#i dont think theres anything new i could share about the development process but

[mochiiniko]

just a celebratory nicole drawing for guitar hero getting to 100k views; thanks a bunch for the support!!

this will probably be the last milestone drawing ill be making for the video, mostly since i cant really think of anything else to draw :'D. im keeping this short as well, since i dont want to keep repeating what ive been saying for the other milestones, but truly thank you to those who enjoyed the video and left wonderful comments, i appreciate it so so so much

as an artist it makes me happy that im able to make these kinds of things, and i hope i could continue creating more art and share them with you all :]

[bakugoukatsuki-rising]

I know I posted this idea somewhere, but I'm not sure if I posted it in your asks.

Anyways. It's about the reason as for why Deku isnt paying much attention to the fact that Katsuki is like. Literally bleeding out right now, like it's not even an issue.

I believe I've got the explanation, and it's as simple as this. "Deku can't live without Kacchan, so Kacchan is always going to be alright."

Let me explain. Deku has had Katsuki there in his life for-well..for his whole life. They probably can't remember a time when weren't together.

In Izukus mind, he must have internalised so much that Kachan is always there, that Katsuki NOT being there doesnt exist as an option. Izuku isnt even worried because hes not fully aware of the reality of the possibility.

Kqcchan always wins, Kacchan is always here. So Kacchan cannot not be here.

The reason as for why I thought of this, is because I actually felt very realistically represented with this familiar situation. It really is a realistic setting, something that happens.

Imagine. You have this person you think the world of, right? They're great and awesome, and they're just this beacon of light in your life. They're everything, and theyre always there. That's...simply how it is. And logically, you know that the possibility of them...stopping existing is a fact. Something that could happen, because it's there, something is wrong and you know it. But at the same time, this person...cannot not be there. Theres no room for anything else. No room for extra thought. Nothing.

That's just how it is. Theres no room to even be worried, because your brain cannot process any other possibility. No matter how real the danger is, you dont even have the chance to decide what to think or what to feel, because your soul has simply settled with the fact that theres no other option.

And this is what's happening to Izuku, I believe. It's not that Izuku isnt worried. It's not that Izuku doesnt care about Katsuki, because that's never been a problem before. Izuku is not scared to show that he cares, that he gets worried for Katsuki.

For example. Kamino. Another example? Deku vs Kacchan. There are many little things here and there. He would die for katsuki.

So it didn't make sense for Izuku not to care now. It's true that theres a war going on and that he has a lot in his mind, but when has that stopped him before? It didnt. In fact, in the moment AFO disregarded Katsuki's efforts, Izuku got so angry.

Izuku forgot about the war. Izuku just felt so much anger. This was personal.

(BY THE WAY. Can we-okay, this is going to sound nuts, but listen. Afo knows that bakudeku is a thing. Afo knows they care for each other. Afo doesnt talk just to have fun and pass the time. He targets his enemies weaknesses and manipulates them with what they care about, their weak-spots.

And what did AFO use to tip Izuku off the wall? He didnt insult freaking ALL MIGHT, for starters, who could've been the PERFECT taunting armament. Instead, AFO saw Katsuki diving in to save Izuku without a second thought and realised, "ah. What do we have here? These two probably have something going on"

And he was right! It truly made Izuku go nuts up to the point where he developed another whole new arse quirk out of anger! (See, the fourth user's quirk has this lightning line of thing over his head. It appeared for the first time back when AFO said that Jatsuki was a waste) And do you know who else saw something? Monoma. Monoma used the exact same strategy against Deku to rail him up. This is not a coincidence.)

Anyways, as I was saying. It didnt make sense for Izuku to not care about Katsuki.

If that was the case, he wouldn't have gotten angry at someone insulting Katsuki.

So this is what I think. Izuku can't exist in a world without Kacchan. Kacchan can't exist in a world without Izuku.

It's not a possibility in his mind. Kacchan is here. Kacchan is alright, Kacchan will always be alright.

Let me remind you that this is not a conscious process. Izuku most likely doesnt even realise hes doing any of this. It's just like moving without thinking.

Well, here ends my ideas. Hope you liked them op! Its nice to be able to write them off somewhere!

Yes, I believe you either shared this with me before, or you posted it, but either way, I agree with it. It’s a fault in his thinking, too, that he believes Bakugou will just...always be alright. It’s that one track thinking that will have Bakugou gone and him completely destroyed because he was too confident Bakugou could handle everything on his own, when in reality HE SHOULDN’T BE EXPECTED TO DO THAT.

That is the kind of pressure put on Bakugou that hurt him in the past, too. The pressure to just push through whatever he’s dealing with and continue on, because he’s strong and therefore capable. Both All Might and Deku are at fault for thinking in that way, and it’s hurt Bakugou. Deku probably hasn’t even realized how he’s hurt him though, while All Might was able to recognize and apologize for it. 

It’s another bit of that miscommunication we see between them, that continued inability to find even ground. Hopefully, with Bakugou soon coming to express himself more openly (and he better), they’ll be able to hash all of this out and finally come together like they’ve always been meant to.

[luque-moreau]

y'know i think its about time ive refurbished my psychonauts headcanons/theories

what??? me??? rewriting my psychonauts headcanons in a more comprehensible and informed way???

ye

alright, i think everyone knows what im talking about, by headcanons i mean headcanon as in singular, and as singular, i mean my "raz is somewhere on the spectrum of adhd".

so lets just get into it:

what is adhd actually?

adhd by definition stands for attention deficit hyperactive/hyperfocus disorder (yes, let me get into the details in just a sec). it is a nerodevelopmental disorder that is almost completely reliant on genetic factors, however conditions during pregnancy can sometimes contribute to certain aspects of how adhd manifests itself.

long story short, people with adhd have a smaller frontal lobe, and therefore less dopamine in general (even though yes, it is more complicated than that).

theres also a little bit of "chicken or the egg first" goin on here, certain behaviors or personality tendencies can also affect how adhd is presented in one individual to the next, however its still not clear if that is because it is an accommodating for a certain thought process or if someones experiences and personality shape their symptoms of adhd entirely. its a very blurry line, and the answer is different for everybody.

hyperactive type

hyperactive type is probably the closest to most stereotypical depictions of adhd, think the 5 year old whos parents brush off their child’s hyperactivity as something that will “go with age”. however, this isn’t only present in children, adults with adhd have to deal with a constant need for stimuli to make up for the lack of dopamine their current activity is providing them. this results in someone fidgeting frequently in repetitive or predictable motions, unable to hold attention to a specific task for long periods of time, or many other of the symptoms associated with adhd.(i sadly cannot provide more information in this area, i am not knowledgeable enough to...)

hyperfocus type

hyperfocus type is a tricky one, it can look like the complete opposite of adhd in theory. hyperfocus can look similar to special interests or hyperfixation, a great deal of time and knowledge dedicated to a very particular thing (although it is important to note that even though hyperfixations and special interests are incredibly similar, special interests is a term more typically used within autistic-circles, and isnt really the best word to use if you happen to be neurotypical). Think of maybe that kid who knows all the cool animal facts and won’t shut up about them. Its because certain trains of thought or activities might release more dopamine then others, so to get more of that dopamine, someone of hyperfocus type will be mentally unable to stop thinking or doing a very specific task or topic. this results in someone seemingly always spacing out, unable to change subjects or changing subjects too fast or with little to no correlation, or being completely unable to have enough motivation to do simple things.

personally i tend to fall under the category of hyperfocus myself rather than hyperactive, however the two are not mutually exclusive, its more common to find people with both types rather than just one. even myself, i might exhibit more tendencies to place me under the label of hyperfocus, but that doesn’t mean i don’t have any symptoms of the hyperactive type. its my personality that affects my mannerisms, which then makes certain aspects of my symptoms more or less apparent. Thats because im an INTP-T, i just tend to be more to myself and constantly in a state of thinking abstractly. I have trouble communicating and even sometimes recognizing my needs, and get to a point where im unable to do the simplest of things without feeling emotionally drained. Thats just my experience though, everybodys different. 

so what the fuck does this have to do with raz then?

well lets think about it, rather than have it just be me projecting myself onto a comfort character:

raz finds issue with connecting to kids his age

lets be honest. none of the campers really like raz that much. or at least some do the bare minimum to be try and be polite. it doesn’t seem like any of the other campers besides dogen, whos also socially outcasted, are really fond of raz. lili might like him, but that can definitely be interpreted as curiosity in someone new and different from the norm. It might not be that the kids despise him, but nobodys opinionated enough to care whether he is around or not.

social isolation is one of the most damning things i had to experience from an early age and still feel even today. there is a sense of feeling that you are different among your peers, whether that is a good thing or bad thing. it feels difficult to interact with other people you are not familiar with, and can really stunt you emotionally and socially. from a really early age, theres somethin in you that knows something is very different between the experiences of your peers compared to your own, and it can feel incredibly isolating.

raz and his borderline stupidity

time to get real again. raz is a fucking idiot. at least in the sense that sometimes his decisions seem incredibly spontaneous and not really thought through. he runs from home to attend a summer camp, not really thinking about the logistics of how he will get there, how the staff will react, how long its gonna take for his parent to find him, and so on. it doesn’t seem like he over or underestimates his abilities, he just goes for it without considering. that doesnt seem like the smartest thing to do, even though we know hes incredibly intelligent when it comes to larger, abstract situations. its the little details that he misses, small minuet things that seem unimportant that he overlooks, which can sometimes make things harder for him in the end.

i think its obvious that impulsivity is one symptom of adhd. however i cannot stress how difficult it is to think at supersonic speed and still feel incredibly stupid. i mean, thinking faster doesn’t inherently mean you will have better ideas, you can always be stupider faster, but being able to realize stupid mistakes or inconsistencies in your own thought process is annoying as hell. it feels like every time you try to recognize the issue, fix it, and move forward, you only end up not paying attention to another issue that gets bigger and more annoying than the first. Its always two steps forward, one step back, constantly making the same mistakes even though you try everything in your power to avoid them or grow as a person. The simplest of facts, ideas, or just things to remember end up being forgotten, and once youre reminded of them you remember them and feel like an idiot. however, arbitrary things and complex issues are much easier to digest and remember for me, things like history and the whole blame game charade of it all, biology and how every minuet thing has a greater impact on others and intertwines with every single factor of its environment, philosophy and theorizing why we think the way we do and what can be changed. but oh shit, im a dumbass i forgot to do my laundry. shit. god fuckin dammit.

empathy over sympathy

one of the basic themes of psychonauts is empathy. simple as that. raz goes around into other peoples brains, and tries to help them as much as he can, even if his efforts are not always successful in the way he intended. he never demonizes anyone to the point of unredeemability, and can empathize and understand other peoples perspectives. hes open to new ideas and

although some studies out there theorize that empathy is impaired due to adhd, from my perspective i feel like that is simply not true. if anything, i would say the sensitivity that comes with adhd (hypersensitivity) only enhances that empathy. i could definitely see social disconnection being one of the reasons it might appear that someone with adhd is less empathetic, however i would doubt that adhd would impair a persons empathy. adhd tends to also entail heightened emotions, this doesn’t necessarily mean a more outwardly emotional person, however it definitely shifts a persons perspective of their own emotions as well as others. the concept of hypersensitivity also completely contradicts the idea of people with adhd be less empathetic.

miscommunication and disconnect

sigh, the dad thing. yup. raz has that very iffy relationship with his dad at the beginning of the game which is eventually resolved. very abruptly, might i add. but thats not what this is about, thats a topic for another day. miscommunication seemed to be the root of the issue, however we only get razs side of the story. not to mention the severity of his claims and willingness to seemingly drop everything afterwards. kinda sus, ngl.

alright this ones a doosey. this, i feel, cements my theory pretty well. like i mentioned before, social disconnect and hypersensitivity are side effects of the symptoms of adhd.  this means people with adhd are highly more likely to either misinterpret someones words or actions if those in question are not completely transparent, its because they tend to overthink and interpenetrate responses with too much thinkin n such. the social disconnect makes a whole lot of it worse, it can just pile on top of already established feelings of inadequacy and isolation. and oversharing as a poor coping mechanism isnt an exclusively adhd related thing, it tends to be shared within similar neruodevelopmental disorders such as autism or even ptsd. i find it incredibly easy to disconnect myself from my own emotions at times and think critically at what i feel and how it affects me. which is a bad thing. if i dont acknowledge my emotions like they are my own for too long, everything falls apart. its not fun. but, that disconnect can make talking about certain more traumatic experiences or instances that had deep personal effects on my life and development as a person much easier to just share. and not always in an appropriate manner, comedic opportunity can be   v  e  r  y   enticing. this also explains why raz might have been able to drop everything about his dad after he apologized. he didn’t really, he probably still suffers just as much afterwards as he did before. but he probably wont realize that for awhile, since logically, the issue has been resolved. long story short, he has not had the time to cope, and to put that off he detaches himself from those feelings. w a c k

of course i have other reasons why i feel like raz could potentially have adhd, or at least be accurately represented in headcanon with adhd, some minor mentions being:

he uses his camp map as a journal to track his in-game progress, list of goals, and notes/snip-its of information. writing down information on some form of notepad or book is a common tool used by kids and even adults with adhd to help them keep track of minuet, individual tasks. its just using a planner, but with a bit more information. 

just from my personal perspective, the lengths raz goes to pursue his dream of being a psychonaut feel more like a special interest/hyper fixation sort of thing. he can jump between having genuine conversations with his fellow campers and just exploring the campground, to investing himself entirely in obtaining his goal, even when it seems almost impossible. thats some serious dedication to one very specific thing, y’know?

this one isnt as solid as the other but: m̶̖̰̯̫̍͝o̵̦͖̟͈̹̤̥̝͐̿̄̀̀̎̓ņ̶̛̭̠̐̊̆̍͝ķ̸̝͈̺̙̰̊e̶͉͚̼̅̔͗̂͐̍̕͝͝y̶̦̖̼͖̪͎̝̖̠̐̑͋̾̔̑́͐͘ ̵̢̲̘͎͉̔̀͒̄͌͊̀͌̀m̴̲̫̮̪̖̍̐͆̕͜͝ͅả̶͙͚͗n̶̗̳̩̙̘̼̦̦͇͝ ̷̡̨̡͔̗͕̘͍̥̑͒̎̐̃g̴͔̔̈̅̐̏́̌̔̈́́o̶̥̱̽̆̂͌̀͗ ̶̝̩͙͕͛́s̴̛͓̥̲̜͓͚̣̠̆̓̌͌p̶̜̹̯̦̫̯̣̎͐̽̉̾ḙ̴͇̬͑̈́̐̈́͘͠ͅȅ̶̡̗̞̩͔̫̪͈͑̓͗d̵̠͇͎̜͔͇͒̈́́̀̅̈́̒͘y̸̡̦̠̻̖̥̿ͅ. yeah, its the most generalizing reason but look, hes moving nonstop the entire game, climbing and running around the entire goddamn place wrecking havoc. a bit of imp can be found in most people with adhd if you look hard enough.

so thanks for reading this far i guess? im oversharing even right now with this, like an i d i o t but yknow what i dont want to read the great gatsby rn, so ive got nothin better to do. who knows, maybe the second game will give us more info to either support/discredit this theory? gotta wait for pn2 i guess

:^)

[leo-interactive-fiction]

How would RO react to / deal with a MC with a terminal illness? I want to finish with a broken heart if it's not too much trouble!

Hmm, it's been a bit since I've written something that was sad haha. Maybe I can do it. Let's see.

E: Their grip on the metal railing of your hospital bed tightens as the news reaches both of your ears.

"A day...? No, that's..." E's voice quivers, "That's too short...!"

"We've never seen this illness before," the doctor explains at a loss, "Although we have our suspicions it's in part due to a S.T.E.M. pollutant. I have to be honest and say we have no possible way to combat something like this."

E looks to you, a sudden fearful realization streaking across their face. E's past confidence of your recovery collapses, and the outcome is like that of a dam bursting.

You feel droplets caress your cheeks like a gentle rain as E leans over the railing and touches their lips to yours.

E stays with you, awake for the rest of the night and into your final day without letting go of your hand. The tears have long since dried as your road reaches an end.

"I'm sorry...I thought I could protect you..." you feel one last droplet of water land on your cheek, and the grip on your hand tighten as their final plea reaches you in faint desperation, "Please...Don't go..."

R: They stand silent at your bedside for what seems like an hour after the doctor broke the news to the both of you. As they slowly sit down, they run a hand through their hair, which seems to have lost it's more luxurious shine in exchange for a pastel coloration.

R sighs heavily, whispering to themselves in a sudden bout of introspection, "How much more do I stand to lose...?"

They turn to you, forcing a charming smile on their face as best they can, "What's wrong? You're looking a little pale. Do I look that bad when I dont use conditioner?"

They spend time through the night and into the morning sitting beside your bed, talking and sharing stories with you to keep your mind wandering and a smile present on your face.

Its soon, you realize, that you'll reach your end. R seems to understand it well, too, and their smile wavers for a second. "Hey, captain. You know when we first met, on the train? I cheated on a lot of the card games we played. It was- Hey," They gently take your hand, the smile now clearly forces as a tear stain streaks down their face, "Dont leave yet. I haven't finished the story. It's bad manners to-" they feel your grip slowly fade, and they realize the rest of their words wont reach you. They stand for what seems like an hour, looking down at you.

"Captain...I got a favor to ask. Please take care of my sister when you get there. Shes always been easily frightened."

L: The news hits L, like a weight, causing them to collapse back down in their seat. Their eyes are bloodshot from several days without rest, and you can see deep calluses on their normally pristine fingers.

L has spent countless hours devising a means of combating the sudden onset of the illness that hospitalized you. The culmination of their work was already used to treat you. The treatment was ultimately ineffective.

"I...I'm sorry." Is the first words that escape L's mouth, "I should have foreseen this. I should have worked harder to save you. I..." They suck in air, their body shaking with the onset of racking sobs, "I failed you...when you needed me most, I failed...I'm so sorry..."

They grip themselves, and it takes a long time for them to compose themselves. Wiping their tear stained cheeks, they look away guiltily, "I apologize, turning the subject of conversation towards me when you're..." they almost dont want to acknowledge your condition, for fear it may hasten the process. They gather a notepad and a pen, and take a seat next to you. "In Hospur, there is a tradition of memorializing loved ones by documenting their last moments. I know this is a selfish request...but please allow me to eternalize you in writing..."

You and L spend the night and into the next day talking and sharing experiences, every bit on the conversation written diligently into the notebook. L rests the notebook on their lap with slight hesitation. They understand what it would mean to finalize the document, but you both have come to an unspoken understanding that your time is only moments away.

L gently places the pen into your hand, trying stawartly to keep from crying as they explain to you. "The last thing written is always from the subject."

You begin writing slowly, the ink cascading across the paper in smooth, shallow arcs. As your consciousness fades, the writing dims, until eventually the pen rests at a standstill on the edge of the paper. L grips the pen and paper with extreme delicacy, as if handling a prized treasure, and looks over the document. They're unable to contain the inevitable fit of sobbing as they reach your writing, small droplets landing on the edges of the paper and slightly staining the ink.

"I can never repay this...Thank you..."

V: they stand rigidly at attention by your bedside as the news is broken to both of you. No questions were asked by the soldier as they evaluated the information given.

"A day." V repeats, "A day..." they stare down at their hands, slowly counting down before reaching a single digit on their finger. They stare at their hand momentarily before closing it into a full fist, the pure tension of the grip causing it to shake before suddenly opening their hand.

"Why?"

They seem to be directing the question at no one in particular, but the word still bounces around the room. Why this? Why now? The situation provides many questions, but it's now that V attempts to recognize an answer for themself, and when none come, they turn to you.

"I'm not ready. Commander, I need training. Let's train." They lean over the railing, their grip on the bar tightening, "Teach me. One day. We have one day. Tell me how to think alone."

The two of you spend the night and into the day relaying partial philosophical topics directed to the development of independent thought.

"I need...a goal...To establish a want...An independent motive...A drive..." V repeats the concepts slowly. Time seems to slip away as the two of you further your contemplation, but its soon you realize you'll reach the end of the road. V seems to understand much the same as they witness your shift away from consciousness. They grip your arm like a steel vice, "It hasn't been a day yet. I still dont know. You can't leave yet. Commander, I..." for a brief moment you see a brief expression of fear flash across their face, "I dont know what to do."

Their grip on you doesnt lessen as you pass, and V stands rigidly while staring down at your calmed passing expression. Eventually, their hand slowly loosens its grip, and the brief stirring of emotion is once again replaced by the familiar hollow mask.

"Commander...what do I do...without you?"

P: Their grip tightens on the collar of the doctor's jacket, their voice shaking with barely tempered rage, "No cure? What the hell do you mean theres no cure?! You call yourself a doctor?!" They seem about ready to strike the doctor, but at the last second they loosen their grip. As the doctor retreats hastily from the room, P slumps in the chair beside your bed and runs a hand down their face.

The room is silent; a feeling of momentary purgatory hangs in the atmosphere. The next time P speaks, its through the hand covering their mouth. "Look what you've gotten yourself into this time, dumbass...You couldn't-" you hear a subtle break in their voice, and P quickly runs their arm over their eyes as they change the topic.

You spend the rest of the night and into the morning bouncing from subject to subject, sometimes retracing the conversation back to a moment where P almost says something, then retracts the statement. You both come to the realization that your moment is near, and you feel a desperate grip on your collar pull you forward slightly.

Hey, hey! You're not supposed to leave yet, dumbass! Why are you-" their voice cracks again and you see water well up in the deep blue pools of their eyes, but this time they dont attempt to wipe them away. "Why are you leaving, dumbass? What happened to keeping your promise? Huh?!" They grip you tighter as your consciousness fades, as if letting go would be the reason for your passing.

Eventually, P realizes you've left. Their grip releases slowly, and they stare at their hand in shock. They begin to shake violently, and their foot kicks out, landing solidly on the monitor placed next to you. The loud crashing of metal landing against polished tile rings out through the hallways.

"Damn it...Damn it!" P throws a vase of flowers against the wall and looses their anger on anything not nailed to the floor. By the end of their rampage, charred scrap litter the floor and walls, and they're breathing heavily from the exertion.

But their rage only solidifies the pain.

"Damn it..." P collapses to their knees. "Damn it..."

[xxxdownwithmydemonsxxx]

Do not ignore this post if you relate to being a fuck up, diagnosed abnormal, or dont see having a future.

I cant be the only one out there who hasn't stopped fucking up since coming into existence.. follow my journey if you can relate in anyway to the things I share. dont be scared to send me asks, i am an open book and wont withhold from satisfying your curiosities. if you're alone with your thoughts and need to vent, feel welcome to flood my dm's and I will respond as soon as I can because I understand when we feel pain and are left to process by ourselves, that is when the bad thoughts seep into our mind, saturating our thoughts, and darkening our souls.

Anyway, 🥀☠🖤

×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Page turned. A week ago my partner and I decided to give life one more effort before letting our lives fade to black.

Warning, before continuing to read, my thoughts are poured straight from my mind and into these posts. You must be willing to give up some of your time in order to read what I gave up my time to type.

25 years spent living in chaos and self-destruction with the inevitable escape to try again, only making the same decisions leading to insanity. Surprisingly enough, I made it to the end of 2019. Thanks to my best friend, now partner, I was able to realize how fucked off I let myself become. The trauma I locked away, thinking it wouldnt affect me, had complete control over my mind and physical actions, which resulted in me allowing everyone to take advantage of my entire sense of self.

I have a lot of gaps in my memory, more recently because my mind would "check-out" and I would go into auto pilot to avoid the stress or pain that I just couldn't handle processing.

But I'll never forget the time my mind checked back into my body because it was the most terrifying experience I've ever had to feel and process and understand. Sparing details, whether I close my eyes or not, I can clearly see myself looking at my partner who is sobbing and looks tired and full of pain. I felt myself come back into my body, sounds went from some sort of inaudible fog to sharpening where I could hear what she was saying to me. For a couple seconds after I was coming back to myself, I stared blankly because I couldnt process or feel anything but all at once I started blinking and felt whole again. Disprientated and confused at what was going on but at that moment what I was being told finally clicked. I was ready to hear how fucked up I became. How anything I say or do doesnt make sense and I contradict myself all the time and that I have been on a path to self destruct one more time, leaving myself with no friends or family to lean on, burning every bridge, leaving myself to some suicide mission and I didnt even realize what I was doing. I did things I dont remember doing, I said things I would never say to people I care about, and I was in complete denial. Not the kind of denial where you ignore facts but know you're kind of wrong- I'm talking about straight denial where I wasn't able to decipher fact from fiction and I thought my thoughts were true, however after the fact, I knew it was denial because nothing I did added up. Traumas a bitch, huh?

Anyway, terrifying & never want to live through losing my mind ever again. I'm surprised I made it out of the past 24 years still sane because if we look at statistics, I should've died anywhere from a decade ago to today.

Where was I.. oh, turning the page.

Whatever or Whoever had the power to not only restore my sanity but also give me the strength to process a lot of what I had suppressed, has offered me the opportunity to live and I believe this is my last chance to figure it out. I've been given a gift by the Universe and given how brilliant I actually am, I'm not going to deny accepting it.

A week ago I started making necessary changes- changes I've never made before or fully committed to. Externally and internally there has been an immense shift, from wiping the slate clean with disconnecting from everyone except my mom and girlfriend, to cleaning out, rearranging, and making my apartment an entirely new space and vibe, and internally because now that I'm aware of the choices I have been making that hurt myself and others, i can rewire my mind to stop before acting out of habit and I can act in accordance to how I genuinely feel or think. It's become liberating and I feel my sense of self developing as I continue to experience life with a new set of awareness and understanding.

It's been about a week, 6-7 days, since making the decision to go all in with doing something different and theres a new battle with each new day, but I have never been so motivated to figure out a way to keep pushing forward because for once in my life I see a future worth living for. Finally, a glimpse of hope and happiness, things I didnt think were obtainable for me in this life.

I originally said "page turned", but what is more fitting would be to consider it the second installment on my life's series.

If I continue to make it through each day alive then Part 2 of my life will develop into quite a story. I'm sharing through Tumblr my experiences with the intent to show broken souls who believe they are destined fuck ups, that there is way out of self-induced madness and happiness can be obtained. For me, when I was able to even slightly accept the idea of being happy, that gave me an excessive amount of motivation to the point where I will kill anyone who stands in my way of obtaining something I didnt think I would ever have. The amount of dopamine that floods my entire mind, body, and soul gets me higher than i have ever been and I'm addicted to it. I fiend for the rush that encompasses my entire existence so much that I nearly pass out everytime.

I'm weird. I'm nonconforming. I'm psychotic. I'm dramatic. I'm sick in the head. I'm not fucking normal. So I'm going to be the 1% who got down with my demons and (hopefully) lives to finish Part 2.

[theyrealllegends]

Careful (Roger Taylor x Reader)

Chapter Summary: You’re not the only one who’s developing feelings but Roger is too, trying to have you close to him at first, but then he’s trying to forget you over way too much scotch. This is how both of you get sick and he takes care of you again. 

Author’s Note: It’s Roger’s POV in this chapter, yeeet! (Please don’t @ me I can’t tell you why and if you don’t like it I’ll never attempt it again, I promise)

Words: ~2k

Warnings: I’d rate this mature because (and this is a spoiler) someone’s masturbating aaand there’s drinking again and eventually someone has to throw up

Chapter 4

Previous Parts: Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3

I couldn’t fall asleep that night because Tiffany never left my head: her reddish-blonde curls, her incredibly green eyes, her lips for fucks sake - I needed that. I craved being close to her, to feel her, to hear her breath like I’d never wanted anything else. The boys had noticed that I was hitting my drums harder than I usually did while messing up their rhythms and I knew that they knew that something was off but they wouldn’t mention it if I got myself under control before our next gig tomorrow night. I just didn’t see how that was possible, when I was now here, lying awake and only the thought of Tiffany’s voice made my whole stomach feel light, in the best way possible. I had no idea how long I’d been staring in the dark but I was seriously contemplating to go out and either get drunk or find some girl to do whatever it took to distract myself. I just couldn’t let myself think about what I’d do to her if she hadn’t been this innocent little princess I saw, every time I looked at her. Even though only my refusal to think of that was enough to give me a hard one, already. I swallowed hard as I carefully touched myself and I stopped trying to shake the thought of her because I knew I couldn’t while I was masturbating - what would it feel like to bury myself in her body, feel her skinny, yet strong legs wrap around me and see her losing herself in my thrusts. God, I just wanted her to feel as good as she made me feel when I got into the kitchen to a prepared breakfast, when I didn’t feel like a dumbass because she’d make me study and when I managed to make her laugh. I gripped on my own hair at the thought of her laugh, trying to imagine it were her tiny hand and her skinny fingers pulling on the strands while I held back a moan. Tiffany Abberforth was the most precious human being on this planet and I’d have to protect her with my whole life, I knew that for a fact. 

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

“You wanna join me tonight?”, I asked her, when I met her in the kitchen the next morning. Probably I was being selfish to try and get her out of the comfort of our flat, but I wanted her to be closer to me anytime. She was reading some book like the smart girl she was but she put it away as soon as I tried to talk to her. 

“Where are you going?”

“The boys and I have a gig and I thought - since you’re freed now - you might like…?”

“Are you trying to make me drunk two out of three nights in a row?”, she called me out in a joking tune and it made me smile to see her that relaxed. 

“Of course not, but I’d like you around me two out of three nights in a row.” Damn, she had no idea what she did to me when she blushed. She looked down at her hands, seemingly battling herself to a decision. “No pressure, Tiffy, if you’re there, you’re there and if not I’ll still play for you.”

“You know it’s not because I don’t want to hear you play, right, Rog?”

“Do I?”, I asked and leaned my head to the side a little too let her know I wasn’t completely serious. 

“I can’t see myself enjoying your show in a huge crowd at all, it scares me, especially since I wouldn’t know anyone watching you, too and I - “

“You can join us for our rehearsal on Friday, if you prefer that.”

“That’s perfect”, she immediately agreed and I felt great about it. It relieved the thought of being rejected, at least. 

“We can have dinner after, if you’d like.”

“We always have dinner, Rog.”

“No, I mean, you and me - and the boys if we can’t get rid of them - having dinner in a restaurant, if you’d like.” Now I was the one blushing, I feared, as she looked at me in surprise. 

“Yeah, I think I’d like that”, she said after a moment and I smiled at her. 

“Me too, Tiffy.”

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

I knew I shouldn’t really - even though there wasn’t anything exclusive about Tiffany and me, there wasn’t a “we” if it came to anything else than talking about our shared flat situation, but I still felt guilty and like I wasn’t supposed to let all the girls approach me after our gig. 

“Hey there, sweet boy”, one of them purred, “How you doing, love?”, the other one said and “You did so amazing!”, I heard a third one while they really gave me a hard time to move forward, just trying to get to the bar behind Brian. Their hands were all over me and I was glad I didn’t wear something too showing or open, even, and it wasn’t that I didn’t like it, I just felt like it wasn’t fair. I wasn’t looking for anything they had to give me, instead I was trying to figure out which of them reminded me the most of Tiffany, really, and I knew that was just wrong. 

“Thanks, girls, but let me have a drink first, would you?”

Of course I ended up buying the three of them drinks and I hated to admit it, but it was kind of a given that I went outside “to smoke”, only to make out with one of them, finally letting go of the thought of Tiffany’s emerald green eyes. I didn’t enjoy the night at the girl’s place - as if the universe wanted to punish me, really, for drinking myself into a state where I didn’t only forget about the girl’s - or Tiffany’s - name but also about my own, to a state where I didn’t care about anything anymore, trying to find relieve in it. I couldn’t even remember the sex for the love of god, only assuming it was good, by how the girl was cuddled against me, how our clothes were all over the floor. But the mattress woke me up, squeaking and poking into my back, which didn’t make the pain in my head any better. I just stumbled to grab my clothes and left, unable to look back at the girl or respond when she called for me, only heading for the door. I didn’t know if it was the alcohol or the hole situation getting the best of me, but I didn’t make it really far without throwing up and horribly cursing myself. I’d done dumb things but they didn’t really compare to last night. 

Also, when I got home, there was light in the kitchen. It was an early morning and I knew, Tiffany was one to get up before sunrise but couldn’t that girl let herself get some rest once? She was reaching for the medicine cabinet, when I stepped into the kitchen, feeling her eyes on me and suddenly realising that I could easily be covered in my own vomit, if I was as unlucky as I felt that moment. 

“You need help?”, I asked nonetheless and the worry in her eyes got wilder as she heard my hoarse voice. 

“Where have you been?”

“I couldn’t tell you her name, even if I wanted to and I really shouldn’t have gone”, I tried to explain, unable to lie to her, or stand her quizzing look another second. “I feel sick, man, I had way too much scotch last night.” What would I do next, call her “mate”? This is really a great way to safe your ass out of this situation, seriously, keep going, Taylor, you’re doing great. 

“Makes two of us, though”, Tiffany murmured and stepped away, acknowledging that she was a bit too tiny to reach the pain killers. I reached up, to hand them to her, unable to look her way - mostly because I was really aware of the bad taste in my mouth and I didn’t want her to smell me in the end. 

“What’s wrong, love?”, I still asked, scared that she wasn’t alright. 

“I get sick after every exam period, really and here I am, coming down with a fever.”

“Then, hush, to bed!”, I said, grabbing her to make her move and tug her in, before I could escape into the bathroom. “I’ll make you tea and get you soup, you just stay there, you hear me?”, I rambled in the process of getting her into her bed. I started brushing my teeth, while I went into the kitchen to put some tea water to a boil and looked through the cabinets for soup, realising I’d have to pick some up at the store. That wasn’t half bad in the end, because it forced to make myself look somewhat decent and I could get new cigarettes, cheese and toast at the store too, so I could at least eat some terrible breakfast when I came back to find Tiffany asleep. 

I prepared the soup as it said on the pack and carefully carried it to her night stand, before I sat down next to Tiffany and softly ran my fingers over her face to make her wake up. Her skin was really clean and soft, but it felt hot to a point that I wished I knew a doctor, a better one than myself, for sure. 

“Wake up, sweet girl, you need to get your soup down, so you’ll get better.” She smiled at me weakly and tried to move to a sitting position, so she could cuddle against her bed’s headboard and slowly eat the soup I held for her. I watched her eat in silence while I sat next to her, my legs crossed on her mattress, realising I should turn her heater up for a start. The tea water had gotten cold while I was gone so I reheated it, to finally make the tea she needed and I looked at her in her bed critically, while she sipped it. “Tiffy, do you want me to get you more pillows?”, I asked because it was kind of impossible that I had more pillows than she did, right? She giggled at me and moved her head for me to come closer. 

“Rog, you’re acting like my mom - worse, actually, because she doesn’t consider you sick as long as your bones aren’t broken.”

“But -“

“I just need to rest, don’t worry”, she didn’t let me interrupt her. “You should go, so I don’t infect you.”

“I won’t leave you alone, unless that was your attempt to kick me out.”

“No, it wasn’t”, she explained and I felt relieved. She didn’t seem to be angry at me or the way I’d spent my night and that made me feel a little less sick. 

“Good, then”, I said and slipped under her covers. Her eyes were on me, looking a little shocked, otherwise just intensely focused on me, as I moved towards her to rest her head on one of my arms and spoon her. “You fine, love?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to -“

“But I want to”, I whispered into the back of her neck. 

“Thank you”, she murmured, shifting around a little to get the most comfortable.

“I was worried, when you didn’t come home.”

“I’m so sorry, Tiff”, I told her again, honestly. “I really shouldn’t have gone.”

“Glad you realised that”, she mumbled and it made me chuckle a little. Her breathing became slower and deeper when she feel asleep and I hummed one of the songs, the boys and I were working on, to fasten up the process, until I eventually fell asleep as well. 

Tags

@crazyweirdocalledfriday @discodeakyy @blondecarfucker

Let me know what you guys thought 💕💕

[jamesdazell]

Happy New Year 2020

Happy New Year. I hope this year brings more love and less hate. More peace and less pain. More kindness and less jealousy. More self-love and less comparison. A time to embrace new beginnings and wave goodbye to toxic times.

