Blind Batman

girl who reads Dostoevsky, writes depressing poetry, ex-catholic now atheist, loves physics and stars, and has unnecessarily strong opinions about philosophy.

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

@RevKimWChafee etymologically, "atheism" (a- + theos) literally means "without god”, logically, withholding assent due to a lack of evidence isn't a counter-belief, calling atheism a "faith" is like calling "off" a TV channel

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

C.S. Lewis is right that we shouldn't treat the text like an encyclopedia of weapons, but that's a modern workaround, historically, believers did weaponise it for centuries, shifting the definition to "Christ is the true word" is just moving the goalposts

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

out of the cold drift, gravity quietly insists on form, the dust crowds, it suffers its own dense weight, and suddenly a spark ignites within the dark, even here, amid the ruined, tangled gas of Arp 263, something insists on burning

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

the Russian word for "sin," грех (grekh), traces back to roots meaning a straying, a stumble, or missing the mark, mirroring how wrongdoing naturally traps us in its own consequences rather than external retribution

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

Dostoevsky describes a layer of isolation in the Russian word for silence, молчание (molchaniye), rooted in the ancient Slavonic sense of speechlessness, it reflects a state where the voice doesn't just rest, it completely withers away from a lack of another soul to answer it

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

Dostoevsky wrote White Nights just months before facing a mock execution and real Siberian exile, the lonely dreamer longing for connection in St. Petersburg takes on a gut-wrenching weight knowing the absolute isolation and horror waiting for him just around the corner

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

sprinkle in Camus, classical guitar and Bulgakov and i've got absolutely no chance

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

the Russian word for "happiness" or "bliss," счастье (schastye), historically shares a root connected to "sharing," "fate," or "having one's share", it frames true happiness not as a random stroke of luck, but as finding your rightful portion of existence

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

this raw cry of "I exist" in The Brothers Karamazov was written while Dostoevsky was grieving the sudden death of his youngest son, knowing that agony makes this desperate insistence on holding onto life through sheer torment completely gut-wrenching

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

the Russian word for yearning, тоска (toska), captures this perfectly. Nabokov described it as a dull ache of the soul, a spiritual anguish without a specific cause, and a longing for something you know may never arrive

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

the Russian word for remembrance, поминки (pominki), comes from the root pomnit', meaning "to remember", it highlights the heavy reality that people often only truly appreciate and honour your worth after you're gone

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

the Greek word for repent, metanoia, literally means to "change one's mind" or "transcend the mind", it's not just a quick emotional plea or returning to a lover; it's a radical, fundamental shift in perception and a total transformation of how you see the world

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

the word paradise literally means a "walled enclosure", Milton's closing lines hit so hard because Adam and Eve are forced out of that walled garden into a vast, terrifying world, trading divine perfection for the heavy, beautiful reality of walking it hand in hand

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

when Dostoevsky wrote about the agonising terror of a man facing execution with only minutes left, he wasn't guessing, in 1849, he stood blindfolded before a firing squad before a fake pardon arrived at the last second, he spent his whole life remembering those cold barrels

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

the French word solitude originates from Latin roots signifying a state of being completely deserted. Camus experienced this exact vacuum after winning the Nobel Prize, becoming profoundly alienated from his peers and paralysed by writer's block

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

the English word infatuated derives from Latin roots meaning "made foolish or rendered a fool." Ironically, Shakespeare never actually wrote this line; it’s a modern internet misattribution to a quote that was forged decades after his death

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

@java_warrior calling peer review "dogma" makes zero sense. science is built to be tested and proven wrong,that’s the exact opposite of dogma. you're calling a self-correcting process "faith" just because it doesn't cater to your unfalsifiable metaphysics, how’s that for “whining” about length

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

@java_warrior declaring a 'concession' when you got called out for writing fanfiction is a bold way to cope

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

longing stems from Old English langian, meaning to grow tired from a stretched-out wait. Zagajewski lived this, writing much of his poetry in forced exile after losing his home city, trapped in the heavy space between a country left behind and a language rebuilt from scratch

[A.V. Marraccini @saintsoftness]

In be reading Zagajewski, a poet I come back to a lot when I think about living through dark days and what it means to hope. Like everyone else, I think, I “… live in longing”. Early Zagajewski here trans. Clare Cavanagh:

[Blind Batman @bail73927]

the Russian word for torment, Мучение (muchenie), shares roots with burning wicks, Dostoevsky knew this slow burn: after a mock execution, he spent four years chained in Siberia, witnessing calculated human cruelty that far surpassed any beast