#but in Mens Liberation groups or whatever people get very cold if i speak on that experience

[stump-water]

i cant stop thinking about how the traumas & shit that really screwed me up & screwed me over blunted my compassion & how that interacted with the shit that power insulated me from. it's not just that shit in society you benefit from insulates you from other people's problems. you know? it's how THAT compounds with all the other pain you're in. i truly believe you can build a deep bias without meaning to, just by living in this world and being hurt by it. there's a system you're benefiting from. you don't wanna admit that it's hurting you too, and so you resent the people who are being targeted very deeply by that system and trying to speak out about it

[transunity]

Blog Announcement

We have come to the decision to step back from this blog for a bit. It is clear while many people are excited for transunity theory, many others are excited to find ways to tear it down. As such, the impact on the mental health of all of our mods has been negative.

Speaking for myself here, this ain't my first time at this rodeo. I'm the only trans man on the mod team (everyone else is nonbinary, transneutral, transfem, intersex etc). I was there when transandrophobia as a term was in its infancy- and it was just me and about 6 or so other transmascs blogging about it. That was maybe 5 years ago now and as transmascs, we weathered whatever hatred people had for transmascs (and those of us who dared to speak out about our oppression did bear a great brunt of that). The hatred for the concept of transunity, in my mind, cannot be divorced from the same hatred that was and is wielded towards transmascs. Transunity is a movement for all trans people- its origins in the struggle of transmascs is relevant, however. What I saw then is being repeated towards transunity now- and as such, one can only tolerate such contempt for your identity for so long. This is what led me to go on hiatus earlier.

The rest of the mod team is similarly burnt out. We created this blog to create unity in the face of oppresion, but it seems some trans people are all too glad to be disunified in order to hurt trans unity out of spite. The levels of sad, bitter trans people angry that some trans people aren't as apathetic and separatist as they are- the level is way, way too high and is symptomatic of a trans community that desperately needs unity.

What is sad about that is that trans separatists who seek to tear down trans unity and this blog clearly have no understanding of queer history in general. How solidarity is what gets us where we need to be. How disunity leaves the most vulnerable trans people out in the cold. I'm British and most queer history people know is American. But here's an anecdote from British queer history that sums up my point-

LGSM (Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners) was a group of lesbians and gay men from London who raised funds for the striking coal miners in 1985, protesting against Margaret Thatcher's government. What is so special about LGSM (and I reccomend Googling them) is that they formed an alliance with striking coal miners in South Wales. Mining was a very traditional, cishet job, while LGSM were very obviously queer. But they formed an alliance because they realised, cops were beating up gay people and now the miners. They recognised their oppresions and struggles in common and decided to unite. Leading to the mining unions being vital in helping the Labour Party to add protecting gay rights to their charter at Bournemouth in 1986.

The point is- if the most cishet people in Wales in 1985 can find solidarity and unity with queer Londoners, then as trans people we have no reason *not* to find solidarity with each other. Transmasc and transfem, transneutral and intersex. There's no reason why we shouldn't attempt to unite in the place of fear.

The people who have already given in to fear, trans separatists, don't want their bad decisions to be all for naught. So they are motivated to destroy unity to reassure themselves of their position- it's why their railing against transunity has been so bleak recently. But it's a bad ideology- one which will not lead to trans liberation.

I've said my piece now and I hope that if any of it resonates or chimes, that you will go forward with more intent to unify with trans people not like yourself- but nevertheless finding solidarity in your shared fight.

Good luck, we will not be on hiatus forever. Till then, keep using transunity theory and look after yourselves.

-Mod Luke

[smokeybrandcompositions]

Conservative Clusterf*ck

This situation with Tucker Carlson is insane to see. Like, for him to just selectively edit literally thousands of hours of footage from January 6th, down to the most disingenuous and misrepresented clips available, is just flat out disgusting. Kevin McCarthy has a massive amount of responsibility to bear in this, too. He was the one who gave Tucker the footage in a Fox News exclusive. This sh*t was a calculated attempt to change the entire narrative around what was very obviously a whole ass insurrection, ignited by the former president Donald Trump. Those people who stormed the Capitol were violent, treasonous, MAGA cultists, who sought to overturn our democracy at the behest of their loser, lame duck, wannabe Dictator-King. That happened. That's the reality. People died on that day. To take that national day of tragedy, of embarrassment, and try to twist it into something as benign as an overzealous tour group gone rogue, is f*cking despicable.

Speaking of despicable, what the hell is going on in Florida? Bro, I've never seen such an ardent and blatant effort to absolutely foster a white supremacist ethnostate, not since i learned about Hitler’ mad dash toward his Final Solution! Ron DeSantis is going full Nazi, surrounding himself with what is basically sycophants and Yes Men who won't challenge any of his absolutely anti-Constitutional, anti-American, legislation. Mans is out here burning history books and banning math textbooks over dumb sh*t. He's outlawed Drag Shows and has been on a crusade against Queen people. In his eyes, and in the current laws in the State he governs, being transgender is basically a crime. How is that okay? How are his constitutes agreeing with this wild ass and dangerous discrimination masquerading as public safety? The sh*t going on in Florida right now is wildly concerning but the fact that DeSantis is touting his macabre, regressive, State as the blueprint for what other like-minded municipalities (and a very obvious test run for what he plans to do to the entire Nation if he makes it into the White House), keeps me up at night. This man, who literally refuses to teach kids under his governance a real, objective, US history, devoid of nationalist propaganda and zealous Christian buffoonery, wants to be president of the United States. That sh*t should freeze you cold. But, for a whole third of the country, it doesn't. What the f*ck is going on with Conservatives right now? What the f*ck is going on with the Republicans Party right now? Their entire message is just reactionary, culture war, bullsh*t and it's very much transparently so. These motherf*ckers constantly say the quiet part out loud. They overturned Roe strictly because of religious ideology, disregarding the science and human cost. Like, how much you want to bet that these asshats who deign to claim they know the Word, even know Jesus's real name? It's Yeshua and, if we want to get really into those weeds, it's probably Emmanuel but you never hear about that. Just that abortion is murder and Jesus is against that or whatever. But f*ck that kid once it's out the womb. No Conservative wants to give these kids a solid start at life once they "save" it from the hanger, by giving them universal pre-K or a solid amount of parental leave for their working parents because of bootstraps and misplaced ignorance. I've literally seen a MAGA cultists say they don't want Universal pre-K because that leads to public school and public school is where they teach liberal ideals. Motherf*cker, what?

Bro, I am sitting here watching Marjorie Taylor Greene call for a "National Divorce", which isn't the same as a Secession or Civil War, but that we definitely have different values so State's Rights and all. That's why the Civil War! Not really, it was to economically crippled the South so they would be more amiable to staying within the Union by making their entire Slave driven economy illegal through abolition, but that's what the South teaches their kids the War was about. And now you got a sitting Representative who has a chair on the Homeland Security Committee, calling for a "National Divorce" for the exact same reasons. But it's not a call for Secession. Definitely not that. I got Donny T. out here at one of his many ego-stroking speaking engagements, talking about how he plans to build "Freedom Cities" on Federal land when he gets re-elected, where there will be bonuses to parents who have children. I imagine my black ass is not on that list of viable recipients considering Drumpf is a card-carrying subscriber to the ridiculous Replacement Theory conspiracy. Speaking of kids, several Red States have basically made child labor legal again. Iowa straight up said fourteen year olds need to get back into them mines, which is absurd because the mortality rate of kids in mines back in the day, is literally why we made child labor laws in the first goddamn place! Hell, I watched one of these Daily Wire talking-heads, openly call for the extermination of transpeople at CPAC! Mans got on that stage, got on TV, and said that sh*t directly to the f*cking camera with all of his chest. Motherf*cker has been on a tour of lawsuits claiming people misquoted him. Bro, no, you said that sh*t. It wasn't even a dog whistle. Mans outright called for a Trans Holocaust. Like, the sudden drive to erase drag from existence is problematic on its own, but to openly advocate for the wholesale slaughter of trans people, to feel so comfortable among your peers that something so appalling fell from your mouth and was met with roaring applause, tells you exactly where these "god fearing patriots" really place their faith. And it ain't in Yeshua, I can tell you that for sure.

[smokeybrand]

Conservative Clusterf*ck

This situation with Tucker Carlson is insane to see. Like, for him to just selectively edit literally thousands of hours of footage from January 6th, down to the most disingenuous and misrepresented clips available, is just flat out disgusting. Kevin McCarthy has a massive amount of responsibility to bear in this, too. He was the one who gave Tucker the footage in a Fox News exclusive. This sh*t was a calculated attempt to change the entire narrative around what was very obviously a whole ass insurrection, ignited by the former president Donald Trump. Those people who stormed the Capitol were violent, treasonous, MAGA cultists, who sought to overturn our democracy at the behest of their loser, lame duck, wannabe Dictator-King. That happened. That's the reality. People died on that day. To take that national day of tragedy, of embarrassment, and try to twist it into something as benign as an overzealous tour group gone rogue, is f*cking despicable.

Speaking of despicable, what the hell is going on in Florida? Bro, I've never seen such an ardent and blatant effort to absolutely foster a white supremacist ethnostate, not since i learned about Hitler’ mad dash toward his Final Solution! Ron DeSantis is going full Nazi, surrounding himself with what is basically sycophants and Yes Men who won't challenge any of his absolutely anti-Constitutional, anti-American, legislation. Mans is out here burning history books and banning math textbooks over dumb sh*t. He's outlawed Drag Shows and has been on a crusade against Queen people. In his eyes, and in the current laws in the State he governs, being transgender is basically a crime. How is that okay? How are his constitutes agreeing with this wild ass and dangerous discrimination masquerading as public safety? The sh*t going on in Florida right now is wildly concerning but the fact that DeSantis is touting his macabre, regressive, State as the blueprint for what other like-minded municipalities (and a very obvious test run for what he plans to do to the entire Nation if he makes it into the White House), keeps me up at night. This man, who literally refuses to teach kids under his governance a real, objective, US history, devoid of nationalist propaganda and zealous Christian buffoonery, wants to be president of the United States. That sh*t should freeze you cold. But, for a whole third of the country, it doesn't. What the f*ck is going on with Conservatives right now? What the f*ck is going on with the Republicans Party right now? Their entire message is just reactionary, culture war, bullsh*t and it's very much transparently so. These motherf*ckers constantly say the quiet part out loud. They overturned Roe strictly because of religious ideology, disregarding the science and human cost. Like, how much you want to bet that these asshats who deign to claim they know the Word, even know Jesus's real name? It's Yeshua and, if we want to get really into those weeds, it's probably Emmanuel but you never hear about that. Just that abortion is murder and Jesus is against that or whatever. But f*ck that kid once it's out the womb. No Conservative wants to give these kids a solid start at life once they "save" it from the hanger, by giving them universal pre-K or a solid amount of parental leave for their working parents because of bootstraps and misplaced ignorance. I've literally seen a MAGA cultists say they don't want Universal pre-K because that leads to public school and public school is where they teach liberal ideals. Motherf*cker, what?

Bro, I am sitting here watching Marjorie Taylor Greene call for a "National Divorce", which isn't the same as a Secession or Civil War, but that we definitely have different values so State's Rights and all. That's why the Civil War! Not really, it was to economically crippled the South so they would be more amiable to staying within the Union by making their entire Slave driven economy illegal through abolition, but that's what the South teaches their kids the War was about. And now you got a sitting Representative who has a chair on the Homeland Security Committee, calling for a "National Divorce" for the exact same reasons. But it's not a call for Secession. Definitely not that. I got Donny T. out here at one of his many ego-stroking speaking engagements, talking about how he plans to build "Freedom Cities" on Federal land when he gets re-elected, where there will be bonuses to parents who have children. I imagine my black ass is not on that list of viable recipients considering Drumpf is a card-carrying subscriber to the ridiculous Replacement Theory conspiracy. Speaking of kids, several Red States have basically made child labor legal again. Iowa straight up said fourteen year olds need to get back into them mines, which is absurd because the mortality rate of kids in mines back in the day, is literally why we made child labor laws in the first goddamn place! Hell, I watched one of these Daily Wire talking-heads, openly call for the extermination of transpeople at CPAC! Mans got on that stage, got on TV, and said that sh*t directly to the f*cking camera with all of his chest. Motherf*cker has been on a tour of lawsuits claiming people misquoted him. Bro, no, you said that sh*t. It wasn't even a dog whistle. Mans outright called for a Trans Holocaust. Like, the sudden drive to erase drag from existence is problematic on its own, but to openly advocate for the wholesale slaughter of trans people, to feel so comfortable among your peers that something so appalling fell from your mouth and was met with roaring applause, tells you exactly where these "god fearing patriots" really place their faith. And it ain't in Yeshua, I can tell you that for sure.

[mithranqueersmusings]

The Night Before XI

Chapter: 11/15

Rating: T

Summary: Ringo hangs around after the club closes and meets a stranger.

Tags: Smut, Slow Burn

Pairing: George Harrison/Ringo Starr (Background McLennon)

AO3 link here / Fic masterlist here

Ringo was relieved when John suggested that the three of them should go out clubbing, it was only two days before his date with George and he needed something to kill the nerves. John had recently been paid which meant he would splurge out on drinks and drugs to keep everybody happy, even if they repeatedly refused. It was nice to know that Ringo wouldn't have to worry about finding someone to go home with, he could even go to bed at a relatively more sensible hour.

The three of them left for the club in quite the state, Ringo had no clue exactly how much they'd drunk but he knew there was only more to come. John, in his infinite wisdom, had bought some cocaine out to mark the special occasion.

"What's the occasion?" Paul asked, clearly he'd said these same words before Ringo had arrived.

"I have enough money for coke!" John cheered.

He shared it out liberally, both Paul and Ringo refusing at first but indulging later on. The bag was still considerably full when they left for the club, meaning they would only grow more dishevelled as the night went on. They arrived at the familiar club, John exchanging a few quips with the bouncer as they welcomed the warmth and unnecessarily loud music. John headed straight for the bar, ordering a round of drinks for everyone without much thought. It was a common occurrence for John to spend most of his pay in one night, forcing him to live barrenly for the remainder of the month. There'd been times when Paul and Ringo were alarmed at this behaviour, but no amount of talking seemed to change his mind and so they allowed themselves to be pampered.

The club was relatively full, Thursday was student night which only made the three of them feel ridiculously old as they worked through crowds of enthusiastic youths to the spot they usually took on the dance floor. Ringo felt positive, the music was decent and the company excellent. It wasn't too long before John was pulling them all into the toilets for a 'top up', it was one of the few clubs where the security didn't bat an eyelash when a group of men all crowded into a single cubicle. A year ago Ringo had bought John a necklace with a small spoon on it, he worried it would only be enabling his drug habits further but if anything it reduced the intake for without it John would be lumping varying amounts onto his key without any idea how much he was actually doing. The necklace had been brought out tonight, making Ringo feel quite satisfied with himself.

Paul had taken a while to come around to the harder drugs, but being reassured that the three of them would always look out for one another - to the best of their abilities when their brains were being warped - he began to join in with the shenanigans. They all passed around the baggie rather excitedly, Ringo couldn't deny he enjoyed the feeling of the powder shooting up his nose.

"You sure you don't want us to pay you for it?" Ringo asked, sniffing a few times more to ensure it had gone down fully.

