mstepenwolf

[mstepenwolf]

i also think it’s an extremely helpful exercise to embrace the gifts of failure, and to be very skeptical of success under white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. who gives these ideas their meanings and values? do we think life is a linear process that leads to success (which is Good) or failure (which is Bad), or is it more complex than that? what dimensions of our lives and selves are not encompassed by conventional ideas of success or failure? i’m a huge fan of failing at things that create harm to myself or others, and it’s often only in hindsight that we understand this was the case. likewise successes can be harmful when we’re on a path that isn’t right for ourselves, our communities, our earth. failure often has more to teach us than success, and is never a final destination.

[mstepenwolf]

[mstepenwolf]

I sometimes enjoy (in split fashion) thinking about the possibility of a future geography of our self-awareness. I believe that the future historian of his own sensations may be able to make a precise science out of the attitude he takes towards his self-awareness. We’re only in the beginnings of this difficult art—at this point just an art: the chemistry of sensations in its as yet alchemical stage. This scientist of tomorrow will pay special attention to his own inner life, subjecting it to analysis with a precision instrument created out of himself. I see no inherent obstacle to making, out of steels and bronzes of thought, a precision instrument for self-analysis. I mean steels and bronzes that are really steels and bronzes, but of the mind. Perhaps that’s the only way it can be made. Perhaps it will be necessary to formulate the idea of a precision instrument, concretely visualizing it, in order to undertake a rigorous inner analysis. And it will surely be necessary to reduce the mind to some kind of real matter with a space for it to exist in. All of this depends on an extreme refinement of our inner sensations, which, when taken as far as they can go, will doubtless reveal or create in us a space just as real as the space that’s occupied by material things and that, come to think of it, has no reality.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, trans. Richard Zenith

[mstepenwolf]

[mstepenwolf]

May I be released from wanting anything that isn’t meant for me.

[mstepenwolf]

my favorite bed sheets color combo, my precious critters, one of newly discovered places for recharging, and the comment my prof left under one of my finals that made me smile

[mstepenwolf]

“Silence is banished from our screens; it has no place in communication. Media images (and media texts resemble media images in every way) never fall silent: images and messages must follow one upon the other without interruption. But silence is exactly that — a blip in the circuitry, that minor catastrophe, that slip which, on television for instance, becomes highly meaningful — a break laden now with anxiety, now with jubilation, which confirms the fact that all this communication is basically nothing but a rigid script, an uninterrupted fiction designed to free us not only from the void of the television screen but equally from the void of our own mental screen, whose images we wait on with the same fascination.”

— Jean Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena

[mstepenwolf]

From Notes and Methods by Hilma af Klint. Published by the University of Chicago Press and Christine Burgin.Page 184:6/3/1919. Oxalis acetosella. Direction lines: Sensitivity--Devotion. Timidity--Humility.Trepidation--Reverence. Self-contempt--Obedience.6/3/1919. Prunus domestica. Direction lines: Effort to refine the blood and to achieve balance between the various blood cells.

[mstepenwolf]

For the girls who need things to become an emergency before they feel like they can give themselves the attention or care they need

[mstepenwolf]

i was very intentional about my social media use all of last week and it felt so odd. i deleted most of the apps from my phone, whenever i went online i would set timers for myself, and i also journaled about my internet use in great detail daily. it is uncomfortable, but i'm slowly developing a new degree of awareness that allows me to deal with complex feelings in a new way instead of avoiding and pushing them down.

[mstepenwolf]

[mstepenwolf]

Hi friends! One of my best friends is currently trying to win a contest for her son to be featured in a magazine and win a sum of money that would change her and her son's life forever. I've known her for 12 years and she has relentlessly worked job after job hustling to secure their future. She's one of the realest, most solid, hard-working, badass loyal and genuinely beautiful people I know and deserves to celebrate a win this year. It's easy and if you have a Facebook you can cast a vote for free! Please please if you have FB I would be so grateful if you helped her. Takes a literal second. Thank you so much!

VOTE FOR LITTLE MIKEY

What does Mikey love most about nature?

“I love that everything is connected all creatures big and small.”

[mstepenwolf]

As part of her social media detox this girl on YouTube made herself do one hour of understimulating tasks every day and she just counted rice for 60 minutes straight because its no different from doomscrolling in terms of wasted time

[mstepenwolf]

Iker Spozio, Il Maestro e Margherita, 2012

[mstepenwolf]

May you be held in the same way you’ve held everyone else.

[mstepenwolf]

traveling with yoshitomo nara - 2007

[mstepenwolf]

having tonsillitis/strep throat infection is pure agony and a sensory hell, but i'm so glad that it started when i was pretty much done with my finals. didn't end up missing any presentation days, deadlines, or exams. it's so nice that my body was standing strong until the finish line, makes me feel very grateful.