#like legitimately its soooo hard to motivate myself .

[paleiido]

Truly unfortunate that if I'm not consuming the inspiration as I get it . well it's gone forever bud

[jmrphy]

Meta reflections on Jesse Pinkman’s new book, Enlightenment Now, with a special focus on the Joe Rogan chapter

Warning: This was supposed to be a really quick thing about the reception of Steven Pinker's new book, in part just to rev this blog back up as an easier-going place for short, fun stuff. Accidentally it became a 4k-word world-historical meta-narrative about the changing political coordinates of contemporary intellectual life on a razor-thin evidentiary base.

I just read RS Bakker's thoughts on the new Pinker book. I thought they were very stimulating and seemed important/credible—although I didn't grok everything in my one time through on the train. They did, however, motivate me to jot down a few thoughts that have been recurring to me lately. They're not really related to Bakker's post.

I'm not going to comment on the Pinker book, first because I haven't read it; second, because I don't like playing in already overpopulated peanut galleries, it pains my frail ego; third, because, as with many things today, it seems to me the real theoretical points of interest are at a meta level. There's a time and place to use proper names, no doubt, but individuals and their particular products are often red herrings, I think. If I use the name Pinker below it's just for shorthand; this will really be about the larger class of prestigious public intellectuals of which he is only one example (as opposed to, say, the high-brow but unpaid batshit blogger class, the personal-brand-with-a-patreon class, the Youtube philosophy for dummies educator class, the Alex Jones balls-to-the-wall flight from Earth class, etc.). It turns out there are wayyy more ways to be a famous and influential intellectual than anyone could have known when they were in grad school in the 70s or 80s, or even the 90s really.

In fact, I won't even use Pinker's name, to emphasize that I'm really not out here trying to ankle-bite this great and good scientist who is much smarter and more accomplished than myself. Wherever I might want to refer to Pinker as an example, I will instead refer to Pinkman. That way you'll think of Jesse from Breaking Bad, in the form of a prestigious social scientist instead of a meth kingpin.

Highly successful and publicly influential academic intellectuals are playing a very particular kind of game. The logic of this game made sense even ten years ago, but I'm not sure it does anymore. The logic is something like this "Get really smart, make real scientific contributions, earn legitimate credentials and status, then leverage this elevated status to shape the body politic toward the Good (and also be handsomely remunerated, admired, etc. — but hey, fair enough.) I've never met Pinkman or many other famous scientists but my sense is they have given much of their life to some version of this noble vocation. This is an archetypal Liberal identity-mold, a tried and true, recognizable Calling, in a world where such things are increasingly hard to find.

Well, the past decade has thrown up some data points that really make you wonder whether the basic terms of this model still obtain. A few things lately have given me the bad feeling that someone like Pinkman may have invested most of their life in a certain kind of bargain with Liberal Society that, sadly, Liberal Society has now reneged on. I say this is a bad feeling because, if true, it's very unfortunate and I genuinely feel for them.

So what's this bargain I speak of, in a little more detail? First, for background, remember that for much of our history highly talented and creative individuals are typically punished by their groups. Reverse dominance hierarchies, etc., you can't let super talented people get too ahead of the others because then they'll dominate, or group morale suffers, or the group disintegrates, or whatever. Bad things will happen. So they'd cut you down to size at every opportunity. But liberal society was willing to offer super smart and able people a bargain: If you're really smart and able, then you can go off and cultivate your smarts but only on condition that you respect Liberal Society. It's a pretty genius solution actually: let the ablest flourish above everyone else but make them pay a cut of their gains to the cohesion of the whole. Win-win. The society got all the benefits of crazy geniuses solving problems, without them dominating or collective cohesion suffering. The geniuses not only got to enjoy their objective superiority on full blast, they also got to feel like it was all about doing good for others. And maybe it is.

It is the right to generously bestow social improvement that is one of the great joys of being a prestigious intellectual--could you imagine how exhilarating it must feel to have earned, through a life of study, the exalted role of institutionally sanctioned Society Improver at grand scale, how genuinely good it must feel to know that all of your sacrifice and hard work now empowers you to improve the knowledge and character of millions, and the political health of a whole society? Understood a little more rational-choicely, this is one of the key income streams that liberal society pays to its most prestigious geniuses, in return for their lifelong loyalty to all of the official tenets of harmonious Liberal Society. I think the data is pretty obvious in showing that no matter how genius you might be, if you go off the rails of "reasonable discourse" beyond a certain degree you quickly lose all of your standing and influence (on this model, anyway.

(Note that the newer classes of public intellectuals have figured out that if you decline the liberal institutional bargain, then going maximally off the rails can be its own direct path to extraordinary intellectual influence and economic reward. But more on that later, let's stay on track understanding the fine print of the liberal intellectual's bargain with liberal society).

