#some of this is problems with myself which i do work on and i work on them hard. i don't want to be like that
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I had no idea you're a professional photographer! I mostly follow your other blog for Corgis - if you posted your work there and I missed it, I apologize.
Your photography is AMAZING and thank you for sharing tips on light!
Bonus if you have time: when did you develop (haha!) interest for it and what's your favorite thing about this medium? ☆
Thank you. I have been trying to go back to my older work and edit things with my current skills and I have been posting that on occasion.
I also have an Instagram which is sort of like my current portfolio until I have the energy to create a proper website.
It's funny you mention corgis because Otis was the reason I got a proper camera. My followers helped me raise the money to get him and I felt like he belonged to everyone. So I wanted to make sure I took lots of photos of his shenanigans for people to enjoy. If they couldn't have a corgi of their own, I wanted them to live vicariously.
I never do anything halfway. I always go quite overboard. I filled my brain with everything I could possibly learn about photography so I could take the best possible photos of Otis.
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In the process of doing that, I realized I loved the art form. So even though Otis isn't around anymore, I owe him for giving me this wonderful creative outlet.
I took a long hiatus from photography when my parents got sick and I had to take care of them. Even though I stopped taking photos, I would watch photography education to help me relax. And it felt a bit like that meme of the dude studying the blade. I was learning some very advanced stuff.
Once my parents both passed I found myself with a giant hole in my life. And photography called me once again. I was a bit rusty operating the camera for a day or two, but because I had continued my learning, it all came back pretty quick. And I realized I was orders of magnitude better at photography, lighting, and post processing than I used to be.
My first photoshoot after 7 years was of my aunt and uncle. I didn't have much in the way of lighting equipment (I sold it to help my family), so I bounced a little flash off one of those science fair trifold thingies.
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These shots made me realize I definitely needed photography back in my life. I figured if I could do that with cardboard I found at Walmart, I would have great potential with proper equipment. So I'm in the process of building a new studio and getting some new gear so I can show off what I'm capable of now.
I ran into a little medical hiccup a few months ago which put everything on pause. While I'm recovering I'm not really able to take any photos. So I've decided to try and write some photography education and help others with their photographic journeys as best I can. And I am still continuing to learn and planning what I want to photograph when my health is in better shape.
I really want to do high quality animal portraiture. Not just cats and dogs. I want to find other exotic pets too. And I also want to do an art project where I help people take high quality photos of their parents. One of the things I was most grateful for after my folks died was the photos I took of them.
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And also this one I took of my grandmother.
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Having a really high quality photo of people you love is so important. And I don't think everyone realizes that. So I'm hoping I can help folks capture these important memories.
Oh, my favorite thing. I almost forgot. I would say it is the problem solving. Every photo is a new puzzle for me. Especially if I am working with artificial lighting and modifiers. I enjoy imagining a photo in my head and then going through the process, solving problems, and realizing what I imagined in real life. It's a great feeling.
This photo of my friend Ryan comes to mind. I just had this vision of someone reading in the middle of a forest. And so we dragged lights to my neighbors yard and I taped a flash inside the lampshade.
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>what exactly is preventing your society from arranging itself into a feudal society just as existed the last time humanity lived in pre-industrial conditions? The goal of my political project is about minimizing coercion. I have attempted to do this by creating material conditions in which people have little leverage over others, and social/political conditions which are free of spooks. When individuals aren't dependent on each other, then the conditions under which hierarchy develops do not arise.
>Collective, industrial labor can protect you from starvation a lot better than individual "primitive" labor can, and so I feel any "humiliation" one may experience by having to work alongside other people towards a collective goal is offset by the benefits of collectivization. Collectivization necessitates the atomization and negligibility of the individual, but I think we'd just have to agree to disagree on this one, since it's a matter of preference between an easy, less free life and a harder, freer life.
>My first disagreement is that Kaczynski (and you by extension) routinely conflate industrial technology with the social system of capitalism and thus assume that there exists a unique "industrial society" separate from capitalism that is responsible for all modern socio-psychological ills, and so if we were to abandon capitalism but retain industrial technology, then these socio-psychological ills would remain despite our best efforts. As a former leftist myself, the reason I left is because I read ISAIF, which laid out those problems which are inherent to Industrialism, regardless of the system that runs it. Nobody is saying that if we were to get rid of capitalism, life would not be better. In many ways it would. But the point of Neo-Luddism are those problems which no system can solve, the inherent aspects of Industrialism.
>My second disagreement is with Kaczynski's concept of the "power process", which his ideas of "surrogate activities" and his conception of autonomy come from. He is quite frankly just extrapolating his own experience as a middle-class white man living in the US to be a universal experience, and his own particular complexes with regards to individual power and autonomy as necessary for the human psyche with a "biological basis". This is the U.S. population by race and income. Obviously what Kaczynski wrote about was mostly applicable to the middle-class, because that's what a majority of people are.
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/the-state-of-the-american-middle-class/
Kaczynski's analysis is irrelevant to his race, and is completely relevant to his material conditions, so I don't know why you added "white" into there. Anyway, basically all philosophy is extrapolating off your own personal experiences, and It'd be hard to find a psychological blueprint of the self that did not do this to some degree. Kaczynski gives good examples and sufficient reasoning to back his idea of the self. Kaczynski himself admitted that his manifesto was a very rough sketch of his ideas, but I would say that a need for autonomy and work are at least to some degree prevalent amongst the population. I, myself, do not agree with the idea that every human being follows this psychological model, but it is applicable to most.
>If I were to give him the greatest benefit of the doubt, I would say that what he is describing is in actuality the alienation of capitalist society. However, where Kaczynski inverts the Marxist conception of alienation is in presupposing that the pursuit of one's means of subsistence as an individual in the wilderness is inherently less alienating than industrial labor. He doesn't "presuppose" it; he spends most of the manifesto explaining why he feels that way.
