Preaching To The Choir Here But If You Believe That People Can't Grow And Change I Hope That Sentiment

Preaching to the choir here but if you believe that people can't grow and change I hope that sentiment haunts you when you make a mistake and no one ever lets you let it go

In all seriousness I took a death and dying course in college for fun and that’s when I fell in love with, and began to seriously study, spontaneous or “street shrines”. These are the organic, unplanned placements of items when someone is killed, generally, and the community almost descends on a spot. I am fascinated by that interfaith, inter-spirit moment of connection fostered. What drives someone to leave the first item? Who guides them there? What do we, as humans, seek from the leaving of a memorial on a place that now hallowed? And we know it is, to some extent, even if we’re not spirit-workers. We have this human need to bear witness, no matter who we are, and over and over again it manifests as this need to build some space, some monument that says “they were here, and now they aren’t here, and we, collectively, of all faiths and walks of life, strangers to each other, will remember them”

We take comfort in, and protect to some measure, that space we create with tea-light candles and stuffed bears and flowers and it just feels like the Right Thing to Do. We rebuild these spaces when they are torn down by authority and we keep building them up and that’s beautiful

Street shrines are TRULY universal, too. They are largely non-verbal but it’s like we just KNOW what to do, like something moves inside all of us and it doesn’t fucking matter if we can’t understand anyone else standing at the site, it’s just a Knowing. It’s phenomenal 

The creature that wants to kill you will not growl.

The function of a growl is as a warning. It is a communication that violence is available as a tool, but is not preferred. Other outcomes, besides your death, are available and should be considered.

But the creature that wants to kill you will not growl.

If your death is the goal, then growling will only serve as a delay and may result in your escape, which runs counter to the goal. There will be no growl, no warning. There will be no snarl or hiss or bluster. The creature that bares its teeth with the intent to kill only does so to bring closer its fangs to your demise.

The creature that growls does not want to kill you, but will if it must.

I advise you to appreciate the warning. You may not receive another.

people talk all the time about “primal instincts” and it’s usually about violence or sexual temptations or something, but your humanity comes with a lot of different stuff that we do without really thinking about, that we do without being told to or prompted to

your average human comes pre-installed with instincts to:

Befriend

Tell story

Make Thing

Investigate

Share knowledge

Laugh

Sing

Dance

Empathize with

Create

we are chalk full of survival instincts that revolve around connecting to others (dog-shaped others, robot-shaped, sometimes even plant-shaped) and making things with our hands

your primal instincts are not bathed in blood- they are layered in people telling stories to each other around a fire over and over and putting devices together through trial and error over and over and reaching for someone and something every moment of the way

fuck you. *dragon time*