1,318 thoughts on “Yet another weird ad for my novels”

1. Well, this is purely theoretical, and I feel like it applies to me, but I’m not sure if it applies to anyone else. I can get pretty obsessive with intrusive thoughts, setting up what I feel like are logical follow-on expectations and then driving myself miserable when they fail to materialize, or drive myself miserable as I obsessively monitor each development that might lead to their materialization. There is, however, a certain feeling that goes along with that, probably indefinable in any complete sense through words, but a deep-seated knowing that my state of mind–while addictive and alluring–doesn’t lead to positivity over the long term. I’m not sure how to describe it other than it is intuitive. Now that I’m focusing more on my intuition, it’s easier to catch and thus somewhat easier to stay in a positive state. Once again, I’m not sure if that will work for you.

   TLDR: I use intuition to put a check on some counterproductive mental programs from my past.

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   • I used to be pretty triggered by the injustice stuff. I think in recent years it’s more when I see someone who says they want to improve, knows what they need to do, has been told what they need to do, but never does it. However, I’ve gotten better about that; I ironically feel more powerful when I give up the idea I have the power to direct others.

     I was reading a statement from one of the more mainstream UFO disclosure folks who had a long career with the CIA, and he said that in regards to the paranormal and greater reality, we’re like ants around humans. Most ants never see humans, and never have to acknowledge their existence. But that doesn’t change the fact that humans are out there. I think that intuition is how to connect with greater reality and things we can’t explain, and bypass the mounds of data collecting and sifting you would need to do to painstakingly chart out another bit of agreed-upon reality. Long story short, intuition is critical, in my opinion.

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     • You know what’s weird is that while I still am rankled by injustice, the two issues are inverted for me in regards to their respective ability to piss me off. For some reason, my mind can rationalize people who hurt people into mad dogs where they simply need to be deterred or confined until they learn not to do it. (Maybe because I’ve hurt people and I can remember the strength of compulsion to do it). Not being willing to improve kind of hits me on this level where I feel like an individual is turning away from their greatest point of power and choice, as well as the most decisive point where someone can benefit others (by changing yourself you change others kind of thing). Not to say that either stance is right (we could all be in a simulation after all, and the whole spiel about how we’re not that important in the cosmic sense of things) but it’s interesting how the personality prioritizes the problems and how that manifests into a reaction.

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     • That’s why I decided my view didn’t make sense. Things have worked out for me in unexpected ways, so I figure even if I’m puzzled by someone else’s choices, I should by and large leave them be. The processes of life can’t always be immediately understood, and trying to force them into a logical framework usually ends up frustrating me with the lack of accuracy and future expectations that fail to come about.

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     • They’re kind of essential, I think. I’ve gone by logic alone, and I’ve ended up in situations where I feel indifferent and empty despite outward measures of success. I think it happens to other folks as well, in cases where they’re great at business or acting or whatnot but they hate their life and end up doing a complete 180 or at least taking up a wildly different hobby. I don’t think that’s inevitable. I feel like there’s people who go all-in to doing the sensible thing and they kind of end up as reactive robots who exhibit the same justifications, the same problems, and the same disdain for stuff outside their worldview until they pass on. It weirds me out a little bit when I see older folk who have built a mental castle around themselves where they are clearly suffering from constant negativity but it’s become part of their identity and they even attach some kind of nobility to it. I hope I don’t ironically become that.

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     • I can’t be sure of this or pass any judgment, but maybe one or both of them needed to hear what you were thinking, either to plant a seed or confirm their doubts, or maybe you told them exactly what they needed to hear. Not to be a needless contrarian, but I’m fine with a negative outlook or not putting any focus on dreams or aspirations. It really is up to the individual, and I’ve set up my beliefs so that even if they set aside fulfillment or their deeper desires so they can just get by, they’ll get some relief after they pass, and they’ll get another chance if they want it. If something seems impossible, like the idea of heat vision or having a pet werewolf, I’m inclined to believe those are constraints that are put in place by a less tangible piece of ourselves so we can experience a bit more specificity during our time here. I know that’s kind of a pat way to answer and wrap up existence, but it’s much more appealing to me than the idea of being sentenced to an existential prison term in any way shape or fashion, even if it is a temporary thing. There’s a lot of layers to individual perspective; it might indeed be the preferred and healthier path to reside in the contentment that a certain person gets from pragmatism and practicality. That’s a winding explanation for saying it’s up to everyone to find what works best for them, but hopefully my articulation clarifies my individual take on it.

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     • It’s interesting–I’ve learned a bit more about Mormons since I started listening to this Army remote viewer named David Morehouse. He used to be a Mormon, and he was placed in some kind of leadership/speaking capacity, where his duties included exhorting an audience to do this or that, but he said he felt empty inside when he realized there was a certain point where he was just saying the same thing in different ways and it was leading nowhere towards a deeper truth, where he would supposedly have direct contact with divinity and a chance to become it. (It was also interesting when he said he would get dirty looks if he went off-script, and also when he became outraged by the CIA wanting to embed operatives in the international missions; he thought it was a step too far using the guise of religious benevolence to gather intelligence but they were all like so what? It’s for the greater good) So in an arguably ironic and possibly manifested twist of fate, he became a remote viewer, where he gained direct access to a transcendent model of reality. The point is, I’m not sure if his experience with Mormonism set him up for that or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. While I don’t have access to your perspective, and while I can’t judge you one way or the other, my personal inclination is to say that if you’re handing those papers out in the spirit of respect and with good interests at heart, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says. Only you know whether you’re doing the right thing or not, and regardless of whether someone is friend or family, they can’t know or decide that for you. Sometimes, friends or family are bigger obstructionists toward personal good than open enemies. I’m not saying to hand those papers out or not, or that other peoples’ opinions aren’t worthy of consideration, but I am saying it’s my opinion that it’s ultimately your decision, yours alone, and only you know whether it’s truly right or wrong. While that may not translate into a clear-cut urge, I do believe this would be one of those cases where emotional intelligence could come in handy, so you could feel out whether it was truly a better path to listen to others or if they were simply speaking out of fear and stifling what you truly believe to be the right thing to do. I can’t say one way or the other; my takes will admittedly gravitate towards listening to intuition.

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2. It’s definitely a tricky thing. I’ve set up my beliefs so that things are a little clearer when lives are extended past birth and death, but that definitely doesn’t make things easier when drama is happening. I can only speak for myself, but I experience relief from drama by feeling my way into usually probably unsupported sensation that everything will be all right in the end. That’s a pretty recent development, though, that came more with my mindset going from just having faith that things were ultimately good to viscerally trusting that they were. Before that, I could make a logical case that whatever I was going through wasn’t that important and I took a lot of comfort in the evident futility, briefness, and seeming insignificance of our lives. In the end, it seems like you went through a lot of crap, but you are still putting your best foot forward. I’m not sure if that’s any comfort, but there’s multiple ways to approach the issue. In terms of helping others out, you seem to know your boundaries, and that you’ve done your duty within them. There’s a bunch of angles with which you can reach for personal peace, and whichever works best for you is undisputable. However, my personal emphasis is that you deserve that peace, regardless of how you construct any justification to get it.

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   • I agree with you on one level, but I also think that the spirit of action is highly important. If someone was shaming you for binge-eating, and if you were simply halting binge-eating because they were shaming you, I don’t think it would be good for either party; I feel like they’re just getting off on throwing around negativity and power-tripping, while you would just be caving in to peer pressure and probably binge-eat when they weren’t around or after they stopped. To me, it really is the internal framing of one’s reality that comes first. I feel like that’s where constructive action and positivity comes from.

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     • My take on defensiveness may be a bit sociopathic: defensiveness is the problem of whoever is being defensive. My reaction to that defensiveness, however, is my problem. I can check it for validity, I can disengage because they’re clearly not in the mood to interact, but over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that I shouldn’t kowtow to them because they seem put off. It might not even be me–it could be an argument they had with someone earlier. I’m just going to keep reaching for the power in powerlessness when it comes to other’s inner workings, if that makes sense. I have the power to manage my own focus, positivity, and express that outwardly, but as far as how other’s take it, I do the best I can at any given moment and let them go their way. It gets to be a bit of a fine balance; I might be inspired when I’m in a positive mood to think about how to refine my communication, but if it’s making me feel guilty and I’m feeling like I’m an unworthy failure on the chopping block, then I need to focus on getting positive or distract myself with something else.

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     • This is just me and it may sound a bit wishy washy, but I truly believe that people who feel the need to be mean are trapped in an unpleasant, masochistic interpretation of reality. My view is that if I react to them from a negative, tit-for-tat, justification-heavy mindset, I’m going to be stuck titting-for-tatting and justifying to them why my negativity is superior to theirs, and I’m going to be drawn into their unpleasant perspective. On the other hand, I feel like if I’m staying positive and easy, then I most likely won’t interact with them, or I’ll forget what they said, or I’ll zing em with something that maybe they’ll think about but I’ll promptly forget and lose no sleep over.

       As far as constructive criticism, I used to believe it was integral for development, until I would try and offer it and it would promptly be forgotten (even after the criticized would heartily agree with me), or I would receive it and I’d be angry or preoccupied with something else so I would promptly forget it. I’m not trying to be reductive, but for me it really boils down to the positive mindset. If I’m abiding it, then I’ll stumble on tidbits and knowledge that will allow me to adjust in a positive direction, and I’ll even be able to see nuggets of value in spiteful criticism without getting offended.

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     • There’s validity in all of your points, and they can easily be supported by real-life scenarios. Personally, I find them hard to navigate, so it’s probably why I emphasize intuition and emotional intelligence. As far as shifting into neutrality, I think there’s also validity in that being a skill, but I also believe that in it’s most powerful form it’s less of a personally driven shift than relaxing and allowing a default benevolence to make itself apparent. Intellectually, it feels kind of weird to me. One moment I can’t stop thinking about how much something bothers me and how it’s ruining everything else and how it’ll snowball into hellish proportions, but after I chill out, it’s hard to imagine why it bothered me in the first place.

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     • Necessity definitely dictates what actions to take, and narrows the band of emotional spectrum available to a person concerning their situation. However, I do believe there’s choice in it, in that it’s possible to reach for the most positive resonance, even if it’s anger, rather than wallow in despair. That’s just my own theory, and it informs my belief that emotional intelligence is important in being able to maneuver through negativity and reattain positivity. In other words, while I agree with you that sometimes it is what it is and negativity can’t be helped, there’s always the ability to face in a positive direction, if that makes sense.

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     • You and me both. Unfortunately or fortunately, I am not as responsive to logical reward/punishment stuff anymore, which means that even though I know that despair is a big check mark on the con side, that’s not enough for me to move completely out of it. I have to focus more on the existential belief that it will all be fine, the belief that I’m more than just my physical body, and that my intuition and synchronicity come from a piece of myself that isn’t so bound by cause and effect. It comes with a visceral feeling that goes against what is apparently logical, if that makes sense. Kind of like the creepies but in the opposite direction.

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     • I think I know what you’re talking about. If I feel trapped, I find some relief in asking whatever’s out there for help. I think you have a healthy take on whatever is beyond the physical, because the more nonphysical you get, the more it seems to get subjective, which in my mind means religious, logical structures tend to choke it off. It has to be felt by the individual, in a way that often escapes objective confirmation. With too many words and equations and rules, the exercise becomes purely cognitive, without any outreach from our subtler parts.

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     • Absolutely. Living in endless justification as to why things are doomed and a worldview that isn’t open to spontaneity makes everything seem meager, dark, and cold.

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     • I feel like it undermines the purpose for living, which leads to some pretty dark implications.

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     • It’s kind of ironic–it seems like most folks who are the inspiration for oppressive religious structures were derided for being crazy by the religious structure that was around at the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if my belief in reincarnation extrapolated to the same folks who oppressed Jesus reincarnating as Jesus fanatics who oppressed others in his name. From what I understand about extrasensory correlations, you are correct–there are certain things we aren’t meant to know while we’re alive. We chose certain limitations for a reason, and throwing in too many cheat codes would ruin the game. This is several layers deep into speculation, but it seems as if certain events are fated to happen (as well as the opposite, like in the case of lottery jackpots that are large enough to significantly alter someone’s life path), while others exist in a bandwidth of probability that gets collapsed into an event through focus and action. My gut likes that interpretation, because I’ve struggled for years with the idea of free will and exactly how much we have. The important thing, I believe, is to heed logic, obviously, but also leave room to feel your way through. It sounds like you’re doing both! At the risk of sounding preachy or out of my lane, keep being nice to yourself! 😊

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     • I’m with you. I never wanted to be anything that big, but I still used to want to be an inspiring figure, Later, I realized it was just insecurity. It’s way too much of a headache trying to figure out how to inspire who or how not to piss off who. It may seem to work in certain instances, but over a significant length of time, I feel like it’s futile. Some will be inspired and end up hating me, vice versa, and who knows where all that ends up with who ultimately is more inspired and who ends up ultimately hating. I wasn’t given an individual perspective so I could constantly obsess about how some other perspective might see the world. The implication of me having an individual perspective, in my opinion, is that I am meant to enjoy and experience things through my own unique view. It seems to follow that it’s going to be smoother for me if I don’t obsess about trying to control how others are viewing reality.

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     • While it may seem simple and reductive, my opinion is that the way to navigate that is listening to intuition. Admittedly, though, that’s personal bias, because I’ve leaned so heavily on logical justification and cause/effect rationalization in the past. Dealing with people is absolutely an art, which I think correlates into error margins in the social sciences. I’m just a casual observer, but I think the last time I checked, their p-values were much greater than in harder sciences, so much so that a 60-70% positive confirmation was seen as solid. I feel shaky throwing that figure out there, though, so feel free to correct me.

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     • Well it isn’t anything I haven’t said before, but whenever you get a break, or if one just pops up spontaneously, I’ll be the first to say it’s well deserved! Statistics are kind of complicated. My opinion is they’re a shaky guideline. Sure, they’re inductive evidence, but we don’t have a true understanding of causality and how things work yet. That may sound like theoretical hogwash that doesn’t apply to our daily lives, but you’ve told me you’ve experienced certain unexplainable phenomena, as have I, and so have many. Right now, the most accepted indication of that is UFOs, which are visceral, eyes-on evidence that our laws of physics are far from complete. I’m willing to go along with the premise that there’s an objective reality in order to interact with others and achieve consensus, but I’m also going to leave the door open that perhaps the fundamental objectivity of reality is that it’s ultimately subjective. Statistics have often been used to bully and gaslight, and I don’t think enough focus is put on that. Man, I rambled all over the place…😅

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     • I feel like it should be one of those fundamental, critical-thinking related classes that people have to take. That, and formal logic so people know the difference between inductive, deductive, and the difference between truth and validity (we don’t have the means yet to prove truth, but given the acceptance of a certain base premise, we can show something is valid). I don’t really stress about it, though, because it seems like these concepts are rising in social media out of collective demand. I constantly see people referencing a straw man fallacy online. To a lesser degree, I also see whataboutism being called out, as well as false equivalency. It all plays to my bias that in the long run, we trend toward the positive. What happened to the belly dancing?? That’s gotta be more fun than rowing! On the other hand, dancing can wreck the ankles–mine are beat up from trying to learn some hip hop shuffles. 😅

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     • I have a weird memory–it’s always been razor sharp with stuff I’ve been interested in, and since I started writing, my memory about people has really improved, which I’m guessing is because writing is largely about people and their interests. On the other hand, I tried to deposit a check a few weeks ago, and I had to tear up two because I couldn’t remember how to fill them out to specifications. I used to be really good with numbers and technical stuff, but I’m kind of happy that my memory has gone in a more creative, people-oriented direction. Yeah, hip hop is fun! I used to win arguments with my ex by busting into goofy dance; now that I’m better at it, I can make it goofier, lol! My eventual goal is to heal my body up with stem cell shots and whatever else is the creme de la creme of regenerative medicine, then learn how to breakdance.

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     • I’ve heard mixed things as well. From what I understand, it’s highly variable dependent on the person (like all medicine). I used to be able to do aerial cartwheels and was able to sometimes pull off an aerial twist. If I got into breakdancing, I’d be laser focused on trying too pull off an air flare. We’ll see–like you, I’m gong to just focus on enjoying what’s in front of me, and trust there will be more enjoyable things that make their way in front of me. 😊

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     • I think it boils down to perception as well. I actually have had prolotherapy, which is the first, cheapest tier of regenerative medicine. When I first had it, it worked like a literal charm, but maybe not so coincidentally, as my perception soured on other things, the prolotherapy stopped being as effective. It went from making me feel 100% healed to maybe 80%. Recently, however, it seems to have had more effect. Obviously, the placebo is a real thing, but my buddy who has spent decades in emergency medicine cued me into a fascinating practice: when they’re transporting a patient, they’re supposed to keep their negative opinions to their self, even if that patient is unconscious. Apparently, the subconscious will take note and if the prognosis is dire, there’s a chance that the patient won’t perceive any hope and just give up on living, even though their conscious brain isn’t involved.

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     • That had to have been true to some degree for self surgeries. I was reading about a guy who cut out his own appendix (I think in Antarctica) because he was the only one around who could do it. If I remember correctly, the other folks around him helped him by holding mirrors (which would confuse the hell out of me because movement is contraindicated in a reflection) and he couldn’t take anesthesia because he had to stay alert. I’ve also heard there’s some strong anecdotal evidence that back pain responds strongly to psychology. There were people with incredibly jacked up spines (according to imaging) that had great mobility and no pain, and there were people with perfectly healthy spines that were in constant pain. In the case of psychedelics, I think researchers (not sure how thoroughly this has been studied) have come to the conclusion that changes in behavior are predominantly psychological, a result of the perceived experience rather than an alteration in brain chemistry. All that speaks to my unprovable bias that we live in a reality that is fair and empowers us at a deeper level than we might be able to articulate, because otherwise, I would be obligated to run from one external causative to another, kind of like a reactive pinball that was forced to process whatever life doled out to me with enough say to realize how powerless I am and how ultimately cruel everything is.

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     • From a physiological perspective, I believe the brain can grow some new wiring that bypasses some connective gunk if we can open our perception and allow it to do its thing. (speaking of cool biological stuff, I think I also remember a blind kid that developed echolocation to the point where he could do something seemingly impossible like riding a bike or shooting a basketball. I can’t remember what he did exactly, but I do remember the echolocation). I remember visiting a Marine Corps hotel/museum when I lived in San Francisco and there was an exhibit about some old salty Marine who lost function in one of his arms as a result of charging a beach or something in WWII, then he became an artist. In his seventies, he spontaneously regained function of his arm. My suspicion though, is that perceptually there has to be a feeling of allowance and ease in order for belief to form or at least be distracted from the feeling of lack. I don’t think that obsessing over these things over consciously trying to force-focus them into being ever really works.

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     • I’ve seen people who are obsessed bend things in their favor. However, my suspicion is that though it might outwardly seem like they’re using obsession as a pushy force to jam things into place, it’s not the case in their perspective. When things fall into place over the long term, I believe that’s a result of being tapped into the less tangible parts of ourselves that are in sync with the illogical or not-as-logical parts of existence. I only say this from an anecdotal viewpoint, because I used to believe that forceful obsession was the way to go based on personal observation, then it didn’t go so well for me or my buddies who simply tried to copy that aesthetic. It may be reductive, but I believe a verbal attempt to sum that stuff up may go along the lines of “You’re connected to bigger things, and giving your intuition room to breathe is how you start leveraging that connection.” I can’t deny that the obsessive path isn’t for some, but I think problems arise when someone might visualize obsessively, but they’re not addressing an instinctive disbelief that comes along with that visualization. Though not true in all cases, I’d say there’s a chance that in some of them, the intuition is saying that’s not the way to go in this particular life.

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     • I agree that some folks aren’t in the place to connect with their intuition. I’m not against action–ironically, I think in some cases, action is what’s needed to get someone into a place of belief to where they can start leveraging more of their potential. That’s kind of the standard model for accomplishment–discipline and grind comes first, achievement follows. I like to look at the outliers–folks who were regarded as crazy or foolish, but they honored their hearts and things fell into place for them. One of my favorites is Bobby Lee (partly because he’s Korean), who grew up with heavy racial discrimination in the 80s, was addicted to meth in high school to the point where he’d been to rehab twice before graduating, was sexually abused and beaten as a kid, and had no prospects according to expectations–he didn’t fulfill any of the traditional Asian stereotypes in the academic sense. One day, he was inspired to randomly ask for a minimum wage job at the Comedy Store, and he discovered he had a talent for comedy. Even then, he was shit on and dismissed for years, he was given raw deals compared to his peers (despite being on a tv show, he earned the equivalent of a white collar professional after agent fees and business-related expenses, and there were constant attempts to minimize his exposure, so no fuck-you money), then he fell into a slump around 40 and contemplated quitting comedy. After he started a podcast at the behest of his girlfriend, it made no money for years, then eventually he was able to leverage his following and gain relevance and fulfillment. He’s not a perfect example–he’s had some dubious moral failings and he has big mental/emotional stability issues–but as he constantly says, by all logic, he should be an addict on the streets if not for his belief, even under the most dire of circumstances. I also like the examples of Ms. Pat, a popular comedian who worked as a drug dealer, had two kids by the time she was sixteen, was shot and sexually/physically abused before she turned eighteen, and was pretty much resigned to a life of welfare. Her counselor told her she was funny and should try out standup, and now she’s doing great. Lastly, Francis Ngannou stands out to me; he was working in a sand mine before fleeing to Europe and living on the streets, visiting boxing gyms in the hope of being a fighter. Eventually, he becomes an MMA heavyweight multiple-time champion. Now, bringing up these examples comes dangerously close to victim-blaming and pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps type bullshit, but I’m not advocating for any of that. I agree that if we go by action and logic alone, the world is grossly unfair, which is why I focus on anecdotal examples of reincarnation and consciousness-derived examples of cause-and-effect in order to make a personal case for a fair and benevolent existence (at least in the long term). Because if that isn’t the case, if physical circumstances rule my state of mind and decisively crush my ability to shape my life, I don’t see a point in living, honestly–I’m a bug flying along, at the mercy of a splatting against a random windshield. I want to reiterate again that I’m in no way interested in victim-blaming or stomach-turning positivity offered to people who are genuinely suffering, but I suspect you and I can find common ground in the emphasis on doing what one can, moment by moment, and turning toward positivity as much as possible, reaching for as much resonance as one can. We might part ways, however, in the belief in what comes after. Without getting too specific, I believe the dead go to a better place, and, in the long run, they will ultimately be given peace and fulfillment, regardless of any short term horror.

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     • I hope your day plans came to fruition! I spent the afternoon with my friends watching the Superbowl, even though I don’t even know the rules to football, much less anything about the players or teams. 😅 Yeah, I used to dislike Bobby Lee when I was younger because I thought he was leveraging Asian stereotypes and tokenism to further his career, then later after listening to him I realized that was all that was available to him, and even then he was up against a ton of other Asians competing to do the same thing. It really hit me in the feels when I watched an episode of his podcast and his girlfriend asked him hypothetically if he could travel back in time and tell his younger self about what was going to happen to him, what parts would his younger self believe. He stared into the distance (like when you’re imagining something) and his face started trembling like he was about to cry, and his voice broke when he said, “Any of it. I wouldn’t have believed any of it.” Then if I remember correctly he listed off all the material blessings that he’d received, and the fulfillment and love he got from his podcast. People had liked him before, but he’d never really connected with them on such a personal level as he’d done with the podcast.

       Anyways, I think you’re doing the exact right thing! It’s fun to try and articulate and intellectualize the answer, but when it’s all said and done, I believe the answer must be lived, by each individual and for that individual.

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     • That sounds awesome! Turkey legs! (I hope?) In my conflated imagination when I was a little little kid, I always associated Vikings eating turkey legs (wearing the horn-pointy caps) as anything medieval. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like there’s a point in getting old where there’s an existential comfort that replaces the discomfort of aging, not from resignation, but from some ineffable knowing that it will be okay after we pass on. Could just be me though. Also, I feel like since I grew up in the nineties and early 2000s, the cool card now is sharing far more with the geek card than I ever could have hoped for or dreamed of. I think you got both cards! 😊

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     • Well it’s hard to beat the delicious ultra-cheesiness of a broccoli cheese bowl. With the pizza, it sounds like a cheese-heaven overload. The rest of the stuff sounds great as well! Good noms are never out of fashion–very cool in my book! 😁

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     • While I’m always on the hunt for good pizza, I will ironically be okay with cheap, seven-eleven sewer pizza. I remember loving the ol’ public school pizza n fries. (I wonder if that’s still around, or if parents now realize that it’s kinda like eating tasty glue?) Those strawberries sound nice–strawberries by themselves usually have an unpredictable range of sweet-sour balance, but with that chocolate on, it probably does well with the sour most of the time. I hope you get to dress up next time! (if that’s your thing).

