⛅

My toxic trait is that I don't actually find pathetic wet cat failwomen relatable.

I am confident and assertive. I think I'm doing fine given my health conditions, and I am usually pretty capable at whatever I try.

@berbless asked:

1- Think back on things you have done that you are proud of or stuff you're good at. Maybe they're nothing too impressive but try to keep them in mind, celebrate them to yourself, and use them to begin building some confidence.

2- Sometimes it helps to ask yourself what the most ideal, kind, and valiant version of yourself would do in a certain situation and then just do that. Often you need less than a single minute of high-tier courage to do something really cool.

3- There are always going to be people who criticize or dislike you no matter who you are or what you do, so just do what is right by your own values. I find that being disliked by people whose values I find repulsive actually feels more like glory than shame to me.

4- If you fail at something that isn't truly critical to your survival or something, avoid treating this as a final defeat and see what you can do to improve the situation and mitigate the consequences. Pick up the sword again as soon as you recover.

5- It is good to think about the consequences of your actions and plan them out carefully, but when the time for action comes you want to be bold and decisive, with a calm mind. That helps you act more smoothly and avoid hesitation-related errors.

6- It's fine to cry and admit that you're struggling and need help. This is not the same as giving up or admitting defeat. Find a away to rise again and keep going.

7- Try to become better than you are in the present. Exercise, study, practice your skills, and more. Try to focus on the things you enjoy and you will find it much easier to stick with them in the long term.

8- Help other people and try to assist them in becoming stronger as well. This can actually be really good for your self-esteem since it can help you start viewing yourself as a strong pillar of support that others can rely on. Encouraging others is a way of encouraging yourself as well.

9- Be at least as kind to yourself as you would be to your best friend. If you would be supportive to a friend who failed and would help them fix the issue rather than insulting them and convincing them everything is doomed, then treat yourself the same way.

10- Think highly of yourself and make it a point of pride to live by your ideals. It can be very motivating when your inner pride forces you to align with whatever grandiose and idealized self-image you hold.

11- Perform regular maintenance on yourself if possible and remember to turn all of your victories and achievements into confidence and strength for the future by elevating your own self-image through them.

12- Even if you refuse to do something risky, do so without cowardice. Fear should not be the thing that moves you.

13- If everything feels meaningless, keep going anyway. The feeling is most often temporary.

14- Don't listen to the provocations of people unworthy of your blade. By ignoring them you elevate yourself to a more regal position.

15- Use your knowledge and past experiences to make plans and schedules precise enough that you do need to hurry or panic because everything is just going according to your calculations. You will probably need practice to get there.

Do Loons Yawn? by Gary Lackie Red-throated Loon (Gavia stellata)

Carrie Metz-Caporusso

their website / instagram

fixed a problem at work that i vaguely saw a manager fix once and i did it faster which means that i get to take his skin i get to take his skin i get to take his skin i get to take his skin i get to take his skin i get to take his skin

i comen to get you :D

id: tag reading #not showing my staff how to fix problems anymore…….

my sculpture website is here, my sculpture mailing list is here, i’ve tagged some of my fun DIY tags below, and i can otherwise be contacted by leaving a message in a jar in an old stump

they should make those tourism websites for cities but instead its for things to do when you live there your entire life. What do i do lol

finding out your friend has a new name/gender is so hype. Like yess give us the patch notes

(person who just reread nimona voice) the nimona comic truly does have more sauce than the movie

#the sauce is blood (via @whooliganshenanigans)

aaaaa omg a coworker just came to my desk like "oh, you changed your name? me too, look!--" and pointed out her badge and then her ringless hand and gleefully announced, "divorce!!" and we exchanged congratulations and fist bumped djdnsnjs best interaction of my entire transition

STATUS: DIVORCED (POSITIVE)

I do enjoy that one text says “Pringle?” while another says “Pringles?”, possibly implying that at one time the situation called only for a solitary Pringle.

In the past I've shared other people's musings about the different interpretations of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Namely, why Orpheus looks back at Eurydice, even though he knows it means he'll lose her forever. So many people seem to think they've found the one true explanation of the myth. But to me, the beauty of myths is that they have many possible meanings.

So I thought I would share a list of every interpretation I know, from every serious adaptation of the story and every analysis I've ever heard or read, of why Orpheus looks back.

One interpretation – advocated by Monteverdi's opera, for example – is that the backward glance represents excessive passion and a fatal lack of self-control. Orpheus loves Eurydice to such excess that he tries to defy the laws of nature by bringing her back from the dead, yet that very same passion dooms his quest fo fail, because he can't resist the temptation to look back at her.

He can also be seen as succumbing to that classic "tragic flaw" of hubris, excessive pride. Because his music and his love conquer the Underworld, it might be that he makes the mistake of thinking he's entirely above divine law, and fatally allows himself to break the one rule that Hades and Persephone set for him.

Then there are the versions where his flaw is his lack of faith, because he looks back out of doubt that Eurydice is really there. I think there are three possible interpretations of this scenario, which can each work alone or else co-exist with each other. From what I've read about Hadestown, it sounds as if it combines all three.

In one interpretation, he doubts Hades and Persephone's promise. Will they really give Eurydice back to him, or is it all a cruel trick? In this case, the message seems to be a warning to trust in the gods; if you doubt their blessings, you might lose them.

