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hhemeraa-a · 5 years ago

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Update / Haitus

I’ve been a ghost the last two weeks and I know that my last post was very succinct - which I had to delete because apparently porn blogs started reblogging it for some reason????????? And I’m just?? not in the place to deal with that.

I really hope to get back into a place where I can be here again, I know before I said I was on discord but I’ve had zero (zero) time to do literally anything else other than deal with my current situation so I’m barely even there. I do read all of your messages and I’m really sorry I haven’t responded.

A lot of people had or have questions and wanted to know how I am, etc etc so under the cut will be a quick explanation of my absence and everything that’s happened within the last few weeks.

As some of you know, I am a Peace Corps volunteer servicing in China. I had been serving as a university English teacher for the last near 2 years. This was a very very very important and huge opportunity for me.

Years ago when I was in college, my Mom was taking student loans out in my name while I was living with her. I went from having $54k in student debt (which is a lot already) to having about $108k in student debt in private loans. She shirked all responsibility on me, I had to graduate college early with a degree in something that I had credits in (International Studies with a focus on Chinese language and history), I was homeless for a while working random jobs, trying to join the Marine Officer program, etc etc -- needless to say, things were really really messy for a few years there. I ended up getting a really nice job for a logistics company getting paid about 2200 a month, but I was paying about 1600 a month in student loans. I had a lot of support from a friend who let me live with her and to this day I literally cannot thank her enough for everything she provided to me while I was suffering through all of this.

After working that soul sucking job for nearly 4 years, I took a chance and applied for Peace Corps because it was an opportunity to finally make it to China. I was supposed to study abroad in college, but when my mother maxed out my debt, it was no longer feasible. I never thought I was going to get in because I had been out of school for years at that point, I had never taught English before besides 1-on-1s during college and I kind of thought I was too old???

BUT LOW AND BEHOLD I GOT IN. This shit meant everything to me. I was finally going to study abroad, I was finally going to have a chance to use my degree, I was finally going to have the chance to learn a language, I had an opportunity to have a complete career change.

It was so incredibly hard though. I worked my ass off during training, I worked really really hard to integrate into my site, but if anyone has ever heard any of my horror stories of being the only foreigner in the middle of south east China, you’ll understand that it’s not always fun 😅 I even had a whole mental break down and had to be sent back to the States for 45 days so I could stop stressing, but I got my ass right back on that plane and came to finish the job I started. The low were low, but the highs were so incredibly high that it made up for every bad moment.

This program meant everything to me. My first semester sucked ass, it was harder than I ever thought it would be. My second semester was so much better, my third semester I was over loaded with about 450+ students and 8 classes, but I was finally getting the hang of the language, the school, the people, and I had gotten the ‘ok’ from my school to work there as a full time teacher once my Peace Corps contract was finished. This?? Was such an opportunity?? I literally had started making the moves to start a life here -- at least temporarily. Work at my school as contracted teacher for a year, pass the HSK Chinese language test above a 4, use the money to find a better job in Taiwan -- there was a whole plan.

Every year, Peace Corps meets for 1-2 weeks for In Service Training. We met from Jan. 12 - 17. Usually it’s just to reconnect and make sure all the volunteers are doing their jobs, medical check ups, etc etc etc. It’s a good time to see how other volunteers are doing.

Jan. 17th we were formally told that the Peace Corps China program was being closed. After 2020, there would no longer be any new volunteers and that we needed to start preparing our schools for the transition. They called it a graduation, but we all knew it was a political move. For five hours, a room of 200 people ripped into the US PC HQ staff as to why they were “”graduating”” the program. They said it was because the budget didn’t call for it and that China no longer needed volunteers in their schools. Which is a lie. Tensions were already really really high, the answers kept gettin more vague, and we finally flat out asked if this was a political decision to remove Peace Corps from China.

We didn’t get an answer.

Needless to say, all the volunteers are livid. The information spread like wild fire to all of the schools and volunteers were faced with having to be the representative of a shitty political decision. It was extremely difficult to have to face students and try to explain that Americans don’t hate them when the political system there does.

Chinese New Year was from Jan 25th - Jan 27th this year. I lived in Chongqing city in the Chongqing province/municipality, a city that has about 32 million people in it. During this time, the city becomes a ghost town due to the holiday being similar to Christmas/Thanksgiving where everyone goes back to their hometowns to be with family. All the shops close and for foreigners it can be difficult to find food because everything isn’t open lol.

However on Jan. 25th was when news about the corona virus started getting around. It wasn’t very big, but the news was starting to spread. The Hubei province touches Chongqing province, so whispers were starting to come through and most information volunteers got were through foreign sources, but even my Chinese friends were telling me that I shouldn’t go out or if I do, I need to be sure to wear a mask.

Sunday Jan. 26th, notices are starting to go up on store fronts saying that they are required by law to be closed, but I managed to find a place that was still open. News about the virus is starting to gain traction and more and more information about what is happening in Wuhan is starting to spread. My friend who is staying with me who lives in a small town near the border of Hubei (where Wuhan is placed) gets a call from his school telling him that it is safer for him to not come back to site. We are starting to hear that small towns are shutting down travel in and out, bus systems are starting to shut down and certain areas in the city are no longer allowing taxi or Didi (Chinese Uber) services.

