This has got to stop. It’s got to become career and social instant death. No more “both sides”, no more diner interviews, no more “I keep him on Facebook because he’s funny”- just salt the earth.
One of the best things I think I saw posted to Mastodon was a simple phrase: “all unsolicited advice is criticism.” Is criticism sometimes warranted? Maybe. But it really changes when you want to give it. It was also amazing because so many people there MELTED DOWN over it.
This poem makes me cry without fail every time I read it, and there's no way I could recite it without embarrassing myself, so my hat is off to you, mistakes or no!
I used to see them when I lived in Connecticut, and we've even got them in Central Park in NYC!
Also up there: watching The Others (2001) at an outdoor screening on a summer evening, and nearly everyone -- including me -- screamed and jumped about six inches out of our chairs at that one jump scare.
Something I'd love to do: teach mini-courses ostensibly about library research but actually meant to (re)introduce students to curiosity, creativity, & the sheer joy of learning about impractical things. I think so many students have had all that curiosity crushed out of them.
We tell young people that education means training for professions that are destroying the world they're growing up in, we convince them they can't survive without joining those professions, and then we wonder why those young people are so anxious and depressed. 🤬
Burn this entire "pre-professional pressure" culture to the ground and salt the earth where it grew.