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     • I’m an Elmer’s man, myself–I maow it down by the bucket! 😂 I too, like to save up my nasty-food points for some pretty high quality nasty food, but as I always harp on my hunches, I’ve been letting them have more rein lately. More veggies, actually, which is surprising, but every time my body drifts toward salads I believe it’s probably a good reason to load up on greens. I remember as a kid, I kind of resigned myself to never liking them, then as I grew into an adult, I stuck to em because of a macho discipline shtick, so now it’s kind of nice to actually appreciate the different flavors and freshness. I’m pretty sure it’s an offshoot of trying to sensitize my perception and make it more nuanced, but who knows. Well, as far as the dress-up, I think a chance will present itself when the time is right. For now, I’m just glad you’ve had some naps as well as a good Halloween! 😊

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     • Having a fun day–that’s the important thing. Definitely something you deserve! Eating is a tricky thing…I thought eating for exercise and health was tricky enough, I can’t imagine adding allergies into the mix. Honestly, I’ve resigned myself to eating mostly the same thing most of the time. I still enjoy it, especially if I wait for a bit of hunger, and I’m not stressing over what new dish to peg my hopes on. I remember one time I gave my ex the ipad so she could look up food because she was hungry, then an hour later I ask her if she had decided, then she replied that she got tired of looking. I was amused, angry, and weirdly impressed at the same time.

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     • My heart just went out to you, because I love avocado! It’s interesting, I had a discussion with my friend about why ribeye is the best cut, and we came to the conclusion that even though it’s kind of like snot, it’s pretty tasty. I feel like avocado also lands in the category of tasty snot. Personally, I think my enjoyment of food is like all things, where it’s dependent on staying in the moment and enjoying things as they come. Because there have been cheat days where I have made a list of everything and anything I wanted, then mowed through it all without any enjoyment whatsoever. Contrast that with an instance in the military where I had been living off MREs for months, then I got to eat a cold, mashed-up arby’s cheeseburger and it was the best thing I had ever tasted, which makes me conclude that it really is a function of my mental state. I too, am also a Gemini. Even though I subscribe to all kinds of woo woo, I’m kind of half in, half out with the astrological stuff. A lot of it seems accurate, but part of me just doesn’t agree to the premise that planets determine what I’m going to do. On the other hand, when I was reading through the nursing subreddit, they all swore that for some reason, a full moon always brought in a bunch of drama and craziness from their patients.

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     • That sounds delicious! I used to get frustrated with avocados because I’d get impatient waiting for em to ripen and I’d just maow down a tough avocado. I feel like there’s money to be made in genetically engineering them so they last indefinitely in a certain texture, but it’s probably pretty hard to do, or else they would have done it already.

       I actually have a fondness for MREs, lol! Typically, they meant that it was time for some sort of break, however short. Also, I used to mix the peanut butter into a cocoa packet with water and make some tasty peanut buttery fudge-stew. Delicious! It just took me by surprise when I ate a cold cheeseburger and it was the most delicious thing ever.

       The expectation could set the outcome, but in certain cases I was reading about nurses who thought it was absolute BS, then it started happening and they became grudging believers. They also have similar stuff happen with the paranormal, to the point where apparently some of them will casually ask newcomers if they’ve seen the ghost yet in certain rooms.

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     • I’ve never had Tajin, but having grown up with Korean cuisine, it sounds right up my alley due to its zing and saltiness. Makes sense that it would go well with avocado, since avocado is creamy and in my opinion, even a little meaty.

       Appreciate your service in the hospital! I feel like it’s pretty underappreciated. That and education should gain more national recognition, esteem, and obviously pay. I think Singapore had some program where they offered sweet incentives to their top 10% of prospects if they committed to a few years of public service in education, and I feel like we’re long overdue for something similar. Did you see any shadow people or experience any poltergeist stuff, or did it not have much end of life services?

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     • Well I think that chatting with lonely patients is significant, if seemingly small, so forgive me if I express admiration regardless of your random crazy lady-ness!

       For a brief period, I was kind of adrift in regards to purpose, and I became interested in patient care. I realized my interest was far too casual to do it justice, and I also realized it’s incredibly demanding, even when it is a calling. I’ve heard similar things about end of life, that it can be moving and joyful. Kind of makes me want to come back as a funny uplifting ghost for a bit.

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     • My synchronicity-seeking mind saw that as a narrative that reinforced the idea that you’re following your calling. The care you gave during your nursing seemed fundamentally dissatisfying, and now the potential for care that you can give your son more fits your heart’s desire (it seems you fulfill that potential here and there, like with your pleasant Halloween). Maybe it’s a philosophical evasion, but I’d say that arguably deserves more admiration, as you’re setting an example for others at the existential level. And since we’ve chatted fairly in-depth about that subject, I’m pretty sure you know that I think you’re checking the most important boxes. I know that doesn’t seem like substantial comfort when material troubles start to mount, but I hope that in quieter moments, it gives you the same bone-deep satisfaction that following my calling has given to me. 🙂

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     • The few times you’ve issued a disclaimer, I’ve always wondered why it doesn’t come across as salty. Maybe it would be different face to face. 😅

       I agree with what I think is your general premise, that admiration of others puts them on a pedestal, sets up a hierarchy, and lends itself to a lot of worthy/unworthy judgment/condemnation. I also sometimes struggle with the idea that I don’t have the resources I want for specific things I’d like. Typically, I try to enjoy daydreaming about em, but if that comes with any feeling of lack, I’ll try to focus on something else, or if that doesn’t work, I’ll just go with an it is what it is attitude as far as the existence of my lack, and then eventually that feeling will loosen up so I can go to something more pleasant.

       Sounds like you’ve got some specialized insights and ideas! I trust that eventually they’ll come into play, perhaps in unexpected ways!

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     • Spot on with it being hard to read tone in text–it’s why I do so much editing, trying to match what’s happening on the page with what I feel in my brain and my heart. I remember when I was a kid and I read Jurassic Park, I was so absorbed by the book that I thought one of the scenes (when they roll poisoned eggs out to the raptors) was actually in the movie, even though I had already seen the movie. I was puzzled and baffled when I saw it again and the scene wasn’t there. That experience always stuck with me, and became what I aspire for when I write: to make it so smooth it can create a false memory.

       I agree with the simple things tending to be the most joyful. While I have experienced joy with “big” things, I think we tend to attach less expectation to simple stuff, which allows us to let go of our hangups and open ourselves to the present-moment energy. Be well on your adventures!

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     • Oh man, I love coffee, so to me that sounds HUGE! I was once curious to see if I could write without it, so I spent a few weeks writing without any caffeine. I can do it, but it definitely helps me enjoy the experience more. I don’t think you’re crazy at all for reveling in your coffee triumph. I like to celebrate when I hit the perfect amount of food on a cheat day; my old dog and me had the same tendency to eat until we felt sick. Cheat day’s no fun if you’re laying in bed doing nothing and it hurts to breathe because your belly is aching with pressure. 🥲 Other moments of small celebration for me include biting into cheese at the perfectly melted moment, as well as eating noodles that are perfectly cooked, al dente with the salt soaked into the starch. But your coffee victory sounds way happier! (In my book, at least). 🙂

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     • I think I understand. I can’t really imagine coffee without the caffeine. At this point, my brain probably associates the flavor with the increase in mood and cognition. Also, I’m with you on the taste. I only drink rainforest organic because I drink a lot, and I figure small differences add up in large quantities, but I’m fine with Mcdonald’s coffee. Same with alcohol, actually–it all tastes like medicine to me, unless I have an extra fruity drink where the sugar conceals the alcohol. Cheers to an infinity of happy moments, both great and small! 🍻

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     • Is organic coffee more eco-friendly? I hope so–I’m chagrined to say that wasn’t a consideration! 😅 No, I drink rainforest organic because I figure if I’m drinking a lot, any minute impact it has on my health will quickly become magnified. Apparently, folks say that organic coffee tastes decidedly worse, but I honestly really can’t tell the difference. or if I I can, it’s super slight, like brown sugar vs white sugar. I almost wish I liked alcohol better, because man do I LOVE the containers and colors! They all look like stuff you’d find in a wizard’s dungeon. It was one of the biggest disappointments in my life when I realized they pretty much uniformly taste like medicine. When I used to play D&D, I actually went through a brief stint when I got excited by the idea of characters finding super expensive wine or liquor, and I even think Dragon magazine had a little article where they charted out some possibilities and items with expensive alcohol. Too bad it all tastes gross. 🥲

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     • This may sound weird, but the rock-and-a-hard-place implication in the conundrum that arises with limited resources and wanting to buy a more expensive, ethically sourced brand actually moves me toward trust in an underlying benevolence. It’s pretty obvious that through logical action alone that the universe isn’t fair, and I’d say cruel. We could shoehorn in some kind of transactional, delayed-gratification reasoning–suffer now, reward later–but that seems cruel too, at least in the short term, which means short-term cruelty would require constant justification which I’m not willing to continually grasp for (much rather believe in the transcendental notion I can be happy with seemingly crappy circumstances, if I honor and employ the individual puzzle pieces that arise through my intuition and experience). It kind of reinforces to me the idea of do what you can, there are greater forces at work, and that life extends beyond the materialist, transactional-causal perspective (or we invite said cruelty). Not that this is a justification for cruelty, or some gross pull-yourself-up-by your-bootstraps implication, but I remember you said you didn’t mind an optimistic underdog story for the sake of boosting spirits every now and then. So in that vein, I was watching Clerks 3 a few days ago (Kevin Smith’s gen-x humor is no longer the viral force it was in the 90s, but it still manages to come off endearing if a little awkward, at least to me, but man he can still deliver an emotional punch, which I think is his hidden forte), and in the special features, I was reminded of the sometimes nauseating dictate to follow your heart in whatever capacity is available (do what you can). I’m not sure if you’re familiar with his story, but he was literally working as a convenience store clerk, wondering what he should do with his life, when he was inspired to make a film about his friends and his day to day. There’s classic underdog drama (he took $25k out in credit cards to film it, which he had no apparent capacity to pay back, and he managed to squeeze it in to a film festival where no one attended, but he somehow managed to attract attention afterward and get a distribution deal). He and his producer stated in the feature that they never had a master plan or complex strategy; they simply made a decision to execute and were working with whatever was available, pretty much just reacting to their constraints and whatever developments happened to occur.

       The rest is history, as word of mouth propelled burgeoning sales in video history, and from there on out he managed to leverage several seemingly random opportunities that seemed nonsensical or inconsequential into sustainable business and self-expression. He’s not without problems, definitely not a role model (like you and I discussed), but he followed enough of that key existential principle of authenticity to at least inspire me and bring me continued optimism throughout some struggles. This may seem a bit weirder, but I also like reading about OnlyFans models who for whatever reason went from an undesirable career to a lucrative OnlyFans for the same reason. I guess that’s a way-too-long spiel that emphasizes what we already agree on: try and be positive, and do what you can. 😅

       I’m with you on the alcohol. I suspect from what I’ve seen is that it’s kind of an unproductive way to self-express, like there’s a societal contract that says drinking it is a license to act in typically unacceptable ways (within certain boundaries–I believe alcoholic socializing comes with its own set of rules). It seems to have the same allure as many addictive behaviors (fill the hole inside with an outward distraction), but with the added amplification of intoxication and possible chemical dependency.

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     • Appreciate the novella! I feel like I gave one of my own right before yours! 😅

       Honestly, I think success and following your heart aren’t dictates, and they are much more subjective than those who keep preaching cringey hustle culture would like. And a lot of times, I don’t think following your heart and earning a certain amount of money or comfort need be at odds. I made it halfway through the first episode of a boilerplate real estate reality show before turning it off, but I did find it cool that this one guy who was married with kids started as an immigrant working a retail department store job, got fired, then after breaking down in front of his wife decided to go into real estate agenting and achieved a lot of fulfillment and success. I also love when even though it’s something I may not enjoy, like a 9-5 corporate job, that someone really digs it and takes pride in whatever they’ve gone through to get there. To be honest, I didn’t always feel this way. When I was younger, I would like down on anyone who wanted to assimilate into consensus culture, simply because I was projecting my own insecurities and fears. But just like coding puts some people in the zone and allows them to express their creativity, while at the same time it kills my soul whenever I’ve tried it, it really is subjective, and I celebrate whenever someone finds joy and fulfillment along their path. It could be writing, caring for others, pasta, chocolate, or just a pleasant day out with friends/family. Bring on the goodness! 😊

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     • No worries on the novella, I think I’ve tossed a few of my own your way. I think I’m on the same page as what you’re saying, in that there are definitely situations in life where the best you can do is purely related to survival and sustainment, and has nothing to do with dreams. When I was in those situations, I would gamify it before that word became popular, and feel pride and accomplishment in progress and momentum, even if it wasn’t necessarily in the things I wanted to do. It really is a person by person, situation by situation set of criteria. In those cases, sometimes all I could do was daydream about doing other things, although that’s not advisable if negativity worms its way into my brain and pollutes the daydream. Daydreaming should be a pleasant experience, in my opinion.

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     • I can definitely get on board with that. I’ve written on many a lunch hour, and woken up extra early to get in writing and exercise. It would be a drop in the bucket compared to other times in my life, but I’m a firm believer in leaving the door open to betterment and possibility, even if logically it seems like it’s an impossible path. For the longest time, I’ve believed that the goals are secondary to appreciation of the process (journey not the destination), but I think in recent years I’ve slowly moved into a more visceral belief of that former platitude. I know people who engineer their life so they can be in imminent danger because that’s where they feel a sense of purpose. I’ve seen this in varying degrees, from actual combat to slow-burn self-destructive behaviors that will force someone to pick themselves up and put themselves back together, just so they can have that particular experience. I think that’s where framing plays an important part, in that if they reshaped their perception so movement into health or relaxation wasn’t as boring or reviled in their perception, they would be more inclined to appreciate the journey toward healthier goals. I’ve experienced a bit of that myself, chagrined to say.

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     • An outwardly hectic pace can be unavoidable. Honestly, I feel like life would suffer without it, in that if everything was super sluggish, there wouldn’t be any appreciation for hustling. Also, someone else’s hustle might not be another person’s. I think the crucial thing for me is to appreciate what’s happening, in the moment, and not get emotionally hung up on expectations, because often they’ve turned out way worse or way better than I thought they could. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to contemplate how exactly I want to live my life. I used to constantly seek external validation, do pretty much everything to impress other people. But now I feel like that’s kind of the mechanistic equivalent of being a pinball, just banging around and driven purely by external momentum. I focus more now on enjoying the interaction, and taking advantage of the unexpected surface to rebound off, if that makes any sense.

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     • I’ve definitely been surprised by the universe multiple times, and in almost a trickster kind of way, if I had to describe it. I suspect it might be some kind of fundamental operating principle, and that it’s the reason why irony resonates in books. The being liked thing is interesting, because at a purely physical level, it’s absolutely true, but there’s also a paradoxically commonly accepted idea that pining for peoples’ regard will bring misery. It’s actually the crux of the third part of Buddha’s riddle, where Mara asks him “Why are you worthy of enlightenment, and who will vouch for you?” He answers with a symbol of interconnectivity (by touching the earth). I went down a rabbit hole awhile ago trying to figure out what the consensus on that was, but all I could find was that scholars seemed to think it was Buddha’s truth-based answer to societal pressures. However, I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t verbally answer. Eventually, it hit me as an epiphany: if he had verbally answered, it would have required him to acknowledge the dualistic premise that there was a questioner and answerer, and that enlightenment was dependent on an external measure of worth, and also someone’s external validation (vouching). By touching the ground, he didn’t answer anybody–he simply stated what he knew to be true (that everything is interconnected). He could have made the same gesture at any time, without any acknowledgment of any dualistic premise. Anyways, that’s a long-winded way of saying that I believe the true lesson is that yes, we have to make connections and depend on others’ regard for survival and other things, but we don’t need to let that shake us, we can always abide in the belief that everything is interconnected, that things are happening for a good reason (maybe unperceivable at the moment), and that in the end it will all work out.

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     • I like your phrasing when referring to studies, in that you use the word “indicate.” I don’t consider myself someone who is a reactionary contrarian, nor someone who accepts scientific implications or causality on blind faith. It’s kind of frustrating when I talk to my friends and they either don’t acknowledge the sometimes influence of overt or inadvertent corruption in data, or they revert to conspiracy theories and don’t acknowledge the philosophical foundations of repeatability, correlation, and causal linkage in scientific experiments. I feel if done properly, it combines open-mindedness and vetting of conclusions in probably the best way possible (although I don’t understand it well, it’s fun seeing the relationship between theoretical and experimental physics). Having been interested in philosophy, I’ve spent a large part of my life thinking it was interesting but impractical, but I feel like contemplating logic, causality, and our attempt to quantify it would skim off some of the more inflammatory rhetoric.

       As far as the Jerry Maguire mentality, yes, I agree. There’s two failings in that view, in my opinion. One, the implication of a neat pat answer that is the most important part of the puzzle. Two, the idea that it resides in another singular person, an external source. If any of that were true, it would give rise to the implication of a transactional reality (which, as you know, I’m not on board with), where you suffer and toil in order to find the one other person who embodies the answer. Only then could the rest of reality fall into place. It’s the same dynamic as most religions, where you’re for some unknowable reason born into a hole of suffering and ignorance, then you’re obligated to dig your way out, then convince others to do the same.

       Even with a calling, I don’t believe that it works that way. It’s why I’m not on board with Bukowski and his gatekeeping of writing. He also seemed to be a generally miserable guy, from what little I’ve read about him. Sometimes funny, though.

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3. Hahaha! What?! How? The absurdity of this piece is both amusing and disturbing.

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   • HEH heh heh! 😆

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   • That’s how it seems to me as well. It also seems to be a bit of a catch-22, in that we’re obviously designed (for the most part) to interact with other people, but it takes a good amount of work and refinement to capitalize on that design, and it also has risk attached to it, in mismatches and people who have bad intentions. It is, in the end, necessary, though, as humans seem to function like a giant web where teams of people can accomplish a lot more than the sum of their individuals.

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4. It’s stifling for sure. I feel like the healthiest approach in a lot of cases is let’s see how it goes. Sometimes, I feel like webs of obligations create a life of reactivity, bouncing from one obligation to the next, with society painting enough made-up obligations that when there aren’t any present, it’s easy to make one up.

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   • Logically, I feel like the amount of variables is kind of overwhelming when trying to weigh relationships. It’s part of why I feel like being in touch with intuition and honing emotional intelligence is of such great value. Not only am I interacting with people who change along the way, which means that although recognizable, they are a different person, I’m going through the same process. Trying to keep a hard-data checklist of pros and cons in my head is not only exhausting, but arguably impossible. I have a buddy who I really vibe with, partly because he’s great at boundaries in that he’ll openly state if he’s tired or he has other friends waiting without trying to drag me into some weird group hangout. Sometimes he’ll ask me beforehand if that’s what I want to do. For me, it’s nice to find people like that at this stage in my life, because I’m able to do the same thing without remorse, where before I would always try to prove how cool and down I was for anything.

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     • Recognition of your rhythm is definitely important. I feel like recognition develops into sensitivity, then intuition, then, throughout that process, the ability to instinctively maneuver in the present before future problems start to manifest. I’ve known people who just go full throttle until they’re burned out and forced to rest, then they keep repeating it over and over, like some kind of super-sad, unenviable pendulum. I remember someone I know who worked from home saying he was beat to crap by Friday from stress, then when Monday came rolling around, he was barely ready to start work again. It seemed very Matrix-like, where he’d been reduced to a battery for an inhuman entity. The battery life ain’t for me!

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     • Full throttle is indeed sometimes the only option. It’s actually part of the fun of life, I think. It only becomes a problem, in my opinion, when it becomes habitual, and is justified through reasoning along the lines of “that’s the way it’s always been done” or some form of guilt-based rationale. I feel like constantly going full throttle would be like a one note song, ignoring all the other options that make a nice piece of music. (Kind of speaking to my old self here 😅)

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     • A lot of times, the universe has thrown me for a loop as well. I still fall out of trust sometimes, but now that I’ve seen its long-term machinations, it’s a bit easier to relax and enjoy the moment. I like your consistent optimism!

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     • You’re preaching to the choir, and I am here for it!! (That’s unironically a good thing in my book, in case texting tries to twist it into something sarcastic or negative). You know, I feel like I used to derive a sense of power, control, and elitism from being cynical and problem-focused, but part of truly being problem-focused is tracking casual linkage and outcomes, so that you can move on to “better” problems. I think at a certain point in that mindset, one has to start wondering at the people who defy the model, the positive outliers who don’t seem to succeed despite their lack of doom and gloom. I used to dismiss them as stupid and ignorant, but after I started noticing some who had long-term success and fulfillment, I began to question the whole cognitive model.

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     • The objectiveness of subjectivity is all around us, woven into the manner through which we navigate our respective realities. I enjoy a boost of secondhand cheeriness when I hear about your successes with your kid! You don’t need to justify that to anyone else; I feel like your heart is telling you you’re doing the right thing, and you deserve all the rewards that come with it, regardless of how they register on anyone else’s scale. I’m rooting for you!

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     • Personally, success for me is the old cliche of enjoying what’s around me at the moment. David Letterman supposedly would go into a rage after each of his shows, chucking stuff around while throwing a tantrum about how his episode was a piece of crap, despite his good ratings. And Bobby Lee apparently said that about his own sets for years, even though he got a ton of laughs, to the point where his fellow comedians would get pissed off that he obviously performed well but wasn’t acknowledging it in the slightest, and moping around for no good reason. Calm and happy, in my opinion, are existential rewards we were designed to experience. Maybe not all the time, because then they would have no definition or resonance, but much, much more than most believe. I hope you encounter more of that goodness! 😊

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     • Never tried daquiri ice, but maybe now I’ll give it a go. I’m one of the weird people who isn’t much into ice cream, except for this one place by the pier where a french gourmet chef bought but later sold. You could taste the milk in each scoop, and there was always a long line of folks waiting to buy some. Later, I tried it again when I didn’t know he’d sold it, and my soul broke because it just tasted like regular ice cream. Stop rescuing these banking execs and make that guy an ice cream czar, dammit! 😒🤣

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5. Yep, that was weird. And it has my highest recommendation! You just better hope, uh, Chuck Norris approves too.

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   • Hear that Chuck? Approve, dammit!!

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     • That sounds delicious! I’ve always been partial to big ol’ glops of sugary flavor. Unfortunately, Kool-aid doesn’t taste as good as it used to, for some reason, but when I was a kid, I always thought that it must be what alcoholic drinks would taste like, since they come in fancy colorful containers. One of the biggest disappointments of my life. 😂

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     • Hmm, maybe my adult palate would enjoy the low-sugar kool aid. I probably wouldn’t mind eating it straight out of the can–part of me was heavily influenced by a period in my life where my mom was working pretty much all day, so me and my brother subsisted off condiments and raw ingredients. At the time, we were blissfully unaware this wasn’t a normal thing, and delighted in the bevy of strong flavors available to our gobs. I was addicted to crouton packets and bacon bits for awhile. To this day, I can’t keep nutella around for too long, or it goes straight from the jar into my mouth.

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     • It’s definitely for me–I once got a lemon bar from whole foods that I’m sure they made wrong, because my mouth wanted to pucker like in the cartoons. It was strong, but it didn’t overpower the crust or the sugar, so I thought they somehow made some magical supertreat. Much to my disappointment, each lemon bar I bought from them after that failed to live up to that one-time magical twist of tartness. Oblivious fools! Now that I look back on it, the feeling of normality as a kid was kind of weird. I felt envy when other kids seemed to have nicer stuff, but I didn’t realize I had a weird childhood until my mid-twenties, I think. It’s weird what we accept–I was reading about a study where they had someone who could experience astral projection at will, and she was shocked when she interacted the scientists and realized it wasn’t something everyone could do.

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     • I’m kind of fatalistic about it. Not that I can justify or rationalize it in any sense, but I believe I’ll end up turning into a multidimensional ghost anyways, so as long as I stay positive and trust it will all work out, I won’t have any astral problems. Pretty childish, I know, but from what I’ve heard from others who supposedly do it, it seems to line up.

       I ate a lemon bar yesterday from whole foods after a cheat day filled with mickey d’s breakfast (pretty much the only stuff from there that still tastes good to me), a giant italian from jersey mike’s, and some delicious ollipop probiotic sodas. Sadly, the lemon bar wasn’t super puckery. One of these days, I’ll get another one!!

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     • I’m with you on the childishness! Over the last few years, I’ve joked to my friends that I’ve been experiencing positive devolution–I went from being a respectable young adult who was married with dogs to a bachelor who spends copious amounts of time refining make-believe narratives. Whenever I mention it, I feel a mild surge of glee tinged with an I-got-away-with-it vibe.

       I’ve tried the cinnamon rolls as well as their apple fritters. Big thumbs down. When I go to McDonald’s for dessert I’ll stick with the cookies. They’re not amazing but they are pretty good. I equate them to their breakfast, in that it’s all in the timing. They taste really good right after you get them because they’re still warm and gooey, just like the breakfast tastes good when the cheese is still melty.

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     • I think it’s my older xennial self getting some validation: part of me feels like I “hacked” the system. It’s faint and small though, compared to how vocal it was about five years ago. For better or for worse, I feel like I’ve gravitated much more toward the gen z perspective of not understanding why I should work super hard for someone else’s company, or get a macho kick out of neglecting self-care. It’s weird–that stuff used to resonate with me in my twenties, but now it doesn’t motivate me in the slightest.