Monday Jan. 27th, my friend leaves because all train and bus tickets out of the city were being canceled. My city was slowly starting to quarantine everyone. I live on campus, and when I tried to return after walking my friend to the metro, security took my temperature (with those neat little temp guns) and then wouldn’t let me in because they thought I was too warm. After arguing with them in my broken Chinese and convinced them that I lived there, they finally let me back on campus. They told me that no cars or people are allowed to go in and out anymore.

I lived near city center and it was obvious that the government was slowly locking everyone away to try and prevent the spread, but it was so eerie and apocalyptic. We had been receiving emails from the PCChina director giving us daily updates that were inching towards the idea that all volunteers were going to be ‘consolidated’, so everyone just needed to be prepared.

Tuesday Jan. 28th, the notice went out that the volunteers were being ‘consolidated’ to Thailand because China made it illegal for any group of 4 or more people to be together. We were only allowed 1 check in bag and we weren’t sure if we were ever going to be allowed to come back into country. People who were not at their sites were not allowed to go back to their sites. Wherever a volunteer was in that moment that we got the notice was required to get their ticket to Bangkok and leave immediately. I had to pack 2 years of my life up into a single suitcase not knowing if I was ever going to come back.

Wednesday Jan 29th, I was on a plane and landed in Bangkok. I am a safety warden of my province and the first warden to arrive so I was in charge of all safety until staff arrived.

But after that, things were very much in the air. We had no idea what was going to happen and every day things just got weirder and more serious and we didn’t know if at all we were going to be able to go back. We speculated a lot, as the news got worse and worse and worse. By Friday, all USA government employees were told to evacuate. No gov employee is allowed to enter China until the travel restrictions were let up, which meant that many PCChina staff - if they were to leave, would be allowed back in until China decided that it was safe enough or... if they wanted them back.

Sunday, Feb. 2nd, all the volunteers who were at the hotel had a skype meeting with the head of the PCChina program and were told that due to the severity of the situation, all currently serving China volunteers would be forced to COS (Close of Service) by Thursday. The program was ending and we would all be sent back to our respective homes between Wednesday and Thursday.

When I say it was the shittiest delivery of news imaginable, I cannot even put it into words. After we were all told that we could no longer return to China, we had lost our jobs, and couldn’t even say goodbye to anyone; HQ Staff had the balls to tell us that in order to get our final service allowance, we were still required to fill out paperwork and that we shouldn’t be sad. We should be happy we served at all.

They gave no time for mourning, many of us put two years of our lives on hold to do this program, some of us don’t even have homes to go back too and they want us to make decisions in 4 days. After Thursday, they will no longer provide any assistance with travel, we do not get health insurance, the moment we COS, PC shrugs off complete responsibility of over 100+ volunteers.

I have been so busy filling out paperwork and I have been so incredibly angry and sad and resentful that the only person I’ve told is my Dad. Returning to the USA isn’t really an option and the plan I had set into motion is now nonexistent because I’m no longer allowed in the country I gave two years of my life to until they decide that this virus has been resolved.

I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out where I’m going to live, what job I’m going to have, how I can get a cellphone plan, where I can go because I’m being quarantined for having been in China within the last 14 days, how to manage the money I’m getting -- everything has been changing so rapidly that I still don’t know where I’m going to be by Friday since Peace Corps is only paying for the hotel up until then.

I promise I’m not ignoring any of you, I really really want to be in a place where I can RP and chat with y’all, but life for me right now is moving so fucking fast and I have to make so many decisions that will affect my future that I literally have not stopped going since Sunday night.

I still stand by my last message: I really appreciate all the messages you guys have been sending me. I do read them. I just don’t want to talk. I don’t have the emotional capacity to and I haven’t even been given time to just... process and be mad.

I promise I’ll be back, just give me some time.

#tbd #personal #when I say this is the cliffnotes version #I mean it #there are so many other layers to this story that I can't even begin #to get into #but this is where I've been #and I'm going to try and return as soon as I have like...#some stability

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greasygyeom · 7 years ago

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Title: FaceTime

By: GreasyGyeom

Summary: He’s been away for a while. Yugyeom x Reader. Dirty Talk/Smut/Fluff.

Playlist: 170909

Author’s Note: This is another smut(?) something I wrote instead of the smut that I was supposed to???? I have fallen down a terrible path. I hope you enjoy it and suffer with me <3

It's a quarter past midnight and you're sleepless; sleepless because you miss him; sleepless because you want nothing more than to be in his arms and ask him to sing you to sleep. You miss his voice. You miss his laugh. Your head is so heavy with this thoughts you think it might spontaneously combust into the night sky.

Fuck, you miss him so much.

He's been on the road for almost a month. He's going to be on the road for the next month too. You don't know how much longer you can go without seeing him because face-timing for 3.5 minutes, once a week only always made things worse.

You're standing by your french windows and staring at the moon play hide and seek with the clouds. Maybe it'll hypnotise you enough to put you to bed.

You look at your phone. It's around 10pm in Bangkok. You debate about messaging him. He could be eating out or sleeping in, and you'd rather not disturb him while doing either.

Sighing heavily, you glance back at the blue-black expanse and decide to go to bed yourself. It's a working day tomorrow after all. You'll just have to find a way to not miss him through the night.

"Goonight, Kyummie, come home soon." You say, with your heart rapidly sinking into the depths of your sadness. The universe, however, has a different plan.

