Favorite poems and quotations.

[Tonatiuh]

Nothing happened to me. I happened.

Hannibal Lecter

[Tonatiuh]

The road your father and I walked together is soaked deeply with the blood of both friends and enemies.
The war in which we fought is far from over. We live our lives in hiding. The galactic government considers us terrorists.
It's unwise of me to share these details, but I've become inebriated. The guest list at this wedding includes 17 of the federation's most wanted.
We have committed numerous atrocities in the name of freedom.. I should prepare for the ceremony.

Birdperson, The Wedding Squanchers

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Woe unto ye beetles of South America. ~ Charles Darwin

[Socionics Is A Cult]

A much happier Life to be an Admiral in England, than Czar in Russia. ~ Peter the Great

[Socionics Is A Cult]

The Iliad

(Book XVIII, lines 558 – 720)

*
And first Hephaestus makes a great and massive shield,
blazoning well-wrought emblems all across its surface,
raising a rim around it, glittering, triple-ply
with a silver shield-strap run from edge to edge
and five layers of metal to build the shield itself,
and across its vast expanse with all his craft and cunning
the god creates a world of gorgeous immortal work.

There he made the earth and there the sky and the sea
and the inexhaustible blazing sun and the moon rounding full
and there the constellations, all that crown the heavens,
the Pleiades and the Hyades, Orion in all his power too
and the Great Bear that mankind also calls the Wagon:
she wheels on her axis always fixed, watching Orion,
and she alone is denied a plunge in the Ocean's baths.

And he forged on the shield two noble cities filled
with mortal men. With weddings and wedding feasts in one
and under glowing torches they brought forth the brides
from the women's chambers, marching through the streets
while choir on choir the wedding song rose high
and the young men came dancing, whirling round in rings
and among them the flutes and harps kept up their stirring call —
women rushed to the doors and each stood moved with wonder.
And the people massed, streaming into the marketplace
where a quarrel had broken out and two men struggled
over the blood-price for a kinsman just murdered.
One declaimed in public, vowing payment in full—
the other spurned him, he would not take a thing—
so both men pressed for a judge to cut the knot.

The crowd cheered on both, they took both sides,
but heralds held them back as the city elders sat
on polished stone benches, forming the sacred circle,
grasping in hand the staffs of clear-voiced heralds,
and each leapt to his feet to plead the case in turn.
Two bars of solid gold shone on the ground before them,
a prize for the judge who'd speak the straightest verdict.

But circling the other city camped a divided army
gleaming in battle-gear, and two plans split their ranks:
to plunder the city or share the riches with its people,
hoards the handsome citadel stored within its depths.
But the people were not surrendering, not at all.
They armed for a raid, hoping to break the siege—
loving wives and innocent children standing guard
on the ramparts, flanked by elders bent with age
as men marched out to war. Ares and Pallas led them,
both burnished gold, gold the attire they donned, and great,
magnificent in their armor—gods for all the world,
looming up in their brilliance, towering over troops.
And once they reached the perfect spot for attack,
a watering place where all the herds collected,
there they crouched, wrapped in glowing bronze.
Detached from the ranks, two scouts took up their posts,
the eyes of the army waiting to spot a convoy,
the enemy's flocks and crook-horned cattle coming…
Come they did, quickly, two shepherds behind them,
playing their hearts out on their pipes—treachery
never crossed their minds. But the soldiers saw them,
rushed them, cut off at a stroke the herds of oxen
and sleek sheep-flocks glistening silver-gray
and killed the herdsmen too. Now the besiegers,
soon as they heard the uproar burst from the cattle
as they debated, huddled in council, mounted at once
behind their racing teams, rode hard to the rescue,
arrived at once, and lining up for assault
both armies battled it out along the river banks—
they raked each other with hurtling bronze-tipped spears:

And Strife and Havoc plunged in the fight, and violent Death—
now seizing a man alive with fresh wounds, now one unhurt,
now hauling a dead man through the slaughter by the heels,
the cloak on her back stained red with human blood.
So they clashed and fought like living, breathing men
grappling each other's corpses, dragging off the dead.

And he forged a fallow field, broad rich plowland
tilled for the third time, and across it crews of plowmen
wheeled their teams, driving them up and back and soon
as they'd reach the end-strip, moving into the turn,
a man would run up quickly
and hand them a cup of honeyed, mellow wine
as the crews would turn back down along the furrows,
pressing again to reach the end of the deep fallow field
and the earth churned black behind them, like earth churning,
solid gold as it was—that was the wonder of Hephaestus' work.