"Don't be daft." John grinned, his pupils dilated "You can just get the next one."

It was an exchange that often took place between them, despite Ringo never actually buying the next one, but considering the amount of weed he bought for the three of them he figured it just about cancelled out. The three of them filtered out back into the bathroom, getting a few strange looks, as they tried to fix their appearance in the one mirror that was still intact. Paul had insisted that they all put a little bit of effort in with their clothing tonight so they appeared like a mismatched theatrical group, but Ringo thought it was quite a charming impression.

Back onto the dancefloor, Ringo could feel the music a lot more heavier than before. He felt twitchy, but it was easy enough to channel all that energy into dancing. It felt like such a weight off his shoulders to no longer have to be spying around the club for a potential suitor, instead he could just enjoy the company of his friends. At least, that's what he'd intended on doing before Paul pulled Ringo into close to shout into his ear.

"Is that George over there?"

Ringo felt his heart thumping, for a moment he was worried it was going to burst, as he craned his neck in the direction Paul was pointing. There he was, dancing with a friend. It shouldn't have surprised him too much, after all this was the club they'd met outside all those nights ago, but the suddenness of his appearance threw Ringo a little. He'd almost forgotten how attractive he was, wearing a loose fitting crop top and some tight-fitting jeans which accentuated his slim figure. Ringo struggled to pull his eyes away, but eventually managed when Paul spoke once more.

"Why don't you go and say hi?"

John had moved in close by this point, eavesdropping on their words as though they were in fact intended for him.

"No, no, I'm alright." Ringo tried to calm himself, though it wasn't working.

"Ringo, you literally had your dick inside him a couple of days ago but you can't even say hello?" John nudged Ringo forward slightly, but it only made him feel all the more nervous.

"Maybe later, if we see him outside." Ringo moved back into the space he previously occupied very quickly.

"Suit yourself." Paul lost interest quickly.

The three of them continued their usual routine: dancing enthusiastically to every other song that came on, darting to the bar for more drinks and then hurrying into the toilets for more bumps. Every so often they'd knock into someone who'd take offence, or be hounded by people in the bathroom who were desperate for them to hurry up, but none of them paid it too much mind, John would occasionally get physical with them but luckily it never got too far out of hand.

A couple of hours had passed since they'd first stepped foot in the club and Ringo was feeling great, he was full of energy and just hoped the night would never end. It was time for yet another smoke break, all three of them twitching to get their hands on a cigarette as they huddled close together in the cold. It was somewhat reassuring to see that they weren't the only people demonstrably off their faces, a couple of people sat gulping water in the corner with their eyes rolling uncontrollably, while the floor was littered with empty baggies and pools of sick from those who hadn't been so fortunate. Ringo practically inhaled the cigarette, tapping his foot wildly as every breath felt absolutely incredible.

Then he spotted George once again, talking with the same guy leaning against a wall with a cigarette in hand. It didn't take too long for Paul and John to notice what he was looking at, and neither of them seemed to be taking no for an answer.

"But I'm all coked up." Ringo tried to worm his way out "He's gonna think I'm a crackhead."

John laughed "Well it's better he finds that out sooner rather than later."

"Fine." Ringo groaned, finishing his cigarette off and making his way over to George.

What was he even going to say? Just a quick hello would suffice, then he could hurry back to the safety of his friends and focus on making a better impression when they went out for dinner. He could feel Paul and John watching him as he walked, doing nothing to help his nerves. Ringo hoped George would spot him to save him the awkwardness of having to interrupt whatever conversation he was having. The man was leaning into George's ear, whispering something that warranted a laugh. Maybe this was too personal of a moment for Ringo to interrupt, he debated turning around and heading to the bar before he stopped dead in his tracks.

The man had pulled George in for a kiss, a heated one at that. For a second Ringo hoped George would pull away, that the whole thing had been some strange misunderstanding, but he didn't; he only leaned in closer. Ringo couldn't move, he was stood uncomfortably close to them at this point but his body refused to walk away.

"What the fuck..." Ringo let out unintentionally, his brain practically screaming at him.

His presence didn't go unnoticed, George pulled away and turned to see where the words were coming from and his face dropped in an instant. The two of them looked at one another for a painfully long time, the other man quickly grew suspicious and then angry.

"You got a problem?" He asked in a rough voice, his hand still around George's waist. "Because if you d-"

"Shut the fuck up." George silenced him curtly, not breaking his eyes away "Ringo, I can explain."

Ringo tried to think of something to say, anything, but words entirely failed him. He felt tears beginning to form in his eyes, the only positive being that he seemed to have regained control of his legs and soon he was sprinting straight back into the club all the way to the entrance. He felt like throwing up, like screaming, like punching someone, anything to get this horrible feeling out of his body. What a fucking embarrassment, his mind replayed over and over. Behind him he could hear the sound of hurried footsteps, whether it was George or Paul or John, he didn't want to know, he just had to be alone. He kept walking, no destination in mind, just needing to get away.

"Ringo!" George called out, but Ringo didn't falter in his forceful movements "Please stop, let me explain. It wasn't what it looked like."

"Really? It looked pretty fucking crystal clear to me." Ringo spat, barely turning his head to speak.

"Please, just hear me out." George was catching up to him, people on the street were beginning to turn and watch.

Ringo turned a corner into an alley to get away from the prying eyes, the darkness seemed to numb his thoughts a little. He felt George's hand grip onto his shoulder to try and turn him around but Ringo remained firm, his mind and heart both racing.

"Leave me alone, George." Ringo's voice was low, rough "I feel embarrassed enough right now."

George kept his hand on Ringo's shoulder "Just listen, please... That guy, he's- He's been asking me out for so long and I figured if I took him out once it would shut him up. I don't like him Ringo... If I had known you were here tonight I never would've kissed him."

Ringo slowly turned around, glad that the darkness would mask the tears in his eyes "What an honest person you are."

"I'm not gonna pretend like I haven't done anything wrong tonight." George spoke softly, trying to balance out the harshness of Ringo's words.

Ringo sighed, unable to look at George directly "No, no you haven't. You don't owe me shit, it's not like we're going out for anything... I have no right to feel as pissed off as I do right now."

George paused, his hand gripping tighter onto Ringo's shoulder "Then why do you?"

Silence.

Ringo noticed Paul and John had caught up with them, standing just around the corner of the alley so that they weren't too visible. Paul looked completely distraught, having to hold back John who was more than ready to get physical. What an absolute mess.

"I really like you George, like too fucking much. Seeing you with that guy just hit me hard... I've never felt so fucking stupid." Ringo tried to speak quieter, he didn't need his friends to hear this.

George's eyes began to tear up, Ringo could only just about tell "Please don't tell me I've fucked this up."

Ringo scoffed "What is there to fuck up? We haven't even been on a date yet, this whole thing is ridiculous."

"I know but... I felt something from the moment I laid eyes on you Ringo, I'm not losing you this easy." George lowered himself somewhat so that they were on the same level.

"You're just saying that." Ringo dismissed, turning his head away.

George prevented him, gently pressing his fingers on Ringo's jaw so that they were facing one another "No, I mean it. Tonight was so fucking stupid, it didn't mean anything. I want you, Ringo, and only you."

Ringo was speechless, the entire thing felt like a strange nightmare that he was waiting to end.

"Please say something." George's voice wavered, it hurt more than anything else.

"I just don't know..." Ringo huffed "I've heard that same line so many times, yet someone always ends up getting hurt."

"But I'm not like anyone else, you said so yourself." George had a better hold on his voice, but the sadness was still evident.

Words escaped Ringo once more, part of him wanted to give in completely but he couldn't ignore the negative voice in the back of his mind that claimed this whole thing was a lie.

"I've never met anyone like you before, and a part of me knows you feel the same way about me." George was practically pleading "I'll never forgive myself if I lose you over this stupid fuckup."

Ringo looked up at him, entirely defeated, the sadness weighing far too heavily on his brain for it to be able to think of anything appropriate to say. George closed the space between them, pressing a forceful kiss onto Ringo's lips. He could taste the tears that had rolled down George's cheeks, the saltiness a bitter reminder. At first Ringo didn't respond at all, his body hardly felt like its own, then he tried to pull away but George remained adamant. As George relaxed more into the kiss, Ringo found that he was too. As though his body was acting without his knowledge, the familiar press of George's lips against his owns was definitely a comforting one. George held onto Ringo tightly, tears still falling from his eyes as he deepened the kiss slightly.

When Ringo tried to pull away once more, George moved away entirely. A sudden noise erupted from the other end of the alley, John and Paul were cheering obnoxiously loud which sent Ringo laughing. George turned alarmed, probably the last thing he'd been expecting as well as wanting to see in this moment. He let out a groan, looking back to Ringo who was already feeling surprisingly better.

"Fuck, they're gonna hate me now, aren't they?" George chuckled weakly, his voice a little croaky.

"I can't promise that they wont." Ringo felt normalcy returning to his body and mind.

A beat of silence passed between them.

"Please tell me we're still on for Friday." George sounded pained.

Ringo struggled to come out with a committed answer.

"Please." George repeated desperately "I'm really gonna make it up to you."

"Oh yeah?" Ringo asked, his voice lightening up a little.

"Anything you want, you name it." George already sounded relieved to get more of a positive response.

"A few things come to mind." Ringo joked, he was far from feeling normal but he was rapidly getting there "Anyway, I should probably go... John and Paul are gonna want the rundown and I'm in desperate need of a spliff and a bed."

George's face tensed a little, Ringo wondered if he felt left out of the intimacy they'd previously shared but he didn't address it "Alright... Again, I'm so sorry. I can't say it enough."

"You can show me how sorry you are on Friday." Ringo shuffled his feet.

"I intend to." George leaned in for a brief kiss, his hand resting on the small of Ringo's back.

Ringo found it difficult to pull away, as though the horrors he'd previously witnessed had never occurred at all. It was even more difficult to leave George in that dark alley, but he managed to get back to Paul and John without turning back. Paul and John both wrapped their hands around one of Ringo's arms, all three of them walking in a random direction to get some distance from the situation.

"You wanna talk about it?" Paul asked gently.

"Not really." Ringo managed a smile "It's all fine now... Let's just get home."

John was quick to order an Uber back to Ringo's, the three of them saying little as they performed the usual ritual of huddling together under a blanket and watching funny videos. It was just the remedy Ringo needed, although he couldn't deny that he missed the presence of a certain someone.

[oops-prow-did-it-again]

Pokémon Black: The Novel (Prologue)

This is a novelization of Pokemon Black, meaning a complete rewrite of the story from start to finish. Follow Hil (Hilbert) as he escapes from his suffocating home life and finds himself clashing with idealistic N over deadly truths. Not everything is as it seems in Unova.

(Cross-posted from FFN & AO3)

This is part of a series I am actively working on known as Pokemon Retold. It is a project in which I intend to novelize each region’s games with a protagonist that I give a unique personality to, as listed below:

HeartGold - Lyra

Omega Ruby - Brendan

Platinum - Dawn

Black - Hilbert (goes by Hil)

Black 2- Nate

Y - Calem

Sun/Ultra Sun - Selene

Sword - Gloria

But that’s not all. These stories won’t just stay written fanfictions. I intend to fully animate this series in the future. I just have to write it all out first since the written stories will determine how the animations play out. :)

That being said, expect LOTS of fanart as I learn how to animate and so forth and I hope you enjoy! 

---------------

Pokemon Black

Prologue - Long Live Team Plasma

The atmosphere was cold and damp. Pristine, stark walls curved high over everyone’s heads in an arch, no true flat ceiling existing in that cavernous throne room. Broad, looming pillars kept that ornate ceiling steady and gave the room an even more elegant feel due to their extravagantly sculpted designs. Gilded blue walkways snaked across flowing water beneath the room. Thick glass connected them and allowed throngs of robed people to walk across the rivulets below. They stared at a raised, wide walkway in the center of the room carefully, each of their eyes hidden in the shadows caused by the silver hoods that swallowed their faces.

Silence gripped the room save for the distant dribbling of water as a group of seven elderly men entered the chambers. One led the pack, looking quite different from the rest, who bore thick, conic robes and tall, cylindrical hats that hid their figures. The leader still had that conic design about his clothing, but the robes did not drag the ground like his colleagues, and they were primarily a deep violet with golden streaks and designs zigzagged throughout. The most prominent of the designs on his cloak appeared to be an eye shape of sorts. He had no hat to speak of. The leader also wore a red eyepiece lined with silver, an angular monocle of sorts, blotting his right eye from view. Cupped gently in his palms as if it were made of precious glass was a gleaming golden crown with white gemstones embedded in its lustrous frame.  

The six men trailing him stopped along the walkway. Three sat precariously near the edge on one side and the other three did the same for the opposite length of the path. The leader continued his path until he reached a glittering chair made in the same shade of gold as the crown. He stood to the chair’s right and swept a red, one-eyed gaze across the gathered crowd. He cleared his throat and addressed them, “Today, Team Plasma enters its next phase of liberation.” The right side of his lips pulled down stubbornly against his words, refusing to budge, as if half of him were fighting his own words. But Marlon knew the much more sinister reason. All of Plasma knew, in fact.

“Long live Team Plasma,” whispered the six men gathered about the walkway in unison. They were the other six of the Seven Sages. World-renowned philosophers, skilled in various other subjects as well, gathered to educate Team Plasma’s members and even more importantly, their future King. It was important that they had some sort of powerful outside influence to inform their future King of the ways of the world, after all; Team Plasma’s future King was sadly forced to live his life within the labyrinthian underground castle. His purpose was one too pure and important to risk by allowing him amongst dangerous average humans and their bladed tongues, capable of twisting the hearts of men into believing untrue, outrageous ideas.

“Our prince has finally come of age,” the leader—Ghetsis, use his name, Marlon thought with a pang of discomfort—came again. His voice was gravelly but not faded or meek by any means. He had a loud, booming air of domination about him, a forceful persistence Marlon had known from no other. His seriousness was not unwarranted, however. Ghetsis went on to say, “Lord N is ready to be crowned as the King of Team Plasma and to lead us in our quest to change Unova for the better!”

Marlon watched curiously as Ghetsis’ robes fluttered at movement beneath them. He, along with most of the other members of Team Plasma present, softly gasped as he revealed his right arm fully, grasping the crown tenderly in the shuddering fingertips, and strained to raise it high above his own head. High above the gathered crowd. Marlon knew he should have been awing at the crown as it was the symbol of their future, but Ghetsis using his bad arm was entrancing in a way.

As the story went, Ghetsis had been mauled by a hydreigon he had fought to tear away from a most frightful trainer. He had described his travel through a path in the wilderness close to Victory Road as nothing short of depressing: trainer after trainer ruthlessly pushing their pokémon to fight anything they spotted. Supposedly the hydreigon had been on the verge of collapse, attacking wild pokémon desperately as if to get the training over with so it could be done. Ghetsis, unable to watch, had stepped in, he had said. The trainer had laughed him away at first and so, of course, Ghetsis battled to try to insist, to change his mind. Ghetsis battled until he no longer had pokémon at his side capable of battle. Then, the hydreigon had descended upon him in a blind fury. Even the pokémon’s own trainer had been petrified at the display and had left his pokémon there, Poké Ball and all, to whatever fate awaited it and Ghetsis. Of course, Ghetsis had survived the encounter, if only narrowly, and the scars of that fateful battle were still readily visible across his arm, his leg, and his face. Ghetsis proudly persevered despite them like they were a symbol of what they would overcome. Never did Ghetsis allow his apparent disabilities to hinder his daily life.

