hopepunk-humanity - Tumblr blog

[hopepunk-humanity]

My car broke down and I’m having to replace a few parts. It happened in the middle of the road and it was stressful, dangerous, and costs more than I have. This is a bad situation. But even in the midst of dealing with this, it’s been really heartwarming to see how many total strangers are willing to help. Twice my car had to be pushed, and twice people who I’ve never met got out of their own vehicles and helped me push. Both were smiling and wished me luck. My car is in a public parking lot while I work on it, and a motorcycle mechanic who drove by saw me with the hood open, turned around, and drove into the parking lot to offer his help. I needed it. He was friendly and cheerful. I’ve never met that man before in my life and I’ll never see him again, but just like the others he helped simply because he could.

Sometimes it feels like everyone is so afraid of each other that we don't help anyone anymore. It's nice to hear things like this and be proven wrong.

[hopepunk-humanity]

Last October or so at work we were pulling plants out of our clients pots- all the summer annuals and such. When I made it back to the shop, I saw a nice hibiscus in the compost pile and decided to take it home. I potted it up, lowkey stole some potting soil, and in my car it went. I watered it once I got home, and then over the next two weeks or so it dropped almost all its leaves except for one.

It was the single most severe case of transplant shock ive ever seen. Understandably, of course- it had been pulled out of the place it had lived since early May, been left in the sun in the back of a truck for a solid ten hours, with No protection or anything on the rootball, and didn't get Any water until late that evening.

I cut all the branches back some- only a few inches, because I didn't want to stress it out more. It started pushing new growth along almost every branch. Sometime over the winter it managed to produce a Single bud, and then a flower maybe two inches across. Currently it's outside again, still in the plastic pot I grabbed out of the recycle bin at work, matured dark green leaves along all of it, and pushing even more new ones along the tips, like normal. I'm proud of my little guy, and if it was able to survive all of that (I genuinely wasn't sure if it'd survive the winter, after it dropped all the leaves) I'm confident we can all make it through too :)

(I'll probably cut it back some more in a couple weeks to see if I can get it to bush out more- it's still a little rough and spindle-y. But I love it <3)

How lovely

[hopepunk-humanity]

make a point to do something for your inner child today. you used to love drawing but haven’t had the time recently? doodle something, make some art. haven’t had your favorite flavor of ice cream in a while? treat yourself. do something that would make younger you happy. do something for your soul today

[hopepunk-humanity]

it’s small joys saturday y’all let’s get it

[hopepunk-humanity]

shoutout to slow growers, late bloomers, people whose plans got derailed by circumstances beyond their control or their own choices, people who never had a plan to begin with, people who have had to start over when theyre too old to feel like theyre supposed to be where they are, people who cant pretend theyre built for the environment theyre in, and everyone who's not living the life they thought they would. im proud of you for making it this far and i hope you keep going until youre happy ♡

[hopepunk-humanity]

‘I forgive the world because it has you’ always leaves me gasping for breath

[hopepunk-humanity]

[hopepunk-humanity]

Ending the stigma of drug use will save lives.

[hopepunk-humanity]

A brief moment of rationality from the bird place.

[hopepunk-humanity]

Like it cannot be overstated how collective change is built by a collection of small, sustained individual actions. You giving what you can to one person, you helping one person when you can, you communicating with one person, sharing with one person, everything, it all adds up. That is how we build community. Its not big and dramatic and all at once. It is mundane but continuous.

[hopepunk-humanity]

As someone who grew up with "I'm not going to praise you for doing what's expected of you; that's not being good, that's doing the bare minimum" I want to encourage you to celebrate every little thing you can. Everything that takes energy and effort should be appreciated and you're allowed to be happy about trying.

[hopepunk-humanity]

You don’t need to go back to who you were before. It’s okay to have changed. It’s okay to put the pieces back together differently. You get to decide who you are now. One thing is certain about who you are now, and that is that you are worthy as you are. No matter where you are in your recovery, even if you haven’t started recovery. You are worthy.

[hopepunk-humanity]

by far the best part of grocery shopping is the little babies. i was carefully selecting mushrooms when i felt upon me a piercing gaze and looked up to see a very chubby and very red-cheeked baby staring intently at me from a grocery cart with a slightly furrowed brow, hand clutching an apple for dear life. i wiggled a mushroom at her and she gasped and kept staring. i turned back to the mushrooms and heard a shriek. i turned around and the baby stared in anticipation. i wiggled another mushroom and she shrieked again in delight. she looked down at the apple in her hand, considering it for a moment. fair-minded as she was, she decided it would only be right to wiggle produce at me in return, and she held up the apple and shook it with all her might. i think i could live forever now

[hopepunk-humanity]

I love you folk music I love you drinking songs I love you sea shanties I love you work songs I love you lullabies that have helped send countless generations of children off to sleep I love you music the poor and non-white and oppressed used to fill their difficult lives with joy I love you protest songs and coded music that helped people escape to freedom and connect with each other and keep their cultures and languages alive I fucking love you "this machine kills fascists" I love you banjos and bagpipes and all those other instruments people love to hate I love you modern artists keeping these songs alive and writing new ones I love you people writing new folk songs for fictional worlds because even people who don't exist deserve to connect through song I love you queer artists finding themselves in ancient songs I love so so so much

[hopepunk-humanity]

Hopepunk Primer pt. 2

Philosophy of Hopepunk

I cannot express this better than other people have done before me. So I'll start with an interview Kayti Burt had with several hopepunk authors in 2019.

