#otherwise we just have to accept them as an inevitable but unpredictable part of life

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

Hello. simply, I am wondering what you believe is the best solution towards preventing gun violence within schools. Not an anti 2A questioner - guns are good and necessary. Nonetheless, the plague of these shootings has got to go..

i answered a similar question like a week ago but i was in a rush so i wasn't able to answer it thoughtfully enough. so i'll answer again.

second, somehow get the media to stop sensationalizing school shooters. i don't know exactly how this would be done because of the first amendment but i'm sure we could figure out something. even if it's just some industry wide self-regulation or something.

i think these two things would have the largest effect /directly/.

however, i believe that school shootings (and mass shootings in general) are really symptoms of a much larger issue: moral and social decay. and i can't take anyone seriously who doesn't take /that/ issue seriously. because without addressing that you're only addressing the symptoms, not the disease itself.

moral decay sounds ambiguous but you know what i mean. everyone knows what it means. it's shorthand for how disconnected, nihilistic, and narcissistic our society has become. we are more isolated and atomized than ever. we have no social trust. no community. wealth inequality. a mental health crisis. criminals walking our streets. families are broken. no one believes in anything. our media glorifies materialistic greed and self-indulgence.

then we act surprised when our society produces broken people full of rage and resentment?

so, some things that could help the /real/ issue which might help the issue of school shootings /indirectly/:

build denser, walkable communities. increase policing and get tough on crime -- clean up communities. invest in mental healthcare (this includes increasing funding for schools to hiring social workers). universal healthcare in general tbh. create a new type of "family planning" that emphasizes making families and making them work (financial resources, discounts on recreational activities, marriage counseling, parent-child counseling, etc). universal basic income. honestly, we should probably start censoring our media again (nothing too draconian but there should be /some/ standard). immigration control (i know the libs hate to hear it but ethnic diversity is negatively correlated with social trust). tax reform. land reform. education reform (more civic and patriotic oriented and also more emphasis on extracurricular activities and community-building). make my cult the state religion (i'm mostly memeing here but i do sincerely believe america is in desperate need of a new post-christian religious awakening). protectionism (bring back jobs that pay well).

first, it's important to note a few things.

most mass shootings are not school shootings but gang-related. school shootings are extremely rare statistical outliers -- you're about as likely to be killed in a school shooting as you are to be killed by lightning. guns used to be more accessible and there were virtually never any school shootings until recently. it seems clear to me that this is some type of social contagion more than anything.

none of this is to say that mass shootings aren't an issue or that we shouldn't try to mitigate them. the point is, this is a sudden and relatively recent phenomenon and, while tragic, it is not something to lose our minds over. if you're paranoid about school shootings you need to ask yourself why you're not also paranoid about lightning or cars or plane crashes or random animal attacks. and if you /are/ paranoid about those things then maybe you're just an anxious person and should probably seek therapy.

we can't live in fear. speaking of alcohol, alcohol causes a lot of harm. but we, as americans, have decided that it's worth the risks. that there is some inherent /good/ in having access to alcohol. that the benefits of having access to alcohol outweigh the harm it causes. we are a free people. and freedom is dangerous. there is more to life than maximizing "harm reduction."

but now for some possible mitigating solutions

first, we need to secure our schools the same way we secure our courthouses or airports. our schools are just as important as these institutions and we should protect them as such. this should be the bare minimum standard.

second, somehow get the media to stop sensationalizing school shooters. i don't know exactly how this would be done because of the first amendment but i'm sure we could figure out something. even if it's just some industry wide self-regulation or something. but getting them to stop plastering the names/faces of the shooters everywhere and publishing their "manifestos" and all that would go a long way.

i think these two things would have the largest effect /directly/.

however, i believe that school shootings (and mass shootings in general) are really symptoms of a much larger issue: moral and social decay. and i can't take anyone seriously who doesn't take /that/ issue seriously. because without addressing that you're only addressing the symptoms, not the disease itself.

moral decay sounds ambiguous but you know what i mean. everyone knows what it means. it's shorthand for how disconnected, nihilistic, and narcissistic our society has become. we are more isolated and atomized than ever. we have no social trust. no community. wealth inequality. a mental health crisis. criminals walking our streets. families are broken. no one believes in anything. our media glorifies materialistic greed and self-indulgence.

then we act surprised when our society produces broken people full of rage and resentment? i've heard someone describe it as a "slow motion riot" and riots are the voice of the unheard. well, our society is sick and disconnected so there are more "unheard" than ever.

so, some things that could help the /real/ issue which might help the issue of school shootings /indirectly/:

build denser, walkable communities. increase policing and get tough on crime -- clean up communities. invest in mental healthcare (this includes increasing funding for schools to hiring social workers). universal healthcare in general tbh. create a new type of "family planning" that emphasizes making families and making them work (financial resources, discounts on recreational activities, marriage counseling, parent-child counseling, etc). universal basic income. honestly, we should probably start censoring our media again (nothing too draconian but there should be /some/ standard). immigration control (i know the libs hate to hear it but ethnic diversity is negatively correlated with social trust). tax reform. land reform. education reform (more civic and patriotic oriented and also more emphasis on extracurricular activities and community-building). make my cult the state religion (i'm mostly memeing here but i do sincerely believe america is in desperate need of a new post-christian religious awakening). institute a new militia system (kinda memeing but also serious). protectionism (bring back jobs that pay well).

basically just reform society bro. our society is deeply sick and requires some pretty fundamental change.

[aerugonian]

what are some of your fav kakashi centric fics?? ive never been too into naruto but kakashi??? i love him

You’re in luck because the only Naruto fics I read are Kakashi-centric, lmao. Here are some of my favorites (strap in because this is gonna be long – and I hope you like time travel, because there’s a lot of that here.) Fics are listed in no particular order. 

Just the Usual Habits by Applepie (G / gen / 3.9k words / completed / no warnings)

Sakumo has no idea where all of these habits of Kakashi's are coming from. In which five-year-old Kakashi forgets the existence of his left eye, loses his ability to lie believably, and is a little too knowledgeable about the Birds and Bees. Still, no matter what oddities went on in Kakashi's head, one thing is certain – the boy will always love his father, through thick and thin.

Nukenin by WhisperingDarkness (T / gen / 17k words / completed / no warnings)

In the sealed scroll he finds a Bingo Book – his own page marking him as an S-class nukenin with flee-on-sight orders.

“Ok. That is definitely different.”

In his head he blames Naruto – even if his number one unpredictable student had been nowhere near him on this mission. When things go this stupidly impossibly wrong it must somehow be the future Hokage’s fault.

Once More with Feeling by Chicken_Train_And_Laser_Beam (M / gen / 137k words / wip / violence)

After an unexpected turn on a mission with Team Seven, Kakashi Hatake wakes up in the past, trapped in the body of his thirteen-year-old self. Despite being torn away from his own, familiar world, Kakashi resolves to change the future to better the lives of those he loves. Yet, fate is not so easily mastered, and he's not the only one playing the game.

Reversal of Roles by Ranowa Hikura (T / gen / 112,510 words / completed / violence)

Obito didn't push Kakashi out of the way during the Battle at Kannabi Bridge. This one change eventually leads to Godaime Naruto being sent back in time with the leader of the Akatsuki- Kakashi. They arrive at the day of Naruto's Academy graduation, and Naruto must work with the man he hates the most to stop war from happening. Time travel, AU, Kakanaru friendship.

Branches by Mockingone (T / gen / 55k words / completed / no warnings)

Kakashi falls off a tree and lands in a different world. Literally. Now he's in a dimension where nothing makes sense—but he's used to that. Kakashi plans to wreak as much havoc as he can and find his way home... if he can.

What You Knead by AgentMalkere (G / gen / 38k words / wip / no warnings)

It started, as most things did in Kakashi’s life, with a mission gone wrong.

(In which Kakashi accidentally acquires an emotionally healthy coping technique.)

Ear to the Wall by Vodkassassin (NR / gen / 84k words / wip / chose not to warn)

The Minato-sensei beams at him, and replies, “Kakashi! I’m glad you’re awake,” and, yup, that’s Minato-sensei’s voice.

Kakashi falls back down against the bed, closing his eyes. It’s too short of a way down, and he clenches hands that are too tiny and feeble and not his in dog-print sheets he hasn’t owned for decades.

Wolves of Fire Country by Midnite_Republic (T / Kakashi/Izuna / 51k words / wip / chose not to warn)

Wave changed a lot about Team 7, but not enough to make them entirely functional. Also someone should have really reminded Kakashi to pay attention to that tiny part of his genius brain that recognises random patterns, before he called a rest stop on the way home on top of an old, decayed Uzushio travel seal with an over-chakra-charged Uzumaki.

And he thought the month of the Wave mission was long, now he's stuck with the team, in a place he never expected to have anything to do with, with no way back.

Maybe he should have paid more attention to history, or stayed in the academy long enough to have history classes.

Why we build the wall by Dissenter (NR / gen / 49k words / wip / mcd & violence)

A Kiri nin gets trapped in a cave with a Konoha nin near Kannabi bridge. Some things are inevitable.

Or the AU where Kakashi is born in Kiri but still somehow ends up as team seven's teacher.

Outrunning Karma by Anjelle (T / gen / 52k words / wip / no warnings)

Kakashi was forty-two and the world ended in a sea of smoke and ash. Kakashi was forty-two and there stood a man in the carnage, untouched and unfazed as the village burned around him.

Kakashi is nineteen and the world ends tomorrow, and he will do everything he can to make it right. Even if it means making friends of his enemies. Even if it means erasing everything.

Even if it means staring into the face of all that he hates and smiling.

Kakashi is nineteen and Naruto is five and there is still time. Instead of counting his losses, he'll make the most of it.

komorebi by tomorrowsrain (T / Kakashi/Obito / 80k words / wip / no warnings)

In which Kakashi and Obito survive the Kyuubi attack, get exiled from Konoha, learn how to survive, and still manage to become legends along the way.

(The bratty genin are unexpected, though.)

The Hidden Prodigy by Applepie (T / gen / 106k words / wip / chose not to warn)

Somehow sent back into the past, Kakashi is given a second chance to relive his childhood. He is determined to make the most of everyday and to fix the horrors of the future, but sometimes simple determination is not enough to save everyone.

Change Fills My Time by 100demons (M / gen / 73k words / completed / mcd & violence)

Thirty year old Kakashi was supposed to have been killed by Pein during the Invasion. Instead, he wakes up in the body of his twenty year old self.

(It gets a lot more complicated.)

Nidaime Otokage by DuskBeforeDawn (M / gen / 30k words / wip / violence)

No one knew him.

His father was still alive.

His Sharingan acted like it had always been his.

Kakashi was twenty-two years in the past of a different world.

a heap of details, uncatalogued, illogical by 100demons (T / gen / 8k words / completed / no warnings)

Oh,” she says, white hands clenched into tight fists. “I’m-- I was your student. Haruno Sakura.”

Kakashi tilts his head, gray eye analyzing her carefully for tells. He finds nothing. “I’ve never seen you before in my life,” he says flatly.

(Kakashi wakes up fourteen years old.)

Lost on the road of life by RavenShira (M / gen / 80k words / wip / violence)

Kakashi had everything well in hand. He had stepped down from his reign as Rokudaime Hokage, his porn collection was as well worn as should be and his free time was spend with either Gai's challenges or helping out on various tasks while trying to make it seem like he wasn't there to help out. Annoying the hell out of everyone that crosses his path was as easy as breathing – easier now that he didn't have to be polite and diplomatic about it anymore.

So what if he agreed to a teeny-tiny favour of his once student and now successor? Not even Naruto could mess up just scribbling down a fuinjutsu for Kakashi to check over before he got back to his own, very busy life.

… Right?

Or: The one where Kakashi travels back in time, thinks he can fix stuff but clearly gets in over his head.

What’s the Worst That Can Happen? by Applepie (T / gen / 90k words / wip / no warnings)

Life was going quite well, if you asked Naruto Uzumaki. So why did he have to listen to Kakashi of all people? Now, they've time traveled to the past, smack dab in Minato's era, when the soon-to-be Hokage was sporting a team seven of his own. Let history run its course? Never! Kakashi-centric.

Wanted by Anjelle (T / gen / 17k words / wip / no warnings)

Kakashi is your run-of-the-mill hand for hire, except that he's not. Boasting a spotless record with the skills and name to back it up, he's one of the most highly sought after mercenaries in the Land of Fire. He has just one rule:

No Leaf missions.

Unfortunately, his latest client, Tobi, is looking for just that. And there's no doubt in Tobi's mind that Kakashi will accept.

It's only a matter of time.

-

-

 (and a bonus crossover section!!)

Silver-Haired Stranger by TheSimplestWriter (T / gen / 34k words / wip / violence / ATLA)

Kakashi dies protecting his village fighting against Pein... Except he actually didn't and is now in the middle of a desert. Great. [Kakashi swaps one war for another, but he only wants to get back home. Things happen along the way.]

Copy That, Copycat by Nakashira (G / gen / 19k words / wip / violence / BNHA)

Kakashi Hatake dies the Copycat-nin and is reborn with a copycat quirk.

Everything becomes a disaster, and Monoma is tired.

Wonderboy by Tsume_Yuki (T / gen / 19k words / wip / chose not to warn / BNHA)

Who knew some dimensions had actual child labour laws?

In which Kakashi is reborn, the Hero Commission doesn’t put all their eggs in one Hawks shaped basket and Shouta isn't getting paid enough to deal with this shit.

Otherwise known as Kakashi in 1A.

CCG Public Enemy No 1 by euphoric image (T / gen / 19k words / wip / no warnings / Tokyo Ghoul)

Kakashi had a single red-and-black eye for more than half his life. Now, he has two.

Victory Series by ewfte (T / gen / 96k words / wip / violence / BNHA)

A fact about Todoroki Shouto: that is not his name.

