#I Financially PROSPER from Every mortal death

[aixeko]

──────‹𝟹 SINNERS SAVAGERY ༄ Ѽ✧

IF I'M YOUR SALVATION, WELCOME TO HELL.

2024 Halloween Event | Art credit: Efferwescent on Twitter

𖤐 SINNERS SAVAGERY | or ERISETOBER  is an event that is a mix of Kinktober, Whumptober and Flufftober in a nutshell SMUT, ANGST & FLUFF with Halloween aspects. All prompts are made by me but some of the ones that inspired me are whumptober ofc, and this list. 

𖤐 ONLY HONKAI STAR RAIL AND GENSHIN WOMEN For this year

𖤐 This will be my first time doing the October prompts stuff + I have another event going on so bare with me haha.

𖤐 !! WEEK 1 starts 6 to 13 !! !! WEEK 2 starts 13 to 19 !! !! WEEK 3 starts 20 to 26 !! !! WEEK 4 starts 27 to 31 !!

WEEK 1 | MONSTER AU | | ONESHOT

| Film | TILL DEATH DO US PART | Starring | Kafka as alien symbiote “Venom” x Host!Reader  | Synopsis | A livelihood ripped away by the greed of humankind and faced with impending doom, an alien symbiote by the name of "Kafka" entered your life and made you her host. Originally, the monstrous being harbored one goal: to destroy everything planet Earth had to offer, but plans changed upon meeting you and thus, with her power, you both do whatever it takes to save the planet. Loathing was all that was bestowed toward the extraterrestrial parasitic, but as time passes, a long-lost feeling resurfaces, one that hasn't manifested since your heartbreak; of course, you would rather be brutally killed than confess your endearment. Unbeknownst to you, the woman has suspected you of such intimacy and, with her incredible adaptability to the complex human emotion, has a ploy to make you profess those three special words.

| Film | YOUR LORDSHIP | Starring | Yelan as Leviathan x Mortal!Reader | Synopsis |  When the tempestuous waves crash against the shore and the sky turns a foreboding grey, human shells cower in fear as the mighty lord of the seas, Leviathan, awakens from the darkest pit of the deep, seeking for a human companion to aid her lonely voyage.

WEEK 2 | MYTHOLOGICAL AU | | ONESHOT

| Film | BEYOND THE IMAGINABLE | Starring | Clorinde as Medusa x Blind!Reader | Synopsis | Despised and misunderstood by the world, she was a victim of a scandalous man's wrongdoing, unfairly punished by heaven despite her innocence. During one fortunate day, the woman whose heart had turned to stone melt under the accursed spell of love, wholly captivated by a blind mortal who fell in love with her for who she truly was; even without sight, the virtuous human saw the very essence of her, the beauty within her soul.

| Film | OFFERING OF PURITY | Starring | Raiden Ei as Hades x Mortal!Reader | Synopsis | The townsfolk tell tales of a legend that speaks of how, once in a century, the moon would adorn itself in a deep crimson hue and illuminate its shade onto the world. Under its wrathful light, the god of hell emerges to wreak havoc, and the only way to banish such evil is to offer a youthful virgin mortal; only then will humankind live in another century of prosperity and peace.

WEEK 3 | ANIMATRONICS AU | | SMUTSHOT

| Film | FIVE NIGHTS AT STAR RAIL | Starring | Kafka, Himeko, Blackswan, and Acheron as the FNAF Classic Animatronics x Night-guard!Reader | Synopsis | A newspaper arrives at your doorstep, featuring a job opening for a night guard position at the famous Star Rail Pizzeria. Struggling financially, you quickly seize the golden opportunity. The job's only requirement is 5 nights of work, and if you succeed, you'll be hired as an official employee; what could possibly go wrong?

WEEK 4 | SLASHER/SERIAL KILLER AU

| Film | MINDFUCK | Starring | Slasher!Arlecchino x Investigative-Psychologist!Reader | Synopsis | Demons linger where shadows play; in silence, hearts betray, whispers echo, and desires catch fire in the haunting depths of the night. With every kiss, a scythe may cut, in which terror envelops one's gut; together they dance on the edge of fate, finding beauty in a love that is too late. So let the night weave its spell, for in the dark they know so well, and though demons are whispering fright, in their twilight, the lights are ignited.

[for-the-writing-artist]

My pastor was discussing the sin of lying the other Sunday ─ an absolute truth is that God hates lies, I am not denying this (see Prov 12:22, I Tm 1:10, Ex 20:16)─ with relative examples of day to day situations. I tell you, it was a real hand-on-your-head kind of day.

And unfortunately for us, ambiguous temporal creatures that we are, not all actions are everything or nothing. But I think to better explain my position, I have to identify the premises of my argument.

The first being:

Every sin holds equal value.

God will condemn you to hell for being an impulsive liar, be that the only sin you have ever committed in your life, just as He will condemn you to hell for murder (see Ja 2:10-11). But notice that, though in the spiritual plane and eternal time, it does not matter what sin you are charged with, in our temporal world, and mortal plane, some sins are more destructive than others. This is my first belief.

And the second being:

Our sins do not affect us equally.

Which is obvious. Take the sin of murder (Ex 20:13), for instance; where time and time again the OT shows whoever takes a life will repay ─ in this life ─ with their own. (Gn 9:5-6, Ex 21: 16, Lv 24:17, and in the NT, a reprimand from Jesus himself, Mt 26:52.)

Versus divorce (Ex 20:14), which was acceptable in the OT (Dt 24:1-4), but forbids either party from ever marrying again, lest they be charged with adultery (NT ─ Mt 19:9,6 1 Co 7:10, Mk 10:1-12).

Thus, I can conclude that, if God so wishes, the sin you commit will impact your life proportionally. As an addendum, the above in no way condones the Prosperity Gospel ─ as there is yet to be found in the Bible where faith and financial donations somehow annul the consequences of sin in your life.

Of Lying, and Moral Ambiguity.

In many cases, the intention of our actions leaves no room for moral ambiguity with the sins we commit ─ I cannot be so certain this to always be the truth in the case of a lie. A murderer's intention is premeditated. A divorce is only allowed under the clause of sexual immorality.

Why do we lie, then? To deceive our neighbor with perjury or slander. Strong's Hebrew seems to imply this commandment strongly in the topic of courts, and injury to one's image.

Something my pastor talked of was honesty in the face of our worldly governments ─ in my opinion, this shouldn't always be the case.

I am not talking about small things like tax evasion (← the example he used), simply because the consequences of evading taxes are too big to justify the risk. It is unwise. But I do argue against using the example above as an endorsement for us to always be honest with our governments.

If I were hiding Jews in Nazi occupied Europe in the 40s, would the Christian thing to do be, if the government came looking, to lie or not lie? Simply because lying is a sin, I should therefore reveal that yes, am I hiding Jews?

In this example, I ask that you go back to my second premise, and examine the impact the lie and the truth have in the supposed scenario.

This is a situation where one or multiple lives are my responsibility, along with my own. And what does this ill-placed honesty impact in their lives? Certain death, and mine also, if we take what the Nazis did in Poland to heart.

The lie does not seem unreasonable, as is my responsibility in this situation to keep theirs, and possibly my own safety, intact.

A lie (the sin) is spread due to malice, falsehood, or slander, directed at one or more people ─ a false testimony without cause, intended to cause perjury to another. In such cases, the sin is absolute and easily identifiable.

In conclusion; though I hold that honesty is always the ideal thing to do, I cannot agree that it is absolutely so when it comes to local governments or authorities.

[yhwhrulz777]

Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer Devotional for October 27

Tozer in the Morning Growing Numbers Do Not Guarantee Increasing Quality

The question of numbers and their relation to success or failure in the work of the Lord is one that disturbs most Christians more than a little.

. . . There are Christians, for instance, who dismiss the whole matter as being beneath them.

. . .They prefer to sit around the Lord's Table in a select and tight little circle, admiring the deep things of God and, I very much fear, admiring themselves a wee bit also. This is a kind of Protestant monasticism without the cowl and the beads, for it seeks to preserve the faith of Christ from pollution by isolating it from the vulgar masses. Its motives may be commendable, but its methods are altogether unscriptural and its spirit completely out of mood with that of our Lord.

The other and opposite school is the most vocal and has by far the largest following in gospel circles today. Its philosophy, if it can be called a philosophy, is that "we must get the message out" regardless of how we go about it. The devotees of this doctrine appear to be more concerned with quantity than with quality. They seem burned up with desire to "bring the people in" even if they have not much to offer them after they are in. They take inexcusable liberties both with message and with method. The Scriptures are used rather than expounded and the Lordship of Christ almost completely ignored. Pressure is exerted to persuade the people (who, by the way, come to the meetings with something else in mind altogether) to accept Christ, with the understanding that they shall then have peace of mind and financial prosperity, not to mention high grades in school and a low score on the golf course.

The crowds-at-any-price mania has taken a firm grip on American Christianity and is the motivating power back of a shockingly high percentage of all religious activity. Men and churches compete for the attention of the paying multitudes who are brought in by means of any currently popular gadget or gimmick ostensibly to have their souls saved, but, if the truth were told, often for reasons not so praiseworthy as this.

Tozer in the Evening Condemnation or No Condemnation

A sinful man should be afraid; he has plenty to be afraid of. The consequences of his sins, death, judgment and hell are all awaiting him and he cannot escape them by looking the other way. While he lives on earth there are dangers of every kind facing him and everyone he loves. Any religious teacher that exhorts him to ignore these dangers is unrealistic, false to the facts and a deadly enemy to his soul. The prophet of tranquility is indeed another source of danger to him and should be considered one more object of fear. Where there are mortal perils and no place to hide, fear is the only sane reaction. To dismiss fear while the danger still exists is little short of insanity. Until the danger has been removed, fear should remain. Only that man has a right to be unafraid who has fled for refuge to the mighty Savior. Such a man knows the danger is there, but he also knows that his Almighty Lord will bring him safely through and present him at last faultless before the p resence of God. There are in the Scriptures innumerable exhortations to put away fear; but they are all addressed to Gods own children, never to the children of this world. Someone must care, and if a man has not cast his fears on Christ, he must bear them himself. The safety of the Rock is for those who have put their trust in the Rock. All others must face their enemies alone.

Copyright Statement This material is considered in the public domain.

[yhwhrulz]

Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer Devotional: October 27th

Tozer in the Morning Growing Numbers Do Not Guarantee Increasing Quality

The question of numbers and their relation to success or failure in the work of the Lord is one that disturbs most Christians more than a little.

. . . There are Christians, for instance, who dismiss the whole matter as being beneath them.

. . .They prefer to sit around the Lord's Table in a select and tight little circle, admiring the deep things of God and, I very much fear, admiring themselves a wee bit also. This is a kind of Protestant monasticism without the cowl and the beads, for it seeks to preserve the faith of Christ from pollution by isolating it from the vulgar masses. Its motives may be commendable, but its methods are altogether unscriptural and its spirit completely out of mood with that of our Lord.

The other and opposite school is the most vocal and has by far the largest following in gospel circles today. Its philosophy, if it can be called a philosophy, is that "we must get the message out" regardless of how we go about it. The devotees of this doctrine appear to be more concerned with quantity than with quality. They seem burned up with desire to "bring the people in" even if they have not much to offer them after they are in. They take inexcusable liberties both with message and with method. The Scriptures are used rather than expounded and the Lordship of Christ almost completely ignored. Pressure is exerted to persuade the people (who, by the way, come to the meetings with something else in mind altogether) to accept Christ, with the understanding that they shall then have peace of mind and financial prosperity, not to mention high grades in school and a low score on the golf course.

The crowds-at-any-price mania has taken a firm grip on American Christianity and is the motivating power back of a shockingly high percentage of all religious activity. Men and churches compete for the attention of the paying multitudes who are brought in by means of any currently popular gadget or gimmick ostensibly to have their souls saved, but, if the truth were told, often for reasons not so praiseworthy as this.

