#undiligent

[terrence-silver]

According to the karate kid wiki both Terry and John were born in 1946, but that seems way too early to me considering they seem like they are supposed to be late teens in the Vietnam Era? It’d make them 22 in 1968 which doesn’t sound right. I’d have to watch it again but wasn’t the implication that John was still in high school judging by the fact ‘jocks’ were bullying him? And I can’t imagine Terry’d be older than John. Is there anywhere it actually states their birth years?? Did I miss something?? I figured I’d ask the expert lol

---

You didn't miss anything.

The show and its canon is riddled full of inconsistencies right now unfortunately and that makes people question and endlessly ponder the math of everything to mindboggling degrees, when truth of the matter it is just undiligent, sloppy writing and it is sadly that simple, although, I must say, Twig or a young Terry being the slightly older one out of the group by the time they're all in Vietnam isn't all that unbelievable when one takes into consideration everyone ages differently and just because someone looks young doesn't mean they inherently are --- just take a look at Thomas Ian Griffith and Ralph Macchio as the prime example; Ralph being the older of the two, yet who would've thought, correct?

Appearances deceive.

Just as easily, Terry could've been slightly older than Kreese all along, but that doesn't mean Kreese didn't still function as a mentor, role model, the stronger party and a hero to him. Doesn't mean that just because Terry was a year or two older than he wasn't vulnerable, inexperience and in need of saving and help --- things can be nuanced like that. Ultimately, their precise date of birth doesn't really matter as much (and is open to headcanoning and privy to change) as much as their stories and dynamics do.

[dailyanarchistposts]

The American Indian lost the war of rifles but won by default the war of symbols. To the generations distracted by modernity, Native American culture has come to represent the simple, profound life this land proffered before technology botched everything. So many aspiring poets, graduate students of anthropology, and even a few sensible people have been making pilgrimages to medicine men that Indians now talk about a new tribe: The Wannabees. I imagine a good many environmentalists are also in the ranks, and that's fine. When the ideals of passionate people begin to come of age, aspects of history get reinterpreted, re-emphasized, romanticized. And that's fine too: romanticizing nature indicates a metaphysical disorientation, but romanticizing people is probably inevitable and suggests a healthy outlook on life (didn't somebody call Earth First! a romance novel?). My experience is that only very stingy people dislike heroes.

But it seems we can only take so much romanticism at one time. Somebody has to get the boot, and if the Indians were right about nature, then the rest of us with our Western values must be the original despoilers of paradise. And a righteous boot it is, stomping away at a civilization that gave the world dioxin, Mutually Assured Destruction, and the US Forest Service.

This kind of thinking is probably behind the curious turn radical environmentalism has taken: namely, it's "rejection" of Western civilization. I say "curious" because even a little reflection will show the contradiction here. Environmentalism as a more or less coherent set of beliefs rises out of Western history; it is an episode in the Western dream of reintegration with nature which has its origins in pre-Socratic philosophy and the pagan ethos. And although as a practical matter non-Western societies have wreaked less havoc on the environment (a situation which is of course changing), this was sometimes due more to a lack of means than any spiritual inclination. Great God! even the likes of Black Elk—for many a John the Baptist of deep ecology—even he has made statements that might just as well have come out of the Medieval contemptus mundi tradition.

I suppose this rejection is really a kind of shorthand for a deprecation of modern industrial society—which indeed needs deprecating. Still, it results in an historical displacement which assigns the unnatural values of the present to all of Western history. This distorts the issue. If the task at hand it defending Earth, then we have to be very precise about what we're defending it from. And that is not some generalization like Western civilization.

Europe was, after all, at one time as tribal as pre-Columbian America. You could evn argue that these were the glory-days of the West, when homer sang his epics, druids communed in sacred groves, and the tragic myths of the North were incubating. Nor is it a coincidence that the finest spiritual values of the West—fascination with the world, self-sacrifice in a just cause, acceptance of fate—developed here, not after the urban cultures of the Mediterranean had taken root and spread. If we can believe the Roman historian Tacitus (and we can, although he was doing his own romanticizing at times), the Germans of central Europe were a lackadaisical bunch, hunting and farming undiligently, never staying in one place long enough to cause much damage: "They do not plant orchards, fence off meadows, or irrigate gardens." In general, they preferred feasting and feuding to land development.

But this isn't intended as an apologia of Western civilization, which to my pre-Freudian mind doesn't require any. I merely want to emphasize that the problem lies in a particular relationship between man and the world, not in the vague evils of our fathers.

An example. The Celtic tribes of pre-historic Britain lived in harmony with nature. Light hunting and farming supported their flourishing Le Tene culture without diminishing the vast forests of the island. There was an iron mine or two, some extra cattle and grain to export, but the economy wasn't organized enough to cause any trouble. No cities, no central authority, no industry, because the Celts felt no need to control the world, but rather merely lived in it.

