from The Literature Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained, James Canton
The epic explores themes of family ties and conflict, duty and courage, fate and choice, and present them in a series of allegories to explain the elements of dharma, a complex concept of "correct conduct."
"There are two forces: fate and human effort --- all men depend on and are bound by these, there is nothing else."
What is right and wrong is seldom clear, and it is by reconciliating conflicting interests such as love and duty that we can achieve liberation from the cycle of life, death and rebirth.
While most of the poem show its characters dealing with moral dilemmas in their human affairs, in the final sections, and especially after the death of Krishna, we see them facing up to their spiritual fate.
The story ends, after much tragedy and conflict, with the protagonists achieving eternal bliss, but also with the warning that the human struggles continue here on Earth.
leave a little kindness
personal commentary: I find these quotes as a helpful guideline to approach a classic literature and appreciate it, more than an aesthetic. I feel that I am able to understand the crux or essense of these literature pieces, more than simply an entertaining story or childish theorizing as you see on internet, but with good cultural appreciation of literature and the human questions alongside universal mysteries.
PSA: Tumblr/Wordpress is preparing to start selling our user data to Midjourney and OpenAI.
you have to MANUALLY opt out of it as well.
to opt out on desktop, click your blog ➡️ blog settings ➡️ scroll til you see visibility options and it’ll be the last option to toggle.
to opt out on mobile, click your blog ➡️ scroll then click visibility ➡️ toggle opt out option.
if you’ve already opted out of showing up in google searches, it’s preselected for you. if you don’t have the option available, update your app or close your browser/refresh a few times. important to note you also have to opt out for each blog you own separately, so if you’d like to prevent AI scraping your blog i’d really recommend taking the time to opt out. (source)
thinking about how Humans Are Space Orcs stories always talk about how indestructible humans are, our endurance, our ability to withstand common poisons, etc. and thats all well and good, its really fun to read, but it gets repetitive after a while because we aren't all like that.
And that got me thinking about why this trope is so common in the first place, and the conclusion I came to is actually kind of obvious if you think about it. Not everyone is allowed to go into space. This is true now, with the number of physical restrictions placed on astronauts (including height limits), but I imagine it's just as strict in some imaginary future where humans are first coming into contact with alien species. Because in that case there will definitely be military personnel alongside any possible diplomatic parties.
And I imagine that all interactions aliens have ever had up until this point have been with trained personnel. Even basic military troops conform to this standard, to some degree. So aliens meet us and they're shocked and horrified to discover that we have no obvious weaknesses, we're all either crazy smart or crazy strong (still always a little crazy, academia and war will do that to you), and not only that but we like, literally all the same height so there's no way to tell any of us apart.
And Humans Are Death Worlders stories spread throughout the galaxy. Years or decades or centuries of interspecies suspicion and hostilities preventing any alien from setting foot/claw/limb/appendage/etc. on Earth until slowly more beings are allowed to come through. And not just diplomats who keep to government buildings, but tourists. Exchange students. Temporary visitors granted permission to go wherever they please, so they go out in search of 'real terran culture' and what do they find?
Humans with innate heart defects that prevent them from drinking caffeine. Humans with chronic pain and chronic fatigue who lack the boundless endurance humans are supposedly famous for. Humans too tall or too short or too fat to be allowed into space. Humans who are so scared of the world they need to take pills just to function. Humans with IBS who can't stand spicy foods, capsaicin really is poison to them. Lactose intolerance and celiac disease, my god all the autoimmune disorders out there, humans who struggle to function because their own bodies fight them. Humans who bruise easily and take too long to heal. Humans who sustained one too many concussions and now struggle to talk and read and write. Humans who've had strokes. Humans who were born unable to talk or hear or speak, and humans who through some accident lost that ability later.
Aliens visit Earth, and do you know what they find? Humanity, in all its wholeness.
being an adult means we can buy or make as much self-indulgent shit (as we can afford) and unironically have trinkets of our fave things cause our teen years was bullied for liking things and hiding/denying we were ever neurodivergent to the point of suicide. sucks for anyone that thinks its weird cringe but I'm going to try and allow myself to love myself in little ways now
I hate the argument abt when you say customizable games should have fat people and people say "well it would be harder to model or scale clothes to fit" cause like i guess youre technically right, but why then are fat people not seen as worth the effort to actually code and model these things? Someone else said this abt baldur's gate but they said "in an RPG like that game shouldn't the priority be on allowing people to express themselves as much as possible with designing their character?" Also like fat people aren't a rarity or minority, even if all media ever wants to give people the impression that the world is 99% skinny people with maybe one or two fat villains or sidekick friends.
It doesn’t take too many negative circumstances before it becomes apparent how much of our lives we don’t actually control. Oh we think we do! We drive ourselves bonkers trying to think through every possible variable to maximize our chances at success. We plan and exercise diligence. We read up and study, and if it’s dangerous, we put in extra time. And all we are really after is some safety and…
I don't even really get the impression that if you were domming someone there would be anything "motherly" about
Yeah no I'm much more likely to be projecting semi-detached professionalism. If I'm domming I'm not really there for roleplay, I'm there to supervise you while you're locked down and squirming. I talk like tech support when I'm in a scene. "Not too tight? Good. I'm gonna take the vibe up two settings, yeah? Okay, great, I'm gonna leave that there, snap your fingers when it's getting to be too much; we'll keep ramping it up until you have to tap out." I like being unaffected and in control while people are losing it and I am not particularly tactile or into being touched or getting off while I'm doing that.
Which is great if you like to be dehumanized and objectified and hand yourself to me like you're taking a car to a mechanic! Less great if you're looking for a lot of praise or comfort or physical contact in the moment.
omg imagine getting thrown inside the Emperor's mind and discovering he's actually kinda like you wouldn't that be funny haha (Heavily inspired by this scene from Turning red ggghhg)