Here's where things get a little shadowy because the harmony of Liberal Society is quite sensitive. It's kind of like a precious baby, and we love babies and would do anything to protect them, but this is how hypocrisy enters in automatically, because Liberal Society requires everyone to presume everyone else is an adult, and to treat everyone as such. For instance, when two groups violently disagree over certain deep moral questions, well, liberal society doesn't allow them to deal with it violently (a good thing perhaps, as Pinkman has amply documented). But what does it do instead?

The simplest way to summarize all of the things that Liberal Society does to reduce violence: It papers over the conflicts, which is maybe a brilliant solution, or maybe an insane, explosive solution that simply hasn't exploded yet — the jury is still out on that one. If Group A thinks abortion is murdering babies, and Group B thinks prohibition of abortion is enslaving women, the only way to deal with such profound and high-stakes ethical disagreement, other than civil war, is to derive some symbolic artifice(s) that will let both groups live peacefully with the other. Hmm, thinks Caesar, do we have anyone around here good at generating clever symbolic artifices? In swoops the knighted genius. The genius is delighted to take a break from self-cultivation in order to contribute to Harmony, and Caesar, as well as the common people, are happy to have someone on hand to explain why I don't have to worry if my neighbor is Evil. Win, win, win.

Thus baked into the vocation of the modern liberal intellectual is, from the get-go, a highly dissimulated condescension and hypocrisy. The liberal intellectual gets their status precisely from a superior ability (earned or inherited, doesn't matter) but they are contractually obligated to treat the normal masses as equals, when they know damn well that in fact, the normal masses are dumber, more dangerous, and in need of Harmonizing by institutions (paper). Also, remember that the genius wants to help, it's extremely rewarding to sincerely help society, but the noble sacrifice the genius admirably contributes to the social good is precisely the papering over, of whatever the normal masses need papered over for their well-being. This is how a basic minimum of dissimulation, condescension, and hypocrisy is structurally embedded in the vocation or calling of the modern liberal intellectual. We might note in passing it's also an avatar of Plato's Philosopher-King, a conceptual-political thought-rut that many progressive intellectual personae tend to inhabit in one way or another (and yes, here, Pinkman is a Progressive, despite some infamy among SJWs).

OK, so the modern liberal intellectual might be forced to pay lip service to a few small Noble Lies, but it's soooo much better than all that homicide and war in the earlier chapters of Pinkman's violence book, that it seems like a no-brainer. "There are political realities, it's not my fault, all I can do is speak the truth in a way that helps society the most. If that means I have to use my words judiciously, is that really so bad?" an elite cognitive scientist might reasonably ask. The only problem is that this entire model presumes that the speech of the prestige intellectual will remain highly weighted relative to the speech of anyone else who might take it upon themselves to explain things publicly.

What if external circumstances change in such a way that the masses start to intuit that the knighted geniuses have quietly been playing a political game all along? What if, empirically, things just so happen to play out in such a way that a critical mass of pretty average people (on the right and the left, and in their own languages and for their own reasons), quietly update their mental and behavioral models of the world in the realization that: "Eureka! I have a strong suspicion that some really serious issues have been papered over for some time now... and I'm not going to be a dupe any longer. I see what's going on, and I can play this game, too..." Well, one thing to note is that if this updating were to occur, even on a massive and rapid scale, there's no reason to believe we would know it anytime soon after it occurred. The next thing to see is that, suddenly, the entire bargain that the prestige intellectual based his whole life's labors on would suddenly be off the table.

So long as your pronouncements are weighted well by institutionalized attention monopolies, your lifelong service to science mixed slightly with Harmony-producing fluff was a reasonable and even maybe noble project. If your prestige loses its weight, then tempering your extreme intelligence with little white lies would be all for nought, because you're about to be left in the dust by new startups who specialize in unreasonably extreme truth-telling ("red pills" and many other colored pills now available) and also unreasonably extreme hypocrisy (self-help bullshit, SJWism, etc.). You'll still have your niche, but your effect on people and society will rapidly fall towards zero (along with the overwhelming majority of other people, including most smart people).

It seems to me that as a sociological phenomenon, Pinkman's recent book dramatizes a lot of what I'm modeling here. I think the world has changed a lot very recently and with many things we're like the roadrunner who's already off the cliff, but we haven't yet looked down to see the vast empty space beneath our galloping gait. In a strange way, I think dumber people have been doing more correct updating as of late, and some of the smartest people have been stubbornly failing to update lately. Dumber people have updated to not listen to a word of what the mainstream intellectual culture says, but smart people have not yet been able to update in response to this updating by dumber people (in part because smart people don't have any way of hearing about how dumber people are updating, and they're not exactly accustomed to caring about it). The inertia of media representations enforces a substantial lag between increasingly rapid techno-economic changes in the distribution of powers and our meager human mental models of where that power is.

