#extreme minimalism

[uptodatehome]

Embracing Extreme Minimalism: A Practical Guide to the Minimalist Lifestyle

In a world overflowing with stuff, have you ever wondered how you can simplify your life? If so, you might be curious about extreme minimalism. This lifestyle isn’t just about getting rid of clutter; it’s about making room for what truly matters. So, let’s dive into the world of minimalism extreme and explore how it can transform your life! What Is Extreme Minimalism? Extreme minimalism takes…

[maycnly]

[vaspider]

I just saw someone say, "I'm a convert, so I'm technically Jewish," and it made me want to scream and cry.

Converts - adoptees (the term my rabbi uses and I prefer) - you are exactly, precisely, as Jewish as any other Jew. It is halachically forbidden to distinguish between converts and any other Jews. Your soul is a Jewish soul. Period. You're not even supposed to ask if someone's a convert or not. It doesn't matter. You're Jewish.

And if you won't stop minimizing your Jewishness for your own sake, do it for every other convert who deserves not to have their Jewishness minimized or qualified.

Please.

[wildspiritlife]

Embracing Extreme Minimalism: Finding Freedom in Simplicity

In a world that often promotes excess and consumerism, the idea of extreme minimalism may seem radical. However, at its core, extreme minimalism is about intentionally simplifying our lives, shedding unnecessary possessions, and focusing on what truly matters. Embracing extreme minimalism can lead to a more intentional, fulfilling, and liberated existence. In this blog post, we will delve into…

[thehappyvet]

Where do people get this misconception that every single wildlife case at a vet clinic is euthanased so it's better to not take them in even if they're obviously hurt or sick and in need of treatment?!?!

Friendly reminder that a member of the public should not be able to easily pick up or catch a wild animal. We are not in a disney movie. If you can pick it up*, 80% of the time its extremely hurt or sick.

Wildlife, and most animals for that matter, do not show pain as humans do. That does not mean they are not in pain and suffering.

Veterinarians only euthanase wild animals that are suffering from extreme injury or illness, or animals that would stress themselves to death in a hospital setting that cannot be released and survive in the wild with their issue.

We do euthanase some animals, but that's because it's the best welfare decision for that animal and its specific problem.

Maybe trust the professionals trained in providing treatment to animals instead of some Karen on Facebook who demonises vets because she can't understand a bird with multiple wing and shoulder fractures is very unlikely to regain flight and return to the wild and her plan of keeping it means it will live a life of chronic pain and suffering.

*Disclaimer: If you live in a country where diseases such as rabies are endemic, you should not handle wildlife at all if you are not trained or vaccinated. This post is not recommending members of the public handle wildlife in any country.

[wardingshout]

I'm also having a lot of fun with this game!!

[faggotry-enjoyer]

yknow what i think it's pretty fucked up that my instinctual reaction to hearing any mention of the holocaust is to brace myself for antisemitic talking points. in discussion about a jewish genocide.

holocaust inversion, universalization, minimalization, and denial are inexcusable in any context, and the fact that they've become this common is appalling on every level.

[hedgehogofspades]

I wanted them to kiss

[idiotsonlyevent]

it's interesting that episode 3 shows turbo granny is kind of a hypocrite? she says she hates cheaters, but immediately cheats (by human standards) in the game of tag. it's speculated that she consoled the spirits of assaulted and murdered girls, but she herself assaults okarun and calls seiko and momo "hag," "bitch," and "skank" constantly. i think it's really indicative(?) that one of the last things she says before she fuses with the bound spirit is this:

but ultimately, momo is able to outsmart her using a combination of her grandmother's - also an elder - wisdom and modern technology.

still working on how to interpret this and fit it into what dandadan is saying. the easiest/most obvious would be something like 'you don't have to respect your elders if they disrespect you,' which is a sentiment that is applicable to future arcs as well i feel, but i do think there's more to it than that.

