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6 songs that seem romantic but aren't, and one that seems like it isn't but is

Love songs are where we get our passion, our soul — and most of our worst ideas.

6 songs that seem romantic but aren't, and one that seems like it isn't but is

The Beach Boys (1965)

Love songs are where we get our passion, our soul — and most of our worst ideas.


Throughout human history, oceans have been crossed, mountains have been scaled, and great families have blossomed — all because of a few simple chords and a melody that inflamed a heart and propelled it on a noble, romantic mission.


On the other hand, that time you told that girl you just started seeing that you would "catch a grenade" for her? You did that because of a love song. And it wasn't exactly a coincidence that she suddenly decided to "lose your number" and move back to Milwaukee to "figure some stuff out."

Photo by Achim Voss/Flickr.

That time you held that boom box over your head outside your ex's house? You did that because of a love song. And 50 hours of community service later, you're still not back together.

Love songs are great. They make our hearts beat faster. They inspire us to take risks and put our feelings on the line. And they give us terrible, terrible ideas about how actual, real-life human relationships should work.

They're amazing. So amazing. And also terrible.

Here are six love songs that sound romantic but aren't, and one song that doesn't sound romantic but totally is:

1. "God Only Knows," by The Beach Boys

You can keep your "Surfin' Safaris," your "I Get Arounds," and your "Help me Rhondas."

When it comes to The Beach Boys, "God Only Knows" is where it's at. A lush garden of soft horns and breezy melody. A tie-dye swirl of sound. A landscape of haunted innocence with some of the most heartrending lyrics ever committed to the back of a surfboard.

Youth! Youth! Youth! Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

File:The Beach Boys (1965).png - Wikipediaen.m.wikipedia.org

Here's why it sounds romantic:

I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I'll make you so sure about it
God only knows what I'd be without you

If you're traipsing through a meadow in a sundress with your beloved and not playing "God Only Knows" on your iPod, you should really stop and start over.

If you're lazily bumping a beach ball over a volleyball net and "God Only Knows" isn't playing somewhere in the back of your mind, you need to rethink the choices that got you to this point.

If you're a video editor compiling footage of grainy hippies frolicking in the mud and you're not underscoring it with the opening chords of "God Only Knows," you are doing it wrong.

It's a song that just feels like love. Pure love. Young love. Love with a chill, kelp-y vibe.

What could be wrong with that?

Here's why it's actually really, really unromantic:

There's nothing wrong with loving someone. Sending them flowers. Leaving over-the-top notes in their P.O. boxes. Stroking their hair as they fall asleep while you whisper the complete works of Nicholas Sparks into their ear.

gray asphalt road towards treesPhoto by Nic Y-C on Unsplash

But there is such a thing as loving someone a skosh too much.

If you should ever leave me
Though life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me?

Look, I get it. Breakups suck. There's no getting around that. But good God.

There's a huge difference between saying: "Hey babe, you are my first and foremost everything and I'll be bummed if you go." And saying: "Welp, you accepted that job in Seattle, so I'm just gonna chug a bunch of nightshade and call it a life."

But that's pretty much the gist here. Which makes this line...

God only knows what I'd be without you

...horror-movie creepy. Because the answer, apparently, is: "I'd be a corpse!"

That's not love. That's codependency (to put it mildly). Oh, and hey! Threatening to kill yourself if your partner leaves isn't loving. It's a form of emotional abuse.

Investing all your happiness and sense of self-worth in any relationship — one that, by definition, might one day end — is putting a lot of eggs in one basket. Sure, God may only know what you'd be without her, but God probably also hopes you have, I don't know, some hobbies. Take a yoga class. Google some woodworking videos. Try kite surfing.One person cannot be anyone's be-all and end-all. It's too stressful. And it prevents you from doing you, which is a thing that's gotta be done before you can do anything else.

No wonder she took that job in Seattle.

2. "Treasure," by Bruno Mars

Sure, it's a blatant rip off of every Michael Jackson song you've ever heard. But, we don't have Michael Jackson anymore, and as tribute acts go, you could do a lot worse than Bruno Mars.

Bruno Mars

Photo by Brothers Le/Flick

Here's why the song sounds romantic:

Treasure, that is what you are
Honey, you're my golden star
You know you can make my wish come true
If you let me treasure you
If you let me treasure you

Pass those lyrics to anyone on a used napkin at an eighth-grade make-out party and you'll likely get an instant toll pass on the highway to tongue-town (ew).

Pass them to your spouse and, chances are, date night is going to culminate in 47 minutes of chaste-yet-passionate frenching.

Pass them to a cop who pulls you over for running a stop sign, and they will think you're weird — but probably still make out with you.

In fact, Bruno Mars basically has a lifetime pass to make out with America because of this song.

And I'm OK with that.

But, here's why "Treasure" isn't as romantic as it seems:

Everything about "Treasure" is retro. Everything.

Including its attitudes about gender.

Things start to go south right from the very beginning:

Give me your, give me your, give me your attention, baby
I gotta tell you a little something about yourself

Ah yes. Nothing screams "respect" quite like a man lecturing a strange woman on the street about something she "doesn't know about herself."

What could it be? Could it be that her jokes are funny? Could it be that she's got something in her teeth? Could it be that her nonfiction book about early modern German history is extremely detailed and informative?

"Thanks for teaching me all about Martin Luther's bible!"

Photo by Torsten Schleese/Wikimedia Commons.

Spoiler Alert: It's none of those.

You're wonderful, flawless, ooh, you're a sexy lady
But you walk around here like you wanna be someone else

Oh. It's that she's sexy. Cool, bro. Very original.

Word of advice? Regardless of how she's walking, the lady knows she's sexy. Even if she doesn't, it really doesn't affect her day-to-day so much that you, a complete stranger, need to shout it at her (even over a funky disco snare).

So what if she does want to be someone else? I'd love to be someone else! I think being Ryan Gosling would be quite nice. A good way to spend a three-day weekend.

