foundcarcosa:

“A god steps down from the mountain. He walks through the dark forest. There are wild beasts everywhere in the silent darkness. It must be real. I’m not dreaming. I’m telling the truth. Now I’m in one world, now in the other. I can’t stop it.”

—

Ingmar Bergman,

Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

luna-and-mars:

Executive dysfunction gothic

– You have to shower. You cannot shower. You are standing right in front of the shower. You want to shower. You cannot shower.

– The meeting begins. “Did everyone see the email?” There is a chorus of nodding heads. You nod, too. You think you may possibly have checked an email account before, on one single occasion, at some unknown time, probably in a past life.

– You are hungry. You have been hungry for three days now. The hunger has not spontaneously resolved itself. How inconvenient, you think. How rude.

– You depend on your planner/calendar. You loathe your planner/calendar. You can’t function without it. You live in constant fear of it. It’s an unhealthy relationship. You think you both should start seeing other people.

– There is a pile on your floor. It is a treasure trove, the Room of Requirement. It has everything. You look for something specific. It has nothing. There was never any pile.

– There’s been a change of plans, they say. You don’t understand. They repeat: “there’s been a change of plans.” You don’t understand. The mere suggestion causes a buzzing in your head that drowns out everything else. You don’t understand.

– You’re in class and you don’t understand the lecture. You look back at your past notes. You look at a calendar. You have not been to class in two weeks. You have no memory of this supposed time. Where did it go? Why did it leave?

– “Organizational tips for success: Keep a planner! Write it down! Stick to a schedule! Make a list!” You are torn between deranged laughter and ugly crying. You choose both.

kawuli:

Something to remember, as the election approaches:

The work is never wasted.

Even if the Republicans keep control of Congress–yes, that would be terrible, yes, I would be furious and frustrated and sad and it would hurt like hell–EVEN SO: the work we have done to get here was not wasted.

I was part of the previous “biggest worldwide protest ever,” the global protests against the Iraq War in February 2003.

We lost. The war happened. Is still happening.

But some of the people who got involved then worked for Obama’s campaigns, a lot of them are part of the resistance now, and all of us learned something. The work was not wasted.

Even if we lose. There were Democratic primary debates in my hometown for the first time I can remember. Even if our terrible Republican Congresswoman gets re-elected, there’s still a broader and stronger Democratic Party organization in Mike Fucking Pence’s home state.

The election can’t be an end. It will only be an end if we win and get complacent, or if we lose and give in to hopelessness. We cannot afford either. We do the job that is in front of us. No matter what.

The work is never wasted.