All of this has been quite abstract, and I mentioned above that I have some data points, so I'll just end with those. I might have tricked you, accidentally, because to be honest, I've extrapolated this whole bonkers historical meta-narrative from a few very measly anecdotal observations. Well first, I kind of had in mind things like Trump and Brexit, i.e. signals of widespread mistrust of dominant institutions and respectable liberal wisdom. So those are pretty big and real data points for the kind of perspective I'm articulating here. I also have a few more specific ones, although they are very tendentious.

The first one is so silly, you're really going to laugh at me for writing this long post in part because of this ridiculously tiny and personal anecdote. You can write your own blog, I for one sense significant causal evidence in this little story. Basically, I listened to the Joe Rogan podcast with Pinkman about his new book and... Pinkman was fine, he's a brilliant and likable guy... but... something was wrong. Very wrong. Don't tell anyone because it's kind of orthogonal to my personal brand and I have to stay on point, but I've listened to many, many Joe Rogan podcasts. And I'm a professional social scientist mind you, so if anything the Pinkman podcast should be more interesting and effective on me, relative to the average episode. But it was just so... "boring" is not even the word. Flat? Anachronistic? Bloodless? Zombieish? None of these quite convey it, but together they give some sense. The point is that, as a minor young academic but a relative connoisseur of the new media, for me something really significant in the machinery of intellectual experience was failing to fire, so much so that it was quite strange. I was surprised and confused. But now I think I understand it; it's everything I've said above.

The world that Pinkman seems to think he is in, is not the world we're actually living in now. The book will be successful economically of course, but it has no affective-identity constituency, other than people who are already socio-culturally neutralized or priced-in by the current equilibrium. It's hard to see how anything will move or shake from this type of project anymore. Most intellectual figures preach to a choir, of course, so Pinkman is no better or worse for that — but some choirs move and shake and generate novel ripples on world history, while others just sit there doing nothing other than precisely what was yesterday's world history. Some books and podcasts and youtube videos make people want to leave their friends and family to join a jihad, some give you strong confidence that a reality-TV star would make a great president, some give you the extraordinary realization that all of society is controlled by a white supremacist patriarchy; all of these lead to novel, unpredictable schisms and re-aggregations, new social formations and subcultures, which in their affective vitality bubble up, viralize or mutualize or enter into arms races, and end up producing system-level outcomes such as electoral victories, migrations, communicating-contagion shooting sprees, various contagious mental pathologies, as well as genuine self- and community-improvement dynamics, unequally distributed. There's nothing better or worse about the Enlightenment Is Cool niche; it's just that it's identity-affective character seems predicated on precisely what we've recently realized is already gone, as demonstrated by the whopping piece of incontrovertible evidence that was my personal lukewarm reception of Joe Rogan's podcast with Steven Pinkman.

You can say I should not generalize from my personal affective experiences, but my personal position seems like it'd be most conducive to liking and being affected by the Pinkman podcast! I'm not talking about the content of his book whatsoever, I'm talking about the reality he takes himself to be playing in. I don't think it's here anymore. First of all, the halo effect of prestige markers is weaker than ever I think. Once upon a time his prestige would have increased the excitement of listening to him. Today, much less. Second, all of the intellectual action today is coming from unique combinations of intellectual horsepower with identity alignments. Jordan Peterson is blowing up in part because he's a smart, credentialed intellectual with a message but specifically because he gives an image of admirable life for a certain type of person. It's not that JP lovers are now changing the world in a way Pinkman lovers will not, it's that JP's identity-affective alignment is not already priced in by the status quo from which Pinker's authority derives (JP tapped emotional needs not already being supplied, through new media, not prestige; hence the socio-political splash). Hell, Joe Rogan himself, who no Serious Intellectual would even call an intellectual, is making similar waves in the intellectual ecology because his basic intelligence and character combine with a certain affectively attractive performance of life that he offers to certain types of people. I could go on.

The problem for traditional public intellectuals on the Liberal Vocation model is that the image of life they herald is radically unavailable to most people so the aspirational inroad to affective alignment is close to nil; it's actually genuinely contemptible to many people (and this is getting worse as the very real racket-nature of much academia is becoming increasingly transparent; ironically the hard-science backlash against postmodernism might have unintended consequences in this regard); and the information they're able to share with the unwashed masses tends to be freely available anyway. Or worse, listeners/readers can usually find someone rehearsing the same information who also offers an identity-performance more affectively aligned with their own temperament and social position. So vanilla prestige intellectuals don't have a monopoly on the information, they no longer even have an advantage on trustworthiness given widespread mistrust toward most institutions, and they uniquely, sorely lack one of the biggest drivers of intellectual impact in the new ecology: affective-identity alignment with moving and shaking niche audiences. (Although note that, with the global internet, "niche" can very well mean several millions of people). To make matters even worse, their cultivated knack for walking the line of polite respectable "good taste" is actually a negative on the balance sheet of their social influence.

