Beginnings require only observation, from there, slow or fast, motion comes as does the day.

8:50 am sat WET

Today comes, not with a bang, but persistent intention to be drunk with life.

We are staying with friends for a few days in Porto, Portugal.

The apartment building isn’t attractive. Built in the last 15 years, it is blocky and devoid of visual interest. An absolute contrast to the care and ornament of the old city.

The interior of the apartment is warm and welcoming though. Very large rooms. a stark contrast to what I am used to. Warm wood floors, and in the living room, a floating rock wall. On the wall are tiny sea urchin shells and life sized Indian honey bees crafted from metal. The shells gathered from walks on the beach here; the insect effigies acquired from artisans in India, where our friends lived for five years.

Our room, when I wake at 8:30 is pitch black. Here they have incredible steel shutters that close to protect against storms, break-in AND light when completely closed. My body is alive and excited to tell me it is morning and time for life, but from a photon’s perspective, this is a closed book. I may as well be lost between galaxies— but even then, I’ have starlight.

Darkness

This place is utterly dark!

In this living womb, it is a space of rest and imagination. And my mind travels far away from here to familiar smells and faces, indulging where reality prevents. It brings a smile and glow to me that only I can see. Even angels could not peer into this moment that is wholly mine in which to bask.

The dark be damned! In this moment, I become my own brilliant day star, power med by thoughts of another.

But, fantasy cannot sustain a life—only occasionally supercharge it.

Peeling my form from the bed, I stumble to tend to the needs my aging body demands first thing in the morning. Finally fully awake, I step out onto the deck to greet the day.

Outside

The sky is not glorious, but the bakery below is always a welcome sight. And smell.

A woman in a gunmetal puffy coat with little tennis shoes saves out of Snopoas, the little restaurant/bakery I can see, and scoot-runs to a little silver car with black wheels, no hub caps, two door hatch back. She must have been cold, people don’t dash off and then just sit there for 90 more seconds. He is probably fiddling with his phone while she savors the wash of hot coffee.

As they zip away, i notice an older couple have come out to walk their dog. It is a large German shepherd whom they have proved a wheelchair for. The dog walked tiredly on jots front legs while dragging its useless hind legs as they dangle from the contraption.

No doubt they love the dog, but it seems selfish to let it suffer this way. It is a dog. I love dogs, but they are not designed for an existence beyond their 10 or 15 years.

The kind thing would be to put it down and rehome a new dog. 😔

It’s kind of sad. I think they may have replaced the affection they had for a child, with this dog.

I turn to shower and dress. The beach is calling to me.

And so I must go.

United States Air Force Colonel Barbara Cho, spokesperson for the Pentagon, made a shocking announcement today whether to reconsider their relationship with Santa after allegations of divulging classified information to a group of children during a Zoom meeting.

Stephen Willis, the father of a 14-year old daughter, were both present during the online call. He said during the interview, “It’s crazy. Santa’s face was bright red, his speech slurred, and he ranted that his sleigh was a prototype based on alien technology constructed at Area 51.”

Colonel Cho has denied all allegations of Santa’s sleigh being based on alien technology, that Area 51 exists, and that an alien craft landed on Roswell back in 1947. She referred to Project Blue Book, a decade long plus study that concluded all allegations of alien UFOs have been proven false.

In a final statement, Colonel Cho said, “We take this matter of national security seriously and hope to settle this matter for the sake of our children.”

DOJ spokesperson Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ana said that an investigation is underway and wouldn’t comment any further until the investigation is complete. He also said, “We’re also investigating the father, Mr. Willis, why his daughter still believes in Santa Claus.”

Santa declined an interview and has denied all allegations about the matter.

#news #parody #santa #airforce #doj

Lydia's Weekly Lifestyle blog is for today's African girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things that may interest today's African girl.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Pépé Pépinière, Titi. This week's subjects: Corporate Christmas Chic: The Accra Girl’s Playful Guide to Slaying the Festive Office Season, 2026 Fashion prediction, Wedding rings, and Level Bar and Lounge