[shesey]

Wintering by Katherine May

“Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider. Perhaps it results from an illness; perhaps from a life event such as a bereavement or the birth of a child; perhaps it comes from a humiliation or failure. Perhaps you’re in a period of transition, and have temporarily fallen between two worlds. Some winterings creep upon us more slowly, accompanying the protracted death of a relationship, the gradual ratcheting up of caring responsibilities as our parents age, the drip-drip-drip of lost confidence. Some are appallingly sudden, like discovering one day that your skills are considered obsolete, the company you worked for has gone bankrupt, or your partner is in love with someone new. However it arrives, wintering is usually involuntary, lonely, and deeply painful. Yet it is also inevitable. We like to imagine that it’s possible for life to be one eternal summer, and that we have uniquely failed to achieve that for ourselves.” “Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible. Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season when the world takes on a sparse beauty, and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.” “That’s what humans do: we make and remake our stories, abandoning the ones that no longer fit and trying on new ones for size.” “In the changing room later, I experience a different kind of warmth: the nakedness of a dozen women, all unashamed. These aren’t the posing bodies you find on the beach, dieted beyond al joy to be bikini-ready, and tanned as an act of disguise. These are northern bodies, slack-bottomed and dimpling, with unruly pubic hair and the scars of hysterectomies, chattering companionably in a language I don’t understand. They are a glimpse of life yet to come: a message of survival, passed on through the generations. It’s a message I rarely find in my buttoned-up home country, and I think about the times I’ve suffered silent furies at the treacheries of my own body, imagining them to be unique.” “Ghost stories may be a part of the terror of Halloween, but our love of ghost stories betrays a far more fragile desire: that we do not fade so easily from this life.” “Winter has decorated ordinary life. Some days, everything sparkles.” “You realize that no one is what they look like, on the surface. Everybody has their dose of suffering; it’s just more hidden in some than in others.” “I think about this a lot, she says, the needle breaks the fabric in order to repair it. You can’t have one without the other.” “In the absence of sunlight, it would be too costly to maintain the machinery of growth.” “I’m fairly certain that my decision not to have a second child rests squarely on my worship of sleep.” “I have nothing to show for my forty-odd years on this earth, except for a pile of dusty books.” “4am. The ego flares like a struck match: bright, blue, fleeting. I am thankful to be alone when this happens, to let it burn out in private. We should sometimes be grateful for the solitudes of night, of a winter. They save us from displaying our worse selves to the waking world.” “Certainty is a dead space in which there’s no more room to grow. Wavering is painful. I’m glad to be travelling between the two.” “Sometimes writing is a race against your own mind, as your hand labours to keep up with the flood tide of your thoughts, and I feel that most acutely at night, when there are no competing demands on my attention. That slightly sleepy, dazed state erods the barriers of my waking brain.” “I can confess all my sins to a piece of paper, with no one to censor it.” “Our personal winters are so often accompanies by insomnia, but perhaps we are still drawn towards that unique space of intimacy and contemplation, darkness, and silence, without really knowing what we’re seeking. Perhaps, after all, we are being urged towards our own comfort.” “Lucy is a symbol of absolute faith and utter purity, but the sins for which she suffers are not her own. Instead, she shoulders the weight of the male gaze, and is destroyed by it.” “Some winters creep up on us so slowly that they have infiltrated every part of our lives before we truly feel them.” “We felt broken into pieces, but at the same time, never so loved.” “We changed our focus away from pushing through with normal life, and towards making a new one. When everything is broken, everything is also up for grabs. That’s the gift of winter: it’s irresistible. Change will happen in its wake, whether we like it or not. We can come out of it wearing a different coat.” “I could have stood there and cried on the spot, just knowing that I wasn’t alone.” “I felt accepted in a way that I hand’t for months.” “This isn’t just an unkind attitude, it does us harm, because it stops us from learning that disaster happens, and how to adapt when it does. It stops us from reaching out to people who are suffering. And, when our own disaster comes, it forces us into a humiliated retreat, as we try to hunt down mistakes that we never made in the first place.” “I simply had no defence against the changes that were happening in my life.” “Life never does quite offer us those simply happy endings. I often that that it’s all part of my own craving: the moral clarity of cause and effect, reward and punishment for my actions. A map for living that renders everything explicable.” “All her desires were for elemental things: love, a little comfort, the society of interesting people. Everyday life is so often isolated, dreary, and lonely. A little craving is understandable. A little craving might actually be the rallying cry for survival.” “I love the inconvenience [of snow] the same way that I can sneakingly love a bad cold: the irresistible disruption to mundane life, forcing you to stop for a while and step outside of your normal habits.” “In autumn, the male drones are sacrificed because they’re no longer of any use, and would otherwise just be hungry mounts to feed.”  “Our lives take different shapes: we do not work in a linear progression through fixed roles like the honeybee. We are not consistently useful to the world at large. We talk about the complexity of the hive, but human societies are infinitely more complex, full of choices and mistakes, periods of glory and seasons of utter despair. Some of us make highly visible, elaborate contributions to the whole; some of us are just part of the ticking mechanics of the world, the incremental wealth of small gestures. All of it matters. All of it weaves the wider fabric that binds us.” “We may sometimes drift through years in which we feel like a negative presence in the world, but we come back again, not only restored, but bringing more than we brought before: more wisdom, more compassion, a greater capacity to reach deep into our roots and know that we will find water.” “Usefulness, in itself, is a useless concept when it comes to humans. I don’t think we were ever meant to think about others in terms of their use to us.” “We flourish on caring, on doling out love.” “Winter is a time for the quiet arts of making: for knitting and sewing, baking and simmering, repairing and restoring our homes.” “We sing because it fills our lungs with nourishing air, and lets our heart soar with the notes we let out. We sing because it allows us to speak of love and loss, delight and desire, all encoded in lyrics that let us pretend that those feelings are not quite ours.” “As I walk, I remind myself ot the words of Alan Watts: ‘To hold your breath is to lose your breath.’ In The Wisdom of Insecurity, Watts makes a case that always convinces me, but which I always seem to forget: that life is, by nature, uncontrollable. That we should stop trying to finalize our comfort and security somehow, and instead find a radical acceptance of the endless, unpredictable change that is the very essence of this life. Our suffering, he says, comes from the fight we put up against this fundamental truth: ‘Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is in pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought. There is no escape.” “The future, to which we devote so much of our brainpower, is an unstable element, entirely unknowable.” “When we endlessly ruminate in these distant times, we miss extraordinary things in the present moment. They are, in actual fact, all we have: the here and now; the direct perception of our senses.” “I’m beginning to think that unhappiness is one of the simple things in life: a pure, basic emotion to be respected, if not savoured. I would never dream of suggesting that we should wallow in misery, or shrink from doing everything we can to alleviate it; but I do think it’s instructive. After all, unhappiness has a function: it tells us that something is going wrong. If we don’t allow ourselves the fundamental honesty of our own sadness, then we miss an important cue to adapt. We seem to be living in an age when we’re bombarded with entreaties to be happy, but we’re suffering from an avalanche of depression; we’re urged to stop sweating the small stuff, and yet we’re chronically anxious. I often wonder if these are just normal feelings that become monstrous when they’re denied. A great deal of life will always suck. There will be moments when we’re riding high, and moments when we can’t bear to get out of bed. Both are normal. Both, in fact, require a little perspective.” “We need friends who wince along with our pain, who tolerate our gloom, and who allow us to be weak for a while when we’re finding our feet again. We need people who acknowledge that we can’t always hang on in there; that sometimes, everything breaks.” “I recognized winter. I saw it coming (a mile off, since you ask), and I looked it in the eye,. I greeted it, and let it in. I had some tricks up my sleeve, you see. I’ve learned them the hard way. When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favoured child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable, and that my feelings were signals of something important.” “We tend to imagine that our lives are linear, but they are in fact cyclical. I would not, or course, seek to deny that we grow gradually older, but while doing so, we pass through phases of good health and ill, of optimism and deep doubt, of freedom and constraint.”

[autunno101]

Robot Talks

Please forgive the mess, I just kind of threw this onto the page and tried to make it look neat.

“Can’t you see them? They're like glitter on a black page.” She propped herself on her elbows, legs stretched out in front of her.

The grass blades tickled her bare knees but she didn’t mind.

Tonight, they would learn about astronomy.

“I can see the moon.” Dim in the night sky, it made no impressive sight as she described.

“But not the stars?”

“No.” He shook his head and turned to watch her face drop in that of disappointment.

She had been overjoyed at the new guest. Her father’s second most favored invention. Her being his first, of course.

While such work should be designated to the factory where the environment could be controlled, her father had thought very little of the consequences of having a homemade lab in his garage. He knew how to run the chemicals and place the parts. His AI improvements had been home-based from the start. The company came later and always second to his work at home.

He had tasked his young daughter with their new acquaintance’s schooling. And she took such a task with the utmost sincerity.

Tonight’s assignment had been a failure.

He could not see the stars and their alignment that she had been speaking about with such vigor that evening. The pictures in her books had been a delight though he did not understand to what end. Pretty, sure. Surely something easy on the eyes, but nothing more.

Another reminder of how he differed.

She insisted on taking him to the beach that weekend. He needed to understand the life of the sea and her newest school work focused on marine life. Her father laughed at her child-like authority but agreed nonetheless.

They built sandcastles and spotted birds. Shark teeth and shells were dug up from the sand between tides and fish were observed swirling around their feet.

Yet, as he saw precise movement and architecture in his sandcastle, she saw adventure and the seashells became shields of defense for her keep. Her sandcastles were grade B to his own creation as she lacked his precise control, but her shape was somewhat uniform. Mess ups did not faze her and any mistakes made were added as its charm.

Birds flying above them were looking for food, their cries loud as they swooped to the water to ascend once more. A way to catch prey he was sure. She said they were arguing with each other. Some wanted tuna and others anchovies.

Shark teeth were diamonds and shells were like pearls. Her imagination fluttered from one end to the next in a never-ending oscillation.

What amused her father, only baffled himself further. How could she possibly know the seagulls were fighting over tuna and anchovies? How did shark teeth appear like diamonds and shells like pearls?

Years passed like this. An uphill battle to teach him things he could not grasp. He learned how to speak and how to write easily enough. Social cues were harder, but the basics understood. The math equations of her academic studies were the easiest and even when he could understand the problem before her, he waited for her to teach him. It made her smile and that meant it made her happy.

Her father left for work before the sun rose and only returned for dinner after it set. They were often alone together, sharing school work and the house chores. Some times she would confront her father on why he could not grasp certain things or why he couldn’t see the stars as she did. Her father told her to be patient, but she did not want to be patient. She wanted him to see the world as she saw it.

“It wasn’t fair!” She would yell and stomp her feet, determined to help her synthetic companion. “He should see beautiful things too!”

These fights eventually ceased. Always met with her father’s ever calm and steady tone. Be patient.

Time flew by. She grew from the girl that stood at his waist to the woman that barely tilted her chin to stare him down. Her schoolwork finished, she stuck around to take care of the house, her father, and him.

“Someone has to”, she would say.

They lived a humble lifestyle in a suburb just outside the city limits. He was sure they could afford more. A man like her father was a gem in the scientific community and worked alongside major companies.

Yet, while skyscrapers rose from the ground and houses were torn down for new ones to be built, their ancient roots held strong. Like the hickory that shaded the backyard. She said it had been here probably before the house and if she had a say, it would remain so.

He could not understand the sentiment or feel it for himself. However, he accepted her words as fact. If the tree was one with the house and filled with just as many memories as the tacky wallpaper and mismatched tiles, then it was to be deemed sentimental.

–

“What makes the creation of me different than God’s creation of you?” He sat at the kitchen table, hands folded in front of him. His gaze remained on his ever twitching digits.

Setting aside the towel, she turned from the sink to watch him.

“I suppose very little.” She leaned against the counter, hands gripping the edges as she pondered the question over once more. “Humans create life all the time. Be it a fertile seed in moist soil or a fertile egg in the womb,” her hands passed over her stomach, “or even in there,” she jerked her head to her father’s laboratory. “We create life by design. I do not see myself as some divine being because of it.”

“You do not view me as a pet?” Head tilted. It was one of his more obvious cues to show his curiosity. A conscious effort on his part to express the body language his human counterparts often displayed.

“Of course not.”

“Some would,” he argued.

“Yes, and there are those that view their own children as pets or pawns or a means for getting something.” He could think of nothing to argue that.

She waited for him to find more questions or combat her answers. He always did. Not that she minded. No, she encouraged him, but of course, she had limitations.

He did not break the silence as soon as she had hoped. Dread washed over her as she watched him observe his hands lying on the oak table.

“Even though I have inherent flaws?” Soft and quiet. A rarity from the otherwise loud or monotone sentient.

“Flaws not of your own doing,” her response flew from her mouth without hesitation, forcing him to look up and meet her fierce gaze. “Humans are flawed and so inevitably you will be too.”

“Would you say because you are flawed that God is then inherently flawed?” Again, his head tilted in that obvious manner.

He was prodding rather than accusatory.

“No. I would not. We damned ourselves if you recall Genesis.”

“So you are saying that sin caused your flaws?” A back and forth. Rapid fire question and a rapid fire answer.

Their usual discussion consisted of these and it made part of her ease up.

“I guess I am.”

“And by damning yourself you have damned me?”

He could tell her emotions with simple calculations. Sometimes untraceable to their conscious mind, but their subconscious did well to pick up the slack. To him, the dilation of her pupils by a fraction was obvious. The diameter of her eyes widening a few millimeters represented her surprise and sudden full attention. Her back muscles stiffened, causing her neck to extend as she stood taller. Mostly out of shock, but some deep part of her was offended.

A shimmer in her eye. Tears.

Tears always surfaced in the face of deep and overwhelming emotion. The need to flush the chemicals from the brain so as to not cause toxic side effects.

Emotionality made them weak. Made them hesitate. Inferior to his colder and rational thinking process. Decisiveness was on his side.

Despite this conclusion, there stood a second, more reasonable conclusion. One he hated. One he couldn’t understand and therefore, he could never be. Beyond the creativity and the wonderous world their eyes and brain fixed for them, he could never have their emotions. His cues were from practicing and learning behavior like those around him. But, never to be them.

Their emotionality combated their rationale in ways that made them stronger. Unpredictably so. Standing just beyond his calculations was the sudden brashness of emotion.

Clearing her throat, she glanced away from him. For the first time since they had met, she could not look him in the eye with the answer on the tip of her tongue.

“I guess we have.” Her thumb wiped at her nose and she returned to washing dishes.

She only strengthened his second conclusion. The prime witness. The one case study that made all others irrelevant.

Strength ran in their blood and it was called Emotion.

[sweatycatmentality-blog]

suicide trial and error

A reflection on my past experiences living with an undiagnosed mental illness and the effects that my imbalanced state of mind had on my father’s own fragile mental health.  

An all to common journey for families with members suffering from undiagnosed mental illness that leads to tragedy.

The story I am choosing to share is not one of happy times during my childhood. It is a tragedy for which I bear a great responsibility for. My father's death was completely preventable. The cause of his death shouldn’t be classified suicide - he was murdered by my lack of understanding of his disease fueled by the teenage narcissistic tendencies which were coupled with my own undiagnosed mental illness. I accept responsibility for my actions and only hope that sharing my experience will prevent this tragedy from happening to someone else.

My relationship with my dad was always turbulent. It was cyclical, based on his mood and my own. There were ups and downs, always fueled with admiration or hatred, never anything in between. I’d only realize later in life that this was because we both suffered from untreated mental health issues - specifically bipolar and depression - the love/hate cycles coincided with our manic and depressed episodes. During the manic episodes we’d bond over our far-fetched dreams, each feeding the lies to each other of what was possible instead of accepting reality. As quickly as those episodes came, the depression crept in. This was heightened by drug and alcohol addiction on my dad’s part. Me, well I felt isolated from everyone despite having the appearance of a social life. I dealt with the feelings of being unwanted, unsuccessful, a burden on my family and friends. I questioned everyone’s perception of me, giving weight to the hurtful things bullies in school said about me, not realizing that they picked on me not because of my looks or because my family wasn’t rich, but because they got the best reactions from me. My anger and sadness shined through.

During these low points I became hostile towards my family, I was filled with rage and angry at the cards I had been dealt in terms of my family’s lack of money and the embarrassment I had of my father and how he acted - totally unpredictable, would he be sober or messed up. I lacked understanding of mental illness and didn’t know how to be empathetic towards him, primarily because I didn’t realize that he had a disease which was undiagnosed until he was in his 50s. My inability to comprehend the symptoms of his *(and my own) disease made my relationship with him unhealthy and detrimental to the wellbeing of both of us.  

I remember the first glimpse I had at the severe impact my awful, unforgiving, and uncompassionate attitude had on him was when I was in 9th grade. I sat at the kitchen table with my mom and dad on either side of me. My dad had cooked dinner, and like he always did when he chose to cook, he left the kitchen a complete disaster for my mom and me to clean up. I never understood how he could create such a mess and have no consideration for us having to clean it up. After he said dinner was ready, I always commented on the state of the kitchen to which he replied - I cooked, you all can clean. That was how it always went.

           This dinner started out the same as it always did, we said grace holding hands. The words had lost all meaning at this stage of my life. I couldn’t grasp what it was to be grateful for the food we had on the table or the roof over our heads. I was a self-absorbed, ungrateful teenager and an asshole. I see that now looking back.

After saying grace my father said “Cha (his nickname for my mom, Charlotte) get me the salt.” This sparked a fury in me as he was clearly sitting much closer to the cabinet that the salt was in and I felt as though he thought he could command my mom to fetch the salt for him merely because he cooked dinner. That wasn’t part of the deal - we cleaned, and he cooked, we were not his servants. Before I realized what I was saying I blurted out, “Why don’t you get it your f***ing self.” Silence. The next few minutes were a blur, but I believe he called me a b***h before getting up and grabbing his keys at which point my mom and I pleaded for him to stay and sit back down. We knew he was going to the bar like he always did when my mom or I commented on his drinking or exorbitant spending. His reaction was always predictable - he was never wrong, that drink or that new tech-device that we didn’t need and couldn’t afford was always justified. I have vivid memories of mom standing between him and the door begging him not to go to the bar and I would apologize profusely (most of the time) to no avail.

