#// basing my opinion on whether he drinks or not solely on that one piece of extra AA4 art where the WAA + ema are together-

[surging-eyes-seeing-through]

Apollo, I'd like to offer you some Glühwein! It's really great for colder days and tastes great too :) But first I gotta ask: do you like alcoholic beverages? are you a heavyweight or lightweight? Please try some if you want to. You can also have some hot cocoa as an alternative 🙏

"Glühwein? Sure, I'll try a little."

(...Oh, spiced wine. I've heard of this, haven't ever tried it though.)

"I'll drink... very occasionally, more at events or gatherings than anything. I'm, ah... a bit of a lightweight, anyways, doing it regularly wouldn't be great."

[bdgthinks]

The Two Sides of “The Two Sides of Singapore, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider”, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider

https://medium.com/@bdgthinksShort pre-amble: Just as how the original Rice article is just the opinion of one writer, what I’m writing below is likewise, just the opinion of mine alone. Also, my opinions are based on my experience working with Deliveroo while Yusuf worked for Grab Food so there may be some differences between the pay structure, zone distances and other company-specific policies.

I was clicking past Instagram stories yesterday afternoon, about to take a nap, when I saw a friend share this recently posted Rice Media article. Part photo journal, part commentary on the gig economy, Singapore’s class divide, and how income inequality is growing more apparent as we adapt to the ever-evolving Covid-19 situation? Sign me the hell up. 

All images courtesy of Ricemedia.co, Yusuf Abdol Hamid, or myself

20 minutes, a few raised eyebrows, and many heated texts later – I reluctantly abandoned my plans to nap because I read some many things in this article (which I highly recommend you read first before reading on!) that I disagree with profoundly. 

Before I start, I want to offer my appreciation to Yusuf (the narrator), Boon Ping (the editor/author), and Rice Media for publishing this piece that will help many understand the oft-overlooked issue of social/income inequality in an engaging and accessible manner. My misgivings towards some of Yusuf’s opinions notwithstanding, the general sentiment towards this article is extremely positive and has done what I believe every great article should do, provoke thought and inspire critical thinking towards the status quo! 

A smattering of positive feedback to the original article 

What I appreciated most about the article is encapsulated by joce_zhang’s comment, that it’s an important reminder to be kinder to people – regardless. 

 However, I couldn’t help but find it slightly troubling that Yusuf and Boon Ping (the editor) seemed to have oversimplified these issues and reduced the stakeholders to caricatures: the rich as the Monopoly Man; and the tireless ‘seen by many as a dead-end job’ delivery couriers as a Dickensian orphan, counting pennies and agonizing over whether they ‘deserve’ a Zinger. 

I worry that one unintended consequence of this article is that some ways social inequality is highlighted may lead to reinforcement of the divide rather than dissolution. 

During my Summer holidays in 2018, I became attracted to the idea of working part-time as a food courier cyclist as in my mind I saw it as being paid to just cycle and listen to podcasts. Since then, I’ve been an on-off Deliveroo cyclist during the shorter holidays or whenever I needed a little bit of extra pocket money. 

In past the two years, I’ve earned exactly $4081.63 from making deliveries (inclusive of bonuses) and dividing it by a conservative $15/h rate, I’ve worked for around 272 hours or about 700 deliveries. split about 60/40 between private properties and HDB flats.

And I guess it’s also partly because of my different experience working in food couriering the past two years that made me feel so much discontent while reading Yusuf’s article. In these 400-odd deliveries to private residences (or heck, in any of my deliveries), I don’t recall having once been treated unnecessarily rudely, aggressively or dismissively by any of the stakeholders I interact with in the job – restaurant servers and managers, condo security management and customers alike. 

What I have experienced actually are customers that have tipped me for my efforts - especially ones who live in fairly inaccessible areas, and (during this circuit breaker period) offered me a snack or a cold drink to drop off their deliveries; security guards who ask me how my day was and if I’ve had my lunch or dinner; and restaurant staff who invite me to have a seat in the restaurant while I wait for my order. 

Some treats from kind customers 

Even when I had made a mess of the customer’s order from their order roiling around during a bumpy 15-minute bike ride (entirely my fault of course!), I’ve never heard anything more than an entirely deserved ‘tsk’ at the disappointment of having half of their pho soup ending up in the plastic bag instead of the bowl – and even then these tsk’s are far and few between! 

And it is (again, solely from my own personal experience) where I felt that Yusuf could have been cherry-picking the worst examples from his own experience to make a point. While service industry personnel are no doubt severely underappreciated and that should be improved as a whole, I feel that such blatant incidents are the exception rather than the rule. 

My point is: the world isn’t binary. Heck, even up to a year ago I was still echoing Yusuf’s entire argument and ranting rather colorfully about the injustice and discrimination of it all. Who are YOU to tell me which lift I can and cannot use? 

In the pursuit of delivering a commentary on some really important social issues, I feel that it fell short by over-emphasizing the ludicrousness of the elite and failing to consider the many other factors that contributes to this problem. 

For one, I thought that the annoyance projected to security guards seeing themselves as ‘a barrier between the riff-raff and their diamond-encrusted residents’ was a bit uncalled for – painting a picture of the fearsome guard – in employ of the up-in-the-air bourgeois hiding in their ivory tower, assailing an innocent courier who had the audacity to think that he had the right to take the same elevator as the residents? 

But then… when we consider that most lift lobbies are a good distance from the security guard posts where the guards are stationed, it doesn’t seem so unreasonable for a guard to have to raise his voice to get his point across, right? 

Being fortunate enough to live in a condo myself, I’ve sometimes felt unease in the duality that security guards experience every single day: faithful bastions in keeping residents safe, spending their days patrolling the lush, landscaped gardens and expansive feature infinity pools, but never once stepping foot into the houses they loyally guard.

And at the end of the day, clocking out to return home to an environment I assume is much less luxurious. 

So why then, do Yusuf and Boon Ping deign to foster an us vs them divide, arbitrarily placing one occupation on one side of the line and another on the opposite?

How about the incredulousness towards the guy who orders a stupid $11 Dal.komm latte every day, or the Grange Road resident who only orders a single scoop of Haagen-Dazs ice cream? 

Like I said, caricatures that highlight and reinforce the rich-poor divide.

Cherry-picking prevents the reader from seeing the single cups of coffee that I’ve delivered from Common Man Coffee Roasters to Tenteram Peak, the eight egg tarts from Whampoa Hawker Center to Toa Payoh. Or my dad, who lives a one-minute walk from the hawker center but still chooses to order through Grabfood because he paid for a subscription service that offers 50 free deliveries for just $10? 

All these customers lived in HDB units. 

As a courier, there’s nothing I appreciate more than collecting an order to find out I’m being paid $5 to cycle one block away, or reaching the restaurant to find out that a customer only ordered an easy-to-transport wrap instead of say, twelve packets of chicken rice – I’m getting paid the same amount anyway. 

So yes, they’re paying our salary, so thank you. 

Juxtaposition is also good and all for making a point, but is it truly accurate and representative? 

The word exclusive is used a lot by Yusuf - but are those who live in a smelly HDB with the pee smell in the corridor exclusively nice, and the expat who lives in the Ardmore Park condo with the super high ceiling exclusively mean? Is it wrong to live (or aspire to live) in an exclusive private property? These are questions to be stimulated, not answers to be given. 

There’s so much to pick apart, but my goal isn’t to say: I’m Right, You’re Wrong, it’s just that say that There Are Two Sides to Everything. 

A brief aside on ‘fulfillment’ 

While I love my part-time job – paying me upwards of $20 an hour to keep fit and listen to podcasts, I’m entirely cognizant that while I’m privileged that it’s a side-hustle, a side-gig, a part-time job to me; it’s also a livelihood to tens of thousands of hardworking people out there. 

Where I could turn off the app and head home when I decided I’ve earned enough in the week to eat at a new restaurant I’ve been eyeing or if it was too hot in the afternoon, most other people working my job can’t – if not, the lights may not turn on the next day. 

In a comment to an earlier draft of this piece, a friend shared that it’s a privilege to be able to separate your social identities. I think it’s also a privilege to have the choice of perspective. We exercise when we’re healthy, as a hobby, or a passion. Deliverymen don’t see it that way. There is no ‘good to do’, there is only ‘must do’. 

At the end of the day when the world starts to recover from Covid-19, you’re going to start getting photo and videography gigs and transition back to the white-collar world. 

As for the security guard and domestic helper at Ardmore Park, the server at the Grange Road Haagen-Dazs, and the tens of thousands of for-hire drivers and delivery couriers? There’s no ‘back to normal’ – this is their normal. 

In a discussion post on Yusuf’s article, a redditor referenced Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

In the blue-collar normal, where every day is a struggle to meet the needs of financial safety and security, maybe fulfilment isn’t really an aspiration for most. In an article calling for empathy, I feel the quality slightly lacking in my reading. 

A few months back I began my education into inequality in Singapore with Teo You Yenn’s seminal This Is What Inequality Looks Like. In it, the title of one of her essays especially stood out to me: Dignity Is Like Clean Air. She describes, like Yusuf does, that many blue-collar workers in the service industry always feel invisible, that people don’t respect them, that it makes them feel small. I’d like to add on to** Dignity Is Like Clean Air** with the caveat: Segregation Is Not Necessarily Dirty. 

Going back to the ‘fucked up service lifts at the back for the smelly people, the non-residents and stuff’, how about we just call a spade a spade?

In restaurants, servers and chefs who have their meals there usually sit at tables near the kitchen (or even in the kitchen itself). 

In airplanes, consumers have the choice to pay a much higher premium for more leg room and a more gourmet selection of food. In fancy hotels, bellboys and concierge staff have to wear stiff suits – there’s usually a dress code for guests to enter certain areas. 

So, is it really that unfair, for someone who’s had the means to pay for the privilege of living in luxury, to not really want to share a lift with someone who might smell unpleasant from having spent hours cycling under the hot sun? 

The service lift provides the same functionality – no one’s saying that couriers are ‘lesser people’, we’re not being asked to walk up the stairs while the ‘masters’ take the magic moving box. It wasn’t created to separate the ‘undesirables’ from the ‘desirables’ like a pre-Rosa Parks bus, and it’ll be unhealthy to think of it as such – even worse to let it fester. 

To package my views into a neatly categorized box – When I’m Brandon the Deliveryman, it’s perfectly fine for a guard to request for me to take the service lift, but when I’m Brandon the Guest attending a dinner party at the same condo, no one is stopping me from taking the resident lift right? 

Different day, Different fit, Same me 

I still think that it’s incredibly fucked up that some employers make their helpers take a separate lift though. 

But in delivering the core message – is it more helpful to frame your reflection as ‘why do some people treat their subordinates with such contempt and how can we as society hope to change it’, or to just resent the fact that ‘rich people like that la’ – and laugh and pretend we’re friends. 

I guess what I’m most frustrated with about the article is that it had the potential to be so much more. It occasionally flirts with the possibility of going deeper into one issue or the other but ultimately ends up being a reflection of one privileged dude’s brief foray into an industry that many of us often take for granted. 

And because there are so many issues at play, people often fall into the trap of distilling extremely complicated issues into dangerous sweeping statements, which eventually does very little for the problem in question. 

Another frustration I often have towards the discourse towards social issues is that they often fail to carry a call-to-action. Okay, I’ve checked my privilege, I’ve understood that my successes in life is partly a byproduct of the wealthy family I was fortunate to being born into – now what? 

A good rule of thumb that I’ve been trying to implement into my life recently is to think about the net positive or net negative an action has onto society. And hence: 

To the fortunate: While it is important to understand your privilege and not take things for granted, you also don’t have to be ashamed of it. Every dollar you spend goes into the economy and is earned by someone else. So, what can you do to influence a net positive? 

Be kind to everyone, be kind to everyone, be kind to everyone. 

If you can, have the moral courage to call out undesirable behavior – especially if it’s someone close to you. But if you can’t – it’s okay too. Start with yourself. The world could do with less ‘you should do more’ and more ‘thank you for what you did’. 

This is not exclusive to tipping service staff or offering couriers a cold drink (although it is always really welcome!). Offer a kind word to anyone you interact with. Ask the office or school janitor if they’ve had their meal yet, wish your security guard a good morning/good evening when you pass them by, clear your tray when you’re at a fast food restaurant and smile and thank the servers if you pass them by. 

I promise you - these little acts of kindness will go a much longer way received than it takes you to give them. 

To our everyday heroes: Your intrinsic self worth is by no means defined by how an asshole treats you. You are so, so, so much more important.

You are somebody, you are somebody, you are somebody. 

In this essay, my intention is to extend the net positive that Yusuf and Rice has already generated while minimizing the net negatives it may unintentionally create by framing the issue as ‘us vs them’. 

I hope that it will be seen as an addendum to Yusuf’s original piece instead of a correction. To build up on the important issues that **each and every one of us **should acknowledge and then go one step further to see how we can resolve them. I hope that reading this has provoked more questions than it gives answers. I hope that we don’t see the world as black-and-white but how things can move to a more palatable shade of grey. 

Of course, my thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions here could be (and probably are) wildly ignorant and myopic, and I still have so much more to learn. So please confront me, dispute me and tell me where I’m wrong and what I don’t know. 

If I have to leave you with just one takeaway, I hope everyone remembers to be kinder to people – regardless.

(You can also find me at https://medium.com/@bdgthinks!)

[smithereensbymaisie]

There was once a demon named Émond

A brief warning: This is an entirely fictional piece that is based on a dream of mine, but it does mention child trafficking and child labour, so please proceed with care. Your well-being is the most important. This is also written in the heat of the moment, so the subjects that this touches on may be poorly-researched or misinformed. If that’s the case, please kindly let me know. It’s uncertain whether this will have a follow-up, and although I will try my best, there’s no promises. Lastly, English is not my first language. With all that said, I hope you enjoy this weird dream of mine.

---------------------------------

There was once a demon boy. Well, not exactly “boy”, since demons’ age, sex, and gender just did not work that way, but he liked being a young boy, so why not? Wayward was the word that he deeply identified with, and it did not help that he also disapproved of certain rules and values of the demon world. After too many times refusing to perform his duty of being an “upright and devoting member of the community”, The Council of Demonic Society put limitations on his magic before casting him to earth as a punishment. The demon would not be able to return until he successfully tempted seven kings into wrongdoings.

He had no intention whatsoever to complete the task.

On earth, still in the form of a young boy, he decided to simply live on the street and went by the name Émond. His magic, though limited, was still more than enough to suffice, so his new life mainly consisted of magicking whatever food and drink he needed if he was feeling lazy, and stealing if he was feeling particularly bored or adventurous. He could no longer make money out of thin air, though, so that was a shame. He then decided that he would feel adventurous most of the time, which was terrible news for shop owners in the area.