So, to see him holding the crown high above them in such a way, arm trembling and struggling to remain aloft, it was a moving sight to say the least. Marlon was flooded with a burning desire. Team Plasma had found him, wasting his life away in the seaside village of Humilau, five years before and had given him purpose. Reminded of this, he felt a cozy sense of belonging. Life in Humilau had been fun, that was for sure; fishing, surfing along the backs of various visiting marine pokémon, diving, swimming… it was an indulgent, carefree lifestyle, and a very pleasant one at that. He had not realized how poorly he had been spending his life until Team Plasma had arrived. Ghetsis, not yet injured at the time of that visit, had paraded across the boardwalk of the town and spoken softly of the shame in ‘owning’ Pokémon and forcing them to battle for human entertainment. Marlon had only battled sparingly up to that point, much more preferring to fish and swim than train and battle, and was haunted by the idea of whether Ghetsis’ claims were true or not. They had engrossed his then-thirteen-year-old mind with worries about what sort of world lay further in Unova’s mainland cities. He spoke to some more of the adults in his village before making his final decision to join Team Plasma’s ranks and they had all but confirmed his suspicions. The village elders lamented the introduction of the Poké Ball to the Unova region and sighed about how it had warped trainers’ minds into ones of control and manipulation rather than progress and companionship. Battles, they felt, were now about domination instead of bonding.

It was with Team Plasma, with their ideals, that Marlon found purpose. No longer was he wasting away on idle standby, ignorantly living his indulgent life, as the world progressed down a dark path.

“Long live Team Plasma,” chanted the crowd of gathered Team Plasma brethren. Marlon joined in. His voice was soft but not timid. They continued even as Ghetsis started to speak again, sounding like a distant hum.

“Fellow Sages and Servants of the King,” Ghetsis mused as he looked down at the men flanking the walkway down the center of the room. “Please bring forth our King.”

In frighteningly perfect unison, each of the six sages slowly moved to their feet and then filed together in a straight line as if they were designed to. They padded out the room and Ghetsis breathed in deeply, using his left hand to steady his slowly-failing right arm. Marlon looked up at him in hesitant admiration. Despite the story of his heroics, saving the hydreigon and saving their prince—no, King, he reminded himself—and adopting two other girls orphaned by selfish humans, Marlon still eyed Ghetsis with a hint of apprehension. Ghetsis pursued Team Plasma’s goal of liberation doggedly and sometimes, his desperation went a little far. He blinked harshly as he recalled the feeling of that broad, tight hand on his shoulder, gripping with enough force he feared his bones might splinter, and an image flashed in his mind of an imposing figure shadowing him with his height. But Marlon banished the thoughts with a minute shake of his head. Ghetsis could be forceful at times, but Marlon couldn’t blame him. He had seen the devastation wrought by humans firsthand more than many of them had and Marlon supposed he had been an annoying kid anyways. He still had a habit of slipping into the Humilau-inspired slang every now and then and he knew how much that grated everyone’s nerves, not to mention how Ghetsis had warned him that giving away identifying information—such as one’s place of origin—could compromise Team Plasma’s mission.

The crowd fell silent, finally ceasing the hushed chant, when the Sages returned to the walkway. Leading them this time was their soon-to-be King. Pale green hair fluttered and flowed down his back, framing his young, perfect face. His eyes were shut, and the Sages guided him along the straight pathway by holding the lengthy ceremonial garb that he boasted and tugging gently when he began to teeter in any one direction too far. It also kept the beautifully patterned fabric from brushing the floor. They guided him to just in front of the chair—throne, Marlon corrected himself again—and only then did they let go of his robes. They each dipped their heads and offered something in a solemn whisper before returning to their initial positions along the broad walkway.

Ghetsis, standing to attention at the King’s left, dipped his head in a similar fashion toward him. “Lord N,” Ghetsis began with an almost loving purr in his voice, “you have learned all we can teach you to guide you in your path forward. Now, we look to you as our King and as our Hero to shape Unova’s future as a place for pokémon and humans to live separate, perfect lives.” He tried to carefully lower the crown onto N’s bowed head, but his right arm gave way and it half-tumbled out of his hands. N steadied the crown himself, making no note of Ghetsis’ fumble, and then looked up at his father. Marlon felt a bolt of sadness at the display. A pokémon had been driven to madness with the desire to attack Ghetsis over the selfish lust for power from its trainer. That was all it was a reminder of. After taking a second to collect himself, Marlon looked back up at N, who had turned to face the rest of the room.

He shakily breathed in and then raised his right hand nervously. He swallowed hard. “Today, I accept my role as King of Team Plasma and as Unova’s future Hero,” N declared in that delicate tone of his. He sounded so light and gentle compared to Ghetsis but he emanated the same air of determination. “Today, long live Team Plasma!” N’s voice raised as he jutted that hand high into the air, his stormy eyes narrowing knowingly. The rest of the room erupted after him. Chants for Team Plasma reverberated throughout the walls in a way that made it feel as if even when they were gone, the room would continue to exude the words, the words of justice.

But N wasn’t done. He stamped a foot and added with stronger vigor, “Together, friends, we will make a world free of confusion and suffering! A world that is ideal! A world that is black and white!”

[deadlysequence]

Blighters’ Farewell

He just forgot to breathe for a moment, before he starts to feel dizzy and nauseous. His knees weak and trembling, forcing him to sat in the grass and starts to cough violently at the smell of burning wood reaching him.

Never before he felt something like this. The sensation of losing air despite that he take long deep breaths, his heart beating like hammer in his chest, cold sweat in his head, mind like a chaotic storm as he tried to see clearly what just happen. He look around like seeking for an answer but the only thing he got is an empty Leicester Square, all people surrounding the burning theatre as the firefighters try to control the flames. People screaming with desperation, trying to get answers, wanting to take out their trapped loved ones out of the inferno.

But then suddenly he can’t hear them anymore, his heart rising and his chest hurting.

He looks at his shaking hands and only sees blood.

His blood.

And no matter the rain, it doesn’t fade away from his hands.

For the first time in his life as Assassin, Jacob Frye starts to panic and realizing in horror of what he did just.

With wide eyes he look back at the Alhambra, the fire out of control, the burning still in his body, the smell of smoke against the leather of his coat.

The iron taste of the kiss against his lips.

He can’t move from his spot, staring at the theatre and then to his hands again. Feeling the blood soaked kerchief locked in his chest pocket. Then finally he hold his head with both hands and hide it between his knees, wanting to disappear, to fade away or just feel nothing. Jacob closes his eyes and hisses though his teeth.

Maxwell Roth is dead. And Jacob killed him.

 -----

He doesn’t know how he passed out but the next thing he did was opening his eyes and hears the rain still storming around him. Jacob raises his head with a numb feeling in his chest, looking around the still empty square. Then to the Alhambra again.

The fire extinguished, still smoke coming from inside.

Slowly he raises from the grass, all wet and cold, but he can’t even care, not even the fact that surely is now very late night, the streets of the Strand empty as everyone went to sleep, unaware of the empty Assassin standing alone in Leicester Square.

Of all the targets, of all the threats he eliminated to save London, of all the things he did in his life… Jacob starts to feel the feeling of remorse. Guilt. And an excruciating sadness.

He never wanted to kill Roth at the end. No matter if it was for good cause.

The man was dangerous and deadly, out of control and his Blighters only bring pain to everyone. But… he cared for him. He truly did. And the more he thought about that, the more Jacob realizes that it was clear in front of him but never saw it in time.

Maxwell Roth was in love with Jacob Frye.

“A young fellow very dear and near to my heart! Jacob, dear boy. Tonight is for you!”

That words in his mind, everything he told during the faithful performance inside the Alhambra, in front of everyone. Jacob’s heart hurts even more when he start to see that even in such circumstances, Roth never stop to love him.

However Jacob doesn’t regret to go against his wishes and saving the children. But, if only he could had seen that earlier, maybe he could had prevent Roth to do such actions and things could had ended differently. If only Jacob prevented those children to come in into the building before placing the explosives…

A lot of different scenarios crossed his head with lament at the realization that will never happen.

If only he and Roth could had ended differently… taking Starrick together, settling an alliance in between both gangs, the two of them leading into a more… intimate relationship.

Jacob closes his eyes as he let the rain soaking his face, his eyes burning and surely red. He can’t find the will to go back to the train and facing Evie. Facing her and explaining what just happen. Unable to say that he killed the leader of the Blighters without feeling his heart stung.

Suddenly he felt a hand in his back and Jacob snaps out of his thoughts.

In front of him there’s a group of Blighters, some with weapons, others carrying bodies in litters. Each one covered with the Blighter flag. The victims of the fire.

All of them staring at Jacob with empty dazes.

Jacob swallows. He doesn’t feel in shape for a fight against… fifty Blighters as he could count. Not because are too many, but mostly because he doesn’t care anymore. Let them kill him anyway. He murdered their boss and plenty other members.

But they don’t do anything, not even looking at the Rook leader with hatred. They look just… defeated. Like they already assumed that is not worth the losing war.

In silence, they walk next to Jacob, carrying the bodies to the carriages which are waiting for them at the other exit of the square. Like a funeral. Jacob sees them pass also in silence, unable to deciding what to feel for this. After months slaying each one of them, is overwhelming to see them like this. Too much even and wrong.

Suddenly two Blighters carrying another body stops in front of Jacob. It wasn’t hard to realize why as the Rook look at the covered body with wide eyes. They’re carrying Roth’s body. Jacob couldn’t embrace himself for the agonic pain that hits his heart, seeing the body covered with the red flag in front of him. He saw the hand hanging on one side and suddenly the only thing he wanted was to die.

With hesitation, he moves his own hand and holds the other softly, feeling the burned hand against his own skin. Awfully cold.

He tried to speak but only a weak moan comes out of his throat.

Finally the Blighters move again and Roth’s hand moved out of Jacob’s reach who for a moment, want it to be back. But he can’t move at the end, only starting at the group leaving the place, placing the bodies inside the carriages and start to leave one by one.

“Mr. Frye”, a voice called him.

Jacob turns around and sees a Blighter carrying a package in his hands, giving it to Jacob in silence at first. The Assassin holds the package in his hands, unable to say a word. The Blighter could sense his despair, so he spoke.

“It’s a gift. From Mr. Roth for you. We’re no longer active; all of us who served under Mr. Roth’s commander are now dissolved. But the rest of Blighters in London still work for the Templars. Kill all of them if you want, we don’t care anymore. Some will join the Rooks and others leaving the city”, indicates to the package. “There’s a letter for you. Open when you feel is time. Goodnight, Mr. Frye”, and with that, he follow his fellowmen.

In minutes, all the carriages are gone and Jacob there, with the package in his hands and feeling to empty.

  -----

Shortly after arguing with Evie back in the train the next morning and agreeing with working together one last time to take down Starrick, Jacob sat in his chair holding the package in his hands. Carefully he starts to unwraps the papers, finding a note in between. He could recognize the handwriting at this point and again his heart aches. Hold it on his hand and start to read.

My beloved Jacob

In the moment you’ll have this letter; it means that I’m dead. Surely by your hand or for the fire of my dear theatre. And surely you’ll be so confused and thorn about the kiss I gave to you. I need to be honest with you; I’m in love with you. I’ve since the moment I laid my eyes of you.

I wanted to give you freedom, all the things you could ever wish about, forming a life together, liberating London from the Templars.  But at the moment you turn away from me, I realized I couldn’t live without you.

Be free to think whatever you want from me after what happened, but I’m been honest of my feelings. I won’t blame you if you hate me for what I did; this was always my fate. And I’m glad for been killed by you, the person I care and love the most.

And still, if you decide to keep this, accept this gift I planned to give to you after the success of our partnership… the start of something more for us. Use this to shine again, no matter your choices, to kill that bastard of Starrick once for all and prove you can be truly a Master Assassin.

Because despite what just happened, I always believed in you. Even until the end, darling.

I wish you the best of luck for the rest of your life.

Forever yours

Maxwell

PS: I named this outfit Maximum Dracula. I hope you like the detail, dear.

As he places the letter at his side, Jacob end unwrapping the package and found a new outfit. He undressed quickly and starts to use the new one. As he’s done, he walked to the mirror and takes a look.

Jacob holds his breath and how amazing he looked with that, the details of the coat, the long scarf around his waist. It’s so elegant and of course Roth could bring him such a nice gift. Such a man he was at the end, and Jacob appreciates that with a blush at the fond memories they had together.

At the end he can’t hate Roth, after realizing that he also had feelings for him and Jacob accept those.

“Thank you, Roth”, he said with a whisper.

Suddenly a knock on his door and confused because isn’t time yet to start the mission, Jacob open and see Agnes.

“I hope I don’t bother you Mr. Frye but there’s your crow”

Jacob hold stuffed crow in his arms.

Rook. Roth’s pet.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

At the end, Roth was asking the bird about Jacob.

“Thank you, Agnes”, with a weak smile; he left the crow in his desk, admiring the finished work. No matter how disturbing it was, at the end it was a gift from Roth. And Jacob decides to keep it.

“Before I forget”, then Agnes show a letter in her hands. “It came with his. Dunno who left it but it’s for you”

Jacob holds the paper, open and starts to read.

Mr. Frye. We accept defeat with honor. Do us a last favor and get rid of the Templars and the men who still follow them for good. I’m sure Mr. Roth could agree with this.

Kill Starrick!

Good luck.

The Blighters

Now Jacob finally smiles. A farewell gift from Roth, the Blighters accepting defeat and wishing him good luck. No matter how twisted they were, they still hold some honor and emotions. And the Rook leader promised that he’ll make sure.

For London.

For the Brotherhood.

For Evie.

And for Maxwell Roth and he love he feel for him.

“I promise”, he said.

[feministdragon]

educating towards women’s  liberation

https://www.hjallimodel.com

The Hjalli Method (pronounced /hyATly/) was created by a radfem in Iceland, MARGRÉT PÁLA ÓLAFSDÓTTIR. It’s been running  since at least 1992, as far as I can tell, and this video is a presentation made by one member of the school system about how they teach.   

This video is extraordinary not just for its content, but by the way he presents the concepts, which are very difficult for any conventional person to accept, he does it in a non-confrontation and yet firm way. 

I really feel that this system is one way forward for women’s liberation.  It’s incremental to be sure, education is in general incremental in its gains, especially if a system is not wide spread.  However this system is radical in its approach, and changing human beings’ basic expectations of how the world works is the only way forward, to create concrete gains in the social sphere as a whole, that I can see.  Yes, legislation is important, and Discourse is important, and street visibility is important, but education is also a permanent and effective way to change how people think, and we need to consider how we can implement this tool as well. 

I’ve made a transcript of the video, because the sound is poor and he has a non-native-speaker accent and phrasing, and also because I think that everything he’s saying is so damn useful to us as radfems, as a means of explaining our project and aims.   

Because it’s not enough that we hold these ideas, and fighting with trans males on the internet, while useful for developing skills in Discourse, is not going to actually realize any project.  We have to get out there and get radfem practice into the world, and here is one way to start. 

The video:  He starts by apologizing that he didn’t speak Estonian (the conference is taking place at Tallinn University), then said he would use English and keep his comments brief.