>In any case, the Unabomber's manifesto is a thoroughly reactionary work that decries the modern decline in "traditional values", explicitly proclaiming racial and gender equality and LGBT rights to be socially negative. Kaczynski doesn't "decry" the decline of traditionalism. He outright mocks those who do, saying conservatives "whine about the decay of traditional values". What he does do is say that this decline in traditional values instead represents decline of small-scale social groups. I would disagree with Kaczynski on this front: Industrialism does not necessarily degrade social groups (Communism is a good example of the maintenance of these smaller groups). I think that you're speaking of his hatred of leftism. Yes, he does spend a good part of the manifesto spewing mostly unjustified nonsense about leftists, but he makes sure to explicitly say that he is not against their inherent ideas (he says abuse of women is a bad thing), just the psychological profile of leftism, saying "We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians, etc. are inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology." Kaczynski does however state some socially right-wing things, which I disagree with him on. He implies that transgenderism is a bad thing, which I would wholeheartedly disagree with (I am, in fact, transgender).
>He mythologizes the US settler colonial frontier lifestyle, treating it as an example of the type of society he thinks is ideal while ignoring the fact that these settlers were dependent on both the "collectivist" indigenous nations and the industrial cities they left behind for their survival. Kaczynski's accolades of the frontier lifestyle are based on his analysis of their material conditions, rather than their political ones. Futhermore, I wouldn't say that they were "dependent" on an Industrialized society. They lived mostly self-sufficient lives. Even if they were, he mostly uses it to point out how autonomy in labor leads to greater freedom and a satisfaction of the power process.
>He harps on about how we must only organize into "SMALL" groups of six people or less to preserve individual freedom and autonomy [...] despite the fact that humans routinely organize themselves into groups of hundreds of people within contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. "In those days an entire county might have only a couple of hundred inhabitants and was a far more isolated and autonomous entity than a modern county is. Hence the pioneer farmer participated as a member of a relatively small group in the creation of a new, ordered community. One may well question whether the creation of this community was an improvement, but at any rate it satisfied the pioneer’s need for the power process." Here, Kaczynski, while leaving the question of the group's creation up for the reader's discretion, does say that a group of a few hundred people could serve the need for the power process, and by extension, it is a satisfactory social arrangement. He does not "harp on" about "six people or less", he doesn't mention that at all.
>Kaczynski was an ignorant and bigoted man who thought he knew what was best for everyone else and murdered innocent people to make a statement. Besides the ad hominem, it's interesting to see you decry Kaczynski's killings despite supporting Lenin's revolution, which killed far more people. At any rate, all political philosophers more or less think they know what's best for everyone else, that's why they write: to improve the world.
>I would not agree that death is preferable. Explain why my reasoning is faulty.
>Kaczynski himself admits that what he calls surrogate activities are not universally unsatisfying. He asserts that either "many" or "most" people are unsatisfied, but he does not go so far as to say that all people are. I was generalizing, but wouldn't it be best to work toward a society where most people are satisfied (from a moralist perspective at least).
>then I say we can set aside some plot of land sufficient enough for however many people who want to live this lifestyle. If they decide to stay, then they can. If they don't, then they can come back. This is a very good segue into another problem I have with Industrialism: sustainability. No matter how conservatively you allocate resources, eventually, the mines will dry up, and the pastures will become infertile. There simply isn't a way to get around that Industrialism is built on the idea that there will always be replacement parts. Sometimes, you just have to throw things away. When enough stuff gets thrown away, we run out of resources, and the system will collapse. When this happens, the population will be so bloated and so many people will be alive that the consequences will be disastrous, far worse than if we simply dismantled or destroyed the system right now. The organized and industrialized agriculture would collapse, and when this happens there will be a famine unlike the world has ever seen. It is better to get rid of it now than later.
>But you arbitrarily declare the pride one feels from collective achievement to be the result of a "surrogate activity" and thus inherently lesser than individual achievement. The original point I was making was that you were alienated from the objects you used on a day-to-day basis. You did not create any of them, you were given them in exchange for your labor in a (usually) completely unrelated task relative to that thing's production. When you asked why that mattered, I said that when you used something you had made, you feel proud and good about it and yourself.
>Kaczynski did not make a distinction between individual and collective activities when defining his surrogate activity, his distinction was between whether or not the goal satisfied one's physical needs Not the definition of surrogate activity. This is: "Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental faculties in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal X? If the answer is no, then the person’s pursuit of goal X is a surrogate activity".
>I don't believe that activities that do not contribute to satisfying one's physical needs are "decadent" (in Kaczynski's words) or otherwise mentally harmful to the individual. You misunderstand the definition of surrogate activity, which is defined in the paragraph above. You said yourself that Kaczynski did not think that all non-subsistence activities are surrogate.
>That one can imagine a thing does not mean that thing can exist in the real world. By "imagine" I meant that such a social order could exist, obviously. You can "imagine" anything.
>And I'm perfectly fine with people who think like you being free to live in the wilderness as autonomously as you want, so long as you aren't hurting anyone else. (Bold and italics mine) That's where we have a disagreement: should a government be allowed to stop me from hurting others, from exercising my freedom without restriction?
>But why wouldn't more people specialize? I'm not saying that they wouldn't or that it'd be inherently bad. It's entirely possible everyone might have some kind of specialization (placed on top of their basic skills).
>How do you think we got to where we are today? Are the anarcho-primitivist egoists going to form a special order and go around burning down farms and pastures every time someone tries to re-invent agriculture? It's absurd to think that everyone will just abandon farming out of their own free will. Hunter-gatherers actually had a more varied and healthy diet than their farming counterparts*. I'd say it's absurd to think that everyone will just abandon hunter-gathering out of their own free will. Given that people did, in fact, abandon hunter-gatherer lifestyles in exchange for farming, I'd like to clarify. The level of technological order I propose would make living a quasi-primitive lifestyle much more consistent and easier than a primitive society (I'm not an anprim). I don't even think that practicing agriculture is inherently bad, it just tends to lead to coercive social arrangements that can be avoided via self-sufficient hunter-gatherer lifestyles
*https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2106743119
>What is the mechanism through which your egoist anarcho-primitivist society could be achieved The question of revolution is an important one. Personally, I'm a fan of "shadow cell" organization and direct-action. The first step to revolution is mass-radicalization. This will be easier in the coming years as everything goes to shit under the Trump Administration.
