George Hyde Pownall - London
bell hooks mentioned going through a time in her life where she was severely depressed and suicidal and how the only way she got through it was through changing her environment: She surrounded her home with buddhas of all colors, Audre Lorde’s A Litany for Survival facing her as she wakes up, and filling the space she saw everyday with reinforcing objects and meaningful books. She asks herself each day, “What are you going to do today to resist domination?” I also really liked it when she said that in order to move from pain to power, it is crucial to engage in “an active rewriting of our lives.”
I have come to think of the suicidal impulse as the brain waving a flag to say three things:
- something needs to change here
- this is urgent
- I don’t know how to do it
death is the ultimate metaphor for drastic change. it’s a general specific. whatever your problems are, it is very likely that dead people don’t have to deal with them. a real solution to your problems may demand a very narrow range of action that’s likely to be out of reach at this moment, but death is sold on every street corner, so it feels like a more realistic fantasy than happiness.
you don’t really want to die per se but it’s also not completely random chemicals swamping your brain for no reason. you want the pain to stop, you want to be somewhere else, you want to be someone else. it’s urgent. you don’t know how to do it. the end is not the end but a means that feels within your reach right now.
this is the wisdom of bell hooks: daily rituals of meaning and resistance and solidarity are part of slowly building a future where you can make the change you really need. and only alive people can do that. every step you take towards change and power is another step away from death.
A very similar approach is also the main focus of Kate Bernstein’s Hello, Cruel World. Besides the free “lite” version she put out (linked there), the whole book is available to borrow on archive.org.
how do you feel about receiving spoilers for things you have not yet seen/read
i love all spoilers and will actively seek them out
i am generally favourable toward spoilers if someone gives them to me
i don't really care one way or another
i am not really a fan of being spoiled
i hate all spoilers and want to go into things knowing as little as possible
there are only specific types of spoilers i seek out (e.g 'does the dog die)
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Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red.
// Kait Rokowski
Commissioned illustration for an upcoming artist residency program—Gothe Residency of the Arts! Their Kickstarter just launched, go take a peek! You can get a print of this piece with the $25 tier ;)
(Many thanks to Vincent for giving me the banger prompt of "dark academia androgynous person + Borzoi")
nothing is scarier than seeing what the front page of YouTube looks like when you're not logged in
