#happy endings at the end of the universe and other statistical improbabilities

[queenboimler]

workshopping a cosmic horror sci fi story set in a solar system being devoured by the black hole at the center of the milky way galaxy

[mr-entj]

Hi Mr ENTJ, How do you deal with doubt? That gripping feeling that you're just not enough and you should be better? How do you look for answers from the inside rather than just patch in on from the outside? Thanks.

Related answers:

Can you talk about the quality(ies) or trait(s) that contributed most to your success?

What do you think is required from a person to succeed ?

Dealing with failure and overcoming adversity

You’re referring specifically to self-doubt. This is a great question that took me a long time to properly articulate a response because I didn’t want to dismiss it with a stereotypical: “I don’t feel self-doubt. I just fix the problem, power through it, and move on!” like every other ExTJ out there. I want to properly explain why this is the case so let me try:

I don’t often experience self-doubt or the gripping feeling that I’m not good enough, not because I’m a perfect human being (far from it-- here’s a greatest hits collection of some of my biggest failures), but because of my general approach to life that’s shaped by a few key beliefs.

1. I know where the world ends and where I begin

This means that I know where the line exists between what I want and what the world wants, between who I am and who other people want me to be, and between my expectations for my life and other people’s expectations of me. I see this boundary crystal clear and I enforce it. I set my own goals and I hold myself accountable to them.

This helps fight self-doubt because I don’t attach my self-esteem and self-worth to externally defined goals or assessments, I don’t accept unwanted input into my personal life from people who don’t matter, and I don’t compare myself to other people in destructive ways. If I compare myself to other people, it’s for the purposes of data gathering and not validation.

For example, the knowledge that most students graduate college in 4 years tells me that 4 years is the average amount of time. My key takeaway is that 3 years is above average speed and 4+ years is below average speed so I should aim to get my degree in approximately 4 years. My key takeaway is not that I’m a disastrous failure if I don’t graduate college in 4 years. And FYI, I ended up graduating in 6 years because I dropped out for 2 years and I still turned out fine.

Self-defined and self-enforced goals are critical to combating self-doubt because they mute all the outside noise; pushy parents, nosy friends, aggressive colleagues, and fickle societal standards. Life is very difficult by itself without the added complexity of multiple people pulling you in different directions that you don’t even want to go. Set clear boundaries and take the time to self-reflect what’s important to you so that you can be happy with the results of your efforts even if they don’t yield acknowledgement from anyone else.

tl;dr:

Find peace with the life you create for yourself because it’s you that has to live it.

2. I keep the big picture in mind, always

This means perspective. In the grand scheme of things, small losses here and there don’t amount to much because life is a marathon and not a sprint. This means that if you screw up today, there’s a high chance you can fix it tomorrow. If not, then know the world isn’t going to end because of it. The sun will still rise, babies will still be born, puppies will still be cute, your family will still love you, Tumblr will still be toxic, and the earth will still spin on its axis. I have failed classes, almost got held back in school, screwed up at work, infuriated important people, been rejected from 100+ jobs, lost important scholarships, and things still worked out because those failures didn’t matter in the long run even if they felt enormous at the time I was experiencing them. I know mistakes can be fixed, they’re not permanent, and they don’t sabotage the grand vision I have for my life. It makes the times I fall on my ass less painful which consequently makes me less fearful of trying to fly over and over again until I get it right.

This helps fight self-doubt because I attach failure to individual outcomes (actions) but I do not attach failure to me personally (identity).

For example, if I applied to Harvard University but got rejected, my interpretation of that outcome is this: “I failed to get into Harvard.” Yes, I failed to get into Harvard (action) but no, I am not a failure (identity).

The failure starts and stops at the end of an outcome, I don’t let it escape its container and infect other parts of my life by internalizing this kind of garbage: “I failed to get into Harvard so I’m dumb, I’m unworthy, and I suck.” This prevents self-doubt because I know failure is an isolated incident and I don’t take it personally. I don’t absorb failure as a personal identity-- I attach it to the specific event, action, or outcome and then store it in my vast library of knowledge as a lesson learned.

tl;dr:

Life is long and screwing up is part of the journey. Remember that you can fail at things (action) without being a failure (identity).

3. I accept that life is a game of probability

This means that I view life as a statistics game with events on a sliding scale between low probability of success and high probability of success. Probability of success is influenced by many variables such as my preparation, my natural abilities, the economy, my competition, timing, etc. I adjust the probability of success based on those variables to make better predictions:

I know that if my goal is to join the National Basketball Association (NBA), my probability of success is lower because my basketball skills and physical traits are below the average of a typical professional basketball player.

I know that if my goal is to get accepted to one of the best universities in the world, my probability of success is higher because my grades, test scores, and academic profile are above the average of a typical applicant.

Low probability of success doesn’t mean low effort. I don’t half-ass things that are unlikely to happen, I put high effort in all my endeavors if I really care about them and an obvious example of that is my life. Everything I’ve achieved in my life has been statistically improbable because I come from an underprivileged background where it was highly unlikely for me to have the life I have now. I beat the odds and achieved my goals anyway because I maximized my chances of success.

This perspective influences how I interpret success and failure:

Low probability of success that results in failure: “This outcome is what I expected so I’m not surprised, but at least I tried, gave it my best shot, and I know the answer. I’ll learn where I can improve and take that knowledge forward into the future.”

Low probability of success that results in success: “This outcome is not what I expected but I’m pleased it went my way. I understand this was an exception to the norm and I’m grateful it leaned in my favor.”

High probability of success that results in success: “This outcome is what I expected and I’m pleased it went my way. I need to continue doing the things that worked well and keep that knowledge for future reference.”

High probability of success that results in failure: “This outcome is not what I expected so I’m disappointed. I need to evaluate why I failed, understand how I can improve, and try again until I get it right.”

This helps fight self-doubt because it does one very crucial thing for me: it makes it impossible for me to lose.

I tell people all the time: “I’m undefeated because I’m still standing and I’m still going.” I can’t lose, I can only learn. It enables me to set realistic goals, have realistic expectations about my chances to achieve them, understand why I failed, and feel grateful when I succeed. Success is never guaranteed and failure is always accounted for in my calculations so I’m never blindsided. I know that I can be “perfect” and still fail, but I also know that I can be “imperfect” and still succeed. If I’ve done everything within my power and it’s still not going my way, then I’m not plagued with self-doubt because I can accept it was beyond my control and that it’s time to try something else.

tl;dr:

Many things in life are out of your control but try your best so you have peace of mind that you’re not quitting-- you’re moving on.

I’m not invincible, but for these reasons, it’s rare for me to feel self-doubt because I don’t view life as a game of “am I good enough or not?” I view life as a game of “what’s the best way to get what I want and did it work?” My two options are then: 1) Succeed, learn, and move on or 2) Fail, learn, and move on. There’s no third option to spiral into uncertainty and crippling self-doubt. I focus my energy on identifying the problem, the variables I can control, and the learnings from my outcomes.

In the rare times I do feel self-doubt, I go through a rigorous self-reflection exercise to identify the cause whether that’s concerns about personal decisions I’ve made, thoughts on my professional trajectory, or the state of my relationships. I identify the outcome that I want, gather information on how to secure that outcome, and give it my best shot. The result of that effort provides knowledge, wisdom, and opportunities to either 1) continue on the same path or 2) stop and try something else.

Ultimately, I always feel like there’s something wonderful in life waiting for me just around the corner and agonizing over past failures or self-doubt-- instead of getting up and trying again-- only delays me getting it.

[phroyd]

When I ask my European friends to describe us — Americans, Brits, who I’ll call Anglo-Americans in this essay — they shake their heads gently. And over and over, three themes emerge. They say we’re a little thoughtless. They say we’re selfish and arrogant. And they say that we’re cruel and brutal.

I can’t help but think there’s more than a grain of truth. That they’re being kind. Anglo-American society is now the world’s preeminent example of willful self-destruction. It’s jaw-dropping folly and stupidity is breathtaking to the rest of the world.

The hard truth is this. America and Britain aren’t just collapsing by the day…they aren’t even just choosing to collapse by the day. They’re entering a death spiral, from which there’s probably no return. Yes, really. Simple economics dictate that, just like they did for the Soviet Union — and I’ll come to them.

And yet what’s even weirder and more grotesque than that is that…wel…nobody much seems to have noticed. There’s a deafening silence from pundits and elites and columnists and politicians on the joint self-destruction of the Anglo-American world. Nobody seems to have noticed: the only two rich societies in the world with falling life expectancies, incomes, savings, happiness, trust — every single social indicator you can imagine — are America and Britain. It’s not one of history’s most improbable coincidences that America and Britain are collapsing in eerily similar ways, at precisely the same time. It’s a relationship. What connects the dots?

Let me pause to note that my European friends’ first criticism — that we’re thoughtless — is therefore accurate. We’re not even capable of noticing — much less understanding — our twin collapse. Our entire thinking and leadership class seems not to have even noticed, like idiots grinning and dancing, setting their own house on fire. They are simply going on pretending it isn’t happening — that the English speaking world isn’t fast becoming something very much like the new Soviet Union.

So what caused this joint collapse? How did the English speaking world end up like the new Soviet Union? To understand that point, consider the fact that you yourself probably think that’s an overstatement. But it’s an empirical reality. The Soviet Union stagnated for thirty years. America’s stagnated for fifty, and Britain for twenty. The Soviet Union couldn’t provide basics for its citizens — hence the famous breadlines. In America, people beg each other for money to pay for insulin and antibiotics, decent food is unavailable in vast swathes of the country, and retirement and paying off one’s debt are impossibilities: just like in the Soviet Union, basics are becoming both unavailable and unaffordable. What happens? People…die.

(The same is true in Britain. In both societies, upwards of 20% of children live in poverty, the middle class has imploded, and upward mobility has all but vanished. These are Soviet statistics — lethally real ones.)

Politics, too, has become a sclerotic Soviet affair. Anglo-American societies aren’t really democracies in any sensible meaning of the word anymore. They’re run by and for a class of elites, who could care less, literally, whether the average person lives or dies. In America, that class is a bizarre coterie of Ivy Leaguers pretending to be aw-shucks-good-ole-boys on the one side, like Ted Cruz, and Ivy Leaguers pretending to be do-gooders on the other, like Zuck and Silicon Valley. In Britain, it’s the notorious public school boys, the Etonians and Oxbridge set.

That brings me to arrogance. What’s astonishing about our elites is how…arrogant they are…and how ignorant they are…at precisely the same time. Finland just elected a 34 year old woman as a Prime Minister from the Social Democrats. Finland is a society that outperforms ours in every way — every way — imaginable. Finnish happiness is way, way higher — and so is life expectancy, mobility, savings, real incomes, trust, among others. And yet instead of learning a thing from a miracle like that, our elites profess to know a better way…while they’ve run our societies into the ground. What the? Hubris would be an understatement. I don’t think the English language has a word for this weird, fatal combination of arrogance amidst ignorance. Maybe cocksure stupidity comes close.

And yet our elites have succeeded in one vital task — what an Emile Durkheim might have called “social reproduction.” They’ve managed to reproduce society in their image. What does the average Anglo-American aspire to be, do, have? To be rich, powerful, careless, selfish, and dumb, now, mostly. We don’t, as societies or cultures, value learning or knowledge or magnanimity or great and noble things, anymore. We shower millions on reality TV stars and billions on “investment bankers.” The average person has become a tiny microcosm of the aspirations and norms of elites — they’re not curious, empathetic, decent, humane, noble, kind, in pursuit of wisdom, truth, beauty, meaning, purpose. We’ve become cruel, indecent, obscene, comically shallow, and astonishingly foolish people.

That’s not some kind of jeremiad. It’s an objective, easily observed truth. Who else in a rich society denies their neighbours healthcare and retirement? Nobody. Who else denies their own kids education? Nobody. Who else denies themselves childcare and elderly care? Nobody. Who else doesn’t want safety nets, opportunities, mobility, protection, savings, higher incomes? Nobody. Literally nobody on planet earth wants worse lives excepts us. We’re the only people on earth who thwart our own social progress, over and over again — and cheer about it.

How did we become these people? How did we become tiny microcosms of our arrogant, ignorant, breathtakingly stupid elites? Because we are perpetually battling for self-preservation. Life has become a kind of brutal combat to the death. For jobs, for healthcare, for money, for the tiniest shreds of resources necessary to live. We wake up and fight one another for these things, over and over again. That is what our lives amount to now — gladiatorial combat. Meanwhile, elites and billionaires sit back and enjoy not just the spectacle — but the winnings.

People who are battling for self-preservation can’t take care of anyone else. If I ask the average Brit or American to consider paying for their society’s healthcare, education, elderly care, childcare, increasingly, the answer is: LOL. In America, it always has been. Why is that? The reason couldn’t be simpler. People can’t even take care of themselves and their own. How can they take care of anyone else — let alone everyone else?

The average person is living right at the edge. Not at the edge of the middle class dream and an even better one. But at the edge of poverty and destitution. They struggle to pay basic bills and never make ends meet. They can’t afford to educate their children, and retire, or retire and have healthcare, and so on. Let me say it again: the average person can’t take care of themselves and their own — so how can they take care of anyone else, let alone everyone else?

A more technical, formal way to say that is: our societies have now become too poor to afford public goods and social systems. But public goods and social systems are what make a modern, rich society. What’s a society without decent healthcare, schools, universities, libraries, education, parks, transport, media — available to all, without life-crippling “debt”? It’s not a modern society at all. But more and more, it’s not America or Britain, either.

What makes European societies — which are far, far more successful than ours — successful is that people are not battling for self-preservation, and so they are able to cooperate to better one another instead. At least not nearly so much and so lethally as we are. They are assured of survival. They therefore have resources to share with others. They don’t have to battle for the very things we take away from each other — because they simply give them to one another. That has kept them richer than us, too. The average American now lives in effective poverty — unable to afford healthcare, housing, and basic bills. They must choose. The European doesn’t have to, precisely because they invested in one another — and those investment made them richer than us.

We are caught in a death spiral now. A vicious cycle from which there is probably no escape. The average person is too poor to fund the very things — the only things — which can offer him a better life: healthcare, education, childcare, healthcare, and so on. The average person is too poor to fund public goods and social systems. The average person is too poor now to able to give anything to anyone else, to invest anything in anyone else. He lives and dies in debt to begin with — so what does he have left over to give back, put back, invest?

A more technical, formal way to put all that is this. Europeans distributed their social surplus more fairly than we did. They didn’t give all the winnings to idiot billionaires like Zucks and con men like Trump. They kept middle and working classes better off than us. As a result, those middle and working classes were able to invest in expansive public goods and social systems. Those things — good healthcare, education, transport, media — kept life improving for everyone. That virtuous circle of investing a fairly distributed social surplus created a true economic miracle over just one human lifetime: Europe rose from the ashes of war to enjoy history’s highest living standards, ever, period.

That’s changing in Europe, to be sure. But that is because Europe is becoming Americanized, Anglicized. It has a generation of leaders foolish enough to follow our lead — now remember the greatest lesson of European history, which is one of the greatest lessons of history, full stop. That lesson goes like this.

People who are made to live right at the edge must battle each other for self-preservation. But such people have nothing left to give one another. And that way, a society enters a death spiral of poverty — like ours have.

People who can’t make ends meet can’t even invest in themselves — let alone anyone else. Such a society has to eat through whatever public goods and social systems it has, just to survive. It never develops or expands new ones.

The result is that a whole society grows poorer and poorer. Unable to invest in themselves or one another, people’s only real way out is to fight each other for self-preservation, by taking away their neighbor’s rights, privileges, and opportunities — instead of being able to give any new ones to anyone. Why give everyone healthcare and education when you can’t even afford your own? How are you supposed to?

Society melts down into a spiral of extremism and fascism, as ever increasing poverty brings hate, violence, fear, and rage with it. Trust erodes, democracy corrodes, social bonds are torn apart, and the only norms left are Darwinian-fascist ones: the strong survive, and the weak must perish.

(Let me spend a second or two on that last point. As they become poorer, people begin to distrust each other — and then hate each other. Why wouldn’t they? After all, the grim reality is that they actually are fighting each other for existence, for the basic resources of life, like medicine, money, and food.

As distrust becomes hate, people who have nothing to give anyways end up having no reason to even hope to give anything back to anyone else. Why give anything to those people you are fighting, every single day, for the most meagre resources necessary to live? Why give the very people who denied you healthcare and education anything? Isn’t the only real point of life to show that you beat them by having a bigger house, faster car, prettier wife or husband?)

That is how a society dies. That is the death spiral of a rich society. In technical terms, it goes like this. A social surplus isn’t distributed equitably. That leaves the average person too poor to invest anything back in society. He’s just battling for self-preservation, and the stakes are life or death. But that battle itself only breeds even more poverty. Because without investment, nurturance, nourishment — nothing can grow. Having become poor, the average person only grows poorer — because he will never have decent public goods or social systems, let alone the rights and privileges and jobs and careers and trajectories they become and lead to.

A society of people so poor they have nothing left over to invest in one another is dying. It goes from prosperity to poverty, from optimism to pessimism, from cohesion to distrust and hate, from peace to violence — at light speed, in the space of a generation. That’s America and Britain’s story today, just as it was the Soviet Union’s, yesterday, and Weimar Germany’s, before that.

You can see how a society dies — with horrific, brutal clarity — in the self-destruction of America and Britain. The hate-filled vitriol of Trumpism, the barely-hidden hate of Brexit. Why wouldn’t people who have grown suddenly poor hate everyone else? Why wouldn’t they blame anyone and everyone they can — from Mexicans to Muslims to Europeans — for their own decline? The truth, as always, is harder. America and Britain’s collapse is nobody’s fault — nobody’s — but their own.

They are in a death spiral now, but no opponent or adversary brought them there. It was their own fault, and yet they still go on choosing it. They don’t know any other way now. Their elites succeeded at making the average person truly, fervently believe that battling perpetually for self-preservation was the only way a society could exist.

And though it’s too late to escape for them, let us hope that the rest of the world, from Europe to Asia to Africa, learns the lesson of the sad, gruesome, stupid, astonishing tragedy of self-inflicted collapse.

Umair December 2019

Phroyd

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 388

CHANGE OR CHOICE: IS THE UNIVERSE AN ACCIDENT: Part 2

However, our grasp of the conditions that prevailed in the early universe does not translate into a full understanding of how galaxies formed. Many scientists believe that the hydrogen and helium gases that filled the universe must have been pulled into concentrations by gravity. But there are problems with this explanation: for, what could cause large, diffuse gas clouds to collapse, even with the aid of gravity, while the universe as a whole is expanding?

Having established that the universe began in a hot big bang, and being tolerably happy with a rough understanding of how galaxies formed, the truly cosmological question remaining for astronomers to puzzle over is whether the universe is open (will it expand forever) or closed (will it one day collapse into a new fireball)?

The answer lies in its density. The symbol used for the mass density of the universe is Omega. If Omega, is less than 1, the universe will expand forever, so that, eventually, all the galaxies and stars will grow dark and cold. The alternative to this ‘big chill’ is a ‘big crunch.’ If Omega is more than 1, gravity will eventually reverse the expansion, and all matter and energy will be reunited. For the present, since we are not sure how galaxies formed, the value of Omega is uncertain-most astronomers put it somewhere between 0.1 and 1.

While eternal expansion is the generally favoured hypothesis; there may be enough of the unseen matter in the universe to produce a gravitational pull capable of halting the expansion and eventually producing a recollapse. Though the case is not yet proven, one current idea is that neutrinos, once believed to be massless particles, may have a rest mass less than 1/10000 of an electron. As neutrinos are thought to be as numerous as photons, their aggregate mass could suffice to close the universe. The fact that we cannot see enough matter to close the universe does not mean that it is not there.

During the next decade, as techniques for measuring the mass of the universe improve, we may learn whether the present expansion is headed toward a big chill or a big crunch. What happens then? Just as we do not know how everything could appear from nothing in the big bang if space-time did not exist, we do not know what happens to the universe at this stage; the laws of physics are inadequate to describe such extreme conditions. If there is ever to be a solution to the mystery of the origin and end of the universe, it must await a substantial increase in our understanding of the quantum nature of gravity-the big bang account of creation has forged an unlikely marriage between cosmology, the science of the very large, and particle physics, the science of the very small.

In any event, the universe we inhabit seems to be very improbable. Random processes and statistical fluctuations on cosmological time scales could easily have made it quite inhospitable to life. Are we just lucky? Or is there some deep significance to the fact that we live in a universe just right for us?

For all its violence-including the possibility of a black hole resident at the centre of our own galaxy-the universe seems to be an ideal place for man. Everywhere we look in the universe, from far flung galaxies to the deepest recesses of the atom, we encounter order. The laws of physics can explain beautifully the analytic structure of nature, the behaviour of individual particles and fields, but tell us nothing about the collective, collaborative organization of matter: that is, how the world is put together.

Why is the world the way it is and not otherwise? This is not the type of question scientists normally ask. The customary approach to scientific inquiry is to discuss what we see, not what we might see. Nevertheless, the universe is such a remarkable place, and we, as observers, are perhaps the most remarkable feature, it seems worth while ascertaining just how probable or improbable the present arrangement is.

For example, we do not understand why the fundamental constants of nature have the values they do. Einstein captured its essence when he said: ‘What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.’ Very slight changes in the physical constants of nature could have made the universe unfold in a completely different manner.

Most of the features of the everyday world and the astronomical scene are determined by a few basic physical laws and constants, such as the masses of the elementary particles and the relative strengths of the basic forces that operate between them. In many cases, a rather delicate balance seems to prevail. For example, if the nuclear forces were slightly stronger then they actually are, compared with electromagnetism, the di-proton-an atomic nucleus containing just two protons and no other particle-would be stable; ordinary hydrogen would not exist, and stars would evolve very differently. If nuclear forces were slightly weaker, no chemical elements other than hydrogen would be stable, and chemistry would be dull indeed. In either case, we would not be here to ponder such matters.

Or suppose the constant of gravity were stronger and the gravitational force were, say 1030 times weaker than the electromagnetic force instead of a factor of 1040 weaker. Then we would have a small-scale, speeded-up universe, in which stars-gravitationally bound fusion redactors-had only 10-15 times the sun’s mass, and lived for about a year. This might not allow time for complex systems-such as life forms-to evolve. The question-Was the relative strength of electromagnetic force over the gravitational force there from the beginning of time or is it an accident of today? -remains intractable.

These mysteries are heightened when we reflect how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any of several physical quantities had slightly different values. The best known of these quantities is the energy of one of the excited states of the carbon-12 nucleus. There is an essential step in the chain of nuclear reactions that build up heavy elements in stars. In this step, two helium nuclei join together to form the unstable nucleus of beryllium-8, which sometimes before fissioning absorbs another helium nucleus, forming carbon-12 in this excited state. The carbon-12 nucleus then emits a photon and decays into the stable state of lowest energy. In subsequent nuclear reactions carbon is built up into oxygen and nitrogen and the other heavy elements necessary for life. If the energy of the excited state of carbon-12 were just a little higher, the rate of its formation would be much less, so that almost all the beryllium-8 nuclei would fission into helium nuclei before carbon could be formed. The universe would then consist almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, without the ingredients for life.

