• a conversa sobre "encantamento" e "reencanto" me parece tão urgente e tão imprecisa. de que modo este encantamento aconteceria? como evitar a ingenuidade excessiva, a irracionalidade e a hipocrisia no processo de encantar-se? e quando o "encantamento" funciona como mais uma promessa de salvação? imagino um encantamento que aconteceria no campo afetivo, reacendendo a nossa capacidade de nos maravilhar e nos envolver com o mundo novamente. amar para cuidar. e o estado de encantamento em si como um esquecimento intencional, um estado de ignorância controlada daquilo que sabemos. algo que permitiria o seu surgimento. possível apenas desde que de um lugar de reconhecimento da perda, de luto. porque não podemos voltar atrás no que sabemos do estado do mundo, sua brutalidade e falta de sentido. este encantamento pediria a suspensão intencional de uma descrença que seguiria sendo a base da nossa existência cultural. como acessar um estado de sonho, tendo deixado o mundo desperto e para o qual se retornaria afinal. um problema é que o poder do encantamento não pertence a quem foi encantado. e esta ideia de encantamento sob demanda é terreno fértil para a mercantilização de promessas de salvação. [vendem grandiosas fantasias de futuro para distrair dos automatismos, da destruição, das violações. mas a grande resolução não chega. pensando que a mágica pode estar em se apaixonar pelas chatices da vida, pelas miudezas, pelo banal. conselhos são autobiográficos. relatos de sucesso são autobiográficos e autoficção, não são manuais. a realização pessoal não está na era da sua reprodutibilidade técnica.] o desafio é como navegar agora esse delicado equilíbrio, como acessar um encantamento que não seja escapista ou ingênuo, que se distancie de um apaixonamento cego e que, imagino, precise talvez até de outro nome. o que me faz pensar nisso aqui de novo: [se este for o seu primeiro fim do mundo, busque apoio. se já tiver experiência com fim do mundo, busque apoio. em todos os casos, a resposta é gente cuidando de gente.] crenças, mitos, superstições, lendas, rituais importam não por sua verdade objetiva, e sim porque símbolos importam. temos uma dimensão objetiva e outra, talvez várias, subjetivas. criamos e somos criados pelas histórias que contamos. atenção para as histórias. contar é construir. seguir contando histórias. ["(...) a vantagem evolutiva da contação de histórias se deve não à riqueza de detalhes factuais da comunicação da verdade, mas às possibilidades que a narrativa propõe para garantir nossa sobrevivência. (...) Em torno da comida, ao longo da nossa história sobre a Terra, desenvolvemos tanto ciência como música, canto, literatura, religião, filosofia e arquitetura. Aliás, a culinária divide com a arte certo desprezo pelo utilitarismo puro. (...) Somos tão constituídos pelo milho quanto pelas histórias que contamos sobre o milho. É preciso seguir contando histórias." julia garcia em a história da comida (levedura - blog do grupo ciências na vida)] já li que o desejo por reencantar o mundo parece sintoma da crise epistêmica, tentativa de fuga da realidade, até crítica espontânea ao sistema que esvazia tudo de sentido. deve ser um pouco de cada coisa e ainda outras mais. mas ele está aí. aparece junto com o desejo de pertencer (a movimentos, times, empresas, fandoms, cultos, comunidades), com o desejo por aprendizado, direcionamento ("você está fazendo tudo errado", influencers, coaches, gurus, terapias várias), com o desejo por propósito e por acreditar (em "mitos", soluções, oráculos, esquemas para ficar rico, metas, dietas, grupos para cuidar do planeta ou para combater "conspirações"). é terreno fértil pra todo tipo de narrativa, de fantasia. estou pensando que é importante tentar uma aproximação mais consciente dessas necessidades, tentar identificar os caminhos que priorizam o cuidado e a responsabilidade. porque tudo isso, bem ou mal, vai continuar por aí. (@belloariela)

• uma coisa que eu acho muito sintomática dos nossos tempos é como certas coisas que não tem finalidade além da própria prática depois das redes sociais passaram a ter uma dinâmica de desempenho ou de comparação. volta e meia eu posto algo sobre plantas e vem alguém falar de si. um dos motivos pelos quais a jardinagem tem me salvado durante a pandemia é me cercar de vidas para além das minha e de outros seres humanos com os quais eu me preocupo no meio de tanta morte, é criar uma paisagem que muda embora eu esteja dentro se casa, é observar outros tempos. e nesse percurso vão tentativas e erros, plantas que morrem por praga, excesso d'água, as queimadas pelo sol que se recuperam, as que respondem ao adubo líquido mais rápido do que sólido. há toda uma resistência e uma insistência na vida que nada tem a ver conosco, só ajudamos. às vezes acho que esse pessoal que tem encarado suas plantas como objetivos de cultivo e material instagramável tá perdendo a oportunidade de justamente se desligar de si, de olhar pra um outro que existe sem neurose. (@stephieborges)