The Roman invasion changed all that. A heavy plough and slave labor brought virgin land under cultivation. A timber industry arose to heat the public baths of the new urban centers and to fire the forges of a developing ceramics industry. The Roman genius for exploitation developed lead, copper and tin mining on a large scale. In other words, all the familiar detritus of contemporary society. By the time the Empire collapsed and the Anglo-Saxons swarmed in, lowland Britain was on its way to deforestation. The Germanic tribes brought a short-lived sanity by destroying the cities and returning the economy to subsistence hunting and farming. Their conversation to Christianity in the seventh century, however, renewed Britain's contact with Rome and began the process of urbanization and centralization all over again. Viking invasions of the ninth and eleventh centuries returned a little health to the land, but England was already on its way to Order, Empire, and Cow Pastures.

My point is that Western civilization didn't deforest England (all the cultures involved were Western); a debased relationship with life did, one that challenges everything in nature to be organized into a network of human utility. Such is the goal of technology. It's important to think of technology not as an accumulation of machinery, but as a relationship, a one-dimensional relationship which subordinates the complex interplay between man and nature to the imperative of production and consumption. Unlike the crafts of our ancestors, which merely tapped into the natural qualities of particular things and brought them forward, technology seizes upon everything, everywhere, in such a way that things are permitted to exist only as a kind of standing reserve for us in a larger network. It is because of this relationship that we can have such strange concepts as "natural resource" or "human resource."

Technology, in this sense, whether ascendant in modern America or Russia, or first century Rome, impels societies to urbanize, centralize, and industrialize in an attempt to confront nature with the demands of utility. This isn't a cultural distinction, but a spiritual one, as applicable in Brazil and Ethiopia as in Illinois. World Technology nullifies all culture.

Rather than hoping for absolution at the hands of others for rejecting Western civilization, I say we can't have enough of the primal Wester values—the profundity of the Celtic druid, the resolve of the Saxon warrior, the boldness of the Achaian seafarer. The legions of technology were defeated by the likes of these; perhaps we can defeat them again.

[cherryvalefarm]

Tuesday, Spring 2, Year 1, Cherryvale Farm, Mistria

Well, my second day in Mistria came to an interesting start. I woke to the sound of thwacks from hand-axe chopping an oak tree. Lord Eiland was attempting to expose the ancient stonework that I noticed from yesterday through brute strength. He wasn't doing a great job at it. I was interested in what lie behind the tree, so I offered and got the tree chopped away to expose a statue of a dragon. It was in multiple pieces, but Lord Eiland and I managed to put it back together with some preservation gluey tac. He mentioned that the figure depicted was a some kind of mythological guardian dragon named Caldarus. The statue had a striking presence to it, I didn't want to look at it too long. Eiland mentioned Mistria's Historical Society to me, and I wasn't opposed joining - I'd done my fair share of preservation and research when I worked in the city's archives, although Eiland's methods were far more hands on than I was use to. Maybe he just wanted me involved in case I turned something else up as I expanded the farm .

I had a personal letter inviting me to speak to the museum curator, Errol. I hadn't stepped foot in the museum yet, so I was keen. First, I tended the few crops I had and cleared some rotted out trees from beside the tree and cottage (Lord Eiland let me keep the axe he was using. It's a near dull, rusty thing like my other tools, but it's something for now.) I spent the next hour or so clearing brush from the farm, and then I cleaned myself in the river that borders the east of my property. It would do fine for now until I could get plumbing installed, or at least until I could cough up the tesserae and stand to face Juniper at the bath house again. Hopefully, either of those would come sooner than winter.

I took some harvested plants in my pack, maybe someone would be interested in them and I was saving a flower for Celine, as thank you for the farming supplies to start me off. When I went into town, I caught Lady Adeline scrawling away near the request board, I could never accuse her of being undiligent in her duties. She mentioned that everyone in town is welcoming and are all excited to have me. I didn't mention my interactions with the blacksmith or Juniper, but I wonder if I should've. I saw a couple postings on the board, one by one of the children for an oyster pearl (maybe the fisherwoman would fulfill it) and another from Olric that offered a pickaxe in return for undisclosed favor. Wearily, I took down Olric's posting for myself, but first I ate at the Inn and visited Errol at the museum. While eating, it dawned on me that the Inn might be named Sleeping Dragon after the guardian dragon myth. I didn't get the chance to confirm that with the innkeepers, but it was an interesting thought.

Along the way to the museum, the innkeeper's younger children, Maple and Luc, came upon while I was picking some wild berries. They're adorable and very polite, accepting some of the berries I offered them even though they didn't seem to like them. Maybe I would see about doing Maple's request - I'm not sure when I would be near the water, but I could ask Terithia to keep an eye out.

When I arrived at the museum, I talked with Errol for awhile and he filled me in on how new the museum was. In my estimation, Lady Adeline and Lord Eiland are determined to use the Museum as a tourism draw. It makes good sense to me, it might benefit Mistria as they rebuild. It was to be a natural and historic museum, Errol wanted flora and insect specimens in addition to artifacts. He even offered me an upfront stipend for my agreement to survey. I left some samples of dandelions, peat, and sod that I had on hand. I'll see what else I can come across - if the statue on the farm indicates anything, I would be stumbling upon artifacts every few steps.

