samalander7

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Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park, Washington, USA by Kevin McNeal

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daily affirmations:

i am kind

i am in control of my emotions

it does not bother me when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

everyone in the house has the right to be in the kitchen

i am kind and in control of my emotions even when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

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A comic I drew about leaving the Mormon church.

Can also apply to other things. Ex. constitutional originalism in the US

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I ❤️ MY PUBLIC LIBRARY

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More like 240p: grainy and staticky

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Indeed a cool highway; I’ve been on that stretch a couple of times

I-80 highway through Wyoming. nicknamed The Sisters, for the three sets of hills that create an optical illusion of the road rising into the sky

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My ears are now doing it and it’s this posts fault

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Definitely. Take sound for example: silence is not the opposite of a sound, the real opposite is the exact same sound phase shifted to perfectly cancel out the original. In The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han describes two types of potency: positive and negative potency. Positive potency is the ability to do something. From that you might think that negative potency is the inability to do that thing, or impotence, but that is not the case. "Negative potency, in contrast, is the power not to do...the power to say no." (24)

While Han describes impotence as the opposite of positive potency and negative potency as something else entirely, I would say it is better framed as impotence being the the lack of positive potency and negative potency being the true opposite of positive potency. That is to say if positive potency is sound then impotence is silence: not an opposite, just a lack. And negative potency is not impotence, but an opposite sound that cancels out or negates positive potency.

Han goes on to describe how if one loses negative potency and only maintains positive potency, then one ends up in a state of hyperactivity where they can't say no to anything. Without the ability to say no or to direct one's attention and actions, one loses their freedom or self-determination. In that way negative potency becomes significantly more active or free than hyperactivity (or excessive positive potency) because with it one can choose to say no and choose where to direct their time.

It irks me unreasonably when people will baselessly argue that the absence of something is automatically the opposite of the thing. That logic would apply to everything, and render it null. The opposite of a thing can't just lack the features of the said thing, but have the opposite features. Why would darkness be the opposite of sunlight? Sunlight is natural, comes from space, enables the existence of life, and feels so nice that both people and animals go out of their way to bask in it when they have the chance. Darkness is also natural, does not come from any particular source, does not harm living things, and even though some people are afraid of the dark, being in darkness isn't physically painful.

The opposite of sunlight would have to be someting that is unnatural, comes from planet Earth, actively kills living things, is painful to experience, and people seek to avoid exposure to it at all costs. The opposite of sunlight is weaponised nuclear radiation.

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I wish there was a command that showed you a manual with a bunch of helpful instructions. Oh man pacman would be so useful then.

pacman can never be as useful as apt because nobody fucking wants to remember all of those flags

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these are KILLING me

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sanderson’s book dedications

one of the things i love about brandon sanderson is the way so many of his books are dedicated to his wife :(( it’s so adorable.

here are some examples (i have not read nor do i own all of his works so there might be more):

warbreaker: “for emily, who said yes.”

the way of kings: “for emily, who is too patient, too kindly and too wonderful for words. but i try anyway.”

tress of the emerald sea: “for emily, who has all my love.”

yumi and the nightmare painter: “also for emily, who, for some amazing reason, gives me her love.”

that’s it. that’s the post. brb i’m just gonna go sob real quick.

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“It won’t be like that for me,” Kaladin said. You told me it would get worse.”

“It will,” Wit said, “but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: You will be warm again.”

Photos by CarpeTempus Photography

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This reminded me of Fern and Heiter

on watching a parent age

i saw somebody say “what if you’re gone and i haven’t become anything yet” and basically that broke me on a random thursday evening

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