Tozer in the Evening Condemnation or No Condemnation

A sinful man should be afraid; he has plenty to be afraid of. The consequences of his sins, death, judgment and hell are all awaiting him and he cannot escape them by looking the other way. While he lives on earth there are dangers of every kind facing him and everyone he loves. Any religious teacher that exhorts him to ignore these dangers is unrealistic, false to the facts and a deadly enemy to his soul. The prophet of tranquility is indeed another source of danger to him and should be considered one more object of fear. Where there are mortal perils and no place to hide, fear is the only sane reaction. To dismiss fear while the danger still exists is little short of insanity. Until the danger has been removed, fear should remain. Only that man has a right to be unafraid who has fled for refuge to the mighty Savior. Such a man knows the danger is there, but he also knows that his Almighty Lord will bring him safely through and present him at last faultless before the presence of God. There are in the Scriptures innumerable exhortations to put away fear; but they are all addressed to Gods own children, never to the children of this world. Someone must care, and if a man has not cast his fears on Christ, he must bear them himself. The safety of the Rock is for those who have put their trust in the Rock. All others must face their enemies alone.

Copyright Statement This material is considered in the public domain.

[pooma-education]

தமிழில்

Fixed Mindset or Growth Mindset?

1. In creation, for anything to be menifested, two opposite forces must co-exist.

2. Example - I : If a chalk piece is in rest on the table, then there must be a large of number of electrons inside it moving in extremely high speed to keep the chalk piece in rest. If electrons come in rest, then chalk piece will start very high speed movement to keep electrons in rest.

3. Example - II : For a human existence, two things are must. One is Being - The Soul or Self or I or Spirit or Lifetron or Consciousness or Bio-Spark or The Absolute Energy or Ruha or Atman or Jivatma or Jiva which is always same, which transcends material birth, disease, oldage and death. My 'I' does not change.

But body, senses, mind, intellect and ego continuously change through compulsory evolutionary life experiences. They have to change to keep their master 'The Soul' unchanged. Otherwise soul will leave the body.

That's why the excellent dictum is coined - "Expansion is Life, contraction is Death."

4. Energy can never be in rest or stagnation. It is always in transition and transformation from one form to another form. It has to be in transition.

5. According to Pulsating Universe Theory, Big Bang and Big Crunch are going on continuously till eternity.

6. Hence, everything in the multiverse - from neuron to nebula, microcosm to macrocosm, electrons to galaxies and even the space itself are continously moving, in fact growing to keep the celestial system functioning. They have to be in motion to keep everything in rest.

7. Motion is must for rest, rest is must for motion. If earth stops rotating and revolving, gravitation will cease to exist. Immediately, from atmospheric elements to humans - everything will be pulled out of earth due to gravitational pulls of sun and other celestial objects. All our ego will be zero immediately.

8. Same way - a fixed mindset is must regarding the ultimate or absolute or sole aim of human life - to attain The Absolute Wisdom. By default, Absolute can never be finite. Absolute must be infinite to remain absolute.

Out of 84 lakhs of identified species, only homo sapiens (the word itself is linked with wisdom) has a perfectly perpendicular spinal cord which is nothing but a cosmic transmitter to be connected with the entire multiverse through a cosmic integration or resonance process.

There is no option given in it. Purpose of human life is to attain ultimate wisdom. If we do not strive for that, then we will have repeated experience of human lives again and again till we attain that ultimate grand unison or absolute singularity with multiverse.

9. Now to have that fixed mindset or goal of attaining highest wisdom, and to keep the 'I' unchanged - our body, senses, mind, intellect and ego must change continuously.

10. This change can be either downward or upward - that freedom is given to human. Either lust or liberation. Either deterioration, degradation or development. Either mortality or immortality. Either contraction or expansion. Either death or divinity.

11. Naturally, cosmos has given the creation to us for growth, not death. Hence, according to evolutionary process - we have to grow continously to exist, to survive, to fulfill ourselves, to attain humanity, to attain ultimate bliss, peace, prosperity, both material and cosmic success.

12. To conclude - an undeviated unshattered fixed mindset is must regarding the ultimate aim of human life. Keeping eyes on that ultimate aim - growth mindset has to be adopted every moment to attain success in life, family, career, society, financial, social and spiritual security.

13. Rest is must for motion. Motion is must for rest. Potential is must for kinetic. Kinetic is must for potential.

14. Keeping eyes fixed on eyes of fish is must for Arjuna (Nara) to attain Draupadi (Lakshmi or affluence), but the bow string (Pratyancha) must be stretched continuously (kintetic energy) up to ears (Aakarna - potential energy) to shoot the arrow (again kinetic energy) to pierce the eyes of fish.

15. Mind should be set fixed on ultimate aim of life. For that, it should grow continuously. No growth no life.

(Thousands of quotes can be cited for every word written here from Quantum Physics and Upanishads - Vigyan and Vedanta - astonishingly both are same - absolute coherence or singularity.)

Debabrata Biswas

Educator and School Leader

நிலையான மனநிலை அல்லது வளர்ச்சி மனப்பான்மை?

1. படைப்பில், எதையும் வெளிப்படுத்துவதற்கு, இரண்டு எதிர் எதிர் சக்திகள் இணைந்து இருக்க வேண்டும்.

2. உதாரணம் - I : மேஜையில் ஒரு சுண்ணாம்பு துண்டு ஓய்வில் இருந்தால், அதன் உள்ளே அதிக எண்ணிக்கையிலான எலக்ட்ரான்கள் மிக அதிக வேகத்தில் நகர்ந்து சுண்ணக்கட்டியை ஓய்வில் வைத்திருக்க வேண்டும். எலக்ட்ரான்கள் ஓய்வில் வந்தால், எலக்ட்ரான்களை ஓய்வில் வைத்திருக்க சுண்ணாம்பு துண்டு மிக அதிவேக இயக்கத்தைத் தொடங்கும்.

3. உதாரணம் - II : ஒரு மனித இருப்புக்கு, இரண்டு விஷயங்கள் அவசியம். ஒன்று இருப்பது - ஆன்மா அல்லது சுயம் அல்லது நான் அல்லது ஆவி அல்லது லைஃப்ட்ரான் அல்லது உணர்வு அல்லது உயிர்-தீப்பொறி அல்லது முழுமையான ஆற்றல் அல்லது ருஹா அல்லது ஆத்மா அல்லது ஜீவாத்மா அல்லது ஜீவா எப்போதும் ஒன்று, இது ஜடப் பிறப்பு, நோய், முதுமை மற்றும் இறப்பு ஆகியவற்றைக் கடந்தது. என் 'நான்' மாறவில்லை.

ஆனால் உடல், புலன்கள், மனம், புத்தி மற்றும் ஈகோ ஆகியவை கட்டாய பரிணாம வாழ்க்கை அனுபவங்கள் மூலம் தொடர்ந்து மாறுகின்றன. தங்கள் ம���ஸ்டர் 'தி சோல்' மாறாமல் இருக்க அவர்கள் மாற வேண்டும். இல்லையெனில் ஆன்மா உடலை விட்டு வெளியேறும்.

அதனால்தான், "விரிவாக்கமே வாழ்க்கை, சுருக்கமே மரணம்" என்ற சிறந்த வசனம் உருவாக்கப்பட்டது.

4. ஆற்றல் ஒருபோதும் ஓய்வில் அல்லது தேக்க நிலையில் இருக்க முடியாது. இது எப்போதும் ஒரு வடிவத்திலிருந்து மற்றொரு வடிவத்திற்கு மாறுதல் மற்றும் மாற்றத்தில் இருக்கும். இது மாற்றத்தில் இருக்க வேண்டும்.

5. பல்சேட்டிங் யுனிவர்ஸ் கோட்பாட்டின் படி, பிக் பேங் மற்றும் பிக் க்ரஞ்ச் நித்தியம் வரை தொடர்ந்து நடந்து கொண்டிருக்கிறது.

6. எனவே, பன்முகத்தன்மையில் உள்ள அனைத்தும் - நியூரானில் இருந்து நெபுலா வரை, மைக்ரோகாஸ்ம் முதல் மேக்ரோகாஸ்ம், எலக்ட்ரான்கள் முதல் விண்மீன் வரை மற்றும் விண்வெளி கூட தொடர்ந்து நகர்கிறது, உண்மையில் வான அமைப்பு செயல்பட வளர. எல்லாவற்றையும் ஓய்வி���் வைத்திருக்க அவர்கள் இயக்கத்தில் இருக்க வேண்டும்.

7. ஓய்வுக்கு இயக்கம் அவசியம், இயக்கத்திற்கு ஓய்வு அவசியம். பூமி சுழல்வதையும், சுற்றுவதையும் நிறுத்தினால், ஈர்ப்பு விசை இல்லாமல் போய்விடும். உடனடியாக, வளிமண்டலக் கூறுகள் முதல் மனிதர்கள் வரை - சூரியன் மற்றும் பிற வானப் பொருட்களின் ஈர்ப்பு விசையால் அனைத்தும் பூமியிலிருந்து வெளியே இழுக்கப்படும். நமது ஈகோ அனைத்தும் உடனே பூஜ்ஜியமாகிவிடும்.

8. அதே வழியில் - முழுமையான ஞானத்தை அடைய மனித வாழ்வின் இறுதி அல்லது முழுமையான அல்லது ஒரே குறிக்கோளைப் பற்றி ஒரு நிலையான மனநிலை அவசியம். இயல்பாக, முழுமையானது ஒருபோதும் வரையறுக்கப்பட்டதாக இருக்க முடியாது. முழுமையானதாக இருக்க முழுமையானதாக இருக்க வேண்டும்.

அடையாளம் காணப்பட்ட 84 லட்சம் உயிரினங்களில், ஹோமோ சேபியன்ஸ் (இந்த வார்த்தையே ஞானத்துடன் இணைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது) மட்டுமே செங்குத்தாக செங்குத்தாக முதுகுத் தண்டு உள்ளது, இது ஒரு காஸ்மிக் ஒருங்கிணைப்பு அல்லது அதிர்வு செயல்முறை மூலம் முழு மல்டிவர்ஸுடனும் இணைக்கப்பட்ட ஒரு காஸ்மிக் டிரான்ஸ்மிட்டரைத் தவிர வேறில்லை.

அதில் விருப்பம் இல்லை. மனித வாழ்க்கையின் நோக்கம் இறுதி ஞானத்தை அடைவதாகும். அதற்காக நாம் பாடுபடாவிட்டால், அந்த இறுதியான மாபெரும் ஒற்றுமையை அல்லது பன்முகத்தன்மையுடன் கூடிய முழுமையான ஒருமைப்பாட்டை அடையும் வரை, மனித வாழ்வின் அனுபவங்களை மீண்டும் மீண்டும் நாம் பெறுவோம்.

9. இப்போது அந்த நிலையான மனநிலை அல்லது உயர்ந்த ஞானத்தை அடைவதற்கான குறிக்கோளைப் பெறுவதற்கும், 'நான்' மாறாமல் இருப்பதற்கும் - நமது உடல், புலன்கள், மனம், புத்தி மற்றும் அகங்காரம் ஆகியவை தொடர்ந்து மாற வேண்டும்.

10. இந்த மாற்றம் கீழ்நோக்கியோ அல்லது மேல்நோக்கியோ இருக்கலாம் - அந்த சுதந்திரம் மனிதனுக்கு கொடுக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. காமம் அல்லது விடுதலை. ஒன்று ச��ரழிவு, சீரழிவு அல்லது வளர்ச்சி. ஒன்று மரணம் அல்லது அழியாமை. சுருக்கம் அல்லது விரிவாக்கம். மரணம் அல்லது தெய்வீகம்.