       Just don’t try their apple fritters! Apple fritters are one of my happy snacks that I’m kinda picky about, and Mcdonald’s fritters are just hunks of caky disappointment, in my opinion.

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     • No worries! When I was younger, I used to be all about consistency and rigid adherence out of some weird insecurity disguised as macho principle, but I have since switched positions and concluded that it is healthy and important to be able to seemingly contradict my old stances so I can honor my overarching intent to enjoy the moment and remain oriented towards positivity.

       I’m grateful for your presence and outlook (I know you don’t like being admired, so I’m gonna tread carefully), because I think it’s pretty awesome that there’s folks who are built to help others.

       As always, no obligations, if you’re going to withdraw from our interactions, you can let me know or not, depending on whatever you’re inclined to do. If one of my messages goes unanswered, I’ll just assume you are busy or decompressing a bit.

       Also, no pressure on reading my new book, feel free to read it or not at whatever pace suits you! But I just wanted to let you know that I took some inspiration from some of our past conversations and converted it into part of the narrative. I’m not sure if you remember, but we discussed Tolkien’s lack of highlight on women (I hope to have a sufficient highlight in chapters 16-41 without being overbearing) that I directly reference in chapter 4. Also, I remember you loved dinosaurs, and that inspired a bit of dinosaur-centered reminiscence in chapter 20. Just want to emphasize, though, that no pressure if you don’t want to read it or you’re too busy! 😊

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     • I can only relate in an indirect sense–my memory is razor-sharp when it comes to certain subjects, but absolute dog poop with things I am not interested in. I never realized what it might have felt like to be not academically gifted until I took coding and my brain screeched to a grinding halt. It’s weird–I could understand the basic components, but once they started stacking together, I drew a complete blank. Ironically, my dad got a phd in computer science and made all that into a career. On the other hand, from what I learned in psychology, forgetting things is an important part of optimization, but I can understand how forgetting relevant details could be frustrating, I think. When I couldn’t remember stuff or make connections in computer science it drove me up a wall. Back then, I knew and wallowed in the fact that I was smarter than most people I encountered, but the tables turned when I tried to learn coding.

       I’m glad you plan on reading it! I’m really happy with how it turned out. 😊 I got laughs, romance, drama, action, and I think I hit my goal of faithfully representing the sweeping scope and depth of world I love in good fantasy. (That’s probably why I only played one actual game when I was interested in D&D, and mostly spent time reading through campaigns, character kits, and making characters we never ended up using)

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     • I feel the faintest of envies when I read that you could actually code, even if it wouldn’t make you happy. I think when I was actually trying to code, I would have been jealous, lol!

       The memory stuff was why I decided to stop trying to astral travel for a bit. My dreams were getting pretty vivid, and even though they weren’t lucid, it still felt like I was doing a lot. Not overwhelming, but definitely a lot. After I finish the third book of the Unbound Realm, I plan on writing a detective noir based mostly in the astral plane, so I’ll definitely get back to that.

       I’m not sure if your lifestyle will allow for it, but apparently daydreaming activates the same regions of the brain as memory, if I remember correctly. I also remember–before I had read more deeply into the weirdness of the arrow of time–that after DMT, where I had a visceral sense of the collapse of linear time, I was trying to take a different approach to predicting the future, specifically “remembering the future” as I said to my friends. Anyways, maybe you could daydream in the absence of pleasant memories. Memories are pretty inconstant as is; it’s possible to create traumatic false memories, or so I’ve read from reviews of court cases.

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     • I agree that no one should be jealous (of anybody), but I will say this: I’ve met some folks who seemingly have all the material boxes checked, but they’re in a constant state of dissatisfaction because they feel like they aren’t following their hearts, and they look longingly on people who do. I feel like you’re one of the people who are honoring their calling; I hope you get some fulfillment out of that.

       I’ve heard of dark spirits in the astral plane, but I’ve also heard they correlate with state of mind and they also can sometimes turn out to be good spirits painted dark by someone’s personal projection. Overall, I’ve heard that I might be in for a scare, but anecdotally, no lasting harm, although it seems that might be a remote risk when messing with haunted places. There’s a phenomenon called the hitchhiker effect where certain paranormal places or objects follow someone back to their home and cause trouble, although it seems to be mostly scary and bothersome. I’ve heard of one case where it was supposedly lethal.

       I’m with you on the positive reframing. My tactic is usually to focus on personal experiences where something came along and completely upended my expectations in a positive way. I was pretty doom and gloom when corona came along, and I’m not trying to make light of folks who suffered from it, but it actually coincided or indirectly caused several significant good turns of fortune for me. Also, I never thought I would ever be a writer, and now it kind of defines my day to day. I used to live in fear of a random roll of the dice, but over time, it seems that I’ve benefitted from them in some way, if not in the short term, then definitely in the long term. When I get wrapped up in negative expectation and logical “this is probably what’s going to happen” it usually works if I focus on the fact that I’ve been ambushed by good fortune completely out of the blue. I really don’t know what’s going to happen next.

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     • I think I’ve been in the same boat as you, and what tends to work for me is to focus on accepting the friction in my brain, rather than trying to deny my desire or force-reframe it. I know it doesn’t sound logical or intuitive, but by accepting that yes–I’m in a state of discord–it shifts my focus to acceptance rather than denial or force-rationalization. It’s more about the direction of my focus, rather than the topic of contention, if that makes any sense. And, as we’ve both mentioned multiple times in the past, it may not work for you, since you’re not me.

       I feel like you’ve clarified what you want and you know the details, and for me that’s where emotional intelligence comes in, in the part where I have to feel out whether I’m entertaining thoughts because they truly feel good (or at the very least, bring me toward emotional relief and re-expansion) or whether I’m entertaining them out of a feeling of convenience and habit. This is where I think life gets intensely subjective, so I like to keep the terms vague.

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     • I feel like I’ve been in similar situations. Most of my life, I’ve focused on what I wanted to avoid. And, as Jon says at the end of Weapons of Old (I feel like every time I write, I’m subconsciously paralleling my own psychological development), I’ve started focusing on what I want, rather than what I want to avoid. It’s hard at times not to take things personally, but something that sometimes resonates with me is the question: what exactly is a person? It helps me shift away from a paradigm of 7 billion busy-bodies caught in a constant web of give-and-take, duty, obligation, and justification. That can reaffirm that it’s unknowable whether we’re just a deterministic iteration of genetics and past events, or even illusions of each other created in our own limited perceptions, and allow me to focus on what matters to me, which is where I’m directing my focus right now. Then I might get caught in a web of to-dos or these-must-be-done before those-fall-in-place, and then I might remember that even when all that has happened in the past, I have still been left unhappy, and I have managed to be happy without any of that at all. TLDR: The Way of the Happy Goof. 😉

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     • No worries on the novella–you’ve legit read my actual novels, lol!

       I get the looking into the darkness stuff. I think it can be an important mechanism, and I spent many years in a whole Jungian shadow-hunting type of mentality. At a certain point, however, I think it can be an exercise in masochistic psychological flagellation and problem-creation. I’ve heard similar complaints about professional therapy–about how at a certain point, it becomes an endless highlight and reiteration of negative events and tendencies. Not to be reductive, but I once again think it’s a matter of intuition and emotional intelligence. That’s what I believe guides someone into whatever thought-model they need to be in. The time I spent focused on hunting down errors in myself gave me valuable insight into the workings of the mind, and I was also able to express a lot of that journey in the Echo series. At it’s heart, however, it remains transactional (must fix blemish within self so that self can be less blemished), and follows the religious model of reality, in that there must be a price paid now in order to achieve a future reward. It’s a valid way to think, and arguably very functional, but I’m personally no longer interested in constantly transacting my present mental fulfillment for possible future reward. Outwardly, that’s definitely what I look like a lot of the time, but inwardly, my primary focus is no longer on the errors and bargaining with reality, but enjoying reality as it happens, regardless of whether it happens to look like I’m bargaining with it.

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     • I feel you and I are on the same page on this, but due to my current circumstances and probably some other stuff, it’s more fitting for me to be more freewheeling in my approach. I’ve proved to myself that I can nitpick things to death, be ready with contingencies to be implemented at a moment’s notice, and still have things go sideways, so now I constantly try and redirect myself to the desired end-state: enjoying myself here and now, and trusting that existence has good stuff in store for me. In practice, this means positive reframing (while being sensitive towards any try-hard attempt to force things into place), letting go of expectations I might have been attached to in past reframings, and listening to my intuition. In the last three years, I’ve made some small but significant changes to reflect this. I stopped wearing a watch two years ago, stopped waking up to an alarm, and–even though it may sound funny–I stopped using my netflix watch list, and instead just started watching things on a whim, letting myself be at the mercy of all their evil algorithms. I find this allows for synchronistic communication with existence which keeps me informed as to what to include next in my writing. Previously, it used to always come to me primarily during exercise or in the shower, and I’d have to take furious notes to make sure I didn’t forget. (I still take notes, just not as furious). Now it’s a much more organic process. Much less mental checklists, and deeper trust in my intuition and the pleasant side-quests the universe might lead me down. Before, it was kind of a tortuous game of Simon Says. 😅 I’m also not judging your approach–whatever makes you feel best and most secure in the moment is something I’m going to heartily endorse. If we weren’t born with different designs, there’d be no point in different approaches.

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     • I feel like I can indirectly relate to the out of control thing. My dad left when I was 10, and since my family comes from a very husband-favoring society (S. Korea might be different now, I don’t know), even her side of the family turned against her in the divorce. So I spent a lot of time kind of understanding that we weren’t very financially secure, which I think has driven my desire to engage in real estate and make absolutely sure she’s provided for.

       I am indeed in a very blessed place! And funnily enough, when the idea of first ditching the watch occurred to me, I kind of had to talk myself into it, because it had become so habitual for so long. I actually still have a watch in the shower, so I can time my thirty seconds of massaging shampoo or conditioner in, then allowing it to sit for two minutes (I guess that’s a leftover relic). I still tyrannize my hair into staying on my head, lol! When I saw that it was starting to thin into a bald spot at age 26, I promptly started using rogaine because I refuse to lose my hair until I’m at least 70. Why? Bruce Wayne kept his hair until that age (that’s from the 90s cartoon Batman Beyond). Happy to say that I still have a full and healthy head of hair; I’ve even noticed a few strands creeping past my original hairline in the last few years, which was a pleasant but unexpected surprise.

       I’m psyched that you’re reading my book! I really, REALLY enjoyed writing this one, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time re-enacting some of the dialogue in there, shouting at no in particular in my empty condo. 🤣 No spoilers, but chapter 24 is based on alleged historical dialogue. I changed a lot of the wording to make sure it fit the spirit of my book and my characters, but I managed to keep a couple of phrases in there. That was probably the stuff I was yelling the most. 😅

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     • Ironically, I think I was worried more about it than my mom. She bought a house in the nineties and paid it off quickly via Korean frugality, and although she’s always been in jobs that have been a little above entry level, she’s managed to save a decent amount and enjoys living a low maintenance lifestyle. I probably get some of my lack of desire for nice clothes/house/car/perks from her.

       I think I can delete most if not all of your comments pretty easily. I just tried running a search in my comments section for your name, and a bunch of consecutive ones popped up, so I think I could just check em all off in a few minutes and trash them if desired. No worries!

       As far as the book, no worries on that either! I’m just happy I got it out there, and that day by day, I’m getting closer to the ending of the series, while still enjoying the unexpected details and detours that drop into my mind while I’m writing my way there. I usually know how a story is going to end in the very beginning or shortly after, and I’ve had to learn to kind of manage that, because when I first started writing, I would obsess over how great I thought the ending was, even though it was years away in terms of writing my way there.

       Glad you’re looking forward to what sounds like a positive transition! I’m happy you’re going to get some more agency and that you’ll be able to make some new moves. Doesn’t sound like you’re a mess at all! 😊

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     • It’s possible, but whenever I talk to her, I get the impression that I’m worrying way more than her. It’s a somewhat common theme with Korean families, where the parents are subdued, but it’s usually in the opposite direction–they’re pretty meh when it comes to their kids’ successes.

       I wish you the best on your upcoming quest! I don’t think eyeshadow is a point of concern, especially if it’s one of the few outlets that brings you relief. Our hearts know there are more important things behind some of our less seemingly logical acts, I think.

       I’m neutral on the comments, but whatever you decide, I’ll go with it. I was the same, when I started writing; it’s why I picked a pen name! Honestly, I’d probably do a pen name again, but I probably wouldn’t mind at this point if the books were under my real name. Somewhere along the way, I grew confident enough in the craftsmanship where I convinced myself that they were engaging enough that no one would get hung up on my identity. Although you’re right in that there are wildly different perspectives out there. I could never wrap my head around mob thinking or celebrity obsessions, but those are very real phenomena.

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     • It’s definitely a consideration that bears some thought. I can relate, I think, in that I have to try and gauge what will resonate the best in my writing, and thus have to try and temperature-check the culture through what I see and my intuition. I remember reading It by Stephen King when I was in middle school and thinking nothing of the underage group sex at the time, thinking it was a bit curious, but then later I was like what the hell? He has a background in teaching literature so I’m pretty sure he could back it up with some kind of thematic support relating to tantra or something, but I definitely wouldn’t try anything like that, regardless of how much literary strength it was supported by. Personally, it creeps me out, and I also think the culture has rightly cast that stuff as much more unacceptable then it was back then.

       I’m excited for your business adventures! Now that you’ve mentioned it, I definitely feel some kind of resonance with you starting a business. From what you’ve said, it seems like you would care for your customers, but you would also respect data and specifically calibrated results (I’m thinking about the times you’ve had to articulate why your son warranted different therapy than consensus would dictate). I feel like you would respect the generalized theory of how things should be done, but have the fortitude to go against the grain when it was appropriate.

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     • I agree with your points in a general sense. In It, I guess the scene always struck me as jarring and out of place. The kids were 11, and it was six boys and one girl. Maybe I wasn’t perceptive enough to catch the storytelling significance behind it, but it definitely made me wonder about why Stephen King decided to put that in there. He also happens to be my favorite author with the Drawing of Three, which makes it more complicated for me. From what I remember, there wasn’t any social commentary or inclusiveness woven in, it was a seemingly random addendum to a narrative about a clown-resembling extradimensional monster. Once again, I read it a loooong time ago and I’m not interested in reading it again, so I’m not in a position to go further than casual contemplation. As with everything, if I sat down with Stephen King and had an in-depth discussion and paired it with a thorough assessment, it probably wouldn’t be as lurid or black-and-white as it appears to be at first glance.

       I’m psyched about you starting a business! I seriously entertained the idea when I was younger, but once the realities of logistics, administration, and professional communication reared their heads, I was like NOPE. I did spend time as a realtor and was fairly successful, but it was in 2005-06, during the run-up to the 08 crisis, and I knew that something was deeply wrong with the way the loans were structured–no mortgage should grow in balance over time. I got out despite a short successful stint, but it informed me a bit about the investing side of real estate, which is a pretty different game but is definitely interrelated. I have the chops to navigate business stuff, but I don’t have the heart to do a deep dive into it. I’ve only read snippets of your life experience, but based on what you’ve disclosed, my gut says you have the patience, tenacity, and processing ability to make good things happen.

       I’m glad I could get a laugh from you! I’m assuming you read about Pirily whacking Jon in the nuts, lol! Obviously, I can do raunchy humor, but I truly enjoyed fleshing out Jon’s geek-dork vibe and pairing it with the eager goofiness that (I think) should come with being a teen. Book 2 gets heavier later on, so now I’m enjoying kind of reeling him back in while writing book 3 and having him goof around again.

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     • I’m not the best person to elaborate on it, but from what I remember, it was some kind of weird healing catharsis, and was portrayed as a positive experience, not a negative transmission of existing traumas. That’s why–through my imperfect, faded memory–I’m inclined to cast it as an allusion to a tantric ritual. Later, when the remake movie came out, there were some articles commenting on how weird it was (obviously, they didn’t put that scene in any of the movies), and that stuck in my brain. As a kid, I didn’t know what reading material was weird or not, but later on, I was like yeah, that was definitely weird. My take on it now is if I look at it through the benefit-of-a-doubt lens, I believe King was trying to weave in a higher-concept theme, but that it fell short. It’s the same reason I don’t like high-falutin art or most art-house films–I’m looking to feel something resonant first, then all the thematic stuff and symbolism can follow. Another thing that I find interesting is that It was wildly popular at the time, and seemingly escaped any commentary or stigma about that scene, although granted, the world was more isolated and information silo’d in the 80s. Also, another possibility was that King was just whacked out of his mind on substances. He’s famously known for not remembering writing certain books, to include Cujo, because he was absolutely blasted for extended periods of his life.

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     • I think you’d be a great therapist! Sounds like the stuff with the church, combined with the struggles you’ve had being a mother (when therapists discounted your testimony in favor of conventional thought), you have a strong knowledge of boundaries, procedures, and when/how to start bending or trying something less mainstream. With all that combined, I feel like you could avoid burnout, be effective, and accomplish your main goal, which seems to be helping others as much as possible and honoring your calling.

       Being a realtor was exciting and stressful, but later I realized it was just life setting me up for the investing side. That was my goal when I first started selling houses, but circumstances didn’t align for me to start investing until 2019. I don’t think I was cut out for being a realtor, honestly. The best ones truly have a love of ushering their client through a process of finding a home that will fit their needs and bring them joy. I just wanted to learn the process, really. I think the most important thing I learned was don’t inundate someone with choices. Get their desires, constraints, then explain why the top three houses you can find fit their needs the best, show them, then ask them if they want to put in an offer. The house is going to sell itself, if it’s going to sell, and the client doesn’t need me yapping in their ear about this or that amenity. (It’s probably different with luxury houses, but I never messed with that side of things). I think that carried over into my writing, where I prioritize pace and rhythm, and try not to bog that down with what I feel to be unnecessary description. There are some brief mentions in my books here and there of an entire sub-world of culture and history, but I’ve decided Jon (or whichever protagonist I’m writing about) isn’t interested in that world, or there are more pressing matters at hand for them (Jon is an easily distracted, easily hyped-up young man, so it’s a little more pronounced with him). If someone ever writes fan-fiction about my main stories, I’ll happily let them expand on that other stuff. I kind of equate it to the cantina scene in the original Star Wars. Apparently, it captured a lot of peoples’ imaginations and spawned more elaborate stories, but it was something that Lucas used to throw in passing flavor and move things along (if I remember correctly, I don’t think even liked it). Anyways, I think that’s what I got from real estate and the stories I loved as a kid (and conversely, from the ones that I didn’t like so much like Tolkien’s). Yes, I could write Evermoor with the breadth and detail of a technical manual, but what I’m really trying to do is take my client/reader for an exhilarating ride.

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     • I feel like you’ve been given very in-depth training on the therapist stuff. You’re kind of a shoo-in, from what you’ve shared! It actually has the vibe of low-key fate, to me.

       Well if you can get past the more inconvenient parts of real estate (networking, socializing, advertising, difficult people) I feel like you might like it! I liked the house-focused stuff more, as in I was interested in what added value through design and amenities. It was kind of a soft equation, that constantly changed with each house, but shared some general rules that adhered to the ongoing trends. In a related vein, it was fun showing people houses and seeing the variety of renovations, from completely unrenovated to brochure-ready. It’s fun imagining what you could do with different spaces, almost like traveling to different countries but on a much smaller scale.

       I’m glad you like the world-building! I actually threw a ton of it in there, but I had to be careful as to different tiers of involvement in the story, to try and maintain the pace. There’s world-building that Jon gets to appreciate (like the buildings), stuff that’s just mentioned, stuff that comes into play, stuff that will LATER come into play, stuff that Jon actually has to navigate and directly affects him…I actually learned from Tolkien here, in that I wanted to moderate how deep the dive was into a particular world-building feature, especially since there’s an existential theme running throughout the whole story. Jon is caught up in multiple obligations and desires, so he can’t be obsessing over a singular feature unless he’s relaxed and has a bunch of free time, or he’s going to be heavily affected. On a more frustrating note, I just read through it again and caught three little mistakes (forgot to close a quote, wrote “brain” three times in the span of two sentences, and had an “on” instead of an “and”) so that was annoying. I make typos when I draft, then I make new typos when I edit, because the rhythm is getting honed to the point where it’s less words and more mental movies, and I’m distracted from the actual words. Unfortunately, my revised upload won’t revise already bought copies.
       Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. 😅

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     • Downside management to me is a bit of an art, since I feel like I’ve approached it from an unconstructive perspective for most of my life. I used to believe that errors should be met with furious analysis, strong control measures, and a good helping of shame so they could be avoided at all costs in the future. Now I see them as more of the wake-up bumps on the side of the road. They’re actually there to clarify the way forward, they’re not meant to be some sadistic piece of a Simon Says game that echoes through life. Personally, I feel like emotional intelligence is at a premium with that issue, because it’s important to realize when the lesson is learned and also if I’m just flagellating myself because I’m avoiding something else or I’m indulging in an unnecessarily negative perspective.

       Good to know the typos aren’t a sticking point! They never bothered me as a reader, but it’s just frustrating as a writer when I make typos in the edit process. At a technical level, editing is supposed to get rid of those mistakes, but for me, editing is 80% of the story, where I’m polishing the tempo and word choice as brightly as possible. On my umpteenth edit it starts playing like a movie in my brain. Ironically, the movie distracts me from the actual words, and as I rewrite things time and again, I’ll make mistakes in the rewrite, ironically overwriting mistakes I made in previous drafts. For example, there’s a couple of chapters where someone’s equipped with six flintlock pistols, then in January or February–where the book had been written and already heavily edited–I decided to make them ENCHANTED pistols, which added a bunch of new paragraphs and modified a bunch of follow-on descriptions. 😅

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     • There’s kind of a half-serious half-jokey phenomenon among immigrant Asians where they suppress their feelings, spew negativity onto their children, then they’re eventually sidelined by some random pain or tweak, which is obviously a result of them bottling everything up and being forced by their body to take a break. I actually think there’s a lot of truth to it, and that I have personal experience of it, lol! It is indeed beneficial–ultimately necessary, I’d argue–to be nice to oneself, see things in an easier light, and enjoy the moment as much as I can. Going back to our discussion of humanity’s design, I feel like the body and subconscious are designed with a certain amount of knowledge as far as what is toxic and what is optimal, and though the rules can be bent in many cases, our inner guidance will eventually make itself known, in that way or another.

       Glad the typos aren’t throwing things off! Oh, also, it seems like you’re more socially aware than most, so I know the photo of the sailor and nurse is problematic. No spoilers, but it gets addressed.

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     • I actually think there are people who are designed to just keep pushing through things, seemingly suppressing emotion, but in some weird way this is how they express their truest self, and it’s actually not suppression, but catharsis. I’m not one of those people. It took me awhile, but I’m not designed to tough-guy my way through life, although it’s nice to be able to shift into that unyielding mentality if I have to. Over the long term, however, it has become apparent that that isn’t an expression of my truest self, and that constantly doing it does equate to suppression. For me, at least.

       It’s good to know that the photo reference didn’t catch your attention! When you said you started reading, my editor-mind immediately came to the fore, and was like “I reference this photo a handful of times throughout the story, it doesn’t get fully addressed until chapter forty-something, and she’s giving me kudos for a seemingly oppositional point, which is inclusiveness/tolerance in fantasy stories.” I started thinking, man, she’s going to be seeing a hypocritical dichotomy all the way through til she’s in chapter forty-something! 😅

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     • I feel like the survival thing leads my opinion to unprovable, existential stances. Specifically, the one that a more transcendent part of ourselves volunteers for certain flavors of life experience. I know some people who genuinely love and thrive in survival-based conditions, where they are forced to be sharp in a more clear-cut, physical manner, and where they truly relish the possibility of death, followed by the realization of survival. I used to think that was me, but it’s definitely not. There’s some folks who are just designed to keep living hard all through their life, and enjoy all that supposed misery. To your point, however, I think when people try to be something they’re not designed for at the fundamental level of their being, it’s going to trigger dissonance, and that’s going to trigger disquiet and disease.

       No worries on reading my books! I’m a bit more excited to have you read Weapons of Old than my other stuff because it’s got material that came from some of our exchanges (and also because it’s the best expression of my writing thus far, in my opinion), but I totally respect your obligations and duties.

       It’s kind of interesting–I just read through it again (think I caught my last typo, I forgot to make finger plural and wrote finger instead of fingers) and I realized that even though I couldn’t articulate it while I was writing it, I think it’s fundamentally about the power of personal perspective. That makes sense, because it’s kind of what I’ve been mulling during the writing and editing, but I couldn’t articulate it better than “it makes sense for this to happen because that’s how [whoever] sees the world, and that’s what they invite into their experience.” People say writing is valuable because it reveals the inner workings of your mind without you trying, so I think it’s kind of cool that that’s how it’s working out in my stuff.