[hellofastudysession]

am i rlly going to write a death note literary analysis when i could be doing other things

about the discourse going on in the tag abt "death note is acab and thats why the characters couldnt better the world with the note (/written in somewhat jokey matter)" vs "death note is trying to say we all have potential for evil, especially if you get a chance to insta-hurt ppl without repercussions, and it doesnt matter if youre a cop or not", i personally feel like it ignores the things that i like abt death note, which is "both of these things are true", and simultaneously "both of these things do not matter". the first part of this is dedicated to the first point, the latter to the last.

first point. i think its an important part of the message and themes (unintentional or not, and i lean on the former because... come on, can you really say the author intended you to not think of the cops as good people, at least compared to light and l) that light is a cops son, and that almost everyone who gets the death note is cop adjacent/thinks like a cop and is already corrupt/powerful when they get it (mello raised to think hed be just like l, yotsuba group is self explanatory; you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me teru "churchill" mikami, who was hand selected by light out of a bunch of rabid kira supporters, is a normal citizen). i appreciated the cop post bc its rlly important to not gloss over that aspect.

all of this would be an argument for "only someone like them would do something like this, and i am not like them, so im above them and immune to thinking about what id do with it", but... misa is the MOST important outlier in all of this bc her murders are solely selfish in nature and shes not doing any of this for "the greater good"!!! her nature of being an exception and still a very very bad person is really really important...

or it would be if death note gave a shit about her character at all!!! im not talking about her tragic side, im talking about exploring the ramifications of her killing people the way lights murders are (somewhat) explored. that would strengthen the message greatly! but shes dismissed and that weakens it overall. firstly, she's dismissed by the characters when l only sees her as a way to get to kira and basically shelves her the rest of the time. secondly, shes dismissed by the narrative when her character is gradually ground down to a stump and (not to sound perilously close to the bad takes ppl meme about) she never faces repercussions for her actions. every other character using the death note is treated relatively seriously, but misa just dies bc her love is dead. im not saying this isnt a... fitting punishment or that it isnt in character, but it doesnt fit snugly into the theme other people are talking about of "you reap what you sow" at all.

we do have something of an equivalent to misa's grayscale motives. surprise surprise, its light yagami. first is light's characterization in the musical (i will also note that misa never kills anyone in the musical). light's thinking is coplike, yes — he literally starts his first song by talking about "throw[ing] away the key" — but also, oddly enough, could be read as progressive and therefore sympathetic to tumblr ("let the corporations make the regulations / and hold no one accountable when everything gets wrong / let the rich and famous get away with murder / every time a high-priced mouthpiece starts to talk, his client gets to walk"). compare to the anime and manga, where his bigotry and pride and disgust come from a place of lukewarm dissatisfaction and boredom. the musical has much less time to play around with lights character, so it gives the audience something to immediately hook on. more on how that actually plays out later.

in the animanga, none of this is justified from the start. animanga light could say he was just killing people to make humanity way, way worse, and that wouldnt matter, because at the root of it, it was always his boredom that made him pick up the note. of course he actually believes in justice and believes hes doing the right thing (no, he believes he's doing the wrong thing, for the sake of the world... the right thing, because he is god...), but it was boredom at the start. all animanga light says about justice and righteousness and the law is a front in the end, bc he is exactly like l and misa — amoral. selfish. searching for entertainment. hedonistic. we know this. he kills naomi misora*. he kills lind l. turner. everything hes saying deserves to be dismissed from the beginning.

"but doesnt that mean you agree with the discourse post you wrote this post to argue against?" like i said, i agree with both of them! but i... still think its not right to reduce death note to the message of "the power to kill people is bad". because that is not exactly what the story is saying, even though that's literally its whole plot and therefore reaching that conclusion is self explanatory (lmao). let's look at the concept of mu. nothingness. "there's no heaven or hell". The Real Slay The Princess (Death Note Essay) Starts Here.

in light's final moments in the death note manga, while screaming about not wanting to die, he remembers that the first day they met, ryuk told light that "there's no heaven or hell. no matter what they do in life, all people go to the same place. all humans are equal in death". it is retroactively revealed that light knew this the whole time, operated under this knowledge for all the years we watched him — the knowledge that nothing he does is actually bad, that nothing any human does is actually bad, that shinigami are not "evil", that the universe does not care. that no one cares except humans. this oblivion absolutely terrifies him more than anything anyone could ever do to him. its what he thinks of before anything else as he flails there, screaming, dying. one could say everything he does after that day is him trying to escape that fact, or wrest control over it. but it doesnt work.

