#society benefits so much from good writing and yet its still treated as a useless skill

[hechiima]

One of the things that annoys me about chatGPT Justifiers is how little they value writing as a skill despite being unable to do it. If you are unable to write an essay or story and need chatGPT, then you are not a competent writer. You become a competent writer by writing. But instead of putting the hard work in and learning how to write, y'all use this AI tool as a shortcut.

There seems to be this general belief that writing and art are innate abilities. Neither are. My job involves a lot of technical writing, which is something I know I'm good at because I worked to get good at it. Part of that work involved writing a lot (and some very harsh criticism). It's a large reason I stopped writing creatively for over a decade; I was writing all the time for school or work and I no longer had the energy to write for fun. I've taken up creative writing more recently and while I love doing it, I realize that I need a lot of work. And this makes sense! I neglected this skill for years, ofc I'm further behind than my peers. Just like any other skill, there is no shortcut to developing as a writer. You just have to put in the work and by relying on chatGPT you're not.

Writing a lot will not necessarily make you good but it is impossible to be a good writer without writing a lot. If you're not willing to put the work in at least please stop devaluing writers.

[otome-addicts-notsoanonymous]

This is the entry from @otomemonogatari for the fanfic giveaway! Remember, in order to vote, you must COMMENT on this post! To find the rules for voting and the master post, look under #fanficgiveawaymaster or here. The other submissions can also be found under #fanficsubmissions.

Title: WORTHLESS GIRL

(aka when you give up on making cool sounding titles do you just riff off of ‘imperfect girl’.)

Summary: In a bathroom somewhere in the world, a hapless girl finds herself overwhelmed by the world.

Genre:  drabble, angst, slight romance

Pairing: mc/eisuke motherfucking ichinomiya

Rating: mature probably

WARNINGS: ATTEMPTED SUICIDE NEAR THE END

Author’s Note(more like incoherent ramble tbh): so this be my first “””””””eisuke fic”””” in that focuses more on mc and her inner turmoil. How I got this this idea was because in the past few days I discovered @catchthespade ‘s account and one particular post on mc and eisuke’s relationship they did. It looked at them, their relationship and how it is presented throughout season four. They ‘talked’ about mc’s lack of self worth and esteem and was just a real great break down of both characters. It’s a great read and something when I read it I felt it said what I’ve been thinking for a while  but way better. They also just framed certain scenes that shone them in new lights which me at twelve am doesn’t really ever notice.

So basically, I read this really thotful post and was like ‘mhmmmn, I gonna write about that.’

so I hope you enjoy.

She had once heard of the phrase ‘walk tall my friends…”. It was a baffling phrase. One whose origins she couldn’t remember, and whenever she did try to do so all that was garnered was a perilous sense of loss. But, like most things of torturous sadness, it had stayed with her all the same. The meaning chasing after her in a never-ending maze.

To Walk Tall.

What was it like? What was it like to be able to ‘walk tall’?

She was stubby, small, a midget. She couldn’t walk tall. Whatever god that had decided that didn’t allow her to. She slouched, was wobbly and couldn’t prance in heels. It was a permanent disadvantage to her life. It made it impossible for her to function in the society that had been thrust upon her.

Although, even if she weren’t stumpy and short and incapable of walking she still wouldn’t be able to ‘walk tall’. She was a leech, a parasite,‘an organism which lives in or on another organism and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other’s expense.’She took from him, Eisuke Ichinomiya. She was a negative force in his life that simply stole from and caused him trouble. He’d tell her not to worry, he always told her not to worry, but that never changed the fact that she attracted trouble. It never changed her being useless, and it never changed the fact that she could not walk tall because of her very nature.

Ahh, but dear, they’d cry,don’t worry. It’s just like how we kill our world slowly and how half the population is dying. We know it, oh it exists, but we just don’t worry about it. Ignore it, it shouldn’t matter to us. Instead of worrying, just let it grow, let it swell to a magnificent proportion that absorbs everything with it.

‘Become what you claim yourself to be, you can if you want to. I don’t mind.’Was what he had told her oh so many times.

And, he says that but: Would he really tear himself apart for something so selfless? Would he really allow her to become such a horrible leech on his life?

How could she walk tall then? How could she if she leapt into the arms of her failings? How could she when there would be nothing about her that would have a reason to? How could she when she was so useless? How could she if all she ever did was lean and prop herself up on another?

How could something so pitiful ever even breath?

‘Please. Please. Please just stop. Don’t exist for a minute. All of it, please, for one tiny moment as short as my worthiness, please just stop.’She screamed.

The window in front of her, it long and bearing her for all the world to see, was frosted with ice and snow to the point where it burned skin to a blazing heat. Inside out, her organs too were burnt to a crisp that would never fully heal. The white fire always so close that her tongue danced with its taste as if it were a crème brûlée flamed to perfection. It the best treat you could ever eat.