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Corporate Christmas Chic: The Accra Girl’s Playful Guide to Slaying the Festive Office Season. Ah, Christmas in Accra — where the harmattan breeze is giving “soft life,” the traffic jams sparkle with fairy lights, and every office turns into a runway for festive corporate slay. If you’ve been wondering how to blend professionalism with a sprinkle of holiday magic, gather round, sis. It’s time to unwrap the corporate Christmas fashion trends taking over Accra this season! The Christmas-But-Make-It-Corporate Colour Palette: If you think red and green are the only options, think again. The Accra corporate girl is remixing tradition: Champagne gold blouses tucked into crisp tailored pants. Emerald pencil skirts with neutral bodysuits. Berry red suits for the daring queen. Metallic accents here and there because why not? It’s giving glamour without shouting “I’m the office Christmas tree.” Tip: Harmattan dust + white clothing? Choose wisely. Or carry wipes. You know your enemies. Ankara… But Festive! Nobody does Christmas creativity like the Accra fashionista: Ankara with gold foiling. Wax prints featuring deep greens, burgundies, or navy. Subtle shimmer woven into patterns A dramatic peplum top here, a structured blazer there. This is the season to let African prints mingle with corporate silhouettes. From Makola to the boardroom, the slay is intentional. Statement Sleeves With Corporate Discipline: Puffy sleeves, bishop sleeves, ruffles — the girls are not holding back. But of course, we balance it with: Straight-leg trousers. Midi skirts. Minimal accessories. Let the sleeves do the talking while you close deals like the star you are.

2026 Fashion prediction. People will change the colour of their hair frequently, at great cost and using all sorts of poisonous chemicals, to suit the colour of the dress they are wearing. Please mention me to friends when you see it happening.

Wedding rings. We're coming to the end of the year and many of us look at our achievements and failures. I decided to do some cleaning up in my phone. And found that almost 6 years ago Covid started in Ghana and the rest of the world. Memories of the lockdown, most of us lost some friends, the security guys at the supermarkets became all powerful and measured your temperature (they didn’t but anyway they pointed something at you) and it was legal to enter a bank with a mask on your face. And worldwide discussions about vaccines which are still ongoing today, and some claim it never happened, that it was just something like a common cold. Meanwhile the West tried to keep the show going by injecting monies into airlines that were not flying and restaurants which were closed, and today we have not yet solved the problem of how to get that money back and one can say that the world is in a recession of which the end has not yet been seen. As a safe haven people now put their money into Gold which's price has skyrocketed so that the average person cannot afford a golden wedding ring any more. Covid.

Level Bar and Lounge, Asafoatse Tempong Street, Kuku Hill Crescent Osu, Accra. It’s in the same street as the Republic Bar. We went there to scout the place, next evening Accra Fashion Week @ 25 was to have an event there, and I wanted to be sure I could find the place. The interior is worth going for, and it is big, you can be out or in. We were there on a Tuesday evening around 9 pm, and were the only customers. In that big place. They only have the QR code menu, I don’t like that, unfortunately you see it more and more. I told my guest to make a second choice because I expected most of the things on the menu not to be there. But to my surprise all went well, the service was good, we had Chicken Marocain with couscous, nice and different, seafood fried rice which was nice, and shrimp tempura which I will come back for. Prices are reasonable, but bring change, they don’t have it, next evening again they had no change. This is one of the things HE John Dramani Mahama was talking about, poor customer service, and not having change is an endemic one. If you are the owner and you see you have no change you go to the bank in the morning and get change. You’re supposed to bank your earnings from last night anyway.

Lydia...

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[22.xii.25.b : lundi / 7 December] to find (in this case) is not a matter of chance, but of formulation … after a period of reading, meditation, prayer, composition, and contemplation : just at the point where the growth of my private library has been limited by material concerns, that is the moment when the ship can drop anchor, I can suit up, and prepare myself for a descent in the abysses. Fiction is an ethical expression, a way of living in the world, distinct from the strictures of realism. Fiction is the world in which we practice the art of escape, but not escape from, but an escape into the innermost, the highest. Just as I don’t need anyone to witness my reading, my meditation, my prayer, my contemplation, I don’t need anyone to witness my composition : but when taken altogether, the object is to reach a reader, to make contact : the symbols work both ways. When the Parson says, “Contact has been made,” he could be speaking for the Zebrafish and not on behalf of the Nucleus of the Swarm. What the Story shows is the defeat of “I see evil everywhere”. Some call it surrealism, but it’s good old fashion true fiction.

It’s funny thinking about V.W.’s anxieties, concerning the value of her work, I mean. Looking back … who knows what the future holds? V.W. writes:

“Robert Bridges likes Mrs Dalloway: says no one will read it; but it is beautifully written, & some more…”

better to be beautifully written than to be read … still it’s worth reading, esp. in that beautiful annotated edition.

Here’s the beginning of V.W.’s theory about fiction: “I don’t think it is a matter of ‘development’ but something to do with prose & poetry, in novels … Reality [is] something … put in at different distances … One would have to go into conventions; real life; & so on. … And death—as I always feel—hurrying near. 43: how many more books?”

I take “development” here to be progress in the sense of new approaches, new techniques … like what scientists & technologists are always going on about, what’s new! coz new sells. Just read Don Quixote. That could have been written yesterday. Not that I don’t think Anaïs Nin’s critique of the novel, her desire for a novel of the future, is on point. Novels are just a concept. Why should we buy their distinction between prose & poetry? Why is this not a poem? Is it that the one with the largest collection of the tiniest boxes wins? What kind of game is that? Not to mention the strain on the eyes.

