Meridian Dance

Writer, intersectional feminist, secular humanist, pragmatic agnostic, optimistic nihilist, romantic with a learned pessimistic streak. Probably some other bullshit too. A profound believer in the need for logic and reason.

[olivinerain]

[olivinerain]

[olivinerain]

[olivinerain]

Sea Change

the past resounds

with my face buried in the pale pink pillows

damp with salt (too much, it’ll kill me some day)

the sea filtered through me

And emptied out

like

I’ve forgotten how to sob after so long

it feels strange and uncomfortable

like

I’ve lost the muscle memory of how to breathe while screaming

it’s gone

like

please come back

it is dark but only just

shifting waterlight filters in

(from the poison sun to the empty moon to the false lake to this blank wall in this haunted house)

with the cold air over the water

I can feel the wet on my face

crying feels as strange as swimming must now

after this exile from the sickened world

curled up safe and scared in the shell of a life without

i know you won’t

I feel like a tower of stacked rocks along the shore in Tahoe

sent thumping into the sand

(where ephemeral letters were once written

because I loved you and you loved me, until they washed away)

now being stacked piece by piece

month by month

an incomplete paint by sticker

missing one or two key segments

in the middle of the page

some colorful giraffe will never be full

I’ve only just assembled the eyes

it hurts so much and it always will

[olivinerain]

What are we going through, you and me?

What is it you want me to be learning?

We're always arguing about the same things

Days of brutalism and hairpin turns

[olivinerain]

Warm water rises

It still feels like I can't stop crying

Hold me inside it

It still feels like a storm not dying

And all that was undone

Was done when we were young

I'm not sure how it feels quite

[olivinerain]

What is happiness but a word

Spoken from on high for what it's worth?

Flown beneath the wings of little birds

But I have felt the wind crawl where we're cursed

[bitchboypissbaby]

[thread by @Mikel_Jollett on twitter]*

This is not the begining of WWIII. This is a calculated political move that America has seen before. Presidents starting a political conflict during the last year of their first term to help secure a full 8 years in office. It's disgusting.

Americans have this attitude about war. That nothing can ever happen to us, we are too powerful and strong and even if we kill countless people we'll be fine. One day this attitude will bite us in the ass, and I do not look forward to that day. We must vote this man out in November. No matter what he starts this year, vote him out.

*mobile is being weird and not letting me insert a link, i'll try to edit and add the link later

[andhetakesandhetakesandhetakes]

Ugly, Bitter, and True by Suzanne Rivecca

[olivinerain]

Crystal ships are sailing out

Now the doors are opening for you

I wanna swim, swim out into the dark night

I wanna melt you down into the stars

I wanna crumble, tumble like a landslide

[1dietcokeinacan]

“3 Defining Features of ADHD That Everyone Overlooks”

[quasi-normalcy]

The fact that you can’t raise taxes on billionaires even slightly without them pouring money into fascist political movements is, of itself, evidence that billionaires as a class shouldn’t be allowed to exist in the first place.

[blackjackgabbiani]

You, ah, don’t think it’s unfair to judge people’s morals based on their finances?

[quasi-normalcy]

I, ah, think that it’s perfectly fair to judge people’s morals based on the amount of money they pour into neo-nazi political movements, yeah actually.

[xprmnt626]

I, ah, also think it’s 100% fair to judge someone’s morals based on their finances whether they support neo-nazis or not. You can’t have that much money and be a good person. I’m sorry. I don’t care how many “”nice”” billionaires yall try to show me to prove me wrong. Nobody in the history of mankind has worked hard enough to earn BILLIONS. Even if they become philanthropists, they almost solely become billionaires by profiting from the labor (underpayment, abuse, etc.) of others. How can you say “hm..they could be a morally good person..” You also can’t be a billionaire in a country where people don’t have clean water or a world where people are starving and claim to be a good person.  There are a few people with enough wealth to end world hunger MULTIPLE TIMES OVER, yet here we are.  There is no such thing as a good billionaire as far as I’m concerned.  Nobody is deserving of that much money. Nobody has earned that much money. Nobody can sit on that much money and claim to be a good person. 

[crazy-pages]

I have spoken with Nobel prize winning physicists. I have spoken with their colleagues. I have worked with people who have led teams to make discoveries that twist my mind into knots. I have worked with scientists whose concept of hard work and dedication would beggar the belief of a robot. I’ve gone to talks led by scientists who head forty-people teams, synchronizing the efforts of others so efficiently I could scarcely believe it. 

These are people whose life works exist entirely in conceptual space, where the limits of what they can achieve are only their And they are impressive, don’t get me wrong, but few of them would I value more than a team of decent scientists. The amount of skill, intelligence, and diligence required to outwork even half a dozen of your fellows is pushing the limits of human ability. 

Even Albert Einstein, famed example of the brilliant lone scientist, was not that special. I’ve read his papers in detail, and those of his contemporaries (took a class on it actually). Without him the discovery of general relativity would have been delayed two or three years at most, the mathematical and conceptual groundwork that enabled his brilliance was laid down by others and being investigated by others as well. And I’d pit a decent team against Einstein any day of the week, an individual can only do so much. 

For the amount of money Jeff Bezos earns working for a day, $215,000,000 (x), I could hire a thousand such hardworking geniuses for a year. Maybe ‘only’ a hundred if they were from an exceptionally competitive and valuable field.

For the money Jeff Bezos earns in a year, I could hire a village. I could create a project with so many educated minds it would be larger than the Manhattan Project. About a dozen times over. 

