5434a
20hr ago
Playing a game is a great suggestion, it offers a pleasant distraction and a shared focus for something external to the relationship. Having nothing but updates on how each other's life is going can get a bit monotonous so building up some shared activities will help prevent falling into that.
5434a
20hr ago
5434a
4d ago
It's a bad metaphor. There's a house, a master, his tools, and the objective of dismantling. Whatever those stand for either the tools are powerful enough to produce a house and defend it from attacks to unseat its master and dismantle it, or they're not. Metaphors-lawyering about which bits are powerful and pertinent or not, and when, and how, for who, all just undermines the metaphor.
It's a counterculture koan. It's purpose is to make you think about The System and sound wise while doing it.
It's ironic that by analysing the phrasing we can neutralise the text. The very tools that the writer used to build this house...
people would pick up location based hobbies
Kind of a tangent but I think there's a widespread problem with people ignoring their locale and imitating the activities of other locales. People who live in the mountains want to be surfers, people who live in the city want to keep a farmyard menagerie, people who live surrounded by pine forests want to make mahogany furniture, etc.
Instead of people grouping around the opportunities that are present and available you end up with people separating and going to lengths pursuing aspirations that aren't present or available. That's fine in moderation but it can diminish the base until there's not enough people to sustain the local activities that require that kind of group.
I feel it's parallel to how people continuously opt for breadth of experiences, whether that's foreign travel or high cuisine or multiple partners, and then lament a lack of depth in their lives when they come to a rest.
5434a
6d ago
https://novelfull.com/forty-millenniums-of-cultivation/chapter-2771.html
Can you give us a small sample of the better translation for comparison?
5434a
7d ago
There's a risk of conflating serious danger with personal discomfort and using the first to justify the second, and also a parallel risk of using the second to dismiss the first.
In the first case you end up avoiding everything that isn't immediately pleasant and personally gratifying, and in the second case you fail to avoid a dangerous situation because you haven't given it the chance to prove your intuitions wrong right.
It's not without merit but I think the advice to "trust your fear instinct" is another one of those messages that is more likely to appeal to and reach the wrong audience and reinforce their fearfulness rather than attenuating their fearlessness.
5434a
10d ago
This is why I hate the whole idea of "grading on effort." You either got the right answer or you didn't. You either accomplish a goal, or you don't. How much effort you put in is completely and totally irrelevant!
That's exactly why I suggested goals that are trivially attainable, but ironically I suspect you dismissed them because they're too easy and thus not worth the effort. I'll explain my reason why:
If you never achieve your goal despite your efforts it means you were pursuing an unachievable goal, which is a failure and a tragedy and waste, and that's naturally very depressing.
I've read numerous books and articles on depression, and the best explanation I've found wasn't that it was a chemical imbalance, or a lack of daylight or physical exertion. It's that depression is a natural reaction to the repeated failure to achieve a goal. The feedback of failure is what alters the chemicals, and generates the low mood that influences a person to withdraw, whereupon they end up getting less daylight, less exertion, less socialising, etc etc. This is actually rational. Your biological substrate is compelling you to stop wasting its energy on something you/it demonstrably can't achieve.
You can force that away by tinkering with antidepressants and forcing yourself out there, and maybe that kickstarts the process, but it's skipping the most important step which is letting go of, or at least setting aside the goal that you repeatedly failed to achieve and recalibrating your ambition towards something more attainable. Then you have a new reason to get up and get going, because then you can get a successful outcome, and when you get the outcome you get the sweet conscious satisfaction plus the accompanying unconscious mood boosting chemicals. Or maybe you fail again, and the cycle resets, and you try something different until you find something that does deliver success.
Which means nothing if I don't actually get there
TLDR Go somewhere else, get somewhere else, and discover whatever the meaning is of getting there instead of the meaninglessness of not getting where you're not getting.