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     • The idea that we signed up for some experiences can indeed be revolting, especially when cast in a judgmental light. For that reason, there was a long stretch where I believed there was no free will, that we were simply a sum of past interactions at the chemical and quantum level, because that would maximize personal compassion and acceptance for others. As far as I can tell, the stance is also ethically untenable without certain accompanying presumptions, such as reincarnation (in order to rebalance–in the long-term–the disparity of ability and resources between individuals through birth and childhood) as well as the individualized ability to control coincidence through the law of attraction (so that someone can tap illogical forces to overcome circumstances that are apparently overwhelming, or beat the odds/logic so to speak, but also mitigated by a time delay so that clarification of desire can be achieved, rather than reality being subject to willy-nilly change, which would trap the individual in omnipotence and the accompanying omnipresence and omnitemporality, which would destroy choice because all choices would already be expressed because the individual would cease to be and become every possibility at every time and every place and there would be no more potential). It’s a complicated set of assumptions that come with staggering pitfalls in ethics, if articulated with any judgment whatsoever. The reason I choose to entertain those assumptions is because I choose to believe in a benevolent existence, and the other alternatives–where our circumstances through birth and life might be subject to randomness or a consciousness willing to inflict something malicious on us–speaks to a cruel existence (for me), and for me it doesn’t make sense to grapple with that and constantly guard against it (aka live a life with a necessary measure of fear and paranoia). Also, from a personal/anecdotal perspective, enough correlation has happened for me to feel comfortable in believing in the aforementioned assumptions. I understand and sympathize with, however, the choice to believe that not all circumstances are chosen, as that can easily lead to victim/self-blaming that crosses over into a really grotesque area. In fact, I would go so far as to believe that in the infinity of individualized possibility and potential, it is important that in some cases people do NOT believe they chose their own circumstances, partially and/or in totality, so they can express a unique individuality/narrative that could never be realized without that lack of belief. I’m aware this is an extremely sensitive subject, so I feel like it’s important to restate that this is my personal opinion, nothing more, and that I’m not trying to convince you it’s right or wrong, and that I am fully on board with your right to believe whatever you choose to believe, regardless of whether it goes against what I believe.

       It may be patternicity (a bigger problem among creatives, from what I understand) but I see almost everything if not everything as synchronistic in nature. It’s why I go more with my intuition if I’m watching tv or listening to podcasts. If for whatever reason, my interest isn’t holding despite rave reviews, recommendations, or a previous desire to intake a certain piece, then it’s time to give something else a try, regardless of how nonsensical, random, or inane it may appear to be (not saying our exchanges are nonsensical, random, or inane, but the exact opposite–I see meaning and inspiration from them that I was guided to for a reason, and in some of those cases it has become clear it was so I could write certain things into Weapons of Old). Sometimes, while I’m writing, I’ll draft something I did not expect at all, and that will influence my behavior in other areas, so there’s that old cliche of life iterating into art and vice versa. That’s the greater scope of how I shaped some of my book through our exchanges. In the end, it was my pleasure to include some of your input in the story!

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     • I guess that using the word revolting was my personal projection, because I did find it revolting, but now that I look back on it, I think it was just recreational outrage born from insecurity. I would say stuff like “I’m elitist against the elitists.” Did that make me any less of an elitist, though? I thought it did at the time, but I only got tangled up in derisive, hierarchical thinking.

       As far as the metaphysical stuff, if you’re inclined to watch a 5 minute video, I would recommend googling “Alan Watts Inception” and watching the video that pops up (It’s set to the Inception movie score and starts with him going “I wonder, I wonder, what you would do, if you had the power to dream any dream you wanted to…” It doesn’t address the question of ethics that we’ve discussed, but it does establish a model of reality that reconciles the gap between an omnipotent and constrained (individuated) perspective, from the point of view of omnipotent consciousness. Alan Watts had his own problems, but he’s a gifted speaker and philosophical communicator, and this video was heavily influential in shaping my view of how I suspect reality works. No pressure, though. I only bring it up because this topic seems to be interesting to you.

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     • The children issue is one of the ethical obstacles that requires additional premises in order to be fully reconciled. It first and foremost has to be paired with the idea of a higher self that moves in a more subtle fashion (otherwise it just makes no sense that an individuated consciousness would willingly choose certain disadvantages) as well as reincarnation (because if it’s just a one-shot deal, it also makes no sense not to choose the most advantageous set of birth circumstances). It definitely starts feeling like a reach for me unless I consider the alternative, which is that birth circumstances are chosen by randomness (cruel and unfair) or by an external consciousness (cruel, unfair, and also sadistic in some cases). Ultimately, it can’t be proven one way or the other, it seems there’s fragmented evidence for whatever view you want to adopt. I think that’s by necessity; if we could prove once and for all the existence of an externalized God, a randomized existence, or a mystical reality (mystical in the traditional meaning that we are God that chose to individuate itself, as Alan Watts describes), then that would severely limit the perspectives we could choose between, and that would limit the breadth of existential experience, which would contradict the intent of exploration and expression within a no-lose game that Watts alludes to.

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     • Maybe it’s a reach, but I believe your inclination towards not deciding on the nature of reality is an integral part of your individual journey, and it would be disingenuous to try and force belief when you’re not really feeling it. Whatever combination of blessings, challenges, and preferences you are experiencing, I believe those are there for a reason, and while it may not seem like it in certain short-term instances, I believe that reason is good. I hope you enjoy the calm and positivity! You deserve it!

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     • I’m fully on board with that! I get those moments at weird times, there was this one Costco in San Francisco that always came with a mild high that was on par with a low dose of mushrooms, and I recently found a cat cafe where I can write and drink coffee around a bunch of adoptable cats. It’s nice seeing cats expressing a bunch of different modes at the same time, including playing, napping, saying hi, one of em jumped on my shoulder to get down from a perch, which I particularly enjoyed. The little things are definitely a good way to enjoy life moment by moment!

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     • I’m torn on the wake-up smack–I love sleeping, lol! I’m with you on the animal fascination. I used to read nat geo magazines when I was a kid and I’d always love reading about exotic animals. Recently, I’ve seen videos on reddit that seem to show lizards demonstrating affection. When I was younger, I leaned more towards the buttoned-up scientific idea that all affection in animals was an evolutionary ploy to fulfill basic needs, but I would be very surprised if that was the reality. I understand humans anthropomorphize dogs way more than is accurate, but I remain personally convinced that animals aren’t just food-and-shelter driven machines. Some dubious anecdotal support for me comes from a psychic I believe in receiving afterlife impressions from dead dogs. Obviously not definitive proof, but I’m on board with it. Also, I’m strongly convinced that if and when I get to view my past lives, I’m gonna find a bunch of dog ones.

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     • I’m pretty sure if I was facing a similar situation, I’d follow in your footsteps. I can’t resist a request for snuggles, and although it irked me when I was younger, the saltiness is definitely something that has grown on me when it comes to cats.
       For some reason, watching their machine-gun paw-baps always cheers me up! 😁

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     • I used to have one, but my ex’s mom sent (lillies, I think?) and we suspect she ate them, because she wandered into our bedroom and didn’t want any treats, she was just meowing, seemed weak, and wanted affection. We had to put her down at the vet that day, which was pretty sad. (I didn’t realize a lot of owners didn’t stick around while their pets were being put down, but it kind of boggled my mind when I found out later on). Yeah, as far as cat vengeance, one time we babysat our friend’s cat, and she pooped everywhere except her litter box. I KNOW that cat was trained–she just wanted to defile our apartment! 😂

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     • Nursing seems like a super stressful profession that often comes with a giant lack of appreciation. I get that there are probably some nurses who are designed to do it and derive meaning and fulfillment from it, but it sounds like you’ve been trained by life to excel in a specialized field that very few seem to understand. I think you’re going to do great!

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     • Working in the medical field, especially the conventional side, can have some pretty detrimental effects on mental health. Obviously in terms of burnout and stress, but also in terms of creating an antagonistic perception of patients. I knew a medic who got to the point where he was doing CPR on someone and checking the clock and focusing on his lunch break. Also, one of my best friends spent 20 years doing that stuff, and it definitely made him more sociopathic. Not saying it happens to everyone, but I think it necessitates an in-depth review of whether it’s something that people want to undergo, and if they’re in it, whether they truly want to keep doing it for the right reasons. From everything you’ve said, it seems like the therapy route is definitely more your thing. I’m a little biased in that I’m rooting for you to have more leisure time (that applies to everybody, actually), and I feel like the on-your-feet, emergency-ready style of life might not be the best fit. Regardless of what happens with the therapy business, I know you’ll make a positive impact!

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     • My woo-woo radar wants to assume that both you and your husband have past-life experience in the field of professional care, and that you know each other from that work.

       The teacher thing…I’ve given it passing consideration, but I remember how extraordinarily self-involved I was as a kid (that wasn’t all bad–I translated that focus into constructive practices later on) and how nothing and no one could have even started a conversation with me on a subject I wasn’t interested in back then. But every now and then, I’ll hear an anecdote dropped about how teachers had an impact years after the fact, either through cruelty or kindness. Recently, I was listening to a popular underground rapper named Dumbfoundead talk about his misspent youth where he was up to all kinds of criminal shenanigans, but the kindness of a teacher later impacted him, and drove him to donate to youth causes he’d ironically stolen from when he was an uncaring kid. I definitely agree with you on teachers needing more recognition, but most importantly resources. A while back, I heard about an interesting program in Singapore where the top 20% of their young professionals were given the chance to teach for some kind of substantial government incentive, if they committed to doing it for a few years. I feel like we could use something like that over here, adjusted for the different cultures across the states.

       But in the end, nope–I couldn’t teach. I’d either be right on board with the kids pointing out the failings of the curriculum or infrastructure, or I’d be way too antagonistic if they gave me attitude in something I felt was going to be beneficial for them. 😅

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     • I actually struggled with the concept of reincarnation for a while, specifically the idea of a one-for-one exchange in the face of a constantly growing human population. For some reason, I didn’t like the idea that the sum total of individual consciousnesses in our universe always stayed at the exact same number, so I thought maybe there was cross-dimensional reincarnation? I also didn’t like the idea that it was shoehorned into the human perspective of time, which is past towards future, always in one direction (one life after the other), because I was starting to grasp the idea that time was fluid and not necessarily a straight-line path. Later, I started leaning toward the idea that we’re more like a multibranched tree, a soul-stream that reaches into multiple incarnations at once, into different times and places at once, that aren’t necessarily connected at the conscious level. I arrived at that suspicion independently, and I was pleased to find that it was echoed by a psychic I find credible, and a couple other folks. As far as soulmates, I don’t believe in those either, but I do believe in group agreements, where a bunch of us loosely agree to pal around and interact through certain eras and lives. I didn’t arrive at that idea independently, but when I heard it articulated, it definitely resonated with me.

       I can’t really fathom what the justification process would be for having a kid eat their own vomit, especially by trained staff. I actually feel like there would be value in trying to figure that out, whether burnout contributed to it, low pay, not enough resources, and of course, proper vetting. I feel like that kind of thing doesn’t just happen out of the blue, and it would point to a deeper series of considerations that would need to be addressed.

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     • There’s another reason I couldn’t be a parent. I’d definitely be angry and demand change, then when I realized it wasn’t happening or it wasn’t happening as fast as I liked, I’d begin compensating by doing a lot of one-on-one activities with my kid, but then I’d probably burn out.

       All the reincarnation stuff is basically an extension of my desire for a benevolent existence. Even with Buddhism and Hinduism, I realized it’s basically a transactional model where it’s this one-for-one exchange that’s based around linear time, and where you don’t get rewarded until you break free of the cycle and become enlightened. I had the same problem with that as Judeo-Christian stuff, where you don’t get rewarded until you spend a lifetime delaying gratification. One-for-one reincarnation seems a bit fairer and more equitable, since advantages/disadvantages at birth can be arguably evened out over multiple lives, but I still am not on board with a payment-oriented life where I may or may not get what I think I’m paying for after I’ve exhausted my potential.

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     • I feel like I started in a very similar perspective, in that I was always looking to improve myself, always looking to people more accomplished, always looking for new methodology. I think it led me to start asking the questions what do I want all that for, and under what conditions do I naturally attract the best outcomes? That led me to focus more on positivity, both because that was my end goal, and also because I felt that it produced the best results. All my positions on esoteric metaphysics is mostly based on that, or on the related assumption that existence is inherently benevolent.

       No worries on the brain processing triage–I think I can relate! Back when I was 17, I watched the Matrix for the first time and it took me a year to comprehend what was going on; kind of ironic that now I see it as very easy to understand, and even disagree with some of the messages in it! 😅

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     • Well I I am super glad that it’s improved a lot! I’m always a sucker for positive progress, which is why I have little to no tolerance for unhappy endings, lol! I know that isn’t always how it shakes out in life, but when a story has an unhappy ending without even a bit of hope for a better world (I usually see this in horror short stories), I just shake my head in disappointment. I get the ominous implication at the end that might tease a sequel, or a setback that signals a potential new adventure, but not only is the hopeless unhappy ending disappointing to me, I think a deep part of me finds it unrealistic at an existential level.

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     • Coffee is LIFE! I didn’t start drinking it until I was convinced it was healthy, right around when I turned thirty. For a while, I hated the taste and choked it down, now I love it because my body associates it with writing, ideas, and getting things done.

       I get the romance stuff, I think. For a similar reason I don’t watch horror. People living in an extreme state of fear and pain is pretty uninteresting to me, although I can get on board with it if I can be assured they’re gonna be happy in the end. Pretty much every horror I’ve seen doesn’t end well, and I’m even reluctant to watch heavy dramas. I may be an outlier of pop culture consumerism, but I also don’t like intricate power play stuff like Game of Thrones. I tried three times to get into it (think I finished season two on my third try) because everyone couldn’t stop watching it and I wanted to be clued into what is arguably an objectively great TV series. But one of the main selling points–you never know who’s going to die–never resonated with me, and it just seemed like people being nasty to each other, then plotting to get revenge on whoever was nasty to them in the past. I’m not opposed to that, I think it can be exciting and involving, but when it stretches across multiple seasons and defines the story, I quickly lose interest.

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     • I thought a little more about why horror isn’t my thing, and I think another big part of it is the implication that there’s certain conditions where I’m reduced to being a plaything for a sadistic existence. Not only do I not believe that (very arguable in the short-term, but definitely in my long-term beliefs), but I find that concept pretty uninteresting and mechanistic, honestly. I’m interested in humanity when it shows it is more than its seemingly nuts-and-bolts drives, not when it’s reduced to a bunch of predictably miserable reactions.

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     • That’s true, and I’d venture that some people like being scared, and some people like being in pain. I wasn’t on the extreme end of the masochistic spectrum, but there was a time where I thought that misery equated to gains in physical strength and mental toughness. Nowadays I see that stuff as more like seasoning, not the main dish. I don’t mind being a little hungry before a meal, or getting startled during a movie, but that kind of thing definitely isn’t the point of my life.

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     • occasionally, I have to use toughness as well. But I’m heartened by what you’ve said in that better things have come to alleviate some of the discomfort, and better things seem to be queued up for you in the future!

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     • I’ve never had any experience with abuse of that nature, so I like to try and be extra considerate when contemplating or discussing the subject matter. That being said, I’m a little puzzled by people who would equate non-hetero orientations with sexual abuse. I’m just hearing of that now, because you brought it up. It seems kind of far-fetched (not your remark, but the fact that people equate Bi or other orientations with abuse), because last I read (I’m only a casual reader on this subject, full disclosure), there was strong correlative evidence that orientations had a significant biological (genetic?) component.

       I have heard that abusers do tend to be abusees, and that abuse increases the possibility that it will be transmitted in the future. Unfortunately, that does make sense to me, as it seems each successive generation inherits the trauma of their parents, and struggles not to pass it on to their children. While I don’t have children, I feel like I’ve experienced a bit of this myself, and I occasionally discuss it with my mom, and she in turn relates how she unknowingly inherited certain behaviors from her parents and acted them out with me. In the last decade, we’ve gone from parent-child to peers and friends, so it’s kind of cool that we can detach from that hierarchy and compare notes a little more openly.

       Anyways, the point is, I’ve never heard of that before, and it’s confusing to me how someone could rationalize abuse into a non-hetero orientation. I can’t follow that line of reasoning, because abuse to me seems to foundationally be about lack of consent and taking advantage of ignorance, while a non-hetero orientation doesn’t seem to intrinsically have anything to do with that. I guess you could add both together, but they don’t seem causally linked.

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     • The “rise above sin” model just doesn’t make sense to me. That would lead me to wonder, why are we inherently evil, built with a consistent temptation to give up heaven, or why would some non-Christian cultures be disadvantaged with complete ignorance of the “right” model of reality? If that was true, then I think it would naturally follow that God and existence would be inherently cruel, kind of like a Sims player that arbitrarily decided to throw an agonizing challenge toward their characters just to see if they could have faith that enduring the agony was worth it in some unprovable end. Ironically, the model of reality I believe in is similar in mechanism, in that we, in synchronization with a transcendent, omnipotent piece of ourselves, voluntarily limit ourselves so we can experience choice, individuality, and adventure (because an omnipotent being would naturally be omnipresent, omnitemporal and omniscient, if not immediately, then eventually as it reaches the limits of its omnipotence, and then would have nowhere to go, nothing to learn, and nothing to choose between, because it would be everywhere, know everything, and being omnipresent/omnitemporal, would also be every single choice made manifest at once). By necessity, as I’ve discussed, I believe in reincarnation mainly to maintain the morality of the model, because we start out dissimilar with different advantages/disadvantages, and some of us get lost along the way, and having one chance at living a desirable life would mean that by the unfair nature of a single life, existence would then become cruel, which is why I believe we need to be able to reset the game board and play again. (I know I’ve ranted about this before, but it’s always hard to explain, even to myself, so every time it comes up, I try and make it more articulate, although as of yet, I think Alan Watts articulated it best).

       I, like you, believe that we aren’t cursed to reenact our trauma, especially with abuse. I’ve heard of abusees becoming abusers, but I’ve also heard of them becoming protectors of other abusees, and dedicating their lives to preventing it and mitigating it. It’s part of what makes me continue to believe in free will, although I think that’s a way more complicated subject than people make it out to be, and that the shortfalls and power of external influence are just beginning to be understood. I suspect, in the end, that much like health from a scientific standpoint, free will varies from person to person, from circumstance to circumstance. Existentially, until someone can enact a comprehensive model of provable reality, I’ll choose to believe we always have free will in regards to our perspective (how we choose to personally mentally frame reality), if not maybe our individual actions, although I do believe actions and consequence follow perspective, if not immediately, then in the long-term.

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     • Spirituality for me comes down to a personal bias, arising from the question what is the disposition of existence? Is our existence benevolent, cruel, or completely random? (Completely random means that cause and effect is an illusion, at any given moment it is possible for something absolutely unpredictable to happen, like me giving birth to a monkey which devours the earth in the next few seconds). I would say random is arguably cruel, because that means that over time, there will be instances where hard work and good action will be met with atrocity or horror. So really for me, the question becomes, is existence benevolent or cruel? I make the case for benevolent, because if it’s cruel, then to me there’s not much point in living, since if I’m not going to be punished, I must live in constant fear and wariness of punishment, and that’s just way too much work and inconvenience for me. So then I have to start adding unprovable premises if I believe existence is benevolent, because if I were to judge sheerly by dint of scientifically provable evidence and human perspective, I would either end up with cruel, or random (by default cruel). Ultimately, none of these are provable to a metaphysical standard (a model that can account for reality at its fundamental level, which would also rule out or confirm the possibility that reality is a simulation), so I just choose to go with benevolent. That’s pretty much where all my reasoning comes from, is my personal bias determining that life is worth living.

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     • Happy to! I’m of the opinion that–this is related to the idea that we don’t need to “rise above sin”–we don’t need to quest around for an external set of rules to keep us from misery. What about uncontacted tribes, or aliens? I believe that as far as the answer, it is individualized (because we are very clearly individuals and not cookie-cutter templates), and that it doesn’t need to be verbalized, justified, or standardized for the masses. I go a lot deeper into this about 2/3 through Weapons of Old, but to steal a quote from myself “we just have to live it and be it.” All that said, I feel like that’s what you’re doing. There’s no need to elaborately detail why the next right step is in accordance with this deity or that scripture, the only thing that’s relevant is feeling the rightness of it at a soul-deep level. And, as I’ve belabored before, even if you ignore that next right step or for some reason it goes awry, I’m a firm believer in an existentially long-term no-lose game, so eventually the game board will reset, it will all be put into an easygoing and expansive perspective, and then it’ll be on to the next game. My way of doing things is to try and enjoy the next play, and to not throw a tantrum, or ease up as much as I can if I can’t help throwing a fit. No need to rationalize or articulate any of it!

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     • You’re touching on an interesting topic. I’ve believed for the past couple years that emotional regulation is of the utmost importance, and that throwing a fit is only constructive if it is done with the intention of moving towards true positivity, and not in a cynical fashion where someone is trying to pump themselves up by condemning the world or making others feel small. Since the GI bill decided to restore a bunch of education benefits I thought I’d used, I took some psychology classes this semester, and apparently they’ve done studies dating back to the 90s (at least) that imply venting makes things worse in the long run. It drops blood pressure in the short-term, which I’m guessing is temporary relief, but it seems to come with long-term detriment. I personally believe it’s a little more nuanced than that, but I do believe the general gist is correct in that if negativity isn’t in the service of stepping toward positivity, if it’s just a long-running slog of condemnation and despair, it’s going to start amplifying problematic situations. I’m not as one-sided as the study; I actually believe venting and negativity have their place in a progression toward positivity, but back in the 90s and going into the 2000s, I feel like being a negative edge lord was seen as being virtuous in and of itself. For some reason, I think it started changing around 2015, when I feel troll culture reached its height.

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     • As I’ve grown older, I can definitely relate to that finding out more about the dichotomy between what is seemingly an easy decision (from the outside), and the more inside concerns that prevent any movement. I used to be very judgmental to some of my friends when they would ask me for advice, I’d lay things out in pros, cons, and willingness for each option, then they’d work through the nuances, decide on something, and not do it (I’d call them ask-holes when I wasn’t around them, because they would keep asking me to help them decide on stuff which they would never end up doing). Later, I realized I don’t have a grasp of the full context with which they’re viewing reality, and there’s a chance that they’re unaware of their own internal workings, to the point where they might logically decide something is good, but then their subconscious jumps to the fore and fills them with fear or revulsion or whatever when they actually try and do it (I hypothesize that this is often a case of low self-worth; if someone doesn’t see themselves as worthy at a fundamental level, then they will make decisions in a manner that sabotage future successes and reinforce their unworthiness). Unless it’s impacting my sphere of influence, or my intuition is telling me to step in and act, I usually try and let people be. It’s probably not the best approach for everybody, especially those with better people skills and awareness than me, but I know that I’ve often stuck my foot in my mouth or been unnecessarily overbearing and cruel because I “knew what was best for them.”

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     • Instances like that are reinforcement for me to honor intuition, because my opinion is that it’s connected to knowledge that sometimes can’t be fit into logic or protocol. I’m glad that things worked out for you in that respect. If it was a more hard-and-fast decision, you would have ended up losing something either way, peace of mind by staying, or family by leaving. I think it’s awesome that you ended up getting both! I’ve realized that sometimes, when people ask for help making a decision from me, they’re not actually looking to make a decision, but they’re kind of interviewing themselves, trying to make a stronger connection with what they truly want out of life. Sometimes they might not decide immediately, sometimes they might not decide at all. That’s where I used to have a hard time, but now I’m better at stepping back and reaffirming the understanding that they have their own power, their own choice, and not only does it not reflect badly on me if I let them make a seemingly bad choice, but it pulls me down if I stake my happiness on someone else’s life path. I’m not meant to be a dictatorial savior. Maybe I can be a guide, but that has to be agreed upon at a fundamental level by me and whoever wants to be guided. I believe, however, that if a person is truly seeking, they will be guided by existence in varying forms, and it’s not dependent on my inclination. In the end, I believe that kind of relationship is mostly about whether it’s my calling and/or desire, not about saving or molding anyone else.

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     • Not to minimize or positivity-wash what you went through, but if there’s a deeper purpose behind those experiences, I believe you’re expressing that purpose and growing newfound capability from what you went through. While nothing has yet materialized, I feel like it would inform your future business for the better. And even if the particulars of your circumstances don’t work out as I suspect or hope for, I have seen good come from bad and bad come from good in unexpected ways, so it makes it harder for me to leap to judgment as fast as I once did. When I was younger, I think a lot of that was driven by insecurity, by wanting to make a mark on the world or be recognized as a good guy. Now I like to try and focus on my belief that everyone has their own power and agency, and even though I might have the privilege to help and be part of their journey, if for whatever reason that becomes untenable, they will eventually find a way forward in this life or the next.

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     • That’s awesome! I think I can relate. I’m at this weird middle point in my life where everything that’s happened to me has in some degree shown itself to have been a setup for something positive that’s happening now or is apparent in the near future. And while I still throw tantrums, that make sit easier to be more tolerant of any new difficulties and trust that they will also turn into some future benefit. If this is what it means to get old, I think I’m all right with it. 😊

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     • Absolutely! Take care of yourself and drop a comment whenever you feel like it. I wish you continuing success–more coffee tolerance, more Ren Fairs, more peaceful Halloweens and Thanksgivings, more naps…and if I find an extra tart lemon bar, you’ll be the first person I tell! 😁

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     • 😊

       LikeLike

6. Speaking as a nurse, I have definitely not seen anything like that before.
   I’ll get the doctor.

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   Reply

   • 🤣

     Also, Thanks for being a nurse. As a former military guy, I feel like all the thank you for your service stuff should be shifted to educators and nurses, and also paired with some big ol’ pay raises.

