Well Whupty Doo

“wish I could get away with wearing stuff like that” is shorthand for “I think you dress like a clown but I’m also aware that you’re cooler than me”

Can I watch a great film knowing the actresses in it were terrorized and mistreated the entire time? Can I watch a football game knowing that the players are getting brain injuries right before my eyes? Can I listen to my favorite albums anymore knowing that the singers were all beating their wives in between studio sessions? Can I eat at the new fancy taco place knowing when the building that used to be there got bulldozed eight families got kicked out of their homes so they could be replaced with condos and a chain restaurant? Can I wear the affordable clothes I bought downtown that were probably assembled in a sweatshop with child labor? Can I eat quinoa? Can I eat this burger? Can I drink this bottled water? Can I buy a car and drive to work because I’m sick of taking an hour each way on the subway? Whose bones do I stand on? Whose bones am I standing on right now? 

On one hand, it’s a privilege to be able to choose to acknowledge these horrors or not–we’re going to acknowledge that privilege. On the other hand, I once attended a lecture by the explorerer-conservationist Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s daughter and son and they had a lot of opinions about what we could do to help the environment and the ocean and I talked about how in my country, we have to drink bottled water, because it’s a desert and there’s only salt water all around, but we’re contributing to pollution and all of these things…

And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of “activist guilt.” I couldn’t remember the exact words, but, it was the first time I’d heard the term and it took a weight off my shoulders.

We do what we can. It’s so much better than giving up entirely or not doing anything at all because we can’t do it perfectly. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the end if we just sit around feeling guilty about every little thing in life. I’d just joined tumblr back then (haha, so like, eight or nine years ago at this point?), I was being exposed to way more than I’d ever been before (I was previously just into feminism and animal rights/wildlife conservation/environmentalism since I was a kid), and it was weighing on me.

As long as humans are humans and living flawed lives, many consumed by greed, there will not be anything in this world untouched by evil.

I usually avoid stuff that says it was made in China or other cheap looking knockoffs, out of fear of them being made in sweatshops (now, I know even a lot of big brands use those…), it’s exhausting. Then, I read something about how people who actually lived and worked in those would still buy this cheap stuff and how this shocked the foreigner reporting on it, but they just looked confused like, it’s what they can afford and them avoiding consuming it isn’t going to change the whole system from the ground-up.

… it went on about how “money talks” and choosing where to put your money still feeds the whole capitalist system and is nearly a way of comforting yourself, but you not buying doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t. What needs to be tackled is at a much higher level than any of us can reach.

Of course, I’d still, given the choice, give my money to companies I agree with and I’ll boycott what I know to support awful stuff, but I also feel no superiority over this and know now it’s not as black and white or easy as I thought it was.

This is the same reason that moral purity “you can’t enjoy [x] because it’s Problematic ™” is such nonsense, because nothing is pure. There’s something bad about everything if you dig deep enough. As long as we lived in flawed human societies we’ve got to make the best of what they offer us. If you have the choice and means, please, do support those who do good, but also, don’t beat yourself up over not living up to an unattainable ideal.

No one can. You’ll just make yourself so miserable, you either burn up and stop fighting entirely or you’ll make yourself a non-productive, depressed heap just out of a bleeding heart left unchecked. You can’t make a change to this world if you refuse to engage in it.

Have a related article with self-care tips for activists.

Purity is one of the worst, most harmful myths humans ever invented.

do you ever just cry

Not all heroes wear capes.

when I imagine myself

                 I am always leaving

I couldn’t draw my own face if god asked

— Andrés Cerpa, from “The Vault,” published in The Offing

@ porn blogs who keep following me

when she says she doesn’t send nudes

when guys objectify women and expect them to send nudes

when someone asks you about your nuclear plans for russia

When Russia sends you nudes

#what the fuck happened here

This is my favorite post in all of tumblr

reminder that this post is now illegal in Russia

reblog it, because Russia can´t

Thanks Obama 

Wtf

you cannot even try to tell me that king of the hill is not fucking hilarious

why do they always show cranberries in thos big pits n its implied its wet and possibly swimmable. do cranberries really grow like that. wh

You’ve never heard of The Bog?

th

the what

EACH ADDITION TO THIS POST MAKES MY BLOOD RUN COLD

This is a cranberry bog (unflooded) it’s how cranberries grow. Once they’re ripe, the blog is flooded and the cranberries harvested.

Basically by using big floaty things to round them all up and then scooping them out of the water.

thank u. i hate it a little less but the horrible little man in my head is still screaming “BOG BODY BOG BODY BOG BODY”, but i appreciate the education,

not that kinda bog. less peat, for one thing, and 300% fewer mummified Celts.

Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice: Now with 300% fewer mummified Celts!

speak for your own goddamn cranberries. new hampshire may not have any commercial cranberry bogs left, but at least our wild cranberry bogs contain 100% NATURAL MUMMIFIED CELTS, THE WAY GOD AND/OR THE MORRIGAN INTENDED.

Bog Mummies: Now in Cranberry Flavor!

when you are SAD go to the THRIFT STORE and purchase FLORAL porcelain objects

What’s a banana?

Actually, the artificial banana flavor is based off of an extinct version of the banana. There is no known way to bring it back so its replicated in candy : )

all night long the sword on the wall above my bed has been rattling and i finally woke up all the way and went wtf and turned on the light and found this.

@ those of you saying this is cute… that’s a feral rat. a feral rat hovered over my head watching me sleep for three hours while trying to figure out how to assassinate me with a longsword. thanks.

While you slept, He studied the blade

Despereaux SNAPPED

this last comment is the only funny one this post has ever gotten thank you for your service

i made a friend while visiting granada!

Something I’ve realised working in retail is that………..ppl just don’t fucking read……

all customers are jared, 19

2013 vma will always be the best vma

HOW COULD YOU FORGET ABOUT DAFT PUNK????!!!!!

I’m actually just reblogging this because of daft Punk!

The number of times I have been delighted by witty banter only to find out later that I was “Flirting” is both unfortunate and disappointing.

“haha so what about that guy, huh?”

Me: what about him

“Well you seemed super into him”

Me: what why

“…dude you were flirting all night”

Me:

Me: Whoms't™™

I found out several of my female coworkers were planning on trying to get our male coworker to ask me out because “You guys kept flirting” but I was like “We were literally just goofing around. Like we literally just told jokes to each other. Literally just stuff that friends do, the same stuff you and I do.” I was definitely 100% NOT flirting but everyone thought I was

“You were laughing at everything TJ did!”

“He paper clipped a banana to the ceiling, Isabelle. That’s fucking bonkers”