Its always “I love you” and never “I know I am imperfect, but I will humble myself before you because I cannot imagine my life without you, and that is why I wish to marry you”
Why does no one ever comment on the inherent sadness that is present whenever one packs one’s luggage - whether to move house, fly abroad, or even just on one’s way to a leisure trip? There is a sense of sentimentality in saying farewell to a place that had been your home, whether for weeks, months, even years - by packing up belongings, one tries to salvage as many pieces as one could, to retain a sense of home. Yet one could never really replace home, for home is not objects, nor is it really a location, an apartment, a house. It is a feeling - an attachment to old things, new things, borrowed things. And packing one’s luggage is the final act of acknowledging one’s departure.
So I’ve decided to make a series called ‘An Artist’s Life in a Textpost’, which is basically a series of textposts paying homage to a certain artist’s life in a series of point forms. I’m not sure whether anyone would be interested, but I decided to do it anyways because 1) it’s really quick to write and 2) I love discovering new artists (not just painters, but also musicians, poets etc.) and I don’t want to spend time pouring over their 5,000 word biography on Wikipedia or some other website. So here goes nothing!
(If you’re interested in following this I’ll be tagging it with an artist’s life in a textpost so…zero points to me for originality but yes)
Yeah,,,kinda forgot about this project I was supposed to start, but anyways I’ve decided to change it into a homage to LGBTQ+ artists/artists suffering from mental conditions/POC artists in history so it makes my job easier.
The hashtag would probably be #nicheartists or something,,,absolutely zero creativity but that’s the state we’re in, unfortunately
An additional note to the POC artists: This only include POC artists who create for a primarily European audience (in the case of writers, in a European language), and artists who are of African descent. I’m not including artists of Asian descent who create art for Asian audiences because that is reserved for my side-blog on all things Asian (I’ll be counting Russia into Europe, as a fyi)
3am. Noir jazz played on a gramophone in the background. Cuddled up on the windowsill with a fleece blanket, forehead leaned against the cold metal frame. Staring outside at the city that never sleeps, lights that remain flickering despite the late hour. A well-thumbed paperback by your side, a thumb slid between the pages that laid forgotten. A glass of whiskey or cheap wine somewhere on a table, completely forgotten. No social constructs, no rules, no one to tell you what to do. Just inner peace.
3am. Gentle R&B music and a cup of freshly made tea. City lights flickering on and off, a car honks somewhere, but taking solace in the fact that no one can bother you. Ticking off things on your to-do list, and putting the movie or tv show you wanted to watch for ages on. Flipping open your journal/diary, armed with stickers. Uncapping your pen and writing, the faint scratches as you scrawled your words being your only companion. Inner peace.
3am. Classical music and hot chocolate. ‘On the hills of Manchuria’ by Shatrov in the background, you imagining being in a Russian ball. Dancing with your cat in the living room, or doing minor chores while waltzing around. No scrutiny from anyone, no judgement. Just you and a very puzzled cat. Alternatively, reading that book you’ve been putting away forever, that book on dress history, or theatre practicalities, or philosphy that you seemed to never have time for. Inner peace.
Note: Best applied if you have a room to yourself, or if you’re living alone
Putting a podcast about your favourite subject on, letting the voice from the radio fill the silence as you start making dinner, or do the chores
Starting a quarantine journal with daily entries, like a diary - but decorated with stickers or knick-knacks you discover while cleaning your room one day (I did this back in March if anyone’s interested!)
Re-watching Studio Ghibli films on Netflix or from the internet - the aesthecism somehow makes the world calmer, and it feels like a better place for just one second.
Re-arranging your book collection from scratch. Pulling all the books from your shelves and brushing the dust off their covers, looking fondly back at childhood memories. A playlist in the background is recommended.
Put your kettle on, and dive into your cupboard for that forgotten ginger and honey teabag from three months ago. Brew a mug of tea, or hot chocolate, and just sit there, wrapping your hands around the warm mug. If your thoughts get too loud, pluck a book off your bookshelf, or put a show on your laptop. (Note: Make sure the teabag still works and it’s not tasteless)
Record your days, so as to make them less repetitive, less dull, less stagnant. Anything works. Your playlist of the day. Your meals. The shows you watched, the course you discovered online. Anything. (This is similar to the quarantine journal)
Discover new things online. Read that book you’ve been putting aside for months. Watch online concerts, online ballets, online operas. Or try the online archives of museums. The Internet is an infinite treasury of knowledge; you can find virtually anything you want.
