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so much and so little

[nobrashfestivity]

Kiyoshi Yamashita, Nagaoka fireworks display

Nicknamed “The Naked General”,  Yamashita used the chigiri-e method of sticking torn pieces of colored paper together to depict the scenery he saw on his travels. 

[zelzelez]

crazy crazy crazy crazy

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

Have you ever just wanted to explode into a hundred little pieces? That's just what orthonectidans do as part of their life cycle! Individuals start out as larva which grow into single-celled parasites that feed on host tissue. When they get big enough, they split up into multiple smaller cells called agametes which they grow into sexually reproductive males and females. The two sexes mate, and the female lays dozens of eggs which grow again into parasites. What's even more incredible is that this whole process only takes around 3-5 days!

(Image: a sexually mature Intoshia linei taken via scanning electron micrograph by Georgy S. Slyusarev)

[zelzelez]

the saga doesn’t end, it evolves, it fills me up in every way and then slowly dissolves through my pores, waiting for me to rekindle it again. but it goes on, slowly, intensely, burning

[visual-detox]

red honey as a result of bees feasting on cherries

[unrar]

A weaver demonstrates her skill at weaving Turkish carpets, Cappadocia, Turkey, George Steinmetz.

[mareofthegoldenforest]

[dragon-in-a-fez]

the thing about being "good with kids" is all it takes is literally just not trying to control and mould them with every interaction. it's just being a normal person and engaging with them through normal interactions like having conversations and playing games. it's just being genuine and friendly and not perceiving them as lumps of wet clay you are there to shape. "oh you're so good with kids" thanks it's because I think they are people

[milksockets]

'spiral jetty' by robert smithson, 1970 in earthworks and beyond: contemporary art in the landscape - john beardsley (1989)

[smsomah]

Tie dyed Odhna (a scarf). Bagru. Scanned from the book Desert Village, Life & Crafts; Gujarat, Rajasthan; 1985; Hiroko Iwatate

[smokefalls]

If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

[proslost]

Her concern with landscapes and living creatures was passionate. This concern, feebly called, "the love of nature" seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus. It was strange to see Takver take a leaf into her hand, or even a rock. She became an extension of it, it of her.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

[volvulent]

[athousandgateaux]

“I would claim the lessening of effort as essential to the phenomenon of privilege. If less effort is required to unlock the door for the key that fits the lock, so too less effort is required to pass through an institution for bodies that fit. Social privilege is like an energy-saving device: less effort is required to pass through. No wonder that not to inherit privilege can be so ‘trying.’ Not to fit, or to fail to inhabit a norm, can often mean being charged with willfulness, whatever you say or do…Not only do you have to become insistent in order to receive what was automatically given to the others; but your insistence confirms the improper nature of your residence. We do not tend to notice the assistance given to those whose residence is assumed. Insistence is a form of political labor, given that it is unevenly distributed as a requirement. Insistence can thus be understood as a political grammar. For example, to be transgender can be to experience the labor of having to insist on what is automatically given to the others: having to insist on being ‘he’ or’ she’ or ‘not he’ or ‘not she’ when you are assigned the wrong pronoun; having to keep insisting, where the necessity of repetition gets in the way of the hope of things just receding. Sometimes you might have to insist on not being gendered by pronouns at all: willfulness can be the refusal to be housed by gender. And to be in a same-sex relationship is to experience the gendered pronoun as a sign of struggle, one that is both personal as well as political: when your partner is assumed to be 'he’ or 'she’ you have to correct the assumption, and the very act of correction can be heard as a willful imposition on others. It is exhausting, this labor, which is required because certain norms are still at work in how people are assumed to be and to gather; even if we have rights and recognition, the ongoing and everyday nature of these struggles with signs are signs of a struggle. A desire for a more normal life does not necessarily mean identification with norms, but can be simply this: a desire to escape the exhaustion of having to insist just to exist.”

— Sara Ahmed, Willing Subjects, pg. 148-149

[queeranarchism]

There’s probably far more to this, as this is just a quote for a whole book, but it’s unfortunate that this quote starts so very material and then the only example we get to read is pronouns. Like, the example is not inaccurate but this is also very much true for access to housing, income, insurance and so on.

[shamebats]

Imo the best type of system for children to grow up in would be one that assumes the birth parents/primary guardians won't do shit and takes care of every aspect of childcare that's essential for their wellbeing and development, collectively.

[shamebats]

But I'm just a guy who only learned how to brush his teeth properly and got glasses as a child because we had both a dentist and a doctor come to school on a regular basis. The dentist would have us all stand in a circle with our little toothbrushes and show us how to brush and correct our technique. The doctors would give us general health assessments and then have the teachers contact our patents and essentially peer pressure them into getting us any health intervention we needed. My parents only reluctantly got me glasses because they knew the teachers would judge them if they kept seeing me sit in the very front row and still squint to see the chalkboard. So I'm biased.

[shamebats]

The only times I ever remember seeing a dentist or doctor as a child was at school. I'm quite healthy physically and I'm very grateful for all the care I got from the various professionals who cared about my well-being and development more than my actual parents did.

We had free healthcare including dental, mind you, my parents just couldn't be bothered. When my brother, as a teenager, asked our mother if she could take him to his orthodontist appointments (which he'd already arranged for on his own) she basically told him she didn't feel like it and he had to take the bus.

If I could improve anything about that system, I'd take it even further and make it so kids could see a doctor and get meds, treatments, therapy, tests, disability aids etc. without having to rely on their parents as well. I shouldn't have had to put up with being bullied and guilt-tripped about the family finances and the time investment needed to take me to the optometrist every time I needed new glasses.

[shamebats]

Some parents would not take care of their children even if they were given all the time and the resources. Mine are a great example of that — my mother stopped working and became a homemaker when I was in kindergarten, my father worked from the garage and was also always home. They had a car and our village even had a bus that would come once or twice an hour that would take you to the next two bigger cities.

Did that, plus the free healthcare, translate into them actually parenting and caring for us properly? It did not. They only ever did any of that reluctantly when not doing it would make them look bad, and most of the time they did a shitty job because they could never resist the urge to boost their egos by means of bullying literal children.

So I have to wonder: what did they actually contribute to our upbringing? Like they didn't teach us shit and mostly they just endangered our mental and physical health — but hey, at least they gave me cPTSD! That took some work too.

[anarchistmemedistro]

see also family abolition, and youth liberation .

[applefae]

A knee-jerk response to neglectful parenting I see a lot is “people should have to get licenses and take rigorous tests to PROVE that they should be ALLOWED to have kids” which is eugenics. That’s just the starting line for eugenics.

We are at a point in humanity where there is no meaningful reason why we shouldn’t be structuring our societies around wellbeing for all instead of wellbeing for the “deserving”.

Assume some parents will fail. Build social infrastructure that is designed to support failed kids rather than punish would-be parents.

[isuggestrevolution]

i have a suggestion

[disease]

[nobrashfestivity]

Unknown, Mandala of Chakrasamvara, 1648

Nepal, Bagmati Province, Kathmandu

Opaque watercolor on cotton