I really appreciate how every week I reblog this, a different person interacts it. Tuesday light me up speaks to all of us at different times.

the ‘to be loved is to be changed’ meme, but it’s pangur with her teeth out and her face all gross and old 

to be loved is to be changed

poor baby! I hope shes okay

she’s fine, she’s just ugly now

I’m

The youth are lost

NOTE TO SELF-SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!

Slow the fuck down is also the way to avoid scams, social engineering, phishing, etc.

"Oh, no the CEO of my employer is having an emergency and I need to click this link right now!!!"

Slow down...

"Why would the CEO be emailing ME of all people? Maybe this email is a phishing attack that would get my employer hacked and me fired for allowing it." (It probably is a phishing email.)

In general, "Slow the fuck down" is an extremely powerful information literacy skill.

If we don’t microdose delusion we won’t make it through this reality babe….

So I remember reading about this study in grad school where they have a bunch of clinically depressed people and a bunch of non-clinically-depressed people a game that was partially chance and partially skill, and asked them to estimate how much control they had over the outcome.

The depressed people were far more accurate in estimating how much influence their actions had on the outcome of the game compared to their nondepressed counterparts, who consistently overestimated the effects of their own choices on their chances of winning.

Then I remember this other study (CW animal testing) where they put rats in a bucket of water that they couldn’t get out of, so they’d have to swim. There was a fairly consistent point at which the swimming rat would falter, and stop swimming, fated to drown.

Except that that’s when the researchers would pull the rat out of the bucket, give it a nice rest warmth and a meal.

When those SAME rats who had been rescued before were put in the same situation again, they swam much LONGER than they had before.

Why? The risk was the same either way- drowning. You’d have thought that the fear of drowning would keep them swimming to their maximum length no matter what.

The researchers conclusion was that the rescued rats had something they hadn’t had the first time- they had more hope. A miraculous rescue could come, and that let them swim for longer, just in case.

I think we do microdose delusion because sometimes that little overestimation of our chances, of our luck, keeps us swimming that little bit longer, just in case something good happens. And sometimes, that little margin really does make the difference. 

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”

-Terry Pratchett, Hogfather.

hey, don't just leave the quote there! the last line is what MAKES it!

"YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE.  HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?"

for everyone asking for what article this is i actually went back and found it again and you'll never guess who it's about

MEAN GIRLS 2004 — dir. Mark Waters

i’m obsessed with this

and then, two months later....

Because corvids are amazing

“no matter how badly you think you’re doing it, someone else has done it a lot worse and been fine” is applicable to a wide, wide range of things and i say it to myself all the time

"bigger idiots than me have done it" is a phrase I live by

I especially love these two excerpts from her wiki page

I tell kids about Tilly ALL THE TIME when I'm doing tsunami presentations for my job. She lived in a landlocked part of England! She probably thought she would never ever ever use what she learned in her geography class about tsunamis and then just a few weeks later she used it to save over one hundred lives! It's an incredible story about how anything can happen anytime, and we need to be prepared to act.

What I think is most important about her story is that, even as a kid, Tilly knew she was right and she stuck to that knowledge. She practically threw a fit until her parents listened to her, because at first they kept brushing her off. And that is SO IMPORTANT for our kids to know! Adults can be wrong. You need to trust your instincts. YOU can be right and YOU can act in times of danger and emergency. YOU have the power to save yourself and others.

shamed:(

The fact that they have a professionally printed sign for this means this must happen fairly regularly

blogging

Me trying to get the last bit of whipped cream out of the can.

Why is this filmed like analog horror?

This thing's voice is unhinged. Why do kiwis sound like this. I am losing my mind

at the funeral my 85 year old great-aunt asked to see a photo of my cat, and so I said “sure” and showed her this, and she just said “oh”, visibly struggled to follow that up with anything, and then walked away.

this is legitimately my favorite photo of Pangur I've ever seen. she is by far the most beautiful cat thing in the entire world.