#human condition

[diet-mountain-dew-nyc]

I love re-reading my old poetry, it's a taste of my youth, and I love over indulging. Here are my 23 year old thoughts from the window seat on the Acela Express, Washington to New York City.

[rchetypal]

"To be in doubt is a more normal condition than certainty. To confess that you doubt, to admit that you never know for certain, is the supremely human condition; for to be able to suffer the doubt, to carry the doubt, means that one is able to carry the other side."

— C.G. Jung

[nolustjustwanderlust]

[blackswaneuroparedux]

To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities - I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not - that one endures.

- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

[ctverceluz]

wings

los angeles, ca. sept 2023

[magnetothemagnificent]

Sorry if this is an inappropriate or rude question, you don’t have to answer.

I’ve been dealing with internalised negative feelings about religion, due to being raised by very Christian family, when I’ve never believed what they said. It made me think that religion is an awful thing, a cult by sorts.

A few years back, I made a friend who is Jewish and he’s really cool and I respect him a lot. I also am trying my hardest to respect that he is religious but I can’t help that voice in my head, saying he’s corrupted. I don’t think I believe it anymore but I kind of want to ask, a reassurance I guess, what your views are in religion as a whole? Why do you believe it’s good?

First of all, it is not marginalized people's jobs to prove to why they deserve humanity. If you had asked any other Jew this question, they would have every right to ignore this quesiton and/or call you out on it.

However, I do put myself out there and try to educate people, so I'll answer your question.

Religion is part of human culture and history. For as long as humans have been humans, we've always had symbolic representation, taboos, and imagination. Paleolithic humans burying their dead with body paint and bead ornamentation- that's an example of spiritual belief. To be human is to be illogical, superstitious, and imaginative. Even other animals can sometimes act according to superstition or seemingly illogical motives. Humans are incredibley intelligent, and with our intelligence comes questions we cannot answer and fears we cannot explain. Where are we from? What is death? Where are we going? What is our purpose? These are all answers we seek, and having a religious belief set can help answer these questions. Religion is just a world view in the same way Western science is a world view, and they're not incompatible with each other. Many scientists are religious, I myself am a student of science and am religious.

Religion has brought people together for all of human history- it allows the sharing of ideas and resources. Harvest festivals, weddings, coming-of-age ceremonies, funerals, all these religious events serve to reinforce the bonds in a community. A relationship must be maintained and reinforced, or it becomes stagnant. Having a shared spiritual belief system and coming together for ceremonies reignites communal bonds. Religion also allows for a community to have a shared moral system. While religion isn't necessary for morality, it definately helps define the values and morals of a person and community. If a community can come together and agree on a system of values, then there's less potential for violence due to incompatible values. Religion is a social contract. Religion is also a comfort, and can help with the immense wait of loneliness we face. If the trees and water have spirits, then you are not alone. If your loved one goes to an afterlife after death, then they are not alone.

Religion has as much potential for harm as any world view. Just as there have been countless atrocities committed in the name of religion, so too have there been countless atrocities committted in the name of science. Does that mean we should just toss out all of science? No. In the same way we shouldn't get rid of religion.

Additionally, "Religion" isn't a monolith. It's not one world view, but a category of world views. There are many forms of religion and each religion is different. Monotheism, polytheism, animism, ancestor veneration, etc- these are all different kinds of religion that can overlap with eachother too. A bad experience with one religion doesn't define all religions. With all due respect, your experience is anecdotal, and you can't apply your singular lived experience to every since religion in the world.

And for Jews, our religious identity is deeply important to us. We've been persecuted for thousands of years for our identities, and we've miraculously not disappeared from the face of the earth. You don't have to understand why your friend is religious, but you need to unpack why you think he's corrupted and why you think you have the right to apply your experience with religion to every religious person. The fact that you were raised Christian might be another contributing factor to your bias towards your friend- antisemitism is often deeply ingrained in aspects of Christianity.

[babytoothbrain]

Bitterness has Made me Unlovable

"Self Destructive Tendencies", @heavensghost// Henrik Uldalen// Andrew Garfield// Peeled Lemon, Jeffery Hayes// "From the Book of Time", Mary Oliver// Skull of a Skeleton With Burning Cigarette, Vincent Van Gogh// "ROMANCE", Elaine Kahn//

[versesfromtheabyss]

Concrete rivers flow,

Screens reflect our isolation,

Lost in pixels' glow.

[lavendorii]

average they/them fatigue

[poetfromthevoid]

Literature is not a hobby nor an escape, it’s a way, perhaps the most complete and complex, of seeing the human condition.

Ernesto Sabato.

[wingedpapercat]

When the night falls, when our friends leave us alone with ourselves, each person becomes their own Atlas that holds the weight of their own soul. The weight of the stories untold, the dreams that never coming true and all the other things that nowhere else to go. Regardless of their awareness of it, this burden cannot be carried by anyone else. And deep down they know that, he only got himself / she only got herself. Period.

—pas (open secrets)

Edward Hopper, Automat

[riemmetric]

free by florence and the machine // helen keller // crooked kingdom by leigh bardugo // once we were wolves by charlotte mcconaghy

[rchetypal]

"The old prophets and philosophers say nothing is greater than human, but on the other side nothing is more miserable than human, for the ego consciousness is only a little spark of light in an immense darkness." — C.G. Jung

[johbeil]

Slum life

Vasant Vihar, New Delhi. Olympus XA on Fuji C200 film. Shot from the hip while walking, hence a bit shaky.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

πρὸς τὸν πυθόμενον διὰ τί τοῖς καλοῖς πολὺν χρόνον ὁμιλοῦμεν, “τυφλοῦ,” ἔφη, “τὸ ἐρώτημα.”

- Aristotle

To the man inquiring why we pursue beautiful things so much, he said. “This is a blind man’s question.”

[ctverceluz]

hermès

shibuya district, tokyo, jp. nov 2023