this is the funniest shit ive ever seen in my life
Johnny Appleseed: America’s Forgotten Ronin
"Cowboys were an itinerant warrior class from meiji era texas"
intactics-deactivated20211231
still thinking about wolf 21
intactics-deactivated20211231
[BEGIN IMAGE TRANSCRIPTION]
Twenty-one was “remarkably gentle” with the members of his pack, says Rick. Immediately after making a kill, he would often walk away to urinate or lie down and nap, allowing family members who’d had nothing to do with the hunt to eat their fill.
One of Twenty-one’s favorite things was to wrestle with little pups. “And what he really loved to do,” Rick adds, “was to pretend to lose. He just got a huge kick out of it.” Here was this great big male wolf. And he’d let some little wolf jump on him and bite his fur. “He’d just fall on his back with his paws in the air,” Rick half-mimes. “And the triumphant-looking little one would be standing over him with his tail wagging.”
“The ability to pretend,” Rick adds, “shows that you understand how your actions are perceived by others. It indicates high intelligence. I’m sure the pups knew what was going on, but it was a way for them to learn how it feels to conquer something much bigger than you. And that kind of confidence is what wolves need every day of their hunting lives.”
In Twenty-one’s life, there was a particular male, a sort of roving Casanova, a continual annoyance. He was strikingly good-looking, had a big personality, and was always doing something interesting. “The single best word is ‘charisma,’” says Rick. “Female wolves were happy to mate with him. People loved him. His irresponsibility and infidelity – it didn’t matter.”
One day, Twenty-one discovered this Casanova among his daughters. Twenty-one ran in, caught him, and began biting and pinning him to the ground. Various pack members piled in, beating Casanova up.
“Casanova was also big,” Rick says, “but he was a bad fighter. Now he was totally overwhelmed and the pack was finally killing him. Suddenly Twenty-one steps back. Everything stops. The pack members are looking at Twenty-one as if saying, ‘Why has Dad stopped?’” The Casanova wolf jumped up and — as always in such situations — ran away.
But Casanova kept causing problems for Twenty-one. Why didn’t Twenty-one just kill him so he wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore? It didn’t make sense — until years later.
Fast-forward to after Twenty-one’s death. Casanova briefly became the Druid pack’s alpha male. But he wasn’t effective, Rick recalls. He didn’t know what to do, “just not a leader personality.” and although it’s very rare for a younger brother to depose an older one, that’s what happened to him. Casanova didn’t mind; it meant he was free to wander and meet other females.
Eventually Casanova, along with several Druid males, met some females, and they all formed another pack. “With them,” Rick remembers, “he finally became the model of a responsible alpha male and a great father.” Meanwhile, the mighty Druids were ravaged and weakened by mange and diminished by interpack fighting; the last Druid was shot near Butte, Montana, in 2010. Casanova, though he’d been averse to fighting, died in a fight with a rival pack. But everyone in his pack remained uninjured — including grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Twenty-one.
Wolves can’t foresee such plot twists any more than people can. But evolution does. I’s calculus integrates long averages. By sparing the Casanova wolf, Twenty-one actually helped assure himself more surviving descendants. And in evolution, surviving descendants are the only currency that matters.
So in strictly survivalist terms, “should” a wolf let his rival go free? Is restraint an effective strategy for accumulating benefits? I think the answer is yes, if you can afford it, because sometimes your enemy today becomes, tomorrow, a vehicle for your legacy. What Rick saw play out over those years might be just the kinds of events that are the basis for magnanimity in wolves, and at the heart of mercy in men.
Early on, when Twenty-one was young and still living with his mother and adoptive father, one of their new pups was not acting normal. The other pups were a bit afraid of him and wouldn’t play with him. One day, Twenty-one brought back some food for the small pups, and after feeding them, he just stood there, looking around for something. Soon he started wagging his tail. “He’d been looking for the sickly little pup,” Rick says, “and finding him, he just went over to hang out with him for a while.”
Rick suddenly seems to be searching inside himself for something deeper he wants to express. Then he looks at me, saying simply, “Of all the stories I have about Twenty-one, that’s my favorite.” Strength impresses us. But what we remember is kindness.