>what is the mechanism through which it would be maintained? Self-sufficency: the ability to eliminate coercion of dependence.
alright.
I'll start with Lenin first, then move to Marx. Lenin was an autocrat and a dictator. There's no way around it. He was unelected and created a one-party state. This was due to the fact that the revolution was led by a vanguard, which the members of, once they succeeded in overthrowing the old government, could easily set up a self-serving dictatorship. He's not a Marxist, and he's not a Socialist.
Since Lenin obviously did not in any way uphold the vision of Marx, I'll tackle him separately. A (stateless) communist society does eliminate many hierarchies, but leaves the most coercive systems untouched. Those being: the hierarchy of the collective over the individual and that coercion required of industrialism. In a commune, one's individual vote is negligible, since the outcome is only affected by one person's vote in very rare circumstances. Once the votes are tallied, the individual is expected to conform to the decisions of the majority, and to accept the commune's laws and customs. This leads to the individual becoming feeling helpless and weak.
Secondly, Marxism fails to address the coercion required to make an industrial society function. In order to have products, you must have a payroll of workers to stand where they are told to stand and do what they are told to do and go home and show up to work when they are told to do it. Instead of working towards goals that are immediate, which directly affect one's condition (such as building a house to live in), one must do a task or set of tasks that ultimately has little to do directly with one's own material well-being. Instead, the hyperspecialized work required in an industrial society is made livable indirectly via trade. This leads to a dependence on the industrial system as a whole, which requires a massive amount of cohesion to function.
Humans are no longer permitted to act autonomously since doing so would be a hindrance to the system. Behaviors which are not conducive to the system are disallowed, but all unimportant facets of our life which do not interfere with the functioning of the system are permitted to grow within said limits.
Lenin was elected as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars by the Congress of Soviets a total of nine times before his death. His position was not one elected by the people directly, but rather he was elected by the congressional representatives of the soviets who were themselves elected by the people. You can argue that his position should have been directly elected if you want, but you cannot say he was unelected. Regardless, while the Chairman of the CPC was the head of government of the RSFSR, and later the Soviet Union, the CPC was not a one-person council and the council as a whole was subordinate to the Central Executive Committee, which was in turn subordinate to the Congress of Soviets. Lenin was not an autocrat or a dictator; he did not hold sole legal authority and the Soviet government had numerous checks and balances.
I see no reason to believe a vanguard party or a one-party state is undemocratic. The USSR was a dictatorship, but not a dictatorship of one person. It was a dictatorship of the proletariat, as the bourgeoisie were stripped of the right to vote and to be elected. You can object to this if you like, but I personally don't think that was a bad decision.
You seem to be arguing that Lenin was neither Marxist nor socialist because the nascent Soviet Union was not yet classless or stateless. Yet why should it have been expected to be? Communism is not something that can be achieved overnight, or even in one generation. In the meantime, there must be some mechanism for suppressing and overthrowing the bourgeoisie. No matter how democratic, how horizontal, and how people-oriented that mechanism is, it still constitutes a state insofar as it constitutes an organ for the oppression of one class by another. Unless you are arguing that the rights of the bourgeoisie should be maintained and protected, you cannot escape this fact.
At the point of achieving a stateless, classless communist society, I don't see why decision-making would necessarily be performed through simple majority vote. While it's rather pointless in my mind to be speculating about how a hypothetical communist society of the future might function, I think it's safe to say they'd be far more capable of exploring alternative forms of decision-making than we are now. In any case, the question of how a future communist society might function is entirely separate from questions of past and present systems of government.
You are right to point out that the industrial mode of production requires collective and specialized activity in order to function, but I fail to see what the alternative is. Humans are a social animal, our production has always been collective and we have always benefited from specialization in labor. The advancement in industry has made possible a reduction in socially necessary labor time, not an increase. It is capitalism and the profit motive that has mandated long hours and low autonomy in the workplace, not industry itself.
People are not inherently stupid or self-centered. They can understand very well the relationship between one sector of industry and another. You do not need to be building a house to understand how, for instance, the nails you are manufacturing will be used to build houses and other goods. You do not need to be manufacturing nails to understand how the iron you are mining will be used to make nails and other goods. The idea that it is alienating to be engaged in a task that is socially beneficial rather than merely individually beneficial is absurd.
You talk about social cohesion as if it is impossible or undesirable. But again, what is the alternative? An incoherent, fragmented society? No society at all, and people just fend for themselves as individuals? I fail to see how anything less than social cohesion is desirable.
You say that industrial society is coercive and prevents people from acting autonomously. I say, what does it mean to act autonomously? Humans must satisfy our basic needs before we can think about engaging in autonomous activity. If you are starving, you are compelled to seek food. If you are freezing, you are compelled to seek shelter. Individual freedom is subordinate to our material conditions, and only through improving our material conditions can we satisfy our basic needs and guarantee individual freedom.
If we are to have a society where the individual freedoms of everyone are maximized, then we must have a society which guarantees everyone their basic needs. Food, shelter, clothing, medicine, education, transportation, communication, etc. All of these must be secured before a person has full freedom to act autonomously. Improving the quality of these things and the efficiency of their production improves the standard of living and reduces socially necessary labor time, which allows for greater degrees of freedom.
You say behaviors which are not conducive to the system are disallowed. I do not necessarily disagree, but I feel you are intentionally obscuring the nature of such behaviors. What is “the system” here? The system is society. So a behavior not conducive to society is an anti-social behavior, a behavior that impedes or harms other members of society. Why should these behaviors be allowed? Is it maximizing autonomy and freedom to allow someone to steal or rape or murder with impunity? No, it is merely trading someone else's freedom and autonomy for your own.
You can certainly maximize your own freedom and autonomy at the expense of others, but if we are to live in a society where the freedom and autonomy of everyone is to be maximized, then there must be certain limits to individual behavior for the sake of others. Maybe someday humanity will evolve to a state where one can live in their own private world with maximum freedom to do as they please without worrying about impacting others, but until that day we will have to live in a society with other people and the social restrictions that come with that. Personally, I don't think it's such a burden to have to care about other people.