And he forged a king's estate where harvesters labored,
reaping the ripe grain, swinging their whetted scythes.
Some stalks fell in line with the reapers, row on row,
and others the sheaf-binders girded round with ropes,
three binders standing over the sheaves, behind them
boys gathering up the cut swaths, filling their arms,
supplying grain to the binders, endless bundles.
And there in the midst the king,
scepter in hand at the head of the reaping-rows,
stood tall in silence, rejoicing in his heart.
And off to the side, beneath a spreading oak,
the heralds were setting out the harvest feast,
they were dressing a great ox they had slaughtered,
while attendant women poured out barley, generous,
glistening handfuls strewn for the reapers' midday meal.

And he forged a thriving vineyard loaded with clusters,
bunches of lustrous grapes in gold, ripening deep purple
and climbing vines shot up on silver-vine poles.
And round it he cut a ditch in dark blue enamel
and round the ditch he staked a fence in tin.
And one lone footpath led toward the vineyard
and down it the pickers ran
whenever they went to strip the grapes at vintage—
girls and boys, their hearts leaping in innocence,
bearing away the sweet ripe fruit in wicker baskets.
And there among them a young boy plucked his lyre,
so clear it could break the heart with longing,
and what he sang was a dirge for the dying year,
lovely… his fine voice rising and falling low
as the rest followed, all together, frisking, singing,
shouting, their dancing footsteps beating out the time.

And he forged on the shield a herd of longhorn cattle,
working the bulls in beaten gold and tin, lowing loud
and rumbling out of the farmyard dung to pasture
along a rippling stream, along the swaying reeds.
And the golden drovers kept the herd in line,
Four in all with nine dos at their heels
their paws flickering quickly—a savage roar!—
a crashing attack—and a pair of ramping lions
had seized a bull from the cattle's front ranks—
he bellowed out as they dragged him off in agony.
Packs of dogs and the young herdsmen rushed to help
but the lions ripping open the hide of the huge bull
were gulping down the guts and the black pooling blood
while the herdsmen yelled the fast pack on—no use.
The hounds shrank from sinking teeth in the lions,
they balked, hunching close, barking, cringing away.

And the famous crippled Smith forged a meadow
deep in a shaded glen for shimmering flocks to graze,
with shepherds' steadings, well-roofed huts and sheepfolds.

And the crippled Smith brought all his art to bear
on a dancing circle, broad as the circle Daedalus
once laid out on Cnossos' spacious fields
for Ariadne the girl with lustrous hair.
Here young boys and girls, beauties courted
with costly gifts of oxen, danced and danced,
linking their arms, gripping each other's wrists.
And the girls wore robes of linen light and flowing,
the boys wore finespun tunics rubbed with a gloss of oil,
the girls were crowned with a bloom of fresh garlands,
the boys swung golden daggers hung on silver belts.
And now they would run in rings on their skilled feet,
nimbly, quick as a crouching potter spins his wheel,
palming it smoothly, giving it practice twirls
to see it run, and now they would run in rows,
in rows crisscrossing rows—rapturous dancing.
A breathless crowd stood round them struck with joy
and through them a pair of tumblers dashed and sprang,
whirling in leaping handsprings, leading out the dance.

And he forged the Ocean River's mighty power girdling
round the outmost rim of the welded indestructible shield.
And once the god had made that great and massive shield
he made Achilles a breastplate brighter than gleaming fire,
he made him a sturdy helmet to fit the fighter's temples,
beautiful, burnished work, and raised its golden crest
and made him greaves of flexing, pliant tin.

Now,
when the famous crippled Smith had finished off
that grand array of armor, lifting it in his arms
he laid it all at the feet of Achilles' mother Thetis—
and down she flashed like a hawk from snowy Mount Olympus
bearing the brilliant gear, the god of fire's gift.

—Homer

(translated by Robert Fagles)

.

[Chae]

Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t.

— Lauren Oliver, Delirium

[Chae]

She wears strength and darkness equally well,
the girl has always been half goddess, half hell.

— Nikita Gill

[Chae]

[Chae]

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that’s ok with them.
— Alain de Botton

[ashlesha]

[Socionics Is A Cult]

It was his belief in the correlation of parts that allowed Cuvier to reconstruct extinct species from their incomplete fossil remains and gave rise to the story of a student who burst into Cuvier's bedchamber in the middle of the night, dressed as Satan, exclaiming, “I am the devil, and I am going to eat you!” Cuvier quietly sneered, "Horns, cloven hooves, a tail: herbivore. You can't eat me."