“I’m going to present you with an idea, not truth, just a method that we are using, we are not selling snake oil.”

He referred to a previous speaker to say that she mentioned boys didn’t like doing art because they perceived it as ‘too girly’, or ‘gay’.  

“We love to ask questions about why we do things, and we like to question every method that we’re using. “what is the purpose, why are we doing this?”   And one of the things we’re asking ourselves about is what is the roles of girls and boys.  And it is our opinion that boys know that they are boys and girls know that they are girls. The question is, what does it mean, and what are the roles?  Here in Tallinn, people have certain expectations of the roles of women, and men, this I have seen, since i came, so it’s very interesting to present our ideas to you.”

And then he remembers to introduce himself.  “I am Matthias Matthiasson, I work for (can’t hear) an organization in Iceland, which is a 12 year old company which runs kindergartens and elementary schools. 12 kindergartens and 4 gradeschools. Also a combined kindergarten, elementary, music school.    around 400 people in the organization, and about 1800 students.  It uses the Hjalli /hiyatly/ model, the main hallmark of this system is gender segregation in classrooms.  Additional focus is environmental issues, democratic principles, positive discipline and community spirit. 

It is our belief that coeducational schools may deprive children of valuable resources and opportunities.  There is direct discrimination on basis of sex. Boys get the biggest shares of attention, but this is mainly critique, while the girls get praise for being quiet, and well behaving. The girls act in accordance of these expectations of most schools, while the boys do not. Both sexes monopolize certain activities within the classroom, depriving the other sex of being allowed to try out the whole range of activities. Technical interest is the boys domain, while the girls do the traditional creative outlets. Studies have shown that children figure out what is appropriate behavior for their own sex by looking at the opposite sex and doing the opposite behavior. This is what we call “Mirror Tendency” or “Reverse Effect”.  Girls do what boys do NOT do. Boys do what girls do NOT do. So if the girls are good at art, the boys stay away. Additionally, [in conventional schooling] girls are sometimes used to buffer the boys’ behavior.   If the boys are unruly, the teacher says, ‘oh i want to have a lot of girls, because this quiets down, it’s better in the classroom’ I’ve used it myself when I’m teaching.  Just sort of have the girls around to stop the boys from shouting or running around or whatever. And boys are less school-ready than girls at a certain age, and girls and boys are different, whether it’s nature or nurture, this is not something we think about in the Hjalli system.  We don’t care if you’re born with it, you learn it, there IS a difference, and we can see it.  And we have to work with it.  We have to work with the acquired roles, the roles that children think they have, that society has pushed upon them.  

We do NOT believe that gender segregation is the future of our society.  It’s not the goal.  The children of either sex can understandably enjoy each others’ company, but in order for them to utilize everything a school has to offer, gender segregation can be a useful tool.  The children enjoy themselves without bumping into each other, and train in new skills and exercise the whole range of human qualities. They meet everyday to practice good communication and friendship in our schools.  

A very important skill for girls is to learn some ‘me’ thinking.  Most of the time they are very good at the ‘us’ thinking. Thinking about and taking care of the group, they sometimes lose themselves in group thinking.  They care too much about the group, instead of caring about themselves. 

The skills that we try to teach are independence, self-confidence, self-awareness and public expression.  Additionally they exercise positive attitudes, especially related to problem solving: “I can do it”, and to mistakes, we also like to have them, to allow them to be positive toward their own mistakes. “It’s okay to make mistakes, it’s no problem.” Of course, many girls have those qualities, and some boys may lack some of those qualities,  therefore we train the same things in both the girls’ and the boys’ classes.  The only difference is, we put different emphasis on training  when working with either girls or boys.  

As you can see, the girls enjoy in expressing themselves, and this is what we actually implement in our elementary schools, play.  We play, even though we come to the elementary school.  We don’t stop playing in kindergarten. And the boys enjoy themselves as well. In a little bit different way, but they like it as well. 

And sometimes, the girls need a little extra initiative, to step outside their comfort zone. They have a very clear comfort zone, sometimes, they don’t dare to step out of it, so we ask them to.  ‘Come, come, try it out! Try to be cold on the feet!  Feel the water on your feet!’ And they like it, it’s a lot of fun. 

The boys on the other hand need an extra emphasis on social training and thinking.  This is also the basis for our positive discipline training, where they’re trained to show respect, tolerance, helpfulness and manners. additionally we place emphasis on tolerance, broad mindedness, friendship, caring, closeness and love. I said ‘tolerance’ twice, but that’s okay. It’s a very good thing too, to exercise.

And here we have the girls, who are very disciplined. It’s no problem for them, to line up and be very cute. (shows photo of girls lined up for a picture in good lines and standing properly, looking straight at the camera, with wide smiles.  Boys? Little bit different! (shows photo of boys in ragged lines with wild arm gestures, random expressions and looking at all points in the room).  Slightly different! [audience chuckles] But! they are trying, and doing well. And additionally, sometimes they simply have to learn to help each other, (shows a photo of an older boy helping a younger boy to zip his jacket), be friends.  And when we separate [boys and girls] we see the whole range of these qualities. The girls are gone, but the smallest boy in the group can be helped by the biggest boy, no problem! There is no girl to take his place. No girl running in to take the role. The role is open for the taking, and the boys do take them. The boys like to be nice to each other.  Because [the speaker throws up his hands in an elaborate shrug] it’s natural. There is no-one saying it is not a boy’s thing, to be nice. It is! Okay.

And even to feel closeness, and that is very uncomfortable for a boy.  It’s no problem for girls, girls can be very close, but with boys, and I say for myself it’s very hard to have too much closeness to another person. So, we have to help them to acquire it, because it’s a valuable human resource, to be able to be close to another human being.  And therefore we work towards it. 

We use open ended play and learning materials, and in the kindergartens we use clay, crayons and paper among other things. While the elementary schools we have started using iPads for the 10 and 12 year olds, and later we will start having iPads for the younger ages.  The iPad, while being a closed architecture, allows the children to record audio and video clips, to express themselves, and as a learning-assistive tool, it’s very valuable. It also shows them how to be creative in various other ways. 

And we have recently acquired two Macintoshes, which we use in combination with the iPads, making film clips and sound recordings, and so on. But we never go very far from the simple clay, and pencils and paintings. 

The children make their own books.  We have tried to not use stereotypical fixed-frame books, which sort of keep you in a box, where you have to fill in blanks, in a text.   Why not create your own book? Work with your own story?  Do what you like?  And instead of, yes, we follow the natural curriculum, but we ought to use more open methods of learning.  We want to remove the teacher’s desk. This is the teacher, here, she’s sitting on the floor, and in some classrooms, we don’t have any chairs, and no tables.  instead the children work on the floor if needed.  Various positions, it has been shown, help children memorize. So if you only sit down, like this, the whole day, it sort of, people say that it creates a blockage.  so if you stand up, or if you sit down, or if you lie down, it’s much more fun.  And you learn  a lot.  Most of all, it’s an enjoyable experience. And sitting, like you are doing now, for a very long time, well, you know, it’s not very enjoyable.

So, access to the teacher and group work is easier when you get away from the standard  style classroom setting, and this is what we are trying to break up.  

Our creation takes many forms, and the result can be very interesting. This is a play, a shadow play?  When the girls are not around, any behavior is considered okay for the boys. Everything is possible.  So, you CAN paint. No problem, you can create art, because it’s a boy’s thing, you’re in the classroom, you look around, there are only boys.  And what are they doing? They’re creating art, they’re being nice to each other, they are practicing discipline, they’re doing various things that the girls usually monopolize in other situations. 

It’s very important for us, in the Hjalli pedagogy, that the children do the same things in the girls’ or the boys’ classes.  The only difference is that we place more emphasis on certain activities in either classes in order to strengthen the childrens’ abilities.  And it’s also very important for the children to meet every day.  The girls and the boys meet every day for positive activities. They can create art together, they can set up a play, they can show a play to the other group.  They can invite for pancakes, there are various things, fun activities, that we can invite the other group to participate in.   And a study that was made in Iceland actually showed that the children who have been to our kindergartens  and then have gone to regular schools, after ten years, the only thing they retained was positive outlook towards the other gender.  Girls like the boys better, boys like the girls better, who are coming from our schools, for some interesting reason.  I allow you to draw your own conclusions on.

And when the boys are not around to hog the technology, to monopolize it, the girls become very creative. With the iPad for example.   They don’t do the same things, that’s very interesting.  They do not create similar things.  They use different stories, there are different narratives that come from the girls.  But they are theirs, and that is very important.  They own it.  

This is all!  And, I only took 20 minutes!  Thank you very much.”

Facts from the Q&A afterwards:

Q: Hjalli method is only in Iceland?

A: Started in Iceland, but Sweden and Norway also have a few schools that use the Hjalli methods.

Q: Teaching is a woman dominated field, do you encourage men teachers in your system?

A: We only want men who will also sweep the floors, who help to clean up.  If the man is there just to have fun, just to have a free ride, then no, we don’t want them. They are showing a bad role model.  They don’t have to do certain special things, but they have to do all the things. 

Q:  What might be a drawback of this method, what critiques have you received?

A: People say gender segregation is bad, that we’re creating lesbians and gays, also that we’re not creative enough?   

Maybe we could do more things faster? On the creative side?  But about the segregating girls and boys, I’m also a clinical psychologist, there’s no literature that supports the idea the sex segregation is bad.  And also in our 20 years of running this program, we have found no problems with the kids on this.

Q: The skepticism of separating boys and girls is that it creates an exaggerated difference between them.  Can you see difference between your children and children from other schools.

A:  I’m biased of course.  but I find that the girls are more assertive of themselves, and incredibly friendly, our smile is like a work assignment.   Originally gender segregation was about reinforcing gender roles.  So we are not doing that, we’re  doing exactly the same things with each group.  But we try to focus on what the boys may be lacking, we see that boys sometimes don’t work too well as a team, so we try to create that.  And they start working together, and respecting each others’ differences. When they are able to do that, the boys, they are able to respect the girls’ differences as well, because they have sort of sorted within themselves, they have acknowledge, and for example, we are very focussed on bullying, because we are working on creating a friendship group, so when you work with boys, and then send them to the girls, they start liking each other. 

Often in a mixed class, they get an enemy picture of each other.  I remember when I taught mixed classrooms, the girls complaining about the boys, they didn’t like the boys, because the boys were noisy, they asked me to sort of suppress the boys.  The boys were simply expressing themselves, but the girls didn’t like it.  And vice versa.  The boys had no access to the girls’ tight knit groups, which were separate from the boys.   so this is what we’re trying to change, whether we succeed? I don’t know. But we have 20 years of happy children and happy parents. 

[xoruffitup]

BlacKkKlansman: Double Consciousness & Extremist Identities

I saw BlacKkKlansman last night, and I’m still trying to properly breathe around the cold stone it left in my chest. I’ve been thinking about it constantly, and whenever that happens I always feel the need to write some sort of analysis to try to articulate why I’ve reacted so strongly to something. So, here’s my half-baked BlacKkKlansman review.

First things first, I’m white. Of course, that affects the way I view the world and whatever art/media I choose to consume. I fully recognize that my experience and takeaway from this film are likely very different from those of a viewer of color. And sure, I can say that I try to be progressive in how I live my life and I took college courses on race politics and minority marginalization, but at the end of the day, this is a film about black voices and black equality and those are topics I have no right to discourse on. So please, if something I write below seems misguided or uneducated, please let me know so I can self-examine and adjust.

First of all: The simple fact that this movie had such an effect on me as a white viewer. I was in a crowded movie theatre, with an audience of diverse age and race, and never in my life have I felt such a powerful moment of silent, unified shock when the credits started. The ending left every single person speechless. White privilege means that when I read news articles or books about institutionalized racism in our country, I have the option of closing the book, walking away and thinking about something else for a while. Not the case whatsoever with this movie - It didn’t discriminate in its devastating impact. While I’ve read about Black Power ideologies, there’s always an aspect of such movements that are designed not to be fully understood by those outside of it. These are not for me. This seems as intentional as it is justified. Black communities are excluded from so many mainstream ‘white’ narratives or locuses of power, these movements are the sole spaces that belong entirely to them and which they entirely control. They are designed to alienate, the same way these communities are alienated from so much else in society. However, BlacKkKlansman seemed accessible to a multitude of viewpoints and cultural/racial positions. The film does not strive to tell the audience how they should feel, but leaves elements of interpretation up to the viewer by presenting a chorus of voices, rather than a single one; By presenting multifaceted characters experiencing conflicts of identity - Rather than a single protagonist with a single political message. This is certainly not to say that a film is only good if it panders to the understanding of white viewers, but in this case I was impressed by the multiplicity of narratives and perspectives that were portrayed.

What’s so thought-provoking to me about the film was the decision to tell the story from the position of the undecided and conflicted center. By following Ron and Flip’s investigation, we watch each character grapple with the opposite sides of extremism. While Flip has to ingratiate himself with the Klan members who would revile his Jewish heritage, Ron has to spy on his own community at Black Student Union events as they call for war against the police. Both characters must play roles in order to pretend to fit into the groups they look like they should belong to. In Flip’s case, feeling threatened and despised by the Klan’s ideals makes him re-evaluate the meaning of the Jewish identity he never thought much about. For Ron, he feels torn between his loyalty to his people, and to his own hard-sought and prized work as a policeman (an institution equally reviled by Patrice and Klan members). Ron and Flip both wear masks, and their feelings of separation from “their” respective communities makes them each consider the conflicting identities within themselves.

Aptly, Patrice speaks to Ron in one scene about double consciousness. She questions whether it is possible to be both a black woman and American citizen. To her, putting her country first would be a betrayal to her black identity. In juxtaposition, the Klan members dress up their intolerance behind the values of “America first” (I can barely describe the chills that went through me when the Klan members all started chanting it.) Ron’s struggle throughout the film is exactly this - His determination to be both a black man and a police officer. He and Patrice disagree on whether it’s possible to change a corrupt system from within, and the movie leaves ambiguous how much Ron succeeds in this front. It’s crushingly infuriating when, towards the end of the film, Ron is himself detained and beaten by policemen who don’t believe he’s an undercover cop. But shortly thereafter, he enjoys a triumphant entry into the police station where all his white colleagues congratulate his work and embrace him. The scene when he calls David Duke to reveal his identity with his three colleagues giggling on either side of him is downright charming in its camaraderie and gaiety. It looks like acceptance; But tempered by the fact that all his hard work on the investigation was ultimately scrapped in the end. 

These themes of double consciousness and ambiguity permeate the film, and lend to its impactful success. Split-screen parallels are presented between Klan and Black Power movement meetings - Certainly not to equate the two, but to show in stark, unmistakable terms that these are the polar opposite, yet intimately interrelated effects of racism. This is how distantly racism divides our country - And how it leads to beliefs on either side that people will kill for. Towards the climax, a Black Student Union meeting listens to the horrific history of a young black man being brutally lynched, while the Klan members cheer and applaud a scene in Birth Of A Nation depicting the hanging of a black man. Neither side exists without the other to perceive it as a threat - And both stand firm in their respective beliefs that their hatred of the other side is justified. 

