An
Antarctica ice core that shows years like “rings of a tree”, with a
dark layer of volcanic ash that settled on the ice sheet approximately
21,000 years ago
I had a dream that someone started a meme at the bottom of their tumblr posts that was just a banner of harry styles giving a thumbs up with the text “This post is Ravioli Approved.” It got really popular, and eventually Harry got wind of it and went on James Corden and said “this meme is Ravioli Approved.” Everyone loved it and it was really funny, and Harry Styles played along. Until one day he tweeted “Donald Trump is not Ravioli Approved.” And the next day Trump fucking died.
suddenly everyone was DMing Harry Styles like “am I ravioli approved???” And he mostly said yes, but the ones he said no to died. And the next day it would come out that they had been murderers or just terrible people.
They gave Harry Styles his own government Bureau of Ravioli Approval (BORA) and every baby born got an approval/disapproval rating with their social security number. Infant mortality dropped because every baby except the Disapproved ones lived.
Eventually he did like a 12-hour live special of him reading the death records of the last 20 years and approving/disapproving of their deaths. There wasn’t any earthly repercussions to that but im pretty sure it meant he was sending them to heaven or hell?
The dream ended with a looney tunes ending card, except instead of porky pig it was harry in the middle with the message “This Dream Is Ravioli Approved.” And i woke up.
the stuff I learned today about my brain and addiction was really interesting
if you were to scan an addict and a nonaddict’s brains, they would be lit up differently. the frontal cortex of our brain controls who we are, our morals, our decision making and reasoning skills, etc.
our mid brain handles life or death survival processing. there is no consciousness at this level. it’s only ability is to try to avoid death and keep us alive
in an addict, the drug of choice triggers the mid brain while damaging/shutting down the frontal cortex. it feels like we have no control over it because in a way we really don’t; the part of our brain that makes logical choices isn’t functioning. our mid brain that thinks we’re dying is functioning, and it sees that drug as the only means to survive
i also learned that we each have a certain dopamine (the chemical that makes you happy) threshold. we have a “bar” that must be reached chemically to make us able to experience joy and pleasure. if you’re over the bar, you’re happy. under it, you’re sad
addicts have set the bar so high that it frequently is the case that nothing can make them happy unless they are high first and foremost. they need a much, much larger amount of dopamine to feel joy because so many dopamine receptors have been damaged and shut down
you know what other group of people have extremely high dopamine thresholds? children in abusive or otherwise high stress environments
addicts and abused children both require much higher amounts of dopamine to feel happy compared to “normal” people. this is a huge contributing factor as to why a lot of these kids turn to drugs: for the first time in our lives we have the amount of dopamine we need to feel genuinely happy, and we never want to go back to being sad
yes! the longer you go without using your drug of choice, the lower your dopamine threshold becomes until finally it is once again at normal levels. the broken dopamine receptors will heal themselves, and with therapy and medication the frontal cortex will gradually strengthen so the survival-focused midbrain has less control and actual decisions can once again be made
yes, please do. please help spread awareness about the disease of addiction and end the stigma against it
Thank you! This is what I spend my days trying to tell the public (I’m an AOD counselor)
“money can’t buy happiness” no offense but I’m at least 40% happier when I actually have money to take care of myself and do fun things… just sayin…
FUN FACT: psychologists and sociologists have actually studied this and it turns out money DOES in fact buy happiness but only up to a certain salary (I think its a little under $100,000 a year idk exactly), basically like once you make enough money that you don’t worry about not having enough money to live and also can do nice things occasionally, so “money can’t buy happiness” is a saying invented by rich people for rich people and they just say it to poor people cause they don’t want to give up their money
“Money can’t by happiness” was originally meant as a rebuke to rich people, saying that since they can’t buy happiness with their excess wealth, they should use it to help others.
Since then, the phrase has been twisted to mean that poor people shouldn’t complain.
The second meaning is utter BS, for the reasons described above.
i’m just gonna leave this here as a reminder that “hitting bottom” doesn’t mean “staying on bottom for the rest of your life and dying as a piece of crap”
I will never, ever, not reblog this.
*huggles RDJ* Anyone on here who loves him, someone posted an amazing story about him when he was younger. I wish knew where the link was so I could share it. Instead, it’s just cut and pasted below. If I find the link, I’ll replace it with that.
I will also say that I have read this several times now and it still makes me cry.
“True story: His Name is Robert Downey Jr.” by Dana Reinhardt
I’m willing to go out on a limb here and guess that most stories of kindness do not begin with drug addicted celebrity bad boys.
Mine does.
His name is Robert Downey Jr.