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     • What a brat! I’d probably be angry, but I’m not gonna lie–when I see cats acting salty from afar I love it, lol! I think my favorite instance is a video where there’s a pile of kibble between a cat and a raccoon on a wooden deck, The raccoon is eating the kibble with both paws, which the cat is fine with. But the raccoon’s friends are reaching up through the planks, trying to grab the kibble, which the cat is NOT fine with, and discourages them by bapping their paws. I love it! 😂

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     • I found the video under the youtube title “Cat swats hands of raccoon trying to steal food from under deck while they eat.” It pops up on my feed from time to time, and even though I’ve seen it a bunch, I’ll usually give it another watch.

       With the addition of your cat story, I’m more than ever convinced that you were gifted with the desire to care for others. But it seems that you’ve learned important boundaries, and now you’re ready to dial in a healthy rhythm where you give yourself the care you deserve as well! 🙂

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     • I know the price tag thing fairly well. I am glad, however, that it came with some valuable information about how you want to shape the future and enjoy your life! Regardless of all that, it’s also awesome that you’ve defied the negative expectations and you’re arriving at some goals!

       I find that cat especially funny because his raccoon buddy is happily chomping away sometimes with both paws, but the cat just so happens to have no tolerance whatsoever for ill-mannered paws reaching up through the deck! 🤣 I feel like I’d be the opposite in that I’d be impressed by the commitment and novelty of reachy grabby paws and I’d make sure they got treats!

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     • Honoring your own intuition can be tough to do, especially if someone has unresolved insecurities and pines for the idea of an objective, superior/enforceable truth (evangelists and/or tyrants in any field, I think). There are times and places for that kind of perspective, specifically in short-term (in the universal sense), scarcity-based, large-group problems, but I think it can easily be a detriment to personal happiness and fulfillment, where an individual is constantly made to feel unworthy due to an external standard. It took me a while to even begin to realize it was something I personally had to address within my own life. It sounds like you learned it in a harsh manner, but I’m glad that you get to enjoy greater utilization of your intuition, which in my mind, is arguably one of the most powerful tools anyone could wield.

       I think that’s awesome that your son expresses rebellious mischief! I’ve always been rebellious in thought and perspective, although nowadays I get my subversiveness out in my writing, lol!

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     • I’m tentatively hoping that all those hard-earned lessons will translate into ease and grace for someone else. Maybe you’ll be able to help someone navigate similar waters without going through the same inconvenience. Or it could simply be a clarification of what you truly wanted, and an opening to greater appreciation for what you have now and what’s coming. Or it could be all of that at once. Either way, I’m glad you’re in a better place!

       I think I’m too much of a grudge-holder to appreciate the pushback from a person I’m directly caring for, but I do enjoy seeing it from a distance, as well as from animals. It speaks good of you that you can laugh at it!

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     • Those are tough situations, when you’ve been directly wronged by someone and you know they deserve to be punished, but it isn’t the most sensible course of action to personally do it. It’s kind of why I had to take on some of the long-term beliefs that I have, so I could keep my sanity by not getting entangled in the mental morass that comes with the unproductive attachment that can easily come with those situations.

       For what it’s worth, it sounds like you made the right decision, and though it may sound like a reach, I believe whoever wronged also wronged themselves in the long-term. Regardless, it seems like you are staying focused on the most positive path forward, you’re making the most of your circumstances, and you’re opening the door to the best possible outcomes.

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     • I’m definitely not built for that kind of stress, and I can see why that would take an enormous toll on you. It’d be too easy for me to interpret those kind of things as a personal attack against me and my family. That being said, I feel like you have a depth of knowledge that other therapists would be hard-pressed to match. I feel like in resume-terms, it should be the equivalent of some kind of super-certificate!

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     • Honestly (and obviously), I can’t relate to being a caretaker for another human, especially someone with nontraditional needs. But I can meet you on the common ground where you’ve been reflexively dismissed, and you have to fight to get in a position where potential is being realized in the way it should be. From what you’re saying, it’s left some deep cuts, but you not only seem to be focused on processing them healthily, but also possibly leveraging them into a future endeavor where you can shape them into beneficial care for others while also experiencing personal fulfillment. I know that taking the next right step with problems and trauma is a tricky thing–really depends on who and where the person is, in regards to whether they need to hear someone tell them to take a break, start moving, or get over it–but at the risk of misspeaking, it seems you’re in a good place, on the right track, and you deserve to be nice to yourself and pat yourself on the back!

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     • It’s weird how things often do happen for the best. You could dig through history and make a case that it’s the other way around–that things are ironically cruel and amusing in the pettiness and disappointment that comes from failed pursuits. That’s how I used to view life. I used to be a big fan of dark humor that made positive outlooks seem silly and ineffective. Growing up in the nineties, I feel like that was a part of the cultural climate, where being a dark-humor edgelord was praiseworthy just for the aesthetic, and not necessarily for any insight that came from it. Thankfully, life kept proving me wrong over time, to the point where if I get in a rut or undesirable mood, I can always look back at the instances where I was pleasantly proven wrong, and abide in the trust that whatever’s happening will emerge into something positive. I could just be lucky, it’s impossible to know, but being a trusting dreamer is now my preferred mode of being.

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     • It’s kind of why I try and ease off overintellectualizing the positive spins. I’m decent at logic, so I can create some elaborate causal web that points to something I could hold up as a positive outcome, but the important thing is whether I feel positive or not about it, and if I have to do mental gymnastics to get there, I’m usually too cerebrally convoluted to be able to relax and feel any positivity. It’s generally better for me to just trust that things will work out in some unexpected way, as that seems to be what has happened with my past nuisances. And if I’m feeling low and stuck, I’ll usually point myself toward apathy and futility, tell myself that I’m destined to fade away and so is everything else. That’s always resonated with me and reduced my stress, though I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I’m naturally intellectual and logical, and it’s very strong in logical validity.

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     • I think I can relate. Reality has definitely seemed like a sick joke at times, when negativity just keeps repeating and reoccurring in some way, shape or form. There have been times when I had to ask myself if I really wanted to keep living, or if I wanted to keep going. Obviously, I chose to keep going, but there was no positive spin whatsoever, it was more like there was something on the horizon that MIGHT turn positive, so I might as well see if it does. And also, in a state of being ready to end things, I was hit by the visceral realization that things end anyway, and I might as well see what happens, because I can always end things early at a future date. Believe it or not, that was the most positive I could be at certain times. When I was thinking it, I simply thought I was being logical, but now that I look back, I think it was choosing the most positive thought available even though it might not have outwardly seemed like it. I feel like it’s similar to the idea of just working with what’s in front of you, or doing what makes sense, or other such sentiments. Maybe it’s not objectively positive, but I don’t think positivity is about adhering to an objective measure, it’s about the individual going with the most resonant positivity they can manage at the time, even if that might seem horrendously negative to anyone else.

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     • I feel like I can relate to certain things you said, although the drive to care for others definitely seems to be stronger in you than I would guess it is in me. A lot of my willingness to experience discomfort comes from wanting to make sure my mom is taken care of. If there’s any hint she needs help, then everything else will get put on the back burner, but she’s also a fairly capable, self-sufficient grown woman, so I think my concerns around caring for others is much different. I believe that what you’ve gone through is unique and it seems to have positioned you to express yourself in a very underserved area of human needs while also clarifying what will make you feel healthy, balanced and fulfilled. You definitely deserve it!

       At the risk of being narcissistic and blathering more about my book, the confrontation with Lyderea reflects what we’re talking about, albeit in a much more dramatic, fantasy-world manner. Jon is stuck between killing himself or Lucky, which as he says equates to prolonged torture or merciful suicide. Instead, he chooses something that would be insane under other circumstances (plummeting off a dangerously high bridge into the mist-covered unknown), by no means a positive alternative, and yet considering where he was at, it was the best option he had at the time. I feel like that’s kind of what the choice to keep going often felt like for me, when I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I had no idea what awaited me in the future, and with a beaten-down mentality all I could imagine was more beat-downs, but although that was what I felt like was an upcoming certainty, I truly couldn’t know for sure, just like Jon couldn’t 100% know he’d die from the fall. And just like Jon, I’ve been surprised by beneficial turns of events, although it never manifested as dramatically as a magic portal/last second save (give it time, though, maybe one day lol!).

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     • I definitely agree with your statement that it may not be necessarily bad if someone doesn’t share your degree of desire. When I was immature, I thought that doing everything at a 100% was proof you cared, but now I think it’s all about perspective. There’s some people that need to be less emotionally engaged, so they can be more analytical and serve as conduits to people who are even further removed from on-the-ground type stuff. They have their own perspective on life, and I believe that eliciting the best from them isn’t a matter of browbeating them, but understanding that they see things differently, and that it can be a benefit instead of a detriment, depending on how I interact with them. It can all be synergistic and empowering, and truly energize someone like you in expressing your full capability, in my opinion.

       Don’t feel bad about the rants–I’ve returned them with plenty of my own! 😊

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     • It’s kind of why I shifted away from being a try-hard embodier of “objective truth” (which I later realized was an indirect way of browbeating others into adhering to that supposedly objective truth) and focusing more on how subjective perception is not only prevalent in values, memory (trial cases being a prime example), and personal inclination, but it may very well be our existential right. I used to think I could exert enough influence to shift someone’s perception to the point where they would always adopt the view that I wanted them to apply, but I have now come to believe that’s one of the surest ways to long-term misery. That’s not to say that communication is futile, but my take on it is that the best way to do it is to combine it with intuitive awareness, to really leverage beneficial possibility or instinctively sidestep a hidden pitfall.

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     • I was actually having that conversation with a friend yesterday. He was asserting that words are like magic spells, and I agreed to a point. If the audience has already made up their mind on the subject, they’re probably not going to listen to what I have to say. I’ve seen this in politics, where a lot of people get super tribal and are focused more on their team than parsing out pros/cons/alternatives and implementing a step toward a solution, literally to the point where if their desired solution comes from the wrong team, they’re going to turn it down just because it’s not their team. The intuition/inspiration you mention is key, I think. Because I may be inspired to engage in some debate, even with someone who disagrees, but later on I might find out they mulled what I said and they either agreed with me or shifted their position into something more constructive, or both. But whenever I feel like there’s a quagmire forming and both sides are starting to dig in, I feel like that’s a good time for me to wish the other well and focus on my own business.

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     • It’s definitely a tricky balance, and it really becomes complicated when it starts becoming evident that communication can sometimes take years to bloom. It kind of clarifies the issue, though, in my opinion, because the choices start becoming more than just did I get my point across or not, to did I act in accordance with my intuition and character, knowing that maybe the point will be processed later? And also, not everything I say is going to be accepted at a future date, so where do I draw the line to keep from burning out and avoid the pitfall of constantly railing at people with the justification that they may get the point later on? Obviously, this is another case where I’m biased towards emotional intelligence and intuitive input.

       On a somewhat related topic, I was listening to a successful pop singer on a podcast the other day, and she was talking about how her dad would encourage her in a very childlike way that I found endearing, by playfully challenging her to see if she could do a bit more. Not through fear or obligatory pressure, but more along the lines of “you kick-flipped over two skateboards, do you think you can do three?” It was kind of the same vibe as hanging out with a friend who helps encourage pursuit of interests. At the same time, while he let her hang out with other skaters, he would be pretty strict about checking for drugs. She had great things to say about his balance of encouragement, freedom, and oversight. Something about it resonated, although I’m probably idealizing the complexities of parenting. The daily grind of it is something I could never put up with over long stretches of time.

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     • I’m very on board with Ms. Robbins’ expert, especially since I believe that belief has more than a psychological impact. I think that’s what I spent most of my life trying to reconcile, the difference between what I was forcing and what I truly felt, as well as that difference when I perceived it in other people.

       I had to cut off some conversations and allow myself a “bathroom break” when Martha’s pics popped into my mind! 🤣 Almost quit writing so I could dedicate my life to trying to get hired as her pool boy! 😂

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     • I never thought of the flipside. But I’m with you in that I’d like to stick to cheering her on, and refraining from picking at societally problematic implications. I mean, there’s a certain point where I’m going to feel it’s warranted, but I’ll let my intuition guide me on that, because I’m pretty sure I can logically find problems with everything if I try. Or, even if I stumble onto a perfect state of moral equilibrium, it will be haunted by the specter of oncoming imbalance, which would necessitate a tyrannically strict set of precautions that would mean living on my toes in a low-key state of helicopter panic. So for now, I’m just gonna cheer her on! Bring on the swimsuit covers! 😁

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     • The nursing home STI epidemic is pretty wild, lol! I definitely wouldn’t be able to work as staff for those places. I’m just not considerate enough to not want to smile at inappropriate times or subjects, among other things.

       I kind of see big government and business as more of reactive animals who are most likely not going to cater to niche or cutting edge issues. In many ways, I think that’s a good thing, because they tend to influence a lot of people, and things that influence a lot of people in my opinion and as a general rule benefit from a lot of consideration and compromise, although there are downsides to that for sure. While Sports Illustrated might not be the first organization to prioritize representation, I do take heart from the democratization of access that arises from the internet. I’m almost certain I never would have started writing if I couldn’t self-publish, and if I didn’t have access to an online thesaurus. It seems that it’s much easier to generate revenue and fandom in niche markets, to the point where a star can be mobbed in a certain context while remaining unrecognized in others. As long as our AI overlords don’t stick us in the Matrix, I think representation will continue to evolve and permeate as years pass, but it can definitely be frustrating in the short-term. In the meantime, I’m of the opinion of never say never. Maybe Martha’s second shoot will have that giant orange outfit! Also, man do I love Heart! I look younger than I am, because I got lucky with genes and I keep in shape, but I’m pretty sure other gymgoers would never suspect that All I Want to do is Make Love to You or Stranded are on my playlist! 😅

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     • I think I can relate in a tangential sense. I grew up in the 90s, so aside from that one fictionalized biopic about Bruce Lee, there was no good-looking Asian men to compare myself to; it was pretty much token caricatures, or, maybe in a rare, very best scenario case, a cool sidekick that would be subordinate to a better-looking hero. Even after I found out I looked good, I find myself watching kdrama leads on screen and wondering if I should do makeup and skin care 😂 But from listening to some Korean American podcasts I’ve learned that a lot of those celebrities are actually incredibly insecure about their looks and self-worth, which leads me back to the belief that reaching outside myself for intrinsic validation is a wild goose chase. To me, it’s more about relaxing into the knowledge that I’m fine where I am, which typically gets me way better interactions with people than if all my processing power is worrying about whether a hair is out of place or if my face is bloated. I’m sure there are girls out there who are into the immaculate appearance, but I’ve heard plenty of good-looking ladies express the sentiment that what attracted them to a guy wasn’t that everything was perfect, but that he seemed unselfconscious and at peace with the stuff that wasn’t. If I ever get in a long-term relationship again, that’s the kind of vibe I’d like to put out, and that’s the kind of woman I’d like to be with. Also, even if society changed its values, it might encourage a lifestyle I genuinely wouldn’t want to pursue, simply for health reasons. A few months ago, I found out that there were fat men’s clubs in the early 1900s, apparently some of them even weighed you to make sure you were heavy enough to qualify. And throughout history, I believe a lot of places saw body fat as an attractive trait, I know this was certainly the case in older Korea. I’m not trying to make a case for one set of values or the other, but more for the idea that my opinion is that trends will come and go, but they will ultimately be subordinate to me feeling comfortable with myself, not only for my own well-being, but also because I believe that projects an attractiveness that is truly resonant.

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     • This may sound flighty, but I’m just looking for that spark of connection that tells me there’s something worth pursuing. Sexual attraction is kind of a fickle thing, in my opinion, in that sometimes it can happen as conventionally defined==a “check-the-boxes” style attraction if you will–where it’s based around conventional measures, and sometimes it just happens without making any outward sense whatsoever. My suspicion is that it is some kind of past-life or deeper energetic connection, although like you, I don’t believe in soul mates. It’s the opposite of what I was alluding to when I described Lyderea, where even though she’s technically beautiful, it’s a nuts-and-bolts type of beauty with no real pull, which also fit the mechanistic way in which she framed the world. This isn’t a commentary on your view, but my view on beauty standards is not that I have to advocate for a hard-to-measure fair distribution of societal perception, but to relax into the trust that my intuition will guide me to whatever I’m looking for. Because I’ve had the best sex with women I never thought I’d be attracted to, and vice versa, I’ve been with women who check the physical boxes but are super disappointing. For me, it will always boil down to listening to my soul and having fun following the hints along the way. Otherwise, it becomes too stressful for me to try and quantify that stuff 😅 Even if I manage to do it in a specific instance, the criteria change in the next instance, and I have to go down an entirely new rabbit hole trying to nail down a new set of criteria so I can indulge in the illusion that I nailed it in another successful instance, when over the long term, it seems I just stumbled on to a moment of resonance and free-flowing intuition.

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     • That’s awesome that you got that level of support, especially when you were going through tough times! I’m of the opinion that beauty is another existential mini-game we can choose to play, like finance or power or public acclaim. Ultimately, it’s secondary to my perception, and how I choose to perceive myself. One day it could be there, the other day it could be gone. If someone chooses to pursue the technical aspects of physical beauty, I have no objection to that, as it could be an integral part of their personal journey. But I’m also convinced that in the end, by itself, just like power or finance or any fitness or any other number of games we play, it won’t bring about any abiding satisfaction, happiness, or even guarantee good sex. I remember reading about folks who got well-done plastic surgery where they became technically beautiful, and for some, that was enough to change their belief in themselves and they began to carry themselves with the confidence they felt they deserved and attracted outcomes that were typically associated with physically beautiful people. Other people, on the other hand, became technically beautiful but they never changed their perception of themselves, and attracted outcomes that would have been associated with their pre-surgery appearance. Also, because of my beliefs concerning the order of precedence in thought vs matter, I believe that it is entirely possible to sabotage one’s own surgery with an attitude of desperation and lack–I believe that even if someone pays for a surgeon that only makes a mistake every million surgeries, they can coincide with that mistake and botch it so badly that they wish they never had it done. To me, perception is where the power is.

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     • I have an evolving view on people like that clerk. I used to brag that I was elitist against the elitists, but later I realized that was just another form of elitism. Personally, I think I’m coming more to the realization that I don’t need to rail against people like that, they’re just not in my queue of desired associates. I see it kind of like dating and sexual preference, where people ideally are given free reign to choose who and what they like provided it’s not harmful to others. Rather than see judgy folks as fundamentally wrong (I’ve been plenty judgy myself over my life), I think I’m gravitating toward a view where I see them in a phase they may or may not grow out of while I’m alive, and that I’d rather brush past them and be on my way, kind of like someone who I don’t really want to date in a no harm no foul manner. I used to think it was my duty and right to bludgeon/incept/cajole people like that into behaving the way I wanted them to, but I found I would get drawn into their negativity, become more negative myself, and that if someone truly doesn’t want to change their mind, they will find a way to not change it. I believe it is a result of a deeper thought-pattern that is really up to them; they can choose to suffer from their own negativity, pivot toward something else, or many times, it’s probably just a phase, so I don’t think it’s usually that clear-cut. If you were super ripped, someone would say you were too ripped, or find another flaw to pick on. If you were ultra glamorous and had billions of followers, someone would say you don’t deserve the attention. There will always be haters, but personally I just try and let em stew and do my own thing, because I remember what it was like to look down on others, and how in the long-term, it was definitely not worth it.

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     • Well said! Also, from my experience, even if you argue someone into submission or into supposedly changing their mind, or even adopting a new course of action for their benefit, it won’t take unless they’ve changed their underlying perspective. I used to believe that “common sense” or logic was some kind of dominant force, and if presented concisely and combined with results, people would naturally adopt the logical course of action. However, I would have multiple friends who would ask for advice, wherein I would go in-depth as to what I thought they should do, why I thought they should do it, and support with evidence, and then they would heartily agree and not do it. I thought maybe my friends were just anomalies, then I heard of similar phenomena with fallen-through-the-cracks vets who were given free testosterone treatment for severe life impairment pituitary injuries and they just stopped taking it, unless they had to pay for it, which truly boggled my mind. Apparently, that’s happened across multiple programs, to include education, job benefits, etc. So now I believe that people are going to be guided by their underlying perspective no matter what. If someone believes they aren’t worthy, they will find a way to prove that. If someone believes that everything comes at a price, they will find a way to make it so. Similarly, if that clerk insists on viewing others as lesser, she will find plenty of examples, which will also include her in relation to someone else. That’s all right by me–in my belief system, it’s fine to punch yourself in the face, because the silliness of it is revealed in one way or the other.

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     • I always get Miley confused with HIlary Duff, who also makes an appearance on my expectations-defying playlist 😅 As far as finding a romantic match, I kind of see it as having a pal or a dance partner for a temporary time. In most cases, one dies earlier anyway, so there’s likely going to be a return to being an individual. if there’s kids or finances involved, it can be much trickier and in-depth, but there are still people who decide to separate despite those considerations. That being said, kids and finances can create a lot of drag in life, so they should be taken seriously and warrant heavier deliberation, but going back to the non-belief in soul mates, I don’t think we’re meant to tie the breadth of our experience to a single individual and/or the accompanying dependents. If existence is a series of video game-lives, I really, REALLY am not attracted to the idea of one where I am under the obligation to find a single individual who–according to implications from society–I am encouraged and/or expected to sacrifice my personal identity for, and replace it with a shared identity where my individual callings will be hidden or suppressed. That might be a main quest for others, but absolutely not for me. I’d rather dance with different partners, along to different songs, and wander in and out of different side quests. However, as hard as it is for me to emotionally resonate with, I understand that some folks see family life as the primary goal. For a while, I thought there was genuinely something wrong with my mom, because she dedicated pretty much her entire day to raising my brother and myself as a single mother. I’d ask her why she didn’t give us up, and she’d reciprocate with the same level of bafflement and reply how could I even think that, where I’m thinking how could I not. So for her, raising us was what gave her meaning, purpose, and fulfillment, and while I can’t resonate with the specifics, I can definitely understand the underlying drive and intangible reward.

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     • I’ve got DMX X gonna give it to ya, plus Scarface No Tears (the song Michael Bolton was rapping to in the beginning of Office Space) along with Donna Lewis I Love You Always Forever and a bunch of other upbeat poppy stuff 🤣

       There’s definitely no one size fits all answer–if there’s a primary trait that characterizes humanity, I feel like it’s variance among individuals

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     • Party in the USA is a damn good song! What’s weird is I can still tap into dark stuff while I’m listening to upbeat pop and still be in a good mood. I remember I was bopping along to Taylor Swift when I was writing a scene in Echo 4 where this wisecracking death-cyborg was torturing this rebel by shooting his hand into his son’s belly, pulling out his sacrum and eating it.

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     • Out of all modes of self-expression, I feel like music is most connected to feeling. Most of the time, lyrics take a distant second seat for me to the melody; apparently, I wasn’t alone in listening to Taylor’s Blank Space and singing starbucks lovers when it was actually “long list of ex-lovers” lol! Also, I may be one of the few people who love Mariah Carey’s Christmas songs all year round. 😅

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     • I think the most hilarious misinterpretation was from her 2020 Folklore album (first album where she’s swearing in the lyrics, apparently) song Mad Woman, where the lyrics go “Or does she mouth, ‘fuck you forever?’ ” But when I was hearing it, I was thrown for a loop because I heard “Or does she mouth-fuck you forever?” And because she was already getting edgier by introducing swear words, I totally believed in the more pornographic interpretation. I was like whoa! Okay…I guess we’re singing about mouthfucking now! 🤣

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     • Crazy is a label derived from societal consensus, with the nested implication that it’s better to act like most people than in an eccentric manner. I don’t think it’s too useful outside a herd-mind context, because there are better measures to describe function or disruption within societal parameters. I often associate use of the word crazy with people who are deeply insecure and implicitly accept that their worth is dependent and/or defined by everyone else’s perception.

       Folklore is a great album, although it’s heavier than what I usually prefer from Taylor. I think Betty is my favorite song on there. It’s about stupid teen drama but there’s an earnestness and sweetness to the melody that I feel like every kid should get to experience before they have to deal with anything that might make them jaded.

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     • Ironically, I now have to rein myself in from immediately passing judgments on people who start throwing around the word crazy, lol! It triggers a flowchart in my mind, where I make an assessment as to whether they’re doing it to enforce conformity, and if they’re doing that from a place of constructive positivity or hive-mind-style insecurity. If it’s the latter, I’m tempted to fall into follow-on judgments where I label them as stunted by fear, lack of creativity, audacity, and someone who’s acting as more of a societally programmed NPC than a true expression of their unique individuality (I told you I was an overthinker!). But I’ve seen the pitfalls of negativity, so as good as that elitism might feel in the short term, why should I punch myself in my own face, so to speak? That’s kind of where my thought process ends up now. If someone wants to be stunted, then let them do so. Everyone is going through their own process, and I’m sure I’ve acted out those shortcomings in my own way, sometime in the near or distant past.

