aquaedic

[aquaedic]

“the right to know,” norman rockwell

the parallels from the 1960s-70s to now is just a little too much for my brain to handle, and it’s only 10:31 in the morning :)  

[aquaedic]

fucking politics

single member districts and the plurality of our elections have ruined america. how can anyone not see that the single member district, only creating 2 political parties, resulting in one winner, is not polarizing the people into chaos and hate? everyone knows this, and is frustrated by it, but once you question our electoral system, everyone loses their mind. but no one is happy, and change needs to happen administratively to ensure a future. this is making me feel sick

[aquaedic]

el dios implacable de la vida y la muerte era visible y perceptible ... mantenía en un estado de asombro a los hombres

La aventura equinoccial de Lope de Aguirre, Ramón J. Sénder 

[aquaedic]

I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.

Oscar Wilde (via quotemadness)

[aquaedic]

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities (via philosophybits)

[aquaedic]

@ the water that drips down my arms when i wash my face and makes a big ass mess: fuckin fight me

[aquaedic]

it’s september! i am choosing to believe in love! 

[aquaedic]

read at your own risk

oh, why did i want you so bad? 

you weren’t a trade for what i had; 

real orgasms  

[aquaedic]

hi

this was very dramatic, i think i just got too excited to look at tumblr again. i know that all of these posts are my ego and my deep desire to seem intelligent. but i do really like everything i just posted. 

[aquaedic]

they love their reasons for loving us almost as much as they love us

“teddy”, nine stories 

[aquaedic]

quotes i loved from “normal people”

"Even in her memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she's aware of this now, while its happening. she has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person." 

"In a way I like the idea of something so dramatic happening to me. I would like to upset people's expectations."

"It seemed to soothe him briefly, the act of imagining a much worse and more totalizing pain than the one he really felt, maybe just the cognitive energy it required, the momentary break in his train of thought, but afterward he would only feel worse."

"she loves to be with him like this. it makes her life seem very manageable suddenly." 

"objectively he did find her opinions interesting, but he could see how her fondness for expressing them at length, to the exclusion of lighter conversation, was not universally charming."

"this quality of discernment, she has realized, does not make him a good person." 

"life offers up these moments of joy despite everything."

"none of those people had done anything wrong. they were just grieving. of course it doesn't make sense to write on his facebook wall, but nothing else made sense either. if people appeared to behave pointlessly in grief, it was only because human life was pointless, and this was the truth that grief revealed."

"she wanted her life to mean something then, she wanted to stop all violence committed by the strong against the weak, and she remembered a time years ago when she had felt so intelligent and young and powerful that she almost could of achieved such a thing, and now she knew she wasn't powerful, and she would live and die in a world of extreme violence against the innocent, and at most she could only help a few people. it was so much harder to reconcile herself to the idea of helping a few, like she would rather help no one than do something so small and feeble, but that wasn't it either."

"no one can be independent of other people completely, so why give up the attempt, she thought, go running into the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not. she knows he loves her, she doesn't wonder about that anymore.”

this is one dramatic book.

[aquaedic]

sex (also don’t know why i am posting this)

may 29, 2020 2:03 pm 

I was listening to this podcast the other day and it mentioned how boys with higher self-esteem first have sex at a younger age, and girls with lower self-esteem first have sex at a younger age. This was kind of baffling, and I haven’t really stopped thinking about it. It perpetuates bad relationships and the stratification men already have over vulnerable women. We don’t even realize the objectification. And what makes it worse, feeling desired makes you feel 100% better about yourself, and if you are not having sex when everyone else is, you feel terrible and embarrassed. (At least I did) Self-conscious girls are having sex because they feel like it will make them more valuable. I hate that we don’t even realize we are being objectified, and that partaking in this behavior makes you feel like you are valued.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this stat. I am also reading this book called Beauty Sick, and it’s about our cultural obsession with beauty. I have been doing a lot of thinking about my personal experience, and doing so much unpacking. I hated the fact that I was a virgin at 19. Now I hate that I resented myself so much for it. Because women are so objectified, I guess I thought that having sex would make me feel desired/beautiful, because I didn’t really feel like I was any of those things- especially during high school. What is even more depressing is how negative body image and what is culturally accepted as the beauty standard factored into that. Before I had sex, I didn’t understand my real feelings because they were so clouded by the shame of my virginity. But now, I realize it is because I didn’t want people to think that I was undesirable, because I thought I was fat. I  felt behind and embarrassed because of my virginity. I’ve recently realized that somehow I subconsciously knew that being a fat virgin seemed to be an explanation why. This disgusting culture made me feel behind. The whole idea of feeling unwanted by men played such a huge part in my self-esteem. I am genuinely so upset by this! I was so scared to tell people, that I didn’t even tell the person I first had sex with that I had never done it.