Society as it stands today is indeed imperfect and often oppressive. Socialist states in the past and present have yet to achieve the classlessness and statelessness that marks higher-stage socialism, i.e. communism. They too are imperfect and have restricted people's behavior in various ways, some I would argue are necessary, and some I would argue are unnecessary. However, I believe that socialism offers us the greatest opportunity to improve society as a whole and liberate humanity from oppressive structures. I believe that capitalism remains the central impediment to the advancement of society and the pursuit of human freedom. I believe that a vanguard party and a dictatorship of the proletariat have been the most effective means of combating the bourgeoisie so far. And I believe that the advancement of science and industry has been the most effective means of securing and improving the basic needs of the people as a whole.
My question to you remains: what is the alternative? You can criticize all you want, and thoughtful and rational critique of all things is both important and beneficial, but unless you have an alternative to socialist revolution and industrial society, then you're just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. How are we to combat the bourgeoisie without a vanguard or a state? How are we to provide people with their basic needs without industrial production?
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You can't hide the bit about starting a cult in the tags. We demand the story.
once upon a time i was a menace of a 15 year old taking high school chemistry. and this was not a particularly advanced chemistry class. we had ancient bunsen burners, occasionally we lit things on fire, sometimes there were chemicals involved, but for the most part, it was standard run of the mill shit.
the class was divided into two groups of people:
The Trouble Makers and the People Who Didnt Cause (many) Problems
as a mostly straight a and usually honors (when it wasnt science) student, i fell into the second category.
this class was 8th period, last period of the day, and the teacher was new that year. we will call him mr a.
mr a was on the younger side and seemed like a dude who wanted to have fun with us (essential for a science class). unfortunately he was teaching a batch of idiots (myself included).
its been several years so i dont remember the exact politics of this class, but i do know that it was populated by the two guys who stuck a pop tart still in the foil in the band room microwave and nearly lit the entire building on fire, a few class clowns, some very stereotypical football players, two guys who were positively dumb as bricks and constantly acted like they were on the verge or breaking up or getting back together (they were not dating at all. they were both and still are very straight), and then there was me and a few other girls who mostly just minded our business and watched the chaos unfold.
mr a's mistake was that he engaged with the insanity caused by The Trouble Makers. which resulted in even more insanity. he only lasted one year. he hated all of us but he might have hated himself more.
he did like me and my friends tho because again, we did not cause problems.
you might be wondering what kind of problems could be caused in a high school chemistry class. well lots. for starters one of the outlets in the room was taped over with NO JUSTIN! BAD JUSTIN! written on it because one kid thought it would be funny to stick scissors in the outlet in a different class (true story). there were broken beakers, smashed glass, general insanity. again, not an honors class so most of us didnt really care about it as long as we passed. there was one time he told us (jokingly) that we should only drink pepsi because his wife worked for the company and it would help fund his kids college career or something. two days later five guys came in with coke bottles. that was the kind of class this was.
but we still learned chemistry. probably. i dont actually know.
this guy taught lessons like he was reading a tumblr text post. like full on "so the guy hated that guy cause xyz and smited him in the science journals for this that and the other thing" it was entertaining.
i remember learning two things in this class. one was that salt is NaCl. which mr a called "our good friend nackle" the second we will get to in a minute.
one of the things we had to do in class relatively early on was decorate a periodic table that we would be allowed to use for tests. like color code and all that. we were allowed to use it for tests because there was a Giant periodic table hanging in the room and mr a was "too short to cover that up"
well, that periodic table proved to become his worst nightmare.
now. remember that i am 15. i am a sophomore in high school. i have not yet had to consider the horrors of college. i am at peace. aside from this chemistry class i am also taking a dance class (that i didnt like), ap english language (which was terrifying because im really bad at deeper meaning in texts), honors algebra 2 (which i Barely passed), latin III (another class i was pretty shit at, but it was fun), crafts 2 (which was wonderful), gym (thats a totally Other story) and honors united states history (which i loved). i was also dancing about 20 hours a week outside of school. but most of my schedule required me to be a good little honors student and mind my business. i was also, by all accounts, an absolute loser and a nobody and had very few friends and was totally unknown to most popular kids. however, you all know me on this blog and know im a little shit and it was only a matter of time before i caused problems Somewhere.
and that somewhere came one blissful day during 8th period chemistry when mr a asked me something about the number of electrons on carbon.
and i (to my credit) was entirely zoned out because again it was 8th period. but i gave him an answer. it was the right answer. what the answer is now i have no idea because i went on to get a ba degree in history and my eyes have not graced the periodic table since this class.
and then he asked me "how do you know thats the right answer"
and i said, in all my zoned out, infinite wisdom "it says so on the periodic chart"
isnt a periodic table? you might be asking.
well you are correct.
but you see. the giant periodic table above the front of the board at the front of the room was from the 70s. and it didnt say periodic table. it said "periodic chart of the elements"
and i, being zoned out, just read the damn name off of the thing because what the fuck else is a girl to do.
and mr a says "its a table. the periodic table."
and i, who have now zoned back in and realized my mistake, refuse to admit that i was just zoned out in class so i say, like any reasonable person, "then why does it say periodic chart up there?"
and mr a said "i dont know, its old."
and i said "well it says chart. so why cant we call it chart?"
and mr a said "because its a table."
and me, because im a little shit and also 15 and there were probably also 10 minutes left in the school day said "i think we should be allowed to call it a chart. it says so right there."
and well. that was all the go ahead the trouble makers in the class needed to hear.
from then on, it was the periodic chart. we all called it that. all of 8th period. and mr a HATED it. if you wrote chart on your test you got points taken off (which i never did because i wasnt an idiot but i would put little smiley faces next to my answer and he would draw a frown face when he graded my paper next to it). if you said it when you answered a question he would pretend he hadn't heard you.
