adults, while forcing all children above the age of 5 to sit still, be silent, and obey orders for 7-8 hours a day with minimal breaks, reducing their exposure to fresh air and sunlight to almost nothing, forcing them to alter their natural sleeping patterns to increase productivity, and repeatedly telling them their self worth depends on their being able to follow these instructions perfectly for 13 or more years: kids these days are so lazy! they never go outside! they never want to do anything! clearly it’s not because of us!
It is honestly so heartbreaking to see how many conversations in the notes are comparing who gets 30 minutes for lunch
and an afternoon or two off or no homework until they’re 12 years old.. as if that in ANY way compares to being able to run out in the sun whenever you feel like it and sleep as much as you need in your own rhythm and be in control of what your day looks like and who you spend it with and not being subjected to an environment that is designed to train discipline.
Experiencing true autonomy and freedom isn’t being able to go to the bathroom without asking, or having wednesday afternoons off. Slightly ‘better’ school systems are still designed to acclimatise kids to the drudgery of wage labour.
Has anyone else noticed how, when you have a chronic condition of some kind, that there’s always the basic assumption from people around you that you’re not already doing everything you can?
It’s all about the illusion of control. People who are healthy like to believe they can always keep being healthy if they do the right things. They don’t want to think about how good people get struck with terrible circumstances for no reason.
So they keep assuming that if they got sick, they could do something to make it better.
And if you’re still sick, that must mean you’ve done something wrong or not done enough.
Nail. Head. The same attitude can be seen in how a lot of people talk about poverty.
And sexual assault. All they have to do is not go there not drink that not wear that not date them and they’ll be fine, right?
The Just World theory – that as long as I do everything right, I’m safe, and everybody who isn’t safe is at fault for not doing everything right – is perhaps the most harmful and widespread mindset today
if you ever see a conservative and wonder just how in the world they have so little compassion? they are genuinely convinced that most – not all, but most – bad things that happen are the fault of the person affected, because then they don’t have to feel bad
somebody explaining this to me as a young adult was, quite literally, the start of me seeing the world in a new way and moving considerably to the left politically. by letting go of the just world mindset my conception of reality shifted considerably
Willy Wonka sent out his chocolate bars worldwide, and 5 white kids (4 with first-world problems) still won.
To be fair, his goal was apparently to send a stern warning about the evils of entitlement by murdering them in ironic ways.
Also, the rich, spoiled, first world white kids aren’t presented in the story as having gotten the tickets by chance, the story is very clear that they and their families used their privilege and power to game the system – taking what was initially presented as a random selection and cheating by leveraging their disproportionate resources – wasting mountains of chocolate in pursuit of gold…
So I have it on the authority of both the animal shelter and the guy that runs the fish and reptile store that this is FINE.
People at the shelter are thrilled to have people come pet/play with the animals to help socialize them, and you can even sign up for scheduled dog walks or other socialization events there! Reptile store guy says that as long as you’re not tapping on the fishtanks or bothering him while he’s trying to help customers, it’s great to have people in the store and learning more about reptiles/getting them accilmated to humans. He even let me hold the boa contrictor once while he was cleaning out her cage.
So go in, be polite and nice to the animals and staff, and have a good time!
To a kid, making music can seem very mysterious, but the fundamental love of playing around with different sounds and listening to how they sound when strung fluidly together is something every musician and composer discovers first in childhood. “I wanted a toy that allowed children to discover for themselves how music was actually made.”
i have no words for how thoroughly this blew my mind.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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