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Hope - Blog Posts
Please don't give up, things are dark and bleak right now but please don't give up. Everything me seem and feel impossible but there's so much left to fight for. So many to fight for.
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*America, Now*
America, land of fractured dreams,
Where hope is dimmer than it seems.
Once bright with promise, strong and sure,
Now shadows linger, hard to cure.
The streets are loud, with voices raw,
Divided hearts, divided law.
Truth is scattered, torn in two,
While justice falters, lost from view.
The cost of care is measured cold,
A weight too heavy to uphold.
And children, eyes too young for grief,
See futures robbed by silent thieves.
Guns in hands, fear in eyes,
Unseen wounds and whispered lies.
A country built on strength and pride,
Feels splintered now, cracked open wide.
Yet still beneath the hardened soil,
There’s grit, there’s fight, a pulsing coil.
A spark of what it once could be—
A dream that strains to be set free.
America, bruised but holding on,
In every heart, a quiet dawn.
For even through the darkest night,
There’s still a chance to heal, to fight.
Sitting on my couch, nothing at all is happening... I don't work tomorrow... But my heart is racing and so are my thoughts... Wishing I knew how to change my life so that who I am can be who I am, freely expressing and enjoying who I am... So I don't have to worry about the future... So I don't have to have an autopilot for worrying and fear...
Hi, I hope you're doing well. I'm writing to you with a heavy heart and an urgent request for help. My family is in a very danger situation due to the ongoing war, and I've launched a GoFundMe campaign to save them. Could you please share my campaign post from my profile? Each share could be a lifeline for my family. 🙏 Feel free to share it in any other social media platform if you would like. Our campaign has been verified ⭐️ by operation olive branch, and is entry number 26 on their spreadsheet. Also with ⭐️ Project watermelon,line 249/(212) on their spreadsheet. From the bottom of my heart I want to thank you in advance for all of your support and kindness.
Hello!!! I hope you’re well too
I encourage those who can, please donate to Haya’s campaign. She has raised €73,437 out of the €100,000 goal!!!
I know posts with art gain more traction, so here’s a quick sketch of Haya and her younger sister
Once again, please donate if you can!!
Photo courtesy of New York Times
Hope
I met Hope in the rescue center for dogs. He was placed in a cage between two well groomed and beautiful dogs. He was very different from them. When I first saw him, I was shocked! He barely had any hair and he was skinny to the bone. While other dogs pressed their pretty faces onto their cage doors. He sat in a corner, away from the light. So I had to take a second look at the cage.
When I first looked at him, I felt pity. I thought that the reason he stayed at a corner is that he had no hope on people adopting him. That was why I adopted him. And that was why I named him ‘Hope’.
Hope was skeptical of me at first. He avoided me for the first few days. But I gave him space and time. Slowly, he warmed up to me after a week. He started to sit on my lap and lick my face. I gave him the adequate amount of food he needed, and if he wanted more I would give him. He was a sweet dog overall. But more time passed, and his hair or size didn’t seem to grow. The veterinarian said that it was harmless and he would be fine.
Hope was a sweet dog. On bad days, he would snuggle at my neck and lick my tears away. On rare days, where I wanted to be alone in my room, Hope would wait outside the door till I got better. He was a patient dog and would be there to help me when I got hurt. Like a time where I fell and broke my leg and couldn’t move. Fortunately, Hope was there. Even for his small size, he managed to bark loudly enough to get my neighbor’s attention to get help. So I consider him my savior and comforter.
Most of my friends favored him despite his appearance. Of course some still despised him. But still, I hosted a party at my house and sent invitations to all my friends. I smiled after I sent the last invite. This is going to change on how some would view my dear Hope. I then started getting ready for the party.
When my friends arrived, I could tell by their faces that I’d succeeded. I had placed paper moon and stars all around the living room. The walls were covered with wallpaper that were black and starry. Like a night sky or space. There, sitting at a table, was Hope wearing a small but majestic cape, sitting behind a sparkling crescent with the words: There is hope in every living creature. I then turned to my gawking visitors and calmly said, “I don’t think I got into the origin on why I named Hope, ‘Hope’. He looked so helpless at the center. Like many people had rejected and made fun of him. I gave him hope when he had none left. I gave him food and shelter and love. And hope.” I took a deep breath. “Give him a chance. He may not be beautiful. But he needs love and hope. So give him a chance. Hope.”
My friends all stared at me with tear-filled eyes...