Here's another data point. I was struck by the nearly instant appearance of so many reviews and commentaries, almost all of which were ideologically colored. I don't mean that in a bad way necessarily, I just mean so many of the usual suspects were saying things to the effect you would expect them to say. And when most of those items would appear on my radar, my eyes would just glaze over. But think about the commentary that most struck me, and by "struck" I mean this combination of intellectual horsepower plus temperamentally conditional excitement. I'm talking about the post by RS Bakker that inspired this post (by the way I really wanted to just hammer out a quick 500-word thing, but this always happens, which is why I can't let myself sit down to "write a quick 500-word thing" very often). As I said, I read it quickly on the train, and at this point I don't even really remember what it said. All I know is that it had intelligent comments about Adorno and Nietzsche and their critiques of Enlightenment modernity. It was scientifically competent as far as I could tell, and then it had some kind of batshit scientific extensions I didn't really understand but which seemed promising maybe. It was only after I read the post that I wanted to see who this guy was, and from what I could grok apparently he writes fiction but also co-authored with someone in Nature? (!).

So just reflect on this for a moment. Prestige scientist I admire writes book about philosophical/political topics I am highly interested in, he does a podcast that has no effect on me, a million reviews from prestige outlets come out and I can't feel any reason to care about any of them, and it just so happens that the one item in the intellectual ecology that affected me (e.g. motivated novel production on my part), was maybe the one fiction writer in the world who has a publication in Nature writing something on his personal blog (and I didn't even know anything about him until after I read the piece). That's so strange... or rather, it would be strange if we were living even in the 1970s or even the 1990s, but it's not at all strange today. Of course there exists in the world some scientifically sophisticated blogger able to talk deeply about Adorno and Nietzsche, of course he has a blog, and of course it would find its way onto my radar. Of course it would strike me, and of course as a young academic myself right now I am more motivated to write long blog posts than do my institutional duties. Of course, this is the new reality. The real puzzle is how and why the respectable prestige dancehall of liberalism v1.0 is still populated with a good number of really smart people, when all of the music is clearly pumping out of a variegated, thousand-room warehouse of the less compromising... liberalism flatlining at degree zero.

[my-job-is-to-fangirl]

This is such a random post, but I watch a lot of youtube and it’s the best distraction/ way to pass time. I watch a variety of channels, and I’m subscribed to over 80 channels, and have about 1900 videos in my watch later list soooo :))) enjoy. No particular order but I’m doing 20 channels because 2020 (which needs to end right now). I’m going to link my favourite video of theirs as well, so you’ll have something to start with if you’re interested.

fashion and lifestyle

1. bestdressed

I already talked about her in my light content to consume while in quarantine post, but I’ll do it again. She is hands down my favourite youtuber. I had this phase where I was watching clothing hauls nonstop for some reason, and then I found Ashley’s channel. I couldn’t stop watching her videos. They’re fun, they have actual content, and she talks about stuff like how youtubers make money, and she gives the whole truth. Her fashion videos are so inspiring, I love her style, I love how she pairs things that you normally wouldn’t and her favourite word (say it with me, kids) juxtaposition of pieces that would ‘normally’ not be paired together.

She puts in so much effort into filming her videos, and even more into editing them. She doesn’t just do fashion videos, she does apartment makeovers, real talks, everything, but overall a fashion channel. I’ve seen her channel suddenly blow up and I think she had 500k or 600k subscribers when I started, and now she has 3.1 million :’) I want to raid her wardrobe for her thrifted pieces. Anyway, here’s my video pick(s) for her channel-

how to look cute when you’re out of f*cks

the ultimate guide to closet essentials

2. Yoora Jung

I wait for her videos more than any other channel, she just has the most relatable content because her days comprise of (other than her work, which is a lot) scrolling through instagram, watching youtube, snacking, rolling around in bed and procrastinating- I love her. Also her editing is on another level, all her intros are unique and fun. She can literally sit in a chair and talk about grapes for 40 minutes and I’d still watch. Also when she speaks in Korean, its the cutest thing ever.

