#jesus was wrong

[coralinemustdie]

“he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was.” - Uncle Frank

[kinglilquackz]

i cannot draw anything else atp </3

[dontletthishappentoyou]

Meaning vs Mayhem

Seeking meaning in life does indeed resemble doing things that seem meaningless and often involves doing things that are damaging to other people. One research proposal I have that I’d really like to follow through with is to see if meaning is addictive or cathartic. Theoretically, art, exercise, and having good, mutually enjoyable conversations with people should make you feel meaningful and good, and maybe will make people less motivated to do the harmful meaning seeking behaviors. This is only if they’re cathartic though. The research that currently exists shows that people like meaning, and there’s a tiny bit of evidence that suggests that it’s cathartic, at least for short term things (people who do art in a certain way react less strongly and aggressively toward outgroup people after being reminded that they’re going to die), but it’s possible that on a larger scale, meaningful things get addicting, and doing art and whatever increases your motivation to be part of a community, and respect your flag, and support your authorities and leaders. It’s a mess, and nobody really knows the answers for sure. Jonathan Haidt suggests that some conservative things, including group stuff cohesion, are really good for meaning, and he’s rather supportive of them in general. It reminds me a bit of the self esteem research problem, where when people found out that high self esteem led to happiness, they immediately supported it. But through its impact on narcissism may pretty directly take happiness away from others in order to do so, so it’s not great for the world. Side-effects of this kind of construct are important to keep in mind, and we don’t know all of them right now, partly because they’re inconvenient to research. If someone came up with a self esteem intervention and wanted to know what effect it had on people, not many researchers would survey that person’s friends and say “have you noticed he’s been a bit of an asshole lately?” I can imagine Mr. Rogers not feeling like he’s making a big difference. He spent a lot of time by himself playing with trains and puppets. Without interacting with the people he’s trying to help, he made a huge difference, but probably couldn’t see it and internalize the goodness of what he was doing. But he did it anyway, and that’s awesome. It takes a lot of self control to do the thing you believe will make the biggest difference instead of the thing that feels like you’re doing something good. Giving money to a beggar is almost greedy. It feels like you’re doing something good. Effective altruism and donating money to malaria or whatever doesn’t feel like you’re doing something good, but it’s way more important. Greedy isn’t always bad. You should care about yourself. But better things are good, too. 

[textilemessages-blog]

[stevenuniverseity]

Lapis reminds me a lot of Paul Danos character from Little Miss Sunshine. Hates everything, defiant, wants to be left alone, but has a big soft spot for his sister

[fuckreligionbeliveinyourself]

[dianabtswt-blog]

[merlinsdestiny-blog]

I love this movie.