       Folklore is a pretty good mix of songs, though overall it’s pretty heavy and/or dreamy/wistful. Not as catchy as Taylor’s other stuff, but in my opinion it really brings out the beauty of her voice more than her other stuff. I’d say the most melancholy and prettiest of them is a duet called Exile. Pretty sad vibe though.

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     • 80s madonna makes a few appearance on my playlist, lol! I too, would like to sing one day, although it’s pretty far down on my list of want-to-dos. There’s two reasons–one, I’d like to be good at karaoke. Not to the point where people tell me I should pursue music as a career, but just so I can have fun and casually impress listeners. Two, I think it’d be fun to be a one-man music studio that could rap, beatbox, sing, and maybe also do something percussive with the hands. I’d love to make Adam Sandler-style ditties where I’d make fun of my friends, or just improv on the spot and make people laugh. Trying to approach Taylor-level ability is way too much commitment for me. I think she’s designed to be a musical artist, in that she really has no choice but to do it or she’ll be unfulfilled.

       It’s hard to deal with the let-downs, especially if they’re friends or family, or if they come back around and start offering unwanted input. I’m pretty cut and dry about it, in that I’ll put them in my unreliable bin, and I’ll just stop expecting anything from them in that regard. Sometimes, folks can go so far as to save your life, but then be completely unreliable around your money and wife, which has given rise to a bunch of cliches. Trust a [something] with your life, but not your money or wife. Part of setting boundaries for me is realizing that I shouldn’t idealize anybody based on stuff like character, and be all right with things moving into a narrower scope of interaction. I dealt with a narcissistic (I hesitate using that word because it’s become a pop culture throw-around) family member who kept asking me to collaborate on stuff which he’d never finish on his end by just politely refusing to participate. By his tone and bearing, it seemed to have an emotional impact, and he got the hint to stop asking after awhile. Up until then, he’d rope people in with the excitement of a collaboration, then bail on it and rope someone else into another prospective collaboration. I say he’s narcissist because I think that’s a form of it where you constantly crave attention from others, but I’m not sure. I looked into it a while ago, and there seems to be multiple forms as well as manifestations on a sliding scale, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I was misusing the word. Anyways, he and I still laugh and socialize, but I know to quickly refuse anything that involves collaboration, and after a while, he just stopped asking. I used to buy into the idea that everyone should be held to a social standard, and maybe they should be, definitely in the case of crime and abuse, but I’ve eased off the honor-and-character-type stuff. Some people will come through with flying colors in certain areas, but not so much in ironically simpler/easier things, and vice versa. That’s my observation and how I calibrate my perspective to minimize friction.

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     • The making out in sacrament sounds like projection–now that you mention it, I kinda wanna do it! 🤣 There’s definitely something to music and dance that seems to be inexplicably emotionally resonant. I get that you can do those things for money or status or sexual attention, but I feel like more than any other activity, music-related stuff lends itself to having fun without ulterior motive, just fun for the sake of fun.

       The bailing out on commitment doesn’t bother me in and of itself, but more the general interaction and treatment of myself or anyone else involved, which included gaslighting and deception, it was never the guy’s fault for bailing, it was always everyone else’s for not appreciating his world-changing vision which translated to the next project, grand promises on results like the collapse of capitalism, complete reformation of a corrupt education system, military-industrial complex, stuff like that. At the end of the day, the patterns indicated a simple desire for people’s continuing attention, without respect for even the smallest deliverables or timelines. Another clue was a continuing inability to navigate smaller technicalities like admin, communication, or meeting times. Over the years, I’ve begrudgingly come to view it as an important lesson, in that I realized I was seeking happiness measured by my influence on others. If this guy had done what I had wanted, and I had tied my happiness to that, then it would have been much harder to conclude that people will let you down somewhere along the way, even if they are family and friends, and that my happiness does not depend on them. Maybe they won’t maliciously disappoint me, but simply by dint of them having their own unique perspective and values means that there will be miscommunication or misinterpretation somewhere along the line, which will lead to dissatisfaction if I tie my happiness to their response. It goes back to the core acceptance that we each have our own unique lives to live and paths to walk. Perhaps the guy I mentioned will change his values to the point where my path will converge with his sometime in the future, and then maybe diverge again. I don’t know, but taking things moment by moment and being present allows for that possibility, where I can navigate nuance, not put everyone in a permanently labeled mental box, and let things unfold without so much clunky prejudgment. That’s what I believe, anyway.

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     • The problem with instant telepathy that you’ve mentioned parallels the rationale behind why it’s not a good idea to have an instantaneous, thought-based dictation of reality from the individuated perspective. Without the moderation of a longer-term, more existentially accepting perspective (arguably the intuition, which can assure you that things are fine despite apparently being the opposite), reality-bending decisions would be made from an extremely limited, lack-based point of view, which doesn’t account for a greater interconnectivity underlying our lives and compounding unexpected problems. It’s kind of the premise behind the monkey’s paw, in my opinion. One of the rationales given for non-immediate manifestation of thoughts (which I’m not sure I completely buy into but it seems to make sense) is that the ensuing time allows us to clarify what we truly want, and shape our desires accordingly, so it’s not some helter-skelter thrash of the existential pendulum going one way, then the other, destroying everything as it spasms. Further speculation would address saints and luminaries who supposedly could bend reality by adding the premise that they’re residing in a more expansive perspective, to where they can judiciously employ reality-bending thought in a more immediate manner while fully understanding, despite immediate appearances, where it will be constructive and where it won’t. That, too, makes sense to me, but it does tend to foster a sense of hierarchy where anyone with that perspective has more worth than others. I break from that assumption because I’m of the mind that everyone’s on their own adventure, and they’ll eventually return to benevolent omnipotence anyway (which, as I’ve mentioned is a limited state of being so they would have to re-impose a new set of constraints to keep from remaining static, stagnant, and devoid of novelty, or in other words, they would have to reincarnate)

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     • Reality is definitely slippery. A term that arose in UFO world to provide some context was “shadow biome.” It was used to describe different realities that existed alongside ours, where sometimes the resident consciousnesses would occasionally interact with us, which seems dependent upon perspective. The analogies given were that we could be likened to a colony of ants in a forest where humans (non-human intelligence outside of this analogy) trod through once a month, and became visible to a few ants who happened to be outside the colony. These ants would be hard to be taken seriously because they only live a year or two, and it only happened to a few ants, so interactions with non-human intelligence would seem extremely rare, fleeting, and easily dismissed. Another one is a bunch of microbes who see a needle coming into their space to either take samples or inject medication. Those microbes would have no context for what they were seeing, and the other microbes would easily dismiss it, since they only live a few hours, and needles don’t get injected that often, generally speaking. But in certain cases, the lore of the needle or two-legged giant would be passed down among future generations of ants and microbes, which is maybe what happened with religion and myths? I don’t know, but I find it interesting. A heavily questionable anecdote I find to be fascinating is that some medical workers on reddit also suspect that some if not all schizophrenics are interacting with actual beings.

       Despite all this speculation, I believe we are given perceptual limits to provide meaning, purpose, focus, and depending on our perspective, adventure. I’ve heard of anecdotes that echo this idea where DMT entities eventually get puzzled by someone who does it too much, and tells them they weren’t meant to visit so often (happened to my friend, as well as other secondhand examples of people I don’t know). I’ve also heard of psychics encountering beings who give off the same vibe, where they tell the psychic it’s nice you’re here, but you got stuff to do in your own life. That being said, I suspect humanity as a collective is about to start reshaping the consensus model of reality to include the significance of consciousness and perspective (which apparently, is the biggest piece in piloting UFOs, and is why reverse-engineering them is difficult, because our models of causality typically minimize consciousness). There’s been a couple of events recently in the UFO community where two individuals of high repute have shifted the narrative from “these are unexplainable flight hazards that need to be explored for aviation safety” to “these are craft that originated from non-human intelligence.” Other high-reputation individuals have stepped forward to support their claims. In my speculation, it’s indicative of a slow but significant shift in societal perception. I’m particularly intrigued by the term “non-human intelligence,” as one of the intelligence community officials I was listening to was stating that doesn’t necessarily mean extraterrestrials. He broke it down into three groups: strangers (from what I can remember, this is more of an interdimensional presence, typically with a trickster vibe), visitors (extraterrestrials), and residents (ultraterrestrials, or non-human intelligences that have lived on Earth without our knowing). Anyways, I’m interested personally because I think this stuff is cool, and also because I want to use it to shape Lucky’s eventual astral/paranormal detective story.

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     • There’s definitely more than one why, especially in something like mental illness. For traumatic brain injury, I’ve read that in a good amount of cases, it can be as simple as administering certain hormones, specifically exogenous testosterone for men who have suffered pituitary gland damage. I’ll openly admit to a bias, however, that even when there are seemingly clear-cut external solutions, I believe they spring from a deep-down piece of someone shifting their perspective into a place where they are ready to be healed, or at least open to being ready. It’s my personal hypothesis that accounts for the variation in results–some folks respond to stimulus as expected, some inexplicably don’t, some experience bona fide miracles that need to be vetted by scientists before they can be entered into record (I was watching one of Zac Efron’s Down to Earth episodes where a guy who apparently experienced crippling degeneration of his pelvis bathed in a popular, purportedly miraculous French spring on a regular basis, then all the soft tissues unexplainably grew back to full normalcy and function, to the point where doctors pored over it in an effort to explain it. Eventually, it met the strict criteria–which I think involves a decade or more of follow-up–to be cited as a miracle by the Catholic church). Similar but not same with stem cells–some experience near-miraculous results, while others wonder why they wasted their money. Then you have Wim Hof, who is a modern-day yogi who is literally causing doctors to rewrite medical texts, because he is redefining what is previously thought as impossible. I suspect there is also a collective subconscious which gives rise to a series of collective constraints and agreements that help guide our individual paths, but that’s speculation on top of speculation. Anyways, all that’s cool, but as reductive as it seems, personally it always boils down to appreciate what’s in front of me, work with what I’m given, and try not to beat myself up when I lose my way. Same as you, I think!

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     • Positivity for me, ironically, sometimes just means being okay with negativity, which is basically a rephrasing of accepting negativity so that the resonant focus shifts from negativity to acceptance. “Just being okay” is basically a simile for acceptance, so “just being okay” is a way to ease my attention away from the negative and onto the “just okay-ness” of it. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of forced positivity, beating myself up for being negative, then beating myself up for beating myself up about it, and none of that helps me, personally. I don’t think it’s possible to avoid all negativity. In my model of reality, it functions as a clarification of desire–or direction of existential expansion–but it is entirely possible to just dip my toes in it, and vacillate almost entirely between positivity and just-okayness/acceptance/satisfaction. So a better term for negativity in my model of reality would be clarification or contrast, rather than punishment or darkness. I agree with the truth behind there has to be darkness to allow for light, but the connotation of the word “darkness” is a little too harsh and transactional for me, so I prefer simply labeling it as contrast or clarification, which to me is instrumental and in service of positive expansion, rather than some tit-for-tat, grudging compromise, veggies-before-dessert type of dynamic.

       Wim Hof is a nice way to get a natural high, lol! I typically finish off my stretches with 3×30 breaths, with a blow-out hold and an inhale hold between each set. For the first year I did it, I was afraid I’d pass out during the holds, but it never happened. Also, it used to make me extremely sleepy, but for some reason it no longer happens. Anyways, I don’t keep track of effects through bloodwork or anything, but it feels nice to have the thoughts melt into a pleasant buzz for a bit.

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     • I’ve had problems along those lines, and I’ve had similar thoughts where I spend the day asking some variant of the question, “Why do you hate me, Universe???” 😅 I’ve also gone down the rabbit hole of beating myself for asking that question at all, because it’s based in negativity/powerlessness, but then I notice I’m beating myself up (which as you know I believe will eventually invite more reasons to beat myself up over) and that can invite fear/tension…I’m sure you get the idea. It can just devolve into a chain of pushing back (focusing) on negativity, which invites more negativity to push back against.

       I think it’s pretty awesome that you can double down on positivity to minimize the negative! For a while, I tried to convince myself I could do that, but for some reason, I’m just not designed that way. It may not be psychologically/politically correct, but if my perspective is in a super deep negative rut, I can always adopt the line of thought, “I was ready to end things before, so if things get untenably bad, that’s still an option.” And ironically, that tends to shift me into acceptance–I’m not trapped, I always have options, even if they’re seemingly dark and unpalatable. I don’t remember having to use that one for years, though. My point isn’t to be low-key edgy and state that there are societally unacceptable ways to move in a more positive direction, it’s to emphasize my belief that it’s the mental act of moving in a positive direction that matters to me, not necessarily what line of thought I might use to get there. It’s probably related to why I like existential philosophy so much, because it typically has a thematic current, implied or overt, that illustrates our insignificance, how we’re probably unnecessarily stressing out, and to relax into the moment.

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     • I’m glad you’re venturing into the world of pleasant surprises! I honestly think they’re an integral part of the optimal state of being. 😊

       As far as asking the universe to lend a hand, I used to do that quite a bit back in the day. I think it’s a great tool! In my worldview, it’s a way to release internal resistance, to implicitly trust in a pervasive benevolence and power underlying existence, and to give it permission to step in and assist. My articulation of it is the way Jules regards Mr. Wolf in Pulp Fiction, specifically the part where Marcellus Wallace tells him the Wolf is on it, and Jules is like that’s all you had to say, motherfucker! I understand that one could make a case that it’s an abdication of personal power, and in certain frames of perspective I agree that it can be that, but I also believe it’s possible to argue that it’s allowing a richer, more holistic connection with one’s greater self, the parts that have access to synchronicities and the ability to see past linear progression, aka the apparent one-way flow of time and space.

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     • This may sound regressive and pigheaded, but I used to also consider myself teachable, then reversed my position on that. The connotation of changing my views based on someone else’s instruction is what I don’t necessarily resonate with anymore. I’ve tried to change friends with water-tight logic, and I’ve also followed directions to a tee, over and over in exhaustive fashion, only to have things fall apart. So while it may sound like I’m splitting verbal hairs, I shifted my attention from teachability to positive focus, and openness toward good phenomena. The difference may sound insignificant, but with a prioritization of positive focus over teachability, I feel like I’m trusting that I will be taught what I need to within the bandwidth of a positive perspective. I will stumble across things I can effectively change for the better, and meet with people who want to do the same, rather than focus on how my task is far too difficult or that the only way toward power is to assemble a bunch of power-deprived, super-angry people, pushing the emotional pendulum farther and farther out until it comes roaring back and wreaking havoc as a pure expression of unbottled rage. I’m not saying that that isn’t the right thing at times, because sometimes the options have degraded to the point where that’s the best available option to move toward positivity. However, as creative cognitive beings, I don’t think we need to let it devolve to that point. It’s like letting murderous Darwinism take place and saying that in the long run, it tends to manifest an ethical environment, which is technically true, but incredibly wasteful and destructive in its path to the destination (apparently, if there are tyrants among primates, they will bully and oppress everyone to the point where there will be a violent revolution, then fairer and more ethical leaders will be emplaced, but why let it get to that point?) So now I like to qualify my teachability with a positive perspective, and if that puts me in an echo chamber with rose-colored glasses, then so be it.

       I don’t think it’s an abdication either, and I know that AA uses the same mechanism of thought to help combat addiction (although if I remember correctly, the founder of AA wanted to use LSD as an integral part of addiction rehab. That may be explored in the future, given the changing view on psychedelics). We’re all obviously unique in perspective, so it naturally follows that we frame reality in our own unique ways. If you call for help from an external source and I call that source a greater and less apparent part of you, I don’t believe that the semantics matter, so long as the emotional resonance of receiving aid and support is similar.

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     • Your stance on teachability sounds constructive and healthy, and I’ll freely admit that my stance on it could easily be hijacked by selfish and destructive intentions. The way I like to think about it is that while the physically apparent “I” doesn’t know it all, there is some part of me that does, and that part shares a deeper and more compassionate connection with everyone else’s corresponding deeper part (maybe they’re one and the same, I don’t know). I guess if I had to analogize it, I’d say we’re connected to an existential internet (I wonder if exi-net could start being tossed around as a term), where we un or subconsciously exchange information and meaning with a richness that our surface minds can tap if we let go of resistance. Maybe we are the exi-net at our core, I don’t know. Regardless, I think when things are aligned and I’ve got a strong connection to the exi-net, I can instinctively parse information for utility and relevance, which will cut out the need for exhaustive logical vetting and justification. Kind of a radar for where teachability is a good trait to have, and where I’m better off following up on another line of interest. I feel like it’s something very similar to the creative state, where ideas just kind of pop into your head and give you an idea of their relevance through their strength and clarity, or lack thereof. None of that’s a hidden dig on your approach, which I think is respectful, compassionate, and definitely your own to explore and/or enjoy!

       As far as the turning things over to the higher power thing, I feel like I could strike common ground with most in that the emotional resonance of flow and ease is what I go for in the turning over of power. If that’s what I’m feeling when I pursue that thought-way, then I’m all for it! (And to be honest, it’s usually what I feel when I do so). However, if I try to mentally walk away, but I keep getting nagged by an insistence that I should dig into the issue and get my hands dirty, that to me is the opposite of flow/ease resonance, so maybe I probably would be more hesitant in that scenario. I also think it’s okay to vacillate a bit and try a bit of this and that until the resonance clarifies into something a bit more distinct.

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     • The belief is pretty important, I think. For me, the thought-emotion resonance is where that arises from. If I’m in a positive resonance, then it is much easier to believe in positive things. If I get too specific with the belief and it starts to weaken, I back off to a more general stance, something along the lines of things will work out. I don’t know how, but they will. That’s easy for me to believe, and once the belief strengthens, specific things become easier to believe in. This is all wildly speculative, but I do believe there’s also an option of focusing on a desire with such intensity that it becomes absolutely singular in your attention, and it will come about regardless of any negativity that might be mixed in with the thought-stream. However, that’s kind of a meatheaded, bulldog approach that tends to invite a rocky series of events, in my opinion. Also, it’s not fun to focus 24/7 on one specific thing, unless perhaps you are designed for that. And even then, that seems to be for limited periods. I feel like it’s kind of doing a disservice to the potential of someone’s life to restrict it to one point of focus all the way through. It’s kind of mechanistic, in my opinion.

       I am all about the respect and compassion! I have a somewhat off-beat take on it, though, in that I feel that being respectful and compassionate with oneself is the source of being respectful and compassionate for others. This may sound sociopathic without the acceptance of a same/similar premise to the exi-net, but I believe that living one’s life for their own fulfillment is first and foremost the top priority. Because I believe we are all connected at a fundamentally deeper level than the physical world, I believe in many cases, caring for others is the same as caring for oneself, and it’s an integral part of experiencing fulfillment. However, stifling one’s heart, ignoring synchronicity and intuition so they can do the “right” thing and dote on someone else 24/7, without any regard for personal welfare or desire is something I think is similar to becoming mechanistic in nature, and degrades the idea of being a unique individual. There’s a balance to be found, for sure, and I don’t think caring for people and caring for oneself is exclusive, but it’s my opinion that even though external obligations and duties may funnel me into this or that activity, my internal landscape is entirely my own, and I needn’t feel negativity at anyone else’s behest. I was given a unique perspective so I could develop it in my own unique manner, not so I could mindlessly shape my thoughts and emotions into the best guess of what others may think they should be. I think that’s my super long-winded way of saying I think boundaries are important 😅

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     • I guess that boundary of not wanting to have kids was imprinted early on me, when I saw how hard my mom worked to raise me and my brother, then deciding I didn’t want to deal with that. Also, I’ve never experienced that tipping point people seem to have where they don’t want kids and then gradually realize that parenthood is going to be the next big step in fulfillment and personal expansion. My intuition has always told me I’m meant to do something else, and it appears that’s been made apparent. Plus, one of the big things that comes to mind in an imaginary thought experiment with kids is not wanting to explain the random cruelty of the world, and seemingly doom-heavy possibilities like climate change or AI. I have my own beliefs on the optimistic nature underlying existence, but I’ve found that if I get in an argument trying to justify them to other people, I become way too negative as I focus on how I’m going to defeat their argument, then it becomes why do I care, then I beat myself up for caring too much…it can easily become a rabbit hole. Typically, I don’t say anything about that stuff unless someone expresses interest, but if I had a kid, I wouldn’t be able to just disengage at my convenience, and I’d spend a lot of energy learning how to navigate that with redirection and in-person communication, which tends to be pretty tiresome for me.

       As far as setting boundaries, I used to set them according to ideology, in that I would try to live up to some preconceived notion of how I should act and how others should do so as well. Even if I was perfectly in the right to refuse a favor to someone, I would often go against my intuition and do the favor just to say I was “good” or “reliable” or “diligent.” Nowadays I let life and intuition illustrate where I need to draw a line. If something feels wrong, I might still go ahead with it if it only feels a little bit off (to give the benefit of a doubt), but if my gut is telling me a high-volume nope then sorry, it doesn’t matter if it’s going to make me diligent or praiseworthy or whatever, I’ll just relax and wait for the next opportunity that comes drifting along. Also, if something goes wrong, that’s a rough data point that tells me I should pay attention to the next circumstance with similar parameters. Once again, intuition takes precedence, but I’ll let error or victory weigh in on contemplation for sure. Ultimately, as reductive as it may be, I think being present is really the best way to go about it, so my brain and heart can sync with all the factors and lead me onto the most fulfilling path. So in a nutshell, I basically feel out where to draw boundaries, and use past data to run thought experiments which will generate points of focus where I can further feel things out. I’ve tried the other way–go strictly by past data and develop reams of methodologies and routines–but change can often be unexpected, so without intuition all that can quickly become unnecessarily procedural and bureaucratic. For example, I never, EVER would have thought I would stop wearing a watch or setting my alarm clock. But all that stuff is branches on a tree; I think being present is really the solid foundation from which it can grow or be pruned as necessary.

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     • You’re the first to broach the subject of my preference for milfs with utmost respect! 🤣 I really just prefer older women. I could care less whether they have kids or not; I just use the terms milf and soccer mom because they’re catchier, I think. I’m not sure exactly as to why, but it’s been a preference since I was young. If I had to guess, it’s probably from generalizations–I tend to associate older women with a more well developed sense of identity, where they don’t have to rely on making me do this or that for personal validation. Also, more confidence in bed in knowing what they want and being able to communicate it, and a higher libido as well (some have told me that there’s some kind of biological basis for that, and anecdotally, I’ve heard that’s been the case for some of the ladies I’ve been with). Lastly, although this is probably going to have to soon be relegated to fond reminiscence because of the relatively recent changes in culture, I loved defying their stereotype of Asian men. I’ve had a few older women grab my wiener and say in a disbelieving (complementary) tone, something along the lines of, “You are NOT Asian.” It’s probably the only racism I’ve received that I absolutely loved! 😂 Apparently, the desexualization of Asian men isn’t a thing (or as much of one) nowadays, and we’re actually kind of having our moment in pop culture. Might have to keep going older to get that complementary racism! 😂🤣

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     • I’m pretty sure you’re onto something deeper as far as sexual repression and intolerance. Supposedly there have been studies linking the two, although I’m not sure how you would structure the evidence, since human behavior and especially sexuality are hard to predict. But with admittedly no proof or science whatsoever, I’m of the opinion that quite often the harshest repressors are in self-haters–that they’re often denouncing their own hidden desires. I guess the simplest cliche would be the homophobic official who’s secretly in the closet. To me, sex is about consensual fun, not about influencing the quality of my afterlife or trying to justify my virtue, so all by default, the moral high horse people seem kind of silly.

       I also agree with your take on older women, which is why I said my attractions are based on generalizations. I used to be pretty strict about sticking with older women of a certain race, but nowadays I’m really just seeing if I vibe with them first. Maybe they’re not sexually open and I don’t want to deal with that, for the same reason I most likely wouldn’t want to deal with a younger woman. I have to say though, that my bias is still pretty firm in the opposite direction. While I might be willing to hook up with women my own age or older of any race, I probably wouldn’t want to hook up with anyone more than a few years younger than me. The potential lack of relatability and generalizations–they’re still figuring out what makes them feel validated, they’re still trying to figure out what they enjoy and why–in multiple domains is just too much for me to overcome.

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     • Yeah, it took a while for me to realize, but I’m with you on sex defying logic. It seems analogous to my take on external circumstances, in that you can have everything technically lined up, but circumstances won’t make you happy until you’re being present. I think it’s the same with sex. For a while, I saw it as a bunch of checks in a box you mark to complete a list, but it really is about being present and connecting with whoever’s with you. I kind of leaned that way in the last few years, but I think hearing Angela White the top-tier porn star articulate it on podcasts clarified it in my own perspective. That said, there’s certainly some moves worth learning, lol!

       My overthinking brain reads the “hole for a certain use” argument and immediately breaks it down into an existential evaluation. That’s a utilitarian perspective, but who’s to say that having children is a utilitarian end, when we don’t know what is truly utilitarian, given the fact that we don’t know why we exist? Maybe we are living in a prison-planet existence where we’re harvested after death by malicious beings, in which case having children would serve a malicious end (I actually strongly disbelieve this, but I’m trying to make the point that taking such an intolerant stance isn’t justifiable without being able to explain the underpinnings of humanity and hence reality)

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     • I feel like life without blowjobs would be hell–gotta make sure I check the right boxes so I’m not reincarnated into one of those religious groups! 🤣

       This may sound weird, but I kind of see those sexually repressive viewpoints as a personal temperature gauge. If I can hear someone express that stuff and my internal reaction is more or less meh, then I know I’m in a decent and centered state of mind. If I get riled up, that’s usually a personal indicator that I’m feeling insecure and I’m looking for a reason to lash out. Just to be clear, that’s not a subtle dig on whatever you feel; you’ve had a much more in-depth experience with those folks and your relationship with them is much more complicated, so my perspective doesn’t translate to yours.

