been thinking about that one post that went like “forgive me father for i am back on my bullshit” and you know what, that’s a really theologically sound understanding.
like the modern concept of ‘sin’ is so melodramatic, and it’s almost totally wrong. people think of it like a felony conviction, like you gotta Pay and you’re a bad person. but really it’s more like “man quit that shit, it’s not good for you.”
for example, gluttony’s not a sin because some arbitrary metaphysical balance is tipped by it and dumps you into the reject bin. it’s a sin because an unhealthy relationship with food messes up your life and can make things rough on the people around you. back when all the texts got written, scarcity was a big deal, and there was this cultural Thing of overeating so much you had to go puke so you could eat more. nowdays it’s stuff like being such a foodie that you pay outlandish prices for hyped up ingredients, or molding your life around ‘cleanses’ and the latest ‘superfood’. it doesn’t make you evil. you’re not a bad person. it’s just a huge drain on your resources and it distracts you from just living life and being a human being.
but people call anything chocolate ‘sinful’ and then think it’s virtuous and wholesome to restrict their calorie intake until their body screams for mercy, or to insist on the whole foods equivalent of wolf nipple chips because that’s more ‘clean eating’ than the foods the proletariat have access to.
i most of all wish we could get away from labeling anything genuinely sexy as ‘lustful’ and treating healthy sexuality as a bad thing, while not recognizing that the harvey weinsteins of the world are what the sin of lust is actually talking about.
being really into your datemate is not even slightly sinful. referring to attractive people at a club as a ‘catalog’ as if they’re products you can just decide to obtain, that’s where you start heading wrong.
tl;dr: the popular imagination has ‘sin’ completely backwards.
i think that most ‘sins’ are, at the most basic level, pursuing your own self-centered, short-term satisfaction over any larger common good, because that’s what breaks societies down. virtues are just the other way around: altruisitic, long-term work for others, even at an individual’s expense.
so like, the sin of gluttony: when people in a society are starving and others have so much money and food and toys and land they couldn’t ever even touch all of it in their lifetime but they keep on taking more and more for themselves, that society collapses. temperance, prudence, and charity are all about making sure everyone’s needs are met before any individual pleasures are addressed, and that society does a lot better, less people die.
lust? if someone only cares about satisfying their own sexual desires, at the expense of everyone else, we all know how badly that goes. wrath? when people act out their anger issues instead of resolving them, you get feuds, mass shootings, wars. pride? vainglory? no one likes having to deal with those shitheads. don’t be those shitheads. despair? sloth? no one likes hauling the dead weight of people who have given up, either, who wallow around in their pain and helplessness. try to have hope and contribute something to the world.
like, a society is always going to encourage prosocial behavior and discourage antisocial behavior, because if it doesn’t, that society will dissolve. the seven deadly sins don’t even have to be deadly on a spiritual ‘you’ll burn in hell’ level, they’re disastrous on a very mundane, real-world level too.
come to think of it, if you’re mindful of being part of a society, of being in some way responsible for other people’s wellbeing, the sins and virtues / dos and donts…. just seem kind of obvious? and making people remember they’re part of a bigger group and have more of a purpose than just individual self- indulgence is basically what organized religion is for. so that’s kind of cool.
Barry J Bluejeans is a lich necromancer, capable of casting the paladin/cleric spell Command, who is fluent in thieves cant and identifies as a fighter when his memory is wiped.
Barold what the absolute fuck
Barry J Bluejeans, on top of all of this, is also an item artificer (just like everyone else on the Starblaster), a bond and interplanar scientist, and plays the fucking piano, so at any point in time this motherfucker could class as a bard if he really wanted to.
What isBarry?
All the power is in his jeans. He’s just possessed by them.
sildar hallwinter is a fighter/bard multiclasser
barry bluejeans, sentient pair of pants possessing sildar, is the weird wizard/paladin multiclasser.
Actually, in 5e, none of that is even weird, even if you stick to just the Player’s Handbook, no extra guides. His ability to play the piano is probably from his background, which would have to be Entertainer or Outlander. Barry’s a Human, so he can get a feature at first level, but if he didn’t, he gets the option again at 4, 8, 12, and 16. When he gets that option, he can take Magic Initiate, choosing Cleric, so since Command is a first level spell, he can cast it once per day for free, and using wizard spell slots otherwise. He can use another of those features to take Linguist, which allows him to gain three languages, one of which could be Thieves’ Cant. Another feature gets him Weapon Master, allowing him to wield any four types of weapons, and then he can take Lightly, Moderately, and Heavily Armored, to completely pass himself off as a Fighter by wearing any armor he wants. So no, Barry’s not multiclassed, he’s just built by someone who really knows their way around the PHB
ever think about the fact that there were never any doomed versions of the alpha kids shown in dream bubbles bc their session was so boring that it was nearly impossible for them to make doomed timelines
ever think about how a sburb session without a time and space player is doomed from the start but the real reason hussie didn’t make Dirk a time player is because the idea of Dirk “anything I do is right because the ends justify the memes” strider being able to time travel is such a horrifying concept that the alpha kids needed their parents to come pick them up from sburb school early
JUST realized I said the ends justified the memes and I am so sorry
Roses are red, that much is true, but violets are purple, not fucking blue.
I have been waiting for this post all my life.
They are indeed purple, But one thing you’ve missed: The concept of “purple” Didn’t always exist.
Some cultures lack names For a color, you see. Hence good old Homer And his “wine-dark sea.”
A usage so quaint, A phrasing so old, For verses of romance Is sheer fucking gold.
So roses are red. Violets once were called blue. I’m hugely pedantic But what else is new?
My friend you’re not wrong
About Homer’s wine-ey sea!
Colours are a matter
Of cultural contingency;
Words are in flux
And meanings they drift
But the word purple
You’ve given short shrift.
The concept of purple,
My friends, is old
And refers to a pigment
once precious as gold.
By crushing up molluscs
From the wine-dark sea
You make a dye:
Imperial decree
Meant that in Rome,
to wear purpura
was a privilege reserved
For only the emperor!
The word ‘purple’,
for clothes so fancy,
Entered English
By the ninth century
.
Why then are voilets
Not purple in song?
The dye from this mollusc,
known for so long
Is almost magenta;
More red than blue.
The concept of purple
is old, and yet new.
The dye is red,
So this might be true:
Roses are purple
And violets are blue
.
While this song makes me merry, Tyrian purple dyes many a hue From magenta to berry And a true purple too.
But fun as it is to watch this poetic race The answer is staring you right in the face: Roses are red and violets are blue Because nothing fucking rhymes with purple.
IT GOT SO MUCH BETTER.
My reaction, only with coffee.
Hang on, need to send this to my literature prof
While it’s true that this lyric presents with a hurdle
that nothing can ostensibly rhyme up with purple
That is only if one, poetic conceits disregards
Like “assonance”, which matches the vowels in words.
roses were pink until bred for their hue;
violets can come in a perfect sky blue;
nitpicking flowers is a little bit silly
when there exist things like a lime-green daylily.
My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.
You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.
We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.
The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.
By Clarissa Pinkola Estes
American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves.
When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.
just moving along like everyone else 