Death. Death? Where is your … ding! time’s up!

Keep the books comin’ I say.

They called me the Ice Queen:

a framework of discarded beauty
     hung on a battered shape
     with firmness of flesh & blue of eye
the formidable manner has gone

the sun coming out
               having had my cry
     now, to write
            a list of Christmas presents

Good and evil are very powerful concepts, and they can slot themselves very eagerly at the centre of anyone's system of ethics, making them profoundly important to have a good grasp on. Generally most people's view of ethics aligns with either the solid absolutism of divine command (the way eg. of Abrahamic religions), or similar universalism (see: Kantian ethics), while a different take (eg. postmodern ethics) poses a more fundamental relativity to ethics, which necessarily take different faces with different cultures or even with different individuals. While I'm generally supportive of a position of ethical relativism, in itself it is a vacuous take, and it requires more nuance, or at least some heuristic model, for actually orienting ourselves in the daily life. In the interest of providing one, I'll take the long view.

We start out with simple matter: plasma was one of the first products of the Big Bang, its mere existence a miracle compared to what preceded it—nonexistence. Something from nothing. Being instead of non-being. And yet, such conditions of extremely hot and disordered matter are antithetical to all earthly life, and even after the cooling down it would become mere inanimated matter, the existential baseline that we call death. A miracle of miracles at the time, and yet things have moved so much further from there.

Eventually Earth developed life on it, starting with the unicellular being, capable of the basic life functions of eating, reproducing, and spreading. And its uncontrolled and global spread meant that Earth finally managed to get colonized by life! If such a thing happened today, such an overbearing spread would be called a plague.

After life on Earth got its wish to widely exist fulfilled, it then moved on to grander aims: no longer to merely exist, but to coexist! Life diversified, single cells gathered together to live as one greater whole, more complex beings emerged time after time, and more complex systems and ecosystems with them. Driven by the external factors like survival, competition and efficiency, life ever grew more complex, more organized, more interwoven. Across countless species, life on Earth self-organized not just to propagate but to regulate themselves and other life forms around them and the system as a whole (like lichens slowly turning stone into living matter, plants anchoring the earth to prevent landslides, or beavers slowing down the waters' flow to create widely accessible wetlands).

And all throughout, the old has not been subsumed: matter remains the foundation of existence. Unicellular beings remain the most prolific on Earth. Every next phase builds upon the last, not replacing but integrating. However hard-won, each piece of progress brings a greater, more complex harmony, taking the existing voices and weaving them into yet more intricate compositions. Notes into chords, and chords into symphonies.

As humans, we have picked up the very same torch—we call it by names like evolution, progress, advancement—and we've added layers of our own to the system, one after the other. We can see the same patterns at play in our technological advancements: each technology has empowered us to live in a more complex and refined way, and it has also in turn allowed us to achieve a yet further advancement, previously out of reach.

And each time this happens, we see the previous achievements as crude, wasteful, obsolete. The first car was steam-powered! Imagine the scene it would cause to stroll atop one on modern streets.

What we eg. understand nowadays as an universal good (access to internet) was not just unachievable, but unthinkable a mere 100 years ago. As times changed, we've adjusted our lifestyle, and with it our expectations and our dreams both. We change what we think is reasonable, and we change what we dream of to move yet further.

And this is recognizable as a fundamental quality of existence—we do not only merely live, but we reach for more. In Tarot, it is the fundament, the card zero: The Fool. Some term it the unstoppable march of progress, some the indomitable human spirit. Terence McKenna put it as the Universe's inexhaustible search for novelty, acting as a universal attractor towards some future point/state of being. This force we recognize as common to all of us, in our capacity to wish, to dream, to want, to pursue.

But, even though as we can be said to move in a single general direction, as much as we possess one broadly common goal, the process is still not obvious, and it doesn't happen all at once. Progress/evolution is a careful and gradual coaxing of the future out of time, and it happens piece by piece. Leonardo da Vinci dreamt of the helicopter, but only in the XX century did we become able to bring the technology to actually etch the dream into the concreteness of matter.

Not all dreams are suited to all times; life was unachievable shortly after the Big Bang. Same-day shipping of global products was a hard sell at the time of horse-drawn carriages. Each goal must be filtered through the bottleneck of present reality and tested through the limitations of current space-time. To the forward force of progress is paired its necessary nemesis: the attrition of present circumstances. This takes on many forms, such as material possibilities, tradition, conservativism, fear for the future, and the inertia present in both matter and souls.

This is a necessary counterbalance, for dreams can be excessive; they can be anachronistic; they can be misshapen. Or, they can be taken not seriously enough, for to condense a dream into reality is hard, long and laborious work. Dreams can be overvalued and they can be underestimated, and each of these situations makes them dangerous, for to bring an unfit dream forward is an act of violence, that takes apart the past to build something worse in its place. To pursue change for its own sake is mere disruption, and I bet most people in the tech space have gotten sick of the term by now. The forward march of progress is more like a game of attack and defense, a counterbalance between the impetus for the new-or-different and the resistance to change, which in its healthy functioning serves as a filter for worthy dreams.

As progress draws on, some dreams become too obsolete, too small to count as actual progress. To make an example of this, we can look at the modern economy. To chase the dream of individual profit and personal power, some people have ammassed power unto themselves, and used this power to make it easier for them to ammass more power, in an upwards spiral that reached modern heights of entire branches of present-day economy being dominated by monopolies, or more commonly organized oligopolies, where they are the only game in town and they have the power to keep that being the case, and such they decide their product quality not based on what can be done for the customer, but what the customer will not reject; and their prices not based on the manufacturing cost, but based on how much can be extorted out of each buyer. This has generated a global malaise that we all recognize, out of a dream that we can understand being unfit for our times.

Some dreams are too small for a circustance, and some are too big, and both are, in that moment, to be discarded. Good and evil, as such, become a matter not of what must be achieved but what can be achieved. Which, at the end of the day, is one of the most obvious moral concepts, that of doing one's best; however, it must be guided by the presence of mind that is able to tease apart the Possible in each singular circumstance. As it is called sometimes, such presence is the practice of truth seeking.

The propelling force behind the forward push for progress is the force for integration, for weaving parts into a coherent whole, pieces into a new machine, to order sounds into music, libraries into a tech stack, individuals into a community, a union, a family, a collective, a movement. “When two or three are gathered in my name, there I am,” where that “I am” was not about the man but the essence of the man: the common cause, the harmonizing factor; the divine amongst beings, resulting by the mere coherence of intent.

To bring about this further integration is the work of our highest faculties: consciousness, creativity, imagination and love; and it is a work that is always going on and never finished.

I disappeared for two days. Not in a dramatic way. No mystery. No blood. Just Abu Dhabi.

Apparently, when you don’t go out for a while, your friends decide to drag you across an emirate as if fresh air might reboot your personality. The plan was the Zayed National Museum. It didn’t work out, because plans rarely do. So we went to the Zayed Festival instead.

lights, noise, so much noise. too much people, We stayed until midnight, which already felt like a small act of rebellion against my usual habits.

They told me to sleep over. “Then tomorrow we go somewhere else, then we drive back to Dubai.” That sentence had no clear meaning, but I agreed anyway. Tired people agree to stupid things.

The night passed. Nothing poetic happened. Just sleep. Disappointing, I know.

The next day we went to the Natural History Museum. Finally, something that made sense. Animals. Bones. Creatures that lived, survived, and died without pretending to be interesting on social media. I liked that. Animals don’t lie. They don’t explain themselves. They just exist, eat, kill, sleep, repeat. Efficient. Honest. Relatable. I didn’t write during those two days. Not because I was busy discovering myself or whatever people say. I just didn’t feel like turning moments into sentences. Sometimes living is enough, and sometimes it’s just living.

After that, I drove back to Dubai. Home. Same roads. Same thoughts. Same quiet that follows you no matter how far you drive.

I’ll write about it properly later. Or I won’t. Not everything needs to be meaningful to be remembered.

Sincerely,

still unimpressed,

Ahmed

Asle Toje har fått en slags nasjonalkonservativ nyttårstale på trykk i Aftenposten, som fortjener et godt tilsvar. Trump-administrasjonen hevder at Europa står overfor “sivilisasjonskollaps” på grunn av innvandring og diverse “indre fiender”. En påstand de færreste europeere og nordmenn vil si seg enig i. Men Toje er ikke så sikker. “Har de rett?” spør han retorisk i innledningen, og resten av teksten er et dårlig innpakket og svulstig “ja”.

Inne i denne reaksjonære tåkeheimen av en tekst finner vi odiøse fraser som “Når individualisme settes over fellesskapet, nytelsen over forpliktelsen, tømmes samfunnet for samhold”, “kjærlighet til fedrelandet (...) er en plikt” og “en nasjon er et skjebnefellesskap”. Dette skjebnefellesskapet er truet av “selvopptatte minoriteter” og “eliter som synes å ha glemt hvem de representerer”.

“Spørsmålet er ikke hva som truer oss utenfra”, hevder Toje, mens Putin truer i øst og Trump truer i vest. Virkelig? Hvordan kan det IKKE være spørsmålet, mens Europa jobber på spreng for å ruste opp mot Russland i fraværet av en troverdig sikkerhetsgaranti fra USA, og USAs president nok en gang signaliserer at han vil annektere Grønland? Skal vi møte denne trusselen med å pirke i navleloet og dyrke nasjonalkonservative idealer fra obskure filosofer fra slutte av 1800-tallet?

Hvem andre er det som vil at vi skal vende blikket innover, mistro våre “illegitime” eliter og gjøre nasjonale minoriteter til syndebukker? Jo, det er jo de selvsamme herrer Putin og Trump. Om vi skal tro USAs nye sikkerhetsstrategi er amerikansk utenrikstjeneste klare for å slutte rekkene med russisk etterretning for å styrke isolasjonistiske, reaksjonære og autoritære krefter i Europa. Om Trump ikke fikk fredsprisen, får han i alle fall en hjelpende hånd fra komitéens nestleder.

Toje har lenge kritisert Norges støtte til Ukraina, som han ikke oppfatter som “vår kamp”. Han har også vært mer enn forståelsesfull overfor Trump (“ein mench”, i Tojes egne ord). I den grad Norge skal dyrke samhold og være på vakt mot indre fiender om dagen, bør vi nok først og fremst være på vakt mot dem blant oss som forsøker å avlede oppmerksomheten mot de reelle ytre truslene vårt åpne, liberale demokrati nå står overfor. Se mindre

#NSFW

This post is NSFW 19+ Adult content. Viewer discretion is advised.

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https://soundcloud.com/hustin_art/sets/ai_kurosawa/s-MliRse6HgVa?si=d8976e6aefb2412faed684d5f1eccdc7&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

In Connection With This Post: Ai Kurosawa https://hustin.art/ai-kurosawa

Ai Kurosawa boasted a characteristically Japanese, cute yet distinctive face, an extreme wasp-waisted hourglass curve, and voluptuous breasts. She was a rare hybrid actress combining a mature Western silhouette with an Eastern scale. …

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#Material com Apoio de IA 🤖 #

Estamos criando crianças numa sala acolchoada — e depois fingindo surpresa quando o mundo machuca.

A sala acolchoada

Nunca a infância foi tão protegida, monitorada, filtrada, mediada e higienizada.

E aqui não é proteção no sentido nobre — é amortecimento existencial.

• Frustração virou trauma.
• Tédio virou problema clínico.
• Conflito virou violência.
• Discordância virou ofensa.

Criamos ambientes onde:

• Não se perde (todo mundo ganha medalha).
• Não se erra (erro é “processo”, nunca consequência).
• Não se espera (dopamina imediata, tela, estímulo, recompensa).
• Não se suporta silêncio, desconforto ou limite.

Resultado? Crianças emocionalmente frágeis, hiperestimuladas e hipotreinadas.

O mundo real (spoiler: ele não é acolchoado)

O mundo:

• Não pede licença.
• Não se adapta ao seu sentimento.
• Não explica tudo.
• Não garante segurança emocional.
• Não valida sua dor antes de te cobrar desempenho.

O mundo cobra competência, tolerância à frustração, resiliência e autonomia.

E ele cobra sem tutorial.

Aí acontece o choque:

“Mas meu filho sempre foi tratado com cuidado…”

Pois é.

O mundo não assina esse contrato.

O paradoxo cruel

Na tentativa de evitar sofrimento, estamos criando adultos que sofrem mais.

Porque:

• Quem nunca caiu não sabe levantar.
• Quem nunca ouviu “não” não sabe negociar.
• Quem nunca falhou não sabe persistir.
• Quem nunca foi contrariado não sabe conviver.

Isso não é teoria — é fisiologia, psicologia, neurodesenvolvimento e, francamente, observação empírica básica.

Mas atenção: não é sobre brutalidade

Aqui vem a parte que muita gente erra (ou finge não entender):

Não é criar crianças duras.

É criar crianças capazes.

Não é negligência.

É exposição progressiva ao real.

• Limite não é violência.
• Frustração não é trauma.
• Responsabilidade não é opressão.
• Autonomia não é abandono.

Acolher não é eliminar o desconforto — é ensinar a atravessá-lo.

O que forma alguém “pronto pro mundo”?

Não é blindagem. É treino.

Crianças prontas pro mundo:

• Sabem lidar com o “não”.
• Sabem esperar.
• Sabem perder.
• Sabem errar sem colapsar.
• Sabem que nem tudo é justo — e seguem em frente mesmo assim.

Isso se constrói com pequenas dores controladas, não com anestesia constante.

Em resumo (sem anestesia):

Estamos criando crianças emocionalmente seguras?

Ou emocionalmente dependentes de amortecimento?

Porque o mundo não vai colocar espuma nas quinas só porque a infância virou uma sala acolchoada.

E a pergunta final — a mais incômoda — é essa:

Estamos protegendo as crianças… ou protegendo os adultos do desconforto de ver crianças sofrerem um pouco para se tornarem fortes?

Conheço muitas pessoas que não conseguem ficar no silêncio.

O motivo? O “silêncio é ensurdecedor”; causador de ansiedade imediata.

Será que é verdade ou essas pessoas estão com medo dos próprios pensamentos?

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O que poderia fazer um eco tão ruim nos próprios pensamentos que não se permitem nem ouvir?

Confesso que não compreendo.

Confesso também que estou tentando compreender o motivo da Geração.Com¹ ter tanto medo dos próprios pensamentos e ideias.

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Será que isso é verdade mesmo?

Ou essas pessoas têm medo dos próprios pensamentos?

O que existe de tão insuportável dentro da própria mente que não pode ser ouvido sem a necessidade de um som de fundo? Sem uma tela acesa? Sem uma notificação piscando?

Confesso: não compreendo.

Confesso também que tento entender por que a Geração.Com¹ demonstra tanto medo/ansiedade das próprias ideias.

O silêncio, para eles, não é um espaço fértil de criatividade; parece ser um vácuo hostil, quase uma ameaça.

Onde não há estímulo, surge a angústia?! Onde não há distração, nasce um desconforto de existir consigo mesmo?!

O silêncio, quando surge, denuncia.

Ele revela ansiedade não tratada.

É um paradoxo cruel: nunca foi tão fácil falar, postar, opinar – e nunca foi tão difícil pensar de verdade.

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Talvez o problema nunca tenha sido o silêncio.

(1) Geração.Com é a geração que nasceu depois dos anos 2000.

We made an offer on the house. I’m so incredibly privileged, I can’t stop thinking about that. It almost feels like I’m not allowed to be happy about it because of how fortunate I am to have that chance compared to others.

🇵🇹 Português [English version bellow]

🎄🔥 Mini-manifesto natalício cuir e descolonial

Não celebramos o Natal. Atravessamo-lo.

Recusamos este ritual anual de normalização afetiva, esta coreografia obrigatória da família nuclear, este calendário colonial que insiste em dizer-nos quando amar, quando perdoar, quando sentar, e sobretudo quem conta como família.

O chamado Natal não é inocente. É uma tecnologia temporal. Uma pedagogia moral. Um dispositivo que disfarça conflito estrutural com luzes, peru e a promessa vazia de harmonia.

Reivindicamos o solstício — apagado, apropriado, rebatizado — como tempo de fratura, não de consenso; de sobrevivência, não de reconciliação forçada; de dissidência, não de maturação normativa.

Não queremos afetos herdáveis, nem mesas genealógicas, nem corpos úteis à reprodução do mundo tal como ele está. Queremos parentescos escolhidos, linhagens interrompidas, e vidas que não pedem desculpa por existir fora do guião.

A dissidência não é uma fase. Não amadurece. Não se resolve. Não espera janeiro para ser legítima.

Este não é um apelo à tolerância. É uma recusa da norma. Uma descolonização do tempo. Uma cuirização do inverno. Uma insistência em existir quando tudo conspira para nos domesticar.

Boas Festas de Inverno. Que sobrevivam ao Natal enquanto dispositivo colonial, familiar e afetivo — e que o próximo ano comece antes que o calendário autorize.

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🇬🇧 English

🎄🔥 Queer & Decolonial Winter Manifesto

We do not celebrate Christmas. We endure it. We pass through it.

We refuse this annual ritual of affective normalization, this compulsory choreography of the nuclear family, this colonial calendar that insists on telling us when to love, when to forgive, when to gather, and above all who counts as family.

So-called Christmas is not innocent. It is a temporal technology. A moral pedagogy. A device that masks structural conflict with lights, turkey, and the empty promise of harmony.

We reclaim the solstice — erased, appropriated, renamed — as a time of rupture rather than consensus; of survival rather than forced reconciliation; of dissidence rather than normative maturation.

We do not want inheritable affections, genealogical tables, or bodies made useful for reproducing the world as it is. We want chosen kinships, interrupted lineages, and lives that do not apologize for existing off-script.

Dissidence is not a phase. It does not mature. It does not resolve itself. It does not wait for January to become legitimate.

This is not a call for tolerance. It is a refusal of the norm. A decolonization of time. A queering of winter. An insistence on existing when everything conspires to domesticate us.

Happy Winter Holidays. May you survive Christmas as a colonial, familial, and affective device — and may the new year begin before the calendar grants permission.

On ne voit pas à plus de trois arbres, on ne voit plus la vue en haut. Je suis dans un cocon où il n’y a pas de bruit.

Je croise un petit chien chocolat de la taille d’un cocker. Son maître n’est pas (encore) lassé de présenter son chien encore bébé.

Je dérange quelques merles. Pas d’autre rencontre sauvage aujourd’hui, dimanche c’est plus le jour des humains que des animaux.

#Nature

Found out today that my hand – which went through carpel tunnel release back in August – still isn’t up to lino carving full time. I’m bummed about that. So, a story:

I put a bunch of time and effort into a carving that had text on it. I’m not particularly experienced with printmaking, and the text was small enough that it involved some fine carving-out of the space in the center. I worked for days getting it all carved – was super proud of myself. The lines were looking clean, and I ran a test print to see if I needed any adjusting.

a better worlb is possible.

I got the design transferred to a new block today.

The studio backlot stank of fake blood and desperation as I flubbed the incantation—again. “Cut!” roared Director Carmichael, his cigar stub trembling like an epileptic divining rod. My co-star Ryder smirked, adjusting his prop sword with that infuriating I-trained-at-Julliard flair. “Maybe try acting next time?” he whispered. The enchanted spotlight above us pulsed—an actual goddamn will-o'-the-wisp they'd rented from Prague. I wiped my palms on the doublet. One more take. The script's eldritch runes shimmered. The wisp screamed. Ryder's perfect hair caught fire. Carmichael dropped his cigar. “No,” I corrected, stepping over the burning diva, “method acting.”

#Scratch

I'm in the finishing touches stage of putting together a cryptid guidebook, a project that's been downright fun on a bun to put together. In this particular book I limited my focus to cryptids from Appalachia, an area with a high concentration of critters lurking high up in the mountains, deep in the woods, or down in the hollers. And as much as I knew about local cryptids before I started this research, there were still some surprises along the way. One of them, for me, was the number of serpentine or snake-like creatures, and not just down south where things stay tolerable for large reptiles all year. Even up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, they have reptilian monsters with recurring sightings year after year. 

Now, I know—reptiles can survive in northern Appalachia, which has plenty of snakes and turtles that call it home, along with amphibians like frogs and salamanders. But large reptilian predators tend to stick to warmer climates, especially the types of predators sometimes reported in northern Appalachia's lakes and rivers. Of course, that type of thing has never been a concern for mythological creatures. Norse mythology prominently features a serpent, after all, and that comes from another landscape where reptiles aren't exactly happy in the winter. Really, the prevalence of serpent-like monsters in Appalachia is refective of a much larger pattern. No matter the origin of the folklore or mythology, odds are, it has a snake.

 

Which naturally made me wonder just why snakes—specifically giant snakes—are so universal. I did a post on the prevalence of dragons a little while back, and I think some of those same explanations could probably apply here. Massive snakes could be attempts to explain discovered dinosaur bones or a record of encounters with now-exctinct species. While that could be the source of their appearance, though, the core role of snakes in many cultures' perceptions of the world, and the meaning assigned to them, goes well beyond this idea. 

The snakes that started everything

Many mythologies include one or more primordial creatures, beings that existed before humanity—and often even before the gods who created humanity. Their fate typically falls into two camps. One group are killed in process of creating the world (frequently so their body can be used to form the landscape), while the other continue to live on, either asleep underneath the earth or in some way supporting the earth or the universe. The legends of beasties in this latter group may include an prophecy that the beast will someday wake up and cause all kinds of havoc, potentially up to and including the end of the world as we know it. 

And you've probably guessed by now the reason I'm bringing this up: a lot of these creatures are snakes. To give a non-exhaustive list of examples, some of these include:

• Ayida-Weddo – the “Rainbow Serpent” of the Fon people of Benin that was also adopted into Vodou, which  helped creator goddess Mawu-Lisa shape the world and now coils under the world to keep it from collapsing. Earthquakes are caused by its movements, and it's said that someday it will eat its own tail, causing the Earth to sink into the abyss
• Andndayin oj – the Armenian “Abyssal Serpent” that lives in the black waters around the world tree
• Antaboga – The first being that existed in the mythology of Java in Indonesia. It created the world turtle that all other life sprang from, along with Dewi Sri, the rice goddess
• Bobbi-Bobbi – a sea serpent Dreamtime ancestor for the Binbinga people of Australia, who created bats for them to hunt and gave them boomerangs to hunt with
• Naga Padoha – giant serpent from the mythology of the Batak of Sumatra who guards the underworld. The goddess Sideak Parujar created the world on his back, and earthquakes happen when he struggles
• Pakhangba – powerful serpentine god of the Meitei in India, considered the ultimate ancestor as the father of the seven dragon ancestors of the Meitei clans
• Shesha – or Ananta, the king of the nagas in Hindu mythology, who holds the entire universe on the hoods of his many heads
• Ungud – snake god from the Wunambal people of Australia, who lived underground at the start of the world and helped the sky deity Wallanganda to create life through their dreams
• Unhcegila – Lakota and Dakota horned serpent who flooded the land when she emerged from the primordial waters, the proceeded to terrorize early humans until a warrior finally slays her, leaving her body to form the rocks of the Badlands

...and there are more that follow in a similar vein, often in the Rainbow Serpent archetype in Australia and the Horned Serpent model in American myths. To be fair, snakes certainly aren't the only animals to be given this status; turtles and birds are other recurring figures in this role. But snakes were commonly seen as embodying a kind of primordial force, even beyond the examples given here. The ancient Greeks, for instance, saw snakes as symbolizing an energy that can both create and destroy, and used snakes broadly in their mythology even though, as one scholar put it, snakes played “no meaningful practical role in the lives of the anicent Greeks.”

