SophistSymons

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Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.

— (via -witheverything)

(via vintage--souls)

Source: accountedfor

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(via trappersandwoodsmen)

Source: tripoddiaries

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trappersandwoodsmen:

Let´s find some beautiful place to get lost.

Source: jaymug

Let me just say this up front: The world is a shitty place. It is absolutely terrible. And no, I’m not just talking about the millions starving, or the child soldiers, or the corruption and apathy and navel gazing into navels that have been swallowed by mounds of fat. Today, in the dear old US of A, specifically in a town that is near and dear to my heart, a town that I like to think is maybe just a little more enlightened and easy going than your average cesspit of a city, a guy took two handguns and gunned down 5 people before shooting himself.

Now I do not particualarly care about why he did this. There can never be a satisfactory explanation. No explanation is ever going to comfort the family members of those killed, and in all honesty, the fact that he took the cowards way out and shot himself is probably going to irk a lot of people who desperately wanted to see him suffer. Sadly however, a loud cry for vengance is not going to be the only reaction. There will be people out there, who rather than calling for public theatrical executions or victims’ rights of retribution, will instead be asking about our dead shooter’s rights. They’ll wonder if maybe he was beaten as a child, if perhaps he was depressed, or just had a chemical imbalance in his brain. I DO NOT CARE!

We live in a marginally civilized society. Marginally I grant you, but still that implies that there are certain rules which must be followed. The one thing that society promises is safety. Not comfort or entertainment or even nourishment (though we have come to expect all that and more) only safety is the requisite base for sticking together in groups. As soon as that trust is violated, as soon as safety can no longer be provided for all, then society ceases to function and each person is left on their own to fend for themselves, or reband and form sub groups within what is now society in name only.

Society has failed us to a large degree. Not completely I’ll grant you. Many people (dare I say most) are safe throughout most of their lives, and live in a comfortable bubble. The only problem is that this is not how the world actually functions. We have all spent so much time inside a bubble of safety and banality where the only conflict is a digital one, that we have forgotten that we are not actually safe. As anyone who has ever been mugged or burgled can tell you, after the crime is commited they can and probably will tell the police everything that happened. The police will then tell them, they will do everything they can. That’s the end of the story. The sad truth of the matter is that, as far as people are concerned, we are no more safter from each other than we were back in the days of the wild west. Sure we’re safer from exposure, disease, famine, and unclean drinking water (civilization was good for something after all), but from each other, we are just as percariously placed as we ever were.

There is no way to prevent crime. Not really. Sure we can cram as many people as possible into cubicles for as many hours of the day as possible, we can make sure that as much time as mentally possible is spent in front of a computer screen, and we can limit all free and unstructured human interaction until there is barely anything left to do in whatever “free time” we might have left, but that still is not going to prevent crime. We can respond to crime, that is after all what the police are there for (along with giving people the illusion of safety) but that is about the limits of societies power.

The only thing we have left is ourselves, and those closest to us. It is up to each individual to watch his own back, and the backs of those around him. The sad truth, is that we are just bands of uncivilized cavemen who are playing dress up and pretending not to be the savages they really are. Violence is never far away, and if we are not prepared to handle ourselves, then we will end up being just another statistic that the police “respond” to. This was a fact they knew in the middle ages and through most of the victorian era. Say what you want about gun control (I honestly do not know how I feel about that very thorny issue) but back in an era when everyone carried swords and knew how to use them, when deadly serious duels were fought for honor and only occasionally for sport, everyone had to be damn well behaved. That is what laws and regulations and the government tried to replace when you get right down to it: manners, virtues, and customs.

2012-05-30

(via j-mes)

Source: Flickr / tiffanykrumpack

SophistSymons

2012-05-31

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In Response to the tragic events of 2012/5/30

2012-05-30

2012-05-21