And then later, of course, the narrator can't help himself:

Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl, you should be smiling
A girl like you should never look so blue.

He respects her so much, he's actually straight-up telling her to smile! Much like Mars' character "Uptown Funk," who appears to get off on angrily exhorting girls to "hit [their] hallelujah." Which, you know, I guess everybody's got a thing.

Yes, in the world of "Treasure," a healthy relationship is an unending stream of a man complimenting a strange woman and said woman being so totally flattered that she immediately dispenses "the sex."

He then proceeds to talk to his potential lover like the world's creepiest pirate:

You are my treasure, you are my treasure
You are my treasure, yeah, you, you, you, you are
You are my treasure, you are my treasure
You are my treasure, yeah, you, you, you, you are

By this point, in his mind, she's a literal thing. An object. Which is fitting.

I suppose it could be worse, though. At least she's not just any thing.That's ... something, right?

3. "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," by Bob Dylan

For as long as humans have been dating each other, humans have been breaking up with each other. And "Don't Think Twice" is a portrait of a relationship going down in flames. Glorious, poetic, acoustic flames.

Bob Dylan

commons.wikimedia.org

Here's why it sounds romantic:

Well, it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
Even you don't know by now
And it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It'll never do somehow
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window, and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm a-traveling on
But don't think twice, it's all right.

Boom. Strummed on out of that friends-with-benefits situation like whoa.

"Don't Think Twice" is a raw song. An honest song. A powerful song. It's the song your older sister played on continuous loop for six months after her boyfriend left for college. The song that convinced your Aunt Roslyn to leave her bank-teller job, load her four Australian shepherds into the van, and open a wind chime store in Mendocino. The song your friend's cool dad always wants to play when he invited your high school band over to his apartment to jam.

Sure, it's about the end of a relationship, but it sounds romantic. And at the end of the day, shouldn't that be enough?

Here's why it's actually sooooo messed up:

Relationships end. For a lot of reasons. And while there is no right way to call it quits with someone, when the dust settles, both parties can certainly benefit from a difficult, honest discussion about what went wrong.

In "Don't Think Twice," that discussion basically boils down to: "It's your fault."

Let's review the reasons the dude in "Don't Think Twice" is splitting with his lady friend:

I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul

Ugh, women, right? You're all like, "Babe, I just have so much unspecified love to give," and she's like, "Take out the trash!" And you're like, "But baaaaaaabe, shouldn't my heart be enough?" And she's like, "No, seriously. I already did the laundry, cleaned the whole house, fed the dog, did the dishes, and made both of our lunches for the week. All I need you to do is take out the trash." And you're like, "You're bumming me out. I'm gonna go play guitar." And then she gets all mad! What did you do? Why is she trying to change you? UGH!

You could have done better, but I don't mind

Yes. You do mind! You mind! You wrote a song about it, you passive-aggressive prick.

You just kinda wasted my precious time

Ah yes. Your time is so precious! Think about all the hours you wasted plumbing the ocean-deep, ecstatic mysteries of human partnership when you could have been futzing around with that home-brew kit.

Photo by Bill Bradford/Flickr.

The minute you start breaking it down, the message of "Don't Think Twice" suddenly starts to seem a lot less romantic. Like your sister's ex-boyfriend, who worked at the Bass Pro Shop in town for a while and now might be in jail. Like your aunt's wind chime store, which would have closed forever ago had she not received that inheritance from her mom in the '80s. Like your friend's cool dad, who wasn't exactly, technically, paying child support.

Oh yeah, and the song's narrator also point-blank refers woman he's leaving as:

A child, I'm told

That's right. In addition to being a run-of-the-mill passive-aggressive jerk — turns out, he's also possibly a pedophile.

Even if we are to accept that this is a metaphor and she's not actually a child — which there's no indication it is, but OK, Bob Dylan — the fact that Commitmentphobe Gunderson here would willingly choose an immature partner reflects way more poorly on him than it does on her.

Breaking up with anyone in such a cruel, dismissive way is a recipe for sticking them with years of therapy bills.

Which, I suppose, may be the point.

4. "Leaving on a Jet Plane," by John Denver

Who has two thumbs and wrote a bittersweet folk song about hurtling through the stratosphere in a giant aluminum tube at 600 miles per hour?

John Denver

Photo by Hughes Television Network/Wikimedia Commons.

Here's why it sounds romantic:

"Leaving on a Jet Plane" is a lovely song. And impressive in its loveliness because jet planes were still kind of new at the time it was written.

'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane

To a modern ear, this would be sort of like singing, "I'm a scoooting away on my hoverboooooard," but in a way that's somehow still folksy and heartbreaking and singable by 9-year-olds at summer camp. Not easy to do!

Oh babe, I hate to go

You see — he hates to go! He just hates it! We know this, because he tells us he hates it. And why would he hate to go if he didn't love his partner just that much?

Photo by Altair78/Wikimedia Commons.

Why indeed?

Here's why it's actually not that romantic at all:

All the plaintive guitar, loping bass line, and twangy, melancholy warbling in the world can only distract so much from the fact that the song's main character is well, kind of a jerkweed.

And in reality — surprise surprise! — it doesn't actually seem like he hates being away all that much:

There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I tell you now, they don't mean a thing

"Babe, I promise! All the movies I watched alone while you were home nursing the quadruplets. All the times I drained our life savings on Zoo Zillionaire. All the random sex I had with other women. Totally meaningless. Certainly fun to do! Really fun. Like, I had a fantastic time. But rest assured — completely empty, in an ontological sense."

Yes, when you break it down, "Leaving on a Jet Plane," is less of a passionate tribute to love overcoming distance and more the deluded ramblings of a guy who needs to convince himself he's "good" despite all evidence to the contrary.

And for all he claims to be broken up about having to part from his one and only, the dude seems pretty excited about the flight. Oh, you're leaving on a jet plane, are you? Are you Zone 1? Gonna humblebrag on Twitter about the "terrible" Cibo express salad you were forced to choke down as you sat waiting to embark on your fun, mysterious adventure?

Photo by Gesalbte/Wikimedia Commons

He continues:

Ev'ry place I go, I'll think of you
Ev'ry song I sing, I'll sing for you

Ah cool. He'll think about her while strumming and making "my love is delicate as the morning dew" eyes at a waif-y grad student in the front row. That pretty much makes up for it all.

Then he demands:

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me

After all the betrayal and heartbreak, after basically revealing himself to be a grade-A sleaze who can't be trusted, he still has the gall to tell her to wait? To wait for him?

And here's the kicker:

When I come back, I'll bring your wedding ring

Ah yes. He'll put a ring on it. Finally.

Unlike all the previous trips, where he's cheated a billion times, drained the family bank account, and just been a general screwup and disappointment.

But yeah. This time he says he'll bring back a wedding ring.

I hope she joins a polyamorous octad and never looks back.

5. "When a Man Loves a Woman," Percy Sledge

When you look up "soul" in the dictionary, the book plays you a recording of this song.

Percy Sledge

Photo by Gene Pugh/Flickr.

Specifically, it plays you the very first line.

Here's why it sound very romantic:

When a man loves a woman

Sure, you can write the lyrics down, but it doesn't even come close to capturing the heartache. The yearning. The delicious, delicious pain-belting:

WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN

Closer ... but still no.

WHEN A MAAAAAAAN. LOVES A WOOOMAN!

Yes! Sing it, Percy Sledge!

It's an elemental lyric.

It's a heart-shattering lyric.

It's a lyric that demands you put your back into it.

It's perfection.

As long as you don't keep listening.

Here's why the song is actually pretty horrifying:

From the opening lines of "When a Man Loves a Woman," we know that, at least on occasion, a man loves a woman.

Which raises the question: What happens when said man loves said woman?

He'd give up all his comforts
And sleep out in the rain
If she said that's the way
It ought to be.

Whoa! OK. No. Back up. A man, no matter how devoted, no matter how selfless, no matter how in love, needs shelter. Otherwise, a man will die of exposure and hypothermia.

Turn his back on his best friend if he put her down.

No! Jeez. No. A man can't put up with that kind of isolating behavior. A man needs friends! Once a man's whole support system erodes out from under him, a man will be bitter, ungrounded, and alone. And a man's mental health will deteriorate.

I gave you everything I have
Tryin' to hold on to your heartless love
Baby, please don't treat me bad.

This is not what happens "when a man loves a woman." It's what happens when a man loves a controlling, manipulative woman. An abusive woman. A woman who, in truth, only loves a woman. Herself.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

And that's not healthy.

Run, Percy Sledge, run! We're here for you.

(Side note: Lest it go unsaid, there is way more than one way for a man to love a woman. Maybe they spend every waking moment cuddling and bopping each other on the nose. Maybe they sleep in separate bedrooms. Maybe they dress up in large, plush cat costumes and refer to each other Mr. and Mrs. Kittyhawk. And when a man loves a man, I imagine it feels much the same. Or when a woman loves a woman. Or when a gender nonconforming person loves a gender nonconforming person.)

Regardless of the depth of commitment, living situation, or combination of genders or sexual orientations, there's no one-size-fits-all love solution. Every relationship is a unique snowflake. Variety is the spice of life. Necessity is the mother of invention. There's more than one way to skin a cat. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. It doesn't matter if it's the right metaphor, as long as it's a metaphor.

Point being: Generalize at your peril, Sledge. And please, seek help! You can do this! And if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, please give these people a call.

Photo by Rosmarie Voegtli/Flickr.

6. "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You," Heart

Honestly, Heart could sing a list of the most popular AllRecipes ("Jaaaamie's Cranberry Spinach Saaaaalad/World's Best Lasaaaaagna/Sour Creeeeeam Cutouts") and it would make me want to bawl my eyes out in the arms of a tall, dark stranger at the end of a pier.

This song is perfect. You should always be listening to it. If you're not listening to it now, smack yourself in the face and Google it. It's just that important.

I am singing the phone book. You are weeping like a tiny baby. Photo by FatCat125/Wikimedia Commons.

Nancy and Ann Wilson playing at a charity concert

FatCat125/Wikimedia Commons

So much passion. So much pain. So much hair.

Here's why it sounds romantic:

Over pounding drums and a soaring melody, Heart sisters Nancy and Ann Wilson deliver a primal tribute to the one true romantic fantasy shared by every living being on Earth: picking up an unnervingly attractive man for one night of mind-blowing sex and then releasing him back into the wild to bone — but never quite as compellingly ever again.

They sing:

It was a rainy night when he came into sight
Standing by the road, no umbrella, no coat
So I pulled up alongside and I offered him a ride
He accepted with a smile so we drove for a while

I don't have to go on because you know what happens next, and it's awesome.

Now, here's why this song is not romantic at all:

The relationship in "All I Wanna Do" seems too good to be true. And it is. Because it's not an equally loving ,or even equally lusty, pairing at all.

It's a...

It's a...

Well. You know what it is:

For a while, things are humming along just fine, like any wholesome, illicit, anonymous affair should:

I didn't ask him his name, this lonely boy in the rain
Fate, tell me it's right, is this love at first sight?

Sure, many of us might hesitate to pick up a strange leather-jacket-clad man standing on the side of the road for a no-strings-attached screw, but our narrator just has a feeling about this guy, and sometimes, you gotta go with your gut.

I can respect that.

We made magic that night
He did everything right

Great! Seems like it was a good decision. Bonking the hitchhiker is payin' off big time.

