#how to build intuition

[novadreii]

rewatched arrival for the hundredth time. this movie never fails to gut punch me with its approach to determinism. louise embracing her future that she knows every moment of, despite the tremendous loss and pain it contains, with open arms. she doesn't hesitate, or ruminate on how she can try and change it. she accepts it all, the good and the bad, because what she gains is worth it, so many times over for her. she steels herself against a certain future and runs forward to meet it all, to love, learn, and lose, and trusts and leans on herself to live through it all. because that's what life is; it's the joy and the suffering. to try and isolate the joy alone is madness, futility in its purest definition.

comparing her line of thinking to a palindrome (how she named her daughter, hannah), the movie kept emphasizing, "it's the same backwards as it is forwards." it doesn't matter if you can see the end; life is the same whether you live it "forwards" (without knowledge of the future) or "backwards" (with foresight). it doesn't change the significance of your life experiences; to try and avoid certain future pain just because you have the knowledge of it is a zero sum game. you think you win because you avoided pain, but you also avoided the joy that preceded it. the metamorphosis. so you still lose if you try to win, and vice-versa.

all you can do is rush forward and take it all head-on. see this whole beautiful mess as your one most precious gift; this one life, this one chance, a laughably miniature blip on the colossus that is linear time, to experience all there is to feel before you return back to an eternity without perception. it's all worth it, because only in living a full-fledged life open to everything it has to offer does the experience of living turn out to be greater than the sum of its parts; it's in trying to beat the system (avoid pain) that we actually lose.

"if you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?"

"maybe i'd say what i feel more often. i...i don't know."

[anghraine]

Other tangentially related gaming thing: my bff J agreed to yet another run of Mass Effect to help me decompress/distract myself/maintain the even keel that's kind of required by the whole situation, but also difficult as an intensely anxious (if usually composed!) person.

For context: our first Shepard, who romanced Liara, was about as squeaky-clean Paragon as possible to be while still murdering the fuck out of Kai Leng. I had a blast with that one!

Then, we constructed a whole tragic arc for our second Shep, a somewhat older woman with maximal emotional scars (survivor of Mindoir + butcher of Torfan) and a lot more capacity for ruthlessness (we did every Renegade choice we could square with our consciences—no space racism but lots of space murder).

We decided she'd start to find love again with Kaidan, only for him, like everyone else in her life, to die (at Virmire in this case). Then she would experience a more mature and profound love with Thane that would be very gentle and fully reciprocated, yet bittersweet given that they both know he's dying soon. We had the idea that this initially harsh, ruthless Shepard coming to love Thane and diverge from her previous path of bloody vengeance would be really endearing, especially when the dying Thane wants the prayer read for her rather than himself, and then the rapport between Shep and Kolyat would also have this extra pathos, and killing Kai Leng would be even more satisfying.

(It totally was: our Shep was a Vanguard so there was a lot of punching involved, and then J indignantly went "this is for Thane, you fucker" as we stabbed KL.)

Anyway, the storyline did mostly work out, apart from any degree of nuance being rewarded by the game locking us out of cool dialogue options at particularly critical moments. Still, she was super enjoyable and I liked how we got her arc to weave into Thane's despite a bit of underwriting at times, and the idea of Shepard as this ultimately tragic figure who just keeps on living as her loved ones die over and over and over (we chose Destroy to underscore that fate!).

This time, we thought it'd be fun to go for a Shepard who isn't quiiiiiite as squeaky-clean as the first one, but more of a Paragon type than our tragic Shepard. Basically noble, but with more of an edge. She's a survivor of both Mindoir and Akuze, so she's seen some shit, but she's still quite young (we wanted her to be fresh-faced, pretty, yet also visibly scarred and managed all three :D). We particularly wanted a more youthful, impetuous Shepard who is less straitlaced and less world-weary than the previous ones for the Garrus romance, which after all these years, J has never done! And he's played both male and female Shepards to see how most of the romances play out, but not Garrus's specifically.

We thought it'd be especially fun for this Shepard to be a full Adept and for her to be basically a good influence on Garrus's unfortunate cowboy cop ways (we just shout out "RED TAPE!!!!" as a household joke at this point). But we didn't want her to be an elder mentor figure to him or an incredibly noble icon he'd revere so much as for them to be Reaper-fighting bros who help each other grow as people -> FWBs -> whatever happens in ME3.

So we've started our new run with our very attractive scarred Shepard (J: "I think it works for her, she's probably into scars"; me: "I bet Garrus is"; J: "Oh, for sure!") and it's a really nice distraction. Though now I'm thinking about the ME/P&P AU that's been percolating through my brain for upwards of seven months >_>

[altruistic-meme]

i hate that i can't just stay in the position i like and am very good at and expect to ever start making more money. i don't have interest in climbing the ladder, i like my current position. i am good at my current position. literally everyone i work with will tell you that i'm really fucking good at my job. why can i not just get more money to keep being good at my current position?

[krawdad]

I am compelled by the keyboards that look like they're made for bees

[a-bee-wizard]

now that the dust has settled: can we all admit that totk just. wasn't really anything. it was just botw again. and i played botw in 2017.

[vounoura]

the maister system and the new 'find vocations out in the world' system is...ok, but I prefer the old colour system

[labyrynth]

i don’t feel like bothering some random person abt a comment from several months ago so can someone tell me what i’m missing here

unless everything is in relatable units, a cup is always different

a cup is always a cup tho;;;?? like based on the context it’s very obviously Cup (culinary unit of measurement). the cup IS the unit. what am i not getting here.