That way of living lasted for about as long as the lifespan of a dragonfly. Wandering the land of the living without any permanent shelters, money or full power, Émond found himself being snatched from the street and sold to some kind of twisted organisation located in a desert faraway. All the manual labour was young boys who had to stay in tents. There were also adult supervisors who lived in brick houses nearby. The children were chained together at the wrists in groups of seven when they worked and forced to dress in uniforms at all times, which consisted of too big a shirt and a pair of baggy trousers that looked like they had been vomited out by an entity that solely produced eye-achingly bright red-colored clothes. There were about five groups of seven red-clothed children. Usually, they had to work in the desert under the sun, digging sand for wood, animal or human bones, and if they were in luck, scattering pieces of jewellery; in general, anything that was not sand and could potentially be sold for money. On special occasions, the boys were given the job to act like “feral cheerleaders” in a spectator sport taking place on a dune near where they put up their tents. The so-called sport apparently included gruesome murders performed by men on horses. They were told to scream, clap and jump manically whenever someone was killed or badly injured to “set the atmosphere”, metal chains clinking and air thick with the pungent smell of fresh blood.

Naturally, Émond did not get on well at first. He was made fun of by adults and children from other groups, as well as having to endure snickers from his own for his rather chubby body and long mop of curly hair, although he did not give a monkey’s about that. He liked this body. What truly annoyed Émond was the fact that he was expected to take commands from these ridiculous, violent, crude supervisors, whom he ignored out of spite most of the time, and just as often, they got furious and took that anger out on the children in his group. Whenever that happened, the demon would use the little power he was allowed to his advantage. He created a strong and urgent urge to fall asleep and planted it inside the minds of red-faced supervisors. Being in the thrall of demonic magic, they had to crawl back into their bed and slumber for the next hour; he then wiped their memory of his unruly behaviour, which oftentimes resulted in a dopey and silly facial expression when they finally woke up from the unnatural sleep.

Very quickly, other boys in the group started to pick up on the pattern and confronted the demon on one late afternoon.

“How did you do that?”, one child named Asher asked him when they had finished the work for the day. The supervisors had taken off their chains and retired to their brick shelters. Their tent had been put up properly for the freezing forthcoming night, and sunbaked wood and dry grass had been provided for each tent for fire.

“Do what?”

“Stop the adults from hitting us, obviously”, another small child, Neil, he recalled, turned to him, squinting his hazel eyes.

The demon soon found himself the object of curious and suspicious gazes from six little humans. Well, he thought to himself, they are going to stay with me for quite some time anyway, I may as well get on with it.

He told them everything, from the fact that he was not as human as it seemed and there was an entire world full of his kind to the event of his punishment and his life before being taken here. Émond also told them that his magic abilities had certain limits, and that yes, he could make the supervisors forget about his scornful attitudes and behaviour, but no, he could not do the same for memories concerning other people, the boys included. As that was the case, the demon could not wipe away the existence of six children from the minds of several supervisors and help them escape. Also, they were in the middle of a desert, it was not a very good idea to venture out without sufficient resources, knowledge of their current location or a map for direction. Émond had expected the boys to get terrified, accuse him of lying, or laugh in his face and consider him insane, but that assumption was quickly proved wrong. Apparently, the demon had not been very subtle with his magic, and as it was, he found himself surrounded by six fearless, inquisitive little creatures.

“Do you have horns?”, a boy named Alex, twelve years old with wide brown eyes and short hair of indiscernible color, asked him. “I heard that demons have horns.”

“Well, I can have horns if I wish to,'' came his answer, “but those things are just terribly inconvenient, are they not?”

“You can change how you look? That’s wicked awesome!”, exclaimed another child, Alfie, who was sitting cross legged next to Alex. The other children just looked at Émond with even more wonder evident on their faces.

“I wholeheartedly agree with you, child.”

“Wait, so are you really a boy, then? And how old are you, exactly?”, asked a fifteen-year-old named Victor, which made him the oldest of the six.

“No, I’m not really a boy, I’m a demon. We don’t normally categorize our kind into boys and girls, or anything like that, really. There are certain types that run The Council, but that place is full of stiff demons that know no fun, so let's not count that. Most of us just exist or don't. And it’s rude to ask people of their age.” Then, after a beat of silence: “Also, I don’t remember. It’s been a while since I last checked a calendar.”

“What about magic? Can you do magic now? I want to see it!”

The children looked at him excitedly. Happy to entertain, and also starting to feel a bit cold, Émond magicked a burning fire next to their tent. It crackled cheerfully and smelt sweeter than any scents the children had ever smelt before.

The last remnant of sunlight was starting to fade on the horizon. The group of seven shifted closer to the fire, basking themselves in the warmth, hoping that the biting cold of the desert night would not seep into their bones.

“Do demons have parents?”

That question took the demon by surprise. He contemplated for a while before settling on an answer: “You know what, I’m not sure. The first memory I have is waking up alone on the floor of a dimly-lit room with only one door. The knowledge of my power and who I was just…magicked itself there, I suppose. I then opened the door and found an entire world of demons on the other side.”

“Oh”

“Right, it did get a little overwhelming.”

“I have a mother,” said Little Henri, aged eight, after a while, “She’s still waiting for me to come back, I’m sure. I just hope she doesn't cry so much anymore.”

And so, the conversation turned to the life stories of each child. Henri was the youngest in the group. He loved visiting the park with his mother when she came home from work. The ducks in the park’s pond, in his opinion, had been the most interesting citizens he had ever encountered, aside from his mother, of course, and a source of endless entertainment. Alex and Alfie were of the same age. They were orphans and had lived together on the same street before being kidnapped. The A-Duo, or TAD for short, was how they had called themselves back in the glorious olden days of mischief. Mind you, they were still TAD and still full of shenanigans, but artfulness was now their main focus to avoid the beating from supervisors, whom they called “visors” because “really, it’s impossible there is anything super about them”. Émond found it funny. Neil and Asher were brothers, aged ten and fourteen respectively. While Neil was an energetic little boy and was often found conversing amicably with The A-Duo, Asher was rather reserved and quiet. They had lived in a loving family, although both knew that “sufficient” could hardly be used to describe their home. Neil had been snatched from a vacant playground on a humid summer afternoon. Asher had witnessed the incident and rushed to his little brother without thinking, which had resulted in him being rendered unconscious with a bat in the head. They had both been dragged away from view in an instant. Asher had woken up with a mild concussion to find Neil hugging him tightly, sleeping, cheeks still streaked with tears. The pair had travelled with a dealer for about a week before being sold to this place. The oldest among the children was Victor, who sported a perpetual grim face. He was reluctant to talk about his family, but the little information he provided was telling enough: he had been sold by the hand of his own kin. The pain of that memory seemed to etch on his brow, cling to the downward corners of his mouth and the dimmed color blue of his eyes. Sensing the unease, Asher steered the conversation away from Victor, asking Alex and Alfie about their latest mischief.

“Well, since you insist,” said Alfie before the duo plunged into every detail concerning The Sandy Bums Operation with obvious pride. Victor looked at Asher gratefully.

By the end of the conversation, Henri and Neil had been fast asleep. Alex and Alfie were struggling to keep their eyes open and failing spectacularly. Victor ushered the two inside the tent, meeting with little protest, and followed them with Henri in his arms, while Asher gently scoped up his little brother. For a moment, the gentle crackling of the fire was the only sound that dared to disrupt the quiet night.

“Why haven't you escaped on your own?” A hushed voice broke the silence. Asher seated himself beside Émond, hazel eyes fixed on his profile. “You know, you have magic and all that, and I reckon you also have better endurance than us humans. So why?”

Chuckling lightly, the demon turned to look at him: “Why do you ask? Do you want to get rid of me that much?”

“Not really,” Asher shrugged, letting out a sigh, “just curious.”

They fell into a comfortable silence. The flickering fire threw long shapeless shadows on the ground, unfailingly scented the surrounding air with its enticing aroma.

“It doesn't sit right with me, whatever that may mean coming from a demon,” Émond said after a while, still resolutely staring at the fire. “Leaving the children here when I walk free and wreak havoc to the world, knowing that I might have been able to aid their escape in some way, doesn't sound very fair, does it? It's bad for business, anyway, that not everyone is given the same chance to do evil.”

A smile grazed Asher’s lips. It was a small, fleeting thing, but in this harsh and unforgiving place, it was more precious than gold. “You know, I think I get why those stiff demons rejected you. You are terrible at being a demon.”

“Wow, thanks so much for that”, said Émond, feigning outrage.

“You would make a pretty decent lad, though, if you were a human being”, Asher carried on, unfazed.

That threw the demon into a lapse of silence. He looked in bewilderment at the child beside him, dirty face and matted blond hair. Then, softly, as if he feared the image of that boy might shatter before his eyes: “But I'm not, aren't I?”

“No, you aren't,” the boy gently shook his head, “but I choose to see you as such anyway.”

They sat in silence for some time before pulling the sweet air into his lungs, Asher patted Émond on the shoulders and stood up, stretching and yawning: “I don’t know about you, but I’m knackered. Going inside now. You coming?”

“The night sky is too beautiful”, Émond replied simply.

“Alright. Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight.”

There was a soft rustle of fabric, and then, once again, Émond found himself embraced by the chilly stillness of the desert night. The sky was indeed beautiful. He might as well admire the stars while he could.

[smpsm]

paste

 smpsm

My head is trying to kill me from the inside, with its shock-start migraines and its constant alcoholic desires. Where did I learn these things and how can I make them stop? How can I keep from sinking my fingernails into the flesh on my forearms, and does it matter that I spend my days wondering if I’m helping people less crazy than myself? I should have checked in long ago, no doubt, back when my face felt concrete with a frown and my eyes felt fogged with fatigue and indecision; back when every minute brought thoughts of death and my brain told me that no one cared. I should have sought help, more than not, for the years following, for the crying jags and the constant worthless attempts at being loved. But what drove me to the doctor was sheer panic more than anything, that uncontrollable ability my body had to keep me from taking a breath. Nowadays I just pick at my hair and drink to fall asleep, miserable in every intervening hour and lying to my mother that I’m fine. She wouldn’t understand anyway, she who called me evil and abusive ad cruel and fed the fire with the gasoline that my sick heart didn’t need. I tell people there are cures besides pill bottles but truth be told I want the sudden cleansing cool that comes from a benzo fix—I don’t want to be drunk so much as dead calm. The road to hell is paved with half-moon indentations in my flesh and bruises I beg other people to give me. I ask for the paddle so I can avoid hurting myself for one more day, one more week, while I press the fading marks that dot my body. I can sustain physicals hurts I had never dreamed possible, many more than I can emotional blows—love lost is much worse than a caning or a whip’s lash, somehow. I am defensive because I know how vulnerable I am, because I am constantly open to attack and must therefore cover myself constantly—but no one can hate me as much as I hate myself. The idea is absurd.

 I suffer from a raging sense of superiority based solely on intellect and the shape of my lips; somewhere along the line I learned I’d better have a personality if I couldn’t at least be normal. And it seems I can’t be, with my propensity to talk myself into a tizzy and my desire to get beaten by strangers. These things aren’t normal, are they? I thought not. Deep down I wonder if I think I deserve it or if I’ve always been like this, and I think back to age five when I laid in the dark, titillated by the idea of public humiliation and the wearing of metal cuffs in childhood cartoons. I wasn’t abused but I feared it, feared that dirty old men would unzip their flies at the least provocation and I could do nothing to protect myself. Being a young girl during the 1990s had its downsides; assault was disparaged yet somehow normalized by its presence on every magazine cover alongside pictures of pretty blonde-haired pageant girls found dead in neighbors’ basements. People are disgusting, I quickly learned, and I can do nothing to fix it. All I can do is rage and secretly quail at any threat to my humanity.

 My head hurts nearly all the time and “psychosomatic” does not begin to cover it. Psycho fucking soma, my body is betraying me daily by longing for things I shouldn’t want and by falling to pieces when I misstep on a curb. My bruises have been magnificent, to tell the truth, but perhaps I should not get so much joy from them. Then again perhaps I should not get so much joy from office supplies, jalapenos, and spinny chairs, but there you go. I used to pretend I was not one of those girls, before I realized it was a cunty thing to say, that it was horrible to separate myself from half the population of the world simply because I longed to be different and therefore loved. I don’t know what kind of girl I am, to be sure, but I am probably one of “those,” one of those too big for her britches with a fat head. One of those who could easily be called a bitch. It’s something I can abide.

 What I cannot abide is my own weakness, my lingering sadness and constant worry and the thought that I am absolutely crazy, nothing for it. I want meds and I want them all the time, please, even if they solve nothing. They help in the moment and isn’t that what mindfulness is about? The now and now and oh yes now, the constant, continuing crawl of time. Death sounds comforting most days, if only to stop the exhaustion. You don’t have to be depressed to be suicidal—sometimes you can simply be too exhausted to keep moving. Yet somehow you chug down your drink and keep moving, telling yourself things will doubtless look much better tomorrow. So you read dark comedies and you tell yourself that life could surely be worse—trying not to tempt fate and jinx your already miserable life—and you try so hard to focused on the small rays of sunlight shining through the window that splash brightly on the dust-motes floating in the air. You focus on sunlight and the fact that you could certainly be much crazier than you are, and that’s something at least.

 You revel in small things, like being loud and drunk with people as miserable and possibly hilarious as you; like stealing things you definitely don’t need. Like stomping roughly on dying leaves after they fall into your path. You try not to focus on the fact that you can barely sleep at night without a steadying drink, or the fact that you always feel like a fuck-up. You try to pretend you don’t feel fat and disgusting every day. You focus on the fact that you have perky tits until you remember how many man-boys have leered and talked about coming on them. This doesn’t please you. Nor does the second-person treatment you adopt half the time, trying to sound literary and artistic when really you’re just sad and exhausted. You think that someone must have to have a personality before having a personality disorder, and you marvel at your own delicious wit and then call yourself a cunt silently. You feel a horrible bitch and a pathetic loser grasping at adoration for something other than her grabbable ass.

 Half the things you suffer, you seem to have brought on yourself. You are exhausted because for some ungodly reason you decided to go to graduate school, and you hate yourself for it. But you know you’d hate yourself more if you were living in your parents’ ever-changing homes (east, west, Midwest) arguing over petty things like waking up before noon. You still cringe over the fact that you cried to your father over your GRE scores, that his opinion matters more to you than, in some cases, your mother’s—she didn’t finish college, after all, while he has his fucking MBA. He is one of the smartest men you’ve ever met and he’s miserable just like you. What hope does that leave for anyone, really? You wonder why your parents never got divorced and wonder if they should have. You know their meet-cute is much cuter than anyone else’s you’re likely to meet, and it pisses you off—particularly when your mother begs for grandchildren, saying you’ll be a great single mother. You think she means it as a compliment.

 You wonder if she even actually likes you anymore or whether she just needs your presence like hand-salve on chapped knuckles.  She needs you for therapy, to back her up when she’s pissed at your father, to perform the quiet role of fixing her in all the ways you can. You know she’s a person unto her own but you have never seen her as independent. You think she mostly hates you. You have no idea what your father thinks 88% of the time but you think it has to occasionally be about running her over with the car. You two discuss books and movies because he disdains your politics, yet you think you have more in common with him than with anyone else in your family. Misery breeds a lot of things, it seems.