Self-harm awareness day
Today is self-harm awareness day. It is a very important day for me as a former self-harmer, and when I was at my lowest I thought no one knew how I felt, but now I know better. This is a day for people to learn more about the causes of self-harm and the risks. Self-harm is no different than any other unhealthy coping mechanism like drugs, alcohol, and many others. Just because someone self-harms does not make them any different from an addict that needs help. So, if you are a self-harmer and If you’re not sure where to turn, call the S.A.F.E. Alternatives information line in the U.S. at 1-800-366-8288 for referrals and support for cutting and self-harm. If you know a self-harmer, or just want to be more aware click here for more information.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
I'm an orbit, a black hole Traveling through merits Collect all the meteors you can Bring me the stars, the moon Crave for the notes to play Crave for the credits to appear For my name to appear How hard will it be, as if I were only a math algorithm Find me out [hostil as it can be Listen to light speed on notes Nobody will ever need me more than the smell of air in my lungs, when it all ends. Hope it takes longer [than I expect Care of myself take me away like a stoic, the present is never be obstacle, only the infinite that holds me [like a daughter Love me, Universe take my words, e bring me chances so, I can hope to find you [within me. Jales
i was too lazy to give this poor man his jacket and pants, but it turned out pretty cool, what do you think ?
I think about this post so often. Here it is again for the few of you that see my reblogs. Remember that there's always one thing you can do, even if it's planning for the future:)
i learned about Tim Wong who successfully and singlehandedly repopulated the rare California Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly in San Francisco. In the past few years, he’s cultivated more than 200 pipevine plants (their only food source) and gives thousands of caterpillars to his local Botanical Garden (x)
As someone who’s reported alt-right harassment and rhetoric on various social media sites and been told “there’s nothing here that violates our TOS,” seeing what RPGnet is doing is a welcome breath of fresh air.
Please, more social media sites need to do this.
“X bodily fluid is just filtered blood!” buddy I hate to break it to you but ALL of the fluids in your body are filtered blood. Your circulatory system is how water gets around your body. It all comes out of the blood (or lymph, which is just filtered blood).
This is amazing
When self-described “ocean custodian” Boyan Slat took the stage at TED 2025 in Vancouver this week, he showed viewers a reality many of us are already heartbreakingly familiar with: There is a lot of trash in the ocean.
“If we allow current trends to continue, the amount of plastic that’s entering the ocean is actually set to double by 2060,” Slat said in his TED Talk, which will be published online at a later date.
Plus, once plastic is in the ocean, it accumulates in “giant circular currents” called gyres, which Slat said operate a lot like the drain of the bathtub, meaning that plastic can enter these currents but cannot leave.
That’s how we get enormous build-ups like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a giant collection of plastic pollution in the ocean that is roughly twice the size of Texas.
As the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, Slat’s goal is to return our oceans to their original, clean state before 2040. To accomplish this, two things must be done.
First: Stop more plastic from entering the ocean. Second: Clean up the “legacy” pollution that is already out there and doesn’t go away by itself.
And Slat is well on his way.
Pictured: Kingston Harbour in Jamaica. Photo courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup Project
When Slat’s first TEDx Talk went viral in 2012, he was able to organize research teams to create the first-ever map of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. From there, they created a technology to collect plastic from the most garbage-heavy areas in the ocean.
“We imagined a very long, u-shaped barrier … that would be pushed by wind and waves,” Slat explained in his Talk.
This barrier would act as a funnel to collect garbage and be emptied out for recycling.
But there was a problem.
“We took it out in the ocean, and deployed it, and it didn’t collect plastic,” Slat said, “which is a pretty important requirement for an ocean cleanup system.”
Soon after, this first system broke into two. But a few days later, his team was already back to the drawing board.
From here, they added vessels that would tow the system forward, allowing it to sweep a larger area and move more methodically through the water. Mesh attached to the barrier would gather plastic and guide it to a retention area, where it would be extracted and loaded onto a ship for sorting, processing, and recycling.
It worked.
“For 60 years, humanity had been putting plastic into the ocean, but from that day onwards, we were also taking it back out again,” Slat said, with a video of the technology in action playing on screen behind him.
To applause, he said: “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, honestly.”
Over the years, Ocean Cleanup has scaled up this cleanup barrier, now measuring almost 2.5 kilometers — or about 1.5 miles — in length. And it cleans up an area of the ocean the size of a football field every five seconds.
Pictured: The Ocean Cleanup's System 002 deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Photo courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup
The system is designed to be safe for marine life, and once plastic is brought to land, it is recycled into new products, like sunglasses, accessories for electric vehicles, and even Coldplay’s latest vinyl record, according to Slat.
These products fund the continuation of the cleanup. The next step of the project is to use drones to target areas of the ocean that have the highest plastic concentration.
In September 2024, Ocean Cleanup predicted the Patch would be cleaned up within 10 years.
However, on April 8, Slat estimated “that this fleet of systems can clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in as little as five years’ time.”