[beardedhandstoadshark]

I’m really curious about this and maybe others might be too:

For comparison: a normal block would have a size 1m^3 or 1x1x1m using the metric system

Please, any help would be cool to see some data on this!

[mrtheinsatiable]

Hell yeah automatic renewal on my library book

[hospice-worker]

help

[roughentumble]

"hmmmm is twitter twitter because of the layout or the emergent behaviors of the users?? 🤔 checkmate atheists" hey and why do you think user behavior is what it is on that site. what shapes user behavior and site interaction. quickly now quickly

[psychelis-new]

Do you have any other recommendations on how to build intuition?

Practice practice practice. Have no fear of being wrong, it's okay. It doesn't mean you're not trustable or accurate, it only means you're human. Take tests, you can find a bunch somewhere on Instagram too. When you realize you're wrong, try to re-focus by reading again the question and looking at the correct answer. Or take pacs, make guesses for things/situations around you.

Again don't stress if sometimes you're wrong, it happens. We cannot always be perfect and guess the right answer 100/100 of the times. It could also be that you're stressed for other reasons, you're tired or anything. Just try and meditate or take some time off if you feel you cannot be accurate. Listen to yourself. You don't have to always answer immediately (as taking pacs the moment they come out) if you don't feel good or stable enough, you can wait a few hours/days.

The first thing you need to do is try and be in tune with yourself, and love and respect yourself. And remember to cut off your own energy (and various biases) when you need to answer to tests or something that is not related to you. Try to blank your mind and follow your guts. Any type of random feeling (like a "click") you get and that you cannot explain, that's the one you probably should trust and listen to.

[renapuppy]

I have been saying this for a while, this has contributed to the appification of the entire internet; including when you aren't even on mobile. it is just utter hubris. having worked in tech support allowed me to see this firsthand.

its how you get people who don't know what the fundamental concept of a website is; all they know is that you tell google what you want and it gives it to you. and its not their fault. its the overarching philosophy of trying to obfuscate how a computer works.

not to enforce gender roles but a computer should NOT fucking have apps okay. if I wanted an app I'd go on my phone my laptop is for Programs. I mean this.

[sturionic]

Activism is not cold-calling.

Activism is not cold-calling, and this is critically important to understand.

I'm seeing a lot of posts on here about 'building bridges' and 'finding community,' and then (extremely valid) response posts saying "BUT HOW??" And I'm going to explain something that can be very counter-intuitive: there is strategy involved in community.

As a longtime volunteer labour organizer, I’ve taken and taught many trainings on the strategy of talking. Something that surprises a lot of people is the very first thing you do in a union campaign. You sit down with your organizing committee, take out pen and paper, and literally map it out. You draw a physical map of the workplace: where are the entrances, exits, break rooms, supervisor offices. Essentially, ‘where is it safe to have a union conversation.’ Then you draw another physical chart of your coworkers. You sort out who is union-friendly, openly hostile to unions, or somewhere in the middle, and then you plan out very deliberately and carefully who talks to whom and in what order.

Consider: If Vocally Leftist Jane walks up to Conservative David and says "hey what do you think about unions," David is going to shut down immediately. He's not inclined to listen to Jane. But if Jane talks to Moderate Jason and brings him into the fold, then Jason is a far more effective strategic choice to talk to David, and David may actually hear him out without an instant reaction.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: If Conservative David turns out to be Alt-Right David, and could be dangerous to follow organizers, we write him off. We are not trying to reach Alt-Right David. We are trying to reach Conservative David, who may actually be persuaded to find solidarity with other employees as fellow workers. Jason is a safe scout to find out which one he is. It does no one any good if Leftist Jane (or even Moderate Jane who is a visible minority) talks to Alt-Right David and puts herself on his radar. Not only has she done nothing to convince Alt-Right David to join a union - she's probably actively turned him against the idea - but now she's also in danger and the entire campaign is at risk. NOBODY WANTS THIS. Jane was NOT a hero for doing this. The organizing committee was foolish and enacted a terrible strategy to everyone's detriment.

Where you can make a difference is with people who will listen to you. You having a conversation with your well-meaning but clueless Centrist Democrat Auntie, and maybe gently helping her understand some things the media has been glossing over, is way more strategically useful than you marching up to MAGA Neighbour You've Met Once and trying to "build community" or "understand" them. They don't care. They're impervious, dangerous, and cruel. But maybe your beloved auntie will think about what you said, and then talk to her friend Anna who IDs as "fiscally conservative" but didn't vote because she can't bring herself to get on board with Trump. Then perhaps Anna talks to her brother Nic who has MAGA leanings but isn't all the way there yet. Proto-MAGA Nic would not have listened to you, nor would he have listened to Centrist Democrat Auntie, but he might absorb some of what his sister is saying.

This is not a cop-out or an echo chamber. This is you spending your time and energy strategically and safely. You are not a useful activist to anyone if you’re dead. Anyone who is telling you to hurl yourself directly at MAGA assholes like cannon fodder has no understanding of the strategy behind community building, and you should feel comfortable writing them off.

Last point: If you are tired, emotionally devastated, and/or in danger: take a break. This post is for people who would feel better jumping into action, not for people who are too overwhelmed to even think about it right now. You are worth so much even if you’re not actively Doing Activism, and your rest is worth more than “a break period so you can recharge and Do More Activism.” We all deserve the individual dignity of being worthy of comfort, rest & safety just on the basis of being human, outside of whatever we're doing for others' benefit. To deny ourselves that dignity is to devalue ourselves, and that’s the absolute last thing any of us should be doing right now.

[financia012]

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