How To Paint Light By Jonhuangart

[Image description: text reading, Lovely video. I have a little personal anecdote that slots surprisingly neatly into the themes of this video.

71 years ago, my grandfather took a cycling trip around the perimeter of France with a friend. He kept a diary, meticulously documenting the events of almost every day. Last month, my brothers and I embarked on the same journey, following in his footsteps. I'd avoided reading the diary beforehand, so every day I'd read about his experience at the same time that I had them myself: the places he'd visited, the food he'd eaten, the people he'd found, and at the same time we'd see the same sights. Some days we were ahead of him, some behind.

After a few days, I realised that something very surprising was happening. 71 years later, and 40 years after the death of this man we never knew, we stopped talking about him in the past tense. It took me a while to notice it, but it slowly became more obvious. We'd say things like "he's just 10 kilometres ahead of us now" or "he's over there as he's taking that photo". Seven decades, suddenly erased - an experience that felt almost out of time - and in those few days he felt closer and more alive than he ever had before. It was a strange experience, and something I doubt I shall ever have again. End image description.]

I just really really love this post, y'all. Like, so much. <3

Wait, so you said that you can learn to trust others by building friendships, but how does one go about doing that? Wouldn't someone I don't know be creeped out or annoyed if I suddenly walked up and started talking to them?

Friendships are built of repeated low-stakes interactions and returned bids for attention with slowly increasing intimacy over time.

It takes a long time to make friends as an adult. People will probably think you're weird if you just walk up and start talking to them as though you are already their friend (people think it's weird when I do this, I try not to do this) but people won't think it's weird if you're someone they've seen a few times who says "hey" and then gradually has more conversations (consisting of more words) with them.

I cheat at forming adult friendships by joining groups where people meet regularly. If you're part of a radio club that meets once a week and you just join up to talk about radios, eventually those will be your radio friends.

If there's a hiking meetup near you and you go regularly, you will eventually have hiking friends.

Deeper friendships are formed with people from those kinds of groups when you do things with them outside of the context of the original interaction; if you go camping with your radio friend, that person is probably more friend than acquaintance. If you go to the movies with a hiking friend who likes the same horror movies as you do, that is deepening the friendship.

In, like 2011 Large Bastard decided he wanted more friends to do stuff with so he started a local radio meetup. These people started as strangers who shared an interest. Now they are people who give each other rides after surgery and help each other move and have started businesses together and have gone on many radio-based camping trips and have worked on each other's cars.

Finding a meetup or starting a meetup is genuinely the cheat-code for making friends.

This is also how making friendships at schools works - you're around a group of people very regularly and eventually you get to know them better and you start figuring out who you get along with and you start spending more time with those people.

If you want to do this in the most fast and dramatic way possible, join a band.

In 2020 I wrote something of a primer on how to turn low-stakes interactions with neighbors and acquaintances into more meaningful relationships; check the notes of this post over the next couple days, I'll dig up the link and share it in a reblog.

i'm so sick of being the only person who can make simple connections of how doing a thing to the ecosystem has effects. so so so so sick NO ONE knows the ways of the plants

aw hell yeah

goth manta goth manta goth manta goth manta goth manta

Link.

Baby armadillo plays with his toy

fires, episode 5 (2021)

Every once in a while I remember that this photo happened and my day gets a little bit better.

Not sure if this counts as fanfiction exactly, given that it's the actors from canon who created it. Apocrypha, maybe?

(Via N.O.'s instagram. x)

[First image description: tumblr user @hawkpartys has shared an infographic titled How to differentiate sharp-shinned haws and cooper's hawks. There are two photos of hawks. In the first photo, a sharp-shinned hawk is captioned SSHA are MUSLIM. An arrow and the word hijab point to its dark hood. In the second photo, a cooper's hawk is captioned COHA are JEWISH. An arrow and the word kippah point to its dark cap. After this are the words, "this image came to me in a dream" /End first image description.]

[Second image description: @hawkpartys has shared a screenshot of another tumblr user's post tag reading, #how neurodivergent must you be about hawks for this to happen in your DREAM /End second image description.]

[Third image description: @hawkpartys has shared a screenshot of a website in which bird observations are catalogued and identified. According to the screenshot, hawkpartys is ranked fourth place globally among users of this website who have shared their identifications of hawks, eagles, kites and allies. Hawkpartys has shared 80,263 identifications. /End third image description.]

[Fourth image description: Tumblr user @elbiotipo has shared a page from a manga. In an auditorium, an athlete kneels on the stage with their head bowed, in clothes for martial arts practice. In the seats, the audience are also kneeling with bowed heads. The caption reads, EVERYBODY WAS KNEELING OUT OF RESPECT. /End fourth image description.]

this image came to me in a dream

Ralph Fleck (German, 1951), Stapel 27/VII [Stack 27/VII], 2013. Oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm.