Item: handful of tiny soda cans, each containing a few drops of pure flavor syrup; if added to a glass of water, the syrup turns it into that soda.
Imported straight from Minnisoda
The thing about knitting is it’s much harder to fear the existential futility of all your actions while you’re doing it.
Like ok, sure, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’ve made any positive impact on the world. But it’s pretty easy to believe you’ve made a sock. Look at it. There it is. Put it on, now your foot’s warm.
Checkmate, nihilism.
This is a powerful positive message..
I’m literally reading a book right now (Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski) that says this is scientifically sound.
There have been studies done on rats and dogs where they develop learned helplessness in the animals by giving them impossible tasks. Eventually the animals stop trying, even when the task stops being impossible. (I.e. put a rat in a maze with cheese it can’t get to until it develops learned helplessness, then put the cheese somewhere it can get to it and it won’t even try.) But once they show the animals they CAN do something - i.e. physically moving the rat to the cheese - the learned helplessness goes away.
No one can move you to your cheese for you, but the book says DOING something - which they define as “anything that isn’t nothing” can help. Make a food. Work in the garden. Clean a thing. Do a favor for a friend. Call your elected officials.
Knit a sock.
If you feel overwhelmed by existential despair, do something. It doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be anything that isn’t nothing.
I was in line at Aldi and this girl with two toddlers in front of me had her card declined and she looked so fucking sad and said “let me call my husband real quick” and it was only 18 dollars, so I just paid for it, and she was very sweet and then as she walked off, the lady behind me said `”You know that was probably a scam, right?” and like, even if it was, like what a sad fucking scam, right? 18 dollars at the Aldi. If you’re “scamming” me for some Tyson chicken and apple juice and cauliflower, then just take my fucking money.
“A scam” people are fucking wild.
This happened to me, too. A woman had used WIC for the majority of her stuff (which I say from personal experience is such a long and embarrassing process) and to buy the remainder of her groceries, which included diapers and wipes, she used a card, and it got declined. I bought the other $30 of her groceries because hey, I’ve been there, and now I’m not. She was extremely emotional and began to cry and even hugged me. My mom called me on the drive home and could tell I had been crying myself, asked what was wrong, and when I told her what happened, she berated me for being “duped.” I couldn’t believe she could be so disappointed in one of her children for doing something- nice? Is that the hill you want to die on? Getting mad about people needing groceries?
I once paid for a woman’s bill at the vet…it wasn’t a big one, but she was trying to pay for some medication for her dog, and her card was declined. And her lip started trembling, and she says “I don’t get paid until Tuesday, would he be ok until then?”
So I just told them to add the $20 something onto my bill, and I thought she was going to break down crying right there.
And I don’t care if it was a scam or not. Just do nice things for people sometimes.
Do good recklessly.
I think “Do good recklessly” would be fantastic word art to hang on one’s wall. Artistic people, go!
So this has happened to me but from the other side. Several years ago when my oldest was around three or so, I had my debit card decline at Walmart. It wasn’t a scam or a mistake, I was genuinely broke. Out of money. I checked my bank and discovered I had something like 7 dollars left to my name and a hungry kid and nothing to eat at home. So I sat there trying to come up with the best way to stretch that tiny amount of money to feed my kid. Not even to feed me. I can live on popcorn or something if I have to but my kid was three and he had to eat. So there I am trying really hard not to cry while I slowly take things out of my basket to get it down to under 7 bucks, when a lady tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and she smiled at me and started putting the things back in my cart. I opened my mouth to tell her that I didn’t have the money for them but she stopped me right away and said “Don’t worry about it. It’s gonna be fine.” Then she handed the cashier her credit card and said “Ring up all of it.” My kid got to eat because of her. I got to eat because of her. I had laundry soap and deodorant because of her. She could’ve just ignored me silently struggling in that line. She could’ve decided I was a scam and gone home feeling good about avoiding being duped. But instead she chose to help me and she saved us. So maybe the person struggling in front of you is trying to put one over on you or maybe they are just sad and broke and trying to figure out what to do. You get to decide which you want to believe and what you want to do. But I’ll tell y’all, no one has ever been more beautiful to me than that lady in that line who saved me and my baby. Be like her. Be beautiful.
Do good recklessly
DO BETTER. BE BETTER. STRIVE TO BE BETTER.
DO GOOD RECKLESSLY
One time, my dad and I were living the grocery store and there was a guy outside asking for money to buy some stuff to take home for his kids. It was around Christmas time. My dad asked him if he could give him groceries instead of money, and the guy immediately said yes, so my dad gave him one of everything we bought (meat, rice, some chocolates, milk, oil). At that time, my dad hadn’t gotten his paycheck because the company he worked for was going through a tough time, but he didn’t care, he saw an opportunity to help someone and he did.