here are the lyrics of requiem, the musical's final song, sung over the bodies of l and musical light, a light who was at least somewhat good-intentioned at first: "sleep now, here among your choices / then fade away / hear how the world rejoices / shades of gray / gone who was right or wrong / who was weak or strong / nothing left to learn". this is the final message the death note musical and the manga chose to leave us with. there is no judgement. even after all that acknowledged hurt, after all the damage done, there is no judgement.

in the manga and anime alike, the world is just as fucked when light picks up the death note as when he dies. sure, we as readers can guess otherwise logically (and be optimistic, believing the world was never fucked regardless), but that's not what death note wants you to think. it ends with matsuda and another member of the task force noting how the world is worse again even though they killed kira (matsuda is clearly much worse for wear, but still determined), we see the shitty motorcycle band again, it ends with misa and a whole kira cult on a mountain even though kira died a long time ago...

its extremely important that light is never killed by any human or any aspect of the law. he is always killed by ryuk: a chaotic force completely detached from human sensibilities, one that does not care about good and evil. same with l; in the anime, manga, and musical, he is always killed by rems senseless, morally gray love (and you could argue in the kdrama that hes killed by love there too lol). justice is just a set dressing.

this is not just because death note is a tragedy, because good and evil can still matter in a tragedy. the theme of "nothingness" and "good and evil doesnt matter here" is also shown in a situation relatively unrelated to light winning or losing, or being good or bad. and its in fucking lawlight of all things. we all know ls not a good person. we know lights not a good person. this is tip of the iceberg death note knowledge. but the moment they start to interact, none of that starts to matter. textually, their relationship becomes more important than the people theyve killed and hurt. and the thing is? the thing is? THAT WORKS STORY-WISE. THAT'S ENTERTAINING. AND IT'S NEVER TEXTUALLY CALLED OUT IN A LASTING WAY. l and lights relationship, no matter how much i meme it, is genuinely important to the themes and "mu" because it makes it clear that despite all the pretensions, despite everything, this was never about good and evil. and it still works in the story. this is why death note is simultaneously a comedy — isn't the battle of good and evil supposed to matter more? well, fine, i'll keep watching this anyway. that suspension of disbelief comes crashing down the moment l dies, though, and a relationship built on nothingness (the "mu" sort, meaninglessness, not "character development" nothingness, theres plenty of character development) gives way to just nothingness (again, "mu", not light's post-l depression nothingness), forever.

(an aside: there is no one to root for in death note, and the only things to root for are either interesting character relationships, convoluted plots, or complete and total destruction: for everything to end so no more damage is done.)

not to say that death note does not encourage its readers to consider what damage they might do with the death note (obviously.), or that its characters never do. look at matsuda, a much easier heroic figure to latch on to than soichiro because of his unique place in the cast dynamic and because he's willing to consider both sides of the situation and kill light instantly for all he's done. its just that the story's own stance on the subject is... complicated by the existence of shinigami worldviews and by its own insistence that the world cannot change for the better.

also, this is not to say that this is executed well by the death note manga at all. it is a very strong tool, artistically, to establish and then violently remove any emotional connections between characters and make your story only about the exceedingly convoluted lengths characters go to to survive and catch each other so the reader can realize how ultimately pointless all of this is, but like... is that a good story choice if that's all you do? i would say not really. add in a good dollop of misogyny that destroys the second-to-last character who might actually be an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast's dull one-track focus on winning and justice, and youve got yourself a shitty story that... honestly still achieves what it went out to do, just not in a way id ever want to replicate.

anyway, back to the parts death note's actually trying to say. no matter what any human does in their life, no matter how they try to hurt or help the world, they all die in the end. hey, light, they all die in the end. once dead, they can never come back to life. and the seasons turn. and the world rejoices. and you say "goodbye"...

that's all.

