No but it really can be this simple sometimes.
The “enrichment in the enclosure” meme has a lot of truth to it. We need to shake things up a bit to keep happy. It doesn’t have to be big, but if you ever feel stagnant or a little bluh try going on a walk on a route you haven’t been in or something. It really does help.
reblogging with @arczeroes‘ tags because they blew my mind a little and I think you should read them
one week until baldur’s gate 3!!! and this is your reminder to do a clean uninstall before 1.0 if you have played early access (especially with mods). here’s a guide from the down by the river discord server on how to do so
LOUDER
I think the mentality of "why bother doing something if you're not good at it?" feeds directly into "if you're good at it why aren't you monetizing it?". At its core I really think its about commodifying every last shred of labor and experience.
THIS
Adding that this is literally a huge reason we don’t leave unsolicited criticism on things like fanworks- fanfiction, fanart, fan crafts etc. Because there’s a LOT of people out there who are just doing this for the fun of it. They’re doing it for the same reason people go on walks- to feel good. And receiving crit they didn’t ask for doesn’t feel good.
I've unfortunately fallen trap to this mindset of "If it's an art, I have to be good at it" and I only very recently started to realize how bullshit that is. And I can personally tell you how this mindset absolutely destroys your mental health and all your happiness.
I shouldn't draw to be good at it, I should draw because I loved doing it as a kid as a coping mechanism. I shouldn't have to write just to be the next Tolkien, I should write because I like the idea of leaving something behind when I die and I find it fun.
The sooner you let go of the "it must be better" mindset, the happier you'll be. And I've ever found that releasing that expectation helps you enter the flow state easier.
But it's so engrained in so many people that you have to be good at what you enjoy doing that it's an incredibly difficult mindset to worm your way out of. I'm still trying to do that and it's still a daily struggle. But I'm still trying to make progress and I drew this today, which I really think summarizes this whole post:
Aging Gracefully
the dehumanization of russian citizens and the refusal to think of them as people separate from the atrocities of their government as is afforded to anyone else who lives in a "good" country is fucking insane. hey man you didn't fight and die in an attempt to overthrow the bush regime and end the war on terror so i guess you're a brainwashed pig and you deserve what's coming to you.
green’s my colour.
[Image Description: Text of the poem “To the Young Who Want to Die” by Gwendolyn Brooks, next to a black and white photo of the poet. Poem reads as follows:
Sit down. Inhale. Exhale. The gun will wait. The lake will wait. The tall gall in the small seductive vial will wait will wait: will wait a week: will wait through April. You do not have to die this certain day. Death will abide, will pamper your postponement. I assure you death will wait. Death has a lot of time. Death can attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is just down the street; is most obliging neighbor; can meet you any moment. You need not die today. Stay here–through pout or pain or peskyness. Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow. Graves grow no green that you can use. Remember, green’s your color. You are Spring.
/End ID.]
i rlly hope it gets easier soon bc i am fucking losing my mind
it’s an unspoken thing between all of us- the grief of all the friends you never got to say goodbye to. like, the friends youd make in science class because the teacher sat you next to one another, the friends from your childhood who you mightve only spoken to in school, but whose existence sunk its teeth into you and left a permanent mark. even the ones you were closest to, the ones you called best friend for a time, somewhere along the way you parted without even noticing it. somewhere along the way, you played outside for the last time, shared food for the last time, stayed up talking for the last time, said i love you for the last time. when was the last time? we didnt decide to stop being friends. we didnt even say goodbye. but ‘see you next week’ turned into ‘it’s been a long time’, and now, if you saw each other in the street, you might pretend that you didnt. you might not even recognise them. they might not even recognise you. you can’t remember the shape of their nose. and what about the connections you made online when you were a child, playing games that meant so little with nameless friends that meant so much? or when you were a bit older, talking to strangers but loving them like family? here, raise a glass to the friends who disappeared one day, who deactivated, who stopped messaging you back, because online friends can bring you just as much joy as real life ones, too. when the adults told you dont talk to strangers, they didnt consider the good morning! :) texts, the have you eaten today? texts, the trying to hold in your laughter at 3am texts, the i wish timezones and continents and countries didnt exist so i could hug you texts, the little pieces of a persons heart texts, blue light flooding across the world just to say i love you. sleep well. i love you. i love you. the grief comes in waves. it’s slow, and soft, and steady- you dont notice it pooling around your ankles at first, you dont want to- but it comes. childhood is where the grief begins. it’s reared like a well-loved pet, a hungry mouth under the tablecloth. a passing thought from time to time, when you remember the girl you befriended a long long time ago, and when you wonder where she went. it doesn’t feel like much at first. it doesn’t break you yet. it’s not like real grief, not like anyone died, but you had something in your hand and now it’s empty and you can’t remember where you put it. it’s like that, except the thing in your hand was a person who loved you, once. a person whose face you couldn’t draw if the world got on its knees and begged you. when you dont get to say goodbye to someone, your memory becomes a funeral, every conversation you ever shared with them a eulogy. because this is how the story goes. i had a friend. this is not a poem. i had a friend.
Being in this generation is so difficult because we grew up experiencing how incredible technology is, but are now watching it fall to capitalism. When we were young videogames were incredible, people made incredible games that they shared with us and it was art, it was story, it was the best a developer could put out there. Now it's pay to win, it's pay to unlock content that came on the disk, releasing half finished games, make money and run.
It's the same with social media. It used to be a place to share art and ideas, make friends, connect with people, and now it's all ads, branded content, pay to have your work seen.
Don't get me started on apps gatekeeping phone types for better quality, the making of a new phone every year that you have to get because everything is designed to make your older tech obsolete.
Capitalism has stripped humanity from the awe of what the internet and technology used to be. The rich get richer, companies sell their morals to the highest bidder, and there is nothing we can do but watch our future slip away.
there are always more sunsets to see. oceans to visit. birds to listen to. there is always love and hope and kindness. you will never have nothing. there is so much more to life than what you feel right now. you will have a life beyond these bad days and harsh thoughts. you deserve to.
new Yuri!!! on ICE official art
OMG THE RING
Hawke/Anders | 672 words | Read on Ao3
He’d never cared for the wilderness, he once said, but damn, the sun looked good on his face. Hawke had fallen for him by lamplight, by the torches of Darktown, beneath the unwholesome glare of Kirkwall’s smog-filtered sun, but here, on this scrubby Fereldan hillside, there was nothing above them but blue.
Here the sun rolled butter-white in the upper heavens, faraway and free. It cast his eyes in violet shadow and turned him pink at the nose and temples, glittered off the fistfuls of silver and gold, protective charms and cheap trinkets she’d draped him in over the years, which he wore now all at once in riotous tangles and which somehow never slipped off and got lost in all their trekking—like magic. Light glistened in his feathers, reflected and caught in his dark honey eyes. The breeze tugged his hair loose around the edges, and it danced against that sky like a merry bright flame.
And how he glowed.
