A Momentary Diversion On The Road To The Grave @madfeline - Tumblr Blog

mountaineer's axe with heart-shaped holes and bronze reinforced shaft. japan, muromachi period, 14th century

at some point you have to realize that you actually have to read to understand the nuance of anything. we as a society are obsessed with summarization, likely as a result of the speed demanded by capital. from headlines to social media (twitter being especially egregious with the character limit), people take in fragments of knowledge and run with them, twisting their meaning into a kaleidoscope that dilutes the message into nothing. yes, brevity is good, but sometimes the message, even when communicated with utmost brevity, requires a 300 page book. sorry.

harpyhormones

i dont. think you can play fun with astrology shit hating on people for star sign bullshit “as a joke” and then get surprised when people use it for realsies to justify or explain awful shit

like im sorry but u cant assign people traits based on circumstances beyond their control, actually judge them for that, then arbitrarily say “oh wait dont use it to justify actually bad things” like too late! you already let it do that!

harpyhormones

i think ascribing people personality traits, often negative, based on the circumstances of their birth, is bad full stop period, and i think people are kidding themselves when they say that all these jokes they make about x sign acting like this (usually gemini or scorpio) are just jokes and wont influence how they actually think about people. i think when you “jokingly” ascribe traits to people based on that shit over and over it will affect how you actually think, and even if it doesnt (it does), it lends credence to the people who ARE using this shit seriously to do some bullshit armchair psychoanalysis of victims, or explaining abuse cases in terms of magic star sign shit, or asking potential roommates what their fucking birth chart looks like to see if they can have a place or not

i dont care if you think im being no fun allowed or im being un-nuanced or fucking whatever. you wanna have fun with zingy newspaper column phrenology at least be up front about it

bookpdf

not being productive or relaxing but a secret third thing

underwaterfraulein

doomedvoyages

In terms of like, Please For The Love Of God Get Hobbies That Aren’t Scrolling Through An App For Six Hours A Day, I understand and experience completely the argument of like. with the stressors of modern work, you don’t have the energy at the end of the day to do anything but mindlessly watch Netflix and scroll through your phone. but like I would like to gently encourage you to simply force yourself for a time to do something instead of pick up your phone, bc the phone is literally designed to light up your brain with no effort from you whatsoever and it does in fact rot your brain. It makes literally anything but scrolling on your phone seem difficult and joyless. But if you stop scrolling on your phone all the time, and start like, reading or embroidering or gardening or going for walks, you will eventually find the joy in them once more

I understand and it is true that it is hard to have a life outside work and scrolling but there is not a near future where that won’t be the case and you should still live a life. And you won’t create a future where that isn’t the case if you don’t have the confidence and experience and drive to fight for it

invertprivileges

https://forge.medium.com/get-the-most-from-your-limited-free-time-84de1bc3096

the trick is to recognize that there’s nothing intrinsically exhausting about reading a book or painting a picture or doing any of the activities that are meaningful to you. What makes these things seem exhausting is the fact that they’re now competing with cheaper stimulation. In a paper published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, a group of psychologists suggested that the feeling of effort is a sensation of opportunity costs. When you’re doing something and an alternative activity promises to be easier and more immediately rewarding, the original activity feels effortful.

Therefore, if you want to do the things that matter, you need to make the alternatives less salient. Reading will be hard when Netflix is always an option. Family time will seem boring if your phone is always within arm’s reach. Easier will beat better if it’s always available.