I followed Jungkook’s workout routine for a week // getting fit with yoora season 1 ep 1

Waking up at 5 AM for a week in college    (she works really hard as you can see. I’d never have the motivation to get up at 5)

3. ohnonina

neeeeeeen < 3 Watching her videos makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Not to mention she gives a virtual hug at the end of every video :’) She does GRWM’s, k-pop, fashion, art, day in the life, studying and bullet journal videos. Everytime she hits a new 100k+ number of subscribers, she does a cooking with nina, those might be my favourite ones because she always does a korean dish. Also not really studying with nina I LOVE THOSE.

study korean with me but i actually study intensely | not really studying with nina 14

i made tteokbokki 떡볶이 (korean spicy rice cakes) | cooking with nina

4. ur mom ashley

She does fashion videos, but other content as well. She does thrift hauls, dressing out of her comfort zone type videos, and a lot of content with her siblings and boyfriend. Honestly, it’s a crackhead time when they’re around, especially her younger brother. She also makes what I eat in a day videos and I genuinely haven’t seen any other vegan person at least try to eat foods other than avocado and kale. She makes some nice recipes and eats good portions like a normal person, I really appreciate that.

what i eat in a week as a college student (vegan!!)

REVAMPING MY WARDROBE for 2020 (Princess Polly Haul)

5. Nava Rose

Firstly, I’d like to point out how much I love listening to her talk, I don’t know what it is but I love it. She has some great DIY videos, it is a DIY/ fashion haul/ hacks channel so ya. She does a lot of revamping/upcycling videos where she transforms men’s oversized clothes and makes them cute. I was very inspired by her and I did some myself! She has an amazing sense of style I wish I had some of her clothes.

50 WAYS TO STYLE DENIM | easy everyday outfit ideas!

6. Nuria Ma

She’s eighteen, lives alone some of the time and is possibly one of the hardest working people I’ve seen, juggling school and youtube. When I started watching her I think she just turned 17 and I was going mad wondering how someone could be so organized and put together at 17. She makes her own food- three meals every day, works out, studies for hours, does youtube, and what not. She’s genuinely amazing, also look how pretty she is.

KOREAN FASHION HAUL | Yesstyle

7. Erna Limdaugh

I found her channel only a few months ago, her videos are so calming and soothing to watch. She does a lot of day in the life type vlogs with her friends, morning/night routines and unboxings. She lives in Seoul that’s how I found her when I was looking for Korea content. Her fashion sense is amazing, and her cat, Yuri, is adorable *_*

A DAY IN MY LIFE – WHAT I EAT IN A DAY Life in Seoul | Erna Limdaugh

8. Jenn Im

I don’t watch her makeup and beauty videos because I don’t know much about makeup, but her vlogs, fashion, and book videos are great. I feel like she’s a wise older sister that I don’t have =p I especially love her cooking videos where she makes Korean dishes that her mom used to make. She has her own clothing line too, she does some promo videos and stuff, they’re cool.

What I Eat in a Day Easy Korean Recipes

9. Michelle Choi 최 혜림 (the seoul search)

She deserves so many more followers. Productive q u e e n. My friend and I are always discussing how the hell she can be so productive. She studies, does freelance design work, does assignments, cooks, does youtube, cleans, what is she?? Her videos make me want to be productive but instead I sit and watch more of them =)

(daily vlog) Finals Season: lots of coffee, cooking, + workspace tour!

food

10. Nino’s Home

Really yummy looking food, the babiest cat in a myriad of sweaters, and the funniest captions ever. No jokes, he’s truly hilarious. He has some really interesting recipes too, I think he takes from all over Asia, there’s a great variety of sweet and savoury.

Fried Milk Melt in Your Mouth

11. Maangchi

I legitimately call her maangchi aunty that’s how much I love her. Look how cute she is!!!!!! She has the happiest videos, they can brighten your mood in no time. Although many of her videos include meat, I still watch them so I can perhaps sub the meat for something else. She has a different headband/ head gear in every video, watch for that! I have tried three of four of her vegetarian recipes and I love them. I’ll link my favourite one, it’s become a staple at my house.

Vegetable Pancake (Yachaejeon: 야채전)

12. Pick Up Limes

Her videos are aesthetic, her recipes are easy, her voice can calm everything. It’s a vegan channel. I’m not vegan, I’m vegetarian so I can use her recipes by substituting whatever I want.

Cozy drinks to warm you up

13. Wil Yeung – Cook with Confidence

Also a vegan channel. I love his simple cooking and his style of narration. He doesn’t overdo it with the voiceover, he just says ‘medium sized pan’, ‘2 cups water’, ‘stir’. I’ve tried his gochujang and chili oil videos, they’re so good. I had to make do with what I had but still really good.