But then, without warning, the song starts to sound less like an all-time great romance and more like a story men's rights activists tell each other as they vape around a campfire:

I told him "I am the flower, you are the seed
We walked in the garden, we planted a tree
Don't try to find me, please don't you dare
Just live in my memory, you'll always be there"

I'm not a poet. Symbolic language often eludes me. But unless "flower," "seed," "garden," and "tree," suddenly mean wildly different things in the context of human reproduction than they have since sex was first invented in the early-1970s, we're talking about a surprise, non-mutually-consensual pregnancy!

HELLO! Photo by Avsar Aras/Wikimedia Commons

Of course, metaphors are opaque, interpretations vary, etc., etc., etc. You might be tempted to think, "Maybe Heart meant something else by that."

To that I say, no, they definitely meant it:

Then it happened one day
We came round the same way
You can imagine his surprise
When he saw his own eyes

There are two possibilities here.

One: The narrator of the song is recently-deceased Jerry Orbach from this creepy New York City subway ad from nine years ago:

Photo by eyedonation.org

Or two: She totally conned a dude into whipping up a baby on the sly.

I said, "Please, please understand

Ah, sure. Yeah. No worries.

I'm in love with another man

Cool, so this all makes sense and is in no way the nightmarish scheme of a deranged sociopath who has now wrecked not one but two lives.

And what he couldn't give me, oh, no
Was the one little thing that you can"

A HUMAN LIFE! A REAL SENTIENT HUMAN LIFE THAT IS NOT INCIDENTAL TO ALL OF THIS!

The best you can say about that is that it's not technically illegal, and that leather-jacket man probably should have been responsible for his own birth control. Or, at the very least, asked more questions .

But ... it's not cute. It's not romantic (even the Wilson sisters themselves agree).

And at the end of the day, the shadiest character in this song is somehow not the rain-soaked hitchhiker wandering to nowhere in the night.

Which... is saying something.

But there is a love song that is truly, madly, deeply perfect. An unassailable track in a sea of problematic faves.

A song that does everything right.

A song that paints a portrait of a healthy partnership built to last.

A song that can double as a manual for the ideal human romantic relationship.

And that song is...

"Candy Shop," by 50 Cent, featuring Olivia

Here's why you might be — OK, almost definitely are — skeptical:

As catchy as "Candy Shop" is, as fun it is to dance to, and as cathartic as it can be to scream in the middle of a crowded fraternity house at 2 a.m., there's no getting around the fact that the song begins like this:

I'll take you to the candy shop
I'll let you lick the lollipop

I'll post that again, in case you missed some of the nuance:

I'll take you to the candy shop
I'll let you lick the lollipop

Way to take one for the team, narrator of "Candy Shop"!

At first glance, "Candy Shop" is nobody's idea of a classic love song.

The lyrics are ... unusually forward. The beat is kinda basic. The hook is like the music they play when Abu Nazir sidles scarily by in "Homeland."

It doesn't get played much anymore. When it does resurface, it feels ... kinda dated. Like watching that DVD of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" on your new Xbox 360.

It's not a song you'd put on a mixtape for your crush. It's not a song you'd play for your spouse when the kids are at home with the babysitter and you've got nine hours to tear up the Piscataway Hampton Inn. It's certainly not a song you'd include on the video photo montage you made for your grandparents' silver anniversary.

It's just not.

But it should be.

So here it is. Here's why "Candy Shop" by 50 Cent, featuring Olivia, is actually the perfect relationship song:

The bass drum hits. The MIDI violins whine. The singer starts filling out his fellatio permission slip. It's only been 20 seconds, and you're already getting ready to hang it up with "Candy Shop."

But then ... over the square thrum and the mewling strings, a miracle occurs — in the form of a female voice joining the track, cutting through the din like a clarion call.

She sings:

I'll take you to the candy shop (yeah)
Boy, one taste of what I got (uh-huh)
I'll have you spendin' all you got (come on)
Keep going 'til you hit the spot, whoa

It's mutual! It's mutual! They're performing oral sex on each other!

Ring the bells! Bang the drums! Release the doves!

Photo by liz west/Flickr

Go, cunnilingus doves, go!

50 Cent himself may not be the world's greatest partner — for example, according to one of his exes, he's done some pretty unforgivable things.

But the narrator of "Candy Shop"? He gets it:

You could have it your way, how do you want it?

Rather than simply imposing his desires on the person he's with — a la the dude in "God Only Knows ("I'm going to invest my entire sense of self-worth in you!") or the street heckler in "Treasure" ("I'm going to treat you like a chest full of gold doubloons!") or the sociopath in "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You," ("I'm going to trick you into knocking me up!") — the "Candy Shop" guy actually asks his partner what she wants.

Which, in the world of popular music, is good for about 50,000 trillion points.

And where are they going to do it? The hotel? Back of the rental? The beach? The park?

It's whatever you're into

'Cause consent is sexy!

I ain't finished teaching you 'bout how sprung I got ya

The narrator of "Candy Shop" is certainly ... assertive about his desires.

But here's the key thing: the lady on the receiving end of those desires? She's clearly into it. And we know this because she says so.

The lines of consent in "Candy Shop" are bright red, highlighted, and soldered into the weirdly sticky club floor.

Grim23/Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, Robin Thicke is outside trying to convince the bouncer that his uncle is a lawyer.

Girl what we do ...
And where we do ...
The things we do ...
Are just between me and you

No matter how nasty they freak, it will be intimate. It will be private. There will be no revenge porn (the epilogue to "Blurred Lines," to wit, would definitely be a protracted, emotionally devastating lawsuit).

If you be a nympho, I'll be a nympho

Sexual compatibility is key to the survival of any relationship, whether years, weeks, or (very possibly in the case of "Candy Shop") minutes long.

She may have a high sex drive, but dude is graciously offering to accommodate her. What a gentleman! These crazy kids just might go the distance after all.

And at the end of the day, what is a relationship but two nymphos, sharing health insurance?