11. இயற்கையாகவே, பிரபஞ்சம் நமக்கு உருவாக்கத்தை அளித்துள்ளது வளர்ச்சிக்காக, மரணம் அல்ல. எனவே, பரிணாம செயல்முறையின் படி - நாம் தொடர்ந்து வளர வேண்டும், உயிர்வாழ, நம்மை நிறைவு செய்ய, மனிதநேயத்தை அடைய, இறுதி பேரின்பம், அமைதி, செழிப்பு, பொருள் மற்றும் பிரபஞ்ச வெற்றியை அடைய வேண்டும்.

12. முடிவுக்கு வர - மனித வாழ்வின் இறுதிக் குறிக்கோளைப் பற்றி ஒரு விலகலற்ற சிதைவடையாத நிலையான மனநிலை அவசியம். அந்த இறுதி நோக்கத்தின் மீது கண்களை வைத்திருத்தல் - வாழ்க்கை, குடும்பம், தொழில், சமூகம், நிதி, சமூக மற்றும் ஆன்மீகப் பாதுகாப்பில் வெற்றியை அடைய ஒவ்வொரு கணமும் வளர்ச்சி மனப்பான்மையைக் கடைப்பிடிக்க வேண்டும்.

13. இயக்கத்திற்கு ஓய்வு அவசியம். ஓய்வுக்கு இயக்கம் அவசியம். இயக்கத்திற்கு சாத்தியம் அவசியம். சாத்தியத்திற்கு இயக்கவியல் அவசியம்.

14. திரௌபதியை (லக்ஷ்மி அல்லது ஐஸ்வர்யத்தை) அடைய அர்ஜுனன் (நாரா) மீனின் கண்களை நிலைநிறுத்துவது அவசியம், ஆனால் வில் சரம் (பிரத்யஞ்சா) காதுகள் வரை (ஆகர்ணா - சாத்தியமான ஆற்றல்) தொடர்ந்து நீட்டப்பட வேண்டும். மீனின் கண்களைத் துளைக்க அம்புக்குறியை (மீண்டும் இயக்க ஆற்றல்) எய்யவும்.

15. வாழ்க்கையின் இறுதி லட்சியத்தில் மனதை நிலைநிறுத்த வேண்டும். அதற்கு, அது தொடர்ந்து வளர வேண்டும். வளர்ச்சி இல்லை வாழ்க்கை இல்லை.

(குவாண்டம் இயற்பியல் மற்றும் உபநிடதங்களிலிருந்து இங்கு எழுதப்பட்ட ஒவ்வொரு வார்த்தைக்கும் ஆயிரக்கணக்கான மேற்கோள்களை மேற்கோள் காட்டலாம் - விக்யான் மற்றும் வேதாந்தம் - வியக்கத்தக்க வகையில் இரண்டும் ஒன்றே - முழுமையான ஒத்திசைவு அல்லது ஒருமை.)

தேபப்ரதா பிஸ்வாஸ்

கல்வியாளர் மற்றும் பள்ளித் தலைவர்

[harrelltut]

卍 I got Many HIGHLY Classified + Premeditated Criminal [PC] Schemes II Magically INFLICT [MI = MICHAEL] on present day mankind since you so basic & artificially intelligent as I Maliciously Retrieve ALL My Stolen Cultural Resources you Stole... then I’mma Magically + Legally KILL [MLK = SHADOW GOVERNMENT] you since I Morally ACHIEVED [MA] Moor Triple 666 [ROYAL] Black Occult POWERS OVER yo' recessive bodies of degenerative genetics that I Financially PROSPER from when you die on earth 卍

[angelssdecay]

Why Zhongli isn’t just a blockhead (though sometimes he is) – another essay by yours truly

Disclaimer beforehand: I am partly Asian, but I am not Chinese and as such don’t have a complete grasp on the richness of Chinese lore and history although I do try to keep on educating myself about it. If you see I made any mistakes, missed out on something very important or accidentally said something I shouldn’t have please don’t hesitate to point it out for me, I’d really appreciate it. This analysis was mostly for myself and because I wanted to set a few things right about some things I’ve seen and encountered about his character in the fandom, that is all. 

This analysis ended up to be quite long (over 1.3k words oops) despite me keeping some points out of it on purpose to make it more compact, but I hope you’ll enjoy my thoughts nonetheless!

-          Zhongli is not, and has never been, simply a brute without a brain despite his undeniable trail of destruction left in the wake of the Archon war – everything he’s done, as immoral as it may seem to humans, has been done with the image of a more peaceful future in mind and the wish to create a better world for those inhabiting it. 

-          And let’s not forget that he is extremely cunning and always waging decisions carefully considering he has planned out such a grand scheme from faking his death to implementing Childe in this game of his, and using everyone in Liyue for his grand, final test 

- though he did not do so without a thinking about the weight such a final decision would hold, but instead hought long and hard about it through observations of Liyue’s people and how they would fare without his divine intervention from now on.

-          Zhongli is without a doubt not a 110% good character, he is indeed manipulative, irrational and inconsiderate of individual human lives to a certain degree and I won’t say that his objectives erase the way of his methods, after all everyone knows that the path to hell is paved by good intentions-

-          but it’s simply impossible to define any character in Genshin in such black and white/ good and bad ways because each and every of his decisions is very nuanced - he is not only selfish, Zhongli is also incredibly selfless at the same time because all that he did was for the people of Liyue, he gains literally nothing from all this apart from his rest from his immortal duties, and he is not heartless either because despite making just yet seemingly cold decisions it also has to be said that such hard decisions cannot be made and set in stone when one let’s themselves swayed by emotions

-          To come to another point: After living so far off from the mortal world for so long – because watching over humans isn’t the same as wandering amongst and living with them – it is no surprise he is quite detached from them, his heart despite his love for Liyue having petrified little by little and he knows it.

-          Yes, Zhongli definitely knows he can’t escape eventual erosion, petrifying little by little, that he will wear away as a river wears away a mountain - but still he lives on to uphold the memory of those that have faded to dust, had sacrificed their very lives to help pave the way for a peaceful and prosperous Liyue and also to carry the weight of sins he has committed in the war – he thinks and he cares so, so much and to conclude this:

-          I literally cannot stress enough how he carries so much responsibility, so much history on his shoulders – he is living history – even more now that he’s the only one left to carry on the hopes and dreams who have long passed and that this is an incredibly lonely task. It’s just heart-breaking to think about what he’s carrying with him day by day.

-          And to come to one of the most important people from his long life and who helped to shape him into who he is now: Guizhong.

-          She was one of the people who taught him that his heart is capable of more than just living for his duty, that he doesn’t only have to live as the God of Martial Arts – they were not just ‘brawns and brain’ – they were a team that complemented and completed each other

-          and Guizhong (and consequently her death as well) pushed him to embracer the other sides of his personality as well. It doesn’t matter whether people see their relationship as platonic or romantic, because the impact she has left on him is the same – as someone who believed in his gentler, more caring side

-          Zhongli is also incredibly thoughtful and perceptive, seen in the way he talks - a very refined and elegant way with every word laced by the wisdom he has accumulated without it being overbearing or coming across as absolute with no room for doubts - about various important characters in Liyue right now – accurately pinpointing their strengths and weakness and how valuable they are to making the land he has protected for so long continue to prosper

-          for example when he talks about the Yuheng and that despite, no, because of her abrasive attitude towards his deeds as a good she is a gem amongst humans and one of the many people he places their trust in to take care of Liyue’s future in his stead. Or Yanfei, the young half-Adepti who despite never having entered a contract with him, or rather doesn’t even know of his true identity upholds order and contracts within Liyue which he praises and values

-          It shows how deeply he cares about this land and its people, believing in their strength to overcome everything even without him – which is one of his most defining traits – seen in the way he has guided humanity all these years and in the way the people of Liyue have faith in him, a faith that isn’t blind or caused by fear like with Decarabian, but true respect for all he has done for the people of this land.

-          to say he’s a blockhead who doesn’t think nor care about humans is completely wrong because his entire rule for the past millennia was centered around protecting mankind – yes, it has to be said that his methods and morals are outside normal human values but it has to be kept in mind that he is an immortal god and gods neither feel nor live like humans, they understand and perceive the world differently than humans

-          gods stand outside out world and that makes it harder for them to truly connect with the way humans live - and it is only after stepping down from his throne that he actually has the chance now to try and experience the life of mortals for himself, to see and live it for himself and not as the distant overseer that Rex Lapis was.

-          and while he may feel sadness over not being needed anymore, giving up his godhood is the freedom he chose for himself, it’s something he deserves after watching over mankind for so long and trying to keep balance between the world or mortals and supernatural being

-          being free, being allowed to be selfish and think of himself outside of being a god is something he’d never done before being so incredibly bound to duty, contracts and traditions as he is; but by now he truly believes that this is the age of men as the end of the age of gods is coming to its end and it’s a beautiful thing to see him grow beyond the boundaries he had set for himself the past thousands of years

-          though in all fairness, sometimes our beloved Ex-Archon can indeed be a little of a blockhead considering he dumped the entire world of Teyvat into a financial crisis by stopping the production of one of the most important catalysts for everyday life – something that may not unfold its consequences immediately of course

-          – and even forgot to lay aside a private fund of mora but that’s because he isn’t accustomed to normal human life at all, he is still learning and more than willing to expand his horizon despite the vast knowledge he’s already accumulated over years of his life – and in the end that’s what makes him such a brilliantly lovable man, am I right?

[divisioninwarsaw]

Saturn Dominant • ♄ 

Saturn is the planet of true wisdom. Simplistic astrology labels Saturn as “dogmatic & restrictive” yet it’s the planet of high intelligence. It is best placed in Air (intellectual) signs. Dominant in Aquarius , Exalted in Libra, Comfortable in Gemini. Albert Einstein had Saturn aspects to his mercury. 

Saturn in Aries / 1st {The Wounded Prophet} : Saturn is in it’s fall in Aries. A walking a shadow amongst the passionate youth. You’re the prophet that nobody wants to hear. Your wisdom is “outdated”, “unfashionable” & “conservative". Fiery Saturn tries to impose it’s beliefs too brashly & this makes you an outlier amongst your peers. This placement is the embodiment of a young person with an old soul. (Albert Einstein) / (Lana Del Rey)

Saturn in Taurus / 2nd {Mother Earth} : Taurus welcomes Saturn’s innate discipline & self control. Here, Saturn returns to the basics. The wisdom of mother nature & all it’s creatures becomes inspiration to you. The intellectual you, can comfortably detach from the mental plane & immerse yourself in the simplicity of nature. You’re frugal, practical & financially smart. (Aretha Franklin) / (Vivien Leigh)

Saturn in Gemini / 3rd {The Politician} : Saturn likes Gemini. The nervous energy is instantly squashed under foot. Here, Saturn is it’s own teacher. The mental ability is so introspective that it takes years it to be revealed & your leaning process is slow, steady & profound. Saturn utilizes the qualities of Gemini to become a master of knowledge. You have great analytical & comprehensive skills. (Scott Walker) / (Billie Eilish)

Saturn in Cancer / 4th {The Founding Father} : Saturn is underground building the foundations of an empire. Cancer reminds Saturn that the roots set here, shall carry the weight of the whole zodiac. Yet at the same time Saturn is unwelcome. One must be nurtured first, before they can be disciplined. Saturn creates a paradox by being here, and demanding rationality & maturity too soon. (Elizabeth I) / (Ava Gardner)

Saturn in Leo / 5th {The King’s Rival} : Here, Saturn is not the King, he is in competition with the King. And The Sun & Saturn are mortal enemies; the abused servant to Henry VIII. You become the puppeteer behind the scenes & you consider every fun activity a mock stage for the ego. Art is created with meticulous detail but you don’t seek praise. Having children is a serious matter that you value highly. (Stevie Nicks) / (Marilyn Monroe)

