I need to be a well off couple's third and I do not want to be on equal footing with them relationship-wise, I do want to be the secondary partner here, the kind who does weird sex things they don't normally do with each other and gets flaunted like a party trick over martinis to show how worldly they are. I want to sit on one of their Eames chairs and gaze into the eyes of their useless designer dog and realize that me and it are one and the same, that I am just another set piece, and plan my escape not before exploiting their networks in the arts and local politics and penning a novella that leaves readers to wonder where the fact ends and the fiction begins.
Only thing getting me through today is the thought of Starred Egyptian Tomb Ceilings
Calming stars my beloved
I see your stars of Nefertari and I humbly add Sennefer’s grape vines
And all the patterns for the ceilings in Nebamun and Ipuky's tomb (TT181):
Or in Qenamun’s tomb (TT93):
Or the ceiling from Malqata
if i worked in a court id say "i'll see you in court!" to each of my coworkers at the end of each day until they decided to execute me
Past Lives (Celine Song, 2023)
daily reminder to distrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong
i notice ppl who are left wing say this type of thing a lot and honestly i dont really understand it. i cant seem to put my finger on what ppl who say this are actually meaning. i feel like im missing smth
ofc ppl who say this type of thing arent a monolith. ppl who say similar things dont always intend for those things to have the same meaning as each other. but tributary, if youre willing, could you explain what this sentiment means to you?
heres where im hung up, if it helps you explain what you mean better: arent ‘punishment’ and ‘fair negative consequences for your actions’ pretty much the same thing? a domestic abuser no longer being allowed to see the kids he beats is being punished but hes also facing fair consequences for his actions. someone white getting fired for calling his black coworker the n-word is, by the dictionary definition of punishment, being punished. so is a child rapist getting sent to prison. should we not give ppl negative consequences if they hurt someone?
im sorry if i sound really stupid. english isnt my first language. i just want to understand this belief since i see and hear it all the time and it really confuses me
when i say this, at least, i am making a distinction between (1) "we should take steps to stop people who are hurting others from being able to hurt others" and (2) "people who do bad things should have bad things done to them".
examples of (1): i hit my children, and am no longer allowed to see them. i use a racial slur at work to a coworker, and am fired. <- these things might feel like punishments to me, because i want to see my children / i want to work so i have money, but the focus in doing them is not to punish me, but to keep the other people safe - i can no longer abuse my children or my coworker.
examples of (2): i hit my children, and so i get publicly beaten in return. i use a racial slur at work to a coworker, and am put in solitary confinement for five days. <- these are punishments. they do not materially make anyone i have hurt safer (i can still see my children; i can still go to work with my coworker), because the assumption that people won't do something if they know they'll get hurt for it is simply not true (we have a lot of good evidence that hurting people doesn't make them change their behaviour, other than trying harder not to get caught).
of course, there's the option to do (1) and (2). i could be banned from seeing my kids, and also publicly beaten, but... why? why do we need (2), if we are already doing (1)? what does (2) do to materially make my children (or other children, for that matter, or anyone) safer?
and that's what "don't trust people who want to punish" is getting at, because the urge to punish is often really strong - especially in christian, especially evangelical christian, spaces, where there's this internalised "if you sin you go to hell" logic. people get hurt, and then they often turn around and say "well the person who hurt me should be hurt too", rather than "i don't want this person to be able to hurt me or others any more".
the problem with that is that like... well then we just end up in a cycle of hurting people for hurting others, which has negative consequences for everyone involved. as opposed to consequences happening that make everyone safer, and then rehabilitation efforts to stop people being hurt/doing hurting again. and it's also the same problem as the eternal "well it's okay to do X to Y group" (e.g. it's okay to remove voting rights from felons) - you are then motivated to turn anyone you want to do X to into a member of Y group (e.g. mass criminalisation (felonisation?) of black people via racially-selective policing and lawmaking). you start being led by "i want to do X to Y" as a knee-jerk response, rather than "what do we need to do to keep people safe?". violence becomes acceptable as long as it's for the Right Reasons.
tl;dr "punishment" and "your actions having consequences that you do not enjoy" do not mean the same thing here; there's a difference in the motivation of the person doing the punishing/consequences, and this quote-thing is arguing that that's important.
