“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
I was trying to see it in the arrangement of stars and galaxies, but it’s just. A fucking. It’s a fucking. Question mark. Floating in space. Not a constellation, just a floating goddamn question mark. I want to scream.
Ever since I took a class on material culture and the significance of things and objects in our lives, I’ve started taking note of relevant readings I come across. For those interested, below is a partial list:
Objects of Despair: “Inspired by Roland Barthes, Meghan O’Gieblyn’s monthly column examines contemporary artifacts and the mythologies we have built around them.”
Sum Effects:
“Personal or real, tangible or intangible, durable, hard, soft,
consumable, or perishable: my grandmother owned none of it. Goldyne
Alter died with no possessions.”
Curating the Anthropocene: “Imagine a future archeologist on a dig in what was once downtown Los
Angeles, excavating, exposing layers of history, like the
paleontologists at the La Brea Tar Pits are doing today, finding bones
of saber-toothed cats, mammoth, and dire wolves. What does the archeologist of the future find?”
this is so nostalgic. tumblr rolls out something terrible. everyone complains. it breaks several people’s dashboards. for some reason it only rolls out to a few people at a time with seemingly no warning. the community collectively and immediately searches for a browser extension that undoes the change. i know we’ve all gotten burnt out on all social media sucking but this is genuinely The tumblr experience. everyone who hasn’t gotten it already gets an achievement. welcome to the club
actually, im glad this post got notes
everybody in the notes going “but THIS TIME it’s an objectively terrible choice/a bigger deal/a cash grab!!”: first time in the clown car huh
“Does it matter why Lot’s wife looked back? She looked back because she loved her daughters. She looked back because she loved her home. She looked back because she loved the past. She looked back because she loved the world. Remember Lot’s wife: it’s intended as a warning, but I have adopted it as a creed. When the world burns, I will fill my eyes with as much of it as I possibly can. I can think of no greater honor than to remain on the earth. You are worth turning around for. You are worth transformation. You are the heat that lights the match that lights the hearth that warms me. You are everything.”
been thinking a lot about anticipatory grief lately. i love you so much that i know losing you will devastate me. i haven’t lost you yet but i already miss you. we still have time, but it won’t be enough. i think about what i would say at your funeral, and say some of it to you now cause i need you to know how loved you are before you go. you will go where i cannot follow, but you will never really leave me. it won’t make it hurt less but it is a part of healing somehow.
