Disaster

Sometimes I think about the fact that our present is the same history in which the Greeks wrote poetry, the Spanish Inquisition hunted witches, the Mayans built temples, the Jacobites uprose against British rule, Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, and Lenin spoke to the crowds during the Red October. Our world is the same world in which hundreds of Middle Ages mothers rocked their babies to sleep, and thousands of eighteen century teenagers fell in love for the first time, and the same world in which Stone Age tribes danced around the fire, and Victorian era scientists kissed in the night. The water you drink has been the same since the dinosaurs. We are part of the ongoing story of the world. Just as real as everybody else had been. Do you ever think about that.

I get so mad when people say that classical literature is boring. No, in fact, I get sad. Because yes, yes, it probably is boring to them. Due to the fact that it was stuffed into their mouth for years, in an obligatory manner at eight o’clock in the morning twice a week. For like twelve years. No matter how they feel. No matter whether they were old enough to understand it or even comprehend what’s going on. No matter whether it’s something they’d rather be thinking about instead of whatever else important was happening in their lives. Of course it’s boring. But the people on the other side of it were tortured souls writing because nothing else was enough to console them, spilling the guts of their souls on this paper, and now this blood reaches our time through centuries, and all you say is that it’s boring. And all we do with it is force it onto children. I’m sure those authors would be horrified to know it. And I’m sorry that it has to be like that, and I can’t understand how I could simply go and write a test on a poem that touched me so deeply I had to sit for a few minutes and feel my heartbeat slow down. It feels treasonous. It feels shallow. Most of all, it feels cruel.

One thing that my French teacher once told me is that there are two types of students: those who need praise more and those who need criticism more. Some people work better in comfortable environments with lots of encouragement, while others work better under a bit of pressure, without sweet-sugaring criticism. That’s not to say that the first type doesn’t need any constructive criticism or that the second type doesn’t need any encouragement. And also the first type isn’t any better or worse than the second one, but if you know yours, it can help you a lot when learning! If you’re the first type, then working under somebody who’s always harshly honest, even solely for good reasons, because that’s their type of teaching and their character, you will not be happy under them. And that’s okay! It just means you’re the first type and you need teachers who will encourage you, teach in a way that fits you best! But also type second teachers aren’t bitches, they are just people who prefer being honest and are okay with plainly pointing out the mistakes to people who are okay with that type of teaching/learning. In my experience, they have always been amazing beautiful people who cared for their students deeply.

People should really accept that loneliness is a thing and an issue. Yeah always needing somebody in your life isn’t healthy. Yeah depending your personal happiness solely on other people isn’t healthy. But this modern point of view that loving yourself and treating yourself well can eradicate loneliness or a need for communication, a certain amount of validation, compassion, understanding, belonging, deep connections, love, friendships, families, relationships (even the ones that hurt) is so so wrong. We are communicative creatures. We need society, we need people. Being able to look after yourself and feel great even alone is always good. But making that a substitute for one of the most human things on earth isn’t.

I think part of the entire trauma of being abused at home is the fact that the child is very often left with a choice between bad and bad. There is literally nothing you can do to make things right or good. You either answer the phone and get yelled at or you do not and get yelled at at home. You either spend lots of time outside of your room and get criticised constantly or you stay in your room and then get accused of staying in your room too much. You either nearly kill yourself trying to do perfect at school or you get punished for not doing it. There is no good choice, nothing depends on you, though abusers manipulate you into thinking that it does. But it doesn’t. And didn’t. And children can’t do anything to stop their parents from abusing them, from divorcing, from drinking, from beating them. Yes, you can tell the authorities if you’re old enough but it’s the same choice between bad and bad. None of it is the child’s fault but children are also built in such a way that they always think that it is, and that they can do something, become better, less visible, less real to stop all the bad things. But they cannot.

I thought to myself recently that perhaps all towns are ghost towns. Towns filled with ghosts, I mean. Every city. Because the people who lived in Paris 150 years ago are all dead now. Every single one of those thousands, every person who sat at the tables in cafes, who walked the alleys and enjoyed the sunlight in the gardens, who looked out of the windows and left footprints on the cobblestones. The entire population of a giant capital. They were replaced naturally by their children and grandchildren, but none of them are alive now. And what’s even more wild to think of is that it isn’t just in Paris. It’s the whole world. Every single person out of billions who had lived 150 years ago is dead. None of them still walk the earth. From Buddhist monks in the east to cowboys in the west, from noble lords in the north to fishers in the south. And that same cycle has repeated itself hundreds of times. Generations of people lived on this earth and died and nobody is here now to tell the truth of how it really was back then. Our generation will die as well in some 150 years. Nobody will be alive, not one person from nearly eight billion people. A haunting thought.

Here’s a link to a video of 1920s Paris in colour.

