[ngaahiloloto]

i just logged in to try and find an old post but i kinda miss the vibe here actually. feels wholesome and private

[ngaahiloloto]

all i do is aggressively oscillate between loving my life (music and art, learning, family, childlike sense of wonder about the universe) and Hating my life (the compounding intergenerational stresses of being poor)

[ngaahiloloto]

i’m actually about to completely lose my mind over my living situation but next week im going to melbourne on a writing trip and i’ll be staying in a hotel room by myself and i CANNOT WAITTT i need it so much 😭 alternating between making music i love at the studio and being ALONE in my own nice space, all at the expense of a big record label... on this level i actually feel like im living my dream

[ngaahiloloto]

enjoyed this exchange at xmas this year

my brother: *grabbing a vodka cruiser* step uncle: that’s a girly drink. are you a girl?? bro: i feel pretty comfortable with myself step uncle’s SiL: and what does it matter if you’re a man or a woman or anything in between step unc: ah you know i’m a dinosaur, i can’t deal with all this pc crap bro: dad’s older than you and he doesn’t care

[ngaahiloloto]

on one hand my need to not be misunderstood will definitely be my downfall but on the other hand ive gotten really good at being able to explain and clarify my perspective in a way that will make sense to the person im talking to

[ngaahiloloto]

i have a good relationship with my mum but somewhat regularly we get into really stressful arguments when she asks me to do a task for her, because i ask questions to clarify things so i understand what i’m doing and am aware of what not to do, and she interprets it as me arguing or refusing... it took me long enough to work out that’s WHY it always turns into an argument, and when i did we had a talk about it that i think helped both of us understand our perspectives better, but i still feel like she just doesn’t get where i’m coming from

there was one point in that convo where i was saying something made me anxious, and asked her to simply accept that it made me anxious, but she just seemed completely dumbfounded at the idea that it would make me anxious. that has stuck with me bc i felt like i was going out on a limb being completely honest about my feelings and she was straight up unable to empathise with me :/

tonight she was asking me to get something from the supermarket and it seemed like she was deciding based on what’s easiest for me to carry and maybe not what would be best long term, so i just asked about that so i would be able to think about what was doable for me n perhaps be able to make it easier another way or something. i was like ‘if it’s not something you need right away then maybe i can look into online or something’ etc and instead of just saying ‘no i'd prefer to have it right away’ (which was the eventual answer) she started getting annoyed bc she took it as me arguing against getting it altogether. i realised as both of us were getting increasingly annoyed that i have to be like ‘i am still going to get it, this doesn’t mean i’m not going to get it i’m just asking’ basically between every sentence which is.... fucking exhausting imo....?

i eventually found the words to explain my reasoning for asking and she did understand, but she was still also like ‘i still don’t get why can’t you just do what i say?’ ... i got annoyed and responded with ‘why can’t you just answer my questions?’

we are so similar in a lot of ways and get along really well most of the time but this is obviously where our communication styles and types of anxiety come into conflict.. i like to be clear on things and i also like to be direct and get to the point when there is a task that needs doing. but she has said that she doesn’t understand why she should need to explain anything, and she seems averse to direct communication . each time these arguments happen i try to learn more about what i’m doing that upsets her and how to be more constructive so it doesnt happen anymore, but i dont feel like she is interested in doing the same on her end

the fact that this is so clearly to do with how communication styles clash, and her seeming unwillingness or inability to empathise with my anxiety - and i think that she maybe doesn’t realise this is to do with her anxiety/neuroticism too - makes me feel that maybe this is just unresolvable... which is a downer bc i really hate these arguments

[ngaahiloloto]

honestly theres rarely a time i feel so unconditionally welcomed and loved than greeting/meeting relatives at a tongan get together even i havent seen them in years and we barely remember each other 🥺

[ngaahiloloto]

damn u ever feel really dumb because you made a mistake or misinterpreted something and it’s completely understandable and not a problem but you just have to sit there feeling dumb i hate that

[scottishwobbly]

