october will be good to me
 -raw honey bliss, tumblr

september slipped by into a golden and crimson graciousness of october.
 -l. m. montgomery, anne of avonlea

every month, tumblr circulates quotes that romanticise it. these are two i found for october, aside from the tide of halloween posts that i'm sure will be showing up soon. i always feel buoyed by them, as if they're just another vital commodity we all need, in order to keep going.

but poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. to quote from whitman, "o me! o life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, o me, o life?" answer. that you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. what will your verse be?
 -john keating, dead poets' society

and i agree! it is absolutely a vital commodity. every so often, it's nice to step back, and know why you're doing what you're doing. at least, it is for me. i didn't get through a single calculus concept before i'd established the base for why it was invented and what differentiation does, and this is probably why arjun told me i'd do well in CS (although his bar has been set low by his batch).

romanticising anything really motivates me to focus on the beauty of it, which really goes against natural instinct sometimes. there's a reason twitter's algorithm (accidentally?) maximises for hateful viewing; they know it's easy to be angry, and the reason i don't think i'll ever move away from my tumblr area of being. most accounts focus on the bright side of the moon, and it appreciably makes my day better, especially when i see my snoopy of the day, he always embodies that adorable nature.

the trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. this is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.
 -ursula k. le guin, the ones who walk away from omelas (kanaad gave this to me to read, and it's really good; i need to read k. le guin)