#threads of life

[theworldisabrokenbonebutitishome]

"By the eighteenth century, women's needlework might have lost its economic value as a product, but it was becoming hugely profitable as a process. Male manufacturers had a gendered target market and seized the opportunity to direct its tastes. They adopted the role of mentors and designers and flooded the market with paper patterns, kits, transfers, accessories, magazines, pamphlets and books to tell women not just what they could sew but how they should sew. Encouraging dependency was good for business. Women were disarmed of their creative confidence, their sewing skills corralled into uniformity, usually requiring the materials advertised by specialist suppliers. Independent design or, worse, experimentation were discouraged. Women now sewed what other women sewed: distinctiveness now more usually discernible in the quality of their stitching."

- Clare Hunter 'Threads of Life'

[authorkarajorgensen]

10 Books to Add to Your TBR 2024 Edition Part 1

Most years I put out a list of books I greatly enjoyed from the first half of the year some time in June. This year, I decided to do it early because, besides needing a blog for this week, I have read a lot of good books lately, so I’m thinking of making this something I do more than twice a year (and often forget to do in December). The books listed below are not in any order of favoritism, but…

[ourthreadsoflife]

Trust

                                                                T     T                                                               S          R                                                                    U                                                           …The Core…

At various levels, in various forms, our world is built on Trust, individual and mutual. We cannot function without Trust. We are calm and content with its assured presence. We are a hopeless chaotic wreck in its absence.

Even a “rudimentary ability” like walking (an ability many of us take for granted) is gained through trust. A toddler sees the world around it, where people are moving about effortlessly. It wants to imitate them and move about but it doesn’t know how. Slowly after multiple falls, it learns to walk. The toddler doesn’t understand what it has accomplished, but it has learnt to trust its legs and hands to move about, to learn more about the world it is so curious about. On the other hand its innocent eagerness unintentionally is blowing the roof off of its parents’ anxiety. Who until now only had to worry about poop and food, now have to watch every move the baby makes. Until after few years have passed by and through continued assurances, the parents learn to trust the kid to be safe within the confines of their home. Then as the kid grows, they are again are worried until their kid is accompanied with a “sensible kid” they learn or grow to trust. It goes on and on, while the effect of trust is constant. This is how trust functions, when it is action based, and when the outcome is binary. The equation is enhanced when emotions are involved, when the outcome is no longer binary. The realm of friendship, love, business, society, government, economy, community... And we muddle trust’s essence. Pacifying ourselves that our expectation(s) (which is our core grounding) are unrealistic, we teach ourselves to accept mediocrity. We learn to compromise, underestimating the repercussions.

In any relationship, blood bond or otherwise, trust is the only fabric that can hold a healthy relationship together. Anything else apart from Trust is a telltale of an unhealthy relationship. When trust is broken, the fabric tears and we either use the loose threads to bind us to the relationship, stitching up the relationship with hope (mostly false), coz we have invested time into the relationship, we don’t want another reality where this relationship doesn’t exist, we are scared of that reality, as we have to reinvest and start from scratch. We know, we should cut our losses, and start a new, but we don’t… as it is the scariest and the hardest thing to do. We generally choose the easy option, we choose false hope, and we choose the relationship. We only choose the latter when we learn to value ourselves more than the relationship. This holds true for one to one or one to many relationship(s) and even true for our relationship with ourselves.

“By the standards of the rest of the world, we overtrust. So far it has worked very well for us.” – CHARLIE MUNGER

We have moved to set the standard of trust so low that honesty and success are mutually exclusive. Results plaster over the means. Loss of lives are collateral damage. Hunger is attributed to poverty and poverty to laziness. Simply because equal opportunity is a pipe dream, which even when delivered might not yield equal outcome (But we failed to acknowledge or realize, no is asking for equal outcome).

Trust is built over time, through unadulterated, unwavering, unconditional, Actions. Not words, but actions. It is silent, and continuous. It is reassuring. It is calming. It is humane.

It is nothing like the world we live in today.

Maybe that is why we try to build our own little worlds. Carve out a safe space where we can trust ourselves first, to regain the required reassurance to trust others.

It is hard to walk in a world filled with landmines. It might be plausible to dust oneself and start a new, but to piece oneself back again and again… that requires a rare fabric. It doesn’t have to be so. All we need to do is change our standards for Trust. It starts with us.

So, where will you set your standard for Trust? Do you know where you have set standard for Trust as of now? Will you value yourself or a relationship without trust? Hope you will not compromise on your standards of Trust. Love, Friendship, Community, Company, Economy, Country, All run on Trust.

Respect is the next milestone after trust. Our choice to compromise on Trust only rusts every aspect of our lives. Rots set in with no cure, till we raise our standards for Trust and never compromise.

