rippey-shadow

[rippey-shadow]

[rippey-shadow]

10/10 meme

[rippey-shadow]

MUST READ: 

The Empathy Exams: Essays by Leslie Jamison

Extraordinary… . she calls to mind writers as disparate as Joan Didion and John Jeremiah Sullivan as she interrogates the palpitations of not just her own trippy heart but of all of ours… . Her cerebral, witty, multichambered essays tend to swing around to one topic in particular: what we mean when we say we feel someone else’s pain… . I’m not sure I’m capable of recommending a book because it might make you a better person. But watching the philosopher in Ms. Jamison grapple with empathy is a heart-expanding exercise.“ —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

After receiving an overwhelming amount of stellar reviews, we decided to delve into the obscure and excavate the wildness of the human heart. Although, we finished reading The Empathy Exams a week ago, we still feel incompetent to deliver the feelings Leslie Jamison inspired in an intellectual text, hence this review; yet we are not fearful. Leslie Jamison began her study in empathy as a medical actress, who was hired to act out symptoms for medical students to diagnose. With an unorthodox perspective to physical pain, Leslie Jamison’sThe Empathy Exams poses challenging, introspective questions, which we avoid to investigate as a whole. As humanity, what is the best way to take care of one another? Should one person’s level of empathy be examined as a device to evaluate a person’s character? How can we experience compassion of another individual’s pain, when we doubt it?

Using a cultural and personal perspective, Jamison deciphers the paradox of the human heart and shield. Every day we desensitize more on a global scale, yet personally, we demand to feel and be understood. Tackling various categories of pain, such as wounds, illnesses, injuries, phantom diseases, grief and violence, Jamison is seeking a return to modesty. To accept that we know nothing and cannot glamorize, undermine or distort others’ experience. Overall Jamison’s most impressive approach was her deviation from narcissism. Very few moments in nonfiction literature does an author take the opportunity to enlighten the public in a selfless approach, particularly about transforming the way one thinks and processes their environment. Without a doubt, reading Jamison’s essays take a jab at the heart. Part psychology, half philosophy, Jamison has an uncanny talent to actualize the thoughts, which get jammed in our brain and never quite see the light of day.

Get the book here!

Read excerpts from the book here!

Get the FREE Amazon Kindle app to read on most devices.

FREE BOOKS: 100 LEGAL SITES TO DOWNLOAD LITERATURE!

[rippey-shadow]

u have to sit on some soft grass or, a mattress in the sun sometimes to give your shadow a soft place to rest. she’s always on that pavement.. cement.. floorboards.. it’s not good for her

[rippey-shadow]

haha and then what

[rippey-shadow]

[rippey-shadow]

Please donate to this gofundme fundraiser

This is for a friend, please reblog or donate or both. I’m trying to get more awareness for this fundraiser.

“One month after I was born, my parents moved to America and left me to be raised by my aunt. She is a very strong and independent woman who took very good care of me. When I was younger, I truly believed that she was my mother up until November 2007. In November 2007, my real mother came back to China for the first time and decided to bring me to America with her.  I was ten years old. My aunt was upset that my mother was going to take me to America with her because she had been the one who had raised me for the past ten years. The day before I left, my mother and my aunt had a very big fight. The next day, my mom picked me up while my aunt was at work, without her knowledge, and I haven't seen my aunt since. After I came to america, I tried to get in touch with my aunt in many different ways, but my mother caught me and cut off all of my means of communication with her.  I really missed her but I had to listen to my mother. Then, in October 2015, I recieved a phone call from my cousin (my aunt's daughter) asking why I hadn't tried to contact them for eight years, wondering if I still even remembered them. She then explained to me that my aunt had gotten into a car accident which caused severe brain damage. Years of depression along with the more recent brain damage lead her to develop alzheimer's. I couldn't believe that she had alzheimer's at the early age of 57. I was heartbroken that my aunt, who had raised me all through my childhood, was suffering and I couldn't do anything about it. At the time, I was still living with my mother, who still refused to allow me any contact with her. This year, I moved out of my mother's house, and I am now doing everything in my power to ensure that my aunt in China gets the much needed medical care that she deserves. I would like to be able to raise enough money to get her into a nursing home specialized for alzheimer's patients so that she can get the care that she deserves. The cost of one year in this facility in China will add up to roughly $15,000. She was a great mother to me all through my childhood and I really would like to be able to give back to her. If I could reach my goal of $15,000, I would be forever greatful, and this would be absolutely lifechanging for my aunt. I really hope you consider funding me. Every dollar is greatly appreciated, thank you! 

https://www.gofundme.com/9hvh9qes”

[rippey-shadow]

I’m lucky enough to be able to get drunk at work and nobody will say a word

[rippey-shadow]

[rippey-shadow]

dreams

So… the dreams are all basically of me losing access to people I care about, usually because of something someone else did that I can’t do anything about. And the whole dream is just me screaming at the person who took away the things/people I care about..

So… dream number one was the most detailed… Number one So I have two little sisters (age 7 and 8 now) and I was hanging out with my mom and these two other kids that apparently were also my younger siblings (They don’t actually exist) and I asked my mom where Elly and Sophie were (my real life sisters) and she said that she “gave them back to their dad” which is a horrible thing to do, their dad was horrible and abusive. So most of the dream was me screaming and crying at my mom for giving my sisters to their dad, and then I tried to go find them and I was trying to find the main bus station, which is called GTC in my town. So I saw a sign that said GTC and I went there and it was actually some sort of weight loss place and I was just screaming at the worker person there about “Where is the bus stations!!!?” and they were like “Idk what you’re talking about, man, this is a weight loss place” and then it just kinda got weird and funny after that… the rest isn’t important

Number two My best friend was hospitalized in this dream and I called him trying to find out which hospital and room number he was in so I could go and visit him, but his GF picked up the phone and she refused to tell me where he was… and I tried to reason with her but just ended up screaming and crying over the phone saying stuff like, “YOU CANT DO THIS TO ME WHERE IS HE” … then I woke up

Number Three This one is kind of funny after I woke up but it was horrible when I was actually dreaming about it. So In my dream I came home and found out that my cats had been taken away by my landlord and I tried to call them and get my cats back and move out but they said that I couldn’t have the cats back so I burned down my apartment…. lol

So… I’ve noticed a theme here of not being able to see people/cats that I care about and I was just wondering if that meant anything?

[rippey-shadow]

um wow yeah ok!

I’m getting 3,500$ back in taxes this year. That’s literally 5X as much as I got last year.

[rippey-shadow]

Assessor paint study from earlier in the week. 

[rippey-shadow]

Time to woman up I guess

My entire life got completely derailed and torn apart piece by piece, and I’m just working to get it back up again now I guess.

I hit rock bottom a few days ago, so it can only get better from here.

[rippey-shadow]

Ugh, my friends got a puppy and they’re training him to be the perfect travel dog so they can take him on tour with them and their band and I’m just sitting here alone with my cats.

I love love love my cats but I want to have a nice animal friend to go on adventures with!

[rippey-shadow]

valentines day

I had my first valentines day with a significant other yesterday. Pretty darn great if I do say so myself.

He got me cupcakes and we watched TV for a while and it was just really chill and great. Love this guy.

[rippey-shadow]

ITS ALL IN YOUR HEAD

Yes, but I can’t get out or away from my head. My head is always there and the thoughts never go away.

[rippey-shadow]

“It’s against the law to peddle It’s against the law to eat It’s against the law to have nothing more than the shoes full of holes on your feet And now they’ve put bars across the benches, so I guess it’s illegal to sleep”