an interesting thing about clothing in late medieval and early modern europe is that, while lower class people generally did wear brightly colored clothing instead of muddy brown clothes, there were very distinct differences in the color of clothing people of different classes wore. clothing was done with all natural dyes, of course, but they were either dyed locally with cheap and easily accessible ingredients, or they were dyed in holland, italy, the ottoman empire, or even further afield using a jealously guarded secret combination of difficult-to-access ingredients, including (crucially) better-quality fixatives. this means that not only did expensive imported fabrics maintain a dark, rich tone much longer than a locally dyed one, which would get a washed out look after a couple of years, but there were also certain colors that a working class farmer literally couldn’t afford to wear, and even though the difference between a cheap local lincoln green and an expensive imported popingay green might seem subtle to us people then seem to have been very sensitive to those differences. that’s also why the colors puritans tended to wear seem uncharacteristically bright to our modern eye—black was such a rich and expensive color that it would be inappropriate to wear to anything other than a portrait sitting, but the colors orange and kendall green were deeply humble in their origins
all the rights that come with marriage you should be able to have without marriage btw. you should be able to designate a person who can visit you in the hospital regardless of your relationship to that person.
You have to understand. I watched the movies maybe once as a kid when they came out twenty years ago. I've somehow avoided learning like anything about these books my entire life. Literally everything about these books was a complete unknown and surprise to me. Totally blank slate going on. I barely even knew how it ended.
Frodo didn't complete his task. Sam literally carried him up Mount Doom. And when he got to the end, he couldn't throw the Ring away.
But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.
So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.
And it broke him.
It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.
He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.
But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.
And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.
But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.
It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.
But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.
It's been a week and I'm still not over this, I'll never get over this.
Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.
The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.
This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.
And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.
I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.
Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.
And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.
And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.
How am I supposed to move on with my life after reading this?
Certainly there are many messages within Lord of the Rings, but you have to think that Tolkien would have been happy that this message in particular was still being conveyed all these years later.
“my father is a boy and my mother is a girl so i’m mixed” is the funniest possible response to someone asking your gender and it came from 6’5 Viking footballer and notable weird little guy Erling Haaland on a Snapchat
After a year of lurking in the F1 fandom, I feel compelled to speak my truth: Nico Rosberg’s LinkedIn page is the richest text that nobody is talking about.
As the foremost Nico LinkedIn critical scholar* of our times, I’m begging someone, ANYONE, to get on my level with this.
*[amount of time I've spent scrolling his posts redacted, but trust me, whatever you're thinking, it's more]
If you’re not in his target demo of loser, sorry I mean millennial-to-genX grindset startup bro with a hard-on for networking with venture capitalists, then you’re probably not in Nico’s LinkedIn circle and you might not know that he is ACTIVE. He is posting 2-3 times a week, he is responding to comments, this is his primary social media output, and the content isn’t crossposted anywhere else.
For years, his beat has been dreadfully boring stuff like ~optimising your performance for success in business~, and you should know that thematically he's currently mid-villian's journey, pivoting his content from ~here's how Europe can be a leader in sustainable transport~ to ~here's how we can use GenAI for literally fucking everything.~
His comment section is dozens of fintech reply guys engaging earnestly with his productivity tips and totally missing the POINT. The point being:
breadcrumbs about his relationship with his dad (keke rosberg) and also his relationship with his dad (toto wolff), which are both totally normal you guys thanks for asking
a surprising number of performative meditation photos, very important in order to prove why neuroscientists have given him such a good grade in brain activity
the sanitised-to-fit-the-current-brand, darkness-still-lurking-within brocedes of it all, which is usually something like: "during my @ Formula1 days, lewis brought out the most evil, self-loathing version of me on account of how perfect he was, which made me miserable, but thankfully also led me to a deep wealth of venture capitalist wisdom 10-15 years later!!!"
cheery framing of the most fucked-up psychological damage wrought upon man by professional sports and reinforced by the sexy, evil father figures in charge
I also need you to know that Nico is unintentionally HILARIOUS. He isn’t setting out to be funny. He’s earnestly trying to be insightful/inspiring. For him it IS that deep, it’s the most serious thing in the world whether your mindset is primed to extract max performance from your douchey job. But oh my god does he wind up being funny.