Thanks, Obamacare! Photo by Wonderlane/Flickr

It's like it's a race who could get undressed quicker

Again, everybody is having a great time. And, critically, an equally great time.

I touch the right spot at the right time

Of course, it wouldn't be a pop/hip-hop hit without a spot of random braggadocio, but if we're to take him at his word, "Candy Shop" guy is at least as good at "doing everything right" as the anonymous hitchhiker from "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You" — except without all the creepy surprise baby nonsense.

The "Candy Shop" guy is a keeper. Because he's not a hero or a stranger in the night or a funky, shimmering love god. He's a good partner.

"Candy Shop" is raunchy. It's dirty. It's not your grandmother's love song.

But when you strip away the swagger, the back beat, and the weird strings from "Best of Public Domain Middle Eastern Music 1993," by the end of the song, both people are satisfied. And at the end of the day, isn't that what a healthy relationship is all about?

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

So seductive.


This article originally appeared on 12.21.22


via Edith Lemay/NatGeo

Mia, Leo, Colin, and Laurent Pelletier pose on top of their camper van in front of adouble rainbow while in Mongolia.

True

“Blink,” a new film by National Geographic Documentary Films shows how a family with four children, three of whom are going blind, embraces life in the face of an uncertain future. It’s a testament to the resilience of the Lemay-Pelletier family but also a reminder for all of us to seize the day because all our futures are uncertain.

Edith Lemay and Sébastien Pelletier are the parents of Mia, a 13-year-old girl, and three boys: Léo, 11, Colin, 9, and Laurent, 7. Over the last six years, they’ve learned that Mia and the two youngest boys have retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease in which the cells of the retina slowly die. As the disease progresses, the person develops “tunnel vision” that shrinks until very little vision remains.

The diagnosis devastated the parents. "The hardest part with the diagnosis was inaction. There's nothing they can do about it. There's no treatment,” Edith says in the film.


However, even though the parents couldn’t affect the progress of the disease, they could give their children’s senses an epic experience that would benefit them for a lifetime.

“We don’t know how fast it’s going to go, but we expect them to be completely blind by mid-life,” said the parents. Mia’s impairment advisor suggested they fill her visual memory with pictures from books. “I thought, I’m not going to show her an elephant in a book; I’m going to take her to see a real elephant,” Edith explains in the film. “And I’m going to fill her visual memory with the best, most beautiful images I can.”

The Pelletier family (from left): Mia, Sebastien, Colin, Edith Lemay, Laurent and Leo inKuujjuaq, Canada.via National Geographic/Katie Orlinsky

This realization led to an inspiring year-long journey across 24 countries, during which every family member experienced something on their bucket list. Mia swam with dolphins, Edith rode a hot-air balloon in Cappadocia, and Léo saw elephants on safari.

Colin realized his dream of sleeping on a moving train while Sébastien saw the historic site of Angkor Wat.

“We were focusing on sights,” explains Pelletier. “We were also focusing a lot on fauna and flora. We’ve seen incredible animals in Africa but also elsewhere. So we were really trying to make them see things that they wouldn’t have seen at home and have the most incredible experiences.”

Cameras followed the family for 76 days as they traveled to far-flung locales, including Namibia, Mongolia, Egypt, Laos, Nepal and Turkey. Along the way, the family made friends with local people and wildlife. In a heartbreaking scene, the boys wept as the family had to leave behind a dog named Bella he befriended in the mountains of Nepal.

But the film isn't just about the wonders of nature and family camaraderie. The family's trip becomes a “nightmare” when they are trapped in a cable car suspended hundreds of feet above the Ecuadorian forest for over 10 hours.

annapurna range, blink, nat geoLeo, Laurent, Edith, Colin, Mia, and Sebastien look out at the mountains in the Annapurna range.via MRC/Jean-Sébastien Francoeur

As expected, NatGeo’s cinematographers beautifully capture the family's journey, and in the case of “Blink,” this majestic vision is of even greater importance. In some of the film's quietest moments, we see the children taking in the world's wonders, from the vast White Desert in Egypt to a fearless butterfly in Nepal, with the full knowledge that their sight will fail one day.

Along the way, the family took as many pictures as possible to reinforce the memories they made on their adventure. “Maybe they’ll be able to look at the photographs and the pictures and they will bring back those stories, those memories, of the family together,” Edith says.

But the film is about more than travel adventures and the pain of grief; ultimately, it’s about family.

“By balancing [the parents’ grief] with a more innocent and joyous tale of childlike wonder and discovery, we felt we could go beyond a mere catalog of locations and capture something universal,” the directors Edmund Stenson and Daniel Roher, said in a statement. “Keeping our camera at kid-height and intimately close to the family, we aimed to immerse the audience in the observational realities of their daily life, as well as the subtle relationships between each of them. This is a film built on looks, gestures and tiny details—the very fabric of our relationships with one another.”

Ultimately, “Blink” is a great film to see with your loved ones because it’s a beautiful reminder to appreciate the wonders of our world, the gift of our senses and the beauty of family.

The film will open in over 150 theaters in the U.S. and Canada beginning Oct. 4 and will debut on National Geographic Channel and stream on Disney+ and Hulu later this year. Visit the “Blink” website for more information.

File:L.N.Tolstoy Prokudin-Gorsky.jpg - Wikipedia

Leo Tolstoy was a Russian novelist known for epic works such as"War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina.” His life experiences—from witnessing war to spiritual quests—profoundly influenced his writings and gave him profound insights into the human soul.

His understanding of emotions, motivations and moral dilemmas has made his work stand the test of time, and it still resonates with people today.


Juan de Medeiros, a TikTokker who shares his thoughts on philosophy, recently shared how Tolstoy knew if someone was highly intelligent, and his observation says something extraordinary about humanity.

“The more intelligent a person is, the more he discovers kindness in others,” Tolstoy once wrote. “For nothing enriches the world more than kindness. It makes mysterious things clear, difficult things easy, and dull things cheerful.”