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     • If Satan existed, that would be the perfect trick: to convince the populace that beej’s were a sin! 🤣 Happy holes for all! I mean, how are you gonna stick with cheese pizza for the rest of your life, when you can experience the joy of pepperoni or supreme? 😂 Cheeseburgers ain’t shit without onions or ketchup! I could keep going…

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     • What would be even more insidious is if they had “hole tokens,” where you could spend a token and have repentance for all holes for a given day. I feel like that would give birth to an expansive black market where the craving for holes could never be fully satisfied, and people would live in hope or terror of having their tokens taken away or being rewarded with more. 🤣

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     • Sounds like a great premise for a buddy cop drama: the Hole Police. 😂 Now on my list of books to write, lol!

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     • Not really my area of interest either, LOL! I think a book would be excessive, but maybe a brief mention or interaction with them in my astral detective noir. They’re nothing but vague ideas in my head at this point, but when I poke at em a bit, I definitely get a buffoonish vibe. Can’t really go too serious with a name like the Hole Police 😂

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     • He might need to clean up a bit–I plan to have him be homeless. I’ve always been interested in homeless peoples’ back stories, and often toyed with the idea that the ones who seem to be outwardly schizophrenic are actually seeing real things. I want that irony where Lucky is disregarded by most of society, but he’s living a coexistence with entities and phenomena that would absolutely flabbergast these same people who casually dismiss him. I want another twist of irony in that some high-level government spook is one of his friends/business liaisons, and coordinates with him to lessen the interdimensional turmoil. So he’s not just living a mind-blowing invisible life, he’s also in regular contact with a living guy who could turn the unsuspecting masses’ existences upside down. In a nutshell, he’s gonna be complicated, but he may need to clean up before he starts questing for holes! 🤣

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     • Yep, I’ve had friends who’ve been briefly homeless, and when I lived in San Francisco, there was a guy who used to be the best carpenter in the city who got traumatized by his wife’s illness/death and ended up mentally broken and wandering the streets. I think there’s a wealth of interesting human experience that largely gets written off in that world. Also, I used to walk past street vendors who’d set up stuff on blankets, and I would always wonder who was buying this stuff? Later, I realized it was homeless buying from homeless, and that there was an entire underground society/economy that I had no idea about. Maybe I can tie that in to the parallel that exists within our perceptual reality, where we live alongside intelligences that overlap with our physical existence, but also go largely unnoticed even though they’re all around us. That’s where Lucky’s going to be spending most of his time. I think it’ll make some for some interesting encounters as well–maybe he’ll scare off some tech bro bullies who want to pick on him because he’s homeless by calling down a UFO, or chasing them off with the help of a shadow-person buddy!

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     • No, the carpenter as far as I know is still wandering the streets. Another fascinating situation I heard of was an underground community of 1500 homeless in Las Vegas, living in tunnels which are subject to flooding. Some of them turn them into legitimate homes with furniture and designated spaces for this or that, as if they were houses or apartments. I have to be careful with these kind of things and focus more on the human and personal perception aspect of them, because I’m not a firsthand experiencer or in-depth expert on them. I want to know enough to highlight the theme and complement the character development as well as leverage some of the atmosphere and setting without doing a deep dive into it, because I could easily end up diluting the narrative with caricatures or misconceptions. That happens a lot with military movies, and although some nitpicky veterans/active folks like to complain, I usually just give it a pass and focus on enjoying the narrative merits. It’s the same reason I didn’t go to in-depth with representation in Weapons of Old. I wanted it to be there, but I didn’t want it to be a giant component of the story; I wanted it to complement the primary themes. I can appreciate movies that are primarily about a group identity, but honestly they’re not really my thing. I’d much rather have an archetypally appealing story that also happens to make a wide variety of people feel included, rather than a heavy focus on a group identity that also tries for archetypal resonance. That’s probably a personal bias–when I grew up as a kid, I’d see sweeping archetypal stories that had no inclusivity but were relatable due to their archetypes, or very group identity-centric niche stories that may have been relatable, but weren’t as archetypally resonant. I’d like to craft something I would have like to see as a kid, which is primarily archetypal with–what I feel–is a notable and distinct, but not scene-stealing level of inclusivity.

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     • Thank you! I hope the bits I put in Weapons of Old weren’t too problematic. I didn’t want to delve into the nontraditional sexuality of Erany/Syf/Idinia/the dryads to the point where it would come across as hokey/preachy/uninformed, but I did want to have the feel of a genuine connection between Syf and Idinia, and Erany’s casual, normalized view on bisexuality when she briefly mentions that she finds Syf attractive. And with the dryads, I wanted to convey they were fully at ease with being on a spectrum of sexuality, to the point where it wasn’t something they really thought about or felt the need to be uncomfortable or combative over, with the tied-in implication that it was natural for them and for other entities in nature (culture war stuff exhausts me, especially the up-in-arms outrage that can surprisingly come from either side). When I read the Dark Tower II, there’s a scene where a villain basically uses an M16 rifle like a machine gun on final protective fire (that’s nonstop firing; you’re supposed to use short bursts), which is a very uninformed way to use that weapon. Nevertheless, I found the characterization and pacing sufficient enough to not care at all about that questionable piece of storytelling. I’ll always remember that–how technical mistakes can be eclipsed by good narrative flow. On the other hand, I’ll always remember how technicalities and backstory can weigh down the narrative flow like an anchor (the family history and lore surrounding certain locations in Tolkien come to mind). With Lucky’s homeless situation, I’ll probably do a decent amount of research and only end up using a fraction of it, because if it starts to get in the way of the pacing, I’m definitely going to cut a bunch of it out.

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     • No, I didn’t find the situations that you mentioned from your book problematic. I felt like it had a casual normalcy that I wish really existed in a wider area of society, where it didn’t really matter as long as we’re talking about equally consenting adults. I actually thought it was cool that it was in there, but it wasn’t made to be like it was a big deal. I know for some people it very much is a big deal because they have strong feelings of opposition, and for others because they have a call to activism. There is too much shame and stigma attached to matters of sexuality in this society, and it isn’t weighted evenly either based on gender biases. What is considered acceptable for a man verses a woman, who holds the consequences for what. Plenty of people still think Bill Clinton is a political rock star, but Monica? That girl got drug through the mud and excoriated, etc to a much more significant degree. It is what it is. But I liked the way you wrote about it in your book, because it felt like there wasn’t any sort of literary “gasp.” By that I mean other people just treated it like it was normal and I liked that. I need to get going to breakfast with a friend, but I do understand your point about sometimes if the overall resonance is there for a story technical flaws can be overlooked.

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     • Nice! That’s what I was going for. It’s also a reflection of my personal beliefs and attitude on those kind of things–it’s just not that big a deal for me, and I quickly get exhausted/annoyed/tuned-out when people try and make it one. And as open-minded as Jon is, I felt like it was a good way to highlight his youth, inexperience, and yet-to-be-founded view of society and the world by showing him mentally stumbling a bit when those issues are right in front of him or directly relating to him. It also helped that it tied into the greater existential theme as well.

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     • Well, I think sometimes surprise in those situations can be normal if the partner doesn’t know a person is bi or pan and that is how they notice it. And even if the partner does know, my husband and I have had discussions about what types of features, etc that I might find attractive in women, and sometimes my responses about certain things or certain people have surprised him based on what he knows is generally true as regards to that. I think it is similar to a concept I heard expressed by a character for a series I am watching on Vix, in that sometimes I think there is just something in another person we recognize and are drawn to whether or not they have the types of physical features we are typically drawn to or not if we’re just talking about pure aesthetic attraction.

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     • Totally agree. There’s some folks who seem like a corporate idea of beauty that really don’t inspire any attraction from me. It’s weird in that I can look at them and see why they should be considered attractive, but it’s like looking at a math equation where everything computes. It’s all in the right place, but it’s almost as if there’s no potential there as an individual with unique self expression.

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     • That is an interesting description, I haven’t heard it quite put that way as a corporate idea of beauty. If you don’t mind me asking, what is your take on how that would be defined?

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     • Ironically, I’m quick to bring it up but hesitant to define it. I guess if I had to try, it would be the overall vibe that I would experience when I focused on someone. I’m looking for the hunch (illusion?) that they’re genuinely interested in a sexual connection. Probably not the most clear-cut example, but when I was younger, I always preferred Christina over Britney. While my friends kept wowing over Britney’s looks, I always was more into Christina’s seeming desire to connect (yep, I realize that’s entirely subjective). I guess if I had to try and define it, it would be someone who was technically beautiful in an undeniable, consensus-supported manner, but there would be a curious lack of attraction, because they wouldn’t give off any sense of being an individual who desires other individuals.

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     • You know, I appreciate that you chat with me! If you don’t know it, you should. I recognize that it could be a delicate question to have to answer for a self-proclaimed man-trollop 😉 so I honor any answer you felt so inclined to give 😀 It sounds like for you the feeling of a sexual connection is very important, and I can see a bit what you mean interestingly enough with your example. Christina does come across more sensual (and it’s super off topic, but I really love some of her songs off of her latest album “Aguilera”). I think that is one of the reasons why I enjoy bodice rippers more than some visual representations of intimacy…if I can tell the person is faking it and the chemistry isn’t there, you can’t sell me the fantasy. It’s kind of also a mood killer for me if I can tell someone really doesn’t enjoy doing something but they’re still trying just to make me happy. It’s sweet and I love that a person would care enough to do that, but *I* care enough to be turned off by their inner misery or soldiering through. I think for me, I am often focused on emotional intimacy portions also, because even if I weren’t in a monogamous relationship at present, I don’t do see myself doing completely casual. I care about the person, and for me a huge part of the attraction is the person sometimes. I feel like if there is a libido mismatch and every thing else is still there…I can find ways to take care of me that honor whatever agreement I am in and it’s just not the thing I focus on the most. That is not meant to judge anybody who feels differently- we all have different needs. Mine are just based on feeling like I didn’t matter as a person to the people doing things to me when I was younger, and so I want any partner I have for their needs to always matter to me, just as mine should matter to them… needs being different from wants in my mind, because something I want may not be a need depending on the circumstances.

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     • Yep, us he-strumpets can be touchy about that! (kidding) 🤣 Yeah, if sex doesn’t lead to a vigorous round of desperation-tinged shlurping and shlorping, I’m not interested. I’m not discounting foreplay, but for me it’s to build and ease into the intensity and make it feel natural. Sex is one of the most animalistically enjoyable things we can engage in, so if I’m with a lady who might be technically beautiful but wants to limit things to an 80s-movie-style round of gasping possibly with cheesy saxophone music playing in the background, devoid of that animalistic urgency, then no thanks! I thought of another example–Paris Hilton. She’s technically beautiful, but I’ve never felt any attraction to her in the least. Ironically, I enjoy watching her on-screen persona, where she’s being mischievous and smug but in a fun way. I know it’s fake, but I still think it’s entertaining. I think I read recently that she considered herself asexual for most of her life, which matches with the vibe I always got from her. That’s probably the starkest example I can think of, because as technically attractive as she is, I’ve never felt any sexual desire for her whatsoever.

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     • Well hey, I respect that even a he-strumpet might not want to risk discouraging any of his paying customers, lol. Seriously though, sometimes the way you describe yourself cracks me up, so I thank you for the chuckles. So, here’s the thing from my perspective. Takes a wee bit longer for a woman to get to the point of orgasm, so depending on the woman, foreplay might be a must. But do you want to know the secret sauce to the most potent aphrodisiac out there for every stressed out soccer mom or MILF on your radar? Wash their dishes. Or clean their bathroom. Or mop their floors. Etc. I’ve never been so hot and bothered as when I’ve had that kind of support from my mate, just saying.

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     • I’m all about warming a lady up; I’m a big fan of teasing and super light touch or absence of touch to add value and contrast to the more standard stuff. If I can’t get to the point where they’re not being aggressive and pushy, then I haven’t done my job, lol! It’s just when it comes to the actually slappa-slap, some folks are more reserved, even when they’re actually orgasming. I gotta have a lady who’s comfortable being expressive at that point or it’s a mismatch. I’ve never tried the janitorial services to get the juices flowing, but I may need to add that to my arsenal of special moves…🤔🤣

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     • *Every* man should add it to their arsenal of special moves🤔 Seriously, I could loudly combust on the spot from receiving that kind of support. 🤤😂 Any other reactions I might have remain in the bedroom🤐 I Read a fictional book recently that I felt did a very good job of representing the reality that sometimes sensory differences can impact an intimacy experience. Even people who think they are completely neurotypical have sensory input that they don’t respond well to. Maybe some women, if you touch them too lightly it’s going to feel like insects are crawling on them or it’s going to feel more aversive… It depends on the woman. Some women might prefer an even lighter touch if they’re tactile defensive. But I would also say, if you ever discover that one of your partners has those kinds of sensory differences, I would not recommend doing anything other than rolling with it. Because if she made it to the age she did with whatever she had going for her, career, marriages, children and she managed to not make it on to anybody’s radar for a diagnosis… And that is becoming more common today, to see people who are successful as anybody else would consider to be successful being diagnosed as an adult. I can respect why somebody would not choose to be diagnosed, especially if they need to avoid being infantilized or hit with ableism and questioned in their decision making process like all of a sudden the other successful parts of their life were some sort of magical an accidental fluke. Just saying. It depends, So maybe for some women to get them super loud they just need a different approach 🤷‍♀️

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     • I never thought about the spider creepies, but I figure since I ask if it feels good/they like it, I’m being respectful about it. Although two years back, I was with a lady who started clobbering my noggin every few seconds and I kept my mouth shut because it was more annoying than painful, and my inner meathead was like keep going–FOR THE VAJEEN! 🤣 Eventually she stopped because she wound up and I flinched like a scared dog.😅 I’ll definitely give the janitorial angle some more thought. :Perhaps I should wear a super short apron for cleaning and then cooking, with no pants or undies. 😂

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     • Well, while I do think communication is ideal and improves intimacy experiences for everybody involved, sometimes people don’t say things for lots of reasons, kind of like you were just keeping quiet about getting your head whacked. 🤷‍♀️ That being said, I also think If a person is remaining quiet about something like that, they own some of the responsibility for the outcome, i.e. the less comfortable/enjoyable experience. As to your sartorial choices… that’s up to you dude. For me personally, my mate could be in a suit of armor while cleaning and my libido would still be popping just because of the help … Just saying. I think that’s the more magic part of that sauce.

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     • I’ll have to remember that! Rev up the ladies with the sounds of dishes getting done, corners getting sprayed, carpet getting vacuumed! 😂

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     • It might not have the same magical power on a woman who doesn’t have any children, but on one of your soccer moms or MILFs? Oh yeah. That would do some top-notch revving up! 😘

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     • I always enjoyed getting randomly groped; I gotta say, I think it’d be fun to be cleaning and mock-harassed! 🤣

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     • LOL! Well, you take up a bit of cleaning for your perspective hook-ups, you never know what could happen…

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     • Wonder what would happen if I cleaned in speedos. 🤔 I’d be tempted to leave a ball hanging out, but anatomically speaking they’re one of the ugliest parts of a body…😂

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     • 🤨 that “wardrobe malfunction” and what was it, rollercoaster wave Gollum screams? 😂Probably depends on the woman in all seriousness. Some might rather see an apron, etc who knows…maybe just ask the individual women involved what works best for revving them up…

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     • I’ve only had one lady study/ogle my nuts and tell me they were sexy. I kind of laughed nervously along, while trying to figure it out in my head–you think hairless cat brains look sexy? Anyways, I didn’t question it–gift horse in the mouth and all that! 🤣

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     • 🤣 Exactly so, dude. Sometimes it’s best to just be thankful and move on from trying to figure some things out…

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     • Yes indeed! I never thought balls could ever garner a compliment, but the universe always has a surprise up its sleeve…🤣

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     • Well, if it’s on the human body and not part of a disease process, there’s probably somebody somewhere on the planet willing to admire it regardless of the part…

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     • In that particular case, not me! Although maybe I should glam it up with some accoutrements. Butterfly wings, tassels, ornaments…🤣

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     • 🤣 I am not so sure that will stage them in anyway that will increase the percentage of women turned on by testes… I suppose most of us have something about ourselves we feel is unattractive. For me it’s the skin on my stomach and the varicose veins that cropped up after I gave birth. But you know, I bet most women probably find testes more attractive than you perhaps think as long as they’re inclined to be attracted to men…

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     • I dunno, I feel like there’s a hidden market for a bit of age-related developments like a bit of crow’s feet, veins, and a few other things…as far as the nuts, I’m going to try and remember to ask around. It blew my mind when I poked around reddit and stumbled on in-depth discussions about the multiple considerations that went into a good wiener, lol!

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     • Perhaps there is, I know at large there is not such a market, especially as regards the skin on the stomach. It is what it is. I have bigger concerns to focus on every day. I have my own experiences that have shaped my perspective on what I expect to see, but it is also true that that should no way be seen as a generalization that could be applied to every person on the planet and their preferences. 🤷‍♀️ Aesthetics preferences of any type are always personalized to some extent. I know we have discussed this before, but my first concern for me personally is always can I be “attracted” to the person within. Doesn’t matter if someone checks every one of the boxes I would have for finding a person outwardly attractive if there’s not a connection and admiration for other reasons…

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     • No peeking at my search history! 😂 Connection is definitely key–I think it’s a source of dissonance for a lot of folks who start compiling these vast dating checklists filled with requirements, then crowd out the need for a less definable connection. I’m not saying that finances and family aren’t important, but I’m of the opinion that those are more like loose guidelines, and that the universe works in unexpected, beneficial, and delightful ways if we let it.

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     • Use Qwant and I won’t be able to 😘 Not that I would be hacking into your system to dredge through search history anyways. 1) that’s your business not mine unless you decided to make it mine, and 2) I am way too busy for that to even rank on a “should be done” list much less a “needs to be done” list. Yeah, It is a truth that must be acknowledged that I am not always the best at sitting back and letting the universe surprise me and relaxing about it as it were. That also is what it is. I’m a work in progress, because I do acknowledge that sometimes I need to lighten up a bit about that…

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     • You and me both! Yesterday I got hit with some inconvenience and its weight has been lessening steadily. I know from past experience it will be gone, then turn into something barely worth remembering. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that when I respond out of frustration and/or reactive anger, I haven’t gotten what I wanted and I just end up stressing myself out. Aside from that, it always boils down to perspective, in that the real issue is how I am orienting my perception of it, as it’s been consistently proven that that is the determinant factor behind my fulfillment or frustration, regardless of “good” or “bad” externalities.

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     • If I were to pick one thing I wished people understood about my circumstances, but might not, and that I might be too stressed to explain well in them moment is that even things that might just be an inconvenience can become huge challenges depending on how well our son is taking things. Three years ago the inconvenience of having the car break down at Costco in 115+ degree temps would have resulted in a significant amount of pushing, screaming, self-harming, trying to take of his shoes on the pavement and me trying to keep him from getting burnt in a very busy location. Managing that kind of behavior from a kiddo who is nearly my size in tight, crowded quarters while keeping everybody and everything important like his speech device safe? Past inconvenient, it’s seriously stressful sometimes. I was proud of how he handled what happened on Friday, he was calm about needing to go into the Costco to wait for his Aunt to get us, stayed calm about being redirected into her car…but there’s sometimes still the worry because these are newer developments in flexibility and self-regulation etc that have come about over the past several months. If he’s scared enough or not feeing well, he can still react in a way that is more difficult to manage and it requires so much focus, sometimes there isn’t enough left of me in the moment to explain to someone why I found something to be stressful and why I might still find it that way in the future. In this case, it was more the cumulative effect of many happenings. but…you are right, how one orients their perspective matters in general.

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     • That’s great progress! I understand that things can be overwhelming at times. My take on it is that it’s healthy to process the perception of overwhelment (maybe not as it’s happening, but when there’s room and time to do so). Because of my existential bias, I’m forced to embrace the assumption that if I can’t find a benefit from it, then it will arise in the future (or at least the possibility of it, determined by my perceptual orientation). How soon that happens or whether it crystallizes after I die is up to my perceptual resistance, or so I’m obliged to believe due to my worldview. With something like a broken down car, it’s hard for me to rationalize, especially in the moment, so I usually just write it off in my head as things are working out for me, I don’t need to know how. That line of thought is bolstered by the trust I have from past examples where similar occurrences have happened, where I couldn’t for the life of me imagine how some inconvenience could benefit me, but it happened a good while later.

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     • It really is great. I’ve worked hard, he’s worked hard. A lot of his ability to handle this type of situation (most of it actually) comes from my therapy work with him. I still wouldn’t want to try that experience on the side of a freeway though, because trying to keep him cool and safe amongst fast moving cars? There were points where things were so bad I didn’t really have time to process and the overwhelm was the wave I had no choice but to ride and try not to crash on. I’d go from scrubbing poop off the walls to hours of keeping him from putting himself in the ER with his self-harming in the middle of the night to blocking hours of attempts to push through someone to maybe sleeping 1.5 to 3 hours to having to fight with DDD for some benefit or service that should be covered to the therapy work that needed to be done for him both assisting other therapists and the work I did on my own to…everything else that was going on with the other members of the family plus plenty of Tony related needs not mentionable without replicated my blog in the comments section. People think there will be a support network for them if they have a family member with complicated needs…and these agencies are very smooth at saying “in our handbook we cover these services.” None of that means anything in real-world conditions. Yeah. And even though now I’m at a point where I can do more than acknowledge it’s overwhelming, I’m just so tired but the engagement necessary to get him the support he needs never ends. Maybe, maybe once he’s in school and I’m not needed to be his one-to-one, I can take more time to process it. Right now, I may be on a gentler wave, but I’m still on a wave…I try to focus some lately on thinking I may not see a solution yet, but one will come and just trusting in it every time one of these problems crop up. Sometimes it’s hard, I like to have immediate answers. That’s something I need to work on and I know it.

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     • I’m with you on the immediate answers. I used to be very attached to seeing a logical plan of progression, then seeing events fall into their expected place. It’s probably why I have the perspective I do now, where I’m learning to embrace pleasant surprises, because things rarely fall into place as expected. Definitely a work in progress for me.

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     • Yeah, it’s true things rarely fall into place as expected. I find though as the parent of a kiddo with extensive needs, the surprises are often unpleasant. Because nobody wants to pay for them, and people often want to get away with breaking the law if they can because funding isn’t sufficient adequately to meet the needs in the community. You know what I did yesterday evening? Looked at information for local attorneys who represent special education law cases. When someone has already backed out of one thing they’ve agreed to, it gives you a sense that they’d do it again. Experience has taught me that not everyone appreciates your efforts to play nice when they know you could win in court, sometimes they take it as a sign you might not sue. So sometimes you have to prepare for the surprises to be unpleasant and you have to prepare to stand your ground no matter how stressful and unpleasant it is for the battles that matter the most. But I tell you…if I have to pick up an attorney and pull that trigger, as I said… their policies aren’t laws, and they aren’t the only one that can change the terms of what they are willing to offer.

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     • It’s partly why I subscribe to the possibility of irrational happiness, where there is no seeming cause for it. I’ve had good times in the midst of inconvenience and terrible circumstances and vice versa. Otherwise, my inward state is kind of ping-ponging back and forth between this or that stimulus. I’m not saying that I don’t do that, but enough has occurred where I believe that inwardly, I can be irrationally positive. That would be the art of life to me, roughly defined.

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     • I think you have a good philosophy. I think I try to keep an awareness of how well I’m doing with my positivity walk, because a person can take enough stress hits to where that journey can be easy to fall down on, that’s why I have rescue habits I fall back to if I feel myself really struggling.

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     • Those can be tough. For me, I try and keep a long term perspective and view them as hints or clarification of my desires. Much easier now that things have shown themselves to work out in the longer term sense of things in my life.

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     • I think sometimes for me those things can be clarifications of what I want, but it honestly depends some on how long the stretch of stressful events has been going on and how many of them are more serious in nature. Sometimes the best I can do is tell myself that I need to focus on what I need to do to get through a certain short period of time and just focus on the details for that, because sometimes there can be so much going on It gets too emotionally overwhelming if I look past the next step.

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     • I’ve definitely done that before. Typically in those situations, I find the most comfort in the fuck it mentality, where I’m already dead in the long run, so being present and giving it my best is just as meaningful and meaningless as anything else. It’s weird how freeing that is, how it allows for ultimate effort while fostering peace at the same time, because in the ultimate scheme of things, none of it and all of it matters so there’s no need to stress out, and no need to hold back.

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     • Yeah, usually at the point where I’m feeling F-it, It’s at that point where I’m feeling like I just really don’t have much of anything else to lose. Or anything I could lose doesn’t matter to the outcome I’m looking for…

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     • It works well for me in that it tends to hook me into the anchoring question of what/who am I, to gain/lose anything? And what is there to truly gain/lose? Those are obviously unanswerable questions from a logical standpoint, but they often open the way for me to feel a wordless transcendence, which I believe is answer enough.