I

I posted one thing to Instagram last year. I had a really productive year and it was so full of growth in every important way to me. You cant Instagram that. It's something within you. You dont photograph it; you recognise it by a change of behaviour and outlook. Everything else in a year to year comparison is acquisition, age, or a change of scenery. I'm more excited and fulfilled by the experiences of personal growth and major changes of perspective than a drive for success in a career reshaping myself after the ideal habits and image that would more undo me than make me. I have no interest in a success wherein at the end of the journey I wouldn’t know myself, nor enjoy the company I shared. Success at all costs, is not very interesting. At the moment, if I were a successful writer by exactly what I wish to do.. who would I sit with when I got there? No. I won’t become published. There is more to success than pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and rolling up your sleeves. That’s a straight white male Christian’s romantic rhetoric. who gave themselves a free passport to show up anywhere and set up an imitation of success back in Europe. Nothing betrays the reality of white male priveledge like success and failure as an act of one's own will or quality of mind.  In reality, there are circumstances and situations to take in to account. Success in the end is a kind of assimiliation; a manner of fitting in, and imitating the model of success. One finds the same thing succeeds in the same place time and time again, with subtle novelty to make it seem new. But on deeper analysis, there are places where certain achievements never occur at all, even in the richest conditions, because it wasn’t the nature of the place; it's not to their particular temprament or personal contstitution. One is successful because they lend power to already existing success. They are useful to power or that which desires it.

My existence fulfills me, more than the world’s idea. Life and all its difficulties and lessons, learning how to become a better and a more contented me. In a way my life is a series of finding ways of preserving myself and not being shaped after the pressures of life or adapting after the world's image and excitement, because I've always known who I am and what I'm about. But it does become hard to preserve and to affirm oneself in the ever changing world with its innovations that change the very farbic of society. There is always a need to find my defensive and offensive strategies to preserve and affirm myself in the face of the world. And my interests and passions - though this may be true of everybody - are ways of retaining, maintaining, and developing the best parts of myself, without giving them up for popular fads that rise and fall. Learning about myself, the world, and what everything is really about. Finding my own drama, meaning, goals, and adventure of life on my own terms, out of my own experiences, not those shoved into me from media and social pressure. How could I Instagram that. The moment I post a moment I am happy with is the moment I doubt my happiness and put my memory up for public validation. No. I validate myself and I validate my own experiences and memorable moments. I dont need to know how much something is likeable: I have liked it. I dont need to know how agreeable a thought is: I have thought it. I dont need to know how achieved an act is: I have done it. I dont need to know how good this is: I am proud of it.

I envy the blind person who has no use for the narcissism of Instagram, is spared of the passive agressive anxiety and pessimism on Twitter, and still appreciates life for all the things truly worth appreciating. Whose appreciation for life cannot be photographed, and does not know the dopamine addiction for a validation 'like' counter to compensate their low self-esteem. Social media is a petri dish for narcissism. And every woke person is a basket case with the same narcissistic anxiety as everyone else on it hoping to be validated and gain followers for their wokeness. Narcissists crave validation. Disable them by disengaging. Narcissists are made not born. They are overindulged in validation and underindulged in emtional connection. They dont reflect. They socialise to have conversations about their problems in order to be forgiven and receive consoling kind words about themselves, and pretend they dealt with it. Because all narcissists want is validation. And it’s the epidemic of our time.

2

Our self-impression of ourselves we upload onto (anti-)social media, is not nearly as interesting and attractive, as the details, humour, idiosyncracies we are unaware of, because it's not interesting when we try to impress - especially by such superficial things, most of which aren't even things to do with ourselves, but places we arrive to and things we acquire. Images of ourselves without context, a macroscopic gaze devoid of the energy and life of its context: namely, existence. All the things that make up the rest of the picture that a healthy perception takes into account. It rubs away so much of a human being that they are left little more than a skin surface. It makes us into journalists of our own lives (except not reviewers), and advertisers of everything we don't need.

I understand I could use social media to gain success in my aims, but I dont want to become what that entails in the process nor want a success that would depend on other people being on these platforms to grant me it. Work hard and succeed quietly, making your work your achievement. Do good deeds in silence. Don't do it to then post on social media because you still need the excess validation. Do it because it was a good thing to do. Absolving your mistakes by your own conscience is the long road round of not caring about that you made them all. If its not forgiveness by a change of behaviour, or attitude then nothing has been learned and nothing changed.

Dont just travel to places. Make memories there. Theres nothing impressive about boarding a commercial plane and showing up where it lands. What else was expected. If there was no growth or contribution there, were you even there. Just passing through like an invisible wind. Lifestyles are for people with no real meaning in their life. It's a way to fill the void of daily meaninglessnes that they have to stylise their life. It used to be that there were things unnecessary to buy. Now it is things unnecessary to know. You must know? What for? Knowledge without purpose is decadence. Keep to your lane. If it's youre job to know, then know and do your job. One voice of reason well articulated can silence a room of idiots. Thats how the world works. On social media, the idiots gain ascendancy by liking each others idiocy 10k skyward. Power is reversed online.

Once you no longer care for the validation and public reception, and once you realise that politically social media is ineffectual to substantial change - snce it's effectively a right wing publishing model with every ounce of sense falling off the algorithm - it's just watching the world go to hell one post at a time. And that to thrive on it is to assimilate with its ideal: a narcissist. A juvenile superficial arena of naval gazing dopamine addicts. Everything else on it is somewhere between a complaint box, click bait, and ‘food-food advertising.’ Then there feels no point to it regarding your health and self-esteem. Filling your mind, your eyes, with things which were not present a moment ago, which may have stirred and disturbed you for a much longer time. It's made by and for narcissists to peak dopamine hits.

Dopamine acts as a neurotransmitter made by different parts of the brain that is part of our evolutionary chemicals that gave us the drive to do things that were positive for our survival. The chemical that made our brain drive us to eat when hungry, find warmth and shelter when cold, to reproduce our genes to survive, now that same reward chemical in the brain floods in excess. Your brain wants the dopamine not the thing. Its the motivation chemical. We need it. We evolved by it. It keeps us positive by controlling memory, focus, attention, motivation. Without can cause lack of focus, restlessness and irritability, erractic impulsive bodily movement, and indecision. And prologned deficiency due to the excess of it swell and depletion it, cause stress, anxiety, depression to ensue.

We live in a dopamine driven culture. We sell this idea that drugs are enhancing. Drugs are not enhancing at all. It's evident that no feeling of reward from alcohol, smoking, cocaine, heroin, cannabis, meth, other pain relief and psychoactive drugs, etc is giving you anything that your body wasnt already giving you, and if anything those substances only reduce the same chemical that is desired to attain by one using them. And naturally this deficiency therefore leads to dependency and addiction, because the person thinks these substances are where they got them and how they got a boost of them. When actually they use them up and it takes a couple of weeks to restore to normal regulation which is why people go back to substances, then bulld up a tolerance and need more. Tolerance is actually your body's natural adaptation trying to regulate your body to new circumstances. Tolerance isn’t you handling the substance more. It’s a natural adaptive response that the body undergoes to re-regulate, to counter-act the effect of alcohol and drugs. Your body thinks it’s sick and adapts to the change. That’s why you get drunk faster if you drink less frequently than if you drink regularly long-term. It’s like resetting the zero point on weighing scales manually. So, a drinker will need more to tip the tolerance, because your body reset ‘a-lot-more-alcohol’ to the new zero point. The reason a person gets drunk less quickly after drinking regularly is because the body reduces its GABA inhibitiors and increases the exciters, because the effect of the alochol had been increasing the GABA inhibitiors and reducing the exciters. But the alcoholic wants the GABA inhibitors because the dopamine has now associated it with the reward chemical, and so drink more to tip the balance in favour of the GABA inhibitors because they get the “good feeling.”All which the body would have given you anyway. Whats more, is that its the same of one-click online shopping, advertising, high sugar food and drink, high carbs, junk food, binge watching TV, image scrolling sites, porn, dating apps, and social media. As well as anything that increases stress, because it depletes dopamine, which results in further stress, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, depression. Our cultural lifestyle is dopamine addiction. But it’s effect is the reverse. It’s self-depricating and makes us less ambitious because dopamine is needed for motivation. The only thing that adds extra boost of reward chemical of dopamine, endogenous opioid, serotonin, and endogenous cannabinoid, is by eating healthy food, getting sufficient sleep, and getting regular and intense aerobic exercise, and some stretching/strength building. The healthier we are, the more powerful and stronger we feel, the motivated and ambitious we are, the more daring and inspired, the happier and more tolerant of things that would otherwise stress. We are a better human being for it. Big business exploiting our evolutionary chemicals to keep us addicted to unnecessary lifestyles, media, and products. And because it takes a week or more to replenish naturally, an addiction cycle to quick fix substances occur. It used to be that a person should just not do drugs, but now its a whole lifestyle that should be avoided.

Our most legal drugs are the worst. Alochol and cigarettes have more death related incidents than illegal substances. 5 minutes of doing nothing is better for your brain than 5 minutes of social media. You improve your brain and subsequently your body, having the same feel good pain relieving chemicals that are desired,  and subsequently the power over your environment and subsequently your life by doing nothing, compared to engaging with most of culture available.

Here is a video explaining drug addiction and dopamine (same applies to carbs, sugar, fast food, junk food, and other quick fix dopamine reward high)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxHNxmJv2bQ&t=2s

The reason is people want the inhibitors. Even though its not giving them anything that their body wouldnt give for free. Its wiring the brain to respond to stress, suffering, and pain. Drugs alleviate pressure. But whether for pleasure or for stress, it’s a response to a situation. It’s not the danger of drugs that matter to me. It's a mental health issue. But your body gives you what it needs, and drives you to get what it needs. If you would only allow it to do its job. You want to make life lighter. But in reality all real things are heavy. The pressure of life ought to stimulate a response that demands more health and more strength. The body wants to give you more health and strength. The very feeling of struggle in life, psychological feeling, and at times physical strife, is your body signalling to you that you need a higher health and strength. In strife, the body fights or flight. In other words, innately decides if it behaves decadently or towards health; existentially or ecstatically. The proper reaction to pressure is to be stronger, the reaction to signals of low moods is be healthier, the reaction to de-motivation is to eat dopamine increasing foods, get exercise, sunshine, and sleep; the proper reaction to insecurity is do something daring that would require confidence. “To have strength, one must first need it” Nietzsche. It’s a resilience and strength of mind that has to be trained. Drugs don’t alleviate depression, they perpetuate it, by never solving the problem. They decrease the feel good chemical in the brain that would have pulled the person out of depression. That’s what rehab centres are really doing, they are taking the person out of the habits that are disrupting the body’s natural chemical regulation. The body has to rewire itself to desire healthier habits, feel good, and motivation. The pressures of life are life demanding you to be more and you have to go meet it. That's just the game of being a functioning human being.

You are getting the feel good drugs all the time. You are actually depleating your body of things which it thinks it wants. You get those chemical in such a surge that they create deficiency. You think its an uplifting buzz. You're getting a buzz from things that wont improve your life when your body is trying to give those chemical to you to motivate you for things that will. Knowledge is not power. Health is power.

Drugs just block stuff. It doesnt give. It just blocks so that your body supplies more of what it already has because it thinks it cant provide. This deprives people of realising the native vigour of their human potential. Whats needed to realise the ecstatic nature of a human being has always been Great Health. There are however obvious remedies, none of which define post modern culture if you bring them all together. Getting plenty of sleep, exercise, sunshine, socialise better, have healthier and uplifting hobbies, read, draw, learn an instrument, learn often, eating certain dopamine increasing foods, less carbs, less meat, less sugar, less coffee, less alcohol etc less of everything that is post-modern American culture. Read more, great things, with charisma and intelligence, with depth and meaning, things beautifully written and timeless. Listen to music that reaches into you and excites as much as it calms, a catharsis of emotion that needed to be recognised and explored. Visual art that belongs to great times, and not artists who think their pain is worth your attention. A culture that brings out the best of you. The best mind. The best health. The best company to be around. The best aspirations for yourself. The best diet and lifestyle. It’s an interesting time because it feels to go with the flow is the worst thing to do, not only boring, but bad health. And to experiment with exploring your own direction is essential. Find yourself in your own culture you invent. Design your own culture. Experiment with everything and explore what brings out you the most at your best.

Our genetic code is like a piano. It has all the notes laid out. But it makes proteins, and it decides which to make based on responses to situations and experiences, that is epigenetics. So it's like your genetic code is a piano, all the available notes laid out, and epigenetics is like the music being played on it. Choosing which of the available notes to use when in response to situations and experiences. We live by the piano made by generations of our ancestors. Each one of us trying to play new beautiful music to pass on.

Foods that help increase dopamine are fish for omega 3, oregano and oregano oils, probiotic foods that help absorb amino acids to make dopamine, green tea (as it helps electrical signals to move around the brain), tumeric (easy way is to add it to rice or pasta) which lowers inflammation in the brain allowing for more dopamine release, high magnesium foods like pumpkin, beetroot, spinach (this also helps for good sleep), blueberries, everyday vegetables like broccoli, tomatoes, garlic, asparagus. Plus good for boosting serotonin are walnuts pistachios, lactose free milk. For both, have avocados, and eggs.

3

This is not to denounce hedonism and Epicureanism. On the contrary give me all the Saturnalia  Lupercalia  Bacchanal you like, the more ecstatic culture the better. Music and dance are the only arts of the twentieth century that got anywhere toward the ancient ecstatic culture. And because it looked beyond European tradition to world cultures, on other continents like Africa and Asia. But this trans-Altantic post-Modern culture is just decadent self deprecation. Naturally, spawned by Christian cultures, which favoured transcendence from everything bodily. And has always had an aversion to power and strength. which the body is trying to supply but we keep kicking it away for cheap fixes. Principle causes for a love of Minoan-Mycenean-Greco-Roman cultures, utterly in contradiction to Abrahamic faiths. Not Ancient and Modern. Polytheism versus Monotheism as a whole frame of mind. Ecstatic versus Existential. Greco-Roman vs Abrahamism.  I don’t want to get rid of Abrahamism, but there are much  better alternatives healthier mind and body, from which emanates a whole  culture and art, indeed, civilizations.

There was a recent study of the healthiest countries in the world with the obvious result that the Mediterranean (listing Spain and Italy first and second) and Japan as the healthiest cultures. Of course, the traditions of their culture are entirely health driven. "a Mediterranean-style diet, which has been shown to reduce cardiovascular events, mostly stroke, compared with a Western diet. A Mediterranean diet includes generous quantities of olive oil, fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and fish; limited portions of red meats or processed meats; and moderate amounts of cheese and wine." explains Dr. Ron Blankstein, a cardiovascular imaging specialist and preventive cardiologist at Harvard-Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Post-war America created post-modern society and the PR/advertising industry. Post-modernism, not only a juvenile variation of modernism, but a hijack of evolutionary biology. Everything innate to our nature stimulated into an excessive overkill, exploited in order to get us hooked on unnecessary media, lifestyles, and products. To be healthy is to be unAmerican, to be unPost-Modern. Everything introduced is psychologically detrimental. Walk around and try to find a place that isn’t junk food, gambling, alcohol, shopping, coffee.

The more capitol cities are the epicentre of post-modern culture as we 'move forward' into regression, I am lured away to less notable locations, that have been spared and still retain some health without artificial substance abuse just to keep afloat. Cities now brim full of juvenile yuppie narcissistic kidults on finance living like they’re still at university, and cultural funding dwindling as we’ve regressed back into the 1980s yuppie culture that made all the baby boomers rich. You can almost map the baby boomer life with the creation of post-modernism. The PR industry, nicotine, plastics, sugar, the colour television, LSD, ketamine, the 60s in their teens, the 70s love-in in their twenties, the 80s wealthy cocaine yuppies in their thirties, repackaging their youth to kids in the 90s, and ever since, and the masterplan that has been the 21st century of white nationalism they were raised on in their earliest memories in the 1950s. And what is “progressive” today is only what was progressive in the 60s almost as a left-wing conservativism because things have moved so far-right,

But it has become clear (as big business, big tech, fossil, and right wing gain ever more ascendency) that our knowing is ineffectual and only depresses us. "We absorb so much information that we've lost our common sense" Gertrude Stein once said. Politics has become worse since the advent of social media, not better. We don’t know more, but find those comments that argue our own opinion for us. People buy books, go to the theatre, to hear about things they already believe. Armchair activists are not as effectual as they think. And hardworking Foundations and Charities still exist. The richest of the rich only take care of things that concern them, and believe if the poor suffer enough they'll take care of themselves. The detriment of engaging with the platform, outweighs the good intentions of using it. And consequences are always more important than intentions. It's not important to know, if prudence and profoundness are lacking. 

4

My life has its own universe, and social media inhibits that to the degree that I cannot see the situation of my own universe enough to do enough about it for its own sake. My existence is it's own universe. Make your world your passion. Better to do whatever makes you feel empowered and proactive and take care of your lane as much as you can. The more you listen to the news the more you live after it. You react to whats todays news and tomorrows and the next, forgetting your own personal power. Be disruptive as a child that is full of energy and aim not living after the world but their own happiness. The world must always find its arrangement. Where people find where they belong. Not fitting in to any success at all costs, but knowing who you are and what you are about and finding an environment which stimulates enriches their potential. What a life needs to thrive is not social comparison, but a mirror to reflect ourselves. that we enjoy ourselves, to make the positive changes necessary, and to be present within our own existence, with our own circumstances, working within its own sphere of influence.

Be the light and goodness in your own knowable and experiential world. Avoiding unnecessary information entering your mind that really serves no purpose but to inform you of things others are doing, or have, that is far beyond your sphere of influence, that wouldn't have entered your mind at all if you had not taken out your phone.

There is a real luxury: Living without concern for the conversation on social media and the news. Being present in your own existence. Not thinking about every corner of the globe, but what you can do where you are. Feeling your own life and being present within it, positively effecting things around and within your physical proximity.

🧘‍♀️🧘‍♂️🚶🏽‍♂️🚶‍♀️

[kendrixtermina]

Typing Misadventures - IN edition

So, typing and the difficulties therein.

Aside from person-specific ad-hominems, some that have been elaborated upon in attempts to explain them on this very website.

