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I think our sense of smell is one of the most beautiful things about our bodies. You can find me standing in a pine forest, huffing cardamom, taking pics of soaps in restaurant WCs, getting a headache in the fragrance section of the bespoke homegoods store. Some art incorporates smell, such as paint that effuses the scent of shoveled soil or an orchestra accompanied by scent cannons firing plumes across the audience, but I cherish this intangible gift of ours because it’s one that mass media can’t reach. It’s amazing that it’s connected so closely to our memory -- that you can smell a cologne or the inside of a tent and instantly hallucinate a school dance or a family camping trip you forgot about or, at the very least, didn’t mean to think about so vividly today. I know this will sound privileged and silly, but as a relatively young person my biggest fear from the pandemic wasn’t death — it was losing my sense of smell. I just know that it’s something I would miss so much. It enhances taste and experience and I would go crazy without it.
here is a very incomplete list of things I think smell good:
-tomato vines
-Shoyeido friend of pine incense
-garlic, raw and cooked
-anise
-palo santo
-coffee, raw and cooked
-armpits (lemme get in there)
-briney ocean
-tennis balls
-old lifejackets
-bergamot / patchouli stuff from L:A Bruket
Mar 7, 2024
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I think that walking through daily life, smell is an underappreciated and underutilized sense. Just as a beautiful sunset or bird song in the park can ignite a really pleasant feeling in us, so does getting a big breath of that humid air after a rainfall, or of a stranger’s heavy floral perfume, or the exhaust of an old passing car.
once I was walking to class, really stressed and in my head about things, and just remembering that I have this whole other sensory facility to enjoy liberated me wonderfully from the internal spiral. it smelled like rainforest in vancouver that day, as it does today.
Jan 30, 2024
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my sense of smell is terrible. it borders on nonexistent, to the point that i literally can barely smell anything most of the time. when i can though, and when it's good, it's always very nice to be able to smell. enjoy the good smells around you, even if they're unconventional (gas, smoke, sharpie, etc)
Jan 31, 2024
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The descriptions of smells in books is something that always sticks out to me. In Don Quixote, for example, it’s the chivalric scent of ambergris; in One Hundred Years of Solitude, the smell of Colonel Aureliano Buendía’s lavender-perfumed moustache lingers on the page. At the university library, I would often be blanketed by the warm, woody aroma of oud whenever a Muslim student walked past my desk. Smelling good makes you identifiable, it helps you feel confident, and it pleases everyone around you
Feb 6, 2024
Top Recs from @Shadowbeni
a study issued last month found that dancing is the most effective way of treating and mitigating depression. Walking, therapy, and yoga also outpaced SSRIs. and if you're saying 'oh this was probably funded by Big Dance', there's no evidence of that and if you're saying 'that's just what a Big Dance shill would say', well honey you're right
Mar 4, 2024
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Reminder that most of what we do is a performance
Feb 24, 2025
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Do your own homework, read the books yourself, do your own writing, dig in, research, engage with different views. AI is not the answer. Reading and writing to develop your own voice is a lifelong pursuit. Your opinions and knowledge are precious things. That pursuit will make you more interesting, more engaging and fill your soul. The ideas you have should be the product of your own experience. Don't cheapen them by outsourcing your education to a server farm. You'll only sell yourself short.
Mar 24, 2025