“How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is ‘Biology enables, culture forbids.’ Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It’s culture that obliges people to realise some possibilities while forbidding others. Biology enables women to have children – some cultures oblige women to realise this possibility. Biology enables men to enjoy sex with one another – some cultures forbid them to realise this possibility. Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behaviour, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition. No culture has ever bothered to forbid men to photosynthesise, women to run faster than the speed of light, or negatively charged electrons to be attracted to each other. In truth, our concepts ‘natural’ and unnatural’ are taken not from biology, but from Christian theology. The theological meaning of ‘natural’ is ‘in accordance with the intentions of the God who created nature’. Christian theologians argued that God created the human body, intending each limb and organ to serve a particular purpose. If we use our limbs and organs for the purpose envisioned by God, then it is a natural activity. To use them differently than God intends is unnatural. But evolution has no purpose. Organs have not evolved with a purpose, and the way they are used is in constant flux. There is not a single organ in the human body that only does the job its prototype did when it first appeared hundreds of millions of years ago. Organs evolve to perform a particular function, but once they exist, they can be adapted for other usages as well. Mouths, for example, appeared because the earliest multicellular organisms needed a way to take nutrients into their bodies. We still use our mouths for that purpose, but we also use them to kiss, speak and, if we are Rambo, to pull the pins out of hand grenades. Are any of these uses unnatural simply because our worm-like ancestors 600 million years ago didn’t do those things with their mouths?”
— Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Harari, Yuval Noah)
Taking sick days is soooo dicey for me bc if i take off work bc i feel shitty the whole system falls apart bc i feel shitty like. Most days
Like if I’m not physically debilitated i might as well just go. Same with social events too honestly i just go to everything I’m supposed to go to bc if i stop going to things bc I’m tired or starting to get a migraine or consumed with thoughts of self harm I’d never leave the house and my life would just get worse. I feel like I’m often just trying to do things correctly so that some future happy version of myself will be able to reap the benefits of a life lived correctly
People in the notes on this saying this isn’t true and “everyone” has suicidal thoughts….but do we mean “something bad enough happened that you wish you were dead” or do we mean “random thoughts that you should die because you just suck and are tired of life?” Because the latter is a symptom of serious depression, anxiety or other chronic issues that you should, if at all possible seek out medical attention for. You shouldn’t feel like it’s a normal thing to shut up and live with, it’s not right at all and you both need and deserve care.
It really is more common for people to just find death terrifying and never even fleetingly entertain it as a desirable escape. If your mind has any tendency to turn to that idea then you’re not getting the help and security you deserve.
Maybe im just feveriish but i miss impressionism…. in todays computery world of bright flat colors and clean crisp lines i want images that are blurry and human and organic. Blobs of color that don’t try to copy reality but evoke the feeling of looking at a lush landscape or anything beautiful at a certain distance. That capture the movement and focus of the human eye and don’t strive for sharp perfection
On this day, 20 November 1816, the word ‘scab’, meaning ‘strikebreaker’, was used in print for the first time. One of the most important words in the working class vocabulary! On scabs, author Jack London famously wrote the following: “After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a cork-screw soul, a water-logged brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.“
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Pictured: strike supporters in New York, 1916 https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1269118939939920/?type=3