Sensors: Bad Sensor descriptions written by NPs, combining with the fact that Sensors rely a lot on developing a practical experential “feel” for things. A bad, vague and overly abstract description that doesn’t relate to their life is gonna be not very useful. (especially for SFPs for whom what they relate to is srz bzness) - Interestingly I’ve seen a lot of Sensors saying that they easily indentify particular types once they have encountered them IRL. (Speculation: With intuitives it probably depends more on wether they have their definitrions straight.)

Ne-Doms: Type-hop and doubt their type alot because they know they always could be mistyped and possibilities are the primary facet of reality for them. The “creative” nature of the auxillary, and their auxillary being a function that generates and handles belief systems,  means they can always reinterpret the evidence by redoing their reasoning or reassigning meaning, also the lack of Si leads to less constancy in their thinking, they change opinion easily, which is normally an asset, but not so much for self-typing as every input generates new ideas. (The auxillaries also have this but to a much lesser degree - b/c)

—

But today, I want to talk about INs (I know, boring - but those are what I know the most about since I am one.)

You may have seen me caveat my posts with “Unless I am actually an xNFP or something” as of late Yeah. It went about like this:

Troll: Haha you’re mistyped!

Me: Why?

Troll: because X.

Me: I have an alternate, more fitting explanation for X and a lot of things which my current typing explains betters especially when you get into the nuance of mbti theory.

Troll: (*hamfistedly applies overreductionistic function definition*) “Anyone who ever quotes a source ever is a Te user”. Just like anyone who ever mentions memory is a SJ amirite?

Troll: *shifts the topic to my person and then accuses me of talking about myself*

Me: *blocks troll largely to curttail own tendency to waste time & energy with internet arguments*

So at my best,  I believe in not dismissing inconvenient PoVs and double-checking, and the main point of replying them was to leave an alternate opinion for future readers hence no point in continuing after that had been done.  

At my worst damn inf Fe makes it hard to ignore input even if I don’t believe it’s justified (except when it fails to pick them up - as inferior functions are wont to be its either sluggish or AHH with little inbetween. ) and that lil 8 fix of mine doesn’t want to “stand down quietly”.  

So I ask a few reasonable, knowledgeable, non-troll person, one of which said “Hm, could be, you anecdote alot which X type also does”

I believed this was better accounted for by simple ol’ Si and w4-self revealing tendencies, but, how could I know for sure? I never denied having a pronounced 4wing and fix, but I thought that sufficiently explaining their perceived discrepancies insofar as I found them consistent with reality and indeed all data collected so far. Too much would just be filed away as “inf Te” as a blanket term, the way any sign that [fan favorite character] is ST rather than INFJ is “inferior Se” though that supposed “inferior” is 80% of what she does and all moments claimed for F or N are the sort of situations where anyone would display emotion or philosophizing and what intuition they display is distinctly Ne instead. 

Like the proverbial man who dreamt of being a frog I couldn’t cast the doubt from my mind and went over reinterpreting my thought patterns throughout the day. How do I know I’m NOT X type? After all my idea of and criteria for type are based on the definitions I extracted from various mbti sources when first familiarzing myself with the topic… how do I know I understood it correctly? How can ANY human correctly understand a definition if they have to deduce/reconstruct/guess what the other meant with their own flawed mind?

(At this point the non-INs in the audience might be rolling their eyes)

I still thought my type made the most sense but the person, through trolling in that particular instance, was not alltogether clueless and had some good insights, and also, some ppl agreed with them (theres that Fe again) - I was pretty sure I was in the holographic-panomramic thinking style but I could be wrong,  thats a fairly rarely used concept which I simply started using cause I thought it made sense. ENFPs can mistake themselves for introverts. I have been mistaken for extrovert b/c of my lack of filter… but I was pretty sure I was a very pronouncedintrovert and had Fe, and so I went over it over and over again.

They said I didn’t comprehend _ i had some theory as to why they thought the way they did (not just bias against xNFPs but assuming all Ti is like aux Ti. After all, an introverted function as a dominant builds a framework and may be reluctant to accept or need time to withdraw when said framework clashes with reality to the point of needing a full revamping, purportedly resulting in a certain stubbornness particularly if it’s a Ji function.  )

but what if I really Didn’t comprehend? Then all my reasoning would be worthless! I dont think I have the skills of an INFP, but what if i misunderstood those? Was a lot of what I’d attributed to Ti just Ne? i thought I had rather typical Ti speech patterns (it was hard to unsee, like my brain used a highly predictable parsing alghorithm to make thoughts into words) but they disagreed and pointed to what they thought was Fi. 

I thought that despite all the differences introduced by  shared preferences and  there were differences between I and the Fi doms I knew. The 9 and the 6 were much more lowkey, non-confrontational than I and way more perceptive in line with how socionics describes Fi as the “Ethics of Relations” and how Nardi calls it an “Inner state of listening/reacting”; I mostly listen to the contents of someone’s words; I’d spot a liar by contradiction or unbeliavable statements, or by deducing what beliefs they are operating from. Feelers supposedly use primarily tone of voice... but I have sure noticed tone of voice a few times, and this is a qualia. I can’t compare what “Fi” or “Ti” feel like without making assumptions of which one I am using. 

Supposedly

The 4! INFPs should be the most similar to me, on the other hand, they tend to have a certain...absoluteness in their beliefs and statements in a way I wouldn’t be comfortable with. I’m more hesitant, more relativizing, adding qualifiers etc so bI don’t say anything incorrect. 

I don’t mean to bash the INFPs here, they are usually just processing their specific feels and do not mean to imply things about others. (Tumblr INFP: “I, an INFP, experience X.”. Tumblr xxFJ: “Are you saying that other types don’t????? You can’t say that! How self absorbed are you?” Immature  Tert Fe User:*distantly feels the same urge toward ,moral condemnation as FJ,but couldn’t care less if INFP offends anyone -  settles for calling them a snowflake instead. * TJs and Ti doms: *roll their eyes, half-assedly consider correcting whoever they disagree with but ultimately just keep scrolling*) Of course Team Fe sometimes has a point if the INFP in question is young and/or irresponsible. 

Example: 

One INFP 4w5: “I be those shallow fake bitches look down on you just because you don’t wear as much makeup. I don’t think anyone who wears makeup can be trusted, unless it’s like,halloween makeup or something like that, they’re just putting up fake faces to be popular.”

Me (let’s say, presumed INTP 5w4): “I dunno... Like I agree that those girls are shallow bitches,if they had spines, they wouldn’ perform arbitrary fake behavior just to be popular.* But not everyone is the same - maybe some people might just wear makeup because they like how it looks. The real problem is people being judged by arbitrary conventions on principle. What does is matter whether someone wears makeup or not? Its a made-up convention with no real reason.  It’s none of anyone’s business.”

* for the record I have since realized that there’s nothing bad about wanting to be popular as long as yopu dont harm anyone, and that for some people its genuinely what they want. I was, like,  13. Common (w)4 pitfall I guess. 

As you see both I and this middle school friend of mine are expressing 4-ish povs, but I used to think  the difference in our reasoning highlighted some differences. 

Granted this is more 5w4 vs 4w5 than necessarily Ti vs Fi,  Could just be the 5′s general disconnect toward action and desire to “know more first”. 

There are 5 INFPs. after all. Mostly sx 5s and as such differentiable from the relatively intense, dramatic sx 4 as long as you’re certain enough that they’re sx. Thinking about how to describe them. More second-guessing and ‘drifting’ than the 4 ones but like them in their analytical nature. A different kind of contemplative.  Still reasons distinctlylike an INFP - See, One of them was religious, for example, and I’m pretty sure an INTP would have had more posts about why they were religious or not, though it’s one of the types most likely to be a non-believer, the religious ones tend to have a theological bent and talk about the perfection and incomprehensibility of god, how god is totally logical etc. (Thomas Acquinas is a famous example) - their faith will be an ordered self-consistent system. A bit like that example of copernikus assuming the orbits must be perfectly circular because natture as he understood it would tend toward the most “perfect” forms. I’m not religious and I could likewise talk about that at lenght.

Arguments that convinced me:  “This is how these beliefs came from, not an actual god” and “If were made out of single celled organism who die all the time as shed skin cells, how would the rest of them dieing at once be different?” “Even if your religion is true that means many, if not all others are not. So at least all some must be myths. How is your “true” religion different from them?” 

Arguments made by famous Te-Fi users: “Occams Razor.” “We can’t disprove a giant sucker on the back of Pluto either, but its no reason to suppose one.”“Belief in god hampers human development and creates dependent, slavish mentality”

That 5!INFP’s attitude toward their belief reminded me more of another Fi dom I know (albeit an ISFP). “Yeah, I know the common objections, but look, it’s what I believe. Don’t come into my house and be a jerk to me about it.” or “[Assholish behavior] is not actually in line with my religion. My religion, and this aspect of it, are actually about love/peace/duty/etc” 

If, while conversing,  you hit a hard disagreement, that is,  an axiom that’s not up for debate, your Fi-dom friend may change the topic/agree to disagree/ “It’s just the way I feel” 

[This could apply to other moral or ideological questions religion is just an example; This is not supposed to be about religion it’s just here to illustrate a perceived difference. . I’m not implying all INFPs have the same approach to religion or even have to be religious.]

Another conversation I remember having with them actually on the very subject of Fi vs Fe. IDK how we got to that topic but I mentioned something I initially thought was an enneagram thing (my memory is vague on the details) but I mentioned something like lowkey feeling guilty for receiving praise that I believe was undeserved. 

She deemed it a Fe thing and said that for her, as a Fi dom/ fe opposing type, a bit of praise she did not agree with might not cause any reaction at all unless she thought they had a point  or otherwise had a reaction from her end, like deciding the criticism was unfair - why should she feel guilty b/c of what someone else says? 

Granted that’s just an anecdote, but what am I to do? INFP 5s are not super common. Also I’m not making this decisionbased on any single of these examples but... not even from the “preponderance” so much as to how they can be best explained. 

And  of course, if I really did get everything wrong after looking into the topic for years, what guarantee is there that I typed any of those people correctly? None, as one of the trolls/claimants correctly pointed out. 

After all what I want is the truth, it doesn’t matter what it is. Or at least that is what I strive for as much as human frailty allows. so what if I’m an INFP? INFPs are awesome. I even considered the type early on, I just thougnt INTP fit better especially once I found out about inferior functions.  And I have always held that a person has no obligation to follow their “talents”. If I don’t have a “talent” for reason (which isn’t the same as mbti thinking anyways) all the reasons why I believe that it is a good way of life to aim for would still stand. Reason is a method to correct for human error and bias, after all, the error and bias we all have, no matter what Ji function we use.

Type insofar as it can even be said to be a real thing is a classfication of emergent qualities, not a hard measure you can get in an instrument. 

As much as I’d want to figure this out, there comes a point where you just have to like step back and put it in context.  it’s just a personality test/ little tool to facilitate communication in which “maybe this or that” is more helpful than nothing. 

Striving for it despite not being handed talent at birth is all the more worthwhile - and if reason was only for certain kinds of people what’s the point of it? Regardless of what tropes people associate with “science” or “logic”, what they actually are by definition are simple basic methods.

Last but not least there was a moment

Soo, existential crisis. At least they can’t doubt that I’m a melancholic or an oldham ideosyncraticXD

Then,  my doubt crumbled away to the “ mostly sure, dont think it could be anything else but im not omnicient” levels at which it was before.

What happened? Well, a rare event:

Well, I went outside and talked to people.

I visited my folks, saw new places, got into a few unscripted situations in other words. 

I’ve seen one post detailing that INs may mistype because they analyze themselves as a whole, feature in less apparent traits and second-guess their reasoning worrying about bias, noticing what sticks out more than the norm etc.  and so on and that may be it in part but I don’t think it’s only this relatively “noble”, too-much-of-a-good-thing mistake.

- It’s a matter about how we are all about ~extrapolating~ from data and using multiple data points and less about decisiveness and practicality. We brood away endlessly trying to come up with interpretations and conceptualizations that makes all the data points fit rather than just going with what they themselves largely seem to suggest. 

One good description I once heard is that Intuitives think in networks while Sensors think in puzzle pieces - I went overboard trying to build ever more complex networks instead of going “Yeah, with all the puzzle pieces so far it’s probably this.”. 

Sometimes the latter approach can be incomplete and miss game changing interconnections - but just as often, the former gets convoluted and therefore, both uselessly vague and too far removed from the actual data its meant to interpret. 

Aaaand, well, almost every sentence I said was “Did you know that...?” or “I think so/ don’t think so because of [observation followed by possible deduction].

Sure, I could be biased in my observation or unconsciously “doing it on purpose to appear a certain way” even if I don’t think I am or care about that, , but some critical mass of “doing it on purpose” would itself be equivalent with 5 (or a 3)

I was a little afraid one time; I reacted by withdrawing and looking at the whole thing as an observatrion and it was a highly temporary thing. And as much as I complain about Fe users playing police, I may have been guilty of one moment of overreacting, unwanted/socially-chiding “help” myself there. (The person perhaps justly called me a know-it-all. They were wrong about one thing but I may have handled it all more constructively) I repeatedly expressed vague undifferentiated preferrences that were closer to analyzing what factors were at work rather than having clear like/dislike reasons readily available. .

I critiqued a TV show (myself and the local INTJ annoying all the non-NTs with our loud, animated critiquing ) and a big factor to being unabvle to enjoy it fully was the lack of High-Concept abstract sci fi content and mostly the lack of consistency - normally a lot of my enjoyment would come from extrapolatinmg and deducing what the world is like and how it, the themes and charactzers “work”, but here I coulnd do that because it was tacked onto a ‘verse it did not fit into. I observed how said INTJ and I reacted to us correcting each other on small things with like a brief thanks or apology & just moving on whilst similar things had gotten annoyed snarks out of our otherwise patient Feeler sister...

The nails in the coffin were those 2 tumblr posts, one about differences in how Fi and low Fe argue (the latter pile including 3 phrases I used verbatim in the last discussion with my SO just hours earlier) and a post by the afore mentioned “resonable poster” about, as she called it “oversharing in soc variants vs soc blinds” though the correct amount of sharing might well be in the eye of the beholder.

But that was the one objection of the troll I didn’t have a non-vague satisfactory reply to, what rly kept me wondering rather than “eh not gonna reinvent the wheel again”, something about “sp/sx woldn’t have long descriptions or emo rants” Apparently they do when they never have to dea with the person again (such as on the internets. )

IDK I did move the description so no one’s forced to read it but lots of peeps have one (This is like... a blogging site??) but the reasons for its existence had more to do with “completionist urges related to then-current obsession (typology)” and “So I like X, bite me.” sort of sentiment than whatever it was they presuposed. 

Dear Causal-Deterministic peeps (ENTP, INFP, ISTP, ESFP): Instances of the same behavior can be caused by different causes! Look at this: 2 4 8.

What’s the pattern? - Could be “powers of 4″.  Could also be “even numbers” or even “any increasing integer”. 

Of course this whole mess is an example of where we H-P folks (INTP, ENFP, ISFP, ESTP) look at everything from multiple angels/Povs, (”Is it like this? Is it lika that? It COULD be seen this other way...”) rather than, well, decide which ones are most relevant here/ “Pick one”. At least the SPs have Se to “just grab one” or whatever it is they do. 

Whereas we just stand there speculating XD The ENFPs sorta do it too but in a whole different way/ area of life? 

Me: “Either he is nuts or I am nuts because we can’t both be telling the truth!”

ENFP: “Well I empasize with both of you so I don’t think either of you is nuts?”

Me: Sorry but this is a real dichotomy here for once. If he dun nothing wrong, then I would be wrong for accusing him thus, just as he says..

ENFP: Can we all agree to disagree and chil maybe? plz??

Might also be why there`s this overlap between ENFPs and Universalists? Though obviously not all ENFPs are universalists and vice versa. 

So yeah. Kinda comical in hindsight. I started out all second guess-ey and entertaining both possibilities in parallel but in the end, well, I do think it’s INTP after all, at least, I’d say its the most probable by a considerable margin. Most definitely 5 tho. For all the occasionall 4 ness its by far the most overwhelming tendency in day to day life/thinking ugh cant I NOT spew nerd facts about everything in sight. What are other conversaton topics? 

Bottom Line: By thinking about your own thinking you alter your thinking, and that way lie 2nd order chaotic systems, the Uncertainty Principle and Goedel’s Theorem...

So going outside both threw me out of that recursion and added new, raw data as a means to test the competing hypotheses. It forced me to see what I actually act like by and large in a natural setting rather than the many ways I could interpret or read the way I act like, which like, is not actually all that mysterious lol

[create-ninety]

Wednesday 20th February, ’19. 10am.

There’s nothing quite like going to a gig at a small venue in a trendy part of town to make you feel like a geriatric.

While I was getting ready for the event, I was wondering if I was going too casual – I was wearing a plain t-shirt with black jeans and an oversized floral blazer. Turns out I should have gone in what I normally wear as pyjamas! There were kids (I say kids, because while there were definitely a few ‘older’ people in the crowd, the majority looked like they were born this side of the century) wearing what I can only describe as their dorky mum’s clothes from the seventies. It was bizarre. Lucie and I stood to the side in a somewhat demure fashion by comparison, me sipping on non-alcoholic beer, and Lucie overheating from a temperature brought on by a nasty cold.

We both agreed that, if we were born when they were, it’s this kind of crowd we probably would have found ourselves in. Perhaps it’s because they were wearing exactly what we were wearing, once upon a time. I can imagine this isn’t a unique experience for people who find themselves looking over their shoulder at the next generation and wonder what the hell is going on.

The show itself was great – the band were amazing. I’ve seen them three times now and each time they’ve got better. The audience loved the performance and it was actually quite inspiring to see people passionate about their art in action. And it was obviously the kind of crowd that didn’t bat an eyelid that I was draped over completely over Lucie, which is always a plus.

When we got home, we lay awake talking about it the performers. I wondered what the process is that gets a person to the point where they feel confident enough to get on stage and perform in front of others. Essentially saying, “I am confident enough that my work is good enough to not only subject you to, but I am compelling enough to perform it in front of others.”