Your phone screen lights up because of a call.

On FaceTime.

You usually always pre-planned these calls. Well actually, he usually always pre-planned them so you could work your schedule around, to not miss them.

You don’t know why but you feel nervous to answer it. You’re also just as excited at the prospect of seeing his bright star-studded smile.

You pick up the call as you drop on your bed.

"Noona, why are you awake?" he says as soon as his face comes into focus on the small screen.

He's lying down in a white robe, with the bed cover pulled up to his neck. His hair is wet and stuck to his forehead. Somewhere in the distance you can hear a siren going off - maybe the sirens were just in your head because of your first few dirty thoughts.

Of course he had to call you after a shower, looking so soft and cuddly. You're too giddy in the stomach at his sight —you could probably use the colour from your cheeks to paint some apples and strawberries on a large canvas or two.

Still, you manage to roll your eyes at him. "I'm an adult, Kyum, I can stay awake till whatever time I want."

"Says the girl who watches Totoro and cries every time."

"Hey, My Neighbour Totoro is an extremely sophisticated movie revolving around themes of friendship, kindness and hope, okay. It's cute and fuzzy but also very deep. And you're one to talk, you made me run to the airport so you could take your favourite blanket along."

He rolls over and almost drops his phone, laughing.

"Aah, seriously noona. You're too much," he says, still cackling.

You scrunch up your nose in protest.

"You don't have work tomorrow?"

"I do, I was just.... going to bed", you lie. He'd never let you live if he got to know you were crying because you missed him.

You change the topic hurriedly. "How come you're free? I thought you'd be out."

"I didn't go. They all went to some club."

"Oh my god, Kim Yugyeom declined an offer to go to the club to party. Is this real life?" You tease, exaggeratedly.

"Yes, I stayed. I was missing you", he says with a look in his eyes. It almost burns you to the ground. "Aren't you glad I called?"

"I am," you reply, avoiding his gaze. A flush of emotions whirl around in your mind — an odd mixture of lust and gloom.

You look for a diversion and start talking about the shows. He tells you about the stages, the stylists and the backstage fuck-ups. The hotels, the travel, the airport stories, the shopping sprees, all the times he pranked his hyungs, the landscapes, the cities, the weather and how it rained so heavily on their off-day he had to cancel his touristy plans. Everything he had not been able to tell you for the past month he unloads on you in a single sitting. Time seems to go nowhere.

You pay him your utmost attention, laughing, expressing concern and sometimes even cursing wherever required; as his stories proceed.

"Noona, guess how many choco-shakes I've had?"

"You're keeping count Kyummie," you laugh, "Why are you so cute?"

"I'm not cute!" He protests.

"You are, you're the cutest."

He hates it when you teasingly call him cute. So, he rests the the phone against his knees and effortlessly slides his arms out of the robe.

"Am I still cute, noona?”

In a split second everything about him flips.

There's that look again in his eyes. The softness they held when he was talking about his tour is nowhere to be found. They look sharp and intent, swirling with an audacious desire, drowning you in them. You inhale a sharp, deep breath. His torso is entirely visible, revealing his lean form. He fluffs up his pillow and lays down flat on his back, holding the phone up with one hand.

You watch his movements, without mouthing a word, a smirk curls up on your lips; knowing full well what he intends to achieve.

"Noona, do you miss me?" He asks, licking his lips rather enticingly.

"What do I get in return for answering that?"

He moans —

— and gets you hot and bothered without even trying. He knows his little trick has worked, because you're subconsciously running your fingers along the side of your neck.

He angles the reading light on the opposite end towards him and turns, in bed, to face it. He supports the phone with a stray pillow, and just gazes at you, like nothing else exists in his world.

You can see his skin all the way to the beginning of his pelvic bone. It unleashes a hurricane in your body, rapidly rushing down towards your core.

"I want you here, Kyum, right now."

"I know baby, I want to be there too. And I want to kiss you; and bite you and beg you till you let me fuck you."

His voice is smooth and silky, like freshly tempered dark chocolate. His neediness for you is embellished all over his face.

Did he just call you baby instead of noona?

You move to sit up. Your room is dark, with the only source of light emanating from your night light and your screen. His eyes follow you carefully as you take off your tshirt to reveal a plain black bra.

"Did you somehow get sexier while I've been gone, noona." His impatience gets the best of him.

"Hmm maybe," you play along, slouching your back onto your bed post. He smacks his lips thirstily at your heaving cleavage.

You're contemplating on whether or not to....torture him.

"I'd have taken off your boxers if I was there, by now."

"I was never wearing any."

"Then what are you waiting for?"

His eyes widen, not in surprise but out of shyness.

"Noona.... do you want me to....." he trails off. "Are you already?"

You let out a soft mewl, answering him without actually having to. A gasp escapes as you let your fingers dance around your neck.

He watches your eyes close and your neck tense up, hypnotised.

His boner makes him squirm in discomfort.

"It's okay baby, do it for me" you say, grinding your hips into your bed.

You hold your phone at eye level, hovering it over you. He can see your hand across your torso, vanishing inside your pajamas. He can see your waist and wrist move in a concentric rhythmic pattern. He can see the lust in your eyes. It's enough to stimulate him senseless.

"I want you between my legs, Yugyeom, right now."