5434a
11d ago
I've looked this up before and it has something to do with the Old Reddit Redirect addon.
https://old.reddit.com/r/bugs/comments/15p1ctt/why_does_clicking_any_image_on_reddit_open_the/
https://old.reddit.com/r/RESissues/comments/1bitxq1/stupid_question_why_do_i_get_routed_to_the_nice/
Second link has a suggested userscript patch.
[ping @FCfromSSC @SteveKirk ]
5434a
17d ago
There are many alternatives.
You are asking about how to deal with demotivation. The implication is that you require some motivation to alleviate the feeling that you're too old and everything is pointless.
You have existing goals and you are losing time. You can choose to advance toward your goals or you can choose to remain static.
ending it all.
Stop thinking about ending and think about completion. "I'm stuck on level 7.2 and Mario has stopped moving. Should I throw my Nintendo in the bin?" No, just plug the controller back in.
5434a
18d ago
Keep adding entries to my log of things that I did each day that mark material progress.
5434a
18d ago
Meditate on the mundane truthfulness and wisdom of corny motivational poster bromides that you have to get busy living. That's it. There is no esoteric big brained intellectual construct that will snap you out of yourself, you just have to get so fucking bored of being yourself that you do something differently for a change.
The point of starting something else is that the alternative is continuing on the current path which demonstrated by your post clearly isn't satisfying, so even if the something else isn't satisfying either at least it's novel.
You said below you're writing prose and code. I suggest making something physical. I'm loathe to suggest specific projects because you take them too literally to more easily dismiss them but as an example, get a cheap block of modelling clay, cut it up into 5 pieces, then make five heads one at a time and try to make each one better than the last, 20 minutes per head. They'll suck, it doesn't matter. In fact that's the point. I know, you don't have modelling clay or an eye for faces so carve a large root vegetable into five different platonic solids, or whatever. Just do something very cheap and very easy that you can iterate on, see a measure of progress and then throw in the bin without feeling that the waste outweighs the practice. Something that you can take a before and after photo of the evidence of your action. The worthwhile projects you feel you are lacking are built on a foundation of shitty failed prototypes by necessity of not getting it right on the first attempt. Then pick a bigger project and start failing better.
If you need a less specific, more esoteric guide try something like Eno's Oblique Strategies or buy a copy of Wreck This Journal and give yourself a hard time limit of one week to fill it. You already have a limitations mindset so start using it to prompt some urgency and creativity. Feeling old should give you more motivation, not less. If you want to write prose or code give yourself one day to write something wilfully shitty and amateur, at least it will be finished. Writing is a procrastinator's luxury where you can always find another imperfection that can be endlessly re-re-rewritten. You don't have to abandon your big projects but take a break to recalibrate first because currently you're not actually hitting your own targets.
5434a
22d ago
It's the way that the hero has to watch on powerless to save him that really decimates your childish optimism.
5434a
23d ago
Appreciate the kind offer but it's purely inertia and the lack of any significant magnitude in my current dissatisfaction that's keeping me from upgrading. It's more due to choice than necessity. I'll get around to it once I've gotten around a few higher priority projects.
5434a
23d ago
I stick to 480p on YouTube as I've no need for higher resolution. I'm not motivated enough to drill down into the technical aspects but it definitely seems that the problem is worse or at least only noticeable on YouTube. Other video sites don't seem to cause the same problems even at higher resolutions.
5434a
23d ago
Ha yeah I was expecting that kind of reaction. Awkward video codecs aside it still runs well enough for my needs. Have been thinking I'm probably due to start looking for a new one but I'm not a gamer, 3D designer or video editor so I'll probably pick another unenhanced low-mid performance box and run it for another decade.
My priorities lean more towards low power and small size so probably something like a commodity Dell/Lenovo micro, in 12 years I've never once used any expansion slots beyond adding more RAM, and I so rarely use optical media these days that it doesn't justify an internal drive. The great thing about being so far behind the curve is that practically anything offers a big leap forwards for what is basically peanuts.