@julianphilosophy

Intelligent people are kind #intelligent #intelligence #kindness #smart #tolstoy #men #women

De Medeiros boiled down Tolstoy’s thoughts into a simple statement: “Intelligent people are unafraid to be kind.” He then took things a step further by noting that Tolstoy believed in the power of emotional intelligence. "To have emotional intelligence is to see the good in other people, that is what Tolstoy meant, that to be intelligent is to be kind," he added.

It seems that, according to de Medeiros, Tolstoy understood that intelligent people are kind and perceptive of the kindness in others. The intelligent person is conscious of the kindness within themselves and in the world around them.

Through the words of Tolstoy, de Medeiros makes a point that is often overlooked when people talk about intelligence. Truly smart people are as in touch with their hearts as they are with their minds.


This article originally appeared on 10.13.23

Joy

Elderly millennials, this hilarious mammogram PSA was made just for you

“If you collected Beanie Babies, it’s time for your first mammogram.”

@followmercy/TikTok

Millennial nostalgia is finally being weaponized for good.

Boy, do we millennials love our nostalgia. And who can blame us? Our childhood was a colorful kaleidoscope of analog delights—the thrill of hearing Mr. Moviefone giving showtimes options, or better yet, hitting up the local Blockbuster for a movie night in, the joy of literally any Happy Meal toy…ugh, it really was a simpler time.

Also, our generation’s cartoons were hands down the best cartoons ever. There, I said it.

But sadly, millennials, our generation-wide nostalgia is now being used against us. At least it’s ultimately for our own good.


The staff over at the Mercy Healthcare Company released a tongue-in-cheek PSA featuring relics of our bygone era, saying that if you remember them, “it’s time to schedule your first mammogram.”

“If you collected Beanie Babies, it’s time for your first mammogram,” says one of the nurses in the video. Welp, I’m done for.

Britney Spears’ “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” portable DVD players, the “Rachel haircut,” Myspace, and of course, the sound of dial-up internet etched in all of our brains also made the list, among a few others.

Watch:

@followmercy What do Beanie Babies, Myspace and dial-up internet have in common? If you remember when they were popular, it’s time to schedule your mammogram! #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth ♬ original sound - Mercy

Brilliant. Brutal, but brilliant.

Granted, this PSA technically doesn’t apply to all millennials. Typically, health care professionals suggest that mammograms begin at age 40 for those without a family history of breast cancer, and occur every year.

But still—message received. And well done, Mercy.

On a related note of growing older and wiser…millennials often get depicted as particularly nostalgic. But where that could get explained away by the onslaught of digitization, a measurable decline in quality of art, entertainment, clothes, etc. and living in a post 9/11 world, we can’t forget to note that perhaps we are also simply in a more nostalgic phase of life. The world around us has changed. Our place in society has changed. Our bodies have changed. It’s natural to look back with longing at what once was, since we are now more aware than ever that everything—including us—is temporary.

But that’s part of growing older—being able to hold both yearning and appreciation in our heart. Or, perhaps more appropriate in this case: scheduling that mammogram, then scouring Beanie Babies on Etsy…or whatever else delights your inner child. That’s one thing we millennials will always be good at, no matter how old we get.

Gen Zer asks how people got around without GPS, Gen X responds

It's easy to forget what life was like before cell phones fit in your pocket and Google could tell you the meaning of life in less than .2 seconds. Gen Z is the first generation to be born after technology began to move faster than most people can blink. They never had to deal with the slow speeds and loud noises of dial up internet.

In fact, most people that fall in the Gen Z category have no idea that their parents burned music on a CD thinking that was peak mix tape technology. Oh, how wrong they were. Now songs live in a cloud but somehow come out of your phone without having to purchase the entire album or wait until the radio station plays the song so you can record it.

But Gen Z has never lived that struggle so the idea of things they consider to be basic parts of life not existing are baffling to them. One self professed Gen Zer, Aneisha, took to social media to ask a question that has been burning on her mind–how did people travel before GPS?


Now, if you're older than Gen Z–whose oldest members are just 27 years old–then you likely know the answer to the young whippersnapper's question. But even some Millennials had trouble answering Aneisha's question as several people matter of factly pointed to Mapquest. A service that requires–you guessed it, the internet.

Aneisha asks in her video, "Okay, serious question. How did people get around before the GPS? Like, did you guys actually pull a map and like draw lines to your destination? But then how does that work when you're driving by yourself, trying to hold up the map and drive? I know it's Gen Z of me but I kind of want to know."

@aneishaaaaaaaaaaa I hope this reaches the right people, i want to know
♬ original sound - aneishaaaaaaa

These are legitimate questions for someone who has never known life without GPS. Even when most Millennials were starting to drive, they had some form of internet to download turn-by-turn directions, so it makes sense that the cohort between Gen Z and Gen X would direct Aneisha to Mapquest. But there was a time before imaginary tiny pirates lived inside of computer screens to point you in the right direction and tales from those times are reserved for Gen X.

The generation known for practically raising themselves chimed in, not only to sarcastically tell Millennials to sit down but to set the record straight on what travel was like before the invention of the internet. Someone clearly unamused by younger folks' suggestion shares, "The people saying mapquest. There was a time before the internet kids."

Others are a little more helpful, like one person who writes, "You mentally note landmarks, intersections. Pretty easy actually," they continue. "stop at a gas station, open map in the store, ($4.99), put it back (free)."

"Believe it or not, yes we did use maps back then. We look at it before we leave, then take small glances to see what exits to take," someone says, which leaves Aneisha in disbelief, replying, "That's crazyy, I can't even read a map."

"Pulled over and asked the guy at the gas station," one person writes as another chimes in under the comment, "and then ask the guy down the street to make sure you told me right."