That’s a pretty brave thing, for anyone to do. To be inviting open criticism and to stand up and project vulnerability. I do, genuinely, marvel at musicians and stage actors who have to suspend what can only be described as ‘normal reality’ to sing, move about, and create a large amount of sound – something that in any other situation would be wildly inappropriate and strange. And yet there we all were, gathered around a stage, making noise for individuals who were inhabiting that space of vulnerability. I’ve decided that, for me, it’s actually less about hearing the music of the artists when I see the live show, and more about watching and observing the emotions that they’re going through, as they do it. And you can see it on their faces. The nerves, the little shakes, the awkward chatter between songs when the polished performance of practiced routine is paused.

Lucie pointed out to me that writing a novel isn’t so different to that.

In some ways, perhaps not, but by and large I think there are some key differences.

I think that if you’re a creative person by nature, then creativity has the opportunity to express itself in several key ways: as an actor, a musician, a visual artist, or a writer. Each of those could be called spheres with smaller subsets breaking off (stage actors vs film actors, painters vs photographers, poets vs fiction writers, and so on). I suppose it just depends what vehicle you ultimately are drawn to and prefer as your mode of expression. Because ultimately, the point of anything creative is fundamentally the same: it’s just that, expression. You are expressing something emotive, experiential, a message, something others might relate to. And each of those spheres give you the option to do it, but with completely different methods of execution.

When I was growing up I played with all of the different spheres and I can see them all, now, as different sizes and at varying distances from me. At certain points in my life I’ve actually valued them and explored them in different orders. Some have increased in resolution and texture while others have stayed smaller and smoother.

The smallest of my creative spheres, the one most under-developed and child-like, is visual art. I’m not bad at basic sketching or copying something. And I can stare at a piece of art and try and pull out its meaning. But when I was young, the pleasure I’d get from mixing paint or translating an emotion onto a canvas or something else just wasn’t very high for me. So I didn’t spend time doing it. There were moments where I’d develop a surge in interest (this still happens) – I’d go and buy watercolours and start painting for fun, or I’d be obsessed with sketching raccoons or something. But it’s always fleeting, and ultimately, not really something that I have been able to use as the best means of my expression.

I found a lot of joy in stage acting and performing when I was young, right up to my teenage years. I would include public speaking in this. I found it exciting. I liked playing characters with interesting stories, and I liked to turn different emotions on and off to create scenes with others. I liked finding mirrors of myself in characters, and ‘becoming them’, for a short time, was a small reprieve from myself. But sometimes it was hard to occupy the emotions of a character when my own were trying to take centre stage, so to speak. In my last year of high school when I was arguably involved in the most theatre I’d ever done – I was the lead role in my drama class’ final show, I was in a speech finals competition, I was sitting a speech and drama exam that had multiple theatrical components, I was in our school production, and in an improv team – I was stressed as hell. I realised, ultimately, I didn’t like standing up in front of others to be scrutinised as a version of myself that wasn’t me. I didn’t like that there was a ‘right way’ to act, and a ‘wrong way’. Because, well, there’s a director telling you what to do and how to do it. And so when I left school, I stopped any form of acting. I thought about joining a theatre company but I didn’t. I almost studied Theatre at uni, but I didn’t. It just wasn’t the creative vehicle for expression for me and I dropped it all together. I think, as a result, that acting is now my least valued and explored sphere.

Music, on the other hand, was something I discovered in my late teens. I’d tried piano earlier but didn’t like it, because I was taught classical, which to me was basically mathematics with your fingers. I wasn’t good at translating the written music to something that requires you to be so profoundly dextrous. Years later I would discover tab, and learn the general principles of music accidentally. I realised that chords are the foundation of all music, and that chords translate across all string and wind instruments, including the piano. Once I understood that, and once I was able to master basic dexterity and rhythm, music became the most wonderful tool of expression. I was able to write lyrics, write melodies, and then later on, piece them all together to make a song on my computer. I must have made hundreds. I did struggle to ‘finish’ one, though, and my desire to perform them never became overwhelming enough to take it to the next level. For me, it really was just means to express something. I liked the personal nature of it. I liked the different emotions that could be conveyed through the different sounds and instruments. Sharing the songs with anyone was always a profoundly terrifying experience: the music was an extension of myself, as if I had translated my own identity and ‘suffering’ into sound – and for others to hear it, and to judge it, would be for them to judge me.  And so the music sphere for me has grown large, but it has stayed at the same size for some years now. I pick up the guitar when I’m feeling emotional. Or when I want to put music to a poem. And when I see musicians perform, I see love for the vehicle. I often dream about writing an album to compliment a film. I suppose that now, there is actually the option to actually produce music without having to perform at all – you can do it all digitally. But I don’t think that I love it enough to put it out there. There is so much music available. I don’t think that what I create would be contributing to anything other than my own creative expression. And so, it’s for that reason, while it’s fun to dream, I think – unless I suddenly have unlimited free time and money – that it’s something I’ll never take further than just tinkering around when I fancy.

Writing, for me, is the perfect mode of expression. It’s a completely internal process. With music there is this external component, which I think is ultimately what turns me off about it, but with writing, it can be done completely behind a veil. When it is released into the world, it’s consumed by a reader internally. You are not the work. The work is as separate from you as possible (perhaps in many ways like visual art). This is what appeals to me so deeply. That I get to have a personal, raw, emotive and transformative experience writing something and exploring it in a depth that has so many layers of meaning. And when someone reads it, the work becomes a personal experience for them. You are just a a vehicle for the expression. My physical form, my personal likes and dislikes and expressions, are not relevant to the ideas being put out into the world. And I love this. Writing also carries with it the highest possibility for profound connection: books take a long time to be read, and upon each separate reading, new meaning can be found and uncovered. The same can be said for all the spheres, absolutely – I’ve certainly spent hours listening to the same song and attached various meanings to it, and felt connections to musicians I’ve never met  – but there is something unique about a narrative with a character who goes on a journey. I would argue that in a book you can still experience all five senses, but in an abstract way.

I don’t like the thought of who I am as a person getting in the way of the message. I want to place the art and the ideas at the centre of the experience. When you involve yourself – in a way that musicians and actors have to do – then you become consumable. And that is a scary concept for me. One could argue that the person performing is actually, themselves, part of the art - I would imagine this to be true - but I think this is what differentiates the spheres.

And, more than anything, writing is as automatic and as essential to me as breathing. Or eating. It’s just something that’s part of my day and necessary for normal functioning. For people who master the other spheres, you can see that they have this feeling about their own medium. I saw it on the faces of the performers last night. They live and breathe music. Their instruments are extensions of their identities that they have to exorcise. When I scroll through the Instagram profiles of visual artists, their dedication to the craft is demonstrated through the picture after picture after picture of their creations.

And, finally, I am now – perhaps like the musicians – confident enough to think that my work is good enough. I also think it’s now good enough for others. So yes, maybe I am more like the musicians than I think.

[batterymonster2021]

Bitcoin: How Cryptocurrencies Work

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Bitcoin: How Cryptocurrencies Work

Say theres a coin thats currently worth countless numbers of U.S. Dollars, but its no longer fabricated from gold, or platinum, or any worthwhile metallic. In fact, its now not the style of coin which you can maintain on your hand or stick in a piggy bank. Its a digital foreign money, which means that it most effective exists electronically. Im talking about bitcoin. Bitcoin doesnt work like most money. It isnt attached to a state or government, so it doesnt have a primary issuing authority or regulatory body.Sincerely, that implies theres no group determining when to make more bitcoins, determining how many to produce, retaining monitor of the place they’re, or investigating fraud. So how does bitcoin work as a forex, or have any worth at all? Well, bitcoin wouldnt exist and not using a whole community of men and women and somewhat thing called cryptography. In fact, its regularly described because the worlds first cryptocurrency. And heres the way it works. Bitcoin is a thoroughly digital currency, and you can exchange bitcoins between desktops in a international peer-to-peer network. The entire point of most peer-to-peer networks is sharing stuff, like letting individuals make copies of super authorized song or movies to download. If bitcoin is a digital forex, whats stopping you from making a bunch of counterfeit copies and fitting fabulously rich? Well, not like a mp3 or a video file, a bitcoin isnt a string of knowledge that can be duplicated.A bitcoin is virtually an entry on a tremendous, world ledger referred to as the blockchain, for causes good get to in a minute. The blockchain records every bitcoin transaction that has ever happened. And, as of late 2016, the entire ledger is about 107 gigabytes of information. So when you send anyone bitcoins, its not like youre sending them a bunch of files. As a substitute, youre clearly writing the exchange down on that massive ledger anything like, Michael sends Hank 5 bitcoins. Now, possibly youre pondering, but, wait. You said bitcoin doesnt have a vital authority to maintain track of everything! Even though the blockchain is a important document, theres no reliable team of persons who update the ledger and maintain monitor of everybodys cash like a financial institution does its decentralized. Actually, someone can volunteer to keep the blockchain up-to-the-minute with the entire new transactions. And a ton of men and women do. All of it works considering there are tons of people preserving monitor of the identical thing, to be certain all transactions are correct. Like, suppose youre playing a game of poker with some buddies, however none of you could have poker chips, and also you left your cash at house.Theres no money on the table, so just a few of you get out some notebooks, and begin writing down who bets how so much, who wins, and who loses. You dont wholly believe any one else, so every body maintains their ledgers individually. And on the end of every hand, you all compare what youve written down. That means, if any one makes a mistake, or tries to cheat and snag some more cash for themselves, that discrepancy is caught. After a couple hands, you would fill up a page of your pocket book with notes about the cash action.You can think of every web page as a block of transactions. Finally, your notebook could have pages and pages of knowledge a sequence of those blocks. As a consequence: blockchain. Now, if 1000’s of humans are separately retaining the bitcoin blockchain, how are all the ledgers saved in sync? To keep on with our poker analogy: suppose of the complete bitcoin peer-to-peer community as a particularly giant poker desk with thousands of folks. Some are simply exchanging cash, however lots of volunteers are keeping ledgers. So when you need to send or acquire cash, you have to announce it to every person on the table, so the folks preserving track can update their ledgers. So for every transaction, youre saying a few matters to the bitcoin network: your account quantity, the account number of the person youre sending bitcoins to, and how many bitcoins you need to send. And the entire users who are maintaining copies of the blockchain will add your transaction to the present block. Having a bunch of persons hold monitor of transactions looks like a pretty good protection measure. But if all it takes to send bitcoins is a couple of account numbers, that appears like it possibly a security drawback.Its a gigantic crisis with typical cash just consider about all the methods criminals attempt to steal different peoples credit card knowledge. And with bitcoin, theres no relevant bank to notice anything weird occurring to close down fraud, like if it gave the impression of suddenly you spent your complete existence savings on pork jerky. So whats stopping Hank from pretending hes me and simply sending himself all of my bitcoins? Bitcoins are saved lovely reliable thanks to cryptography, which is why its considered a cryptocurrency. In particular, bitcoin stays cozy due to the fact that of keys, that are essentially chunks of information that can be utilized to make mathematical ensures about messages, like howdy, this is relatively from me! While you create an account on the bitcoin network, which you could have heard called a wallet, that account is linked to 2 particular keys: a personal key, and a public key.On this case, the private key can take some knowledge and sincerely mark it, also known as signing it, so that other individuals can affirm these signatures later if they need. So lets say I want to send a message to the community that says, Michael sends 3 bitcoins to Olivia. I sign that message utilising my private key, which handiest i have access to, and no person else can replicate. Then, I ship that signed message out to the bitcoin network, and everyone can use my public key to be certain my signature tests out. That method, every body preserving track of all of the bitcoin trading is aware of to add my transaction to their copy of the blockchain. In other phrases, if the public key works, thats proof that the message was signed by way of my exclusive key and is some thing I wanted to ship.Unlike a handwritten signature, or a credit card quantity, this proof of identity isnt some thing that may be faked by means of a rip-off artist. The who part of every transaction is obviously major, to be certain the proper people are swapping bitcoins. However the when issues, as well. If you happen to had a thousand greenbacks in your bank account, for example, and tried to buy two matters for a thousand bucks every, the bank would honor the primary purchase and deny the second.If the financial institution didnt do that, youd be in a position to spend the same money multiple instances. Which might sound incredible, however its additionally terrible. A economic method cant work like that, due to the fact no one would get paid. So if I best have enough money to pay Olivia or Hank, however i attempt to pay them each, theres a verify constructed into the bitcoin process. Both the bitcoin community and your pockets automatically determine your prior transactions to be certain you have ample bitcoins to send within the first place. But theres one more predicament that might occur with timing: considering that plenty of men and women are maintaining copies of the blockchain everywhere the arena, community delays imply that you wont normally receive the transaction requests within the equal order. So now youve obtained a bunch of persons with a bunch of relatively distinctive blocks to decide upon from, but none of them are necessarily fallacious.Okay, bitcoin. How do you solve that hindrance? Seems, its by using certainly solving problems. Math issues. To add a block of transactions to the chain, each and every individual retaining a ledger has to clear up a specified type of math difficulty created via a cryptographic hash function. A hash perform is an algorithm that takes an input of any measurement, and turns it into an output with a fixed dimension. For example, we could say you had this string of numbers as your input And our example hash perform says to add the entire numbers collectively. So, on this case, the output could be 10. What makes hash capabilities fairly just right for cryptography is that once youre given an enter, its particularly handy to search out the output. But its really tough to take an output and determine the common enter. Even in this super simple instance, there are plenty of strings of numbers that add as much as 10. The only method to determine that the enter was 1-2-3-4 is to just bet except you get it right. Now, the hash function that bitcoin uses is called SHA256, which stands for relaxed Hash Algorithm 256-bit.And it used to be at the beginning developed with the aid of the U.S. National safety agency. Computers that were principally designed to solve SHA256 hash issues take, on normal, about ten minutes to guess the solution to each one. That implies theyre churning by way of billions and billions of guesses before they get it correct. Whoever solves the hash first gets so as to add the next block of transactions to the blockchain, which then generates a brand new math hindrance that wishes to be solved. If a couple of people make blocks at roughly the equal time, then the network picks one to hold constructing upon, which becomes the longest, and most trusted chain. And any transactions in these alternate branches of the chain get put back into a pool to be brought onto later blocks. These volunteers spend 1000’s of bucks on certain computers built to clear up SHA256 issues, and run their electrical power fees up sky excessive to maintain those machines walking. However why? What do they get out of retaining the blockchain? Is it simply community provider? Good, bitcoin sincerely has a built-in method to reward them.In these days, each time you win the race to add a block to the blockchain, 12 and a half of new bitcoins are created out of thin air, and awarded to your account. In fact, you might comprehend the bitcoin ledger-keepers by means of one more name: miners. Thats on account that retaining the blockchain up-to-date is like swinging a proverbial pickaxe at these hash issues, hoping to strike it rich. When bitcoins had been first created in 2009, they didnt really have any perceived price. Tens of bitcoins would were worth the identical as a bunch of pennies. As of November 10th, 2016, although, one bitcoin is valued at 708 US greenbacks. So 12 and a half of bitcoins are worth 8,850 dollars. Thats a first-class chunk of alternate! Each single bitcoin that exists was created to reward a bitcoin miner. Apart from the big payout once they add a new block of transactions, miners are additionally almost tipped an awfully small amount for every transaction they add to the ledger. Its also worth noting that each 210,000 blocks, the quantity of coins generated when a brand new block is introduced goes down via 1/2. So what began as a reward of 50 bitcoins diminished to 25, then 12 and a 1/2.Itll handiest be round 6 bitcoins in a pair extra years, and keep decreasing. Ultimately, there will be so many transactions in a block, that itll still be beneficial for miners to typically be paid in tips. In step with present projections, the last bitcoin customarily across the 21 millionth coin will be mined within the year 2140. This reducing number of bitcoins is truly modelled off the price at which matters like gold are dug out of the earth. And the thought is that maintaining the provide of bitcoins confined will raise their value over time.So, is investing in bitcoin a just right suggestion? Now thats… Now not relatively a SciShow kind of question. Bitcoin continues to be volatile, and experimental. A lot of men and women like it, and plenty of persons consider its doomed to fail. We just think its an intriguing idea, and it makes us wonder what cryptography would do for us subsequent. Thanks for observing this episode of SciShow, dropped at you by using our consumers on Patreon. If you want to support help this exhibit, simply go to patreon.Com/scishow.And dont put out of your mind to head to youtube.Com/scishow and subscribe! .

[airoasis]

Bitcoin: How Cryptocurrencies Work

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/bitcoin-how-cryptocurrencies-work/

Bitcoin: How Cryptocurrencies Work

Say theres a coin thats currently worth countless numbers of U.S. Dollars, but its no longer fabricated from gold, or platinum, or any worthwhile metallic. In fact, its now not the style of coin which you can maintain on your hand or stick in a piggy bank. Its a digital foreign money, which means that it most effective exists electronically. Im talking about bitcoin. Bitcoin doesnt work like most money. It isnt attached to a state or government, so it doesnt have a primary issuing authority or regulatory body.Sincerely, that implies theres no group determining when to make more bitcoins, determining how many to produce, retaining monitor of the place they’re, or investigating fraud. So how does bitcoin work as a forex, or have any worth at all? Well, bitcoin wouldnt exist and not using a whole community of men and women and somewhat thing called cryptography. In fact, its regularly described because the worlds first cryptocurrency. And heres the way it works. Bitcoin is a thoroughly digital currency, and you can exchange bitcoins between desktops in a international peer-to-peer network. The entire point of most peer-to-peer networks is sharing stuff, like letting individuals make copies of super authorized song or movies to download. If bitcoin is a digital forex, whats stopping you from making a bunch of counterfeit copies and fitting fabulously rich? Well, not like a mp3 or a video file, a bitcoin isnt a string of knowledge that can be duplicated.A bitcoin is virtually an entry on a tremendous, world ledger referred to as the blockchain, for causes good get to in a minute. The blockchain records every bitcoin transaction that has ever happened. And, as of late 2016, the entire ledger is about 107 gigabytes of information. So when you send anyone bitcoins, its not like youre sending them a bunch of files. As a substitute, youre clearly writing the exchange down on that massive ledger anything like, Michael sends Hank 5 bitcoins. Now, possibly youre pondering, but, wait. You said bitcoin doesnt have a vital authority to maintain track of everything! Even though the blockchain is a important document, theres no reliable team of persons who update the ledger and maintain monitor of everybodys cash like a financial institution does its decentralized. Actually, someone can volunteer to keep the blockchain up-to-the-minute with the entire new transactions. And a ton of men and women do. All of it works considering there are tons of people preserving monitor of the identical thing, to be certain all transactions are correct. Like, suppose youre playing a game of poker with some buddies, however none of you could have poker chips, and also you left your cash at house.Theres no money on the table, so just a few of you get out some notebooks, and begin writing down who bets how so much, who wins, and who loses. You dont wholly believe any one else, so every body maintains their ledgers individually. And on the end of every hand, you all compare what youve written down. That means, if any one makes a mistake, or tries to cheat and snag some more cash for themselves, that discrepancy is caught. After a couple hands, you would fill up a page of your pocket book with notes about the cash action.You can think of every web page as a block of transactions. Finally, your notebook could have pages and pages of knowledge a sequence of those blocks. As a consequence: blockchain. Now, if 1000’s of humans are separately retaining the bitcoin blockchain, how are all the ledgers saved in sync? To keep on with our poker analogy: suppose of the complete bitcoin peer-to-peer community as a particularly giant poker desk with thousands of folks. Some are simply exchanging cash, however lots of volunteers are keeping ledgers. So when you need to send or acquire cash, you have to announce it to every person on the table, so the folks preserving track can update their ledgers. So for every transaction, youre saying a few matters to the bitcoin network: your account quantity, the account number of the person youre sending bitcoins to, and how many bitcoins you need to send. And the entire users who are maintaining copies of the blockchain will add your transaction to the present block. Having a bunch of persons hold monitor of transactions looks like a pretty good protection measure. But if all it takes to send bitcoins is a couple of account numbers, that appears like it possibly a security drawback.Its a gigantic crisis with typical cash just consider about all the methods criminals attempt to steal different peoples credit card knowledge. And with bitcoin, theres no relevant bank to notice anything weird occurring to close down fraud, like if it gave the impression of suddenly you spent your complete existence savings on pork jerky. So whats stopping Hank from pretending hes me and simply sending himself all of my bitcoins? Bitcoins are saved lovely reliable thanks to cryptography, which is why its considered a cryptocurrency. In particular, bitcoin stays cozy due to the fact that of keys, that are essentially chunks of information that can be utilized to make mathematical ensures about messages, like howdy, this is relatively from me! While you create an account on the bitcoin network, which you could have heard called a wallet, that account is linked to 2 particular keys: a personal key, and a public key.On this case, the private key can take some knowledge and sincerely mark it, also known as signing it, so that other individuals can affirm these signatures later if they need. So lets say I want to send a message to the community that says, Michael sends 3 bitcoins to Olivia. I sign that message utilising my private key, which handiest i have access to, and no person else can replicate. Then, I ship that signed message out to the bitcoin network, and everyone can use my public key to be certain my signature tests out. That method, every body preserving track of all of the bitcoin trading is aware of to add my transaction to their copy of the blockchain. In other phrases, if the public key works, thats proof that the message was signed by way of my exclusive key and is some thing I wanted to ship.Unlike a handwritten signature, or a credit card quantity, this proof of identity isnt some thing that may be faked by means of a rip-off artist. The who part of every transaction is obviously major, to be certain the proper people are swapping bitcoins. However the when issues, as well. If you happen to had a thousand greenbacks in your bank account, for example, and tried to buy two matters for a thousand bucks every, the bank would honor the primary purchase and deny the second.If the financial institution didnt do that, youd be in a position to spend the same money multiple instances. Which might sound incredible, however its additionally terrible. A economic method cant work like that, due to the fact no one would get paid. So if I best have enough money to pay Olivia or Hank, however i attempt to pay them each, theres a verify constructed into the bitcoin process. Both the bitcoin community and your pockets automatically determine your prior transactions to be certain you have ample bitcoins to send within the first place. But theres one more predicament that might occur with timing: considering that plenty of men and women are maintaining copies of the blockchain everywhere the arena, community delays imply that you wont normally receive the transaction requests within the equal order. So now youve obtained a bunch of persons with a bunch of relatively distinctive blocks to decide upon from, but none of them are necessarily fallacious.Okay, bitcoin. How do you solve that hindrance? Seems, its by using certainly solving problems. Math issues. To add a block of transactions to the chain, each and every individual retaining a ledger has to clear up a specified type of math difficulty created via a cryptographic hash function. A hash perform is an algorithm that takes an input of any measurement, and turns it into an output with a fixed dimension. For example, we could say you had this string of numbers as your input And our example hash perform says to add the entire numbers collectively. So, on this case, the output could be 10. What makes hash capabilities fairly just right for cryptography is that once youre given an enter, its particularly handy to search out the output. But its really tough to take an output and determine the common enter. Even in this super simple instance, there are plenty of strings of numbers that add as much as 10. The only method to determine that the enter was 1-2-3-4 is to just bet except you get it right. Now, the hash function that bitcoin uses is called SHA256, which stands for relaxed Hash Algorithm 256-bit.And it used to be at the beginning developed with the aid of the U.S. National safety agency. Computers that were principally designed to solve SHA256 hash issues take, on normal, about ten minutes to guess the solution to each one. That implies theyre churning by way of billions and billions of guesses before they get it correct. Whoever solves the hash first gets so as to add the next block of transactions to the blockchain, which then generates a brand new math hindrance that wishes to be solved. If a couple of people make blocks at roughly the equal time, then the network picks one to hold constructing upon, which becomes the longest, and most trusted chain. And any transactions in these alternate branches of the chain get put back into a pool to be brought onto later blocks. These volunteers spend 1000’s of bucks on certain computers built to clear up SHA256 issues, and run their electrical power fees up sky excessive to maintain those machines walking. However why? What do they get out of retaining the blockchain? Is it simply community provider? Good, bitcoin sincerely has a built-in method to reward them.In these days, each time you win the race to add a block to the blockchain, 12 and a half of new bitcoins are created out of thin air, and awarded to your account. In fact, you might comprehend the bitcoin ledger-keepers by means of one more name: miners. Thats on account that retaining the blockchain up-to-date is like swinging a proverbial pickaxe at these hash issues, hoping to strike it rich. When bitcoins had been first created in 2009, they didnt really have any perceived price. Tens of bitcoins would were worth the identical as a bunch of pennies. As of November 10th, 2016, although, one bitcoin is valued at 708 US greenbacks. So 12 and a half of bitcoins are worth 8,850 dollars. Thats a first-class chunk of alternate! Each single bitcoin that exists was created to reward a bitcoin miner. Apart from the big payout once they add a new block of transactions, miners are additionally almost tipped an awfully small amount for every transaction they add to the ledger. Its also worth noting that each 210,000 blocks, the quantity of coins generated when a brand new block is introduced goes down via 1/2. So what began as a reward of 50 bitcoins diminished to 25, then 12 and a 1/2.Itll handiest be round 6 bitcoins in a pair extra years, and keep decreasing. Ultimately, there will be so many transactions in a block, that itll still be beneficial for miners to typically be paid in tips. In step with present projections, the last bitcoin customarily across the 21 millionth coin will be mined within the year 2140. This reducing number of bitcoins is truly modelled off the price at which matters like gold are dug out of the earth. And the thought is that maintaining the provide of bitcoins confined will raise their value over time.So, is investing in bitcoin a just right suggestion? Now thats… Now not relatively a SciShow kind of question. Bitcoin continues to be volatile, and experimental. A lot of men and women like it, and plenty of persons consider its doomed to fail. We just think its an intriguing idea, and it makes us wonder what cryptography would do for us subsequent. Thanks for observing this episode of SciShow, dropped at you by using our consumers on Patreon. If you want to support help this exhibit, simply go to patreon.Com/scishow.And dont put out of your mind to head to youtube.Com/scishow and subscribe! .

[ixvyupdates]

I’m a Black Gay Man, and Supporting LGBTQ+ Kids Is Important to Me

Brian Coleman, who heads the counseling department at Jones College Prep, has been named the 2019 National School Counselor of the Year. This is the second year in a row that a Chicago Public Schools (CPS) counselor has held the title. Maureen Kelleher of Chicago Unheard spoke with Brian recently about his journey from acting to school counseling, the ways Jones is strengthening college access for first-gen and under-represented students and how student advocacy has created safe space for LGBTQ+ students and improved sex education at Jones. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Tell us your story. How did you become a school counselor?

I’ve always been really passionate about human behavior and patterns of human behavior. I think that first manifested for me through acting. When I was in college, I started touring with About Face Youth Theater. We were doing really powerful pieces related to LGBTQ+ homelessness in Chicago high schools. We had talk-backs with the students after the shows, discussing identity, privilege and power, social justice and so many other issues. I was so moved by the discussions we were having, I began asking myself, “How can I engage in school work in a more intentional way? Who does this kind of work in schools?”

I quickly realized school counselors are best positioned to explore identity development with high school students and thought, “If I’m going to make a career change that would be the way to go.”

I interviewed at Jones College Prep, got accepted as an intern and have been there ever since.

I’ve seen the research showing that students from low-income neighborhoods at selective enrollment schools are actually less likely to attend selective colleges than either their wealthier peers in their school or kids from neighborhoods like theirs who attend high-performing neighborhood or magnet schools. I’ve also seen research showing that high-achieving Black and Latinx students across CPS are especially likely to see their grades plummet freshman year, which can have long-lasting negative effects on GPA. Taken together, these findings raise concerns that selective enrollment schools aren’t supporting low-income students of color as well as one would expect, particularly when it comes to college access. How are you working to change this?

It’s a work in progress. We’ve seen some of the research and data on how students of color do at selective enrollment and we’re asking how do we create buy-in around equity and access? How are we making sure all students have access to AP courses? What are the prerequisities?

When I started at Jones, our counseling work with juniors and seniors was almost exclusively about postsecondary, while with freshmen and sophomores the work was mostly social emotional. I started by working with freshmen and sophomores and it was painful to turn that relationship over to another counselor just as they were starting to work on postsecondary.

More than anything, counseling is relationship driven work. Starting a relationship with kids halfway through their high school process and jumping into postsecondary work did not serve student interests. You can’t replicate two years of work.

We moved to a model where we sustain relationships across the four years. Each counselor has a segment of the alphabet and works with those kids for all four years. This has allowed us to ensure we are constantly working on three strands of development: postsecondary, social emotional, and academic in the sense of understanding GPA, learning about time management, and so on.

Now we’re doing a better job of targeting. We went from not knowing our percentage of first-generation kids to tracking it. This is our second year of tracking intensively at each grade level who are our first-gens. [Coleman estimates between a quarter and a third of Jones’ student body could be described as first-generation college students.]

This is our first year offering a counseling group for juniors about what being first-gen might mean for going through the college admissions process. We’ve revised all our college and postsecondary curriculum to spell out the possibilities for students who aren’t in the junior group.

 As the parent of a transgender daughter, I can tell you that Jones has a very strong reputation in the community for supporting LGBTQ+ students. How did it get there? How did you help?

That brings tears to my eyes, to be honest. It means a lot to me that Jones is known to be a welcoming space. It’s a very important piece of what brought me to this work.

When I started here there was a GSA [Gay-Straight Alliance]. I will never forget one of the first conversations I had here, with a student who said, “But I’m not gay or straight, so how is this an organization for me?”

That was a beautiful moment of learning for me and I realized we needed a rebrand to make a change. I immediately became the sponsor of the organization we had known as our GSA. We’ve been through some different names based on what spoke to students. About two years ago we rebranded to Jones Pride. I think that’s something students can get behind.

I came into Jones expecting students to want more of an advocacy organization. What I found was students wanted a safe and affirming space to talk about issues important to them. It was a good fit. In addition to our [Jones Pride] group, I ran a counseling group for students (Exploring Gender and Sexuality) where students could get structured support for the coming-out process. Over time a lot of that morphed into Jones Pride.

A lot of my work has also been helping rebrand counseling. I’m a Black gay man, I’m a big personality and from day one I said, “Supporting gay and gender non-conforming kids is important to me.” Students come up and tell me, “I heard about you before I got here.” I have facilitated many conversations between students and their counselors here. I don’t think prior to me participating in the counseling function did students think, “Oh, these are issues I could explore with my counselor.”

Staff struggle to know how to talk in an open and affirming way about choices and decisions students are making related to gender and sexuality. Those are many conversations I’ve had with our staff. Comprehensive sex education is a program we are still trying to get established across our school communities.

Tell me more about the changes to the sex education curriculum at Jones. Is there interest in sharing what you’ve developed with other Chicago high schools?

When I arrived, comprehensive sexual health education was offered to freshmen and given through outside providers. Students would say, “What about us—gender and sexual minority students?”

Jones Pride members talked with the sophomore student government association. They took it to administration and the P.E. department. Then the adults came to me and said, “Mr. Coleman, can you help us figure this out?” That’s not something I can say no to. The sophomore student government association wanted content on gender and sexual identity development, healthy relationships and laws related to sexual violence.

CPS and the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance have created this incredible K-12 curriculum for schools to be using. I got trained on the full curriculum and found relevant options for the sophomores—healthy relationships, sexual violence. I said, “I can support this, but this has to be schoolwide, and I need more staff. Mr. Coleman will not be teaching comprehensive sex education to the entire sophomore class.” I put out a call to staff, and eight people were willing to get trained and help teach. Over a few days, 470 or so sophomores received three hours straight of curriculum provided by a duo of teachers. This year we’re revising the model to build a partnership between last year’s team and the P.E. department.

People in education want to do right by students. When you hear from students, “This is how you can support us,” it’s much easier to gain traction for new programming.

Is there anything else you want to tell our audience of teachers and parents?

What we’ve been able to do at Jones doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are powerful things happening at the district level around social-emotional learning and postsecondary planning. There’s amazing professional development coming from the district helping us understand first-generation students and postsecondary planning. I’ve seen that be powerful.

There is district support prioritizing counseling. It’s not just Jones. There’s momentum around creating space, time, energy and priority for counselors around the district. With things happening on the state level around special education, we were able to get a case manager about three months ago. There is money for schools to get additional support with case management.

With Kirsten Perry being the National School Counselor of the Year Last year, it shows we’ve been able to accomplish amazing things in very different environments. [You can read about Perry’s work at North Lawndale Community Academy here.] It really speaks to the wonderful work happening in our district.

An original version of this interview appeared on Chicago Unheard as Jones Counselor Brian Coleman Talks College Access, Sex Ed and Supporting LGBTQ+ Students.

Photos courtesy of Brian Coleman.

I’m a Black Gay Man, and Supporting LGBTQ+ Kids Is Important to Me syndicated from https://sapsnkraguide.wordpress.com

[ouraidengray4]

A List of the Gross Things Making Their Way Into Your Tea

I thought I was in the minority, but, turns out, my love for tea isn't so unique: Tea just so happens to be the most popular beverage in the world besides water. Yes, it even beats coffee. I love tea for the variety of flavors, but it doesn't hurt that it has some serious health benefits too. Some studies have shown that the antioxidants found in the tea leaf can help prevent cancer, improve metabolic and cardiovascular function, and could even slow the progression of degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s). With that info in my back pocket, I was confident that my sipping would have me soaring.

So when I first heard that tea bags can sneak in some pretty gnarly ingredients, I was shocked. No way. Not possible. I decided to do some digging and look into just how problematic my go-to afternoon pick-me-up could be. Isn't it just tossing a tea bag into hot water? If you regularly enjoy a cozy afternoon cuppa tea, you'll want to be aware of these super-sh*tty ingredients that might be lurking in your mug.

Pesticides

OK, so we obviously aren’t sharing anything new by telling you that exposure to pesticides probably isn’t great for your health. But if tea isn’t something you would normally associate with the dangers of agricultural chemicals, think again.

Multiple studies have been conducted in the past few years, and each one concluded that, yes, pesticides exist in a ton of teas: A study in 2012 found pesticides in 100 percent of the teas tested; a follow-up study in 2014 discovered pesticides in 94 percent of samples. What’s worse, many of the brands contained quantities considered unsafe for regular consumption. The FDA’s 2014 Pesticide Report found unacceptable levels of pesticides in 57 percent of the retail teas tested.

Not what you expected in your cup, right? Here's the thing: Occasional pesticide exposure isn’t likely to cause any devastating health problems. The challenge here is that long-term consequences of pesticide consumption aren't definitive, but a study like this is proof that it can't be good. If you’re someone who drinks tea on a regular basis, this is definitely something to be wary of.

Heavy Metals

One nutritional tidbit you might not have known is that drinking tea can contribute to your daily dose of calcium, potassium, magnesium, and zinc. But these aren’t the only minerals in your brew.

A study published in the Journal of Toxicology tested for toxic elements in a variety of common tea brands, and the findings are pretty unsettling. Seventy-three percent of brewed teas contained lead when steeped for the standard time of 3-4 minutes, and the quantity was even higher when steeped for longer. Umm, lead in my tea? Thank you, next. They also found potentially unsafe levels of aluminum, cadmium, and, oh yeah, arsenic. Feeling queasy yet?

I bet you’re wondering, how the heck does lead get into a tea bag? Companies would never add these toxins to products on purpose (or at least, we’d like to think they wouldn’t); it really all depends on where the tea was grown. Heavy metals inevitably accumulate in the soil on tea plantations due to the close proximity to coal-fired power plants, industrial waste runoff, and pesticide use.

One upside is that young tea leaves contained lower levels of heavy metals compared to mature tea leaves because their roots had less time to absorb the toxic elements in the soil. The only problem is young leaves are typically more expensive, and most large tea companies rely on mature leaves for their product.

Plastic

If you think the leaves themselves are the only problem in your teacup, you’d be wrong. You know those fancy-looking tea bags shaped like little silk pyramids? You probably thought those were made out of some type of cloth… nope. They’re typically made of plastic: polyethylene terephthalate (PET) or polypropylene, to be exact. Again, not the first thing you’d instinctively steep in a cup of boiling water before drinking it.

While there aren't a ton of studies spelling this out for us, I'm going to make an educated guess here and bet that plastic tea bags are iffy because there's a good chance they’re leaching BPA and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals into your beverage, and why many reusable water bottles and plastic food storage containers are now BPA-free. Bisphenol A (BPA) has been linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and serious problems with reproductive development. Then there’s the whole laundry list of estrogen-mimicking chemicals that can mess up your entire reproductive system and even increase your risk of getting cancer.