HOW TO MAKE CHILI OIL ***EASY 5 MIN RECIPE*** CHINESE HOT SAUCE

14. Zoe 조에

Her videos are so pretty to watch!! She works at her mom’s cafe so the videos are vlogs of that. They have beautiful desserts and drinks too. There’s always a montage where she shows their canning machine it’s mesmerizing xD

prettiest dessert cafe vlog on earth | Cinematography, Zoe, Blessroll (this was the first video that I watched)

Art

15. AmandaRachLee

Bullet journal videos, daily vlogs, productive days, organizing, doodling videos. I started bullet journaling in July 2018 and I follow her themes even now. I think I might have skipped two or three themes because I didn’t like them but bullet journaling is a huge part of my routine and I don’t know what I did before that. Also it makes me feel better about my stationery addiction when I watch her videos. She’s worse than me so I feel good. I love her stationery hauls.

Korea Stationery Haul! (HUGE Giveaway!)

16. cup of jasmien

The one and only art student I am subscribed to. She is SO talented, her paintings are great, but I appreciate her pen and ink pieces the most. Her videos are usually paint with me’s, a week/day of art school or travel vlogs.

before art school went online haha…

17. milkcloud

milk and cloud are two sisters xD They have painting videos, vlogs, lots of unboxings. Very nice to play in the background while doing something. Also they play k-pop piano covers for their videos.

finding joy in little things / a vlog

Books

18. BookswithEmilyFox

I watched a lot of book youtubers and she is the most honest one out there. If she hates a book she will say h a t e not put it lightly by saying it was okay. I read some of the books she recommended and I actually loved them, so I put her here because I can trust her reviews.

JANUARY BOOK HAUL 2020 + HUGE BOOKOUTLET UNBOXING! || Books with Emily Fox

Random

19. Banana Milk

This is so random but has provided me with several hours (minutes) of entertainment. She makes NCT crack videos they’re brilliant I swear. Please wait for the end of the video for the outro it’s the best part. Linked my favourite video.

Literally just NCT ruining twilight for two minutes

20. Buzzfeed Unsolved Network

Do I even have to talk about them?? I can binge their videos for hours, especially the supernatural ones. They’re freaking scary but I will watch them all. They go to real haunted places with their cool equipment (and holy water). I’ll link two of the ones that creeped me out the most.

Return To The Horrifying Winchester Mansion

3 Horrifying Cases Of Ghosts And Demons

    my favourite youtube channels (20) This is such a random post, but I watch a lot of youtube and it's the best distraction/ way to pass time.

[alwaysspeakfreely]

obsession vs. stimulation

content note: description of obsessive compulsive behaviors, gaslighting and dismissiveness I’ll get to the point I had about mental illness and SPD soon... Ah, I’m soooo sleepy listening to whale lullabies...but my brain is very hyper processing all the information I’ve absorbed today and wanting to get it out and express the clarity it gives me. I need understanding so I’ve began blogging after an dissatisfying experience when my friend “called me out” for shutting down and I basically acknowledged their feelings of frustration and tried to be understanding of their unwillingness to understand my experience and believe my true intentions/sympathize with my feelings about being unable to perform socially. So I felt very unheard and there was some ableist notions going around based on their incomplete knowledge of what all disabilities affect me. Sigh...we all have our own obstacles around trust I guess.  That experience isn;t relevant to this blurb but, it has inspired me to take positive action and get to explaining myself in my own personal space, where I have general blogzone consent to discuss my mind.  So, I think I’m in a position to elucidate this since I have always been neurodivergent and also experienced OCD at one point, which more or less dissolved with treatment(though I never received therapy to help me integrate better with my brain type. which creates a sitch you see, b/c ocd is a behavioral therapy thing{CBT} focused on reducing behaviors, and NDV is just the way someone is, and a cure is n/a. the adults had a tendency to blame everything on the ocd and push me to get over it. for another thing, forcing exposure to something a kid is “OCD about” is cruel anyway.) It is said these disorders are a desperate attempt at control. There was a misconception: it was my body, my environment as an extension of my body, not other people or details of life I wanted to control. I remember being at a point, where I was anorexic and O-C and tapping things a certain number of times so y mom wouldn’t die. checking the locks 25 times because i wouldn’t want it to be my fault if someone broke in.(was i shamed for forgetfulness?)  Doing those things felt absolutely horrible. They gnawed at me. Doing them gave me no relief whatsoever, no matter how many times I did them. I was motivated by anxiety, from my mind down. checking never did anything for my body. They ate up all my time and strength.  On the other hand,  I’ve had certain unusual behaviors, even as a young child. just some of the things which may have been misread as obsessions:  stretching out the necks of tshirts and ripping my clothes to make them fit comfortably. crying over tights, lotion, and clippers. having one cd and one movie. acting incredibly stubborn about things i didn’t like. making piles of pillows and getting in the middle. punching the sofa as hard as i could and not getting why, just one sudden wave of internalized frustration and shame for doing those things erupting. swinging my arms around rolling on the floor and being told it was inappropriate. hating the scent of popcorn and bacon and having to cover it up to deal. developing multiple chemical sensitivity. playing with squishy things in class, having a bag of them i always carried. being unable to tune out background noise but repeating back rote both my book i was reading and the conversations happening around me as I read. a teacher having to remind me to use the bathroom or i’d wet my pants.  the difference is, i was averse to things because they felt horrible, even painful, just incredibly stressful on me. i adjusted things to be more comfortable. it doesn’t mean i have a horrible fear of them that makes me neurotically avoidant and irrationally angry about it. it means they are legitimately painful b/c i am profoundly sensitive and that’s ok. it’s just who i am. it’s a god’given gift. (tho i personally have a theory that the modern world is just too intense and inconsiderate period and typical people can let it make them numb somehow. ;)) i have a right to be free of physical torment. at the most basic level, when i freaked out over pain, i was communicating distress and asserting my right to humane ness. any anxiety i have around sensory overload is the result of many painful experiences and the actual unpredictability of when i will be floored by something/being stripped of my ability to control what hurts me and dictate my energy level. there is a very real loss of security which comes with this issue, which I have mourned for much.  it is not, i am worrying too much and not that I just care too much, not that i can get over it but am afraid of doing so, not that i am obsessed with stimuli, and NOT that I am a monster or lack empathy. (not to imply negative judgement on OCD!) note that with OCD, my thoughts motivated my actions but didn’t help. With stims, my actions regulate my thoughts. With overstims, an event creates distress. not only can *I* tell the difference, there is an obvious, simple logical distinction.  despite anyone who says that i am still mentally ill therefore i cannot make “sane” rational analysis.(b/c, duh, I’m just obsessed and full of excuses!/sarcasm) While I no longer see myself as OCD or do anything which qualifies other than dermatillomania, and have moved on thanks to circumstances and also my felicitous spirit and luck, I still have the same experience of sensory processing disorder(and other things which interact with it.)