Imagine being a gas station attendant in the 90s while also being directionally challenged. Was that part of the hiring process, memorizing directions for when customers came in angry or crying because they were lost? Not knowing where you were going before the invention of the internet was also a bit of a brain exercise laced with exposure therapy for those with anxiety. There were no cell phones so if you were lost no one who cared about you would know until you could find a payphone to check in.

The world is so overly connected today that the idea of not being able to simply share your location with loved ones and "Ask Siri" when you've gotten turned around on your route seems dystopian. But in actuality, if you took a few teens from 1993 and plopped them into 2024 they'd think they were living inside of a sci-fi movie awaiting aliens to invade.

Technology has made our lives infinitely easier and nearly unrecognizable from the future most could've imagined before the year 2000, so it's not Gen Z's fault that they're unaware of how the "before times" were. They're simply a product of their generation.

These dishes used to be standard menu items.

Trends in food come and go, just as they do in fashion and music and home decor, and when dishes slip out of popularity they fade from view. People might make their oldie-but-goodie recipes at home, but we don't see menus-of-old in restaurants and cookbooks are always being updated with new trends. It's usually not until someone mentions a once-popular dish from decades ago that we say, "Oh yeah, what ever happened to that?"

For instance, if you're Gen X or older, you may remember French and Thousand Island dressings being offered as standard choices when you ordered a salad. Today, you'd be hard-pressed to find a restaurant that serves those dressings at all. Changes in nutrition research and health awareness affect these trends, as do pop culture and marketing pushes from various food industries. But sometimes foods just fade in popularity for no obvious reason.

Someone on Reddit asked people to share "a dish that was extremely popular or trendy on restaurant menus but then virtually disappeared," and it's a mouth-watering trip down nostalgia lane. Some of the dishes people named haven't entirely "disappeared" but they definitely aren't as ubiquitous as they once were on restaurant menus.


Which of these babies should we bring back?

Beef stroganoff

beef stroganoffBeef stroganoff is a classic.Photo credit: Canva

It's a classic. Beef? Good. Mushrooms? Good. Pasta? Good. What's not to love about a dish of beef stroganoff on a cold winter's night? That's right. Nothing.

"Nobody serves beef stroganoff anymore."

"I was just in South America, it’s everywhere there, especially in Brazil. There are even stroganoff restaurants in the food courts at the mall."

"There’s a Russian restaurant near me that does it, but they only do it if you schedule it and have a party of 8 or more."

Blackened (and Cajun) everything


blackened chicken and salmonMmmmm, charcoal.Photo credit: Canva

Yes, we really did burn meat to a crisp all over the country for a while there. Blackened chicken, blackened salmon, blackened shrimp—and throw a little kick in there to make it "Cajun." Nothing like some added carcinogens to really whet the appetite, am I right? (Though the Cajun part was pretty darn good.)

"I credit the original cajun gourmet, Justin Wilson for this. Late 80s/early 90s when more & more people were getting cable TV, he had a few different shows that reached coast to coast. Maybe not iconic, but he was pretty popular and inspired people to have a taste of the culture & cuisine he fondly promoted."

"Add a little... on-YAWN!"

"I gar-on-TEE!"

Pineapple upside-down cake

pineapple upside down cakePineapple upside down cake is soooo good when done well.Photo credit: Canva

Hello, sunshine! Sweet, sticky, yummy and pretty to boot. This is one that you really can't judge til you try. So much better than it sounds.

"In 6th grade home EC we made pineapple upside down cake. With jiffy cake mix and canned pineapple and even the v maraschino cherries. I made that on the regular though the 80s and 90s."

"Oh man, thanks for reminding me of this. I think I’m going to make one today. I made them all the time as a kid in the 70s and a young adult in the 80s. I haven’t had one in years!!"

"It's in my regular dessert rotation. I get requests from family, friends and colleagues for pineapple upside-down cake."

Potato skins

potato skinsTater skins. Yum.Photo credit: Canva

These were all the rage for a bit there. They can still be found sometimes, but potato skins—and baked potato bars—are not nearly as popular as they used to be. Potatoes have gone through the ringer many times when it comes to healthy vs. unhealthy, but few people would argue that they're not delicious when topped with some cheese and bacon.

"Potato skins were pretty big in the 80s."

"That's because they had baked potato appeal; 'cause they're made with potatoes and skins that are real!"

Try to eat a baked potato and you'll be stuffed by the end. i bet that's why they're rarely found on menus anymore."

Salad bars

salad barAnybody miss salad bars?Photo credit: Canva

Ah, the salad bar. The pandemic really messed with this one. They used to be found in most grocery stores, and then pre-COVID there was a big boom of restaurants that were just enormous salad bars. Yet another thing the 'rona stole from us.

"Salad bars. In the 80s every restaurant had one, even some fast food burger places like Wendy’s."

"I love salad bars. I remember the Soup n' Salad chain. That was good."

"Salad bars were all the craze. Nice restaurants to Wendy’s. Salad bars everywhere!"

Quiche

quicheSheesh, quiche was popular.Photo credit: Canva

Ah, the French egg pie we all knew and loved. Maybe we still do, and maybe we make them at home, but quiches aren't the staple menu item at restaurants that they used to be.

"Quiche. Back in the 80’s."

"Quiche, In the late 70s and the 80s. Every fern bar restaurant like TGI Fridays featured quiche, and people were cooking quiche. The popularity of quiche even inspired the title of the book Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche. That book inspired the humorous meme of "Real Men Don’t (fill in the blank).'"

"I still make quiche once in awhile. It's ridiculously easy."

Sun-dried tomatoes and pesto

pesto pasta with sun dried tomatoesIs there anything more 90s than a sun-dried tomato and pesto pasta?Photo credit: Canva

Right around the time when we were all sudden super into Gregorian chants for like a year, sun-dried tomatoes were being put into everything. Pesto, too. Roasted peppers, too. It's like our collective inner Italian came out with flags a-flying.

"I can’t think of a specific dish but there was a period in the 90s when pesto was EVERYWHERE and so were roasted red peppers."

