#sand talk

[eleanor-arroway]

“The job is the unquestioned goal for all free citizens of the world – the ultimate public good. It is the clearly stated exit goal of all education and the only sanctioned reason for acquiring knowledge. But if we think about it for a moment, jobs are not what we want. We want shelter, food, strong relationships, a livable habitat, stimulating learning activity, and time to perform valued tasks in which we excel. I don’t know of many jobs that will allow access to more than two or three of those things at a time, unless you have a particularly benevolent owner or employer.

I am often told that I should be grateful for the progress that Western civilization has brought to these shores. I am not. This life of work-or-die is not an improvement on preinvasion living, which involved only a few hours of work a day for shelter and sustenance, performing tasks that people do now for leisure activities on their yearly vacations: fishing, collecting plants, hunting, camping, and so forth. The rest of the day was for fun, strengthening relationships, ritual and ceremony, cultural expression, intellectual pursuits, and the expert crafting of exceptional objects. I know this is true because I have lived like this, even in this era where the land is only a pale shadow of the abundance that once was. We have been lied to about the “harsh survival” lifestyles of the past. There was nothing harsh about it. If it was so harsh – such a brutish, menial struggle for existence – then we would not have evolved to become the delicate, intelligent creatures that we are.”

- Tyson Yunkaporta, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World

[freckles-and-books]

Weekend reading

[sandcastle-art]

filled out a couple of these oc sheets by @amber-writhing for WhereWolf and Tangerine :]

these were fun! got me to think about a few things i haven't considered before for them tbh!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Guardian. This old tree has long since bit the dust. But on the Pine Tree Trail she’s a maker to all those who have been along the trail before. Tall and defiant she stands but I always wonder what she looked like full of leaves. Only the cowboys and natives know now. In the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument Doña Ana Co, NM. Photo: Taylor Axtell (Aug 2023) :: [Robert Scott Horton]

* * * *

There is a pattern to the universe and everything in it, and there are knowledge systems and traditions that follow this pattern to maintain balance, to keep the temptations of narcissism in check. But recent traditions have emerged that break down creation systems like a virus, infecting complex patterns with artificial simplicity, exercising a civilizing control over what some see as chaos. The Sumerians started it. The Romans perfected it. The Anglosphere inherited it. The world is now mired in it. The war between good and evil is in reality an imposition of stupidity and simplicity over wisdom and complexity.

Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta[via alive on all channels]

[abwatt]

Quilt: sand talk

Shhh... it's a secret, but here's this quilt I'm working on for some friends and their new baby (not posting everywhere so there's a chance they won't see it).

[trans-jon-rights]

Honestly at this point I'd really like to know the fucking salary at the O.I.A.R.

Because while in Archives, it is stated at some point that there was a pay upgrade to work in the Archives, which incitated people to take the position to later be stuck unable to quit, on the Protocol side we have the O.I.A.R, which is civil service.

It doesn't pay well. Even though the Institute in TMA is technically a non-profit organisation, I'm still pretty sure any position there pays better than a civil service job. So why did Alice stay ?

She isn't stupid, and maybe has a degree -- and even if she didn't, there are still jobs that doesn't need a degree out there. And she knows that working there is dangerous, which is why she turns a blind eye and pretend not to care.

But here's the thing : many of her lines suggest that at some point she did care. She probably was exactly like Jon, looking for answers and trying to know what was behind those cases, why were there recurring names, places, everything !

But she stopped, she decided to shut it down and turn a blind eye. My question is : why ? Why not quit ? She knows it's dangerous, she knows there are things that could get her killed, so why stay when the safest option is to quit and leave it behind ? And why tell Sam to come work there ? I mean, I get that he needed help, but if I knew my job was dangerous and that my friend was overly curious, I wouldn't recommend them to come here.

So I'm really asking how my the government pays her to stay.

[soracities]

Wisława Szymborska, “Children of Our Age”, View with a Grain of Sand (trans. Stanisław Barańczak & Clare Cavanagh)  

[teleportzz]

assimilationism is so wack i actually can't. like do you idiots not understand that queerphobes can't tell any of us apart and don't care to? in the eyes of conservatives, we are all faggots. kissing ass and throwing the rest of us under the bus for table scraps of liberty only creates the false image of progress if you're white, abled, neurotypical, and fall under one of the few labels they can easily understand. yet even for you, it's not real. they'll create the illusion of a good life for you in exchange for oppressing your own community members and then turn around and feed your face to the leopards.

like sorry not sorry, man, but we are all in this together whether you like and appreciate it or not. you're sharing your labels and safe spaces with neopronoun users, he/him lesbians, slur reclaimers, old label adopters, drag queens, loveless aromantics, gnc folks, and the kinksters. we've always been part of the community. it isn't our fault you don't value your own history and vehemently refuse to learn it. we still aren't going anywhere. cope.

how sweet is the blood of your queer siblings as you lick it up clean from the boots of your own oppressors? hope it tastes real fucking good