There is a fine line with the choice women make to have sex and the patriarchy. I definitely do not think of it as a gift to anyone (like a gift from women, to men, making them emotionally attached to men who could manipulate them, potentially creating very unhealthy relationships), BUT having sex to feel normal and to fit in also adheres to our culture that objectifies women. Looking back, I feel violated by my memory because I have had sex when I didn’t actually want to- I just felt like it was something I was supposed to do. (Btw I don’t regret having sex for the first time/losing my virginity)  It’s literally the patriarchy seeping into me, this culturally accepted way to feel like I have value.  (Like after a break up, its a 'normal thing' to just go and fuck random guys off of the internet) WHY IS SEX AS A COPING MECHANISM CONSIDERED SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE??? Ugh I am mad Realizing the root of everything gives you a lot of power, and with it we can protest this disgusting aspect of our culture. It is so sad because this behavior is blindly objectifying yourself. All of these young girls having sex when they’re not “actually ready” could be setting themselves up for a lot of potential hardships, and it is all because of deeply ingrained cultural norms. We don’t even realize what we consume shapes so many of our behaviors and choices, and it is so disgusting.

[aquaedic]

the only poem i’ve written for fun

both wishing, 

gente kissing.

emotions raw 

as they gnaw.

we’re giving in,

letting them win

but we both know 

it won’t be the happy ending in the show 

[aquaedic]

The truth of altruistic development

(not sure why i am posting an assignment on here)

Deepening my understanding of neoliberal institutions like the IMF, WB, and WTO, along with the use of Keynesian economics have a profound impact on my view of global issues, specifically in regards to poverty, economic development, gender, and race. The deployment of these ideas changed the scope of international relations. The success of Keynesian economics in America during the New Deal era definitely contributed to our success as the world superpower after WWII. Due to his esteemed theories, and having surmountable proof of success, I find it peculiar that Keynes’ ideas about how the IMF should be run was not given more thought at the Bretton Woods Conference. If the IMF gave unconditional loans to countries experiencing debt- supporting domestic demand and maintaining employment, like Keynes proposed- how different would the world be? Would this foster independence, or only create more dependence? The idea of balance is crucial for this way of thinking, but ironically, Bretton Woods and the institutions that emerged from it have created more global stratification. Providing help based on conditionality has yet to prove itself as successful. 

Something I found horrifying about this past week's content are the neo-Malthusian methods of population control being used on women in the global south. I have not learned about Thomas Malthus before this week, and the way his theories intertwine themselves in the policies implemented is disgusting. The widespread use of long acting birth control, like the Depo Provera shot (which has a bad reputation among women I know) and various implants deemed unsafe, only to make women of childbearing age more fruitful to the idea of smart economics is so corrupt. In a previous class, I learned that in some cases, women having access to discreet, long-acting birth control was beneficial. This information was in the context of abusive relationships, providing security against an unwanted pregnancy- which would only tether them to their husbands even more. So at first, reading this material was conflicting. But neoliberal institutions and corporations framing population control under the western-femenist guise of reproductive choice to increase the profitability and productivity of women is so disheartening. To make this worse, remembering that the World Bank historically values market based criteria over social policy makes the idea of justice seem far-fetched and idealistic. Is working against harmful policy from the inside of these institutions the only way to dismantle hegemony? 

[aquaedic]

is the goal to save lives or return to a flourishing existence?

[aquaedic]

i'm not much but i'm all i can think about

[aquaedic]

nos sentimos liberados del terror al descubrir que estábamos vivos

la patera de muerte