Yet, the film wasn’t the story of the Klan, nor of the Black liberation movement - It was the story of the two men caught in the middle, looking for footing on quickly-shrinking ground between the two sides, as their mutual hatred brings the two warring sides to an inevitable conflict. It is the same story of many modern viewers, wondering how in hell we’ve come to the present moment with “Black Lives Matter” on one side and Trump proclaiming “America First” on the other - with not an inch of common ground or even common perception between the two. 

Although I hope most viewers would intuit which side is truly more justified in their grievances, a strength of the film was its balanced, rather than caricatured depiction of the Klan members; Who believe that yes, they live in a racist country - “An anti-white racist country.” The chilling brilliance in the depiction of David Duke was how harmlessly normal he first seems - Cheerfully spouting off phrases like “you’re darn tootin’“ on the phone to Ron and ending the conversation with a chipper “God bless white America!” This is exactly how ideologies of hate become disguised as civilized, mild-mannered “values.” David Duke has given up the flashy title of “Grand Dragon” for the more innocuous “National Director” (or something to that end). The first time he goes undercover, Flip is quickly admonished never to call the Klan “The Klan,” but rather “The Organization.” In a conversation between Ron and one of his superiors at the police station, it’s even discussed how a high-ranking Klansman might have the long-term goal of placing “one of their own” in the White House, after they’ve disguised their intolerance and bigotry under the empirical rationales of policy. It’s one of the most painful moments of the entire film. 

Yet, while Flip has to endure the Klan members’ talk of killing black people, and Ron hears Kwame Ture speak about race wars with inevitability, another stroke of the film’s thoughtful genius is the choice of individual who actually enacts violence - Felix’s utterly apple pie looking housewife. She looks like the plump, harmless woman you wouldn’t want to be in line behind at the grocery store because she’s likely to have fifteen coupons. She is the last person you would expect on sight to leave a bomb at the house of a young black woman. And yet, this is another powerful message: How the vulnerable and susceptible can so easily become radicalized. I certainly don’t have sympathy for her because she’s an adult who made her own decisions; But I’m also aware of the way her Klansman husband manipulated her into becoming what she was, and it’s an extra layer of nuance I appreciated. 

Finally, I’ll wrap this up on a personal, perhaps silly, note. There were multiple layers of this film that really disturbed me, and it’s taken me a good 24 hours to put my finger on this last one: I’m not sure I enjoyed Adam Driver as Flip. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m all over that shoulder gun holster look and he looked 500% finer in flannel than any man has a right to. Also, I’m not sure I would feel this same discomfort if he’d been played by a lesser-caliber actor, or one who I don’t have such an attachment to. But I realized that on an instinctive level, it upset me to see his face under a Klan hood, and to hear him say vile racist comments. Rationally, of course I know that A) He’s acting, and B) Even his character is acting, but Adam’s an utterly convincing actor, playing an undercover detective who’s very good at his job. Maybe both his and Flip’s performances were too good. I asked myself why it didn’t bother me the same way to hear Ron spout racist bullshit on the phone. Part of it is because he isn’t played by an actor I happen to deeply respect and admire, but there’s more to it than that. There’s a passage in the NYT review that got as close to my nebulous discomfort as anything I could express:

"The most shocking thing about Flip's (Adam Driver's undercover detective role) imposture is how easy it seems, how natural he looks and sounds. This unnerving authenticity is partly testament to Mr. Driver's ability to tuck one performance inside another, but it also testifies to a stark and discomforting truth. Maybe not everyone who is white is a racist, but racism is what makes us white.”

Adam’s performance as Flip is discomfiting because it shows how easily a white person can take up the mask of extreme bigotry and intolerance, and how easily they can be perceived as supporting a hate movement, regardless of their true internal ideologies. I know Flip doesn’t mean the things he’s saying, but he’s damn convincing because he looks the part. His whiteness paired with his words - regardless of whether they’re genuine - is powerful and terrible. And racism is what lends him the ability to put on that convincing mask. And if racism is what “makes us white,” Adam as Flip makes me wonder if I could do the same. If, for whatever reason, the situation was such that I had to convince someone I believed in these things... Would I surprise myself by finding that I’m capable of saying things equally terrible? Is this a role that every white person is capable of, at a certain subconscious level, because of systemic racism and implicit biases? 

In conclusion: This movie has fucked up my life. It’s genius and I think I need to see it again. (If I can stomach it...)

[themalhambird]

Richard woke with a pounding headache and every inch of his body feeling stiff and sore. His mouth was dry. He wasn't dressed. Last night was a blur, but he vaguely remembered a nightclub, and then-

Oh, fuck. 

He sat up, pressing the palm of his hand to his forehead. The movement made his head spin and he groaned, feeling nauseous. 

“Um- hey. I thought you might want coffee”

He twisted around to look at the door way, where some guy who’s name he couldn’t remember was hovering with a mug. He was cute. Blonde. Richard gave the best attempt at a friendly smile he could when hung over and regretting all his life decisions up to and including being born. “Um. Thanks...?”

“Bushy.”

“Bushy, right, thanks. Um...”

“I’ll- bring it over.”

“Right.” They avoided eye contact as Richard took the mug and wrapped his hands around it. 

“Weren’t there other people?” Richard blurted out. “I mean-,”

“Yeah, they uh. They left- went home. I, uh, I thought I’d stay. I hope that’s alright, I just wanted...I don’t know, I wasn’t sure that you’d be okay. If you woke up by yourself.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a while,” Richard said, raising the mug to his lips and downing the hot coffee in a series of large gulps. Bushy smiled sympathetically.

“Bad break up or something?”

“Can I get you breakfast?” Richard said, ignoring the question.

“No,uh, I raided your cupboards already. I should be off. I have to get home. I’ve got to get on with some work.”

Work. Richard frowned. “What time is it?”

“Uh...10.30.

“Oh, fuck.” Richard scrambled out of bed, lunging for his towel and wrapping it around himself. “Fuck, fuck, fuck-”

“You okay?”

“I’m late for work by three and a half- my Uncle’s going to string me up from the-” 

“I’ll get out of your way. Um- would you mind, if I left my phone number on your kitchen table? In case you fancy coffee or something. Last night was fun, I’d  like to get to know you better. If you, know, you were interested in being friends.”

Richard hesitated. His instinct was to brush the man off- he was in the middle of wallowing in misery and self pity and getting drunk and getting fucked by strangers and then moving on- he wasn’t in the mood for making new friends and doing something positive with his time right now. On the other hand, Bushy had made him coffee. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, alright. That would be good, thanks.”

“Good luck with your uncle.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need it. I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you.”

Richard flashed a brief smile and vanished in to his bathroom, switching on the shower. He’d intended to be quick, but the warm water hit his head and decided to hell with it. Uncle John was going to kill him anyway, he might as well have a nice shower. If he was going to die, he’d damn well do it with clean hair.

It was gone twelve by the time he made it in to the office; he had three missed calls from Uncle Edmund, ten from Henry, and forty seven from Uncle John, who followed him in to his office and slammed the door. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. 

“I’m sorry.”

“No. Sorry doesn’t cut it, this time. You missed the meeting with Valois.”

Richard froze. “That was this morning?” 

His uncle shook his head in disgust “I don’t understand you,” John said. “You’re twenty one, and you have a position men twice your age would kill for. You are the C.E.O of one of wealthiest, most influential businesses in the country; all you have to do is show up and at least feign an interest, and you can’t even be bothered to do that! More than  a year of work to even get the French to talk to us and you forget the meeting- you’re a spoilt, selfish brat and I’m ashamed of you!” 

“Yeah well, maybe you and Uncle Thomas should start a club.” Richard muttered, wincing as he moved to sit down. “Give me the minuets of the thing with Valois and I’ll look over it. I assume you told them I was ill, I’ll call in a few days and give my apologies in person and-”

“What does Thomas have to do with anything?”

Richard looked up at him. “I’ll give you three guesses,” he said sardonically; John folded his arms. 

“You might give me a clue, first. If the two of you have quarrelled, this is the first I’m hearing about it, and if it’s bad enough to make you this crap at a job you were showing some not inconsiderable promise at up until a few weeks back then I want it sorted.”

“You don’t know.”

“Know what?” John took the seat opposite his nephew’s desk, honestly concerned now. His nephew was looking very young, suddenly, and staring at him with a faint look of guilt in his countenance. “Richard,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can fix it.”

“You don’t understand, you can’t fix it, it’s not something anyone can fix.”

John hesitated. “Richard, um. If this is about your, um, your- ah, your predilection for the, er- the company of other men so to speak- that is, I am aware that you’re-”

“An ‘unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort’?” 

“Gay,” John said firmly. “You don’t hide it nearly as well as you think you do, and while I will admit to not being the most liberal minded individual on the planet you are my nephew and I love you, and I promise that I will do my best to support you. You and your friend Robert are a couple, I think? He seems a nice young man, and if the time ever comes that you feel ready and able to make your relationship public-”

“It’s never going to happen.”

John frowned. “Why?”

“Why? Because Uncle Thomas offered him a quarter of a million to disappear and he took it. About a month ago. I haven’t seen him, or heard from him since and- my uncle has made it very clear that any future relationship of a similar nature will not be tolerated while I am still connected with this family so please, take your loving and supportive bullshit and shove it up your -”

“Don’t finish that sentence, Richard, I'm not too old to put you over my knee and learn you some manners.” John rose, exhaling with a cold, quiet fury as he ran a hand through his greying hair. Thomas had had no right- no right whatsoever- whatever his personal feelings-

A month. That tallied with the beginning of the sudden decline in Richard’s attitude. H was hurting, and Richard dealt with pain badly. When his mother died- 

He wheeled around sharply. “You haven’t taken any-”

“No, uncle, Uncle Edmund’s lecture did it’s job. Scarred me for life. I hadn’t even thought about...” he trailed off. “I’ve been going out drinking,” he admitted, and John nodded. 

“I’m sending Harry home with you tonight, he’s going to keep an eye on you for the next few days.”

“What-uncle, that isn’t-”

“I know it’s not necessary. It’s going to happen anyway. You can have a nice few quiet days at home while I deal with Thomas.” He shook his head. “It shouldn’t have happened, Richard, and I’m sorry it did, truly. I hope you can believe that. You always seemed very happy with Robert.” He sat back down. Richard stared at the desk. 

“I was,” he said. “How did you-?”

“Oh. Edmund went down to Oxford to pay you a surprise visit and saw the two of you kissing outside the Radcliffe Camera, he left you to it. Didn’t tell me until you asked to bring  him home at Christmas as a friend, and only admitted it because I got suspicious when he kept asking me how I liked him. We assumed you’d tell us when you were ready, maybe it would have been better to have had it all out in the open sooner and none of this would have happened. On the other hand-”

“If Robert cared more about having 250,000 in cash than he did about me then maybe it’ s best he’s out of my life?” Richard asked. “I tried telling myself that. It made me feel worse.”

“Go home,” John said gently. “Take the week off and come back in next Wednesday ready to get back down to business. You’ve the potential to make a fine C.E.O Richard, don’t waste it.”

“I thought I was a spoilt, selfish brat.”

“You are a spoilt, selfish brat. And the original Henry Plantagenet-” 

Richard groaned. “Oh God, here we go-”

“The original Henry Plantagenet was a spoilt, selfish brat who thought he was entitled to take possession of a small little trading company just because his granddaddy had said it ought to go to his mother when he was old and senile and do you know what-?”

“He won the case against his uncle Stephen, took control of small little trading company, expanded it and turned it in to the Plantagenet Group, condemning his descendants to hear you repeat the story on a loop over and over. Here's hoping I take more after him than I do after great-grandfather Edward, even if I do have more in common with him- I’d hate to end up getting shot by my wife’ s lover after stumbling across them doing it in my bed because my bed was where I’d been planning to take my boyfriend, who was shot seconds after me. No, a wife who ends up staying in a different house entirely, a bunch of children who hate my guts and the only one who doesn’t nearly destroying this company over shareholders’ rights would be much more preferable.”

“Manners, Richard, learn them- don’t cheek your elders.” he smiled despite himself. Richard smiled back, though it was more just a movement of facial muscles. Now he thought about it, it had been an age since he saw Richard properly smile- he should have realised something was wrong sooner. He supposed he’d just chalked it up to teenage rebellion, like the history of art degree he’d insisted on doing. 

He’d have to watch that. Richard wasn’t a child any longer, he was an adult, albeit a young one. He found the same with Henry- he expected both boys to still be thirteen, fourteen, and they weren’t.

“When can I expect my baby sitter?” Richard asked. 

“Around seven,” John told him. Henry wouldn’t object, when he explained. Richard and nightclubs was a bad combination, and if Henry’s company kept Richard out of them, so much the better for everyone. “Go on, off with you.”

“Thanks.” Richard stood. “I really am sorry about the meeting. Honestly I am. If I’d remembered...”

“It’s done,” John said. In all honesty, it had gone about as well as he’d expected- which was nowhere- but Richard’s absence actually gave them an opening to try again, if he called to apologize for his absence, as he’d suggested. They could discuss it when he got back. Richard slipped out of the office; John exhaled before walking around his desk, picking up the phone and punching in the number for PR. 

“Thomas?” he said, as his brother picked up. “Get up here, right now!”

[bazaarwords]

“This is stupid,” said Mako, feeling stupid. “This is so stupid.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d been roped into an activity at his friends’ request. Wasn’t even the first time he’d worn fishnet stockings. The previous time wasn’t something he’d ever want to relive, but at least he’d been at the bottom of his tenth (or maybe twelfth, he hadn’t been keeping track) shot of hard liquor. He’d been ready then, and more than willing to wrestle on the ill-fitting pair that Opal had divested at some point during the evening.

Wobbling down the frighteningly crowded street, a good five feet behind his friends, he was stone-cold sober. Not only that, but he’d managed to draw the short straw, and found himself as the unwilling designated driver who, one: could not walk in heels, and two: could not drive in heels. No matter how many times Asami assured him that both feats were a cakewalk, Mako figured that, had he been involved in an actual cakewalk, he would have fallen on his ass in much the same fashion as he had when he’d first donned the six-inch deathtraps.

“Can you guys just—“ He stumbled on nothing, barely managing to keep his footing on flat concrete. “Just slow down!”

“Yeah, bro!” Bolin called back, not turning around, not slowing down, doing nary a goddamn thing to help Mako as he tried desperately not to collapse and break every bone in his body. Knowing his brother, Bolin probably hadn’t heard a single word.

Selective listening, Bolin had called it. Being a piece of shit, Mako had replied.

He staggered the last block to their destination, almost running into Opal when they’d finally stopped. She grabbed his shoulder to stabilize him. “You okay there?” she laughed, “You look a little… unstable.”

“I am unstable. I can’t walk in these damn things,” he said, scowling. “How do you do it?”

“Practice,” Opal replied simply. “But I’m only wearing pumps tonight—Asami’s the heel master.”

Mako grunted. “She said it was easy.”

“For her. She’s had the practice,” Opal regarded him calmly. “They do wonders for your calves, though.”

“Great.”

Maybe they did, but Mako was a lot more interested in sitting down for the remainder of the night, kicking the heels off, and setting them on fire. But there was just something about the whole situation that made him think that he might not be finding any semblance of comfort for quite some time. Was it the line of scantily-clad people he was standing in? Maybe. Or perhaps the fact that the only person in their group wearing pants was Bolin? Quite possibly. Maybe it was the glare from Korra’s golden underwear that had him inadvertently staring at her ass every few seconds. A definite maybe.

