freedom-from-my-ghosts

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

“Get a rat and put it in a cage and give it two water bottles. One is just water, and one is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself very quickly, right, within a couple of weeks. So there you go. It’s our theory of addiction. Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on a minute. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It’s got nothing to do. Let’s try this a little bit differently.” So Bruce built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything your rat about town could want, it’s got in Rat Park. It’s got lovely food. It’s got sex. It’s got loads of other rats to be friends with. It’s got loads of colored balls. Everything your rat could want. And they’ve got both the water bottles. They’ve got the drugged water and the normal water. But here’s the fascinating thing. In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use any of it. None of them ever overdose. None of them ever use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. There’s a really interesting human example I’ll tell you about in a minute, but what Bruce says is that shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. So the right-wing theory is it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment. […] We’ve created a society where significant numbers of our fellow citizens cannot bear to be present in their lives without being drugged, right? We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for a lot of people, much more like that first cage than it is like the bonded, connected cages that we need. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of our society, is geared towards making us connect with things. If you are not a good consumer capitalist citizen, if you’re spending your time bonding with the people around you and not buying stuff—in fact, we are trained from a very young age to focus our hopes and our dreams and our ambitions on things we can buy and consume. And drug addiction is really a subset of that.”

—

Johann Hari,

Does Capitalism Drive Drug Addiction?

(via bigfatsun)

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

Cory Lee has visited 40 countries on seven continents, and yet the Georgia native has never explored Cloudland Canyon State Park, about 20 minutes from his home. His wheelchair was tough enough for the trip to Antarctica but not for the rugged terrain in his backyard.

Lee’s circumstances changed Friday, when Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources and the Aimee Copeland Foundation unveiled a fleet of all-terrain power wheelchairs for rent at 11 state parks and outdoorsy destinations, including Cloudland Canyon. The Action Trackchair models are equipped with tank-like tracks capable of traversing rocks, roots, streams and sand; clearing fallen trees; plowing through tall grass and tackling uphill climbs.

“I’ll finally be able to go on these trails for the first time in my life,” said the 32-year-old travel blogger, who shares his adventures on Curb Free with Cory Lee. “The trails are off-limits in my regular wheelchair.”

Georgia is one of the latest states to provide the Land Rover of wheelchairs to outdoor enthusiasts with mobility issues.

In 2017, Colorado Parks and Wildlife launched its Staunton State Park Track-Chair Program, which provides free adaptive equipment, though guests must pay the $10 entrance fee. Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources has placed off-road track chairs in nearly a dozen parks, including Muskegon State Park. In 2018, Lee reserved a chair at the park that boasts three miles of shoreline on Lake Michigan and Muskegon Lake. “It allowed me to have so much independence on the sand,” he said.

Mobility FTW

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

Pssst

Hey, are you an artist or writer with WIPs?

Come here... I got a secret for you pssst come ‘ere

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

The real reason millenials say "Adulting" is that that if you say something is "for adult reasons" or "grown up reasons" we've been trained to associate that with sex and shit when we just wanna say, be vague about our chore habits

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

annette was here

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

The Coronavirus pandemic has been a challenge that our generation has never faced before. In light of so much uncertainty and isolation, feelings of fear and loneliness is everywhere. But we are not alone, and despite these challenges, we can find small victories in our daily lives, in doing what we love, and sharing that love with everyone else. Start your day with love. Be it love for art, music, dance, books, yoga, gardening, anything that makes you happy. Unleash your creativity and share it with the world. Even when we’re isolated in quarantine, we can still connect with each other through our creations. Artists and creators everywhere, join me in sharing our creations, our passions, and our loves. Paint, dance, compose, do something you love and share it with us <3

You can submit your work here for everyone to enjoy~

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

Lindhardt: Caspar, dear, you’re being ridiculous. Ignatz doesn’t have a crush on me.

Caspar: Yes he does.

Claude & Edelgard: Yes he does.

Byleth: Yes he does.

Ignatz: Yes I do.

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

things I wish autism research actually tried to figure out:

why caffeine works for some of us, but not all, and even then it often depends on the way you take it and the dosage

how come all of us have gastrointestinal problems?

addendum to the above: what exactly are our gastrointestinal problems? are we genetically more likely to have autism be comorbid with gluten sensitivity/colitis/IBS/lactose intolerance/whatever else or is it something completely different? is it psychosomatic? the fuck

okay but how does being sensory-seeking work. and what does stimming do to your brain. what neurological function are we facilitating with flapping hands and rocking back and forth and spinning? wouldn’t it be great if we had a serious long-term study of the brain on stimming?

are you more likely to be autistic and LGBT?

what are things we do better than neurotypicals?

but no it’s always “how do we train the animals to be something they’re not” or “but what made you this way??” or “Time To Find A Cure”

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

babey

tiny

smol

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

i will defend improvised storytelling till the day i fucking die i think stories told by people under pressure to do it fast, stories told in collaboration…. that shits gorgeous and ALIVE. have you ever gone to a writing workshop and someone writes the rawest shit in the entire world during a ten minute free write? playing dnd and some dialogue is so moving it makes you wonder how it came from your dumbass friends? got really into one of those ‘one sentence at a time’ campfire story games and ended up making something— totally unrecorded, lost except to the people who were there— that should have been in the fucking moma?

people are full to the BRIM with stories and honing that storytelling into a specific practice (ex. writing) is for sure a learned skill that takes tons of practice to do effectively but…… it’s there. it’s there and anyone can tap into it if they’re given opportunity and an audience to say it to.

look, the point of telling stories is to connect with other people. and all we’ve ever done throughout human history is connect connect connect so is it any wonder when you put a human being in front of an outlet and you say ‘tell me a story’, no one stays silent? 

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

I can drink 3 cups of coffee and go straight to sleep, this is just one example of what is fundamentaly wrong with me as a person

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

today you, tomorrow me.

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

“Relax wild one. It’s not your job to be everything everyone needs, and you don’t have to be impressive to be loved. Stop trying so hard. Just show up … and be real with the world. That is enough.”

— Brooke Hampton (via perrfectly)

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

I’m not crying.

[freedom-from-my-ghosts]

Reblog this fat happy boy for a good night sleep tonight