[ahotknife]

i will never stop being 6 years old and lonely. i will never stop being 11 years old and lonely. i will never stop being 19 years old and lonely. i will never stop

[confessionsofanangrymetalhead]

I knew I needed to go to this as soon as I heard that Shadows Fall, who had regrouped in 2021 after an indefinite hiatus that lasted seven years and saw drummer Jason Bittner join Flotsam and Jetsam and eventually Overkill, and lead guitar GOD Jonathan Donais join Anthrax, intended on performing their 2004 CLASSIC, The War Within in its entirety. That was fucking huge news! But for those of you who might be clueless, let’s discuss why! The Importance of The War Within The War Within, the band’s fourth album and third with vocalist Brian Fair, is the most important album in the band’s entire catalog. It was released on the heels of their previous album, 2002’s The Art of Balance, which went on to sell over 100,000 copies in a time when album sales were steadily declining. You bet your ass I was one of those 100,000 people who actually bought the fucking record! I even saw Shadows Fall live for the first time a year later during an Ozzfest off-date. Having come from the New Wave of American Heavy Metal scene that was largely based in the Northeast and spawned bands such as Aftershock and Overcast – those two bands being the roots of Shadows Fall and especially Killswitch Engage – alongside All That Remains (Phil Labonte was actually the vocalist on Shadows Fall’s 1997 debut, Somber Eyes to The Sky), God Forbid (more on that band later!), Mastodon and Lamb of God, the sound was largely a mix of Hardcore breakdowns and Metallic intensity. Unfortunately, this became Metalcore. But Shadows Fall were different. Via Brain Fair’s roots in Overcast, especially after he joined Shadows Fall for their second album, 2000’s Of One Blood, the hardcore influence could be heard. But thanks to those riffs that scream Iron Maiden AND Morbid Angel, along with Jon Donais’ Randy Rhoads meets Zakk Wylde lead guitar style, they were far more Metal than Hardcore. By the time The War Within was released, the press at large had been calling them the next Metallica for two years, thanks to The Art of Balance. With TWW, the guitars were even stronger than on the last album, the drums were harder hitting, the production was clearer, and the song writing was even stronger. The album had debuted at #28 on the Billboard charts. I was a first day buyer, taking to bus to Sam Goody right after I finished with class for the day. It’d earned them sales of almost 400,000 copies – a FIRST for Century Media Records! – their first main stage slot on the next year’s Ozzfest (the last time I saw them live), and eventually, a major label deal with Atlantic Records. I still remember driving from Staten Island to Starland Ballroom to see Mastodon in May of 2005. I was on Rt 9, driving over the water, WSOU (more on them momentarily) on the radio, when the DJ announced that The War Within had sold 200,000 copies. The was incredible to hear; it meant a lot to the fans, I’m sure, and it meant a lot to the underground Metal scene, especially with Lamb of God releasing their major label debut nine months prior, and Mastodon very close to signing their own major label deal. The Show The show, I’m pretty sure was organized by WSOU, the top college station in terms of playing underground Heavy Metal for DECADES. My first exposure to WSOU in the early months of 1997 happened by mistake. I was looking for another station when I came across this one station that happened to be blasting Death Metal, the likes of which my 7th grade, dumbass self had never heard before and I’d assumed that this had to be the station. It wasn’t, but I clearly still listened up until they were forced to change their format right at the beginning of 2002. They eventually were able to revert back to their prior format; but they had to fight hard to make it happen. It’s been my first show at Starland since I saw Zakk Sabbath in 2017. And before that, the last time I’d been there was most likely the 2008 Summer Slaughter tour, with such a shitty lineup that I totally forgot that it was the last time I saw The Black Dahlia Murder! But I spent a good thre...

[tenth-sentence]

The six hijacker threads were mixed in, until the tangle began; they were merging with the throng, concealing their nature and purpose.

"Incarnations of Immortality: And Eternity" - Piers Anthony

[poligraf]

Wikipedia : Jules Pierre van Biesbroeck

Clotho ~ pastel on paper ~ Jules-Pierre van Biesbroeck (Belgian painter, 1873-1965)

[backtoaugust-ts]

I have realized that the perfect form of media must have a delicate balance between absolutely heart wrenching pure emotional devastation and the most ridiculous nonsense you have ever seen in your whole life

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[aslyran]

Visions

[theworldisabrokenbonebutitishome]

Sewing is a way to mark our existence on cloth: patterning our place in the world, voicing our identity, sharing something of ourselves with others and leaving the indelible evidence of our presence in stitches held fast by our touch.

- Clare Hunter 'Threads of Life'

[valereth2]

Update on the copy of Threads of Life by Shadows Fall that has the War Within disc in it: I took it back to the store. They figured they just put the wrong disc in it by mistake. They had a copy of War Within but they had sold it earlier that week. Tried to track down whoever Bought War Within. Spent a few days doing that. He never called them.back though. So they searched around at other stores and found a copy at the Half Price Books in Frisco. They had it shipped here for me. I picked it up on Saturday. They included a $5 gift card with it, and I  Used that to get one more album that I owned back in high school: Awake by Godsmack

[cubbihue]

Wait timmy isnt allowed in the human world, is hazels wish gonna cause him trouble?

Hrmm! Who’s to say? Timmy’s certainly displeased to hear about her discovering such a loophole!

Or maybe he’s just annoyed. I would be too if I discovered there was more work for me once I got back to my office.

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[spocks-kaathyra]

experimenting w making little trek dolls for the STLV craft swap :))

[tenth-sentence]

Clotho, the youngest, was the spinner of the threads; it was always her task to fetch the substance.

"Incarnations of Immortality: For Love of Evil" - Piers Anthony