[Muddy]

[ashlesha]

Eros is an issue of boundaries. He exists because certain boundaries do. In the interval between reach and grasp, between glance and counterglance, between ‘I love you’ and ‘I love you too’, the absent presence of desire comes alive. But the boundaries of time and glance and I love you are only aftershocks of the main, inevitable boundary that creates Eros: the boundary of flesh and self between you and me. And it is only, suddenly, at the moment when I would dissolve that boundary, I realize I never can.
—Anne Carson

[Bertrand]

that's a great quote and I think captures some sense of duality which is the pieces fitting together in such a way so as to come closer to merger than other relations. I also recently read this gulenko description of Si as being "maximum contact between surface area and support" which I thought was really interesting because its sort of goes to how I experience how clothes that fit well feel. Or like a thunder shirt or whatever. Anyway very Fi Si. possibly pure projection on my part. but Im imagining mishapen blocks fitting into one another and desire being the discomfort of a mismatch and the want of a better fit... the impossibility of a perfect fit goes further than duality rather its all on a spectrum where duals are defined as being as close as you can get, with the other types having varying levels of "comfort" that are suboptimal in comparison, but even as duals you can't blend fully and realize that desire which is the absence of pure merger at any given time and the felt distance and discomfort it creates. but I do think perhaps you can, or perhaps heaven in terms of a merger of all souls, or to be reunited with your love (whether it be a spouse or savior) is in some sense a metaphorical take on the same issue. to be one is the longing of all souls on some level but we describe it in many ways with many different interpretations of a paradisal state. in the end perhaps just being alive and being conscious is being conscious of the state of being less than merged i.e.: differentiated. it was the step out of eden which we long to return to, but its also precisely what constitutes life and experience itself and this is Fi in some sense the constant awareness of our differentiated aspects and the space between. sometimes I want to die and then I wonder what for? its like what am I trying to achieve and its like I don't really know, and then I think the merger is here on earth because you have to live to move toward it and maybe its not so much perfection that is the goal but the move toward it and then I think theres all this kind of stuff someone wants to hear but I rarely or never tell anyone it because I was raised to believe this way of thinking was unnacceptable and no one wants to hear it and then I think oh that's why I want to die, because I'm not allowed to move toward the goal and there's no point to any of this, and then I think everyone has their own version of that they need to overcome and its a real bitch but then you think maybe that's the transcendent aspect of being that unifies us all, which is to say we need to really believe life is worth living because the goal is possible at least inasmuch as movement toward it is possible and such a thing should be attempted, and the human tragedy is that we convince eachother its not under the auspices we're doing them a favor (like any parent that "teaches" their children to disown themselves--and teacher/student relations of this kind go way beyond parent/chld, although that is where people are most vulnerable, we teach eachother to "give in" all the time, and it really is a jungle in that sense, that needs to be civilized, and who will that exclude and thus kill directly or indirectly). in the end we all go through some kind of death or another so I guess the hope is for a resurrection whereby we can survive this process and come out better and not worse. I guess that's where faith comes in, or just straight hardheadedness. the will to live to overcome to die and to live again all seem intertwined and there are many interpretations of that struggle

[Aylen]

"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old time, and regulate the sun;
Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his follow'rs trod,
And quitting sense call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule—
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!"

An Essay on Man: Epistle II
BY ALEXANDER POPE

[Skepsis]

einstein imaginatin.png

[ooo]

einstein imaginatin.png

holy g.. stolen for beauty purposes~

[Tallmo]

I don't really read poetry, but this one I have remembered. It's an unusual poem, both strange and ordinary at the same time. It's in Swedish, but we might have some Swedish speakers here.



Fågeln faller död från gren
kall är månens båge.
Kärven står på bondens gård
med de gula axen.
Ack om bara bondens gård
lite närmare låge!
Blodspår i snön. En hungrig räv
har lämnat sina tassar i saxen.

Kall månen lyser.

Snötäckta vik,
låna en flik
av ditt täcke till den som fryser!





- Barbro Mörne
Vingar, skuggor, segel (1951)

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Bader was giving a talk during assembly at a posh girl's school, and was recounting one of the many dogfights in which he was shot down....

"I had two fuckers to the left of me, two fuckers to the right, another two fuckers below, and one fucker coming in from the sun"

At this point the headmistress interjected "I must inform you girls that there is a type of aircraft called a fokker spelled f-o-k-k-e-r"

"I don't know about that", said Bader, "this lot were all flying Messerschmitts"

.

[Bertrand]

exhibit a to my above ramble

Constantin_Brancusi,_1907-08,_The_Kiss,_Exhibited_at_the_Armory_Show_and_published_in_the_Chicag.jpg

[Kill4Me]

[velveteen]

"I hope you don’t want all my time, because the pleasure in my life comes from the knowledge that it’s mine."