"Fuck," he curses, and rolls flat on his back, reaching to relieve the pressure building up so fast inside him.

His phone is a little away, so you can almost see his hand firmly wrapped around his thickness, sliding up and down. He starts out in a slow, steady motion, moving his sinful hips, thrusting them upwards.

He whimpers in a gravelly, low octave.

He's so fucking hot.

There is an overwhelming amount of tension at the pit of your stomach. You concentrate on him like a lioness stalking her prey. If he was anywhere near you, you would have devoured him whole.

"Faster, baby." You demand, and he quickens his pace, groaning because of the friction that's being caused.

"You're making me so wet like this".

"Pl...ease noona, don't - I'm..... go....ing to come."

"I know, I wish I could blow you."

He manages to breathe out a string of profanities as you dirty talk him some more, to a blissful completion.

His body betrays him and gives in to his carnal pleasures. He spurts out erratically, still looking as graceful as a peacock dancing in the rain.

His hand stops moving and slips to his side. He breathes hard and fast and brings the phone closer to his face, eyeing you deviously.

"I'm going to lock you in with me for a week, for doing this." He's still breathless.

You bite your lip teasingly and nod, feeling your body tremble with his words.

"And I'm going to dig in so deep."

Your fingers move faster, thinking about him lodged inside you, tight around you walls, bruising your core recurrently. It's the sweetest feeling.

You play with yourself while he looks at you intently, never lowering his gaze. Your body peaks and the hurricane dies down. You're an insane mess of heavy groans and tangled words.

You finally pull your fingers out, letting the bodily fluids flow down your thighs.

Your needs feel.... satiated - at least for the moment.

It takes you both a few moments to clean up the aftermath.

"I'm going to have to shower again now." he whines, throwing tissues into the trash can.

"Yeah? Think about me then too," you wink, laughing immediately at the face he makes.

"You're wild, noona."

"This was barely wild, Kyum. Come back and I'll tell you what wild is."

"Aaah don't tease me like this. I can't always have this in my head for a month."

"Just thirty days, love."

"But, I want to take a flight back to you now."

"As much as I want you to do that, for now just think about all the things I will do to you when you get free time, okay?"

Your correspondence is abruptly interrupted by a knock on his door and some really loud pterodactyl sounds.

"I think they're all back.... and possibly very drunk." He checks the time "We've been talking for three hours?"

"Oh my god, really?"

It barely had felt like 30 minutes. Reality gradually begins to separate you from your happy bubble.

"Yeah, I can hear them. They're going to get thrown out of the hotel."

"Good, let them. Then I can talk to you all night without worrying."

"Kyum!"

"Ugh" he pouts, very evidently not wanting to say bye. "I'll call you whenever I get time tomorrow. Bye noona, love you."

"I love you too" you tell him, as his lips fully cover your screen with a kiss.

Idiot.

You were in love with a cute, fluffy idiot.

A year ago had someone told you, you'd fall in love again - you'd have laughed in their face.

Yet, you just told the boy you had coincidentally met at a house party you weren't even supposed to go to, that you loved him.

You chuckle - because you'd have never expected your life to turn out this way.

But, that's what it is, isn't it?

That's what life is.

#aghase writer #yugyeom smut #yugyeom x reader #yugyeom fanfic #kim yugyeom #got7 scenarios #yugyeom scenarios #got7 fanfiction #got7 fanfic #got7 smut #filthy minds istg #got7 #got7 yugyeom

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its-shortcake-me · 7 years ago

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The uneasy run

For those of you who know me well, you'll know I've been a runner for over two years now. Faithfully posting my progress after every run really helped me stay motivated.

You might wonder how I do it. Waking up every other day and pushing my body instead of staying in and lazing around. Well, I did that. If there was an award for sitting on your ass, I'd win hands down. I was lazy, and not motivated to change that. That's where the problem lay. I liked trying all the new workouts in town. Zumba, yoga, weights, treadmill, aerobics, and insanity workouts. Each time, my goal was to lose "x" number of kilos, and to look a certain way. The minute I reached that goal, I thought I could stop, and go back to sitting on my lazy ass. It only took a couple weeks from there to realize I had put back all that weight. It didn't take any effort to relapse. And relapsing undid all the effort that I did make.

Come new year's 2016, I had travelled to Bangkok and bravely wore a bikini to the beach. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there was a video which was shot. Come playback time, I wanted to bury my face in the ground. There I was, at my fattest, jiggling around on the beach in my bikini. What hurt the most wasn't the way my body looked, it was the feeling that came with looking and being unhealthy/unfit.

This brought about my new goal:

-set goals, demolish goals.

-start and never give up.

-lifestyle change.

-finish what you started.

I joined a weight loss group and i did a no carbs diet for EIGHT weeks! Without cheating myself. Wow, I thought. If I wanted, I could really do this.

I joined a gym and learnt how to push through all that laziness, simply because I enjoyed waking up early and being able to lift heavier and heavier weights. This is where I started running. Treadmill running. Also, I had the sweetest trainer, who motivated me so much. Then came the day when I found out that I was the inspiration for other people in the gym. What? Me? Fitness motivator???? I am really surprising myself by this point.

April 2016, we sign up for a 30km walkathon, and BAM, in the middle of that summer's scorching sun, immense dust and pollution, and fatigue, I pushed on. BAM. Goals were being demolished!!

By May 2016, I got so into the gym culture and treadmill running, that I decide to make a commitment like never before. An annual gym membership! Of course, I had months when I slipped, days when I just refused to push myself, and weeks of lazing around, but I learnt to NEVER give up. No matter how bad you think your workout is going, you're still miles ahead of the version of you lazing at home.

Fast forward to 2017, I've successfully completed my year at the gym. I've done bi weekly 10Ks and what not. Oh, and I lost weight!! Never felt better about myself.

This time I decided to step it up, and start doing actual runs, cause I realized the treadmill is causing too much impact on my knees. So I start waking up to do runs at Coles park, cause evenings are too noisy, crowded, and polluted.

July 2017, I sign up with some colleagues for a 12 hour relay, where a 6 member team runs for 2 hours each. A 2 hour run... Could I do it?

Without much practice on long runs, I pushed my body and mind like never before, and completed a whopping 17.5km in 2 hours!! BAM baby! Demolishing them goals and never giving up!

Then came the scary moment of giving up my runs for three whole weeks, cause we decided to travel to Europe. It was so scary to think that I might not be able to get back to this beautiful routine that I had so painstakingly put together.

While I was there, we were walking an average of 7.5km every single day, so I guess that kept me going. Upon getting back, I found myself more excited to pick up where I left off. Before I knew it, I was back in the routine. What a surprise! I didn't give it up.

Fast forward to today, I'm doing runs 4 times a week, and averaging at 4 evening workouts every week.

I am fitter than I've ever been in my life. I've injected this lifestyle of fitness into my everyday. And I recently found out from a girl I haven't spoken to since school, that I inspired her to start working out. She's been looking at all my fitness posts and started up for herself! Sometimes I cannot believe how far I've come.

Being called the meanest names like fat so, ugly, an fat cow, and what not.. from the time I was so young really has had a negative impact on my self image. Shattered it even. I was never a sports person in school. I stood in the sidelines, embarrassed by the way I looked, watching these girls playing basketball and running relays. Winning. When would my time come, I thought. Eating was my best friend and biggest source of comfort. Chocolates, biscuits, and anything unhealthy. There was no hope I thought.

Exactly.. "I thought". My mind took over. Controlled so much of how I felt and acted.

Then came the time when "I thought" I could run. Here I am, runner, artist, dancer, and fitter than I've ever been before. Fittest? Nah. Long way to go.

I eat everything. I learnt the hard way to be gentle with my body. There's no need to deprive her of things she loves. But there's no need to indulge too much. She'll always have access to the food she loves if she eats it in moderation.

I'm not a size zero. But I can do splits, backbends, run marathons, and look good. I can look at a mirror and really truly appreciate who I've become. (Huge huge giant leap for me considering I could never stand to look at myself). I'm a fitness motivator, foodie, and runner. All at once. Enjoying the best of everything.

I worked harder than ever, and I enjoy the fruit of it. Today, my legs were weak after yoga yesterday, and I had an ache and stitch in my side, but I decided 6 rounds around Coles park, and didn't stop till I got there. Determination. Perseverance. Motivation. Never give up. Keep pushing.

Time. Thighs. Tone.

I am happy. I am healthy. I am blessed. I am lucky. I am beautiful. I am strong. I am successful. I am sharp. I am privileged. I persevere and never give up. I push and move forward. Every single day. I love me.

#runner #gentle reminder #lifestyle #fitlife #fitfam #fitspiration #running #persevere #pushyourself #pushyourlimits #succeed #loveyourself #lovemybody #justdoit

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peakwealth · 6 years ago

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AFTER PEAK WEALTH

More of everything. (Mural, Lisbon, 2015)

I return once again to the idea which is at the root of this blog and is embedded in its URL, peak wealth. The concept is simple: the accumulation of individual as well as collective wealth reaches a point of saturation where it is bound to become counterproductive and backfire.

It is, of course, a matter of debate where that peak might be, at what point more affluence no longer equals greater well-being, but the widespread malaise in advanced economies suggests that point has long been passed, possibly decades in developed countries.

Although the notion of post-growth or de-growth is finally gaining recognition, in the real world the idea of peak wealth is still not widely understood, let alone accepted. It is, in fact, being vigorously resisted by the mainstream forces of the market economy.

The reasons for this are not simply a matter of greed and corporate profit maximization. Failing a fundamental shift away from our neoliberal economic model (towards a sharing economy, socialism, expropriatory taxation...), ageing societies face collapsing health care systems and empty pension coffers if their economies don't keep growing. Open-ended expansion remains the cornerstone of economic and monetary orthodoxy. No matter how bloated or unsustainable the economy gets, no matter how badly it burps or retches, it has to keep moving ahead and grow. The show must go on, the debt must be repaid, etc.

Unorthodox reality, however, is quickly catching up. Both the saturation and the backfiring have been in evidence in the last several years. The various mutinies against the political establishment all over the Western world reflect this discontent, beginning with the resentment over stagnating or declining incomes.

Growth has more or less stalled in many mature economies or essentially benefits only those at the top of the wealth pyramid -- people who are far ahead in the knowledge game; those in positions of privilege; and those who make money not through work but through investing the capital they already own. Their wealth is less likely to peak, at least systemically.

