people talk all the time about “primal instincts” and it’s usually about violence or sexual temptations or something, but your humanity comes with a lot of different stuff that we do without really thinking about, that we do without being told to or prompted to
your average human comes pre-installed with instincts to:
Befriend
Tell story
Make Thing
Investigate
Share knowledge
Laugh
Sing
Dance
Empathize with
Create
we are chalk full of survival instincts that revolve around connecting to others (dog-shaped others, robot-shaped, sometimes even plant-shaped) and making things with our hands
your primal instincts are not bathed in blood- they are layered in people telling stories to each other around a fire over and over and putting devices together through trial and error over and over and reaching for someone and something every moment of the way
~“Your primal instincts are not bathed in blood.”
My god this is beautiful. Such a refreshing change of pace to the constant glorification of instinctual human violence.
‘Your average human comes pre-installed with’ got me.
I just saw someone refer to Hallelujah by Lenard Cohen as a “church song” and I just…. like, died a bit inside but it’s fine! I tried not to be like, salty or anything!!! Some people can think it’s a church song and that’s… fine!!! Even though it’s definitely not!!!!!
It’s written by Lenard Cohen, a Canadian singer song-writer who was Jewish. Overall, the song is about a relationship that has gone sour. However, there is a lot of religious imagery. In the first verse Cohen sings,
“Well I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played and it pleased the Lord”
This is a reference to King David from the Old Testament(AKA, the Torah). He becomes infatuated with Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite, after seeing her bathing on the roof. This is referenced in the second verse like this:
“You saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you”
David then sends Bathsheba’s husband on a suicide mission and marries her when he dies. After that, David’s son tries to overthrow him and there’s a lot of drama stemming from his lust driven choice, and the eventual fallout is reflected in the song’s minor key.
Cohen’s next biblical reference is later in the second verse, when he sings,
“She tied you to her kitchen chair And she broke your throne and she cut your hair”
This is a reference to Samson, from the Book of Judges. He has incredible strength that’s he has used to fell many armies, and he reveals to his wife Delilah that it all comes from his hair. Delilah, being bribed by the Philistines, cuts his hair while he sleeps and turns him over to the Philistines.
These are both stories in which love is portrayed as a weakness instead of a strength. In the story of David and Bathsheba love is a drug that confuses one’s moral compass, and in the story of Samson and Delilah it is one that distracts the tactical mind.
The next three verses really go into the struggles of having your life intertwined with someone you no longer love, while also lamenting the loss of something once beautiful and real, singing,
“And I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch And love is not a victory march It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah” (Verse 3)
“Well there was a time when you let me know What’s really going on below But now you never show that to me do ya But remember when I moved in you And the holy dove was moving too And every breath we drew was Hallelujah” (Verse 4)
“all I’ve ever learned from love Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya”(Verse 5)
But my favorite like in the whole song is in Verse 5, when Cohen sings,
“Maybe there’s a God above”
This is really a line that encapsulates the Jewish experience. There’s a Jewish joke that goes something like, “Two Rabbis are talking one night, debating the existence of God. At the end of the night, they both come to the conclusion that God does not exist. The next morning, one of the Rabbi’s sees the other heading to Temple. ‘I thought we decided God doesn’t exist’ he said. The other responds, ‘Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?’”** It is fundamentally Jewish trait to question God, both the existence of God and the actions of God. There are many Jewish people, me included, who don’t believe in God, at least not in the traditional sense, but who believe in being a good person who is grateful for all we have on this earth. That’s why it bothers me so much when people say this song is a “church song”, because it’s not about a blind faith in a higher power. It’s about not knowing what exists outside of our universe and yet continuing to live anyway. When talking about the song, Lenard Cohen stated, “Hallelujah is a Hebrew word which means ‘Glory to the Lord.’ The song explains that many kinds of Hallelujahs do exist. I say: All the perfect and broken Hallelujahs have an equal value. It’s a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion.“
So, though Hallelujah is a song that really encapsulates much of the human experience, which can absolutely apply to people of the Christian faith, it is not a Church song. It is a fundamentally Jewish song, written by a Jewish man, about living life despite uncertainty about the existence of powers beyond the ones we understand.
**Sorry I didn’t tell it well, I tried.
I really appreciate this! Thank you!
Of course! I really love the song so it was fun for me too haha
The original version included these verses which are honestly my favorite and i cant listen to any covers of the song without feeling real bummed that these arent in it (yes, even jeff buckley). Seriously, theyre the best verses in the whole song ahsgsh…. they are also… Incredibly intrinsically jewish (which… May be why they tend to not be included)
But yeah… No matter which way you spin it, its not a Christian ‘church song.’
Oh 100%, it always makes me really sad, cause that last verse is probably my favorite verse out of all of them.
The version in Sing by Tori Kelly has all the verses!
Ooo, I’ll have to listen when I’m not in class!!! Here’s a link to the video if anyone wants to listen
Oliver then proceeded to detail how with $50 and knowledge of the law he was able to successfully apply online to create a debt buying company named “Central Asset Recovery Professionals,” or as Oliver put it, “CARP” named after “a bottom-feeding fish.”
After setting up a rudimentary website for CARP, the satirical, but still real company was offered a $15 million package of medical debt for $60,000.
Oliver explained that the debt was out of statute, which means it is the kind of debt that a collector can only continue to collect, but not sue the debtor for.
Then, instead of chasing down the 9,000 debtors in the debt package as a normal collection agency would, Oliver decided to stage the largest one-time giveaway in television history and work with the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt to forgive the $15 million with no consequences for the debtors.
Okay but now I know what I want to do of I get rich?
You dont have to be rich to do a bit of this actually
RIP Medical Debt is a charity (and therefore takes donations). They buy the rights to medical debt and then forgive them. So far they’ve forgiven over 1B in medical debt.
So a little ray of hope for someone out there today.
so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god
okay so i just got my dream job??? a week after applying to it?? and now i’m thinking….maybe this is the good luck post
…..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment
likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post
every morning i wake up & get my coffee & i recite in my head this excerpt from ‘invitation,’ by mary oliver: “it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.” & i just say it over & over again until it sticks to my mind for the rest of the day. it is a serious thing. i am alive. i am so lucky. this fresh morning i get the chance to live again & again & again