Moreover, if the proton and neutron masses were equal, then neutrons and protons could not bind to form deuterium and heavy nuclei, and nuclear burning in stars and, consequently, life would be impossible.

[notanecromancer]

This is How a Society Dies America and Britain are Textbook Examples of a New, Gruesome Phenomeon: Rich Nations Self-Destructing Into Poor Failed States Umair Haque

When I ask my European friends to describe us — Americans, Brits, who I’ll call Anglo-Americans in this essay — they shake their heads gently. And over and over, three themes emerge. They say we’re a little thoughtless. They say we’re selfish and arrogant. And they say that we’re cruel and brutal. I can’t help but think there’s more than a grain of truth. That they’re being kind. Anglo-American society is now the world’s preeminent example of willful self-destruction. It’s jaw-dropping folly and stupidity is breathtaking to the rest of the world. The hard truth is this. America and Britain aren’t just collapsing by the day…they aren’t even just choosing to collapse by the day. They’re entering a death spiral, from which there’s probably no return. Yes, really. Simple economics dictate that, just like they did for the Soviet Union — and I’ll come to them. And yet what’s even weirder and more grotesque than that is that…wel…nobody much seems to have noticed. There’s a deafening silence from pundits and elites and columnists and politicians on the joint self-destruction of the Anglo-American world. Nobody seems to have noticed: the only two rich societies in the world with falling life expectancies, incomes, savings, happiness, trust — every single social indicator you can imagine — are America and Britain. It’s not one of history’s most improbable coincidences that America and Britain are collapsing in eerily similar ways, at precisely the same time. It’s a relationship. What connects the dots? Let me pause to note that my European friends’ first criticism — that we’re thoughtless — is therefore accurate. We’re not even capable of noticing — much less understanding — our twin collapse. Our entire thinking and leadership class seems not to have even noticed, like idiots grinning and dancing, setting their own house on fire. They are simply going on pretending it isn’t happening — that the English speaking world isn’t fast becoming something very much like the new Soviet Union. So what caused this joint collapse? How did the English speaking world end up like the new Soviet Union? To understand that point, consider the fact that you yourself probably think that’s an overstatement. But it’s an empirical reality. The Soviet Union stagnated for thirty years. America’s stagnated for fifty, and Britain for twenty. The Soviet Union couldn’t provide basics for its citizens — hence the famous breadlines. In America, people beg each other for money to pay for insulin and antibiotics, decent food is unavailable in vast swathes of the country, and retirement and paying off one’s debt are impossibilities: just like in the Soviet Union, basics are becoming both unavailable and unaffordable. What happens? People…die. (The same is true in Britain. In both societies, upwards of 20% of children live in poverty, the middle class has imploded, and upward mobility has all but vanished. These are Soviet statistics — lethally real ones.) Politics, too, has become a sclerotic Soviet affair. Anglo-American societies aren’t really democracies in any sensible meaning of the word anymore. They’re run by and for a class of elites, who could care less, literally, whether the average person lives or dies. In America, that class is a bizarre coterie of Ivy Leaguers pretending to be aw-shucks-good-ole-boys on the one side, like Ted Cruz, and Ivy Leaguers pretending to be do-gooders on the other, like Zuck and Silicon Valley. In Britain, it’s the notorious public school boys, the Etonians and Oxbridge set. That brings me to arrogance. What’s astonishing about our elites is how…arrogant they are…and how ignorant they are…at precisely the same time. Finland just elected a 34 year old woman as a Prime Minister from the Social Democrats. Finland is a society that outperforms ours in every way — every way — imaginable. Finnish happiness is way, way higher — and so is life expectancy, mobility, savings, real incomes, trust, among others. And yet instead of learning a thing from a miracle like that, our elites profess to know a better way…while they’ve run our societies into the ground. What the? Hubris would be an understatement. I don’t think the English language has a word for this weird, fatal combination of arrogance amidst ignorance. Maybe cocksure stupidity comes close. And yet our elites have succeeded in one vital task — what an Emile Durkheim might have called “social reproduction.” They’ve managed to reproduce society in their image. What does the average Anglo-American aspire to be, do, have? To be rich, powerful, careless, selfish, and dumb, now, mostly. We don’t, as societies or cultures, value learning or knowledge or magnanimity or great and noble things, anymore. We shower millions on reality TV stars and billions on “investment bankers.” The average person has become a tiny microcosm of the aspirations and norms of elites — they’re not curious, empathetic, decent, humane, noble, kind, in pursuit of wisdom, truth, beauty, meaning, purpose. We’ve become cruel, indecent, obscene, comically shallow, and astonishingly foolish people. That’s not some kind of jeremiad. It’s an objective, easily observed truth. Who else in a rich society denies their neighbours healthcare and retirement? Nobody. Who else denies their own kids education? Nobody. Who else denies themselves childcare and elderly care? Nobody. Who else doesn’t want safety nets, opportunities, mobility, protection, savings, higher incomes? Nobody. Literally nobody on planet earth wants worse lives excepts us. We’re the only people on earth who thwart our own social progress, over and over again — and cheer about it. How did we become these people? How did we become tiny microcosms of our arrogant, ignorant, breathtakingly stupid elites? Because we are perpetually battling for self-preservation. Life has become a kind of brutal combat to the death. For jobs, for healthcare, for money, for the tiniest shreds of resources necessary to live. We wake up and fight one another for these things, over and over again. That is what our lives amount to now — gladiatorial combat. Meanwhile, elites and billionaires sit back and enjoy not just the spectacle — but the winnings. People who are battling for self-preservation can’t take care of anyone else. If I ask the average Brit or American to consider paying for their society’s healthcare, education, elderly care, childcare, increasingly, the answer is: LOL. In America, it always has been. Why is that? The reason couldn’t be simpler. People can’t even take care of themselves and their own. How can they take care of anyone else — let alone everyone else? The average person is living right at the edge. Not at the edge of the middle class dream and an even better one. But at the edge of poverty and destitution. They struggle to pay basic bills and never make ends meet. They can’t afford to educate their children, and retire, or retire and have healthcare, and so on. Let me say it again: the average person can’t take care of themselves and their own — so how can they take care of anyone else, let alone everyone else? A more technical, formal way to say that is: our societies have now become too poor to afford public goods and social systems. But public goods and social systems are what make a modern, rich society. What’s a society without decent healthcare, schools, universities, libraries, education, parks, transport, media — available to all, without life-crippling “debt”? It’s not a modern society at all. But more and more, it’s not America or Britain, either. What makes European societies — which are far, far more successful than ours — successful is that people are not battling for self-preservation, and so they are able to cooperate to better one another instead. At least not nearly so much and so lethally as we are. They are assured of survival. They therefore have resources to share with others. They don’t have to battle for the very things we take away from each other — because they simply give them to one another. That has kept them richer than us, too. The average American now lives in effective poverty — unable to afford healthcare, housing, and basic bills. They must choose. The European doesn’t have to, precisely because they invested in one another — and those investment made them richer than us. We are caught in a death spiral now. A vicious cycle from which there is probably no escape. The average person is too poor to fund the very things — the only things — which can offer him a better life: healthcare, education, childcare, healthcare, and so on. The average person is too poor to fund public goods and social systems. The average person is too poor now to able to give anything to anyone else, to invest anything in anyone else. He lives and dies in debt to begin with — so what does he have left over to give back, put back, invest? A more technical, formal way to put all that is this. Europeans distributed their social surplus more fairly than we did. They didn’t give all the winnings to idiot billionaires like Zucks and con men like Trump. They kept middle and working classes better off than us. As a result, those middle and working classes were able to invest in expansive public goods and social systems. Those things — good healthcare, education, transport, media — kept life improving for everyone. That virtuous circle of investing a fairly distributed social surplus created a true economic miracle over just one human lifetime: Europe rose from the ashes of war to enjoy history’s highest living standards, ever, period. That’s changing in Europe, to be sure. But that is because Europe is becoming Americanized, Anglicized. It has a generation of leaders foolish enough to follow our lead — now remember the greatest lesson of European history, which is one of the greatest lessons of history, full stop. That lesson goes like this. People who are made to live right at the edge must battle each other for self-preservation. But such people have nothing left to give one another. And that way, a society enters a death spiral of poverty — like ours have. People who can’t make ends meet can’t even invest in themselves — let alone anyone else. Such a society has to eat through whatever public goods and social systems it has, just to survive. It never develops or expands new ones. The result is that a whole society grows poorer and poorer. Unable to invest in themselves or one another, people’s only real way out is to fight each other for self-preservation, by taking away their neighbor’s rights, privileges, and opportunities — instead of being able to give any new ones to anyone. Why give everyone healthcare and education when you can’t even afford your own? How are you supposed to? Society melts down into a spiral of extremism and fascism, as ever increasing poverty brings hate, violence, fear, and rage with it. Trust erodes, democracy corrodes, social bonds are torn apart, and the only norms left are Darwinian-fascist ones: the strong survive, and the weak must perish. (Let me spend a second or two on that last point. As they become poorer, people begin to distrust each other — and then hate each other. Why wouldn’t they? After all, the grim reality is that they actually are fighting each other for existence, for the basic resources of life, like medicine, money, and food. As distrust becomes hate, people who have nothing to give anyways end up having no reason to even hope to give anything back to anyone else. Why give anything to those people you are fighting, every single day, for the most meagre resources necessary to live? Why give the very people who denied you healthcare and education anything? Isn’t the only real point of life to show that you beat them by having a bigger house, faster car, prettier wife or husband?) That is how a society dies. That is the death spiral of a rich society. In technical terms, it goes like this. A social surplus isn’t distributed equitably. That leaves the average person too poor to invest anything back in society. He’s just battling for self-preservation, and the stakes are life or death. But that battle itself only breeds even more poverty. Because without investment, nurturance, nourishment — nothing can grow. Having become poor, the average person only grows poorer — because he will never have decent public goods or social systems, let alone the rights and privileges and jobs and careers and trajectories they become and lead to. A society of people so poor they have nothing left over to invest in one another is dying. It goes from prosperity to poverty, from optimism to pessimism, from cohesion to distrust and hate, from peace to violence — at light speed, in the space of a generation. That’s America and Britain’s story today, just as it was the Soviet Union’s, yesterday, and Weimar Germany’s, before that. You can see how a society dies — with horrific, brutal clarity — in the self-destruction of America and Britain. The hate-filled vitriol of Trumpism, the barely-hidden hate of Brexit. Why wouldn’t people who have grown suddenly poor hate everyone else? Why wouldn’t they blame anyone and everyone they can — from Mexicans to Muslims to Europeans — for their own decline? The truth, as always, is harder. America and Britain’s collapse is nobody’s fault — nobody’s — but their own. They are in a death spiral now, but no opponent or adversary brought them there. It was their own fault, and yet they still go on choosing it. They don’t know any other way now. Their elites succeeded at making the average person truly, fervently believe that battling perpetually for self-preservation was the only way a society could exist. And though it’s too late to escape for them, let us hope that the rest of the world, from Europe to Asia to Africa, learns the lesson of the sad, gruesome, stupid, astonishing tragedy of self-inflicted collapse. Umair December 2019 Eudaimonia and Co.

[jedifighterpilot2727]

The Rook

After Lex reveals Kara's secret identity, Lena thinks she's fine - until she's not. The one person she trusted implicitly has betrayed her trust, and she doesn't know if she'll ever be able to believe in people again.

It's a tough lesson, but some things you just can't live without.

AKA - the angsty post S4 fic where Lena experiences heartbreak and anger as well as discovers the meaning of true love.

"I don't want to kill Supergirl, I just want her to experience the same hurt she inflicted on me."

*Hides behind rock* I know, it's been like 5 months, and I'm sorry! The book is still chugging along, but after seeing the SG trailer at SDCC I had to write something! Cue angst, heartbreak and devastating loss (with a happy ending of course!) Buckle in y'all, it's gonna get worse before it gets better!