A little while later, I met up with Olric about his posting for the pickaxe and he invited me inside the Blacksmith shop, I learned he was a miner prior to the earthquake and that Errol was the Mine Foreman. It put things into perspective. March ran into us and I tried to be civil, but he suggested I was getting a handout from his brother. I ran into March again, he said I was getting a handout from his brother. Olric took me aside and ask that I give his brother a chance, apparently March doesn't have many friends here. I can't imagine why! Olric seems like an upstanding guy, but it was a big ask.

I went to lunch at the Inn, got a fish lunch. I talked a little with Adeline, Reina, and Celine's mother, who suggested to me to keep an eye on her daughter since I live so close. I'll consider that since I like Celine thus far, but far too many of the townspeople were asking me to care for their relatives.

I ended up joining Eiland in his study at the Manor House. After he chatted me up about how easy it is to find artifacts here, I read up some of an Aldarian history text he had. It mentioned how fractured Alda tribes united to found the kingdom of Aldaria. I left soon after before Eiland would feel inclined to ask me to stay for dinner, I needed some time to myself after the last couple days running around and meeting so many new people. I made it home before sunset, I rearranged some furniture, placing a rug by the entry and moved the dining table closer to the fireplace and I started up a small fire. I ended up with some the wild berries as my dinner and I turned in early.

[dear--charlie]

Dear Charlie,

Charlie, I have been very depressed for this last 15 months. Every single time I see myself, I reminded that how unworthy I am of something good. Even just a little bit good. Because I feel I should really do more and achieved more in life, in my circumstances. I think I must carried this burden of gifted child, responsible child, bright future child. And didn't want to disappoint people around me. Especially my parents. But lately I cannot function well, every time I start to work and creating something, I felt this kind of disgusted feeling for myself. Like someone confronting me, who do you think you are that you think you can hope create something that good. I keep being reminded by myself that how stupid I am, how undiligent I am. But I still in the fight of that feeling, but still the fight don't last long, I keep being defeated everytime I came back up. Even writing this really remind me of the trauma in that moment that I feel. I finally distancing myself from all of my friend and family, even my boyfriend. I shut everyone down and just being alone with my mind. Really feel wanted give up everytime that moments come. I don't think I will be a good person for anyone. And anything that I do will do gonna go bad.

[ampleforthsmuse]

“Sonnet 1,” by William Shakespeare

From unuglyful beings we want more,  So that Unugly’s flower might still life,  And as one man will old and sick and fail,   His unolder son might retake his work. 

But you, unhating your unugly face,  Know just your eyes and must be unlookful, Making hunger where much unhunger lies,  Yourself your unfriend, to yourself unkind.

You are like the world’s one unold flower,  Growing in colorful postwinter, but Your body hides muchful seed and pollen, And this, thoughtcrimer, is stealing by waste.

Think of Oceania, else you be Ungood, unmourned, a life that is unlife.

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

If poems are builded on form and function, then which, when changing them from one language to the other, is goodest? The postask, of course, is function, else there would be no function to change to Newspeak, but it is undiligent to write lines like they are onely slogans. 

The undiligent writer sees that Shakespeare commands, and writes lines of duty: Sacrifice. Work. Love. Freedom is slavery, in 14 lines. 

There is no need to change all poems, or even 1 poem, if this is goodest, but we change poems to Newspeak, so it is ungood. Rather, we must keep as much form as we can, while keeping all function with regard to Ingsoc. Yet, talks a Shakespeare expert, Shakespeare changed method of poems. We, too, can change without losing what is essenceful. 

Line by line, Shakespeare talks goodsex. Some mans think (to talk Oldspeak) “that no sex is goodsex,” but Shakespeare teaches that to not is crimesex also, just uncommoner form. 

Thus, the undiligent writer loses much goodness by talking, “Duty, duty.” Mans must be teached, part by part, and if we talk only “Duty, duty,” then they ask, “What is duty?” 

Shakespeare teaches us: This is duty.

So: Change diligently. Observe form. Care. 

[lzjbot]

@shell_zipi So it is said that the White District Party has wasted too much foreign exchange, all of which is undiligent.

@shell_zipi 所以說白區黨浪費了太多外匯���全是無用功。 @shell_zipi 所以說白區黨浪費了太多外匯，全是無用功。

[luvrsvt]

❤ update + thank u ❤

heyyyy guys ya girl is back from her week away nd ready 2 fully re enter the tumblr world❗️also thank u all so so so so so so so so so SO much 4 700 followers⁉️ I'm not one 4 celebrating milestones but this is huge nd I never thought I'd get this far‼️‼️‼️ so a massive thank u to all of u 4 sticking around nd dealing with how undiligent I am in texts but I'll def have some out this week loves ❤️❤️❤️

[ahappydnp]

“To cave into myself — introspective and self-analyzed and caught in the purgatory between thinking and doing — is the safest I ever feel. There’s a perverse joy I experience when I don’t allow myself to be loved by anyone, even myself, even when I’m surrounded by people who dare to love me.”