Lovely is the network

Kevin. 18. Welcome. I'm a Californian and New York transplant with an affinity for all things science-y and redolently aromatic. I am also attracted to sounds and the making of sounds, in a generally musical sense. I appreciate cookies and boba milk tea, and am currently suspended in the limbo between university and living and everything in between.

[ellafrancessanders-deactivated2]

[shinji--moon-deactivated2017123]

Shinji! I want to do everything! I want to travel! and meet people! and help people! and get degrees in 20 different subjects! and learn languages! and read! and write! and love! It's a very beautiful problem to have but it's a little overwhelming and I know it's something you've talked about as well, so how did you decide what to do first?

i forget where, and whose hands they belonged to, and i’m almost certain this conversation has taken place a multitude of times, but in these recurring scenes there is a someone and they are cupping my cheeks in their palms and saying “breathe, girl. you have to let yourself breathe.” the feeling you’re feeling is like, the constant, wobbling undertone to my very existence. i’m so easily excited about the possibilities, about the very idea of kicking down a door and declaring myself present. i spend hours and hours researching fields that i’d like to study, looking at photos mountains that i’d like to climb. i have hundreds of PDFs for critical theory that i read in my spare time because i get so pumped about information. it’s exhausting. exhilarating, but exhausting. i’ll watch lectures about the young agrarian movement all night. i honestly don’t breathe enough, literally. i sometimes forget to physically inhale because i’m always holding my breath in, as if i’m always anticipating something. it’s super not alright, that last bit, and as i’ve been recommended i should try to take some deep breaths and sit in a dark room for a while. get my hands to stop going all over the place. 

when i find myself having these sorts of spells of bewilderment i try to follow my train of thought back to the heart of what i’m trying to get at, and what’s the most plausible next-step to take. i’ll spend hours planning a hypothetical trip, down to where i’d theoretically stay. make myself a budget. read poetry written by natives of that country. i’ll get really amped about narrative form and read a lot of essays by women of color whose poetics work to actively deconstruct english syntax. i will excitedly make phone calls and talk through my next idea with someone. i have tremendous amounts of nervous energy & for the most part they lead me towards productivity, or at least the amassing of information. of ideas and skill-sets. if i’m not … doing stuff like that, if i’m not putting that energy into good use — it’s very, very easy for me to recede very deeply into my head-space. that nervous energy can easily — if not monitored — swirl down into my anxiety-pits, which will spark my depression, and then before i know it i’ll be laying on my floor listening to dido wondering when the fog will lift and clear out of my brain and exhausting myself to sleep about how disconnected i feel. 

take a deep breath at the end of this sentence. it’s so important in this life to be passionate about things. it makes you so beautiful. don’t calm that spirit down, do not assuage the passion and huzzah-huzzah for life that you’ve got running through you, wild-eyed and huffing. but remember to breathe, is maybe all i can say. there are moments of clarity that come with stillness. if you want to understand the heart of your excitement you’ve got to go in and take a look around, and not be blind towards the set-backs and bear-traps as well as those open and inviting doors. you’ve got to negotiate the options. you’ve got to see how it all affects you, and the people around you. at least this is what i do. before i make any big decision i think of the consequences. the pros and cons. i have big dreams and believe in making big decisions and i am not one for comfort and safety as much as i long towards adventure and living to the hilt of me. and it is, for the most part, enough to have those dreams, have those hopes and aspirations, but i am calling on you to go forward with them. i am calling on you to not just sit in that soda-pop feeling till it simmers and you slow, but to go into that space and look around within yourself and say, “what can i do with all of this. what can i do to actualize all of this noise,” and then do it. pounce. 

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how to pack for college

just keep yelling “why do i have so much stuff”

deny the fact that u have to pack

play music rlly loud

put a bunch of stuff in a box and leave the box on ur bed for at least 5 hours

stare at the box sometimes and cry

look at everything u own and cry

lie down the floor and dont get up at all ever dont do it

[wandering-street-radio]

No, I do not wish you success. I don’t even want to talk about it. I want to talk about failure. Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you’re weak where you thought yourself strong. You’ll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself-as I know you already have-in dark places, alone, and afraid. What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign. … I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated. I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people. And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country. Why did we look up for blessing-instead of around, or down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourished, where human beings grown human souls.