Oh! and every chapter has a song to fit the mood! First up is "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" by Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus.

Nothing Breaks Like a Heart

Numb.

Lena’s not exactly sure how else to describe it.

The feeling in her chest that spreads out to her finger tips, the heavy, sinking feeling that makes her feel like she drowning.

She not unfamiliar with the feeling.

Quite the opposite, actually.

She’s spent the majority of her life near suffocation from the choking feelings of inadequacy and betrayal.

Practically from the start of her time with the Luthors, she’d been judged and ridiculed and left on the outskirts.

Maybe not overtly, but certainly purposefully.

She knows without a doubt that Lilian orchestrated most of her young life in order to maximize feelings of ‘less than’.

Whatever she had done to gain the Luthor Matron’s ire had occurred long before she set foot in the Luthor Mansion.

Regardless, of the reason, she dealt with the consequences for years - long days at various different lessons, Irish boarding school, hard pressure to get early acceptance into MIT. Even once she had graduated and was doing ground breaking experimental work with Jack, Lilian’s glare was a constant presence over her shoulder.

It became even worse once she took over L Corp - doubly so. Nothing she ever did lived up to Lex’s legend, and she certainly never bowed to the Luthor agenda.

She had finally caved to Lilian’s pressure, hoping to do something to gain her mother’s approval -  an alien detection device, one that would allow regular citizens to tell if the people they were interacting with aliens disguised as humans.

She was so confident that the device would win over Lilian’s good will, that she would finally live up to the Luthor name, (without being a murdering psychopath).

But then, something had happened, something that had made her realize that maybe she didn’t need to toe the line of xenophobia to gain the approval she was seeking.

Her entire world had turned upside down the day that Kara Danvers had walked in her office, offering a kind rebuke at the alien detection device.

Suddenly, her entire world had shifted.

Her desire for Lilian’s approval wasn’t gone, but now it paled in comparison to the need for Kara’s. (Maybe that was a stupid reason to nix a million dollar project and piss off investors, but it sounds better that saying a pretty girl made her do it.)

And unlike Lilian’s approval, Kara’s was easily given.

Nearly anything she did was met with unwavering approval, and unfaltering enthusiasm.

It was like crack, honestly, having someone who supported her and believed in her like Kara. Every time something came up that she thought would finally shake Kara’s trust, it backfired in the exact opposite direction.

Evidence shows that she’s stealing Kryptonite?

Kara stands up for her.

Evidence shows that she’s poisoning little kids?

Kara stands up for her.

Even when she hides Sam’s condition from Kara’s . . . friend, Supergirl -

Kara stands up for her.

It’s intoxicating, and it has nothing to do with Kara’s perfect hair and beautiful smile.

it has nothing to do with how Kara brings her donuts during Lilian’s trial.

It has nothing to do with how she always smiles at Lena, even in the face of Supergirl’s disapproving pout.

And it definitely has nothing to do with the way Kara smells when she wraps an arm around Lena and solemnly promises to always be there for her.

It’s just nice, to be supported and believed in for once in her life.

It’s even more nice to have a self-proclaimed best friend that stands by her no matter what

(It does help that Lena has a huge, gigantic, undeniable crush on said best friend.)

But it’s not like she can say anything.

There’s no way that sweet, charming, beautiful, sometimes trips over her own words Kara would ever feel the same way about Lena.

It’s a statistical improbability,

Which is exactly why Lena suffers through lunches and game nights and a few too close to be just friendly hugs.

Kara’s friendship is enough, she shouldn’t want more. Kara is already so much better than anything she ever dreamed of having, she isn’t going to risk what they have by confessing something as inconvenient as feelings.

So she shoves her feelings away in a little box, and refuses to acknowledge them. Just like she refuses to acknowledge that her best friend looks a lot like the girl of steel.

She over compensates, almost to the point of hilarity; pushing Kara behind her in dangerous situations, insisting on being mad at her alter ego while still cozying up to her favorite reporter.

It’s stupid, but it somehow works in her brain. Allows her to ignore the fact that her best friend in the entire universe is also maybe, sort of, definitely Supergirl.

(It also allows her to ignore that Kara hasn’t told her said fact.)

It hurts, in a weird way, knowing that Kara is keeping something so important from her. But just like the facts, she puts that in a little box and ignores it too.

At least, until it all comes crashing down.

Lex, the goddamn bastard, couldn’t be good for anything, not even in death.

And if Lena feels like shit for thinking such a thing, she feels even worse knowing that what he’s telling her is true.

All of her little boxes come flying open, and they refuse to be closed again, no matter how hard she tries.

Kara’s identity, all the feelings of inadequacy and rejection, her burning desire for belonging and family - all of it comes rushing to the surface.

She tries to fight it, she does, but it feels unavoidable as it all comes crashing down around her.

Kara, her best friend, is Supergirl.

She was blind not to see it before, really.

She blames it on the little boxes.

Now though, she can’t deny it.

Kara is Supergirl.

And it hurts, somewhere deep in her chest.

Some part of her recognizes it as those feelings of inadequacy and unbelonging that belong to Lilian. Only now it’s her best friend making her feel that way. The person that promised to always be in her corner and have her back.

It’s almost debilitating.

She tries so hard to shove that in a little box too, but it doesn’t work. If anything, it backfires.

 ”You're with me, right?” Kara asks her on game night, and Lena stamps a foot down on the little box threatening to fly open - bile biting at the back of her throat.

“Always.”

* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It all comes crashing down a week later when Kara finally confronts her.

“Lena?” Kara asks, and Lena freezes, sensing the trepidation in her voice.

“No, you don’t have anything in your teeth.” She teases, trying to belay the way her heart rate doubles.

“No, I know, I just . . . “

“What?” Lena asks, voice calm but her heart racing.

“i just . . . I’ve been meaning to tell you, but I never really had the chance. Well, I mean I did, but Alex said . . . What I’m trying to say is -“

“Don’t.” Lena tells her, surprised at the firmness in her voice.

“Lena, I have to . . .”

Their eyes lock, and Lena shivers. So much for little boxes.

“I’m . . .” Kara reaches for her glasses.

“Kara . . .”

“I’m Supergirl.” Kara finishes weakly, her hands trembling as they lower her glasses to her side.

“Kara.” she chokes out. “Don’t.”

“Lena - “ Kara starts to explain, but Lena ignores her.

Kara looks so incredibly sad, eyes welling up with tears and the muscles in her neck trembling.

“I know. I know all about your little secret.” Lena swallows hard, fighting back the tears. “You know why? Because Lex told me. I didn’t get to find out from you, or Alex; no, I got to find out from my homicidal brother. I suppose I was stupid for not seeing it before - naive to think that the most important person in my life wouldn’t hide something like that from me. I guess I was wrong, I’m just a fool.” She bites out the words, putting as much of her frustration into them as she can.

She may not be able to hurt Kara physically, but emotionally?

After a lifetime of living with Lilian?

That she can do.

“Lena, I didn’t do it to hurt you -“

“Really?” Lena scoffs, choking back tears. “Then why do I feel like you’ve taken a knife and stabbed it into my heart?”

Kara’s eyes look so full of remorse that Lena almost caves.

“I never meant to hurt you, that’s the last thing I wanted to do.”

“Oh, then what was your master plan? I’d love to hear it.”

“Lena . . .” Kara’s upper lip trembles.

“Literally everyone around you knew, except me.” Lena goads. “What exactly was your point? Other than to prove just how untrustworthy Luthors are?”

“No! I would never! Lena, I trust you more than anyone; maybe even more than Alex, that’s why I had to -“

“That’s why you had to lie to me?” Lena interjects, unwilling to let Kara finish her sentence.

“I didn’t want to lie to you!”

“Then why did you?!”

They stare at each other - an unstoppable force and an immovable object - the tension nearly crackling the air between them.  

Finally, the unstoppable force causes the object to move, and Kara speaks.

“Because when I first met you . . . you were . . . are the most beautiful woman I’d ever met.”

Lena’s heart jumps in her throat at Kara’s words, because surely she doesn’t mean them like that.

And I didn’t know if it was clouding my judgment, because Clark was so sure that you were just like your brother. But I refused to judge you on your family, and the next thing I knew, you were my best friend.” Her voice chokes off, and Lena forces herself to look away.

“You are my best friend,” Kara corrects herself. “And I didn’t want to screw it up. No one’s ever wanted to be my best friend before - besides Alex, I guess, and in the beginning that was only because she had to. But you,” she laughs softly. “you were so fiercely in my corner, about everything; being a reporter, CatCo, Mon-el being a jerk . . . I’ve never had anyone stand up for me like that. And I wanted to be the same for you, because you deserve it. “

“If I deserve you standing up for me, then why couldn’t you just tell me who you really are?”

“Because - “ Kara huffs. “Because, okay, maybe for the first few weeks I was worried that you might turn on me because of your brother. But then I . . . I was selfish. Because you were the only person that I could be 'just Kara' around. I didn’t have to worry about being Supergirl. And then, the longer it went on, I knew that I should tell you, I knew you would be so upset when you found out and I couldn’t stand to hurt you like that. . . . I was afraid that you’d never forgive me.”

“Why do you even care? I’m just a Luthor, right.”

She’s prodding Kara to a more direct answer, she knows it, but she never expects what comes out of the other woman’s mouth.

“Because I love you, okay?” Kara’s eyes fill with tears as Lena’s heart jumps in her throat.

"And maybe there was some part of me that hoped that I could keep bringing you lunch and you’d keep sending me flowers and maybe I could pretend that you love me too. And I’m sorry that I hurt you, and that you found out the way you did; just know that I would take it all back if I could. I would tell you myself, even if it meant you would hate me.”

“Kara . . . “ she knows deep down that she can never hate Kara, no matter how much she wants to. “You don’t get to say that you love me just to get me to stop being mad at you.”

“I’m not.” Kara vows fiercely. “But if we’re laying all our cards out on the table, I thought that you should know. I love your passion, I love your fire. I love the fact that you always stand up for what you think is right - even if it differs from what I think. I love that you throw yourself into your work, and I hate the fact that you forget to eat. I love that you pour your heart and soul into the children’s hospital and that you refuse to let anything stop that. I love how snuggly you get after a couple of glasses of wine, but I hate how self deprecating you get. I just want you to see you the way that I see you, and I was afraid that you knowing I’m Supergirl would hurt that. I guess I hoped that deep down, you loved me too. And I don’t know what my game plan was for that, or where I hoped we would end up -“

“Kara!” Lena chokes it out, barely able to keep the tears from falling down her cheeks.

“Lena, I just -“

“Don’t.” She says for the third time that night, desperate to stop the words coming from Kara’s mouth.

“I had to let you know how I felt, I know it’s bad timing, but I had to tell you the truth. I didn’t want it to be like this.”

Tears track down Kara’s face, but still, Lena stays strong, brushing past her and heading for the exit.

“Lena -“

It takes everything Lena has to ignore her, and move to the door.

* - - - - - - - -

Ever since Lex told her about Kara’s identity, she’s been in a fog.

She thought that it would get better once she had a chance to confront Kara.

What she didn’t expect was Kara’s . . . confession. It throws her for a loop, one she hadn’t seen coming in a million years. It should have made her ecstatic, it would have made her ecstatic in any other circumstance, but now it just leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

Of course Kara would pick the middle of her Supergirl reveal to spill out her heart, of course.

It fits so well with the Kara she knows and loves. That she would be so open and vulnerable that she would decide to lay her whole heart on the line.

Lena loves it, but she hates it.

Every part of her is screaming that Kara is just manipulating her, the same way she’s been manipulated for her entire life - bribed with love and affection.

She refuses to fall into the old trap again.

She is a strong independent woman, and she doesn’t need someone else to complete her.