 Not everyone gets the happy ending even if they deserve it; hard work and determination only get you so far. You wonder what psychosis feels like and why everyone thinks drugs are the worst things in the world. Genocide and blood diamonds are worse than petty theft and graffiti I guess but then they bemoan slippery slopes and the point is lost. Instead of brooding I try to force-feed other people baked goods to make them love me.

 I am long-winded, darling, you, me, I, she, we. I suck back water each morning and pretend my head’s not pounding through fuzz. “I hate myself,” I mutter in tempo with my heartbeat and sink my knees in lockstep. I can make it through the day, I can.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #175

“imagine living like a king someday, a single night without a ghost in the walls.”

Have you ever had a teacher hit on you? Not to my recollection. Have you ever seen your ex’s new partner? If so, what do you think of them? I don't know or care if he currently has one. Do you think you can last in a relationship for 6 months? Done it twice now, it's not difficult if you're picky and serious with who you date. Does anybody know about your sex life other than your partners? Well my mom was somewhat aware of things that were happening. What was the last piece of candy you ate? Good question. I got my tongue re-pierced because of a bar length issue with swelling, and now this one is just shy of long enough to disable me from biting down entirely (they're snake eyes, so across the tip). I'm only just getting back into eating soft things very slowly unless I want pain, so candy's a no. I have to wait no less than three weeks to get a correctly-sized bar, and it's only been just over one aaaahhh. Have you ever been dared to do something you totally regretted? No. Is your room painted or wallpapered? Painted. What is the best kind of pizza in your opinion? I'm an American I stan them meat lovers. Is there something that someone has done to you that you cannot forgive? No. Well actually idk, I still don't know for *sure* if I forgive him. Like I'm completely over it and it no longer affects me, but I could never ever ever ever look at him even remotely the same or even consider trusting him. I don't think that's supposed to happen when you forgive someone. Have you ever broken a plate/bowl? Accidentally by dropping. What is your favorite restaurant? Olive Garden. Has anyone ever drunk called/texted you? I don't think so. Do you know anyone who has a homosexual parent? No. What type of music could this world live without? Pure screamo (no, not as a carpet term for metal). Are any of your pets “overweight”? No. Who’s the last person you cried over? Does myself count? Did the house you grew up in have a fence? Yeah, but not all around. What’s your YouTube channel name? 0zzkat. Who of your FB friends has the cutest toddler(s)? Uhhhh idk. Anastasia's baby girl is pretty cute, I guess. Did you decorate pumpkins this year? No. :/ They were totally gone the day we were gonna get one (the day before Halloween so no, we weren't that surprised lmao). What’s the craziest color you’d dye your hair? More like what color WOULDN'T I dye it? What’s the coolest hobby one of your friends has? Uhhh. Idk. Name a video game you can play over and over again? Shadow of the Colossus. I've beaten it around 30 times. Would be more if I didn't lose the disc, buuut it's actually coming in the mail now! What is something that will make you laugh instantly? Don't show me that fucking Linkin Park "crawling in my crawl" worm video. Name a movie you wouldn’t watch solely based on its name? None come to mind. What’s your dearest souvenir? *shrugs* What was the last strong scent you smelled? Probably coffee bc of Mom. Have you ever been in an unconventional relationship (long distance, polyamorous, same gender, age gap, etc)? If so, what challenges did this relationship present, and were they worth overcoming? Long instance + same-sex simultaneously. Distance is fucking hard when you really want each other's company, especially for emotional support. Being same-sex makes me nervous due to potential violent homophobics, especiiiiaaaally living where I do. I do it regardless, but even just holding hands leaves me worrying some asshole is going to cause a problem. I know my sister's husband isn't at all fond of it either and I'm 99% sure he's why Sara's never met the kids. But anyway, all those things are absolutely worth it. Would you ever consider something like a poly relationship, assuming everyone involved was alright with it? What are some things you think you would or wouldn’t like about it? Absolutely not, because I strictly believe in the exclusiveness of love. What is the most unhealthy relationship (whether friendship or romantic) you’ve ever had? What made it so unhealthy? Do you still talk to each other? Colleen, probably. We are just about the antitheses of each other, yet we were "best friends." We disagreed too frequently, she was drama-ravenous, we kept leaving and coming back, etc. No, we don't talk now, and I refuse to ever do so again as friends. Have you ever been abusive in any way? Were you able to change or make amends, or, in general, what do you think people should do to make amends in that situation? No. I absolutely do not believe in "making amends" with your abuser. Keep them the fuck out of your life. Have you ever forgiven someone for being abusive or allowed someone toxic back into your life? Did this person change for the better or not? Toxic... you mean Colleen? Did it too many times, and no, she didn't. Do you feel like your age matches your emotional development? If not, what age level or maturity level do you feel best represents where you’re at? Part of me says no, another says yes. I guess it depends on the subject. What is one thing about your personality that embarrasses you, but you can’t seem to change it no matter how hard you try? Have other people called you out on this embarrassing thing? Being socially awkward as all hell, and yes. When was the last time you did something “meant” for children? Do you think it’s okay for adults to do these things (ie. watch cartoons, have stuffed animals, dress in cute clothing, etc), or do you think there’s an age beyond which it becomes unacceptable - and if so, why? I was playing Spyro just earlier today lmao. In almost all cases, no. I do believe that something like a full-grown adult playing pretend with dolls or something may be questionable, but even then there's not a real reason I can give you. What was the last thing to “trigger” you (as in, in a true mental health sense, I’m being serious here) and how did you cope with it? What kinds of things do you tend to find triggering? What do you do either avoid or face your triggers? Something PTSD-related, but I can't remember exactly what it was, I guess because I got past it pretty quickly. There are certain songs I should avoid, I canNOT look at the medicine I ODed on, I don't like seeing or being near large knives at all... If you’re diagnosed with anything, do you feel that it accurately represents what you’re experiencing? All of them, yeah. What is a complaint you have about the mental health industry or about the type of treatment you’ve received from a mental health service? Have you ever had any particularly bad therapy experiences? I feel that too many people working in the field care far more about the pay than the people. I can't guarantee a professional truly cared about what I was dealing with until Holly Hill. I've had one particularly horrible psychiatrist that threw diagnoses and pills around like they were nothing (the most ridiculous being ADHD, which I in no way exhibited), and a long-time therapist I had was pretty bad, something I realized only after I started with my current one. She was strict about that "you've got an hour, you're staying an hour, you're leaving no later" shit, and we always ran out of things to talk about so I'd just be sitting there super uncomfortably and numerous times start crying because I felt so awkward, and she'd just take it as a sign that I wasn't telling her something. She drove "and how does that make you feel" and "what're you thinking of" into the goddamn ground. Yeesh, having been a mental health patient for so long, I could really write a novel here. When was the last time you realized you might be the source of a problem and NOT someone else? Hm, idk. I'm so uninvolved with others that that's a hard question to answer. What are some minor physical discomforts that really bug you (eyelash in your eye, a wedgie, rumpled socks, etc)? HAVING THE BOTTOMS OF YOUR PANTS GET WET. I hate chapped lips, too. Do you prefer vertical or horizontal stripes? Horizontal. Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? No. Are you ticklish? YEAH. Have you ever tried to make your own alcohol? No. If you were to join one of the armed forces, which would it be? I wouldn’t. Have you ever been in a submarine? No. Have you ever been in a hot tub or sauna? Only hot tubs. Do you believe there used to be dragons? No. What was your first alcoholic drink? A Mike's hard lemonade. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane? Idk, I was a baby. What was your first detention for? Too many tardies. Did you ever have a treehouse as a kid? No. Have you ever been on radio? No. How long has your longest ever phone call been? A few hours. What is a meal you eat extremely often? Or do your meals & food choices vary a lot? Ummm I guess some kind of chicken is common? When was the last time you felt unable or unwilling to speak your mind to someone? Idk. What was the last thing you changed your mind about? Uhhhh how am I blanking, I change my mind on things every five minutes. Who was the last friend you saw, and what did you do together? Sara's both my girlfriend but also the only "friend" I ever hang with now even tho we live several states apart lmao. I was there two weeks, so we did an array of stuff. Who tends to show up in your dreams? Do you ever wonder if you appear in anyone else’s dreams? Hell, I barely ever remember my dreams. Jason still shows up maybe ehhhh around or maybe less than once a month, and I have no clue why other than maybe there's some PTSD effects I don't actually detect or something? It's not like I think about him much, so I really don't see why he shows up, but the theme is constant: awkwardness seeing each other again, and he sometimes tries to get back with me (thank FUCKING GOD even in my dreams, I don't). Sara's in some dreams that I remember. Mom, maybe. What is something you wish you could say to someone who is no longer in your life, or something you wish they could know? Nothing. What is something you do to feel better when you’re scared? I'll usually turn to YouTube for a distraction. Who do you feel you can count on the most in life? Is there anyone you wish you could count on more? Mom. What is the strangest book you have ever read? How did you find out about it? Probably Bite Me by idr-who. I actually don't remember. What was the last thing you broke? How about fixed? Another sensor came off the keyboard. :') I dunno about fixed. Is there a sign or symbol that means a lot to you for whatever reason (eg. seeing certain animals or birds, 11:11 or other repeating numbers, syncs, butterflies, hearts in nature, etc)? Butterflies and semicolons. Hence my semicolon butterfly tattoo. Do you have any personal ghost stories or paranormal experiences? Yeah. What do you get complimented on the most? My hair. What is something unusual that you find attractive? why does?????? everyone hate fedoras tbh?????????? What time do you tend to eat your first meal of the day? And your last? BOY this varies so much like fuck. Sometimes I don't eat breakfast at all, sometimes I do right when I get outta bed. Dinner can be at like almost 10:00 with Mom's schedule, or I may have it like five hours earlier. What was the subject of the last video you watched? I'm getting into a horror LPer and I'm binging her Silent Hill playthroughs. How would you describe your overall aesthetic? I like pink but bloody guts and brains are cool 2. What is the most challenging meal you have ever cooked? N/A What was your favorite thing to do as a little kid? Play video/computer games. Have you ever been close to drowning? No. Do you watch any Japanese anime? Not currently, but I've kinda had the urge to pick an interesting one up? Do you have someone who is protective of you (father, brother, etc.)? Mom and Sara above anyone else. Where was the last place you went, that you hadn’t been to before? Uhhhhh good question. I don't exactly go to new places often. Do you have any bad habits you aren’t working on changing? If so, do you ever think you’ll try to break them? I don't believe so off the top of my head? Then again I think everyone has little bad habits they don't try to improve upon, but I can't think of anything serious. When was the last time someone surprised you with their reaction or behaviors? I'm sure something with Mom, but idk what. Are you good at committing to things like Nanowrimo or Inktober? Nope. What is your preferred method of expressing yourself? Writing. Or drawing if I'm in the mood. Have you ever reached out to a crisis center for mental health support? If so, how was the experience? I tried to reach the suicide hotline via their online one-on-one chatroom because I was too afraid to actually call, but I ended up waiting I think 45 minutes before the OD happened. When was the last time you did something you were afraid to do, and how was the outcome? I drove at night and ordered food at a drive-thru myself. It went well. What is one positive thing you believe about yourself? I have a strong sense of right and wrong. What is something you have been through that has made you stronger? Depression as a whole. Other than money, what is something you wish you had more of in your life? Social life, success, and motivation to name a few. Is there anything that you tend to ignore for the sake of your sanity? Sure. Mental health stuff flares up sometimes if I think about some things too deeply. What was the last thing you argued or debated about? Did you eventually agree, or did you have to agree to disagree? Getting rid of Bentley, and neither, really. Mom knows we shouldn't have him for a world of reasons, yet she refuses to try to find a far more suitable home for him or at least talk to Nicole about it (he's her dog, but she doesn't live here), who's never even paid him almost any attention. I could rant about this for hours. What is something you wish was different about your family? THAT WE WERE CLOSER. What is your main struggle or focus in life right now? Getting out of the house/becoming more of a functioning adult. Are you more dramatic or stoic? I'm neither extreme, really, but I'd say I'm much further from stoic. Are you on medication for anything? If so, do you feel like it helps? Have you ever been afraid to take medication or had a particularly bad experience with it? A lot, but the only ones I feel don't work are the ones for my tremors and knees. I was on one med for a while that I was scared to take because it made me vomit (safe to say I wasn't on it long), and even my life-saver med made me sick at first, but I took prescription nausea pills to ride that out as my body adjusted. Do you prefer having long or short nails? Short, but not too short. When was the last time you had an argument with one of your parents? Idr. Do you tend to eat the same few things all the time or do you vary your intake? Would you consider yourself to be a picky eater? Are there any commonly enjoyed foods that you don’t like? I'm picky and definitely have a limited palate. Some foods I can think of for the last question include fried chicken, BBQ, watermelon, tacos, all cheeses but American, aaaand I'm blanking again in an area I should have a book about. Do you have good body image? Do you feel more confident about your body or your personality? What is one thing about yourself about which you do feel particularly confident? Ha, as if, so personality. I like how open-minded I am. How likely are you to compliment other people? How do you react or respond when you receive a compliment? What are your favorite types to receive? It depends on the person, the atmosphere, and my anxiety level. I sometimes fear complimenting people because I don't want someone to be like "um why is she talking to me?"/"is she flirting with me?"/"why did she notice that?", etc. I become so giddy (at the very least internally) when people compliment me because of how my self-esteem is, and I really appreciate them. The compliments that mean most to me are regarding my photography. With how badly I want to be a successful photographer, people seeming to genuinely like what I do has actually made me smile like an idiot and giggle publicly. It just means a lot to me. Describe the last thing you reblogged? How many posts do you tend to reblog during a day? A clip of Mark having a fit over a dog in RDR2. How much I reblog varies greatly; depends on how much I get on Tumblr that day, what I feel like sharing at that moment, what I queue... Have you ever lost your cool at work or somewhere else important? What happened as a result? No. Do you listen to your friends’ advice when they give it to you? Depends. If it's Sara, I usually do. What’s the last kind of soup you ate? Vegetable. Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced? It is pierced. The most memorable time that you skipped school, what did you do? I don't recall. Did you ever have a favorite teacher in high school? What made them your favorite? Coach Collie. He was very friendly, wise, his sense of humor was great, he cared deeply for his students, was super chill, shared life advice all the time, etc. etc. Can you think of a time when you were really obviously judged by your appearance? What happened? Not that I recall. What’s something your mother told you growing up that you actually listened to? Mind your manners. What are three emotions you experience regularly? Stress, content, but also discontent. What is your favorite Halloween candy? Reese's. Is there anyone who refuses to communicate with you? *shrugs* What was the last lengthy packet you filled out? Something for vocational rehab. Is there something you still can’t do even though you’re an adult or might be expected to do this thing? I don't have a job or drive. When was the last time you congratulated someone? Were you happy for them, indifferent, jealous? When I found out one of my closest high school friends is pregnant. I was obviously happy for her. What would you say is your STRONGEST emotion? Maybe not the most frequent, but the most intense? And what emotion do you feel most weakly, even if you might feel it more often? Anger; envy (but it's not often). Have you ever gone somewhere in your pajamas? What makes this acceptable or unacceptable to you? Plenty times, but it depends on my level of shits given and the location. Honestly wish pjs were more acceptable in public places cuz like why not, you've got clothes on, just don't go around where everyone can totally see your dick, ass, or tits. Other than the usual things like IDs, etc, what do you always carry with you when you go out? My phone. What type of photography do you enjoy looking at? Do you take any photos yourself, and if so, what types of things do you prefer to photograph? LOTS!!!! I particularly love fantasy-styled portraiture or macabre work, and omg give me soft lighting. I'm a sucker for emotive or conceptual portraits and the like. I like to photograph an array of things, but my faves are nature and animals. Have you ever gone out for the Black Friday shopping rush? Did you enjoy it, or not so much? Or, what’s the busiest shopping day you’ve ever experienced? Nope. Busiest shopping day I indirectly experienced was when I worked at GameStop during the holiday season... nope. It's a small store and it was flooded. I hated it. Idk about one where I/my family was the shopper. Do you enjoy reading diaries or stories you wrote from when you were younger, or does it embarrass you? If you’ve kept them, was there a particular reason for hanging on to them so long? No. No. No. NO. I can't stomach going any further back than '15 at the RP forum because fucking cringe. All old stuff like physical journals and such, they're long gone because I never want to see them again lmao. What would you say was your first true hobby? What about your most recently developed one? Hmmm, probably video games were the first things I was *really* deep into. Recently developed... good question. Is there one thing that throws off your mood more than others, whether it be lack of sleep, lack of food, heat/cold, etc? I'M FUCKING /CRANKY/ IF I'M HOT. Serious lack of sleep makes me moodier. What is one common area of life in which you feel you have little to no experience (college, children, marriage, etc)? Work and independence. What kinds of things are you likely to complain about? HEAT. If it's hot to me, you're gonna know. I'll complain if my stomach especially hurts, sometimes with other pain. Do you like to put any extra effort into your food in terms of presentation, or do you prefer to just put it on a plate and eat it as it is, no frills? I don't cook, so. But I'd definitely be the latter. When was the last time you were mean or rude to someone else? How about the last time someone acted that way toward you? I hung up on this insurance agency or whatever they are that call me every other goddamn day. I dunno about the second question. What kinds of things are most likely to make you lose your temper? Have you ever done something regrettable or embarrassing while angry? I fucking dare you to ridicule the mentally ill in front of me. Goddamn dare you. For the second part, not to my recollection. Do you have a large dog? No, both our dogs are medium-sized. If not, are you afraid of them? Not at all. Do your parents know that/if you smoke? I don't. What is the reason you last received money? Mom borrowed some from me so she was paying me back. Is anyone in your family sick? Not to my knowledge. Are you very upfront about things or do you "beat around the bush"? The latter, typically. Do you ever write poetry just to get your feelings out? Not really anymore. Middle and high school? I was all about it. I wrote only one poem this year. How many bones have you broken? None. Whose house did you visit last? My sister Ashley's. Have you ever bought a fragrance by a celeb because you liked who it was? No. Do you have a gazebo at your house? No. What’s your favorite brand of bottled water? Essentia.