Scholars often cite some of a snake's unique attributes as the reason behind this. Shedding its skin is a big one. This makes it a logical symbol of renewal, rebirth, and transformation, things that are often heavy themes in mythologies. There's also the fact that snakes slither on the ground. They're connected to the earth, and through it to the ancestors and the underworld. Other snakes can transcend boundaries, moving both in water and on land or climbing trees, giving them a natural place as intermediaries between humans and the sky, water, and earth that are seen as realms of the divine. 

Snakes as creators

Another sizeable sub-set of mythological snake figures are those that are portrayed as creators or culture heroes. In part because they seem to contradict some of the prevailing wisdom about where snake monsters in folklore come from. One theory that came up a lot in my research was that giant snakes in folklore represented early humans' fear about encountering poisonous or dangerous snakes in the wild. That makes sense when the snakes are framed as monsters, but doesn't track quite as well to them teaching humans, or even creating them in the first place.

Some examples of mythical creatures in this category include: 

• Amaru – double-headed serpent said by the Inca to live at the bottoms of lakes and rivers. Its ability to transcend worlds makes it a conduit for spiritual knowledge
• Awanyu – horned serpent of the Tewa Pueblo who taught humans rituals related to rainfall, which he is said to control
• Degei – the creator god of Fijian mythology, who hatched an egg that produced the first humans
• Fuxi – culture hero with a serpent body in Chinese mythology, seen as the first emperor of China who invented music, cooking, hunting, fishing, and writing
• Kukulkan- the feathered serpent of Maya myth (later reprized by the Aztec as Quetzalcoatl) seen as a mediator between the heavens and earth, and representative of cyclical time
• Nuwa – mother goddess from Chinese mythology who molded humans out of yellow clay. She has the head of a woman with the body of a snake

...and there are certainly more. The snake is also associated as a familiar or symbolic animal with an array of helpful deities, like Wadjet from Egyptian mythology or the Rod of Asclepius from ancient Greece, which is the image of a snake circling a staff that's associated with medicine and healing. That seems particularly counterintuitive, but it again gets back to that idea of snakes as symbols for renewing life. Some alchemists even thought they knew the secret to immortality. 

It's also worth noting that even helpful snakes in folklore and mythology often have a dangerous side. Serpent deities are often connected to weather, meaning they can bring helpful rains but also devastating floods. Primordial beings that created the world can also ruin cities with earthquakes just by shifting a coil, or even destroy the earth entirely. The source of that snake around staff imagery used by the Greeks was an older Sumerian god, Ningizzida, who was often depicted as a horned serpent and took a seasonal descent into the underworld to represent the changing seasons. This is another example of the serpent in mythology linked to the earth, which makes it a source of both sustenance and fear. 

Snakes as monsters and destroyers

This is the role most modern folk tales cast snakes into, and it's a common one across mythology, too. It's also the one that makes the most logical sense, like I alluded to in the last section. Most humans have an instant fear and/or ick reaction to snakes. Stories about encounters with dangerous snakes are just as prone to the fish-story effect as anything else, with the offending animal getting just a bit bigger with every telling, or the snake's dangerous attributes might get intentionally exaggerated to turn the story into a cautionary tale for kids about why not to mess with the colorful thing making the rattly noise with its tail. 

The question of why snakes persist in cold-weather places is probably another one that has two answers. Some could stem from encounters or stories brought back by travelers in warmer landscapes. These kinds of stories would seem particularly fantastic and noteworthy to someone who's used to the more reasonably sized snakes found in temperate climates. The other answer, I think, is that the implausibility of a giant snake in a place like Pennsylvania is part of its appeal. It adds to a being's mystique if it's living somewhere it's not supposed to be. When animals do this, it breaks the rules you know for them, and that makes them seem even more powerful and terrifying. 

I suppose, when you stop to think about it, it isn't so strange that snakes are so common in myths and folklore. They live on every continent except antarctica, meaning humans have been living alongside snakes from their earliest days. I suppose it's no wonder they'd work their ways into our stories. 

See similar posts:

#Mythology #Cryptids #Folklore