Today On Spy Ruins The Classics (with Apologies To Aristophanes):

Today on Spy Ruins The Classics (with apologies to Aristophanes):

DIONYSUS

Don't mock me, brother: on my life I am in a bad way: such fierce desire consumes me.

HERACLES

Aye, little brother? how?

DIONYSUS

I can't describe it.

But yet I'll tell you in a riddling way.

Have you e'er felt a sudden lust for soup?

HERACLES

Soup! Zeus-a-mercy, yes, ten thousand times.

DIONYSUS

Is the thing clear, or must I speak again?

HERACLES

Not of the soup: I'm clear about the soup.

DIONYSUS

Well, just that sort of pang devours my heart.

And no one shall persuade me not to go.

HERACLES

Do you mean below, to Hades?

DIONYSUS

And lower still, if there's a lower still.

HERACLES

What on earth for?

DIONYSUS

I want soup, you see.

HERACLES

What do you mean, you "want soup"?

DIONYSUS

I mean I want soup!

HERACLES

WHY ARE YOU BUYING SOUP IN HADES?!

DIONYSUS

FUCK YOU!

my dude just did a whole ass vaudeville act

the comments on this video killed me

it’s just funny though that in The Before Times when the goat burned (or didn’t burn) there was very little fanfare except maybe some tongue in cheek celebration (or disappointment). but give it a few jokes about lack of ritual sacrifice and a five-year survival streak and two plague years and suddenly we’ve collectively tapped into the seasonal worship instincts of our ancestors from 36,000 BCE and created a new sacred ritual through sheer force of internet jokes and desperate hope. it’s like we’ve crowdfunded a god.

Arctic sponges crawl around the seafloor and leave bizarre brown trails to prove it

It is the first evidence that sponges can move in this way.

THERES SPONGES THAT CAN MOVE AROUND

Saying “I’m back on my bullshit” is funnier when you cycle through hyperfixations at random intervals because no one knows what bullshit you’re talking about unless you’ve made it obvious before or while saying it.

Am I Worth It?

I know some of you worry that your life is not a net gain for our world. You worry if your existence is worthwhile in terms of bringing forth goodness and balance. If just being a living human in our modern context is immoral. If the Earth will gain a return on its investment for the air you breathe and the food you eat.

But existence just doesn't work that way.

Life doesn't work that way.

You aren't an investment and can’t be evaluated as such.

You weren't a calculated risk aimed at some form of profit.

You didn’t invent the processes of life that brought you here nor can you edit them.

You certainly didn’t choose what sort of lifeform to be.

Unless you photosynthesize, you're living off of other organisms. You didn't create this system. No one asked you to sign on to this fact. Life exists in myriad forms and its existence is its own justification. There is no "best" way to do it or "ideal model" for the planet. We are temporary. The planet is temporary. What is ideal for one species is less than ideal for another.

This isn't me suggesting we all take our hands off the controls of our lives and shrug. Our choices absolutely have weight. There is balance to be achieved and I think it should be our task to seek it.

I imagine these issues all feel different for humans because of our executive function/agency. We think about patterns and the big picture. We create systems. We impose order. We fall into the trap of thinking of reality as a machine. But weighing the value of our fundamental existence and our life-minutes isn't like finding the most efficient way to load the dishwasher.

There is no perfect version of ourselves or our world to achieve.

I think we should lay our hands lightly on the things we can influence and press gently toward our values. We should do this within the vital constraints of honoring our own limitations, happiness, and mental/physical wellbeing. We shouldn't dash ourselves against our hopes for a better world.

In the scales of my judgement, the quiet, gentle, tender moments deserve as much (or more) attention as our dramatic, strenuous, industrious moments.

Lives are mostly quiet, small, fleeting things and it feels like a mistake to spend them wishing instead that we were huge, enduring, planet-shaping things.

Context.

Acceptance.

Cultivate love for what is and hope for what could be, all while sparing a bit of awe and gratitude for the massive, unknowable, unlikely forces that culminated with your own odd, unique, singular presence on this planet.

Yes, own the small concrete good you can do, but reject the idea that the fate of the world is in your hands. Reject the idea that you need to justify the breaths you inherited from natural systems older than we can imagine.

Understand that not even the fate of this fleeting moment is in your hands. Yet, you should endeavor to love this moment and, by doing so, learn to love yourself.