[dailycamilacabello]

How Camila Cabello Lost Some Friends and Found Her Voice

MIAMI — Camila Cabello has only been in love once. But when it comes to crushes, she’s a connoisseur.  The pop singer and songwriter, formerly of the girl group Fifth Harmony, has filled pages of notes on her iPhone with ruminations on the sugar rush of embryonic infatuation and its aftermath — words of hunger and grit that her fans turn into Instagram captions and scream back at her in concert. A pair of suggestive duets in the last two years, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” with Shawn Mendes and “Bad Things” with Machine Gun Kelly, have been streamed over 520 million times, according to Nielsen Music. Along with her breakout solo smash from last summer, “Havana,” which has led Billboard’s pop radio chart longer than any other song by a solo female artist in the past five years, they’ve helped turn her into an avatar for young girls on the cusp of steeper emotional terrain. On a December afternoon in a leafy neighborhood here, Ms. Cabello, 20, whose name is pronounced “ca-meela ca-beyo,” revisited ground zero of her romantic vicissitudes. Ten years ago, in the butterfly garden at Pinecrest Elementary School, a young Romeo set a date with her among the Panama roses and gave her her first kiss, unlocking the source code for a bottomless trove of love songs. “It was this boy that I was obsessed with my whole time in elementary school,” she recalled, standing in the garden. “He kissed me on the cheek and I ran away — I still do that when someone wants to kiss me. ”Though not yet of legal drinking age, Ms. Cabello has come a long way from the schoolyard. At 15, she was beamed into the homes of millions of Americans as a contestant on the United States version of the reality-singing competition “The X Factor.” The show placed her in a five-woman vocal group modeled on One Direction that the viewers at home named Fifth Harmony. Two albums — on Simon Cowell’s Syco label in partnership with Epic Records — and six tours followed in a span of five years, during which time Ms. Cabello was, if not officially the group’s lead, a consensus favorite, with the biggest voice and those disarming eyes. And then it all went to pieces. As manufactured pop groups tend to do. Only in this case, the split seemed sudden and surprisingly vicious: One day, Fifth Harmony was performing at the final stop of the Jingle Ball tour, smiling and hair-flipping. The next, a series of contentious and contradictory statements were released, and Ms. Cabello found herself on the lonely end of a sharp divide. That was just over a year ago. In the interim, Ms. Cabello has struck out on her own, putting her hands on the controls of her professional life for the first time. Her new album, “Camila,” arriving Jan. 12, will test her prospects as a solo proposition. The biggest stars to break away from groups — Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé — did so from stronger footing, in eras when the music industry was thriving. Today, Ms. Cabello is just one in a cacophony of voices aiming to break through in a harsh, post-streaming environment. “It’s not easy for anybody, regardless of your starting point,” said Tom Poleman, the chief programming officer for the radio conglomerate iHeartMedia, which recently booked Ms. Cabello solo for its Jingle Ball. “The field is so competitive that you really need the planets to align.” At times, sole proprietorship has been overwhelming, with people constantly asking Ms. Cabello for her creative input or asking what happened with Fifth Harmony — a subject she does her best to avoid. “I think there’s a healthy amount of space you need to give certain things,” she said. And so for 11 days in late December, in the cocoon of her hometown, she took a break. She settled into old rhythms at her family home and came to Pinecrest to pick up her younger sister, Sofia, only after wresting herself from a savored “Sex and the City” binge. (“In my heart I’m a Carrie, but sadly I think I act like a Charlotte,” she said.) On a tour of its green, al fresco campus, wearing True Religion overalls with one suspender undone and black hightop Chuck Taylors, she looked at ease and made everyone around her feel the same. An old teacher asked whether she would be going on tour soon and she said she was in no rush. “For now,” she said, “I just want to be a kid.” Ms. Cabello comes from a lineage of strivers. She was born in Havana to a Cuban mother and Mexican father and moved back and forth between Cojímar and Mexico City until age 6. One day, her mother, Sinuhe, told her she was going to Disney World, and the two spent the next month together riding by bus to an immigration center at the Mexican border with the United States. Sinuhe had been an architect in Cuba, but in Miami, where she and her daughter moved in with a close family friend, she found work in the shoe department at a Marshall’s. Alejandro, Ms. Cabello’s father, emigrated later and earned money washing cars at the mall. Eventually the couple saved enough to start their own construction company. “My parents’ story helps me to know what’s important in life,” Ms. Cabello said. “A lot of times you can be here and be on Twitter and you think that the world is the internet. But I know what it’s like in the places my family has come from and the struggles people go through.” It caught Sinuhe and Alejandro by surprise when, for her 15th birthday in 2012, Ms. Cabello asked them to drive her to audition for the second season of “The X Factor.” “She was so shy, so shy,” said Sinuhe, who now travels with her daughter on the road, describing how her oldest child would regularly burst into tears at family parties with large crowds and loud music. “We didn’t even think music was a possibility for her,” Sinuhe said. In Fifth Harmony — with Ally Brooke, Dinah Jane, Lauren Jauregui and Normani Kordei — Ms. Cabello was living a dream. The group performed at the White House (twice) and released addictive hits like “Worth It” and “Work From Home” that alone racked up over one billion streams, according to Nielsen Music, and earned them legions of fiercely loyal fans. But dreams can change. In a statement released at midnight on Dec. 18, 2016, the four other members of the group suggested that Ms. Cabello had turned her back on them, communicating her intentions to leave “through her representatives.” Ms. Cabello, in a subsequent statement of her own, said that she had long been open about her desire to explore a solo career and was blindsided by what amounted to a public excommunication. Over a feast of Cuban food at one of her family’s favorite restaurants in Miami, and in a subsequent interview in New York a week later, she agreed to speak at length about how things fell apart. She said that her collaboration in late 2015 with Mr. Mendes — the first time a Fifth Harmony member released music under her own name — had created tension; t hat she had asked to help write lyrics for Fifth Harmony songs and was rebuffed; that she initially wanted to stay in the group while working on a solo album but the other members shut her out instead. “I was just curious and I wanted to learn and I saw all these people around me making music, writing songs and being so free,” she said. “I just wanted to do that and it did not work.” Ms. Cabello said that after the awkwardness of her collaboration with Mr. Mendes, things further soured when she began attending writing sessions with producers including Diplo, Cashmere Cat and Benny Blanco. Eventually, she said, she was given an ultimatum. “It became clear that it was not possible to do solo stuff and be in the group at the same time,” she said. So she made her choice, basing it on what she said was her conviction that “if anyone wants to explore their individuality, it’s not right for people to tell you no.” Since the breakup, Ms. Cabello has tried to move on from hard feelings, throwing herself into “Camila.” (She changed its name from “The Hurting, the Healing, the Loving” partly to wash her hands of drama.) But it hasn’t always been easy. In August last year, the remaining members took a less-than-subtle jab at their former groupmate with a stunt that opened a high-profile performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. As the camera zoomed in on a dark, elevated platform showing five women in silhouette, one was dramatically yanked off the stage as if hit by a truck. Ms. Cabello’s eyes welled up as she recalled watching it live. She had been at home in the living room with her mother. “It definitely hurt my feelings,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting it, I wasn’t prepared for it — especially because at that point I’d moved on from it. I was just like, ‘What? Why?’” She gathered herself. “I have to make space for the good stuff to happen in my life,” she said. “I don’t like holding onto the past, especially when it’s stuff that, in my opinion, is just petty.” Like the pop astronauts who went solo before her, Ms. Cabello is now both a known quantity and a blank slate, caught between an outsize past and an uncertain future. Her first single as a solo artist was an early artifact of this wobbly developmental period. “Crying in the Club” — an arch, dancehall-flecked power ballad released last spring — was produced by Benny Blanco from an original demo written and recorded by Sia. The track underperformed commercially and was left off the final track list of “Camila.” “The reality of that song is it doesn’t feel or sound like Camila,” said Roger Gold, Ms. Cabello’s manager and a former lawyer for Fifth Harmony. Mr. Gold said it took time for Ms. Cabello, free of the army of handlers and tacticians who maintained creative control of the girl group, to feel comfortable asserting herself in front of more seasoned collaborators. “The most important learning in this whole thing was that we were most successful when Camila trusted in her own instincts,” he said. A breakthrough came while she was working with the producer Frank Dukes, born Adam Feeney, who has made his name as a prolific but low-key co-conspirator of self-styled stars like Drake and Lorde. Many potential collaborators had come to the studio armed with sleek, brassy Top 40 munitions in the style of Fifth Harmony hits. But Mr. Feeney’s approach was more nonchalant. Over sushi during an early session with Ms. Cabello last winter, he played her a deceptively simple instrumental with a prominent salsa piano riff. It reminded the singer of her birthplace, and she wrote the chorus for what became “Havana” on the spot. “There’s not another artist in the world who could have done that song — she just owns it,” Mr. Feeney said. Many of the songs on “Camila,” which Mr. Feeney executive produced and includes writing by Ms. Cabello on every track, are infused with tonal or lyrical references to her Latin heritage. Ms. Cabello said she took inspiration from the Latin music that soundtracked her childhood, as well as more contemporary reggaeton revisionists like Calle 13 and J Balvin. Then she blended those sounds with the auteur pop of artists like her friends Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, hoping to unearth her own original recipe. “I feel like the best way to come up with something new and different is just to be the you-est you possible,” Ms. Cabello said. “If you pull from all the different little parts of yourself, nobody can replicate that.” Mr. Poleman, of iHeartMedia, said it is Ms. Cabello’s sensibilities as a songwriter that will define her career. With “Havana” and “Bad Things,” he said, “she has quickly established herself as one of the most important young artists in pop music. “It always comes down to whether or not you have a song that resonates,” he added. “I know she spends a lot of time thinking about that.” In an under-lit, overpriced restaurant in Midtown Manhattan after her break in Miami had ended, Ms. Cabello, who has lately imagined herself as a vegan, provoked a kale salad while bopping along to Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel.” The song had been a highlight from a recent Christmas Eve karaoke night with her family (she was the only one who knew its final “Give it to me” pre-chorus), and she grieved for her cocoon. In 48 hours, she would perform before Mariah Carey at “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest” in a bejeweled, ankle-length coat and metallic jumpsuit that made her look like a glamorous conquistador. Then she had a tour to design, and music video concepts to finalize and a social media campaign to figure out. She started to explain why things were trickier now, how she no longer had anyone to pick up the slack. “Even when there’s a day off, there’s never really a day off, because there’s so many decisions to be made and you’re always rushing to make stuff,” she said, as Jackson ad-libbed in the background. The music kept making her lose her train of thought. Finally, after a few vain attempts to catch it, she gave in and stopped explaining herself and sang along.[source]

[olga-eulalia]

Notes: Without having gotten an opinion on this thing, my decision to go ahead and post it anyway may not be a wise one, but... Maybe someone out there has any tips on how to improve it or knows someone who wouldn’t mind looking over a wip like this?

Unbeta’d OT3 WIP. PG-13. Pre-S4. (SilverMadi, SilverFlint, MadiFlint as of now) Warnings: Non-native speaker writing here.

Find the updated version here.

I.

On an island where access to goods was limited, a decent bottle of rum was hard to come by, but as it happened, two crew members had availed themselves of the secret stash of one of their mates, and in order to put an end to the ensuing altercation, Silver had taken swift action and confiscated the disputed item. He was fairly certain he could put it to better use.

As, just that afternoon, he'd managed to counter one of his teacher’s elaborate attacks with success for the first time since his lessons had begun almost two months ago. Granted, the execution may have been a bit sloppy, but it was as good a reason for celebration as any.

Wrapping both arms around her middle while she put hers around his neck, he pulled Madi flush against him and, ignoring the twinge of pain in his leg, lifted her off the ground just to hear her languorous ungh at the feel of his strength. His lips slid over the sweet curve of her chin and over the plush shape of her mouth hungrily, starting a kiss that continued long after her initial indulgence had transformed into something much more demanding.

Then he told her.

“So you’re making progress,” she said.

They'd had variations of this conversation before. She didn't like the fact that he was becoming enamoured with the idea of entering the thick of battle himself. She, too, knew that fate was cruel, that skill and cleverness did not protect against stray bullets.