5434a
23d ago
Helpful tips, thanks. I've added on an addon to block av1 and it's made an improvement but I'm on a 2012 AMD processor with internal Radeon 6550HD graphics so can't expect much, however watching videos is typically the most intensive usage it outside of pending updates for Firefox. What is that about anyway? Until recently the fans revving up would almost always be a sign that Firefox was getting impatient to update and it would settle down again after restarting.
5434a
24d ago
I thought it was just my PC being old but my recent experiences of YouTube making my PC sounds like it wants to take off combined with this comment suggesting that it's not just my PC has inspired me to move over to a desktop YouTube client. I've chosen FreeTube because it comes with ad block, SponsorBlock and ("most") age verified videos enabled. Seems alright so far.
5434a
1mo ago
Guys with Asian fetishes value that they are feminine and submissive
That's like saying that people who like red heads value their fiery personalities, or people who like black women value their sassy attitudes - it's projecting lazy stereotypes into other people's minds and then labelling it as a fetish akin to their being fixated on feet or uniforms. Where Asian women do display submissiveness (I'd class it more as passiveness) it's their least attractive aspect. Cool, a woman who's too timid to exhibit an independent personality, feel the sparks fly! It probably sounds shallow and lizard-brained but I just think they're pretty and I prefer brunettes. What's wrong with being attracted to femininity?
When I think of wimpy men I think of them being saddled with domineering women who push them around, like that character in The Big Bang Theory with the gf who sounds like a fog horn.
I agree with not saying it out loud though. Not because it makes you look weak, but because it makes you look like you value someone primarily for aesthetic considerations that they had no choice or influence over. Which is partially true, and why you shouldn't say so, because the part (liking them because they're Asian and you think Asians are pretty, or whatever) is taken for the whole (liking them only because they're Asian or whatever and being completely indifferent to who they are as an individual, which probably does count as if not a weakness then a kind of failing of maturity).
5434a
1mo ago
See if you can find any of those mythical dust mites that are supposed to be living in our eyebrows.
Pollen grains. Crumbs of various minerals, rust, graphite, chalk etc.
@George_E_Hale has already suggested sperm so I'll add on blood and tears. In the interests of science you could also test for the presence of sperm in precum and post-ejaculatory urine. You could also try chilling, freezing, and then reanimating them.
5434a
1mo ago
I've watched the first hour in two half hour sittings, yet to make it to the end.
best film of the year, ahead of the likes of the Substance, Challengers, and Mad Max
Pretty limp competition. I think my picks for best of the year are Late Night With The Devil and Strange Darling, neither of which are unmissable.
5434a
1mo ago
Same way you handle the oppressive summer heat, try to take the opportunity to do the nice things that make sense.
In summer it's things like barbecues and days in the park. When it's cold and dark that means staying in where it's warm, warm clothing, thick blankets, strong drinks, rich food and pretty lights, etc. No amount of bathing in simulated daylight is going to cheer you up if you're cold and eating an imported salad.
5434a
1mo ago
masturbation slightly less than daily
Step one would be refraining from masturbating and directing that drive towards your new partner.
If nocturnal erections are trouble free could you arrange your encounters around that somehow?
5434a
1mo ago
That link is a handy demonstration that breasts of any size large enough to count as breasts will be prone to the appearance of sagging. It goes with the territory of growing fat tissue with little more than dermal tension for structure, and after the fat has finished rapidly developing at puberty to a bigger or smaller degree the skin gradually catches up to accommodate it.
All else being equal I personally prefer natural/saggy breasts over pert breasts with surgically circumscribed nipples.
the whole page is called "breast lifting without scars"
If that's without I'd hate to see the page with.
It's a while since I read The Whole Earth Discipline, it was published in 2009 so I'm not sure whether that counts as properly up to date, but the author Stewart Brand is Bay Area hippie royalty and the book is vocally pro nuclear as well as pro genetic modification and pro urbanism.
An official annotated online version is available at https://discipline.longnow.org/DISCIPLINE_footnotes/Contents.html
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