Make lists. I’ve found making lists ground yourself to reality and stop oneself from spiraling into panic. To-do lists. Lists of movies/books/tv shows you want to watch, want to read. New research ideas. Cross them off when you’ve completed something, Before long, you’ll have lists of things you want to do, or can do.
Put on music. Any type of music you want, and just dance. Or even just move around to. You won’t have to worry about people’s eyes on you. Put on Shostakovich’s Second Waltz, and pretend you’re at a ball, twirling on the dance floor with a hand on your partner’s shoulder, another clasped in their hand.
Above all, remember; you’re not alone if you can’t get your spirits up during quarantine. Some people can write plays in quarantine, but most people don’t have that motivation. So just try to make your days a little better, a little less repetitive, a little less stagnant day by day. It doesn’t have to be anything significant in world terms. As long as it’s significant in your terms, and make you smile a little, or lift your spirits a little, that’s enough. And yes, that includes mundane things like taking a shower, or doing your dishes/laundry. Every step counts.
I lay there in the dark, huddled under my covers as the minutes tick past, thinking of all the things I have loved, my dreams about the future, my redeeming qualities. Sometimes I feel better after listing the things I like about myself. Sometimes I sigh as I list the qualities I want in my future partner. Sometimes I start to despair as I list out my favourite characters, a sense of sadness welling up knowing I’ll never meet them.
These lists usually vanish into nothingness when I wake up the next morning, stumbling around in sunlight. But at night, when everything is silent and it’s 3:30am, the lists help drown out the thoughts in my head, and my mind drifts, little by little, off to dreamland.
—The Sword of Damocles by Richard Westall, 1812 (x)
I often see this in popular media depicted as an actual sword, so I thought it was a mythological or fantasy thing and decided to search it up. It’s different than what I thought it was so here it goes
The sword of Damocles is actually an allusion or allegory to precarious situations and especially imminent tragic/dangerous situations that would be onset by a sudden or delicate trigger/chance. (x) From its original story, it’s meant to be an epitome of the ever-present danger that comes with high positions of power, or simply, the idea of ‘with great power comes great responsibility’.
The original story behind goes like this (told in a more crude way to make it a little more engaging):
So there’s this dude called Damocles who’s in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse (a city in Sicily, Italy). One day he went up to his king, and was like, man, you have such a nice life. You have power, money, riches, everything you want! And Dionysius, being a generous king, was like, dude, you want to switch places with me?
So they swapped places.
Damocles sat on the king’s throne for a day, surrounded by literally everything he wanted, and all the luxury that Dionysus had enjoyed. However, the king, as any other, had pissed off a lot of people during his reign and as a consequence made a lot of enemies. Since Damocles had wanted to feel like what it was to be king, Dionysus decided that he should know the constant anxiety he feels as well.
So what did old Dionysus do?
Well, he arranged that he should have a lethal weapon, a sword, hang above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse’s tail to evoke a sense of what it’s like to have that constant anxiety of watching one’s back.
And since Damocles had the additional burden of constant anxiety of the sword coming down and crashing upon him, he soon had enough of being a king and begged Dionysus to let him go, realising that with great fortune and power also comes great danger.
So it was Cambridge Results Day (for undergraduate applications) today/yesterday, depending on where you are.
I just want to say, to all of those who applied and didn’t get in, it’s okay. You’re probably feeling an immense sense of loss at the moment. It’s fine. Let it all out. Cry it out. You’ve tried your best.
When you’re ready continue reading.
Because Cambridge isn’t everything. Yes, it took a lot of time, a lot of pain and a lot of effort to apply, and being rejected sucks. It sucks a lot. But remember, Cambridge is just one university amongst literally thousands.
Your undergraduate university doesn’t determine your standing in life - the degree you get from it does. Getting an upper second, or first honours degree at a decent university is enough to get you going in a decent job industry. And once you get that degree, you can try again for Cambridge in postgraduate. And again. And again. Heck, you can even try applying every single year if you want. The worst thing they can do is reject you, and you’ve already been through that.
So for the moment, cry it all out. Talk to a friend, talk to a family member, or a teacher you trust. Especially teachers, who have been dealing with this for years. But always remember, this isn’t the end. This is the beginning, and you’ve done well to come so far. And remember, there are endless possibilities out there.