I have more success respecting it as a beautiful but challenging aspect of my body rather than treating it as something which can magically cease to exist or is something i /couldashouldawoulda just ignore so I can find a job and have enough executive functioning capacity. or pretending its something curable and investing in the wrong therapy/a therapist who doesn’t have a sufficient grasp of co-morbidity and may gaslight and pressure me further. Boy, I wish I could. I wish I could just got and do whatever occurs to me, but that’s another story. In good news, it’s nice to have a relationship with family members who love me anyway, even when they don’t understand, even when we’ve accidentally hurt each other.  there is so much more to write on the relationship between my experiences, and perhaps I could even write something about what my friend didn’t understand,  but I must rest. much cat stuff to do tomorrow. meeeowl.  another unedited stream of thought...blogs are fun.

[brwngrlswagger]

I’M 30, Y’ALL!

I’m thrilled to be ALIVE! I’m excited for and anxious about what my 30’s will bring!

Here are some of the things I’ve learned on this very bumpy road to 30!

(Gotta preface this by saying these are some of the lessons I have learned. None of these are generalizable. I have not figured it all out but I’m proud of my growth and every inch I’ve crawled and fought toward progress. There is no formula. This is not advice - I am no expert. This list isn’t exhaustive - just a bunch of random things I managed to remember and journal about over the years. If it resonates, great - read on. If it doesn’t, cool. Let’s leave it at that, k? Love you!) 1. Jesus is LORD! I don’t know who I would be without Jesus. 

2. Make room to fail! Failure is a part of the journey. You won’t make every shot and that is OK (I don’t know the proper basketball metaphor but y’all know what I mean lol).

3. Give yourself grace. Forgive yourself where you fall short. 

4. “If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again…” This isn’t just an old urban adage or chorus from the best R&B song dropped in ’01 – it is an important life practice I took way too long to apply to my own life.

I did not know I could fail (I’m Haitian – success and achievement were drilled into my head from childhood) and I set incredibly harsh and high standards for myself. I was fine as long as I was meeting my goals bu I became a perfectionist and eventually lost myself chasing after things with the wrong perspective.

Life also got real – doors kept closing, faith did not come as easily, I lost my motivation and ferocious determination/will – and I did not handle it well. I perceived every temporary setback as a failure I could not overcome. I was not equipped to process or cope with what was happening so I stayed stagnant as a form of self-preservation.