They're song lyrics. Resonated. Much beautiful.

[Aylen]

"Spiritual materialism is rampant and a life filled with spirit is a rarity. I don't care how many crystals you have, how vegan your food is, or whether your Venus is in Jupiter since the last time you blamed your problems on the moon. If the way we carry and express ourselves condemns others while lifting ourselves, then we're as off target as the people we're condemning. I drink with the thinkers and smoke with the preachers and I've never met a good man that believed he has the answers. Let your personality be your greatest work of art, and let your actions weave a thread of unity. Laugh at the voice(s) in your head, befriend your ego before you listen to that bullshit that tells you to destroy it. That's McDonalds spirituality - even attempting to get rid of ego means you want to avoid this and move towards that - creating more of the same inner conflict you're trying to avoid. Inner silence and enviable peace doesn't come from the avoidance of life as it is, it comes from moving as deeply into life as you can. The only way out is in, and the only way beyond is through." - Bryan Elli

[NdFeB08]

"Spiritual materialism is rampant and a life filled with spirit is a rarity. I don't care how many crystals you have, how vegan your food is, or whether your Venus is in Jupiter since the last time you blamed your problems on the moon. If the way we carry and express ourselves condemns others while lifting ourselves, then we're as off target as the people we're condemning. I drink with the thinkers and smoke with the preachers and I've never met a good man that believed he has the answers. Let your personality be your greatest work of art, and let your actions weave a thread of unity. Laugh at the voice(s) in your head, befriend your ego before you listen to that bullshit that tells you to destroy it. That's McDonalds spirituality - even attempting to get rid of ego means you want to avoid this and move towards that - creating more of the same inner conflict you're trying to avoid. Inner silence and enviable peace doesn't come from the avoidance of life as it is, it comes from moving as deeply into life as you can. The only way out is in, and the only way beyond is through." - Bryan Elli

Damn. This is real in the gangsta rap and the existential way; this part "befriend your ego before you listen to that bullshit that tells you to destroy it" I think is especially true, the only way to really end a conflict is with unity, starting with oneself - and that doesn't come from fighting something.

[Skepsis]

Defense lawyer: “What about the three swabs from the RAV that were not tested by Mr. LeBeau? Can any conclusion be drawn on that?”

Arvizu: “I’m an analytical chemist. I’m not in the business of just guessing what’s in samples. We have to test samples to decide what’s in them.”

[Tonatiuh]

It is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

Jorge Luis Borges, A New Refutation of Time

[Skepsis]

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."

Blade Runner

[wasp]

"The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. I've always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar." — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [x]

[Skepsis]

"The old dogmas cannot learn new tricks."

Dorothy Parker

[wasp]

Options

We were walking, holding hands
With our bare feet in the sand
And the seagulls overhead
When I broke the spell and said
I could never divorce you
Without a good reason
And though I may never have to
It's good to have options
But for now
I need you
But it was only in my head
Because no one ever says
What they really mean to say
When there's so much at stake
So I told her I loved her
She told me she loved me
And I mostly believed her
And she mostly believed me

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

Kostoglotov leaves the zoo, and after wandering around town decides against going to see Zoya or Vera. He does find the courage to go to Vera's once, but he has left it so late in the day that she is no longer there, and he decides not to try again. He is well aware that the hormone therapy used as part of his cancer treatment may have left him impotent, just as imprisonment and exile have taken all the life out of him. He feels he has nothing left to offer a woman, and that his past means he would always feel out of place in what he sees as normal life. Instead, he decides to accept less from life than he had hoped for, and to face it alone. He heads to the railway station to fight his way onto a train to Ush-Terek, the distant village to which he had been exiled and where he has friends. He writes a goodbye letter to Vera from the station:

You may disagree, but I have a prediction to make: even before you drift into the indifference of old age, you will come to bless this day, the day you did not commit yourself to share my life ... Now that I am going away ... I can tell you quite frankly: even when we were having the most intellectual conversations and I honestly thought and believed everything I said, I still wanted all the time, all the time, to pick you up and kiss you on the lips.

So try to work that out.
And now, without your permission, I kiss them.

[wasp]

"if we do not adapt by modifying our attitudes and expectations, our minds and bodies will suffer"

[Exodus]

"if we do not adapt by modifying our attitudes and expectations, our minds and bodies will suffer"

Is that from here?: https://books.google.com/books?id=t7...119&lpg=PA119&

I like this quote: "The greatest stressor most people experience daily is change" - Si vs. Ne.