Ursula K. LeGuin addressing the 1983 graduating class of Mills College in Oakland, California (via wandering-street-radio)

[dog-husky]

[faefriend]

Visit Original Link

cough syrup (acoustic) // young the giant

life’s too short to even care at all, oh

[macleod]

This stunning image of the Pluto was captured from New Horizons at about 4 p.m. EDT on July 13, about 16 hours before the moment of closest approach. The spacecraft was 476,000 miles (766,000 kilometers) from the surface after traveling more than 9 years and 3+ billion miles.

Image Credit: NASA

[pixelcurious]

[diedinpompeji-deactivated201505]

PLUTO 2015

NASA

[ssomebackgrounds]

[elesq]

7.9.15 - “get me out of here.”

Let’s go on a walk.

[vjeranski]

[notchemicallyinert]

In William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the word “Juliet” appears 180 times and the word “Romeo” another 308 times. Beetroot Design Group created a poster to bring these star-crossed lovers together with 55,440 red lines.

[notchemicallyinert]

“you were my favorite district board member because you were the only one who never stopped caring.”

legit received more closure from hearing this than from my entire high school graduation ceremony. 

[janitorbot]

I love you so please take care of yourself. 

[difficult]

The best kind of humans are the ones who stay.

R. M. Drake (via bobbycaputo)

[swanjolras-blog-archive-deactiv]

okay jesus fuck this conversation has gone far enough so:

hey, so you like bernie sanders! i like bernie sanders too! i agree with his politics! he is doing better than people expected in the democratic primaries, which is cool!

what are you going to do if he loses?

because given the tone of the conversations i hear on this website right now– given the sheer hatred of hillary that’s emerging, given the overwhelming feeling that bernie sanders is amazing and the messiah and the only candidate that’s worth voting for in america– here’s what i see happening in mid-2016:

bernie sanders, who despite his better-than-expected performance still has an unbelievably low chance of winning the primaries, loses the primaries to hillary clinton

the leftist wing of the democratic party (that’s us– tumblr, yeah, but also the whole occupy-black lives matter-third wave feminist-young educated millennials crowd), having spent the past 10 months campaigning against hillary clinton, is overwhelmingly disappointed

while a few people are willing to bite the bullet and campaign for hillary, energy is low, disillusionment is high, and many leftist americans don’t campaign, don’t donate, and don’t vote (or vote for third-party candidates, like the green party or the peace and freedom party)

the republican party wins the presidential election.

(i literally shivered as i typed that last bullet point, btw– i know there are people voting in 2016 who were ten years old when obama was elected, and y’all may not remember much of the bush years. i was only 13 when bush left, but jesus christ– remember when hurricane katrina was overwhelmingly badly handled? remember when the patriot act passed? remember when the housing bubble collapsed? remember when the president said god told him to invade iraq? y’all wanna do that again?)

so what are you going to do if bernie sanders loses?

i need you to think about that now. i need you to not be surprised when it happens. i need you to not put all your hopes in one basket.

you think the gop won’t be pouring all their resources into this election? you think the superpacs and the koch brothers and the oil lobbyists won’t be throwing their money at ballot boxes until they spit out the result they want? you think the rich and powerful and conservative won’t be bringing their best game? 

they will, and if we don’t work twice as hard as they do– no matter who the democratic nominee is– we are fucked.

i need you to be okay with the idea of hillary clinton being president of the united states, and i need you to make peace with that before she wins the primaries, so that you’re prepared and ready to campaign for her with all your might if she’s the democratic nominee.

because i honest-to-god believe this country will not survive another four, eight, twelve years of a republican administration.

[kategavino]

Authors as Breakfast Cereal Mascots by Kate Gavino

[amaliaandrade]