And it’s true, she knows it’s true.

She doesn’t need anyone.

But it doesn’t help that she wants Kara.

She ignores every text, every call; she even tells Jess to revoke Kara’s unlimited access to her office (and she’s met with a giant frown and a questioning glare that she knows she’s going to have to answer to later).

But still, when her stomach growls sometime after one, she wishes that Kara’s smiling face was bopping through her door, waving a sack of takeout.

Even minus the lunches, she misses Kara.

Which is why she finds herself stretching and heading to her office door - maybe she can ask Jess to order food and convince her that it wouldn’t be weird to eat lunch with her boss.

Only when she asks Jess to order out, the other woman looks at her . . . strangely.

“What?”

“I uh, already ate.” Jess says almost guiltily.

“Oh. Did you happen to order anything for me?” Lena tries to sound as nonchalant as possible, but it still comes out almost whiney. Before Kara, Jess always made sure to order lunch for Lena, even if she knew she wouldn’t eat it.

“Uhh, I uhh, didn’t order out.”  Jess’ eyes flicker to the mini fridge under her desk.

“Oh, ok.” Lena lets it drop, obviously Jess doesn't it want to talk about it.

Maybe she has a new crush that brought her lunch and she isn’t ready to talk about it. Filing the information away for later, she shrugs.

“Could I get you to order me something then? Maybe an apple walnut salad from Noonan’s? I’ve been craving one lately.”

Jess’ eyes go back to the mini fridge, and Lena leans over the desk to stare at it as well.

“Is there something in there I should know about?” She asks, her mind immediately going to a bomb; and it’s so twisted that a bomb is the first thing she thinks of being stored in a mini fridge of all places, but it’s not the oddest -

“Kara!” Jess blurts, and Lena shifts her gaze back to her assistant.

“Kara’s in the mini fridge?”

“No.” Jess sighs. “Kara brought you lunch, and it’s in there. I know you said specifically that you didn’t want to see her or hear from her, so I didn’t want to tell you about it, but she insisted that I take it, and you know how persistent she can be!”

“So when you said you already ate . . .”

“She brought me broccoli cheddar soup, and you know that’s my favorite and I should have just ordered out but -“

“Jess - “ Lena placates her with a warm smile that’s only half forced. “Just because I’m not speaking to Kara doesn’t mean you can’t. Besides, it was broccoli cheddar soup.”

“Your lunch is still in there if you want it?” Jess offers, gesturing to the mini fridge.

“Oh, I’m not really that hungry, I forgot I had a big breakfast.” It’s a lie, she hasn’t eaten since lunch the day before; and her stomach quickly betrays her with loud growl.

Jess raises her eyebrows pointedly before reaching to the fridge and taking out a container and passing it to Lena.

It’s an apple walnut salad from Noonan’s, with a folded note taped to the front.

Of course.

“Really, I’ll just wait til dinner. . .” Lena protests weakly, her stomach fighting hard against her stubborn will.

“If she asks, I’ll tell her I threw it in the garbage and you never even saw it.”

Lena narrows her eyes.

“Fine, I’ll eat it, but if she asks, tell her you gave it to me and I threw it in the garbage.”

“Whatever you say, boss, whatever you say."

[dregstrash]

OMG OMG OMG I HAVE THE PERFECT SONG FOR AN ANGSTY FIC FOR ZOYALAI (angsty fics are just soooo fun heheh). Lie To Me by 5SOS ft Julia Michaels. Can be in a modern AU or just their normal universe. Maybe they’re both w different lovers or something?? (btw I absolutely ADORE ur work.)

It’s been a while since I’ve written some Zoyalai angst. And an even longer time since I’ve done a song + ship request. I’m sorry this took so long! Thanks for the ask! (also I love 5sos so thanks for that too)

This is a zoyalai modern au. Zoya and Nikolai were childhood sweethearts. But they broke up their senior year of high school, and they reunited at a high school reunion-- with other people. 

Now I wish we'd never met. 'Cause you're too hard to forget

She was a vision in blue. She always has been.

It was the color of her shirt when he had taken her out to their first date. It was the sapphire he had given her for her sixteenth birthday. It was the color of her dress when he took her to prom. It was the color that made her skin glow warmly and made the shade of her eyes ever more prominent. It was the compliment to her black hair, and painted her in a picture that seemed so untouchable.

It was the color Nikolai was drenched in when she had stood in front of him, her face an immovable object and she spoke the words that he had to pretend weren’t cutting his heart in half. 

One would think that after five years of not seeing her, it would be easier to see the color and not immediately launch into some sort of soliloquy about heartbreak and lost love, but it wasn’t. 

Nikolai was frozen as he saw her walk through the crowds, which was absolutely ridiculous. He was the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He was on track to doing a real impact in local politics and changing government policies on the environment and homelessness. He shouldn’t be caught like a deer in the headlights at the sight of his ex-girlfriend. However, there are a few mysteries in this life, and Zoya Nazyalensky had always been the biggest one. 

Taking a few deep breaths and maybe one (a few) sips of his spiked punch, he tried to gather enough strength to go and talk to her. But then a man had materialized by her side. A man with a scruffy beard and an easy smile. A man who held her purse and stooped to give her a quick kiss. 

An ugly feeling bubbled in Nikolai’s veins, so he turned around and made his way to the opposite end of the room.

-

It was truly unfair for someone to look that handsome.

That thought had been a plague on Zoya’s mind for as long as she could remember. Ever since the day that he had moved next door to her aunt’s house and introduced himself. Ever since he walked with her to school, and tried to charm her with his easy smiles and small flirtations. Ever since he had convinced her to go on a date with him.

Zoya knew, better than anyone, the kind of power beauty could give you. It was a trap coated in honey, and she refused to be caught in someone else’s schemes. But he was different. Despite his pretty words, his underhanded wit, and the knowing look that could keep the wisest people on their toes, he was honorable. And she supposed that’s what had gotten her, in the end.

It was his promise of being a better man than most. It was the possibility that his charm could live up to the optimism that lived in the gold of his eyes. It was the hope that he could bend impossibilities to improbabilities. 

While she had been a force of nature all on her own, he was there with her. So when it came time to graduate, she realized that this brief bliss of happiness couldn’t last forever. They were going to be separated for the first time since they were kids. They would be miles and miles apart, and while the thought of staying together while they were in college was a nice one she was nothing but practical. She knew the statistics. She knew the likelihood of some other girl going to catch his eye. She knew that if she ever did love him, she would let him go. 

So that’s what she did. 

She let him go, and hoped that he would be just another memory that would give her some comfort in the coldest parts of the night.

Instead it had become a haunting whisper that followed her everywhere she went. And seeing him now, in a suit that was perfectly tailored to show off the clean lines of his body, the biggest ghost of her life had come back to haunt her in the worst ways.

His arm was draped around a beautiful woman with layers of straight, black hair and when he turned to her with a smile that used to belong to Zoya, Zoya put her back to him, because it’s been five years. She shouldn’t be feeling as if the very air from her lungs were being squeezed out of her. 

-

There were so many what-ifs that hung in between them.

What if things had been different? What if they had gone to the same university? What if Nikolai had fought a little harder? What if Zoya had called him when she was back in the city? What if they had the courage to walk the length of the dance floor separating them and settle the unsaid words that were on the tip of their tongues? What if they could be honest with each other?

Maybe then they wouldn’t have caught each other’s gazes and turned away abruptly. Trying to ignore that deep impulse in them to smile and pretend that they could go back to what they used to be. 

[biglifequestions-blog]

Big Life Questions

In 1991, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes; an incurable autoimmune disease that would have killed me were it not for the discovery of a breakthrough treatment some 70 years earlier. Had my great grandmother—who lived to be an octogenarian with four grandchildren and eight great grandchildren—been diagnosed with the same condition, natural selection would have swiftly eliminated her and the potential for offspring as unceremoniously as it had thousands of others. By pure chance, my mother, uncle, cousins, brothers, and I would never have been born. Twelve unique progenies, gone; an entire branch of the family tree stunted and withered at the hands of a few faulty genes.

As luck or God or the Universe would have it, I was born at exactly the right moment in history to not only survive type 1 diabetes but thrive. And here I am today at age 29: a walking, talking, breathing, body with blood circulating and nerves firing, alive with not only conscious thoughts, but also feelings, opinions, beliefs, quirks, aptitudes, and proclivities. From this foundation, I’ve created a full and complicated life that includes accomplishments, hobbies, aspirations, and emotional connections to other walking, talking, breathing bodies. That I am even sitting here now in a 600-square-foot apartment in Philadelphia with a Chihuahua named Peanut napping sweetly in my lap, able to freely express myself through the typed English word using an online platform capable of sharing those words with millions of people around the globe, all while my loving husband cooks his take on vegan enchiladas in our tiny kitchen is nothing short of a holy-shit miracle.

I wish I could say that the mind-blowing awareness of my mere existence—never mind the trillions of complex, improbable events that coalesced to have me adopt a Chihuahua—has compelled me to live each of my 10,500+ days on this earth to their absolute fullest. I wish I could say the knowledge of my finite and delicate reality has inspired me to follow my passions, live authentically, and weather life’s storms with grace and fortitude all while dedicating my time and energy toward the betterment of society. Surely a life as precarious as my own would catalyze an ongoing quest to align mind, body, and spirit; to be a role model for overcoming adversity against all odds.

Alas, I am not quite so enlightened.

Last Saturday, for example, I spent the entire day in worn-out sweatpants eating buttered toast and playing Candy Crush on my iPad. Between waiting for more bread to toast, butter to melt, and lives to reload, I scrolled through the bottomless pit that is the /AmITheAsshole sub on Reddit, grappling with the complexity of human social norms while also getting my daily bump of “my life really isn’t so bad” by contrasting my comparatively insignificant problems to the drama of Internet strangers. By sunset, I had succeeded only in eating a half loaf of bread and irritating my husband by finishing off the butter and bringing crumbs into the bed. (AITA?)

I’m sure you’re wondering how I’m able to justify such a flagrant misuse of my time. While I don’t exactly know the answer to that question, I can hazard a guess it’s because I’ve collected enough insignia of a successful life—academic degrees, a wedding ring, my handsome husband, a Pinterest-inspired apartment, stamps in my passport—that the pressure to fill my days with meaningful, enlightened activities has lessened. So long as I continue showing up to work, paying taxes, saying “I love you,” and periodically posting #humblebrags on Twitter about some new promotion or my latest vacation, what does it matter if I occasionally splurge on procrastination and carbohydrates?

…right?

Until last year, I had only peripherally considered that there might be more to life than just achieving and owning things. From high school honors to senior job titles to a committed relationship, these milestones were my markers of success, happiness, and security. I craved them, worked for them, plotted how I would make them happen, and invested all my energy into proving to the world and myself that I was smart, hard-working, lovable, deserving; often to the detriment of my own physical, mental, financial, and spiritual health.

Moreover, I was actively encouraged to seek more of these achievements: to play an instrument in both orchestra and band, attend academic summer camps, double major in college, study abroad, work late, work weekends, work, work, work. I believed these tangible symbols would unlock the secrets to all the Big Intangibles: happiness, passion, fulfillment, security, joy, peace, gratitude, love. And when those fleeting moments of accomplishment came and went, and the Big Intangibles didn’t instantly manifest, I turned to my old, worn copy of the “Perfect Life Checklist” (which I wrote myself at the age of 10) and chose my next goal to appease the restlessness and disappointment in my heart.

And then, after years of sacrificing sleep and sanity to acquire these tangibles, it all came to a climax in May 2018: I had just graduated from a prestigious university with my master’s degree, was months away from marrying my soulmate, and had just been offered a dream job in a new city. Life was perfect or as perfect as I could have contrived. I awoke in my fiancé’s bed the morning after graduation expecting to feel elated, happy, fulfilled; or at the very least, well-rested and content. It was the first Tuesday in perhaps my entire life that I technically had nothing to do and I felt completely, inexplicably…. empty. 