Like, ok, how about illustrating a list of really obvious advice about bettersleep4betterresults with this selfie... conveying through eyebrow acting how unsatisfying his previous REM cycle was due to not following his own advice :(
Or a 40th birthday roundup of bland life lessons like 'great teamwork beats talent alone!' that obviously must be illustrated via slurping a vat of celery juice against decorative wallpaper (he likes this photo btw as it shows up in more than one post):
Or my personal favourite: his interpretation of the cliche advice that your business plan should be concise enough to fit on a napkin. Ah yes, I should have a napkin around here somewhere. Not a poor person's paper cocktail napkin, but how about this giant piece of nice fabric, which might actually be a pillowcase or perhaps a tablecloth? Surely it's fine to sharpie all over this and then throw it out? And definitely this exercise is about writing teeny tiny on an A4-sized surface so you can fit in as much as possible? Anyway, let's finish with a <3!
I also love when he experiments with style, like this brief foray into notes-app insights (didn't perform well, never tried again):
The wording of his posts is a dialect of its own, which has invaded my brain. He describes 1-3 things as “super” in every post, and it’s unclear whether he is aware of other adjectives. He overuses exclamation marks and emojis. Most posts contain a simple message illustrated via an extremely tenuous link to an F1 anecdote, and he is tagging the official @ Formula1 LinkedIn page at even the slightest opportunity. Someone once gave him the tip to ask a question to drive engagement, and he’s made that tip his religion.
Once you start narrating your own life as a Nico LinkedIn post, it’s super hard to stop! It’s super fun, like winning a @Formula1 Grand Prix, which Nico did on 23 memorable occasions. 🏆 What’s a vocal tic you’ve adopted from a girldad entrepreneur in his 40s? 🤔 Let me know in the comments!
Despite all this, Nico has kinda won me over? He is cringe and he is free and he’s so himself. There’s some really sweet tidbits in there when you go digging!!!
He posts surprisingly often about both gender equality and karaoke - usually at separate times, but on one memorable occasion, together!
He comes across as really, genuinely loving of his family, invested in quality time with them, and supportive of their interests and successes. Like this - getting his wife to repeat the confidence-building phrases from her own childen's book when she's anxious! I find this very sweet!
And while he expresses it as though his every thought has been fed through a machine that increases corporatespeak and cheuginess by 175%, I have come to believe that he has genuinely self-actualised after retiring from the F1 torture machine, at least to the extent that he is trying to spend his one, wild, and precious life in a way that's authentic and meaningful to him.
I'll leave you with the one post so baffling it haunts me. The text is pretty innocuous and filled with his usual stuff: I love my family! Family time is more important than work! And luckily, family time will make you even better at work!
But ohhhhh my god the picture.
what on EARTH am I looking at here????? This monstrous creature has to be AI. Am I to believe that Nico and his young child have constructed a snow rabbit as tall as a pine tree???? with cartoon features not resembling any household objects one might use for a snowman face, questionable texture and colour gradients, and perfectly shaped (those paws!!) to an unlikely degree. This couldn't possibly be real snow???? And did he think we just wouldn't notice???? I have reverse image searched to compare it to real snow bunnies made by real human people and like... nico.... who are you trying to fool here...
The comments are equally insane work, like SIMPLE CRAFTS??? Are there LinkedIn bots? Surely these are not serious people.
And who I can only imagine to be the few fellow truthers... have been ominously ignored.
So like... has he made the entire story up? Has he 'built' the snowman on ChatGPT with his daughter, entirely undermining his put-down-your-phone thesis? Did he make a snowman but he was so ashamed by it that he felt the need to spruce it up in post? It's just such a bizarre thing to lie about... like... nobody was saying Nico, Nico, we simply must see the quality of the easter bunny snow sculpture you made with your children, without it we couldn't possibly take your word that enjoying simple moments with your family is a critical element of health, happiness, and productivity!
I'm not stupid, so I know there is a chance that every single post is written by GenAI and I have been duped into character analysis that is actually based on drivel written by a water guzzling soulless machine trained on self-help books. (Although I'll say that his style has remained pretty consistent for years, since before this would have been likely.)
He might also have never had the password to his own accounts, and this is the work of a social media girlie who texts him stuff like 'hey boss, when you get a sec could you pose with some green juice for me, and then maybe a second one looking really upset in bed?'
Or........ and maybe I am deluded by the unlikely degree of charming and fun I find him, but I do genuinely think there is just enough weird human decision-making here to indicate that this is the case..... is Nico typing out the earnest inner workings of his heart between networking happy hour and trackside commentary gigs and gruelling sessions with his philosopher-slash-psychotherapist-slash-mindset coach?
Regardless, like Nico I believe in the lifechanging power of gratitude, so uhhhhh. Thanks for posting the funniest content on the whole website, you corny, corny man!!
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