Today's Document
Kiana Khansmith
ojovivo
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Jules of Nature
Kaledo Art
oozey mess
Monterey Bay Aquarium
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d e v o n
KIROKAZE
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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Sade Olutola
dirt enthusiast
Misplaced Lens Cap
No title available
YOU ARE THE REASON
Janaina Medeiros
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seen from Japan
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seen from Netherlands
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@theweirdwordwizard
this website lets you listen to the sounds of all different forests around the world
Reblogging again cause I tried this site last night and if you need background noise to focus this is perfect for that, I was locked the fuck in on a task. And it’s also just gorgeous to listen to
It turns out that you can become the person you’ve always envisioned but you’ll still have the person you were before inside of you and you have to treat them with as much forgiveness and love as possible
this is killing me it's so cute
@funnier-when-objectum
at some point we gotta acknowledge that getting the majority of your news and takes and general opinions from tumblr is not meaningfully different than getting it from tiktok even though on here it's in textual form. understanding the world through the lens of viral videos vs understanding it through breathless unsourced text posts written by dykeastarion69
#this is what made me switch to actually reading news sites regularly some years ago#(and when something's controversial or doesn't seem quite right I look up multiple news sources to try to get a fuller picture) (@thirddoctor)
A quick reminder that the Associated Press is totally free, and also often covers the news stories that Tumblr users say no one is covering. NPR is also free. So is ProPublica.
Also, here's a chart that might be helpful, in terms of determining bias and reliability: Interactive Media Bias Chart
luv how male animals gotta fucking dance around and cry and shit for female attention and sex. and then men irl complain about fat women and body hair like get on ur fucking knees and beg me actually
like these tarantulas dude?? the male has to tap out a rhythm she likes and if she doesn’t?? she’ll literally eat him.
Alpha males: "This is nature. You don't see animals acting like queers don't you?"
90% of nature documentaries: "Until now the female has been very impressed by the males drag performance of Orwell's Homage To Catalonia, soundtracked exclusively by Maria Carey songs. A demanding performance like that knows to impress. But... Oh No... One note in the final tune was one cent flat. It doesn't look good for the male now. She is ordering an orbital laser strike to burn his beautifully groomed plumage from space. It will take all year to regrow, effectively ending this one's mating season early. Better luck next time, little guy. Women are a tough audience."
@elodieunderglass - This made me think of you.
Thank you so much for this
[Image description: a newspaper article titled "I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake", byline By A Horse with a small circular portrait of a dapple grey horse's face on a green background. Article reads as follows; italics from article indicated with forward slash.]
Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me is hay and oats. But I am thinking it would be nice to have a different food.
I am thinking I would like to try cake.
Yes, yes. Cake. I know all about it. When humans eat cake, it is in glad times. It is the food for a celebration, such as when a woman becomes 47. I have seen cake on the Fourth of July. When humans have a cake, they stand around it and clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other. Sometimes there are beautiful markings on a cake, such as balloons or a pink shape.
Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy.
Please understand: I do not get money for doing work. I do not get to go inside the house. All day I am either doing my horse job or standing in my pen or eating food off the floor. I always do these things. But I have never once gotten cake and I would like it very much.
I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, "You know who deserves cake? That horse. That horse whose back we are always on."
Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and puff my nose at it like /hrrrfff/ to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large. After that, I will nuzzle the cake to know it with my face. Then I will lick the colorful top part and touch it with my lips. Finally, I will bite the cake and have the taste of its inner softness. I will chew and say /prrt prrt/ because I am happy, and everybody will clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other.
I cannot think of a more glad time. So, please, give me cake.
Of the eight tastes I know about, I think cake probably tastes most like medicine and mud. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. There is a fly standing on my eyeball but I don't even care because all I can think about is cake and wanting it badly. I already weigh 2,000 pounds from eating hay and oats. I do not w ant more of that noww. There is only one thing I want. You know what it is.
So you see, it is clear that you must give me cake. I am a nice horse. I do not fuss. I do not bite the human woman's face, even though her hair smells nice. I do not ask to go live free in the woods like the deer. I do my duties. I must try cake. Please.
/Hnnnnnnn. Heeeee-huh-heeee!/ Just give me the cake.
Please. I am begging you. I am showing you my teeth and stomping my hooves so you know that I want the cake. /Prrrrrft! Prrrrrft!/ I must have it, do you see? I am standing on my back legs and screaming due to needing the cake. Please, humans. Please. Please! I am a good horse. /Hmmrrrr, nrrrrffff!/ Put a cake on a table right now. I wish with all my heart that you will do this for me. So you must give it to me. Because I am the good horse. I am a good horse and I deserve cake.
[End article description.]
[Additional images: excerpt from the article selected by user elodieunderglass, one paragraph split across two columns.]
Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy.
[End image description.]
Oh, that’s really nice of you!
