Why Are You So Quiet?

Words|Visuals

[smute]

i think the most upsetting thing about american-flavor puritanism is how fucking patronizing it is. it's 2026 but the whole world still has to deal with a cultural hegemony grown from the gnarled vestiges of victorian-era paternalism. tax-paying adults with passports and the right to vote are treated like wayward children because of the antiquated idea that authorities must protect the weak minds of the unwashed masses from depravity and corruption. the average american can send a fellow citizen to the chair, but they can't piss in a ditch without being declared an outlaw. american entertainment media is saturated with sex, but you can't talk about it online without getting your account suspended. it's such blatant censorship at a universal scale, but because sexual content is framed as inherently dangerous, this restriction on basic adult autonomy, this blanket denial of moral and intellectual adulthood, can be reframed as protection, an expression of care, a moral duty. "won't someone think of the children!" I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN! I AM A GROWN MAN!

[smute]

thank god that the video game that features slow motion animations of graphic gunshot wounds and is rated 18+ has a profanity filter in single player offline mode. thank you for protecting this 33 year old mind from the corrupting influence that is a horse named apple slut

[prokopetz]

It's striking how much mental health advice directed at kids and teenagers boils down to saying "you have to be okay with people treating you like you're not fully human because they're right, but it's okay because one day you will be human", then being genuinely surprised when it doesn't help.

[remanence-of-love]

[mournfulroses]

Tove Ditlevsen, from a poem featured in There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die: Selected Poems

[glowcowboy]

at least once a day you should read a poem that slices you clean in half. and then you go to the post office or something

[mournfulroses]

Makenzie Campbell, from a poem featured in "2 a.m. Thoughts," originally published in 2017

[surqrised]

“We get to decide what we’ll give to the world and what we’ll take from it. Love big; pack light.”

— Bob Goff

[surqrised]

“You walked away and all I did was watch you, because no matter how hard I tried to make you stay, you still left.”

— A.M.

[lazyyogi]

People don't often realize that the ability to feel genuine sadness is a good sign, it means you are sane and your heart is working.

There are plenty of things in this world that should make us feel sad. Just as there are plenty of things that should make us rejoice.

The important thing is not to allow any sadness to overwhelm you, or color the way you understand yourself or the world.

Focusing on the love in our hearts can help.

After all, love always accompanies sadness.

[lazyyogi]

Restlessness craves distraction and calls it "relaxation."

Chilling on the couch and doomscrolling is the embodiment of this illusion.

True relaxation leaves us in a state of rest, peace, and clarity.

Doomscrolling does not.

[petaltexturedskies]

Rainer Maria Rilke, from “XXI" in Sonnets to Orpheus

[lazyyogi]

The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.

Pema Chodron

[yoga-onion]

- A message from 23 nights temple -

“When all else fails, sit alone in quiet contemplation late at night, and attachments and doubts will vanish, and wondrous wisdom will emerge.”

-二十三夜堂からのメッセージ-

“どうにもならない時は、静かな夜更けに一人座って観想すれば、妄念(執着心や迷いの意)が消えて不思議な智慧が浮かんでくる。”

[a-path-by-the-moon]

[yoga-onion]

- A message from 23 nights temple -

“To forgive means to forget.”

-二十三夜堂からのメッセージ-

“許すということは、忘れるということです。”

[boyjumps]

"A practitioner should not be troubled by criticism, nor become conceited when praised. Cast off greed, stinginess, anger, and slander." Buddha (Sutta Nipata 928) 

[slothforests]

jungle treehouse in Brasil