“Accordingly, we are fed a steady diet of reproaches by liberal and misanthropic environmentalists alike about how ‘we’ as a species are responsible for the breakdown of the environment. One does not have to go to enclaves of mystics and gurus in San Francisco to find this species-centred, asocial view of ecological problems and their sources. New York City will do just as well. I shall not easily forget an ‘environmental’ presentation staged by the New York Museum of Natural History in the seventies in which the public was exposed to a long series of exhibits, each depicting examples of pollution and ecological disruption. The exhibit which closed the presentation carried a startling sign, ‘The Most Dangerous Animal on Earth,’ and it consisted simply of a huge mirror which reflected back the human viewer who stood before it. I clearly recall a black child standing before the mirror while a white school teacher tried to explain the message which this arrogant exhibit tried to convey. There were no exhibits of corporate boards or directors planning to deforest a mountainside or government officials acting in collusion with them. The exhibit primarily conveyed one, basically misanthropic, message: people as such, not a rapacious society and its wealthy beneficiaries, are responsible for environmental dislocations — the poor no less than the personally wealthy, people of colour no less than privileged whites, women no less than men, the oppressed no less than the oppressor. A mythical human ‘species’ had replaced classes; individuals had replaced hierarchies; personal tastes (many of which are shaped by a predatory media) had replaced social relationships; and the disempowered who live meagre, isolated lives had replaced giant corporations, self-serving bureaucracies, and the violent paraphernalia of the State.”

— Murray Bookchin, “Society and Ecology” (via meatthawsmoth)

[detailedart]

Details : Bacchus and Ariadne, 1676 and 1682, by Gerard de Lairesse.

[podencos]

“In a 1994 Harvard study that examined people who had radically changed their lives, for instance, researchers found that some people had remade their habits after a personal tragedy, such as a divorce or a life-threatening illness. Others changed after they saw a friend go through something awful, the same way that Dungy’s players watched him struggle.

Just as frequently, however, there was no tragedy that preceded people’s transformations. Rather, they changed because they were embedded in social groups that made change easier. One woman said her entire life shifted when she signed up for a psychology class and met a wonderful group. “It opened a Pandora’s box,” the woman told researchers. “I could not tolerate the status quo any longer. I had changed in my core.” Another man said that he found new friends among whom he could practice being gregarious. “When I do make the effort to overcome my shyness, I feel that it is not really me acting, that it’s someone else,” he said. But by practicing with his new group, it stopped feeling like acting. He started to believe he wasn’t shy, and then, eventually, he wasn’t anymore. When people join groups where change seems possible, the potential for that change to occur becomes more real. For most people who overhaul their lives, there are no seminal moments or life-altering disasters. There are simply communities⏤sometimes of just one other person⏤who make change believable.

One woman told researchers her life transformed after a day spent cleaning toilets⏤and after weeks of discussing with the rest of the cleaning crew whether she should leave her husband.

“Change occurs among other people,” one of the psychologists involved in the study, Todd Heatherton, told me. “It seems real when we can see it in other people’s eyes.”

The precise mechanisms of belief are little understood. No one is certain why a group encountered in a psychology class can convince a woman that everything is different, or why Dungy’s team came together after their coach’s son passed away. Plenty of people talk to friends about unhappy marriages and never leave their spouse; lots of teams watch their coaches experience adversity and never gel. 

But we do know that for habits to permanently change, people must believe that change is feasible. The same process that makes AA so effective⏤the power of a group to teach individuals how to believe⏤happens whenever people come together to help one another change. Belief is easier when it occurs within a community.”

⏤ The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg

[ngaahiloloto]

a (good but not super close) friend wants to call me just to catch up/keep in social contact and i just…dont want to… i hate phone calls without exception and literally never willingly do them unless i have to for work etc.. idk if its shitty of me to be like “i’m not big on phone calls but i’m always here if you wanna message” or something :///

[ngaahiloloto]

ok i said that and he was completely understanding :) clear communication of boundaries wins again

[ngaahiloloto]

a (good but not super close) friend wants to call me just to catch up/keep in social contact and i just...dont want to... i hate phone calls without exception and literally never willingly do them unless i have to for work etc.. idk if its shitty of me to be like “i'm not big on phone calls but i’m always here if you wanna message” or something :///

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Hyperion - moon of Saturn

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Comet Hale-Bopp 

images: x, x

[karlidagdanserin-deactivated202]

[ngaahiloloto]

ive taken on one big project too many this year which has made me super disorganised with everything and im sooo stressed and i just accidentally wished my stepmum happy birthday four days early bc i lost my old phone’s calendar…. i am one more embarrassment away from ending my shit

[ngaahiloloto]

ok turns it is her birthday today and she was just meaning there will be a get together in four days.. which is embarrassing in itself but less embarrassing than what i thought. im now only 1.5 embarrassments away from ending my shit