With ongoing support from MCS, a Netherlands-based Nokia company, Ocean Cleanup can quickly scale its reliable, real-time data and video communication to best target the problem.
It’s the largest ocean cleanup in history.
But what about the plastic pollution coming into the ocean through rivers across the world? Ocean Cleanup is working on that, too.
To study plastic pollution in other waterways, Ocean Cleanup attached AI cameras to bridges, measuring the flow of trash in dozens of rivers around the world, creating the first global model to predict where plastic is entering oceans.
“We discovered: Just 1% of the world’s rivers are responsible for about 80% of the plastic entering our oceans,” Slat said.
His team found that coastal cities in middle-income countries were primarily responsible, as people living in these areas have enough wealth to buy things packaged in plastic, but governments can’t afford robust waste management infrastructure.
Ocean Cleanup now tackles those 1% of rivers to capture the plastic before it reaches oceans.
Pictured: Interceptor 007 in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup
“It’s not a replacement for the slow but important work that’s being done to fix a broken system upstream,” Slat said. “But we believe that tackling this 1% of rivers provides us with the only way to rapidly close the gap.”
To clean up plastic waste in rivers, Ocean Cleanup has implemented technology called “interceptors,” which include solar-powered trash collectors and mobile systems in eight countries worldwide.
In Guatemala, an interceptor captured 1.4 million kilograms (or over 3 million pounds) of trash in under two hours. Now, this kind of collection happens up to three times a week.
“All of that would have ended up in the sea,” Slat said.
Now, interceptors are being brought to 30 cities around the world, targeting waterways that bring the most trash into our oceans. GPS trackers also mimic the flow of the plastic to help strategically deploy the systems for the most impact.
“We can already stop up to one-third of all the plastic entering our oceans once these are deployed,” Slat said.
And as soon as he finished his Talk on the TED stage, Slat was told that TED’s Audacious Project would be funding the deployment of Ocean Cleanup’s efforts in those 30 cities as part of the organization’s next cohort of grantees.
While it is unclear how much support Ocean Cleanup will receive from the Audacious Project, Head of TED Chris Anderson told Slat: “We’re inspired. We’re determined in this community to raise the money you need to make that 30-city project happen.”
And Slat himself is determined to clean the oceans for good.
“For humanity to thrive, we need to be optimistic about the future,” Slat said, closing out his Talk.
“Once the oceans are clean again, it can be this example of how, through hard work and ingenuity, we can solve the big problems of our time.”
-via GoodGoodGood, April 9, 2025
An Essay on Nihilism and Ennui
Maybe the world is doomed. Maybe you can’t do anything about it. Maybe you were born on a train that had run of our track, long after we shot the engineers and burned the plans to lay track anew. The conductors barricaded the engine room where they hold hostage generations of coal miners who are forced to keep full steam ahead lest they be shoved into the incinerators themselves.
Maybe we can’t change any of that. I’d like to hope we can. Unfortunately hope isn’t the thing that drags your ass out of the cave you’ve collapsed into constructed of pizza boxes and soiled sheets. Drive is. Action is. Curiosity is.
Suppose we’re stuck on this train. It will crash. We will all die in a horrible fiery explosion, or succumb to the fumes first. What are you going to do in the meantime?
Here’s the thing: Life sucks and we’re all going to die. We don’t know when, we don’t know how. It feels impossible to plan for a future we have little data to prove will exist. What we do have is the interim. We can sit around and doom-scroll on our phones, or we can live life while we have it.
Plant a garden out of old coffee cans. Invite your friends over to fingerpaint on cardboard. Kiss the people you think about when you lay in bed at night. Chase an unrealistic dream, not because you believe it is possible, but because you can’t live with yourself if you never try.
That’s what you’re doing when you ingest endless content. You are simultaneously looking for the thing that will complete you, and desperately running from the voice inside that asks “what if there’s more?”
Stop. Running. Turn around. Look at the voice headlong. Dare to ask it back: “What more do I want there to be?”
Then go find it.
The world is in the shitter, we are staring down a civil war and fascist regime and it ain’t looking good for the trans and gay community right now.
But I will say it’s not all bad and there is hope as long as one person still breaths and is holding a gun. And going by what I’ve seen from the old united front types there are plenty willing to lug a rifle and do their part for the freedom and liberty.
Stay safe and be ready to act accordingly when things get worse.