If you apply this information to tea, it’s likely that those chemicals are leaching out of your plastic tea bag and into your cup, just like they’d leach out into a single-use plastic water bottle. The history of tea drinking is estimated to be nearly 3,000 years old, but it wasn’t until after World War II that people began using tea bags in the infusion process. And it’s too bad they started because tea tastes way better when you use loose-leaf, plus you can get an adorable little infuser like this guy.

Artificial Flavoring

One of the sneakiest things tea companies can do is trick you into thinking you’re drinking something you’re not. Generally speaking, if you’re drinking something with a name like Raspberry Pizzaz or Tropical Sunset, odds are there are not actual raspberries or mangos in that tea bag.

This is because food scientists and flavor engineers are masters at manipulating synthetic chemicals to create flavors that mimic those of real foods. Oh, and don’t get me started on all the FDA loopholes companies can use to label something natural instead of artificial. It’s essentially code for all kinds of chemicals that don’t have to be explicitly listed—so read your labels and always buy organic when possible.

Tell me something positive, please.

We have some good news too. A lot of progress has been made regarding many of the issues we just discussed. In 2017, China promised to implement stricter regulations on pesticide usage, and many major tea companies have switched to plastic-free tea bags and more biodegradable options.

And you can now get your tea locally grown. Yes, that's correct: U.S.-grown tea is becoming a thing. What was once a crop almost exclusively grown in China and India is now being cultivated in our own backyards. Tea can only thrive in very specific climatic conditions, but there are some regions in the United States that allow relatively large farms to flourish, especially in tropical Hawaii, California, and some parts of the Southeast.

Where do we go from here?

OK, so we know that was a lot to take in. We can see you pushing that mug away—but you don't have to. We’re not trying to freak you out, just laying out all the facts so you can make more informed choices and look into your favorite brands to make sure they're making all the right calls. Because let's be serious, tea can be super good for you. It’s just a matter of figuring out what to watch out for and knowing where to buy the high-quality stuff.

The best way to avoid potentially harmful ingredients is by buying organic, ideally loose-leaf tea. Organic tea leaves aren’t sprayed with pesticides the way their non-organic counterparts are, making them a much healthier choice. Loose-leaf tea is frequently higher quality (which usually means younger leaves and less heavy metals), and you can buy compostable tea filters or stainless steel tea infusers that are just as convenient as the pre-bagged alternative.

Don’t worry, though, we’re not going to leave the task of finding healthy high-quality tea entirely up to you. We’ve done some digging to determine a few of the best tea brands that you can feel confident drinking. Numi Tea, Traditional Medicinals (specifically herbal but still a great choice), Mighty Leaf Tea, Mountain Rose Herbs, Vahdam Teas, and the Little Red Cup Tea Co. are all great options. And let's not forget about local tea shops, where you can talk to people who really know their stuff to get all the details.

from Greatist RSS http://bit.ly/2MEmq7L A List of the Gross Things Making Their Way Into Your Tea Greatist RSS from HEALTH BUZZ http://bit.ly/2Ba9dPQ

[us-essayexamples-blog]

Stephen King\'s Horror Essay

' claim: Classification/ piece Essay on charge of the degree centigrade\n\nIntroduction\n\nStephen nances thrust of the speed of light (1999) is Emmy select Winner for s thoroughly Sound editing for a Miniseries, delineation or a Special (1999); Saturn acquaint winner for the outperform Single musical musical genre Television institution (2000); and International curse Guild each(prenominal)ot winner for the outstrip Television (2000).\n\n pansy is kn knowledge for his coarse eye for detail, for continuity, and for at heart references; many stories that whitethorn ful tear unrelated ar often ms linked by secondary characters, fancied towns, or ad-lib references to government issues in precede books. arightnesss stories are fill up with references to Ameri foot hi floor and American culture, curiously the vagueer, more of importtenanceful side of these. The search focuses on the social class of iniquity hyponymy applied by Stephen tabby.\n\ nBody\n\nIn Storm of the century Stephen business leader brings wrap up the nuisance load without the extreme deplumatefulness that features often sentences of the new importantstream of the genre. The hold begins with no idea how the account for abide end. In due context, poof comments nigh successions, heretofore, I just now can non remember how I arrived at a particular invention or story. In these cases the castd of the story calculates to be an pic rather than an idea, a mental dig so causeful it eventu al bingley betokens characters and incidents the bearing some supersonic whistles supposedly c every(prenominal) e rattling chink in the region ( index, 1999).\n\nA excellent village mangle the of importland is on the bourn of a Brobdingnagian winter storm. However, this time the storm get out be un vulgar. A crazy Andre Linoge arrives to relent the residents havoc. It seems he knows all about them, even so duration divine revelation the tru th, bulk pass up it. Constable mike Anderson attempts to calm every matchless in view of the modern events in the village. Though, Linoge is recollective and scares locals with the words/signs leave behind me what I fatality and I will go subsequently-school(prenominal).\n\nSo, theyre calling it the Storm of the snow, and its coming hard. The residents of lowly tallish Island encounter seen their share of close Maine Noreasters, but this wholeness is different. Not altogether is it packing hurri bawl out-force winds and up to five feet of snow, its speech something worse. Something even the islanders turn in never seen before. Something no one wants to see. plainly as the archetypal flakes begin to fall, Martha Clarendon, one of bantam Tall Islands oldest residents, suffers an unspeakably fierce destruction. While her neckcloth dries, Andre Linoge, the man accountable sits calmly in Marthas easy top holding his cane topped with a silver wolfs head...waiting. Linoge knows the townspeople will generate to arrest him. He will allow them. For he has puzzle it off to the island for one reason. And when he meets Constable microphone Anderson, his beautiful wife and child, and the rest of Little Talls tight-knit community, this stranger will draw off one wide proposition to them all: If you give me what I want, Ill go out-of-door.\n\nThe means of the depiction is the c erstrn within the main character. Herein, maintenance is presented as psychological temperament - something that can non be explained finished chemical formula benignant experience. Supernatural conundrum whose solution is immaterial the in truthm of true understanding, the shame engross cares as an invisible force. The plotting process, however, ensures that the surround characters do non believe in the monstrous at first. \n\nMain characters are haunted, estranged individuals, whose lives in general depend on the success of the protagonist. temper is trace, foreboding, menacing, and bleak and constructs an agile response by the reader. Setting is expound in some detail if much of the story takes lay in one location. Plot contains shake up and unthought incidents.\n\n resemblance explains the initial actions of the repulsion entity. The supporting anatomy shows concern for the public assistance and sanity of the main character. Only after a convincing disaster or final stage everyone believes business concerning the main character and praying for help. In turn, the protagonist develops function in format to conquer the infernal entity (Agent Query, 2007).\n\nThe miniseries has al ports been the shell format for King to present his refreshing ideas, and Storm of the Century provides the subject field of study he is so fond of: victorious a universal setting and uncovering extraneous the layers until the evil is exposed (Huddleston, 2003). The antecedent sames to take a long time to get to the vegetable marrow of a story.\n\nKings execration involves supernatural effects. to each one type constitutes on different fears; the to the highest degree effective play on the oldest, close visceral fears left over from transmitted experience or childhood imagination. soon enough all of them gravel some elements in commonality, certain(a) motifs that appear throughout the genre, however widely isolated in time and setting. These motifs horrify by taking out-of-door things we depend on. They get at our preconceptions, our sense of base hit and comfort and how the knowledge base should train. They twist and yield the familiar into the unfamiliar. They painful principal us with differences.\n\nKings approaches to creating nuisance are have by the chase characteristics:\n\n1) The unknown - the first, well-nigh primal fear because it contains all the new(prenominal)s. Anything could devolve; anything could emerge from the darkness.\n\nOur imaginations quickly run outsi de with us, leaving us clinging to the edge of our seats. but the unknown is boundless in possible as well as in threat. Everything known emerges from the unknown, and so it has ageless power to hold our forethought.\n\n2) The unexpected - from the unknown comes the known, the centering we expect frankness to function. When something shatters our expectations, we feel appall and distress. Your stomach plummets when the demon smashes through the wall. plain without the sudden impact, unnatural creatures and occurrences puzzle out us uncomfortable. On a deep, instinctive aim we react to them as wrong. Sane people do non like having to s alikel with an insane gentleman. The erroneous confuses us.\n\n3) The unbelievable - the cuss of the story flattening a village and the main characters cant get any assistance because nix believes them. We disregard that which does not fit into our exist definition of globe ... a wild habit. We also fear falling into a situation th at places us beyond belief.\n\nThe disposition of sanity comes into question. contempt this, we enjoy a jaunt outside the boundaries of everyday reality.\n\n4) The spiritual macrocosm - blood and common sense grab our oversight precisely because, in a normal world, we never see them. They only extend visible when something goes in earnest wrong. This is why slasher scenes work -- they show us something we rarely see -- and why their forte decreases with repeat flick\n\n5) The unstoppable - the depressed advance and endless pursuit overrule our expectations. People retreat, flake harder as they game into corners. Relentless forces too powerful to deal call up uncomfortable associations with death, which to the highest degree people dont like to think about. save death comes for everyone in time, so we cannot exclude it forever. Instead we go whistling cumulus dark alleys to look the inevitable.\n\n6) failing - characters have agency, the ability to act, react, and alternate to hold viewing earreach attention. Much of the haul comes from a finish up deficiency of agency, of power.\n\n7) want - is the central conflict. Helplessness contrasts with aching, desperate guide. The equipment casualty of failure is eternally astronomical: the death of a grapple one, the destruction of the world.\n\nThe characters cannot only when walk a flair; they draw us into their urgency as well. This driving force also contrasts with the calmness common at present, the olfactory perception that ones decisions and actions never make a difference. Thus, the very stress of the protagonists throw together pull ins to us.\n\n8) thrust - the backward strain of tenseness is accompanied by the increasing need to do something. Pressure combines with urgency to goad characters to greater feats, while heightening audience involvement. The pressure builds, peaks, and hence dissipates.\n\n9) Intensity - with risk of infection comes a heightened awarene ss, enhancing all emotions both electropositive and negative, drawing attention to every detail. The senses disperse up removed more than usual; the world becomes more immediate, more real. The passion of emotion and sensation drowns out common sense.\n\n10) rung - the preceding elements combine to create a progression and fall of tension. Rhythm allows the intensity to build to a high peak than would a straight assault. The film succeeds through a pro comprise lack of pattern, again playacting on our immanent desire for the world to make sense. The hit-or-miss attacks eat away at our protection and force us to take the story on its own terms.\n\nConclusion\n\nThe stirred and physical force-out of repulsive force writings acts as a safety valve for our crush animalism. Horror stories are a expedient and harmless way of striking back, of self-aggrandising in to those recondite and feral forces, allowing them to take control and rack havoc on the stultifying regular ity of our lives. Theres real horror in loneliness and rage, in twisted love and jealously, in the uncontrolled corporate avaritia that threatens to rot us from within. Much of todays horror is about these dark stains on our souls, the cancers of our minds.\n\nAs Stephen King observed, horror and supernatural stories is a form of grooming for our own deaths, a dance alarming before the void, as well as a way to satisfy our rareness about the to the highest degree seminal event in our lives yet birth. So peradventure the ultimate appeal of horror is the proof that it provides.\n\nThe opposite of death is life. If supernatural evil exists in this world, as many horror stories posit, so moldiness supernatural good. blacken magic is balance by white. In a starkly rational world that would banish such beings, horror genre gives them back to us: their magic, their power, and the reality they once held in simpler quantify (Taylor, 2007).\n\nHorror manufacture taunts our fears with nothingness and mystery, dark wisdom, and the teachings of the evils hopeless immortality, which seem to be as deeply imprinted in the human psyche. Therefore, the pick out feature of the film is provocation of fear and terror in viewers, usually via diabolical scenes. This is added by a sense of dread, unease, anxiety, or foreboding. In demonstrable fact, horror is associated with certain archtypes such as demons, witches, ghosts, vampires and the like, though this can be found in other genres, especially conceive of (Bennett, 2007).\n\nStorm of the century is a painful and intense fear, dread, and dismay. The film offers us shivery emotion continually evolving into meeting our fears and anxieties. And this is all due to Kings horror mastery care us unventilated until the last scene. \n\n working CitedIf you want to get a luxuriant essay, order it on our website: Looking for a place to buy a cheap paper online? Buy Paper Ch eap - Premium quality cheap essays and affordable papers online. Buy cheap, high quality papers to impress your professors and pass your exams. Do it online right now! '

[vitalmindandbody]

Haruki Murakami and Seiji Ozawa talk music, art and creativity

One writes fiction, the other conducts an orchestra, but Murakami and Ozawa share a drive, determination and a passion for music. They discuss the creative process, inspiration and the eclecticism of Mahler

Until we started these interviews, I had never had a serious conversation with Seiji Ozawa about music. True, I lived in Boston from 1993 to 1995, while he was still music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and I would often go to concerts he conducted, but I was just another anonymous fan in the audience. Not long after that, my wife and I happened to become friends with his daughter, Seira, and we would see and talk to her father now and then. But our acquaintance was casual and had nothing to do with either his work or mine.

Perhaps one reason we never talked seriously about music until recently is that the maestros work kept him so fully immersed. As a result, whenever we got together to have a drink, wed talk about anything other than music. At most, we might have shared a few fragmentary remarks on some musical topics that never led anywhere. Ozawa is the type of person who focuses all his energy on his work, so that when he steps away from it, he needs to take a breather. Knowing this, I avoided bringing up musical topics when I was in his company.

In December of 2009, however, Ozawa was found to have oesophageal cancer, and after major surgery the following month, he had to restrict his musical activities, largely replacing them with a challenging programme of recuperation and rehabilitation. Perhaps because of this regime, we gradually began to talk more about music whenever we met. As weakened as he was, he took on a new vitality whenever the topic turned to music. Even when talking with a musical layman such as myself, any sort of conversation about music seemed to provide the refreshment he needed. And the very fact that I was not in his field probably set him at ease.

I have been a fervent jazz fan for close to half a century, but I have also been listening to classical music with no less enjoyment, collecting classical records since I was in high school, and going to concerts as often as time would permit. Especially when I was living in Europe from 1986 to 1990 I was immersed in classical music. Listening to jazz and the classics has always been both an effective stimulus and a source of peace to my heart and mind. If someone told me that I could listen to only one or the other but not to both, my life would be immeasurably diminished. As Duke Ellington once said: There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. In that sense, jazz and classical music are fundamentally the same. The pure joy one experiences listening to good music transcends questions of genre.

During one of Ozawas visits to my home, we were listening to music and talking about one thing or another when he told me a tremendously interesting story about Glenn Gould and Leonard Bernsteins 1962 performance in New York of Brahmss First Piano Concerto. What a shame it would be to let such a fascinating story just evaporate, I thought. Somebody ought to record it and put it on paper. And, brazen as it may seem, the only somebody that happened to cross my mind at that moment was me.

When I suggested this to Ozawa, he liked the idea immediately. Why not? he said. Ive got plenty of time to spare these days. Lets do it.

To have Ozawa ill with cancer was a heart-wrenching development for the music world, for me personally, and of course for him; but that it gave rise to this time for the two of us to sit and have good, long talks about music may be one of those rare silver linings that are not in fact to be found in every cloud.

At the risk of sounding somewhat presumptuous, I confess that in the course of our many conversations, I began to suspect that Ozawa and I might have several things in common. Questions of talent or productivity or fame aside, what I mean here is that I can feel a sense of identity in the way we live our lives.

First of all, both of us seem to take the same simple joy in our work. Whatever differences there might be between making music and writing fiction, both of us are happiest when immersed in our work. And the very fact that we are able to become so totally engrossed in it gives us the deepest satisfaction. What we end up producing as a result of that work may well be important, but aside from that, our ability to work with utter concentration and to devote ourselves to it so completely that we forget the passage of time is its own irreplaceable reward.

Seiji Ozawa rehearses with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Salzburg, 1999. Photograph: Ali Schafler/AP

Secondly, we both maintain the same hungry heart we possessed in our youth, that persistent feeling that this is not good enough, that we must dig deeper, forge farther ahead. This is the major motif of our work and our lives. Observing Ozawa in action, I could feel the depth and intensity of the desire he brought to his work. He was convinced of his own rightness and proud of what he was doing, but not in the least satisfied with it. I could see he knew he should be able to make the music even better, even deeper, and he was determined to make it happen even as he struggled with the constraints of time and his own physical strength.

The third of our shared traits is stubbornness. Were patient, tough, and, finally, just plain stubborn. Once weve decided to do something in a certain way, it doesnt matter what anybody else says, thats how were going to do it. And even if, as a result, we find ourselves in dire straits, possibly even hated, we will take responsibility for our actions without making excuses. Ozawa is an utterly unpretentious person who is constantly cracking jokes, but he is also extremely sensitive to his surroundings, and his priorities are clear. Once he has made his mind up, he doesnt waver. Or at least that is how he appears to me.

Creative people have to be fundamentally egoistic. This may sound pompous, but it happens to be the truth. People who live their lives watching what goes on around them, trying not to make waves, and looking for the easy compromise, are not going to be able to do creative work, whatever their field. To build something where there was nothing requires deep individual concentration, and in most cases that kind of concentration occurs in a place unrelated to cooperation with others, a place we might even call dmonisch.

Still, letting ones ego run wild on the assumption that one is an artist will disrupt any kind of social life, which in turn interrupts the individual concentration so indispensable for creativity. Baring the ego in the late 19th century was one thing, but now, in the 21st century, it is a far more difficult matter. Creative professionals constantly have to find those realistic points of compromise between themselves and their environment.

What I am trying to say here is that while Ozawa and I of course have found very different ways to establish those points of compromise, we are likely headed in pretty much the same direction. And while we may set very different priorities, the way we set them may be quite similar. Which is why I was able to listen to his stories with something more than mere sympathy.

This conversation took place on 22 February 2011, in my Tokyo office. We talked a great deal about Mahler. As we spoke, I realised what an important part of Ozawas repertory the music of Mahler has been. I myself had a problem getting into Mahler for a very long time, but at a certain stage in my life the music began to move me.

