when i was a kid i used to respond to the "glass half full/half empty" question by asking how the liquid in the glass got there in the first place. nobody ever gave me a chance to explain my reasoning so i'm doing it now
if you have a glass and it has some liquid in it, up to the halfway line, whether it is empty or full depends on what happened before the question was asked. if you started with a full glass and poured half out until only half remained, the glass is half empty, because if you continued pouring it would be fully empty. however, if you started with an empty glass and poured liquid from another container into the glass up to the halfway line, the glass is half full because if you continued pouring it would be all the way full. logical, no?
i was 13 years old when somebody finally told me it was supposed to be some kind of optimism/pessimism thing. i always thought it was a riddle that nobody let me solve
You still think I’m too optimistic, don’t you?” Shallan said.
“It’s not your fault,” Kaladin said. “I’d rather be like you. I’d rather not have lived the life I have. I would that the world was only full of people like you, Shallan Davar.”
“People who don’t understand pain.”
“Oh, all people understand pain,” Kaladin said. “That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s . . .”
“The sorrow,” Shallan said softly, “of watching a life crumble? Of struggling to grab it and hold on, but feeling hope become stringy sinew and blood beneath your fingers as everything collapses?”
“Yes.”
“The sensation—it’s not sorrow, but something deeper—of being broken. Of being crushed so often, and so hatefully, that emotion becomes something you can only wish for. If only you could cry, because then you’d feel something. Instead, you feel nothing. Just . . . haze and smoke inside. Like you’re already dead.”
He stopped in the chasm.
She turned and looked to him. “The crushing guilt,” she said, “of being powerless. Of wishing they’d hurt you instead of those around you. Of screaming and scrambling and hating as those you love are ruined, popped like a boil. And you have to watch their joy seeping away while you can’t do anything. They break the ones you love, and not you. And you plead. Can’t you just beat me instead?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
Shallan nodded, holding his eyes. “Yes. It would be nice if nobody in the world knew of those things, Kaladin Stormblessed. I agree. With everything I have.”
He saw it in her eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible nothing that clawed inside and sought to smother her. She knew. It was there, inside. She had been broken.
Then she smiled. Oh, storms. She smiled anyway.
It was the single most beautiful thing he’d seen in his entire life.
“My father thinks I’m a better man than he is. Unfortunately for you, he’s wrong” is a quote that lives in my head forever and I think about it once a day
Got to the part of WoR where there is an excerpt explaining that the edgedancers were the most eloquent and refined of the orders and I’m just saying that if this was Warbreaker it would have smash cut to Lift like flipping a feast table and running away with a whole chicken
one of my favourite wit scenes is when he shows up again driving the carriage and kaladin sees him and he’s like you! and wit is like me! and adolin sees him and he’s like you! and wit is like me!! and then shallan sees him and she’s like you?! and wit is like yes!!!! it’s so purely self indulgent i love it
i think as adults it's our responsibility to be nice to kids and treat them with the respect we wish we got at that age and im not kidding or exaggerating in the least
draw a head and then 'decorate' that head however you're feeling (I drew a man with a hole for a face. It worked)
listen to a song and try to focus on one (1) instrument at a time, baseline, drums, guitar, another guitar, repeating sound effect
wash your face
take a nap or go to bed early
call someone. tell them about your horrible day or let them talk about theirs or both
go through your camera roll (specifically the screenshots folder)
go through your saved instagram posts / tumblr likes
watch That One Really Great Live Performance of That Artist You Love, then read the comments of everyone having great taste like you do
cry a little about it
remember that this day will end and another will begin. it'll be all new, never experienced before, no bad things will have happened, and you'll be okay.