           This time was no different initially, he’d say to my mom to get out of his way in a deep scary tone which I knew far too well. The tone was that of rage and undeniable hatred towards us. Blaming us for disrupting a family dinner and causing him to go to the bar. Placing all the blame for the arguments on us and taking no responsibility in his role as the cause. This time when he charged for the front door in my gut, I knew that once he walked out that door everything in our lives would change for the worse. Upon his exit, I sensed that my mom shared my uneasy feeling.

           Reflecting on the incident, I am sure she felt disappointment that I once again opened my mouth and threw a match on the otherwise painless dinner. Why couldn’t I have just kept my mouth shut or just gotten him the damn salt myself, thereby conveying my disapproval of his commanding my mom to do his bidding but keeping the peace by still appeasing him by fulfilling that command. My mom knew that I was trying to stand up for her because in my eyes she never stood up for herself when he spoke down to her. However, this time I could see her sadness and annoyance at me. I apologized to her again, but the damage was done.

           Some time passed and my mom and I sat silently at the table not touching our plates. The dread of not knowing how he was reacting to my attack was dredging up a mass of emotions inside me. I felt ashamed and contrite, but it was too late to express those thoughts to him. He would never listen to me anyways; he needed to cool down before I apologized to him. My mom called and called my dad but was unable to reach him. He had turned his phone off. At this point I knew something terrible was going to happen. I ordered my mom to get into the car - I was 15 years old so I only had a learner’s permit - we racked our brains as we drove around to the local bars or places, we thought he might go. My mom called all of his friends, but none had heard from him. Our worry heightened when I suddenly had the idea to check the local community theater shop/rehearsal space where my mom and he volunteered. He had a key. As we were en route I called the police and asked them to meet us there informing them that I thought my dad was going to kill himself. Of course, the dispatcher immediately asks where he is and I say that I think he is at the shop, giving them the address, then they ask if he has a weapon. I had no clue. I realized I didn’t know what he was truly intending and by what means. It was the first time I recall feeling a tremendous amount of guilt for how I treated him. I had caused him so much pain that he didn’t want to live any longer.

           We pulled into the parking lot and saw his car, the cops weren’t there yet, but I ran into the shop. The door was unlocked and flung open to reveal my father on one of those lifts that utility workers use to fix telephone poles; a noose was around a rafter and the loop lay in his hands. He motioned to position his head through the loop and my mother, and I screamed for him to stop. We were pleading and apologizing, but he had no intention of stopping. This was how he was going to punish me for good. This was how he would make me learn the power of my words and the anguish and pain that they can cause. The cops entered and began asking whether he was armed, to which I screamed no and to f***ing help save him. They ordered him to come down and talk, always speaking in stern yet compassionate voices. Finally, he was down on the ground and they escorted him into the cop car. The cops said that he would be taken to a psychiatric hospital and held for 48-72 hours on an involuntary basis. After that a judge would inform us if we could seek to continue involuntary inpatient treatment based on his doctors’ opinions. Or he could volunteer to be admitted for continued inpatient psychiatric treatment - which of course he felt that he didn’t need despite his suicide attempt.

           Over the next several years there would be more attempts at suicide, all of which would occur when only I was around to deal with it. It was as if he was trying to mess with me and to show me how awful of a person he thought me to be. In retrospect, I do acknowledge that as an undiagnosed and therefore untreated person suffering from the same disease as him, I played a huge role in his untimely death. All the attempts leading up to his successful suicide in 2008 were inflicted by my irresponsible frame of mind and inability to be empathetic towards his condition. I must deal with that awareness for the rest of my life and it plagues me every day.

           I am sharing this story not only as a means of self-therapy, hoping that it will help me accept that I was not myself during the period of my life in which he took his life and that he too played a major role in his own self-destruction. I also hope that by sharing this tragedy with others that it will expose how prevalent mental health issues are in society for people of all ages and that without adequate diagnostic opportunities of our youth we will inevitably see more tragedies unearthed in our aging populations. Too many people go through life no knowing that their pain is due to chemical imbalances and can be treated. However even with increasing exposure to diagnostic opportunities, limited treatment options for the lower-income populations will continue to prevent those who truly need help from being able to receive it. We must do better as a society. We owe it to our youth to find solutions to make life easier for them to cope with. Life should be cherished and not taken advantage of. By increasing awareness of the prevalence of mental health issues in society we can only better the livelihood of all.

[your-dietician]

14 Ways To Deal With Heartbreak As Told By A Counselling Psychologist

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/14-ways-to-deal-with-heartbreak-as-told-by-a-counselling-psychologist/

14 Ways To Deal With Heartbreak As Told By A Counselling Psychologist

Nelly Wadia , 08 Jul 2020

Heartbreak By kittirat roekburi | www.shutterstock.com

I’m pretty sure that everyone who reads this blog would have gone through a painful heartbreak at some point. We’ve all cried out in pain and pined for the person we’ve lost. Breakups are hard for both the breaker-upper and the breaker-uppee, in different ways of course. For the person who has been broken up with, they become crippled with the rejection and wonder what they could have done differently? And there’s always the question about whether there is an easy way to recover from a broken heart. But it’s a long, winding journey and a time-consuming one as well because healing doesn’t occur overnight. The worst part is one minute you start feeling better and like you can conquer the world and the next, a wave of darkness overtakes you. So, we reached out to Anagha Bhave, Therapist and Counselling Psychologist for tips on how to get through heartbreak.

Here’s a look at a few pointers on how to move on and deal with heartbreak:

1) Grieve

We believe we should stay strong through heartbreak, but the truth is we need to live through it. We’re only human and we should be allowed to be miserable and mope about the house. It is important to really understand and accept the circumstances that led to this heartbreak. Take some time off and cry to your heart’s content, binge on your favourite foods and indulge in your self-care routine. Even if getting out of the relationship was a good thing, you will still experience deep emotions of loss because you were attached to this person. Grieve because it is the first and most important step to healing and you’ll feel a whole lot better after letting it all out.

Grieve the heartbreak. By Antonio Guillem | www.shutterstock.com

2) Focus on methods that will be helpful for your mental health

One’s self-confidence takes a huge hit when our partner tells us that they no longer wish to be with us and our self-esteem and mental health is hugely impacted. Re-building what breaks is hard and takes time. Keep reminding yourself of your strength by being independent and doing things on your own. Eventually what was once lost will find it’s way back to you. Focus on what makes you happy, do everything that you wanted to do but couldn’t because of the limitations that were prevalent in the relationship. Ask yourself the difficult questions—what are your strengths and how can you amplify them? What are your weaknesses and how can you improve on them?

Don’t fixate on the lack of things and instead, focus on the many blessings you have. Give yourself credit on how far you’ve come. Pay attention to how you work through life’s obstacles. Avoid the negative self-chatter, it will inevitably stunt your growth. You have to consciously remind yourself that you are better than how you perceive yourself.

3) Get a hobby

The best way to overcome any painful experience including heartbreak is to find a hobby. Take a cooking class or a painting class or a class in robotics. Anything that keeps you busy and helps you be productive will ease you out of your emotional funk. Set up a routine that works for you and stick to it, care for yourself and work on expanding your horizon. This will automatically keep you from sinking into your unhappy place. Plus, you’ll meet new people and be plenty distracted. You never know when lightning may strike again. Replan your life immediately and make a checklist of how you want to approach this new side to you.

Engage in a hobby. By Vadym Pastukh | www.shutterstock.com

4) Work-out

Exercise, go for a run or a walk, meditate, do some yoga. Getting in shape and feeling healthy can revive one’s purpose and help them rebuild their self-esteem. Not forgetting to mention that working out releases endorphins in the brain which is a happy chemical. Make a conscious attempt at practising self-care, and indulge yourself with things you may otherwise skip.

Work-out. By Gorodenkoff | www.shutterstock.com

5) Confide in friends and family

Communicate what you are going through with your loved ones. Talking about your emotions may help you walk your way through the entire situation. It also helps shed light on the people that truly care and appreciate you. Thus, making you more grateful for the goodness in your life. It might allow you to finally approach this heartbreak more objectively. And your near and dear ones will also shine a light on areas that you might have conveniently ignored or approached more subjectively. Meaning, by talking about the good and bad parts of this relationship, you’re able to seek out different perspectives that would help you move on.

6) Get therapy

If you’re not open with your family and friends and prefer to open up in the presence of a stranger, then you should definitely seek out therapy. Alternatively, if you have no one to talk to then contact a therapist who will listen to your problems. One that will offer solutions and advice on dealing with heartbreak. Counselling can be an effective tool to overcome any form of trauma and we should move beyond the stigma attached to getting help. At the same time, you will also discover several things about yourself and your reactions to things in life. This entire process might just set you on a journey of self-discovery.

Seek out therapy if need be. By wavebreakmedia | www.shutterstock.com

7) Spend time with your friends

After a heartbreak, it is better to not withdraw because it will only amplify those feelings of sadness and rejection. Your friends are like the perfect hype crew if they call you to hang out say yes! They will hear you out and buy you food and sweet treats to make you feel better. They might drag you to a movie or a party to enjoy your time. The best way to pull yourself out of heartbreak is to spend the most amount of time with your friends. It is likely they too would have suffered through a breakup and they might talk you through yours.

Spend time with your friends. By Jacob Lund | www.shutterstock.com

8) Avoid mind-numbing substances

While getting drunk every day may seem like the best idea to dull the pain, this may have some major long term side-effects. The same logic applies to drugs. It is only a be a temporary high after which the low will be a major low. What’s worse is you could end up getting addicted, leading to more problems later.

Avoid mind-numbing substances. By fizkes | www.shutterstock.com

9) Validate your emotions

A lot of the times we tend to suffer in silence and tell ourselves that our feelings aren’t important enough to ponder over. The truth is you need not diminish your feelings because someone else’s suffering might be greater. The expectation to be happy and have positive thoughts all the time will invalidate your sadness—a pattern called toxic positivity.

10) Remind yourself why the relationship ended

Life can be unfair and unpredictable but accepting that sometimes life doesn’t go our way can be helpful. Reset your expectations from life and yourself and you might find happiness within. You have to fight the urge to go over every detail of what you could have done differently to save the relationship. The reality is that it ended and needed to end. Both partners need to be happy together and if one isn’t then you’re only delaying the inevitable. Remind yourself of the pros and cons, think about the things your partner did to upset you and cause you inner turmoil. It’s no one’s fault, sometimes people grow apart and it is no indication of anyone’s worth. Accept that the relationship is over and close that door forever. Holding out hope as we’ve discussed only leads to disappointment.

11) Avoid getting in touch with your ex

Whether it was an amicable end or a painful heartbreak, avoid getting in touch with your ex. If you find that hard to do, delete them off all your social accounts. Trying to keep tabs on them will only hurt you further and stall your progress by moving on with your life. Trying to stay friends with them when you are still not over the heartbreak is a bad idea. These kinds of equations rarely work and always leave you feeling confused but hopeful. You definitely do not need this while you’re in the midst of trying to build yourself back up. It might also be some form of a power play for them knowing that they can control you or the situation because you so desperately want them back in your life. They might reach out, but they might do so to keep you in their life as an option or to fulfil a basic sexual need, and not because they miss you. So don’t wait for someone who walked out of your life once.

It is also likely that you might want to hold on to pictures and mementoes of your time together, but if these things are emotional triggers for you, then it might be best to throw them out so that you don’t have constant reminders lying around. Out of sight, out of mind is definitely a good tactic to apply in this situation.

Avoid getting in touch with your ex. By Antonio Guillem | www.shutterstock.com

12) Don’t try to make them jealous

While you’re out spending time with your friends it’s best to try and not make your ex jealous. We think that by doing say they might want to rekindle the relationship and they might even do so but not for the right reasons. If you were truly having fun you wouldn’t have to prove that you’re happy without them.

13) Don’t jump into another relationship

A lot of people tend to want to jump right back into the dating pool because it validates them and fills the void of rejection. It is perfectly normal to get on dating apps and acknowledge that there are lots of options. However, getting involved with someone before you’re ready may hurt them if they’re looking for a genuine connection while you’re simply looking for a distraction. You also run the risk of rebounding on the next person if you rush into it too soon. Dive in when you are truly ready to look for something.

Don’t start dating too soon. By Tero Vesalainen | www.shutterstock.com

14) Set goals to overcome heartbreak

Set small but achievable goals. Every day, do 1 thing that you wouldn’t normally do and before you know it, you’ve come a whole year into the future. A better and more evolved you. Resilience will help you not only overcome this situation but far worse scenarios in the future.

On a separate note, I also want to discuss the possibility of having to work with an ex after a break-up:

If you happen to work together this could be a tricky situation to manoeuvre through.

You could look for a way to minimise contact, maybe switch timings or departments.

Try to fight the urge to look in their direction.

Spend time interacting with your other colleagues.

Loop in friends at work to help you resist the temptation to talk to your ex.

If you’re familiar with their route to work or hangout spots, avoid it till you feel better and more in control.

Don’t isolate yourself and avoid going to office gatherings altogether, go and hang out with your colleagues and have a great time.

Working with an ex after a break-up. By aslysun | www.shutterstock.com

The pain from heartbreak is equivalent to intense physical pain. At the end of the day, the loss of a partner is no indication of your worth and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

What are some of the things you’ve done to deal with heartbreak? Let me know in the comments below.

We often have conversations around relationships on Malini’s Girl Tribe. To be a part of them, join the tribe here.

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[relationshipanarchywithoutchaos]

Falling in love: an antiquated ideal

Last year I broke my ankle. I was shoveling the last of the snow off my sidewalk in order to get my car out, I slipped on ice and landed on my foot. The bones broke in three places, rendering every part of the foot and leg which support each other unable to do so.

It fucking hurt, and when I tried to stand on it, it didn’t feel right at all. I immediately called for an ambulance.

I guess the point of my anecdote here is to introduce and eventually reinforce this statement:

Falling is not a purposeful act

With only a few exceptions involving trust exercises, falling is unintentional. It’s either an accident of circumstance or the result of losing control while executing a purposeful act. People don’t intentionally sky-fall without a parachute, accidentally try to grab a trapeze, or bungee-fall off of a bridge. Even motorcyclists may lay down their bike in order to avoid being thrown in a crash. 

One time I was rollerblading down a hill and realized that I was skating into a busy street at the bottom, so I tossed myself into the grass beside the sidewalk. I had a warning that something was going to happen.  In a split-second I made a decision to risk minor injury in order to avoid major injury, and took control of a situation that was quickly becoming one that I could not control.

Accidents result from a lack of control

Falling in love is not just a common theme in movies and media: it’s the theme. In nearly every story or song, from the initial moments of limerance to the first date to the eventual matrimonial union, the relationship that develops between two people are a combination of unlikely circumstances, random encounters, moments of shared jubilation or tragedy, and a predictable sequence in a comedy of errors. Some call it “fate” or “kismet”, and it’s wonderful and exciting and lovely.

Sometimes, this happens in reality, but the driving forces are often more practical. We develop “relationships of circumstance”, based on a shared need for housing or food or companionship, ignoring many of the little things (and sometimes the larger things) that would normally repel us.

If we were smart, we would recognize that adding love or sex to those circumstances doesn’t “make sense”, but rather complicates the hell out of an otherwise tenuous situation. But usually, we instead imagine the common narratives playing out before our futures according to the scripts with which we’re familiar, and enjoy the ride until the inevitable failure of unspoken expectations manifests and we have to take control.

Unless your purpose was intentionally artistic, could you imagine being so reckless and beholden to the random variables in other aspects of your life: cooking dinner over a gas stove, driving around town, painting a house, or applying for jobs?

And while being spontaneous and unpredictable can seem romantic, it can also be very tiring and frustrating to others, especially over time. Not all surprises are wonderful, even if they came from good intentions. If you and your partner both had the same idea about surprising the other with a home-cooked meal, it might seem like a beautiful and enjoyable moment at the time, but it may also feel like a waste of effort or time, especially if it happened more than once.

The antidote is not control

While being the hapless romantic comedy character and succumbing to the wiles of the unseen screenwriter isn’t ideal, neither is being the director in one’s own story. If you insist on controlling the flow of a relationship to your own ideals at every scene, the relationship will eventually deteriorate.

The “how come” is simple: there’s another person involved, and they won’t like being a hapless character either, especially if the director dictates all.

