xxvioletlovexx:

elidyce:

kaitoukitty:

libertarian–princess:

just-shower-thoughts:

Imagine how much historical knowledge wasn’t written down because our ancestors thought: “What idiot isn’t going to know this?”

So ancient Egypt’s best friend basically was called Punt. They traded all kinds of fun stuff with them; ebony, incense, gold, silver, myrrh, leopard skins, baboons for pets… and the Egyptians wrote a lot about the land, the people living there, what their houses looked like, records of trading expeditions to there (like, robust, oceangoing ships with thousands of men); they wrote down everything imaginable about this place… except for where it actually was.

We still to this day have no geographic fix on this ancient empire’s whereabouts, because what idiot wouldn’t know, right?

Until the 1850s British condiment sets came with bottles for oil and vinegar, and three spice containers for salt, pepper and…nobody knows. Potentially mustard, but it’s just a guess because no one ever wrote it down.

And this is why historians love, really love, those incredibly dull people who write in their diary every day about what they wore and what they had for dinner and how many miles away their friend Mr So-And-So’s house is in that one village. Because they are the only ones who *do* write down what was in the third spice jar, how many miles away this now-nonexistent village was and so on. Seriously, the diaries of really dull people are HISTORICAL TREASURES OF OTHERWISE LOST MINUTIAE.

Somewhere out there there is almost certainly a diary that would expose the true contents of that third spice jar because of the one time it was low and this person had to have a quiet word with the butler or something and it was the most interesting thing that happened all week so they wrote it down. And I hope that diary is found someday because now I really want to know.

That’s weirdly heart warming. Like, even if you are incredibly dull and live a normal boring life, you still might be the most interesting person to some historian some day

villainsexuale:

coelasquid:

There’s this weird sensation you get (or at least I got) when you’re kind of figuring out your place in the world that whatever thing you are bad at is going to be the absolute most important thing you need to succeed. Like, I don’t even remember the train of thought it took me to get there but I remember in high school, despite getting top grades I had myself completely convinced that because I was bad at phys ed I wasn’t gonna get anywhere in life, as though my lackluster dodgeball skills were shooting my chances at a future career in the foot.

When I was at Sheridan I felt like they were always pushing illustrative painting skills and lifedrawing, and because I had no patience or aptitude for painterly rendering and didn’t have a good grasp of that buttery smooth Sheridan Life Drawing Style™ I would never get hired anywhere. I was sincerely convinced by some combination of my own neuroses and a handful of profs who taught as though their chosen path to success was The Only Way To Find Work that being a decent sequential artist who could write reasonably funny jokes and make people laugh was a worthless industry skill next to stellar painting and life drawing.

But then I get out there and find out the guy who paints really well worries that all the jobs are going to sequential artists, the guy who animates really well worries they aren’t a contender for high profile jobs if they can’t prove their writing skills, the one who has those top tier life drawing worries that skill doesn’t obviously translate into any part of the production pipeline. Everyone is convincing themselves that the set of skills that come the most naturally to them are easy for everyone else to get a handle on as well, and focus on their failings and insecurities while disregarding the honest, sincere assets they bring to the table. 

It’s like a barbarian getting down on themselves for not being able to cast healing magic. Bro, you’re a barbarian, the clerics can’t hit things really hard a bunch of times as good as you can, their Cure Light Wounds spells don’t diminish your value to the group.

I guess I’m just saying, to all the kids graduating college and going out to look for jobs now, it’s scary but you have skills that are unique to you and the best thing you can do for yourself is embrace what makes you an asset and avoid getting too hung up and the parts of your stat tree that you didn’t fill out, no one gets enough points to fill the whole thing, that’s why it takes a team to do a job.

This is super true in every field, FYI.