#To have no need of things

[remembertheplunge]

No words for "when" "want" or "worry"

June 10, 2007.  5:22pm Sunday

The TV news show “60 minutes” had a segment on the language of the people of the Trobriand Islands. The Trobiand Islanders have no word in their language for “when”“want” or “worry”.

 If asked "How old are you?" They don’t know.

There is no word for “Hello”

No word for “good bye”.

They do have words for give and take. But, no word for “want”.

They have no need for things. They are nomadic.

Just before the Trobriand Islander story, there was a story about a really rich guy who was mean to his employees. He yelled at them. Every word was “want”, “when”, “worry”. Age on his forehead. Full of hellos and good byes.

My partner Jim got a check for $98,000 plus as his share of his parent’s estate. . Jim is angry. Feels nothing. 

One of Jim’s two brothers got $50,000 more than Jim. Jim now has no reason to contact his brothers. I agree. They were horrible through this division of the estate process. A lot of money went to lawyers. Odd. Outside of memory and emotion, there is no connection between them anymore. No hello. No good bye. No want. No worry. No when.

End of this part of the entry

Jim was my partner of 12 years. He and his brothers got into a legal battle over their parent’s estate after their mother died in 2005.

Later, a similar situation happened in my family. My sister Zoe and I were disinherited by our mother in 2011. We learned about it after her death in 2012. Our younger brother and his wife and her son and his wife inherited everything. My brother and I have never spoken again. We never  will speak. No good bye. No hello. 

Jim and his family were good teachers. They showed me this can happen. This is sometimes part of the family experience. 

“This is what white people do to each other”. This is a line from the 2019 movie “The Last Black Man in San Fransisco”. A young black man desperately wants to own a victorian house in San Fransisco's Filmore district. An elderly couple lives there now, but, are forced to leave because of an inheritance battle.The young black man says to his friend “This is what white people do to each other”.That one line, more than any other, has helped my through the desolate landscape of being disinherited.

[aimasup]

Favouritism

Bill get a hold of yourself man

[william-snekspeare]

hater of socks

[vamprisms]

adhd will have you fighting for your life to do beloved hobbies that bring you nothing but joy

[kensatou]

MONKEY MAN (2024)

[beaft]

google help me

[dirtytransmasc]

the men and boys are innocent too.

we cry "the innocent women and children" to appeal to the masses, to try and force their sympathy, but the men and boys are innocent too.

I have seen sons crying out for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings. I have seen them break down at the loss of their families. I have seen them cling to their dead and grieve.

I have seen fathers cradle their dead children, seen them kiss their faces and hold their little hands. I have seen them faint with grief when asked to identify the dead. I have seen them carry their sons and daughters. I have seen them fasting to provide what little they can for their families.

I have seen men and boys digging through the rubble with just their bare hands, I have seen them comforting strangers, playing with children, rocking them, hushing them, even if the face of such imminent danger. I have seen them cry, seen them grieve, seen them break down into each other's arms, seen them be selfless, beyond selfless, becoming something I don't have a word for.

I have seen the men who are doctors refuse to leave their patients, even when they have no medicine or supplies to give them, even when they're threatened with bombings. I have seen fathers who have lost all their children pick orphans up into their arms and proclaim them their child so they are not alone. I have seen men and boys digging pets out of the rubble.

the men are innocent too. the men and boys are being hurt and killed too. the men and boys are grieving too. the men and boys are scared too. the men and boys are fighting to save their people too. the men and boys deserve to be fought for too.

[romanceyourdemons]

local asian market reorganized its shelves. consequently when i went looking for my ve wong vegetarian flavor instant noodles i unexpectedly found myself in the Good Quality Cookware And Beautiful Dishes aisle, aka the aisle of temptation, face to face with a mug (my favorite dish) with a lid (my favorite thing for a mug to have) and a heron pattern (my second-favorite bird) at a very reasonable price (i’m on a budget and i literally do not have room for another mug on my mug shelf). it was like one of those fucked up tests they give monks in shaolin movies to see if they’ve really given up earthly desires. that mug is going to haunt the broken man that i am for a long time

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[citricacidprince]

Was forced to get a new phone today

[ellierenae]

write unpublishable things. it's good for you.

[heavenbarnes]

thinking about your older bf!simon that cannot cope with being far from you.

when you’re in the shower, he’s sat on the lid of the toilet on his phone (watching those rug cleaning videos) enjoying your faint singing under the stream of water, the smell of your body wash on the cloud of steam- ready to pass you a towel or get your back.

when you’re at your desk, working from home or studying, he’s just on the other side of it reading the paper with one outstretched leg tangled with both of yours. he’s dead quiet when you’re on a call, just happy to be around.

when you’re doing laundry, collecting the clothes in the hamper and crouching to stuff them into the washer- turning around and accidentally colliding with a thick wall of muscle.

“sorry, love”

he steps aside but you can hear his soft footfalls as he continues to follow you throughout your home.

when you’re both watching something on the couch, what starts as his pinky locked with yours turns into his arm around your waist. that turns into your head on his chest, which culminates with you falling asleep in his lap with his cheek on your head and soft snores emanating from his lips.

when you grocery shop, you push the trolley but his chest is to your back, arms either side of you and hands clasped over yours on the handle. you can thank his military training for his uncanny ability to tell exactly when you’ll stop walking.

when he wakes up in the middle of the night, on a rare occasion when you’ve managed to slip out of bed without him realising, he’s immediately in a panic calling your name.

“in here, my love”

as soon as his heart settles, he realises the bathroom light was probably a dead giveaway. you’re taking a wee, you’ll be back in a minute.

that doesn’t stop a sleepy simon from leaning in the doorframe, shielding his eyes from the big light as he waits for you to finish up.

even on the short walk back to bed, you can feel fingers twisted in the back of your shirt- almost like you’re leading the way.

minute you’re both on the mattress, you’re being wrapped up in his arms, slotting you perfectly into the curve of his front- almost like you’re made for him.

(and you are)

[artkaninchenbau]

A h-heartfelt reunion..?

Bonus

[mellosghosts]

in my heart this joke is in the movie, but unfortunately im afraid only we, hughjackmaniacs, would get it 🥀

[problemnyatic]

when will we talk about the willful helplessness epidemic on here. So many people on this god forsaken website demand to have any and all things that exist outside their personal experiences directly, personally pre-chewed and spoonfed to them. And when you do, they'll then ask for you to swallow for them, too, because, you see, in THEIR experience..,

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible