#like girl....... why are you showing your media illiteracy?

[gwyns]

don't y'all ever get tired of having to play the morality police in fandom? like damn can't you enjoy anything?? my gaawwwddd THEYRE FICTIONAL FAERIE BOOKS ITS NOT THAT DEEP

[sapphire-weapon]

I think the fact that so many people want to label Leon/Ashley as canonically "sibling- coded" is because they feel threatened in the way they view other of Leon's relationships, they can tell Leon and Ashley have chemistry and they try to convince themselves that they have a familial bond going on (like Ellie/Joel) so that they can justify not shipping them and making people who ship it feel bad/weird.

Because nowadays so many people can't just dislike something, they have to make up a reason why it's morally wrong and unacceptable so that way they can bully people that think differently and feel like their own personal opinions are objective and right while everyone else is wrong smh. This is mostly the case with younger fans (tho a lot of people older than me does this too lmao) so that's why I don't really find it frustrating bc it's most likely they have limited real life experience. Plus they might not be that good at interpreting canon from contextual clues yet.

In my case though I think a lot of these people are actually doing the opposite tbh because to me it just shows that they recognize that Ashley's relationship with Leon is real and they can't even concede that they're friends in the canon because they know it could lead to something else if followed through in the story, they admit there's potential there subconsciously with how hard they try to make it seem otherwise with nonsense claims. It's like when insecure guys feel uncomfortable but try to seem tough by buying big trucks and having guns on them all the time lmao.

So, I've talked about this before -- about how the "sibling coded" or "problematic age gap" discourse is just modern-day fandom's way of slutshaming and engaging in casual misogyny in a societally acceptable way.

I'm pretty confident in saying that anyone in my generation who slaps "siblings" on Leon and Ashley are probably people who have another ship and have had it for a while and don't want Ashley getting in the way of it, tbh LMAO

Like.... my generation has co-opted the current generation's vernacular, but make no mistake about the kind of bitches we are. We're ship war bitches. That's all we've ever been AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO CHANGE OUR WAYS NOW fjdskfh

But if we're talking about the current generation...

Media illiteracy is a big factor in this. It's no secret to anyone that the US education system took a massive shit starting in the late aughts/early 2010s, and things like critical reading skills aren't being taught in schools anymore.

I graduated high school in 2007. Two years later, I went back to visit an old English teacher to get a letter of recommendation, and he was lamenting to me that he'd just given up. It wasn't worth trying to explain the deeper themes of Beowulf to kids who didn't care, because the only thing that mattered was getting them to pass standardized tests.

So, now, without an overt, explicit declaration of love or something visually concrete like a kiss, kids literally do not have the skills to parse through a text and pick out themes and tropes and use of symbolism and imagery. They were never taught how to do it.

But there's a more culture-based thing happening here, I think. It's this fucking mess of a cocktail of internalized misogyny paired with learned helplessness, social anxiety, intense sheltering possibly exacerbated by the pandemic shutdowns, peer pressure, and internet purity culture.

I think it's pretty safe to say that fandom is predominantly made up of women and teenage girls. That was true in the 60s in Star Trek fandom, it was true in my generation, and it's still true today. And what I've seen happening today is that young women are absolutely terrified of their own sexual agency -- because the internet keeps telling them that, if you're under 18, it is wrong and bad and unacceptable for you to engage with anything even remotely sexual and how dare you express your sexuality -- and you'd better not do it not just because it's wrong and bad, but also because you are GUARANTEED TO BE PREYED UPON IF YOU DO. SEX IS DANGEROUS ALL OF THE TIME AND YOU'RE LITERALLY TOO YOUNG AND TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND ANYTHING SO DON'T TRY TO EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. Because if you're 17 and he's 18, he's a pedophile!!!!!!!!

I just.

So, we've now basically turned an entire generation of young women into the same type of young women who created the BL genre in Japan. These are women who were too afraid to explore their sexuality on their own, and it felt safer to do it with two male characters, because it was always more "okay" for men to be sexual. This is happening here in the West, now.

Slash ships have always been a thing in the West, but not to the degree that they are today. In today's fandom, if you have an M/F ship at all, you are outnumbered by at least 3:1 -- because M/M just "feels" safer for a lot of the current generation.

So, I think young women look at the Remake portrayal of Ashley Graham, and they identify with her. A lot. They're probably around her age, and her personality is very relatable to the kind of girls who play video games. Ashley's clearly introverted, but she's a fast learner who just wants to help, and she's got a good heart and a weird, kind of awkward sense of humor.

And, not only do these girls identify with Ashley, they're probably thirsty as fuck for Leon.

But that's terrifying to them.

Because they have been taught to fear their own sexual agency. The idea that an attractive, traditionally masculine, older man would be romantically or sexually interested in them is immediately categorized in their brains as wrong and bad -- and they don't want to think of Leon in that way.

So... for them, it can't be romantic. It can't be sexual. But there's clearly something there, but Leon would never abuse or prey on anyone so... that bond must be a perfectly innocent familial affection. That's what it is. That's what it has to be, because anything else forces them to face the uncomfortable reality even young women like them go on dates and have sex -- and sometimes, it's with men like Leon.

So, they thirst over Leon at a safe distance through Luis, primarily. Or they self-indulge on reader fic, because that's so much easier to write off as "just a fantasy" and not a statement on who Leon actually is as a character.

And it's just kind of sad, man. It sucks to see this happen to an entire generation of young women.

That's why I don't really get mad when I see the "siblings" shit out in the wild. I just feel sad for those people -- because they can't just say "I don't like the ship." They're so insecure and neurotic that they have to think of a reason why the ship is literally impossible to ever happen so that they don't have to be worried about it.

One day, they'll finally suck a dick for themselves and learn that it's not that serious. It's really fuckin not. Dicks are stupid, and the boys that are attached to them are even dumber.

[n0thingiscool]

Hot Takes From Troll Accounts - re: Breaking Bad and the MSM's General Influence on Populous Beliefs/Behaviors

Exhibit A) absurdly-“useful”

Except mainstream anything has an immediate influence on the masses hence why electing a pro Nazi rapist to office was fucking BAD for the population and the safety for women, POC, queer folk, and people with disabilities… ya goofy misdirecting troll account see you next tuesday. 😂

Exhibit B) wackweeder, grimeclown, and cactusseeds

No, to answer your question - grimeclown. But that’s kinda not really the focus.

*eyes rolling at cactusseeds* - tell me you work for media without telling me you work for media.

For wackweeder - you say “media illiterate” like that’s a bad thing. Lmfao. I prefer to put my limited time in reading published studies, reading historical books, interacting with people who value educational content (not you), taking STEM classes, and beating my ass up in fitness arenas than working on my “media literacy.” I have all my social media feeds to tell me shit I don’t care about in relation to mainstream television now, anyway. It’s not like I get to bury my head away from any of it as much as I would love to. But why the hell would I want to watch brain rot with what limited time I have on this planet. I rhetorically ask. Here’s the key response to your overall population influence illiteracy - media influences everything including drug usage. This is why most developed governments are so sensitive about tobacco and alcohol ads in the presence of children. It doesn’t generally matter how the shit is portrayed. If it did then Nancy Reagan’s “War on Drugs” TV specials would’ve had some positive effect on the masses. Hint… it didn’t.

https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/44/3/229/178279

Now - you can go ahead and make the argument that BB the show, itself, could’ve turned people away from using because there are zero studies to counter that argument but that’s disingenuous claim to make at best. Personally, I feel more comfortable looking at all the other numerous studies looking at drug and alcohol usage influenced through media, in general, and applying that data to the picture at hand because that is a rational thing to do.

For a lay example - why don’t news outlets publish suicide rates? Because it increases suicide. Just because it looks bad in the broad scheme doesn’t mean it has none or an anti-influence. That’s not how this works. I can think of other media influencing mob behavior: Flash mobs. The increase of street takeovers in a post Fast and Furious world. How little girls think they need to look like some twig on the runway. How little boys think they have to hide their emotions because the machismo men on their favorite shows do so. How Bhutan’s GNH (presumably - the documentation has all but vanished from online sources I had read from in the aughts - shoulda saved it back in the day…) fell after the introduction of Western Media. And so on…

People are easily influenced, man. They teach in journalism school (yes, I went) the average American reading and comprehension level is at the equivalent of the third grade. When you see mofos out there believing Q-Anon conspiracies without second guessing you know that fact isn’t far off. We’re not anywhere near as evolved a you want to believe.

Exhibit C) roadkillbuffet

I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not but Breaking Bad was not the first gay kiss on television…

But also… if the comment isn’t sarcasm or a troll then - “but Breaking Bad was the first gay kiss on tv therefore if you’re calling a meth based television show out you are homophobic” - is a piss poor argument to make for the queer community. Of which I am in, btw.

If that were actually true and BB was the first show to validate queer relationships then how homophobic is Hollywood to take that first dive into validating queer lives in a show about meth? I’m going to guess this is a sarcasm response though. No one can be that off base… can they?

Exhibit D) "I can't read this" Cool. Go back to your basic memes.

[dailysassfromshego]

Controversial topics about my country!!!

As some of you might now, I live in a pretty damn Balkan Eastern European country that is pretty misogynistic, homophobic etc etc….

-ABORTION We all are shocked now about USA anti-“pro-life” propaganda these recent days…Thank God in Albania abortions are legal for some several reasons that the poorest states of America (like Alabama) are failing to actually understand!  1) POOR EDUCATION!!! Poor education means high illiteracy rates followed by low average income (Albanian’s average monthly wage is around 200-300 euros). Poor education also means incest, rape and unprotected sex! Yes, our rates on these are pretty high! I got friends whose moms and/or themselves work at maternity centers/hospitals and they say the average of teenage pregnancies are too damn high and a good part of them end up in abortion, specifically or if possible in other cities so nobody specially their parents won’t see them to “publicly shame on them somehow”, simply because falling pregnant at a very young age is also humiliating to their parents and if they found out those girls better commit suicide rather than being actually killed by their fathers or bigger brothers!!! Rarely these girls get the support of their own family tbh and specifically if these girls are from the rural parts of the country. This happens mainly because a girl should be married first and give birth later, and in most scenarios this is because of unprotected sex due to their partners being total assholes for refusing to use protection and most of the cases later dumping them!  2) Health risks for mother or kid! These were the cases that were tolerated even back during communism (also rape and incest were part of the exclusion at that time), but even then there would be a lot where women would fake illnesses to want a pregnancy terminated for sorely their personal reasons. (At least they’d better fake documents at a very trusted person or they could easily face Spaç, the Albanian Gulag, cause spies were fucking everywhere!) And “yes” there could be complications that show up after the 5th month.  3) THE GENDER OF THE KID! Being a very misogynistic country aborting simply because the upcoming child is a girl will push wives by their husbands to commit an UNWANTED ABORTION! This is by far the most controversial and this is the only reason that should be banned by law if you ask me! Thankfully abortions cost less than 200 euros. And to all those “pro-lifers”: You really are pro-life but if the kid dies within the next 3 years by the poor life conditions don’t @ me cause ya all the real anti-lifers! Or lets say that those kids end up in an orphanage where in most cases the conditions are equally as bad as if their biological mothers would keep ‘em, specially in poor countries most kids in orphanages are malnourished, psychologically and physically abused by the people who work in those orphanages or by their older fellows! (I can not even count the amount of the cases we had here and most are within the last 3 years!) “If are a pro-lifer then you better want a life with quality not with the guaranteed fear of abuse and death!!!”

-LGBTQ RIGHTS Not the most welcomed country for the LGBTQ community, I see actors and politicians being openly homophobic and swearing to kill their own sons if they found out they were gay, live on TV programs! However the more educated and informed the common society gets the better for the community! Here you got a source for more info into this topic if interested! Thankfully we are progressing into this topic and we got 17th of May on 2014 as the 1st LGBTQ pride and since then held every year! (Currently speaking we have some exchange students from Spain that are gay and one of them has cried for having a very good time here and being accepted from his fellow students and my father, who is his teacher and if not actually the only one of the teachers to truly accept him for whom he is rather than in his home where he is very badly treated by his teachers simply because he is gay and drags!) However we also got a kind of “transgender” culture that is more of an old tradition in rural parts of Northern Albania, practiced under the “Kanun of Lek Dukagjini/Rules of Lek Dukagjini” (check on internet about this one, is a very interesting topic to even study on it if you are a non-Albanian + it will get you to understand the whole old mentality of this country better) the women called “Burrnesha” or else called the “Sworn Virgin” who are the women that take a vow of chastity and wear male clothing in order to live as men in patriarchal northern Albanian society, cause due to the family not having any sons therefore they’d become “the sons their family never had” keep their childhood surnames and inherit the family properties. There is also a whole National Geographic Taboo series episode dedicated on this topic + a lot of documentaries for you to check out! In this patriarchal country is basically more acceptable if a woman condones with the life of a man than a boy with a woman’s. Notable is one of the best live-on-air TV programs “wrecks” was when a transgender got asked by the dumb ass hostess what kind of community she represents and her respond was “I represent the community of women!” and the host went by in a very pushing way “but you are a different kind of a woman it should be something more or else…” and the other ones interrupts “…let me take is this way honey, just because you are blonde you represent the community of blondes?” and the host says in a thinking way “…mmm yes, actually, yes!” This scene became one of the best memes against the illiteracy of that particular TV hostess whom is known to make stupid questions and totally out of place comments + a boom against most of those so called journalists that have and are filling our media courses full of unprofessionalism, lies and trash content! “Your genitalia preferences are none of my business and shouldn’t be anybody’s! What matters is your character!”

-WOMEN RIGHTS Believe it on not Albania allowed women to vote before Italy, starting in 1920 and gaining full rights of voting in 1945! The very 1st feminist movement was started leaded by Urani Rumbo (who happens to be from the same city as me, Gjirokastra) who promoted woman’s emancipation by publishing the newspaper “Drita” (light in Albanian) and protesting in 1923 so girls could get high-school education! It is known though that actually the Tosk part (Southern part of Albania) was always more matriarchal compared to the patriarchal Geg part (Northern part), and women where seen with far more equal rights towards men while in the other part women were seen as objects. However in 1945 Albania became the 1st communist country that actually applied the ideal of gender equality compared to others that were more symbolic rather than actually applied! That system also put a whole ban on pre-arranged marriages, gave them their rights to get a full education, vote and work equally as men did! You finally had female doctors, drivers etc. even mine diggers!!! (When my grandmother had my father she was just 19 and my grandfather, 26 at the time, was begging to her to continue her university studies on economics where she had won a scholarship, but she kept on declining saying she had to raise the kids while he was saying that her mother could do that as she was living with them! Now she regrets not listening to him!) Anyways by the fall of communism in 90′, things got a bit out of control and the “Kanun” (friendly reminder the “Kanun” is basically medieval rules made somewhere in the 1400′ for the rural parts of the north) got back in tracks and a lot women lost their rights not “legally” but “morally” and this being applied till recent days where the law and authorities would actually do nothing on cases of domestic abuse, rape and incest. And as if this is not enough most of these cases are not even reported due to fear from their husbands, relatives or even family for putting a shame on them! Not to even mention some sexist laws that were put the recent years… Though thankfully there are people fighting about that but yet again is a lot to do due to poor education specially mainly in the rural parts which consists around 70% of the country! “There is still a lot to be done!”

-RELIGION Now this one is my fave! Here nobody gives a flying fuck about your faith! Once again the 1st communist country to truly apply the ideology’s terms making us the 1st Atheist country in the world, in the 60′! Sure a lot mosques and churches were demolished, yet the most important ones were preserved (compared to now that only a few are being founded by Turkey, Greece or Vatican regarding on where they apply their interests on, which is totally unacceptable, and most of them aren’t legit ones with real historical values) and a lot of priest and believers where imprisoned (this one wasn’t a fair move tbh), yet it was the best option to finally unify the nation based on nationality rather than on religion that most nations actually do and/or have! If that wasn’t done on the right time Albania would have ended up in a Bosnia of 90′ scenario where people slaughtered each-other for identifying with another religion=nationality! That, cause if religions weren’t banned people would not accept each-other only because of having another faith, not to add the slurs each of them had and still do somehow! This opened up to marriages regardless of religion which is truly an amazing thing and impossible in most of the world! (My mum is Christian Orthodox from her family, my dad Bektashi Muslim from his and it was his choice to baptize me Christian Orthodox... Funny part? None of us is actually a believer!!!) Why still does? After 90′ a lot people, mainly non-Albanians, found free space to mess up with people’s minds and pushing them to become believers of a certain religion for a considerate amount of money in exchange! Believe it or not this still is a very high risk these days using all sorts of forms to brainwash the illiterate part of the society and condone with a lifestyle that is borderline morally and physically illegal or at least should be illegal! Simply because religion is a very personal topic and nobody should push that on anybody in any way possible! However the best part of being a secular state is that you get to celebrate extra vocations!  “In the end of the day Albanians’ real faith is “money and food”... as for the rest we don’t really care as long as we got to celebrate!” XD

[shitizsrivastava]

TB#11 || Ten Awesome Rules I learned Meeting Millionaires.

Well, I too wanted to find that so I mailed a few millionaires and decided to interview them.

Based on my experiences I have figured out Ten Awesome Rules I learned Meeting Millionaires.

—

A few months earlier I started meeting millionaire people to know their secret.

The secret to their health, wealth and prosperity.

I generated my links through my previous job, from Linkedin & Facebook networking.

I read somewhere that if you want to get rich, sit with rich people, so I decided to act on it.

It was a very interesting experience. The more I met rich people, the more change in my own personality I noticed.

You BECOME the kind of people you hang out with.

Here are the inferences that I developed from talking and spending time with them. It helped me a lot and I hope it will help you too.

1. Always pay first.

You must always pay first.

There are Two reasons for that.

First –

A few days ago, I went to have a coffee at Starbucks with one of my friends (not best) and I told him to have anything he wants. He stared at me for a while as I am not famous for offering free treats.

After overcoming his surprise, he said he does not want to have anything but a glass of water.

Now, It was my turn to get surprised.

It was his change of behaviour.

A few months earlier, when I met him he was on a merciless trail of burning my pockets.

So, when I didn’t have any money, he was willing to drill my wallet, but now when I have money, he refuses to buy anything.

Isn’t that surprising, Freud!!

The only reason I can attribute to such behavior gets to define by one word — “Importance”.

When I have money I am more important to him and he could see future relations with me.

And when I didn’t have any money, I wasn’t important enough. He took full advantage of me and didn’t care whether we will meet again or not.

Conclusion: If you pay first, there are chances people don’t want you to spend your money as they want to be in your good books.

Second –

The first impression is the last impression.

It is basic psychology.

You pay first when you are meeting someone for the first time, it gives him an impression that you are not cheap.

He will live with that impression unless you change his thoughts by doing some cheap act.

People don’t like to change their opinions, even when hard and solid evidence is presented to them. They are more comfortable believing in a lie, than changing their opinion.

Use this human tendency to your favour.

I have many free meals using this method.

I pay, once, in the first meeting. Then in next ten meetings, I eat for free and no one cares because they think I am loaded as hell as I paid the first time.

Rich people always pay first. Any rich person I have sat with pretends that they don’t care about the bill. They pay whatever is printed on the bill. They care about money but pretend not to.

To get rich, it is imperative to get that attitude first.

2. Money is important but Time is more important.

There is nothing more important in this world than money.

I guess you know that.

With Millionaires, I realized there is one entity more important than money -

That is Time.

People don’t value their time because it is abundant and free to them.

I did the same and I regret it.

When I met millionaires, the first thing I noticed was how much they valued their own time.

I came up with a fantastic plan to make myself realize how much of my time is important to me.

I started telling myself, that one hour of my time is worth 1000 Bucks. So for every hour that I waste, I will lose 1000 bucks.

After that whenever I wasted my time my mind would auto-suggest that if I waste more time, I will waste more of my money.

Money comes to Rich only because they value time and not another way around.

If your observe, Rich people usually don’t give time to other people. They are always busy.

Unless they have some work or the person is useful they don’t waste their time with them.

Time is money so don’t waste it.

3. Do not invest without knowing about Returns.

A most important rule -

Never invest without knowing about the returns first.

I have made two films and I used to think of myself as creative and talented. This was before I realized that there is no such thing as talent or creativity. It is a Myth.

None of my films made any money and they were never released.

I was one of those guys who used to think that creativity comes from lack of money, pains, sufferings and struggles.

I tried creativity, but instead of creativity, I got stomach pains and headaches. Not to mention the criticism and judgement of the people around me.

What went wrong?

I invested without caring about returns.

Big Mistake.

In the creative field, the “creative” people justify their lack of business sense by convincing others that they don’t care about returns. They pretend that they are doing things for the sake of art. They are fooling everyone, including themselves.

Study the market and figure out how to sell your thing. Even if it is a creative thing that does not have a physical appearance, it can sell.

Think of an idea and take a few steps.

Then walk till the end and start coming backwards.

This is the most important trait that millionaires inhibit.

4. Read, Listen, Observe and keep yourself Updated.

There cannot be enough importance that can be attributed to the habit of reading. It is a vital habit.

It is a fact that a rich guy always keeps himself updated. He will read books, magazines, blogs whatever to keep himself updated.

You may argue then that what if a person is illiterate and still rich. After all, most Gujaratis have rags to riches story.

Even if you cannot read due to various reasons of concentration, habit or illiteracy; it does not matter.

READING BOOKS is not the only source of information or keeping yourself updated.

A person who really wants to do something will always find a way to do it.

The are no rules of how you do your reading, listening and observing exercises. There are conventional methods and there are methods that you create for yourself.

Sometimes people like talking about their life experiences. That is one way for you to gather knowledge.

You can to listen to audio books, attend seminars, go to events. There are myriad ways of increasing knowledge if you look around.

Sometimes you experience things on your own and increase knowledge.

Whatever it is, in the end, if you care enough, you will figure out a way to increase your knowledge.

5. Meet more people.

Of course, meet more people.

Isn’t that obvious.

There is no substitute for that.

Now, this is one advice given to me by most books.

Problem was I didn’t know how to and where to go to meet new people.

However, with time I developed my own methods to meet new people.

Trust me, it is not very difficult to meet new people.

Just go to Facebook, write “HI” to a bunch of people and ask them out on coffee.

I know you might be thinking that I am joking. I am not.

I have many coffee cups with people I randomly contacted on Facebook.

But -

Conversations on Social Media don’t hold up unless you give the person a reason to talk to you. Give them reasons and try to keep their interest maintained. And most importantly, never ask for a Job or work from them, that is a deal breaker.

Talking to Millionaires when you aren’t one is like chasing a beautiful girl. You have to constantly pull out magical rabbits from the hat to maintain their interest.

Now one thing that I forgot to mention was that don’t just meet anyone, always remember rule number two — ‘Time is valuable’.

Meet people whom you feel are relevant and useful to you.

Gossip is your enemy.

People need reasons to process their decisions.

Feed it to them.

Don’t give reasons that are selfish.

If it is a selfish reason, which every reason is, coat it with sugar to hide it ( You know what I mean).

6. Always be the first person to leave the meeting.

I treat this rule as a game.

I am always the first person to leave the meeting. It gives me power over another person.

I learned it from a CEO who always left early. He would come to meet me every week as I would beg him to meet me for a cup of coffee but always leave cutting a conversation in between.

I asked him once why he did that.

I told him that I had felt insulted when he left like that.

It was then that he revealed his secret. He told me that he has a rule where he always leaves the meeting first.

Cutting someone in between and just leaving looks more genuine to be busy, so he does that often.

It is nothing personal. It is something he just does.

Rich people like to show that they are busy and there is a reason behind it.

People are impressed with busy people much easier than with unemployed people.

If you have all the time in the world, nobody wants it but if you don’t have enough time, they will chase you till the end of this earth to get time from you.

Imagine meeting influential people and leaving the meeting first. These are the people whom other people normally beg for a meet. Leaving the meeting first thus becomes a power struggle.

Since you left early and they were to give you their time, it means you are not clingy.

Soon they will open up to you and won’t think twice to respond when you will talk to them next time.

7. If a problem arises, don’t brood, find a solution and move on.

Ahh. My absolute favourite one.

A big part of my life is to spend thinking about problems and why God has been so mean to me.

There is no history of cribbing ever solving any problem.

There is no such problem ever that gets solved on its own.

You may have instances like -

“There was a certain problem in my life, I didn’t do anything about it and it went away.”

All I can tell you right now is that if the problem gets solved on its own, then it was not a problem from the beginning. Sometimes our mind creates problem to keep us busy. Don’t get fooled by it.

Human beings don’t usually have problems. They seek problems in life without knowing about it. That is our nature.

We say we want to remain happy but we cannot be happy in an eternal sense.

We only like it because of that brief moment when we are happy, we love it and want it to continue. It won’t and, trust me, it shouldn’t.

Solve the problem.

Make it a rule to always solve the problem instead of focusing on who caused it or why it happened. Discuss that later if you desire to but problem-solving should be a priority.

One of the rich people I met during my journey was not like that and I wondered how he became a rich person.

He wouldn’t solve the problems, rather ignore the problem in his life. That way the problem would remain but not in front of his eyes and kept him in the illusion that there were no problems.

The problem would boomerang on his face afterwards. Later I came to know that he inherited his wealth.

Nikola Tesla used to create the whole equipment and gadgets in his mind before he would go ahead to make it. His mind was that powerful.

Whenever a problem arises, close your eyes and try to solve the problem inside your mind.

If you still cannot solve the problem then imagine the scenario where the problem is solved. Then figure out the ways in which you can attain it.

8. Arrange everything in mind.

If you have seen the third episode of the third season of Sherlock than you must be aware of powers of memory.

The antagonist in that episode keeps all the secrets inside his own mind.

Now no one can steal it. He had sorted and arranged all the files inside his mind.

Our mind is a great instrument, a great tool. Use it in a wise manner and it will reap you benefits you may have never imagined.

Every rich man understands it.

To know more about it, Read “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill or my other articles.

If you close your eyes you will start seeing images. This will be a random generation of images. But that is because you are not controlling the generation of images.

Think about what you want to think and think exactly how you want things to happen.

The good part is that you can also generate images in your mind of anything that you like. So start by posing a problem and solving it in your mind like a jigsaw puzzle.

Download some meditation apps Like Samsara or Insight Timer, go to a secluded place and try this.

You will be amazed at the results you will get.

9. Live healthily and develop habits.

You cannot do more work if you feel weak and lazy all the time.

The substitute for having good health is not Red Bull or Revital.

It is hitting Gym thrice a week. Eating good food. Drinking lots of fluid. Inhaling lots of oxygen. These are the best things you can do for your body.

Second, Develop habits.

Developing habits is a difficult thing but it is something that you need to focus on.

Decide what kind of habits you want to develop and stick with them for some time.

Try to figure out what kind of habits you have. These habits cannot be having food or walking or breathing. It has to be something that takes you out of your comfort zone and yet you do it every day.

If you do not have one. Figure out an easy habit that you want to have. Do that for the next 66 days to convert it into a habit.

After that develop more positive habits like reading books, writing goals, meeting good and positive people, spending only limited time on the internet etc.

All rich people take care of their health and develop great habits.

10. Don’t procrastinate, even if you feel you are not ready.

Do you think a rich man gets rich by delaying his decisions?

There is no other word more synonymous with failure than “Procrastination”.

Procrastination does not happen because one is lazy or does not want to do something. It happens because one isn’t motivated enough to do that thing.

One of the premier reason people procrastinate is that they think they are not ready enough to do the task in hand.

Truth — No one ever is.

No matter how much you read, what degree you take or the efforts you make, you will never be ready for anything.

Except you have to go ahead and do it.

A person is always as ready as he wants to be.

You don’t have to be ready to start working. You get ready as you keep on working and the combination of it lets you achieve it.

Kids dropped out of college are becoming CEO nowadays.

Do you think they were ready?

NO.

They went ahead with whatever they had and kept on doing it till they finally achieved it.

Do it now. No matter how lazy you feel or how much your mind asks you to not do it.

[jimmycarrhairlinesurgery]

hey abby guess what. 1-30

1: Favorite season?

you KNOW you KNOW a softe bitch loves season 5 its just pure and nice and comforting to watch and also has so many goode episodes and macden moments in it... i literally have the url iasipseasonfive saved like need i say more

2: Favorite character?

its mac... like ofc it is ive loved dennis and dee in the past and of course i still have a soft spot for the trash twins esp their childhoods but mac’s coming out arc is just perfect and he just wants to be a happy boye! honestly it might change but my big three are den dee and mac sorry gruesome twosome 

3: Favorite cast member?

i kin glennato and like LOVE his weird music taste but i have 2 say kaitlin olson shes so present on social media and the utter reverence with which the other cast members speak abt her is just. beautiful! she’s credited with literally saving the show by making dee just as despicable as the rest of the gang she’s a feminist queen and also managed to cuff rmacelhenney like kudos girl! angel queen gorgeous etc

4: OTP?

it’s mac and dennis honestly their relationship can get my heart pounding and it was the main reason i was drawn to the show in the first place... kings of being repressed sexually and emotionally and honestly i related to that feeling of being repressed and in love w your best friend like not to project on characters that have nothing to do w me but they rlly helped me work through some issues!!! im not as ride or die as before because theyve already done so much but fingers crossed for s14 lads

5: BROTP?

ooooo this is difficult bc i love charmac but mac and dee is the friendship we deserve.... she could help him get over his raging misogyny and he could introduce her to the gay lifestyle how perfect would that be?? also i just feel like when they r alone they could be so nice to each other and i want that for them

6: NOTP?

one of them raped the other, what more can i say?

7: answered

8: Least favorite character?

it has to be frank like i get so angry thinking about how he abused dennis and dee as children he has almost zero redeemable qualities but like.. i could learn to love him if mfhp was a turning point... i just can’t ever get over the fact that he owned a sweatshop the joke stuff just isn’t even funny to me it makes me feel ill

9: Least favorite episode?

uhhhh if you’ve seen iasip ranked you’ll know that we ranked a cricket’s tale and frank’s brother as the worst but i’d also like to put up there the gang goes on family fight bc dennis’ breakdown is painfullll... other episodes that hurt me personally are the gang broke dee and how mac got fat

10: Favorite crack ship?

deetress started off as a crackship but it’s become honestly very serious and i hold it v close to my heart... if you don’t believe me watch one single minute of the boggs ladies reboot.... honorable mention is charden 

11: Favorite headcanon?

hhmm i think that one of my favourite ones of all time is dennis is the bar like that was inimitable... also like hc that dee is lesbian bc she is

12: An episode you wish you could change?

all lethal weapon episodes... imagine how iconic they could be and quotable as well if they didn’t include blackface :(

13: An episode you wish you could write?

i want to write a vegas ep for sure.... like imagine also i would NOT do it justice but the episode where mac and dennis first get together, oof actually you’d do a better job of it tbh

14: Favorite thing about the show?

it has to be rcg like what other showrunners would care so much about the fate of the show and adapt it so much as time goes on... as much as i slander them on this website they really created one of the best shows to ever air

15: Least favorite thing about the show?

hmmm aside from all the blackface and the fact that they should have hired black writers if they wanted to address race in the show.... the fact that the gang r being so mean to mac and the whole ddl thing it’s a nightmare why didn’t they tell us what was going on with dennis??

16: Favorite running gag?

charlie’s illiteracy......... iconique also repressed mac was a good gag while it lasted i am glad he is out though

17: Best Mac shirt?

BEAST COAST

18: Best Dennis rant?

hnndg im gonna have to say the whole keeping the skin,, skin glass box thing in season 10 i forget the name of the episode but GOD that kills me every time glenn really went to julliard huh

19: answered

20: answered

21: Favorite end credits message?

idk i never watch the end credits messages! send me your favourites if you have any lads :)

22: A character you’d write off the show?

ngl probably cricket... he really bores me and like a cricket’s tale cemented that i think everything they can do with the character they have done but for longevity they have to keep him so he can supplement the gang’s schemes

23: An actor you want to see on the show (bonus points if you can think of a character for them)?

ooooooooo i’d love if dax sheppard came back on the show!! also i WISH lili reinhardt could come on but as betty from riverdale.. like a 30 second betty from riverdale cameo would be so ideal you have no idea it would be so stupid but like... hh

24: Favorite fic?

Yphrum’s Law by @lesbianfreyja chapter one made me BAWL (andchaos on ao3) and also anything by @macfoundhispride (yennefers on ao3)  and also your fics michelle !!! everyone go check her out she’s peraltiagoisland on ao3 

25: Favorite promo shoot?

the fuckign ingrid bergman one for season 8 i have no idea why they would do that but it’s incredible..... so niche i feel like it was glennato’s idea

26: Best Waitress hair-style?

sexeyyy episode charlie and dee find love her hair was so pretty long but also i love it now im glad she went brunette again good for her!! any waitress hairstyle is a good hairstyle

27: Fluffy hair Mac or hair-gel Mac?

FLUFFY HAIR MAC ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?

28: answered in GREAT DETAIL

29: Overrated character?

cricket... not to bash cricket again.... but also frank and charlie are overrated imo i can’t understand why charlie is the show’s darling i’ve never been that interested in him

30: Underrated episode?

the most underrated episode of all time is pop-pop the final solution i love it sm.... GOD it’s so good it truly has everything and like the nazi stuff was well executed.. questions abt life and death,,, deception, ryan gosling? i love it also dennis reynolds an erotic life is amazing 

this took me like an hour and a half michelle i hope you’re happy!! also if you’re still reading thank you for putting up w my bullshit

[keywestlou]

WAR ON DECENCY AND DEMOCRACY

There are some things that take priority over all else. Today, Lisa’s birthday. My baby is 56 years old. And still my baby.

Amazing how time flies. The little girl I knew so well gone. Today, a bright cheerful person. One who has given me 2 lovely grandchildren. Robert and Ally. Both high schoolers. How swiftly they have grown.

Happy birthday dear Lisa! May I be around many more years to say that to you.

Helen Reddy has passed on at 78. The woman who gave us I Am Woman. The song became a feminist anthem. It will be so for all time.

Now to the War on Decency and Democracy.

The Presidential Debate last night. I caught the last hour.

Trump ruined it. As he does all things. He made it a dark event. The man is a buffoon. The more I see of him, the more convinced I am he does not have it mentally.

Trump has always been unhappy that New York society and elite never welcomed him into their ranks. Who would want to be a friend to someone who acts as he does.

Some comments I came across in reading various reviews this morning. One writer described the debate as a “revulsion.” Due to Trump’s presentation. Another, “ugly.”

The New York Post reported that Trump’s “over belligerence” led him to stumble. USA Today described the event as a “horror show that had to scare America.” CNN described the debate as “total chaos.”

The moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump at one time to denounce a far right or white supremacist group. Trump appeared reluctant. Biden suggested the far out radical group known as Proud Boys.

Trump’s response shocking. He told Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” In other words get ready, I may need you. Proud Boys celebrated last night their recognition by Trump and his apparent need for their assistance at some point in time.

The “stand back and stand by” sounded like a call to arms.

Mike Allen in AXIOS this morning wrote the debate was similar to what is going on in the country today. Division big time. Radicalism definitely on one side. Not much on the other. A President egging on far right enthusiasts.

On Good Morning America, Bob Woodward described Trump’s performance as “attempting to assassinate the Presidency.”

Biden said something profound. Think about it for a moment: “Dirty fighters don’t win.”

Chris Wallace failed as the moderator. Perhaps anyone being moderator would have. Trump was out of control. Ranting and raving.

Wallace could not control Trump, could not make him comply with the rules for the debate set beforehand.

If I had been Wallace last night, I would first have warned Trump re his conduct, tell him if it continued he would be cut off till it was time for him to speak again. Yes, close his mike down so he would stop interring with Biden’s responses.

Let him rave all he wanted in his own silence.

Trump has received his third nomination for the Nobel Peace Award. Would you believe!

The nomination came from a group of professors in Australia who praised the “Trump Doctrine” against endless wars.

Biden provided his tax returns several months ago. Yesterday, he and his wife provided their 2019 tax return. The return set forth $944,737 in income. Their tax payment $346,204.

Trump has not provided his. The 20 years of tax returns the New York Times has appears to be from a source other than Trump himself.

With tongue in cheek, I must say I admire Trump’s transparency.

Nicholas Kristof’s Opinion piece in today’s New York Times is titled: “Watching  A Cataclysm of Hunger, Disease and Illiteracy.”

The article’s first 2 paragraph’s telling.

“We think of Covid-19 as killing primarily the elderly around the world, but in poor countries it is more cataclysmic than that.”

“It is killing children through malnutrition. It is leading more people to die from tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS. It is forcing girls out of school into child marriages. It is causing women to die in childbirth. It is setting back efforts to eradicate polio, malaria and female genital mutilation. It is leading to lapses in Vitamin A distribution that will cause more children to suffer blindness and death.”

Trump claimed last night the economy was in the best shape ever because of his efforts till coronavirus hit. He further claimed he has done such a good job with the virus that the economy is on its way back to where it had been.

If so, why are major employers advising large layoffs?

The most recent is Disney. Disney announced it was laying off 28,000 employees. The Pandemic the cause. Disney’s theme parks taking the biggest hit. Sixty seven percent of those to be laid off are part timers.

On this day in 1927, Babe Ruth hit his 60th home run of the 1927 season. The record stood for 34 years.

College students returned to school. Within days, the numbers began coming in. Within 2 weeks, the numbers were off the wall. Many universities closed down.

High school, middle and grammar school children have generally returned to school across the country. So far no word as to whether the virus is infecting them. This includes the Key West High School.

The silence gives me concern. Are the schools free of coronavirus cases? Or, there are cases and the schools are keeping them quiet?

Some things are hard to believe. There is an underground movement to hold an unstructured Fantasy Fest. Limited to certain events.

Fantasy Fest was cancelled in July. For good reason. Some people do not understand nor fear the virus. Tourists as well as Key West bar and restaurant owners.

It is claimed the underground movement began when the hotels refused to return deposits for Fantasy Fest week. A Facebook page and other social media outlets started talking about the underground.

Tampa a big one. Tampa apparently has a 1,100 member Key West Fantasy Fest Club. They do not want to stay home during the week. So they have gone to social media and advised here would be parties, etc., except under different names. Black Lingerie Matters would replace the Zombie Bike ride for example.

Irish Kevin’s is openly advertising in Tampa for those who will be attending the underground Fantasy Fest to come party with them.

The numbers will go up. Not just in Key West. Also, in Tampa and from where ever else the tourists come.

Enjoy your day!

    WAR ON DECENCY AND DEMOCRACY was originally published on Key West Lou

[writingwithinwriting]

Honest, soft spoken knicker-untwisting: I should probably say something about this whole Hollie McNish debacle, because I can.

(Hollie McNish, disagreeing with me.)

I have always maintained that some of the best insights you can hear in any field often comes from the person two-weeks into their endeavours rather than a person who has been doing it twenty years. 

This is also horrible, horrible advice and there is a reason I run a blog and not a full-blown literary journal. But then again, I have only been doing this for a year... Thus, I present to you my nicest hat I have to be trampled in the ring: here’s what I have to say about this whole PN Review debate...

If you have our ear to the ground on the poetry scene, someone said something not at all positive towards the current state of spoken word poetry. The piece is loudly proclaiming how it feels and I am not going to say what they are saying is totally invalid, I know I am a humble peasant in all of this. It is well worth a read. You can read Hollie McNish’s response here and, what I think is the most succinct defence out there, Melanie Branton’s well-written retort here. This isn’t a reply, it is a report from how things look from my point of view.

I hope not to prove that spoken word at large is indeed academic, or needs to be more technical or artful, or that the what reaches people fore-mostly is necessarily the best of what is out there. I think everything is fine, knickers simply need to be untwisted in this situation. Instead, I put forward that there is a reason that people are being reached by the poetry of this ilk, and it isn’t because we’re all beginning to drag our poetic knuckles as we frollick in delirious circles over the plug-hole of impending illiteracy blinded by our own conveniences.

I could use words like spiteful or vicious about the review, but I think the review knows that it is spiteful, and it is happy with its life choices. Watts doesn’t jive with spoken word as a genre and has mistakenly decided to attack it as a whole. 

“What good is a flourishing poetry market... less appreciative of nuance, less able to engage with ideas, more indignant about the things that annoy us, and more resentful of others who appear to be different from us?” 

I could write an entire piece around this statement which seems to misunderstand the fundamentals of the contemporary spoken word altogether but other poets have said it better and will continue to say it better than I can. But I will instead focus on what Watts missed.

She doesn’t deserve to be attacked for expressing her frustration and opinion in a genre that can often be an echo chamber of ideas. I welcome her voice as an outsider to spoken word. I read some of her work and it’s perceptive and has a lot of effort put into it, her voice deserves to be heard, she makes many good points but draws few good conclusions in my opinion.

I can’t even say I am neck-breathingly familiar with the work of Rupi Kaur or Hollie McNish or even Kate Tempest, of whom I consider myself a fan, who are all dragged into this piece. I decided to catch up on the work of Kaur and McNish for the sakes of this post, discovering I rather liked what I read and listened to. I won’t distract from my point by going out of my way to expand on my feelings. What I can say is that I am very familiar with the criticisms at hand here.

Mostly because Lindsay Ellis beat me to the punch with what was going to be one of my main points...

This came out after I had finished my first draft of this bloody blog post and I had to redo it all over again. I was going to talk about my unquestioning love of Jupiter Ascending and everything.

Ellis says it better than I ever could: this isn’t anything new, people just don’t like women. Even women don’t like women-y things. Our presence does not imply success. I’m not a woman myself, but I am easily mistaken for one all the time so I understand the resentment people have for when a medium is invaded by the feminine youth of today. People love to shake their fists at teenage girls; harbingers of degeneration in everything they touch with their grubby, right-swipey, manicured fingers.

Thankfully, I can ramble on more than just that aspect of why I think the review isn’t anything to be worried about. This isn’t a totally gendered issue, there are many facets to this and from what I can see it is a generational issue in many regards. Watts isn’t exactly middle-aged, but I know plenty of people who could be safely counted as millennials who dislike the technology that defines us as a generation and the possibilities that come with it. 

Social media allows us to show too much our lives to other people, it ruins the magic. Social media lets us show the best bits of our lives, its all false. Social media lets everyone have a platform regardless of quality, everyone has a blog these days. etc etc. Which brings me back to the review: Watts makes a few logical leaps in the piece which seemingly amount to ‘this ideal of honesty before technique has come to the forefront of these popular pieces of work no one can take them seriously anymore and they are the knell of the populist take over.’

I don’t want to attack Watts when I say perhaps she believes there is a throng of seraphic artistic thinkers whose opinions are the only ones we should care about thereby making her statement non-contradictory. Maybe in a few years time I will no longer be a sparkly-eyed amateur and agree. For now, I personally think that spoken word heading into the mainstream is a sign that it is being taken more seriously, not less. As well as a sign that more people are engaging rather than mindlessly teething over it. 

I think Watts has inadvertently proven that things are going rather well for spoken word; the piece brought up a defence hot on its heels and sparked rich debate, and must have been relevant enough to publish in the first place. Which is why I’m not angry, its why I don’t think McNish is all that bothered in her response. The review misunderstands how people take part in poetry these days. You can’t maintain that “the reader is dead” and also say the consumer has taken over; readers are consumers. 

People read and listen to Kaur’s work, they make hundreds of choices a day, they listen to Elliott Smith on their turntables whilst they eat toast with almond butter, or play Drake on repeat on their iPhones on the way to work as they shove a meal deal into their face. They might own tote bags, they might own tote bags and constantly forget to use them. They may or may not use groupons or own houseplants. You can’t just call the people consumers when things don’t go your way.

These are people, teenage girls on Instagram are people, many of whom care about things like caesuras and others who just feel resonant with the work of people they find in their every day lives. Maybe they are both.

I’m sorry not everyone knows where their local independent bookseller is and regularly listens to BBC radio shows on the latest publications but I don’t believe correlation is causation. Kaur and her colleagues across the social media spectrum are not discouraging engagement beyond their own works.

The internet just happens to be where young people live and I mean that literally. Online is where our friends are, where we watch our favourite vloggers, where we listen to our podcasts about shrimp and not, say, something useful. We aren’t always doing something ethical and studious, I’m afraid, and neither are you. I think poetry should embrace being a part of people’s lives when they aren’t wanting to feel smart.

Something I’d like to propose, however, is that you can listen to podcasts concerning jokes about shrimp that and know where your independent bookseller is in your city. The internet is another home, so I am going to allow myself to appreciate the poetry I find closest to home. 

I don’t know what to suggest about poetry outside the internet and spoken word, it is where I choose to engage with it, as a reader and consumer, thus I cannot say let it wither away and die nor can I list ways to engage us further in strictly paper publications. This is a false dichotomy.

I think it is pithy for anyone to complain when you don’t think a surge in interest in your passion is being done properly. I think it is ludicrous to say that short, clipped insta-poetry is akin to Orwellian Newspeak and “celebrating amateurism and ignorance...” All in all, it’s a bit mean-spirited and not all opening the floor to the people the attack is aimed at.

And the targets are not just McNish, although it was addressed personally in some regards, they are the people who brought McNish and others to prominence. Which brings us back to the Millenials and our self-created habitat of knee-jerk reactions, instant gratification and social media platforms that singlehandedly allowed Donald Trump to happen. We, the club-footed careless Godzillas crushing the old without thought, to make way for our new world order.

T.R. Darling’s work is a good example of something beautiful and lichenous that would not survive in its entirety outside of the ecosystem to which it has adapted. I wouldn’t call one screenshot of T.R. Darling’s work on Twitter a whole representation of what they do, I highly recommend scrolling through the muttering cavernous archives of Quiet Pine Trees yourself.

But in an interview on Wordpress Darling brought up something that I thought applied very well to the situation at hand, as a fellow peddler of literary internet snippets they had something to say on the nature of their work:

“Being brief isn’t enough. You can boil down a story to a sentence or two, but often you need context.“

It’s almost as if there’s a skill to this. Much like a haiku isn’t just about syllables but grounding in place and time, one of the online microfiction’s essential tools is the fact it is cut off by Twitter character count. Even Darling will admit their failures often curtail to not following through with the setting they’ve placed their work in. 

McNish is more than honesty. They are more than just an outpouring of what they feel, and if Watts can’t see that then it shows they are not seeing past the vehicles that have brought the work to a book’s pages. Rupi Kaur is more than soft-spoken delicately typed Instagram posts. Kate Tempest is more than blasting the tories on youtube. They are more than just what we perceive their draw to be, they are more than their audience, and the audience is more than that.

As I was watching McNish’s piece ‘Embarrassed’ and searching for devices to make some sort of argument against a professional poetry reviewer that her work is just as well crafted as anybody else, left me realising that what cannot translate to the page are the breaths held and spaces left open for thought and reply. As well as the fact my scrutiny was a fool’s endeavour.

Maybe McNish doesn’t want to do a finely tweaked disembodied personification of her feelings on breastfeeding in public because she wants people to reply and that would impede the voice she has created. I have absolutely no doubt that someone who shows as much intelligence and depth in their observations and work could do something adequately complicated to please us.

In my head, as I listened to Embarrassed and other poems, I felt myself start conversations in the pauses she left. Not just mmmms and yeahhhs, but actual interjections directed at the poet. And this is part of the medium, in finger clicks, in retweets and reblogs, there must be room to reply.

And it is not just about accessibility or the fact it says something you can tutt about my generation’s need to butt in with their opinions at all hours of the day. I think this could be what people are finding nuance in, I think there is an art to this. It isn’t just the legion drawling consumers with their apps and scant free time, but the people who buy poetry books and go to open mic nights. 

This is why people care. And I believe that is the goal in all of this, not in how many gold stars we get in using devices for devices sakes (or for the sakes of halting the rise of fascism, as the article implicates as the social media generations fault... somehow...) but communication and engagement.

I think the aforementioned authors have hit upon this better than almost anyone before them, and whilst I might be a scraggly infant on the scene, I do believe I care. And that is why I decided to write this, not because I necessarily had the most nuanced, experienced contribution but because I could.

[this-is-not-a]

What it means to have privilege

(Or, I once read a post on Scott Alexander’s blog about the social media response to MIT’s Professor Aaronson, a white male, lamenting about his romantic problems)

I.

Peggy McIntosh once made herself a White Privilege Checklist. Even if you’re not white, go through the list together with me and see which of these still apply to you:

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time. 2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live. 3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me. 4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed. 5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented. 6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is. 7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race. 8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege. 9. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair. 10. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability. 11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them. 12. I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race. 13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial. 14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race. 15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group. 16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion. 17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider. 18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race. 19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race. 20. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race. 21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared. 22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of race. 23. I can choose public accommodations without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen. 24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me. 25. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones. 26. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more less match my skin.

I scored 11/26 (How did you do?), which roughly reflects my experience as a Chinese American male; most of the stereotypes based around my ethnic group lean positive or neutral, at least in the sense that I am not prejudged to be threatening, stupid, or lazy; I think most other ethnic minorities in the US would score much lower on this checklist. By many metrics I am Basically White ™. If I wanted to add a few of my own specific ethnic privileges to the bottom I might include:

27. Other students don’t assume I am stupid or slow at work or in school because of my race 28. I don’t worry that police officers will be made uneasy when they notice my race 29. I can scan my social media feed without reading articles that antagonize my race in order to make a larger point about justice

And if I wanted to include some privileges my gender affords me:

30. My personality flaws are not generally attributed to being part of a larger truth about my gender 31. I don’t worry about attending social events with my coworkers 32. I can reliably expect the leadership at my company to be comfortable interacting with people of my gender

I think this is a useful exercise because it projects a unilateral concept into a more detailed multi-dimensional space. Part of my privilege means that I will be welcomed with open arms into the Math club, but some of my friends joke about not trusting me to drive them around. The same is true if you’re white; you are afforded a whole bunch of racial advantages, but even if your family grew up poor your upper-middle-class friends tell you you’re “playing life on easy mode.”

II.

I had amazing friends in college who could make me laugh so hard that I couldn’t breathe, inspire me to think on hard problems and sit and think alongside me, and make me believe that I could be great and change the world. A positive attitude towards learning that was instilled in me from high school meant that I didn’t fall down the trap of trying to be the smart-but-lazy guy who doesn’t care about anything. I would challenge those friends and assert my passionate view that caring about things is what’s cool. And this attitude meant that I did quite well in school and found a good balance of truly pursuing my interests and pencil pushing enough to build a resume without descending to the view of some of my other friends who insisted “the only point of college is to get a degree so you can get a job.” What I cared about was learning.

Oh and finding a girlfriend.

(Yes, I hoped maybe I could skim around that part and paint an otherwise lofty and pedantic portrait of my teen years. But the truth is, like most other teenage boys, I was absolutely obsessed with girls since basically high school for almost every moment I wasn’t actively engaged in an activity.)

You could break this down into equal parts cultivating my self-image and dealing with my fear of loneliness. I wanted to be the main character in the movie who “gets the girl,” and I wanted companionship and partnership. This type of objectification (that’s what it was; not all objectification is sexual) wasn’t necessarily healthy, but I think it’s something that a lot of teens go through and therefore something worth being honest about. There is a tendency to put people who you romantically desire up on a pedestal so that they become perfect-in-every-way symbols, and eventually cease to be real people in your mind. I wanted a girl - any girl - to show romantic interest in me largely as a way of validating my own personality. (I have grown since then but not enough that admitting this doesn’t still make me a little uncomfortable. It’s still mostly true.) I wanted an imaginary goddess who could only speak truths to appear to me and say “you are a good person and those eyebrows are perfect.”

Here’s one more bullet point I would want to put on the list, but crossed out because I don’t find it to be true:

33. I don’t worry about finding people who are willing to be in romantic relationships with people of my race and gender

In high school I first heard the phrase “Asian fetish” and knew instinctually that it didn’t apply to me. I knew that nobody out there found Asian boys like me attractive or sexy. I knew that my only hope was to be funny and creative, and maybe one day a blind person with no concept of physical attractiveness might fall in love with me (I’m being glib not offensive, just FYI if you’re blind). And the reason I knew it is expressed in another two bullet points that I need to cross out:

34. I see popular movies where someone of my race and gender ends up in a romantic relationship 35. I can easily find popular media where someone of my race and gender is portrayed as romantically desirable instead of comic relief

And to teenage me, who cared so much about finding a girl who might like me, this was a big deal, and it sucked. Why weren’t there ever whispers of girls with supposed fetishes for Asian men? Why were there dozens of TV shows and movies every year in which white guys and Asian girls fell in love but none where an Asian guy, who by all accounts might even be smart, funny, and attractive, ends up with any girl at all? I didn’t know what it meant but what it felt like was the world’s way of telling me “that kind of thing isn’t for people like you,” and even now I still have trouble outgrowing these things that I knew.

III.

Let’s take a step back. I know what you must be thinking. I’m thinking it too. How easy does my life have to be that my one complaint is that girls don’t find me attractive? How little agency do I have that I’m unwilling to admit that maybe I’m not such a catch and it has nothing to do with my race? Do I think being sexualized is so great that it’s worth the resulting increased rates of sexual violence? There are tons of articles out there written by actual women who have actually experienced this thing that they never asked for, to be sexualized and objectified by the media, and the verdict is in - it’s not worth it. And if I really can’t see that then maybe I should take another look at my privilege list. (Knew that thing would come in handy!) These articles are positive contributions to an important discussion. I just don’t think they exactly address what I’m talking about here, and if you’re not paying attention you might accidentally fall into that pit.

Sexual violence and sexual representation are not two sides of the same coin. I don’t think there’s any amount of sexualization from the media where the perks of being seen as desirable necessarily morph into a societal expectation that you exist solely as an object of desire. Instead I think that there are empowering forms of representation and reductive forms, and though the line between them is sometimes blurry that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and it definitely doesn’t mean that all forms of representation are equally helpful or detrimental. I also don’t think that when someone complains about not having representation a valid response is to say “well look what representation gets you.” In fact, in general when someone is expressing their own pain, I don’t think explaining why their pain is not as big as other people’s pain is a real response so much as a method of derailment. In this case, I think of this topic as a long walk I need to take with my two legs moving individually. One leg is the unhealthy part of me that habitually aggrandizes the people I find attractive, and then finds that aggrandizing is surprisingly close to diminishing despite the metaphorically clean hope that they would be opposites; because to treat someone as being above-human means I am no longer treating them as even-human-at-all. The other leg is the part of me that just wants to be loved and wants to matter to someone. And if I bind them together then I will find myself needing to hop everywhere and growing tired (and falling into a pit).

It’s with the second leg that I want to express to you that I do not have the privilege of being proud of how my race is seen romantically, and I wonder if you do. I wonder what kinds of men and women out there get to be reasonably sure that their race isn’t standing between them and attracting a romantic partner. And I wonder if those people are even aware of it. Because like I said before, I’m not really that different from my teenage self. Things like writing and music are more important to me than ever, but an embarrassingly large part of me can only think about finding a life-partner, and to that part of me this single bullet point is one of the most important of the list. I know it’s not charismatic to admit that this kind of thing matters to me. I know this just makes me come off as a cry-baby. (And since I’ve just said it you can’t score any points by making fun of me for that.)

But if you think you understand privilege and your immediate reaction to, for example, the idea of a nerdy white guy expressing his pain about romance is that he needs to think about his privilege, even before I give you any details about what he wrote, if your nagging suspicion is that he must have said something in a somewhat misogynistic way or that he perhaps has a pent-up hatred of women that he can’t see himself and maybe Jordan can’t see either, maybe you don’t understand privilege as well as you think you do.

[secondmile-blog]

Discovering my ABC’s in PNG!

Hello family and friends,

I hope this post finds you well.  I miss you all.  Your replies to send me hurrahs bring me inexplicable joy!  And somehow, I weirdly miss the sweater weather too.  

Time apart from home, friends, church, and work life had me reflecting on my relationships with you.  I look at my list of emails and I feel so blessed to be connected with you.  You have invested some time and energy into my life, in both small and big ways, in the past and in the present.  I value you all dearly. WARNING: This post includes much updates!!!  I was pleasantly surprised how busy the past nine weeks have been here in Papua New Guinea.  A cup of coffee or tea is highly recommended to read this with! ☕️😊 Foundation of IT

I've had the privilege to teach the foundation of computer and IT to 85 students in 7 classes, where each class has 4 to 25 students.  They come from all walks of life -  primary to college students, school teachers, pastors, mothers, government employees, unemployed, etc.  For most of the classes, we used the equipment we brought from Hawaii - Rasperry Pi's and other hardware. One class broke my heart as 4 out of 5 could sorta read but could not write at all.  So I  customized the class where I can teach them how to use the computer, but at the same time teach them how to read and write as well.  Illiteracy is a major problem especially in places far from the school establishments.

As development and technology are just slowly entering this nation, computer classes are very rare and very expensive.  A group of students expressed how much these classes mean to them.  Some have never thought they could ever touch a computer in their lifetime.  Some have been praying to one day have an opportunity to learn how to use a computer.  Some have been saving up to one day afford to enroll to a computer class.  My eyes got watery fast. It must be sheer ignorance that one can easily assume that in this day and age, everyone should have seen/used a computer.  I may be teaching technology in this nation, but this nation is teaching reality and humanity in me. The Bible Translated

For hundreds of years, the people of Papua New Guinea worshiped random things as gods such as a big tree or even a child.  Demonic rituals, cannibalism, and witchcraft & sorcery practices ensued.  However, a revival in the past couple of decades occurred.  And so today, there is an openness and eagerness to know God. 

Of the 7,000+ languages in the world, 850+ languages are from this country.  Astounding fact!  Most people we meet are trilingual - they speak their village language, Pidgin ("broken English" taught by Germans), and English (taught by English and Australians). 

As part of the "End The Bible Poverty" project, our team brought tech-based tools to share The Gospel.  First is a solar-powered projector to show a movie called "Jesus Film" in the evenings.  It is a 2-hour movie on the life, death and resurrection of Christ dubbed in different languages.  We play the movie version according to the tribal language of the village/town/city we're in.  Second are 50sh mini SD cards with audio bibles that are again translated in various languages.  Some people own basic cellphones which have SD card slots. Village Living

They say you have not experienced Papua New Guinea if you have not lived in the villages.  And so we did, in four to be exact.  One village usually represents one clan - an extended family with 100 to 1,000 members.  I envy the simplicity of their lives.  Organic produce from their gardens, small straw huts as homes, barely any furniture or belongings, vast lands and forests as children's playgrounds, creeks/rivers for water needs... and unlimited coconuts!  Yaasss, coconut is life.  However, due to their remote locations, the trade-offs are no immediate access to medical clinics or hospitals, no power lines, no running water, and no to little cellphone coverage.  Oh and no bridges, so had to cross strong rivers bare feet!  This is exciting anddd terrifying, but grateful to locals who guided us in every step... literally, with our arms locked with theirs, in every step. 

Medicine is a big need in the villages. When people found out I had a first-aid kit and some medicine, there was a line up from wounds to chronic pains.  One thing I was not equipped for though was when I was bitten by a poisonous centipede.  Overnight, the venom moved from my thumb to the rest of my arm.  It was such an excruciating pain I've never felt before!  Lesson learned: bring a bigger first-aid kit and more pain killers. 