footnotes to this below the cut (bc they got longer than the actual post):
@hoodienanami they beat me to the punch here, but this is a really good explanation that i’m going to keep as a reference. thank you @sparxflame.
the dprk is one of the many countries in the west where you are actively and constantly pushed to be openly racist towards 24/7, 365
if you show any sort of humanity towards millions of people who were victim to such an inhuman scale of carpet bombing and mass military sanctioned murder youre viewed as bad, and that the only correct thought in this matter is to regard these people as cartoonish orcs that are equal parts stupid and cowardly and thus deserving of our scorn
the continual dehumanisation of the north korean people is equal parts bitterness towards the west's inability to conquer them and as a matter of justification for all the horrendous acts that were done in that attempt.
35/200
thank you!!!
hi this is becoming increasingly urgent
One of the most dangerous things in the world is not being able to say no to people because you don't want to upset them or dissapoint them. This will completely ruin your life in every way possible, at work, in your private life, your sex life and your friendships. It's a way of removing your own consent in your own decisions and go against your wishes, it is always a crime against yourself. Let yourself have a say. Upsetting people is better than traumatizing yourself.
When you watch videos coming out of Gaza, you can almost always hear a buzzing sound in the background. This sound has been keeping Gazans under constant anxious state for almost 20 years.
The sound you hear comes from surveillance aircrafts that roam the skies of Gaza with three main purposes: specific strikes, guiding missiles and the obvious, tracking every move of the people in Gaza.
People call it الزنّانة (zannana) which is attributed to the sound it makes that is similar to the buzzing noise of mosquitoes.
The use of the Zannana by Israel has been ongoing for many years leading up to the current aggression and it is constantly going for 24 hours of the day nonstop. People have always reported suffering from insomnia, being anxious all the time because of the ongoing noise, inability to study and focus and a complete loss of privacy and feeling of safety. It has a foreboding effect on people given its historical use in Gaza.
Israel uses this surveillance aircraft to gather information and determine targets, while placing the people of Gaza in a constant state of distress. This is of course just another piece of Israel's ongoing psychological war that it imposes on Palestinians every day of their lives.
When you know you're being watched by an aircraft that has resulted in killing over 2000 people between the years 2000-2022 in Gaza, imagine the constant state of horror you'll be experiencing on a daily basis as it buzzes around you while you make your breakfast, go to school, or even try to go to sleep.
One day you think: I want to die. And then you think, very quietly, actually I want a coffee. I want a nap. A sandwich. A book. And I want to die turns day by day into I want to go home, I want to walk in the woods, I want to see my friends, I want to sit in the sun. I want a cleaner room, I want a better job, I want to live somewhere else, I want to live.
Accepting help from someone with a martyr complex is actually a death wish I would rather hit rock bottom next time and save myself alone. Lesson learned. I was naive. If they're gonna need to remind you 24/7 what they did for you, do not let them do it. Blessed are those who give without remembering and take without forgetting
just a reminder in response to those positivity posts that are like "if you're depressed, go out to events every weekend! go to concerts! it'll help you out!" that while NORMALLY that could be good advice for many people (who are able to...), it is absolutely false right now, during the SECOND WORST PEAK of a pandemic of a level 3 pathogen that damages your organs and will give you chronic fatigue, shrinks your brain, is a leading cause of death in healthy children and young people in the US, and you should NOT FUCKING DO THAT right now. every single area of the United States is at high risk or very high risk levels of transmission and MANY other countries are just as bad. look at ALL THESE STUDIES on what COVID does to the body. (there are at least 50 on the page linked)
stay at home whenever you can. do not go to a damn concert. and as an immuocompromised person i am literally begging on my knees for you to WEAR A MASK. n95 or better if you can; surgical and cloth masks are absolutely much better than nothing and you Should wear them if they're all you have, but n95s are much more effective protection against COVID.
my tone comes off as angry in this post because i am angry, but it's mostly not directed at people who haven't been masking because they've been ignorant. i'm angry because of our governments leaving us out in the cold to die. it's not your fault if you didn't have this information before, but now that you do, it IS your responsibility to do your part to not kill or severely disable those around you. the concerts can wait.
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