If, on the other hand, you desire an unpredictable and unreliable relationship, there’s a better way to go about it than telling your partner that “this is how you are”: discuss it ahead of time and come to an agreement that that’s how it will be.

It’s all about intent

Right before I broke my ankle, as my body careened toward the concrete, I found myself lacking everything I needed to keep myself from injury: someone or something to break my fall, a cushion to soften the impact, the proper gear or preparation to keep myself from slipping in the first place. I could also have just stayed inside and not even bother to tackle the situation. There probably a dozen things I could have done or had to keep my break from being so bad, or it happening at all in the first place, and I did none of them, despite my experience with ice and the warnings I’d previously waved away as common sense.

Unlike breaking an ankle, love is generally regarded as a good thing. The pitfalls of a relationship, particularly a romantic one, aren’t from the love itself, but rather the things that we ignore, accept, or don’t bother to ask about in order to maintain that love.

Count on your fingers the number times you’ve heard or said the words “If I had known about [x] I never would have agreed to [y]” for any set of circumstances x and y.  I'd wager that you have more than three fingers up.

A little mindfulness goes a long way: better to not assume that any given behavior or desire is going to be accepted, needed, expected or even desired. Aim to be consciously competent instead of just thinking you know what you’re doing.

Make love something other than a pit or cliff

The standard narratives like to talk about love and relationships as things that are difficult to recover from...and those narratives would be correct if we continue to think of them as accidents.

It took me ten weeks to recover from my broken ankle. How long did it take you to fully get over your most recent break-up or divorce?

If we think of relationships and love as things we build, grow, cultivate, nurture, or develop over time, then we have nothing to fall into. It doesn’t even have to start as love; more than likely, it can’t start as love. It has to start as a friendship, a shared hobby, a business arrangement, or some other form of mutual respect.

If it never quite gets to love, then at least it’ll get to something. You can knock it down or let it collapse through neglect, but it won’t be a hole or a valley that you’ll have to eventually have to climb out of. You can add to a structure, a garden, or a project; the only thing you can do with a hole is dig deeper or fill it up until it’s no longer a hole.

[glitchinthesystemspiderbyte]

[28] Glitch in the System - Practice Makes Breakfast

By K. Pretentious banter and omelets happen. _

"—all I’m saying is that his dying act of contempt for the Marquise is clearly implied as redemptive.”

“You can say that all you’d like— chef’s knife, please — but Laclos’s intent that the novel function as a critique of the perversions of the Ancien Régime and the fact he dies terribly imply the contrary.”

Akande handed Widowmaker the requested knife, holding the blade safely between calloused fingertips as he huffed his disagreement. “He only said that was his intent after the public outcry over its salaciousness.  He wrote to titillate, nothing more.”

Accepting the knife, Widowmaker began cutting the spinach splayed across the cutting board before her, slicing it en Chiffonade by the handful with mechanical precision.

“Unverified,” she replied, the word flattened by her otherwise occupied attention. “The intent is apparent. We are talking in circles now, Akande.”

“How is it apparent?” Doomfist asked for the third time that morning, half-laughing his dismissal as he cracked egg after egg into a mixing bowl.

“First: in the entire premise of the story. Second: in the writing of his successors, particularly de Sade. Sordid, oui, but the criticism persists throughout a substantial portion of his oeuvre. Consider Le Président Mystifié.”

Akande wrinkled his nose in disgust, glancing to the sniper beside him.“Do not talk to me about de Sade.”

“Why?”

“It has got to be a human resources issue.”

They paused, his dark eyes meeting her amber as a long note of silence stretched between them. On the mornings they were afforded time enough for literary discourse, they inevitably reached this point: Akande, drawing a line in the sand of their uncomfortably comfortable rapport despite their already having crossed it; Widowmaker, coolly ignoring it or, depending on the topic, acquiescing with an unsubtle air of smugness. She could never predict when that strange sense of misplaced formality would rear its head, and that alone made their occasional breakfast collaboration and the conversations therein all the more interesting. With so few indicators of the machinations informing his unflappable stoicism, those little tells were as poignant as they were fascinating.

This morning, she met his sudden obstinance with a quiet chuckle.

“What?” Akande asked suspiciously, broad hands dwarfing the egg held between them.

“We do not have a human resources department,” she smirked.

Doomfist opened his mouth to retort, but the soft, slow patter of sleep-heavy footsteps drew both their attention to the doorway where Sombra stood bleary-eyed and pajama clad, clutching Oso to her chest.

“You nerds know I can hear you all the way down the hall, right?” she grumbled, shuffling past the both of them toward the cabinet opposite the entrance.

“Good morning to you, too,” Akande quipped.

Rolling onto her toes to grab a mug, Sombra closed the cabinet doors and shouldered her way between her colleagues, concluding her pilgrimage toward caffeination by leaning Oso against the backsplash with a delicacy others would more readily afford small children or fine china.

“Salut, Oso,” Widowmaker murmured, eyes flicking upward in acknowledgement of the stuffed animal now supervising her work. Though she offered no such greeting its owner, she acknowledged the sudden presence at her side by leaning into it, cool, bare shoulders meeting the unfathomably soft weave of the hacker’s sweatshirt.

“You gave her a knife?” Sombra asked in mock horror, pouring herself a mug of coffee. Leaving her opposite side for the stove, Akande merely shrugged as he began adding bacon to a heated skillet, a scalding hiss heralding the end of each slice’s short, successful journey.

“We gave her a rifle, too.”

With as cryptic a smile as she could muster, Widowmaker set the knife aside and relocated the spinach from the cutting board to a nearby bowl. Replacing it with a few handfuls of mushrooms, she started on them one by one, dicing them evenly before adding them to the greens as she went.

“What’re you making?” Sombra asked, watching the sniper’s motions with interest that seemed to grow in concurrence with each sip of coffee.

“Omelettes,” Widowmaker said. “Bacon, Swiss, spinach, mushrooms obviously. Sun-dried tomatoes, maybe. If I am feeling whimsical.”

“You’re so good to me.”

“Who says it’s for you?” Akande asked over his shoulder.

“I’ll fight you.”

“I’d like you to try.”

“If you are going to wrestle, you are going to do it somewhere else. I have a knife,” the sniper interrupted pointedly, breaking from her work to lift the implement in question to better underscore that fact. “You,” she continued, leveling it in Akande’s direction, “finish the bacon so I can use the stove. And you—,” another pause, this time to gesture to Sombra, “can finish preparing the vegetables so I can take a coffee break.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Sombra asked incredulously, hands raised palms-out as Widowmaker offered her the knife.

“Hardly,” the assassin replied, deadpan. Sombra took it with obvious reluctance, setting her mug beside Oso and before turning her attention to the remaining mushrooms with a mix of dread and resignation. Pressing a kiss against the shaved side of her head, Widowmaker followed in the hacker’s earlier footsteps, procuring a mug of her own and filling it. She watched the other woman from the corner of her eye, prolonging the action with pointed interest as Sombra sliced one mushroom, then another — her motions slow, unpracticed, and unsteady. Canting her head to one side, Widowmaker idly considered the series of questions and observations that crept to mind: did Sombra not cook? Clearly not with enough frequency to garner any proficiency with basic cuts. What did she eat on her own? Cereal? Hopefully not just cereal.

These were small things, little questions she’d neither thought nor had the occasion to ask. Sombra was a mystery, the life which predated her time with Talon obscured in significant parts and otherwise only glimpsed in the occasional, unpredictable anecdote. Widowmaker never pried, not even as their relationship shifted in scope: Sombra would tell her what she wanted, and that was quite sincerely good enough. Still, such small details were, if nothing else, interesting, and with what small degree of care she offered the hacker, so, too, did she extend curiosity as to the inner workings of her life.

As she watched, she noted a familiar frustration darkening Sombra’s expression: the knit of her brow and the frown that tugged at her mouth; the occasional colorful obscenity grunted between clenched teeth. Widomaker recognized it from almost a month ago, from their first attempt at taming the estate’s extensive gardens. This much she was familiar with: when the hacker wasn’t good at something, she spiraled - hard.

“Here,” the she offered, taking a long sip of coffee before setting her mug beside Sombra’s. “Let me help.”

Sidling up behind the hacker, she took each of her hands in her own, positioning them accordingly. It was more familiarity than she preferred to demonstrate in Akande’s presence, and that alone sent a transient rush of warmth creeping along her neck and cheeks; still, this was educational, and she brushed off that shyness with practiced, reflexive ease. Sombra glanced over her shoulder, meeting the sniper’s eyes with curiosity.

“Not sure help will do much,” she muttered.

“It will,” Widowmaker insisted. “Now,” she continued, firming her grip just enough to redirect the other woman’s attention to the task at hand. “For an omelette, you’ll want to perform a Brunoise dice - the smallest possible cut; this allows us to better mix the ingredients into the eggs. To start: cut the mushrooms into squares. It will make the subsequent cuts easier.”

She guided the other woman’s hands as she spoke so they performed the action in unison; together, they reduced a handful of mushrooms to petite cubes, setting the discarded, smaller bits in the bowl with the spinach to clear additional space on the cutting board. “Parfait. Now we julienne them. Thin cuts, a millimeter or two wide.”

She could feel tensile muscle tightening beneath her palms, the firmness borne of frustration resulting in a too-tight grip and uneven, slanted cuts. Sombra’s rigidity was practically its own aura, belying her displeasure at the imperfection of her work. Once, twice Widowmaker considered offering further instruction, but knew from experience that too much interjection would only worsen her mood. Instead, she simply maintained the contact between them, moving in tandem as she lowered her head enough to nestle one cheek against the other woman’s temple.

“Looks like shit,” Sombra sighed as she finished slicing the remaining mushrooms into thin strips. “Sorry.”

“Do not apologize. This will sound odd coming from me, but it does not have to be perfect. It is going to get put into some eggs and eaten.”

Clucking her tongue, Sombra chuckled bitterly. “Where is Widowmaker and what have you done with her?”

“You should ask her about the first time she tried making omelettes,” Akande smirked as he plated the bacon, patting it dry with a paper towel.

“Oh?” Sombra asked, eyebrows raised.

Widowmaker only shook her head, giving the hacker an encouraging nudge. “Finish these and I will tell you,” she insisted. “All you have to do is slice them in the opposite direction.”

Rolling her eyes, Sombra returned to the last of her work with the sniper’s assistance. “Loosen your grip, cherie,” she whispered gently, “and do not hold your breath.” The spy complied with some effort, leaning into the motion as she relaxed ever so slightly.

“You going to tell me about that first time?” she asked distractedly.

“Mm. Gabriel was cleaning it off the ceiling for a week,” Widowmaker answered, gradually relinquishing her grip as Sombra settled into the last of her task. While she still worked slowly, the repetitious, cyclical movements which comprised this particular assignment soon evened into something almost like fluidity as she eased into her work. Silence settled over the kitchen, Sombra cutting, Akande tearing the bacon into bite-sized pieces, and Widowmaker simply watching as the other woman allowed herself the same imperfections she only found acceptable in the kitchen.

It was strange, that she minded less here. In the field, precision and perfection comprised the razor-thin line between life and death. She was always two steps ahead of herself and three ahead of her mark - always thinking, always running, always calculating trajectories and wind drift and velocity and distance. A good sniper could juggle two of these; she juggled them all.

Cooking was different — if not out of necessity then out of the idle curiosity she harbored in the face of such a remarkably mundane challenge. Though she harbored little intent to pursue it seriously, Gabriel’s tendency toward a prepackaged diet of convenience - a habit she suspected had worsened in Akande’s absence - led her to commit to a culinary self-education. Progress was slow at first, her first serious attempts at preparing anything more complex than grilled cheese marked by insufficient portions and almost-fires and the occasional, mortifying brush with food poisoning. On those nights - at least the ones where illness wasn’t a looming threat - she would apologetically procure some less officious fast fare - a tacit apology for time and patience wasted on Gabriel’s behalf.

She stuck with it, practicing with the same unflinching dedication she exercised in every other aspect of life and finding it paired well with other habits: a prelude to an evening in, a coda to early morning calisthenics. Eventually, she stumbled into proficiency despite only having so much time to dedicate to what she grudgingly recognized as a hobby. Luckily, aspirations were the last thing on her mind; she simply found the practice, variability, and room for experimentation strangely comfortable. Nothing was ever the same twice and nothing was ever perfect, but the outcomes, at this point, were almost always enjoyable.

“Es todo!” Sombra chirped, triumphantly slamming the knife down and exchanging it for her mug. Widowmaker peered over the hacker’s shoulder to appraise the fruits of her labor.

“That is a lot of very small cubes,” she observed dryly, trying and failing to stifle the grin threatening the corner of her mouth.

“And?” Sombra asked, one hand drifting back toward the knife.

“You did well, cherie. They are beautiful small cubes.”

The hacker shrugged. “I didn’t hate that.”

“You will only get better with practice,” Widowmaker said, setting an affirming hand on one shoulder. “I can always use a hand in the kitchen.”

“That’s asking a lot, araña,” Sombra grinned, turning to face her. “Tall order.”

“I am certain I will find a way to make it worth your while.”

*Read from the beginning or check out our intro post! All stories tagged under #glitchfic. Table of contents located here.

[theloobrush]

Racism by degrees

Racism is the unfair treatment of a person by reason only or partially of their skin colour or ethnicity. I know racism exists. From the age of 8 to 13 I was frequently bullied and called a ‘P*ki’, and even a ‘N*gger’ at school because I was just a little bit browner than my peers,  These upsetting experiences were also bizarre to me because I am not from an ethnic minority. The different ethnicity was simply assumed from my skin colour. 

To my mind if we talk about racism, and more especially if we are serious about wanting to fix it, we need to provide evidence in terms of concrete incidences: actions, words, behaviour, rules, policies and laws that need changing. I am very concerned that among social theorists, racism has become ‘abstracted’ and divorced from actual happenings, even economic and social context. Anti-racism has become the servant of ideology, in particular the Cultural Marxism that pervades academia. This ideology wants to generate social conflict between alleged oppressors and oppressed in order to realise utopia via revolution. Signs of this ideology are the presentation of racism as a kind of  vaguely explained taint or miasma, using  fuzzy, ambiguous, nebulous or incoherent concepts such as ‘systemic racism’, ‘institutional racism’ and ‘white privilege’. These notions go far beyond pinpointing wrong doing. They all have in common the ascribing to a social group or body  a ‘collective guilt’ seemingly without the need to prove individual guilt in the present or even prove any particular organisational structures or policies are causally having a bad effect.  But if accusations of racism are not attached to actual acts of racism, what we have created is a free floating mirage, floating free from any facts. This worldview is as dangerous as the denial that racism exists.

But if you believe there is something that is meant by ‘systemic’ or ‘institutional’ racism,  then I’m going to help you out by demonstrating what you are (probably) referring to is a type of underlying subjective mindset. Except this is a mindset shared, to some degree, by most human beings. I could call this the ‘pre-racist’ mindset, but this ‘pre-racism’ isn’t inevitably morally bad or invidious. Nor does this pre-racism necessarily lead to actual racism. This pre-racist mindset is as old as the hills and better referred to as Xenophobia. Literally, the ‘fear’ of the outsider. While Xenophobia has come to mean the ‘hate or dislike’ of the outsider  I have no doubt the Greeks were right first time. A natural anxiety may be the reason we have a ‘problem’ with outsiders at all.

So my argument is Racism is rooted in our xenophobic attitudes to others who are not part of our group. In a somewhat different context Scottish historian Neil Oliver pointed out that ‘Human beings have been tribal since the dawn of our species,and before. Chimpanzees are tribal. Gorillas are tribal.’*  It shouldn’t be at all surprising that the presence of newcomers  might at the very least create reactions within the tribe. On the positive side, newcomers also often bring new things of value that change the community for the better. Barely any human progress would have occurred if human tribes had been shut off entirely from outside influences.

