A revival of a not so well-known speech. Beautiful.
Kudos to The Glossary for a well-executed video and tribute.
Some kind of attempt at a book review
I just finished reading Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers and the main thing going through my mind the whole time I was reading it was this is so fucked up. Even one of the characters said it himself, “Those girls are just fucked up” or something to that effect.
Setting? A girl – Regina – part of the clique. The leader – Anna – most admired and most feared. The thing that keeps the whole thing going – a rumor. The whole thing smelled too much like a Mean Girls wannabe but boy was I wrong. Well, it was like Mean Girls, now that I really think of it, but without the comedy. And the volume turned all the way up. I don’t even think bullying is a strong enough word for the whole lot of it. Either that or I don’t really see bullying as a real danger. I vote for the latter.
God, just, the whole thing’s fucked up. I recommend you all read the book so it can ruin what could have been a good day. I seriously had to step away from the book more than a couple of times because things were that fucked up.
I haven’t said “fucked up” so many times in my life.
(And yes, I’m really bad at giving summaries. Or telling stories on the spot. Even in real life.)
I can’t read this shit
I tried reading Tamara Webber’s “Easy” today. I didn’t even get past the first chapter. This guy just saved the girl from being raped and he gave her a lecture of why it’s her fault that she was vulnerable to the situation as she was going to her car alone at night. I could’ve swallowed that bit but the part where the girl agreed with the guy’s line of thinking, how she blamed her boyfriend for breaking up with her a few days back, leaving her unprotected just shut me down. I can’t read this shit.
Please, somebody tell me that this all changes further along the book because if it doesn’t, if the protagonist is cruel to her own sex and doesn’t have the mental capability to get out of that, then I can’t read this shit.
On The Need To Believe In Something Greater Than Us
Why does anybody believe in God? I mean, outside of habit, or having been brought up in faith, such that life outside of it is unimaginable? Reasons for religious belief are invariably personal, and none is more interesting me to me than the oft-repeated “I am a person of faith because I need to believe there is something greater than us.” It is a ridiculous justification, for sure -- but it reveals something very curious about human nature.
A worthwhile read
How Not To Be A Demagogue, Part II: Deconstructing The Emotional Appeal Fallacy Fallacy
It is a well-known fact in the legal profession that good lawyers almost never use legalese. Indeed, it’s one of the first things you learn in law school. Sure, sometimes custom and practice require arcane word formulas, but any lawyer worth his salt knows not to offer “therein’s” and what not in the body of an argument. Packing your writing or your speech with that garbage only serves to insult the court’s intelligence by signalling that you are a pretentious asshat who is using fifty-cent words to mask your lack of a good argument.
"As motivations, emotions are neither logical nor illogical. They just are."
Hidden fear
I have this hidden fear of people judging me because I want to look pretty. Quite petty, I know but that’s my truth. I have had countless scenarios where I could’ve dressed more prettily, fixed my hair more prettily, and every time, there will be a voice in my head saying, “Who are you to look that pretty?” Then I’ll take it all away and go back to normal.
I have this hidden fear of people judging me because I want to look pretty. Quite petty, I know but that’s my truth. I have had countless scenarios where I could’ve dressed more prettily, fixed my hair more prettily, and every time, there will be a voice in my head saying, “Who are you to look that pretty?” Then I’ll take it all away and go back to normal.
You might be one of them
I know too many people who want things because they are what other people want. I know too many people who want things. Period.
Call me judgmental but I subconsciously put them a tier lower than me. To me, they are weak. I don’t want to have anything to do with them.
Yes, I am also a victim of that kind of thinking sometimes, of wanting something because it’s what everyone else wants but I have a solid enough understanding of myself to pull away from that and really ask myself what I want.
I guess these strong emotions, though aimed mostly at the people, is rooted on the whole consumer culture.
Why do we shout when we are angry?
Today, I found an article on the net where it says there’s a study showing that people more or less have the same facial expressions when it comes to anger, happiness, surprise, fear, sadness and disgust. I’ve heard of this before back in my social anthropology class and thought it pretty interesting. What I didn’t know though that’s in the article is that particularly, when in fear, people’s facial muscles move in a certain way that widens their visual scope, makes their eyes take in more frames per second, and increases their sense of smell through rapid breathing.
So basically, when we’re scared, we turn into semi-super humans and we’re just too panicky to notice it.
Maybe our facial muscles react in the same way when we are angry. Or, come to think of it, maybe it’s the opposite. When we’re angry, we zero in on one thing and block out everything else. And instead of taking in every detail, we focus all our energy into throwing everything out (of course, people handle anger in different ways but this is the most common). Maybe how our facial muscles react when we’re angry is more similar to when we’re sad or hurt.
There’s another article I read that explained why people curse when in pain. Mostly, it talks of how using swear words makes us less sensitive to pain. But there was a paragraph there where a psychologist compared people swearing when in pain to a cat being accidentally stepped on. Just like the cat, a possible reason behind the swearing is that people use “an angry vocalization, to startle and intimidate the attacker.” So, swearing could possible be a form of defense.
Perhaps shouting when one’s angry works the same way, too.
Makes sense, come to think of it. Just imagine: you’re hurt, there are a lot of feelings building up inside you, and there is something outside of you that is causing it. You scream to send a warning to that something to not come near you at the same time throwing whatever you can at it. It’s not a solid answer but it’s probable.
Finally, I stumbled onto a different way of tackling the question and though it may not have a scientific backing, I feel it rings truth:
Though searching the net didn’t really give me a definite answer, I do know that the reason we shout when we’re angry is more than purely a biological or psychological thing, that deep down, it really does have to do with the distance between hearts.
Random Bit of Writing #19
“What do you want?” he said, hand halfway through looking for the wallet at the back pocket of his jeans.
I stared. I squinted.
“I want to not want things.”
Unique anniversary gift
Art Director Sean Ohlenkamp made a sweet, unique anniversary gift for her wife using her Mac.