• i remember the exact moment where trans twitter helped me to realize that i've experienced attraction to men in a queer way. it was a thread where a woman was realizing that she was trans, after confessing to her friend of her feeling that her attraction to women was "lesbian". that share was like a loud horn to some deep unspoken-unwordable corners of my truest self, dots were connected, experiences were affirmed. i am but a blob named riah. my gender, sexuality, & attraction just be nebulous. if not for queer spaces, i would feel like myself was *wrong*. this is also why i struggled with folk tryna lable me as femme. but after some reflection, i do feel that masc femme works well as any expression of femme is still informed by my masc. (@lilririah)

• (...) I acknowledge an inner wish to go slower than time is generous enough to give me these days. It makes it awfully taxing reaching the ends of thoughts (...). Writing sometimes looks like reading and staring at the wall and taking long walks and having passing conversations grow in weird shapes for me these days and I'm trying to be patient with myself and acknowledging that more often than we probably realise, we do not arrive at thoughts and feelings in isolation. (@extreme.metaphors)

• A thing I hear from many gender-questioning people is the idea they don't "need" to transition, it's not a life-or-death-matter for them, and so they shouldn't do it. One problem with that logic is just how much human beings can get accustomed to quiet low-grade lifelong misery. Before I came out as trans, I too would have claimed that I didn't "need" to go on T, or to present differently, because hey, I had survived fine up to that point. I had no idea how miserable I was because I hadn't known relief from that misery since age 12 or so. People are fantastic at mounting elaborate defenses around pain they believe they have to get used to. You may think surgery, hormones, dressing differently, electrolysis, whatever sound like luxuries, but if any of those sound pleasurable to you, you deserve that pleasure. As many before me have noted, we don't require cis people to prove that getting a breast augmentation, chin implant, or liposuction for gynecomastia is "lifesaving". They can just go and do it because they think it would look cute and be fun to have. You deserve the same frivolity. Tattoos can be gender affirming procedures. Butt lifts can be gender affirming procedures. Getting a weird little rat boy haircut can be a gender affirming procedure. Nipple piercings can be gender affirming. Who gives a shit. If it makes you enjoy being alive more that's huge. If you believe in body autonomy and gender expansiveness, you should support people's right to do any cute, frivilous, vain, freak shit to their bodies that they think will make their life nicer. That includes cis people. That includes you. Cis people can experience dysphoria, and can experience gender euphoria from getting affirming procedures. I know a woman who says being on T makes her feel more womanly. I know several AFAB femmes who feel euphoria from getting cosmetic "feminizing" procedures. I know an AMAB enby who posted that they dress like a freaky denim-clad clown because it the only style that allows them to feel like themselves. I bet a lot of people whove chosen having "alternative" style over professional respectability do it for gender euphoric reasons. If there were decent surgical options available I'd get horn implants as a gender affirming procedure in a heartbeat. Affirming your gender shouldn't have to be some dour, medicalized thing you only deserve if you're gonna die otherwise. I know a guy who took estrogen because he wanted to be a dad with tits!! He's hot as fuck and I aspire to be as free and freaky-sexy as him. God bless him, god bless the women (both trans *and* cis) who bimbofy themselves with breast augmentations & etc, god bless all of us. Your life is for you. Your body is you. Anything that will make you feel more excited to look in the mirror, or at peace when you're alone in the tub is more than justified by its emotional benefits. And by the way – "this is hot and turns me on" is a valid emotional benefit. Lots of people—both trans and cis—make changes to their appearance because looking a particular way or having a certain body feature turns them on. This is fantastic actually. Pleasure is a powerful indicator of what we might do in the absence of the shame that's restricting us. Sometimes, pleasure asserts its message so strongly that even decades of cultural programming and shame cannot silence it. Like all your emotions, pleasure is trying to protect and guide you. What would it tell you, if you could listen? (@drdevonprice)