I believe there is such a thing as a human social ecology, and communities have a natural equilibrium developed over generations that we identify as ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’. This is an equilibrium that can be destabilized for good or ill (usually both) by any significant change. One such is the  mass movement of one people in a short period (say one or two generations) whether by colonization or by migration to an area populated by an existing indigenous people.  I believe the mass movement of peoples inevitably produce some measure of social - tribal - conflict. The greater the difference in values, the greater the flashpoints. Anyone who cares about social peace must acknowledge that celebrating multiculturalism is backing a huge social experiment with uncertain outcome and where liberal optimism is flying in the face of much historical experience. The issue is not that one culture is ‘superior’ to another - we’d need some independent objective measure to argue otherwise - it is simply that two different cultures of equal objective value and merit, must clash.

I must reiterate. Racism is a bad thing. Why should anyone be treated less well than another person by reason of something that is out of their control like their colour or ethnic heritage? I didn’t want that for myself, so I should not want you to suffer that experience either. We all want to live in a society where each person is equal under the law, equally protected by (and from) the forces of law and order, and all get a fair opportunity for success without artificial barriers, presumptions and prejudice getting in their way. And if this isn’t important to you, remember that we are all members of some minority or other. 

It would be equally unwise to not admit xenophobia, if not actual racism, comes very naturally and starts off in the most subtle, and entirely innocent forms. From birth, and without any particular plan or assumptions, we extend our lives beyond our social circle but gravitate to those of similar interests. There is nobody on earth who is so open they care equally for every human being.  And even if we felt that way, establishing  bonds of trust - the lubricant of social life - with those who are culturally very different to us, is not easy. Familiarity, shared expectations and shared social customs and behaviours, and especially shared language, greatly lessen our social anxiety. 

Racism will occur when very different populations of people are pushed together, especially if the resources we all need are scarce or under pressure. A rapid increase in cultural heterogeneity in a community is not some unalloyed good because the instinctual social bonds that bind us will surely be weakened, at least in the short term. An altruistic, God like love of diversity and difference for its own sake requires a form of sophisticated thinking that competes with our base instincts. Instincts which more often than not are behaviour adaptations that once aided our survival.

Here is my take on the types, or better, degrees of xenophobia. Remember behaviours don’t automatically follow, if they do, they may give rise to both stronger group identity and in-group social bonds as well as the unfair behaviour toward outsiders. I have used pejorative descriptions to show extremes of the the mindset - which is informed more by emotion than reason- are not ‘good’ for social peace. Yes, Xenophobia is natural, but so is death and disease which we try to avoid. These mindsets involve objectively unreasonable and illogical prejudices until we have made the effort to get to know someone from an outsider group. And then, even if 10, 50 or 99% of an outsider group, does seem to fit some preconceived negative stereotype, this does not mean everyone from the outsider group is like that.  We might be missing out on a beautiful, mutually beneficial relationship.

The Base Level. Innocent ‘casual’ Xenophobia.

Unconscious group bias - the apparently universal tendency to prefer those most similar and like ourselves and to be less naturally trusting of outsiders and newcomers. We give people like ourselves the benefit of the doubt; we tend to empathise more. We’d rather ignore outsiders, we prefer to have people like ourselves around us; we are ignorant of the history or culture of the outsider; the outsider’s  manners and behaviour are strange, alien and most especially, unpredictable. The latter unpredictability may feed our anxiety in interactions.

Prick Level Xenophobia

Our bias means we cold shoulder outsiders; we now prefer to have our own group around and we are likely to be conscious of our exclusively. We uncritically accept stereotypes of the other group. We distrust the outsider group to a significant degree. We are highly suspicious of them, but we make no effort to befriend them or learn about them. We are starting to build a negative narrative about the other group or our relationship to them.

Wanker Level Xenophobia

We now believe our group is superior to another, outsider, group.  Our success is explained in terms of our group's alleged unique and innate characteristics which just ‘are’. Attitudes to outsiders can range from the patronizing, mockery and condescension to justifying less favourable treatment in terms of our greater ‘desert’. Usually the sense of superiority includes a judgement of intellectual or moral superiority: our group are good, the best or better; that other group are worse or simply bad. We quickly see only the negative, we ignore the positive in outsiders. Along with our sense of superiority is the desire to preserve that superiority or dominance.

Arsehole Level Xenophobia

Without good evidence we conclude an entire outsider group are a physical threat; we are now stirred to action, our reasoning is increasingly clouded by the emotions of fear and anger.  Or less dramatically, the outsider group may be perceived as an obstacle to our personal prosperity, a barrier to advancement or simply undermining our way of life by replacing their culture with their own. We see them as in collective competition against ‘our’ people for scare resources (housing, jobs, public services), moreover we believe this is ‘unfair’ competition produced by certain benefits or alleged privileges that have been inappropriately bestowed upon them.

Coda

Lots of experiences in our lives soften or harden (reinforce) the xenophobic tendencies that presumably develop sometime during childhood, as we acquire a sense of ourselves and our place in the world.

Sadly, in the summer of 2020 a significant section of the population is drifting toward arsehole levels of xenophobia. And my controversial final comment is this: no race or colour is immune from a proliferation of xenophobic pricks, wankers and arseholes.

Athlete’s Footnotes

*Neil Oliver on TalkRadio. See https://youtu.be/rWLde0uO6u8

[withasmoothroundstone]

I’ve been struggling with how hard it is to hold onto full consciousness that  I’m a human being equal to other human beings.

And understand that this is confusing.  So when I write about decisions I am making, don’t take them as judgements on people who don’t or can’t make similar decisions. And don’t assume that I am even totally certain I’m right -- I’m pretty sure  I’m right about the core idea, but the details are confusing as hell.  

In a lot of this, I feel like I’m in some kind of freefall.  People have dealt with similar things for a long time, and I’ve gone out of my way to seek them out and learn as much as I can.  But a lot of the learning is necessarily by analogy.  And there are paths I’m trying to take -- I’m certain others have taken them before me, but if any of them were able to write more than the most cursory maps, I haven’t been able to find them.  

Which is why it becomes important to record even my own flailing in the dark.  Because maybe -- it’s been the case before -- maybe it will help someone who’s flailing around in here with me, perhaps freefalling in the same place but we’re all unseen to each other, only sensed indirectly.

I have been writing a lot of things, none of which are finished yet.  I can’t really help the length.  I’m sorry in advance to anyone who (like me, believe it or not) has trouble reading long things.

Also understand why I’ve put photos throughout this post in various places.  Some things I can only say that way, and I find it important to remind people of there being physical real humanity behind all these words.  The words are just an attempt to convey things that words can only point to without getting there.  So you’ll also see things like this (and if I could do image descriptions I wouldn’t need the images -- all I can say for any of them is that they show my face as I’m writing different parts of this, which by the way was not written in order):

Being sick is a weird thing.  It renders me vulnerable to all manner of nonsense.  But it also pulls down my defenses against reality. We’ve all got defenses against reality. I’m perhaps more aware of mine than a lot of people, but still can only pull them down at will for short periods of time. (We’ve also all got defenses against unreality -- and those are incredibly important. Being sick makes it hard to defend against either one, so what happens is always a mixed bag.)

Right now can be almost unbearably painful.  Because I am aware of my full humanity, or as aware of it as I can generally get.  And that means being aware of how much of an unperson I am, and others like me are. And by the way -- if you see me as a person because I’ve proven it to you, but people otherwise just like me who haven’t proven it are not people to you, I’m not actually a person to you either.  Real people’s personhood is not conditional.

I’ve been thinking about a lot of things for awhile, a long while, and not been able to articulate a single one in a full post.  This is the first attempt that I think will actually make it. 

But what prompted this post in particular.

There’s a lot of people in my life who vary a lot in how much I’m considered a person to them.

There’s one person who, while they connect with me in certain areas of life we have in common, I’m still pretty clearly not a person to them.

I was thinking how they are a person to me. How I use the areas where we can connect to try to understand them.  How I am always trying to understand other people.  Not just intellectually but to have genuine compassion wherever thy are at and whatever they are doing.

And.  Okay.  I’m disabled.  They’re either nondisabled or at least... not in a way I know of, and not in a way that puts them at the mercy of the systems I depend on for survival.

And the most common roadmaps followed by people in this corner of the online world, would tell me to just ignore our common humanity.  To make things even more adversarial, more us-vs.-them, than they started out.  To protect my own and to hell with everyone else unless they did exactly as I wanted and expected, even if what I wanted and expected changed constantly and unpredictably.

But that’s not a viable way for anything to actually work.

And also...

Okay one of my posts is about a concept I’m semi-borrowing from Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wind In The Door:  Xing.  In A Wind In The Door, there are evil creatures called Echthroi who try to X people -- to erase their entire existence across time and space, at the deepest level.

And I don’t accept all the parameters in that book.  I don’t think real Xing is possible.  But I think people try to X people all the time.  I think disabled people are highly subject to Xing and this is highly socially acceptable.  I also think that even attempted Xing, whether small-scale or large-scale, is the worst thing a human being can do to another human being.  And the fact that it’s socially acceptable in many contexts doesn’t make things better.

Xing is about trying to erase your soul, or pretending your soul never existed.  It doesn’t matter if you believe in no souls one soul, many souls, you frigging know what I mean, the part of you most connected to reality, the parts of you that make you real, the seat of your personhood, whatever you want to call it.  So please don’t bullshit me about my language being wrong or your own discomfort at what you see as a religious concept.  These things are hard enough to write about without having to second-guess every other word I write.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter what your mind or your heart tell you.  Your soul knows when you’re being Xed.  And it screams.  It fights to be taken as real.  No matter what choices you make.  No matter what cognitive abilities you have.  No matter how emotionally anesthetized you think you are.  Your soul responds.

And the thing about Xing is, it doesn’t just work one way.  When someone tries to X someone else, or participates in Xing someone else (often as part of a larger pattern that guides their behavior, such as working at an institution), they end up Xing themselves.  I don’t know how it works, I only know that it works like that every time.  When someone tries to X someone, the only winners in the end are the Echthroi.

So my instinct towards compassion for people regardless of what they’ve done, is not wrong.  And understand -- by compassion, I mean love, I mean empathy.  I don’t mean excusing people.  I don’t mean forgiving people, although that can happen.  I don’t mean putting me or anyone else in danger.  I don’t mean sparing their feelings or avoiding the harsh reality of what they are doing.  I don’t mean acting like compassion for them is more important than compassion for the people they are Xing.  I don’t mean talking endlessly about how ~understandable~ it is for a mother to commit premeditated murder against her disabled child, how people are supposedly wrong to be disgusted and angry.   I don’t mean ignoring who ultimately has power over who else.  Don’t get me wrong here.

I do mean that recognizing our common humanity is ultimately vital for all of us.

And when I say that Xing Xes the Xer, that’s universal.  So if I respond to a person who participates in my Xing, by trying to turn the tables and X her, then I am Xing myself as well.  I lose touch with my own humanity.  I lose touch with the humanity of others.  If we, as a group, respond to the constant threat of being Xed by trying to X the people Xing us, then we are destroying ourselves.  We are aiding in our own Xing.  We are losing touch with the humanity of everyone, and this also means that when we are in positions of power, we will participate in the Xing of other groups of people.

And the only things that win in such a scenario are the Echthroi.

No amount of theory, rationalization, justification, will change this situation.  This is a fundamental property of reality.  Encouraging people to find elaborate ways to ignore that encourages people to inadvertently destroy themselves.

And these are things I found out when I listened to my soul begging not to be Xed.

None of this stops the fact that a struggle will have to happen in some form or another.

But it changes the shape of that struggle.

It changes what is acceptable and what is not.

Because I refuse to participate in the worst crime against humanity that exists.  Even if it is a crime that will never be a crime, that can’t be legislated, judged, heard evidence for.  It’s still real.  

And nothing can get away from that.  There are certain things that are just part of how the world works, and even if we can’t make sense of them, we can’t make them go away when it seems convenient.  I say seems convenient, because I’m convinced that even when Xing people seems right, feels right, it’s never right, and will never solve anything for real.  

I don’t know how to go forward.

I don’t know how to fight injustice without making it worse.

I don’t think there is or can be a formula or set of rules for this.

All I know is that my friend heard someone screaming for help across the street.

And they could not help this woman.

She’s in a nursing home.

My friend doesn’t trust the cops at all -- but still almost called them to make sure this woman isn’t being physically or sexually abused.

And all I knew was I was suddenly terrified.

And I was reminded of something.

A woman in a nursing home.

She screamed for help every time I saw her.  Stood in her room, alone, yelling “HELP! HELP! HELP! HELP! HELP!”

A worker at the nursing home felt sorry for her.  Told me, “That poor woman, she has dementia.”

The worker was participating in that woman’s Xing the moment they made her situation one of sad inevitability, her cries for help solely the product of a malfunctioning body.

And I feared if the police went to that place, with this other woman screaming for help, they would possibly find no evidence of physical harm and would conclude “she has dementia”.

And I remembered the woman from my childhood visits to nursing homes.

And  I remembered that she didn’t just have dementia.

She lived in a small room with nothing to make it hers.

Her door was open but she had virtually no human interaction.

And she lived in an institution.  Institutions always X people.  

So she was being Xed in so many ways.

And her soul felt it and responded.  You could hear it in her voice.  There is a sound to a soul that is refusing to be erased.

I don’t know -- and honestly don’t care on one level -- how much she understood intellectually.  Whether she knew where she was.  Whether she knew who she was.

I don’t have dementia.  I do have wildly inconsistent cognitive abilities.  And I do tend to become severely delirious if sick enough.

I have been in hospitals and been too delirious to know where I was or even who I was. I’ve had time drag to a crawl in such a state.  And my only interaction -- if you could call it that -- was when nurses came in every few hours to switch my IV bags or sometimes clean me up.  This was not actual human interaction.  They were not acknowledging I existed.

And I felt it. My soul felt it. And my soul responded.  

So I know that you don’t need to have enough working brain cells to rub together to create conscious thoughts, to feel when you’re being Xed, and to respond on a primal level.  

This is the worst pain someone can inflict on someone else. And people do it to sick and disabled people habitually, put us in places that force people to do it even when they would not otherwise, and some form of this is completely socially acceptable in most cultures.

People act like I’m too stupid to know other people are even more stupid than me.

I think it’s pretty fucking evil to act like Xing people with cognitive disabilities doesn’t damage us or cause us pain.

I think this evil has become commonplace and acceptable.  This does not make it less evil.  Sometimes it’s impossible to evade a structure that forces you to at least partially participate in evil.  But it’s rarely impossible to try to do as much good as possible.

And that starts with knowing we have souls and that we can suffer and that our suffering from being Xed is not a sad but inevitable result of having a disability.  And that if we seem soulless and empty that is an illusion, and you can fight illusions if you know they are illusions.

What becomes horrible is when it’s too painful to know you have a soul and are fully human.

Because if you know -- really, deeply know -- that you yourself are human.

Then you can’t ignore the pain of your soul.  You can’t ignore the contrast between what other people see and who you are.

And that can be dangerous.

It can be dangerous to feel, to act on what you feel, to yell for help or to lash out or any of the other things that feeling your humanity under onslaught can make you want to do.

It feels safer to become numb.

It feels safer to accept that you are not a person, or are only a partial person.

Some of us learn this very young.

And we participate in our own Xing.

And when you begin to feel -- you can do things that put you in danger, that may even put others in danger.

Which is why some part of me deeply knows that the instinct to dig in, to make it us and them, to hate everyone who hates me, to X everyone who Xes me, to lash out in any and every direction... this instinct is wrong, it contains illusions, it is deeply understandable and deeply wrong and deeply ineffective but it can feel so right in the moment.

And as communities we sometimes celebrate and encourage that impulse.  We nurture it and let it grow into something that is ultimately both evil and ineffective but that feels better than doing nothing and that is sometimes partially effective.  But some part of it is doomed, it is dooming ourselves, it is dooming anyone we might have genuine power over, it is so very seductive and so very dangerous.

So is passively allowing ourselves to be subhuman or partially human, or acting like we must go through life never harming anyone on any level.

Giving in to that seductive impulse to X people, or the impulse to be so utterly passive we X ourselves, are not the only two options.

But the effective options... they’re confusing.  There’s not as many roadmaps.  There’s not as many people.  They look different for each person.  Nobody can do everything.  Everyone has a part to play.  Sometimes people do good things while doing the wrong thing.  There aren’t words for these situations.

But as many of us as can, we have to try.

We have to grope around in the dark, to try to navigate this freefall, to find and create paths for each one of us.