Saturn in Virgo / 6th {God’s Design} : Like, “jardin à la française”, Saturn imposes order in nature based on symmetry & patterns. You design the landscape of the human mind meticulously and skilfully, crafting an Utopia. This is an excellent placement for a budding artist. Talent matures like fine wine. Wisdom is acquired in humble pursuits. You have a great genius for medical & technological brilliance. (Gene Tierney) / (Serena Williams)

Saturn in Libra / 7th {The Philosopher} : Saturn loves to be adored by Libra! It is the perfect air sign, a vision of calm waters at sunrise. There is no other intellectual pool of knowledge like it. You’re connected to the human psyche & aware of yourself for the first time thanks to the mirror image Libra provides. Only through socialization & partnerships, can one understand the human capacity for higher thinking. (Judy Garland) / (Elizabeth I)

Saturn in Scorpio / 8th {The Judge} : Here, Saturn is appointed Judge of the Underworld by Hades, where sinners come to seek redemption. The only value, is the transformation that death offers. You develop a knack for finding hidden things & revealing secrets. There’s a heightened perception of the unseen. Plutonian Saturn travels to the depths of the human psyche, and returns a Demi-God. (Lana Del Rey) / (Rosanne Barr)

Saturn in Sagittarius / 9th {The Architect} : Out of all the fire signs, this is the one Saturn is most comfortable with. Saturn has achieved the heights of philosophy with Libra already, so Sagittarius offers the actualisation of philosophy. Here, you’re the architect Michelangelo, designing masterpieces in seclusion. Wisdom is acquired through the study of foreign cultures. (Grace Kelly) / (Marilyn Manson)

Saturn in Capricorn / 10th {The Emperor} : The power this placement holds is amazing. Here, Saturn is at it’s fullest potential. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You’re very “sound of mind” & practical. You symbolise authority, respect, prestige & fame. Saturn Returns are the most beneficial here. Whatever potential your natal chart holds, Saturn is strong enough to guide you to success. (Walt Disney) / (Albert Einstein)

Saturn in Aquarius / 11th {The Master} : The detached & outrageous Aquarius secretly longs for a leader to guide them. Here, you’re is a prophet onto your peers, an unusual thinker. With the wisdom acquired through many experiences, Saturn stands upon the pulpit to preach to a new wave minds. This is where philosophy comes to be a religion. Knowledge for one, is knowledge for all. (Johnny Depp) / (Marlon Brando)

Saturn in Pisces / 12th {Washed Ashore} : Saturn was the master of structured nature in Virgo, but now it’s faced with a force of nature it cannot tame. Like a shipwreck, all your efforts are in pieces, sinking below. Saturn returns are the worst here, like earthquakes under water. Where Saturn cannot build, it cannot prosper. Discipline is hard to maintain. Yet this placement grants you the most glorious kind of wisdom; the wisdom of the solitary self. (Björk) / (Scott Walker)

You’re Saturn Dominant when you have; Saturn as the chart ruler, or conjunct ASC / DSC / IC / MC, or part of a stellium. *Depends on how strong the other planets are.*

[theotherbloodfart]

Hi! Please would you continue that ask about the reader defending Pennywise? It was great!

I'm drawing heavily from book canon for this. My 2 jams I used to write this were Carnival of Rust by Poets of the Fall and Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson. Hope you like!

Reader Defends Pennywise Part 2 SFW

You hold his small body close to your heart with one arm, trying to warm him even tho your limbs feel icy from adrenaline. He feels so cold. One of his tiny hands cups your temple. This somehow changes your vision, making you able to see in the dark. The edge of the cavern advances upon you, a green monolith looming from the void. Your temporary night vision is green. It looks like the night vision you've seen on television. You suppose this is because Pennywise has fashioned this to match your perception of night vision.

He’s panting raggedly against you, frightened mewls mixed with rasping words.

“Little child. They wanted my heart. Were going to steal my heart. You saved me. Why did you save me? I am hunger. I am endings. I am the void. Ever consuming. Unchanging. And you. So tiny. So weak. Your own beating heart. You hurt. You hurt for me. Tell me why?” he is squealing. Babbling. His words shudder out over your own heavy breathing as you run as fast as your wounded leg will allow.

You feel his mind with yours. Pushing. Nudging. Telling you where to go. You exit the cavern thru another opening at the base You see a tunnel. Short enough that you must bend slightly to avoid hitting your head. You clasp him to you. You trust him. You run.

The hunched position of your laboring body forces you to hold him closer to your face, cupping your hand over the back of his soft head, supporting. Protecting.

Dust. Nitre. It brushes your face softly as you stumble along the ancient tunnel. He’s whispering now.

“Dear child. You shall be mine. My own. You shall never escape. Ooooo but I am so sorry. Dear thing. I must have you. My savior. My creature. My own.”

You feel no fear in this garish green blackness. Only him. His pain and fear. His darkness. And you know he speaks the truth. You would have it no other way. You are his. Always were. Always will be.

There is no time here. Hours. Moments. Days. You do not know.

You slow to a walk. A shamble. Your injured leg feeling tingling and numb. You feel him weakening in your mind, your emerald vision fading to blackness, as his hand falls from your temple.

“So tired.” He pants. “Must rest.”

You feel panic. As if this had all been for nothing. And comfort. Perhaps you would die with him. How fitting. Your knees buckle. You use the last of your will to rotate your body so that you do not land on his little body. You feel his hands on your cheeks. Small gloved hands trace every line.

“Do not fail child.”

You feel tears. You have already failed.

“Sshhh” you feel a finger trace your lips. “Reserve your strength. Put me on the ground (Y/N).”

You shake your head vehemently, your body shaking even as your arms comply to him. Not setting him down as much as slumping weakly to your side.

“Now go.” His thin voice is calm now.

Only sobs pour from you as your head continues to shake. “I can’t leave you. I can’t. I’m scared.” Your voice chokes and sobs on these last words. “I love you.”

His voice remains at the same calm pitch. “I am the only fear here (Y/N). Go. Go now. Before I am too tired to guide you out.”

Pain sings thru your leg and exhaustion makes you shaky as you pull yourself up to a sitting position, jerking like a marionette. You lean forward and retch bile. Then you gather your legs beneath you and stand, leaning against the tunnel wall as you can no longer stand on your own.

Stumbling blindly, dragging your now useless injured leg, you trust that tug and pull you feel in your mind. You go as his will directs. You nearly fall. Once. Twice. And then you do. Sobbing you choke on soil and rock and feel as if you’ve no more to give.

Then numbness. Your exhaustion is gone. Your numb limp leg moves on its own. And then the other. Your body sits up with a snap. Your glassy eyes can see nothing, yet you can sense where obstacles are now. And you realize what is happening.

He has taken control. As he has done with nearly every adult to have existed in Derry for hundreds of years. No emotions matter. No pain matters. Only the sweet siren call of his command. Of his control. Your legs stride confidently. You arms swing by your sides as you enter the cavern and can finally stand upright. There is no movement in this massive place. Those people have gone. You continue. Across the cavern. Up the tunnel. Thru the sewers. He doesn’t take you to Neibolt. You emerge in the barrens. And walk silently thru the trees and shrubs, the bright blinding sunlight and vicious mosquito bites not even registering to you. You approach a road. Stand in the middle. Collapse. Then your consciousness goes black.

Then you hear his voice. In your dreams. It is his lilting gravely healthy voice. The voice you have come to love so well. There is no mocking or his usual laughter. No snarling. His voice is calm and commanding.

“You shall rest now. As shall I. Your body shall heal. As shall mine. And you shall forget. You must. As all mortals do. But I shall not forget.

I shall give you a gift I have given to few others. I cannot make you like me. Not eternal no. But I can slow your death. The death of your body. And so I will do this to you. For you. For me.

No. I won’t forget you. Never forget. For 27 years, I shall dream of you. I shall crave you. I shall miss you.”

And then all is silent.

It is all true. You rest. You heal. You forget.

You live your life. Not an exciting life. But prosperous and satisfying. You never feel interest in making permanent bonds with anyone but are always honest and kind. You live alone.

You cannot leave. Not even for vacationing or travel. You feel physical pain in your heart at even the mention of leaving Derry Maine. You do not know why. Neither do you question this instinct.

But you are not unhappy. You career and personal life are fulfilling and calm. Almost stagnant. As if you are waiting for something. Some nameless thing.

You don’t really notice the difference in yourself for a long time. Or rather…… the lack of difference. The lack of change.

At first, people tell you that you look great for your age. Then phenomenal. But then…… nervous glances. Asks about what surgeon you use. Burning envy tinged with nameless fear. In typical human fashion, the human populace of Derry, rather than embracing uniqueness, shuns it. So you lock yourself away in your home.

29 Neibolt street. You’d always felt a draw to this place. And so, after you’d amassed financial comfort doing something you loved, you had bought it. Cleaned it up. Remodeled it. Became imprisoned in it.

You rarely go out during the day. But exit often at night to enjoy the night air. And so that others won’t see you.

And so this is the case one night. You are walking near the barrens when you hear a rustling sound in the foliage.

A burning pain slashes behind your eyes. You cup your palms to your temple and hiss as the memories flood into your mind. Fast. Almost too fast. Your mouth opens and saliva dribbles out. A silent scream.

Memories. Your childhood. The laughter of your mother. Scraping your knee after falling over on your first bicycle ride without training wheels. That nervousness of your first kiss. The struggle of your young adult life. Tinkling of tiny bells. The thrumming of your heart as some nameless thing kisses you in the dark. The primitive desire. The bravery which had burned in your heart as you’d defended that thing which you’d loved. The fear of losing that very same thing. And then…. A voice. Promises from consumption. From destruction. From endings. The ancient eldritch darkness.

Your eyes snap open. He is here. You know he is here. The joy which flames in your heart, which had been so numb for so long, is painful. You gasp.

The sound of those familiar bells make you twist and crane your head.

And there. In the darkness. Between leaves and rays of moonlight twin embers of vermilion light. You hear a harsh desperate whisper.

“(Y/N)”

[maddie-grove]

The Top Twenty Books I Read in 2019

My main takeaways from the past year’s reading:

Sometimes you think something is happening because of magic, but then it turns out to have a non-magical explanation so weird that you find yourself saying, “You know what? I wish faeries or God were responsible for this. I’d honestly feel less disturbed.”

Stop bathing and changing your clothes and shaving for three years, three months, and three days. You’ll find out who your real friends are. I promise you that.

I want more books about bisexual ladies!!! Give them to me!!!

Anyway...

20. The Prodigal Duke by Theresa Romain (2017)

Childhood sweethearts Poppy Hayworth and Leo Billingsley were separated when his older brother, a duke, sent him away to make his fortune. Years later, the duke is dead, a financially successful Leo has come back to England to take his place, and Poppy has become a rope dancer at Vauxhall Gardens after a life-shattering event. New sparks are flying between them, but is love possible when so much else has changed? Leo and Poppy are believable and charming as old friends, Romain makes great use of obscure historical details from the oft-depicted Regency period, and I loved Leo’s difficult but caring elderly uncle.

19. Simple Jess by Pamela Morsi (1996)

Althea Winsloe, a young widow in 1900s Arkansas, has no interest in remarrying, but almost everyone in her small Ozarks community is pressuring her to remarry, and she still needs someone to help farm her land. Enter Jesse Best, a strong young man with cognitive disabilities who’s happy to take on the work. As he makes improvements to her farm and bonds with her three-year-old son, Althea gets to know him better and starts to see him in a new light. This earthy romance could’ve been a disaster, but instead it illustrates how people with disabilities are often...uh...simplified and de-sexualized in a way that denies them autonomy. Morsi has a similarly nuanced take on Althea and Jesse’s community, which is claustrophobic and supportive all at once.

18. Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli (2018)

Outspoken and insecure, bisexual high school senior Leah Burke is having a tough year. Her friend group is in turmoil, her single mom is seriously dating someone, and she’s caught between a sweet boy she’s not sure about and a pretty, perfect straight girl who couldn’t possibly be into her...right??? The sequel to the very cute Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Leah on the Offbeat pulls a The Godfather: Part II with its messy protagonist, sweetly surprising romance, and masterful comic set piece involving the Atlanta American Girl Doll restaurant.

17. Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper (2006)

Kidnapped from her home in eighteenth-century Ghana, fifteen-year-old Amari is sold into slavery and winds up on a South Carolina plantation, where she faces terrible cruelty but finds friends in an enslaved cook, her little son, and eventually a sulky white indentured servant around her age. When their master escalates his already-atrocious behavior, the three young people flee south to the Spanish Fort Mose in search of freedom. Draper’s complicated characters, vivid descriptions, and deft handling of heavy subjects makes for top-notch historical YA fiction.

16. A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole (2019)

After her controlling politician father was jailed for poisoning a bunch of people in their small, prosperous African country, Nya Jerami gained unprecedented freedom but also became the subject of vicious gossip. Johan von Braustein, the hard-partying stepson of a European monarch, wants to help her, partly because he sympathizes and partly because he has a crush, but she thinks he’s too frivolous and horny (if wildly attractive). After an embarrassing misunderstanding compels them to enter a fake engagement, though, she begins to wonder if there’s more to him. I’m not a huge fan of contemporary romance, but this novel has the perfect combination of heartfelt emotion, delicious melodrama, and adorable fluff. 

15. One Perfect Rose by Mary Jo Putney (1997)

Stephen, the Duke of Ashburton, has always done the proper and responsible thing, but that all changes when he learns that he’s terminally ill. Wandering the countryside in the guise of an ordinary gentleman, he ends up joining an acting troupe and falling in love with Rosalind, the sensible adopted daughter of the two lead actors. Like another Regency romance on this list, this novel celebrates love in many forms: there’s the love story between Stephen and Rosalind, yes, but there’s also Rosalind’s loving relationship with her adopted family, the new bonds she forms with her long-lost blood relatives, the way her two families embrace the increasingly frightened Stephen, and the healing rifts between Stephen and his well-meaning but distant siblings. Stephen’s reconciliation with his mortality is also moving.

14. My One and Only Duke by Grace Burrowes (2018)

Facing a death sentence in Newgate, footman-turned-prosperous banker Quinton Wentworth decides to do one last good thing: marry Jane McGowan, a poor pregnant widow, so she and the baby will be financially set. Then he receives a pardon and a dukedom at the literal last minute, meaning that he and Jane have a more permanent arrangement than either intended. I fell in love with the kind-but-difficult protagonists almost at once, and with Burrowes’s gorgeous prose even faster. 

13. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (2013)

It’s 1986, and comics-loving, post-punk-listening, half-Korean Park and bright, weird, constantly bullied Eleanor are just trying to get through high school in their rough Omaha neighborhood. He’s only grudgingly willing to let her share his bus seat at first, but this barely civil acquaintance slowly thaws into friendship and blossoms into love. Far from being the whimsical eighties-nostalgia-fest I expected, this is a bittersweet love story about two isolated young people who find love, belonging, and a chance for self-expression with each other in an often-hostile environment (a small miracle pre-Internet).

12. Shrill by Lindy West (2016)

In this memoir, Lindy West talks about the difficulties of being a fat woman, the thankless task of being vocally less-than-enthused about rape jokes, the joys of moving past self-doubt, and the very real possibility that Little John from Disney’s Robin Hood was played by “bear actor” Baloo, among other subjects. I was having a hard time during my last semester of law school this past spring, and this book’s giddy humor and inspiring messages really helped me in my hour of need.

11. Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood by Karina Longworth (2018)

In 1925, very young businessman Howard Hughes breezed into Hollywood with nothing but tons of family wealth, a soon-to-be-divorced wife, and a simple dream: make movies about fast planes and big bosoms. He got increasingly weird and reactionary over the next thirty years, then retired from public life. More a history of 1920s-1950s Hollywood than a biography, this book has the same sharp writing and in-depth film analysis that makes me love Longworth’s podcast You Must Remember This.

10. The Beguiled by Thomas Cullinan (1966)

In Civil-War-era Virginia, iron-willed Martha Farnsworth and her nervous younger sister try to run their nearly empty girls’ boarding school within earshot of a battlefield. When one girl finds Union soldier John McBurney injured in the woods, she brings him back to the house, where he exploits every conflict and secret among the eight girls and women (five students, two sisters, and one enslaved cook). Charming and manipulative, he nevertheless finds himself in over his head. Cullinan makes great use of the eight POVs and the deliciously claustrophobic setting; it’s fascinating to watch the power dynamics and allegiances shift from scene to scene.

9. A Gentleman Never Keeps Score by Cat Sebastian (2018)

Reserved tavern keeper Sam Fox wants to help out his brother’s sweetheart by finding and destroying a nude portrait she once sat for; disgraced gentleman Hartley Sedgwick isn’t sure what he wants after having his life ruined twice over, but he happened to inherit his house from the man who commissioned the painting...plus he’s not exactly reluctant to assist kind, handsome Sam in his quest. I wrote about this heart-melting romance two times last year; suffice it to say that it’s not only one of the best Regencies I’ve ever read, but also possibly the best romance I’ve ever read about the creation of a found family.

8. Frog Music by Emma Donoghue (2014)

Blanche Beunon, a French-born burlesque dancer in 1876 San Francisco, has a lot going on: her mooching boyfriend has turned on her, her sick baby is missing, and her cross-dressing, frog-hunting friend Jenny Bonnet was just shot dead right next to her. In the middle of a heat wave, a smallpox epidemic, and a little bit of mob violence, she must locate her son and solve Jenny’s murder. This is a glorious work of historical fiction; you can see, hear, smell, and feel the chaotic world of 1870s San Francisco, plus Blanche’s character arc is amazing.

7. The Patrick Melrose novels (Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk, and At Last) by Edward St. Aubyn (1992, 1992, 1994, 2005, and 2012, respectively)

Born to an embittered English aristocrat and an idealistic American heiress, Patrick Melrose lives through his father’s sadistic abuse and his mother’s willful blindness (Never Mind),  does a truly staggering amount of drugs in early adulthood (Bad News), and makes a good-faith effort at leading a normal life (Some Hope). Years later, the life he’s built with his wife and two sons is threatened by his alcoholism and reemerging resentment of his mother (Mother’s Milk), but there may be a chance to salvage something (At Last). Despite the suffering and cruelty on display, these novels were the farthest thing from a dismaying experience, thanks to the sharp characterization, grim humor, and great sense of setting. Also, I love little Robert Melrose, an anxious eldest child after my own heart. 

6. The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope (1974)

In 1550s England, no-nonsense Kate Sutton is exiled to the Perilous Gard, a remote castle occupied by suspicious characters, including the lord’s guilt-ridden younger brother Christopher. Troubled by the holes she sees in the story of the tragedy that haunts him, she does some problem-solving and ends up in a world of weird shit. Cleverly plotted, deliciously spooky, and featuring an all-time-great heroine, this book was an absolute treat. The beautiful Richard Cuffari illustrations in my edition didn’t hurt, either.

5. An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole (2019)

Daniel Cumberland, a free black man from New England traumatized from being sold into slavery, and Janeta Sanchez, a mixed-race Cuban-Floridian lady from a white Confederate family, have been sent on a mission to the Deep South by the Loyal League, a pro-Union spy organization. Initially hostile to everyone (but particularly to somewhat naive Janeta), Daniel warms to his colleague, but will her secrets, his shattered faith in justice, and the various dangers they face prevent them from falling in love? Nah. Alyssa Cole’s historical romances deliver both on the history and the romance, and this is one of her strongest entries.

4. The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite (2019)

Heartbroken by the death of her father and the marriage of her ex-girlfriend, Lucy Muchelney decides she needs a change of scenery and takes a live-in position translating a French astronomy text for Catherine St. Day, the recently widowed Countess of Moth. Catherine, used to putting her interests on hold for an uncaring spouse, is intrigued by this awkward, independent lady. I’ve read f/f romances before, but this sparkling Regency was the first to really blow me away with its fun banter, neat historical details, and perfect sexual tension.

3. The Wager by Donna Jo Napoli (2010)

After losing his entire fortune to a tidal wave, Sicilian nineteen-year-old Don Giovanni de la Fortuna sinks into poverty and near-starvation. Then Devil makes him an offer: all the money he wants for as long as he lives if he doesn’t bathe, cut his hair, shave, or change his clothes for three years, three months, and three days. This fairy-tale retelling is an extraordinarily moving fable about someone who learns to acknowledge his own suffering, recognize it in others, and extend compassion to all. 

2. Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell (2013)

In this collection, Russell weaves strange tales of silkworm-women hybrids in Japan, seagulls who collect objects from the past and future, and, yes, vampires in the lemon grove. She also posits the very important question: “What if most (but not all) U.S. presidents were reincarnated as horses in the same stable and had a lot of drama going on?” My favorite stories were “Proving Up” (about a nineteenth-century Nebraska boy who encounters death and horror on the prairie), “The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis” (about a disadvantaged high school student who discovers an effigy of the even more hapless boy he tormented), and “The Barn at the End of the Term” (the horse-president story). 

1. The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (2016)

Lib Wright, an Englishwoman who has floundered since her days working for Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, is hired to observe Anna O’Donnell, an eleven-year-old Irish girl famous for not eating for four straight months. With a jaundiced attitude towards the Irish and Catholicism, Lib is confident that she’ll quickly expose Anna as a fraud, but she finds herself liking the girl and getting increasingly drawn into the disturbing mystery of her fast. Like The Perilous Gard, this novel masterfully plays with the possibility of the supernatural, then introduces a technically mundane explanation that’s somehow much more eerie. Donoghue balances the horror and waste that surrounds Anna, though, with the clear, bright prose and the moving relationship that develops between her and Lib, who grows beyond her narrow-mindedness and emotional numbness. I stayed up half the night to finish this novel, which cemented Emma Donoghue’s status as my new favorite author.

[xtruss]

Decadent like the late Roman Empire, the West is committing suicide through its irrational response to Covid-19

For years, I was puzzled why the Roman Empire ceased to exist and was replaced by barbarians. Looking at the West's response to COVID-19, I know now.

Decadent like the late Roman Empire, the West is committing suicide through its irrational response to Covid-19

— 25 March, 2020 | RT

Colosseum and Arch of Constantine during the Coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19). Rome (Italy), March 19th, 2020

By Dr. Luboš Motl, Czech theoretical physicist, who was an assistant professor at Harvard University from 2004 to 2007. He writes a science and politics blog called The Reference Frame

Many think Covid-19 is some kind of alien invasion that spells the end of the world. But the real threat to us is a much deadlier virus: a hatred of all the values that have underpinned our civilisation for centuries.

For years, I was puzzled as to why the Roman Empire ceased to exist and was replaced by communities that were uncivilized by comparison. How and why could mankind’s progress reverse in this way? Recent experience has eliminated the mystery. No special devastating event was needed; the cause of Rome's demise was simply the loss of its people's desire to support their ‘empire’ and its underlying values. And as it was 1,500 years or so ago, so I fear it is now.

The Covid-19 crisis – specifically, the reaction to it – demonstrates that people have grown bored, detached, and easily impressionable by things that have nothing to do with the roots of their society. We are all – or too many of us – fin de siècle Romans now.

A large number of Westerners are happy to accept the suicidal shutting down of their economies to try to halt a virus that predominantly causes old and sick people to die just a few weeks or months before they would have anyway. Just as they enthusiastically endorse proclamations such as that there are 46 sexes, not two; that the flatulence of a cow must be reduced to save a polar bear; that millions of migrants from the Third World must be invited to Europe and assumed to be neurosurgeons; and so on.

