Chetzemoka

Tl;dw - European empires fucked everything up and we're still living with the aftermath. Plus oil.

https://youtu.be/JN4mnVLP0rU?si=36-ZaPvu0vg4LN_m

GOOD. Very proud of my pharmacy colleagues standing up for themselves. More unions, please!

It does make me happy to see it every day.

Omg I didn't notice until you pointed it out, but that's exactly the kitchen from Poltergeist.

Someone was clearly living here very recently, just like "This is fine."

Yep, that's a Nebelung if I've ever seen one. So critical haha

Oh definitely and 1000% would never say that productivity is the purpose of life. That perspective is so disgusting, in my opinion. The interactions I have with my patients that bring such satisfaction are the exact opposite of "productive" and frequently put me at odds with the goals of the corporation I have no choice but to work for.

Probably, for me, I'd say my purpose is to lift up people around me. To help them find the ways they are strong and support them through the ways they are weak. Sometimes the only thing I can really do to help someone in the moment is make them laugh, so I try to do that. Sometimes I just sit with them while they cry. Being a nurse just happens to be a profession where I can do this and also receive a paycheck, so it works for me.

I like to picture the world as a scale of good things and bad things. I can't fix all the bad things, but I can add weight to the side of the good things every day. Put one more thing on the good side of the scale and tilt the world in that direction however minutely. I won't tip the whole scale by myself, but my efforts combined with all the other people in the world doing good things that I don't even know about certainly will, even if I personally don't get to witness that tilting.

And that last paragraph is pretty key, in my opinion. Imagination is a fundamental ability of human beings and what we believe about ourselves and the world affects us more than anything external to ourselves. And the way we imagine ourselves and the world is always inherently within our control. So I think part of "what we do" in life is to create meaning.

My Boomer dad bought a ridiculously expensive gaming laptop because he "wanted the best computer" and still believes that more expensive = better. He uses it to surf the internet...🤦

My Boomer dad bought a ridiculously expensive gaming laptop because he "wanted the best computer" and still believes that more expensive = better. He uses it to surf the internet...🤦

Sure! It's called Ha Long Bay No. 26. It lives here in my house. The artist is Khanh The Bui from Vietnam.

The rocks and boats in the bay are a frequent subject of his. This one I liked in particular for the color palette and also the exaggerated size contrast between the boats and the rocks. Irl the boats are not nearly this small, nor the rocks this large. The exaggerated contrast combined with things like the rocks have reflections in the water, and the boats don't, gives a sort of sense that the humans are temporary and ephemeral compared to the rocks, which are eternal.

Like I said, I stared at this thing for three years before I finally bought it haha. I haven't gotten it framed yet because $$ and also I'm afraid to transport it lol. But I'll get that done.

Here's his page on Saatchi:

https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/668015

I think the only thing that really changed is the internet removed the gatekeeping role of centralized information sources. When you were a kid, was CNN still the end-all-be-all oracle and arbiter of concrete truth? In my mom's generation, it was Walter Cronkite, of course. And if you were one of those people who got your information from Coast to Coast AM or other AM radio shows, you were considered a weirdo because if any of that stuff was really true, then Ted Koppel would have reported on it.

But also, looking back now, how fucking bizarre was it that they televised the invasion of Iraq twice? That's some serious colonial behavior and I had no idea at the time. Now I can see it for what it was.

But also, I really wish we had had one centralized authority to give us information and advice about how to handle Covid. So I think there's good and bad things about the change.

This one particular painting that I've been staring at on Saatchi Art for three entire years. It's the first time I've purchased something expensive that was not also practical, and I'm really happy I finally did. It makes me really happy.