It’s hard.  And confusing.

And right now.  I’m looking at you.  Whoever you are.  One human being with a soul to another human being with a soul.

I see you.  You are real.  So am I.  We’re in this together.

Sometimes you need a reminder that each of us is a human being behind the computer screen.

I don’t know where I’m going.  Where we’re going.  But I know I have to try.  I can’t accept any system that Xes anyone.  Whether that system is an institution, or an attempted fight or philosophy for liberation.  I can’t.  I won’t.  I will always try.

I won’t accept that anyone is soulless or empty.

I won’t accept that my soul always has to be filtered through an ego that distorts its intentions.

I won’t accept being Xed.

Which also means I won’t accept having to X anyone.

I can’t always resist doing the wrong thing.  There will be systems outside me that push me in the wrong direction.  There will be my own ego and illusions steering me wrong.  There will be unintended consequences, both for good and for bad.  But I can’t give up and act like that doesn’t matter.

If you are out there trying to figure this out, trying to grope around in the dark, I am here with you.  Lots of people are here with you.  None of us are alone.

And... sometimes I wonder if I’m crazy.  Well I know I’m crazy in one sense.  But what I mean is -- my perceptions of reality, so few people voice these things, so many people participate in the Xing of me and people like me, that I wonder if perceiving our humanity and soul and everything is some kind of illusion.

And that I even wonder that -- that is a symptom of how thoroughly fucked up and pervasive the Xing of people like me has become.

I’ll probably talk about my perceptions of other people in another post.  That’s an entire topic in itself.

Also -- people often think there’s something special about my cats.  Because of the way they interact with people.  Because of the way you can feel that they have souls.

There’s nothing special about my cats.  I do my best not to X them.  They don’t learn to X themselves.  That’s the only thing different.  You can’t always do right by cats but you can try as hard as possible. 

I am like a cat who has learned to partially X themselves, but is beginning to listen to their soul.

One of the worst things for me is being conditionally a person.

It’s being a person because I can type in coherent English some of the time and people know it.

It’s being a person because I’ve displayed a real or illusory ability.  And people just like me who haven’t -- or who are assumed they haven’t, even sometimes have people deliberately cover up that they have -- aren’t people.  This is still Xing.  And it gets really insidious when people go, “You’re not like them, and they aren’t like you,” as if they decide.  As if, in the wrong situation, I am not somehow exactly “them”.  Real people’s personhood is never conditional.  

Or.

It’s people trying to make me a person.  I’m a person already.  You didn’t create my soul.   You don’t make yourself better by going through the motions of making me look kind of real.

Or.

It’s people saying I’m a person.  But not meaning it.  Not understanding it.  

Sometimes they gush endlessly about how I have a heart, a personality, but they treat me like a giant baby, and I am meant to accept this in order to make them feel better about themselves.

I can’t be that.  I can’t accept that.  My soul screams when I see it happening to other people.

You can’t make someone a person by celebrating that they are a mindless heart, or a heartless mind, or a bodiless mind, or a bodiless soul.  

All of us have whatever is meant by mind, heart, body, and soul.  We don’t all look the same, we are not all the same, but none of us are missing essential parts of our nature.   

You don’t have to compensate for the the ‘missing’ part by emphasizing some other part.  You don’t have to tell physically disabled people to ignore and disregard our bodies and cognitively disabled people to ignore and disregard our minds and autistic people to ignore and disregard our hearts and all combinations of these and more things.  “You don’t have a mind but that’s okay.” “You don’t have a body but that’s okay.”  “You don’t have a heart but that’s okay.”

No.  it’s not okay.  Our minds and bodies and hearts and souls may look different, may be different, but they’re not absent.

It’s not okay. It can never work.  It is not the answer.  It is not liberation.  It is not freedom.  It is not love.  It is Xing in disguise.

I have to be a human being.  I have to be a human being.  I have to be a human being.

Being a human being hurts sometimes.

It cuts so deeply to watch yourself being Xed.  To be isolated.  To be expected to be grateful for being allowed to exist.  To be expected to be grateful for Xing. To be expected to be grateful for partial or conditional personhood.

To experience this from people who are close to you, people who say they love you, people you love, people who love you in one way but not in another.

To have to figure out a way to accept the humanity of someone who won’t accept yours -- without taking away from the magnitude of the horror they are inflicting upon you.

To feel like you are doing this alone, or nearly alone.

To struggle into consciousness, struggle into awareness of your own reality, struggle to maintain that awareness even when every instinct tells you to shut down.  To struggle to maintain awareness of who you are without going crazy in a world that tells you you don’t exist.

I say it again -- I’m here with you.

I am a person.  You are a person.  Whoever and whatever you are.

I am looking at you to tell you that I am real.  But also -- this is irrevocably linked to that -- everyone is real.  Everyone like me.  Everyone.  

Including people who feel every inch of everything I have said and all the things I want to say and can’t, but who will never speak or write a single word that anyone can understand.  Including people who are in protective hiding from their own humanity.  ALL OF US.  

And I am not different or special here.  I’m not speaking only for myself when I say that I am real.  I am amplifying the message of lots of people saying the exact same damn thing without words.  I am amplifying my own message at times in the past when I have not been capable of words, at times in the future when I will not be capable of words.  This is all of us and always.  

Some people are pouring every ounce of their being into saying this but nobody hears, not even their loved ones.  Or they only partially hear, and can’t hear all of it.  So I’m saying it.

Some people are unable to risk doing that, even as their souls are screaming unheard.  Sometimes unheard even by themselves.  So I’m saying it.

I am telling you this is happening because right now I can.  I’ve never been able to before.  I don’t know if I will be again.  But right now I am doing my best.

I am also telling you that no matter who you are, I know that you are real.  I don’t have to know you personally.  

Also, to make it very clear:  I don’t have to like you.  I don’t have to trust you.  I don’t have to allow you to harm people.  I don’t have to totally avoid harming you if it’s the only way to stop you from doing harm.  If punching you in the face will keep you from killing someone I’ll do it, but I’ll do everything in my power never to do that just because I feel angry at you.  The world is messy and sometimes we have to make messy choices..  It doesn’t mean I don’t know or care that you exist.  

Also:  I can’t do this alone.  None of us can. We were never meant to.  No one person was ever meant to do every right thing.  It’s not humanly possible.  All of us are prone to particular errors as well as particular ways of getting things exactly right.  All any of us can do is figure out who we are supposed to be and be that person in the most active and committed way we can.  None of us will get it right all the time.  All of us have something valuable to give the world.  The best thing we can do is get out of our own way.

This is not like adopting a permanent unchanging moral code.  This is something each of us has to choose moment by moment.  Because we are living beings in a living world.  Pretending the world isn’t shifting and changing around us, and that we don’t have to respond to changes in the world and in ourselves, won’t help.

And even if we’re fumbling in the dark, in freefall, not really totally knowing where we are, the fact that we are trying counts for something.  There’s a reason that parts of the world got abruptly worse when “intent isn’t magic” became a meme.  

There’s a grain of truth there -- unintended consequences are real.  But in adopting that as a motto, people forgot something very important:  

The sincere and dedicated attempt to truly do the right thing can be extremely powerful even when we don’t always know what’s right or fuck up or cause problems for people.  Sometimes the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but total disregard of intentions is a surefire portal to hell on earth.

Knowing you have a soul is hard.

Love is hard.  It’s not a feeling.  It can cause feelings -- lots of them, not always pleasant either -- but it’s not itself a feeling.  It’s a thing, a surprisingly concrete reality, a constant action, a choice.

And without it I don’t think we can get very far.

And if we X anyone we X everyone.  And that goes well beyond ourselves, well beyond even just humanity.

There’s also been a lot of talk about whether humanity can physically survive at this point.

And I think we’re honor-bound to try, even if we can’t.  

And if we can’t -- even if we’re dead certain we can’t -- we have a responsibility to all the life that will take our place in the world when we’re gone.  

That’s something that applies on a personal level, to our own personal deaths.  And it’s something that applies on a large-scale level, to our survival as groups of people, as cultures, as species, as life.  

Even if we find out for sure we won’t be around, that not only doesn’t let us off the hook, it makes it more important we try to do right by whoever and whatever comes after.  Even if we feel kind of like this:

Part of the reason I’ve had this come up again and again in recent years is I really didn’t expect to survive this long.  Without certain medical diagnoses happening at nearly the last second, I wouldn’t be here.  Many times over.  I was in the ICU a year ago.  I have an aspiration-related infection right now that, even though it is going great compared to some I’ve had, still fucked up my pulmonary function tests this week more than I expected.  These things force you to think on this level.  

None of us knows how long we have, whether we’re healthy or not.  It’s important to remember that and to make the time we have count.  These are not fluffy platitudes.  They are intense, deep, difficult realities with complicated answers we may never totally find.  But it’s important to try.

So I’m here to ask you.  Maybe even to beg you.

To (if you have them in the first place) put down all the tools you normally use to pick apart and demolish arguments, to decide whether a person is espousing a particular ideological philosophy and whether that philosophy is an acceptable one or an unacceptable one.  

This isn’t about winning and losing, gaining points or one-upmanship morally or intellectually.  This isn’t about your ego, or mine, or the ways they can duke it out, or getting the words and concepts exactly perfect, or what team you’re on, or what team I’m on.  So put all that crap down just for a second.  And if you get hung up on ‘soul’ or some other word, read what I said above about that and put all that crap down for a second too.  And if you don’t personally like me -- you don’t have to, but please put that down as well.  For at least a moment.

And just understand, even for a second:

I have a soul.

People who are like me have a soul.

People who look like me have a soul.

Disabilities don’t ever get rid of that.

We can’t go around Xing people -- erasing their souls, or trying to, or pretending their souls don’t exist.

And we don’t have to -- can’t -- know everything, get everything right, be everything for everyone, avoid all conflict, agree, etc.

But I think we do have to try to keep in mind people have souls and do our best to always act on that.  Both towards others, and towards ourselves.

I don’t think I actually know that much -- but I think I know that, and that the years of effort it’s taken to say this mean something.  And understand as much as you can -- it really is years, I’m not exaggerating.  And that if you saw me on the street you might think me mindless or soulless.  And that it’s not my ability to write this (or anything) at this (or any) particular moment in time, that contradicts that assessment.  But my ability to write can make you aware of it, so I’m taking as much advantage of that as I can.

And I’m pretty sure it’s our reality that matters, and everything else is details we have to muddle through as best we can.  We need each other.

Signed,

One small but important part of existence, in one small but important place, like you.

[danganronpa-imagines]

Ahem- Coming from a hardcore fangirl (plus new follower UwU). Can I ask for a yandere (if you don't know it's bacicly love sick for a person they care about) Angie,Tojo,Maki,Amami,and Tenko reacting if the one they have strong feelings to is about to get executed? (it's okay if this ask is not worthy- but hey good luck-)

Hello there! And of course you can! I recently learned what a ‘yandere’ is, so I should be set. Thank you for your request and wishing me good luck! I’ll try my best! Though, I’m not sure what you mean by ‘not worthy’? There is no request that is not worthy! (My response to this request contains some sensitive material, so please be careful!)

Angie Yonaga 

- “Atua has declared that Angie is destined to be with you! It is forbidden to go against his word, so don’t run away! Nyahahaha!”

- For someone so blithe and jolly, it was rather uncanny how clingy and unpleasantly persistent Angie was. Perhaps that is why it’s so unsettling? Her grip on your arm was alarmingly firm when she wanted it to be, such as when she would remind you to maintain your innocence and purity so she can someday transcend with you. 

- But it would seem that you will leave without her. You committed murder in hopes to escape her. You didn’t believe in her religion, in the presence of Atua … so, death would do you part, right? 

- You stupefy your surrounding classmates as you reveal your reasonings for committing murder, and horrify them even further as you happily accept your fate. What an inconsiderate reason to murder. You could have just done away with yourself alone, but you chose not to. As you waited for Monokuma to drag you away, you hear your name being called by her voice.

- “You did this because Atua told you to. Angie knows, because he told Angie. It is because we were meant to be together, forever! So, Angie will see S/O soon!”

- Despair. Despair is the only thing you feel as you realize that there is even the slightest chance that you might see her again. And surely enough, following your execution, Angie was found dead in a sea of her own blood, surrounded by towering totems. You two will be together forever now! Atua said so! Nyahaha!

Kirumi Tojo

- You were her master, and as such, she was always by your side. Always. You have requested several times that she distance herself from you, but she insists that if she were to heed to your wishes, she would be unable to protect you. From what, you were unsure. But there was no changing her mind.

- But she was right. You harbored no malicious intentions at the time, and still don’t, but your actions were misunderstood, and one of your classmates antagonized you. They had set up an elaborate trap for you to trigger and fall prey to, resulting in yet another murder and your execution. Kirumi was right … and you regret ever having doubted her. She only wanted the best for you, and you doubted her. 

- Before you could apologize, a shackle closed around your neck and you were snatched by Monokuma, pulled through numerous dark hallways and confined to a chair. You close your eyes, tears streaming down your face. You didn’t want to see what will become of you. You wait. And wait. But the double doors in front of you slam open, and Kirumi bolts to you. She dodges numerous trap doors, spikes, flames and swinging objects before finally picking up the chair you were strapped to.

- She dashes for the doors in a wild, unpredictable manner, throwing off Monokuma’s traps. Once outside the room and in a dimly lit hallway, Kirumi quickly releases you from your imprisonment. It seemed … ominously easy. And Monokuma did nothing to stop her. She clutches your wrist and pulls you along, speeding as fast as she could for the next set of double doors. She could already see it. These hallways will never end, and it will be door after door after door …

- But she was wrong. Upon making it only slightly past the doors that were ahead, with you not too far behind, she felt it. And then she heard it. The slight movement of air generated by the closing of the doors. And then the booming sound of the doors coming together. It resonated and reverberated in the hallway, echoing off the walls. And just like that, she was left with only your severed arm.

- The classmate that set you up never breathed another breath again. And after their death, neither did Kirumi. It was the last task she will ever need to complete, so she no longer had any purpose.

Maki Harukawa

- Maki had always emitted a sinister tenor, but as the Ultimate Caregiver, it was difficult to believe. Children were fond of her for reasons unknown, but whatever their reasons were, they enjoyed her presence. And children wouldn’t favor anyone they deemed scary, would they? Perhaps it was because they were children and you were older, but Maki did not shy away from revealing her aggressive and malicious side to you. 

- Suicide was not an option. She would not allow that. Becoming a victim was also impossible, as she has attacked anyone that was daring enough to approach you. So your only option was to murder, and, acting as if it was a favor, you did away with the classmate that wanted to live the least. Maki helped, believing that it was within her power to escape with you if you were successful, despite Monokuma’s rule. You knew better, however, and were found out easily. You put up little resistance, and were prepared to escape alone.

- She was wrathful. Screaming, she drew her knife to everyone’s necks, murdering the remaining students in cold blood and in rapid succession. They found you out, and ruined everything.

- Despite her deed, you were to be executed still, and she would be the only graduating student. It was then that she came to the calm realization that your death and your separation from her was inevitable. But she didn’t want to be alone. Maki approached you slowly before thrusting the knife through your heart. Your death was instantaneous. There was so much blood. But before she could end her own life, Monokuma did her the honor, as she deprived him of a fun execution. 

Rantarou Amami

- Amami’s affections have become increasingly disturbing. It wasn’t uncommon for him to caress your arms and face suddenly, or to run his fingers through your hair uninvited. He would even go so far and to bury his face in your hair, inhaling and taking in your scent, which seemed to fuel his desires. It was when he tied you down to a chair to decorate your nails that you finally decided you could no longer bear the weight of his existence suffocating yours. 

- You decided that you ought to kill him. Because of his obsessive nature, his cleverness has dissipated, and was easily convinced to lower his guard and become cornered. But once you raised your knife, you felt someone else’s presence behind you, and you swung instinctively. You drew blood, and there was a thud. 

- Despite your advances, Amami still loved you, believing that you meant to kill him and be found out so you could be with him beyond this material life. You angrily tell him otherwise, but he laughs and brushes it off. It wasn’t surprising that you were found out rather easily. No one wanted to see you go. It was an accident, despite your initial intentions. 