Still primed for temptation. (Shop window, Antwerp, Belgium, 2015)

Today's popular revolt is like a broad river with many tributaries. One of the most obvious sources of public anger is that expectations are no longer being met.

Over the last seventy-five years, the infrastructure of global capitalism has been streamlined to boost consumer expectations - and to do so indefinitely, 24/7. Inner cities have been transformed into single-purpose shopping zones constantly updated to nudge people into parting with their money, or credit. The well known injunction to 'waste-the-money-you-don't-have-on-things-you-don't-need' resonates on every urban street corner. Beyond the inner cities lie the suburbs and exurbs which have been synonymous with mall-based 'retail therapy' from their creation. And beyond the suburbs is the countryside where village life has been wiped out, sacrificed to make way for anonymous supermarket chains. Put together, the infrastructure of consumption has grown beyond what the late French sociologist Jean Baudrillard described as the 'liturgy' of overabundance, to a blunt macro-economic policy tool that is at the heart of our economic model.(*)

And then came Amazon.

The never ending stimulus has done more than generate economic hypertrophy and the environmental disasters linked to it. It has created a fickle class of shoppers - no, of citizens and voters - addicted to wealth and infatuated with throw-away consumption. Although clearly alienated by the very materialism they crave, they share a sense of entitlement to the benefits of the consumer society. The problem is that many now live from one pay cheque to the next or run out of cash by the middle of the month - the complaint heard from the yellow vests in France.

When incomes no longer keep pace with the expectations that are so abundantly engineered into the system, frustration results. Until recently, this anger was often dismissed as that of a grumbling 'underclass' of 'losers' who were out of touch with the globalized knowledge economy. Today the disenchantment has spread to the broad core of the population. Or, to put it differently, the 'loser' class has grown to occupy the middle ground and finally claim political power.

One thing leads to another. Economic frustration has metastasized to reveal other kinds of displeasure and prejudice that remained unspoken or submerged in more restrained times but have now risen to the surface. Today's economic dissatisfaction has helped to 'greenlight' some of the darkest forces of the 21st century (thus far): identitarian regression, acute xenophobia, paranoia...

As the bitterness overflows into politics, popular rage is directed at austerity, corruption, declining remuneration of labour, abusive banks, unaffordable housing, slow expropriation of savings through zero interest rates and the everyday display of grating social inequality. Given the opportunity to express their anger, many voters have refocused their political agency on vengeance rather than on their own rational self-interest. Politicians lose whatever credibility they had left and the legitimacy of democracy itself drips away.

Malcontents (to use that ancient word) have even started to challenge the basic authority of the state to regulate daily life: police speed radars have been massively vandalized in France; anti-vaxxers are triggering outbreaks of contagious disease, etc.

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How much longer can this go on? (Hermès display at the ZEN department store, Bangkok, Thailand, 2016) (2)

We live in a fractured age of continual disruption and technological annoyance (G3,G4,G5, augmented reality, artificial intelligence...). Hounded by Amazon and Facebook, spied upon by Siri and Alexa, consumer patience must be wearing thin. With every passing day it is becoming obvious to more people that the system is fraying at the edges and that the fairy tale of hedonistic materialism no longer holds.

By 2050 the world's population will have quadrupled in a mere hundred years, yet we carry on regardless. The juvenile rhetoric of growth, private ownership and overconsumption has hardly changed. Occasionally, lip service is paid to minor environmental concerns, often at an almost comical level (plastic drinking straws, locally grown produce, school children going on strike to save the planet...). But a broad political will to throttle back the economy and eventually reverse growth remains absent.

What has changed is that the pathways of the neoliberal economy are becoming congested. Having peaked, capitalism feels worn out by now, no longer able to deliver the goods while putting humanity on a course towards extinction. The beloved welfare state that buffered us from reality is fading away. As environmental panic sets in, we start looking for ways to save ourselves from perishing in flood and flame.

In such a landscape of rising anxiety, it is going to be hard to explain, never mind enforce, the idea of de-growth, of less-of-everything, of shrinking one's economic and environmental footprint, of doing more with less and, finally, of doing less with less. All the more so in a context of glaring inequality and global competition. It is still considered a political non-starter to suggest that, yes, the time has come to let go of the good life, of income security, of all our vanities - we who were told, over and over again, that we deserved it all.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Jean Baudrillard 'La société de consommation', Éd. Denoël, Paris,1970.

(2) The Hermès luxury brand is one of the three largest private fortunes in France.

See also: ”The Nutella Moment” https://peakwealth.tumblr.com/post/181470275792

https://peakwealth.tumblr.com/post/180084806612

‘Let he Ruling Classes Tremble’ http://peakwealth.tumblr.com/post/148844598007

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cynthiamwashington · 7 years ago

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What I’ve Learned from Eating Abroad

I’ve been lucky enough to travel to interesting places. The trips I’ve taken in the last 10-15 years, during my “Primal period,” have been the most meaningful, rewarding, and downright enjoyable because I’ve been able to view other cultures and customs through the prism of health, nutrition, and human evolution. I bring something back every trip—a tip, an insight, an alteration of an existing conviction. Travel abroad isn’t just a good time. It’s educational.

What have I learned eating abroad?

There’s Something Uniquely Terrible about Wheat in the U.S.