it was such a phenomenon that it spread to his other classes. everyone called it the periodic chart. the scissors in the outlet kid. the pop tart kids. the football players. everyone. it was a chart. not a table. to this day i still call it a chart.
though, i think he was just mad that my cult (which he did call a cult, the periodic chart cult) was more successful than his stoichiometry cult. which was basically that we all had to repeat stoichiometry back to him every time he said it. that is the second thing i learned in this class. dont ask me what it is though, i just remember the name.
at the end of the year we parted ways, mr a silently glaring at me for my chart crimes, never to return to our school (probably because he got fired, unrelated to my chart crimes). despite this, he did still like me as a student, and i did get an a in his class, though it probably pained him to give it to me.
the following year i had physics in the same classroom, periodic chart overlooking me.
i used my iPhone 5c to take a photo of a white board and accidentally dropped it six inches onto the lab bench. the screen grayed out and it never turned on again.
the chart had cursed me for my hubris.
#not a tag#from saph#the periodic chart#if you went to high school with me and you remember this no you do not#somewhere in my room at my parents house i still have the chart and the tests he wrote frown faces on if i remember ill pull them out#when im next home
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Hi! (Vent/Tw for mental illnesses and related things)
How does one have hope?
I’ve been forcing myself to be a normal person. I’ve been forcing myself to be mentally okay and stable because i can’t get any help. Nobody cares (I can’t talk to my school councilor, I can’t talk to my advisor, I’m too busy, no teachers like to listen, none of my friends are close enough for me to vent to them) about my mental illnesses and I’ve been forcing myself not relapse.
But I can’t really hope anymore. I feel nothing but trudging along. I’m on the right path for high school, for college, for education, for extra curriculars, and everyone’s managing better than I am, so I get why no one thinks they should check up on me.
I know I’m going to just… turn off my problems for a while. I’m going to try and stop feeling the depression and stuff, it just makes me inefficient.
But how do I hope to feel better? Every moment takes so much effort to keep awake. My country is falling apart, my mind is falling apart, I am falling apart…
How do I hope? What’s that point of hope?
Thank you for reading, and I’m sorry for this weird ask. I just don’t know what to do. Have a lovely day
So, I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers here, but I want to respond anyway because I think I have some advice.
First, it sounds like you're a minor. I want you to know that your mental health is going to get easier to manage when you reach adulthood. This is because you'll finally have the autonomy to do something about it, rather than approaching adults and hoping they take you seriously enough to get you help. In general, the autonomy of adulthood will go a long way in making you not feel helpless.
Obviously, adulthood isn't easy, and your mental health issues won't magically solve themselves, but you won't feel so powerless forever.
Second, how do you hope? This answer is going to be different for everyone. Different things make different people hopeful, which is why the hopepunk recs tag on this blog is so robust. What that thing will be for you is something you'll have to discover for yourself. This is one of the reasons that having hope can be difficult. I realize that's not exactly helpful, but it will be more effective if you find what works for yourself, rather than me suggesting something and you trying to make it fit.
Third, what's the point of hope? That's little more straight-forward (though only a little). Hope helps you fight another day. Hope reminds you what it is you're fighting for. It reminds you you're worth fighting for, and makes it possible to imagine--and then build--a better future.
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(ft synthesised voice, also this isn't quite the start of the song but it works better as an excerpt)
#(lyrics still in progess – they're half done for this verse i'd say? grian and martyn sing this verse w some interjections from the others)#(you'd think having half the work done for me would make things easier but i still need to structure verses around the puns and-)#-things have to actually happen too)#(but i think it's going pretty well so far..?)#(the biggest problem is actually the melody i've chosen for myself which i now have to fit lyrics into)#(but it's a melody i do like and think fits well so it's staying)#anyway mini detail – the little turns in the accompaniment (first in the violin; then flute and oboe; then just flute) are a reference to-#-martyn's ll intro music (most of the time that plays he's doing intro shenanigans with the southlanders so the southlands are what it's-#-associated with to me)#i change what's a weak beat and a strong beat + it's VERY common short pattern of five notes (it's the same pattern as a turn which-#-is a v common ornament/melodic shape) that takes up less than a bar (this has a 3/4 feel but is in 6/8) + it's a bg not foreground featur#+ i'm not following the intro music any further#so yeah not plagiarism just a little nod#excerpts#last life: the unofficial musical#last life smp#life series smp#traffic life smp#trafficblr#mcytblr#the southlands#martyn inthelittlewood#grian#(since they're the ones singing)#llsmp
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stacy is sooo interesting because she's in love with house but knows that they will never ever be able to have a healthy, stable, sane relationship because they're too similar so. she finds house-lite instead and marries him and. essentially moves on with her life! and is successful in this because she's a moderately well-adjusted person!
