i really can’t stress enough how much i recommend regularly engaging with older art– movies, books, whatever. like, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it” and all that, but also, there’s just something really fascinating and kind of beautiful about reading something written by someone who lived so long ago and really connecting with it, recognizing the humanity of people who once seemed like abstract concepts to you
I started reading The Tale of Genji during the pandemic, figuring I might as well improve my mind during lockdown. It’s considered the oldest novel on record, possibly the first one ever written. Early in the book, there’s an incident where the main character has a crush on a girl, so he tries to sneak into her family’s property to get close to her, and along the way he runs into this ancient old grandma who can’t half see and who mistakes him for one of her grandkids. So she’s standing there going on and on about her digestive difficulties and whatever, and he can’t speak up because if she hears his voice she’ll know he’s not who she thinks he is, so he’s just having to stand there and nod and hope she’ll go away soon. And I’m reading all this and thinking that with a couple of adjustments this could be a modern day sitcom, and it made me happy to think that a thousand years ago someone was laughing at the same sort of stuff we laugh at today.
i read dickens’ great expectations in little fifteen minute installments on my breaks at work, sitting there dirty and tired and sweaty in a hot factory, and it made me think about how a hundred and sixty years ago there were probably tired guys in hot factories reading the story the exact same way, bit by bit, at their stupid jobs they couldn’t afford to quit and were damn lucky even to have, and they too were glad to read the next chapter of mr dicken’s latest weird little story about weird little people
in reading War and Peace I’ve discovered that “doing math homework at the dining room table with your angry dad” has been a common terror since the 1800s
i remember reading tom sawyer, specially the part where he gets chastized erroneusly for dropping the sugar and he just spends minutes sitting in silence sulking and fantasizing about how sad everyone would be if he died and reveling in the self pity of how lonely and misunderstood he is and as a teenager who did exactly that with my 14 years of age i was shocked that an adult in the 1800’s had managed to capture that so well
Remember all those memes about “what if we just pretend 2016/2020/etc never happened and never mention it again”? In 2004 BC, a refugee from Ur looked back on the past year and wrote: "May this year not be placed in the reckoning of years! May its number be taken down from its peg in Enlil’s temple, and may its name be unspoken, to far off days, to other days, and to the end of time.“
There’s another heartbreaking one from the same period in which a woman mourning her son’s murder specifically grieves for “my son who will never bring wedding gifts to his father-in-law’s house, my son who will never bounce a child on his knees.”
And some time between 2200 and 1900 BCE, a refugee from the destroyed city of Isin (now in South-Central Iraq) wrote this:
“This is my house, where good food is not eaten (not anymore). This is my house, where good drink is not drunk (not anymore). My house, where good seats are not sat in (not anymore) My house, where good beds are not laid in (not anymore)… My house, where no happy husband dwells with me, My house, where no sweet child dwells with me. My house, through whose doors, I, though jts mistress, never grandly pass- Never grandly pass, the doors of this house, In which I dwell no more. I- let me go into my old house, let me go in, Let me lie down, let me lie down! Let me go into my storehouse, oh let me in Let me lie down, let me lie down there, I- Let me lie down to sleep in my own house, It was sweet sleep I had there. Let me lie down in my house, let me lie down there in my bed, It was a good bed. I- Let me sit down on my own chair- It was a good chair.”
I think this is a huge missing peice of how we teach kids history.
You can take kids from any culture, any era, change their clothes and their technology and the biggest problems they face will always be the same.
People are people and history can either humanize everyone’s struggles, or make it seem like we’re the ones who have figured it out (laughable) or that we’ve got the Best Culture Ever (uh, no).
Every mom with more than two kids has, at one point, been utterly frazzled and exhausted trying to get dinner made, except for a few handfull of people with full time staff to take care of that for them. Everyone.
We’re more alike than we are different.
I think this is a
huge missing peice of how we
teach kids history.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
I never want to hear conservatives go on about repressive censorship in China, North Korea, and Iran ever again
To be clear to those unfamiliar: these are the companies that libraries use to lend ebooks.
They are literally cutting off library access to minors.
If you are affected by this or other bans and restrictions in the United States, be aware that the Brooklyn Public Library is offering free digital library cards to anyone age 13-21 nationwide as part of their Books UnBanned initiative:
The next opening will be from Friday, October 20th at 18:00 to Sunday, October 22nd at 18:00 (Times in EDT)!
Pixel Cat’s End is a virtual pet site where you collect and manage a village of cat-like creatures. You can dress them up, give them jobs, build and decorate their homes, and take them on tabletop-rpg-style adventures.
Come down and get yourself some small, round little kitty not-cats! Features:
The tiniest baby kittens you have ever seen in your entire life.
A very slow/casual-paced game that you can easily keep up with even if busy with work or school.
Say goodbye to the gender binary.
Giant (friendly) magical moose with hundreds of eyes, if that sweetens the deal for you.
Some future features:
Ascend your cats to their final form and give them antlers, wings, and spare eyes.
Mercats. Yes, you heard me. Mermaid kitties with little fishie tails and fluffy kitty pawsies. They will be yours.
Magical kitty cat powers (and terrible consequences for unlocking the secrets of the universe).
Find us at pixelcatsend dot com
6 hours until our opening! Come down and get some kitties :D