no analysis of death notes overarching theme would be complete without nears final monologue, the definitive roast of light, the "you're just a murderer" speech: "what is right from wrong? what is good from evil? nobody can truly distinguish between them. even if there is a god." if we take this as talking about the actual god in the room (ryuk) as well as light, then near admits that humans will never be able to withstand these overwhelming forces and that, using justice and happiness and selfishness, they are just scrabbling to find meaning in things they ultimately have no control over.

but of course, near does not stop there. "[...] even then i'd stop and think for myself. i'd decide for myself whether his teachings are right and wrong." nears alright with not having control over everything, because near can still control nears own actions. these forces can and do exist, but they have no sway over nears own humanity — unlike light, who caved.

one of the creators of death note said they believe its message is "life is short, so everyone should do their best". the first time i learned this, i was like, thats... nice and optimistic, but an awful reading of the story! "life is short, so everyone should be desperate and striving like light yagami", who literally cut off other ppls lives for his own life? what character in death note are we supposed to strive towards when we "do our best"? they all do awful things with their lives! honestly, maybe they shouldnt have tried their best, if this is what their best is!

but with the view of "mu"... it makes a bit more sense. just a little. maybe.

there is no good and evil. there is only what humans think, and no matter what we do, we all die in the end. it is easy to be crushed and terrified by this in the same way light is, but what is more important than justice and righteousness and finding meaning is... doing your best. not being a person that hurts others too much. not letting yourself get swallowed up by an ideal. not going too far. and simultaneously, trusting yourself.

it leaves a few questions, though... was the currently dead l even a little bit right about his blatantly amoral approach, then? was there a point to this pain, and me slogging through this dumbass manga, and all the people that have lost their lives to a selfish teenage cop's son and the whims of everyone chasing after him? was there a point to any of this...?

the manga** never answers this. it stays clinically impartial until the very end. the musical is anything but clinically impartial (and i love it so much for that), and its ryuk that has the last word.

"there's no point at all."

of course theres no point. none of this was ever supposed to happen. that is what matters more than all the hurt and the crimes and the pain.

and that's... actually okay, because it's over now.

yes, death note has many really important themes present in its story, but its viewpoint is nihilism first and foremost. thats why its so fun and easy to play around with all the other messages, because no matter what fun or torment or awful things or righteous justice or absolute nothingness or sentimentality happens in between, there is always an end.

there is always the end.

[canisalbus]

What do you think would have happened if (somehow, idk how but somehow) Machete rose to the rank of pope?

To be perfectly honest? I think most realistically he would've ruled maybe six months at best and then keeled over from stress and exhaustion.

[13eyond13]

I love the way that, in addition to his origin story with his over-sized sword and the scar on his nose, the flashbacks to Guts's childhood show how much of his insane work ethic and reckless self-endangering abandonment in battle were all kinda ingrained into him by his craving for attention and approval from shitty father figure, Gambino.

Random nice mercenary guy: "Don't overexert yourself, kid. Just do what's needed. 'Cause if you die, you lose everything."

Gambino: "It's your first battle. Work hard!"

Guts: [throws himself into battle so hard he nearly dies multiple times, fixating on pleasing Gambino the entire time]

Gambino: "C'mon, hurry up! Work! Work!"

Guts: [gives Gambino his entire earnings, Gambino tosses him back a single coin]

Guts: [more motivated by this one mild bit of encouragement than anything he's ever experienced before in his life]

[m00nj3w3l]

Yesterday I discovered that a classmate of mine is also into DMMD (she was looking at my sketchbook to give me art tips and then recognized Aoba) and we started ranting to each other about it (her fave is Noiz).

While coming home I was talking to my mom and told her "oh yeah I found out (classmate's name) is into a game I like as well." She asked me what it was and long story short now I have something else to share with said classmate AND my 52y.o mom now knows what DMMD and who Clear is. Amazing

[simpotat]

Hey chat who the FUCK was I talking about here

[tea-time-terrier]

Unnatural position changes of a fish.

Natural position changes include going from curling up on the couch, to curling up under a blanket on the couch.

[zazikels]