[dimensionzero]

every major character's screentime in across the spiderverse

miles morales: 1 hour, 26.5 minutes

gwen stacy: 56.5 minutes

miguel o'hara: 23 minutes

rio morales: 20 minutes

jeff morales: 17.5 minutes

the spot: 14 minutes

peter b (& mayday) parker: 9.5 minutes

hobie brown: 9.5 minutes

george stacy: 9 minutes

pavitr prabhakar: 8 minutes

jess drew: 5.5 minutes

margo kess: 3.5 minutes

ben reilly: 1 minute

peni parker: 20 seconds

spider-man noir: 10 seconds

spider-ham: 10 seconds

[eleanor-arroway]

“What we found was a broad, common description of Indigenous ways of valuing, ways of being, ways of knowing, and ways of doing. These things had a widespread order, a sequence in all cultural activities in which people were sharing or producing knowledge on Country. We had our own personal metaphors for describing this process of induction. I referred to it as spirit, head, heart, and hands. Mumma Doris knew it as Respect, Connect, Reflect, Direct. She insisted on this order. She also noted that non-Aboriginal people seemed to work through the same steps but in reverse.

Mumma Doris has observed interventions and programs imposed on her community for over half a century, noticing that they always begin with the last step, Direct. Government agents come into the community with a plan for change, and they direct activities toward this change immediately. When it all fails, they go backward to the next step. Reflect. They gather data and measure outcomes and try to figure out what went wrong. Then they realize they didn’t form relationships with the community, so belatedly they go to the next step, Connect. Through these relationships they discover the final step (which should have been the first), finding a profound respect for members of the community they ruined. They cry as they say farewell and return to the city, calling, “Thank you! I have learned so much from you!”

Invert that process and you’ll have something approximating an appropriate way of coming to Indigenous Knowledge and working toward sustainable solutions. The first step of Respect is aligned with values and protocols of introduction, setting rules and boundaries. This is the work of your spirit, your gut. The second step, Connect, is about establishing strong relationships and routines of exchange that are equal for all involved. Your way of being is your way of relating, because all things only exist in relationship to other things. This is the work of your heart. The third step, Reflect, is about thinking as part of the group and collectively establishing a shared body of knowledge to inform what you will do. This is the work of the head. The final step, Direct, is about acting on that shared knowledge in ways that are negotiated by all. This is the work of the hands.

Respect, Connect, Reflect, Direct – in that order. Everything in creation is sentient and carries knowledge, therefore everything is deserving of our respect.”

- Tyson Yunkaporta, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World

[probablyanalienindisguise]

Blows them up

[sandcastle-art]

I'm sure I saw something like this on here a year or two ago.. but i couldn't find the original post so I made a new template for fun :) If you want to crop/edit this template to only include certain prompts, go ahead!

The 'free space' ones are for things like modded races or unplayable vanilla races, if you want to use them! Or non-starbound species even!

I would love to see if people use these, so if you want to share them then I'm going to be using the '#starboundspeciesswap' tag! :]

[galactic-rhea]

My queen Padmé will be over there like "I need a hero, I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night. He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast, and he's gotta make fruits float through the air"

[frostluvrs]

raymew win funniest couple award because tell me why them finally getting together is the ep ray seems less in love with mew than usual, spent 80% of it chasing sand, mew will only kiss him when he knows top is looking and they’re high and/or drunk for 90% of their relationship. you just gotta laugh. good kiss tho!

[kinnsporsche]

I have done this thing because it is just. Blood demands blood. We have lived and lost at the whims of our master for too long. I would not have it so. I would not see the passing of a brother for the purpose of sport. I would not see another heart ripped from chest, or breath forfeit for no cause. I know not all of you wished this, yet it is done. It is done. Your lives are your own. Forge your own path or join with us, and together we shall see Rome tremble!

ANDY WHITFIELD (17.10.1971 - 11.09.2011) as SPARTACUS in — Spartacus: Blood and Sand

[notbecauseofvictories]

One of the more interesting things, as I slowly read my way through the Discworld series, is how specific they are.

No one else could have written the books I've read except a person living through the latter half of the 20th century. No one in the 1850s or the 1950s or the 2020s could have told jokes in quite the same way, on topics as diverse as shopping malls, rude earthworks, Morris dances, sword and sandal movies, movies in general, computers, academia, quantum, gender and changing expression of that gender, etc. It is in some ways a sort of artifact of the late 20th century---largely because that's when the books were written, but also because I suspect Pratchett was a collector of shiny facts and liked working them into his writing.

And of course, I grew up with the same references (or, at least, was reading Pratchett at the right time to figure out what he was referencing) so it works marvelously on me.

Which makes me wonder....what's the 21st century equivalent? Is there a writer out there who trenchantly and amusingly referencing tiktok? Is that even possible in the modern understanding of lit? Are there writers who manage to integrate facebook intelligently and cleverly into their prose---not as 'found media' (which is fine, but not what Pratchett is doing) but describing the human experience of being on facebook, and how that connects with the whole experience of being human at all?