Withdrawing from school was probably one of the best individual decisions i’ve ever made in my life, for reasons too numerous to list here, but I have obtained vital wisdom that I will share here:
Log off and talk to old people
Your brain is being microwaved by exposure to almost exclusively under-30s who don’t get outside very much. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being young or indoors, but it’s really starting to click for me that your 20’s are a garbage fire, and no one in their 20’s knows shit (including me). We are all just so unfinished and terrified and confused.
You need role models that are older than you. If your role models are all your age you’re admiring a lot of people that have fewer challenges than you, and not very many people that used to be like you and bloomed.
It won’t click for you until you make friends with “boomers” who are the most blisteringly self-actualized people you’ve ever seen, actively involved in their communities, cool and thoughtful and full of stories, and 80% of the things that seem important to you burn away. You Will Be Okay.
Let me tell you a secret: The bigger part of the fight for good in this wretched world is invisible to the internet, rippling past without surfacing on Twitter or Instagram.
I’m organizing right now to launch a “re-wilding” project around my hometown, and joining forces with a lady who runs a native plant giveaway sort of thing, and she [coolest person ever] [gives off the powerful aura of a level 999 human] doesn’t have a cell phone let alone the internet
I’m here to tell you that there are a billion awesome things in your community for you to join with, and it seems to you like they don’t exist, simply because the people that run them don’t know how to social media
f.f.f. (farmer family friend) is the president of the farmers market in his hometown and they have a facebook page and that’s basically it and i’m like, there are so many farmers markets that 20somethings don’t know about, aren’t there…
But if you talk to a person like this and say “hey i wanna grow native trees/start a community garden/grow a food forest” chances are you will get pelted with connections to 75 other people who are exactly who you need to talk to
There’s a guy who just started where I work who is interested in urban and suburban food forests, and because of my brother’s volunteer work, I happen to know that a local food bank is about to buy land to start farming on, and I tell him “Here, here’s this guy’s number, talk to him he’ll be SUPER excited to hear what you have to say” and then I think to myself “Networking? Is this networking? EEEEE!”
And listen…
you, a Young Person, may be ALSO just as vital to these not-as-internet-adept folks who are doing good work, because YOU can get THEM connected to all the folks on the internets and link them to resources THEY can’t access
hey op. i want you to know my boyfriend has been in hysterics, laughing and occasionally wheezing out “bibby” for the past half an hour because of this post. are you proud of what youve done?
I was trying to see it in the arrangement of stars and galaxies, but it’s just. A fucking. It’s a fucking. Question mark. Floating in space. Not a constellation, just a floating goddamn question mark. I want to scream.
oh you’re in a horror film/book and your phone died/has no bars? how boring. I think phones in horror SHOULD work. they should ding only to have the protagonist check and find nothing. they should get calls from somebody you don’t know but is still somehow in your contacts. google maps should lead you to one place, no matter what address you type in.
phones are such a big part of our daily lives, removing them from horror removes the horror from our experience. what if the horror felt like it could happen to you, right here, right now? what if it felt like it was already happening?
call 911 and something that is definitely not a person picks up.
call 911 and get an operator only for the call to become increasingly weirder and more sinister until you realize that whatever picked up is not there to help.
text messages from someone who’s dead. voicemails that sound like dead air until you turn the volume all the way up.
emergency alerts for weather that doesn’t happen on earth.
Your phone rings - but it’s your phone number on the screen. You answer it, but all you hear is heavy, laboured breathing. You go to say something, only to hear your voice on the other end tell you “It’s too late,” and hang up.
You get a message from a number you don’t recognise. It’s a picture of you from behind. You turn and see there’s nobody there. When you look back at your phone, you see the sender has sent another text - “Sorry, wrong number.”
Your phone rings - it’s a private number. You answer it, only to feel the sensation of something licking your ear.
You wake up to find a voicemail. You play it back, only to hear an autotuned version of your own voice reciting a Bible passage - 1 Peter 2: 18-20.
You get an emergency alert. It says “I’m sorry.”
every time you try to call anyone, the version of you that didn’t get trapped in the hell maze picks up instead, and she’s getting increasingly scared and angry to hear from you
honestly even the more mundane versions could be terrifying.
you call 999 and the operator says they send someone as soon as they can but it’s a 80 minute wait for an ambulance and a 90 minute wait for police. you try and emphasise that you’re in immediate danger. it’s not even that the operator doesn’t believe you, it’s just that budget cuts mean they have no-one to send. you’re left with the acute knowledge that by the time help comes, it will probably be too late.
My favorite bit of folk medicine is that we’re supposed to take wormwood for intestinal parasites. It’s actually really effective, which is how wormwood got its name, but the reason it’s effective is that wormwood is literally just poison and it happens to kill the worms slightly faster than it kills you.
That’s medicine BABEYYYYYY!!!!
No, but seriously, the reason plants have useful chemicals that we can use medicinally is because they have evolved those chemicals as poisons to prevent predation. Humans were just smart enough to figure out through trial and error how to balance these chemical extracts to counteract abnormalities in our bodies.
Like: “Hm. This plant toxin is a cardiac glycoside and increases heart output. In a healthy person, this is highly unpleasant and may even cause death. But… for my aging aunt over here who’s suffering from congestive heart failure… a little foxglove extract taken every morning with her tea would probably help her circulation and keep her weary heart kickin’ for a few more years.”
Medicine is the opportune application of poisons. Healers and poisoners are folks with similar skill sets and wildly different philosophies.
dear @shitpostsampler i would like a pony and a cross stitch pattern for “Healers and poisoners are folks with similar skill sets and wildly different philosophies” please <3
kids were roleplaying with minecraft figurines and one of them had their figure go up to the other and say “i’m in love with you” and the other one replied “sword slash to the chest. and you’re on fire”
thr funniest part of therapy to me is when you first come in and you’re exchanging niceties and they say “hello! how are you” and you say “im fine how are you :)” and then 30 seconds later they put on their therapist voice and say “so how are you doing?” and you go well lisa. believe it or not im doing Bad
