In The Red Circle

my blog is a safe space for me. the rest of you are in danger i think

[“But if French assessments of the character of ‘savages’ tended to be decidedly mixed, the indigenous assessment of French character was distinctly less so. Father Pierre Biard, for example, was a former theology professor assigned in 1608 to evangelize the Algonkian-speaking Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, who had lived for some time next to a French fort.

Biard did not think much of the Mi’kmaq, but reported that the feeling was mutual: ‘They consider themselves better than the French: “For,” they say, “you are always fighting and quarrelling among yourselves; we live peaceably. You are envious and are all the time slandering each other; you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous, and are neither generous nor kind; as for us, if we have a morsel of bread we share it with our neighbour.” They are saying these and like things continually.’

What seemed to irritate Biard the most was that the Mi’kmaq would constantly assert that they were, as a result, ‘richer’ than the French. The French had more material possessions, the Mi’kmaq conceded; but they had other, greater assets: ease, comfort and time. Twenty years later Brother Gabriel Sagard, a Recollect Friar, wrote similar things of the Wendat nation.

Sagard was at first highly critical of Wendat life, which he described as inherently sinful (he was obsessed with the idea that Wendat women were all intent on seducing him), but by the end of his sojourn he had come to the conclusion their social arrangements were in many ways superior to those at home in France. In the following passages he was clearly echoing Wendat opinion: ‘They have no lawsuits and take little pains to acquire the goods of this life, for which we Christians torment ourselves so much, and for our excessive and insatiable greed in acquiring them we are justly and with reason reproved by their quiet life and tranquil dispositions.’

Much like Biard’s Mi’kmaq, the Wendat were particularly offended by the French lack of generosity to one another: ‘They reciprocate hospitality and give such assistance to one another that the necessities of all are provided for without there being any indigent beggar in their towns and villages; and they considered it a very bad thing when they heard it said that there were in France a great many of these needy beggars, and thought that this was for lack of charity in us, and blamed us for it severely.’

Wendat cast a similarly jaundiced eye at French habits of conversation. Sagard was surprised and impressed by his hosts’ eloquence and powers of reasoned argument, skills honed by near-daily public discussions of communal affairs; his hosts, in contrast, when they did get to see a group of Frenchmen gathered together, often remarked on the way they seemed to be constantly scrambling over each other and cutting each other off in conversation, employing weak arguments, and overall (or so the subtext seemed to be) not showing themselves to be particularly bright. People who tried to grab the stage, denying others the means to present their arguments, were acting in much the same way as those who grabbed the material means of subsistence and refused to share it; it is hard to avoid the impression that Americans saw the French as existing in a kind of Hobbesian state of ‘war of all against all’.”]

david graeber and david wengrow, the dawn of everything: a new history of humanity, 2021

Naughty children, we are finding ourselves again in the position of supporting my family's needs for the nearest month - in which your help is needed dearly.

Between upcoming wedding expenses and daily necessities, taking care of another two people is quite outside my budget.

For that reason I turn to you, sweets. Every penny counts. If unable to contribute, spread the word.

For all those who donate, feel free to message me privately for a reading 🌹

Help is needed urgently, please share.

Rory Björkman

dude.

i knew a surgeon and he once told me “nobodys insides look like how the textbooks say they will. you never know what you’re going to find in there once you open them up” and that was easily the most ominous thing anyone’s ever said to me

when i was taking my first year anatomy lab, we’d occasionally find a cadaver where things would branch off or attach in the wrong order, and when we’d ask our prof about it, he’d just shrug and say “they must not have read the book”

Boar Family by Vitaly Poluektov

goats came for people’s piss in 2018 and tumblr slept on it??? what did tumblr care about more than rampaging piss goats???

we were trying to prevent crave that mineral 2 from happening but thanks for dropping the ball

they crave that peepee!

h,

I cannot stress this enough - the POINT of ALL money and ALL resources is to make life better for as many people as possible. The point of SOCIETY is to make life as good as possible for EVERYONE YOU CAN POSSIBLY DO THAT FOR.

There is no other goal. Having a high GDP means nothing if people are starving in the street. Different people have different ways to do it, and for some of us the only life we can make better is our own - and sometimes even that isn't feasible. That's okay. That isn't YOUR failing.

But when you look at it that way, when you remember that the reason we got to be the dominant species on this little rock... Then it brings a very different context to a billionaire spending tonnes of money lobbying against trans rights, doesn't it? Or some absolutely wangbasket ruining our ability to observe space so he can put ads in the sky? Or whatever?

We are a hive species. We all have different skillsets and that is why it works, or worked, or whatever. And if you think your only skill is napping, then you're still better for society, by a vast margin, than the rich people actively working against our collective well-being.

this is a poem

i couldn’t not draw this

this makes me feel a very specific feeling but i can’t describe it

OP didn't know you can't ignore a will just because you think it's unfair that your brother's friend got more than family

Not the brother's friend, his partner

I think the human condition is just finding magic in the compositions of people's mundanity. Knowing they love strawberry perfumes and aloe moisturizers, knowing their favourite ice-cream flavours and the song they can sing in their sleep, gosh knowing their sleep schedules and sharing dreams during breakfast. Knowing the motifs of their grief and the childhood stories behind the swings, the joy of knowing how they completed their day with 15 math problems, one incomplete art assignment, a sandwich for breakfast, a kind smile of a stranger who passed them, and not to mention dropping their phone 5 times. The inherent comfort in knowing the stories inside their kitchen, where the glasses are kept with their favorite mug adorning a Studio Ghilbi character and why they eat noodles in a dented red bowl. Their heat/cold tolerance, their spice tolerance, coffee orders and their favourite snack aisle at the grocery store. The art accounts they follow and their comfort youtube videos and their unhinged coping mechanisms. Oh the mortifying ordeal to be known but oh the gratifying relief in being known. Comfort lies in these compositions of mundanity. I think love hides in mundanity and I think magic is just being human, just being unfiltered like toothpaste stains pajamas, just being in the presence of each other