I hate how it’s become normal to hate privileged people. And not the filthy rich who can afford mansions and ten cars, and not with hate that is natural for people to feel towards the ones who had what they didn’t, and so want to. But it’s as if the privileged (and rn I’m talking about people with full families, children who grew up with a dad, people who weren’t punished and abused as children, kids who are respected by their parents, people who didn’t grow up in poverty where there isn’t always food on the table, etc) are the cause, the source of the problems that people without privilege endure. But they are not. The hate that is now expressed towards people like this suggests that they are in some way spoiled, that their lives are somehow wrong, when their lives are what everybody’s lives are supposed to be. And these people aren’t the problem either. Gigantic enterprises that rule societies are the problem. Billionaires and multi-millionaires are the problem. The selfish, careless government is the problem. Capitalism, post-communism, oligarchs, dictatorships, these are the problem. Not ordinary happy families with homes and parents who love each other, and the good food that they managed to earn the money for, and vacations, and joy. These people are privileged, and that is extremely sad, because they have the minimum that everyone should have in this world.

Do you ever think about how the world was before ww1 and how despite all the misery, all the previous wars, it had been a little less haunted. Do you ever think about a world that hadn’t been scarred by two world wars, of how it felt to be alive without the collective memory of the horror and the death? Was looking into peoples’ eyes a little easier?

You are six, and you body is quick and sleek and identical to your friends’, whether they be boys or girls. You can run around in the ocean without anything but pants on, you can undress and dance under the rain whenever you want to. People look at you kindly, you want to try out makeup and hairstyles but it doesn’t matter the moment your friends call you to play in the sand with them.

You are nine, and now you’re a bit more grown up. Your hair is longer, your features are a bit more defined, you get curious. It’s still easy to talk with boys and sometimes you still can run naked if you want, you put on tiny tops and tiny shorts, and it looks cute, not revealing. But you get interested, what does it feel like to have breasts? What does it feel like to feel pretty? You want it so badly, to be a woman already. Nobody tells you the truth.

You are twelve, and suddenly your favourite skirt is too short for you. It’s still comfortable, but your aunt won’t let you wear it, even though it’s hot as hell outside. Your breasts start to grow and for the first time ever you realise, that it can hurt. But being called a ‘slut’ by your classmate hurts more. Being told that ‘boys will be boys, ignore them’ confuses you even more than bras and lingerie. You get your first period and deal with the fact that this will go on for forty more years, and suddenly your life is divided into two parts. Nobody warned you about it. It hurts, it gets messy and dirty, but you can live with that, you think. The disgusting part about periods is that you’re forbidden to talk about it out loud. It’s shameful and gross and embarrassing. You have to live with that now.

You’re fourteen, and you don’t want bras or makeup anymore. You want to wear black baggy clothes and call yourself a tomboy, because being a girl suddenly became unbearable. Not at all what you thought it would be. While boys still played Legos and ran around chasing each other, you had to think about whether you have blood on your pants, your dress code violation, the news about a girl being raped you saw yesterday. Yes, you learn one more thing about being a girl. It’s not only weird and shameful, it’s dangerous. Don’t go out too late, don’t talk to strangers, don’t go to parties with your boy best friends, carry a hair spray with you, don’t make eye contact with men. Ignore their looks, remain polite. A man approaches you and tries to take you out. You say ‘no’. He follows you for two more squares. Being a girl is scary.

You’re sixteen, and you start realising the bittersweet feeling of it all. You find the pride of being a woman, you find inspiring female creators around the world, you raise your voice to speak against rape and sexual harassment, you apply makeup sometimes if you want to. But you’re the lucky one, because many girls can’t go outside without foundation on, starve themselves to the point of bulimia and period problems. Girls get slut-shamed and fat shamed for their growing bodies, but still try living up to the standards of femininity. You choose a career you want to pursue, it’s your passion. But you’re a girl, and you can’t do it, you’re told. Why? You have a vagina, you’re meant for marriage and childbirth. Coming to peace will all of this, learning to ignore comments about your future and punching boys in the face for rape jokes takes time, but you discover the glory of being a woman after all.

Growing up is difficult for everybody. But boys will never know the struggle of growing up a girl. How cruel and confusing the world becomes, while your boy friends can still be children.

Don’t date a girl who travels

“I would destroy the world for you” “I could burn the earth down for her” “I’d put the sun out for you” are all very dramatic and touching but what about loving to the point of creation and not destruction? What would one gain from a destroyed world, even by the hands of their lover? What would a dead sun give the person you loved but a horrible death in cold and darkness? Loving to the point of creation is a lot harder. Do you love them enough to write them a poem? To build them a bed to sleep in? To invent something for their clumsy hands or hurting feet or dry lips? Is the love big enough to birth something new?

Made a new quiz. Please take it! And share your results in the reblog

https://uquiz.com/pF676s