stuff for having emotions

[batbetbitbotbut]

starting a collection

attributed to Lily Tomlin; Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky; ilene_cecelia, reddit; Pratchett, Night Watch; Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky; Pirkei Avot 2:21; Ursula K. le Guin, Tehanu

[geryone]

Goatsong, Leila Chatti

[wovi]

*

joy sullivan

[inbabylontheywept]

People are so much more sad, and desparate, and lonely than you think. I have had three incidents in the last four months were a technician I was working with was being either dangerously unfocused (we work with high voltage), or just flat out angry with their coworkers, and every time when I just pulled them aside to say hey, this isn't you, you're nice, and you're competent, so something must be up - what can I do to help - they have responded by bursting into tears. One guy was struggling to get his wife moved into a care home, one guy just got served divorce papers, and the other hadn't slept a wink the night before because his daughter had the pukes.

I haven't spent my whole life responding to people being rude, or stupid, or dangerous with knee jerk compassion. It's a new habit. The first time I did that as the lead for my lab, it was because the guy genuinely was so good natured that I knew something had to be off. But the other two times were just me going, alright, lets see if it always goes this well, and so far, it has. I'm almost 30, and I just figured out that the #1 reason people are shitty are because they are going through shit.

I don't think you have, like, a moral obligation to respond to people being jerks with knee jerk compassion. But it has made my life so much easier the last four months that I would recommend trying. For your own sake. Please.

(I'll step off my soapbox now. Enjoy your Sunday.)

[probuccalfat]

it’s fucking wild because one day you’re like i guess i’m not dying tragically young and you go to the store and you buy dental floss, ingredients for soup, and a bath mat

[probuccalfat]

it’s this sentiment in practice, in day to day.

[primulaceas]

"I’m still wandering through the streets, looking, sitting by the sea, enjoying the sunshine. I am entirely alone. I don’t know anyone, no one knows me, and for me that is a great pleasure."

1. Stand by Me (1986), dir. Rob Reiner 2. Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life 3. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar 4. Donna Tartt, The Secret History 5. Phoebe Bridgers, I Know the End 6. One Million Yen Girl (2008) dir. Yuki Tanada 7. Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 8. Daniel Clowes, Ghost World 9. J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye 10. Nikos Kazantzakis, from a letter to Galatea Kazantzaki 11. Lora Mathis, How to Disappear in the Modern Age 12. Moonlight (2016) dir. Barry Jenkins 13. Richard Siken, The Torn-Up Road 14, 15, 16. Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood 17. Holly Warburton (@holly-warbs ) 18. Flyte, Where Nobody Knows Your Name 19. Kanae Minato, Confessions 20. Wet, Still Run 21. Laundry (2002) dir. Jun'ichi Mori 22. Priscilla Ahn, Fine on the Outside 23. Anna Syvertsson (@annavonsyfert ) 24. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray 25. John Hiatt, Where Nobody Knows My Name 26. Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys 27. Dennis Wells, Alone In A Crowd 28. Easha, Far Away 29. Slowdive, Here She Comes

[tordenvejr]

no connection without willingness to be seen. no connection without curiosity and understanding, without compassion and forgiveness. no connection without tolerance and inconvenience. no connection without the courage to divulge feelings, thoughts and needs. no connection without putting the health of the bond before pride or the comfort of hiding. no connection without embarassing yourself a little. without hard conversations, or the space and will to learn and grow. without accepting and loving imperfection

[havingapoemwithyou]

the city by C. P. Cavafy

[petrichara]

Love, grief, and magic in the mundane

1- @Bluewmist on Twitter / 2- Roly Poly is Taken on Twitter / 3- About Time (2012) by Richard Curtis, image from Mita Park on Unsplash / 4- Sherri Turner on Twitter / 5- Cold Solace by Anna Belle Kaufman / 6- The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

[ashstfu]

part of a recent reflection

[probuccalfat]

STOP DOING SHIT THAT MAKES YOU UNHAPPY OUT OF A SENSE OF OBLIGATION

[queermasculine]

"For women, only one standard of female beauty is sanctioned: the girl. The great advantage men have is that our culture allows two standards of male beauty: the boy and the man. The beauty of a boy resembles the beauty of a girl. In both sexes it is a fragile kind of beauty and flourishes naturally only in the early part of the life-cycle. Happily, men are able to accept themselves under another standard of good looks — heavier, rougher, more thickly built. A man does not grieve when he loses the smooth, unlined, hairless skin of a boy. For he has only exchanged one form of attractiveness for another: the darker skin of a man’s face, roughened by daily shaving, showing the marks of emotion and the normal lines of age. There is no equivalent of this second standard for women. The single standard of beauty for women dictates that they must go on having clear skin. Every wrinkle, every line, every gray hair, is a defeat. No wonder that no boy minds becoming a man, while even the passage from girlhood to early womanhood is experienced by many women as their downfall, for all women are trained to want to continue looking like girls." — Excerpt from Susan Sontag's 1978 essay The Double Standard of Aging

[geryone]

Goatsong, Leila Chatti

[veliseraptor]

excerpt from "Black Oaks" by Mary Oliver (originally printed in West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems)

[petrichara]

Thinking about Annie Dillard’s “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives” and Joan Didion’s “Every day is all there is.”

Thinking about Mary Oliver’s "Each of us is given only so many mornings to do it — to look around and love” and Ilya Kaminsky’s “Is it foolish to speak of little joys that occur in the middle of tragedy? It is our humanity. Whatever we have left of it. We must not deny it to ourselves.”

[inkskinned]

everyone says you can always restart. that your future isn't forgotten, just sort of misplaced. they name actors and singers and authors who started at 46, 59. they cite chappell roan's 10 years. they tell you to push and push, that some day you'll open a door and the truth will be behind it.

but what if you aren't a celebrity in sheep's clothing. what if you're just a normal person. most people aren't exceptionally talented or else talent wouldn't be exceptional - right? what if you're just another median person; not ever startlingly bad nor terrifyingly good.

you put the shopping carts back and you walk your dog and you write poems on the internet. you have grown a plant or two; killed a few others. you did okay, overall, and you've been okay most of your life. not valedictorian, but you were a smart kid. you had some hard knocks, but you got up again. your life is just - average. you probably will never sing onstage at coachella. most of the time you are at peace with that - someone needs to drive the speed limit. life isn't about extraordinary circumstances, it's just about building a life you love and figuring out how to live in it.

but you would like to feel as if you'd found "the answer." everyone else seems to have some kind of talent they are born nesting in - and meanwhile you just exist. is that why you cycle through crafts and hobbies and activities like a roulette wheel? are you waiting for the moment where it turns out - all this time, you've been a visionary. a genius. all this time, you were special. someone who has-never-been.

crawling up your throat: something bitter and savage. not quite a feeling of wasted potential. after all, you need to first have potential in order to waste it.

[corruptedtwinks]

wikipedia // mariecurie.org // booboo on medium // judas-redeemed // judas-redeemed // c.c aurel // trista mateer // ocean vuong // liz newman // donna ashworth