• I'm aware for myself that times that I become so overwhelmed when trying to communicate an idea that I kind of short-circuit and I'm only able to use a quote from a time where that idea was very clear to me and I felt like I understood it then, or I felt like it was communicated to me clearly. And you just kinda like, 'well I can't make the words but I know a time when this happened', does that make sense? At least that's how it works for me. And then I worked with a girl that really liked a TV show and when she finished doing laundry she said 'we made it up the mountain!', which was something from that TV show. So when I read this message from my friend I'm just like... 'what is it about those frogs that made you think about this girl?' I don't know! Echolalia is one of my favorite forms of communication, it's so interesting, it's like a puzzle. Oh wait, wait, not like that!!! The reason that I refer to it as a puzzle is because you have to do a little bit of work to kind of figure out why is this person inspired to use that phrase? What idea are they trying to communicate that they're using that phrase to communicate for them? And if you haven't seen that movie or that tiktok or read that series of books, you might not be able to communicate as effectively with that person. And this is- a lot of autistic traits are universal human traits, a lot of people use echolalia, like, quoting tiktoks—that's a form of echolalia. Autistic people are just better at them. No I'm just kidding, but like, we're just more known for it I guess. We popularized echolalia! I love that we're like parrots. Anyways, I think that's why it's so beautiful of a love language—people that are desperate to show you things that are really important to them because they want to be able to communicate with you more effectively. Like, if you're like, 'oh you need to watch this TV show because I quote it all the time', that's... I don't know! I used to know a kid who was non-speaking and at the time I knew him he was non-verbal, he didn't use any form of language to communicate; he would do things like imitate the sound of this microwave beeping to say that the food was ready when he was trying to indicate that he was ready for something or that he was finished with something. And it's true that if you weren't living this kid's life alongside him and sharing in his experiences it would be a lot more difficult for you to communicate with him—which I learn a lot about human nature from studying autistic people around me, including myself, and that's true for anyone: it's difficult for anyone to truly effectively communicate with someone that doesn't physically share a lot of their experiences. (@sefscatterbrain)

• desconfio mais e mais que a peça retirada (e que propicia a inação) é a da experiência. (...) o corpo é a fronteira última de aprendizado e de empatia. e a empatia real pede experiência real. envolvimento, materialidade, vivência no corpo, atenção e dedicação. é uma escolha. e, portanto, prevê renúncias, porque somos finitos. (...) à experiência real não servem delírios de grandeza, parece, mas agir apesar de toda a impotência sentida. (...) como me encontrar mais com a experiência, cultivar este apaixonamento pelo outro, pelo mundo? a descobrir. (@belloariela)

• I love talking about it, by the way, so if I cry it's only, like... it's only a beautiful thing. This is all the unexpressed love, right? The grief that will remain with us, you know, until we pass, because we didn't- we never get enough time with each other, right? No matter if someone lives 'til 60, 15 or... you know, 99. So I hope this grief stays with me because it's all the unexpressed love that I didn't get to tell her—and I told her everyday. (Andrew Garfield sobre a perda da mãe)

• When I say dating yourself, I don’t mean buying yourself flowers, going to restaurants by yourself. That’s the more performative kind. I mean: 1. Little things things like stopping to check... “Babe are you cold? no srsly, let’s stop, pull out the jacket, and get you warm.” (It’s the kind of thing an attentive partner, who is so fiercely kind and just cares if you are alright would do, for they care about my experience intrinsically—the moment they offer to stop the night walk and pull out the jacket is startling, because it’s just about Them looking at me and asserting “my experience matters,” not just getting there.) 2. A healthy, not-entire-about-work relationship with yourself. Would you spend time with yourself if all ‘yourself’ did was nag at you about all the work you haven’t done? It’s like quality time, but for yourself. 3. Creating little moments of delight that could not be for anyone possibly but you. To care, then, is the fundamental currency of intimacy. To afford attention and value on my partner’s needs it to make them real to herself. To provide that care and attention to our own is powerful indeed. [my biggest flex is having learned how to not let anyone make me feel bad about myself. i am perfect EXACTLY as is. all of my choices, my clothes, my hobbies, my quirks, my body, my ability to talk non stop. all of it. how can anyone else have power when the throne is occupied?] What is beautiful about dating myself is I still date others, but fundamentally, I am dating myself. I can very close with them, and still poly, because I am also dating myself. The multiple engines of attention and intimacy for myself run. [this is the nicest way I can phrase where I’m at romantically in my life rn ; I am a fantastic companion. I am not available to partner. u feel me? does that make sense the way it makes sense to me.] I felt so unreal prior to this. It is difficult to express. I existed in two states: by myself, where things didn’t feel totally real, and around others, when I felt like chameleon. Now, I totally, completely exist, even when I am alone. [No one to show my happiness, as if to secure it. I am my only witness. Is that enough? It’s not a rhetorical question. It’s a koan.] Dating myself still CAN mean buying myself flowers, and going to restuarants by myself. I do both, actually. I just want to point a finger away, from these mass media images of self-care and self-love, that I know felt performative to me, that I know had to tweak, for them to make sense to me. What’s wrong with those pop culture images is just that they are crude. They are breaking through the popular mentality and models, but still fixated on these symbols, flowers and dates, and miss perhaps the essence, which was always intimacy and care. Self-love can be a frustrating frame. It really just is... tenderness. Or acceptance. Or maybe even... self-compassion. Dating yourself makes so many things obvious. One of those things is this: I don’t want to have taken an entire vacation with my partner and have missed it, because I was trying to figure out logistics. The worst thing is to have lived and missed it. 4. Letting my internal bf do things for me. No idea how this work. ill lyk when i figure it out (@AskYatharth)