No one is that irreplaceable. No one has a percent of that worth. If someone is a billionaire, they are earning beyond their contribution to society, at the expense of other’s well-being. 

So yeah, fuck billionaires. 

[firebirdeternal]

Holding onto quantities of money that it would be impossible to spend in a normal human lifetime when people die every day is also evil.

Like Imagine having 10,000 cheeseburgers in a room, you literally cannot eat them all. You *can’t*. You eat them for every meal and they’ll all go bad before you make even the tiniest dent in their absurd mass. And into the room walks 1000 starving people. *Literally* starving, actively dying of hunger starving, and you don’t give them some cheeseburgers. 

[everythingfox]

Puppy checkup

[olivinerain]

I do not possess the means to describe the joy this makes me feel. I love that dog more than I have ever loved anything in my entire life.

[roachpatrol]

ultimately i think kindness is the most radical thing you can do with your pain and your anger. it’s like, you take everything awful that’s ever been done to you, and you throw it back in the world’s teeth, and you say no, fuck you, i’m not going to take this.  you say this is unacceptable. you say that shit stops with me.

humans are fucking terrible and this awful world we live in will fucking kill you but if you are kind, if you are brave and clever and try really hard, you can defy it. you can impose on this bleak and monstrous structure something beautiful. even if it’s temporary. even if it doesn’t heal anything inside you that’s been hurt.  

i’m gonna sleep and i’m gonna wake up and i swear by everything in this deadly horrible universe i’m gonna make someone happy. 

[roachpatrol]

i’ve seen a number of comments and tags where people feel that they must swallow or repress their anger in order to engage in kindness. that is not at all what i am recommending here. radical kindness is an expression of anger. it is not passive. it is not repressive. it does not require you, in any way, to forgive those that have fucked you up. it does not require you to be quiet. 

it just requires that you be kind. viciously. vengefully. you fight back. you plant flowers. give to charity. play games. pet someone’s dog. scream into the dark. paint and write and dance, tell jokes, sing songs, bake cookies. you have been hurt and you don’t have to deny that hurt. you just have to recognize it in other people, and take their hand, and say: no more. enough. fuck this. no more. 

have a cookie.

i will say this again: we are all going to die. the universe is enormous and almost entirely empty. to be kind to each other is the most incredible act of defiance against the dark that i can imagine. 

[naamahdarling]

i will say this again: we are all going to die. the universe is enormous and almost entirely empty. to be kind to each other is the most incredible act of defiance against the dark that i can imagine.

[feminesque]

1. The universe is indifferent. We ought not be.

2. A good quote: There are two kinds of people. Those who think, “I don’t want anyone to suffer like I did.” And those who think, “I suffered; why shouldn’t they?”

3. Two good quotes by Kurt Vonnegut: “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies-“God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

And: “Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”

[grison-in-space]

Another good quote:

“I. THIS IS NOT A GAME.

II. HERE AND NOW, WE ARE ALIVE.”

You can be kind and fuel it with rage. You can be kind and fuel it with a bitter twist, or you can be kind and fuel your kindness with righteous anger, or you can be kind and fuel it with love or spite or ecstatic joy. And no matter what your fuel is, you still can make kindness happen in the world so that people can warm themselves by it.

Kindness isn’t an emotion, kids. That’s the thing. Kindness is action. Kindness is choosing to take your emotions and channel them towards doing the most good where you can; to choose the targets of your actions carefully; to spread a little joy behind you, when you have a little to spare.

Kindness can mean a gentle word or a shouted imperative. It can be a warm meal or a gentle hug or a clean death. Kindness can manifest in many ways, and not all of them are one hundred percent nice. The kind thing to do may be doing nothing at all. 

But kindness is, above all else, an action. We are imperfect humans, and we cannot control our emotions–but we can control what we do as a result. We can control the actions that our emotions and experiences propel us to perform. 

The darkness is nothing but the absence of light, you know. It is endless and nihilistic and all enveloping. A lit candle has no hope against it.

But if enough of us light small candles and little matches behind us as we walk through this wide, uncaring universe, we can light up that sky. We can take an empty world and we can fill it with each other. 

That’s how we can take the bones of an empty universe and forge a warm hearth fire humanity can use to keep back the night. 

[glorious-spoon]

But kindness is, above all else, an action. We are imperfect humans, and we cannot control our emotions–but we can control what we do as a result. We can control the actions that our emotions and experiences propel us to perform.

[nyxetoile]

I’m also a fan of Camus:

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

[elljayvee]

“There are three ways to ultimate success. The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.” — Fred Rogers

[beatrice-otter]

“Any man can be kind when he is comfortable. I’d always thought kindness a trivial virtue therefore. But when we were hungry, thirsty, sick, frightened, with our deaths shouting at us, in the heart of horror, you were still as unfailingly courteous as a gentleman at his ease before his own hearth.’ ‘Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how they may endure.’        ―    Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion    

[mckitterick]

[musterniillustrates]

having love in your heart will literally save you from the otherwise cataclysmic experience of being a human being

[chartier]

Trump voters, the bullshit “liberal bubble,” and accountability.

[helloandwelcome-dc]

I’m just gonna put this here, for my cousins, and for my other family.

[quasi-normalcy]

We don’t hate Trump supporters because we don’t know what they’re really like; we hate Trump supporters because we know exactly what they’re really like.

[read-and-be-merry]

List of Books to Read Before You Die

1. Any book you want

2. Don’t read books you don’t want to read

3. That’s it

4. Congratulations you did it