melancholybrunette

[melancholybrunette]

[melancholybrunette]

What your therapist said about a fracture from a violent attack reminds me of the Buddhist Parable of the Arrow: man gets hit with an arrow, refuses to treat the wound until he learns "whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker", "whether he was tall, medium, or short", "whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark", and dies without ever knowing any of these things. I've thought of it a lot when I've needed to stop my brain ruminating on whether a thing that happened to me was "actually traumatic".

That is beautiful, thank you for sharing

[melancholybrunette]

Iranian lights his cigarette on a burning Israel flag. Seen in Tehran last night. (x)

[melancholybrunette]

re: personal finance, tips on balancing giving to mutual aid and investing? When I have enough money to save/invest I feel guilty about not using more of it to help others, although my own financial situation is pretty unstable. People even poorer than me are the worst victims of capitalism, so using the stock market to enrich myself when they cannot feels bad. But at the same time I hate working and I want my money to make me more money.

My thoughts are that if you are constantly in a state of precarity yourself, your loved ones and community will need to financially take care of you, which they may not always be able to do. And so, it can be socially responsible as well as personally so to ensure you have what you need to survive on. The more stable you are, the more able you will be to reliably help others and do the kind of organizing work that is meaningful to you -- everybody passing around the same $50 into gofundmes and going broke all the time doesn't help uplift any of us. But a lot of meaningful work can get done if members of our communities are able to offer more consistent aid in terms of regular monthly donations, owning a home they can welcome other people into, owning a car they can drive people too, having stores of food or medicines, and so on.

[melancholybrunette]

think about how many people could leave their abusers if housing was affordable/free

[melancholybrunette]

Were you helping refugees at the border last week by donating to mutual aid groups or doing translation and outreach?

Were you calling for ceasefire and doing what you could to aid Palestinians last week? (Esims for gaza here)

Were you talking to your unhoused neighbors with respect and advocating for them and protesting encampment clearances last week? (There's no link just treat people like people and share cash if you can)

Last week were you participating in community meal shares and free stores?

Were you supporting bail funds and protesting the carceral state and trying to stop executions and humanizing incarcerated people last week? (How to write a letter to an incarcerated person)

Were you working to increase access to abortion medications and birth control and abortions in general last week?

Did you share information about DIY HRT and spend time paying attention to the books your school board was banning and make your lgbtqia friends welcome and included last week?

Were you aware of the groundwork being laid for a 2028 general strike and the ways that you could support one (contributing to strike funds, joining and supporting unions, attempting to unionize your workplace) last week?

Were you helping the people around you, were you caring for your friends, were you making information free, were you picking up trash, were you sharing a meal, were you tracking fascists, were you challenging the wrongs done by your government in the ways available to you last week?

Good. Keep doing that.

A better world is possible. Keep working toward it.

[melancholybrunette]

LMAO I just found out that it’s Stress Awareness week.

[melancholybrunette]

how do i respond to a friend who is certain that I should be contributing to palestine non-profits instead of boosting operation olive branch campaigns for individuals and families? Is it really more strategic to help an org than to send a person money?

Most organizations are run not by Palestinians, but by wealthy American & European people who represent the interests of their state more than the wellbeing and autonomy of the people being colonized. They offer aid conditionally, and deny it to the people who do not meet those conditions, and place firm restrictions on which kinds of resources they can access with that aid. That's before you even consider the percentage of the money that non-Palestinian employees for these organizations (particularly leadership) sop up for themselves.

Giving people in need money directly is *always* the best use of your money. It means less waste, less likelihood of supporting a shady governmental agenda, and even more importantly, it signals to the people who are directly effected that you respect them to make their own choices. It's far more empowering and respectful. The people on the ground in Gaza know best what they need, and they are in the position to access those needed resources immediately, on their own terms. Giving money to an org just makes them dependent upon the very countries that have colonized them.

(You should always give money directly to unhoused people for the same reasons, too).

[melancholybrunette]

women in PHLEGM (poetry, history, language, english literature, ghost stories, music)

[melancholybrunette]

[melancholybrunette]

Opposite but also the same end of the spectrum

[melancholybrunette]

great question. while a lot of these gofundmes started to fund evacuations, since the border will not open they have shifted to covering the costs of daily survival in gaza

the cost of food alone in gaza right now has been reported by journalists on the ground (including @siraj2024) to be 20 times the normal price.

and it varies based on location. the north is currently being starved by the IOF so food prices are higher

and there is a lot of evidence on tumblr that proves that these fundraisers do help

@ma7moudgaza2 was able to buy a tent for his family and is currently trying to pay for a solar panel

@siraj2024 was able to secure rent for a (bombed out, but still) apartment for his family over the winter

@mohdiwais was able to fund medical care for his sister after she was shot by the IOF using funds he raised on tumblr

a gaza-based charity called care for gaza has also been directly assisting families with funds used from their gofundme. they even post videos of themselves giving out food

and those are just a few examples. hope this helped!