• All of these 'disorders' are really just narratives to describe a certain set of challenges that a certain set of people experience under the tenants of colonialism, capitalism... I will say this though: even though being autistic isn't like an extremely concrete thing that's like very black and white, people that aren't autistic are not looking as content about autism and being like 'OMG my whole life makes sense now'. So if you are having that experience the question should not be 'am I allowed to stim? am I allowed to identify as autistic?,' it's more 'does this narrative help me understand myself and make my life easier?'—then use it, baby! Let's be really really controversially real for a second: if you don't exhibit a stereotypy or like 'disability' enough to warrant a childhood diagnosis and you're an adult who identify as an introvert, you just need to learn to unmask. (@sefscatterbrain)

• The journey is also to the teacher and beyond. It is always a path to the heart. And the heart of the matter is always our oneness with divine spirit—our union with all life. As early as 1975, Thich Nhat Hanh was sharing: “The way must be in you; the destination also must be in you and not somewhere else in space or time. If that kind of self-transformation is being realized in you, you will arrive.” (...) TNH: So the second help, the second insight, is that between self or no-self there is no real separation. Anything you do for yourself you do for the society at the same time. And anything you do for society you do for yourself also. That insight is very powerfully made in the practice of no-self. (...) bh: Exactly. It was not a transmission of personality. Part of why I have started writing about love is feeling, as you say, that our culture is forgetting what he taught. We name more and more streets and schools after him but that’s almost irrelevant, because what is to be remembered is that strength to love. (bell hooks & Thich Nhat Hanh)

• ...people are consistently told “What can you learn about your own life from this novel, what lessons will this teach you? How can you use this…” This is a philistine idea. This is beyond vulgar. It’s an awful way to approach anything. It should take you away. A book should not be a mirror, it’s supposed to be a door. (fran lebowitz)

• Love has never been a popular movement... The world is held together, really it is, held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people. Otherwise, of course you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you've got to remember is what you're looking at is also you. Everyone you're looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide, in yourself, not to be. (James Baldwin)

• [after a half-hearted suicide attempt at age 13] When Daddy comes in, he carries you to bed. Is there anything you feel like you could eat, Pokey? Anything at all? All you can imagine putting in your mouth is a cold plum, one with really tight skin on the outside but gum-shocking sweetness inside. And he and your mother discuss where he might find some this late in the season. Mother says hell I don’t know. Further north, I’d guess. The next morning, you wake up in your bed and sit up. Mother says, Pete, I think she’s up. He hollers in, You ready for breakfast, Pokey. Then he comes in grinning, still in his work clothes from the night before. He’s holding a farm bushel. The plums he empties onto the bed river toward you through folds in the quilt. If you stacked them up, they’d fill the deepest bin at the Piggly Wiggly. Damned if I didn’t get the urge to drive to Arkansas last night, he says. Your mother stands behind him saying he’s pure USDA crazy. Fort Smith, Arkansas. Found a roadside stand out there with a feller selling plums. And I says, Buddy, I got a little girl sick back in Texas. She’s got a hanker for plums and ain’t nothing else gonna do. It’s when you sink your teeth into the plum that you make a promise. The skin is still warm from riding in the sun in Daddy’s truck, and the nectar runs down your chin. And you snap out of it. Or are snapped out of it. Never again will you lay a hand against yourself, not so long as there are plums to eat and somebody-anybody-who gives enough of a damn to haul them to you. So long as you bear the least nibblet of love for any other creature in this dark world, though in love portions are never stingy. There are no smidgens or pinches, only rolling abundance. That’s how you acquire the resolution for survival that the coming years are about to demand. You don’t earn it. It’s given. (Mary Karr, from Cherry)