Everything about the night was uncomfortable. He was groped several times by several different men when they finally got their tickets, walking down a dimly lit corridor. Whether the groping was intentional or not, he wasn’t sure. What he was sure about was that he’d just stumbled into a theatre full of half-naked people.

A man wearing nothing but a skirt grabbed his ass and walked off like it hadn’t happened.

Stupid.

Bolin couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so excited.

Yes there was fake blood in his eye, and the liberal application of hairspray hadn’t worked for long, but his torn leather vest was badass and his fake plastic saxophone was badass and Opal was sitting next to him with no pants on and everything was just badass.

And if things couldn’t get any more badass, Asami emptied a purse full of mini liquor bottles on to Korra’s lap, and Korra (the saint) took the liberty of distributing them to the group. Sans Mako, of course, who was sitting like a grump beside Bolin, arms crossed over his corset.

“Come on bro, lighten up!” he laughed, patting Mako’s arm reassuringly. “Tonight’s gonna be awesome!”

Mako gave him the Mako Look and while looking about as uncomfortable as was humanly possible, he also wasn’t going to ruin Bolin’s good mood. And his mood got even better because Opal gave him a kiss on the cheek, and another one on the lips and someone screamed at the top of their lungs down in front and threw handfuls of candy in the air, some of which Korra caught and passed out.

He was on his fifth peanut butter cup when the lights dimmed, and the entire theatre erupted in screams.

Opal grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him bodily and screaming, and Bolin was not about to let his girlfriend scream louder than him. He howled, wrapping an arm around sulking Mako who allowed Bolin manhandle him until a couple hundred people sang in unison.

Mako was sick and tired of this designated driver shit.

Bolin and Opal were sharing their fifth? Sixth? Mini bottle of rum and Korra and Asami had each downed like, a lot, and Mako had to sit and watch while Korra and Bolin hoisted their respective girlfriends up in the air, yelling the words to a song Mako could barely hear let alone understand.

He was trying to focus on the movie because he definitely didn’t want to be involved in whatever the hell was going on around him, but the four of them kept calling the character they’d dressed him up as an “asshole” every few minutes, so trying to pay attention to the convoluted plot was out of the question.

“My hero!”

Mako blinked at the screen, whipping toward a voice that had appeared to his side. There, in lingerie very similar to his own, was a thin man in a blonde wig and heavy makeup. He blew Mako a kiss.

“There she is!” was Bolin’s enthusiastic reply from behind him. “Come sit with your fiancé, he was getting lonely!”

It seemed that Mako’s voice had ceased to function, but he could still glare at Bolin with every ounce of ire he had left in his body.

At Bolin’s prompting, the man slid in beside Mako and grabbed one of his arms. “The perfect specimen of manhood!” he exclaimed, somehow leaving Mako even more speechless than he’d already been.

It was around the time Korra had hoisted Asami on to her shoulders and taken a lap around the theatre, grunting and yelling and getting a rise out of the entire audience, that Mako gave up entirely. He’d tried to understand the movie, he’d tried to politely decline the man still clinging to his arm, he’d tried to read the program and get involved, but it seemed as if he’d hit that final stage of grief.

He waved his feather boa around in time with the music.

When Mako had finally escaped the theatre, shoving his way through a mass of sweaty, scantily-clad people, he could have wept with joy.

“What happened to your fiancé, Mako?” was Korra’s first question. He turned to see his brother and friends leaning heavily against each other, giggling and having had a much better time than him. “She was beautiful!”

He frowned at her, which only served in making her giggle harder, snorting into Asami’s shoulder.

“Admit it, bro, you had a great time! I saw you flipping that boa around!”

He hadn’t. He had not had a great time. But his friends were in good moods, and even though his heels had sliced up his feet, and none of them were stable enough to help him back to the car—he wasn’t going to ruin the night.

“Sure, Bo. It was a lot of fun.”

They all cheered, crowding around him. Asami threw an arm over his shoulder, not needing as much support as his other friends. “Thanks for coming with us, Mako. I know decadence isn’t really your thing,” she said, patting his shoulder with one hand and supporting her stumbling girlfriend with the other.

Mako shrugged and swerved, narrowly missing a sewer grate. “I wouldn’t let you drive home like this.”

Asami nodded, a strange combination of sageness and drunkenness. She opened her mouth to speak again, but just then, Bolin started wailing the song from the beginning of the film, and it seemed that she had to sing along.

Science fiction, maybe, but a double feature? No. He’d barely survived the one.

If you’ve never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show, look it up, prepárate, and go to a midnight showing near you. Preferably on Halloween.

Thanks for reading!

Read it on AO3 here.

AO3/ko-fi

[castlehead]

[CAPARISON'D]

There is no judgment slightly more than kind Now left that wld apply to this suggestive thing

Artlessly done as it is, but like the Earth is artless, Myself the experience of the Earth I have, or

Rather, am able to communicate; sometimes Nothing more than that, and in those cases feel

I am but shavings of selfhood, not so held fully in A Physical Body, yet not even able to accurately

Imitate reality outside of my a priori orb: I always Fail to bring it back: example is one time I was

Supposed to buy pot for this trip to this dude I used To know's house in Martha's Vineyard but thought

Cops / Were throwing shade where I was even tho Probably like one patrol car had driven past me

Or whatever, somewhere on Columbus on the stoop Of this brownstone out of many -it was an affluent

Neighborhood, a few blocks from my house- and Anyway paranoia got to me before the dealer, whose

Name -which was really probably more like a nickname- Was 'Talon' -yo, man.. it's been so long I'd thought of

That. I remember: I ghosted into the / Better, darker Shade of pregnant shade my room had, the one I used

To hate and love at the same time, and which my irritated             Mother oft wld clean up for me, and which smelt of humiliation,

Like a group of people opening your door and immediately Stepping in dog vomit -I feel indifferent about it as I am older

Now, and it's been two years since I dropped The ball and fell out of a window- I mean / Chicken'd

      Out of getting the Pot.- The monotony is I almost Do get it, every time, stuffing it furiously

Into a fannypack i always lose, bc I must lose, it / Then End up having to purchase more fannypacks: o ugly futility: it is

                                        Like when my gf and I lost our wallets pretty  Sequentially, like, within the space of a week, the way

    We [both of us] lose our minds, certainly, every day: and the spirit of-- Reality? It goes and expires, the schmuck, from exposure in snowy

                 Caverns after my 9th goddamn Fannypack. / It hid so long Within the ear and don’t come out but

        As such, by its knotty refusals, tells me how meaning sounds: Now what’s the story here: these heroes, makars, tune

        Up me, leave me a lyric without an epyllion, an extended Sequence of spongy self-regard that grows in the heart of

These strange routes to find my wallet, yet much like         Exposure to cold climates, mayest I find where

Nestles this goon what who stole my griefy solemness

Took my schedule for my weeping: I must meet   My grief-quota, and pushing myself into my findings

I perform more experiments with beakers and shit   But in vain seem to leave my sanity figuratively burnt

In the corner, ignore her either bc I find her precious Or bc I am neglectful, and usually ignorant 

OF the long-time effect of loosening yr circadian Rhythm, which I guess would be apposite to The rhythm of when it was time to cry in public.

Finagling finesse, or robbing silence Of hours and hours / Of record.

Which one is worse? And are either Productive? And will Vaping give

Me early onset Dementia? I don't want to be A dull boy. I feel like buried beneath the concrete

Built of all great men Looms the rind of the thing,

The res' residue of Gd. That prays away inside all heroes

Like the precious goop inside a jelly Donut, a goop or honey / They seem

To acquire endlessly from caverns of perspective As sound the mechanical counting thuds of heart.

. .  .   .   .     .      .       .        .          .

Of all the spooky diameters these figures tell me To follow till the finish, / These podunk palings

Are the worst. Stretching up the road indeterminately            To someplace / Out of sight and that

The poet is not even sure is actually there. The thing you have done, the court of bees in

My head tell me, While you do not mind a response To this yet you tiptoe / Over that, puts pressure on

The work of a gaggle / Of random bros that can clone Themselves / Sifting into creation like wild atomic dust.

I hear this propounding from the court of bees, Crones lift up the light to me like strange furniture,

Double over under its [wait] weight and drop that Massive coffin of light into the local undrained swamp.

                              In that fabulous mire will yr body sleep; you will always               Harbor / In your chest that detailed yet subtle truth about you nobody

Knws about for certain, the thing you had no choice to Be, that blurs yr eyes, I speak of it you, saith the swarm.

. .  .   .   .     .      .       .        .          .

Honestly, write as speech of moment, yeh: Stuff about / The time passing, your thighmuscles

Clenching as you sit here realizing u clench Yr ass too, and then everything goes

Into this goofy rhythm of tearsdrops of moment And the same your toes, / Some anxiety hoping

To accelerate the past / From you and your palings. Surrounding you, as if to jump you for money-

-Flits the doom that could fit in like I didn't in Highschool; yes I became the cliché misfit as

The spirit’s lull in me, waiting for shitty misfit Carnage to end: I had to welcome it, it was

The life of me, it was either that or liberation From life-entire. Almost dozing off, the security

    Guard in my brain hears a rustling in the bushes. / Try                             To deck out these pithy voices in something

Nice and acceptable, a'saith, said The Bees, and Said the Bees, End up shaking no crown, / Nor did free myself

Of anything for nothing at all but what I did, a crime that Is, of being th the hellish flower flowering out my Lungs, into your basic realm with every breath,

As the voice of the speaker Of the pome seems undecided on who

Is actually speaking, me or you, I'd say The only thing to do is duel it out, poet

And the carnage in my hands, coming In frank whorls of feeling that efface

My sense of balance with its own glee Of shaky grip, which I trust, and I boil

With the energy / Of fifteen Wellbutrin today. I am left here to my work that's called, "To be all

The way true with myself" Which comes From this very domepiece here, you all. That I-

-Can ever be an audience to myself, forever, Is enough of an accomplishment as a poet.

. .  .   .   .     .      .       .        .          .

The writing, tho, is another voice telling me about Myself, knocking on my skull for hollow spots

To take a sledgehammer to. It drifts, I think, / Thru many People, explaining whatever's holy around them: like ticks

Finding weeds by the broken gate That grow in an unnatural sort of way like

        They got sprayed with chemicals Or something, though,

Perhaps the ground is bad, by the broken gate. Where I make my desolate way to work,

                                 Have my desolate work done, or to say, this crime:            I say my continuum: I despoil my ego, sure, but that is not the crime. I-

-Intend the risk, but have in me some coward Pushing back, repeatedly asking me if I'm

Crazy or something: suddenly I am fallen To the breaches of the World, so as to find

My Gd., the one that is the baroque one, And wriggle about as if I was a child on her

First plane ride: my ears hurting popping Cabin pressure and hellish something

Outing my innermost / What if's about The Baby; so it, like conjuring a thesis

Statement, shapes something of all That contradicting Clay into

Something my inner nobody can handle, frail as he is he Lays muted, finally attached to the beauty / Of the flower

. .  .   .   .     .      .       .        .          .

In my lungs. Go inside an Outside place, something says,

Permeating thru a fog of voices, Pieces, The bees they are long gone,

And I am not alone: so: notice Yr location, detail by detail,

The plain sense here is there: My symmetry is more than bothered air:

It is calls to me made by the telephone: I listen patiently to the dialtone as it weeps,

All things then taking on a character of Consciousness. I apply my consciousness

To others, like ravens do maybe. And then It is / Almost done, as is the inching doom:

I should b at this moment receiving Nourishment from feeding Tube, A coma patient suspended in Unbroken sleep, loved ones hoping He'll waken to his will again, Those I love / Doubly forsaken By me who thought he ws. forsaken

By the World.-- This perpetuity is a moody little fate I have in me, It is the location I notice, like you said, you, thru The fog. Happy? Now it won't leave. It is like A mouse i'the wainscot [Dickinson] / Telling me Myself, poet or perhaps the man, or the opening sun Once more to strange and futile dawns since since I do live, and live: so I am: and I have my own

Special clan of becketts picking Sundries from their asses

Soothing my jagged impressions of the World With familiar image, smoothing like a ironing Board; and, they keep policing the fictions on Which rest the reasoning behind my writing Behavior, why I did a song so very long.

. .  .   .   .     .      .       .        .          .

"Old father old artificer Stand me now and ever in good stead." Rough the linens on my deathbed are, and scratchy, It's wool I always hated the texture of when I was A kid: now of course, am a Loathing Regular of All On the internet, / Intent on memes to the last, he was, That's what it'll say on my epitaph. / In all my strength I say, then, or entreaty my messd up life disappear into

The dawn that I think has something wrong With it, it seems like it is kind of off, like People who are confined in boarding houses For the mentally ill. From my screaming Radio I hear someone selling Cadillacs. It Was not midnight. It was not raining. It was The fence that was my crime, outstretched Into stupid distances like a Wyoming of the Dirty cosmos, dirtier than silence cures the Exegete. I profit sentence by sentence, see,

And the Ars Poetica is a way to send a treatment Of the play to The Hollywood. Sentence is a line Robbing my habitat, until I am inside looking in, For the sky stops at the ground, and that is all. The mirror falls, and I must write out savage Things like this, that make up their mind About what they are, interest only

In keeping symmetrical. My soul needs exit From any light, even of lamp, it needs a Hypnotic Like Ambien to trip out on and slump over Dinner with my family later, still fucked up on It. Then something stops, not time, I do Not want it to be anything like time. Perhaps Verbosity: but I do comment

On epiphanies well enough to know the sound OF epiphany, without knowing what exactly The sudden clarity reveals. Did one look at What one saw, or did one see what

One looked at? -Thats me stealing from Hart Crane. Great artists steal because they see

How a style can be improved, so adopt it, make It better. Such sins amass; the Angels sing, O Theft!

Theft! And I go ahead plant a knife enough a knife for some Australian guy to say, "THATS A KNIFE." But not

Enough to charge anybody with anything, then somehow Twist it into a hate crime, duly distracting The Angels

From their liminal matters of blame upon me I am / Not thieving, I am making belated what Came before me, sort of like Mars in retrograde;

The stiff providence of fences and unlimited Bougie refernces atone for my ubiquitous use

OF all the best parts of everything, to make them Better than they were, written by those

Who wore a style like a 18th century noble Wears a musket: protectively. He honors most My steal, sorry, i mean style, who works under it-

-To destroy the teacher, saith Whitman, But that is love: all he didnt have was a hand On the button ol Kimmy J is foaming at the mouth

To push, destruction is abstraction, sure; Destruction here is used loosely for the sake of Serenity of speaking phrases gone away

Like they all went on a family vacation or something. Bleed, and you will summon presence enough To empty yourself for sleep [Faulkner] or make An infidel of abraham and Split the-

-Planets [Melville] and this cosmos is a trunk Of Blanche Dubois fine french furs, I bet you think this is

That, as on I go in a struggle to prove to everyone That I saw God & junk, on that day I got high On SSRIs and grasped for sense only to find it Under the control of something espionage And aloof, darting eyes not like a villain

But like a Paranoid Raven, then dies me as opposed To not: Reversal of some happy bumps in the day To make up for all the spooky ones in the night That hint at me like the first oncomings of ALS And I have not a feature film but hope the grass Is green as well on this margent of further sides Then abrupt belief, to dive in an' conquer or Repel sense back to Plato's Cave, which is a-

-Reference I shouldnt be using as I oh puritanical collector Of souls, well, I havent read Plato at all but i feel like if i did

Id be made another mans satellite, as Emerson, Somewhat in the vein of Blake, says in his introduction

                     To the essay Nature, I think that's the one. So: A hawk crosses the sky like there was some

A to B GPS followment but it is probably just migrating early. Take everyone back to the city. [Ashbery]

FURTHERANCE

[sunshineweb]

How Much is Enough, and A Few Other Questions

Note: I gave this talk to a group of friends working in Silicon Valley during my recent trip to the US. Surprisingly, they liked what I spoke and wanted me to share the transcript, which I am doing today in a deeper and more refined form.