So by the time he made his way across the settlement, his giddiness had somewhat diminished and he actually caught himself wondering how likely it was that Flint would receive his gift with an equal lack of enthusiasm.

At this hour, the voices of the forest had grown loud. A breeze was ruffling through the palm fronds that stood in black tufts against the sunset's afterglow, brushing through his undone hair and snaking over the exposed skin at his throat and arms, less hot now that evening turned into night.

Flint's small thatched hut, much frequented and often crammed full of people during daytime, finally stood in solitude, lit in the dim flickering light of nearby torches.

"Can I come in?" Silver asked, poised to open the entrance door.

A groan was audible through the delicate timber structure. It was followed by a grumble that sounded a lot like, "When are you gonna give me a moment's peace?" Stripped of coat and boots, Flint had laid himself down to rest and was barely willing to do more than lift an eyelid when Silver entered. “All right. Who threw the first punch this time?”

“Please,” Silver said, pushing the door closed. “You know I’d never bother you with something as trivial as that.”

Among the jumbled items and stacks of paper on the table that stood between them, Silver found two cups which he arranged on either side, positioning the bottle of rum smack in the middle. A flame in the vicinity gave off sooty smoke, sputtering on its wick.

Flint’s smirk came on slowly. Demonstrating true resilience by placing his naked feet back on the dirt floor and abandoning his bed, he took a seat at the table across from Silver.

They had sat together like this on several occasions, assembling military troops into various constellations on a grander scale than ever before. Flint assessing people based on their merit in battle, Silver providing the information on who could actually work together as a unit. To be taken into confidence by a man as formidable as Flint was nothing if not intoxicating. Whereas other people received precise orders and curt statements from Flint, Silver was there to observe their germination.

Even now, when in less than two weeks they were going to make their move against Rogers and invade Nassau in a painstakingly rehearsed attack to reclaim their home, the experience had lost none of its potency.

"I'd sleep more soundly if we had five ships," Flint said, clearing some space by gathering paper into a pile.

"I thought you said you could do it with three ships."

"I could,” Flint stated. “Under ideal circumstances. But one has to account for all eventualities." He glanced at Silver, making sure the allusion did not go unnoticed.

"So how do you propose we get that fifth ship? Steal it? Coerce its captain and bribe the crew while we're at it?"

"I was thinking we ought to take a more practical approach this time,” Flint mused, slowly leaning in and reaching for the bottle, “and advertise for it in the newspaper.”

Caught off guard, Silver all but choked on a laugh. Flint’s delighted chuckle was short like a hiccup. There was no telling whether it would ever stop feeling strange to joke around with the most feared pirate captain in the New World.

Uncorking the bottle, Flint began to explain, “Good old Captain Hewe once did, almost six years ago now, but it actually turned out not quite how everyone thought it would...”

As it so often did, their conversation went on a tangent about Nassau's past and its colourful denizens. Silver listened to Flint's stories besottedly, flushed by drink. One or two of them sounded familiar already, but, as always, it was the telling that he found himself swept up in. Following every cadence and gesture like the melodious course of a river was a pleasure not to be missed. But he’d be deceiving himself if he didn’t admit that he’d trade the life stories of fifty pirates for just one more about Flint’s past.

Once again, he found himself puzzling over Flint’s relationship with Thomas, how they’d been with each other, who had encouraged who in the months leading up to Flint's exile. There were so many questions he wanted to ask about the Hamiltons, but after the second time he'd done so, he knew better than to mention the name. Though he wanted to hoard every last piece of information about them, he understood that he had no right to ask for so much when he himself was unwilling to part with even a little of what was deemed so important by Flint.

Before long, the talk swerved back to the topic that no one on the island could escape from for even an hour, and Flint said, looking down into his cup momentarily, "We can't afford to screw this up."

It was an utterly ludicrous notion to Silver that defeat should feature in Flint’s considerations at all. Which was probably the biggest pointer to the fact that he’d spent so much time bolstering his captain’s confidence that he himself appeared to have lost the ability to doubt him altogether.  

But Silver couldn’t bring himself to be bothered about it tonight. He had sunk down in his chair and had his chin propped up on the pad of his thumb, one finger tucked between his lips. It was that last detail that trapped Flint’s gaze when his thoughts went straying.

And it was that half-forlorn, half-hungry look on Flint’s face reminiscent of a mangy creature that drew Silver out of the comfort of his chair.

Supporting his steps by leaning his weight against the table, he moved along its edge to stand in front of Flint, who looked up at him, blinking slowly. With the intention of speaking his words in the most emphatic manner possible, Silver put his hand on the back of Flint’s chair and leaned down. But then instead, because it seemed the more encouraging thing to do, leaned down a little further and placed a kiss on Flint's brow.

And then another on the shy curve of his cheek. And, invited by a subtle lift of Flint’s chin, on his lips as well. They were soft and generous in the thicket of that ginger beard, hot and humid. Silver, welcomed by a sigh like a breath, settled in to take a long taste of them. Surprised by the surge of want that ripped through him with a force that seemed at odds with the tender nature of his affection and filled his body to the brim with exhilaration until he felt himself on the precipice of something beautiful, yet terrifying.

Both of them were breathing hard by the time they paused. Flint took that opportunity to turn his head away and then make a retreat to his bed where he sat down heavily, putting his head against the wall and sprawling his limbs as though the strength had gone out of them.

He looked terribly young in that moment, his skin gilded by the light, glowing in warm hues of amber. “If, for whatever reason, it does go pear-shaped,” he said, “I don’t want you in the fray.”

Grabbing both their cups, Silver followed him to his bed and sat down next to him. “Is that why you’ve been teaching me how to fight for all these weeks?” he asked. “Jesus Christ. Am I truly that bad at it?”

Flint didn’t take the bait. “Please don’t deliberately misunderstand me on this issue. We need someone to continue the fight.”

“Who’s we?” Silver asked, upset that he hadn’t been able to divert Flint’s thoughts from going down that path. He certainly wasn’t going to fall in line behind Teach, whose sole motivation for being part of their invasion force was revenge, and who was not remotely interested in any of their nobler goals. A war needed a leader in possession of not just competence and daring, but also a greater vision. Something that Billy, too, regrettably lacked. “As much as that may sound like just another bout of sentimentality, there will be no fight without you,” he said, shoving Flint’s cup at him so that its contents slopped over, adding, "You're a lousy drunk.”

"Says the man who just got all sentimental.”

Silver didn’t reply, silenced by his inability to deny the accusation, filled with a maddening sense of agitation.

They probably could’ve lived as though the kiss had never happened, lived with it as with the memory of a dream. But now, after having that glimpse of how they could be, Silver was less than convinced that they should.

II.

Standing in grainy ocean water, looking at the horizon, he found himself in possession of both his feet. That was how he knew he was dreaming. That was how he knew he needn’t be afraid of the wave that was building itself to an immense height out there on the shoal, moving towards the beach with unhesitating swiftness where it eclipsed the sun’s light. As its foaming crest was towering above him, he felt confident that he needn’t draw breath either, but even in his dreams his body followed its own logic and made him take a big gulp of air just as the whole weight of the wave fell down upon him like a mountain and submerged him in cold, dark depth.

He gasped, awakened by Madi’s touch on his shoulder.

“Sorry. Bad dream,” he said, squinting into the light of the lantern dangling from the ceiling. Failing to grasp her withdrawing hand, he tried to communicate a grateful smile.

“What are you doing, John?” she whispered. She was crouching by the bed, a frown tucked between her eyebrows.

Befuddled as he was, it took him a moment to remember that he’d promised her to be back by midnight and that, judging by the candles’ heights, it was considerably later than that. It took him even longer to realize that he was still in Flint’s hut, in Flint’s bed, with Flint’s body pressed against him, faint gusts of breath coming down over the slope of his neck.

“I fell asleep,” he said by way of apology, tugging his shirt collar back into place and fishing about for his prosthetic leg on the floor, experiencing a spike of panic when it took him several attempts to find it.

All that shifting about stirred Flint awake as well, who sat upright with a small noise of discomfort. “Madi?” Initially confused by her presence in his hut, it didn’t take long for him to make the connection.

“What happened here?” she demanded to know, once Silver was sitting, squeezing his left leg into its leather contraption, and Flint had slid out of bed.

“I kissed him,” Silver said preemptively, surprising all of them.

“You kissed him,” Madi repeated, then drew in a large breath so that her collarbones stood in stark relief. She threw a doubtful look at both of them as she tried to sort through her thoughts. “Show me how,” she said.

“I don’t think that’s a--”

“Not you,” she silenced Silver, holding up a hand. “You,” she said, meaning Flint.

Looking at the situation through her eyes, Silver wouldn’t trust himself to be truthful either. “You can’t expect him to do that.”

“Please,” she addressed Flint, cutting Silver out of the discussion entirely. “I need to know.”

It was difficult to say whether it was the tone of command in her voice and the sense of duty it inspired or whether it was something else entirely that compelled Flint to indulge her demand. Straightening his posture, he stepped closer to her. Stalling, brushing his beard into shape with a stroke of his hand, he gave her time to reconsider. Because it was obvious by the way she was fidgeting with the bangle on her left wrist that she wasn’t entirely convinced of her own request, confronted with Flint’s closeness like this. However, she wasn’t one to back down either.

Perhaps Silver should have said something then, but looking at the two of them standing together with barely an inch of light between them, Flint in his black shirt and breeches, Madi in her pale blouse and skirt, he was dazed by the brunt of their beauty, the shapeliness of their figures, the refinement of their features. He was hesitant to breathe, fearing it might disperse the image like an illusion.

Then, with deliberation, Flint began to reenact Silver’s kisses one by one. But while the first made Madi bite back a smile, the second turned her expression contemplative again. Despite her clear order, Flint searched for permission in her eyes to continue, to eventually bend his head and kiss her on the lips, moving his jaw slowly as she opened her mouth ever so slightly to deepen the kiss.

Silver gripped the bedspread with both hands. He was struck to see that none of the intensity he’d felt had been imagined and that not one of his caresses had gone unremembered by Flint.

When it ended, Madi was blinking rapidly. “I need air,” she said.

With his lips in a tight line, Flint watched her leave. Then he shook his head. “All that time we spent together--” He picked an empty cup off the floor and set it down on the table, hard. “You couldn’t even deign to tell me this?”

��You never asked.” Silver finished fastening the strap around his calf, pinching his skin in the haste of the moment.

Flint paused. “Probably because I didn’t want to hear the answer. Probably because I didn’t want to hear. That you love her.”

“I do,” Silver confirmed, because it was the truth. “But I--” he quickly went on to say in the same breath, only to find that he couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t hand over his feelings to Flint just like that.

Flint watched him try to shape the words that wouldn’t come, then looked him in the eye, understanding and leniency softening his expression. “You should go after her,” he said. A final move.

Silver acknowledged his defeat in this, brought about by his own cowardice, and followed Madi out of the door where he found her standing only a few steps away.

“I heard what you said,” she let him know, the weight of her gaze sinking into him like two dark pebbles.

Around the corner of the hut and down a gentle slope, he followed her to the little inland lake at whose edge the Maroons had built their new existence. Its surface stirred in the night breeze, appearing alive with the reflection of orange flame and white moonlight. A couple of toy boats lay beached there in the mud.

“There are things that I want,” Madi began, all of her emotion seemingly contained in the straight line of her back as she looked out across the water. “Things that would seem irreconcilable with the position I occupy. And there are other things that I want, things that seem to exclude one another by their very nature. But I’ve come to realize that they don’t. That, once the necessary struggle is overcome, it’s apparent that one thing always contains the other and that they are never separable to begin with.”

Gathering her skirts, she bent down to set one of the miniature rafts afloat.

Together, in the gentle caress of night, they watched its white sail bob up and down on rippling waves that soon ushered it back towards shore where he retrieved it for her. Her hand lingering on his, she faced him.

“Why are you deliberately keeping the two halves of your life separate, John? Discovering you so torn makes me doubt I ever knew you truly. You must realize that being so divided within yourself you can never hope to love with your whole heart.”

“I just can’t see how to make it work.”

“All it takes is a decision.”

He wasn’t entirely sure he understood her in this. “I don’t think this is my decision to make.”

“I’m telling you. It is,” she said and, after a moment’s hesitation, reached out to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye that had squeezed out unbidden when her words had unknotted some nameless tension within him. “I’ve made mine already.”

“Is she not taking you back?” Flint asked, failing to affect a neutral tone, when Silver cautiously stepped back into his abode a little while later. He appeared to be occupied with taking notes, but too many words had been crossed out on the slip of paper lying in front of him for it to be of any use.

“No, she is.” Silver gripped the back of the chair with one hand, unsure whether he should take a seat.

Flint studied him. “Then what are you doing here?” He wiped the quill dry with a stained rag and then set both aside. There was no malice in his words.

A multitude of unanswered questions had driven Silver to return, but he saw perfectly well that he couldn’t keep demanding answers without offering some of his own. “I came to apologize,” he said, “for not telling you about Madi and me.”

Flint ran his fingertips across his brow, leaving small traces of ink there. By his intake of breath Silver could tell that he was bottling a lengthy sigh.

Flint had been patient with him, but he didn’t know that Silver had spent so much time living from hand to mouth, protecting what little he had in whichever way he could that, at some point, he’d falsely come to believe that any sharing that did not yield explicit gain was equal to a loss. And that he’d only recently come to understand that other people had no such difficult relationship with the concept. That both Madi and Flint might not see his affection for them diminished in any way if they knew that they both had it.

So he continued.

“For not inviting you in,” he said, “when you are clearly as much a part of my life as she is.”

Flint, less stunned and much more scrutinizing in response than expected, leaned back in his chair. “You said she was taking you back,” he mulled over. “On what condition?”

[anthonychiozza]

Cultural Atheism: Response To A “None”

By: Anthony Chiozza

Illustration Source: Professor Mark Thornhill granted permission to run his cartoon via email.

