If I did something to extremely piss off the Russian government I would quite simply board a plane over their airspace
he's just like me
i have. a lot of big complicated thoughts about how people tend to treat depression as like. as if it’s nothing. like it’s the most basic easiest mental illness ever. why do we do this. depression kills people. constantly. people will throw around “depression and anxiety” and say they’re totally normalized nonstigmatized disorders and then you realize they only think mild versions of these disorders exist. i have a laundry list of mental disorders and the only one that’s ever actually put my life at risk was depression. if you throw around depression as if it’s the mildest least harmful mental illness ever have you considered shutting the fuck up.
Here we have a social democracy. And the soft peach blossoms of social democracy, innocuous social programs; these progressive things make a broken human soul feel better. The uncanny technical urge to construct a subterranean secret room—with a ventilation system where the air ducts on the front lawn are disguised as clay miniature windmills—will never reach these outskirts. Those dark, raging fevers of the mind simmer down in the cool mist here; the breath of distant blue glaciers freezes the sick thoughts that reside in a man’s head. Vaasa. A better place to live.
I love this section. It’s on the first page of the Sacred and Terrible Air. My first read through I was really gripped by the imagery of the subterranean secret room: the way Kurvitz goes off on a random but poignant tangent is incredible. But reading the section now I think it has a deeper meaning. Specifically, the way the second sentence describes social democracy feels wrong on a very visceral level. “These progressive things make a broken human soul feel better.” It seems dripping with sarcasm: what first reads as a straightforward statement in support of social democracy feels like it really comes from an advertising brochure by the Institute of Price Stabilité.
The sentences after the subterranean room really sell this. The “sick thoughts” don’t go away, they aren’t removed or even replaced with ‘healthy’ thoughts, they’re just frozen. “Vaasa. A better place to live.” Phrasing from an immigration brochure. I’m noticing the description of blue glaciers as well: the color of moralism. Looking further into the book, it’s worth drawing a comparison of how Ann-Margaret Lund coped with the loss of her daughters by entering a form of stasis, where all she did was repeat the same routine every day. As the Man from Internal Affairs says:
“Only the world in its current state is possible. We don’t investigate those things, we don’t prod at them. We come to terms. We forget. We wait and we are protected.”
But clearly the only thing that 'the waiting’ results in is the pale swallowing the world. This, in the world of Elysium, is the end result of social democracy, lying in bed as the pale comes to take what remains of the world.
ignus nilsen come over here quickly I need to talk to you about something. when you posit the existence of higher level inframaterialist societies you imagine such things as buildings that stand up by the collective will and belief of the people, because as you argue, a state that loses the faith—the consent, shall we rephrase?—of its people has forfeited the right to exist. but what I’m very compelled by is the element of destruction and disintegration that is inherent to this model. in fact your society that disintegrates when the people give up on it sounds quite like the very world you live in, and the essential nature of the pale. but to you this is a force that can compel society to serve its people. it’s almost like you have an idea to tame nihilism as a natural element to human existence, and put it back into balance to keep a world alive rather than destroy it. is that what you mean by this? please respond 🎤
the state that does not fear its own death is not a state at all
then what is it? mysterious other thing
Just finished Whispers from the Deep and knew I had to draw Wulf's funky helicopter (not sure of the model so I made it a mash of a few of the VS-300 helicopters and added a second seat)