THIS WAS TRULY MY BUCCHIGIRI 😭😭😭
The Curse of Creativity and the suffering of artists:
"There are tons of people who are just as good as me." - Seiji Amasawa, Whisper of the heart (1995)
Ghibli movies have always had a huge impact on me. Full of quiet sensibilities and easily understood complex concepts; Ghibli movies made my childhood and the person I am today. And despite the cuteness of Totoro, the innocence of Ponyo, the quirky weirdness of Howl's moving castle (the themes of that movie are so intricate too) or the message about hardwork and burnout in Kiki's delivery service, there is one movie that remains in my heart (no pun intended)
"Whisper of the Heart" has taught me so much about myself and the path I am headed. It is the most beautiful, soul-crushing movie I have ever watched not because it has wars and the death of loved ones but because it is relatable and grounded. I can see myself in Shizuko and Seiji, I understand their struggles and dreams. I smiled with them and I cried for them. I related to Shizuko's struggle to see her writing as anything good and Seiji's belief that despite his achievements he isn't anywhere near as good at his skills as some other people.
This movie made me think about the saying I so often hear "Don't suffer for your dreams". While I scoffed at it when an adult said that to me first, now that I am much older and hopefully wiser, the words struck me not as nagging but as a warning.
Suffering doesn't equal great art, some people think that only those who are depressed and mentally ill can make great art, which is completely false. (Although I don't blame those people as many great artists and writers were actually mentally ill, it's not the only thing that makes one a great artist!) You don't have to suffer to be a great artist, you just have to be creative and work hard, there's nothing more to that.
When I was in my most depressed state during the last two years of high school, I wasn't writing or working hard on my book. I was staring at the wall wishing I would disappear. Overcoming that depression led me to write better, work harder, chase my dreams with passion.
During the times where I am stuck in a chapter I can't get through and my brain goes blank, I think to myself if I am actually a good writer or I have been just treading the waters of talent that I don't have. When people call me talented, it makes me squirm, it takes away my hardwork and effort.
Being a creative person is not easy, it's not all sunshine and rainbows where you are constantly getting new ideas. Sometimes it makes my head hurt. Acting on your ideas is not easy. I can think all I want but when it comes to actually writing that idea, I freeze.
Being an artistic person makes you feel self conscious. If anyone will like what I do? Will someone criticize me? What if no one likes my work? What if they judge me? There's someone who is better than me, why should I even bother?
Creativity isn't just a blessing, it's also a curse. It's a double-edged sword.
You should try to achieve the best but not make it your end goal. Life is so much more than success, fame and material goods. I don't write for any of those things, I write for myself and the people I care for. Even if I don't end up publishing any of my novels, I would still write. Never stop dreaming and become monotonous, you don't have to make sure your hobbies earn you money, they should give you peace and happiness.
There are times when I spend too much time in front of my computer typing out another new story when I stop and think back at those words, I don't feel dispassionate, suffering won't make me happy, writing whatever I want would. So I type ahead for some more minutes and take a break. I indulge in the world that I create in my books and make characters that I love more deeply than human beings, but I don't want it to become my life. I would still do normal everyday things and talk to normal everyday people. Work-life balance is utter bullshit and too idealistic, but making sure your work doesn't consume your life is what matters.
Even if I do end up getting an ordinary job and not making my hobby a career, I would not be disappointed.
I am ready to live a life of rationality and pragmatism but I will never accept monotony.
Listen. Listen to me, okay? Your head is lying to you. You think of the future and no matter what you see it’s a void, there’s nothing, it's grey, and really not different from where you are now but I need you to know it’s a lie. I don’t know why, okay? I don’t know why your head insists on taking the life out of every idea and vision like it’s a conscious effort to destroy you but it. is not. Real. You move and no matter how you move, if you move things change. Even if you have no plans of changing anything, next year will be different. It’s a guarantee. So if you make ANY effort to change it into the direction you WANT it to go
universes will collide.
Hope has dirt under her fingernails
Hope has dirt under her fingernails. Her broken foot trembles beneath her as she stands up, reading herself for another punch.
Faith clutches the rim of the sink, breath fogging up the mirror. Then she takes her meds and closes the door behind her.
Perseverance hands bribes to cops and takes the first cleaning job she gets, eyes averted as she gets slapped for tardiness.
Selflessness shivers on her bedroom floor, the memory of loosing a patient on the operation table replaying behind her eyelids again.
Love sits in the visitors hall of the hospital, waiting to replace the wilted flowers beside the coma patient.
Passion only leaves the house to go to therapy, the world too painful to look at for long.
Strength looks at the others and decides to make a home in their hearts.
i still believe that i can hear the ocean when i put a seashell to my ear. i still believe that the moon is following me when i'm in the car. i still believe there are fairies living in the garden. i still believe in those fabled creatures from my old storybooks. i still believe in true love. i will carry the magic of my childhood with me forever and it will keep me gentle.
“If you promise to stay alive just a little bit longer I promise that we are going to make this world a place worth living in by any means necessary. I ain’t giving up. I swear.”
Spotted in Clackamas, Oregon