- You were dragged off to your execution just as quickly as your murdered your now fallen classmate. You were riding on a conveyer belt amongst scrap metal and car parts, and behind you was a rotating circular blade. You take deep breaths as you prepare yourself for your inevitable fate. You close your eyes. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. However, you hear someone call your name from above.

- It was Amami, and he leaps down to join you on the conveyer belt. He lifts up your hands and holds them in his, putting them to his lips and kissing them. 

- “Looks like you were wrong to have believed me. In the end, I have always been quite the suspicious guy.”

Tenko Chabashira

- Tenko was quite fond of you, and would always be lingering around nearby or behind corners. She was absolutely smitten, but her excessive nervousness and efforts to try and please you became quite bothersome. She brought you gifts, massaged your feet, and fall into a daze at even the smallest compliment you gave her. To her, you were perfect, and incapable of being malevolent. Little did she realize that you were determined to escape the school and the killing game by participating yourself. 

- You had cut someone up with no hesitation, and had devised a seemingly flawless plan, all the while putting forward a cheerful facade for Tenko. You anticipated, and were even excited, to witness the expression Tenko would display once you were successful in getting away with your deed. But you weren’t. 

- At the very least, you were able to indulge in her despair. Before you were taken away, you falsely told Tenko how much you loved her, holding her close to you before resting your hands on her shoulders and looking her firmly in the eyes. You tell her that if she truly loved you, she would join you in the afterlife. 

- Screams of protest filled the room. You were punched and kicked by some of your male classmates for being so twisted. But it was fine, because you knew she would do it. She would throw away everything blindly for you. And she did. 

[annoyedbythevoid-blog]

Suffering

 Rolling the Dice of Theodicy

                 There are three stages to a human life: birth, the middle, and death. What happens in the middle is an accumulation of choices, reactions, and their consequences. Life is in a constant flux; moving eternally in a serpentine manner that continues with or without your acknowledgment. One can surrender to the unknowing force that propels us forward or be crushed by the weight. We are creatures who are sentient enough to recognize the chaos and the absurdity, because of this, Suffering is inevitable. However, Suffering is necessary and perhaps the greatest teacher if a person wishes to grow and learn about themselves and the world that is before them. One simply needs to be receptive and listen.  

               Our first breath begins with a cry. It is the lament of new terror and our first overwhelming burden of being alive outside the safe womb of mother. Suffering is synonymous with the Earth’s own cycles. Just as seasons come and go, and the oceans break and retreat, as does our Suffering. It itself is a law of nature for human beings. Just as the Earth cannot fight the repeated cycle to heal and balance itself, the same must be applied for us. Every person will wear many Winters in their heart throughout their lifetime. “When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.” (Frankl 78) It truly is man’s destiny to suffer; just as we are meant to face our own death. Each of us will suffer in his or her unique way, and it is our choice to establish meaning to what befalls upon us.  A person must attempt to cultivate a perspective that is suited for their suffering. Frankl explains that humor and hope were the soul’s weapons during the Holocaust. (42) Hope in itself is a product of suffering. If there was no suffering, there would be no reason to give Hope a name. Each individual defines Hope in a different way, however one unifying relation is that Hope is birthed when Suffering is present. Through Suffering, we must ask ourselves what the driving force to exist is, and why we have kept going so far in the first place. As we consider these formidable questions, a deeper sense of purpose or self can begin to mature; a sort of inner submission and complacency that was not present before.

Suffering is the foundation of personal and emotional growth and allows the individual to truly embrace themselves and their responses to the weight of simply living. However, this is a choice that each person must bear. In our modern world, many people collapse from carrying the luggage of life. There are shortcuts and distractions that give the option to ‘evade’ suffering. These can include substance abuse, pharmaceuticals, sex, shopping, eating disorders, television, etc. I will not deny that some individuals with illnesses truly need to be medicated, however, our society is conditioned to advocate shutting down those receptors that allow us to embrace our pain fully. If a person is depressed, anxious, or even suicidal some of the first options that are thrown into their lives are medications, when what is truly necessary is that they have a source that allows them to focus on understanding what the core of their pain is trying to tell them. (Unfortunately, this is also a societal issue. Not everyone has access to true help.)  Suffering disguises itself as an internal demon, one that keeps any logic and sanity tucked away into a corner. However, beneath this illusion is a teacher. Just as biblical angels are much too overwhelming and illuminate for man to fully perceive, they say, “Fear not.” That is what our suffering says to us. Fear not, for there is an admonition of counsel beyond all of those unconscious and unresolved layers.  

               To accept our suffering means submitting the self to the great mystery. Since suffering is just as part of life as anything else, so is our choice to affirm our actions to live and understand it. “…For ultimately, man should not ask himself, ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ but should instead, realize that it is not up to him to question—it is he who is questioned, questioned by life; it is he who has to answer by answering for life. To respond and be responsible” (Frankl 107) A person will walk away empty handed if they are merely trying to extract some sort of answer from life’s big questions. Suffering and Meaning are abstract concepts; ones that shapeshift as we do.  We are responsible in how we interact with Life and the tribulations that are tossed at us. However, this involves the slow trek against the current. A person must allow themselves to be carried through, except on Life’s watch rather their own. If life included no suffering, there would be no reason for autonomous choice. By choosing our reactions to adversaries, we are literally creating ourselves.

               Suffering balances moments of beauty and completes the circle of life. It is our responsibility to assign meaning behind every juncture and epoch. “Thus we see that life’s meaning includes even the meaning of suffering and of death. We have not only the potentiality of giving meaning to our lives by creative acts and by the experience of nature and culture through the experience of love; we have not only the possibility of making life meaningful by creating and loving, but also by suffering: by the way and manner in which we face our fate.” (Frankl 45) Viktor Frankl believed that our attitude towards life was fundamentally important. This could be our contemplation for events and internal sorrows or man using his will to shape his own fate by action. It is a tiresome yet necessary task since life perpetually throws out its tasks to each individual. As a person performs these tasks of life one creates room for expanse and each time grows minutely stronger. This process is a slow and gradual one, however, it is only through unpredictable storms that a captain can truly develop his seaworthiness and talent as a navigator.

               The subject is difficult to helm specifically because of how deeply intimate each person is with their own Suffering. It is a specific art for every person, one that grows more poignant over time and one that should not be diminished or explained as if it were a hard science. Suffering is a spiritual fasting for the self. Since we create our own realities, it’s not an easy task to pin point any concrete benefit for it, except for what we individually elect. The simple foundation is that if any meaning can be found in Suffering it only presents itself if one allows it. The world goes on without you.  It is our autonomous choice to see beyond bad things merely happening to “good” people and realize that there is no such thing as luck, but what our responses to misfortunes are. The Holocaust is an essential example of Suffering because it was the prime image of the evil that human beings were capable of enduring. It almost seems illusory to even imagine justifying such Suffering with some sort of meaning. How can you if you were not there living through it without projecting your own idea of what occurred and how it was dealt with? However, there were survivors, and even though they were forced to live with their own brutal recollections of darkness, perhaps they lived at the very least to understand that calamity can only be justified when a person vindicates it for themselves. When a person suffers, the mind goes into an incubation period and a foreign seed is planted. The seed acts almost like a divine intellect and gradually a person “lives the answers” that they seek. Suddenly a person looks back upon the catalogue of memory and realizes that they lived and learned and because of this each of us is their own teacher.

               In response to being weary of projecting our own hypothesis on other people who endure their own individual suffering, we can instead synchronize our intrinsic suffering to help coax or relate to someone else who might need another perspective at least in the hopes of not feeling isolated. I cannot relate to the survivors of the holocaust by any means, however, I am more equipped to empathize through my Suffering. If human beings lived without Suffering, there would be no reason for empathy. Without empathy, our very momentum for living would be diminished—we are designed to crave connection with one another. Suffering is a universal truth that we share whether one chooses to face it or not, through our unique truths we can reach an apex in true conversation and meaningful connection. Each of us can teach our own version of the trails that were faced and relay them to another. This other human uses their own memory of their Suffering and the process of relation harmonizes. We cannot truly have anybody understand our solitary truth, however, we can aid in helping somebody else realize their own.

               The Garden of Eden is a sham, for this specific world leaves no room to grow and develop our true abilities as humans. If only pleasure and happiness can be attained, then they become the epitome of stagnation. Praise should be given to Eve for consuming the forbidden fruit. The forbidden fruit was “sin” disguised as virtue and a potentiality of wisdom that held a form of verity that man would not have been able to understand otherwise. It was the fall of paradise because even in their pleasure and happiness they were unfulfilled, lacking the final piece in making the complete, mortal circle. Adam and Eve craved the sugary truth before they even knew how to name it. Human beings can be liberated by their suffering because it is the death of an ego and the reminder of one’s own mortality. Without this perpetual resistance, we would be aimless; driven by a carnal desire and instinct, existing without truly living. Fear not. It never gets easier; you just get stronger.

[3liumunati-blog]

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There square measure such a big amount of myths regarding sex throughout gestation that my partner and that i determined to write down a piece of writing to present you absolutely the 100 percent truth regarding dubaiescortsxxx.com/ this tough subject. And you recognize what? The wonderful issue is it clothed to be quite simple. All those recent wives tales clothed to be simply that - fallacies, myths, superstitions, and straightforward downright lies.

So simply why is there such a lot confusion regarding sex throughout pregnancy? i feel the solution lies within the indisputable fact that Western society gets confused once it tries to cope with the concept of a girl as a mother, and therefore the plan of a girl as a sexual being. we tend to prize relationship, however there's still one euphemism of a ethic round the plan of a girl as a sexual being, presumably with as high grade of physical attraction and enthusiasm for sex as a person. thus that is the very first thing you've got to induce out of your head: that sex once you are pregnant is somehow wrong, disrespectful to the baby, or inappropriate in another manner. Here's the truth - sex throughout gestation may be a good thing for each the person, his partner, and therefore the baby! You might be curious why sex at this terribly special time is nice for the baby. There square measure some of reasons. First, sex reinforces the bonds between the mother-to-be and her partner, guaranteeing that their relationship is robust, healthy and intimate. This produces an honest surroundings for the baby when he or she is born. Secondly, once a girl has Associate in Nursing climax, she manufactures giant amounts of endorphins and elation hormones that flow into in her blood and inevitably produce constant sense of relaxation and happiness for the baby as they are doing for the mother. But sadly lots of ladies appear to believe that their partner won't realize them engaging as they grow larger throughout their gestation. the truth is quite different! several men realize a pregnant lady extraordinarily esthetic and engaging, a reality that is hardly shocking after you take into account that a girl is expressing the deepest level of her trait once she's pregnant. Not solely that, however many ladies expertise a good surge in physical attraction throughout their gestation attributable to the dynamic levels of hormones in their blood - and a girl World Health Organization needs sex and alternative high level of concupiscence is incredibly arousing to a person. All in all, it is a formula for a few of the simplest sex that you just will have. A lot of ladies really realize that they expertise orgasms otherwise once they are pregnant: they'll, for instance, really expertise orgasms for the primary time if they've antecedently been anorgasmic. and ladies who've continually been able to get pleasure from climaxs could realize they will reach orgasm additional simply, or that they expertise multiple orgasms for the primary time. All of this is often terribly exciting, and adds an entire new dimension to the relationship between a person and his partner. after you take into account that several ladies feel they've captive totally into their sex, part attributable to their body growing additional female and their breasts enlarging as they prepare to nurture their baby when it has been born, and part as a result of in some deep manner their perform as a girl is currently being consummated, it's hardly shocking that the expression of sex inside a relationship is nice be a bit bit unpredictable throughout gestation. Another of the pernicious myths regarding sex throughout gestation is that it will hurt the baby. this is often utterly untrue within the overwhelming majority of traditional pregnancies. For one issue the baby is well protected in its sac, a bag filled with fluid that protects it sort of a shock, similarly as by the robust muscular walls of the female internal reproductive organ. And since a thick mucous secretion plug seals the cervix so neither bacterium nor cum will enter the female internal reproductive organ throughout sexual activity, there's no danger from sex because the baby grows within its mother. the sole cases during which sex throughout gestation isn't suggested square measure wherever there's one thing slightly uncommon regarding the pregnancy: maybe this been persistent duct hemorrhage, or the mother has high force per unit area, or the placenta is found terribly near the cervix, or the lady features a history of miscarriages. every of those cases your doctor or accoucheuse can tell you regarding the hazards of sex throughout gestation. In these cases you may wish to use some different technique of relieving sexual tension like oral pleasure, solo self-abuse, or mutual self-abuse. If the bulk of pregnancies proceed unremarkably, and sex is dead acceptable, why would there be a story that sex throughout gestation will hurt the baby? Well, you've got to use a particular quantity of sense here. Clearly, sex within the man on prime position with the person lying on the woman's abdomen may be a unhealthy plan as a result of it are often terribly uncomfortable that the mother and it additionally will place additional weight on the baby. By the way, some specialists advocate that a pregnant lady doesn't sleep on her back, however there is not any hurt in her lying down for as long because it takes to create love. Another silly fantasy that has sprung up over the years is that sex will induce labour, either throughout poke or throughout climax. In fact, though lady can feel some tiny female internal reproductive organ contractions once she reaches climax, the sensations square measure quite completely different to people who she's going to expertise once she provides birth, once the female internal reproductive organ is catching throughout labour. Another recent wives' tale is that if a baby is delinquent, sex can induce labour as a result of the man's cum contains a secretion that stimulates female internal reproductive organ contractions. but it seems that there is completely no proof whatever that cum stimulates female internal reproductive organ contractions and therefore the onset of labour. Now, up to now we've been talking terribly completely, as if all couples wish to create love throughout gestation, however that actually is not the case. a girl could feel thus unattractive that she merely does not wish to create love, and unfortunately some men do realize it not possible to create love with their pregnant partners, just because they do not realize the concept engaging. In such cases, there square measure many alternative things which will reinforce a couple's relationship, as well as caressing, kissing, cuddling, stroking, mutual massage, oral pleasure and self-abuse. there is completely no want whatever for either partner inside some to be bereft of pleasure if the opposite one is not keen on intercourse. All in all you'll have even as smart a sex life throughout gestation as you probably did beforehand, and even as smart as hopefully you'll when the baby is born. The myths that have adult up round the subject ought to be dispelled, not just for the sake of each pregnant couple's happiness, however additionally as a result of sex may be a elementary human want at each purpose in a human life, and as we tend to determined higher than, once a mother has Associate in Nursing climax, the baby edges from the happy state she enjoys.

[sunshineweb]

Dealing with Failure in Life and Investing: Lessons from the Chaos Monkey

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the Titanic of cloud hosting. It provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to both individuals, companies, and governments, on a paid subscription basis. The platform is designed as a backup to the backups’ backups that prevents hosted websites – including some of the largest in the world – and applications from failing.

Yet, like the Titanic, AWS crashed in April 2011, taking with it popular websites like Reddit, Quora, FourSquare, HootSuite, and New York Times, among many others, for four days.

It faced another major outage in February 2017, which again brought a large number of key websites down on their knees.

There was, however, one site that kept chugging along well during both these instances, despite also having AWS as its host at both the occasions.

This was Netflix, the world’s leading streaming video website and one that owns a dominant share of downstream Internet traffic – almost 35%; double of YouTube – in North America during peak evening hours.

Before we understand how Netflix survived this Internet debacle, let’s understand a bit about the cloud.

The cloud is all about redundancy and fault-tolerance. Since no single component can guarantee 100% uptime (and even the most expensive hardware eventually fails), companies need to design a cloud architecture where individual components can fail without affecting the availability of their entire system. In effect, a company’s cloud architecture needs to be stronger than its weakest link. And it must constantly test its ability to survive these “once in a blue moon” failures, like what happened in the form of AWS outages.

Despite the 99.99 percent availability that AWS’s agreement promises, when you are on the cloud, you must believe in Murphy’s Law, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

So, what helped Netflix survive these outages when other large sites hosted on AWS faced blackouts?

It was seemingly Netflix’s deep faith in Murphy’s Law, and thus the creation of a simian army termed the Chaos Monkey.