Where was the happiness I was promised; the light at the end of the tunnel I built, brick by brick? I felt a sudden urge to laugh followed by the very real experience of tears. 

And then, in response to those tears, a harrowing, gut-wrenching, pass-me-the-wine-no-the-whole-bottle question materialized before me as if posed by some older, wiser, separate self: Who would you be without all these labels, titles, and accomplishments?

Who am I?

The answer that came was enough to make me want to dive under the covers and let the carbon dioxide build up around me.

Before I go any further, I want to recognize that despite living with a chronic illness, the problems and concerns I’m describing here are distinctly privileged-people-problems. I understand and appreciate that my ability to grapple with questions about my identity and personal fulfillment are luxuries only possible because of that privilege. I don’t have to worry about basic necessities like where I’m sleeping tonight or from where my next meal will come. I don’t wake up worrying about whether I might get arrested, mugged, shot at, or bombed if I walk out my front door or if I might be persecuted for my skin color, openly practicing my religion, or loving who I love. That I even have health insurance to afford the medication that keeps me alive is a blessing that I am keenly aware not everyone with my disease has.

Yet it’s precisely this knowledge—that other people who were born into different circumstances must work a hundred times harder and maybe not ever get to the point I find myself at now—that makes answering these Big Life Questions even more important. With all my privilege and so few barriers standing in the way of me living a magnificent, inspirational, blessed life of service and passion, why am I not making every day, hour, and minute count?

I pondered that question again a few months ago when I was asked to give a presentation at an all-employee meeting for work. “All-employee” meaning, of course, the entire company; hundreds of people in-person and remote gathered in one moment to critically judge my outfit, throat-clearing tic, and the way I pronounce “gala”—or at least, that’s what it felt like. A naturally nervous public speaker, I practiced obsessively to minimize the risk of forgetting my own name and spent copious time working through every worst-case scenario. In the shower, on the train, before bed, in my dreams; I worried and rehearsed that speech so many times that my ultimate irrational fear of a light fixture falling from the ceiling and concussing me mid-word could have come to fruition and my lips would have continued mouthing statistics while my hands, of their own accord, gesticulated to slide 5 bullet point 2 at the 20-minute mark exactly as rehearsed.

This exercise was, like many of my endeavors, not borne out of passion and commitment to a good cause, but a calculated attempt to take on another “professional development opportunity” in the hopes that it would indirectly increase the likelihood of my future happiness by one, maybe two, percent. Because more responsibility at work = more money = more success, stability, and therefore infinite happiness, right? The irony of all this calculation is that an activity I expected to yield happiness had the unintended consequences of increasing my stress levels by 1000 percent and costing valuable time with my friends and family. 

And tell me, what exactly is the point of investing all this energy and being so completely exhausted if there’s no greater good, higher purpose, or feeling happy and inspired before, during, and after? What’s the point of tackling any endeavor if it’s only going to lead to a buttered toast/social media binge to cover the feelings of emptiness and dissatisfaction?

Until now, I’ve asked but not fully grappled with these Big Life Questions. But I want to. I want to wrestle and spar, analyze and critique until awareness turns into action and potentially transformation. In my short life I’ve had the opportunity to answer some medium life questions whose answers led to amazing, unexpected changes. Questions like, “What more do you have to lose?”, “Would you be willing to relocate?” and “Will you marry me?” I’ve answered and then watched life shift miraculously to accommodate my new conceptualization of what’s possible. And now, I feel myself standing at the edge of another new conceptualization with an ever-present awareness of my own potential, mortality, limitations, limitlessness, and connection to the rest of humanity. 

This blog is a chronicle of my attempts to answer and act on life’s biggest questions, including, but not limited to:

Who am I?

What is my greater purpose in life?

How can I find joy in the mundane?

How can I make the most of every day?

How can I be kinder to myself in deed and thought?

How can I honor and love my body?

How can I love unconditionally?

How can I forgive myself and others?

How can I overcome my fears?

How can I have more faith?

How can I live in the present moment more often?

How can I align my career and work with my passions and higher purpose?

How can I be of service to others?

If you decide to follow along, I hope my words can provide some perspective on how to begin answering your own BLQ’s, even if what I’m describing is a case study in what not to do. Consider what follows to be a record of hard lessons learned, a magnifying glass for bad habits, an arena for confronting fears and traumas, a whiteboard for exploring crazy ideas, and with a little luck and determination, a launching pad into the magnificent, inspirational, blessed life of service and passion I hope to live.

[incorrectmidc]

IKEMEN SENGOKU VERSION

Oda Nobunaga - Happy Endings, The Sun, and Other Inexplicable Phenomenon (whoa fitting!)

Date Masamune - Cake, Fate, and Other Things I Can't Have

Maeda Keiji - Girls, The Sun, and Other Lies I've Believed

Toyotomi Hideyoshi - Girls, The End of the World, and Other Natural Disasters

Tokugawa Ieyasu - Love, The Sun, and Other Skullduggeries

Akechi Mitsuhide - French Kissing, The End of the World, and Other Big, Round Things

Ishida Mitsunari - Popularity, The Sun, and Other Lies I've Told

Mori Ranmaru - Macchiatos, The End of the World, and Other Unbreakable Laws of Nature

Imagawa Yoshimoto - Summertime, The Sun, and Other Things that Nearly Killed Me

Sarutobi Sasuke - Honor Roll, The End of the World, and Other Impossible Ordeals

Kanetsugu Naoe - Summertime, Boyfriends, and Other Loose Ends

Sanada Yukimura - Boy Bands, The Sun, and Other Statistical Improbabilities

Uesugi Kenshin - Boys, The End of the World, and Other Reasons I'm Banned from the Library

Takeda Shingen - Chemistry, The Sun, and Other Loose Ends

Kicho - Popularity, Spies, and Other Holes in the Fabric of the Universe

Kennyo - Love, Spies, and Other Statistical Improbabilities

Motonari Mouri - Honor Roll, The End of the World, and Other Things that are Better in Space

Byron Wagner — Chemistry, Hate, and Other Statistical Improbabilities

Leo & Alyn Crawford — Love, Fairy Princes, and Other Peculiar Melancholies

Nico Meier — Honor Roll, Hate, and Other Inexplicable Phenomenon

Albert Burckhardt — Happy Endings, Vampires, and Other Natural Disasters

Louis Howard — French Kissing, Fairy Princes, and Other Things That are Better in Space

Sid Arnault — Summertime, Vampires, and Other Intangible Things

(as Lloyd Grandier) — Summertime, Hate, and Other Intangible Things

Giles Christophe — Popularity, Fate, and Other Signs of Vampirism

Robert Branche — Cake, Fate, and Other Things the Fairies Stole

Rayvis Harneit — Girls, Vampires, and Other Reasons I Have to Leave the Country

[docholligay]

Silverleaf 5: The Sprinkle Mystery

Part 5 in our sponsored series from Patreon! Thank our sponsor Ben if you’ve been enjoying what he’s asked for! The entire series is here, and if you like my content, please consider sponsoring me on Patreon, ko-fi, or my Amazon wishlist

Her hair dallied on the edge of what was allowed at Silverleaf, and Chibiusa took a point of pride in that. Ms. Meioh had peeked over her glasses in an amused sort of way as Chibiusa sat there, declaring that her hair was, in fact, dyed strawberry blonde, and not pink, and so was a natural color and completely allowed at the Silverleaf School for Girls.

Chibiusa had half-held her breath, watching her think. Most girls never got to this point at Silverleaf, their parents long having schooled them on the nature of propriety, whether they personally enjoyed it or not.

Frankly, Chibiusa would have loved to have her parents yell at her. It would have meant they knew what she was doing, and that she was there. But no matter how she rolled her skirt, or the color of her hair, or the number of buttons she undid on her blouse, the only attention she got for any of it was at the desk of Ms. Meioh.

She threw her hair up into her twin pigtails, again, discouraged but not disallowed (In many ways, Chibiusa felt this summed up the whole of her existence) and picked up her bag, walking to the bus stop.

The school was at the east edge of the city, the sheer amount of open green space on the campus a testament to the wealth of those who’d founded it, and those who stayed there presently. Originally a finishing school of sorts, Silverleaf had defined itself with academic rigor, to keep the children of science and technology geniuses coming in, while still holding to the altogether stifling feel of being molded and manicured like some shrub made into the shape of a hippo.

Clipped.

But this was more negative than Chibiusa generally cared to be, her moods generally somewhere between joy and indignation, with little time in the middle, and, in any case, it wasn’t as if she could do anything about the circumstances of her birth, and her classes weren’t all bad.

Art had always been a favorite of hers, and her teacher had said she wasn’t entirely untalented in the realm of painting, which went as high praise in Silverleaf. Ms. Aino’s class was always fun, or exactly as much fun as Silverleaf let it be before Ms. Aino was dragged into the Board of Trustees by her ear. The new gym teacher, Ms. Tenoh (who had the girls call her Haruka until she had ended up next to Ms. Aino in the Board meeting) seemed nice, although she obviously had no clue how to deal with girls who’d usually had private instruction in tennis or ice skating or any number of things, and she always had granola bars for anyone who was hungry before class.

All things told, Chibiusa Purisesu was well aware that her life could be worse. She wasn’t a stupid girl. She had her group of friends, who loved her even if they were occasionally a little out of touch. It just seemed like something was missing, and Chibiusa had assumed it was her parents’ attentions for so long that she could not conceive it might be anything else.

“Hey! Chibs!”  The shout came across the grass and she ran toward Chibiusa.

Chibiusa smile and waved. “Hi, Palla. You finish that article you were working on?”

“Yeah but,” Palla scowled, “still think Ms. Hino’s gonna hate it. Or tell me to redo it.”

Chibiusa grinned. “Would it even BE Ms. Hino’s class if she didn’t question your,” Chibiusa put her hands on her hips, and growled, “commitment to serious journalism! The only defense of a free people!”

Chibiusa and Palla laughed, and opened the door to the school.

_____

She’s probably dating Palla, Hotaru thought, the first part of an argument inside her head as she watched the two of them laugh together.

No, she’s probably not even gay.

Are you kidding? EVERYONE at Silverleaf is some kind of gay.

That’s statistically impossible, Hotaru, Dad taught us better than that.

It’s statistically improbable, but nothing’s impossible. Think of all your teachers! Ms. Kaioh, Ms Aino, Ms. Tenoh--

Okay well, would you rather her be straight or just not like YOU?

…..fair.

Ugh, thanks for reminding me about my meeting with Ms. Tenoh today, too.

Ms. Tenoh was nice enough, and tried, it seemed to Hotaru, to be encouraging, but encouraging wasn’t going to make Hotaru an athlete any more than you could encourage a fish to walk on dry land.

She heard Chibiusa’s voice echo down the hallway, and she tried not to follow too close, tried not to admire the way she always smelled faintly of animal crackers***. Something sweet and vanilla and home.

She rolled her eyes at herself as she turned down the hall toward the gym, pointedly ignoring the brightness of Chibiusa’s laugh.

Ms. Tenoh was sitting in her small office, right inside the locker room, dressed in a navy blue jacket and light chambray shirt for Health day. Her tie was something that managed to be both ostentatious and lovely, silk with black lined flowers in random arrangement, covered in soft watercolor pinks and blues.

She might have been a picture for those girls at school who fidgeted in their skirts, the ones who always wore the dress tie, something for them to look at and aspire to, and know that it was possible.

This might have been more convincing if she wasn’t blushing heavily as she held a still-packaged condom in her hand, staring at it as if unraveling the mysteries of the universe.

“Ms. Tenoh?”

She jumped in her chair, dropping the condom and looked up at Hotaru.

