the tenth year of Justinian’s reign, the sun lost its brightness and shone like the moon, as though perpetually eclipsed. From that moment, humanity knew no relief from war, famine, or pestilence. The plague followed soon after, spreading across the whole world without regard for age, rank, or place, bringing mankind to the edge of annihilation.
-Procopius on the Years following 536AD
From the summit of the Palatium Magnum, Justinian the Great looked out upon the city as the greatest temple to the one true God was completed. The Hagia Sophia stood as the summit of Roman achievement, a monument so grand that Justinian himself proclaimed to have surpassed Solomon. The agents of hell had tried and failed to destroy Justinian. He had endured the Nika Riots. Attila, the Scourge of God, had arrived and been driven back to distant lands. And now on the evening of victory over the Goths and Vandals, Justinian raised monuments across the empire to reclaim the ancient heartlands of Rome. To Justinian, it appeared as though Heaven itself had broken into the material world.
Then came the year 536. The sun lost its brightness and for an entire year it gave forth no warmth or heat, and neither spring nor summer ever arrived. Crops failed in the fields, harvests died on the vine, and famine spread across Rome. Even when the sun returned in the following years, its light remained dimmed, and the earth lingered forever in cold.
In his reflections, the historian Procopius remarked that from this moment onward mankind was never to be free of war, pestilence, or death. As hunger stalked the empire, the conditions for a far deadlier hell to break loose.
In 541, a mysterious disease appeared, starting in Egypt and quickly spreading through the Roman world. It wasn’t long before it reached Constantinople. This new death spared neither island nor mountain, rich or poor. Neither young nor old. This disease was described simply as an apparition that visited those marked for death. And then, the sickness came. First, a fever, then painful swellings rose in the armpits, ears and neck. Some fell into deep comas others seized by violent delirium, fleeing their homes in terror, crying out that the unseen apparition had come.
Blackened flesh spread across limbs. Carbuncles formed within the swellings. Some vomited blood other suffered as the black pustules would explode. As the population became overwhelmed with death, corpses lay unburied in the streets. Tombs were forced open to make room for more. Physicians were helpless. Treatments that saved some killed others. Many who were expected to die recovered, while those thought safe were smit without warning. And in the terror, mankind came to accept that there was no human reasoning in this pandemonium—only the terrible hand of God.
Wave after wave of death buckled the empire until nearly forty percent of the Roman population was lost. This Black Death broke Rome, the same Rome whose walls of Constantinople rebuffed Attila; whose armies crushed Persians, Goths and Vandals; whose lordship regaled as the heir of Caesar and Augustus. And Justinian the Great, whose monuments of glory now stood as an irony to fate, like Job before him, was brought low. Justinian’s dream of a restored Rome did not die in battle…it froze in the darkened years following 536AD. The long winter and the plague bled Constantinople, emptying her cities and hollowing out the economies. The Imperial state collapsed along with the Legions. What Justinian had nearly reclaimed through blood and steel was forever lost. While the old wolf of Rome endured it was permanently diminished. The Mediterranean world irreparably fractured. Between the darkened winter skies and diseased mass graves, the last true vision of a reunited Roman world quietly came to an end.
Sources:
Lost to the West; Lars Brownworth
The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease and the End of an Empire; Kyle Harper
I love having friends who reject diet culture. I love going out when everyone buys food and drinks that they enjoy. I love people who will pipe up and suggest we stop for a snack or grab a meal. I love ordering what I want and no one making comments other than how good it looks (and maybe asking to steal a bite off my plate). I love revelling in how full we are after a good meal and taking a break to appreciate how fortunate we are. I love sharing snack from our bags with one another. I love enjoying the pleasure of food and drinks and good company.
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turnnoffyourmind
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