Calling everyone in the world of Cumblr.
Please, please, pretty please, with a cherry on top, with a fucking strawberry on top too AND FUCKING SPRINKLES, PLEASE go and read the Caitlin Moran interview if you haven’t. EVERY one of you needs to read this.
Go and grab a drink and some chocolate and read that fucking stunning article that she’s written about Benedict.
It will be the best thing i’ve ever told you to do. (It’s on my front page if you can’t find it). http://cumberbuddy.tumblr.com/post/50122747086/the-times-whats-not-to-love-about-benedict
then after you’ve read it;
You’re welcome.
“I’ve realized that one of the most common misconceptions is to believe that vulnerability is a weakness. To be brave enough to expose your vulnerability and be able to feel and share in someone else’s pain is in fact a strength and a virtue that not too many possess. You don’t have to avoid people who are in pain. You don’t have to feel compelled to say anything, for you can’t really say anything to make someone who’s hurting bad feel better. But you can be there for them, to show genuine concern and love…to let them know that they’re not alone.”
—
All of the bots have songs that represent who they are.
HatchWorth sings “Hatch Fever,” which is all about what he’s capable of, because he’s used to working for others.
Rabbit sings “Brass Goggles,” which is all about the war, because he can’t forget it, or Colonel Walter.
The Spine sings “Automatonic Electronic Harmonics” which is all about what he thinks he’ll never be capable of, because what he sees in himself.
But The Jon sings “The Sound of Tomorrow,” because what he sees is the hope and the opportunities in what he is and what he can be.
Ayahuasca Experience
I sat in a high rise apartment in North Delhi, with an Australian shaman girl, Linden and an Indian city guy, Nick. The brew had been prepared earlier, and we’d smudged and cleaned the room. We were a bit iffy about doing it in a city apartment but knew that there is something to be learned from every journey. There were two brews, Mimosa and something else.. I was feeling very open, in a synchronistic kind of way. The first brew, an MAO inhibitor prepared you for the DMT in the next brew, we were supposed to hold it down for at least half an hour. I sat like a pillar, completely unoccupied with what anyone else was doing or experiencing. I could feel my focus increasing, and I knew I wouldn’t be spewing it up prematurely. Which happened to Nick, he spewed all over the walls it was hilarious. When he left I returned my focus to myself and suddenly realised that I could see the energy in the room, it was like a static electricity, and it wasn’t subtle, it was blasting and rebounding from the walls. Linden had a huge blue beam blasting from her heart chakra at lightning speed, it would move like a laser across the room hitting the wall as her physical body moved. A crack in the 3rd dimension formed and I could see an infinitely stretching sea of neon green geometric shapes, floating in a void, like a liquid tunnel with walls. This was before I had even had the next brew containing the actual DMT. When I did have it I didn’t last more than 15 minutes before I needed to spew, which Linden described as a cleansing purge. I stood over the sink and everything came out, but I felt like a warrior, in the most intense way possible, I wasn’t just spewing physical matter, but also dark energies that had been dormant in my cells, in my third eye I was in a forest bound to the earth by my own sacred feet portals, spewing the sickness of civilisation. Standing by the sink I had a vision of the Pleiadians, I remembered my connection, although I am not technically Pleiadian my soul has had a lot to do with them, recently I learned that I was extracted by them, from a star, or something, anyway, I returned to the room with their essence running through my consciousness, which felt like it was as large and connected as the universe itself. As I sat down I smelled something, it travelled into my nose and divided into billions of fragments, every cell into my body, every inch of my being down to the most minute electromagneric particle winced and cringed as the Air freshner entered my body, which was being fully experienced as a sacred temple of the pure organic matter. The chemicals were so foreign and so destructive to the natural state that, on auto pilot I ran out the door to the balcony as if I was running for my life, not with fear, but with the drive of an Earth warrior. I took a breath in and felt ill, looking up I saw the pollution of Delhi, it was the most putrid and unbearable thing, I crumbled to the ground and felt trapped, my white light filled eyes gazing at the tree branching besides the building, it’s leaves radiated with geometric beauty, each leaf held infinite detail, as if I could fall into a single particle and understand the universal motion. In that moment I had the grandest vision, I curled into myself and shut my eyes. The Earth, Mother Gaia felt like a sister being, I understood my choice to assist, I understood everything seperate from the Earths essence as counteractive to her evolution, her vision. Everything created by the disillusioned mind of man, boxes, chemicals, packaged foods, plastic, oil, poverty, pollution, all these things swirled around the earth, I understood it as The Sickness. These words can’t capture the size of all I knew in those moments. I knew the universe. I knew all, how it worked, and why, as one movement. In the center of it all however was the Earth, neon radiance, white and golden light blasting from the poles, I saw the grid around her, and I felt a love in my heart that connected me to the core of her. The love I felt was so universal, cosmic bliss, forgiveness, and duty. The whole experience was literally a recconnection, a cleansing, as if my soul burst from its limitations and flew again for the first time in 18 Earth Years. The Ayahuasca is like a teacher and a mother, she is here to heal the earth, but only those who come to here with strength, for the experience could definitely be too much for someone who is not ready. The information is experienced unfiltered.