Radically generous.  This is simply how I would describe the people in the villages.  They hosted us in their homes, served us their best meals, showered us with gifts (I got a dozen handmade bags, a handful of dresses, etc), and loved and encouraged us much!  A man named Moses un-reluctantly explained it as "You are in our village. What is ours is yours."  I came to serve and to give, but I was greatly moved and felt that I was served more and had received more.  My hope and prayer is to grow such a heart of uncalculated, unjustified, radical generosity.  

Market Open Air

I had no idea what "open air" really meant until I had a microphone in one hand... in the middle of a very busy market... with close to three-hundred people surrounding me.  Open air, indeed.  After our team dramatized the good ol' Everything skit by Lifehouse, I shared a word on faith and love in action.  They were all ears, vendors and shoppers, men and women, young and old.  They listened to understand, not to condemn or ridicule.  They listened to understand, and so they understood.  Lots raised their hands to be prayed for after.  Moments like these make this journey all worth it.   Hospital Visit

Out of the eight members of our team from Hawaii, two got malaria.  I'm the only who chose to take anti-malaria pills from day one.  Though I have less chance of getting malaria, I can still get it but with the meds masking the symptoms.  That said, I was advised to get tested when I'm back home and off the meds. 

Malaria, a big threatening word for us in the western world; but it's so common here that it'd be hard to find a local who has not had it.  The hospital was full of malaria patients.  We approached every patient's bed and offered our prayers.  Everyone said yes without any hesitation.  One I cannot get my mind off of was a one-month old girl suffering from malaria and asthma.  I wouldn't even try describing her condition.  It was heartbreaking. Corporation Visit

A national secular company with 1,000 employees provides an optional time and space to meet weekly to discuss the bible.  I had the opportunity to speak in their meeting.  I focused on the topic of discovering your purpose on earth.  "It's not about you." was my introduction to faith a few years ago.  The best selling book by Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Life, was a game changer.  The talk was well-received and so we were asked to speak at a college as well.  But alas, our schedule was already packed. Prison Visit

I don't fear many things, but I'd say that my biggest fear in life was to go to prison.  The 24 hours leading to our visit to a jail with 800 prisoners was full of reflection and anxiety.  The day came and we were stripped off our cellphones, purses, jewelries, pens, and hats upon entering the facilities.  Before I could say my first word, I was all tears.  It dawned on me why I had this fear.  And so I fessed up to a room of female prisoners dressed in blue uniform, all with the same buzz hair cut, and whose eyes glistened in wonder. 

Prison represents falling short of perfection.  I am imperfect, we all are imperfect.  Prison represents brokenness.  I am broken, we all are broken.  Prison represents guilt.  I am guilty, we all are guilty.  Perhaps not of murder, but of lies, white or whatever colour we name them to be.  But when I realized these subconscious notions of what a prison represents was just half the picture, I was finally reminded to fear not.  

I've had the honour to share a word in various public settings about ten times, one even up to four hours (I literally lost my voice towards the end of it!)  But this fifteen-minute talk in prison was my most heartfelt.  So what can I share to a group of prisoners?  

Hope.  Hope that these momentary prisons we all are in, physically or metaphorically, do not define us.  Death is inevitable and no amount of good works can secure us a place in heaven - not even by abiding by the law as good citizens, and not even by me serving here in PNG.  The full picture is that God is not asking us for the unattainable perfection, but His unconditional love offers us to live a life in relationship with Him as our Father.  Such bond is what takes us through the journey of renewing our minds and hearts.  Our identity and destiny are rooted in our choice to answer God's call to be his sons and daughters.  It is a choice, the gift of free will. 

I tightly hugged as many of them as I can before we left.  It was a bittersweet day. Business Consultation

For those of you who know me well know that if there is a need, I'll try to meet it.  But if there is a need and it meets my skillset and peaks my interest, I'll relentlessly pursue it with much passion and energy.  This gets me in trouble sometimes.  Let's just say the following are beyond our team's initial definition of mission...

A local business was started by a YWAM leader to provide employment to women in the villages.  A couple of years into it, it is now ready to grow and expand its production to continuously support its cause.  I provided consultation on product packaging, marketing and branding, social media presence, online sales, etc.  And camera gear to the rescue!  I captured and produced a video to capitalize on online crowdfund sourcing.  Stay tuned for when we launch it on Indiegogo site. 

A YWAM school campus in a village is in need to replace its temporary building as it cannot withstand the strong winds and heavy rain.  It is made out of tree logs as posts, tarps and cloths as walls, and without floors.  First, I wrote their captivating story in a script, flew the drone over the property, recorded some dramatized scenes, recorded an interview of the school leaders... and voila!  An awareness and fundraising video was captured and produced to be launched on GoFundMe site.   Overcoming Challenges

It's easy to list down the discomfort and inconveniences as the so-called challenges of this trip, but they were not.  Not the sharing of a small bedroom with twelve ladies, nor the sharing of a bathroom with twenty people.  Not the two-hour hikes in the rain walking in bare feet with our big backpacks on to move from one village to another.  Not the numerous mosquito bites, ant bites, and poisonous centipede bite.  And not even the outhouses. I learned a few years back that the best way to get to know someone is not by working with them, not by living with them... but by traveling with them.  You get to see that 10% only traveling can unveil.  In the same manner, you also get to know yourself much better. Both your strengths and weaknesses are heightened.   How do I survive being the only minority in a school program where all students and 90% of its staff all come from one deeply rooted, strong culture?  Moreover, how do I survive a trip with a team of six students and a leader who all come from one deeply rooted, strong culture?  I learned to choose my battles wisely.  I stand up for finishing the video productions.  I stand up for donating all the surplus from our budget.  But for the most part, I fight through prayers.  First, thanking God for these tests are growing in me a faithful heart.  Secondly, surrendering to him our inadequacies for this load was not mine to carry to begin with.  And lastly, asking for a refreshed joy.  This helped channel my energy to get to know the locals more and therefore work on other projects on top of my main responsibilities. Grateful that though from day one in Hawaii was the most challenging time I've ever experienced culturally and socially, it made for the greatest time to grow spiritually and emotionally.  If I can turn back time, will I change anything?  No.  If I can do it all over again, will I?  Absolutely not hahah.  Along the way, I did develop some lifelong friendships.  I also learned to embrace my strengths and to face my weaknesses.  There truly is a reason for every season and that each one is a preparation for the next.  I've many takeaways and learning from this one.  This was the vessel that introduced me to PNG. And for that, I genuinely only have a thankful heart for such a time as this.   What's Next? I had peace with my direction from A to B, from quitting my job to pursuing missions school.  But from B to C, I had to think and pray through six different routes.  I hasten to say, it's not irresponsibility that I quit a career without a solidified and well-defined one, two, or five-year A to Z life plan.  I just needed and wanted to calculate for some room for God to reveal to me his plans that I know are greater than mine ever will be.  Because with or without faith as a factor, life do not fully materialize anyway according to meticulous time planning and goal setting.  Yes I do have big dreams, but I've experienced that God-sized dreams are much much better!  

It's a persistent prayer and pursuit to see certain doors close and certain doors open.  This is how I find confidence in pursuing my B to C.  And yes, sometimes certain doors are left ajar for the time-being.  It's been a process of hearing, obeying, and trusting God.

Business with a mission, otherwise known as a social enterprise, is where my heart has grown to focus on.  I am an advocate for alleviating physical and spiritual poverty through sustainable mission.  How fitting it is then to marry business with mission - to build a business whose mission is beyond profits, but to maximize its human and socioeconomic impact. 

Papua New Guinea peeled my eyes open to see a land of opportunities to pursue that passion.  My vision is to see God’s transformation of this nation by using business as a tool to sustain the education, employment, and empowerment of the people through the use of natural resources and technology.  I have three business prospects.  One of which I do not have any experience or background on, but one that has the most doors opening for the greatest potential and connections!  How do I distinguish my big dream from God-sized dream?  The latter is usually beyond my immediate comprehension and capacity.  It requires me to grow my faith and to lean in to wise counsel.  I believe this particular business prospect is exactly that. I cannot end a post without sharing some media of sort.  This 200 GB worth of media I captured must be utilized somehow.  So here is a minute video of my ever so wonderful and blessed time in Papua New Guinea - https://vimeo.com/205994204.  How do I look in a purple mary blouse dress??  Hahah only in PNG!  I have grown to appreciate the modesty in their clothing. Thank you for your support, prayers, and interest in my journey.  Please let me know if you'd like to stay posted as I explore my B to C.  

Much Love,  Janice [original email sent on 03/02/17]