“You wanted to see me before school?” Hotaru hoped, in some way, that it had all been a mistake, that Ms. Tenoh hadn’t needed to speak to her at all. She hadn’t seemed upset when she asked Hotaru to come in, but Hotaru knew she wasn’t any good at her class. She was slower than everyone, and weaker than everyone, and longed to go back to Chemistry and Poetry and all the things that weren’t stupid.

Ms. Tenoh smiled and waved her in, leaning back long in her chair and shutting the door.

“You can call me Haruka in here. Technically it’s not school yet.” She winked. “Sit down.”

Hotaru smoothed her skirt and sat uneasily across from Ms. Tenoh, thinking of all the places she’d rather be.

“I know I didn’t do very well on the rope the other day…”

“Yeah, that’s why I wanted to talk to you,” Haruka popped back a little in her chair, and Hotaru sighed waiting for the things she’d already been told a thousand times before, “I’m worried you--”

Hotaru shook her head. “I was really sick when I was younger, and I’m still kind of recovering, I can bring in a doctor’s no--”

Ms. Tenoh held up her hand. “That’s not what I mean. I know. I’m worried you’re getting discouraged.”

Getting, Hotaru thought sarcastically.

“But I want you to know I think you can make a lot of strides this year, Hotaru, I saw you last week getting upset, and I just want you to be competing with you,” she leaned forward, hands on her knees, “I think you can do a lot.”

She remembered the thought she had considered quite poetic, earlier. “It’s like asking a fish to be on land.”

Ms. Tenoh popped back again, crossing her ankle across her knee. “You know there’s these fish, called mudskippers. I saw them on National Geographic--sometimes me and Mouse, that’s my cat, we watch National Geographic together, and I get takeout and a strawberita, and go to the pet store and get a little tiny wet food treat and some at wine for him, we make a night of it--”

Hotaru remembered the first day of school, when girls had giggled and whispered over the handsome new gym teacher, and how they’d heard she rode a motorcycle, and they swore they could hear music when she walked down the halls, and she was SO COOL. One girl had said she swore the light in the gym almost looked like watercolor painting when she strode in.

If she needed any more proof that her peers were idiots, she had it in front of her now.

“--anyway, mudskippers are fish that crawl around on land, between ponds and stuff. They’re still fish. They’re not as fast as like, snakes or something made for the land. But they do a really good job for a fish.” She smiled at Hotaru. “That’s all I’m saying. You don’t have to be an athlete. I want you to do good for a fish. Don’t compare yourself to like…Jun. Jun could outrun me easy at this point, and I was once fast tracked for the Olympic team. Jun could outrun all of us.”

“Once?” Hotaru looked at her, studying.

Haruka flicked her knee and offered a smile. “It was a long time ago. Anyway, what I mean to say is, keep your chin up, and, keep working, and, you know…”

Hotaru just stared at her.

“I’m bad at conclusions, go to school. Take a granola bar.”

____

Hotaru left the locker room, happy to be relieved of the situation, and mildly surprised at how reassured she felt. She had never been particularly athletic, and there was some comfort in the fact that Ms. Tenoh did not seem to expect her to be, just to try.

She didn’t want to try, either, but there was something about Ms. Tenoh’s enthusiasm for her that made it tough to reject out of hand.

She glanced up at the clock, students milling in to begin their day. Twenty minutes to class. Enough to head to the coffee and tea bar, if she wanted to. Her dad had given her some extra money, always worried she might not fit in with all the fifteen year old girls with black cards in their Keroppi wallets.

As if on cue, Cere walked by her, a cloud of Chanel No.5 in her wake, her large pink leather bag hanging off her shoulder. Easily the richest of Chibiusa’s extremely wealthy crew, there was something about her that always seemed a little untouchable, her nose a little higher in the air, even in a school like this one.

Chibiusa was never like that, or, at least, it never seemed that way to Hotaru. She always smiled at Hotaru in the hallways, and let her borrow pencils in class, and it would be easy to forget that she was the daughter of a major politician. She certainly seemed to forget it, many teachers would say.

Chibiusa was sitting with Palla and Ves at one of the small tables in the cafe, and waved her arm broadly, asking Hotaru to come over.

Hotaru froze in place, her entire body stiffening. What was she going to say? In class, things were easy: I hate playing basketball, do you have a pencil, want to be my lab partner? The last one, maybe only in her fantasies, but it was at least plausible. This--

Then Cere moved next to her, crossing with a tea in her hand, and Hotaru realized that she’d been motioning to Cere the whole time, the relief and disappointment washing over her dramatically.

Sakiko walked up to her and put her hand on her shoulder. “Pining after Chibiusa again?”

“I am not!” Hotaru burst out, more vehemently than she intended to.

“Hotaru, I can see the future. I knew this would happen.” Sakiko grinned and pulled Hotaru into line with her.

“No, you can’t, Saki.”

Sakiko gestured widely. “Your mind is laid bare to me, Hotaru Tomo-

“Perhaps, with your otherworldly powers, you might predict how long it will take you to order a beverage, Sakiko.” Hotaru recognized the fierce calm of the orchestra teacher’s voice immediately.

Sakiko whirled around to face Ms. Kaioh. “Good morning, Ms. Kaioh! I was just--”

Ms. Kaioh smiled. “Tormenting my second viola, yes, I’m well aware of the inner workings of the teenage crowd. Hotaru, I trust this will not affect your performance in class too terribly much.” She spoke past the two girls. “Jasmine tea, if you please, and a frozen mocha with extra whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.” she nodded to them. “Ladies.”

Sakiko whispered to Hotaru. “What’s she drinking a frozen mocha for?”

Hotaru just shrugged.

[vincentbuckles]

Weekend reading: I shopped til I dropped

What caught my eye this week.

I would have had this post to you much earlier on Friday, but for consumerism. You see I got totally distracted trying to get the best out of my new Sage Barista Express:

Real life: Messy.

Having done a barista training course a few years ago, I improbably fancied myself as pretty hot stuff with a coffee grinder.

I’ve enjoyed flat whites knocked out by a friend on this well-reviewed model many times, too.

But it turns out I didn’t know my friend as well as I thought I did!

I’ve discovered he’s great at making coffee – but perhaps more shockingly that he’s modest about it. (What other talents does he boast, I now wonder? Or rather does he not boast?)

Seriously, I know it takes a while to get the hang of DIY espressos on new kit, so I’m not too perturbed. It’s only eaten a couple of hours so far, and that includes washing the bits and bobs, figuring out how it fitted together, and collecting beans I spilled on the floor.

No, the other reason why I fell behind was because as soon this new toy finally arrived from Amazon, I went out for a three-hour hike around West London.

Did you sign for it, sir?

You see I’ve been in all week waiting for deliveries – and it drives me crazy.

I’m on edge all-day, until the deliveries do (or don’t) arrive.

A laid-back friend who doesn’t understand my hair-trigger control freak personality asked me what the big deal was.

“Imagine waiting all day to be slapped in the face,” I said. “You don’t know when it’s coming, but you will be slapped in the face. That’s me waiting for the door buzzer.”

It’s not even that I can’t do the social interaction bit. It’s worse: I usually talk the delivery person’s ear off. (A common failing among those of us who work from home.)

Rather it’s the waiting and uncertainty that kills me – and the unexpected and unscheduled state change.

Years before the Millennials I kept my mobile on silent always, for the same reason.

A totally unexpected phone call to my mobile feels like being tapped on the shoulder by a suddenly apparating supernatural nosy neighbour. I hate it.

Now at this point you’re either nodding along (a very few of you) or you’re aghast with incomprehension. Which is fine.

(I’ve said before when explaining why I invest actively and nearly everyone reading shouldn’t that I’m wired differently. I didn’t say it was easy!)

Economy class

Anyway, the reason I’m sharing these asides – and the rare from real-life picture above – is to give a quick update on my embrace of consumerism.

The story so far: You’ll remember I bought a flat, I still haven’t written up why, and I set about spending some of my 20-odd years of winnings (well, savings and winnings) to make it fancy.

This got off to a good start. I’ve always loved nice furnishings and so on – from afar. But by the middle of the hot summer I was bored of spending money.

I’d lost enthusiasm, I’d lost my girlfriend (she said she didn’t like my sudden interiors obsession, but perhaps she just didn’t like the sofa I finally selected?), and I’d lost (/spent) more money traded for matter than I’d spent on things in the previous two decades combined.

I didn’t even go crazy! It’s just that living like a graduate student even as your earnings multiply is pretty low-rent.

For most of that long era I used to opine to my more normally spendy friends that buying stuff only produced problems. Which in my experience was almost always true.

Stuff didn’t work, or you had to upgrade something else, or it broke, or you felt guilty, or you had to wait in for days to get it delivered, or you were worried it’d get nicked when finally you did get hold of it – or any one of a dozen other woes that people who buy stuff all the time think is just the way the world is.

Only two things hit the spot for me without fail when I splashed the cash. Black cabs – which I almost never took, and felt so luxurious in those pre-Uber days – and the first beer with two poppadoms and all the sauces and other gubbins.

Obviously I did a gazillion other things over the decades. I didn’t just taxi around London from curry house to curry house! And often it was money well spent.

But never reliably so.

Well, this whole flat buying and furnishing thing has proven my younger self right.

Through the keyhole

Don’t get me wrong. It’s coming along. It looks beautiful, to me if not my ex. I feel lucky to live among all these things I chose in my still-new flat, even knowing luck is only part of it.

But, oh! I guess I secretly thought the universe would notice The Investor Is Finally Throwing Money At The Problem and the rules would change. But they haven’t.

Stuff comes broken. Trades people don’t show up. Some of them are great, but some are – well – yet to find their true calling. Deliveries don’t arrive. I made a final push to finish my flat before Christmas, and caned the Black Friday offers. But only three of the seven resultant purchases that were scheduled for delivery have actually made it here so far. A new record of rubbishness.

Coffee machines are harder to use than you expected. Analine leather sofas stain if you sneeze near them. Complete automatic watering systems require add-ons to water completely. Your boiler is already up for a service – and that’ll be £100+ with VAT please.

I feel sometimes like Robinson Crusoe, finally back on the mainland after a long sabbatical away catching fresh fish with his hands and brushing his teeth with a fragrant root. I can confirm 2018 has a lot of gorgeous stuff on offer – but as we all know it comes at a price and doesn’t really solve anything.

Still happy I did it, but pleased I’m mostly buying things that will last.

Once I’m done the hedonic treadmill is going back into storage!