Reprint from: 10/16/2017

I Am A Sinner About two years ago I wrote a commentary on the current social moral order called, “Cultural Atheism and The Death of The West.” This is a response to one of the comments I received. I was not aware that the piece had any comments at all. I apologize for not responding in a timely manner.There is quite a bit to unpack, so I have broken his comment down into sections in which I respond to his question, or statement. Question: In the spirit of open debate. How are we to know you are not damaged? Response:   I am damaged. I am the worst sinner I know. We are all damaged to varying degrees because of the fallen state of man. Whether you accept the pretense of the fall in the Garden of Eden, or not, if one cannot recognize that one's self is inclined towards things that are not good for the self, or others necessarily, then that person will lead a very hard life. I am inclined to stay in a state of Grace as much as possible. I frequent confession as much as I can. Question:  In your closing you stated “These poor souls, addicted, brain damaged, and increasingly programming themselves to continue in the downward spiral are truly not fit by their own evolutionary faith.” Where have you been given the moral authority to make this assessment? Response: I am also a poor soul, and in much need of prayers. I am glad you brought this point up because something is in grave need of clarification. I am in no way judging any individual on their internal moral standing with God. I am observing the general actions of society, the rejection of the Church and her Bride Jesus Christ. This results in a judgement based on those external actions compared to God’s Law. Specifically, that moral authority comes from Jesus, when He gave that same authority to Peter with the Keys to Heaven, and to the other apostles as well in the form of forgiving, or retaining sins. The Church, which has been granted the same authority Jesus had, expects me to preach the Truth of Love through actions. I must use the talents God gave me to point to the Truth. I would be a coward otherwise.   Faith and Reason Further, I am grateful for your courage to ask the difficult questions. I am well aware that this answer may not suffice to someone that does not believe in dogma. I myself believe that the Logos made Himself Truly manifest as the second person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ. He did this because He does, in fact, love us. My Faith is based not on pure blindness, but also on reason. The Church believes in the use of both Faith and reason. Either one standing alone is a grave error. Thus, my authority to speak on the morality of the West comes from Faith and reason. Part of my reasoning is based on well respected scholars in academia which have confirmed that documents such Ignatius of Antioch’s letters, Polycarp’s letters, and Just Martyrs works are in fact legitimate historical documents. This is further evidence to support the historical Jesus than evidence for someone like Alexander the Great, and other well known historical figures. We also have the writings of the historian Josephus on Jesus and the fall of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD. I am well aware that even with the historical evidence, I am still accepting on Faith that Jesus is in fact who He said He was. The Logos. The Son of God in the flesh. A Thought Experiment  Another example of my reasoning is based on the actions of early Catholics. One can reason that Early Christians, the first apostles included, were willing to suffer and die for a belief which essentially outlines eternal joy. However, this religion also made heavy demands on the early Catholics to carry their cross. Catholics can not give into certain illegitimate pleasures. This task of keeping oneself pure, confessing, being humble, and in many cases being butchered as a martyr seems very unreasonable, unless the miracles that converted the pagans were real. Let’s conduct a thought experiment. Let us suppose I walk into a rowdy bar one evening where all kinds of drinking, drug use, and impure behavior is taking place. I stand up on the table, and I yell that everyone should knock it off right now, or they will go to hell. In absence of a miracle to prove my point, I would be thrown out of the bar, and probably beaten for good measure by people that are of an equivalent mindset of the very pagans that were converted in Rome. A good Priest I know gave just this example. Falsifiable Scientific Confirmation & Conversion

​A final and more definitive example of why it is reasonable to believe is because of the Eucharistic miracle in Lanciano, Italy. Then over one thousand years later the example of the Eucharistic miracle in Poland. The Eucharist, otherwise known as what appears to be bread and wine after Consecration, is in fact really the body and blood of Jesus Christ made truly present for us to become one with Him.This is taken on Faith, but God knows that the weakness of our own state of being will prevent us from seeing this Truth. Doubting Thomas needed to put his fingers into Christ's wounds before he would believe. Jesus has done no less for us modern men. Thus, the scientific study conducted by highly skeptical, atheist scientists identified that both sets of DNA from these two separate events were exact matches. This lead to at least one scientist's decision to leave atheism behind and become Catholic. I am aware for most people this is still not enough evidence, through reason, to explain where I get my authority to make such a general judgement on Western society, but I would simply ask them a question in return. Where do you get your authority to make judgments on the moral standing of other individuals' actions, and your own? If one is honest with the self, that is a difficult question to answer. The Founding Fathers Are Not Impeccable Question: I am a Pagan I believe in our country’s preamble to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Where is it written that to pursue pleasure is a satanic act? Response: I don’t personally grant any sense of infallibility, and impeccability to the Founding Fathers of the United States.  Although some of Christendom's principles were retained regarding some laws when the founders created the Constitution they failed to recognize all of God's Law and authority. Obviously, you can’t murder even though some find it pleasurable, and pursue that very act for their own pleasure. These sets of moreys go back to the Greeks and elsewhere in various civilizations, but these ideas were certainly vastly improved on by Christendom. I consider this lack of clarification on religion, and morality to be one of the Founding Father’s biggest mistakes, and one that will lead to the downfall of this nation. Other scholars of that time in the University system, protestant and Catholic alike agreed with that opinion. Error Has No Rights ​ Question: Are you asserting that life is misery and suffering and that only by understanding that can we be spiritually free? Response: No. That is another heresy Catholicism had to deal with when converting pagans. Pleasure is something we derive from an act, or thought. That act, or thought has to meet right reason. Right reason consists of following certain moral principles laid out by the Church God gave authority to. If I engage in the marital act with my wife in order to be united with her in Love, and to produce children, that act meets right reason. Even if the act is solely for the unitive purpose, because we know she is not at a time of month where she will bear a child, it still meets right reason. If we choose to avoid pregnancy using NFP because of some dire circumstances, which the Church has explained, we are still using right reason. If I go seek pleasure in another woman, destroy my family, and the hearts of my children, this does not meet right reason. If I eat three pieces of cake a day this does not meet right reason. If I eat one small piece a day, enjoy that pleasure, and do not continue to indulge, it meets right reason. God wants us to have pleasure, but just as science has shown regarding the human brain, the pleasure center over indulged, will lead to serious problems. I am sure you know individuals you might have judged to be selfish. What is it that makes them this way? Statement: If so I believe you are headed towards the Buddhist school of thought.

Response: Some Buddhism does overlap with the Catholic Faith, but the more correct way of saying it would be that Buddhism is correct in some aspects, and wrong in many others. The most obvious being that you can’t pull yourself up by your own bootstraps spiritually, because this in itself is an act of pride relying on self. You must ask for the help of something outside of yourself. This is precisely why we see certain archetypes in some of the literature I am sure you have read. Question: Also you state in your article ” This is best demonstrated by simply suggesting that, perhaps, God does exist. Maybe, just maybe, there might be some evidence for that. ” Which would squarely put these people in the camp of agnosticism. Response:  I am not saying they are agnostic. The point is that there is typically an anger response rather than a reasoned response. Perhaps they claim atheism, but quietly are agnostic and this is the reason for that emotional lashing out. I am aware of the difference. The general premise of this article is that, practically speaking, most people behave like someone that would truly manifest atheism brought to its logical conclusion philosophically. That conclusion being, I am my moral authority, and those morals can change on a dime to suit my whim. Thus, we have the idea of moral relativism which is expressed on some spectrum by many individuals within society. Statement: Agnostics are not moral relativist. They are people who have chosen to believe much like I have that dogma is not the answer. Dogma in itself is what separates the religions. ( I realize that is merely a statement of fact.) Response: Agnostics certainly are moral relativists. By choosing to believe what you believe to be correct morally, based on your own thoughts, or even the thoughts of other men, is moral relativism from the view of Christ's Church. You may live your life by a certain code of conduct, and even manage not to flip on a dime, but from Christ's lens the rejection of some His Laws is moral relativism.  Jung, for example, has some good ideas, but to follow a man that claimed just to be a man as a moral authority seems like a mistake. 

    The same could be said about my own set of beliefs, given Jesus was not who He said He was. I do believe He is in Fact the Logos made manifest. This is where the very authority comes from that gives me the ability to say, “I am not the one that is the moral relativist.” Further, dogma must exist for the idea of moral relativism to exist outside of a culturally subjective form, because otherwise there is no constant to compare relativistic thought to in its absence. The Faith in the Law we were handed from Moses came from the Trinity. Moses never said this is the Law I created, or this is my Law. He said it was the Law God gave him. Jesus further points out in the New Testament that the Pharisees themselves do not believe that Moses wrote the Old Testament. If they had believed, they would have lead their lives very differently. It can thus be said that the Pharisees were morally relativistic as well. They followed the letter of the Law for their own gain, but not the heart of the Law. I am well aware of the general definition of moral relativism being subjective based on one being a part of a particular culture, but that is clearly not what I am speaking about here. Further, I have listed reasonable criteria to believe the Catholic Church has the authority of God behind it.

Statement: It is my personal belief that Carl Jung was the most correct when he assigned archetypes to the great humanistic experience. This is to understand that God (which I refer to as the universal energy or spirit) Appears different to all individuals egos based on their current residence in the space time continuum. Meaning the more time and experiences you actually have in this universe the greater your difference of opinion about what God truly is will be from your contemporaries. Agnostics that find a belief in a higher power are not satanist. The only reject dogma in a logical search for a personal contact with a living holy spirit which is the creator or architect of the universe.

Response: “Any that reject Jesus Christ and His Church are the first born of satan.” This paraphrase was said by some of the early Church Fathers. That does not necessarily mean that someone engaged in the honest exploration of the Truth is the first born of Satan. For example, we would never say that about Saint Augustine on his journey to grasp at the Truth honestly. Surely he was a sinful man like anyone else, but that reference would never be used because he converted. There are many other cases like his, but someone that knows precisely what the Church teaches, has been a witness to the Truth of Love in its fullness. If they continue to openly reject it, they are in fact in Satan’s camp whether they like to admit it to themselves, or not. I don’t say this out of false charity, but out of Love. I know my assessments are correct for other reasons as well. Specifically, when I read the Ten Commandments, and works like that of Thomas Aquinas, I know that by following God's Laws I am fulfilling the  greatest expression of God’s Love in the world.  I see how breaking that Law is for my pleasure, and how that doing the opposite of those Commandments causes someone else pain. The Church and Scripture further break down those Ten Commandments into their nuanced components that are missed by many that claim to be Christian. There are many things that are actually sinful, which are a part of those Ten Commandments, that many people miss without the guidance of the Church. In short, my pleasure, which does not meet right reason, will cause myself, or another person's pain. Some people may consider it arrogant to tell others how they should consider living their lives. However, if you find yourself on the opposite side of a Christian trying to explain their Faith, and possibly charitably correcting you, of all people, consider two things. One, it is incredibly difficult to actually explain to someone else how they should live their life because you are terrified of the typical reaction you know you are going to receive. You will not win any popularity contests, and find yourself quite friendless. Two, if someone really considers themselves a Christian look at it from Penn’s perspective from comic duo, “Penn and Teller.” Penn says you should be offended if a Christian does not approach you and nicely tell you about their Faith. In light of what they supposedly believe it means they don’t really care about you, and could hardly really be considered a Christian. His exact words were, “How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?”

The fact is I know the Faith I hold to, and the authority it carries, comes with a cross for each individual. Jesus said if we were to follow Him we must pick up our cross. He even said if we love our parents, wives, or children more than Him, which means loving them more than His Law, we are not fit for His Kingdom. You see, if we don’t love His Law first, we can’t really love them because we are not being honest. It is a false love we show, which is simply a going along to get along mentality. Sometimes, the most difficult aspect of following Christ’s Way is charitably correcting our own family, when we know the reaction will not be good no matter how nice we are about it. Choosing to be Catholic is not easy. It makes serious demands, and it takes a lot of courage to constantly assess your own interior motives. It takes further courage to explain the Truth to others. Christ's authority was rejected as well, and He was crucified. How many souls could someone as sinful as myself possibly convince, if Jesus Himself was put to death by the crowd? I expect nothing less for myself. ​I am a fallen human being myself,  in need of Communion, and confession, because even though I see this Truth, I still need God’s help to live His Truth. Please pray for me brothers and sisters. God bless.

[ledlightbulbs34-blog]

