Cello+Books+Sky=Joy

[ink-parchment-cello]

I don’t want to be productive. I don’t want to produce-to be another cog in the capitalist machine, selling my body and health to continue enabling an oppressive system. 

I can be constructive though. I can shape my life and my planet. I can construct the life I want to lead, now and in the future, based on what makes my soul happy. I would rather have a mindful morning routine than a productive routine. I have been placed on the Earth not to produce, but to CREATE and find beauty in life. 

[ink-parchment-cello]

Dark Academia/Classical Music

-Chopin from a record player

-Any recording pre-1960-composers conducting their own symphonies-anything with that beautiful static

-Practicing in front of a window during a thunderstorm

-Practicing in the middle of the night

-Instruments abandoned and coated with dust, finally being played again

-Sheet music littered on the floor

-Fingers coated with rosin dust

-Slightly tattered tuxedos

-Empty concert halls after a performance with only the ghost light on

-Lugging a cello case through empty hallways backstage

-Annotating sheet music until the notes are barely visible

-Yellowed piano keys

-Practicing in an empty concert hall

-Scribbling notes for your audition on your wrist

-Single tear running down your face after a concerto performance

-Sneaking food into practice rooms

-Quotes in Latin on your instrument case

[darkacademiac]

Ideal relationship of a dark academic

Reading books together in front of a fireplace, sipping on hot tea as you lean into each others warmth

Gently holding hands as you walk through the streets, quietly telling eachother about your days

Painfully cheesy pickup lines

Wearing their jacket because they insist it will be warmer than yours, despite just wanting their jacket to smell like you

Wandering around the mall together, playfully arguing over whether you should go to Cinnabon

Going to book stores together and losing track of time

“When we move in together, we should have our own little library”

Beethoven playing gently in the background as you have your first kiss

“I got us tickets to that play you were talking about”

Getting so caught up in the relationship that you forget to tell anyone about it

Going to see old movies

The kind of love where you don’t have to say anything, being in each other’s presence is enough

[ink-parchment-cello]

Aaahh, I want it so badly

[visibilityofcolor]

White are you so critical of only white women and not white men?

I felt like this questions was coming.

Why am I more critical toward white women? Because here ontumblr, we’ve all collectively called out and agreed that white men are racist,and in society the most racist and oppressive group. There is NO argument whenit comes to that and I agree, I am also happy that people, even white men andwomen alike fully accept that.

But it’s differently for white women.

While I am happy that tumblr is basically the platform forfemale positivity, there are extreme flaws in that movement.

Flaws that tend to excuse women for the terrible things theydo simply because they are women—but not all groups of women, specially whitewomen. Tumblr scrutinizesand is always harsher toward women of color than they are white women, hatingon women of color for the same things they love or excuse white women fordoing.

Here on tumblr, it is not acknowledged or generally acceptedthat white women can be racist and oppressive, while in my experiences white girls/women are the most racist grouphere on tumblr and in fandom. Yet, no body knows this outside of the poccommunity and when the topic of white women being racist or oppressive isbrought up, white girls get upset and try to dissuade the conversation with “allwomen” or “let’s bring each other up, not tear each other down” bullshit. (LikeI cannot count how many exclusively woc posts that white women have derailedand tried to erase a racial issue with “feminism for all”!!)

Tumblr does not scrutinize white women the way it should,because they are women. Yet women of color here are usually brought down, orignored because of white women. White women are put on pedestals here on tumblras heads of social justice, but when a woman of color talks to them aboutsocial justice issues or attempts to call them out on their racism, then thewhite girl gets upset and her friends do to.

White women believe they are untouchable when it comes tobeing racist/oppressive yet they execute some of the most racist tropes I’veever seen in fandom and claim they are being revolutionary or progressive. Whitewomen also fail to acknowledge or accept that men of color face prejudice andoppression , and they as white women have more freedom and privilege and arenot nearly as oppressed as men of color—especially here in America.

Tumblr is filled with privileged, racist white girls who perpetratetheir white feminism and think they know equality but they do not. yet, tumblras a whole accepts the white woman as a sign of feminism, female empowermentand idolizes her; tumblr accepts that white women can do no wrong because they aregirls and their feminism/social justice speak for us all.

And when a woman of color dares to speak out, the God helpher.

So I will always be critical toward white women because as ablack woman, I have only been subjected to racism here on tumblr by privileged whitewomen/girls and I think tumblr needs to realize that while white men are theultimate oppressors, white woman are not far behind, not at all.

Also anyone can reblog this and if you see it I would encourage you to because this needs to be brought to light!