For those interested in the source, it’s from the print edition of the onion (you can see the little onion on it) and the author is apparently Ben Collins; https://bsky.app/profile/bencollins.bsky.social
For those interested in the style, it’s kindred of a noble lineage - from “I am the Horrible Goose that Lives In the Town” by Daniel Lavery, From the Point of View of a Cat by Karel Čapek, through to the classic - Archy and Mehitabel.
Once you start noticing how the incapacity to handle discomfort affects how people live their lives it's actually pretty shocking how it ruins pretty much every conceivable aspect of existence. Interpersonal relationships, romantic and platonic. Career and education opportunities. Your politics Your willingness to go anywhere. The kind of food you eat. The kind of art you expose yourself to and your ability to read it. It's never just one thing, it touches everything, and once you notice it it's like suddenly being able to see germs or something. Just this horrific catastrophe people look at you askance for screaming about. As I grow older and see what became of my friends and peers who could not learn to handle discomfort, the more I'm like. This is a genuine societal issue
When you can't handle discomfort, eventually discomfort itself starts to feel like you're under attack. Your body enters flight or fight mode, and your amygdala starts screaming at you that you are In Danger even when the "danger" in question is like, making an unpleasant phone call or like, you're reading a book about something gross.
Your ability to make frank assessments about your situation becomes compromised, because, well, when you're under attack who's going to stay still and go "Let me think this through?" Of course you're going to panic. The phone call isn't just unpleasant, it's potentially life-ruining. Someone is going to think you're dumb and that's going to be TRUE and then I guess you die or something except dying would be better. The book isn't just gross, it's actively coming for you, tainting your mind with the memory of its contents, it has RUINED you.
Obviously, you want to try avoiding danger whenever possible. So you create a world in which you avoid all dangerous things. Traveling? Well that's scary, what if you get robbed or lost? Better to avoid it (plus there are so many things to read, rules to remember, forms to fill out... it's just too much, it makes you uncomfortable, which means YOU'RE IN DANGER, what if you FORGET SOMETHING CRITICAL? Better to avoid). A new job? Well what if it's worse than your current one? You at least know the rules here. The unknown is so much more uncomfortable, which is DANGEROUS, so better to stay where you are. A dark-skinned foreigner? Do they even speak English? You don't know how you'd communicate. They don't know the laws here, surely? Plus what if other people think you're racist? It's so uncomfortable which means THEY ARE A DANGER. Best to avoid at all costs, keeping your bag clutched tightly to your chest. Vaccines? You don't really know what's in them. The explanations have a lot of words you don't understand. That makes you feel suspicious and dumb, which is DANGEROUS. You said something that was kind of rude? UNCOMFORTABLE. THIS PERSON IS ATTACKING YOU. FIGHT OR FLIGHT. Someone says you were incorrect about something? DANGER. Someone says you reacted impulsively and seem to have misconstrued someone's words as a personal attack? YET ANOTHER ATTACK.
Eventually you lose yourself and become this. I don't even know. This totally reactive thing, unable to think analytically about anything (which is uncomfortable and a danger), unable to assess harms, unable to encounter anything new without having a meltdown. And none of it is a real escape because, well, you've created a life defined entirely by aversion to discomfort, which is the most uncomfortable life you can possibly imagine. Of course such people end up falling into fascist ideas about Why Your Life Sucks. When you build a life around trying to maintain as comfortable an equilibrium as possible, you cauterize the parts of you capable of growth, expansion, creativity, learning; at the same time, the knowledge of your own stuntedness is haunting so best not to think about that either. The world becomes this horrifying mirror maze where the only way to survive without offing yourself is by projecting your flaws onto others, bitterly externalizing your self-hatred (who could live like this and NOT hate themselves) just to avoid turning it inward. You end up living like a hollowed-out sea urchin
A lot of people I've met seem to think that mental healthiness is characterized by a lack of discomfort whatsoever, and are therefore justified in building a life where all discomforts can be avoided. On the one hand, I completely understand the impulse. Lord knows I have had colossally shitty times and wished I could just retreat into bed and fall asleep for as long as needed for everything to blow over. But like. You also have to understand that that's a fantasy, not a solution. When you have grown up living a crap life with nothing but discomfort, the ability to avoid it feels like exercising autonomy. But you really do have to be careful about making this your life ethos. I know so many people who have lapsed into total learned helplessness, so consumed by discomfort (mentally catastrophized into dangers) re: looking dumb, looking rude, looking X, looking Y that they just. Idk. Don't do anything except be bitter. You don't have to be that way. The solution isn't "tough it out" because that's also just a manifestation of your inability to handle discomfort. I also hesitate to say the solution is to focus on how much better your life will be when you do X and Y, because the entire point of the inability to handle discomfort is that it constantly manifests in precluding the possibility of even wanting X and Y in the first place since to want it and not be able to do it IS in itself another source of discomfort.
