The Good Life To Me Is Sitting Amongst Nature And Enjoying Little Treats

Vincent van Gogh. Evening Landscape, Nuenen, 1885.

i want to have a garden full with flowers and fruits and vegetables and trees and a pond and nice little spots where i can read and drink tea and be happy and in peace

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okay but can we live here

One of the ways in which modern liberalism goes wrong in ethics is its singular focus on consent. Don’t get me wrong, consent is always necessary is any type of relation or exchange between individuals, but it isn’t sufficient.

This is why modern liberals will see nothing wrong with bdsm, pornography, surrogacy, or cosmetic surgery. “If both parties consent, then what’s the problem?” they’ll say.

There needs to be ethical standards for how we treat other people, regardless of if individuals think they are worthy of being treated by those standards. This concept is already recognized in most legal systems. If I sign a form saying that you can kill me whenever you feel like it, you would still be culpable for murder if you followed through.

Women are the ones who lose out when this concept is not applied. We have been conditioned to believe that we are not worthy of being treated right, so we allow others to take advantage of us. Consent being by the only moral consideration people care about takes advantage of this fact.

Wong Mee

shhh...she's nursing

Possibly the only fear great than death is love, real love. Finding out that you do love, that this is your nature, is the beginning of the end for everything in you that thinks it is separate. When you get upset with people, it's really because the love is there and you don't want it to be. That's why people who get divorced are often at each other's throats. They think that since they are getting divorced, there shouldn't be love. But it is there. You may not like it, you may not want to live with someone, but the love is still there because there is no such thing as loving once and then not loving. When people are able to face the fact that the romantic part of love may be gone but the caring or connection is still there, it can actually free their energy. And you might as well get used to it with one person because you will find eventually that it is there with all beings. It's just there. It's a done deal. It doesn't matter who it is. If you can accept love you will know when to stay with someone and when to leave them.

— Adyashanti, emptiness dancing

Liz Berube’s “Beauty on a Budget” feature that appeared in romance comics. 1960s-70s.

Fuses (Carolee Schneemann, 1967)