I have the perfect level of sensitivity to wheat. I’m not celiac, but I’m sensitive enough that it affects me. If my sleep is bad, or I’ve had alcohol, or my stress is high, wheat reliably produces symptoms. But even those symptoms are manageable—mostly superficial bathroom stuff.

This means I’m quite attuned to the quality of wheat. Wheat simply doesn’t affect me to the same degree in other countries. When I was in Greece, a couple times I had some baklava after dinner or pita dipped in hummus or olive oil. Pita is unleavened. It certainly isn’t fermented. It’s about as unaltered as you can get. And it didn’t affect me. Granted, I wasn’t eating more than a piece in a single day. But a single slice of bread back home is usually enough to produce at least a few niggling symptoms.

I’ve noticed similar null responses to bread in France and pasta in Italy. I’m not sure what it is, exactly. Maybe it’s the ubiquity of dwarf wheat in the U.S., which is known to produce enhanced reactivity in celiacs and gluten-sensitives. Maybe it’s the Roundup many American wheat farms spray before harvest.

Portion Size Is a Big Factor in America’s Weight Problem

Although we tend to highlight the roles food quality and macronutrient ratios play in obesity and other diseases, we can’t ignore the role food quantity plays. One massive change from our ancestral environment is that in the U.S., you can go into the average chain restaurant and have a trough of seed oil-soaked carbohydrate with a quart of sugar water served up in a few minutes for under $15. The portion sizes are gargantuan. Salad bowls full of pasta, pizzas the size of manhole covers, plates of fries that arrive overflowing onto the table. You go pick up Chipotle burrito bowls for your officemates and it’s like carrying a golden retriever puppy in the bag.

I didn’t really notice this until I traveled abroad with Primal awareness.

You won’t get a large salad bowl filled to the brim with pasta in Italy. In China, you’re not being served 4 cups of white rice in a single sitting. Soda in Europe is served in small cups like you’d use at home, not 32 ounce tankards. It’s a small detail, but it makes a big difference.

Industrial Food is Addictive

I knew that the food industry employs top scientists who manipulate flavor combinations and ingredients to make the food extremely hard to resist and easy to overeat. But being in a place like Kauai, which isn’t “abroad” but until quite recently was a separate nation with its own history and tradition and culture, really hammered it home. Hawaii is a bounty of healthy local food. Fruit literally rots on the side of the road. There are banana trees in every yard. The drugstore sells local grass-fed beef. The seas teem with fresh fish, the forests with wild boar, and roadside stands sell ahi jerky and smoke meat (smoked wild boar). Every time I visit, I eat incredibly well. Staying Primal is easy and quite inexpensive.

Yet, native Hawaiians are the most obese ethnic group in Hawaii. They’re eating spam musubis (admittedly delicious), macaroni salad, tons of fried food. The most well-known dish—the plate lunch—usually consists of meat either breaded and fried and/or cooked in sweet sauce (teriyaki, usually), white rice, macaroni salad, and maybe an iceberg lettuce salad with seed oil-laden dressing. I get the distinct sense that “native foods” are viewed as quaint, eaten only occasionally alongside the industrial food, or just plain ignored. It’s a damn shame. but industrial food always wins. It’s supposed to, and that’s the problem.

Fasting Solves a Lot of Problems When Traveling

Long ago I decided fasting was a better option than eating whatever terrible food was available. These days, I look forward to it and consider travel my opportunity to fast. If food options are miserable in the airport or destination, I fast. I’d rather snack on my own animal fat than eat salads that have been sitting out for days or peanuts roasted in corn oil.

Then I figured out how fasting helped with another unavoidable aspect of travel: jet lag. Airline food service typically hews to the schedule of the departure time zone. Food is a powerful circadian entrainer, so this prolongs your body’s adaptation to the new time. I hew my eating to the schedule of the arrival time zone. This hastens my body’s adaptation.

My last opportunity to eat will be dinner time back home. My next opportunity will be breakfast time at my destination. This can turn into a really long fast. If I leave early in the day before dinner, I don’t eat dinner on the plane. If I arrive at my destination at night, I wait till morning to eat. I’m ready for that breakfast, to be sure, but I also bring more energy to the first day of my trip as a result.

Walking Is the Best Way to Discover Good Food

The Old World wasn’t built for cars. It was built for pedestrians. You feel this when you go crawling through the tiny side streets and alleyways using only your senses and intuition as guides. These are better guides than star ratings and ego-driven reviews. They’re ancient, ancestral, Primal. They lead to adventure. Yelp and other restaurant review apps have softened us and killed the excitement of stumbling on a great new food spot. They turn trips linear. That’s a shame, because discovering something delicious out of the blue is one of the best parts of traveling.

A favorite meal in Bangkok happened at a breakfast cart serving jok, the Thai version of rice porridge. The family was sleeping and I got up to go for a walk. Rice porridge, pork bone broth, pork liver, pork kidney, ground pork, some type of bitter green topped with salted pickled chilis. It wasn’t in any restaurant guides (I looked). Maybe it’s on Yelp or TripAdvisor these days. But I never would’ve found it if I hadn’t gone walking and noticed the long line and incredible smells.

Go Where Locals Go, Not Where They Say to Go

Many times locals will change their recommendations based on what they think you’ll like. So, the Beijing taxi driver will take you to the place all the other tourists visit, not where he takes his wife for date night. What you want is to eat where the locals actually eat. See where the workers go for lunch, the businessmen for dinner, the laborers for snacks. Watch for teeming crowds, then go eat whatever they’re eating.