wilson, in contrast, never manages to escape the inevitable, in spite of his best efforts to find a house-lite of his very own, because he's an absolute fucking freak and ends up glued to house to the bitter. bitter end
#yeah im too sleepy to revise this. UNFILTERED posting wooahh#some may b shocked but i do actually read thru most of my posts several times to make sure i didnt accidentally write mein kampfe 2#recently ive come to the realization that i am in fact not an incredibly chill person#and that the constant paranoia and fear in which i live my life is actually PROBABLY a symptom of severe anxiety#like damn. ive always known that im pretty prone to depression but ive preetty much always been aware of that#my mom is a chronic depressive so i know the symptoms i know the signs i have a pretty good arsenal of healthy coping mechanisms#UNFORTUNATELY mommy's mental health problems did not help her not abuse me as a child#so i ended up being a terribly anxious kid who was constantly being screamed at and told i was overreacting (because i was. because i had#a severe anxiety problem that was making me react irrationally.) to everything all the time#which is you know. it is VERY difficult to deal with a mental health problem when you arent aware you have a problem!#its incredible how much. better. my life has gotten since i figured this out and started actively trying to work out what triggers it#and being able to like. realize 'oookay. there is an Issue here and it needs to be overcome'#instead of just beating on myself constantly for not being able to do things without feeling sick or getting breathing problems!#anyways. trauma dumping in tags is over now!#house md#hilson#greg house#james wilson#stacy warner
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.(personal)
#signing off for some time#i have some things to sort through 🫡#please expect something relating to au yvverse on valentines day! (i will be back by then)#a non-snz journal entry before i leave (not expecting anyone to read this):#i think writing humor is an interesting challenge#i remember reading a book in uni where i thought the narration was very interesting and pleasing and sharp#but then reading the reviews for it half a year later and seeing people say 'i couldn't stop laughing when i was reading this' / 'people#on the train were giving me weird looks because i was laughing so hard / this is the funniest book i've read all year' etc. and i remember#feeling distinctly confused... i had not registered that the irony and the sharp commentary were supposed to be funny; they were simply#texturally interesting to me 😭 i also remember submitting a short story draft and having a professor say in workshop 'your writing is very#funny. it reminds me of [movie he liked] which i also found to be very funny'#and i was like 😃❓ (i had also not intended for the story to be funny. but i thought it was a compliment that he read it that way)#humor is so inexplicable to me#i'm working on a series which i actively want to be funny and every time i write out a joke i'm like... fretting a little internally#like do i even know what humor is 😭😭 it's like this relay race exercise where (1) i hand off a scene and (2) the audience interprets it as#playfulness... neither of us is allowed to drop the baton in order for this to work 🏃♀️ it's a little scary??!! it feels so vulnerable#i think it's an interesting problem... trying to find all of these little pockets where i can modulate the tone towards playfulness#alsooooo unrelated... these days i find myself feeling the instinctive need to apologize to everyone 😭 i thought i would be fine#but now looking at myself i'm like... girl something is broken here 😭‼️ i tried rephrasing this in like 10 different ways and#nothing seemed right. anyways for good measure: i am sorry#truthfully i still feel like just half a person sometimes#perhaps i shall reemerge from this break metamorphosed into someone more tolerable 🐛 -> 🦋
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Creature. (The rendered ones are referenced from manga panels)
#mediocre art#tokyo ghoul#On some level I think I should like Kaneki more than I do but there's this weird sense of detachment#I have not only from him but being able to perceive him as a character?#I don't even dislike him it's just that I can't feel any which way about him at all. He's a catalyst for events#feels more like the conch from Lord of the Flies or something rather than a fictional person.#He doesn't suffer and learn from the consequences#he just suffers and does what got him there again. It's arguable that the lack of punishment denies him the satisfaction#but if that's the case why does he end the story with everything working out perfectly for him?#Why do his friends oblige his flaws and accept his lack of change?#Is the problem my lack of understanding or his lack of good writing?#Is he well written?#Why do I like a certain character from a different anime who's a very similar person with very similar dynamics#but with a goal and acceptance by himself and those around him that his actions really are reprehensible and cannot truly be atoned for#not only more but to the point that he's actually one of my favorites?#Am I just sitting upon a throne of entitlement#because his thought process and experiences are not catered to be applicable to and understood by myself?#GOD IF I KNOW ANYMORE#I'm not pressuring myself to like him or anything I just don't understand anything about kaneki these days and I don't know why
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ALSO I am learning how to teach very introverted students, something my natural skillset as a teacher does not help me with.
#one of my greatest tools in the toolkit of my teaching (imo) is that I am unpredictable#I will turn on a dime and I’ll share a thought from the depths of my soul or back of the pantry of my random opinions#that will make them laugh or hook them and they want to hear more#with a group of introverted students maybe they love to see it maybe they don’t but it doesn’t work for them to become engaged#they get so quiet and so still#and not in the good way that kind of happens but kind of just in the scared mouse kind of way#BUT. this past week I kind of had a breakthrough#I totally wasn’t planning on it but the moment was right so I talked to them about them being quiet and introverted (gently teasing them)!#and then I said ‘but do you like it when I just stand here and talk about the book’ and they were like ‘yeah! kind of the pressure is off’#and then I said ‘oh! that’s good to know. because when you’re quiet it makes me feel like you hate me’#(not realizing until I said it that that was the heart of the issue)#and they laughed in surprise (i didn’t say it in a way where I was putting that burden on them in a serious way)#and then I said ‘yeah last night I went home like ‘omg was that a stupid thing to say about Frank Churchill?? no one responded’#and then they kind of shriek-laughed at me and they were like noooooo#and then they said what if we gave you a thumbs up when you were done so you know we don’t hate you#and I said that would be great#and THEN a few days later I gave them an agenda for our discussion written out on the board#where I talked and they listened (I called it discussion with myself) and then they had questions to ponder and things to talk about#with each other. and a lot of time. and THEN I cold called them (they won’t volunteer)#but by that time they were so much more relaxed and they knew what we were doing#so they talked more! and it was so goooood#ALSO idk if it was them#or me who had changed but by the time I got to lecturing at them again#I could feel the quiet warmth that I could not before#(the absence of which is what makes speaking publicly instantly a torture to me l o l)#and it helped so much! like. they didn’t say much (some of them did the thumbs up)#but I had cleared the expectations for them and for me tbh and it helped. I was not waiting for a response from them so in fact I got more#of one. and best of all I could feel them feeling both the warmth and the power of Emma a little bit more#it is starting to click. anyway this is so much but y eah#I’ve been wrestling with this problem a l l year. cracking it in December lol
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btw!! there's free virtual tours of all 16 spanish state museums both in english and spanish if you are interested, you can access all through here :)
#i myself will probably do them when having to choose in which museums i wanna work in once i pass my oposiciones#so yeah! if you have some free time and wanna learn stuff they're pretty cool i think#the prado and reina sofia museums are not in those links cause they work a bit different and are not classified as state museums but#i believe they also have free virtual tours. i'm sure you can access them through their websites no problem
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I was personally assaulted (honorific) by this essay on ambition. It's very good.