Masturbate and Feel Good

Masturbate and Feel Good

sasha grey pocket pussy "Masturbation... is just not approved of the particular Lord not this chapel, regardless of what could be said by those whoever 'norms' are lower", Director Kimball of the Cathedral involving Jesus Christ associated with Latter-Day Heureux (1981) "Every sperm will be sacred. Just about every sperm is extremely good. If a new sperm is squandered, The almighty gets quite irate. " Monty Python's This is connected with Life. A price frequently used by various places of worship in an effort in order to contain illicit operates amongst its people. Each and every perorata on masturbation would likely quotation it, at least each of the sermons I have listened to. Beneath circumstances, is it difficult to envision masturbation as one of often the biggest taboos in all of our society? Even today? Methodical education has done any little to switch it. Can that mean women and men don't masturbate? Certainly not. 00% of men and 70% of females masturbate according to be able to various scientific studies. The problem lies in the acknowledgement of the fact that will you masturbate. Without a doubt the story... a story about you. One night you were sitting only inside your apartment eating french fries. You decided to check out a number of new internet sites on the net when you eat. So you journal on to your ISP and also start surfing. Inadvertently, you discover some piece of pornography(yes, the internet is quite entire of it! ) Seeking at those erotic (and often downright nasty photos) you feel a tingley between your legs. One matter leads to an additional and you end up spoiling your current underpants. Now permit me tell you a different story. best pocket pussy One night you're sitting alone in some sort of club drinking beer. And also then a most stunning person penetrates the nightclub. The person that will cause tingling between your thighs just taking a look at him or perhaps her. You decide which you can't let go of this particular opportunity to get to help know this creation regarding god. Therefore you move toward this person and begin modest talk. One thing causes another and you finish up in your current house. Whether you are a new woman or a man, the next morning an individual wouldn't be jumping using delight in the first case. When you go available in the morning to meet your friends, an individual would definitely not tell these individuals about the hot internet site you found and precisely how a person jerked off to it. Nonetheless, in the particular second case, you'd be better with informing anyone who cared for to listen how you had essentially the most wonderful experience associated with your life yesterday evening. Precisely why? Well, maybe mainly because self pleasure is, nicely, practically nothing special. You can complete the idea anytime you wish. Of course seducing typically the person of your aspirations is pretty an accomplishment. Not any wonder you will need an audience. But what for those who have a new friend like me. An associate who is crazy plenty of might you did an individual wank off yesterday night time? Has been it good? Exactly what will you do then? Will you tell your friend with regards to the hot site in addition to your experience? Would an individual simply say, "Yeah! This was excellent! What concerning you? " Or will you pretend nothing possessed happened and lie... similar to you were somewhere in addition yesterday night, or might be lead your buddy to be able to believe you got happy using someone? I was guessing you would do the latter. Most certainly you'll not acknowledge the act associated with masturbation. Rather you would avert the question along with alter the topic. And when your buddy tells anyone about a hot conquest the same night, you actually would want a serving of water when you can drown. Shame as well as remorse would come over a person and you would transform the issue in double quick period. Are you crazy? Noway! You are only one of the bulk. And an amazing majority in that! Way more the vast majority that what George Rose bush had in the final elections! The main reason -social physical fitness! You are the same as the youngster who ran out from the movie theater hall that was screening process an adult film (mind anyone, he had simply no business to be there throughout the first place! However each of the cinemas care in relation to is the great deals of their tickets! ) Later in the day, typically the buddy who had recently been at the movies along with him, caught up having the dog and asked, "Why inside hell's name do a person run out? " The youngster answered, "My mom said that if I watched a woman acquiring naked I would change to stone. And damn you Harry, a portion of me was already evolving into stone! " Unluckily, the social conditioning is inappropriate. It is since wrong as the social problem in 18-19th one hundred year China, where widows have been forced to burn living along with their husbands. As completely wrong as the church ended up being in using up Galileo for implying mother nature was certainly not the centre in the whole world. Lily Tomlin put it greatest, "We have reasons to believe that man first strolled upright to free their hands for masturbation! very well If god didn't would like us to masturbate, perhaps we would still end up being walking just like dogs along with horses! Often the social physical fitness is a result involving numerous myths, lies along with cons perpetrated by a number of individuals for personal profit. Unfortunately, this specific conditioning is usually like a hard fanatic, very tough to fracture. However, with effort along with chanelising your energies, you may break it. Remember, the nuts that crack the toughest, are often the people that taste the best! You must be wondering, what sort of hell does it make a difference if you feel guilty about fleshlight. Have to spend time splitting this cased characters? Certain objective believe that shame conscious, whether sexual shame or in any other application form, is the most destructive element to your mental well being. Others believe it is one regarding the most destructive. Yet the very best effect regarding guilt conscious in my opinion offers been a lack involving confidence inside self. Right now you are an clever reader. I don't have to have to make clear you the particular importance of self self confidence. Whether it be your career, human relationships or any additional aspect of life, lack associated with self confidence can bring your personal downfall. Now I am not really implying that should you start to feel more comfy regarding masturbation, you will succeed in most elements of life. But that would be a nice step to help take. An useless guilt that should, and is eradicated from your mind. Bear in mind, an ocean is created of little droplets regarding water. Eliminate a decline at a time as due time, the underwater would be empty! Connected with course it would take many millennia! Luckily, you have a tendency have an ocean full of guily! Just some naggings here and there! The first stage towards eradication in this guilt is knowledge. You will find thousands of myths around fleshlight. Most of them perpetrated by faith, unfortunately. But some perpetrated by means of hoax runners. Lets look into often the most important ones. 1. Fleshlight is against typically the will regarding god. Hokum. At one point the church considered anyone who all was overtly zealous in order to his wife a great adultrater. Follow that educating and also your wife would become carrying out adultery! Several clergymen have hot on record to help say in which not solely the church's teachings concerning sexuality were unconnected to the scriptures, but they will caused more harm when compared with good amongst people. Apart from, nowhere in the spiritual teachings of any main beliefs is masturbation deemed completely wrong. 2. Masturbation can cause erectile dysfunction. Most males and even some ladies seem to think consequently. Wrong again. Lets tackle the males first. Its understandable that seeing their sperm flow out associated with their body, they think the idea may end sometimes. Effectively, it will end eventually... maybe when you are generally 100 years old. But until then don't be anxious. Your sperm bank is quite unlike Standard Chartered. You have unlimited credit here! Orgasm is a completely replenishable useful resource, renewable on the hourly base! For girls, well, there is not any time frame in the idea. Probably perpetrated by previous ladies who also never got an ejaculation in all their entire life! three or more. Fleshlight causes acne, hair loss, skin diseases. This one is usually my favorite. Mainly because it is one of several better scams of all times! Your own social conditioning would certainly have you imagine that masturbation is bad for your health. But negative how? No person would supply you a satisfying response! Now some scam musicians saw this as a great fine opportunity to easily sell their products like hair growth lotions, etc. Given that most people start masturbating in their teens, (the times of acne and various other skin problems), they would get you believe that this kind of is attributable to masturbation! Unfortunately for them, this can be as untrue as the sunshine rising from the west! Masturbation has no physical side effects! several. Masturbating will make you slender and skinny! Then there is no need for diet regime pills and health and fitness regimes my friend! And many surely 70% of UNITED STATES more than likely be overweight! 5. Solely Kids masturbate! The reason why would you say that? We wonder! Very well quite false, most adults masturbate... yes even after marital life! a few. Masturbation is for guys. And it is regarding 70% of the women also. That's right, 2/3 regarding all females masturbate! several. Only losers masturbate! Another of my favorites. Merely goes to show just how much of any taboo is masturbation! Initial thing, 99% of males in addition to seventy percent of females have got masturbated at least once throughout their existence. Now which is a hell of your lot of losers avoid you assume! Nothing a lot more that I can add genuinely... this is really the particular quintessential insecurity amongst folks regarding self pleasure. 7. Masturbation is for homosexuals. Wow. Exactly where did which one originate! Someone must make a etymology of those myths, would make regarding an useful read! Merely as untrue while all of these myths, masturbation along with homosexuality have nothing in keeping. Some people masturbate to their fantasies of reverse sex, other individuals to their own fantasies of very same intercourse. That's it. in search of. Masturbation will make you sightless! Others claim that masturbation is usually bad for your own personal eyesight. Nevertheless , their says are unsupported by specifics and healthcare advice. My spouse and i suggest you talk to help your general physician in addition to he will make clear you what a load associated with bull this is. 10. Fleshlight changes the condition of your shaft Effectively, it does make it steel solid. But believe myself, after you orgasm, the solidity is finished! So no. Fleshlight offers absolutely no result on how the penis appearance.

[easilymakermoney]

That Time I Was Broke and Spent $1,000 on Beer

Even a few of the greatest monetary thought leaders within the doctor blogger house have made not-so-smart strikes with cash. However classes realized are alternatives to share knowledge with others, proper?

Immediately’s Traditional is republished from Doctor on Fireplace. You may see the unique right here. Get pleasure from!

Lately, a put up celebrating a homeless girl shopping for a $7 sweet bar was featured on Rockstar Finance. I shook my head, learn the put up, shook my head once more, and left a remark to the impact that such wasteful spending was nothing to have a good time.

My remark was deleted.

Whereas I don’t agree with the censorship (maybe it was unintentional / spam field) — dissenting opinions result in compelling dialog. I’ll admit that my snap judgment was relatively harsh.

At first, I believed this girl was out-of-her-mind irresponsible. I imply, I might afford to purchase $7 sweet bars by the pallet if I actually, really needed to, however I couldn’t fathom shopping for even one single bar. And I’m one thing past financially unbiased — mild years past broke and homeless.

However, after chatting with my spouse and reminiscing in regards to the good occasions we had once we met, and have been each basically broke, I noticed how small luxuries can imply quite a bit when you might have subsequent to nothing to your title.

For instance:

That Time I Was Broke and Spent $1,000 On Beer.

My ultimate medical faculty rotation was an elective rotation in Stockholm, Sweden. A couple of half dozen of us from my class participated in an change program with the Karolinska Institutet.

We have been stationed in dormitories across the metropolis, however with a a lot lighter workload than we have been used to as medical college students within the US, we have been in a position to get collectively for comfortable hours just about each day.

Though I did have a dorm room in Stockholm, I not had an condo again residence, and I’d be spending six weeks or so bumming round with household and pals earlier than beginning residency late June.

It could not be a stretch to say I used to be homeless, and I had a decidedly unfavourable internet value. I used to be past broke.

But, most each day for the higher a part of two months, I stepped off the Metro at Odenplan to affix my classmates for a spherical or three of scrumptious nitrogenated ale, together with a plate of hummus and bread or mashed potatoes and meatballs.

Swedish meatballs. The cellar bar at Café Tranan, the place apparently each Tupac and A Tribe Referred to as Quest have carried out, served us properly and served us usually.

On the time, I knew I had extra debt than money, however I additionally knew that I’d by no means be a Swedish medical pupil once more. I additionally knew that I won’t be again in Scandinavia for many years, if ever, and I shouldn’t let the price of a pint ($6 to $7 US in 2002) be a deterrent to having fun with my time** with my pals as we wrapped up our ultimate weeks of med faculty.

After seven weeks in Stockholm, together with an extended weekend in Oslo, Norway and one other in Reykjavik, Iceland (cities the place beers have been extra like $10 apiece), I added up the harm to my pockets and liver. Conservatively, I figured a median of $20 a day went towards shopping for just a few pints from the bar. Realistically, my bar tab exceeded $1,000.

**I’m not saying I’ve to drink to have time, however I’ll say, significantly in my mid-twenties, that I used to be extra more likely to have time after I did. I’m unsure that’s modified a lot in fifteen years, however I now abstain extra evenings than I partake.

Delayed Gratification Versus Residing For Immediately

The Query comes up usually. Is it higher to reside for tomorrow or reside like there’s no tomorrow?

We ask ourselves The Query and reply with our wallets. Whether or not we all know it or not, we’re continuously making selections that give us what we wish once we need it (Now!) or we deny ourselves to be higher positioned for a financially safe future.

The Query is requested, in numerous types, on the web. A latest thread on the White Coat Investor Discussion board was began on the lookout for solutions to The Query from folks of their 80s and 90s. Relatively than reply the query, I instructed he take a look at the Bogleheads, the place Taylor Larimore and plenty of a frugal and rich retiree hang around.

The reply, after all, is moderation. Moderation in all issues, together with moderation (however not black tar heroin).

Frugality is a advantage, however when taken additional than essential, can result in pointless hardship right this moment. Spend each final greenback right this moment, and you don’t have any tomorrow, and monetary independence won’t ever be inside attain.

The Seven Greenback Object

For her, it was a $7 sweet bar. For me, it was a $7 beer, or extra like 150 of them.

These are the issues we determined have been inside attain, regardless of circumstances that may recommend in any other case. Are they “luxurious” gadgets? Sure. You may rating an ordinary sweet bar or an affordable beer on the retailer for beneath a buck.

Did the acquisition of these things put our future in peril?

No, they didn’t. However they did make us really feel like somebody worthy of such a deal with.

I think about the sweet craver can earn that $7 in beneath an hour. 4 years after my Nordic journey, I used to be incomes $1,000 after tax in a single day as a locum tenens anesthesiologist.

If I had chosen to skip out on our common comfortable hours, I’d have missed out on riveting dialog, inside jokes, and numerous shenanigans that I’ll bear in mind to my dying day.

As Ferris Bueller famously mentioned, “Life strikes fairly quick. For those who don’t cease and go searching as soon as in awhile, you may miss it.” For those who don’t even present up, you’re assured to overlook it.

What’s The Level of The $1,000 Bar Tab?

I’m a self-described frugal doctor. Based mostly on my financial savings price of about 77% internet and 50% of gross earnings, I could possibly be thought of a brilliant saver. However there are occasions and there are locations the place the frugal selection is probably not the most effective one.

The occasions I’m more than likely to quickly abandon my extra frugal tendencies are when touring and with pals.

If you’ve paid your option to be someplace new, someplace you could by no means be once more, it may be value it to spend the additional $7, $70, and even $700 to make it a really memorable expertise.

With pals, spending selections turn into group selections, and until you hang around solely with FIRE-minded of us, your pals could select to spend in a method that you just usually wouldn’t.

In these circumstances, it’s often smarter or higher to just accept that you just’ll be quickly spending a bit outdoors your consolation zone, like MMM did along with his buddies, and perceive that it’s alright to bust a funds every now and then.

To summarize:

When you’ll be able to’t afford large luxuries, like upscale housing, or any housing, a small luxurious will be rewarding with out sacrificing your future. You will be comparatively frugal with out all the time being frugal. Don’t select between residing for right this moment and residing for tomorrow. Make good selections and you are able to do each.

I used to drink lots of beer. To paraphrase Mitch Hedberg, I nonetheless do, however I used to, too. Simply kidding. I feel.

What a fantastic piece by Doctor on FIRE! Often, it’s the hardest life classes that assist us see clearly down the street. What do you suppose? Discover Passive Earnings Docs on Fb to share your ideas. 

from Easily Maker Money https://easilymakermoney.com/2019/03/30/that-time-i-was-broke-and-spent-1000-on-beer/

[global-times-blog]

GARDEN TRACTOR Associated Articles

Garden stairs and landscaping actions created of tree trunks or giant timber or treated wood pieces naturally blend with the encompassing, offering stunning inexperienced design and style in your out of doors areas. Among the vegetation which you wish to add in your landscaping may have a every day time for the maintenance however there are some steps that are very useful and might save your a number of can purchase a self watering system; this watering system will ease you from having to do that process on a daily basis. You may as well embellish your used water bottles or soda bottles for watering your vegetation. You can too punch holes in the bottoms of the used bottles so water can flow at a sluggish drip. You can even set them subsequent to floor vegetation or when you've got planted containers you'll be able to set them within the container. With using one of these watering system you'll only need to examine the bottles to watch if they're low on water you'll have to add water. Such a watering system is very economical in case you have much less taking assist from these concepts you may preserve a very beautiful landscaped yard. You could find many ideas and shortcuts for beautifully landscaped yard on the internet. It might be taken as part of the identical ugly image that the brutal military dictator and Nazi appeasing Francisco Franco Bahamonde (otherwise often known as Common Franco or the nickname El Paquito, or little Frank.”) of Spain in 1940 sentenced all Freemasons in his realm routinely to ten years in prison. His regime had the identical murderous traits as Nazism as he killed a whole bunch of 1000's of harmless Spaniards in focus camps and organised executions and many more died in the Spanish Civil Conflict. The total features list of Backyard Crops is quite hefty, however let us recap the extra significant options and what they imply for your online business. To begin with, a modern theme is just not modern with out responsive design. Fortunately, your website will probably be as fluid as possible when using this theme proper here. Moreover, Garden Vegetation has gone by means of extensive testing for contemporary and dated gadgets to ensure full compatibility. With the addition of personalized VComposer parts, you'll be able to create exciting new pages with absolutely authentic designs. Whether or not you reside in the coronary heart of Highland Park or the attractive countryside from the North Shore, you'll desire to remember to take into account custom hardscape designs for the next remodeling challenge. Whether or not it's essential to replace a worn out outside patio with new patio pavers or develop a custom retaining wall to add security and magnificence to your own home, hardscapes are an easy method to breathe new life into your back yard. As all the time, you will want to take into account the cost of the provides, required upkeep and care, and total aesthetic before you begin any project. Hiring knowledgeable to help design and construct will be sure to finish on time with an audio structure. Convert an present dresser right into a changing table by including a altering pad. This can save space and add character to the décor. Paint it to match the crib and add stencils or peel-and-stick gildings to the front and sides. Clean out the highest drawer and fill with diapering requirements. Purchase a canopy for the altering pad in a coloration that fits your nursery space design. Take advantage of the changing pad's cell function and move it from room to room as wanted to make use of on other surfaces such as the coffee table or sofa. Create a garden paradise, an escape, an oasis in your yard by setting up intersecting trails, meandering streams, inspiring vistas, and hidden rooms. Design small hideaways the place individuals can collect for drinks and take a look at mixing formal with informal for stimulating visual rigidity. Each turn of the pathway brings its own lovely garden vignette. You can even get creative and save the largest backyard shock—a wall of crops, a fountain, a statue, a bench, or a particular flower show—for the farthest spot in your yard as a substitute of putting it directly subsequent to the house. You will create your own secret garden just moments from your entrance door. Create a seedling nursery using everyday recyclable household items, equivalent to egg cartons, rather than plastic pots. Merely fill each cup of an egg carton with soil and seed and, when they sprout, separate the person egg cups and plant them (cardboard and all) in the ground. It's also possible to use takeaway coffee cups (simply poke a number of holes in the bottom for drainage) or toilet roll cylinders. Simply make 2cm vertical cuts round one finish of the cylinder and fold in to make a base. Add soil and seed, and pack your new ‘pots' tightly together on an old baking tray to prevent them crumbling through the water-and-sprout part. Once they're prepared, plant in your garden. First, please know that I very a lot sympathize with your stance. I am sure that because of what I've allowed my entrance yard to turn into, you need to think of me as a nightmare of a neighbor. I additionally realize that my opinions on lawns and yards (which I am going to explain) are extremely tough to sympathize with for the overwhelming majority of People, together with my mother and father. I understand that none of you're landscaping ideas demanding that I set up a water-wasting garden, however simply that I do some form of landscaping, or not less than cut the weeds and extra steadily choose up the trash that gets caught in them. And I hope you believe me that each one of these issues are coming quickly and will hopefully be completed properly before the top of the yr (I am going to clarify this later as properly). Learning the best way to panorama your yard will be incredibly overwhelming. It's a type of things that in the event you make the fallacious lower in a bush or water something the wrong way, you might destroy the look that you are going for. Clearly you are going to need a great lawn mower , but you may additionally want a weed eater , a pruning saw , and different garden upkeep instruments before you get started. Having them available will prevent a substantial period of time and headache later on. As soon as you have got these gadgets able to go, take a look at these landscaping tricks to get yourself started. Rustic properties should be matched with a fence that is product of pure wooden. There are quite a lot of forms of wooden which may be generally used, and bamboo is one alternative. Bamboo is ideal on account of it should probably also form a thick privacy display across the garden. A strong fence retains gardens out of sight and creates a non-public click here place. Different fences solely have various boards and don't lend as so much privacy as a robust bamboo fence. Utilizing these merchandise is an ideal technique to preserve animals out of a flower backyard. Homeowners can be able to benefit from the colours of their yard from anyplace on the property with this kind of fence.

