wnderlust27 - Tumblr blog

[wnderlust27]

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I miss this view

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How strange...

[wnderlust27]

Dear Tate

My dear Tate, Hello. How are you? I've missed you. I've been waiting for the missing you to stop but still not a day goes by without a thought of you. It's sad to go from being one of someone's closest friends to someone they don't even look at. I knew that what we had could never last. But I never imagined it would end like this. I invested so much of myself in you....what do I do now? I miss you, Lydia

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Likes and Dislikes

Likes -making people laugh -savory foods -nice hair -snuggles -books that manipulate my emotions Dislikes -mint -racist/sexist/homophobic/etc people -early mornings -feeling inferior -velvet

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Are you even real Denny's tumblr?

Once upon a time I was falling in love But now I’m only falling apart There’s nothing I can do A total egglipse of the heart

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You ugly teacup.

sleepless nights with good friends

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ASDFGHJKL

omfg I was casually facebook stalking this cute senior from choir when all of a sudden we have seVEN MUTUAL FRIENDS AND HIS PARENTS WORK WHERE MY PARENTS WORK??? WTF THIS AMAZINGLY ATTRACTIVE MAN HAS BEEN AN AWKWARD TEENAGER IN THE BACKGROUND OF MY CHILDHOOD. WHAT EVEN

[wnderlust27]

Someday I'll hear rain pounding the London pavement just as Big Ben pounds out the time. Someday I'll feel the heat of the beating sun when I hike up Machu Picchu to its highest point. Someday I'll smell fresh baked pastries as I take a tantalizing bite of pain du chocolat. Someday I'll join crowds of reverent travelers visiting the Western Wall of an ancient temple. Someday I'll escape an unexpected storm by seeking refuge in a drafty stone castle. Someday I'll wonder at the sheer massiveness of sandy Egyptian pyramids. Someday I'll walk up my winding sidewalk and breathe a breath of home. Someday.

[wnderlust27]

Bouquets

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Nurse doctor? Really?

I'm a feminist because my classmate thinks it's weird to call female doctors "doctor". Instead he calls them "nurse doctor".

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Je suis Charlie

What are your thoughts on the recent events in France?

Well, I am horrified by the murders. That’s my main thought, I guess.

But it also inevitably has made me think about the whole idea of civilizations in conflict with each other. Standard warning that I might be wrong about any/all of this, but.

When I was in college (I studied Islamic history), there was a lot of talk about this guy Samuel Huntington who was getting a lot of attention for his “clash of civilizations” idea—basically, he thought the Islamic world and the West would inevitably experience conflict because their cultures were inherently at odds with each other.

Like, one of his famous lines was, “The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

He even made a map telling us where all these distinct civilizations were. At the time, Huntington’s ideas were considered pretty radically right-wing (at least among my professors), but now many of them are widely accepted. 

I thought the clash of civilizations argument was bullshit then, and I think it’s bullshit now. The men who committed these murders apparently stole and drank and smoked weed and did all kinds of things that are not permitted by Islam. And yet we’re to believe they represent the most pious Muslims? The people who most closely identify with “Islamic” civilization?

To me, the clash of civilizations is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We have invented this way of looking at the world, and we find information that fits it, and then those who would benefit from a clash of civilizations have a built-in framework for getting the kind of political results they want.

For instance, let’s say you’re Vladimir Putin, and your economic model is in big trouble. You can present that problem as, like, “Well, way too much of our economy is dependent upon oil revenue and we don’t have enough competition in most sectors of the economy to grow efficiently, because the economic system I have championed is pretty terrible.” Or you can be like, “This is happening because we reclaimed territory that rightly belongs to Russia and the West didn’t like it because they are inherently different from us and so they levied sanctions.” The clash of civilizations model in that case clearly benefits Putin.

It also makes for a relatively straightforward news media narrative. It’s hard not to imagine the other monolithically—like, I understand the political and cultural diversity in the United States, but it’s much harder to understand the diversity in religious thought and practice in, say, Saudi Arabia. So the media has an easier time telling the story if there is only “us” and “them.” 

Now, I don’t want to minimize the real and important differences between cultural and religious groups around the world, but we choose whether to place these events in a broader geopolitical context. Like, when a white fascist Norwegian murders 77 white nonfascist Norwegians, we don’t see that as indicative of global conflict. I think we’re right not to view that murder through the lens of global politics, but we certainly could have: We could argue that the fault line is between those who think political and economic systems should be open and those who think they should be closed.

But there are lots of people who will attempt to read these murders as further proof of the intractable conflict between “our” values and “their” values. (Like, there’s a headline on the DrudgeReport right now: “Islamic immigration to U.S. on the rise.” Not Muslim immigration, but Islamic immigration, as if Islam itself is marching toward Main Street or whatever.)  I mean, I am not a Muslim, but I can think of nothing in the Quran or the hadiths to support the idea that drawing the prophet in bigoted or insulting ways is a greater sin than murdering a dozen people. 

So I am always suspicious of any attempt to construct an “us” that’s wholly separate from a “them.” Also, viewing cultural and religious exchange as conflict/clash/war dramatically oversimplifies the ways that  cultures and religious traditions really interact. It’s inaccurate to say that religions or cultures “win” in the way that wars can be won. There is conflict, but there is also exchange. And the conflicts rarely occur along easily defined demographic lines. Like, there are people in the West who say, “We are at war with islam,” and there are people in the Islamic world who say, “We are at war with the West,” but most people in both the Islamic world and the West are like, “Nah.” But if those who murder cartoonists—or those who throw grenades into mosques—are seen as the defining voices in the cross-cultural conversation, we are in worsening trouble. 

Of course there’s a lot more going on in these cultural exchanges, including all kinds of bigotry and cultural power dynamics and general inability to imagine the other complexly, but before you assume that a clash of civilizations is inevitable/the only way to view the world, please consider that millions of nonmuslims live peacefully in the Islamic world, and millions of Muslims live peacefully in the West. Are there cultural differences? Of course. Do they necessitate violence? I just don’t buy that argument. 

[wnderlust27]

I was shy and awkward and then suddenly he came along and he was perfect. He was funny, cute, and he thought I was beautiful. Then I found out he wasn't perfect. But I didn't want to give up this chance to be friends with this amazing person, you know? Things went wrong. Things went very very right. Turns out he wasn't all I thought he was. It always ended up with me disappointed. I guess I finally realized that maybe he isn't worth it.

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I tried to take a nice picture...

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Dean......or is it?

Omg I knew I knew who he was. Dean is Jared. Jared Padalecki is Dean from Gilmore Girls. Young Sam Winchester is Dean. My mind is blown.

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My fav place

My favorite place is fictional. It's a comfy window seat with lots of pillows and a sturdy place to put my coffee. With rain pounding into the forest outside and a fireplace crackling next to me. It's a place I've never been to.