The majority of wolves die violently. Despite a violent, eventful life even by wolf standards, Twenty-one distinguished himself to the very end: He was a black wolf who grayed with the years and became one of the few Yellowstone wolves to die of old age.
One June day when Twenty-one was 9 years old, his family was lying bedded down when an elk came by. Everyone jumped up to give chase. He jumped up, too, but just stood watching the action and then lay down again. Later, when the pack headed up toward the den site, Twenty-one crossed the valley in the opposite direction, traveling purposefully somewhere, alone.
Sometime later, a visitor who’d been way up high in the backcountry reported having seen something very unusual: a dead wolf. Rick got a horse and rode up to investigate.
The last day, it seems, Twenty-one knew his time had come. He used the last of his energy to go up to the top of a high mountain. In a favorite family rendezvous site, where he’d been with his pups year after year, amid high summer grass and mountain wildflowers, Twenty-one curled up in the shade of a big tree. And on his own terms, he went to sleep for the last time.
[END IMAGE TRANSCRIPTION]
the story above was taken from this article, and the whole thing is really worth a read.
Hassan II Mosque @ esalaskari
[id: a black cat sleeping in a beam of sunlight on a bench covered in geometric mosaics.]/end id.
going to the hero's journey theme park to go on their sweet tunnel of katabasis boat ride. hope i don't come back a fundamentally changed person
Death wears a fool's clothing. Dated book-plates (Ex libris) with a treatise on their origin and development. 1895.
Less "I'm sure you're smart!" More "You don't have to be smart to be a worthy and valuable person"
Less "You have so much potential!" More "What you can do NOW already matters. You don't have to do or achieve more to be valuable."
Less "You can do it!" More "It's okay if it turns out that you can't do it. I will value you regardless"
Less "You will get better!" More "Recovering fully isn't a requirement for figuring out how to live a good and meaningful life"
Less "You have no limits!" More "You don't have to push through the boundaries and limits of your body and mind to prove that you're trying. You're doing enough."
Less "Think positive, be happy!" More "It's impossible to be happy and positive all the time. Don't blame yourself for being real."
Less "Keep trying no matter what!" More "Sometimes you gotta get off the wrong path to find the right one. Changing your mind about something isn't inherently a failure."
Less empty platitudes and toxic positivity - more compassion!
i love you lisp i love you stutter i love you pressured speech i love you damaged vocal cords i love you aphasia i love you mutism i love you selective mutism i love you deaf voice i love you apraxia i love you speech delay i love you vocal tic i love you articulation disorder i love you sign language
i hate you societal norm to make fun of speech impediments i hate you “get it fixed” mentality i hate you mocking someone for the way they communicate i hate you “go to speech therapy so your kid won’t be bullied” i hate you i hate you i hate you
another piece of advice i have for those living with partners or roommates: some days you are going to feel very productive while they seem kind of spacey/distracted/wanting to relax, and vice versa.
a phrase we have implemented is “is it playtime?” because sometimes you dont have the mental battery to be the present adult your partner/roommate is asking of you and need time to relax. also because i think its silly.
if you can communicate that between both parties then you can find a later time that you can work with them or figure out what needs to be taken care of right now. by communicating boundaries of “worktime” “playtime” you can respect each-others energy levels while still picking times to work together and achieve tasks as adults.
40,000 years ago, early humans painted hands on the wall of a cave. This morning, my baby cousin began finger painting. All of recorded history happened between these two paintings of human hands. The Nazca Lines and the Mona Lisa. The first TransAtlantic flight and the first voyage to the Moon. Humanity invented the wheel, the telescope, and the nuclear bomb. We eradicated wild poliovirus types 2 and 3. We discovered radio waves, dinosaurs, and the laws of thermodynamics. Freedom Riders crossed the South. Hippies burned their draft cards. Countless genocides, scientific advancements, migrations, and rebellions. More than a hundred billion humans lived and died between these two paintings—one on a sheet of paper, and one on the inside of a cave. At the dawn of time, ancient humans stretched out their hands. And this morning, a child reached back.
A Timeline of Humanity:
Did you guys know the “Sickos” artist made a Sicko thats a WGA screenwriter on strike (said comic artist is a The Onion satirist comic artist and his name is Stan Kelly)
And honestly? What a mood. Haha YES indeed.