[thirdpoliceman]

A Preface: On Qualifications

To preface, there is nothing objective I can tell you about The Third Policeman that you can’t find on its Wikipedia page, or its Lostpedia page, or its page on whatever other ‘pedias are out there. This blog doesn’t exist to discuss the history of the novel by Brian O’Nolan (a/k/a Flann O’Brien) or trivia surrounding its writing, publication, critical reception, or plot details. Rather, its aim is even lower: to provide the reader with my subjective opinions and other thoughts, had while reading the novel and shared in a series of posts relating to the novel’s various bits, arranged in sequential order from its beginning to its end.

About the novel generally, I will discuss the plot in my posts to come on the book. Other than that, suffice it to be said it was written in 1939-40, but was not published until 1967, a year after its author’s death. Whether Mr. O’Brien had to sign a deal with Satan to publish the novel in exchange for his life is uncertain, and I don’t intend to teach the controversy here. But for all those aspiring writers out there, note the lesson in this: You may have to literally die for your work to be published, so work hard, drink heavily, smoke, and don’t exercise because the sooner you die, the sooner you will be published.

Of course, by the time of his death, Mr. O’Nolan/Brien was a well-known author who had had several other of his widely varying works published and critically praised. So perhaps the lesson is actually: If you die as a successful author, they will publish all your leftover, unpublished shit and sing its praises lest they be accused of spitting on your grave. In that case, you should probably work hard, drink in moderation, don’t smoke, and try to get away from the keyboard an exercise because they won’t publish your really cool stuff unless you get successful while you’re alive and that takes time.

You’ll have to decide which lesson to choose. You should probably choose the latter lesson though, because if you choose the former and are wrong, then you are dead and have a very limited opus from which your posthumous publishers will get to choose. And really, why would they publish anything of yours? Moreover, you will have had very little if any chance to enjoy success during your life. On the plus side, you will get to party balls.

If you choose the latter option you will get to live a long, somewhat fulfilling life, and will produce a lot of writing. And even if the only people who read it are your wife, children, and three lonely guys on Tumblr, you will have achieved something. The bad part there is—and you should have seen this coming a mile away—it is boring and hard.

I can’t offer any guidance on which lesson to take from the posthumous publication of Mr. Nolan/O’Brien’s masterwork. I only explain the lessons.

But back to the book. The Third Policeman received some favorable reviews at the time of its publication, and various critics have revisited it since then, with the consensus seeming to be that is one of the finest and earliest examples of postmodern meta-fiction. However, outside of certain marijuana-favoring literary circles the book has largely done its labor of existing in obscurity, with the exception being a brief period around 2005.

It was then that a copy of the book appeared a couple of times in the background of the hit ABC television show, Lost. You see, by 2005, many people had DVRs, then widely known as “TiVOs.” Also, many people were obsessed by Lost and would pause the show during repeated watchings to look for clues in the sets to further understand the show’s multifaceted, stoner-bait plot and backstory.

When The Third Policeman was spotted in the show, rumors of its relevancy to Lost circulated on the show’s numerous internet forums. (I know its fora. And if you’re reading this, you’re probably the kind of person who is saying that to yourself right now.) In interviews, the show’s creators and writers confirmed that the book influenced the show in some important way. How it influenced the show was never made clear, however. What’s more, several writers admitted they hadn’t even read the book. Thus, it seems that The Third Policeman’s influence on Lost was just some random bullshit inserted in the show to drive audience mania for all things Lost and to “keep ‘em guessing.” This lame, cynical trick largely worked because it was said that The Third Policeman sold more copies in three weeks of 2005 than it had in the preceding six years.

I will freely admit that my interest in the book arose during its brief popular heyday during Lost mania. I never saw then and have never seen to this day a single episode of Lost. However, I had read about Lost and the mentions of The Third Policeman stoked my curiosity.

Sometime around 2009, I finally got around to reading it. I liked it mainly because it seemed like something cool to be able to tell people I had read, especially people into Lost. Also, it was short and I was working a lot at that time, so I could not get into a long book. Finally, it actually was good. It was weird and interesting and funny, and seemed to me like the kind of book I would write if I got around to writing a book, by which I mean it was discursive, meta, plainly written, clever, and totally absurd.

It was so absurd that I wondered about a man who could dedicate so many hours to writing a book so disconnected from anything obviously connected to reality, including any concepts or emotions that people would actually feel in their lives. But I liked that he had, and it gave me hope that I could too, though I haven’t yet.

Of course, a lot of critics seem to say the book does have a lot to say about religion, philosophy, the nature of good and evil, et cetera. And that may be true. But it takes too much knowledge to understand those references and they are probably just reflections of the critics’ own beliefs anyway. To O’Nolan/Brien, based on the limited quotes from him I have read, it seems more likely The Third Policeman was just a funny book with what he thought was an original plot mechanism and “any amount of scope for back-chat and funny cracks.”

With Lost off the air and twelve years having passed since the show gave The Third Policeman a brief entree into the mainstream, I think now is a good time to give to it what every piece of pop culture needs: a blog solely dedicated to it, written by someone with no particular qualifications. After all, how will the book be remembered in the paperless, Singularity-y future if one of the five hundred million Tumblr pages in the world doesn’t spend a few paragraphs offering my thoughts (a/k/a bullshitting) about each chapter?

Why would you would be interested in my thoughts? Am I even qualified to write this blog? I cannot say. I don’t pretend that my thoughts are insightful, informative, or interesting in any way. Perhaps if you are a high-schooler or undergraduate, you can use them in a book report or similar coursework and call them your own. After all, I am sure this blog will remain utterly unknown so that your plagiarism would go unnoticed. (Note - I do not endorse plagiarism or cheating in any way, but it’s your life, ed.) Whether doing so would raise or lower your grade is your call. I make no guarantees.

Somewhat earnestly, however, I can humbly say that I am qualified to write the blog. I have read The Third Policeman three (!) times. It is one of only a handful of books I have read more than once. Now, to put my expertise in perspective, The Third Policeman (2002 paperback edition from Dalkey Archive Press) is ranked 65,297 in book sales on Amazon.com. I don’t know what that translates to in raw numbers, but Novelrank.com provides some guidance. According to them, The Third Policeman sold 760 copies in 2016 on Amazon.com and less than ten each on the various country-specific Amazon sites listed. Let’s assume that’s typical for the past few years. Let’s further assume that in 2005-06, during the Lost craze, it sold 15,000 copies. Let’s add another 50% of the total each year for book sales from Barnes & Noble online, to be very generous. Then throw in a few dozen more for brick and mortar sales, that number increasing the further one goes back in time, especially before Amazon’s dominance, Borders going out of business, etc. Finally, let’s go back all the way to 1967 when it was published, including an initial burst of sales then. All together, pulling the roughest guess out of my ass, The Third Policeman has sold 75,000 copies in the 47 years since it’s been published.

Those copies have probably been passed around and some reside in libraries, but many others have been thrown away or otherwise lost or destroyed. So, perhaps 350,000 people have actually read The Third Policeman. But many of them have died since 1967. Let’s assume that 300,000 living persons have read The Third Policeman. Of them, perhaps 30,000 read a foreign translation and are not fluent in English. Of the remaining 270,000, I would rest assured that no more than 40,000 have read the book more than once. There are about 7,408,000,000 people in the world today. I am sure more than 1.5 billion of those are children under 18, but let’s assume 1.5 billion kids. That means I am one of 40,000 living English speakers among 5.908 billion adults to have read The Third Policeman more than once. Accordingly, I am more qualified than 99.99932295193% of the population of Earth to write about The Third Policeman.

Further, I have taken notes in the margins. I have written notes out elsewhere by chapter. I have a bachelor of arts degree and a law degree. I am a published author of several dozen humorous essays on three websites (that no longer exist) and have even been paid for my work on one occasion. I feel that adds to my qualifications.

On the other hand, many other English speakers who have read The Third Policeman are undoubtedly English majors, or Literature majors, or have more advanced degrees in those subjects, or are already professional critics or academics in the field of postmodern literature and criticism. I admit this may diminish my relative qualifications somewhat.

But finally, how many of those more qualified than me are or are planning to write criticisms of The Third Policeman? We simply don’t know. But if it comes to that, you are welcome to read the many fine critiques and examinations of The Third Policeman out there if you find this blog insufficiently academic for your uses.

In sum, I think I have the qualifications to write this blog. Nonetheless, if you have doubts about whether this blog will satisfy your longing for meta commentary about The Third Policeman, but are willing to keep an open mind, I urge you to read on. Comment if you wish. Join, if you will, the dwindling fraternal vocation of those that care enough about a largely obscure Irish postmodern novel to spend time out of their finite lives to write about it!

I cannot make any promises about how often I will update the blog, but I promise I will complete it before I die, provided I die of natural causes after the age of sixty-five.

Oh, I should mention that it did just occur to me that if you are reading this, you are almost certainly one of the 200,000 living readers of The Third Policeman. If we’re assuming that is the population we’re drawing from, then I am only in the 20% percentile of qualified bloggers on this subject. That is, admittedly, less impressive than me being in the top 99.99932295193%. So I will give you that if you were doubting my qualifications.

But assuming you have only read it once, then I am still more qualified than you to write this blog! Barely. (Assuming multiple readings equates to greater qualification, which is, admittedly, not certain.) If you have read more than once, though, it is impossible for me to know whether I am more qualified than you to write the blog. I don’t know your educational background or anything else about your qualifications.

And of course, this all assumes there is such a thing as “qualification.” Who decides such a matter? The white patriarchy? Perhaps so. But not many of them are reading this, and fuck us anyway! I mean them! Fuck them! Let’s disperse power. When that is done, the reader should decide whether I am qualified. In that case, if you, the reader, get something out of this and find it to deepen your understanding of The Third Policeman or to cause you to think about it in a new way, then consider me qualified. If not, then I am not qualified.

Maybe. That is, a qualified person could certainly write an unhelpful or unenlightening critique or examination of a book. Less likely, an unqualified person could still come out of nowhere and write a universally acclaimed treatise on something or other. In that case, then doesn’t the whole concept of qualification become worthless? And if so, then shouldn’t every Tumblr blog on a subject be judged on its own merits rather than on the societally-imposed “merits” of its author? Yes. It should. And if not, remember the most important qualification is that I am writing it. As Tenacious D said:

     Kyle Gass: Anybody could have wrote it. Anybody could have done it.

     Jack Black: Yeah, but guess who did write it. Me!

Returning to the subject, with my qualifications established, it is one of my favorite books, but not for its main subject and plot, though I think that is wryly funny in a self-aware way. In the main, The Third Policeman explores many fascinating physical, metaphysical, and even paranormal subjects that now seem, along with its style, to have been ahead of its time considering it was written before World War II. Despite its esotericism, the book also has some timeless insights on human nature.

Rather, my favorite aspect of the book is when it leaves its plot and discusses a totally different, even stranger world than that inhabited by the protagonist. I thoroughly enjoy that O’Brien/Nolan is not afraid of going off on truly absurd and irrelevant tangents, focused on the narrator’s in-novel fascination with the unconventional scientist/philosopher/madman known as De Selby.

In these asides about De Selby, The Third Policeman dives into a meta-universe that is so absurd that it is almost admitted to be fictional even to the book’s narrator, who seems to doubt the reality of half of what he’s conveying about De Selby and his works. And on top of that, there are lengthy discussions of the political machinations among De Selby’s critics and in-depth references to their works. All of this seems to take place in a hazy alternate European timeline that seems to exist in some indeterminate time between 1890 and 1930. (While all this does seem ahead of its time, none of it would seem strange to Laurence Sterne, whose The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, © 1759-67, seems to serve as an inspiration for O’B.’s meta-meanderings.)

At times the narrator seems to go so far as to concede to the audience that these staggeringly irrelevant digressions (usually contained in lengthy footnotes), while comically abstruse, are a complete waste of his and the reader’s time, despite appearing throughout the book. (And if they are a waste of the narrator’s and the reader’s time, think what a waste of time it was for the author.) These wandering pathways off the novel’s story (which are connected to the main plot by only the thinnest, most arbitrary of threads early on) then seem to be nothing but a showcase for the author to engage in whimsical thoughts and worlds that may be amusing only to him, and that alone made it worth his time to write. This, really, is my attraction to the book. Because when I write, I too enjoy absurdism, and hopefully-comic digressions into only tangentially related subjects or meta-subjects, as my mind may dictate.

I always thought this type of writing bordered on insulting the reader, an egotistical exercise in look-at-how-clever I am. But reading The Third Policeman allowed me to see how O’Brien handles his digressions into De Selbyiana, and how, despite being totally irrelevant to the main book, the digressions are immersive and entertaining. This gave me inspiration and some assurance that I, as a writer, don’t need to be constrained by linear storytelling and rules of prose, especially when writing for humor, which is all I really want to do. I can create world’s within world’s in a story or essay. I can follow absurd thoughts to absurd conclusions. I can take asides and write in a conversational way, and pause and go backwards, and pick up where I left off. And I can let my inner absurdist out to play. And if the reader doesn’t like it, then that’s all well.

So for that, I can thank Brian O’Nolan, Flann O’Brien, the protagonist of The Third Policeman, and his soul, Joe, De Selby, Henderson, Hatchjaw, Bassett, Du Garbandier, Kraus, et al. They all gave me the inspiration not only to tackle this blog, but to keep writing how and when I want, whatever my qualifications. I hope anyone who stumbles across this enjoys it and maybe learns something about The Third Policeman and reads it again. And if no one does, I enjoyed writing it. I think that might be how O’Nolan felt when he saw The Third Policeman manuscript for the last time in a drawer in his study before he died, even if he knew that because of his deal with Satan, it would be published two years later.