Note: Yes, it’s an expensive coffee machine (though one of the cheaper good ones). I’ve always liked a few quality things in life, I’ve just tended to get them cheaply. I saved about half my income for 20 years, so while the Frugal Police are welcome to give me a caution, keep in mind that I wrote the (racier) pages of the book you’re throwing at me. And beware Buffett’s Folly…

From Monevator

From the archive-ator: Death, infirmity, and investing – Monevator

News

Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view you can click to read the piece without being a paid subscriber. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing if you read them a lot!1

Here’s how much fund managers are paid [to lose to the market] – Institutional Investor

Houses prices down on fundamentals not Brexit, research suggests – ThisIsMoney

Property slump could cut number of affordable homes built by 25% – Guardian

UK migration: Fewer EU arrivals, but overall figure stays the same – BBC

Do you live in one of the happiest places in the UK? – ThisIsMoney

The inheritance tax mess, where richest pay a lower percentage rate – Simon Lambert

Products and services

UK rail fares to rise 3.1% in January – Guardian

Shawbrook tops table with a 1.65% one-year cash ISA rate – ThisIsMoney

Ratesetter will pay you £100 [and me a bonus] if you invest £1,000 for a year – Ratesetter

New breed of elite dating apps for wealthy singletons [Search result] – FT

Comment and opinion

How to own all tomorrow’s winning stocks – The Evidence-based Investor

John Bogle needn’t worry about index fund dominance – Pragmatic Capitalism

The proliferation of indices isn’t all it appears – Abnormal Returns

In praise of old jobs – Young (Mrs) FIGuy

Spend more: The most ignored piece of financial advice [Search result] – FT

How to retire forever on a big stash [US taxes/insurance] – Mr Money Mustache

FIRE Day! – Retirement Investing Today

You would not have invested with Warren Buffett – Behavioural Value Investor

Anti-FIRE: The YOLO train wreck edition – Simple Living in Somerset

Juggling six-figure margin debt [Don’t try this at home!] – Fire V London

The top 20 personal finance questions answered – Guardian

Morningstar gets into the finance-meets-food-pyramid game – Morningstar

Five things parenting and (active) investing share – The Value Perspective

What can we do about over-confidence? – Behavioural Investor

An attempt at estimating the true ‘global market portfolio’, including all the unlisted assets in the world [Research] – Alpha Architect

Brexit

Government finally admits UK will be worse off under all Brexits – New York Times

Leave voters statistically much likelier to believe conspiracy theories – Guardian

A Daily Mail EU scare story debunked [Again, people believe this crap] – Tom Pride

The French village that fears for its British community – BBC

Romania has lost 16% of its population to rest of EU in a decade – MSW via Twitter

Brexit TV Debate: A former Remainer will argue for her Brexit deal, a closet Leaver for a better deal or Remain. What a time to be alive! – BBC

I’d like to Exit from these homegrown cretins. Where do I vote? – BBC

Kindle book bargains

Why You? 101 Interview Questions You’ll Never Fear Again by James Reed – £1.99 on Kindle

Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by Thomas L. Friedman – £1.99 on Kindle

The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Maths Genius and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History by David Enrich – £1.99 on Kindle

Tiny Budget Cooking: Saving Money Never Tasted So Good by Limahl Asmall – £1.09 on Kindle

Off our beat

Internet: The end of the beginning [Video/Presentation] – Benedict Evans

Watch how just a few self-driving cars prevent traffic jams [Graphics] – Science

Nike and Boeing are paying sci-fi writers to predict their futures – Medium

Woman who names daughter ‘Abcde’ is upset when someone finds it funny – ABC News

A man actually ticked the US Visa form ‘Are You A Terrorist?’ box – via Twitter

Maps showing how we’re divided by more than Brexit [Funny, old-ish] – Ink Tank

And finally…

“Why should we look to the past in order to prepare for the future? Because there is nowhere else to look.” – James Burke, Connections

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Weekend reading: I shopped til I dropped published first on https://justinbetreviews.weebly.com/

[universeinform-blog]

India's Aadhaar Scheme Is Like A New Internet Being Built: Foreign Media

New Post has been published on https://universeinform.com/2017/03/18/indias-aadhaar-scheme-is-like-a-new-internet-being-built-foreign-media/

India's Aadhaar Scheme Is Like A New Internet Being Built: Foreign Media

A brand new net is being built: it has 1.1 billion customers, a third of the world extensive internet. Indian banks are going for walks transactions on it and Microsoft has embedded it into Skype.

The biometric identifier software Aadhaar — or “foundation” in Hindi — has taken on lifestyles of its personal, authenticating loans and activity seekers, pensions and money transfers throughout India. And final week’s landslide country election win ought to embolden Top Minister Narendra Modi to push Aadhaar beyond its early fee-saving intention, at the same time as questions are raised approximately the safety of its facts and the proliferation of private organizations seeking to make the most of the statistics it shops.e aadhaar card download

Other international locations are also searching for similar packages, however, research suggests it is great to increase one standardized system so human beings can carry their IDs anywhere they cross within the world, said Paul Romer, chief economist at the sector Financial institution.

The machine in India is the maximum state-of-the-art that I’ve seen,” Romer said. “it is the basis for all sorts of connections that involve things like monetary transactions. It could be correct for the arena if this has become broadly adopted.”

Identity is the first step to gaining access to services which include health and training in a world where 1.five billion humans can not show who they may be. The United State’s Sustainable Improvement Goals intention to provide legal IDs to all by means of 2030, triggering the introduction of a number of structures that offer fundamental rights to citizens of poorer international locations at the same time as allowing the ones in the advanced global granular manage over their digital statistics, inclusive of faculty or scientific statistics, and streamlining immigration.

Fingerprints, Iris Scans

An ambitious government-run mission — just like the internet at the time of its advent many years ago — Aadhaar started out in 2009 to target bills to the poor across India’s vast hinterland.

Different governments are already interested in its capability. nations including Tanzania, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh have visited India to speak approximately the machine, stated Nandan Nilekani, billionaire co-founding father of the technology employer Infosys Ltd. and former chairman of the Unique Identity Authority of India, who created Aadhaar. Russia, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have also indicated their interest in Aadhaar, R.S. Sharma, chairman of the telecom regulatory authority of India, told the Mint newspaper in July 2016.

They’re all eager to look how they could replicate this of their countries,” Nilekani stated by cellphone. “That is a tremendous example of ways governments can build the maximum modern-day virtual public infrastructure, and make it available to a public properly to everyone.”

In its international Improvement File 2016, the sector Bank stated: “a digital Identity gadget which includes India’s Aadhaar, through overcoming complex data issues, allows willing governments to sell the inclusion of disadvantaged organizations.”

Here’s how it works: a unique 12-digit variety is assigned to Indian citizens, subsidized by using biometrics consisting of fingerprint and iris scans stored in a significant database. If a character desires to open a Bank account or buy a cell SIM card, they want to offer their Aadhaar wide variety and area their finger on a scanner. This action permits the Bank or software to invite the Aadhaar database to verify their credentials.

Earlier, a sheaf of documents was needed as proof of Identity, a tough venture in a country of 1.3 billion wherein forty percentage are not registered at the start and 30 percent can’t even study or write their very own name.

Approximately 99 percent of adult Indians hold an Aadhaar I’d that hyperlinks to a few 84 authorities offerings, for you to quickly consist of the whole of India’s food distribution machine, the world’s largest welfare application. The Aadhaar is saving Modi’s administration about $2 billion a year and this may upward push to $7 billion with the aid of March 2018, or 0.35 percent of the gross home product, according to analyze firm CLSA.

Getting Educated on India’s Aadhaar Card: Why and how

Supplying identity evidence in India isn’t always a matter to be taken lightly. Legitimacy can be frequently proven via numerous cards, relying on the state of affairs. Together with the passport and the Indian driving license, an individual might also prove their legitimacy the usage of an earnings tax pan card.

So far, there had been numerous playing cards utilized in distinct

circumstances. Subsequently, Indian authorities have thought about a more unifying approach – an all-cause social identification document or evidence, for use universally. This is how the Aadhaar Undertaking has come into being. Created by way of the Authorities, the Undertaking aimed to establish a completely unique way to prove the social identity of all Indian residents.

The UID or Aadhaar Card was accordingly released. Each piece is inscribed with a unique collection of 12 digits to assist pick out a man or woman. The biometric characteristic allows gathering records on bodily functions which are distinctive from one person to every other, together with fingerprints or iris. In addition, the generation additionally uses DNA, plus hand and facial features to differentiate among individuals. Even the voice may be protected.

This approach does not remove the need for a photo of the individual to prove their identification. At this factor, citizens also can be diagnosed the use of their passport or motive force’s license. The government nevertheless depend upon these documents.

  Maximize Excessive Speed Net Ability With Those Suggestions

Most of us are dependent on our connection to the Net. Many use it for social media and news, some of us use it for paintings, and anyone uses it leisure. Consequently, it is not most effective irritating however also can be debilitating when previously High-Velocity Net starts to falter. These Tips will assist guarantee green connections for the duration of all tiers of the manner, from the set as much as troubleshooting.

Do in-depth research on enterprise offers. There are numerous factors to bear in mind when selecting the high-quality plan,

Such as supported gadgets, customers, and video streaming desires. A frequently not noted difficulty is the size of a residence. Large houses with lots of walls or other obstructions would require a more effective High-Velocity Net carrier.

No matter how appropriate the modem is a terrible router can wreck the entirety. Spend money on a good router with robust reviews in boosting ability and consistent connections to get the Most out of Excessive Velocity Net.

Once in a while the solution is so easy is appears improbable. Free cables, gathered dirt, and overheating can all result in bad connections. All technological system should be stored in a controlled, easy surroundings to maintain the relationship robustly. A c084d04ddacadd4b971ae3d98fecfb2a booster can also help enlarge the variety of the router.

Relaxed the community to forestall nosy neighbors from hopping on the community and slowing it down. Maximum agencies encourage private passwords after they deploy the High-Velocity Internet, but they may be installation after set up.

Smooth up the browser, which includes records, cookies, and vintage tabs. None of these elements will substantially affect the speed, however, the collection of information can build up and slow down the Internet step by step.

The slowing down method is exacerbated while coupled with an epidemic or malware. Hopefully, a very good antivirus application will make sure that is by no means a problem. Even then, it is crucial to put in updates for the antivirus software as they end up available, as viruses are constantly adapting too. To be safe, full laptop scans with anti-malware applications can pinpoint suspicious applications and help the consumer get rid of them.

Guidelines For Massaging Infants Who Do not Like Being Massaged

My aim is to create Happy Babies thru rub down but of the path now not all Babies lie there cooing as you lovingly perform infant rub down techniques on them. From going for walks instructions and coaching loads of dad and mom and Toddlers it is not unusual at all for Toddlers to howl indignantly at the first signal of the rubdown, and the worst element you may do is grit your enamel and keep on – you run the threat of creating a poor association of their minds. So I have written this brief article to help the one’s moms with Babies who Don’t like being massaged.

So why trouble? Sincerely if the baby doesn’t love it, just Do not do it? Properly of the route this is an alternative but while you don’t forget all the superb advantages of infant massage it’s far well worth trying some of the ideas discussed here.

 Set the Scene

Consider the surroundings and your infant. Is it warm, calm, quiet? A touchy child being undressed in a draughty church corridor with six other Toddlers when they may be used to quiet, peaceful days at home simply the 2 of you, is in all likelihood to protest. A few Toddlers love the social interaction of being with different Toddlers and being in a new, stimulating environment, and A few Do not. Reflect consideration on that you child is and set the scene accordingly. Choose a smaller elegance, in a warmer environment, or get a DVD or download and practice at home.

 Dress (and undress) Accurately

If you are going to a class or doing the habitual at home, Get dressed your toddler in loose, secure garments. Sleep fits are ideal. Tugging and pulling clothes off a toddler may be a piece stressful for them so make things as easy as possible for each of you. Undress them slowly and gently, with lots of positive encouragement to cause them to sense Satisfied and comfy. A prime trouble with small Toddlers is they experience insecure when naked (Don’t we all?!) so bear this in mind. Vicinity a muslin or blanket over the parts of the body that aren’t being massaged. This prevents them getting cold and increases their emotions of protection, so until your child is one that likes to be naked at any possibility (mine had been, and albeit still are) this is a superb method.

Reflect consideration on your very own messages (you do take into account them proper

A long, long term in the past…) and how you are draped with towels and only the segment you are having massaged is exposed. For newborns, temperature law could be very essential so I might advocate massaging inside the domestic for the primary few weeks. For the child who points clean refuses to be undressed, fortunately, or the discern who need to rub down without getting involved with oil (even as out and about for example) its miles cute to rub down through the garments. A single layer is an exceptional and mild effleurage to the returned and legs even as being help upright to the shoulder could be very calming and soothing – I imagine you do that certainly anyway so that you are already practicing toddler rub down every day! If they’re now not Satisfied mendacity flat at the ground sit along with your returned supported and allow them to lie to your knees, that way they can see you higher too.