David Shrigley - Live Each Day As If It Were Your First, 2022
When I was about 11, my father was listening to NPR in the car and I was the captive audience in the back seat with no choice but to listen. It was some gardening and/or food themed show and the host was talking about how carrots grown in the winter produce more sugar. This is an evolutionary tactic on the carrot’s part to survive harsh conditions. And that was when this man dropped the most banger line I’ve ever heard. “When you bite into a carrot and it tastes sweet, that’s the carrot saying ‘I don’t want to die.’” I was floored, changed as a person forever. This line haunts me. The poetry. The emotion. NPR made me the sappy garden idiot I am today, romanticizing senescence and over analyzing the science behind vegetables.
YOU MUST BREAK THE PATTERN TODAY OR THE LOOP WILL REPEAT TOMORROW
I'm thinking about finally starting the newsletter that I created years ago to keep me responsible in writing -_- would anyone be interested in that
“The daily routine of most adults is so heavy and artificial that we are closed off to much of the world. We have to do this in order to get our work done. I think one purpose of art is to get us out of those routines. When we hear music or poetry or stories, the world opens up again. We’re drawn in — or out — and the windows of our perception are cleansed.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, Talking on the Water: Conversations about Nature and Creativity (Trinity University Press, October 11, 2016) (via Alive on All Channels)
I'm thinking about finally starting the newsletter that I created years ago to keep me responsible in writing -_- would anyone be interested in that
I'm thinking about finally starting the newsletter that I created years ago to keep me responsible in writing -_- would anyone be interested in that
Forgive yourself for all the unhealthy habits you picked up on when you were in survival mode.
Nothing will ruin your 20’s more than thinking you should have your life together already.
In terms of like, Please For The Love Of God Get Hobbies That Aren't Scrolling Through An App For Six Hours A Day, I understand and experience completely the argument of like. with the stressors of modern work, you don't have the energy at the end of the day to do anything but mindlessly watch Netflix and scroll through your phone. but like I would like to gently encourage you to simply force yourself for a time to do something instead of pick up your phone, bc the phone is literally designed to light up your brain with no effort from you whatsoever and it does in fact rot your brain. It makes literally anything but scrolling on your phone seem difficult and joyless. But if you stop scrolling on your phone all the time, and start like, reading or embroidering or gardening or going for walks, you will eventually find the joy in them once more
I understand and it is true that it is hard to have a life outside work and scrolling but there is not a near future where that won't be the case and you should still live a life. And you won't create a future where that isn't the case if you don't have the confidence and experience and drive to fight for it
I lose followers every time I mention that the chemical imbalance theory of depression (or any mental illness, in fact) is both unsupported by evidence and politically expedient, and at this point it’s actually surprising to me. We’re past this, no? Psychiatric diagnoses are names that powerful institutions give certain behavioral patterns; they are not biologically identifiable disease states. There’s not nothing to the naming of patterns of experience, tho–I use a lot of these names (depression, OCD, eating disorders, DID, etc.) bc it’s how we deal in shared meaning around them. I’m all for self-dx, self un-dx, and clinical dx’s that feel meaningful and helpful to those who receive them. But the fact remains that not even the most advanced neuroscientists can claim to know exactly wtf is going on in there! There is no identifiable biological state that consistently causes or even correlates with what we call mental illness. MIs definitely involve biological processes, bc that’s true of all human life and experience, but they’re complex bio-psycho-social-spiritual conditions that could be named and understood in any number of ways. We’re complex creatures who are perpetually responding to our environments!
Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed