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bogkeep · 7 months

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it was always a strange dichotomy. every middle school classmate i had told me i'd be a millionaire when i grew up, a Famouse Artisté. it's easy enough to imagine as a teen, i suppose: skill equals fame equals money. i was doubtful about this prophecy, not because i wasn't confident in my ability to draw, but because it was hard to imagine a world where i'd be paid for it.

it was an ice breaker game at summer camp. horrible one, really - everyone in a group were given a character profile. now we had to imagine that it was the zombie apocalypse, and the helicopter to safety was two seats short and we had argue why we deserved a spot. the character i got was an asshole doctor of some kind. i don't remember if i argued my way into the helicopter or not, but i do remember the feeling that's been hanging over me my entire life - if the apocalypse happens right now, i have nothing to contribute.

there's something really painful about it. i have cultivated a skill for my whole life, i can make art and tell stories that are entirely unique to me, there is no way to get someone else to create in the exact same way i can, and yet - i've contributed more to capitalist society by sitting in an empty hotel reception for eight hours a day.

which made me develop anxiety, to boot.

i illustrated two children's books. they're some of my best work. the contract i signed was industry standard and the indie author who had hired me was incredibly kind... but even after stock sold out i had earnt little more than some pocket change.

in high school we had an outing to dig our own snow caves that we would spend the night in. in teams, thankfully. i have so little physical strength to speak of, most i could do to help was clear away the snow rubble and toss it outside. i know, i know, my classmates reassured me it was an important job to do, i was an invaluable member of the group, sure - but it's that feeling, you know?

what would my task be in the communist solarpunk commune?

a person cannot be useless. it's a human being. they just exist, no ifs and buts about it. one can only be useless in the eyes of an ableist, capitalist society that sees no value in being alive beyond production and profit.

sometimes i receive messages from internet strangers to tell me something i said - often several years ago - was helpful to them. maybe it was a throwaway comment on a forum. maybe it was replying to a question they could've googled the answer to. maybe it was an encouraging reply to someone's artwork. turns out it mattered to someone. huh.

of course you can learn new skills. i have learnt plenty over the years! i have also learnt that there are limitations to what i can do. that some of the obstacles i face are not in fact obstacles everyone faces. it's not that i can't break tasks into smaller steps, it's more that half of those steps are going to be "rinse your hands because you Touched a Thing and now you're going to have to touch Another Thing." i wonder if that's adding to my cognitive load or something.

i was never raised to be a man, so by all accounts i do not understand why i'm so haunted by the spectre of toxic masculinity - what would i do if i was a medieval peasant and a war broke out? what if i was in a pre-historic hunter gatherer society and i was expected to hunt? what if i was a humble farm boy discovering the sword of the chosen one and the world depended on my non-existing courage to face certain death?

look, it's stupid. these are not scenarios i will find myself in. besides, pre-historic humans depended on community and taking care of each other. that's how we survive.

i'm not useless and i decided to make peace with being useless anyway.

we're surrounded by digital clocks. we can't really escape them. do we need watchmakers? would they save me a spot in the zombie apocalypse helicopter? no, don't answer that. i'm just happy i found something that requires a light touch and an observant eye.

#too long for twitter #I AM NOT ASKING FOR ADVICE I AM JUST MUSING AND WRITING A BLOG POST FOR THE JOY OF WRITING BLOG POSTS #not mentioned: the bachelors degree in art history i took to procrastinate with my life.#i would love to work as an illustrator still. if the opportunity to do so comfortably comes along i will take it #but im also happy to pursue my passion in my free time as something that belongs to me #number one question im asked whenever i tell someone i go to watchmaker school is 'BUT DO YOU STILL DRAW??'#it's like asking if i still breathe. yes! i still do the thing that makes me feel alive #it's just. we live in a world that's hostile to Live Comfortably and Pursue Creative Passions at the same time #and a society that can be so largely dismissive of art sometimes; all the while consuming it en masse #ah you probably get it. you dont need me to tell you

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leitereads · 15 days

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Kuroshitsuji: an analysis on "fagging" and a change of power dynamics between characters

I know how disappointed some fans are regarding the "politically correct" presentation of Ciel and the overall "fagging" culture that was common back then at elite boarding schools in the UK. From what I have heard from people slightly older than me, this was a thing that carried on into the late 90s in certain private schools. As of now, I am sorry, I don’t know anyone rich enough to ask them regarding those things.

However, what I can say about this matter is that a) this practice is can be found almost anywhere in the world (mostly in universities), b) it is about power exchange and how it leads to respecting tradition and bond with other students, c) I am part of it in my own university and d) it’s deliciously represented in Kuroshitsuji, in a way that somehow gives us a different perspective over what Ciel can and cannot do, limiting his actions, something that he, as a powerful noble, is not used to.

Fagging

In many countries and cultures cross the world, "fagging" has many different names, and many different forms. In the US you have fraternities and sororities, here in my country you have the "Praxe". In the UK you have (had?) fagging, in which consisted exactly on younger students doing most part of domestic tasks that were supposed to be made by older students. The older the students were, the more power and status they gained inside the institution, and therefore the more privileges they had. In consequence, although these fags didn’t have an easy life, they still had some sort of protection and status themselves for serving someone older. This creates an hierarchy based on age, more specifically just academic age.

Ciel, as being someone young is, of course, at the base of this hierarchical system. Someone who is used to be at the top of the hierarchical ladder is going to struggle to adapt to a new environment, one in which he simply cannot understand/agree with the traditions imposed. This will create a certain obstacle at first, because he needs to learn how to navigate in a different society so different and, at the same time, so similar to the one he belongs to: the only difference being where he stands. And we see Ciel, for the second time in his life, working himself from the the way down to the way up.

In the first time, his birth condition (well, let’s assume we are speaking about Ciel’s condition, and not o!Ciel’s one at least) gave him a kickstart in life: a manor, monetary goods, a title. In this case, he is a mere 1st year student, and he must subjugate himself to the desires (sometimes sadistic) of older students, especially Clayton at first.

Psychological Implications

It may be complicated from Ciel, even more taking in consideration how prideful he is, to swallow that pride and abide by traditions he a) doesn’t relate to b) finds useless and c) seeing himself without a lot of power to swiftly surpass those obstacles. Ciel is not there in order to live the academic traditions that are present around him, nor to make friends, of course. And, in the end, fagging and these other academic traditions open the door to just that: when people suffer together they usually stick together. This is the meaning of fagging, Praxe, and all the other academic traditions listed. And this is not what he is searching for. Which puts a little bit of strain on him, and he ultimately might think they are extremely childish and ridiculous.

Another interesting aspect of this overall power exchange here is that Sebastian is in a higher position of power than Ciel, as opposed to their base situation. This is, of course, extremely debatable, and the power that each one of them holds in their master/servant (no, I am not talking about that sort of thing… eww) is quite mutable, and, at times, one may hold more control over the other, and that is changing. Here we have a third factor contributing to that mutable power exchange: a different environment, where Sebastian’s position allows him to be seen as more respectable. And this is extremely delicious to see when he lets Ciel undergoing the initiation ritual with the bedsheets and being thrown: Sebastian is, obviously, enjoying himself at the expense of his master’s suffering, since in normal situations he simply cannot do that, at least not as frequently. To Sebastian this is cathartic, and to Ciel (Sebastian’s master) this must feel extremely insolent. Especially because Ciel is someone who likes to always be in control, having in consideration all he went through.

Undergoing this traditional upbringing will, hopefully, provide Ciel either the necessary tools regarding being more self-reliant and independent when it comes to Sebastian because, even if the demon is able to help him out with all the domestic tasks that he needs to do, who knows what will happen when Ciel loses (even if just temporarily) Sebastian one day (which, as another post explained, it might happen sooner than we think).

By being a fag and by navigating a position in which he is in a lower position, Ciel can’t find many shortcuts to success, and he will need to a) rely on his interpersonal skills, b) make connections with other students, c) be aware of what’s going on, socially, around him (read the room) and d) use his insight more than the sheer force and threats of Sebastian.

#kuroshitsuji #black butler #ciel phantomhive #public school arc #anime #manga #meta #analysis #character analysis #writing #culture

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royalberryriku · 3 months

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I have some thoughts about sexism and just overall many types of prejudices where sexism directly contributes to. But today I just want to focus on this really accepted trope that "women are smarter" and "men are idiots" then go from there.

Note: if you're a radfem who says this, you're not gonna like what I have to say and... honestly? I think you're the ones who need to hear this the most.

So for base context, I'm a trans man, born female transitioned to male. Let me tell you a few stories from when I was a little girl;

I was often told by family, especially women around me, that girls are smarter than boys and boys can't keep up with a woman. Which, to many, may feel empowering. Well, not to me. Why? Because the same people, women and men around me, all called me dumb, idiotic, a retard and would always point out how much I didn't succeed academically and how I was socially very slow. I didn't understand things like those around me, I wasn't witty, I wasn't a social butterfly who could care for everyone around me. Unfortunately, I was a girl who wasn't "the clever one". So, I was not smart girl, I was a far too average girl. And for girls, that's a crime you're not allowed to commit.

Now, let's turn the clock a bit into the future. I'm 21 and have come out as a transgender person. At this point it time, I have no real plans on transitioning and I'm not even sure of my gender, just that there is discomfort in my current presentation/ body that has always been there all along, now discovered through several years of therapy (that I had no support getting from family and had to organise myself btw), that was separate to 1) the sexism and 2) various layers of trauma I will not go into because it genuinely isn't relavent to this specific conversation. Many may go "oh you were running from being treated as a girl!" Well let me tell you a thing about presenting in a way that isn't perceived as "how girls should be allowed to act and dress and refer to themselves". You are not treated better or as a man. You are treated a lot worse than either one. Let me repeat; I was no longer treated as a woman, sure, but I wasn't treated as a man; I was treated as an even worse moral failing by general society, especially those with the opinion: "girls need to act this way" and "boys need to act that way". Ring any bells?

Now, let's turn the clock again, I'm 24 now and I look like a man, like a born male cisgender non-transgender man. People see me and say sir because I have a beard, people assume I am male 100% born that way. Now, how does this affect my treatment?

I'm a feminine man, so obviously I get called slurs and people assume I'm gay (I'm bi thank you very much), and I've had people laugh and shout "haha gAY!" because of how I walk, dress, etc (which I'm fine with this is me and I like how I am). However, I am given a new set of expectations; that I will automatically fail and it will be okay. That I shouldn't even try. Now imagine with me for a sec here, people expect you to do a thing and then they go "nah it's okay, you're a boy". It's humiliating and as demeaning as "oh you can't do this because you're a girl". It's just with mental tasks instead of physical this time. I'm no longer expected to be the clever girls and inevitably not meet expectations for not being born a genius capable of taking care of everyone around me. Now? Now I'm expected to be useless. I can't think for myself and when I do minor freaking shit it makes me such a clever boy like fuck off please that was average? I don't want coddling or pity for the mistake of having "a boy brain" or to be told "oh you're special because you're so smart" for seeing a fucking thing right in front of me because the other men in my life expected not to. Because when they don't someone else will and no one will care. Do people actually think men are dumb? No, they're just accepting the fact you'll do shit for them, just like how I used to as a girl who was told "oh you don't have to take out the trash dear" or "you don't have the mow the lawn, you have brothers". It's the. Same. Exact. Shit.

Oh yes, but how empowering it is to call women smart feble creatures who can only take care of those around them with their brain and boys are idiots who can only help with their brawn knowing full well the pressure this places on both and the expectations taken away from either that the other must compensate for unfairly. Oh yes, how feminist of you all! Not. It's sexist and it's gross.

Let's also discuss how this effects sexuality shall we? Again, as I said I am a feminine man who is averagely smart (so seen as clever) and averagely brawny (so seen as weak), and trans which means I'm a traitor to womanhood and clearly only feminine because "I am female" as many would want me to phrase it, but I'm going to say "I was born female and transitioned to male" because that's 1) more "biologically accurate" (hell even my hair texture is different to men and women's so let's not start) and 2) it's not up to the reader how I define myself. Again, you use your own language bit don't dictate mine and don't go saying I'm dictating yours because clearly I am not. This is my post, not yours. Anyway. Sexuality. So, before the whole transgender thing, I was asexual, then realised nah maybe I'm more of a lesbian, then changed to bisexual then back to lesbian all pre transgender stuff. This was all through and after therapy which is ongoing for multiple different reasons. Anyway, I know a thing or two about homophobia and aphobia, and also biphobia having been out as all three. And I have some things to say as far as the stated phrase discussed goes. Especially as someone who has kept their sexuality through their transition and only changed as I realised more about who I'm attracted to and not attracted to.

Let's start with how, as a girl, you're expected to be doing things for manipulative and scheming reasons, and yes this absolutely relates to the assumption that girls are the "brainy ones" because very often that's the "trickster ones" and "scheming ones". Women have always been assumed to be conniving in various folktales and just history all round, but it's accepted in modern day society not because we have a big society that believes in these folklore stories, but because we have this idea that women are all planning and scheming because "they're smart" and men are "dumb enough to be fooled". Of course, these definitely mix together, but don't tell me this doesn't make it even worse. Now, onto being asexual, then lesbian, etc as a young woman. See, people assume there has to be a reason why you're this (sort of like being trans, actually the treatment is very similar). For asexuality, you're scared of dating and you're traumatised, you're broken, and you're scared of men. You have to have had some reason thought out as to why you, a girl, could possibly be asexual. The reason is assumed, like any queer attraction, to be because you're unnatural and broken in the eyes of society. The other reason, usually because you're a girl, is because you're planning something and being "smart". Aka avoiding men. This also goes into being a lesbian, and why it's assumed "oh you just don't want to date men". It's assumed that women who don't date men but date women are only doing so for some mental reason, some sort of personal gain, it's all a scheme and a plan. And no I'm not referring to the whole predatory assumption which is held for both gay men and lesbian women and just us queers overall, but the specific notion that it's because women are "being smart and savvy and are doing the clever thing and being with women because they're smarter and cleaner and less work" and the whole "oh you're a girl so there must be a reason behind everything you do" besides just... "Girl is pretty and I want to kiss her", probably because women are assumed to be less sexual and must be innocent and soft by nature and aren't "supposed" to think about kissing and sex and tits. That's what men are expected to do after all. I'll leave the bisexuality one for last because I think I need to talk specifically because both at once, but first! Heterosexuality as a trans man.

The difference in going from a lesbian woman to a heterosexual man (the same exact attraction, just given different labels because of the genders involved) is astounding. And it's only as a woman to a man with the same exact attraction for women do you realise the double standards and how utterly absurd they are. I mean, sex and gender aside, this is literally the same thing. If we ignore who is having the attraction, both are the attraction to women. Somehow, being a girl or a boy changes how society treats you and the expectations and boy they annoy the shit out of me. And not even just for the reasons you expect.

For one, you can't just. Be attracted to women, there's this whole fucked up expectation of what dating means if you're heterosexual rather than a lesbian, and in this particular conversation, the brains vs brawn in a relationship is so...ugly and the expectations placed on me on either occasion just highlight how unsurprising it is that so many are in abusive relationship and have issues of codependency. It's so astoundingly fucked up that I actually think THIS is what really made me fucking hate this phrase in question. Before it was annoying, personally demeaning. Now? Now it's outright fucking dangerous.

It was expected when I was a lesbian that I was just being smart, making a smart choice to be with someone who *gasp* actually took care of themselves and could make decisions WITH me. Like. As if that isn't the base expectation of any relationship. If I'm a girl with a boy, it's assumed I'd be doing all the mental work and there would be no communication. Like, no really, there was an expectation all throughout my life that I would serve the husband as if he were a fucking child, but at least I could ignore this because "hey I'm not gonna have a husband". You know what made that obvious? When I was expected to end up as the husband and I had to sit back and think "wow you're all so utterly fucked up why is this seen as okay?" As a man, it is expected that whatever unlucky soul I were to date would do all the thinking for me and it's only because I'm smart (again average) that she'll actually have someone she could work with and communicate to instead of thinking for your decisions. Like. What the fuck actually? Actually especially people just at cafes, bars, etc who didn't know I was trans, like the fucked up expectations??? Even from WOMEN?? Like come the fuck on what is this bullshit? Why the fuck would I want to marry a woman only to make her my fucking servant and never talk through things and have her organise shit for me that's fucked. And you know what? I see it even more now, in my brother's relationship, in my dad, in my grandfather, in every single man and woman dating. It's sad. And it's not even an issue with just heterosexuals either it's just how it's expected men to be and women to be so any woman and man together "must have this dynamic". And god it's awful.

Now. Onto bisexuality. Shit, okay now let's start with as a man since I'm on the topic. You're expected to treat women the above way and then...there's being seen as gay. God being seen as gay as a man is not just a moral failing to society but seen as so inherently traitorous to masculinity that you can't help but sit there and think "it's hard to be a man" because the expectations are utter bullshit. Being a bisexual man kinda sucks actually, especially considering as well that part where no one really believes that bisexuality even exists as a thing except for other bisexuals and other queers who aren't exclusionists. But I digress, the really fucked up thing with this in regards to the main phrase (you know the one now I'd think), is that you're now expected to be all of the bullshit things. You're expected to be heterosexual, people know you like women so "why don't you just be normal?" but you also like men which makes you a fucking failure of a human being in their eyes. Also. If you're feminine that's even worse, especially if you also like women and you're feminine. These all together make you a really bad traitor to men in society's eyes because you're not doing what you're supposed to do even though society thinks you can and therefore should just be heterosexual. Also, did I mention how, despite all of this, you're an idiot who surely is just mistaken or making shit up? Same with being a woman and bisexual in regards to making shit up and surely you're just broken and need to be fucked. Actually that was a thing with asexuality, being a lesbian, I think just being a woman in general actually. But yeah, so like, you're a man for god sake just fuck a girl and you'd be cured of the feminity and the thinking for yourself thing and the liking other men (because that means we aren't just here to bully women and breed what the fuck that's not allowed) and damn. As a trans man? Oh it gets worse. Because once people realise you're "not a REAL man™" any femininity, attraction to men, or anything that is "unnatural for masculine manly men" to do, is attributed to womanhood and how you're a fake. See below for the added consequences of now being seen as a woman as well as being treated as a man who is bisexual. You get both! Because why just switch expectations when you can throw both to the "traitorous trans identified female scum who dared act like a man and lessen the value of masculinity for us real men" amirite?

So, how are bisexual women treated? Honestly? Like shit imo both from society and exclusionist factions in the queer community, but luckily they're way smaller than the majority who are accepting (it's kind of in the job description that we be accepting considering what we've all been through as a matter of course). But yeah that doesn't help when exclusionists are loud and also love to echo society especially with the sexism and, yep you guessed it, the Phrase™. There are so many difficulties with being a woman and bisexual, but the ones I'm gon refer to today are the expectations, which are that yep of course you're just using women but not to get away from men per se but to have a break from them, or to cheat on them. Same with dating men, you're assumed to be cheating on lesbians and it's a huge topic in these exclusionist factions to say "bi women are always cheating on us". In fact there's a whole general idea that bisexuals cheat as a matter of course (because there surely must be a difference between liking men and women compared to liking women and women, hmm gee I wonder what it is that we're assuming?) But anyway, again, I digress. The expectation to care for men like babies and then work with women is forever present and god it sucks ass. I wasn't even bisexual as a woman for very long but damn. The double expectation that you're only fucking women to get away from men and only fucking men because that's you're real sexuality is so fucking telling and is rooted in so much sexism and homophobia and biphobia. What's wrong with all of you, really, to think it's acceptable to say "oh yeah it's a normal attitude for a woman to run away from men but poor thing her natural state is to love the men she runs from". That is very very fucked actually and the expectation that you can "fix" this predicament by stopping women from ""running to women"" and just ""fucking a man"" is...yeah.

And just. The idea that a woman has to take care of he husband as a matter of course, to have that expectation and then also have the "you're planning something" expectation because god forbid a woman just do shit out of wanting to kiss a person and not have this clever scheme and reason for everything.

All in all this shit sucks. Why do we do it? Why is it so accepted and seen as a feminist progressive thing to tell women they're smarter than men and men are idiots it just creates so many fucking problems. Hell, I haven't even discussed disability and race yet. Do I even have the time and room for that discussion because it's even bigger than sexuality. I'm not even black so I'm probably not the one to discuss it, but disability? Oh I have experience there and I can say how much being a disabled woman sucks, but mental disabilities are the worst because it's seen as making you useless and disposable because you're too mentally average and not achieving enough constantly. Also how being a disabled man also sucks but at least with mental disabilities people don't expect shit to the point it overwhelms you, which is like the bare minimum btw. To not push to the point you force someone to breaking point is maybe just. What you ought to do in general maybe? Anyway, there's that, but also there's the whole bullshit of how physical disabilities mena you aren't strong enough and therefore also useless and the same shit repeats of being disposable and physically seen as a born traitor to masculinity again because you're physically not capable of achieving the set level of brawn demanded. And when you're a disabled woman who is physically weak? It's expected and you're not assumed to be disabled and you're not taken seriously, you're just a weak woman. Even chronic pain, breaking a leg, anything, it's all just you not being strong enough because you're a woman, not because of a fucking disability. And for men, god the mental health aspect is shit because it's assumed you're an idiot of course, but if you're smart and also just a low achiever because you're tired all the time and overwhelmed? God forbid you're also a fucking traitor and useless and disposable. But as if this damn phrase doesn't make shit worse. As if treating disabled women with this expectation that of course they're weak for womanhood and not their disabilities helps at all, as if assuming disabled women need to meet a certain standard to be human mentally and as if disabled women need to take care of abled men to have value. Fuck that. As if cleverness creates value and as is physical strengths creates value. Fuck both. And damn I haven't even talked about polyamory but that would be a huge post in and of itself so I'm gonna leave things here I think.

Anyway, that's my rant on this very stupid idea held by so many people and is seen as accepted and accurate in society. It is stupid and creates bullshit expectations and dangers, especially for women and especially for disabled people. And trans people, we also suffer just for being trans with this and yeah I talked about my experiences as a ftm man but mtf women also have it so fucking hard too. I'm tired of this phrase and I'm sure many of you are too, just too damn scared to admit it because society pressures us to conform or be thrown away like garbage. Fuck that and fuck the system, you're valuable regardless and there is no expectation you ought to meld into. Be you, and there will always be a community to support you, no matter how hard society fights against your existence.

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badassbiburgerbob · 2 years

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I think it's kind of fascinating the way language changes, and how words and phrases change over time. I think it's interesting how society has twisted certain sayings in particular.

Like these ones:

The customer is always right.

It has come to defend customers being abusive to employees and basically allowed to do and say whatever they want, because they're the one buying stuff and contributing to the business or some such bull. The actual saying was:

"The customer is always right in matters of taste"

Meaning that the customer knows what they want. If the customer is willing to buy it, then you should sell it. If no one is buying the product, you have to either change the product, find a new product, or find a new target market. It was more of a business marketing statement. It was never intended to allow people to bully and abuse customer service workers.

Jack of all trades

This one has sort of navigated back to its original tone, at least the way I've seen it used lately. But it did wonder for a while to the derogatory,

"Jack of all trades, master of none"

Meaning, as I perceived it, to say that sure you can do a few things but none of it good enough to be worth anything. The actual saying is:

"Jack of all trades, master of none, but still better than a master of one"

Meaning, it is better to know how to do a bunch of things well, than one thing perfectly. Which works for physical and intellectual topics. If you know a little about a variety of things you are better equipped to confidently take on the problems or tasks presented to you. Which is pretty neat. It also reminds me of a saying my greataunt always used, which was, 'it's good enough for government work.' Which is to say, maybe it's not perfect, but it gets the job done.'

Curiosity killed the cat

This one can be seen as somewhat sinister, especially in the context of its original quote. This shortened phrase had been used as a cautionary statement to say 'don't ask.' It has been used by some as an attempt to ward people from questioning things, people, and events. I haven't heard it too often lately, but I used to when I was younger. Although, I think some people used it on kids with good intentions, especially when saying it to young children as a way too keep them out of trouble or danger. Similar to the 'stranger danger' thing, which is how i remember it being used for me. But I have a feeling that this wasn’t the case for everyone. The actual saying was:

"Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back"

Meaning, finding answers and truths, no matter what, is always worth the stuggle. The work we do and the energy we spend looking for answers to problems and questions is always worth it. To me, it means we should always keep asking questions, even if it makes some people uncomfortable. Always keep thinking and discussing, discovering and learning, seeking the truth. Every good answer should lead to another question. Learning is always satisfying, whether it's about societies or history or mechanics or the science of stars or biology or whatever.

I think the quote can be used as a caution, but in a good way. Sometimes asking questions can be dangerous. Certain fields require work in dangerous environments and situations. Some Scientists and Journalists, in the past and present, literally put their lives on the line for knowledge. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask those questions and search for the answers.

It was supposed to be inspirational and driving. It wasn’t originally meant as a cautionary statement. It was supposed to inspire questions, not prevent them. I love this quote, because I love knowing stuff and understanding how things work. And I think knowing the truth of how things happen and why things work is extremely important. I always thought the shortened quote was kinda dumb, even as a kid.

I just thought it was really interesting. Language is wierd, but pretty cool. How society and language interact, I think, is endlessly fascinating. I think this is termed 'etymology' the science of language and how it works and changes over time. Which is really cool!

That's my ramble for the week.

Please feel free to add if Y'all got more!

#etymology #phrases #i just found it really interesting #people are always twisting things around and cherry picking the bits they can use #i personally like the original phrases better #at least for these ones #but also #language!#the way that language and phrases change over time #the way that the meaning of words and phrases change overtime #is so fascinating!#i think its real cool

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strawberrythighddemon · 3 months

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The Struggle of Getting Back into Fiction Writing After ASD Self-diagnoses and Chronic Burnout.

Last year, I set aside writing Fantasy novels and focused on creating a gaming channel and figuring my life out after so many tumbling years of different things that happened in my life. Mental and physical health was and still is a huge contributor. But mainly, I ended up stumbling upon an issue that has plagued me since childhood, and that was, "Why am I so different from a lot of people I've met in my life? Why are certain tasks so difficult for me? Why doesn't it seem to improve? Why am I so anxious all the time? Why can't I focus? Why do I always get overwhelmed by minor issues, yet when major crises occur, I'm calm as hell?

It's obvious now I'm not neuro-typical. However, how far along the spectrum am I? Well, when I did a lot of research in a matter of days, I had a massive awakening to how different my mind is. Even though it was next to impossible to get a legit diagnosis, the self-diagnoses were enough for me to reevaluate my life. It has been a mourning process. Why? All my life, I was judged and even reprimanded for things that actually helped me cope with my already unhealthy environment. It turns out a lot of women are getting late diagnoses.

People assume that ADHD or ASD is on the rise because of ridiculous reasons, treating it like a plague that arose in our unholy modern society, but I really believe it has always been around. There's a whole issue in the first place of the studies done and on who to determine how to diagnose these conditions. ***cough...rich white boys*** But I won't dive into that.

So, girls like me...well... I'm a woman in my late 30s; back in the day, I was taught to act a certain way. Basically, pull off the performance of a lifetime. Try to lie, put on a fake smile or face, and not say certain things. I was told to not discuss specific topics and to walk on eggshells around dangerous people. Pretty much I was taught to become a submissive person, not to be outspoken, and to please people. I was taught to take abuse from employers and to just shuddup and work hard. This is how we survive. It would be nice to set boundaries, but I know first-hand that in a society with no social safety nets or power over policy, it's just being a fool in a lion's den. Therefore, this plays out even in my writing. I held back on my thoughts and true emotions. Even being open about my sexuality and me as a person was difficult. And when I did pursue my crazy, exhausting endeavor in writing and hiding behind a fake name, I let loose. I wrote some naughty, insane trash. This is on top of everything else I had obligations to in my life. Like working a legit job that was slowly breaking my body so I wouldn't starve or at least obtain a little bit of agency.

I used a lot of energy that I didn't have. That horrible Western hustle-grind mindset broke my mind. It's really not meant for me. I developed a speech impairment from it because I don't talk as coherently as I used to. Then, I learned burnout and grief can contribute to that, too. It also made me a bit more cynical than usual, and I'm spewing satire more than ever. But I've already accepted if my speech doesn't improve that, the damage is done; I'll just live with it.

This doesn't mean I won't pursue life to its fullest. Now, I have to be mindful of the output I do because my health got impacted in a way that it possibly won't ever heal or return to its original flavor of talking juicy. Maybe that's a good thing. I won't woo anyone with my voice anymore, like the snake charmer my supervisors used to call me. To think, if I use that to my advantage to never be summoned again to talk down an aggressive, abusive customer with no dang manners or morals. I don't have to listen to people venting their crap anymore when they should be paying to see a therapist. If they do have a therapist, they need to fire their ass and find a new one. End of story.

The moral of the story is I'm taking my time with getting back into my writing groove, and I'm managing my health as a self-diagnosed person on the spectrum. I'm giving myself grace. Now, I'm a changed human being with a new heart and mind to write more meaningful stories and not focus on being naughty as hell because I was oppressed for so dang long.

Dear readers, if you survived this blog and all my ranting. Thank you. Have a wonderful day, afternoon, or evening.

#personal rant #personal thoughts #personal blog #mental health awareness #health issues #burnout #neurodivergent #autism acceptance #adhd #auadhd #satire #darkhumor #lgbtq

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mindclassic · 10 months

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The Rise of Robots - A Wake-Up Call for Humanity

Robots are no longer confined to science fiction novels or factory floors. They are increasingly becoming an integral part of our daily lives. The rapid advancement of robotics technology has opened up new horizons. Technology is revolutionizing various industries and reshaping the way we live and work. From automated assistants in our homes to autonomous vehicles on our roads, the rise of robots presents both exciting possibilities and formidable challenges. In this article, we will explore the current trends and implications of the robotics revolution. Also, we look into its impact on the workforce, ethical considerations surrounding artificial intelligence, social and economic consequences, and the role of education in preparing for a robotic future. The other concerns are the reimagining of human-robot collaboration and the importance of navigating this path forward with caution and responsibility. The rise of robots is undoubtedly a wake-up call for humanity. It urges us to examine the profound changes it brings and assess how we can harness its potential for the greater good. 1. The Growing Influence of Robots in Society Robots have come a long way since the days of clunky, slow-moving machines. Just like your favorite rom-com protagonist, they've undergone a remarkable transformation. From the adorable but impractical robots of the past to the sleek, efficient machines we see today, robotics technology has evolved at a lightning-fast pace. It's like witnessing the glow-up of the century but for robots. Increasing Integration of Robots in Daily Life Gone are the days when robots were only confined to sci-fi movies and assembly lines. They've managed to wiggle their way into our everyday lives, like that annoying friend who always shows up uninvited. We now have robots vacuuming our floors, folding our laundry, and even delivering pizzas. It's like living in a futuristic sitcom, and we're all just trying to keep up with the wacky adventures of our mechanical overlords. 2. Current Trends and Implications Hold on to your seats, folks, because robotics technology is on a roll. We're witnessing mind-boggling breakthroughs that would make even the most tech-savvy among us do a double-take. Robots can now perform complex surgeries with astonishing precision, navigate treacherous terrains like a boss, and even engage in witty banter (okay, maybe not that last one, but we can dream). The possibilities seem endless, or at least until someone invents a robot that can fold fitted sheets. Applications of Robotics in Various Industries Robots aren't just here to steal our jobs; they're also making significant contributions to various industries. They're lending a helping hand (or claw) in manufacturing, revolutionizing agriculture with their green thumbs (or rather, mechanical appendages), and aiding in search and rescue missions like heroic little superheroes. It's like a real-life version of "The Avengers," except the hero lineup includes R2-D2 and WALL-E. Potential Benefits and Concerns While the rise of robots brings immense potential for improving efficiency, productivity, and even our quality of life, it also raises some valid concerns. Will robots replace humans in the workforce, leaving us all sitting around twiddling our thumbs? Will they develop consciousness and turn against us like a plot twist in a sci-fi thriller? These questions might make you break out in a cold sweat, but fear not, my friends. We're about to dive headfirst into these juicy topics. 3. Impact on the Workforce The age of automation is upon us, and it's shaking up the workforce faster than a cat chasing a laser pointer. As robots become more capable and cost-effective, they're taking over tasks that were once exclusive to humans. From simple data entry to complex financial analysis, no job seems safe from their metallic clutches. It's like a robot uprising, except they're not marching in the streets with pitchforks; they're silently taking over cubicles. Industries Most Affected by Automation While no occupation is entirely immune to the robot revolution, some industries are feeling the heat more than others. Manufacturing, transportation, and customer service jobs are particularly vulnerable to being swept away by a sea of automated counterparts. Sorry, minimum wage fast food workers, the robots are coming for your spatulas. Addressing the Challenges of Job Displacement The rising wave of robot-induced job displacement might make you want to crawl under the covers and never come out. But fear not, my fellow humans, for there is hope on the horizon. As technology advances, new job opportunities are emerging, demanding skills that even the most advanced robots can't replicate (yet). It's time to roll up our sleeves, adapt to the changing landscape, and prove to the world that humans still have plenty to offer, even in the face of shiny, efficient competition. 4. The Rise of Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence (AI) is like that enigmatic character in a mystery novel - fascinating, yet slightly terrifying. With the passing of each day, AI becomes more sophisticated. It's crucial to examine the ethical implications of granting machines the power to make autonomous decisions. Are we playing with fire, or are we on the brink of unlocking incredible possibilities? It's a philosophical question worthy of a late-night debate over pizza (preferably not delivered by a robot). The Dilemma of Autonomous Decision Making Picture this: a robot making decisions on our behalf, without human intervention. It's like giving your credit card to an impulsive teenager and hoping they make wise choices. As machines become more capable of independent decision-making, we're confronted with a moral conundrum: how do we ensure that they make choices aligned with our values and navigate complex situations with wisdom? It's enough to make a philosopher's head spin. Ensuring Accountability and Transparency in AI Systems If AI systems are going to roam freely among us, making autonomous decisions like a futuristic justice league, we need to hold them accountable. Transparency becomes essential, like an open book test, but without dread and sweaty palms. We must design AI systems with mechanisms to monitor and regulate their decision-making processes. It is a way to ensure they don't go all rogue and start world domination plans. It's all fun and games until the toaster starts plotting against you, my friend. 5. Social and Economic Consequences Robots may be efficient and productive, but they also pose a challenge to income inequality. As automation takes over jobs previously done by humans. Those who aren't equipped with the necessary skills may find themselves at a disadvantage. The gap between the haves and have-nots could widen even further unless we take deliberate steps to address this issue. The Concentration of Power in the Hands of Technological Giants In a world where robots dominate industries, it's not just wealth that is being concentrated, but power as well. The technological giants that control the development and deployment of robots have unprecedented influence over our lives. This concentration of power raises concerns about privacy, autonomy, and the ability of these giants to manipulate markets and societies. Examining Potential Strategies for a Balanced Redistribution To combat income inequality and the concentration of power, we need to rethink our economic systems and explore ways to redistribute wealth more equitably. This could involve implementing policies such as universal basic income, increasing access to education and training, and creating opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation. It is crucial to find a balance that promotes social mobility and ensures that the benefits of robotic advancements are shared by all. 6. The Role of Education in Preparing for a Robotic Future As robots become more prevalent in our economy, it's essential to equip individuals with the necessary tech skills to thrive in this new landscape. This means incorporating computer science, coding, and robotics education into school curricula at an early age. By providing a solid foundation in these skills, we can empower future generations to harness the potential of robots and drive innovation. Promoting Creativity and Critical Thinking While technical skills are important, we must also foster creativity and critical thinking in education. These higher-order cognitive skills are uniquely human and can complement robots' abilities. Encouraging imagination, problem-solving, and adaptability will enable individuals to navigate a constantly evolving robotic future. Emphasizing Lifelong Learning and Adaptability The rise of robots means that jobs and industries will continue to change rapidly. To thrive in this dynamic landscape, individuals must embrace lifelong learning and adaptability. This requires a shift in mindset and a commitment to continuous skill development. Educational institutions, employers, and governments should work together to provide accessible and affordable opportunities for upskilling and reskilling throughout people's lives. 7. Reimagining Human-Robot Collaboration Collaborative robots, or cobots, offer an exciting opportunity for humans and robots to work together harmoniously. Cobots can assist humans in tasks that require precision, strength, or speed, enhancing our productivity and efficiency. By embracing the potential of cobots, we can create a future where humans and robots collaborate to achieve shared goals. Enhancing Efficiency and Safety in the Workplace Robots have the potential to revolutionize workplaces by streamlining processes and enhancing safety. They can perform dangerous or monotonous tasks, freeing humans to focus on higher-value work. However, we must ensure that safety measures are in place to protect human workers and that robots are not used as a means to replace human labor entirely. Addressing Concerns of Human-Robot Interaction Human-robot interaction raises ethical and social concerns that need to be addressed. We must consider the impacts on job displacement, human dignity, and the potential loss of human connection. Striking the right balance between humans and robots requires thoughtful design, regulation, and ongoing dialogue within society. 8. Path Forward in the Age of Robots As robots continue to reshape our world, it's crucial to strike a balance between automation and human needs. We should embrace automation as a tool for progress while ensuring that it serves the best interests of humanity. This means prioritizing the well-being of individuals, promoting social equity, and safeguarding human values. Embracing Opportunities for Innovation and Growth The rise of robots presents us with countless opportunities for innovation and growth. By embracing this technological revolution, we can unlock new possibilities for industries, economies, and societies. It's essential to foster a culture that encourages experimentation, collaboration, and creative problem-solving as we navigate the uncharted territory of a robotic future. Ethical & Responsible Development and Deployment of Robots In our pursuit of robotic advancements, we must not overlook ethical considerations. We must ensure that robots are developed and deployed responsibly, taking into account the potential consequences for individuals, communities, and the environment. Ethical frameworks, regulations, and ongoing discussions among stakeholders are vital to guide the responsible development and deployment of robots. All in All As robots continue to shape our society, we must approach the future with a balanced perspective. While the rise of robots brings undeniable benefits, it also presents significant challenges that require thoughtful consideration. We must prioritize ethical considerations, promote education and skills development, and seek ways to collaborate harmoniously with robots. By embracing innovation responsibly, we can harness the potential of robotics to enhance our lives, foster economic progress, and create a more equitable and sustainable future. As we navigate the path forward in the age of robots, let us remember that humanity's well-being remains at the heart of every technological advancement we make. It is now the time to live with the rise of robots, looking for them to survive and thrive with the human race. Image by Freepik Read the full article

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sophiesicelebblog · 1 year

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Week 10: Thoughts on Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

Artist Jenny Odell's book How to Do Nothing serves as a reminder to get off the phone, close down the laptop, and allow yourself the time with no other task than to truly notice and pay attention to the world around you: the people, animals, plants, and land that all coexist together. Social media and other tech companies survive and profit off the addictiveness of their products, which is distracting, isolating, and not good for our collective and individual mental healths. Odell emphasizes how in a deeply capitalistic society, our attention may be the final remaining asset we can withhold in resistance - we should be able to do things that are not merely for the sake of productivity! - and the notion of "doing nothing" (more on that later) is an incredibly effective way to do it.

Odell clarifies that this doesn't mean isolating from society (or technology) altogether, and describes how fulfilling the connections we share with neighbors, friends and family, and even strangers, plants, and animals can be.

"If we have only so much attention to give, and only so much time on this earth, we might want to think about reinfusing our attention and our communication with the intention that both deserve." -Jenny Odell

This quote (page 176) is my favorite from the book. I think it jumped out at me because much of the book is about resisting capitalistic hustle/grind culture, which is significant, but I appreciate that here Odell is gently reminding us that our time here is not infinite and is precious (perhaps there's some foreshadowing here for her second book, Saving Time). I feel that the call for intention to how we spend our time, where we devote our attention, and how we communicate is powerful!

So, why did this book became so popular during the COVID-19 era, almost a year after its publication?

I think How to Do Nothing was exactly the messaging people needed to hear at a time when unprecedented numbers of people were isolated, indoors, with only their phones and computer being used for communication. People were scared, which led to increased doom-scrolling through the news, and many people had more "free" time after being laid off, yet had nowhere to go and no funds to spend, thus the vast majority of time spent was online. People needed the nudge to unplug, (safely) get outside, and reconnect with nature and the world around us.

How does the attention economy benefit from our social media activity and media streaming consumption, and how does this book relate to the topic of celebrity culture?

I think the attention economy benefits from our activities and consumption, fundamntally, on a financial level. The more we engage and the more time we spend on our various technological devices, the more ads they sell. They get to know us through what we engage with online, providing increasingly tailored ads, showing us a nonstop barrage of advertisements for products we're conditioned to think we need, benefitting the advertisers. The more we find people we agree with (or disagree with) online, the more we find people to yell into the void with (or at), which increases our time on the platforms, and the cycle continues.

(Most) celebrities have learned that to remain relevant in the public eye, they must provide a constant flow of content for followers and subscribers to like and comment on. They, too, are coproducing and benefitting from the attention economy. We cannot help but compare ourselves to others we encounter in these online spaces, perhaps especially the aspirational lifestyles projected by celebrities online, which contributes to our capitalistic mindsets that we must purchase and spend more and more, and therefore must spend more of our time working to afford such luxuries. It's also noteworthy that time spent regularly posting online is time that could be spent resting/relaxing or connecting with nature; this is another way in which we've been conditioned to think our free time should still go towards producing.

What does Odell mean by 'doing nothing?' Are we capable of doing nothing? How does nature factor into this?

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While I do not think we are literally capable of doing "nothing" (we're always breathing, with blood pumping, hearts beating, neurons firing in our brains), I think we can "do nothing" in the sense that I think Odell means: that we can spend time not at work, not to create profit or production. Simple activities such as taking a walk with a friend, sitting on a park bench, or admiring art in a museum - with phones put away! - are all examples of "doing nothing" that are nurturing and fulfilling for the soul, body, and mind, and have absolutely no root in or benefit to capitalism. In this sense, we are absolutely capable of "doing nothing."

Simply put, we're not meant to be on this earth only to produce; our lives are worth more than that! Nature plays a huge role in this. Western thinking largely considers nature as a barrier to progress, a resource for materials or land development, which completely neglects our place amongst it and our responsibility to all of earth's plants and creatures. We all survive in the ecosystem together, all life should be accountable to each other. I think Odell's developed friendship with birds, particularly the birds in her neighborhood, is a lovely example of a first step of how we can reexamine our relationship to animal and plant wildlife and the role we play in connection to them.

Time to get honest about my own tech habits...

I do try my best to take some digital detox breaks in the form of hikes/long walks and trips to the beach when I can (I especially love sitting by the ocean, listening to the waves, reading a book). It's likely clear, however, that these are seasonally dependent, so I don't get to do it quite as much as I would like to! I do run several times a week and try to make time for yoga almost daily, but admittedly both of those activities still involve some kind of technology (I listen to music while I run and I follow along with a yoga instructor online). During the quarantine era, I would go on six-mile walks with my partner at least a few days a week and we usually wouldn't be on our phones for that time, but other than that I spent the majority of my time in 2020 staring at a screen, for sure! Increased time away from my phone is definitely something I would like to prioritize in the future.

When I go to sleep, I'm pretty good about not being on my phone, but I do watch TV in bed to help me wind down, and occasionally I fall asleep with the TV on. The light of the screen wakes me up in the middle of the night, I turn it off, but now the damage is done, I have a hard time getting back to sleep and, next thing you know, I turn the TV back on to help me fall asleep again. What a terrible cycle! It's something I've been working on and I've definitely been improving, but it's difficult for my anxiety-brain to shut off without some kind of noise distraction at the end of the day. I'll keep working on it!

Forgive me, for I am no artist! Nevertheless, here's my map of my Digital Detox Walk as well as some reflections:

For my Digital Detox, I took a walk from my apartment in the Lower East Side, across the Williamsburg bridge, did a small loop in Williamsburg, and crossed the bridge back home.

Normally, if I was going on a walk like this I would listen to a podcast, so this was definitely different! Admittedly, at first I found myself feeling anxious, thinking of my to-do list and how I felt like I should be using my time more productively. I had to remind myself that that is exactly the kind of thinking that this time was meant to combat (and, ironically, this was an item on the to-do list, as it was for class). After a while, though, I was happily enjoying the sunshine and warm breeze over the water. I took some time at the top of the bridge to watch the boats on the East River and observe lots of strollers and cute dogs on the path. The traffic felt loud! Most everyone appeared in high spirits, however; the warm weather was seemingly having a positive effect on everyone, which was lovely to see. My thoughts were all over the place; I was reminded of a teacher who once told me I have a brain like a squirrel, scurrying quickly from one place to the next, which felt accurate, and gave me a chuckle. All in all I enjoyed myself, and I'd like to get better at not needing background noise from a TV or headphones to quiet my anxious thoughts and ease my mind.

#Youtube

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say-duhnelle · 1 year

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Gonna sound like a white republican dad here for a second but there really does seem to be this mindset among large swathes of internet (esp. Tumblr/Twitter) leftism that in their ideal communist future, keeping society functional is going to be Someone Else's Problem and the only contributions they will be responsible for are helping consume its bounty and maybe growing a little weed in their closet - the Henny Penny's friends mentality. Like... sure there's probably a fair amount of jobs in the current structure of society which are a bit redundant, and exist more because we have weird hangups about just giving people money/resources to survive, than because they actually contribute to anything. But 1) I think it's a much lower proportion than a lot of people are implying and 2) a sane restructuring of society would regroup us so a lot of this excess now works in fields with chronic shortages like medicine and education, yes? Not necessarily those exact people, but a shift in where the manpower is concentrated.

Unless we are on the brink of some really insane breakthrough, in your post-revolution utopia folks are still going to need to eat, sleep somewhere safe, and stay clothed, healthy, and sanitary, and I sure as shit hope we still have education, technology, transportation, entertainment and access to some of the finer things in life because if not, then... what was the fucking point of it all? (You want your movement to make things better for the have-nots, not worse for literally everyone because you have that much spite for the ruling class, right?) And whether you like it or not,

all of those things require distinct, concentrated effort to create and maintain and

due to economies of scale, that effort is generally vastly lessened when we (by whatever means or incentives) split the population into groups which specialize in each one, a concept known currently as "having a job".

I'm by no means saying that the current way of doing things in the US is the ideal model of a society, but I think the people who are unironically basically saying "my role in the commune would be to fuck your mom" and call the rest of us bootlickers for actually taking the job we currently do seriously either have a dangerously limited perspective, or don't realize that what they actually want is not communism that is equal, but instead an opportunity to be the oppressor for a change. Call it infighting, but I don't want people with such a skewed take on reality leading any revolution that affects my life, because that's how you wind up with a new regime that's worse than the old one and has several entire agencies devoted to researching and developing new human rights violations it could commit against dissenters.

A variation I've seen is this idea that the less savory, yet essential, tasks could be rotated through the populace so that everyone only has to contribute a few days a year. As if sanitation, construction, and agriculture aren't sciences that require training and education to do properly, that most normal people would not retain if they did not use it on a regular basis. As if healthcare and education don't function better when patients or students have rapport with their providers and the providers have continuous knowledge of each individual's case and how it's progressing. As if every single one of these areas would not see trouble with the bullheaded folks we all know are out there who would just outright refuse when their turn comes up, or deliberately do a bad job (think potential jurors in the selection room, the one example of this sort of system which we currently have in American society, and how they often answer the lawyers' questions - and that's just the pre-interview, not actually doing the job!).

Controversial statement perhaps, but I don't think the base model of "we're going to assign everyone a main Task to get really good at as their contribution to society. Some Tasks are really shitty or difficult, but need a lot of people in order to do them at the scale society needs, so we're going to provide a greater reward for doing them as an incentive to get more people to take those Tasks on" is fundamentally wrong; I think it's in the application that we've perverted it - namely, that it's often not the worst/most difficult Tasks actually getting the best rewards, that the ratio of extra reward is too high for some, and that the concept of a stock market exists.

Idk. Some Nobel laureate economist or darling of Marxist philosophy out there probably already came up with a dozen reasons why everything I've said here is full of bull - this is just the way I see things right now.

#personal #politics

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davidsblogs · 2 years

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The Most Stylish, Comfortable, And Flexible Glerups UK Slippers

Most people across the world gratefully have the chance to make their own choices and decisions every single day. One of those choices and decisions that we make is what they are going to put on their feet for the day. Unknowingly the decision of what type of shoe a person wears for a particular day will affect their entire day. Many factors contribute to what type or style of shoes a person purchases or wears such as economic status, design, usefulness, and popularity. As of today, there are numerous types of shoes which are sandals, heels, boots, and athletic and casual shoes.

There are many different styles of shoes. Some shoes are just fashion accessories and others help us in different tasks like running, dancing, and many other sports. Almost every single sport has a special kind of shoe to wear. For example, cleats are used in soccer games while skates are for use in skating. Dancing has different types of footwear.

My Little wish is an online store from where any individual can purchase items according to their needs and luxurious life. Here you can purchase the best handmade items to decorate it in your way.

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Handmade luxurious Glerups Slippers

Glerups slippers are true to size but due to the low heel cap, the slip-on model should be cozy so it doesn't flap. The Glerups Model B is the original and is still the best. It is Handmade from 100% pure natural wool, and the clog-style slip-on forms your foot for luxurious skin comfort. It is not only that they are simply the best slippers but the brand values quality and deep respect for humans, nature, and animals in our amazing collections of slippers.

During chilly winter days and cool summer nights, the slipper is so soft that it can be worn barefoot for year-round comfort. The Scandinavian design utilizes eco-friendly dyes and a soft tanned leather sole. Also, it is available with a rubber sole for outdoor wear.

Thus, Shoes are not only worn to protect the human feet. Also, worn because they add the final touch to the style you are trying to create among society. The history of shoes is very long and nobody knows when the first shoes were created. We do know that they were originally made to warm the feet to keep them safe. It keeps the foot warm and is the ultimate for your footwear. The sole is suitable for all kinds of shoes and boots for adults and kids.

#GlerupsUK #GlerupsSlippers #forsale

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cmcsmen · 4 years

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What Can People of Faith Do to Help End Racism

Bishop Joseph Perry

Nationality, race, ethnicity, language – these uniquely identifying human marks represent the imprint of a remarkably artistic and loving Creator upon each of us. History has demonstrated that human beings have not worked well with

these diverse imprints and their contribution to the weave of the human race. We continue to struggle to affect a universal recognition of the beauty of each one of us – white, black, brown and others. The Christian message shows us how.In the Gospels we find definite pattern in the life of Jesus where he broke through the popular biases and prejudices that plagued the society of his day. Himself a Jew, He seems to show-off overt displays of friendship, interest in

individual persons who were, for a variety of reasons, on the margins of society and religion or cast aside as inferior: Jesus called everyone to conversion of life: be they fellow Jews, Roman officials, Samaritans, gentiles, the wealthy, or other individuals whose lives were morally compromised. In addition, the scourge of racism was alive and well in Jesus’ day and never more obvious than the plight of the Jews in Palestine. Jesus suffered the final fate of marginalized peoples under the tyranny of oppression – crucifixion, reserved for slaves, criminals, conquered peoples and other undesirables. Biblical scholarship strongly suggests that Simon of

Cyrene who helped Jesus carry his cross to the hill of execution, was a black man forced into this role by Pilate’s troops who were ordered to carry out the death sentence that day.

Jesus’ famous parable of the Good Samaritan and His strong counsel to his disciples to love their enemies and care for the stranger regardless who they were are all formidable indications that Jesus showed no partiality and thus set the tone for the discipleship of his followers through a message that all people are called to salvation and be members of his Father’s kingdom.

These teachings and indications have challenged Christians these two millennia. Needless to say, Church members have not always been representative of the preachments of the Master and Lord Jesus Christ. In times such as our own it helps to re-visit the Gospels and the Lord’s counsel about neighborly regard in order to understand what it is we are called to do as Christians to overturn the racial problems of our day. Insofar as we can implement Jesus’ teachings he insisted that we were lights in the world and salt of the earth; in other words, we are the seasoning of life’s experience toward the better.

How can Christians, particularly, Catholics reset the tone established for us by the Savior Jesus Christ? How can we let the gospel redeem us from the social sins of indifference, prejudice, racial and ethnic profiling?

None of us can overturn present ills by ourselves; nor can any of this be done over-night. And the task is all so daunting especially in face of opposition showing up here and there and some ugly stuff portrayed on the internet. But, we can certainly impact our own little corners of the world for the better. People ask me all the time what they can do and I take their question as a token of sincerity and I suggest some things, concrete steps, and practical actions:

{1} We might first reflect upon how we were raised vis-a-vis overt expressions or subtle references to the inferiority of certain people, usually, blacks, Latinos, Natives, Asians or others –messaging or remarks, profanities brought out into the open by parents, relatives, neighbors, co-workers and friends that spoke of exclusion of people because they were different or somehow deemed to be in the way. Courageously examining our consciences regarding our thoughts, words and actions or inactions, we can determine where we may have picked up conscious or unconscious bias regarding peoples of color or other marginalized peoples from our home and formative environments, how has all this influenced my world-view and determined my assumptions laid against people.

Do I avoid the experience, the neighborhoods, the world-view of people of color? Do I see people of color a threat to me in any way? Do I consider people different from me to be beneath me or in my way of opportunity? Do I cross the street when a person of color is found walking toward me? Do I find myself enmeshed in a posture of ‘I could care less how people are treated as long as I can do what I want to do and gain what I want to gain?’ We are believers. Our gestures and words should indicate that every man, woman and child has inherent dignity. Therefore, Christians that we are, it is everywhere necessary that we are in communion with one another.

{2} Arrange a safe space for your children or if you work with young people, to have them reflect and pray about racism and recent events. Listen to the current experience of young people. What do they see happening in their schools with fellow students of different background, race or ethnicity? How can they as young people be ambassadors of friendship and good will. Encourage and allow their creative expression. Young people have keen observations about right and wrong. Invite them to come up with action steps that are meaningful to them.

{3} Encourage pastors to preach against racism and to take personal responsibility to eradicate subtle traces of it in the parish. Explore how racism looks. Study and understand racism as an endemic part of American society as it was manifested in the past and does so today. Read books and articles on the topic of race and its treatment in America and the challenges faced by people of color particularly those most marginalized; select one of the pastoral letters on racism issued by the US Catholic Bishops. There are about 10 of them issued since 1958. Make yourself or your bible or study-group aware of the structural realities that exist in our societal systems and institutions that impact an individual’s ability to access resources that include well-funded school districts, quality and affordable health care, fair paying jobs, having banking, grocery stores and small businesses in their neighborhoods, and fair treatment in access to housing.

{4} Schedule diversity in your lives. Who are the people you hang around with – are they mostly or entirely white. Who makes up the friends of your children – are they mostly or entirely white. How can human variety be found amidst your friends, co-workers, neighbors, your circle of friends and acquaintances? How can we dismantle our unconscious preferences for an exclusive white environment where we live, work, recreate and worship?

{5} Worship occasionally in a Catholic Church of a different ethnic group to imbibe a sense of the worth, the offerings of a people, the culture and beauty of a people.

{6} Select one of the many food-pantry ministries operated by our parishes and show up to help out, bringing your children along, to witness and be a part of vital ministry to the poor and hungry – the corporal works of mercy.

{7} Speak up when you hear about or witness a person, white, black or brown, Native or Asian being mistreated or treated unfairly.What the Church is doing/can do

OPEN WIDE OUR HEARTS; PASTORAL LETTER ON RACISM 2018

Our bishops have been strategic in dismantling exclusive white environments in our ministries, diocesan administrations, and liturgical ceremonies over a number of years now. The visual presence of and participation by people of color is a necessary start. This has taken a lot of energy, forethought and education and the admittance and correction of missteps. This demonstrationof the church’s variety at the diocesan level does not always trickle down to individual parishes largely by reason that parishes by and large mirror the segregation patterns of American neighborhoods.

Mono-racial or single racial parishes are not ideal and do not reflect the Pentecost template noted at the church’s beginning, where in the Acts of the Apostles, a variety of peoples with different shaped noses, different colored eyes, different skin color, different languages were assembled that day in Jerusalem around the Christ-event and some remarkable things happened. That racial and ethnic and linguistic variety that day signaled the start of the church as a universal community of people-variety, but unfortunately, we lost that template somewhere along the two millennia.

Single racial parishes and their schools arise from our opportune movements, by personal selection or some of us are condemned to a single-racial parish by where we are condemned to live. To minister to this in the meantime, it helps to have parishes linked with each other for purposes of cross-racial and ethnic and cultural experience. Often times, diocesan-wide liturgies are the first glimpse for some people of the actual racial and ethnic composition of the diocese to which they belong. And this can be unnerving for some folks.

You might remember , there have been any number of articles and op-ed columns appearing in newspapers, magazines and journals at least since the 1980s hinting, predicting the ”browning” of America and what that portends for societal relations and social progress, etc.

The USCCB- Conference of US Catholic Bishops located in Washington DC is a racially diverse service organization of bishops, top level church leaders and experts working on the needs and ministries and social issues that mean most to the variety that is the Catholic Church in the United States. The bishops work by consensus on topics and issue pastoral letters, and other statements and set forth strategies punctuating the moment for the life and vitality of the Church in the United States.

Speaking for the Archdiocese of Chicago that I know best: back in the 1990s we had launched racial sensitivity workshops that traveled the diocesan agencies and school staffs that went on for several years. Any number of bishops across the country have piloted similar education programs for personnel and staff and parishes. In light of recent events, our Archbishop Cardinal Cupich of Chicago has ordered the creation of a curriculum on race to be included in our elementary and secondary schools. We hope this makes a difference for the next generation of Catholics to hopefully do some things better than what we are doing now.

Our Catholic colleges and universities have been conspicuous in addressing these themes by way of guest speakers and alumni. More work needs to be done toward diversifying faculties and administration and student bodies.

On a grass-roots level, Catholic Charities continue s to attack head-on the problems of poverty across the country ministering to peoples’ needs with direct services as a hallmark of the Christian vocation.

Much has been accomplished; a lot more needs to be done at the local parish level particularly, and in our schools.

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nitw · 2 years

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would you like an excuse to nitw post i for the life of me canNOT understand the PLOT OF THIS GAME

that's fair! nitw's core story is intentionally vague and non-direct so i don't blame people for not immediately getting it. i'll talk abt it as quickly as possible bc i just woke up lol

the 3 major themes of nitw i feel are dealing with mental illness as a young adult, existentialism, and how capitalism takes lives in different ways.

while mae's official diagnosis is never revealed, the way she describes her experience at college is easily identifiable if you've ever been through a long-term depressive episode in your adult years. the thing about depressive episodes and other forms of mental breakdowns is that they aren't always rational. in mae's case, while a lot of it seems to stem from peer pressure and rushing into something she wasn't prepared for, she's not really able to grasp what's wrong with her or why everything is going wrong until it's already too late. i always really liked the whole "shapes" allegory when she talks about dissociation; how the world just started blending together one day, from things that used to make sense and have a meaning and an identity attached to them, into random shapes and colors that didn't mean anything.

now, the existentialist and anti-capitalist elements in this game might be harder to see if you don't know youre looking for them, because this is where the whole supernatural/demonic cult thing comes in. it also doesn't help that nitw's full story can't be experienced in just 1 playthrough, since some of the context is locked behind events, hidden locations and specific dialogue choices. i'll try to summarize lt:

BASICALLY: in the game's lore, there's an all-powerful demonic being called "the black goat". it lives down at the far bottom of a hole in the ground, discovered by local miners many years before the game takes place. it's supposedly the cause of sinkholes, floods and other natural disasters around town, as well as the shitty state of the job market and people being forced to leave their homes. certain people (including mae) have "heard it singing" and have been inevitably gravitating towards it.

during an especially tough period for possum springs' working class, the town's old mining community formed a sort of cult around the black goat, after discovering that it LITERALLY feeds on human sacrifices. though the cult made it a rule to only sacrifice people who "wouldn't be missed" or "wouldn't contribute anything important to the town".

this is all a huge metaphor for late stage capitalism, as an endless cycling of people suffering and dying for the sake of maintaining "order" in society, and how you can't improve on these conditions without getting to and destroying the (literal, in the game's case) core of the problem. and that might be a task too big for any person.

near the end of the game, mae has this big monologue moment where she directly confronts the black goat, and in turn, confronts herself and her own issues. she basically goes "yeah, this whole situation sucks and maybe nothing we do will ever contribute to anything on the grand scheme. but that's why i need to hold onto even the smallest things that give my life meaning, even if they're sad, even if they hurt." it's one of my favorite scenes in the whole game, and really ties everything together in a neat little bow.

TLDR; at the end of everything, hold onto anything

#asks #blckvelvetopia #nitw #night in the woods

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aprilthebiqueen · 3 years

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Hii! I saw your post on ableism and I wanted to ask something. Now, first of all I'd like to say that I have never personally known a disabled person so idk what will be offensive to them. I try to treat any disabled person with utmost respect and normality (as in I don't try to make them all about their disability and don't talk about it if they don't want to and as far as I'm concerned they're just like any other people I might meet any other day). All that aside, i do admire them. When I meet any disabled person I feel happy for them for not letting their condition stop them. I acknowledge that no matter how it seems, they have difficulties that I might never have to face. That life is hard for them and that they are courageous as all hell and very hardworking, all the while remembering that they too have bad days and good days like any person. And yeah.. sometimes that inspires me and motivates me. It makes me feel that life is hard and everyone is suffering in some or other ways (different ways, but yeah.. suffering all the same). It makes me proud of that person and I know they don't need my pride or whatever but I think I'd feel that for any person who is not letting their problems stop them. But your post got me thinking. Is me feeling all that make me an ableist? Idk and I'd like to keep an open mind and try to change my views if they are wrong. Again, I'm sorry if what I said was offensive in any way. I didn't mean to do any harm. Let me know. Thank you.

Hi anon,

I think it mostly becomes a problem when people are so focused on disabled people that "overcome their disability" and "inspire them" that they think all disabled people should be like that.

This leads to disabled people that can't work or go to school being shown examples of disabled people that can and being compared to them and guilted and told "you can do it! Just try harder." And that is the sort of attitude that becomes really problematic.

The truth is that for a lot of disabled people, their conditions do stop them and they spend a lot of time harming themselves trying to not let it due to the societal pressures and standards. They think they are not worthy unless they're pushing themselves beyond their capabilities and limits because they're constantly told of all the disabled people that "overcome" their disabilities.

A lot of what it comes down to is the disabled person that cannot leave their home, work a steady job, finish their education or other various things that society sees as "not contributing", deserves the same amount of respect, and understanding as the disabled person that people see as "overcoming" their disability. All disabled people are equally worthy, and I think sometimes that gets lost when there is a focus on disabled people being "inspirational."

I also spoke to my friend, Emmett ( @satanspersonal666 ), about this because I wanted the input from another disabled person, and he had this to say:

"Viewing disabled people in that way is just seeing us as inspiration porn. Would you look at an abled person and be inspired by their ability to do something simple like walk to the bus stop? No, probably not. So looking at a disabled person and thinking it is incredible that they can do basic things is not great because it assumes incompetence. It is fine though to look at something a disabled person did and admire it for the skill, just as you would an abled person. If they create art and that's inspirational, great! If they do everyday tasks and it’s inspirational, that is problematic. And it also raises the ability for what abilities are worthy of praise. Folks with higher support needs are often not inspirational and that leads to poor treatment and exclusion. So not idolizing disabled people for their disability is best because it actually evens the playing field a little. But that totally changes when a disabled person does it. Like if a wheelchair user looks at another wheelchair user thriving and feels inspired, that is great. They are seeing it as something they can also manage to do despite it being different."

I hope this gives you a better understanding, anon. And I really think it's good that you're willing to try and understand.

#april answers #disability #anonymous #ableism #emmett

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astaroth1357 · 3 years

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Unpacking the Angel Event (Through My Own Perspective)

Okay so uh… this was a very uncomfortable seat the Devs have offered us today and like all things that give me moral uncomfiness, I HAVE to analyze it. Blame the ethics classes. A full disclaimer, this is not spoiler-free and is pretty much entirely just me unpacking my own feelings here. What may bother or not bother me could really affect you and there is nothing wrong with that. You are entitled to your own perspective. This is just me trying to walk through all the stuff in this event that just… rubbed me the wrong way. So let's get to it.

The Costumes

So. Let's start at the beginning. Diavolo apparently had the bright idea to put everybody in magical costumes of their angel forms (or something like it in Satan's case). This is… problematic.

The reason the brothers lost their angel forms was because they fell after the Celestial War… who's greatest causality (in their eyes) was their sister, Lilith. So one could imagine that their memories as angels aren't particularly happy ones… By this point in the "continuity" (this is Post-Attic, more on that later), they would have known that Lilith didn't actually die which may soften something like this a little. I dunno, I'm not one of them and trauma is uniquely personal to the individual, but the bigger issue is that Diavolo thought this was a good idea to start with to which I say! - I'm not at all surprised by that. Hear me out.

Diavolo is heavily implied to have had a huge ass crush on Angel Lucifer. He's also uh… probably a little sheltered (as sheltered as the royalty of Hell can be) and probably not used to think of his subjects' feelings on the things he does before he just does them. This is fairly evident in other events where he'll order the brothers to do XYZ task even if they want no part in it. It doesn't surprise me at all that Diavolo would want to see them (Lucifer) as angels again and not take into account how that could affect them. I don't think that'd be malice on his part, just shortsightedness, and he likely would have apologized if any of the brothers expressed an emotional problem with it to him directly.

Do they have problems? Yes. But since the event kind of wipes them of their true selves, that's better discussed elsewhere. Moving on.

The Bangles

Holy fuck, how do we even approach this? So Simeon, in conjunction with Michael (probably, at this point I have to wonder if he's telling the truth about this) gives the brothers jewelry, presumably to wear to the party, that would… I'm not even sure. Curb their impulses? Force them to be mannered? The important thing is he did not tell them about that little detail before they put the bangles on…

This is… also problematic. First, we can try to establish Simeon's intentions versus what actually happened:

The bangles were (likely) intended to be removable. It was the mixing of the magic that locked them in place so we can assume he didn't mean this to be a permanent change.

The magic on the bangles was probably amplified by the angel costumes. What this means is though we can assume that Simeon never intended them to become quite so… different, we'll never know just how much influence he was actually trying to put on them. It could have been anything from suppressing their sins to full blown force you to say please/thank you. We'll just never get to know now…

I won't be the first person to liken this to mind control (nor the last) because… that's kind of how it turned out. Even worse still, it would have been completely involuntary on the brothers' part. Simeon DID NOT tell them what the bangles were going to do. Now, he claims later that he would have eventually, but we don't get to know when that would have been. I presume at some time after the party, because like. These are our boys. They're not going to consent to wearing something like that, they're just not.

This poses all kinds of questions and problems ranging from issues of consent to anatomy and even the worth of good deeds done out of obligation vs. free will and… I mean quite literally when I say Jesus Christ, Simeon, what the hell?!

I could write a completely different post debating whether or not what Simeon did actually had any moral merit but I won't because it'd be very dry and boring. I think the most interesting thing to take away here is that Simeon thought it was okay to do like, at all, and with approval from Michael (maybe) no less… That reflects something on angel society that I doubt will get explored but I need to ponder farther…

This section is all kinds of sticky so we need to move on.

The Development(?)

First off, to new players, don't worry this probably isn't canon (at least to the main story continuity). The Brothers should be back to normal in the new chapters and this won't have a long term effect on anything (aside from maybe a tie in to the next event ala Beach event-> Games). That's how Obey Me has always treated their events it seems and I sure hope they stick to it now. But, these are still the same characters going through a unique situation and that can offer some insight so… Let's discuss.

I mentioned earlier that the brothers had problems with this… Unfortunately, I think we only get to see Lucifer and Satan's thoughts in any detail because everyone else is too far gone by the time we reach them… Lucifer can pretty much be summed up as troubled and unhappy because (you know) not a lot of great memories as an angel. I presume that his wounded pride after the fall may also contribute.

Satan is… more complex. I’m honestly more bothered by his change than anyone else’s because even he expresses how weird this is for him... (We get confirmation that he never in fact had an angel form, btw). Poor baby is going through a full on identity crisis and there’s a certain part of his mind that he’s not even allowed to use right now... Anger. The Avatar of Wrath, born from Wrath, can’t get angry and… Something about that just bothers me at a deeper level, not even I can express properly…

Everyone else is too far gone once we reach them. Their personalities are completely different and they can’t even acknowledge that’s the case. They think that they’ve turned a new leaf but we know that’s not the reality, that leaf was very much turned for them and it doesn’t make anything feel any better…

This may be my own opinion, but part of me thinks that this portion (and only this portion right here) was actually what the Devs were going for. They wanted us to be uncomfortable by all of this for like, story reasons. It’s a narrative trick. Think of the phrase “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” I think they were trying to use the absence of the brothers’ usual flaws and traits as a weird way of celebrating them. Kind of like saying, “We could have given you guys these perfect brothers, but they’re not perfect and we know that’s why you like them. Look at these perfect guys, doesn’t it feel wrong?” The answer is, yes. It does feel wrong. And under other circumstances, it would be affirming like they’d be intending, “I don’t want this emotionally-open non-otaku, give me Levi dammit!” But when you add this intended discomfort with the already sketchy way we got here it just makes it all the worse…

And absolutely NONE of this is helped by...

The… End?

I think the thing I hate about this event the most (actually legitimately hate) is how it ends. In that it doesn’t. It kind of just… abruptly stops right after Lucifer starts coming to himself again. Though I suspect that’s because they’re putting incentive into getting the event cards, this in NO WAY does the narrative any favors.

Most people are not going to get those cards. Even with Lonely Devil as an option, it’s a huge time/resource commitment to get there. Because of that, the majority of people are not going to get to see the aftermath of what happened. We don’t get to see how the brothers feel about what happened. We don’t get to see if they do, in fact, come to and if they have any takeaways from the experience or if they’re utterly disgusted by it. The player character doesn’t even get the option to comfort them after something that was probably terribly traumatic. It. Just. Ends.

What that means is all of that discomfort that we had just lingers… There’s no resolution or pay off. It just… stays… This is the worst possible thing they could have done. If you want your audience to feel uncomfortable, that’s one thing, but unless you’re telling like, a psychological thriller you gotta settle them back down again! Deep moral conflict is not a turn on!!!

Personally, I don’t hate that this thing exists. I don’t. The part of me that majored in Philosophy loves analyzing media like this so I can’t say that I didn’t get anything out of it. I don’t think all media should play it safe, it’s okay to leave the audience with no good answers or a feeling of unease, but you really got to be self-aware of it. The biggest flaw of this event, in my opinion, is that it rarely comes across as self-aware of its own horror. You get a very brief glimpse of it from Solomon when he comments on how creepy things are, but Simeon’s happy. Diavolo’s happy. And though he’s a little uneasy, Luke’s pretty content, too. Add that to the abrupt ending and we never get to know if ANY of them realize how awful of a thing this was to do to the brothers... It makes it all come off as an endorsement of mind controlling your friends into better people and (to me) that feels really, really wrong.

So in conclusion… I dunno. If the next event isn’t something along the lines of “Angelic Demons Part 2: Fixing What We Fucked Up!” then I think they really botched this one guys… I hope somebody was taking notes.

#this is pretty much an essay #fair warning #long post #even for me #obey me angel event #obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me

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carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory · 3 years

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How I Became an Archaeologist

If you had told me when I was 15 that I would spend my life as an archaeologist, I probably would have been pretty surprised. I didn’t grow up knowing a great deal about archaeology or even being fascinated by arrowheads. At that time, I might well have asked what an archaeologist really is and what one actually does. I did get to visit the Parthenon and other ruins while on a trip with my aunt when I was sixteen. Even then, I don’t remember having more than a casual interest in what could be learned from these places. I was more interested in the living people and the new food dishes I encountered on that trip, which was my first trip outside the United States.

From talking to other archaeologists, I’ve learned that there are a lot of paths to deciding archaeology is going to be your life’s work. In my case, what led me to archaeology was anthropology, and specifically an elective course I took in the Fall of my senior year in high school that was taught by a Ph.D. student at the University of Massachusetts. Until then I had not been a serious student, although I did well enough in school. Perhaps I was slightly bored by most of my courses, but anthropology was anything but boring! It looked at people elsewhere in the world and over great periods of time. Many of these people lived different lives than my friends and I did, and they sometimes thought very differently about what was important in life than people here in the United States. I was fascinated, and, honestly, I particularly liked the fact that the conventions of American society, which to my teenage self were sometimes a little confining, weren’t after all the only sensible way to approach life. That year, as I chose a college to attend, I specifically looked for anthropology programs. I chose Beloit College in Wisconsin, which to this day has an excellent anthropology program.

Initially, I thought that I was most interested in cultural anthropology, but like most anthropology departments in the United States, Beloit required its anthropology majors to take courses in biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology as well as cultural anthropology. These are what are known as the four fields of American anthropology and together, they give us a more complete picture of humans in both the past and the present. Most people focus their careers in one subfield or another, though we recognize the importance of each one for understanding humans, and in most cases in North America our degrees are in anthropology not one of the subfields. In college, I found all these courses more fascinating than anything I had studied before, and I actually became a good student as I explored anthropology. I was learning so much neat stuff! I also did volunteer work in the Logan Museum at Beloit, which was founded at the end of the nineteenth century and holds some pretty amazing ethnographic and archaeological collections. It was there I first became interested in artifacts and learned to clean and care for them. After a college internship in cultural anthropology convinced me that cultural anthropology was not the most interesting part of anthropology after all, I began to focus on archaeology. I was most intrigued by my courses in Mesoamerican archaeology and North American archaeology, which before college had been completely unknown to me.

When I graduated from college, I still wasn’t sure what I would do with my life. I worked for about two years both in social work and as a tax auditor for the IRS, but decided in 1974 to try graduate school in archaeology because I still found what archaeology had taught me about past people compelling. I lived in Chicago, so I enrolled in the Ph.D. program in North American archaeology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

My graduate self in the late 1970s. Photo credit: Phillip Neusius

The biggest shock of graduate school was my professors’ almost immediate insistence that I pick what research I wanted to do. They pushed me to develop an expertise or skill within North American archaeology through my research. It sounds obvious to me now, but I think many beginning graduate students are like I was, lovers of the discipline’s knowledge, but a bit daunted by becoming an independent researcher. Developing an area of focus and specialty skills is part of becoming a professional archaeologist. One reason for this is because contemporary archaeological undertakings rely on teams of researchers, each contributing special skills and knowledge to accomplish the many aspects of excavation, analysis, and interpretation. If you envision archaeology as the solitary pursuit of an elusive artifact or site, you don’t have the picture quite right. Think instead of archaeological fieldwork involving groups of scientists working together to discover and carefully record many different bits of evidence about what the world used to be like and what people did in it. Also think about the many hours these scientists and others will spend not only in the field, but in the laboratory after an excavation is completed cleaning finds, describing artifacts, and analyzing data in order to make meaningful interpretations.

For someone like myself, who loved all aspects of anthropology, not to mention archaeology, and who had only gradually settled on North America as my geographic focus, picking a focus on entering graduate school was a hard task. There was so much that would be interesting to study! However, I did remember especially enjoying a research paper I had done in college on the relatively new interdisciplinary field of zooarchaeology, so under pressure, I told my professors I wanted to pursue this subfield in graduate school. Amazingly, this turned out to be a good choice of specialization for me. I found that I really love to work with collections of animal bone. For me, opening a bag of bone refuse from a site still is exciting. Bone identification work is a little like doing a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces. It is challenging, and it takes concentration and careful observation to piece together what you can. There is so much to figure out about any single piece of bone! What animal is it? How healthy was the animal? What part of the animal’s body is it? Has it been burned or cut? How was the bone buried and changed after the humans were done with it? Then you have to record this information so it can be combined with other observations on the assemblage of bone you are looking at. After identification, making sense of what a collection of the bones means and correlating these kinds of data with other information from a site and region requires careful analysis, but also insight and creativity. To me it is endlessly fascinating.

Besides finding that I liked the work, choosing zooarchaeology was also serendipitous since my professors were looking for a student to work with them on this aspect of a big project they were undertaking in west-central Illinois centered on the Koster site, which was first inhabited more than 9000 years ago and then reinhabited by people right up into modern times. Most importantly the poorly known Archaic Period levels were numerous, well-preserved, and distinct from each other so we could add a lot of new information through our work. For my dissertation I was able to look at the animal remains from levels of this site dated between approximately 8500 and 6000 years ago, which represent how people used animals at that time.

Koster site strata. All those dark layers are from Archaic period camps at the site. Photo credit: Del Bastian, Center for American Archaeology.

Graduate school was intense, but I continued to be fascinated by archaeology’s ability to tell the story of people lost to standard Western history. In those days I was excited to be part of this science that could do so much more than describe and take care of cool artifacts. It was a heady thing to learn that I could contribute to what was known about people who lived thousands of years ago. In later years, I’ve had to think more critically than I did then about what a privilege it is for an archaeologist to learn about the history and lives of other ethnicities. Today’s archaeologists recognize their responsibility to present information about past people for both scholarly and public use in ways that are sensitive to what is considered sacred and private by the descendants of those people. I think this is an important change in perspective, but in the 1970s most archaeologists just wanted to show that people’s stories from the past could be told using the techniques of archaeology. I certainly was happy, if a little naively so, to have found a way to contribute to telling the human story.

If I consider entering graduate school as the start of my professional career as an archaeologist, I have been pursuing this career for more than 45 years! Over the years I have done zooarchaeological and archaeological work in the American Midwest, Southwest, Southeast, and Northeast working on telling the story of people who lived as long as 9000 years ago and as recently as the Sixteenth century. I’ve worked at several universities, in a small museum, and on small and large archaeological projects in the field of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) doing archaeological survey, site excavation, and zooarchaeological identification and analysis. I’ve written scholarly papers and articles as well as a textbook on North American archaeology. However, beginning in the late 1980s, I spent more than 31 years doing research and teaching anthropology and archaeology here in Pennsylvania at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. In this job I taught both undergraduates and graduate students, but, as is typical of university professors, I also spent time doing fieldwork and analysis as part of my research while at IUP. Fortunately, because archaeology is a team undertaking, I’ve been able to involve many students in my research. Working with students in research as they discover what fascinates them has been a highlight of being an archaeologist for me. I’ve now retired from teaching but not archaeology. I’m still working with both physical and digital archaeological collections both through CMNH and elsewhere and writing about archaeology. Who knows what this career still will bring me!

Drawing a profile at the Johnston site with one of my students in 2008. Photo credit: Erica Ausel, IUP Archaeology.

Tracking down a bone identification with one of my students in the Zooarchaeology Lab at IUP. Photo credit: Beverly Chiarulli.

If you are reading this blog because you are thinking about archaeology as either a career or a hobby, I hope you realize that mine is just one story among the many that could be told. Because there are so many aspects of archaeology, people come into it from all sorts of backgrounds and because of all sorts of interests. I think that it is important to remember though that it really is about understanding people and telling their stories through the artifacts and other evidence we find. This is what interested me in archaeology in the first place. Discovering the details of the human story is a giant undertaking. There is no shortage of research problems or work to do, but solving the puzzles presented by sites and collections is both challenging and fun. I’m certainly glad I decided to become an archaeologist and zooarchaeologist so many years ago!

Sarah W. Neusius is a Research Associate in the Section of Anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

Definitions of Bolded Terms

anthropology -the study of humans including the physical, cultural and social aspects in the past and present.

cultural anthropology - the study of the cultural aspects of humans especially recent and contemporary social, technological, and ideological behavior observed among living people.

biological anthropology – the study of the biological or physical aspects of humans, including human biological evolution and past and present biological diversity.

linguistic anthropology - the study of the structure , history, and diversity of human languages as well as of the relationship between language and other aspects of culture.

archaeology - the study of past human behavior and culture through the analysis of material remains.

ethnographic – relating to the scientific description of people and cultures especially customs and beliefs.

Mesoamerican archaeology - the archaeology of the area from central Mexico southward through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica.

North American archaeology - the archaeology of the area from central Mexico northward throughout the United States and Canada.

zooarchaeology – a subarea of archaeology involves the identification of animal remains from archaeological sites and investigates the ecology and cultural uses of the animals represented.

assemblage - a collection of artifacts from the same archaeological context.

Archaic Period - a time period from approximately 10,000 BP to 3000 BP that is recognized in most of North America.

Cultural Resource Management (CRM) – an applied form of archaeology undertaken in response to laws that require archaeological investigations.

archaeological survey – the systematic process archaeologists use to locate, identify, and record archaeological site distribution on the landscape.

#Carnegie Museum of Natural History #Archaeology #Zooarchaeology #Archaeologist

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“To understand what friendship between women was, we must first understand what it was not. Before turning to the ways in which female friendship illustrated the play of the Victorian gender system, we must develop grounds for distinguishing it from other relationships between women. This is a detour, for the subject of this chapter is female friendship; erotic desire and marriage between women are the focus of subsequent sections. But friendship, erotic infatuation, and female marriage have so often been conflated, and women’s relationships so commonly understood as essentially ambiguous, that the detour is a necessary one.

The language of Victorian friendship was so ardent, the public face of female marriage so amicable, the comparisons between female friendship and marriage between men and women so constant, that it is no simple task to distinguish female friends from female lovers or female couples. The question “did they have sex?” is the first one on people’s lips today when confronted with a claim that women in the past were lovers—and it is almost always unanswerable. If firsthand testimony about sex is the standard for defining a relationship as sexual, then most Victorians never had sex. Scholars have yet to determine whether Thomas Carlyle was impotent; when, if ever, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor consummated their relationship; or if Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick, whose diaries recorded their experiments with fetishes, cross-dressing, and bootlicking, also had genital intercourse.

Just as one can read hundreds of Victorian letters, diaries, and memoirs without finding a single mention of menstruation or excretion, one rarely finds even oblique references to sex between husband and wife. Men and women were equally reticent about sexual activity inside and outside of marriage. In a journal that described her courtship and wedding in detail, Lady Knightley dispatched the first weeks of wedded life in two lines: “Rainald and I entered on our new life in our own home. May God bless it to us” (173). Elizabeth Butler, whose autobiography included “a little sketch of [her] rather romantic meeting” with the man who became her husband, was similarly and typically laconic about a transition defined by sexual intercourse: “June 11 of that year, 1877, was my wedding day.”

The lack of reliable evidence of sexual activity becomes less problematic, however, if we realize that sex matters because of the social relationships it creates and concentrate on those relationships. In Victorian England, sex was assumed to be part of marriage, but could also drop out of marriage without destroying a bond never defined by sex alone. The diaries and correspondence of Anne Lister and Charlotte Cushman provide solid evidence that nineteenth-century women had genital contact and orgasms with other women, but even more importantly, they demonstrate that sex created different kinds of connections. The fleeting encounters Lister had with women she met abroad were very different from the illicit but sustained affair Cushman had with a much younger woman who became her daughter-in-law.

Those types of affairs were in turn worlds apart from the relationships with women that Lister and Cushman called marriages, a term that did not simply mean the relationships were sexual but also connoted shared households, mingled property, and assumptions about exclusivity and durability. We can best understand what kinds of relationships women had with each other not by hunting for evidence of sex, which even if we find it will not explain much, but rather by anchoring women’s own statements about their relationships in a larger context.

The context I provide here is the complex linguistic field of lifewriting, which brings into focus two types of relationships often confused with friendship, indeed often called friendship, but significantly different from it: 1) unrequited passion and obsessive infatuation; and 2) life partnerships, which some Victorians described as marriages between women. The most famous and best-documented example of a Victorian woman’s avowed but unreciprocated passion for another woman is Edith Simcox’s lifelong love for George Eliot, which has made her a staple figure in histories of lesbianism.

Simcox (1844–1901) was a trade-union organizer and professional writer who regularly contributed book reviews to the periodical press and published fiction and nonfiction, including a study of women’s property ownership in ancient societies, discussed in chapter 5. From 1876 to 1900, Simcox kept a journal in a locked book that surfaced in 1930. Simcox gave her life story a title, The Autobiography of a Shirtmaker, that foregrounded her successful work as a labor activist, but its actual content focused on what Simcox called “the lovepassion of her life,” her longing for George Eliot as an unattainable, idealized beloved whom she called “my goddess” or, even more reverently, “Her.”

Simcox knowingly embraced a love that could not be returned, though she was aware of reciprocated, consummated sexual love between women. Her diary alludes to a “lovers’ quarrel” among three women she knew (61) and mentions her own rejection of a woman who “professed a feeling for me different from what she had ever had for any one, it might make her happiness if I could return it” (159). Tellingly, though twentieth-century scholars often refer to Simcox euphemistically as Eliot’s devoted “friend,” Simcox rarely used the term, and modeled herself instead on a courtly lover made all the more devoted by the one-sidedness of her passion. Simcox defined her diary as an “acta diurna amoris,” a daily act of love, and aspired to keep it with a constancy that would mirror her total absorption in Eliot (3).

After bringing Eliot two valentines in February 1878, Simcox wrote: “Yesterday I went to see her, and have been in a calm glow of happiness since:—for no special reason, only that to have been near her happens to have that effect on me. . . . I did nothing but make reckless love to her . . . I had told her of my ambition to be allowed to lie silently at her feet as she pursued her occupations” (25). George Lewes, the companion whom Eliot’s friends referred to as her husband, was present at most of these scenes, and he and Eliot tolerated and even enjoyed Simcox’s attentions, which they consciously construed as loverlike.

During a conversation about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s love poems, Sonnets from the Portugese, Eliot told Simcox “she wished my letters could be printed in the same veiled way— ‘the Newest Heloise,’” thus situating Simcox’s missives to her in the tradition of amatory literature (39). In private, Simcox indulged fantasies of a more sensual connection, reflecting on a persistent “love that made the longing and molded the caress,” and recalling how “[i]n thinking of her, kisses used to form themselves instinctively on my lips—I seldom failed to kiss her a good night in thought” (136).

In trying to define her love for Eliot, Simcox significantly refused to be content with one paradigm; instead, she accumulated analogies, comparing her love for Eliot to both “[m]arried love and passionate friendship” (60). Like a medieval ascetic, Simcox eroticized her lack of sexual fulfillment, arguing that her love was even more powerful than friendship or marriage because, in resigning herself to living “widowed of perfect joy,” she had felt “sharp flames consuming what was left . . . of selfish lust” (60).

In an unsent 1880 letter to Eliot, Simcox again found herself unable to select only one category to explain her love: “Do you see darling that I can only love you three lawful ways, idolatrously as Frater the Virgin Mary, in romance wise as Petrarch, Laura, or with a child’s fondness for the mother” (120). By implication, Simcox also suggested that there would be an unlawful way to love Eliot—as an adulterer who would usurp the uxurious role already occupied by Lewes. She concluded by explaining that her relationship with Eliot was too unequal to be a friendship (120).

In the absence of the sociological and scientific shorthand provided by sexology or a codified subculture, and in the absence of a genuinely shared life that could be represented by a common history or joint possessions, women like Simcox represented their unrequited sexual desire for other women by extravagantly combining incompatible terms such as mother, lover, sister, friend, wife, and idol. Other women deployed similar rhetorical techniques of intensification and accumulation to express sexual loves that were not equally felt and did not lead to long-term partnerships.

At age twenty, Sophia Jex-Blake (1840–1912), one of England’s first female doctors and an activist who helped open medical education to women, met philanthropist Octavia Hill (1838–1912). In a biography of Jex-Blake written in 1918 that still adhered to Victorian rhetorical conventions, Margaret Todd called her subject’s relationship with Hill a “friendship” but qualified it as one that made “the deepest impression . . . of any in the whole of her life.” Jex-Blake considered the degree of love she felt for women to be unusual, writing around 1858, “I believe I love women too much ever to love a man” (78).

During a brief relationship that Hill soon broke off, the two women may have been sexually involved, but even so their feelings were never evenly matched. During the period when the women were closest, Hill reduced their bond to mere chumminess by calling herself and Jex-Blake “great companions” (85). By contrast, Jex-Blake was in awe of Hill and described her as both child and mother, roles often eroticized for Victorians, writing in her diary of “My dear loving strong child . . . I do love and reverence her” (85). Even after the relationship ended, Jex-Blake thought of Hill as her lifelong spouse, referring twenty years later to the “fanciful faithfulness” she maintained for her first love, to whom she left “the whole of her little property” in repeated wills (94).

Like Simcox, Jex-Blake used intensified language to underscore the uniqueness of her emotions. When she described inviting Hill on a vacation that included a visit to Llangollen, a site made famous by the female couple who had lived there together, Jex-Blake wrote of her “heart beating like a hammer” (85) and then described Hill’s response: “She sunk her head on my lap silently, raised it in tears, then such a kiss!” (86). Female friends often exchanged kisses, but Jex-Blake’s account took the kiss out of the realm of friendship into one of heightened sensation. Although it was common for female friends to love each other and write gushingly about it, Simcox and Jex-Blake also wrote of feeling uncommon, different from the general run of women.

Simcox identified closely with men and Jex-Blake felt unable to love men as most women did; both were extraordinarily autonomous, professionally successful, and self-conscious about the significance of their love for women. Other women also had intense erotic relationships that went beyond friendship, but were less self-conscious about those relationships, which they rarely saw as needing special explanation, and which usually lasted years or months rather than a lifetime. An example of outright insouciance about a deeply felt erotic fascination between women is found in the journals of Margaret Leicester Warren, written in the 1870s and published for private circulation in 1924.

Little is known about Warren, who was born in 1847 and led the life of a typical upper-middle-class lady, attending church, studying drawing and music, and marrying a man in 1875. Her diary attests to a fondness for triangulated relationships that included an adolescent crush on her newlywed sister and her sister’s husband, and a brief, tumultuous engagement to a male cousin whose mother was the dramatic center of Warren’s intense emotions. In 1872, when Warren was twenty-five, she began to write incessantly about a distant cousin named Edith Leycester in entries that reveled in the experience of succumbing to another woman’s glamour: “Edith looked very beautiful and as usual I fell in love with her....Tonight Edith took me into her room. . . . She is like an enchanted princess. There is some charm or spell that has been thrown over her.”

Numerous similar entries recorded an infatuation that combined daily familiarity with reverent mystification of a sophisticated and self-dramatizing woman. Warren’s fascination with Edith lasted several years. Unlike Simcox and Jex-Blake, Warren never self-consciously reflected that her feelings for Edith differed from conventional friendship, but like them, Warren ascribed an intensity, exclusivity, and volatility to her feelings for Edith absent from most accounts of female friendship. Indeed, Warren rarely referred to Edith as a friend when she wrote of her desire to see Edith every day and recorded their many exchanges of confidences, poetry, and gifts.

Warren fetishized and idealized Edith, was fixated on her presence and absence, and used superlatives to describe the feelings she inspired. Within months of meeting Edith, most of Warren’s entries consisted of detailed reenactments of their daily visits and the emotions generated by each parting and reunion: “Edith was charming tonight and I was happier with her than I have ever been. She looked beautiful” (287). Warren created an erotic aura around Edith through the very act of writing about her, through a liberal use of adverbs and adjectives, and by infusing her friend’s most ordinary actions with dramatic implications.

Describing how Edith invited her to visit her country home, for example, Warren wrote, “Edith came in and threw herself down on the chair and said quietly and gently ‘come to Toft!’” (291). Although Warren got along well with Edith’s rarely present husband, Rafe, she relished being alone with her and described the awkward, jealous scenes that took place whenever she had to share Edith with other women (362, 369). Warren found ways to dwell on the details of Edith’s beauty through references to fashion and contemporary art. Like many diarists, Warren had an almost novelistic capacity to observe and characterize people in terms of prevailing aesthetic forms.

She described Edith with flowers in her hair, looking like a pre-Raphaelite painting, and recorded her desire to make images of Edith: “I sd. like to paint her. . . . It wd. make a good ‘golden witch’ a beautiful Enchantress” (290–91). A ride with Edith inspired Warren to pen another impassioned tableau: “All the way there in the brougham I looked at Edith’s beautiful profile, the lamp light shining on it, and the wind blowing her hair about—her face also, all lit up with enthusiasm and tenderness as she leant forward to Rafe and told him a long story . . . I . . . only thought how grand she was” (369–70).

Shared confidences about Warren’s broken engagement to their male cousin became another medium for cultivating the women’s special intimacy. By assuring Warren that she did not side with the jilted fiance´, Edith declared an autonomous interest in her: “‘I wanted you to come here because— because I like you.’ She was sitting at her easel and never looking at me as she spoke for I was standing behind her, but when she said ‘because I like you,’ she looked backwards up at me with such an honest, soft, beautiful expression that any distrust I had still left of her trueness melted up into a cinder” (290).

Just as Warren heightened her relationship with Edith by writing about it so effusively and at such length, the two women elevated it by coyly discussing what their interactions and feelings meant. Before one of her many departures from London, Edith asked Warren: “‘[A]re you sorry I am going? . . . How curious—why are you sorry?’ Then I told her a little of all she had done for me . . . how much life and pleasure and interest she had put into my life, and she said nothing but she just put out her hand and laid it on my hand and that from her means a great deal more than 100 things from anyone else” (293). Edith’s gesture drew on the repertory of friendship, but in the private theater of her journal, Warren transformed the touch of a hand into a uniquely meaningful clasp.

This is not to say the relationship was one-sided. If Warren’s diary reports the two women’s interactions with any degree of accuracy, it is clear that both enjoyed creating an atmosphere of pent-up longing. Edith fed Warren’s infatuation with provocative questions and a skill for setting scenes: “She asked what things I cared for now? And I said with truth, for nothing— except seeing her” (303). Three days later, just before another of Edith’s departures, Warren paid a call: When tea was over, the dusk had begun and I . . . sat . . . at the open window. . . . By and bye Edith came and sat near me. . . . The room inside was nearly dark, but outside it was brilliant May moonlight. . . . Edith sat there ready to go, looking very pale and very sad with the light on her face. . . . We did not talk much. She asked me to go to the party tonight and to think of her at 11. . . . She said goodbye and she kissed me, for the first time. (303–4)

Warren is exquisitely sensitive to every element that connotes eroticism: a darkened room, physical proximity, complicit silence, a romantic demand that the beloved remain present in her lover’s mind even when absent, a kiss whose uniqueness—“for the first time”—suggests a beginning. Any one of these actions would have been unremarkable between female friends, but comparison with other women’s diaries shows how distinctive it was for Warren to list so many gestures within one entry, without defining and therefore restricting their meaning. Warren’s attitude also distinguishes her emotions from those articulated by women who took their love for women in a more conjugal or sexual direction. Her journals combine exhaustive attention to the beloved with a pervasive indifference to interrogating what that fascination might mean.

Never classified as friendship or love, Warren’s feelings for Edith had the advantages and limits of remaining in the realm of suggestion, where they could expand infinitely without ever being realized or checked. Women who consummated a mutual love and consolidated it by forming a conjugal household were less likely to leave records of their most impassioned moods and deeds than those whose love went unrequited or undefined. Indeed, women in what were sometimes called “female marriages” (a term I discuss further in chapter 5) used lifewriting to claim the privilege of privacy accorded to opposite-sex spouses.

Like the lifewritings of women married to men, those of women in female marriages assumed intimacy and interdependence rather than displaying it, and folded their sexual bond into a social one. They described shared households and networks of acquaintances who recognized and thus legitimated the women’s coupledom, liberally using words such as “always,” “never,” and “every” to convey an iterated, daily familiarity more typical of spouses than friends.

Martha Vicinus’s Intimate Friends cites many nineteenth-century women who described their relationships with other women as marriages, and Magnus Hirschfeld’s magisterial, international study of The Homosexuality of Men and Women (1914) noted that same sex couples often created “marriage-like associations characterized by the exclusivity and long duration of the relationships, the living together and the common household, the sharing of every interest, and often the existence of legitimate community property.”

Sexual relationships of all stripes were most acceptable when their sexual nature was least visible as such but was instead manifested in terms of marital acts such as cohabitation, fidelity, financial solidarity, and adherence to middle-class norms of respectability. Because friendship between women was so clearly defined and prized, one way to acknowledge a female couple’s existence while respecting their privacy was to call women who were in effect married to each other “friends.” Given that “friends” was used to describe women who were lovers and women who were not, how can we tell when “friends” means more than just friends?

…There are many instances of published writing acknowledging marital relationships between women by calling them friendships. Victorian women in female couples were not automatically subject to the exposure and scandal visited on opposite-sex couples who stepped outside the bounds of respectable sexual behavior. Instead, many female couples enjoyed both the right to privacy associated with marriage and the public privileges accorded to female friendship. The Halifax Guardian obituary of Anne Lister in 1840 recognized her longstanding spousal relationship with Anne Walker by calling her Lister’s “friend and companion,” a gratuitously compound phrase.

Emily Faithfull, whom we will encounter again in chapter 6, was a feminist with a long history of female lovers. An 1894 article entitled “An Afternoon Tea with Miss Emily Faithfull” described her home in Manchester, decorated by “Miss Charlotte Robinson,” whom Faithfull readily disclosed “shares house with me.”80 Faithfull left all her property to Robinson in a will that called her “my beloved friend” whose “countless services” and “affectionate tenderness and care . . . made the last few years of my life the happiest I ever spent.” To call one woman another’s superlative friend was not to disavow their marital relationship but to proclaim it in the language of the day.”

- Sharon Marcus, “Friendship and the Play of the System.” in Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England

#victorian #sexuality #history #sharon marcus #between women

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