The widespread opinion that everything, including economies, must be sacrificed to beat coronavirus is a revival of medieval witch hunts; the sacrifice seems more important than finding an effective method to deal with the problem.

Our increasingly decadent mass culture has gradually become more ideological and openly opposed to the values Western civilization is based upon. And while it boasts of being ‘counter-culture’ and independent, it’s acquired a monopoly over almost all the information channels that determine opinions, including mainstream media and political parties.

Our leaders have become sucked into this group-thinking and happily institute policies that unleash shutdowns that may cause the worst recession in history. Thousands of businesses are closing and long-term prospects are bleak.

Governments are stepping in to pay wages and fund other services. As tax revenue will be virtually non-existent, public debt will soar. Some governments may default on their debts or resort to printing money, causing soaring inflation. These countries may be unable to fund healthcare, their police or their military, and be so weakened they will be invaded by others and be erased from the world map.

That may be a worst-case scenario, but it’s almost certain that the impact of the shutdowns will be a recession comparable to the Great Depression. Yet what do most Western citizens make of it? Well, they are either unaware, uncaring, or they’re happy about it. They don’t seem to appreciate the consequent dangers. Instead, they are more obsessed with the latest celebrity who’s caught the virus.

The consumers of this mass culture haven't built anything like what our ancestors did – enlightenment, the theory of relativity, parliamentary democracy, industrialisation, major advances in philosophy, science, literature and engineering. They don't have to defend any real values against a tangible enemy, because hiding in a herd with uniform group-think is good enough for them.

Our ancestors had difficult, short lives; they had to work hard, produce enough to survive, fight enemies, and defend what they’d inherited. Numerous lasting values emerged from those efforts. The current generations of Westerners are good only at producing and escalating irrationality and panic.

If a two-month lockdown isn’t deemed enough to contain the virus, they’re happy to extend it to six months, if not years. China decided to impose strict policies, but they were assertive enough to be relatively short-lived; many Westerners want less perfect policies to last for a much longer time. That’s clearly an irrational approach; instead of ‘flattening a curve’, rational leaders (like Beijing’s) try to turn the curve into a cliff. The faster you eliminate the virus, the cheaper it is.

Immortality As An Entitlement

This support for economically suicidal policies didn't start with Covid-19. Westerners have spent recent decades amid a prosperity in which they took material wealth and good healthcare for granted. They forgot what hunger (and, in most cases, unemployment) meant. They got used to demanding ever deeper ‘entitlements’, such as the ‘right not to be offended’.

Activists sensationalised smaller and more implausible threats and demanded that governments mitigated them. In particular, the climate change movement advocated that the 1-2 °C of warming caused by CO2 emissions in a century was equivalent to an armageddon that had to be avoided, whatever the cost.

In this context, it could be expected that the first ‘real challenge’ – and a new flu-like disease is certainly one – would make people fearful. Because if people were led to believe that 1-2 °C of warming was basically the end of the world, is it surprising that they're absolutely terrified of a new disease that has the potential to kill a few million old and sick people?

The existential threat posed by coronavirus – or at least, our irrationality towards it – is greater than the climate threat (though still very small). Westerners who haven't seen any real threats for a long time have developed a condition – termed "affluenflammation" by the American musician Remy – which is a pathological habit of inflating negligible threats. When this inflation of feelings is applied to a real threat, namely a pandemic, they lose their composure.

The context of Covid-19, where every death is presented with horror, makes it clear that ‘immortality’ is just another ‘human right’. This wisdom says that our leaders are failing because they cannot defend this so-called right. But this excessive sensitivity is just one part of the problem.

Many Westerners actively want to harm their economies, corporations, rich people, and governments, because they don't feel any attachment to or responsibility for them. They take security and prosperity for granted. Their money and food arrive from ‘somewhere’, and they don’t care about the source.

And they believe that the structures which allow them to survive – the governments, banks, and so on – are ‘evil’. Some are just financially illiterate. But others know what they are saying, and rejoice in demanding that trillions be sacrificed in order to infinitesimally increase the probability that a 90-year-old will avoid infection and live a little bit longer. They don't accept their dependence on society and the system at all. They don't realise that their moral values, their ‘human rights’, are only available if paid for by prosperous societies.

I have used some dramatic prose, so let me be clear: the scenario I’ve outlined – ending in the suicide of the West – is avoidable, and I hope and believe it will be. I know some who are willing to fight for its survival.

But even if this acceleration towards shutdowns is reversed and countries restore their pre-virus businesses, our world won't be the same. Many people will conclude that the crisis was exciting, and try to kickstart a repetition. The curfew is likely to reduce CO2 emissions this year, so climate activists may try for similar results in the future. Terrorists may deploy some new disease – which, after all, is likely to be more effective than any stabbing or bombing.

It's conceivable that the West’s brush with mortality will lead people to regain some common sense and survival instincts. Perhaps several nations going bankrupt will be a wake-up call. Maybe people will realise that the reaction to the coronavirus was disproportionate. But even if that is so, I’m afraid it won’t be enough.

We need to accept that the positive relationship of Westerners to the roots of their civilization will be still missing – and that this is a virus that poses a much more fundamental existential threat than Covid-19.

[thelaughingmandrake]

Isobel Gowdie, and the people around her, were dying. I don't mean "dying a little every day" in the lame new-age Tibetan philosophy sense of the word; I mean people were dropping dead, often due to overwork and malnutrition. Kids were especially hit hard by this fact of life in 17th century Scotland. The "landlords" charged people heavily for the privilege of living on "their" land- and though it doesn't sound like much, people like Isobel couldn't plant, grow, reap, and process their own harvest yields until all of that work was done on the lord's personal estate- a service they had to provide for free.

Many people didn't have their own ovens; they had to pay to use common ovens at the lord's estate, just to bake bread. These lords held practical imperium over people's lives and deaths- they could execute people, hang them right outside the front door, for lots of things. But the cruelest of powers was simply the power to hold the keys to the silo- if there was a food shortage, and the lords didn't want to open the silo for one reason or another, people just starved. Again, bear in mind that it's children and elderly people that will suffer the most from such things, and they did.

That people like Isobel and her witching covenant members would be murdered if caught while engaged in practices as innocuous-seeming to us as making a charm for healing or hexing in the corner of the little huts they were crowded into with their families is just the icing on the cake.

It is beyond belief that some people still hold on to the ridiculous notion that witches- like Isobel and her compatriots- didn't perform malefic magic. We know they did. She admitted it, and not under coercion. And they had _every reason_ to do it. "Class struggle" doesn't even begin to sum up the nightmare that she lived, and saw so many people die by- and which probably killed her, too.

Inequality and brutal injustice wasn't the exception in her time; it was the rule. It was the hard and unstoppable rule. And sorcery was the only effective way that people from Isobel's "lot in life" had to strike back at the authorities that held the weights of life and death over her head and the heads of everyone else- the only way that offered a chance to covertly and savagely strike, and not get killed themselves.

And it worked. It's there, in the histories; it worked right before everyone's eyes, in ways that the skeptics of today would deny- surely it wasn't sorcery that struck down the infant sons of the wicked lord whose house Isobel and her friends wanted to see come to an end; surely it was just natural causes. Infant mortality was high back then, these people love to point out. Only scared people who want to dismiss the uncomfortable and deep realities of our lives want the darkness of our past to be accommodated to this degree. Their calm rationality hides a deep and proper fear. Yes, Isobel and her people struck out at infants, with malefic sorcery, to thwart the existence of oppressive lordly houses. Yes, they tried to destroy the free souls of adult tyrants. Yes, they succeeded to a degree.

Everything about Isobel Gowdie's primary work of witchcraft was laced with a hatred- a valid hatred- of the oppressor class. She saw dead, skinny women in the streets with dead children still stuck to their breasts. She saw horrors that we today can't believe actually happened in Scotland- or anywhere- in such a recent time of history. She knew that the powerful and well-fed people in their manor houses were partly to blame. She knew, and the Red Reiver- her familiar spirit- knew. He helped her destroy them. The "Devil" of her Coven helped them. Everything about their coven, outside of its death-divination vocational center, was fashioned around overthrowing authorities and thwarting their prosperity in this world. It's all right in front of us, only we will not see it for a variety of reasons.

How can anyone who claims to fly through this present darkness and anywhere _near_ the mysteries of pre-modern Witchcraft actually be _for_ the word of "authorities?" The powerful class is still there, and people still drop dead because of their over-taking. It just gets hidden a bit better, because new and potent social perceptions of fairness have arisen, and more checks and balances now exist for certain kinds of ostentatious displays of power- but the core inequality still exists, and it is still lethal. Organized exploitation has only gotten infinitely stronger since those days, not weaker.

How can anyone who even plays around with the title "Witch" see a story wherein some cop shoots a person for no real reason, or throws a person to the ground for no real reason, and then actually say "if people would just do what they were told, and respect the police, that wouldn't happen?"

No witch who loves or obeys the strange, rather chaotic urges of the Master who tramples oppressors and "authorities" under his razor-sharp hooves can linger on the side of "law and order" for very long, especially when it is now more apparent than it ever has been that "law and order" is a cute way of referring to the act of sweeping up largely disadvantaged and disenfranchised people and sweeping them into the prison industry's enslaved work force.

No one who knows what freedom is can be happy or even blithe to see cops beating people with sticks, or army units marching in lock-step. Witchcraft is not a feature of human culture that can park itself right next to conservative politics and their super-wealthy fat cat financial backers and their jackbooted evangelical allies.

You don't get to have this one both ways. Witches have more natural affinity with homeless people under bridges and petty crooks hustling to survive on the outskirts of society, than it does with most anyone else. The whore, and not the virgin or the holy one, is the ally of witches, because they both know what it means to be thrown away like human garbage.

Witches don't delight in chains or conformity to systems created by churches and bankers. They delight in watching those things burn down, and in working with the spirits who aim to do just that. Witchcraft is, shortly put, naturally anti-corruption, anti-corporate, anti-clerical, and even anti-civ in some important ways.

There was no hesitation, no moral debate- people that deserved it, got what was coming to them. When those people got their chance, they killed witches like Isobel right back. Some people might not even have deserved it, but they got it anyway, because things are wobbly and not clean and not always fair. In a dark, dingy, corrupt system, everyone is splashed with mud and the innocent can seem guilty. Bad people make everyone's life a challenge and quite unsafe.

And this is all before there was a perception of the danger posed by environmental destruction. Do you really imagine that the sacred sources of all life, which are being heartlessly degraded in the pursuit of the same money and resource control that killed so many people in Isobel's time is not a legitimate issue for sorcerers? Can people really not see another finger of the same hand of oppression in it all?

One of the best things about Wilby's book "The Visions of Isobel Gowdie" is how it presents the savagery of sorcery as it was engaged in the struggle of class warfare that was going on then, just as it goes on now, only in a barely-disguised new form. New freedoms are had by all of us- like my freedom to even write this post- but the lords have found a way to make sure that even these freedoms don't interrupt their ultimate goals. There's no need to kill any of the loudmouths anymore, really, and the sorcerers just the same- no one believes in that malarkey anymore, anyway.

But the rage of it all, the anger, the dark rapture and passion- it was all there, and it was a real storm of wrath and back-and-forth killing, and retribution from a sorcerous place as much as from the altar and judge's bench. This is our real legacy, if we consider ourselves devotees of the spirit of any pattern of pre-modern sorcerous practice. We aren't pretty; we're ugly from the point of view of most people these days, who are all taught from birth that law and order is pretty. But for those who really understand, "fair is foul and foul is fair..." - Robin Artisson

[peterdiamandis]

The World is (Still) Better Than You Think

Your mindset matters — now more than ever.

We are in the midst of a drug epidemic. The drug? Negative news. The drug pushers? The media. As I wrote in Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, we pay 10x more attention to negative news than positive news. We are being barraged with negative news on every device. This constant onslaught distorts your perspective on the future, and inhibits your ability to make a positive impact. In this blog, I’ll share new “evidence for abundance” -- charts and data that show the world is getting better. I’ll also share positive news and technological breakthroughs, all of which occurred in 2017 so far. Note: This isn’t about ignoring or minimizing the major issues we still face around the world. It’s about countering our romanticized views of the world in centuries past with data. My hope is that you’re able to see the world as it is — a world that is still getting better. My goal here is to help you protect your abundance mindset despite this barrage of negative news. If you have a negative-minded person in your life, forward this blog to them so they can look at the actual data. Let’s dive in...

1. Global Economy

The first area to explore is our global economy. Over the last 200 years, the world’s GDP has *skyrocketed* 100-fold. Humankind has never been more prosperous and productive.

World GDP Over the Last Two Millennia

The graph above depicts the economic output per person around the world over the last 2,000 years. Here we see exponential growth independent of war, famine or disease.

Technology drove much of this economic growth, and there’s no signs of slowing. Banking the Unbanked: One especially promising area of economic growth involves empowering the “unbanked” — the 2 billion people worldwide who lack access to a bank account or financial institution via a digital device. In September 2017, the government of Finland announced a partnership with MONI to create a digital money system for refugees.

The system effectively eliminates some of the logistical barriers to financial transactions, enabling displaced people to participate in the economy and rebuild their lives.

Refugees will be able to loan money to friends, receive paychecks and access funds using prepaid debit cards linked to digital identities on the blockchain -- without a bank.

Blockchain & Government: Governments are investing aggressively in digitization themselves. The small country of Estonia, for example, already has an e-Residency program. The digital citizenship lets residents get government services and even start companies in the EU without ever traveling or living there. In late August 2017, Kaspar Korjus, who heads up that e-Residency program, revealed the Estonian government’s exploration of creating an initial coin offering (ICO) and issuing crypto tokens to citizens to raise government funds. That same month, the Chinese government announced its intent to use blockchain technology for collecting taxes and issuing invoices. This builds on previous experiments China’s central bank is conducting with its own cryptocurrency.

2. Health

No matter where in the world you are, mortality rates have dropped precipitously over the last 300 years.

The following chart shows life expectancy at birth in various countries. Just 100 years ago, a child born in India or South Korea was only expected to live to 23. Fast forward to today, and India’s life expectancy has tripled. South Korea’s life expectancy has quadrupled, and now is higher than in the U.K.

Global Life Expectancy

Plummeting Teen Births: Another measure of a nation’s health is how it responds to preventable public health issues. Here in the U.S., teen births are down an impressive 51 percent over the last decade, going from from 41.5 births per 1,000 teenage girls in 2007 to 20.3 births per 1,000 teenage girls in 2016. I share the following graph because, by the numbers, teen girls who have babies will have a harder life than their peers who delay motherhood. As the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services notes, they’re more likely to drop out of high school, rely on public assistance, and have children with “poorer educational, behavioral and health outcomes over the course of their life than kids born to older parents.”

Since these statistics were first compiled in 1991, teen births have dropped 67 percent.

U.S. Birth Rates, by Age Group (1991 - 2015)

As exponential technologies continue to advance, we’ll see even more healthcare breakthroughs. Here’s a sampling from this year: Exponential Tech Impact on Health: Most exciting these days is the tremendous impact that exponential technologies are having on Health.

Robotics: Last month, a robot dentist in China successfully implanted 3D-printed teeth into a female patient’s mouth with “high precision.” The only human medical staff involvement was to conduct light setup and a pre-test. Imagine when such robots are in every healthcare facility on the planet, delivering service for the cost of electricity.

Virtual Reality: VR is also entering the operating room. In July 2017, University of Minnesota doctors used VR to prepare for a challenging non-routine surgery -- separating a pair of twins conjoined at the heart. Not only was the life-saving surgery a success, the VR prep gave doctors unforeseen insights that prompted them to accelerate the surgery by several months. It won’t be long until we refuse to have surgery completed by any human who hasn’t prepared in virtual reality using a personalized 3D model.

CRISPR/Gene Editing: Finally, in August 2017, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first-ever treatment that uses gene editing to transform a patient’s own cells into a “living drug.” Kymriah, a one-time treatment made by Novartis, was approved to treat B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia -- an aggressive form of leukemia that the FDA calls “devastating and deadly.” The FDA is currently considering over 550 additional experimental gene therapies. What happens to our healthy human lifespan as these life-saving treatments demonetize and become universally accessible?

3. Environment

Thirty years ago, the world signed the Montreal Protocol to prevent the depletion of the Ozone Layer. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) credits that agreement with preventing an estimated 280 million additional cases of skin cancer, 45 million cataracts, and 1.5 million skin cancer deaths between its signing in 1987 and the year 2050. Without the Montreal Protocol, the planet would have been about 4 degrees warmer by 2050 (...resulting in more extreme weather events like droughts, floods and hurricanes). As the graph below clearly depicts, the global annual death rate from natural disasters has plummeted over the past century.

Global Annual Death Rate From Natural Disasters

Why has this happened?  It’s the impact of exponential technologies (satellites, sensors, networks, machine learning), which enable humans to better image, predict and model disasters. These models provide early warning systems, enabling citizens to flee to safety and for first responders to send supplies and food to remote areas in time. Drones & the Environment: Previously, animals were counted manually by researchers who had to spot them from helicopter or prepositioned camera footage. Now, a drone captures footage, the machine learning system counts different types of animals, and human volunteers help train the algorithm by verifying detections. Faster, cheaper, easier, and more accurate. And in Bengaluru, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science are fighting deforestation with camera-equipped drones that drop seeds in areas they otherwise wouldn’t be able to explore. Their goal is to seed 10,000 acres in the region. What becomes possible when thousands of teams — not simply individuals and a handful of research teams — leverage these tools to protect the environment?

4. Energy

A key measure of economic growth, living standards and poverty alleviation is access to electricity. This graph uses data from the World Bank and the International Energy Agency’s definition of electricity access, which is delivery and use of at least 250 kilowatt-hours per year in rural households and 500 kilowatt-hours per year in rural households. Simply put, more people around the world have access to electricity than ever, and the absolute number of those without access to electricity is dropping (despite population growth). Take a look at the chart below to see how various regions of the world are meeting their energy needs.

Share of the Population With Access to Electricity

As you see above, India has gone from 45 percent access to electricity in 1990 to nearly 80 percent in 2014.

Afghanistan has seen an even more dramatic improvement, going from 0.16 percent of the population in 2000 to 89.5 percent of the population in 2014.

As renewable energy sources become cheaper and more accessible, we’ll reach total electrification.

Here too, we’re making great progress. In 2016, solar power grew faster than any other fuel source for the first time ever. Around the world, solar prices are still dropping. The latest forecast from GTM Research reports prices of $2.07 per watt in Japan to $.65 per watt in India, with prices dropping across hard and soft costs.

Historical and Forecasted Utility PV System Pricing, 2013 - 2022E

In 2017 alone, we saw wind power become cheaper than nuclear in the U.K., with the cost of subsidies slashed in half since 2015. As the BBC reports, during the U.K.’s 2015 subsidy auction, “offshore wind farm projects won subsidies between £114 and £120 per megawatt hour.” Just two years later, two firms committed to a guaranteed price of £57.50 per megawatt hour. Looking stateside, the U.S. Department of Energy announced in September 2017 that utility-scale solar has officially hit its 2020 cost targets three years early — with generation costs of $1 per watt and energy consumption costs of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour.

US Commercial & Residential Solar Costs

5. Food

Despite the headlines, we’re making steady progress in the realm of food scarcity and hunger. This graph features World Bank data on the percentage of the population that has an inadequate caloric intake. Globally, 18.6 percent of the population was undernourished in 1991; by 2015, it dropped to 10.8 percent.

Prevalence of Undernourishment in Developing Countries

Time and again, technology is making scarce resources abundant. I’ve written about bioprinted meat, genetically engineered crops, vertical farming, and agriculture robots and drones. Two more examples from 2017 so far:

Human-Free Farms: In a 1.5-acre remote farm in the U.K., Harper Adams University and Precision Decisions recently harvested their first crop of barley. The twist? The farm is run autonomously. Instead of human farm workers, Hands Free Hectare uses autonomous vehicles, machine learning algorithms and drones to plant, tend and harvest.  

Food From Electricity: Another big idea in the fight against food scarcity and undernourishment comes out of Finland, where researchers are creating food from electricity. The team, formed of researchers from the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, have created a machine that runs on renewable energy to produce nutritious, single-cell proteins. The system is deployable in a variety of environments hostile to traditional agriculture, and future iterations will be able to produce food anywhere, from famine-stricken deserts to space.

Looking at the data, we truly live in the most exciting time to be alive.

And if your mindset enables you to see problems as opportunities, the future is even more exciting than the present.

Join Me

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. Abundance-Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance-Digital. Abundance-Digital is my ‘onramp’ for exponential entrepreneurs – those who want to get involved and play at a higher level. Click here to learn more.

Resources

U.S.: More wealthy people, fewer poor people. (Axiom)

Economic output per person around the world over the last 2,000 years (Our World in Data)

Finland: Digital money system for refugees (Medium)

China to experiment with collecting taxes via blockchain (MIT Technology Review)

Estonia considers ICO (Medium)

Mortality inequality by nation (inequality of life expectancy) drops (Sam Peltzman)

Teen births down 51% over last 10 years (Vox)

Vital Statistics - Teen Births, 2016 (CDC)

Teen pregnancy and childbearing (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services)

First robot dental surgery (Engadget)

FDA-Approved Gene Altering Treatment (NYTimes)

Doctors use VR in life-saving treatment for conjoined twins (Washington Post)

The Montreal Protocol is working (National Geographic)

Impact of the Montreal Protocol (EPA)

Annual number of deaths from natural disasters (Our World in Data)

Wildlife - Drones used to track wild animal populations (MIT Technology Review)

Reforestation - Bengaluru: Using Drones to plant forests (Your Story)

Share of the population with access to electricity (Our World in Data)

UK: Wind power cheaper than nuclear (BBC)

US: Solar costs beat government goals by three years (Quartz)

Solar costs are hitting jaw-dropping lows in every region of the world (Green Tech Media)

Prevalence of undernourishment in developing countries (Our World in Data)

Scientists make food from electricity (Futurism)

UK: “Hands-Free Hectare” robot farm plants, oversees harvests barley without humans (Digital Trends)

[mikeygoingdown]

Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia

This week I read Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia, a 1975 novel envisioning the secession of Northern California, Oregon and Washington from the United States to create a new nation, Ecotopia. It has inspired readers throughout the world with its vision of an ecologically and socially sustainable future. I found the vision to be stimulating and heartfelt. However, one section in particular spoke volumes and slayed me. In 2012, Callenbach was diagnosed with cancer and died months later. Before he died, faced with the inevitability of his own death and reflecting on the current state of the world, he wrote Epistle to the Ecotopians, which was published in the 2014 reprint of the book. In this final message he shines a prescient light on the Dark Age we currently find ourselves. Returning to Ecotopia, he also provides a glimpse into a hopeful future in which he suggests “Let us embrace decay, for it is the source of all new life and growth.”

I consider these passages to be essential reading, worth reading and sharing, like a gift to the world. A seed for us to plant with an eye to a restored future.

FROM ‘EPISTLE TO THE ECOTOPIANS’:

We live in the declining years of what is still the biggest economy in the world, where a looter elite has fastened itself upon the decaying carcass of the empire. It is intent on speedily and relentlessly extracting the maximum wealth from that carcass, impoverishing our former working middle class. But this maggot class does not invest its profits here. By law and by stock-market pressures, corporations must seek their highest possible profits, no matter the social or national consequences -- which means moving capital and resources abroad, wherever profit potential is larger. As Karl Marx darkly remarked, “Capital has no country,” and in the conditions of globalization his meaning has come clear.

