"You Cannot Save The World, But You Might Save The Man In Front Of You If You Work Hard Enough."

`` Existence, Really. . ``

Existence really is wonderful.

We exist on this planet and we can think and sing and laugh and create. We can learn and explore and dream. We can *live* and that's a concept that is kind of hard to grasp, really. But maybe that's the point, maybe human existence is so complex and emotional and simply amazing that is is beyond words, beyond comprehension, even

And it really is wonderful, isn't it?

`` Can't I Have Both? ``

I want a big life.

I want to be a doctor, and I want to save lives. I want to laugh loudly with my friends and take up space and explore and run. I want to be a bit too ambitious and I want to be productive. I want to live big and loud and happy.

But I also want a small life.

I want to wake up early and drink tea. I want to sit by a window where I can look out over the forest as I read cozy mystery books. I want to bake my own bread and make flower crowns. I want to live small and soft and happy.

Can I have both?

it wild to me that there are people out there who aren't interested in history

like wdym you don't think about the fact that women would tell stories as they made butter in the same way we listen to podcasts today? wdym you don't think about that one Chinese poet who wrote about how much he loved his cats hundreds of years ago? wdym you don't think about the fact that we found a gravesite of a young child surrounded by flowers from THOUSANDS of years ago? wdym you don't think about how people wrote "i was here" into the walls in Pompeii? wdym you don't think about the little egyptian boy who drew little doodles at the top of his school works more then a thousand years ago?

wdym you don't think about the fact that people, no matter the place, time, social status, are fundamentally no different from you. that they loved the same as you, enjoyed the same things you did, dreamed about a better life the same way you did. that despite how seemingly detached you are from these people, in time, place, and culture, the things you do and the thing u are, are so undeniably human that it transcends time and space

`` Curiosity. . .``

Curiosity, really, is so human, so engraved into our brains that it's hard to escape yet somehow we lose it so young. What happened, what changed that we no longer feel the yearning, the need to know, the need to answer all these questions we ask ourselves. What happened that we no longer ask these questions?

. . . What happened?

`` Everything . . . ``

I want to learn everything.

I want to learn the secrets of the galaxy and the mysteries of the ocean. I want to know all the ideas that could become the technology of tomorrow and all the thoughts that shaped our past. I want to learn every language, both alive and dead. I want to play every instrument, I want to read every book, I want to listen to every song. I want to learn every intricate equation of math and every technique of physical art. I want to write and draw and sculpt and dance and sing. I want to talk to people from all around the world, learn of their cultures and their lives. I want to go to medical school, law school, culinary school, and trade school. I want to work small jobs and large jobs. I want to save lives and preserve them.

I wish I could do everything. . .

`` War. . . ``

We talk about war a lot.

We talk about war, racism, poverty. We talk about death and every negative thing about history. And that's important. If we didn't remember it, we would be doomed to repeat it, wouldn't we?

But it seems we never talk about the peace.

We don't talk about times of peace, of comfort. The soft moments. The other half of what makes us human. We don't talk enough about art, about life. What was an average person's life like back then? They had families and favorite colors. They were just like us. Human.

Yet all we talk about is war.

So you see, I have a problem with letting things die.

I love you dead punctuation marks.

I don't know what to add to this, I just know I need to save this Lol

In the ruins of Pompeii, there is a room inside a house where two men were painting on the day Mt. Vesuvius erupted in AD 79.

The master painter was at work on the fresco itself, twining vines in green, men and women looking out of the image to one side. His partner, probably an apprentice or lesser, younger painter, was laying down fresh plaster nearby. We know it was fresh because the pumice left significant pockmarks in it as it dried that we can still see today.

There are holes where a shelf stood holding the different colors of paint, in the wall just below the unfinished fresco. We found jars of paint on the floor - red green blue white yellow black. We found his tools, the brushes and the pot of lime that kept the paint wet.

He spilled lime on the painting.

We can tell that, too. It is caked clear as day over the unfinished work.

In a documentary I am watching, an Italian anthropologist discussing the moment of eruption looks to the cameraman and says, with real sincerity, "We found their tools, but we didn't find them. We hope that they ran away, that they survived."

Next door, a baker left his livestock behind when he fled. We found the skeletal remains of the animals who helped to move the millstone, but we did not find the baker.

Not that we are certain of, anyway.

I just wanted to take a moment to think about a modern Italian anthropologist looking at unfinished paintings and bread turned to stone by ash and time, hoping to himself that those people made it out in time.

We are separated by almost two thousand years, but we still have empathy for lives facing terror beyond their understanding. We still hope against hope that two painters ran out of town and made a new life somewhere else, that they escaped before the final pyroclastic flows descended.

We hope the baker moved to another town.

We recognize ourselves in what was left behind, and hope that these people - who could have been us, but for a trick of time and place - had a fighting chance to survive.

I just.

Sometimes, I love people.

I love us.

i know your blog says finnish grammar but honestly I have no idea who else to ask. If I wanted to learn more about Finnish mythology, what's a good place to start? I'm specifically trying to learn about Tellervo if you could help me out there.

Thanks so much :)

Sadly, there's very little sources even in finnish about finnish mythology. The christians spent over a thousand years painstakingly scrubbing out any trace or knowledge of The Old Pagan Habits of the common people, so everything that's left is a fraction of a fraction of a remnant of a trace. Researchers specialising in finnish mythology have occasionally resorted to comparing their sources with the mythologies of other peoples of common ancestry, such as Estonians, to see if there are similarities and which old details and traits were probably shared and original.

The finns didn't have a written language before the 1500s, and the first finns who could read and write in their own native languages were priests, determined to teach christian teachings to the peasants in their own language. Figuring out what old finnish folklore and mythology was really like is a lot like figuring out what dinosaurs looked like. The best we can do is look at the traces that remain and make educated guesses about it.

`` A Letter to Time ``

Dear Time,

You remind me of the Sea. Unable to be restrained. Unable to be controlled. Unable to be contained. You are merciless, yet your movement is necessary. You steal away our precious moments before we are ready to let go, just as the rising tides carry away the forgotten toys of young children. But in the moments that we need to escape, to move, you are calm, gentle, and slow. When we are like a sailboat in a windless sea, you choose to quiet.

I understand though, Time, that you might wish to slow down just as much as I wish you would. The Moon controls the tides, so tell me, who controls you, Time? Perhaps we are the ones that make things seem too fast, or perhaps it has always been like this. Perhaps you wish you could slow down the good moments, cradle us in your arms, and tell us you'll make it last as long as we'd like.

Perhaps we are your children, Time, and it pains you that we think you cause our suffering.

With all the love and forgiveness in the world,

a young human