Dusting myself off and trying again took years. It was not easy. It took constantly duking it out with God, surrendering and taking it back. It took therapy, holding thoughts captive, confronting a LOT of my issues. It took the renewing of my mind and the grace of God. I choose hope every single day. It’s weird. Still figuring it out but by God’s grace, I plan on always moving forward in the face of difficulty. Which leads to the next lesson–

5. “We are not left to fate. We are called to faith.” - Aunty Beth Moore 

For the past few weeks, I have been doing a TON of self-inventory (using this incredible resource: http://laracasey.com/2017/01/04/tips-how-to-get-started-on-2017-goals/). I have God-given gifts, talents, dreams and vision that I sat on for years because of fear of getting ahead of God or somehow usurping his position in my life. 

I don’t know what life will bring this year but I am finding the courage to aim my arrow audaciously and trust God for the provision of future victory. I’m excited to live purposefully and trust the lord with my life AND commit every corner of my heart and life to him. So thankful nothing is wasted!

6. Cultivate your relationships with people. God is relational and we are called to love others and dwell in community. The beauty is we don’t do it perfectly, and hopefully we ain’t out here damaging folks, but grace abounds here, too – thank God!

7. Not everything deserves a response. There’s sooo much dignity on the high road. Walk away, log off, deescalate.

8. Study the word of God for yourself.

9. Question everything. I really hate group-think and a lack of intellectual curiosity. It’s incredibly Orwellian. So I find myself always pushing back and challenging positions, not to get a rise out of folks or live in woeful rebellion lol, but to determine the source of convictions. I sometimes don’t even know why I believe something until I am challenged on it. It forces me to take a step back and really think critically for myself.

10. Personal grooming and presentation are important. 

11. Read BOOKS! Lots of them! Never stop learning, Tam!

12. Not everyone will like you but not everyone is hater. Pay attention to perceptions or critiques. These might be legitimate areas of development.

13. Forgive. Unforgiveness is a complex, multi-layered thing but it’s also an incredible burden. I am not qualified to speak on it but I think this is a good start: https://www.gotquestions.org/unforgiveness.html

14. Do not fear emotions. This was a huge lesson for me. Life is hard and it sometimes hurts. Until maybe 4 months ago, I either did not know what to do with negative emotions, internalized them, and developed unhealthy coping mechanisms. I would also spiritualize them away with out-of-context scriptures and weird faith declarations that did not necessarily change or erase the source of pain/trauma/anger and minimized my active participation in growth.

I have chosen to acknowledge my feelings, particularly negative emotions/thoughts; identify its cause or source and triggers, understand why I feel that way, deal honestly and graciously with myself; and  whatever I’ve experienced or situations I am presently in, process it and bring it to the lord. Jesus cares soooo much about our emotional wellness and emotional maturity and healing is such a process. 

I just want to cultivate the habit of doing the hard, dirty work of digging a little deeper in order to uproot unpleasant things and the things they come with, and allow Jesus to heal me. 

15. Grasp personal finance/financial literacy. 

16. Family is a treasure. Don’t know a group of people who get on my nerves more but where would I be without my loud, crazy, ratchet clan?

17. Date. Interact with the opposite sex. Forgive my shade but please do not let the Heather Lindsey’s of the world shame you for desiring marriage and being intentional about it. Remember, they get to go home to a warm, muscular body and a combined income every night. Oh, maybe avoid those “EYE’M MARRIED TO JEZUS WAITING FOR MY BOAZ” types. I do not understand this…

18. Traveling is cool but you can stay local, too. I love living in NYC for that reason. LOOK HOW AWESOME: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/idnyc/benefits/museums-and-cultural-institutions.page

19. Invest in a very good leather bag. 

20. Indulge/splurge a little. 

21. Support and collaborate with your friends.  Solicit their services. Pay full price. Attend their events. Celebrate milestones! Share. Repeat.

22. Rest.

23. Aloneness. I’m a classic extrovert but I’ve grown to really love being alone, too.

24. Be reliable. Let your yes be yes, and no be no. I’m a chronic flake though. 

25. Self-care is the best care. Whatever this means to you.

26. Health is wealth. 

27. Try new things. 

28. Ask for what you want. SAY WHAT YOU MEAN, MEAN WHAT YOU SAY. Leave little room for assumptions. Ask for a minute to step away and gather your thoughts and not react from anger or confusion but return and finish. DON’T BE PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE. People aren’t mind readers. COMMUNICATION IS KEY.

29. Build strategy around your goals. Take the time to pray, develop, invest in ideas and turn them into strategic, actionable plans.

30. Discipleship/Mentorship! I was a rough, rowdy, unruly girl when I first got saved (shoot, I still am lol). Incredible, patient, beautiful people have played a huge role in helping me along this journey. I feel so blessed.

K, done. Let me know if you have questions. Forgive me if this is a hot mess, all over the place, too frank, or contradictory – if that ain’t me I don’t know what is.

I am so ready for this new decade! Goodbye, Turbulent 20s. Hellllooooo, Flirty 30s! Pray for me! ::twirls::