Okay I have really intense feelings about that gif Alice just made. Because that’s what that conversation feels like to me.
That was Ziva, telling Tony that yes, she has feelings for him, but right now, she needs his friendship more than anything. She doesn’t want to lose that at the moment, because she needs it after everything she’s been through lately.
And then he accepts that, lets her know that it’s okay with him, because he knows what she needs, too, and that’s okay for now.
Because someday.
But a perfect ending for Sasuke and Sakura would be Sasuke actually letting her in when all is said and done, because now nothing would be holding him back.
It just always made the most sense for Sasuke. The chapter cover comes to mind, the one that states he threw away his friendship, his love, etc etc. Sasuke has been rejecting all of his bonds with team 7 for the longest time. Why, in the end, would he accept everything except the love Sakura offered him? It makes no literary sense. Everything he threw away before, he will accept in the future, Sakura’s love included.
Thoughts About Education:
This semester I’ve been thinking a lot about what the point of going to college is.
I remember reading an article in high school about why one should choose a liberal arts college. The article argued that by studying a variety of disciplines outside of your major or intended field of study, your ability to reason, view a variety of perspectives, and think critically is enhanced, which are valuable life skills to have— also things that employers appreciate in candidates. I actually read the in the college English class I took during my junior year of high school, which perhaps may be ironic, but at the time I just thought that was a no-brainer: everyone wants a well-rounded individual (we’ll come back to this later). I didn’t even think twice about it.
But as I’ve been progressing through college, the value seemed to take on a different meaning. When bombarded with information about what major I should be if I want to make money, or what grades I have to get to get into graduate school, or what activities I need to do in order to accomplish activity x after I graduate, it’s easy to simply not think about what the long-term effects of spending four years staying up until ungodly hours studying for exams that I won’t remember in five years, just to get a degree that hopefully will open more doors for a future that I already am overwhelmed by. And yes, I did stop thinking about it.
However, this semester, the idea of the purpose behind the last four years has re-occupied my thoughts, and though I was starting to get what I thought was a better grasp on the purpose, I didn’t really have words for it. Within my classes I’ve been having all of these epiphanies about connections between things, history and philosophy and art and literature and science all just constantly colliding, and amidst this my professors have been pushing me to look deeper, to read closer. It’s a really cool feeling, but I didn’t really have a way of explaining it— it was kind of like a light bulb went on in my head, almost 3/4 of the way through college, that was finally making everything come together… or like a puzzle piece that finally found its place.
Fast forward to earlier today (like, 30 minutes ago)— I read John Green’s commencement speech for Butler University (go read it, it’s not too long and it’s an interesting speech), and there was one little bit towards the end that really resonated with me:
“You have probably figured out by now that education is not really about grades or getting a job; it’s primarily about becoming a more aware and engaged observer of the universe.”
Going back to the college article I read back when I was a pseudo-college kid (for lack of a better term), the idea of being able to think critically, to reason, and to see from different perspectives— those are all necessary to be what Green describes: “a more aware and engaged observer of the universe.” Younger me totally wrote off those skills as simply being well-rounded, but having hit the point in my education where I’m finally starting to see all these things that aren’t readily available at first glance, there’s so much more to it than simply being well-rounded. It gives you a whole new appreciation/perspective for things: the epic poems that have such unfamiliar language that your eyes cross from trying to read it (looking at you, Milton), the events leading up to the Reformation and the repetition of events that can be found within modern Christianity, the artists who stood up to the Academy and challenged everything about the definition of art (example: Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q.), the role of social networking (and perhaps our addiction to it) within political activism and its influence on both politics and journalism… I could go on. But Green put words to the idea that’s been brewing in my head for the last semester: “it’s about becoming a more aware and engaged observer of the universe.”
One of my professors has told my class throughout the semester that he believes that if we take one thing from college, it should be this: It’s not just about seeing something, it’s also about being able to see why it’s important. I feel that seeing the importance of something is essential to being engaged with it, so I definitely agree with him on that, but it almost seems as though those skills come in a reverse order: personally, I’ve been able to see why things were important (to a degree) long before I was really able to look closely and see all of the connections and influences that impact any given thing. But that in itself may be a contradiction, because it isn’t until you have a really thorough definition or understanding of something that you can understand its true importance. This leaves me with something new to think about, as I never will have all the answers, but at least I’ve hit the point where I can see both the importance of both seeing the full, High-Def picture and the importance of understanding why [insert thing here] is important.
It’s almost finals week here, and it’s very easy to get caught up in how stressed out everyone is and to dramatically question why we even bother with college (I’ve been there, let’s be real), but it’s nice to see the hard work of the last three years (holy crap I’m almost a senior) showing in a way that is more impactful than my GPA or the items on my resume (not to discount their importance, but let’s be real, the letters on the transcript aren’t going to matter when I’m 70 with grandkids as much as my ability to see and engage with the world will).
So happy finals, or something like that. Maybe I’ll go back to studying for my exams now. ;)