Another perspective is that he doubts Eurydice. Does she love him enough to follow him? In this case, the warning is that romantic love can't survive unless the lovers trust each other. I'm thinking of Moulin Rouge!, which is ostensibly based on the Orpheus myth, and which uses Christian's jealousy as its equivalent of Orpheus's fatal doubt and explicitly states "Where there is no trust, there is no love."

The third variation is that he doubts himself. Could his music really have the power to sway the Underworld? The message in this version would be that self-doubt can sabotage all our best efforts.

But all of the above interpretations revolve around the concept that Orpheus looks back because of a tragic flaw, which wasn't necessarily the view of Virgil, the earliest known recorder of the myth. Virgil wrote that Orpheus's backward glance was "A pardonable offense, if the spirits knew how to pardon."

In some versions, when the upper world comes into Orpheus's view, he thinks his journey is over. In this moment, he's so ecstatic and so eager to finally see Eurydice that he unthinkingly turns around an instant too soon, either just before he reaches the threshold or when he's already crossed it but Eurydice is still a few steps behind him. In this scenario, it isn't a personal flaw that makes him look back, but just a moment of passion-fueled carelessness, and the fact that it costs him Eurydice shows the pitilessness of the Underworld.

In other versions, concern for Eurydice makes him look back. Sometimes he looks back because the upward path is steep and rocky, and Eurydice is still limping from her snakebite, so he knows she must be struggling, in some versions he even hears her stumble, and he finally can't resist turning around to help her. Or more cruelly, in other versions – for example, in Gluck's opera – Eurydice doesn't know that Orpheus is forbidden to look back at her, and Orpheus is also forbidden to tell her. So she's distraught that her husband seems to be coldly ignoring her and begs him to look at her until he can't bear her anguish anymore.

These versions highlight the harshness of the Underworld's law, and Orpheus's failure to comply with it seems natural and even inevitable. The message here seems to be that death is pitiless and irreversible: a demigod hero might come close to conquering it, but through little or no fault of his own, he's bound to fail in the end.

Another interpretation I've read is that Orpheus's backward glance represents the nature of grief. We can't help but look back on our memories of our dead loved ones, even though it means feeling the pain of loss all over again.

Then there's the interpretation that Orpheus chooses his memory of Eurydice, represented by the backward glance, rather than a future with a living Eurydice. "The poet's choice," as Portrait of a Lady on Fire puts it. In this reading, Orpheus looks back because he realizes he would rather preserve his memory of their youthful, blissful love, just as it was when she died, than face a future of growing older, the difficulties of married life, and the possibility that their love will fade. That's the slightly more sympathetic version. In the version that makes Orpheus more egotistical, he prefers the idealized memory to the real woman because the memory is entirely his possession, in a way that a living wife with her own will could never be, and will never distract him from his music, but can only inspire it.

Then there are the modern feminist interpretations, also alluded to in Portrait of a Lady on Fire but seen in several female-authored adaptations of the myth too, where Eurydice provokes Orpheus into looking back because she wants to stay in the Underworld. The viewpoint kinder to Orpheus is that Eurydice also wants to preserve their love just as it was, youthful, passionate, and blissful, rather than subject it to the ravages of time and the hardships of life. The variation less sympathetic to Orpheus is that Euyridice was at peace in death, in some versions she drank from the river Lethe and doesn't even remember Orpheus, his attempt to take her back is selfish, and she prefers to be her own free woman than be bound to him forever and literally only live for his sake.

With that interpretation in mind, I'm surprised I've never read yet another variation. I can imagine a version where, as Orpheus walks up the path toward the living world, he realizes he's being selfish: Eurydice was happy and at peace in the Elysian Fields, she doesn't even remember him because she drank from Lethe, and she's only following him now because Hades and Persephone have forced her to do so. So he finally looks back out of selfless love, to let her go. Maybe I should write this retelling myself.

Are any of these interpretations – or any others – the "true" or "definitive" reason why Orpheus looks back? I don't think so at all. The fact that they all exist and can all ring true says something valuable about the nature of mythology.

unrestrained summer fun

Researcher and doctorate @NoraEpstein on Twitter just posted a video of the new tattoo she got commemorating her PhD.

And… she footnoted the artwork, with a literal footnote 😂 I love this so much

fun fact about me: When I was 6 years old I sent so much hate mail to the president (the second Bush) that the mail carrier had to tell my mom I needed to stop before we got FBI’d

I was COMPLETELY unaware of the US political scene or why the adults in my life hated Bush, but I knew I hated him because he let people shoot wolves from helicopters and that’s mean and shitty

I also had a poor grasp on how stamps worked, so given that I wasn’t allowed to continually throw money away by putting stamps on my presidential hate mail, a lot of the times I just drew squares with little pictures inside on the corner.

Love, love, love reading more proof that everyone should encourage the children in their lives to write to elected officials--it teaches them about citizenship and can also be very funny.

When I taught second grade, one of the options for students who had finished their work was to write a letter to the president. I would send all of the letters in a big envelope at the end of every month.

Watching my students get more and more frustrated with him (and concerned about his wellbeing) was not the result I'd hoped for when I came up with the idea, but it was kind of hilarious.

See, Obama had a standard packet with information and activities about his dog he'd send in response to letters from very young citizens...and of course his office sent one back to our class every single time we sent mail.

So eventually all of the letters looked something like this: