Just a friendly reminder that you are a wonderful sunflower just the way you are http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179382
Ginsberg didn't write very many uplifting poems, but the ones he did write were beautiful. Thank you for that.
Ask @tomhead1978
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Do you think that emotional connection is a human need?
Yes, an almost universal one.
If you were an immortal - by whatever definition - living amongst humanity, how would you pass the time? Would you make efforts to remain hidden? Would you wander and experience everything the worlds has to offer? Would you collect, or become a scholar? Or a master criminal?
If I knew I were completely immortal, I'd probably still do more-or-less what I'm doing now, punctuated by stunty nonviolent protests on a regular basis. I'd also make myself available to scientists (within reason) who want to figure out why I'm immortal. I would not try to keep my immortality a secret.
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What are you most grateful for?
The people around me. It's a standard answer, but it's a standard answer for a reason. I'm especially grateful for the way my family has grown since Jewel and I got together.
How do you pick yourself up when you're feeling under-appreciated?
I make myself comfortable and distract myself until the feeling passes. The idea that we can resolve negative emotions by confronting them is, beyond a certain point, a Freudian myth.
Top tune recommendation for the weekend?
The debut album from Kate Boy is really good.
In what way is the feeling of owning money different from owning people (assume we can own people if you think we can't)? Which is better in your opinion?
In an absolute sense, we can't own anything. To own something is to have it accepted, by other persons, that something is yours to control. To claim to "own" another person, to whom equal rights of ownership should be granted, presents us with an unsalvageable idea. I can't assume it without undercutting the idea of ownership itself.
What is your favorite motto or saying?
"There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands,
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea."
(T.S. Eliot, from "Prufrock." Not my single favorite motto or saying ever, but the one I choose right now.)
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands,
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea."
(T.S. Eliot, from "Prufrock." Not my single favorite motto or saying ever, but the one I choose right now.)
What's the last movie you watched?
Unfriended. It was actually really, really clever, and will go down in history (alongside Halloween, Scream, the Blair Witch Project, etc.) as one of the most innovative horror movies ever done.
The lack of diversity was irritating, but this was a rare case where it actually made perfect sense; these are basically sheltered white brats, and all of their friends would have been white, straight, and upper-class. I know the type.
It wasn't especially scary or gory, if that's what you're into, but people are going to be ripping it off for years.
The lack of diversity was irritating, but this was a rare case where it actually made perfect sense; these are basically sheltered white brats, and all of their friends would have been white, straight, and upper-class. I know the type.
It wasn't especially scary or gory, if that's what you're into, but people are going to be ripping it off for years.
What does having a crush feel like?
It's fun. If you have a lot of crushes when you're young (I did), you learn to flinch a little bit and they actually become a little bit poignant—like, "this is a delightful feeling but the chances it will actually *lead* to anything are zero." Then if you're lucky, as soon as you get used to that idea you find a nice reciprocal crush. And those are, obviously, the best kind.
How would you describe a non-consensual consent and why?
I don't think something can be both consensual and non-consensual.
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Kami Mehishi
If you had the power to create one law, what would it be?
A new constitutional amendment that enhances the Fourteenth—explicitly adding a disparate impact standard to the equal protection clause, and clearly outlining a zone of privacy.
What is freedom to you? Do you think we are really free?
I think freedom is a social construct. I don't think anyone has ever been free in an absolute sense, but everyone reading this is free in a relative sense.
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Adrenasoulless
shahwar
Kami Mehishi
lionessence
Do you think there is heaven and hell?
Not in any literal sense. I think they reflect our vague assumption that if there is a God and a world to come, she balances the ledger there in some way. But if we're to take a Christian point of view, a literal reading of Jesus' teachings tells us that there's no real way to earn our way into heaven, so anybody's presence in hell represents God's defeat.
To whatever extent I am a Christian I am inclined to believe in God's total victory, which means the eventual salvation of every person. I identify with the words of Frederick Buechner:
"People are free in this world to live for themselves alone if they want to and let the rest go hang, and they are free to live out the dismal consequences as long as they can stand it. The doctrine of hell proclaims that they retain this same freedom in whatever world comes next. Thus the possibility of making damned fools of ourselves would appear to be limitless.
"Or maybe hell is the limit. Since the damned are said to suffer as dismally in the next world as they do in this one, they must still have enough life left in them to suffer with, which means that in their flight from Love, God apparently stops them just this side of extinguishing themselves utterly. Thus the bottomless pit is not really bottomless. Hell is the bottom beyond which the terrible mercy of God will not let them go.