Another time, my dad gave 50 bucks to a guy who said he needed to buy medicine for his kids. I told my dad he was probably going to spend the money on alcohol or something, but my dad said that “whether he was lying or not says something about HIS character, but hearing someone in need and choosing not to help when I have the means to says something about mine”.
I never forget that.
Can we make Do good recklessly The slogan on 2019
Do good recklessly is the moral i try to embody
one of yall on here commissioned this i believe
Is this print for sale I need like 10 of them O.O
sorry, not a print. it was an individual commission for someone, and i no longer have the original
i feel like counter-trolling is an essential skill that kids online aren’t learning and it’s kinda worrying
like back in my day, the day of online forums, learning how to trick someone in to getting themselves banned was an essential skill. if you could tell someone was a chud, you would ask them short, leading questions and watch them get frustrated and post longer and longer rants until they said something that would catch a mod’s attention and get them banned and/or at least publicly humiliated.
and guess what? that’s the exact same tactics the alt-right use now. these people are exclusively acting in bad faith. every interaction these people post online is done with the intention of getting someone to respond to them so they can screenshot the massive paragraphs of text and laugh
so, what’s the solution?
dare ‘em to post dick pics.
don’t acknowledge the content of the stuff they post. if you see someone trying to engage you in bad faith just dare them to post pictures of their penis until they either get frustrated and leave or get frustrated and do it. either way they lose.
this is the tactic used by the fans of a podcast (that i haven’t listened to) called the Chapo Trap House, and 4chan’s /pol/ users fucking HATE them. they hate Chapo Trap House and think they’re crazy because Chapo Trap House fans refuse to engage in meaningful debate and repeatedly demand dick pics. they get frustrated and leave. it works.
Some of you never used your position as a mod on an a series of unfortunate events forum to get a racist troll to post evidence of their tax fraud and it shows
…that second comment is oddly specific and I’m a little scared
I feel the need to share these things from my Art History Professor:
*going over the syllabus and class expectations*
Prof.: “I will NOT ask you to remember dates. I am dyslexic and, numbers? confuddle in my brain. I won’t ask you to do something that I can’t do myself”
Me: *trying hard not to shout something akin to “Dyslexia buddies!!!” to him*
Prof.: *showing a picture of a modern art installation called “the impossibility of death in the mind of something living” or something weird like that…..being an honestly really freaking weird shark picture that I don’t actually think was a shark???) “I HATE this shark. BUT I could spend an entire class period talking about why this shark has meaning and value. I won’t because this isn’t Modern Art history… That, and I HATE IT….”
Prof.: *shows a VERY outdated meme video on the first day of class*
“Hey, don’t take my word on that!!!1!1! Do your own research!! *lowers voice* Don’t trust your teachers. Never trust your teachers. Don’t trust me. I have no idea what I’m doing….”
*talking about one of his class policies* “This is a thing that annoys a lot of people… And I’m in a position to change that.” *moves to the next class policy* “Now this, this just annoys me. And I am also in a position to change THAT”
“There are no textbooks for this class. Because giant 1000 dollar textbooks are a gigantic scam. And, importantly, a scam that doesn’t benifit me. …maybe if I wrote my own textbook I might think differently. BUT I haven’t, so you’ve all been saved 1000 dollars. You’re welcome.” (He also went over the history origination of corporate scam systems pretty quick. which was presented in a very amusing way….ended by saying “no, this will not be on the test, I just wanted to force you all to learn something.”)
“I said that 4 times. Write that down, it’s probably gonna be on the test………. scratch that it will definitely be on the test.”
*student asks why Michelangelo was so focused on the male body* “Two explanations. One? He’s gay. (He was gay.) Two? Theological. *goes into theological explanation* So those are the two explanations, but….well, no.…. It’s both. It was definitely both.”
“Are you taking a picture of the screen?” *poses next to the screen*
“I could talk all day about that. …but since you are paying to be here, and that’s not what you’re paying for, I will just have to live without doing that.”
i had a dream i went to magical idol school and i got in trouble with the cops so the rest of the dream was me, a magical girl, running from the cops.
the reason i was being chased down was because the headmaster of the school was trying to frame my friend and ruin his life only because she, and the rest of the school, didn’t like his powers so I killed her out of anger haha
I’d watch 5 whole seasons of this anime
Technically Voldemort did make a horcrux for every founder.
He got Slytherin’s locket, Hufflepuff’s cup, Ravenclaw’s diadem and Harry Potter, a Gryffindor.
Hey is the build a bear employee supposed to force us to jump up and down or are we getting hazed
as a build-a-bear employee it is my honor to happily inform you that we get to make everyone do whatever the fuck we want during a heart ceremony. jump to get that heart beating. rub that heart to your knees so your furry friend always needs you. rub it to your toes so it’s totally awesome! shake it up so it’s got enough energy to hang out with you all day! close your eyes, make a wish, and give it a kiss you helpless motherfucker