“Years ago a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”
after YEARS of seeing this quote online and finding it to be the most deeply and resoundingly profound writing i finally found the source article and absolutely nothing could prepare me for this opening paragraph
Okay but the whole article is really interesting and also contains this quote which I’ve never heard before but really like:
“Anyone worth knowing is inevitably also going to be exasperating”
Always embarrassing realizing you don’t know basic facts about your friends. Like yeah hey, here’s this person I love dearly, I’ve known them for 23 years, we’ve been through so much together. They’re currently working in a lab…. developing… medicine? and also getting a PhD. I think. Don’t ask me what subject.
Twice. Twice now, I have sat down to eat spaghetti (my cat’s favourite food) (poisonous to cats) only for the neighbours’ fire alarm to immediately go off. I, of course, run out to see if my building is on fire, which it is not (popcorn), only to come back in and find what? you guessed it. Cat face-first in the spaghetti. He is doing this with his fucking mind
Hm. So apparently people with epilepsy can learn to sense when they have a seizure coming. I wonder if you could use that as a plot device thing in a story somewhere.
Like there’s some big-ass Great Public Council Meeting about some important politicial issue, Roman Senate style, and there’s two opposing sides about the issue, but also a big chunk of undecided people who could be persuaded to vote either way. And there’s someone in attendance, who hasn’t spoken out loud about the issue anywhere but sides strongly with one of the options. And just when the dispute is about to swing to the wrong direction, they sense a seizure about to happen, and it’s too late for them to try to get out of there or really even warn anyone.
So instead they just stand up, boldly announce, “I, for one, am sure that [option they do not want] cannot fail! If I am wrong, let the Gods smite me right where I stand!” and then the fucking seizure hits.
I used to get really bad nose bleeds but sometimes could feel when they were starting. One day in middle school this guy in geography class wouldn’t shut the fuck up about that conspiracy theory that Delaware doesn’t exist, so when I felt one coming on I loudly interrupted the rant our teacher was inexplicably allowing to derail the class by saying “if you don’t stop I’m gonna have an aneurism!” The guy of course just kept going so a second later a small torrent of blood gushed out of my head and, being a dramatic bitch, I collapsed face down onto my desk into a nice little puddle of blood. Anyway apparently outside of intense Roman Senate-esque debates, these stunts apparently induce panic attacks in educators and end up with you getting lectured about how traumatizing it is for your classmates when you “fake your death for dramatic effect”
I believe this falls into the “I don’t think people should be punished for objectively funny crimes” category.