In the window pane itself, there was a girl. Now, the girl wasn’t there when she had first entered the lofty bathroom, there was nothing but the stillness of a frozen world. But once her toes touched the toasty waters of the tub, the girl appeared stark and bared for all the world to see.

And she, the girl, was a small thing. Pathetic you could say. Frame weak and fragile to the touch, she was almost like amber: easy to shatter and break into millions and million of teeny tiny itty bitty pieces. You could tell of her childish nature from how she carried herself. She slouched, shoulders bunched high and eyes downcast, almost afraid to look at the world as it was. There was nothing spectacular about her: body without any major curves with everything small, whatever beauty she sported not once ever captivated on.

She was, in short, a missed opportunity. Not quite a women in too many regards. A poor example of what a women should be.

She closed her eyes, head face up and did not look at the girl in the window. Her and the light reflecting a truth too vibrant to witness with open eyes. Too real to bear its consequence. She wouldn’t even peak a sneak.

Don’t think. Don’t give it a chance. Don’t give her room to breath.

Shoving it all away with hands and knees and elbows and anything she could use, she felt uncomfortable in the deep tub. The bathroom was too large, so much space completely useless for anything but walking. The marble floors cost an amount that would certainly make her head implode, with the bath itself able to fit too much.

In it she felt so tiny, like a rat scrounging for somewhere to live. To be truthful, she always felt like a rat and sometimes she even thought she had more in common with them than actual people.

It never used to be like that, however. Along the way she had devolved to such a pathetic way of existing. Where that had began she could pin point exactly however it was not like she could say it. To do so would admit a lot and neither of them could. She couldn’t face the fact and he couldn’t acknowledge her, and so it ended up as another shard of her reality that would chase after her like it were the hunt. Haunting her for all of eternity.

Ah~ But that was a bit dramatic, a bit of an exaggeration, a bit too much of a lie. There were moments where she forgot all about it, forget who she was and the way which the world she lived in worked and how vast it was. How poor of a person, a women, she was. It came in rough kisses and exposed breasts and tantalising touches that trailed up further and further along her thighs. Mewing like a kitten so hopeless in its ways.

Oh, how sweet those poisonous moments were~ Even now they brought a smile to her lips. The fact that drinking something that killed her made her happy too disgusting.

Although: was it better that there were times where all she knew was the man know as Ichinomiya?

Although: wasn’t that her life already?

…

…

…

Drawing in her legs, she tried to abandon that too. Yet, how could she when it was just her and them?

Then she couldn’t help but hope for there to be something else. For there to be the pattering of rain or even just a ringing hum. Just some noise so she wouldn’t be so alone.

Ahh, but that was all she ever was.

She chuckled.

No wonder she couldn’t stand tall. She was begging for things as simple as that.

Eisuke, on the other hand, stood tall. If anyone ever stood tall it was him. He was the tallest. And there she was trailing behind him, so insignificant and so small.

If anything he was untouchable.

If anything he was irreproachable.

She wasn’t worth him.

Wasn’t worth anything.

Her arm followed the dripping water, then the rest of her soon followed too, and then everything was clear. Or unclear. It wouldn’t matter much longer.

Instead, stay here for awhile, Don’t get up. Rest your pretty head, the watercalled.

Under neigh, everything was so blue and so beautiful. Was she too, for once, beautiful? A crown? A gem? Twenty million? Was she that?

And now, she could feel it. She could feel the water take her in its arms and it felt so good and so lovely and so right. Her breath was stolen and her checks became a blush red and her thighs dripped.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

More and more she cried.

More and more she wanted her vision to fade.

Body to fade.

World to fade.

Fade, fade away.

For there to be nothing but stardust.

Such pretty pretty stardust

[stopsubstanceabuse1-blog]

Are There Good Reasons for Your Bad Feelings: Interview with Randolph M. Nesse

New Post has been published on https://www.substanceabuseprevention.net/are-there-good-reasons-for-your-bad-feelings-interview-with-randolph-m-nesse/

Are There Good Reasons for Your Bad Feelings: Interview with Randolph M. Nesse

Our relationship with mental health is typically based on challenges we’re currently experiencing — but what if our current issues are rooted in the distant past? Often overlooked is the fact that our predispositions for conditions like depression and anxiety have existed for millenia. From an evolutionary standpoint, why haven’t these detrimental traits and behaviors been filtered out and how might they affect us now?

Randolph M. Nesse, MD, a founder of the field of evolutionary medicine and author of recently-published Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, helped us understand the gap between human physiology and modern environment, and how we can apply this field for better therapy outcomes.

First, tell us a little about yourself and your background?