Idk what the solution is, exactly. I just think it's important to understand that sometimes things can feel awful and still not necessarily harm you
HAPPY BDAY TO MY OSHI OGURI CAP
Floor Time
options include:
flat on your back and starfish out
facedown, aggressively
on your side hugging a pillow or plushie
L shaped to the wall with feet up wall
whatever the fuck you want
let yourself melt and unclench your jaw
try doing this for 15 minutes with eyes closed like once in the afternoon. ideally just focusing on breathing to give the brain a break too alongside the rest of the body also relaxing.
I gotta say, one of the greatest achievements of my 20s was that I learned (mostly) to differentiate between:
"I truly do not want to go" and
"I'm just feeling the Demand Avoidance, and I will like it once I get there."
Well, goodness, this one resonated much more than I was expecting. I mean, I get it. My mind was also blown wide open when I found out "demand avoidance" was a thing that existed, and that I'm not the only weirdo in the world who suddenly wishes it wasn't her birthday after anxiously waiting for her birthday for days.
Loads of people in the tags are asking how I do it? I feel this won't be groundbreaking advice, but here is what I have learned:
Previous experience. Really no way around it. Now that I hit thirty, I feel like I have done enough things to know, intellectually, from experience, what will feel nice if I overcome the avoidance, and what won't. For example, every time I go to the beach, I wake up early and would rather eat a tire than get off the bed. But I remember that every time I got up and went to the beach, I was glad I did it. So I just get up, feeling like shit, and get ready, feeling like shit, and I get to the beach and magic!! I feel great, I love the beach!! Sometimes you just gotta do it scared feeling kinda like shit.
Am I avoiding the thing or getting to the thing? I have a lot of demand avoidance around just, y'know, getting up, getting ready and going out the door. Universal human experience. If I notice that doing the actual thing (Swim in the pool!) sounds nice, but I'm avoiding having to rally myself to go do that (Fetch swimsuit! Sunscreen! Towel!), then I know it's demand avoidance and I should just fucking go.
Is the thing making me feel excited at all or just anxious? I have had previous occasions when I did the opposite; I convinced myself it was just demand avoidance when I really just. Hated the thing. And wanted to stop. If you feel a mix of excitement and dread, or excitement and anxiety, that might be demand avoidance. But if thinking of doing the thing just makes you feel actively anxious, then yeah. You don't want to do the thing.
Do the thing a little bit. Used often with dishes. I've seen this advice float around Tumblr a lot and it's correct. Commit to doing just a bit of the thing; a little bit of the thing; the smallest bit of the thing you can do. Getting started will make it clear right away if you don't want to do it (and in that case, you have permission to stop), or if you just having trouble getting started.
and in the next fifty years, you will ache and you will glow. you will fall in love with people who don’t stay and still carry their names like pressed flowers in the folds of your memory. you will eat meals alone and meals with people who make you laugh so hard you forget the sting of silence. there will be mornings you can’t get out of bed and nights where you walk home humming under a sky so wide it forgives you. you’ll cry in public and smile at strangers and sometimes it’ll be the same thing. you’ll hear a song that reminds you of someone you promised you’d never forget and you’ll realize you already have, a little. you’ll outgrow versions of yourself you once thought permanent and mourn them like old friends and still you will keep going. you’ll see sunsets that make your chest tighten. you’ll be held when you least expect it. you’ll feel the cold on your face and remember what it means to be alive. and it won’t always be gentle but it will be yours.
it's amazing how when i'm an active agent in my life good things happen and i feel capable and confident in myself and when i just passively let life happen to me terrible things happen and i am miserable. surely no one else has ever noticed this tendency
horse shapes ✸
Free Ornamentation II. This work is dedicated to the public domain.
sounds very similar to a radio story i heard in 2014 ago about credit card debt. the debt got sold to a collection company and a couple received a court summons. they knew they had taken on debt, but they were confused about who this new company was and where specifically the number they were supposed to owe came from.
they show up in court and just ask the lawyer for the collection company: can you prove where this number comes from? Do you have a contract showing that you purchased our debt? probably luckily for them, a reporter researching a book on the topic showed up and asked the same questions.
10 minutes later they get in front of the judge and the collection company drops the whole case and theyre free to go. story is below, it has a transcript in the link too
Ira talks to reporter Jake Halpern about a scene he saw take place in a Georgia courtroom where a couple uttered some magic words that seeme
https://twitter.com/BrianManookian/status/1674963884703088642
Link to the twitter thread for accessibility!
Portrait Of An Enemy
Art by Lucia Heffernan
House sparrow (Passer domesticus)
something about lonely dogs, idk
gnaw at the heartbeat - wenyi xue / moon song - phoebe bridgers / let dead dogs lie - silas denver melvin / @strawberry-crocodile / nice pup - chloe moriondo / @ashstfu / @valtsv / @inkskinned / it will come back - hozier / @twoheadedfawnn / @/simplyrotten / clean slated state - the altogether / speeches for dr frankenstein - margaret atwood / faulty - leila chatti / belovéd - yves olade / against the kitchen floor - will wood / st bernard - lincoln / imposter syndrome - sidney gish