The looter elite systematically exports jobs, skills, knowledge, technology, retaining at home chiefly financial manipulation expertise: highly profitable, but not of actual productive value. Through “productivity gains” and speedups, it extracts maximum profit from domestic employees; then, firing the surplus, it claims surprise that the great mass of people lack purchasing power to buy up what the economy can still produce (or import)...

...End result: something like Mexico, where a small, filthy rich plutocracy rules over an impoverished mass of desperate, uneducated, and hopeless people.

Barring unprecedented revolutionary pressures, this is the actual future we face in the United States, too. As we know from history, such societies can stand a long time, supported by police and military control, manipulation of media, surveillance and dirty tricks of all kinds.

The U.S., which has a long history of violent plutocratic rule unknown to the textbook-fed, will stand out as the best-armed Third World country, its population ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-educated, ill-cared for in health, and increasingly poverty-stricken: even Social Security may be whittled down, impoverishing tens of millions of the elderly.

As empires decline, their leaders become increasingly incompetent -- petulant, ignorant, gifted only with PR skills of posturing and spinning, and prone to the appointment of loyal idiots to important government positions. Comedy thrives; indeed writers are hardly needed to invent outrageous events.

We live, then, in a dark time here on our tiny precious planet. Ecological devastation, political and economic collapse, irreconcilable ideological and religious conflict, poverty, famine: the end of the overshoot of cheap-oil-based consumer capitalist expansionism.

In the next epoch, which we are still in and which may be our last as a great nation, capitalists who grew rich and powerful by making things gave way to a new breed: financiers who grasped that you could make even more money by manipulating money. (And by persuading Congress to subsidize them -- the system should have been called Subsidism, not Capitalism.) They had no concern for the productivity of the nation or the welfare of its people; with religious fervor, they believed in maximizing profit as the absolute economic goal. They recognized that, by capturing the government through the election finance system and removing government regulation, they could turn the financial system into a giant casino.

Little by little, they hollowed the country out, until it was helplessly dependent on other nations for almost all its necessities. We had to import significant steel components from China or Japan. We came to pay for our oil imports by exporting food (i.e., our soil). Our media and our educational system withered. Our wars became chronic and endless and stupefyingly expensive. Our diets became suicidal, and our medical system faltered; life expectancies began to fall.

And so we have returned, in a sort of terrible circle, to something like my boyhood years, when President Roosevelt spoke in anger of “one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-fed, ill-clothed.” A large and militant contingent of white, mostly elderly, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant right wingers, mortally threatened by their impending minority status and pretending to be liberty-lovers, desperately seek to return us still further back.

Americans like to think of ours as an exceptional country, immune through geographical isolation and some kind of special virtue to the tides of history. Through the distorted lens of our corporate media, we possess only a distorted view of what the country is really like now. In the next decades, we shall see whether we indeed possess the intelligence, the strength, and the mutual courage to break through to another positive era.

No futurist can foresee the possibilities. As empires decay, their civilian leaderships become increasingly crazed, corrupt, and incompetent, and often the military (which is after all a parasite of the whole nation, and has no independent financial base like the looter class) takes over. Another possible scenario is that if the theocratic red center of the country prevails in Washington, the relatively progressive and prosperous coastal areas will secede in self-defense.

Since I wrote Ecotopia, I have become less confident of humans' political ability to act on commonsense, shared values. Our era has become one of spectacular polarization, with folly multiplying on every hand. That is the way empires crumble: they are taken over by looter elites, who sooner or later cause collapse.

Humans tend to try to manage things: land, structures, even rivers. We spend enormous amounts of time, energy, and treasure in imposing our will on nature, on preexisting or inherited structures, dreaming of permanent solutions, monuments to our ambitions and dreams. But in periods of slack, decline, or collapse, our abilities no longer suffice for all this management. We have to let things go.

All things “go” somewhere: they evolve, with or without us, into new forms. So as the decades pass, we should try not always to futilely fight these transformations. As the Japanese know, there is much unnoticed beauty in wabi-sabi -- the old, the worn, the tumble-down, those things beginning their transformation into something else. We can embrace this process of devolution: embellish it when strength avails, learn to love it.

There is beauty in weathered and unpainted wood, in orchards overgrown, even in abandoned cars being incorporated into the earth. Let us learn, like the Forest Service sometimes does, to put unwise or unneeded roads “to bed,” help a little in the healing of the natural contours, the re-vegetation by native plants. Let us embrace decay, for it is the source of all new life and growth.

FROM THE ‘AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD’:

America as a society might be rapidly distancing itself from sustainability, but individual people could still try to live like Ecotopians. We could actually practice sustainability. America is becoming terminally car-dependent, but we could still walk and bicycle and learn bus routes, and maybe live nearer to work and shopping. Most Americans might spend an ominous percentage of their time in front of TV sets and computer screens, but we could still hike and camp in wild areas, sample wild foods, kayak wild rivers, and help restore creeks and grasslands. All around us people might be living speeded-up, stressed-out, consumption-driven lives, but we could still wear simple and durable clothes, enjoy long, serious conversations, repair things that broke, and eat home-cooked "slow" organic food with congenial friends. The possibilities, once you begin to think and live like an Ecotopian, are endless.

And so, even though we live, at the moment, in an ecological Dark Age, we know that nothing stays the same for long. There is never an end to history, and there will never be an end to the Ecotopian vision of responsible inhabitation of our planet.

[harrelltut]

卍 JEHOVAH Occult Witness Me [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] from Inner Earth’s [HADES] HIDDEN Underworld [HU = HURRIAN] Military Installation [MI = MICHAEL] Unit [MU] of Biblically Black [Ancient] FUTURISTIC PANTHERS who got FULL ACCESS [FA = FANTE] II My QUANTUM HARRELL TECH® WEAPONRY of MASS DESTRUCTION I Mathematically ENGINEERED [ME = U.S. Michael Harrell = TUT = JAH] 4 mankind’s Last Days on earth… MU:XIII Occult Tech Illuminati 卍

[transparentmanposts]

Christianity, Prosperity or Endurance

Greeting friends

 I want to talk to you today about the false teachings of property preaching.

From what I know about this teaching, it proclaims that if a Christian is walking obediently with God, then their life will flow with blessings of health, wealth, power, position.  

A person whose life is filled with struggles with lack of blessing with health, wealth, power, position is walking in disobedience to God.

What brought this false teach up to me, in a manner of face to face personal way, was during a phone call with my mother who was not a Christian, and to my knowledge never became one.

My parent know I had gone to Bible college, and I had talked to them about every person’s need for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

So, with the knowledge of my financial, material, poverty and it raining inside my apartment, my mother asked me how I could be a servant of God and have all these struggles?

I answered her question by telling her that God had delivered me from the wrath that will fall on all sinner who do not put their faith in the redemptive work of God’s Son  accomplished on  the cross, to redeem sinful man from a path of eternal judgement and delivered them into enteral life, by restored them to a blessed relationship with our Holy God.

I told her God gave me purpose and meaning to my life.       But God did not promise to prevent trials and tribulation from coming into my life.  He did promise to cause all things to work for the good of those who are in Christ.

I also told her that all of Jesus’s apostles except John had face a Marder death for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I told her that all the suffering that goes on in the world does not make me doubt God exists, nor the goodness of His nature.  

Suffering in the world instead drive me to draw closer to God, for His word teaches us that suffering in life is due to the creation that is crumbling under the cruse of caseous, and decay because mankind had chosen to disobey God.  

Mankind suffers from sinful action committed of one own doing, and by the actions of other people around them.

 Let’s look at and compare the false teaching of property preaching to the truth of the word of God.

 The false teaching that obedient Christian does not get sick mentally or physically

The Bible in James 5: 14 instruct what Christian should do if they get sick.

James 5:14 American Standard Version (ASV)   . 14 Is any among you sick? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, [c]anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15 and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up;

 The false teaching that obedient Christian don’t struggle financially, or materially.

Many of God servant was poor compared to worldly measuring standers.

The Apostle Peter and John have no money to give the cripple beggar at the temple door.

Acts 3:3-16 American Standard Version (ASV)

3 who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked to receive an alms. 4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him, with John, said, Look on us. 5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, that give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.

 The false teaching that obedient Christian don’t struggle and suffer trials and tribulation.

The bible talks about suffering trials and tribulation as a servant of God.

1 Peter 4: 12-15 American Standard Version (ASV)

12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you: 13 but insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of his glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy. 14 If ye are reproached [h]for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you. 15 For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil-doer, or as a meddler in other men’s matters: 16 but if a man suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name.

When I think about a correct portrait of what a truly faithful Christian life looks like, I ponder all the trials and tribulation apostle Paul endured, to accomplish the ministry God had to call him to carry out to glorify God.

The suffering of Paul recorded in 2 Corinthians 11:20-30 American Standard Version (ASV)

20 For ye bear with a man, if he bringeth you into bondage, if he devoureth you, if he taketh you captive, if he exalteth himself, if he smiteth you on the face. 21 I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet whereinsoever any is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also. 22 Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I. 23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. 24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. 25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; 26 in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my [a]countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27 in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. 28 [b]Besides those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is caused to stumble, and I burn not? 30 If I must need glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness.

 I think prosperity preaching and teaching is cancer on Christianity, it takes an effort to draw people to the Christian by giving them false hopes.

Then when people discover their faith is based on lies, then they reject God and His gift of salvation.

I myself have in the last couple of year have suffered multiple illnesses, Migraine headaches, arthritis’s, Lyme Disease, high cloistral, sleep apnea, heart disease.

I have always struggled with poverty.  No money in the bank, nothing in reserve for retirement.

So I am not writing this article as one who is not acquainted with trials and struggles.

But I continue to be reminded by the parable of the sower and the seed, what is the correct portrait of the contrast between a casual belief and a true enduring saving faith in the gospel message.

 Jesus expands the parable of the sower and the seed.

 Mathew 13: 16- 23

16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear. 17 For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not; and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not. 18 Hear then ye the parable of the sower. 19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the evil one, and snatcheth away that which hath been sown in his heart. This is he that was sown by the wayside. 20 And he that was sown upon the rocky places, this is he that heareth the word, and straightway with joy receiveth it; 21 yet hath he not root in himself, but endureth for a while; and when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway he stumbleth. 22 And he that was sown among the thorns, this is he that heareth the word; and the care of the [c]world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. 23 And he that was sown upon the good ground, this is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; who verily beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

 My friends, I was motivated to write this article, Because Billy Graham Had passed away, he had spent his life sacrificing his family, his own comforts, his life to go throughout the world preaching the gospel.

He like any other human became diseased, suffered discomfort as his body fell apart with old age, he passed away at the cold hand of death.

Billy Graham body was buried in the earth but his soul ( that is everything that made up the person of  Billy ) has continued live on, meaning the mortal has put on the immortal.      He has moved out of a sin-fallen world, into a new kingdom where evil will never rear its head again.

He has entered a new creation where the realm of God and humanity are no longer separated by the wall of sin. He has entered an enteral existence without the presence of trials and tribulations.

Billy has received his reward for the great thing that was accomplished by his ministry through the Lord Jesus the Christ.

So friend if you are a follower of Christ, study God’s word prayerfully so that you are not fooled by clever false teachings.

Attend a bible teaching church on a regular basis to have fellowship, to worship, receive Godly instruction, serve, to support people of likeminded.

Most of all keep your eyes focused on God, not on your trials and tribulation.

Continuing to ask God to direct you in the Calling He has placed in your life. Rely on His Holy Spirit and the word of god to equip you to be able to overcome the challenging obstacles that you will face to accomplish your mission.

  Written by Stephen J. Vattimo

3/21/2018