Kill them with kindness

I know that I have to grow older, but that does not mean that I have to I grow up.

[hanaofthenorth]

a girl does start to feel optimistic in a patch of sun

[greelin]

this is going to have me on my hands and knees dry heaving

[greelin]

what the FUCK man.

[valtsv]

[anxietyproblem]

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

[cheruib]

the moon? a very good friend. very supportive and lovely. always ready to listen to me,, thank u moon

[huffylemon]

I don’t feel like posting today so

[cryptologicalmystic]

BILL NYE!!!!!!

[huffylemon]

ok, ok. You guys win. I’ll put on Bill Nye. But only this one time.

[zirc0nium-pants-deactivated2023]

YEAAAAH!!!

[wickedcriminal]

BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL

[toastbutteregg]

[teathattast]

[tunashei]

I love desire paths. There's something so wonderous about seeing an echo of humanity. Depending on it's location, a desire path can mean so many different things.

In a city, like the pic above, they represent rebellion, and efficiency. The messiness of humanity. We like to imagine we're oh so logical and neat so we design our cities to be logical and neat an then real humans literally trample on that idea. The ego required to think you can design something perfect that checks every box. Life is all about compromise and patching stuff when some new problem arises. Though people have certainly tried! Ohio state univeristy let students carve their desire paths, and then paved them over. It looks pretty artsy.

Some people will try to discourage desire paths, but this is almost always going to fail.

Eventually, people just have to accept them. Humans are too dang stubborn.

Certain desire paths are just adorable. A 0.5 second time saver. You just can't design for maximum efficiency, humans will always find shortcuts!

Though on occasion a desire path can actually be the least efficient way...especially if you're superstitious.

In a wilder area, such as below, they show us the curiosity of humans. A desire path somewhere natural often tells you there's something interesting just ahead. (Though remember some ecosystems are fragile and will suffer if trampled! Stick to paths in these sorts of areas)

And how about desire stairs? I always think these look so cool. We get see humans determination to climb, to traverse every kind of terrain.

And for something really crazy...a desire path used for centuries will create a 'holloway'

All of these pics are off the Desirepath subreddit, check them out for more examples! And many thanks to the users who submitted these photos.

[imposterogers]

apparently robert pattinson’s trainors have been practically begging him to work out during quarantine and he has decided not to

[monstermonstre]

[pornosophical]

after watching Zac Efron cry from eating pasta, I think Pattinson is making the healthy call here

[toastbutteregg]

[theburialofstrawberries]

closing a browser tab like stubbing out a cigarette

[sizvideos]

[thelogicalghost]

I don’t care why, this is hysterical.

[bettsplendens]

This is the best kind of prank.

No scares, no injury, no property damage, just confuse the hell out of someone.

[tsugarubecker]

I’ll just leave this here lmao

[pointnclick]

mel blanc fuckign yelling

[blueboy1299]

[dreamilypurpleoutcast]

[krispypotato]

And you can use their reality to keep them calm if they are panicking! We had a husband who was always panicking trying to find his wife. Telling him she had passed away was not an option, but through the family we figured out their routine and could tell him not to worry, that she was at the salon or getting coffee with MaryAnne and would be home soon. It calmed him down, stopped him from trying to climb out of windows looking for her, and kept him in his own reality.

If you are working with dementia patients and they aren't your family, try to get small details from the family that can help!

[godesssiri]

We had an older gent who was always wanting to get in his car and drive off so we would tell him his car was in the workshop. Eventually someone came up with a car of a make and model he’d owned that was non-working so we parked it up in the garden and he used to get in and sit happily behind the wheel and go for ‘drives’ - he even used to give other residents lifts to wherever they thought they were going.

Trying to orient someone with dementia is cruel in the short term and ultimately pointless. You’ll only upset them by trying to tell them the truth and they’ll have forgotten in an hour and be asking after the same long dead people again. My mother has worked in dementia care for over 25 years and will often tell families “So-and-so is happy in their dementia world”

[witchaj]

My Oma cared for her mother for many years, and she told me the best trick she learned was to make a cup of tea. If her mother really wanted to visit someone who was no longer alive, she would say “That’s a lovely idea Mama, but first let’s have some tea.” Usually by the time the tea was ready she would forget all about it.

[galwednesday]

There's a town in the Netherlands that's essentially a nursing home pretending to be a village, where every resident is either a dementia patient or a caregiver, so that people with dementia can have a high standard of living while still being protected and cared for:

Today, the isolated village of Hogewey lies on the outskirts of Amsterdam in the small town of Wheesp. Dubbed “Dementia Village” by CNN, Hogewey is a cutting-edge elderly-care facility—roughly the size of 10 football fields—where residents are given the chance to live seemingly normal lives. With only 152 inhabitants, it’s run like a more benevolent version of The Truman Show, if The Truman Show were about dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. Like most small villages, it has its own town square, theater, garden, and post office. Unlike typical villages, however, this one has cameras monitoring residents every hour of every day, caretakers posing in street clothes, and only one door in and out of town, all part of a security system designed to keep the community safe. Friends and family are encouraged to visit. Some come every day. Last year, CNN reported that residents at Hogewey require fewer medications, eat better, live longer, and appear more joyful than those in standard elderly-care facilities.

In traditional nursing homes, with their clinical appearance, the situation is openly communicated to residents—you’re sick, you can’t take care of yourself, you’re forgetting things again. But in Hogewey, the residents live in a place that looks and feels like home, even though it’s not; what others know to be a façade, they see as reality, which may help them to feel normal even in the midst of their disease. Psychologist Donald Spence defines the concept of “narrative reality” as the ways in which stories and places help link the “true” world to one that a person is better able to understand, using storytelling as a vehicle to understand the truth—you’re in a place that’s holistically normal, you’re not lost, etc.

The Dutch Village Where Everyone Has Dementia - Josh Planos, The Atlantic

[lost-carcosa]

Albino raccoon

[therobotmonster]

Quick, spot the main character!

[ayellowbirds]

it’s so weird how much of a raccoon’s… raccoonness? is tied up in its pattern. This looks like a completely different animal, some sort of weird marsupial.