Someone who came from a decent university ended up teaching in Cambridge. Remember that.
So don’t give up. Never give up and keep your eyes on the goal.
And besides, you can live out your dark academia dreams in other universities.
For those who got into Cambridge, however, congratulations! You deserved it equally and you deserve to celebrate your success. But please honour your offer and don’t go partying outside and spreading covid.
I wish everyone success in their university application cycle this year - it’s tough, but we’ll get there. And we willsucceed.
Sometimes I feel unbearably tired…and then I stare outside the window, to the nature that our world has to offer, to the beauty that is ever present and my soul feels a little more at ease.
In that single, golden, wonderful moment, the world is at a standstill and my worries fade away.
So please don’t badger, spam, or call your friend who might be MIA or even just not texting you - yes, maybe even specifically only you - for a few days. They might need a break to themselves, and they don’t want to show their vulnerability because ‘normally’ they aren’t like this. They specifically don’t want to burden you.
Or maybe they just need a few days to themselves. People have boundaries and we need to respect them. Something might be happening in their personal lives, and if they don’t want you to know, let them be.
Don’t text them every few hours asking them whether they’re mad at you.
Don’t spam their inbox of every social media account you share/know and ask what’s happening.
Don’t call them. Don’t email them. Just let them be, there’s no need to apologize for something you’re worried you might’ve done (especially if you have anxiety - your fears of them hating you because they haven’t contacted you is understandable, but that friend might be having a bad episode also).
If you spam their inbox every three hours you’re not helping the situation. Let them be after contacting them once or twice, and wait until they’re comfortable with coming back online.
Because you demanding an answer, or apologising might be overwhelming for that person, and might make their personal struggles worse.
So just relax, and wait for their response. Maybe send them a ‘I hope you’re doing okay since you haven’t been online for quite some time’. They’ll appreciate it.
If your friend has something they want to tell you, they will.
(Note: This only applies if you know your friend well enough to know that their silences aren’t them being mad at you. If they’re giving you the cold shoulder because they’re annoyed that might require methods to tackle.)
(If you’re worried they might be in some kind of actual danger, just ask. ‘Are you having a mental health break? I haven’t heard from you for a few days so I hope you’re safe.’ This relieves them of the need to explain where they’ve been while letting you know they’re alive and safe.)
(Additional PS: I know this isn’t along the usual line of what I post since dark academia is usually about the aesthetics, but I consider topics like mental health, LGBTQ+ Issues and social issues part of academia as well)
So I’ve decided to make a series called ‘An Artist’s Life in a Textpost’, which is basically a series of textposts paying homage to a certain artist’s life in a series of point forms. I’m not sure whether anyone would be interested, but I decided to do it anyways because 1) it’s really quick to write and 2) I love discovering new artists (not just painters, but also musicians, poets etc.) and I don’t want to spend time pouring over their 5,000 word biography on Wikipedia or some other website. So here goes nothing!
(If you’re interested in following this I’ll be tagging it with an artist’s life in a textpost so…zero points to me for originality but yes)
Throwback to that time when I watched too much Bernadette Banner and thought my English teacher’s North-English/British?? accent was a Transatlantic one and I stayed back after class just to ask him that and he chuckled at me. Everytime I think of that I die a little in the inside.
(Okay but in my defense he did spend most of his childhood years in America - )
[Text ID: And I think the thing that terrifies me most is that one day, you’ll be the story I’ll tell my daughter, when she’s curled up in bed, wrapped in blankets and heartbreak, when she hasn’t eaten anything in days but the voicemails he left her, when she hasn’t been able to sleep because the goodbye that broke her shatters her bones all over again every time she closes her fucking eyes. And I’ll climb into bed with her and she’ll lay her head on my lap and I’ll try to brush him out of her hair and her tears will soak through my shirt and I’ll tell her about the boy I met when I was sixteen, who sat next to me in math class, who I fell in love with after two weeks, who saved me, who fucking destroyed me. And I’ll tell her about how it hurt. It hurt so badly it almost killed me. It hurt so badly my mother stopped going to work so she could stay home and make sure I didn’t take too many pills. And then I’ll tell her about how it got better. How it stopped hurting. How I stopped bleeding. My mother went back to work. I got out of bed. But I won’t tell her that sometimes I still have dreams about you and can hardly breathe the next day or about the pictures of you I have hidden in the attic.]