I was a professor of psychiatry for 40 years at the university of Michigan where I helped to develop one of the first specialized clinics treating patients with anxiety disorders. In the early 1990’s I collaborated with the biologist George Williams to write a series of papers and the book Why We Get Sick, which inspired much new work in what is now the thriving field of evolutionary medicine.

Five years ago I moved to Arizona State University to start a Center for Evolutionary Medicine and the International Society for Evolution Medicine and Public Health. It has been thrilling to see evolutionary principles finally used to better understand and treat disease. There are now more than a dozen books on the topic, and most research universities have courses on evolutionary medicine.

But medical schools still do not recognize that evolution is a crucial basic science just like genetics and physiology, so I have a lot of work yet to do. Applying evolutionary biology will eventually improve human health more than any specific medical discovery.

Can you describe the idea for Good Reasons for Bad Feelings? How did you get interested in the topic and how did the book come about?

I have always been interested in why bodies…and minds…were not better designed.

Most everyone has wondered why there is so much suffering in the world; it is an ancient question. But real answers can come from asking the question in an evolutionary context. Why didn’t natural selection eliminate the genes for depression, schizophrenia, eating disorders, anorexia nervosa, and autism?

A crucial part of the answer is that bad feelings like anxiety and low mood are symptoms that can be useful, just like pain, fever, and cough. More of an answer comes from recognizing the misfit between our minds and our modern environments. Now that evolutionary medicine is on solid ground, it is ready to be applied to mental disorders, where such insights are so desperately needed.

How has your evolutionary psychiatry research transformed the treatment of specific mental health conditions?

Evolutionary psychiatry is not a method of treatment. Like genetics and neuroscience, evolution provides a crucial foundation but not a quick fixes.

That said, when patients and doctors recognize painful emotions as having utility in some situations, that makes everyone respect the emotions more, look more carefully at the life situation, and it helps patients to not feel that they are defective or weak.

For panic disorder in particular, telling patients it is a false alarm in a normal emergency system is all some of them need to quit worrying about their symptoms, which often makes them go away promptly.

For depression, asking a special question often gets to the root of the matter. “Is there something terribly important you are trying to do that just is not working but you can’t give up?”

For addiction, it is useful for people to understand that drugs found only in modern environments hijack normal learning mechanisms.

So, instead of offering quick fixes, evolutionary psychiatry offers a deeper understanding that transforms our view of what mental disorders are.

What remnant from our evolutionary history has the biggest impact on our mental health?

The ability to learn is marvelous, but it is a chemical system, so drugs can hijack it, turning people into zombies.

Our ability to adapt to famine by gorging is was useful way back when, but in an environment where people try to control their eating, it can lead to eating disorders.

But perhaps the biggest remnant is our evolved intense desire for social power and recognition; it can never be fully satisfied, so we are constantly striving, successful at times, often frustrated, and sometimes depressed.

Or what are some of our most maladaptive behaviors and how can we mitigate them?

Many of our desires for sex, status, and resources benefit our genes at a great cost to us. Jealousy and anger can also be useful, but they are so destructive.

If only knowing this allowed us to set such useless feelings aside! But recognizing that they are for our genes, not us, does help.

What role can psychotherapy play in regulating maladaptive modern emotions?

Three factors contribute to causing mental problems: the situation, the view of the situation, and the brain.

Changing the situation or the view of the situation, via psychodynamic therapy, family therapy, cognitive therapy, or behavior therapy can transform a person’s life. If it was simple, people would do it themselves long ago. But with help, and encouragement to take risks, many people can identify what it is that they are trying to do that is not working, and then find a new path to the goal, or take time off from the goal, or put efforts into more useful actions.

Conducting a Review of Social Systems, as described in the book, provides a foundation that can make any kind of therapy more effective.

Is evolutionary psychiatry useful for research?

Its greatest utility is for research that will find causes and cures.

Recognizing that negative emotions are useful transforms the search for causes from looking for brain abnormalities to looking at how emotions are regulated and the several evolutionary reasons why they are often excessive. It transforms the search for medications from one looking for substances that replace missing chemicals, to one that finds drugs that block the mechanisms, the way drugs block pain.

This also provides a framework for better studies to find brain mechanisms. Even the search for genes that cause diseases is transformed by an evolutionary view.

Randolph M. Nesse, MD, is a founder of the field of evolutionary medicine and co-author with George C. Williams of Why We Get Sick. He served for many years as Professor of Psychiatry, Professor of Psychology and Research Professor at the University of Michigan. He currently is the Founding Director of the Center for Evolution & Medicine at Arizona State University where he is also a Foundation Professor in the School of Life Sciences. He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, a distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and an elected Fellow of the AAAS.

Source: https://www.talkspace.com/blog/good-reasons-for-bad-feelings-book-randolph-nesse/