Chaos Monkey is a tool internally developed at Netflix that comes from the idea of unleashing a wild monkey with a weapon in its data center (or cloud) to randomly “chew through cables” thereby disrupting its system. In simpler words, the Chaos Monkey is a bug deliberately activated into Netflix’s systems that make things go wrong with its service on a regular basis.

By running Chaos Monkey in the middle of a business day, in a carefully monitored environment with engineers standing by to address any problems (the Chaos Monkey gets activated only during normal business hours), Netflix has learned the lessons about weaknesses of its system, and thus build automatic recovery mechanisms to deal with them.

So, Netflix’s goal is to have the system so resilient that a failure at 4 am on a Sunday will not even be noticed.

That type of no-holds-barred testing can help unearth and resolve unknown issues before they become major outages. By having that constant idea that something’s going to break, Netflix has within their engineering department the mindset that they must make sure that no single point can take down the entire site.

Best Way to Avoid Failure Netflix’s Chaos Monkey approach shows how the best defense against major unexpected failures is to fail often. By frequently causing failures, the company forces its services to be built in a way that is more resilient.

I see a great application of the Chaos Monkey approach in life and investing.

When the Chaos Monkey causes failures, Netflix engineers must respond well and treat such failures as opportunities to learn and improve.

They must answer these questions –

How did this failure occur?

What can be done to prevent it from happening again?

How can we make our systems stronger by responding effectively to each failure?

By continually inducing failures in a blameless environment, and then methodically figuring out how to prevent the same failure from repeating, the Netflix team continually makes their systems harder to break.

Nassim Taleb’s concept of ‘antifragility’ comes to mind while I imagine the Chaos Monkey chewing wires and disrupting systems at Netflix.

Taleb writes in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder –

Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.

In our culture so obsessed with success, failing often intentionally and embracing each failure like Netflix does is harder than it sounds.

In fact, life does not give us so many chances to fail and then come back stronger. Then, unlike Netflix that launches its Chaos Monkey during normal business hours, failure – in life or investing – does not strike at a time determined by us.

And then, repeating failures over and over will make us a big loser. Over time, repeated failures will make our whole life seem as brittle as glass.

The real trick to Taleb’s antifragility or Netflix’s Chaos Monkey is to ask yourself a few questions when failure happens –

How could I have detected this sooner?

Now that this has happened, how do we deal with it in a way that makes us stronger?

What can I do to prevent it from happening again?

In dealing with these questions, the key character attributes I believe we need to survive the Chaos Monkey in life and investing are – preparation, flexibility, and acceptance.

We often have ambitious expectations from our goals, habits, and resolutions – in life and investing. But often, we ignore the fact that chance occurrences will disturb our best laid, most thought out, plans. And by trying to ignore this random factor, we become extremely vulnerable to them.

Life’s Chaos Monkey is very skilled at tripping up our best-intentioned goals, habits, and resolutions. Ask anyone. Ask yourself.

I recently challenged myself to ride my bicycle 21 km daily for 21 days. “Come what may,” I announced to my wife at the start of this challenge, “I will complete this challenge over the next 21 days.”

Then, on the 15th day, I lost my grandfather. Life’s Chaos Monkey hit me and my plan hard. This wasn’t a failure on my part. There was nothing to introspect. But you can see how the monkey chewed on my well-intentioned plan, apart from adding pain to me and my family’s personal life.

Failure = Opportunity Antifragility happens when you accept your failure and take complete ownership of your failure with a blameless mindset.

Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Company, said, “Success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection.”

If you use failure as an opportunity for introspection and re-learning, you don’t let yourself off the hook by blaming others. Instead, you learn about yourself.

Instead of fearing its random strikes, know that Chaos Monkey is here to help us. It helps us become antifragile. It helps us get stronger and smarter about our life so that we can survive even bigger monkeys in the future.

By the way, Netflix also employs an army of Chaos Gorillas who don’t just turn off individual servers, but occasionally wipe out an entire system, as if Godzilla had destroyed an entire portion of the country.

So, dealing with the Chaos Monkey’s constant appearance in our lives and in investing with preparation, flexibility, and acceptance helps us deal better with the Chaos Gorilla when it strikes us, and hard.

Before I end, let me share with you a few tricks I use in my investing (and life) to deal with the Chaos Monkey better. It still strikes me often, but I am prepared (I think) at most times.

Stick with simple rules, process, and practices (and owning simple businesses; stuff that I thoroughly understand)

Build in a margin of safety (no leverage, adequate diversification, ownership of high-quality businesses; knowing that the Chaos Monkey can strike anytime)

predicting the future, because the future is random and thus unpredictable

Accept that the Chaos Monkey will strike, and accept the reality when it really strikes (only then can I deal with it)

Experiment small, like with only small amounts of money (I call it sin money)

Avoid big risks (the Chaos Gorilla) that could wipe me out completely

Keep my options open (like selling a business when the facts about the business change for the worse, and before the monkey becomes a gorilla)

Focus more on avoiding things that don’t work than trying to find out what does work (Munger’s thought – “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.”)

Respect the old (Taleb’s Lindy Effect) – learn the rules and practices that have stood the test of time, like the ones taught by Graham etc.

Jeff Bezos said in an interview in 2011 (emphasis mine) –

If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue.

At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.

In some cases, things are inevitable. The hard part is that you don’t know how long it might take, but you know it will happen if you’re patient enough.

The general underlying principle in dealing well with the Chaos Monkey is the same. You need to lengthen the time horizon and then play the long game, keep your options open and avoid total failure while trying lots of different things and maintaining an open mind.

Note: This post was originally published in the June 2017 issue of our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack (VIA). To read more such posts and other deep thoughts on value investing, business analysis and behavioral finance, click here to subscribe to VIA.

The post Dealing with Failure in Life and Investing: Lessons from the Chaos Monkey appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Dealing with Failure in Life and Investing: Lessons from the Chaos Monkey published first on http://ift.tt/2sCRXMW

[heliosfinance]

Dealing with Failure in Life and Investing: Lessons from the Chaos Monkey

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the Titanic of cloud hosting. It provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to both individuals, companies, and governments, on a paid subscription basis. The platform is designed as a backup to the backups’ backups that prevents hosted websites – including some of the largest in the world – and applications from failing.

Yet, like the Titanic, AWS crashed in April 2011, taking with it popular websites like Reddit, Quora, FourSquare, HootSuite, and New York Times, among many others, for four days.

It faced another major outage in February 2017, which again brought a large number of key websites down on their knees.

There was, however, one site that kept chugging along well during both these instances, despite also having AWS as its host at both the occasions.

This was Netflix, the world’s leading streaming video website and one that owns a dominant share of downstream Internet traffic – almost 35%; double of YouTube – in North America during peak evening hours.

Before we understand how Netflix survived this Internet debacle, let’s understand a bit about the cloud.

The cloud is all about redundancy and fault-tolerance. Since no single component can guarantee 100% uptime (and even the most expensive hardware eventually fails), companies need to design a cloud architecture where individual components can fail without affecting the availability of their entire system. In effect, a company’s cloud architecture needs to be stronger than its weakest link. And it must constantly test its ability to survive these “once in a blue moon” failures, like what happened in the form of AWS outages.

Despite the 99.99 percent availability that AWS’s agreement promises, when you are on the cloud, you must believe in Murphy’s Law, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

So, what helped Netflix survive these outages when other large sites hosted on AWS faced blackouts?

It was seemingly Netflix’s deep faith in Murphy’s Law, and thus the creation of a simian army termed the Chaos Monkey.

Chaos Monkey is a tool internally developed at Netflix that comes from the idea of unleashing a wild monkey with a weapon in its data center (or cloud) to randomly “chew through cables” thereby disrupting its system. In simpler words, the Chaos Monkey is a bug deliberately activated into Netflix’s systems that make things go wrong with its service on a regular basis.

By running Chaos Monkey in the middle of a business day, in a carefully monitored environment with engineers standing by to address any problems (the Chaos Monkey gets activated only during normal business hours), Netflix has learned the lessons about weaknesses of its system, and thus build automatic recovery mechanisms to deal with them.

So, Netflix’s goal is to have the system so resilient that a failure at 4 am on a Sunday will not even be noticed.

That type of no-holds-barred testing can help unearth and resolve unknown issues before they become major outages. By having that constant idea that something’s going to break, Netflix has within their engineering department the mindset that they must make sure that no single point can take down the entire site.

Best Way to Avoid Failure Netflix’s Chaos Monkey approach shows how the best defense against major unexpected failures is to fail often. By frequently causing failures, the company forces its services to be built in a way that is more resilient.

I see a great application of the Chaos Monkey approach in life and investing.

When the Chaos Monkey causes failures, Netflix engineers must respond well and treat such failures as opportunities to learn and improve.

They must answer these questions –

How did this failure occur?

What can be done to prevent it from happening again?

How can we make our systems stronger by responding effectively to each failure?

By continually inducing failures in a blameless environment, and then methodically figuring out how to prevent the same failure from repeating, the Netflix team continually makes their systems harder to break.

Nassim Taleb’s concept of ‘antifragility’ comes to mind while I imagine the Chaos Monkey chewing wires and disrupting systems at Netflix.

Taleb writes in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder –

Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.

In our culture so obsessed with success, failing often intentionally and embracing each failure like Netflix does is harder than it sounds.

In fact, life does not give us so many chances to fail and then come back stronger. Then, unlike Netflix that launches its Chaos Monkey during normal business hours, failure – in life or investing – does not strike at a time determined by us.

And then, repeating failures over and over will make us a big loser. Over time, repeated failures will make our whole life seem as brittle as glass.

The real trick to Taleb’s antifragility or Netflix’s Chaos Monkey is to ask yourself a few questions when failure happens –

How could I have detected this sooner?

Now that this has happened, how do we deal with it in a way that makes us stronger?

What can I do to prevent it from happening again?

In dealing with these questions, the key character attributes I believe we need to survive the Chaos Monkey in life and investing are – preparation, flexibility, and acceptance.

We often have ambitious expectations from our goals, habits, and resolutions – in life and investing. But often, we ignore the fact that chance occurrences will disturb our best laid, most thought out, plans. And by trying to ignore this random factor, we become extremely vulnerable to them.

Life’s Chaos Monkey is very skilled at tripping up our best-intentioned goals, habits, and resolutions. Ask anyone. Ask yourself.

I recently challenged myself to ride my bicycle 21 km daily for 21 days. “Come what may,” I announced to my wife at the start of this challenge, “I will complete this challenge over the next 21 days.”

Then, on the 15th day, I lost my grandfather. Life’s Chaos Monkey hit me and my plan hard. This wasn’t a failure on my part. There was nothing to introspect. But you can see how the monkey chewed on my well-intentioned plan, apart from adding pain to me and my family’s personal life.

Failure = Opportunity Antifragility happens when you accept your failure and take complete ownership of your failure with a blameless mindset.

Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Company, said, “Success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection.”

If you use failure as an opportunity for introspection and re-learning, you don’t let yourself off the hook by blaming others. Instead, you learn about yourself.

Instead of fearing its random strikes, know that Chaos Monkey is here to help us. It helps us become antifragile. It helps us get stronger and smarter about our life so that we can survive even bigger monkeys in the future.

By the way, Netflix also employs an army of Chaos Gorillas who don’t just turn off individual servers, but occasionally wipe out an entire system, as if Godzilla had destroyed an entire portion of the country.

So, dealing with the Chaos Monkey’s constant appearance in our lives and in investing with preparation, flexibility, and acceptance helps us deal better with the Chaos Gorilla when it strikes us, and hard.

Before I end, let me share with you a few tricks I use in my investing (and life) to deal with the Chaos Monkey better. It still strikes me often, but I am prepared (I think) at most times.

Stick with simple rules, process, and practices (and owning simple businesses; stuff that I thoroughly understand)

Build in a margin of safety (no leverage, adequate diversification, ownership of high-quality businesses; knowing that the Chaos Monkey can strike anytime)

predicting the future, because the future is random and thus unpredictable

Accept that the Chaos Monkey will strike, and accept the reality when it really strikes (only then can I deal with it)

Experiment small, like with only small amounts of money (I call it sin money)

Avoid big risks (the Chaos Gorilla) that could wipe me out completely

Keep my options open (like selling a business when the facts about the business change for the worse, and before the monkey becomes a gorilla)

Focus more on avoiding things that don’t work than trying to find out what does work (Munger’s thought – “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.”)

Respect the old (Taleb’s Lindy Effect) – learn the rules and practices that have stood the test of time, like the ones taught by Graham etc.

Jeff Bezos said in an interview in 2011 (emphasis mine) –

If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue.

At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.

In some cases, things are inevitable. The hard part is that you don’t know how long it might take, but you know it will happen if you’re patient enough.

The general underlying principle in dealing well with the Chaos Monkey is the same. You need to lengthen the time horizon and then play the long game, keep your options open and avoid total failure while trying lots of different things and maintaining an open mind.

Note: This post was originally published in the June 2017 issue of our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack (VIA). To read more such posts and other deep thoughts on value investing, business analysis and behavioral finance, click here to subscribe to VIA.

The post Dealing with Failure in Life and Investing: Lessons from the Chaos Monkey appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Dealing with Failure in Life and Investing: Lessons from the Chaos Monkey published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

[theintroceptualist-blog]

When Love is Not Enough

I am aware that I tend towards a more complicated view of life. Simplicity, brevity, certainty: these are beyond me. They have been beyond me for as long as I can remember.

And yet…

Some primordial part of me (my heart?) had, until now, always held the unwavering conviction that there could be no more simple and certain a thing as love. Love, you see, is beyond doubt; it is beyond the conceptual rumblings and ambivalences of an uncertain mind. Love is well resembled by Cupid’s arrow, shot straight and true as… well, as an arrow.

Now, the rest of me had, of course, managed to “categorise” love. It was as if the full-blown, full-throttle, full-cream version of love was, however real, somehow a peak experience or an unobtainable fantasy, however fully I believed in it. And so I loved, in various ways - all true - throughout my life. I loved with respect, with compassion, with forgiveness, with friendship, with loyalty, with commitment, with hope. But only once with true passion; only once with the direct simplicity of Cupid’s arrow; only once with my whole being…

When this love became a part of my life, I was as surprised as I was elated. Why now? And how?! How was it possible, after all those years of categorising love, for the set of all sets to fall into place there and then? And yet, unquestionably, it had. And it was glorious. I soared. I wept. I was ordinary. I was beautiful. I was myself. And this is where the tragedy began to set in.

I have long been aware of my “mental health issues” (henceforth known as “life shit”). And I’ve tried, with some desperation at times, to sort my life shit out. I’ll go into this in another post, but for now let me just say that I have tried my share of therapies and therapists, and I have been excruciatingly introspective. So I have owned my life shit. I’ve been honest about it. And in this instance, more completely emotionally honest than ever before. And so we come to the punchline…

The simple, beautiful, indestructible, pure, and entirely effortless love which was born of that incredible union was not, it transpired, enough to carry the weight of the reality upon which so much else rested - most conspicuously, the reality which is my life shit. Who wants to watch someone soar into a life they have been denied whilst watching from the ground, unable to join them there? And who, from the airborne perspective, wants to watch the one they love fail, over and over again, to unshackle themselves? How do these two perspectives align? Well… They don’t. And neither party will wish to cast the other as the villain of the piece; neither will willingly take upon themselves the felt mantle of such a role, either. Love says otherwise. And yet… Such are the characters of this story: destined to love without compromise, and yet live with the consequences of their individual truths. It’s a bitter and unwanted pill indeed. It’s an impossible realisation. Until, pathetically, it becomes inevitable.

And so something less conscious takes over. Primal instincts and their consequences, behaviour, begin to have their way. And thus the beginning of the end is unleashed, in as unlikely and unpredictable a form as the genesis of such an uncommon love. And words lose their meaning. And love is toppled from its thousand-year reign. And all that is left is the letting go…

I’m aware I am being somewhat cloudy and elusive. This is not a tale I wish to tell in simple terms. And this is because, when love is not enough, it is because everything else is too complex and impenetrable for the facts to be plain, the story to be simple, and the ending to be satisfactory. My only hope is that you find acceptance, should this tale ring true; and, if not, that you never have to make sense of it.