"What is hopepunk? It depends on who you ask…

Rowland, quoting her essay “One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives,” says: “Hopepunk is a subgenre and a philosophy that ‘says kindness and softness don’t equal weakness, and that, in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.’”

To understand hopepunk as a concept it helps to understand what it stands in contrast to. Grimdark is a fantasy subgenre characterized by bleak settings in which humanity is fundamentally cutthroat, and where no individual or community can stop the world’s inevitable decline. Hopepunk, in contrast, believes that the very act of trying has meaning, that fighting for positive change in and of itself has worth—especially if we do it together." [4]

When Alexandra Rowland was asked on Tumblr to expand on the initial statement she made she elaborated:

"Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts." [5]

I also love the definition of the Tumblr blog @hopepunk-humanity:

"What is Hopepunk?

Wild laughter from ragged throats

Flowers growing choked from crumbling asphalt

A warm bed after a long, hard journey

Your partner’s hand cupped in your own

Bright graffiti on cracked tunnel walls

The chains falling loose to the stone floor

A glint of silver beneath a century of tarnish

A long rain after a blistering wildfire

Just one more step, and then another

A single candle flame joining the stars against the night

A loved ones voice calling your name after hours lost in an unfamiliar place

A hand taking yours, just when you’d given up on reaching out

Smiling, laughing again, when you thought you’d forgotten how

Knowing, despite everything, that humans are inherently good

It’s not simply blind optimism, or naivety. It’s choice. It’s taking the human race by the hand and saying, “I will love you, because I am you”. It’s facing a world dripping with cynicism and fashionable hopelessness and saying, “no, I will not give in”. It’s putting kindness out into the world, knowing you might not get it back, knowing you may be scorned for it, knowing it might not change anything, but with a certainty that kindness is what the world needs the most.

It is choosing hope" [6]

Hopepunk is choosing hope in a world where they want us to have none. It's choosing humanity when they want us to forget we are human. It's choosing community when they would benefit of us staying individuals. It's choosing action and hope when they want us struck down and paralyzed.

Alexandra Rowland emphasizes to not forget the second part of the word: Punk. In another interview with Kayti Burt for Den of Geek she says: "it’s important to remember that punk is the operative half of the word – punk in the sense of anti-authoritarianism and punching back against oppression." and "The instinct is to make it only about softness and kindness, because those are what we’re most hungry for. We all want to be treated gently. But sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is to stand up to a bully on their behalf, and that takes guts and rage." [7]

What is Hopepunk to me?

That spark that is both love and spite that keeps me going. It's seeing the good in humanity, while also acknowledging the harm. It's refusing to lay down and die, refusing the accept the status quo, refusing to believe that this is it. It's believing in a better world. In kindness. In the inherent sense of community in humanity. It's believing in the power of stories. It's seeing kindness and hope as an act of Sacred Rebellion. And spreading that kindness and hope is a Vow that I have taken. It's taken the anger I have against corporations, injustice, bigotry, capitalism, oppression, and letting it fuel the fire within me in a constructive way. It's working to dismantle systems that are oppressive to work towards a more inclusive world. It's pruning the garden of dead weight so new things can grow. Late stage capitalism wants us all to be docile, to work, not to live. So I will shout my small joys from the rooftops. I will create for the sake of creating. I will practice radical acceptance so that I stand strong above the masses of ads that wants me to hate myself. I will choose to see the good so that I can believe change is possible. Hopepunk a fire that says "Rage. Rage against those who deserve it. Stand up for those who do not and show them a better world is possible."

[4] Den of Geek - Are you afraid of the darkness: a hopepunk explainer [5] Alexandra Rowland tumblr post [6] Hopepunk-humanity - what is hopepunk [7] Den of Geek - a hopepunk guide: interview with Alexandra Rowland

Part 1: Intro and history Part 2: Philosophy of Hopepunk Part 3: How to practice hopepunk and further reading Part 4: Extra! Hopepunk and magic

[hopepunk-humanity]

a sound can mean so much. a mourning dove’s call makes me remember king of the hill with my sibling and cozy afternoons. a song makes me think of my friends and how much i love them. a wave crashing on sand makes me remember the smell of salt and sweat, the dark gray-brown of the ocean against the yellow-brown of the beach. take time to notice the world around you today

[hopepunk-humanity]

There was a free event on my college campus to paint tiny terracotta pots. Tomorrow there will be succulents to put in them. I stood at a table with total strangers from around the world sharing in the very human act of creating art. Everyone there was happy.

A man from Saudi Arabia taught me how to make the paint smooth. He was painting a tiny purple pot that matched his purple shirt. It’s his favorite color. I passed those tips on to a woman from Malaysia. She told me she liked the flowers on my pot. It’s blue and matches my blue shirt- because blue is my favorite color.

This is what humans are. Everything else is just obstruction.