Eat the Local Specialty (Allergies and Intolerances Permitting)

Clichés can be tiresome. But they shouldn’t be ignored. They develop for very good reasons, especially when they involve regional delicacies.

Parmigiano-reggiano is not a fad in Modena. Place a crystalline shard on your tongue and try to deny its greatness. Beef is the real deal in Argentina. Eat a ribeye medium rare slathered in chimichurri with a glass of Malbec and call it a cliché. South African biltong destroys any jerky I’ve had back home, especially if it’s made from kudu. Carnitas street tacos with pickled carrots and chilis may be a cliché in Mexico, but you’ll eat three of them at a time if you know what’s good for you.

This being a Primal website, you’re probably leery of certain foods. People with established allergies or intolerances to certain foods should not eat those foods just because they’re the local delicacy. But if you have some leeway, if your physiology allows straying, if the symptoms aren’t that bad, by all means: Stray! Let it be part of the experience.

That said, “stray” does not mean gorge. “Try the hand-pulled noodles this old Uighur grandma serves with cumin lamb” doesn’t mean “Eat it every meal.” Sample. Taste. Enjoy. Appreciate. Move on.

Those are the general lessons I’ve learned from eating abroad. That’s what I’ve taken back, and it’s what I’ve used to extract large amounts of meaning and enjoyment from my travel experiences.

What tips do you have for eating abroad? What have you learned?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

The post What I’ve Learned from Eating Abroad appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Article source here:Marks’s Daily Apple

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royvelasco · 8 years ago

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How Travel Changed My Life

When I was in grade school, I had this very thick book that I kept on browsing every single day. It was a book that shows an overview of every single country around the world. I could still remember those days as I try to understand each country’s history and culture and even speak out some common phrases of different languages. What made my reading experience more pleasing was seeing wonderful pictures of various places. I didn’t know back then that it would be the start of something I would be very passionate about.

Still a decent shot with The Ruins of St. Paul in Macau despite of the crowd XD

Travel has changed my life way before I started traveling. It all began with an interest that suddenly fired up as a passion. My aspiration of seeing those places from the book turned to reality several years after. I could still remember the very first time I set foot on a foreign land. Together with my friends, we were in awe as we had our first ever trip abroad in Macau and Hong Kong. I knew from there that it would be the start of my childhood dream becoming real.

Contemplating at Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Traveling opened my imagination. Traveling doesn’t necessarily mean that you would literally go to places. With that thick book in hand, I was amazed with everything I was seeing from the comforts of our home. There was a time I was hiking Mt. Everest until my mom called me for supper, practicing my French with a local from Paris which turned out to be my Buzz Lightyear action figure, and even hiding from the Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea with the help of my pillows and blanket.

Receiving a blessing from a monk in Angkor Wat

Traveling transformed me to a planner. Every time I travel with friends, I’m always the one planning everything. If it comes to anything travel-related, I would always be the to-go person for questions and suggestions. It all started when I initiated to organize an out of town trip with friends. It turned out to be a success and my friends were very satisfied with the trip. I like laying out an itinerary as I would want to make the most out of my travel. Traveling made me realized how organized and detailed of a person I am. A little bit of spontaneity might be fun but doing research beforehand wouldn’t hurt. It avoids us from mishaps and somehow gives us a glimpse of the destination.

Conquered the 272 steps to Batu Caves, Malaysia

Traveling taught me perseverance. If you dream of something, you need to work hard for it. A dream would forever be a dream if you don’t take actions. Traveling is definitely fun but if you have work and responsibilities to take care of, it would be difficult to sort out the priorities. I have an 8-hour office job but this didn’t stop me from traveling. It’s the sole source for my expenses that’s why I always try to be on my very best at work and thinking of sidelines just to continue financing my travels and at the same time contributing to my family’s needs. If you want to do something, you certainly need hard work and patience simultaneously keeping that passion alive.

Rewarded with an incredible view after that challenging hike to Taraw Cliff

Traveling opened a lot of discoveries and possibilities. I never knew that Vietnamese food and not Thai is my most favorite until I visited Vietnam. I was surprised as we were able to overcome border crossing in Indochina trouble-free. I was very nervous and thought that I couldn’t make it when I was about to hike Taraw Cliff in El Nido, Palawan but then got astonished with the view from the top. I never thought that I could do solo travel for a week. I discovered a lot about myself through traveling and it keeps on revealing more.

Amazed with the grandeur of the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand

I am not perfect and I am not trying to be one but traveling made me a better person. Traveling created a great impact that positively shaped me to something that I wouldn’t imagine. It’s not just about those wonderful pictures uploaded in Instagram, a blog post about this cool place I was just in to, or even as simple as the stamps in my passport. It’s my strong passion to witness the marvels of the world and the courage to make the journey possible. I am a man of my words and I will keep the fire burning. I’ll continue to set foot to new places as I know that I have so much more to see and I promise that I will never get tired of it.

Enjoyed our Mekong Delta Tour in Vietnam with new friends

How travel changed your life? Share your travel stories here: https://www.traveloka.com/en-ph/how-travel-changed-my-life-blogger-contest

#TravelokaPH #WhyITravel #TravelokaStories

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