"Sun dried tomatoes were freaking EVERYWHERE for a while there."

"They even had sun dried tomatoes flavored potato chips."

Fondue

fondue potFondue was all the rage in the 60s and 70s.Photo credit: Canva

There are fewer foods more fun than fondue, but you just don't see it much anymore—with one notable exception. The Melting Pot is an all-fondue restaurant chain, so fondue-lovers do have a place to go if they want to dip all the things in melted cheese (and then in chocolate for dessert).

"My mom told me about how after the 70’s she’s fine not touching fondue ever again. Everyone got a fondue pot for their wedding which they used precisely twice before it found its way into storage."

"People are talking about fondue in the '80s and '90s, but it got really popular in the 1960s. My family got a fondue pot then even tho we weren't very trendy food-wise. But being able to cook beef and melt cheese in it ticked all of my dad's boxes!"

"Hot pot is the new fondue."

What else should be added to this list?

Education

Teacher reveals 4 surprising skills children need to have before they enter fifth grade

Students need these skills not just for academic reasons but for safety and survival.

Teacher reveals the surprising skills kids need before fifth grade.

Being a teacher is not an easy job, and no one enters the teaching profession because they think they're going to make a lot of money. Most teachers go into the field knowing that they would likely struggle making ends meet but carry a deep desire for shaping young minds.

But because of things like excessive standardized test preparation due to school districts' funds being tied to test scores, teachers don't always have time to teach basic things some students might have missed along the way. This can cause some frustration from everyone involved because in the end a child is not able to receive the proper tools for success. To fill in that gap, teachers rely on parents to help prepare their children to be as successful as possible in school.

Mr. Wilson, who goes by the name Mr. Wilson's Twin Brother on TikTok, shares several things he's noticed about the students entering his fifth grade classroom over the past several years and reveals four skills children need to have before entering the fifth grade. The list may be surprising for some, though judging by the response from teachers, being underprepared is an all too common issue.



@iammrwilson313

For the safety of your child, you HAVE to make sure they have these 4 skills before meeting their fifth grade teacher!!! Not for us, for THEM. #teachersoftiktok #blackeducator #lifeofateacher #5thgrade #maleteachers

Mr. Wilson prefaces the video by saying, "I take it as a point of pride that I make my classroom accessible to all different types of children, but the main goal of a fifth grade classroom is to prepare a child for the increased demands of middle school. And as you know, middle school is a type of place where there are seven different teachers and they don't have the same ethic of care as an elementary school teacher does. Some of them will and some of them try to but due to the structure of middle school it's just not feasible."

The teacher goes on to explain that the children entering middle school need to have a certain level of basic skill, not just for academic purposes, but for safety and survival. These are the things he says are imperative students know before reaching fifth grade classrooms:

boy writing on printer paper near girlFifth graders need to write their name on every paper. Photo by Santi Vedrí on Unsplash

1. Consistently and automatically writing their name

Mr. Wilson says, "Those of you who are not teachers may be really, really appalled that this is where the list is starting but when I tell you in each of my five years of teaching I have to give a test the very first week of school to make sure my children can spell their names. And when I tell you that in those five years of teaching that I have never had a class where 100% of those students pass."

Wilson clarifies that he's not speaking about children that have significant intellectual and developmental delays, but those who have somehow been passed along.

2. Reading beyond CVC words

CVC words stand for consonant, vowel, consonant, and Wilson gave the examples of short first words like "cat," "bat," and "run." These are some of the very first words children learn to read in kindergarten. They start with a consonant, have a vowel in the middle and end with another consonant. Wilson explains that some of the fifth graders entering his classroom can't read beyond these simple words, which hinders their progress because the curriculum requires children to read paragraphs.

girl sitting while reading bookThey need to read beyond "Hop on Pop." Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

3. Knowing how to add and subtract simple problems

Wilson shares that math is an area where he tends to give a little more grace to the children because so many students struggle with being confident in math. But he notes that by the fifth grade, math skills crank up several notches so counting on their fingers to solve simple single digit subtraction and addition problems can be an issue. This is because fifth grade is the year that they focus heavily on math skills that build on the knowledge of simple addition and subtraction. Before fifth grade ends, students are expected to master multiplication, multiplication and division of decimals, and more.

4. Easily recalling their address and parents' phone numbers

"If for whatever reason I call your kid over to my classroom phone and say, 'Hey, give me a phone number for mom or dad' and they don't know that number, how are they going to get home if God forbid they're out in the world alone, isolated and somebody comes over to them and says, 'Hey, I want to call your parents to help you get in contact with them,' and they don't know what phone number to call," Wilson asks.

boy sitting on concrete stairsboy sitting on concrete stairs Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

In the end, Wilson shares that he's speaking from an area of concern and not judgment because things have been hard for everyone since Covid. He explains that a lot of the skills are not just things that qualify kids for the fifth grade, but things everyone should be able to do to be safe in the world. Several teachers lent their support for his message by relaying their own stories.

"My 8th grade students legitimately struggle to write their names consistently and their handwriting is atrocious," a fellow teacher admits.

"I've had 5th graders that didn't know their birthday," another says.

"In my experience 5th grade is the hardest elementary grade to teach because the academic leap is so wide," someone else shares.

Wilson and others offered some tips to help get the kids who need these skills back on track. Working with the kids at home is a recurring theme in the comments. One parent suggested changing the WiFi password to the parent's phone number to help with memorizing. Wilson shares that if a parent is concerned that their child is missing these skills then one of the most helpful things to do is to ask the school to hold the child back. He explains that this will give the child more time to catch up on the skills they're missing and build maturity needed to succeed in the next grade.

While the message may be harsh for parents and caregivers to hear, it sounds like Wilson isn't simply complaining but making parents aware of an issue they may not know they need to check for. Hopefully sharing this honest message with others will help children excel in fifth grade and beyond.