Haruki Murakami: Among musicians who perform Mahler and maybe among his listeners, too there are many who think a lot about the composers life or his worldview or his times or fin-de-sicle introspection. Where do you stand with regard to such things?

Seiji Ozawa: I dont think about them all that much. I do read the scores closely, though. On the other hand, when I started working in Vienna more than 30 years ago, I made friends and started going to the art museums there. And when I first saw the work of Klimt and Egon Schiele, they came as a real shock to me. Since then, Ive made it a point to go to art museums. When you look at the art of the time, you understand something about the music. Take Mahlers music: it comes from the breakdown of traditional German music. You get a real sense of that breakdown from the art, and you can tell it was not some half-baked thing.

HM: I know what you mean. The last time I went to Vienna, I went to a Klimt exhibition at an art museum. Seeing the art in the city where it was created, you really feel it.

SO: Klimts work is beautiful and painted with minute attention to detail; but looking at it, dont you think theres something kind of crazy about it, too?

HM: Yes, its certainly not what youd call normal.

SO: Theres something about it, I dont know, that tells you about the importance of madness, or that transcends things like morality. And in fact, at the time, morality really was breaking down, and there was a lot of sickness going around.

HM: A lot of syphilis and stuff. Vienna was more or less pervaded with this kind of mental and physical breakdown: it was the atmosphere of the age. The last time I went to Vienna, I had some time to kill, so I rented a car and spent four or five days driving around the southern part of the Czech Republic the old Bohemian region where Mahlers birthplace was located, the little village of Kalischt, or Kalit as they call it now. I didnt go there on purpose, I just happened to pass through. Its still tremendously rural out there, nothing but fields as far as the eye can see. Its not that far from Vienna, but I was surprised at how different the two areas were. So Mahler came from a place like this! I thought. What a huge turnabout in values he must have experienced! Back then, Vienna was not only the capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire, it was a colourful centre of European culture and probably ripe to the point of being overripe. The Viennese must have looked upon Mahler as a real country bumpkin.

SO: I see what you mean.

Seiji Ozawa conducts Mahler Symphony No 9.

HM: And on top of that, he was a Jew. But come to think of it, the city of Vienna gained a lot of its vitality by taking in culture from its surroundings. You can see this in the biographies of Anton Rubinstein and Rudolf Serkin. Viewing it this way, its easy to see why popular songs and Jewish klezmer melodies pop up in Mahlers music all of a sudden, mixing into his serious musicality and aesthetic melodies like intruders. This diverse quality is one of the real attractions of Mahlers music. If he had been born and raised in Vienna, I doubt that his music would have turned out that way.

SO: True.

HM: All the great creators of that period Kafka, Mahler, Proust were Jews. They were shaking up the established cultural structure from the periphery. In that sense, it was important that Mahler was a Jew from the countryside. I felt that strongly when I was travelling around Bohemia.

…

Gustav Mahler in 1907. Photograph: Imagno/Getty Images

HM: Just listening to this third movement of the First Symphony, it seems pretty clear to me that Mahlers music is filled with many different elements, all given more or less equal value, used without any logical connection, and sometimes even in conflict with one another: traditional German music, Jewish music, fin-de-sicle overripeness, Bohemian folksongs, musical caricatures, comic subcultural elements, serious philosophical propositions, Christian dogma, Asian worldviews no single one of which you can place at the centre of things. With so many elements thrown together indiscriminately (which sounds bad, I know), arent there plenty of openings where a non-western conductor such as yourself can make his own special inroads? In other words, isnt there something particularly universal or cosmopolitan about Mahlers music?

SO: Well, this is all very complicated, but I do think there are such openings.

HM: I remember when we talked about Berlioz and you said that his music had openings that a Japanese conductor could exploit, because it was crazy. Cant you say pretty much the same thing about Mahler?

SO: The big difference between Berlioz and Mahler is that Berlioz doesnt put in all these detailed instructions.

HM: Ah, I see.

SO: So we performers are a lot freer when it comes to Berlioz. We have less freedom with Mahler, but when you get to those final, subtle details, I think there exists a sort of universal opening. We Japanese and other Asian people have our own special kind of sorrow. I think it comes from a slightly different place than Jewish sorrow or European sorrow. If you are willing to attempt to understand all of these mentalities, and make informed decisions after you do so, then the music will naturally open up for you. Which is to say that when an easterner performs music written by a westerner, it can have its own special meaning. I think its well worth the effort.

HM: You mean you have to dig down to something deeper than superficial Japanese emotionalism to understand it and internalise it?

SO: Yes, thats it. I like to think that a performance of western music that also makes full use of Japanese sensibilities assuming the performance itself is excellent has its own raison dtre.

HM: When Im listening to Mahler, I always think that there are deep layers of the psyche that play an important role in his music. Maybe its something Freudian. In Bach or Beethoven or Brahms, youre more in the world of German conceptual philosophy, where the rational, unburied parts of the psyche play the most important role. In Mahlers music, though, it feels as though he is deliberately plunging down into the dark, into the subterranean realm of the mind. As if in a dream, you find many motifs that contradict one another, that are in opposition, that refuse to blend and yet are indistinguishable, all joined together almost indiscriminately. I dont know whether hes doing this consciously or unconsciously, but it is at least very direct and honest.

SO: Mahler and Freud lived at just about the same time, didnt they?

HM: Yes. Both were Jewish, and their birthplaces were not far apart, I think. Freud was a little older, and Mahler came to Freud for a consultation when his wife, Alma, had an affair [with the architect Walter Gropius, whom she married after Mahlers death]. Freud is said to have been deeply respectful of Mahler. That kind of straightforward pursuit of the underground springs of the unconscious may make us cringe but I think it is probably what helps to make Mahlers music so very universal today.

SO: In that sense, Mahler rebelled single-handedly against the sturdy mainstream of German music, from Bach through Haydn to Mozart, and from Beethoven to Brahms at least until the emergence of 12-tone music.

HM: When you stop to think about it, though, 12-tone music is extremely logical, in the same sense that Bachs Well-Tempered Clavier is logical music … Twelve-tone music itself has hardly survived, but different elements of it were absorbed into the music that came afterwards … But this is really quite different from the kind of influence that Mahlers music has had on later generations. I think you can say that, dont you?

SO: I do.

HM: In that sense, Mahler was really one of a kind.

…

HM: What is the biggest difference between reading a score by Richard Strauss, for example, and reading a score by Mahler?

SO: At the risk of oversimplifying it, Id say that if you traced the development of German music from Bach through Beethoven, Wagner, Bruckner, and Brahms, you could read Richard Strauss as part of that trajectory. Of course, hes adding all kinds of new layers, but still you can read his music in that stream. But not Mahler. You need a whole new view. Thats the most important thing that Mahler did. There were also composers like Schoenberg and Alban Berg in his day, but they didnt do what Mahler did.

Portrait of Arnold Schoenberg by Richard Gerstl. Photograph: Archivo Iconografico, S.A./COR

HM: As you said a minute ago, Mahler was opening up very different areas than 12-tone music.

SO: He was using the same materials as, say, Beethoven or Bruckner, but building a whole different kind of music with them.

HM: Fighting his battles while always preserving tonality?

SO: Right. But still, in effect he was headed in the direction of atonality. Clearly.

HM: Would you say that by pursuing the possibilities of tonality as far as he could take them, in effect he confused the whole issue of tonality?

SO: I would. He brought in a kind of multilayering.

HM: Like, lots of different keys in the same movement?

SO: Right. He keeps changing things around. And hell do stuff like using two different keys simultaneously.

HM: He doesnt discard tonality, but he causes confusion from the inside, really shakes things up. Thats how he was, in effect, heading toward atonality. But was he striving for something different from the atonality of 12-tone music?

SO: Yes, it was different, I think. It might be closer to call what he was doing polytonality rather than atonality. Polytonality is one step before you get to atonality it means that you use more than one key at the same time. Or you keep changing keys as the music flows. In any case, the atonality that Mahler was aiming for came out of something quite different from the atonality and 12-tone scale that Schoenberg and Berg were offering. Later, people like Charles Ives pursued polytonality more deeply.

HM: Do you think Mahler thought he was doing something avant garde?

SO: No, I dont think so.

HM: Schoenberg and Berg were certainly very conscious of being avant garde, though.

SO: Oh, very much so. They had their method. Mahler had no such thing.

HM: So he flirted with chaos, not as a methodology, but very naturally and instinctively. Is that what youre saying?

SO: Yes. Isnt that exactly where his genius lies?

John Coltrane By Lee Friedlander.

HM: There was a development like that in jazz, too. In the 1960s, John Coltrane kept edging closer and closer to free jazz, but basically he stayed within the bounds of a loose tonality called mode. People still listen to his music today but free jazz is little more than a historical footnote. What were talking about may be kind of like that.

SO: Wow, so there was something like that in jazz?

HM: Come to think of it, though, Mahler had no clear successors. The main symphonic composers who came after him were not Germans but Soviet Russians, such as Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Shostakovichs symphonies are vaguely reminiscent of Mahler.

SO: Yes, very much so. I agree. But Shostakovichs music is very coherent. You dont feel the same kind of craziness you do in Mahler.

HM: Maybe for political reasons it wasnt easy for him to let anything like craziness come out. There is also something deeply abnormal about Mahlers music.

SO: Yes, its true. The art of Egon Schiele is like that, too. When I saw his pictures, I could really see how he and Mahler were living in the same place at the same time. Living in Vienna for a while, I got a strong sense of that atmosphere. It was a tremendously interesting experience for me.

HM: Mahler says in his autobiography that being director of the Vienna State Opera was the top position in the musical world. In order to obtain that position, he went so far as to abandon his Jewish faith and convert to Christianity. He felt the position was worth making such a sacrifice. It occurs to me that you were in that very position until quite recently.

SO: He really said that, did he? Do you know how many years he was director of the State Opera?

HM: Ten years, I think.

SO: For somebody who spent such a long time conducting opera, its amazing that he never wrote one of his own. I wonder why not. He wrote all those Lieder, and he was very conscious of the combination of words and music.

HM: Thats true, now that you mention it. Its too bad. But given the kind of person he was, it might have been hard for him to choose a libretto.

English translation copyright Haruki Murakami and Seiji Ozawa 2016. Extracted from Absolutely on Music by Haruki Murakami and Seiji Ozawa, published by Harvill Secker on 15 November at 20.00.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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Carl Bass on his surprising Autodesk exit and whats next

check it out @ https://tuthillscopes.com/carl-bass-on-his-surprising-autodesk-exit-and-whats-next/

Carl Bass on his surprising Autodesk exit and whats next

Carl Bass is sitting at his desk at Autodesk today, but hes no more Chief executive officer from the openly traded design software company. He walked lower the 2009 week inside a move that some connected wrongly, notesBass by having an interview Bass granted towards the outlet Pando,wherein he disparaged President Jesse Trump.

Today, we spoken with Bass about his resignation, his ongoing role like a board member with Autodesk, ifhe regrets reporting in from the administration like a public company Chief executive officer and whetherhe thinks more tech CEOs must do exactly the same.

The famously straight-shooting Bass had plenty to say of everything. Also, he shared a number of what he wishes to focus on next. Our conversation continues to be edited gently for length.

TC: You walked lower as Chief executive officer on Tuesday, and senior VPs Amar Hanspal and Andrew Anagnost happen to be installed as interim co-CEOs. But youre helping in the quest for your substitute, is the fact that correct?

CB: Yes, Tuesday was my last day, but Ill continue being employed as an worker for 3 several weeks and am ongoing around the board of company directors for some time. We began planning this not long ago, because the easiest method to do [a succession change] is perfect for the present Chief executive officer to step lower. Otherwise, the very best exterior candidates arent sure theres a real job opening. You realize, sometimes you seethe pocket veto, in which the Chief executive officer includes a change of heart and states, Hey, if you are likely to choose so and thus, I am not departing. This can be a clean break, and outdoors candidates work hard at it, and also the board takes it seriously. Weve hired an outdoors search team who definitely are speaking with internal and exterior candidates, so hopefully [well find the correct candidate] rapidly.

TC: Youve stated that you simply and Autodesks board started succession planning talks 18 several weeks ago, however, many people believe aninterview in which you belittled Jesse Trump performed a job within the timing of the resignation.

CB: There have been lots of rumors now that couldnt be more wrong. Towards the extent that you simply take exactly what a company states having a touch of suspicion [because companies is really so marketing], with regards to governance, they are real rules. You will find real penalties of law. Public companies dont take that gently.

TC: Would you regret being so public about your feelings about Trump?

CB: Not, by no means. Not just one bit. Whenever you take a look at Trump, you will find three things happening: policies character and temperament and executive or administrative functioning. I believe on two and three, almost everyone can agree that he is not qualified, because of that , I joked [to Pandos Sarah Lacy]that hes runningthe government like someone among a little businessman and dictator. I watch whats happening every single day, and Im advised of my children once they were 4 years old coupled with no understanding of anything outdoors of themselves. Hes a 70-year-old baby.

Around the policy stuff, its difficult to parse what his policy is. Were against the main one China policy now were for it. Would slowly move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem now were not. Policy appears is the area of the job that least interests him.They are complicated issues, however they dont appear to captivate him. He doesnt appear particularly curious or thoughtful about the subject. Hes interested in tweeting the latest insult that [springs tomind].

TC: Do you consider other tech executives ought to be more vocal, or perhaps is it an excessive amount of a danger?

CB: I believe anybody with a platform should speak out. Ive had a lot of people achieve out tome now peoplemuch better-known than I’m, say, Thats awesome, that which you stated. And Im like, Why dont you express it? You’ve got a bigger pulpit.

TC: Many people think Tesla and SpaceX Chief executive officer Elon Musk should step off Trumps economic advisory council. What is your opinion?

CB: Its an elaborate problem for Elon.I thinkmany of the things that hes attempting to accomplish are actually worthy goals however they intersect with regulation: autonomous vehicles, putting things wide. You cannot do this with no government, so from the very self-interested perspective, as well as in the eye of his companies, I realize. However, he’s a really public platform and Imsure he’s a viewpoint and when everyone takes the self-interested view, the planet doesnt reach hear the opinions of their leaders. And So I think its important however i certainly understand.

Ive [feel much more strongly about Facebook COO] SherylSandberg. Shehas gone from her method to develop a brand around the strength of womenand what theyre able to, and with regards to the Womens March, she wasinvisible. She appears to possess leaned out a great deal.

TC: Why have you start succession planning 18 several weeks ago? Lots of CEOs run their companies more than you’ve.

CB: Id been performing for any lengthy time. Ive been Chief executive officer for 11 many there have been 2 or 3 years after i was COO and accountable for the companys day-to-day, therefore it seems like 14 years that Ive been carrying this out.

And That I have ample other interests. Im on a number of boards [includingHP and Zendesk andstill-private startups,including Planet]. I’ve got a small portfolio of products Ive committed to. I’ve two bigworkshops where I build and invent things making stuff.

I really like the organization and that i love my job, however it hugely consumes your time and effort. Like all other executive job, its 60 hrs per week and when you allow 60, the task [demands]65. Youre never done. To complete the job well, additionally you need the years skin. You’ll need thick skin when individuals think you had been fired since you stated something about Trump. You’ll need thin skin to empathize together with your customers and employees and also the world surrounding you. And all sorts of individuals forces get tiring before long. My second kid got away from home this yearand I must take more time within the shop, traveling with startups.

TC: You had been also coping with activist investor groups Sachem Mind Capital and Eminence Capital who together collected an 11.five percent stake in the organization.

CB:Last fall, i was while making the modification, and merely then, the activists demonstrated up. I shouldn’t overemphasize it’s not like they’d a great deal to say about the organization. It was not that people used to do badly. They more thoughtwe were sandbagging concerning the future and now we ought to be speaking up which our lengthy-range projections were [too conservative]. It had been, Everyone could do two times too! Well, its easyto say in the sidelines. Easy that i can say Atlanta must have won the Super Bowl, however i didnt need to play.

Therefore we suspended succession planning. We use it hold because weneeded more stable leadership as the activists have there been and if the next Chief executive officer is definitely an exterior or internal person, it appears as an unfair burden to put in it. I’ve got a fair quantity of currency staying with you Im a lot more prepared to fight than many more. I figured, This can be a job designed for me, and that i should stay before the activists choose to leave.

So this past year these were around the board. The companys stock expires 70 or 80 % during the last 12 several weeks, the think markets convey more confidence in [Autodesks relocate 2015 to some subscription-only model], so we wereable to create a deal. I stated, Im prepared to do this again process if everyone leave the board. Now theyre moving away from the board [when the new Chief executive officer is elected], and Im escaping . asCEO.

TC: Plastic Valley startups have become more conscious of theneedto defend themselves from activist investorsand theyve more and more been granting founders special kinds of stock that provide them control of key decisions. Do you consider thats the reply to this problem?

CB: Yes. Basically would be a founder, I’d have particular stock. Because numerous things in corporate governance have given themselves to activists making use, I believe the response needs to be, a minimum of for the short term, that companies have dual-class mechanisms in position.

I believe neither extreme is nice, though. I believe activism is that this deviant, extreme type of capitalism. Its like other ideologies, wheregood ideas are come to a serious and lose their meaning. However, I do not think dual-class stock is the greatest mechanism because shareholders must have a say.

Id want to see tenured voting, where theresa premium depending on how lengthy you have the shares. I do not are conscious of any public company which has tried it yet, however i have no idea the reason why you no longer can do it. [It might follow that] one individual that has owneda million shares for just one year has less voting power than someone else that has owned millions of shares for 2 years.

TC: Before we allow you to go, whats next? Is every venture firm on Sand Hill Road attempting to lure you in to the fold?

CB: Ive been shocked by the amount of those who have plans for which I ought to do next. Its a funnymix within my inbox at this time. Ive received4,000 emails from employees, that are very touching and emotional. However, you will find each one of these people looking to get me to behave next.

I amgoing to complete an advisory role at Google X. Ive been considering [potentially] startingmy own accelerator program. Within the next couple of several weeks Ill evaluate which Im likely to do. Meanwhile, I wish to keep skiing around the weekdays.

Find out more: https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/10/carl-bass-on-his-surprising-autodesk-exit-and-whats-next/