Hi Friends,

Thanks for inviting me to speak to you today. I have nothing intelligent to say. You guys score much higher than me on the IQ charts. And it’ll be for the benefit of us all that I speak less and that you keep your expectations from me low. In fact, very low.

So, given that I have been given the freedom to talk whatever I want to today, I have smartly avoided intelligent stuff because I completely believe in what Mark Twain said and I quote, “It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.”

Instead of talking intelligent stuff around stock market, investing, human behaviour, etc., let me focus on a few important questions I have tried to seek answers to at various stages of my life, and that have helped me tremendously in choosing a path that, when I look back at, I am glad I chose.

The first question that has helped me in defining the course of my life so far is – Who am I?

While I understand that it’s better to devote time to experience the unfolding process of life than to engage in the complexity of understanding ourselves, this has been a question that has played a very important role in helping me define the kind of person I am, where I have come from, and where I would want to go.

When we do not stop to answer the question of “Who am I?” we keep on creating new identities for ourselves, which takes us farther away from our true self. In fact, what I have realized from my limited reading of the scriptures and through personal experiences is that most of our suffering in life is because we are never sure of our true identities.

Like, when it comes to investing, George J.W. Goodman – who used the pen name of Adam Smith – wrote this in his wonderful book The Money Game –

If you don’t know who you are, this [stock market] is an expensive place to find out.

Now, when we do not stop to realize our true selves, we often see life treating us unfairly. Of course, life is unfair. Children die, innocent people get killed in the war of arrogant fools, and we often don’t look as beautiful or are as rich as others. But when we try to answer the “Who am I?” question, we stop looking at life as being unfair just to us and instead accept unfairness as part of our identities. This is because we start seeing ourselves as an insignificant part of the bigger scheme of things that this Universe is. And that thought is truly liberating.

“Life,” Naval Ravikant says, “is a single player game. And so, the only person you must try to better, is the person you were yesterday. The “Who am I?” question has often led me to contemplate whether I am trying to be better than others, or just better than my own version of yesterday. Buffett calls this living with an Inner Scorecard.

The sooner we realize our true capabilities and the sooner we start playing the game with an Inner Scorecard and not based on the fancies of the world, the happier we would be and the better our decision making would become.

Consider this story that Dale Carnegie shared in his book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living of Admiral Robert Peary who…

…startled and thrilled the world by reaching the North Pole with dog sleds in 1909 – a goal that brave men for centuries had suffered and starved and died to attain. Peary himself almost died from cold and starvation; and eight of his toes were frozen so hard they had to be cut off. He was so overwhelmed with disasters that he feared he would go insane. His superior naval officers in Washington were burned up because Peary was getting so much publicity and acclaim. So they accused him of collecting money for scientific expeditions and then “lying around and loafing in the Arctic”. And they probably believed it, because it is almost impossible not to believe what you want to believe. Their determination to humiliate and block Peary was so violent that only a direct order from President McKinley enabled Peary to continue his career in the Arctic.

So, if someone like Admiral Peary who achieved something amazing and praiseworthy can still be criticized, perhaps his story can give us comfort the next time we’re attacked by unjust criticism.

If, in your heart, you know who you really are and what you did was the right thing to do, unjust criticism should be considered and analyzed whether it truly has any merit, but not be given permission to belittle what you are trying to achieve.

Also remember what Carnegie wrote in his book…

…unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment. The more important a dog is, the more satisfaction people get in kicking him.

Thriving in the real world requires the mindset of knowing who you are and working with an Inner Scorecard. It’s not about a religious devotion, but a commitment to the work as opposed to the rewards.

Even if we do everything right, the reaction we receive from others might be that of annoyance, disrespect, and jealousy. If we’re not living with an Inner Scorecard, such a response will crush us.

I’ve seen it happen a hundred times to myself. I’ve done it myself too. And, yet, far too many of us only feel strong enough to pursue our dreams when we have a team of people cheering for us in the background. That’s living with an Outer Scorecard. The problem is obvious. You fall to pieces when people stop cheering you.

You see, the world is indifferent to what we often want. What can go wrong, will. And we will be left with misery and disappointment. But if we can find joy and satisfaction in our work, because we are living with an Inner Scorecard, we don’t need to look anywhere else for happiness but within.

Anyways, the second question that has helped me is – How much do I know?

The answer that has kept me grounded is that I know nothing. In his book, The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning, physicist Marcelo Gleiser writes this –

Consider, then, the sum total of our accumulated knowledge as constituting an island, which I call the Island of Knowledge. A vast ocean surrounds the Island of Knowledge, the unexplored ocean of the unknown, hiding countless tantalizing mysteries.

As the Island of Knowledge grows, so do the shores of our ignorance—the boundary between the known and unknown. Learning more about the world doesn’t lead to a point closer to a final destination — whose existence is nothing but a hopeful assumption anyways — but to more questions and mysteries. The more we know, the more exposed we are to our ignorance, and the more we know to ask.

Dutch philosopher Spinoza suggested that wisdom is seeing things ‘sub specie aeternitatis,’ that is, ‘in view of eternity.’

What I understand of this is that a fundamental principle of wisdom is to have a long-term perspective, to see the big picture, to look beyond the immediate situation. That’s a great advice that has helped me in the pursuit of wisdom and as an investor – to have a long-term perspective, to see the big picture, and to look beyond the immediate situation.

But them, wisdom requires humility. I must start with the assumption that I know nothing, and then I must be teachable.

The third question that has helped me immensely is – How much time do I have to get things done?

In moments of life outside investing, I do things as if there is no tomorrow. That guides me in how much time I spend with my family and kids, how much I strive to learn, and what I want to do with Safal Niveshak.

Starting Safal Niveshak in 2011 was one such decision that I did not want to push to the long term, like when I am forty, but wanted to get on with as soon as I had the essentials in place. Like a desire to do something of my own and an understanding that I possessed some skills to be able to survive, a house of my own, zero liabilities, sufficient finances to take care of my family for two years, and most importantly, my priorities in the right order. And once I started Safal Niveshak, I shifted to the long-term gear.

That applies to how I look at investing too. For me, the most important variable in the compounding formula is “time,” and this is the only thing I realize I have under control.

In fact, one of the reasons I spend less and less time on investing and more on more on more important things in life, like time with family, reading, teaching, and traveling is that I understand that my time with high-quality businesses that I’m invested in will take care of the wealth that I would need to meet my financial goals, and without worrying about the speed at which it is going to come.

When you stop chasing a 26% CAGR, and you are fine with a 20% CAGR, a lot of your anguish disappears as an investor and you can sleep peacefully at night.

Time heals, and time also solves a lot of problems. Investing isn’t such a big deal anyways.

Let me now move to the fourth question that has helped me maintain sanity over the years. And it is – How much is enough? (Oh, what a beautiful question this is!)

After being rejected at a few leading management colleges in India in 2001, I joined a second-rung college in Mumbai (thanks to my “first MBA, then job, then marriage” promise I had made to my to-be wife).

Life was tough, as prior to Mumbai, I had never lived in a city with population more than a few lacs. Plus, to save myself from the guilt of having my father pay a lot of money for the stay in Mumbai and also for buying the books I needed, I stayed in a chawl in Mumbai (the room behind the chair you see below) that my father never came to know about (until recently).

I now realize how important that lesson of prioritizing the use of money was for me, and how important it has come to be for me to answer this question – “How much is enough?” And the answer is – “Not much.”

When I look around, I see people living their lives always running behind time. I see parents who, in the race to move ahead in their careers, have left their children’s childhood behind. I also find people who have ruined their relationships because they were chasing “something” in the future – because it wasn’t enough – while not having time to live and love people around them in the present.

Rushing is rarely worth it, my dear friend. Life is too short to be wasted in the fast lane and is better enjoyed at a leisurely pace. I can vouch for that, from the experience of running in the fast lane during the first eight years of my career and the slow lane during the next seven.

Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher, has listed the trappings of a lot of wealth, stuff like “a golden roof, purple clothes, marble floors.” He has described the life of someone who has been blessed mightily by fate and fortune as having imposing statues, the most brilliant art, teams of servants.

“What does having all these things teach?” Seneca asks. “All you learn from this is how to desire more stuff.”

We are always on the hedonic treadmill, which simply means that as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. Isn’t that ironical?

When we have X, and we think it should be sufficient to live a happy life, we see others having 2x and think that is what would make us happier. And then we raise the bar to 3x, 4x, and 10x.

It goes without saying that this is a path to bankruptcy, personally if not financially. The more you stay on this treadmill, the more it breaks you down. And thus, it pays to get off while you still can.

You do that only when you stop to ask this question – How much is enough?

Anyways, after these questions that have helped me define my life over these years, let me leave you with an important lesson that I wish I had learned earlier in life.

That lesson is that for all the long-term thinking and doing that we indulge in, it’s important to realize that life is exceedingly brief, especially because we don’t know how to use it.

Seneca wrote and I quote –

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.

So, while there’s a huge mass of time ahead of us, it passes much faster than we think. Our kids grow up fast. We get gray hairs before we’re done getting our bearings on life.

You see, it’s ironical that it often takes us a lifetime to learn to live in the moment.

We seem to think that we’ll live forever. We spend time and money as though we’ll always be here. We buy stuff as though it matters and is worth the debt and stress of attachment.

We put off “living happily ever after” for another year, because we assume we have another year. We don’t tell the ones we love how much we love them often enough because we assume there’s always tomorrow.

I have these words from Steve Jobs on a post-it pasted on my work desk – “Remember – You will be dead soon.”

Jobs said this not very far from here, at Stanford University –

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

There’s nothing better that a dumb guy like me could leave you super-intelligent guys with.

Thank you for listening!

The post How Much is Enough, and A Few Other Questions appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

How Much is Enough, and A Few Other Questions published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[mdye]

Up until about a year ago, I worked at a historic site in the South that included an old house and a nearby plantation. My job was to lead tours and tell guests about the people who made plantations possible: the slaves.

The site I worked at most frequently had more than 100 enslaved workers associated with it— 27 people serving the household alone, outnumbering the home's three white residents by a factor of nine. Yet many guests who visited the house and took the tour reacted with hostility to hearing a presentation that focused more on the slaves than on the owners.

The first time it happened, I had just finished a tour of the home. People were filing out of their seats, and one man stayed behind to talk to me. He said, "Listen, I just wanted to say that dragging all this slavery stuff up again is bringing down America."

I started to protest, but he interrupted me. "You didn't know. You're young. But America is the greatest country in the world, and these people out there, they'd do anything to make America less great." He was loud and confusing, and I was 22 years old and he seemed like a million feet tall.

Lots of folks who visit historic sites and plantations don't expect to hear too much about slavery while they're there. Their surprise isn't unjustified: Relatively speaking, the move toward inclusive history in museums is fairly recent, and still underway. And as recent debates over Confederate iconography have shown, as a country we're still working through our response to the horrors of slavery, even a century and a half after the end of the Civil War.

Read Margaret Biser’s answers to your questions from her reddit AMA.

The majority of interactions I had with museum guests were positive, and most visitors I encountered weren't as outwardly angry as that man who confronted me early on. (Though some were. One favorite: a 60-ish guy in a black tank top who, annoyed both at having to wait for a tour and at the fact that the next tour focused on slaves, came back at me with, "Yeah, well, Egyptians enslaved the Israelites, so I guess what goes around comes around!")

Still, I'd often meet visitors who had earnest but deep misunderstandings about the nature of American slavery. These folks were usually, but not always, a little older, and almost invariably white. I was often asked if the slaves there got paid, or (less often) whether they had signed up to work there. You could tell from the questions — and, not less importantly, from the body language — that the people asking were genuinely ignorant of this part of the country's history.

More on race in America

The Confederate flag symbolizes white supremacy — and it always has

Stop waiting for racism to die out with old people

Obama is right. Racism is more than the n-word.

The more overtly negative reactions to hearing about slave history were varied in their levels of subtlety. Sometimes it was as simple as watching a guest's body language go from warm to cold at the mention of slavery in the midst of the historic home tour. I also met guests from all over the country who, by means of suggestive questioning of the "Wouldn't you agree that..." variety, would try to lead me to admit that slavery and slaveholders weren't as bad as they've been made out to be.

On my tours, such moments occurred less frequently if visitors of color were present. Perhaps guests felt more comfortable asking me these questions because I am white, though my African-American coworkers were by no means exempt from such experiences. At any rate, these moments happened often enough that I eventually began writing them down (and, later, tweeting about them).

Taken together, these are the most common misconceptions about American slavery I encountered during my time interpreting history to the public:

1) People think slaveholders "took care" of their slaves out of the goodness of their hearts, rather than out of economic interest

There is a surprisingly prevalent belief out there that slaves' rations and housing were bestowed upon them out of the master's goodwill, rather than handed down as a necessity for their continued labor — and their master's continued profit.

This view was expressed to me often, usually by people asking if the family was "kind" or "benevolent" to their slaves, but at no point was it better encapsulated than by a youngish mom taking the house tour with her 6-year-old daughter a couple of years ago. I had been showing them the inventory to the building, which sets a value on all the high-ticket items in the home, including silver, books, horses, and, of course, actual human people. (Remember that the technical definition of a slave is not just an unpaid worker, but a person considered property.)

For most guests, this is the most emotionally meaningful moment of the tour. I showed the young mother some of the slaves' names and pointed out which people were related to each other. The mom stiffened up, raised her chin, and asked pinchedly, "Did the slaves here appreciate the care they got from their mistress?"

2) People know that field slavery was bad but think household slavery was pretty all right, if not an outright sweet deal

"These were house slaves, so they must have had a pretty all right life, right?" is a phrase I heard again and again. Folks would ask me if members of the enslaved household staff felt "fortunate" that they "got to" sleep in the house or "got to" serve a politically powerful owner.

Relatedly, many guests seemed to think that the only reason to seek liberation from household slavery was if you were being beaten or abused. A large part of the house tours I gave was narratives of men and women who dared to attempt escape from it, and so many museum visitors asked me, in all earnestness and surprise, why those men and women tried to escape: "They lived in a nice house here, and they weren't being beaten. Do we know why they wanted to leave?" These folks were seeing the evil of slavery primarily as a function of the physical environment and the behavior of individual slaveowners, not as inherent to the system itself.

It is worth mentioning that I never, on any tour, said the slaves weren't being beaten -- these visitors simply assumed it. It is also worth mentioning here that the bulk of wanted ads placed in newspapers for fugitive slaves are for house servants, not field workers. Apparently whatever slavery was like in the big house, people were willing to risk their lives to get away from it.