#megs is reading#I would've linked it as a full link but it didn't parse right. which probably means it has some settings against AI which. good for them!#hilariously I was complaining immediately before reading it that SO MUCH of the discussion around burnout and overwork are like#'well you should train yourself to enjoy things and live in the moment and say fuck work and not worry about it making you more productive!#and like. as a writer. as a person whose brain will eat itself alive if I do not write. NOT because augh productivity#but cuz [that one post about how if you don't draw the images will clog up inside you and make you sick]#this does not ever spark joy. I want to do the work I enjoy and find fulfilling! I want that work to be valued enough to let me do it!#where is my discussion around burnout for people who like. can in fact sit down and enjoy a nice cup of tea or cooking a pot of soup#that's not the goddamn problem here. the problem is that not all labor is valued and in fact very little labor if any is valued.#the products are labor are valued. the labor itself is an inconvenient stepping stone that it would be nice to not have to take.#ANYWAY I'm just going to go try to finish my fucking book draft now. and convince myself that it matters.
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@catnykit thank youuuuuuu
i just mean aberration in the sense that i rarely have men as protagonists. i dont know i see delta as functionally nonbinary but this is never explicitly acknowledged in the text so i’d still consider him like. a male protag.
tbh i treat delta’s gender so much like my own in the sense that i’d consider myself nonbinary but i wouldn’t make actual claims to it because my default method of exisiting is still in accordance with my agab. nonbinary but kind of closeted and not making a big deal of it, mostly for the sense of convenience. but yeah that’s neither here nor there.
i appreciate you saying this!!!! thats very sweet i would consider the main women in destroyer to be like lorelai, kitty, and johanna obviously and i think they definitely do overlap in their personalities but i do hope they’re distinct enough that it doesnt seem like im pigeonhole-ing any of them.
i love lorelai especially. i think maybe im more harsh to myself than anyone else is because i originally had some kind of loftier plans for her? i ended up cutting down on her development significantly and she had a more siginficant arc in my original conception of crash out than she ended up having in the finalized version and i think maybe ill always feel guilty about that because i love her a lot. but the pacing just didnt work out and paris’s orbit is so strong that a lot of things end up just succumbing to it. i dont know i just wish i could have done more for her. lorelai…..
but to be clear the problem here is not yuri. i think yuri and f/f centered media tends to do an excellent job of portraying women tbh!!!! for the most part. my issue was more with people who have mixed gender casts but whose attention inevitably only falls to the men and the m/m aspect. but again could i really even exempt myself from this criticism? i dont think so! i feel like i fell into some of the same pitfalls. but the main issue i was criticizing was how a lot of lesbian characters tends to be written into “the smart and responsible one” archetype which is like. lionizing in such a bad way and honestly just makes for SUCH boring characters. i think i have successfully avoided that at least. cheers for meeee.
i dont even id as lesbian anymore so i feel weird speaking on this but as someone who was for a very long time i did feel like theres something kind of uniquely condescending in the way that some people write lesbian ocs…. its like the mom friend archetype but worse…..
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They weren't lying, this psychological recovery journey got hands
#3rd month of taking antidepressants and knowing that There Is something majorly fucked up within me#i feel like im becoming normal bit by bit but also now my other problems become my aparent to me#i started to notice i have this childlike simplistic attitude towards wonder and relationships but also at the same time i understand the#severity of troubles around me on the level of burned out adult#but also it takes me from a week to several years to realize what people meant#and yet sometimes i get everything clearly#there are still ways to go#i still have to find a therapist#cuz psych diagnosed me with BPD; geberal anxiety disorder and ADHD and said i have autism signs that could explain the development of BPD#but all he can do is medical treatment which is not the kind you need for BPD and autism#im not saying you can treat autism but yeah he meant i need a psychotherapist for these instead of psychiatrist#i hope i can complete this mental health journey bcuz i feel like i finally got hit with all the weight of burnout i had all these years#i did some creative work in the august/early september but rn its all touching grass in real world and playing games#like i cook i help my family with chores i play fortnite i clean up my room i go out at 1am to look at the stars#all of my own volition without feeling like i need to push myself to do this#I'm scared that making art is not one of those things#i often have a thought that maybe art isnt really for me and in a perfect world i wouldnt do it#but then why am i so good at it#like...#petrotalk
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Coding woes (Patreon)
#Doodles#Original#Ukadevlog#Bug testing sure is something lol#These are both problems I've figured out now luckily! And I did them on my own! :D Extra pleased with myself :3#My slightly cocky attitude of ''Well that was frustrating - luckily I'll never run into another problem again'' amuses me lol#'Cause in the moment everything's flying! The code comes together lovely and it's all great! And then I come up to the next thing#Something I haven't done before - something that there's no Direct how-to of how to do a thing#Like setting player-and-character pronouns! I didn't know how to do that! But I figured it out!! :0 What a rush haha#It really did take me an evening of knocking my head against the wall in attempts - I waaaayyy overcomplicated it to start haha#I was like - trying to set up a system that would call on specific pronoun sets individually based on player input#Ridiculous - so much easier to just slap some values into an envelope and have those tied to a specific shell lol#But that took all night! I got sleepy while working on it and even my drowsy brain was like Wait...what am I supposed to check against? Haha#Such a weird experience subconsciously as well :0 'Cause I had normal dreams that night#Maybe some slight code-adjacent dreams of A Screen With Text On It but that could be anything :P#Most of it was just normal dream melodrama - but in the few times I woke up to readjust or roll over or pull my blanket#It was juuuuust enough for my ''conscious'' brain to kick in and think about what to compare against - what structure would work#And so by the time I woke up proper I had to frantically write down a bunch of code in a spare word document so I wouldn't go stir crazy lol#Breakfast must wait! Dailies must wait! I Have to write this down!!#And when I implemented it - it worked exactly as I hoped it would and is much much Muuuuuch simpler to call upon haha#Wow! That was a weird fluke that definitely won't happen again! Haha#I don't actually believe that I just have no way of guessing which aspect will trip me up - This Should Be Easy! And then it isn't lol#Definitely didn't predict the second - Especially because other than a small roadbump of not knowing how to Shell-Switch (ty again Cherry ♥)#Everything up to then was going well and everything after that was going fine! Until The One Thing happened pffbtl#I wanted to assign a value to check if a specific piece of code was being called upon - basically a fork between two outcomes#That went fine! The value Was changing! But only the first fork was being called???#No lol I just didn't put the second = ugh pft - and what's more frustrating is that I'd been using == up to that point!! I'd been warned!!!!#I - for some reason - was convinced that using && would make the value check Only need to check If x = 1... That's not how it works......#It's an If statement! If x = 1 then why do I have to check IF x == 1! Just check!!! Hwagh rules and whatnot lol#Like I said it's all fixed now but sheesh! What a silly mistake! I knew better!! And now I double know better haha
