There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy.
Remember this: freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction.
Random acts of insurrection are occuring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.
And then remember this.
The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks.
Authority is brittle. Opression is the mask of fear. Remember that.
And know this: the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire’s authority. and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege.
EarthlyEducation: If you ever feel heavy because you care deeply about injustice, suffering & ecological destruction, remember, a trillion dollar propaganda machine was built to make you numb and it didn’t work on you.
If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it—some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed. People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them, or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder. Maybe you weren’t always able to look at human behavior this way. That’s okay. Now you are. Give it a try.
CryptoNaturalist: We seldom admit the seductive comfort of hopelessness. It saves us from ambiguity. It has an answer for every question: “There’s just no point.” Hope, on the other hand, is messy. If it might all work out, then we have things to do. We must weather the possibility of happiness.
Albert Einstein: Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.
Harley Diamond: My neighbor was complaining they were short on money. I went over there and found a TON of savings for them. First, I sold both of their cars for them, I fired the babysitter who watches their children after school, and I canceled the fire insurance on their home. I saved that family thousands of dollars! Despite all I’ve done for them, they’re now complaining that they can’t get to work and they need their babysitter or the kids will be left unsupervised. The solutions they need are so easy; I own a car service and they can pay me to drive them to work. I also own interest in a day care down the road. I just can’t understand what they’re so upset about.
CrowsFault: People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.
BlerdsOnline: How old were you when you learned the reason Reading Rainbow was canceled is because “No Child Left Behind” disqualified them for prior grants & book publishers kept increasing the cost of reading books on TV?
“2008 was a perfect storm of over leverage. And the reason why it all hit the fan is multiple things were coming to a head at once. It was residential mortgages, the market was faltering. Right now we have consumer debt, which is about to pop. We’ve got student loans, which has always been about to pop. And then we have a regime where we’re not sure if rates are going up or down. The best part about financial crises like 2008 is that you don’t know when they’re going to happen. So you always have to have some safety of positioning in your portfolio because is eventually going to hit the fan. It’s not a matter of ‘if’, it’s ‘when’.”
Homunculus-argument: The main difference between the weather being uncomfortably cold, and the weather being uncomfortably hot, is that the things you can do in the cold to warm yourself up (hot food/beverage, blankets, cuddles, nice clothes like sweaters, thick scarves and snazzy jackets, getting exercise) are very pleasant and very effective, and the things you can do in the heat to cool yourself down don’t do shit.
Noucetnerd: I’ve been trying to explain this to folks. It’s easier to go from a state of low energy to high energy than vice versa. That’s why for the majority of human history there’s been more ways to stay warm than beat the heat, and the ways to resist the cold are FAR simpler. Light a fire, layer up, stand close to others. If you wanna cool down with no wind and no water? Saddle up, bucko, you’re in for a wild ride.
Cory Booker: “Don’t speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people. Don’t tell me how much you love your God; show me in how much you love all God’s children. Don’t preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I’m not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give.”
probabiybadrpgideas: “Oh yeah? What if I rotated you 90 degrees in the fourth dimension so that rather than going forwards in time, you stayed in the current moment but in progressively more deviant timelines? Several people have questioned how this mathmatically works, so let me explain that I have hit maths with a crowbar repeatedly.”
“The Air Force says in a new memo that transgender airmen ousted under a recent Trump administration directive will no longer have the chance to argue before a board of their peers for the right to continue serving their country. [; …that] military separation boards cannot independently decide.” Priya Rashid, a military lawyer[:] “I’ve seen people with three DUIs retained, I’ve seen people that beat their wives retained, I’ve seen all kinds of people retained because the board is empowered to retain anyone for any reason if they feel it’s in the best interest of the service[.]” […] The new Air Force guidance also prohibits recording the proceedings. […] Rashid said the lack of an independent transcript would not only prevent Air Force leaders from reviewing the hearings to ensure they were conducted appropriately but would undercut any meaningful chance to appeal. www.pbs.org/newshour/…