[wasp]

"A majority of people are well-meaning, but details get fudged, enthusiasm fades, memory is poor, interpretations are different, judgments get clouded, and external circumstances intervene. Hence, the counsel of the humorist Finley Peter Dunne -- Trust everybody, but cut the cards."

[at sirac son of sirac]

[Aylen]

“She didn't quite know what the relationship was between lunatics and the moon, but it must be a strong one, if they used a word like that to describe the insane.”
― Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die

[ashlesha]

To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall
Kim Addonizio

If you ever woke in your dress at 4am ever
closed your legs to a man you loved opened
them for one you didn’t moved against
a pillow in the dark stood miserably on a beach
seaweed clinging to your ankles paid
good money for a bad haircut backed away
from a mirror that wanted to kill you bled
into the back seat for lack of a tampon
if you swam across a river under rain sang
using a dildo for a microphone stayed up
to watch the moon eat the sun entire
ripped out the stitches in your heart
because why not if you think nothing &
no one can / listen I love you joy is coming

[ashlesha]

WHY ARE YOU LONELY: A TEXT GAME - Mallory Ortberg

WHY ARE YOU LONELY: CHOOSE ONE

FAILED TO NURTURE RELATIONSHIPS BORN OUT OF CONVENIENCE ONCE CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRED ACTIVE PARTICIPATION FROM YOU

WATCHED NETFLIX FOR SEVEN HOURS INSTEAD OF SLEEPING BECAUSE YOU HAVE ONCE AGAIN MISTAKEN INERTIA FOR REST

CONFUSED “SELF-CARE” WITH “SELF-INDULGENCE” AGAIN; YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF EXPERIENCING GENUINE REFRESHMENT OR RESTORATION BUT YOU DO SPEND A LOT OF MONEY AT NAIL SALONS

ONCE AGAIN CONFUSED “EMPATHY” FOR “TAKING RESPONSIBILITY” AND INVITED OTHERS TO UNLOAD THEIR EMOTIONAL BURDENS ON YOU WITHOUT FIRST ENSURING RECIPROCITY, WHOOPS

ANTICIPATORILY BLAMED OTHER PEOPLE FOR NOT CALLING YOU WITHOUT ONCE ASKING YOURSELF WHY YOU CAN’T CALL THEM

ASSUMING ANY TIME SPENT TOGETHER THAT YOU HAD TO INITIATE IS SOMEHOW LESS AUTHENTIC THAN REQUESTS FOR TIME SPENT TOGETHER THAT YOU ACCEPT

BELIEVE “PERIODICALLY EXPERIENCING THE HUMAN CONDITION” MEANS SOMETHING IS FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN WITHIN YOU

CONSTANTLY LIE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS THEN WONDER WHY YOU FEEL LIKE NO ONE KNOWS YOU

MISTAKENLY BELIEVE THAT NEGATIVE FEELINGS MUST BE MISTAKES EITHER TO BE AVOIDED OR FIXED RATHER THAN EXPERIENCED

DESIRE TO BE FULLY UNDERSTOOD WITHOUT THE CONCOMITANT WILLINGNESS TO FULLY EXPLAIN YOURSELF

BELIEVE TRYING AT SOMETHING A LITTLE BIT SHOULD RESULT IN INSTANT PERFECTION AND FIND YOURSELF HORRIFIED AND ASHAMED OF MAKING REALISTIC PROGRESS

TRY COCONUT OIL

CONVINCED THAT HONESTLY ADMITTING YOUR PROBLEMS WILL DRIVE PEOPLE AWAY BECAUSE NO ONE LIKES COMPLAINING SO INSTEAD YOU OFFER EVERYONE A PISS-POOR SIMULACRUM OF BEING EASY-GOING

STILL JUST WAITING FOR THINGS TO HAPPEN TO YOU INSTEAD OF EXPRESSING YOUR DESIRES ALOUD

THINK YOU’RE BEING PLAYFUL BUT ACTUALLY YOU JUST GET MEAN WHEN YOU DRINK

SPEND ALL YOUR TIME SAYING THINGS LIKE “EITHER’S GOOD” OR “DOESN’T MATTER TO ME” WHEN IN FACT ONLY ONE THING IS GOOD AND IT DOES MATTER TO YOU BUT YOU THINK “NOT EXPRESSING A PREFERENCE” IS THE BEST PERSONALITY TRAIT YOU HAVE TO OFFER OTHERS

PEOPLE ACTUALLY MORE AWARE OF YOUR BARELY-CONCEALED CONTEMPT FOR THEIR CHOICES AND RELATIONSHIPS THAN YOU THINK THEY ARE

NO GOOD REASON, SORRY

[Aylen]

[ashlesha]