You’ve probably heard of him. You may or may not be a fan, but I am, and I was in the early 90’s when this story takes place.
It was at a garden party for the ACLU of Southern California. My stepmother was the executive director, which is why I was in attendance without having to pay the $150 fee. It’s not that I don’t support the ACLU, it’s that I was barely twenty and had no money to speak of.
I was escorting my grandmother. There isn’t enough room in this essay to explain to you everything she was, I would need volumes, so for the sake of brevity I will tell you that she was beautiful even in her eighties, vain as the day is long, and whip smart, though her particular sort of intelligence did not encompass recognizing young celebrities.
I pointed out Robert Downey Jr. to her when he arrived, in a gorgeous cream-colored linen suit, with Sarah Jessica Parker on his arm. My grandmother shrugged, far more interested in piling her paper plate with various unidentifiable cheeses cut into cubes. He wasn’t Carey Grant or Gregory Peck. What did she care?
The afternoon’s main honoree was Ron Kovic, whose story of his time in the Vietnam War that had left him confined to a wheelchair had recently been immortalized in the Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of July.
I mention the wheelchair because it played an unwitting role in what happened next.
We made our way to our folding chairs in the garden with our paper plates and cubed cheeses and we watched my stepmother give one of her eloquent speeches and a plea for donations, and there must have been a few other people who spoke but I can’t remember who, and then Ron Kovic took the podium, and he was mesmerizing, and when it was all over we stood up to leave, and my grandmother tripped.
We’d been sitting in the front row (nepotism has its privileges) and when she tripped she fell smack into the wheelchair ramp that provided Ron Kovic with access to the stage. I didn’t know that wheelchair ramps have sharp edges, but they do, at least this one did, and it sliced her shin right open.
The volume of blood was staggering.
I’d like to be able to tell you that I raced into action; that I quickly took control of the situation, tending to my grandmother and calling for the ambulance that was so obviously needed, but I didn’t. I sat down and put my head between my knees because I thought I was going to faint. Did I mention the blood?
Luckily, somebody did take control of the situation, and that person was Robert Downey Jr.
He ordered someone to call an ambulance. Another to bring a glass of water. Another to fetch a blanket. He took off his gorgeous linen jacket and he rolled up his sleeves and he grabbed hold of my grandmother’s leg, and then he took that jacket that I’d assumed he’d taken off only to it keep out of the way, and he tied it around her wound. I watched the cream colored linen turn scarlet with her blood.
He told her not to worry. He told her it would be alright. He knew, instinctively, how to speak to her, how to distract her, how to play to her vanity. He held onto her calf and he whistled. He told her how stunning her legs were.
She said to him, to my humiliation: “My granddaughter tells me you’re a famous actor but I’ve never heard of you.”
He stayed with her until the ambulance came and then he walked alongside the stretcher holding her hand and telling her she was breaking his heart by leaving the party so early, just as they were getting to know each other. He waved to her as they closed the doors. “Don’t forget to call me, Silvia,” he said. “We’ll do lunch.”
He was a movie star, after all.
Believe it or not, I hurried into the ambulance without saying a word. I was too embarrassed and too shy to thank him.
We all have things we wish we’d said. Moments we’d like to return to and do differently. Rarely do we get that chance to make up for those times that words failed us. But I did. Many years later.
I should mention here that when Robert Downey Jr. was in prison for being a drug addict (which strikes me as absurd and cruel, but that’s the topic for a different essay), I thought of writing to him. Of reminding him of that day when he was humanity personified. When he was the best of what we each can be. When he was the kindest of strangers.
But I didn’t.
Some fifteen years after that garden party, ten years after my grandmother had died and five since he’d been released from prison, I saw him in a restaurant.
I grew up in Los Angeles where celebrity sightings are commonplace and where I was raised to respect people’s privacy and never bother someone while they’re out having a meal, but on this day I decided to abandon the code of the native Angeleno, and my own shyness, and I approached his table.
I said to him, “I don’t have any idea if you remember this…” and I told him the story.
He remembered.
“I just wanted to thank you,” I said. “And I wanted to tell you that it was simply the kindest act I’ve ever witnessed.”
He stood up and he took both of my hands in his and he looked into my eyes and he said, “You have absolutely no idea how much I needed to hear that today.”
“I’ve always loved vintage clothes. And have worn them a lot (to events). I’m also a huge believer in re-wearing clothes. I hate this idea that you can only wear or be photographed in something once. It’s ridiculous.”
Amy Evans Unapologetic fangirl. I write things. About beaches and boy bands mostly. This blog is basically the inside of my brain. You've been warned. Feel free to ask me things. xoox