#Mankind purpose

[thermodynamic-comedian]

ultrakill lore enthusiasts (me) when the small machine destroys the very big machine

[midnight-els]

For All Mankind | Margo & JSC/MCSC Welcomes

3x05 - Seven Minutes of Terror 4x07 - Crossing the Line

[vulpinesaint]

do i believe eddie brock is homosexual or even really into men. no. to be honest. however is he gay for that alien. one hundred fucking percent and it's canonical too

[poligraf]

I am weary of planning and toiling In the crowded hives of men; Heart weary of building and spoiling And spoiling and building again; And I long for the dear old river Where I dreamed my youth away; For a dreamer lives forever, And a toiler dies in a day.

— John Boyle O'Reilly

[give-grian-rights]

i think every person deserves One unsolved case to hold onto for the rest of your life. D.B/Dan Cooper. Sodder Children. Jennifer Gibbons cause of death. Amelia Earhart.

[sparkleplatypuswriter]

Listen, will I watch all of S4 For All Mankind? Yes. Will it completely gut me and leave me incapable of interacting with the previous three seasons and my blorbos? Possibly.

[gordopickett]

The sun in your eyes made some of the lies worth believing, I am the eye in the sky, looking at you, I can read your mind, I am the maker of rules, dealing with fools, I can cheat you blind.

I love this scene so much, and this episode is one of my favorites of the entire series. Gordo tells Ed shortly after this singing moment that he is having a good time, and while he probably believes that's true in the moment, he's really only masking his pain. That's so evident in the scene after this, with Gordo and Ed on the side of the road. Gordo hits rock bottom, as he spirals more deeply into his depression, feeling like he's nothing now. He feels like he has no purpose nowadays & no sense of direction. Ed sees this & tries to instill a renewed sense of purpose in him by assigning him to Jamestown 91 at the end of the episode. Of course, Gordo is terrified, but it's exactly what he needs. He needs to get back on the horse. He needs something to do. Something that feels meaningful & can make Gordo feel like he's doing something important again. ♥♥♥

[processofliving]

What is our purpose in life.

What is our purpose in life?

Growing up I’ve been surrounded by people who seem to know their purpose. Whether that be in the job they want to do when they’re a bit older and what steps to take to get there, the ideology they want to disperse, or a certain lifestyle they want to adhere to. It always worried me. I’ve never felt this sense of purpose other people seem to possess. And in this day and age, where people tend to share their purpose of life in one way or another online, it is hard to feel accepted when you’ve got anything but that. You feel like you need a purpose to be accepted in society.

I’ve always felt ashamed to answer that I really don’t have a clue when asked about what I want to be when I’m older. There are so many interesting and fun things one can do in this world that committing to just one almost seems moronic. Yet when you answer that you’re not sure, people look at you as if you’re the moronic one. They think of you as that person who hasn’t got their life figured out yet. They say things like: “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out eventually”, or just a simple: “Oh, okay”, and give you that half-smile where they pretend to reassure you that you’ll figure it out while secretly they’re judging you for not having your whole life planned out. And you’re left feeling like you don’t belong. So, next time someone asks, you pretend like you do know (kind of, at least). Just to fit in.

While having a sense of purpose must be great, it almost seems like a competition. We should all travel before we’re thirty years old and we should get a well-paying job in a field that we have always dreamed of and we should have a social life on the side but also make time to go to the gym and we should all settle down with a significant other, preferably also before the age of thirty. And then when you’re past the age of thirty you should have an outstanding resume containing all the things you have already done and know exactly which direction to go in for the remainder of your adult life. And as you get older, let’s say fifty, you should know exactly who you are, be committed to a job in a field you’ve been in for the past twenty years and be settled down with a partner and preferably some kids. And, most of all, we should all grow up to be happy. Finding ultimate happiness is completely unattainable, but that is for another time.

It’s wild though, isn’t it. How we as people project our expectations on others. I have never met anyone who was exactly like someone else. And with each day and week and month and year and life stage we change, and then change again and again, all the way up until we die. Yet most of us place the same expectations on everyone.

My humble guess would be that maybe our purpose in life should be to be ourselves, whether that means getting married or staying single, working in the same field for the next forty years or switching jobs every couple of months, or committing to one hobby or trying out every hobby there is over the duration of just two weeks. 

Maybe our purpose, ultimately, is to be the person you feel most comfortable with on that particular day. Who are you living for anyway? This is your time to be selfish.

Perhaps our purpose in life is to just be ourselves in the way that we appreciate ourselves to be. With or without purpose. Because purpose doesn’t define you. But being yourself does.

[robotpanties]

ouu. elaborating on my idea from earlier a bit more

[farmersliga]

hey iker bestie im gonna need u to admit if u were hacked within the next 2-3 hrs bc it’s currently evening here and i will be unable to sleep without closure. thnx in advance

[hythlodaeus-mynewoldfriend]

“Can making mistakes truly be seen as a gift worthy to bring forth unto mankind?”

“Based on your record your ‘mistakes’ have all been seen fit to remain for research and some have even chosen to build off of them, finding their answer within your perspective. If anything I’d dare say you’ve brought the most gifts to mankind for some things would never have come to be had it not been for your ‘mistakes’.”

A Flower Evocative of Mankind

[snowpoff]

thinking about elidibus again

[z00r0p4]

Thank you Instagram for showing me 17 year olds who are more talented than I will ever be! Thank you. I totally do not want to quit art now!

[featherymainffins]

Fascinated by this guy messaging me out of all people on Nexus to ask me if I take commissions for clothes refits out of all things.

Like first of all buddy I haven't been online since late December, second of all I don't even maintain my own mods anymore as you can see in the "last update" field, third of all I...don't make or refit clothes.

[poligraf]

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.

— William Jennings Bryan

[joycrispy]

Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:

This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...

It. It kind of fucks. Severely.

And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.

I'll explain:

As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.

Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.

(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)

Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:

"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV

Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.

(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.

...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)

So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.

But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:

The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.

Do you understand?

The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.

The flaming sword was given to be used against them.

So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.

That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.

...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.

They're Crowley and Aziraphale.

(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)

In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.

It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.

...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.

And the Serpent--

(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)

--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.

As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:

"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll

The first to ask questions.

Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).

And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.

And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--

(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)

--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.

To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.

Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.

It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.

And then you keep writing.

And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.

(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).

It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)

...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:

I love this shot so much.

Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.

You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.

"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.

But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.

Godfathers. Sort of.