[melancholybrunette]

[melancholybrunette]

One should always have at least 2 craft projects going. That way, when one of them is messed up and misbehaving, you can switch to another, and let the first one sit there and think about what it's done.

[melancholybrunette]

Thanatopsis - William Cullen Bryant

To him who in the love of Nature holds   

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks   

A various language; for his gayer hours   

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile   

And eloquence of beauty, and she glides   

Into his darker musings, with a mild   

And healing sympathy, that steals away   

Their sharpness, ere he is aware.  When thoughts   

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight   

Over thy spirit, and sad images   

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,   

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,   

Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—   

Go forth, under the open sky, and list   

To Nature’s teachings, while from all around— 

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— 

Comes a still voice— Yet a few days, and thee   

The all-beholding sun shall see no more   

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,   

Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,   

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist   

Thy image.   Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim   

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up   

Thine individual being, shalt thou go   

To mix for ever with the elements,   

To be a brother to the insensible rock   

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain   

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak   

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.  

     Yet not to thine eternal resting-place   

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish   

Couch more magnificent.  Thou shalt lie down   

With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,   

The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,   

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,   

All in one mighty sepulchre.   The hills   

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales   

Stretching in pensive quietness between;   

The venerable woods—rivers that move   

In majesty, and the complaining brooks   

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,   

Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—   

Are but the solemn decorations all   

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,   

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,   

Are shining on the sad abodes of death,   

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread   

The globe are but a handful to the tribes   

That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings   

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,   

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods   

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,   

Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there:   

And millions in those solitudes, since first   

The flight of years began, have laid them down   

In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone. 

So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw   

In silence from the living, and no friend   

Take note of thy departure? All that breathe   

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care   

Plod on, and each one as before will chase   

His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave   

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 

And make their bed with thee. As the long train   

Of ages glide away, the sons of men,   

The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes   

In the full strength of years, matron and maid,   

The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—   

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,   

By those, who in their turn shall follow them.   

     So live, that when thy summons comes to join   

The innumerable caravan, which moves   

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take   

His chamber in the silent halls of death,   

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,   

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed   

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,   

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch   

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

[melancholybrunette]

On the Philosophical Aspect of a Slice of Bread: Fermentation and Philosophy

I cut into the freshly baked loaf of bread. Steam escapes the chamber that the bread formed. I broke into the chamber, releasing the steam that helped bake the bread. The aroma fills the air; I breathe the smell in. Nothing like fresh bread. Nothing like it. I look down at the slice of bread, and I cannot help to think about everything that went into that slice of bread.

From the start of recorded history bread has been eaten. Bread has transformed from then to now. We have learned many new techniques and ways to make bread, but this is not always healthy. The ingredients may be labelled as "natural", but everything that is natural is not always healthy. "Healthy" sourdough bread is thus coming back into society to fight this culture of unhealthy "dead" bread. Using only flour, water, salt and natural bacteria and wild yeast (found on and in the wheat), they breads of today that are baked this way, is alive. And healthy.

The table in front of me is filled with the bread I baked. I look at the slice I took for me. For centuries people have baked bread. I am part of a chain in the history of baking bread, using what the earth gave us, to make something and then give that something to someone else to eat. This is magical. Or maybe it is just me.

What can we say about this piece of bread on my plate with warm butter dripping down it? For a moment try and get rid of everything you believe is true of this world, look at the bread again, and see if you "see" the same piece of bread? This is really hard to do. Some things are ingrained so deeply, that when you want to consciously see something else, it is not possible. When you put the piece of bread under a microscope, you will get a different picture of the bread. It starts to live, natural bacteria and yeast move around, it is not dead. But this does not say much. This is purely a different view on something, looking through another eye.

Looking back at the piece of bread, I only see what I am used to seeing, what I expected to see. I cannot unsee what I expect and want to see. I cannot deconstruct the image of the bread into smaller pieces. I cannot take apart the pieces that make up the bread. I cannot mentally change my perspective on the bread. I am stuck with the image that my brain wants me to have. This leads to an interesting question: Can you ever see the world in any other way? Kant, and other philosophers, struggled with the fact that they believed that reality was split between what we humans see and what reality actually is. But this asks us to believe that the world can be "seen" without any perspective. We can answer, without any real power, that the world as we see it is simply the world in itself, or the thing-in-itself. There is no other way.

This does not seem true. Our eyes can only see a small spectrum of light. We are living in a world where our eyes can only see so much. Imagine if you could change your brain and eyes to detect other sources of light, like infra-red etc. How different would life have been? This leads to a weird conclusion for this post: I am determined to see what my brain wants me to see, I can only see the piece of bread as an amalgamation, a unification, a combination of flour, water, sourdough and salt. I cannot see the different building blocks, I cannot see anything other than what is in front of me. This is true for the piece of bread, but also for life in general. How many things (like race and gender) are so ingrained in our memory about how the world "should" be, that we lost the ability to see things for what they are? Maybe we should not ask this question, it is not meant to be asked. Staring too long at the truth will blind you.

[melancholybrunette]