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anyone else feeling fundamentally incapable of adjusting to society. also just discovered there's a 30 tag limit which i can't believe i've never hit before
#like it was one thing when i was in high school and college like wasn't socialized as a child due to not receiving schooling and growing up#sda blah blah whatever but like i'm almost 27 and i am barely functioning lol like i feel like i'm struggling to have a normal conversation#even more than i used to and i think my speech cadence is noticably off which i don't think it always has been#some of it is definitely from chronic exhaustion from having to get up too early and the stress of having a frequently panic inducing boss#but like. come on now. i can't even drive despite finally having a license because i'm too scared/distractible/poor reaction time#over a dozen antidepressants have not worked. adderall is not working great either#i'm SO much dumber than i used to be and it's driving me quite literally insane#i don't even think it's from getting covid in july because i was noticing it before although it definitely became way more noticeable after#i got this job. i've never been this bad at a job in my life and it's something anyone who knows me would assume i'd be good at#it's embarrassing. i cannot fucking remember anything i struggle to do the most basic of arithmetic to fill prescriptions i make the same#silly mistakes multiple times i am constantly asking stupid questions and still somehow fucking up all the time#it's not as bad as it was a couple months ago and frankly i'm shocked i haven't gotten fired i keep thinking that's going to happen#of course i wanted to quit this job four months ago but now i'm at like a sunk cost fallacy point unfortunately#this is obviously not like any kind of career position for many reasons but i don't know what else to do unless i move across the country#again. i'm not even qualified for anything besides animal related things and summer camp which are fine obviously but not great if you want#things like benefits or paid leave or not to get burned out as hell lmao#i don't even feel like i could do any customer service jobs because i literally struggle to put a coherent sentence together on the spot#everything is so slow. soooo slow i'm literally losing my mind which is catastrophic because my mind is all i've ever had going for me#and i'm having kind of a horrible existence lately which is exacerbating all my problems except the problems make it mostly impossible to d#anything to fix it. ok going out and doing some fun stuff for a day makes me feel better that's great. except then i need a day after that#to recover from doing things the previous day. so the only feasible day for doing things would be saturday. except on saturdays i'm#recovering from working. i literally only work 4 days and barely over 30 hours it's Not that crazy. i mean the boss is crazy and the job ca#also be crazy obviously but 30 hours a week is minimal compared to other work schedules i've maintained before#anyway but the most i can do after work is go to the store if i need to but i almost never have energy for anything fun#and the fucking bus doesn't run on sundays and walking miles to get literally anywhere takes a lot of energy i don't have#i'm about to move next weekend and i'm dreading it because it's going to be so much work and i'm so fucking tired#and i don't have any friends to help me with cleaning i might be able to get help moving my stuff but i'm not even confident about that#i might have to rent a uhaul but i would honestly rather pay somebody to help because i'm that scared of driving even for one 30 min trip#whatever....sorry i had to feel bad for myself in the tumblr dot edu tags again i'm not in therapy rn#(<- guy who should be in therapy)
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awawawawawawa
#bunny rambles#i was “cleared” to go back to work yesterday but she told me i could use the rest of the time also if i wanted/needed#and im using it. but the little corporateanxietybot who lives in my head and tries to make me be a Good Worker[tm] is SCREAMING HER HEAD OFF#cause she thinks my boss/Dad is gonna scream at and hit her for being Lazy#this is a trauma post also um. didnt expect to name her rn but she's screaming and i cant scream back cause she sounds like alarms and those#scare crustywhitedog so i have to calm that one so i don't meltdown#my wife submitted the RTW date for me so like. its okay im actually taking the time and ik this is necessary also bc. it is clearly unwell#that its freaking out because it's gotten a more than a 2 day break for the first time in a year#ik corporateanxietybot has protected me in some ways but. i gotta kill her so bad. maybe H can help me reformat her somehow .....#i also hate her is the thing. she cant hear me rn bc she's just looping in circles alarming but anyway. i hate her. like Me. she's so#capitalismcorebootlicker and i hate that about her and i hate that she exists and i hate that she exists bc my dad raised me to be an#Employee instead of a person 🙃🙃🙃🙃#im not elaborating or explaining any of this. this is a diary entry now#i wish i could click her to kill her like the drones in hardcoded lmao it'd be so much easier. ik she like. lives in the work mode mask as#well which is also HARD bc if im not actively thinking Of work or At work she's nonexistent#but shes so LOUD 🙃🙃 like shut up. we're not gonna explode n die from taking an extra week off you're being dramatic our boss isnt Dad#like he LITERALLY isn't Dad. not even close. he's like the most docile man in the world come on ik they're around the same age and both hve#held authority over u but boss checking in wasnt a trap ur not ab to get caught doing wrong ur fiiiiIIIIIIINE#(also corporateanxietybot is not an adult. she's 15 and terrified but she integrated to my work mask which is the problem cause she makes me#a “phenomenal employee” and also makes me work myself sick when she is given the reigns. little devil on my shoulder except the capitalist#system we live under treats her as a positive thing so she gets positive reinforcement at work which only makes her more anxious 😭 i gotta#talk to H about this next Friday huh. also wow. parts work has made it a lot easier for me to acknowledge these behaviors so i can confront#them easier. weird. strange even. so many parts have gotten names this past month n im realizing also why its been so hard to process stuff#but it also has made me kinder to myself. anyway she turned off (her batteries are low since she's been home for a month too) so im gonna#clean myself up and get some food in me and then get some cleaning done
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