3) People think slavery and poverty are interchangeable

Sometimes in the course of a conversation, guests I spoke with would remark that while being a field slave was indeed difficult, on the whole it was hardly worse than being a humble farmer living off the land. Folks have not always been taught that slavery was much more than just difficult labor: It was violence, assault, family separation, fear.

One important branch of this phenomenon was guests huffily bringing up every disadvantaged group of white people under the sun — the Irish, the Polish, the Jews, indentured servants, regular servants, poor people, white women, Baptists, Catholics, modern-day wage workers, whomever — and say something like, "Well, you know they had it almost as bad as/just as bad as/much worse than slaves did." Within the context of a tour or other interpretation, this behavior had the effect of temporarily pulling sympathy and focus away from African Americans and putting it on whites.

The most extreme example of this occurred in my very last week of work. A gentleman came in to view our replica slave quarter and, upon learning how crowded it was, said, "Well, I've seen taverns where five or six guys had to share a bed!" — thus adding "tavern-goers" to the list of white people who supposedly had it just as bad as slaves.

4) People don't understand how prejudice influenced slaveholders' actions beyond mere economic interest

I was occasionally asked what motivation slaveholders would have had for beating, starving, or otherwise maltreating enslaved workers. This was often phrased as, "If you think about it economically, they don't work as hard if you don't feed 'em!" (The frequent use of the general "you" in this formulation is significant, because it assumes that the archetypal listener is a potential slaveholder —i.e., that the archetypal listener is white.)

Sometimes this question was asked sincerely; at other times the asker was using it to suggest that stories of abuse, suffering, and exploitation under slavery were just outliers or exaggerations.

What this perspective fails to take into account is the racist beliefs that made cruelty to slaves seem ethically permissible. Slaveowners told each other that black workers were stronger than white ones and thus didn't require as much food or rest. They also told each other that black Americans had a higher pain tolerance — literal thick skin — and that therefore physical punishments could be employed with less restraint.

Such beliefs also helped slaveowners feel confident dismissing complaints from enslaved workers as ungrateful whining.

5) People think "loyalty" is a fair term to apply to people held in bondage

One of the few times I actually felt scared of a guest was during a crowded tour a couple of years ago. I was describing a typical dining room service: the table packed with wealthy and influential couples from the surrounding town, and, in the corners of the room, enslaved waiting men watching and serving but unable to speak. The tour was so crowded that not everyone could fit into the room, and a few tourists were listening from the hallway.

As soon as I finished my sentence about the slaves, an expressionless voice behind me intoned, "Were they loyal?" I turned around, and saw a man resting his arms on either side of the door frame behind me, blocking the exit. He looked like he was about to slap me.

I asked him why he would ask that. "They gave 'em food. Gave 'em a place to live," he said. He was just staring into the room, blank in the eyes.

"I think most people would act ‘loyal' to a person who could shoot them for leaving," I said. He and his adult sons keep their arms crossed as they stared at me for the rest of the tour, and I tried to stay toward the middle of the group.

All the misconceptions discussed here serve to prop up one overarching and incorrect belief: that slavery wasn't really all that bad. And if even slavery was supposedly benign, then how bad can the struggles faced by modern day people of color really be?

Why these misconceptions are so prevalent is a fair question. Sometimes guests were just repeating ideas they'd heard in school or from family. They were only somewhat invested in those ideas personally, and they were open to hearing new perspectives (especially when backed up by historical data).

In many other cases, however, justifications of slavery seemed primarily like an attempt by white Americans to avoid feelings of guilt for the past. After all, for many people, beliefs about one's origins reflect one's beliefs about oneself. We don't want our ancestors to have done bad things because we don't want to think of ourselves as being bad people. These slavery apologists were less invested in defending slavery per se than in defending slaveowners, and they weren't defending slaveowners so much as themselves.

Other visitors seemed to find part of their identity in a sense of class victimhood, and they were unwilling to share the sympathy and attention of victimhood with black Americans. As Frank Guan pointed out in the New Republic, explicitness of racism tends to be inversely proportional to social class. Guests who expressed racism most openly to me often appeared to have had recent ancestors who were poor, who were prevented by convention and economics from rising in social status, and who were exploited by the powerful — but who were protected by their whiteness from the extreme oppression visited on African Americans. Regardless of their current wealth level or social status, they still felt that the deck had been stacked against them for generations. Their sense of ancestral victimhood was so personal that the suggestion that any group of people had it worse than their ancestors did was a threat to their sense of self.

And maybe some of these guests were just looking for somewhere to place their anger at their problems, their sense of powerlessness, and their discomfort at social change. They found a scapegoat in black America. I imagine that's what motivated Charleston shooter Dylann Roof, the Unite the Right movement, and others — that feeling of being aggrieved, and wanting someone to blame for it.

Regardless of why they were espoused, all the misconceptions discussed here lead to the same result: the assertion that slavery wasn't really all that bad ("as long as you had a godly master," as one guest put it). And if slavery itself was benign — slavery, a word which in most parlances is a shorthand for unjust hardship and suffering — if even slavery itself was all right, then how bad can the struggles faced by modern-day African Americans really be? Why feel bad for those who complain about racist systems today? The minimization of the unjustness and horror of slavery does more than simply keep the bad feelings of guilt, jealousy, or anger away: It liberates the denier from social responsibility to slaves' descendants.

The question of how to improve this state of affairs is gigantic, and better heads than mine have already said much about it. The tough thing is that racism comes more from the gut than from the mind: You can prove slavery was bad six ways from Sunday, but people can still choose to believe otherwise if they want. Addressing racism isn't just about correcting erroneous beliefs — it's about making people see the humanity in others. We need better education that demonstrates the complexity and dignity of all people; continued efforts from community organizations and faith communities to give justice its due; and better media portraying people of color as people, not caricatures or symbols. Art, public school, faith, entertainment — these are voices that address the subconscious, voices we absorb silently without even noticing. None of these is a complete solution, of course — they are all oblique routes to building compassion.

It's certainly not a bad idea for white Americans to take time to consider the ways in which we may personally have been complicit in oppression, but blame and guilt aren't really the point of telling the histories of enslaved people. The point is to honor those whose tales have not been told.

On the very small scale of leading historic house tours, what helped me combat ahistorical statements was to establish trust and rapport with guests from the get-go. For me, gentleness was key: It created an environment in which people were willing to hear new views and felt less nervous asking questions. For example, guests — especially older folks — used to ask me all the time whether the people who owned the house were "good slaveowners." I would say, "Well, that's an interesting question," and suggest a couple of reasons why even the phrase good slaveowner itself is troubling. They'd nod and look reflective. We were already friends, so they didn't feel attacked by the correction. Then again, maybe they only believed me because they trusted a fellow white person as an unbiased source. And making a personal connection isn't a foolproof way to diffuse racism, as the shooting in Charleston shows: Roof felt so welcomed by the members of Emanuel AME Church that he considered not killing any of them, yet ultimately he went through with his plan.

An older colleague once reminded me to "talk to people, not at them." It's a small piece of advice. But day by day as I was face to face with strangers, challenging their deeply held beliefs on race, it helped.

Margaret Biser gave educational tours and presentations at a historic site for more than six years. Read more stories of her experiences on Twitter @AfAmHistFail.

First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

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The brave agents of the US Secret Service protect the President with their lives, boldly taking bullets, investigating death threats, all the while never once removing their cool sunglasses or smiling in utter glee. Talk about hardcore! But in truth, they’re just human beings, regular employees like any one of us. They just happen to carry really big guns and get insight into the private lives of very public figures.  Here are some of the more interesting and captivating stories surrounding the Secret Service.

#1 Abraham Lincoln Created the Secret Service Hours Before He Was Shot Allegedly, Lincoln had personal omens pointing to his assassination, so it really sucks that he only managed to create the Secret Service on the same day he would later die. Lincoln’s actions, however, were not motivated by paranoia.  Rather, he created the Secret Service Division on April 14, 1865 in order to stop counterfeiting operations.  The legislation was literally on Lincoln’s desk and ready to be put into action. Of course, even if the Secret Service had existed beforehand, it couldn’t have done much to prevent the assassination.  There were only a few other federal agencies in action at the time: the US Park Police, Post Office, and the US Marshals. None of these organizations had the manpower to protect the President, so there was no reason to think the Secret Service would either. In those days, Presidents fought off their would-be attackers with a big stick. Even though Lincoln notoriously died from the bullet of an assassin, it would still take another 30+ years, and two more murdered Presidents (James Garfield and William McKinley), for the Government to finally realize “Oh crap, there really are people out there who want to kill the President.” By the time the Secret Service officially became a protection unit in 1908, the President was finally in safe hands.

#2 The Confederacy had a Secret Service Before the Union Did Ironically, the Secret Service of the Confederate States of America was probably far more prepared than the soon-to-be-born US version. During the Civil War, there were a number of secret operations going on, many of which were beyond official warfare.  Yes, there was a Cold War and a Civil War going on at the same time. This was necessary from the Confederates’ point of view, since they were outnumbered, out-gunned, and out-resourced in every way. What their operations consisted of, we don’t know. By the time the war was all but lost, the Confederacy destroyed all the paperwork covering their clandestine operations. Whatever inventive strategies they cooked up, they apparently didn’t work too well. Mission to subvert the union through chicanery and espionage: totally failed.

#3 They Created the FBI For all we know, magicians, dragons, and UFOs are 100% real. However, because there was no FBI, and thus no X-Files Unit, until the 1930’s, nobody can ever know for sure. What happened was, the US Department of Justice hired the Secret Service to conduct nationwide investigations beyond the reach of state officials. This led to the official formation of the Bureau of Investigation, which later became the FBI, or the “FEDS” as conspiracy theorists like to call them. Moreover, both of these organizations have to give thanks to the National Bureau of Criminal Identification, which helped federalize the search for state-swapping criminals.

#4 Only One Secret Service Member Has Ever Died on Duty You might think that hundreds, possibly thousands of Secret Service agents have died while performing their highly-dangerous duties. However, despite the many assassination attempts that have happened throughout the years, only one agent ever died on the job.  His name was Leslie Coffelt, and he died protecting President Harry Truman on November 1, 1950. Two Puerto Rican extremists invaded Truman’s location (away from the White House while it was under renovation) and tried to shoot him. Coffelt returned fire, but died from his injuries. Unfortunately for Coffelt, Truman felt more pity toward the murderers than the murdered. After the assassination attempt, he commuted the death sentence of the surviving attacker to life in prison. Not even that happened though, as he was later released to return to Puerto Rico. The only person screwed royally here was poor, dead Leslie Coffelt. No wonder the Secret Service continues to pay tribute to the courageous young fellow.

#5 The Secret Service is Not Obligated to Report a Philandering Husband It must be awkward, those conversations between Secret Service men and the President about to get his freak on with some mistress. Ex-Secret Service agents have stated that JFK’s aides would sneak women into the White House for sexual affairs, and that the Secret Service knew about it. In fact, the brave and non-judgmental agents watching Jackie would report back to the President saying Mrs. Kennedy was coming home, so he better hide the toys. Lyndon Johnson, meanwhile, was spoken of even less favorably by the agents, who described him as “uncouth”. The ex-agents interviewed by author Raymond Kessler stated that Lyndon Johnson became incensed at the Secret Service after getting caught red-handed by his wife, and blamed them for not warning him in advance. Johnson got over it, but insisted that the Secret Service make it up to him by installing a buzzer system so that he could always be warned if his wife was approaching.

#6 Clint Hill Was a Real-Life Action Hero Long before Sly Stallone and Jackie Chan were doing their own stunts, Secret Service agent Clint Hill was jumping onto moving cars and guarding the President with his body. He was even a reality TV celebrity of the worst variety, if you count the notorious Zapruder film. He was the man famously seen running from the car behind a wounded John F. Kennedy and leaping onto the back of it. After the shooting, Hill jumped out of his car riding and boarded Kennedy’s, guiding the First Lady back to her seat and placing his body above her and the President, ready to take another bullet. To this day, the Secret Service expresses shame about their failure to protect JFK’s life, but they always speak highly of Clint Hill’s quick thinking and bravery. Hill, however, is much less proud, and never forgave himself for allowing the President to die.

#7 Ronald Reagan Packed as Much Heat as His Agents Ronald Reagan’s not a liberal favorite, but conservatives continue to adore his memory, in no small part because the man was a regular Dirty Harry when it came to protecting himself. Secret Service agents have said that Reagan once came out of his room, in front of the Secret Service, with a pistol tucked on his hip. When asked about it, Reagan said, “In case you boys can’t get the job done, I can help.” Perhaps Reagan watched the film of his own attempted assassination once or twice, and decided that no matter what, there would be no sequel. The Secret Service even admitted that Reagan carried a pistol when he first met Mikhail Gorbachev. And despite the notoriety of the NRA, Reagan was a proud member.  Yes, Reagan was strongly in favor of the Brady Bill and the seven-day waiting period for new gun purchases. That didn’t make him any less of a badass. It just made him a responsible one.

#8 The Secret Service Still Investigates Counterfeiters Yes, all these years later, the Secret Service is still active in federal investigations, including its original mission: investigating fraud and counterfeiting.  The protection of the President is simply one additional job the organization takes on. So even though Presidents constantly harass the Secret Service and make them install wife-alarms and what not, these guys are actually doing us a lot of good. They execute stings against malicious hackers and handle cases involving forgeries of American checks and wire fraud. They also very actively combat that whole Nigerian Prince scam thing, because some folks actually continue to fall for them. Americans lose over $100 million per year by sending their financial information to Sir Baldour Dogooder III or whatever they call themselves these days. It’s such a big problem the Secret Service has actually set up a headquarters in Nigeria, to help combat the cyber-crime right at the source.

#9 They Protected Obama for 18 Months Prior to Election Barack Obama knows he and George W. Bush are notoriously unpopular, which is probably why Obama reversed a 1994 Congress ruling that said Presidents elected after 1997 would only receive ten years of protection after relinquishing their post. This would have made Obama and Bush the ONLY Presidents in history that didn’t have lifetime Secret Service protection. It was also a smart move by Obama to accept the Secret Service’s offer of protection a year and a half before Election Day 2008 — the earliest bout of protection for any candidate in history. Not only did it help keep away all the racist, MURCA-loving, would-be assassins who wanted him dead, but it also made him seem like the odds-on favorite to win the election. No wonder Bush is so chummy with Obama. The man literally saved W’s behind by reinstating lifetime Secret Service protection for him too.

#10 A Bunch of Secret Service Agents Had Their Own Sexy Entourage Perhaps taking a few life lessons from philanderer Lyndon Johnson, some good old boys from the Secret Service became embroiled in their own sex scandal in 2012. According to the dismissed agents, the Secret Service has long “tolerated loose guidelines” as long as these quickie relationships (many of which were adulterous) ended whenever the agency left the city. Once exposed, the scandal resulted in rumors of a “Secret Circus”, a group of wild and horny Secret Service agents that would come into town looking for easy fun. Relationships were broke, agents were fired, and the old “I didn’t know she was a prostitute!” excuse was repeated often. The dismissed agents’ sexual dalliances are on record but, to this day, the Secret Service denies everything, claiming they do not tolerate anything “unbecoming of a Secret Service employee.” Perhaps they should though. Maybe if guys like these were in charge of handling Johnson’s needs, maybe he wouldn’t have been so damn cranky.

Source: TopTenz