"Dante saw written over the gates of hell the words "Abandon all hope ye who enter here," but he must have seen wrong. If there is suffering life in hell, there must also be hope in hell, because where there is life there is the Lord and giver of life; and where there is suffering he is there too, because the suffering of the ones he loves is also his suffering.
"'He descended into hell,' the Apostles' Creed says, and 'If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there,' says the Psalmist (139:8). It seems there is no depth to which he will not sink. Maybe not even Old Scratch will be able to hold out against him forever."
That said, I'm not any kind of theologically orthodox Christian. I assume that if there is an afterlife of any kind, it operates beyond my comprehension.
To whatever extent I am a Christian I am inclined to believe in God's total victory, which means the eventual salvation of every person. I identify with the words of Frederick Buechner:
"People are free in this world to live for themselves alone if they want to and let the rest go hang, and they are free to live out the dismal consequences as long as they can stand it. The doctrine of hell proclaims that they retain this same freedom in whatever world comes next. Thus the possibility of making damned fools of ourselves would appear to be limitless.
"Or maybe hell is the limit. Since the damned are said to suffer as dismally in the next world as they do in this one, they must still have enough life left in them to suffer with, which means that in their flight from Love, God apparently stops them just this side of extinguishing themselves utterly. Thus the bottomless pit is not really bottomless. Hell is the bottom beyond which the terrible mercy of God will not let them go.
"Dante saw written over the gates of hell the words "Abandon all hope ye who enter here," but he must have seen wrong. If there is suffering life in hell, there must also be hope in hell, because where there is life there is the Lord and giver of life; and where there is suffering he is there too, because the suffering of the ones he loves is also his suffering.
"'He descended into hell,' the Apostles' Creed says, and 'If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there,' says the Psalmist (139:8). It seems there is no depth to which he will not sink. Maybe not even Old Scratch will be able to hold out against him forever."
That said, I'm not any kind of theologically orthodox Christian. I assume that if there is an afterlife of any kind, it operates beyond my comprehension.
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Kami Mehishi
Tamil
What would happen if someone solved your mystery? Everything that is unknown about you, everything that makes you unique, it would all be as clear as day to them. Would they stay, or would they leave?
Good question. I don't think they'd be scared, but they'd be a little bored, I imagine. In most cases they would probably leave—not because there's all that much that's special about me, but because most people leave when there are no surprises left.
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shahwar
Kami Mehishi
lionessence
What's been on your mind lately? Tell me a few of your recurring thoughts.
I've been thinking lately about how plastic our empathy is: which cities we care about, which refugees we care about, and why. The Paris-Garissa disparity is transparently racist, but the Syrian refugees seem to be treated even worse than the Haitian refugees were, and they've often been perceived as white, so does that mean we've become less empathetic across the board in the past 20 years? Or does it mean that the bigots are better-organized and have louder platforms now than they did then? What's going on? I've been thinking about this a lot. And I think obedience and authority play a role—like, maybe it's hard to care until the people we personally recognize as leaders tell us to care.
Liked by:
shahwar
Thea
Kami Mehishi
Do you think plastic surgeons should make sure that their potential patients don't have a body dysmorphic disorder before operating on them? Why?
You can never make sure, but I think it's any surgeon's responsibility for purposes of informed consent to make sure the patient has a realistic idea of what the surgery will and won't do, and body dysmorphia can interfere with that. Rather than giving a hard yes or no, I would say I think this is something a physician has to assess on a case by case basis. If a patient has body dysmorphia but still has a realistic idea of what the surgery will accomplish, and the physician believes it is not an irresponsible procedure, then it seems to me that performing the procedure is probably ethical.
This is a question I deal with often, as I have Crouzon Syndrome and moderate an online group for people with the condition, and there are middle-aged adult clients who have dozens upon dozens of surgeries and each time seem to expect the next surgery to be the one that gives them a "normal" face. So even in cases where there appears to be clear medical necessity, dysmorphia and unrealistic expectations can be a factor.
This is a question I deal with often, as I have Crouzon Syndrome and moderate an online group for people with the condition, and there are middle-aged adult clients who have dozens upon dozens of surgeries and each time seem to expect the next surgery to be the one that gives them a "normal" face. So even in cases where there appears to be clear medical necessity, dysmorphia and unrealistic expectations can be a factor.
Liked by:
Kami Mehishi
Would you ever pick up a hitchhiker?
I don't drive and most hitchhikers wouldn't want to be hoisted on my shoulders and carried off, so probably not. If I drove, I imagine I would.
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tea.
Kami Mehishi
Do you close your eyes or turn away when you encounter visually gruesome things? Or do you prefer to watch? Why?
Really good question.
It depends on the context. I don't seek out gruesome things, but they don't shock me like they used to. I have a clinical detachment to them now. I guess in the course of researching various projects, I've seen too much—too many photographs, anyway. I look away when we pass by car accidents because it's different when it's not just an image in an archive or on my screen.
There are some contexts where the gruesomeness is part of the story. You don't look away from Emmett Till's open coffin or Jesse Washington's charred body or the piles of bodies at Auschwitz or the dead soldiers at Gettysburg, because they're being presented to you for a reason. But I wouldn't say I *prefer* to see them, only that they're part of the story.
As a general rule, I don't like to share pictures of unprepared corpses, gruesome or otherwise, because it seems disrespectful to the dead. Like, I never shared the picture of the Syrian toddler washed up on the beach. I never shared the photo of the Kenyans massacred in Nairobi. I never shared the 9/11 picture of the dismembered hand next to a chocolate bar, even though it was powerful. Some or all of these will become historically significant images on the order of the ones I described in the last paragraph. Perhaps in 20 years, I'll reprint them in a book. Does that make me a hypocrite? It might.
It depends on the context. I don't seek out gruesome things, but they don't shock me like they used to. I have a clinical detachment to them now. I guess in the course of researching various projects, I've seen too much—too many photographs, anyway. I look away when we pass by car accidents because it's different when it's not just an image in an archive or on my screen.
There are some contexts where the gruesomeness is part of the story. You don't look away from Emmett Till's open coffin or Jesse Washington's charred body or the piles of bodies at Auschwitz or the dead soldiers at Gettysburg, because they're being presented to you for a reason. But I wouldn't say I *prefer* to see them, only that they're part of the story.
As a general rule, I don't like to share pictures of unprepared corpses, gruesome or otherwise, because it seems disrespectful to the dead. Like, I never shared the picture of the Syrian toddler washed up on the beach. I never shared the photo of the Kenyans massacred in Nairobi. I never shared the 9/11 picture of the dismembered hand next to a chocolate bar, even though it was powerful. Some or all of these will become historically significant images on the order of the ones I described in the last paragraph. Perhaps in 20 years, I'll reprint them in a book. Does that make me a hypocrite? It might.
Liked by:
Kami Mehishi
What is worth living for?
Making other people happy, if nothing else.
Liked by:
shahwar
What is worth dying for?
Very little: Saving other people's lives, making a significant permanent contribution to the world, or avoiding a fate worse than death.
Liked by:
Kami Mehishi
Which Disney character would you like to be for a day?
Have you ever been in a position of significant authority over another person? If so, was it something you were comfortable with? Did you handle it well?
(1) Yes.
(2) Yes, though I try to avoid it.
(3) I think I did, though there have been situations where I had to choose among bad options and when you're choosing one of those bad options on behalf of other people, that weighs heavy on the conscience.
(2) Yes, though I try to avoid it.
(3) I think I did, though there have been situations where I had to choose among bad options and when you're choosing one of those bad options on behalf of other people, that weighs heavy on the conscience.
Liked by:
Kami Mehishi
What is one thing you will never do again?
Serve on an all-white, all-male panel.
Liked by:
Sineado Vanheusen
Kami Mehishi
If, by some miracle, Donald Trump actually becomes President of the United States, would you condone an assassination attempt?
No, for several reasons.
First, it would set an ugly precedent. We don't need to normalize assassinations. We haven't lost a sitting president that way in 55 years.
Second, and more importantly, it wouldn't even solve the problem. The problem wth President Donald Trump wouldn't be with Donald Trump. The problem would be with us, for electing him—and that problem would be exacerbated if he became a martyr.
So no, I wouldn't condone an assassination attempt. Not on Trump, and not on any accountable elected head of state anywhere in the world.
First, it would set an ugly precedent. We don't need to normalize assassinations. We haven't lost a sitting president that way in 55 years.
Second, and more importantly, it wouldn't even solve the problem. The problem wth President Donald Trump wouldn't be with Donald Trump. The problem would be with us, for electing him—and that problem would be exacerbated if he became a martyr.
So no, I wouldn't condone an assassination attempt. Not on Trump, and not on any accountable elected head of state anywhere in the world.
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Savoy Rochell
Ratzsa
Kami Mehishi
lionessence
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