[ink-parchment-cello]

Does anybody else do that thing where you’re really excited to see someone, and you plan out exactly how you’re going to tell them about an event that happened, and rehearse the conversation in your head a million times, and then you actually see the person and they start talking about themselves, which is fine, because you’re glad to see them, but you are left alone with your carefully worded story that you were sure they were going to love? 

[macrolit]

Giveaway Contest: We’re giving away fifteen paperback classics featuring Richard Adams, Edgar Allan Poe, Simone de Beauvoir, J.R.R. Tolkien, Richard Wright, Harper Lee, and others! Won’t this collection look lovely on your shelf? :D To win these classics, you must: 1) be following macrolit on Tumblr (yes, we will check. :P), and 2) reblog this post. We will choose a random winner on April 25, at which time we’ll start a new giveaway. And yes, we’ll ship to any country. Easy, right? Good luck!

[ink-parchment-cello]

I definitely don’t have too many books. Even though there’s no room on my bookshelves. I just need more bookshelves. 

[st-just]

Who could have possibly foreseen that organizing the entire service economy around low-wage workers without sick leave or reliable access to a doctor might someday backfire. 

[ink-parchment-cello]

Ope. 

[humanrightsupdates]

Tell clothing brands to support workers by signing the Transparency Pledge

Millions of garment factory workers like Monira and Rizwan, whose stories are below, suffer abuses in the workplace. 

The vast majority of workers do not know whom to turn to for improving their working conditions because the brands they make clothes for are kept secret. This lack of transparency allows brands to avoid accountability and fuels abuses against workers. 

Transparency benefits workers—they can inform brands when they experience labor abuses. Transparency also helps brands—they can better take steps to stop and prevent labor abuses.  

Currently, 39 companies have committed to the Transparency Pledge, but hundreds continue to hide where they make their clothes. 

Workers and shoppers deserve to know where brands make their clothes.

This shopping season, call on American Eagle Outfitters, Armani, Carrefour, River Island, and URBN (Urban Outfitters, Free People, Anthropologie, Nuuly) to support workers by publishing a list of all factories that make their branded products.

Monira (not her real name) is a Bangladeshi garment worker and mother of two children. She said that supply chain transparency helps workers draw brands’ attention to ongoing abuses.  

Monira survived the 2012 Tazreen factory fire that killed over 100 workers and injured hundreds more. Seven years later, she is still in pain and unable to sit for long periods of time. Despite her health conditions, she hasn’t received any work accommodations and her wages remain low. Her husband, a garment worker who survived the same disaster after being crushed under debris and trampled by workers running to escape, is still unable to work regularly and is often bedridden.   

To find out which clothing companies should be held accountable for the Tazreen factory fire, workers and activists had to rummage through the rubble to find labels of the brands they produced for. There was no other way to find out which brands to approach to help compensate the families of workers who died, and those who survived.  

Transparency is critical to supporting workers who face ongoing health and safety risks and who are calling for brand accountability. 

[ink-parchment-cello]

This is so important! Let’s take a stand for workers’ rights! 

[ink-parchment-cello]

But I was too sane. I couldn't make the leap out of own my soul to the soul of the universe. That's the leap they all made.

Don DeLilo

[ink-parchment-cello]

Stars

But just think about it. The stars have seen everything about people. They’ve seen every birth and death and marriage and divorce and abuse and true love and love ending and heartbreak and sadness and bliss. They’ve seen children playing, children laughing, children dying. They’ve seen women weeping with agony and joy, women being assaulted, abused, silenced, and women coming together, standing with each other, supporting each other. They’ve seen young men die in old men’s wars, men of courage, men of cowardice, men who thought that being brave meant hurting others, and men who knew it meant doing harm to none. People doing unspeakable evil, and people doing unspeakable good. Selfishness and selflessness. They’ve seen all the ugliness of humanity and all of the ethereal beauty, and, somehow, they don’t judge it. They just give us light. Light and hope. 

[ink-parchment-cello]

“To Define is to Limit”-Oscar Wilde. I define myself a lot. I am a cellist. I am a writer. I am an academic. I am a bohemian. I am a reader. I am a straight-A student. I am a dreamer. I lie awake imagining the depths of the human soul. I make plans and don’t follow through. My dreams are sometimes bigger than my work ethic. My work ethic is sometimes bigger than my laziness. I want to experience immeasurable tragedy, and unimaginable joy. I want to dive into the deepest and highest parts of humanity during my short time on earth. A playwright from a hundred years ago understands me better than my best friend. 

“Behind every exquisite thing that ever existed, there was something tragic.” -Oscar Wilde.