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     • Well, I definitely have things to identify that can be lost in my circumstances. Until my presence doesn’t matter for the outcomes of my kiddos, I definitely feel like I have things to loose. But I also recognize some things are outside of my control, and making peace with that is a journey on a continuum. I had zero peace with it at one point, where I am at now looks pretty different from whare I started, but perhaps day to day might not seem like progress is significant in that regard, because I care too passionately about the outcomes for my kiddos to have reached that final “fully at peace with it” state where I can feel like it doesn’t matter so much what happens to me.

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     • Makes sense. It is one thing to understand it, another thing to feel it and have it guide your actions, perception, and even biology. For me, that has been a sticking point before, where I basically berate myself with logic for not having feelings that are in line with what I understand to be conceptually valid.

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     • I have harangued myself sometimes in the past for struggling with something like that, but I have come to realize that the quicker I can let that go, the quicker I can get to the place I want to be in terms of processing something. I am not always doing that letting go the way I want to though, I am, a recovering “perfectionista” as Margie might put it… But I am getting better at that when I am struggling in that way.

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     • I have lived most of my life as a perfectionist as well, only to realize how much long term misery it would bring and how much it narrowed my ability to enjoy life over time. I have a similar perspective to yours as far as asking where do I truly want to be? Only I phrase it more in the vein of I’m going to let go of whatever I’m agonizing over, whether it’s through death or a sooner change in perspective, and I’d rather not be one of those folks who cling to their negativity all the way to death, rationalizing their pain and calcification with some empty, high-handed interpretation of virtue.

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     • Yeah, I think it’s a hard place to be in to cling to the negativity that long, because I have learned that if I am the one doing that, I am the one who is harmed the most. I think forgiveness is a bit like that too, in the sense that especially if the other person has done something egregiously wrong, they may not even see the need for forgiveness nor even care if it is expressed or felt. But the darker feelings that can arise from those types of harms can really prevent a person from feeling whatever happiness can be felt in the now from more positive experiences. I realized that when I was a teenager, though depending on what is going on in my life, I am not always immediate in my ability to let go, it can be a process depending on how upsetting something was or how much harm was done by it. I just feel like even if someone has harmed me, as long as I am living I still have the opportunity to experience and feel something good, and I’m not going to hand them the additional “victory” of poisoning every moment possible for the rest of my life.

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     • That’s a healthy attitude. At a certain point, the cliche of not hurting people or seeking revenge so one doesn’t hurt oneself goes from cliche into undeniable, life-defining reality. It’s just too giant of an anchor to drag around, weighing year or decades of existence down and muddying any potential for lighter and happier experiences.

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     • I think it only becomes undeniable for people who choose to set the weight of whatever they were carrying down. I have known people who wouldn’t, and seemingly couldn’t see any value to that process. It is a hard thing to let go of certain hurts, so I don’t say that to judge, it is an observation that I don’t think everybody feels capable of walking that path or recognizing the additional damage carrying all of that is doing to them.

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     • From anecdotes, I’ve come to see death as a partial release valve, where there’s a lot of opportunity, incentive, and increased ease to regain perspective. Not that I or anyone has figured out how it works, but it seems that there are cases where that’s not always the outcome, and if I had to speculate, I would have to attribute that to an unusually strong attachment to the weight, which would have to be processed in afterlife existence or through additional lives. To me, that sounds way too exhausting.

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     • It resonates with me that having an unusually strong attachment to the weight would cause difficulties in moving on with ease after death, and with gaining an expanded perspective. Sometimes though what it takes for a person is what it takes, seeing as how each person is on their own journey so to speak and some difficulties can be much more difficult to process and move through in my opinion and in my own anecdotal experience. For some people it is much easier to let go of even the worst of things than it is for others and there may be many reasons that is the case in my opinion, including the limits imposed by the physical neurology of an individual.

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     • There’s definite validity to that. In the early days of my life, however, I always held a deep conviction that there was more to our existence than was apparent, that the laws of cause and effect and our constraints weren’t nearly as concrete as they seem to be. I think I’m coming back to that with greater conviction, now that UFO disclosure has gone through unimaginable progress in the last few months, from a few interesting tidbits from respectable specialists to public hearings and forceful legislation attached to the defense and intelligence authorization acts (which makes them very hard to nix, and it seems they are encountering little to no opposition; friction in the NDAA is arising from culture war BS, but that’s my barely informed take on it). What’s going on in the public is only the tip of the iceberg; high-reputation officials in the UFO community are fully aware that the phenomenon is tied to the paranormal, and it all has an underlying base that our apparent reality springs from consciousness and not the other way around. So in accordance with my belief that we have enough control over reality to the point where it is neither random nor cruel, I believe our apparent limits can be leveraged as opportunities or transcended altogether, or perhaps both as an intermediary step towards a happier place. The acknowledgment by more reliable figures in the UFO community that UFOs and the paranormal are interrelated is pretty out in the open and well documented, and so is the follow-on hypothesis that consciousness forms reality. However, I don’t think the public is ready for those conversations yet. They’ve just gotten used to the idea of craft, and have yet to get used to the idea of non human intelligence, although it’s pretty obvious that’s the most comprehensive explanation behind the craft. We’ll see. We’re still in a tip of the iceberg phase.

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     • Interesting that you brought those hearings up. My husband has been listening to the recent testimonies, and he’s got a bit of a different take on it. What were the particular disclosures that have informed your interpretation of the information?

       I must admit I’ve been too busy binge watching “La Ursupadora” when I’ve been eating or washing dishes this past weekend to be bothered to watch any video from the hearings myself. My priorities for what I need to do for me when budgeting my time are just in a different place right now than UAP/NHI related hearings. I did scan a few news articles, but I am not as conversant in the materials. I have heard my honey’s interpretation, and I’ve heard the response of some of his family members and I would agree that probably a good chunk of the population isn’t ready to even accept the veracity of whatever information has been disclosed, much less consider reframing how they view reality.

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     • TLDR: by rigorous standards of citation and research, I am uninformed. This is a long, tangled answer, and is not thorough or exact, because it is gleaned by my casual listening of lots of podcasts.

       But basically, the high-reputation officials that have been pushing disclosure for the last few years (Lue Elizondo, manager of UFO program in the early 2010s and career Army counterintel, Christopher Mellon, former deputy assistant undersecretary of defense, Jim Semivan and John Ramirez, career CIA, and some others) have also been involved with and aware of the paranormal/UFO activity at Skinwalker Ranch, and acknowledge that it is responsive to subjective consciousness. Leslie Kean (high-reliability independent reporter who broke the UFO NYT story in 2017) has done extensive research into life after death, which at the very least operates on the premise that consciousness is not limited by physical locality. Some or all of these figures have mentioned that an integral part of operating these craft are the pilot and their consciousness (I think Bob Lazar, a controversial figure who supposedly worked at S4, or the UFO department around Area 51, has speculated this but I forgot what evidence led him to do so, also now gaining in credibility as his claims are being tangentially supported by recent events), and some have gone so far to say that the craft are conscious themselves. As far as specific incidents, I do remember Lue Elizondo describing the rough structure of reality where most people think of a brain inside physical reality represented by a circle inside a box, where the circle and the box can exchange cause and effect, but most people have no idea where to draw in consciousness. He went on to say the right way to draw it in was a triangle that encompassed the square inside the box, which was indicative of matter and the brain arising from a base of consciousness. This is actually a pretty common and accepted hypothesis within the UFO communities because of the frequency of reference to the concept by said officials and their peers (in professional reliability, not necessarily in their fields of endeavor).

       The most interesting juxtaposition of the wildest anecdotes and credibility from vouching by reputed individuals comes in the form of arguably the most famous experiencer (contactee) ever, Chris Bledsoe. His contact started in 2008 and is ongoing to this day (supposedly, he can call for UFOs to appear, although he says it’s mostly like a friendly request). I’m skipping a lot of details here, but when he passed the specifics of his first contact to MUFON (largest volunteer civilian network of UFO researchers), that info caught the interest of various government agencies because the specifics were instantly recognizable to them from previously investigated contact experiences. His story sounds like utter bullshit, but because reputable figures in the disclosure movement vouch for him, his tales have gained traction. Anyways, from what I’ve heard (haven’t read his book yet, which is UFO of God) from interviews with him and his son (his whole family are experiencers) the entities he has come into contact with are more like nature spirits that protect creation and life, than a bunch of extraterrestrials with mysterious intentions. Even though his book is called UFO of God, his primary contact who is called the Lady in White (that’s how she appears to him) apparently told him that collective consciousness is out of balance, that she is a representation of the divine feminine, that humanity has stripped her presence out of its collective perception and that has led to collective dissonance, and that the entities are moving forward with disclosure on their own, giving an end date of September 2026, which roughly lines up with what Lue Elizondo and John Ramirez (and I think Jim Semivan) have said about disclosure being fully out and in the open by 2027. Other stuff supposedly said by/implied by the Lady in White is that reality is structured along mystical lines (God is in everything and is everything and purposefully forgets to experience progress and individuality, a la Alan Watts), intertwined with the Hermetic view of Hermes Trismegistus, where physical reality is a reflection of inner states.

       Now the specifics in UFO world have a long, disappointing history of not panning out. That’s why I gravitate toward information that has been vouched for by folks who tend to not have as much incentive and/or a contradictory worldview to woo-woo (folks who are trained in critical thinking, value “common sense,” and are judged by their ability to get tangible, real-time results such as career intel/military/scientists) that vouch for the info, and even then I take it with a grain of salt. I’m not so interested in the specifics, so much as the philosophical congruency of claims. First and foremost from my personal bias, secondly from a philosophical harmony from supposedly connected claims that arise from the same peer group of claimants (consciousness forms and affects reality, which supposedly powers the ability of UFOs to defy physics as we know them, the same dynamic allows for paranormal occurrence which is another defiance of scientific laws as we know them, anecdotally contactees have been told they are in a mystically structured reality by entities, etc.) I’m admittedly not good at articulating this because to confidently answer, even based on anecdotes, I should be ready to support my generalities with specific citations, but as I’ve said, this is all just gleaned from lots of podcast listening and funneled through my personal bias.

       All that stuff is out of the mainstream attention, although anyone who is interested in UFO stuff is familiar with those characters and the concepts I’ve described. Right now, I suspect the government is laying the groundwork for mainstream disclosure with the public hearing. The conversation seemed to center around national security, defrauding taxpayers, and criminal activity ranging from organizational intimidation to personal threat. Those issues have legal and political footholds that will empower officials to be able to take substantive action. However, if I were to speculate, I would say disclosure is being advanced by NHI, because unless there is imminent threat or the perception of it (first covid relief bill), or overwhelming and vocal constituent consensus, Congress never moves this fast in a bipartisan manner. Neither of those conditions have been met. So in accordance with the other anecdotes I give weight to because of reputable folks vouching for their veracity (the 2027 timelines and the Lady in White’s sep 2026 timeline) I’m comfortable–if I had to bet–that NHI is declaring they’re coming out in the next few years, and the government can get ahead of it or not. Also, the whistleblower rarely said a straight out no to sensitive questions (I remember he said no when asked if he had firsthand exposure to craft and bodies), but on the subject of agreements between NHI and human authorities, I believe he said he couldn’t answer that outside of a classified setting. NHI agreements have long been rumors in the UFO community, specifically a supposed meeting between NHI and Eisenhower. If I had to go out on a very tenuous limb, I would hazard that perhaps NHI agreed to remain hidden for a set length of time due to cultural concerns (people were much more closed-minded and religious in the past), as well as the Cold War power balance, but now the agreement may be set to expire.

       I find it helpful when discussing specific possibilities to clearly state where there is vouching, where there is personal speculation, and where my comfort level lies in various assumptions. All too often, relatively decent evidence for one claim leads to the same faith in a wilder, less evidenced claim, so I like to keep “tiers of believability” and “tiers of reputability” attached to each piece of info. But once again, all these are my informal observations from podcast listening, so everything from me has to be taken with the massive grain of salt in addition to the grains of salt that various areas of the topic already warrant. Nevertheless, I think we’re taking baby steps. First there was “there’s craft doing stuff we can’t explain,” with verified Navy footage and statements by people as established as Obama, and now it’s “who’s controlling those craft, and what do they want?” As far as the link to the paranormal and the relationship between consciousness and physical matter, that’s way too much to be introduced right now into the mainstream conversation.

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     • I for sure read it, lol! I asked for an answer, I am definitely going to read it. I appreciate your candor as regards to lacking citations, etc. But, as long as we’re being honest with each other, I wasn’t likely to have looked them up anyways. I am curious enough to care for the sake of conversation, but pragmatic enough to realize that focusing on improving my Spanish fluency is by far the most productive use of my spare time right now as it’s more likely to have an immediate benefit to me personally.

       For my husband, he focused on statements as regards to the intent of NHI as represented in the recent UAP hearings. Again, I also cannot cite this from personal viwing because I am repeating what was told to me second-hand (again, me and La Ursurpadora are kinda inseperable right now, lol). He stated that the gentleman in question felt that the intentions of the NHI were indifferent at best to what happens to humanity. How would you personally describe the consensus amongst those who discuss NHI?

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     • This is a complicated answer, but according to anecdotal consensus, the reductive version is they are predominantly benevolent.

       The reason I say it’s complicated is that high-rep folks have stated there are multiple NHI cultures and (species?) involved. The classic ones (grays) seem to lack an understanding of bedside manner in some cases, but a statistic I heard recently from someone I can’t remember but who struck me as decently reliable (yes, I know that’s a horrible justification to use in any conversation that begs for corroboration) is that 95% of encounters (I think he may have actually said abductions but I’m not sure) are a positive experience, while the remaining 5% are negative at first, but if they are repeat occurrences, then they are viewed as positive.

       There’s strong anecdotal evidence that at least some NHI care about humanity. One of the most famous, the Ariel school incident, details NHI telepathically communicating with children and telling them to care for the environment. Less reliable anecdotes describe healing from NHI as a fairly common occurrence, as well as people who have a grassroots effect on human consciousness and society (social workers, medical workers, artists of various types like Miley Cyrus) to be much more likely to experience contact or healing, and in some cases told that their work is important. In one fascinating anecdote, an NHI healed a crippling back injury but not other conditions, and when asked why that was the case, the experiencer was told that the healing was specifically meant to sustain her capacity to do her work, and the rest was up to her and equated to something like karma she needed to resolve.

       The higher reputation folks have been consistent with establishing a threat narrative or a possibility of a threat, although not aggressively. My suspicion is that it is for political capital, to gain a political foothold from the national security angle. However, I can’t completely discount the dangers of NHI, as there have been incidents where radiation injuries have occurred, as well as one biological mortality from a human handling an NHI body (a famous, highly vetted case corroborated by Leslie Kean who broke the NYT story that happened in Varginha Brazil in the 90s). The cause of death, curiously enough, was attributed to an Earthling bacteria found in animals, although I would like to see that 100% vetted. A military policeman handled an NHI body then died within a very short time span (I think it was a day). There is a well-done documentary called moment of contact describing the incident. And although the Brazilian government says nothing happened, I believe all details surrounding events are classified until 2046, which is kind of a tacit contradiction.

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     • I thank you for the time you have given to responding in such a thoughtful and candid manner. You have opening acknowledged areas in your reasoning/accounting that could be viewed as weaknesses in terms of a more critical evaluation, and I appreciate that- it has high levels of coolness points in my opinion.

       Yes, I imagine the pathogens that NHI could potentially transmit certainly could have the capability of doing what small pox exposure did to indigenous populations of North and South America, so certainly that alone cannot be discounted as a concern.

       How do you interpret abduction accountings that describe medial experimentation?

       Again, I must acknowledge up front that I am doubtless nowhere near as informed as you are here as regards to any information that is publicly available. I think for some, they look at those stories, if they are true, as a definite sign of ill-intent. I however, don’t think we’re doing any better ourselves as a species, look at what we have done to other species or even our own as regards to experimentation for medical or product development purposes… Not that I would want to be experimented on. Definitely would not!

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     • Abductions are a poorly corroborated subject. There are two instances of corroboration by high reputation folks that come to mind. One is Chris Bledsoe, but his case is unique in the specificity, ongoing contact, and arguable personal relationship established between himself and the entities. The other is Obama’s Netflix in-production documentary about Betty and Barney Hill, historically the first white/black marriage recognized under law, and also social workers, interestingly and coincidentally (as I mentioned, they seem to like social workers). All other abductee experiences I have mostly heard about through Preston Dennett, who does not have any official credentials, but is generally respected in the UFO community for his breadth of work, decades in the field interviewing hundreds of folks, and seeming forthrightness. So that’s what shapes the reliability of what I’ll say on the topic.

       Anyways, according to Dennett, the grays specifically have some kind of dysfunction in their DNA, and they use ours to counteract that. The relationships between grays and abductees takes several interesting turns in his accounts, some hinting at a mystically structured reality. A fair amount of abductees are obviously terrified, but are met with the response that they volunteered for this and to calm down. In hypnotic regressions, some of these abductees lend further weight to the idea that they spent past lives as grays, and one even became furious that even though they volunteered to be human, they did not have any idea at the time how much pain and strife they would experience as a human, and felt enraged by the reality of it. Most abductees react with shock and rage (many have hurt grays, who reportedly are very physically weak in comparison), and that’s when, supposedly, their memories are suppressed or they are psychically restrained. One interesting tidbit is that there are supposedly a handful of “full recall” abductees, who don’t demonstrate hostility or fear after abduction and aren’t met with any restraint or memory suppression. Supposedly, they have been given tours and allowed to fly the craft, which is supposedly also conscious. I remember hearing about one instance where they asked how to fly the thing to a specific location, and the grays responded that it’s inside you, turn your focus inward and we’ll go there. That’s open to a lot of interpretation, but given my leanings, I view it from the mystical viewpoint of existence–even all of space and time–springing from a collective consciousness, and that to move instantaneously to a certain point in that consciousness, it requires moving into a more all-encompassing perspective, then focusing on a specific time/space location from there. Another interesting tidbit is that some full recall abductees recount that they saw masses of folks in the craft who seemed to be dazed and unaware of their surroundings, leading them to speculate that a signficant percentage of humans might be abductees without realizing it (the craft, apparently, can be impossibly large on the inside by warping space and time, which has been mentioned by some others who are more credentialed).

       One other piece of the abduction phenomenon is something that has even less substantiation is called a MILAB, or military abduction. For some reason, the military supposedly might fake an abduction for supposedly nefarious purposes. I haven’t heard any anecdotes of that, just thirdhand speculation.

       So to wrap things up, the “experimentation” is supposedly harvesting material to repair biological dysfunction. Although there are reports of tinkering done in humanity’s earlier years to speed evolution and cognitive development, the modern abductions don’t have much to do with experimentation. Once again, keep in mind this is a subject that glaringly lacks credentialed corroboration compared to other topics like the existence of craft, crash retrievals, or the existence of bodies.

       Personally, I wouldn’t mind being given a tour and allowed to fly around a bit. I used to tell my friends I wouldn’t mind being abducted and possibly not returning because I kind of have an idea of what happens if everything goes right during my stay on Earth, and I kind of have an idea of what happens if earthly stuff goes wrong. When I started digging into the subject, it was pretty nice to discover that it overall seemed like a well-intentioned if shocking act, which further convinces me that I personally wouldn’t mind chilling with some grays.

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     • I thank you for taking the time to share all of that ❤ I must confess my brain is processing things as if it were a melted pile of goop right now (very long day between training for the school district and then taking Tony back to the open house and working with him for a little more than an hour in that environment). I appreciate that you acknowledge the degrees of verifiability in what you recount. I think for me, I really wouldn't want to be abducted. But that's just me. I've got enough on my plate, and really, my genetic material probably isn't that useful, lol. I've somehow managed to scrape together enough health to live this long and I hope to live a great deal longer, but…freak of nature allergies and everything else says my DNA probably ain't worth harvesting. Just saying.

       So, for those who are describing larger numbers of individuals abducted, how do they explain those absences and how they play out for family/loved ones? As in, how is this done in a manner that wouldn't cause already high levels of alarm for missing loved ones, etc.

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     • The short answer is I don’t know, I’ve never heard any speculation on that problem. Maybe they can mess with time in a way that it wouldn’t be noticed? There are interesting cases of people who’ve just never come back. I think the most famous one was Felix Moncla, who was an Air Force pilot that went to check out a UFO. It was observed via radar, so that leaves a lot of ambiguity as to what exactly happened in the air, but basically the two blips, the plane and the ufo, merged into one blip and zipped away. Confirmed wreckage was never found, although suspected pieces were supposedly recovered over a decade later. (the Air Force, unlike the Navy which has provided almost all of the military data on UFOs being presented to Congress, has had a long, documented history of not being forthcoming about this issue, the most recent incident having happened a few weeks ago where they stonewalled three house reps at Eglin, which the reps rightfully and vocally complained about on social media). Long story short is I don’t know. I think in some cases family and friends have gotten concerned, but if you’re talking about adults, they might be out and about or they might be living alone, so it wouldn’t be an immediate cause for concern.

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     • Hmm. Well, I appreciate your honesty! There are, of course, may possibilities, many possible answers. I thank you for sharing your perspective on these matters. I have heard the perspective of others (though clearly some of them have not spent the amount of time you have diving into this), and I do like to hear varying opinions. For me, matters concerning the school transition for our son take absolute precedence right now so I really can’t dedicate myself to looking up sources as I might at other times. I’m geeky cheeky that way, I like to see for myself what someone is talking about these days usually and form my own opinion. It would seem, with these hearings, that some sort of effort to educate myself and some point may be prudent…but I confess, now is not that moment. It sounds to me like this is a definite area of heavy interest for you, and that you have apportioned more time to it than I am likely to even when I go to looking at a few things myself. I again thank you for your time and explanations, I know that you spent a fair bit of time writing some of them!

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     • I think I’m interested because of the underlying implications arising from it. For the longest time, I thought of UFOs, the paranormal, and existential philosophy as three distinctly different subjects. Then when UFOs began entering the conversation through credentialed folks in the late 2010s, they started hinting at consciousness being an integral part of the function of the craft, then the paranormal got tied in by most of the same folks, then there seemed to be a Hermetic or mystical that began to appear, all the way from the least reliable anecdotes to what the more credentialed folks were saying. I think that’s what really sucked me in.

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     • Well, I must admit I had never thought of them being linked (the idea of NHIs, paranormal, and existential philosophy) until you had mentioned that. Although, it would follow logically that any paranormal activity would not be exclusive to our species. I just never really thought about it, lol. Too many other problems, and when I don’t want to think about the other problems, I usually want the equivalent of macaroni comfort food for entertainment. So, what do you see as the most compelling anecdote that ties the paranormal to NHI? Is it the incident you have referenced as regards to the psychic communication with school children about needing to care for the environment?

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     • Pretty much all their communication from anecdotes have been through telepathy, so that can be taken as supportive. I guess the most credentialed instances have been where UFOs and paranormal phenomena are fairly adjacent at Skinwalker Ranch, which has been studied by the Pentagon and a variety of high-reputation folks but continues to stymie with its refusal to produce repeatable, reliable results. The reality show doesn’t help with the dramatization and spooky music, but strip away the cheese and there are some interesting phenomena that occur on the show such as radiation burns whose source shows up on a device one day, then is completely normal the next (so someone either moved the source of radiation manually, turned it off, or something crazier happened). Unexplainable temperature anomalies that seemingly respond to a religious ritual, cattle mutilation where the body remains undisturbed by scavengers for a year, inspiring them to call in a veterinarian who states its pretty much unheard of and samples the tissue to study it, UFOs, but the crazier phenomena seem to have a trickster element that defies any attempt to measure or record it. By crazy I mean poltergeist stuff, animalistic humanoids, portals opening in the middle of the air with eight-legged beings crawling out and skittering into the night, giant floating orbs of energy that look like a mix of distorted air and light…the list goes on. To their credit, the show is employing a reputable, accomplished scientist in the form of Travis Taylor to gather and parse the data at the ranch. The next most credentialed instance would be the Bledsoe family, where the entities communicate that a mystical reality where thought and intention dictate phenomena is just how things work. Also, Chris Bledsoe can apparently call them into his presence through a mental request, though he describes it as more of a friendly suggestion. Then there’s snippets that go all the way up from credentialed to individual, ordinary anecdotes which hint at or support the same or similar. In the 90s Varginha incident which seems to enjoy a high level of credibility by high-rep folks such as Leslie Kean, one of the dying entities telepathically communicated to a human doctor that they feel sorry for us because we have no idea of our true power (or something along those lines). In other anecdotes, I remember entities being somewhat amused/puzzled by our healthcare, stating that we could just heal ourselves by intention if we wanted to. There’s also been regressions where some have found themselves as a prior life gray, which I believe would fit in the paranormal category. Also, the hypothesis that a direct link between consciousness and the craft being an integral part of how they fly seems to keep coming up, which may be more technological, but it seems to veer toward the paranormal model. I was only peripherally interested in UFOs when the model was just advanced humanoids from space–when UFOs, the paranormal, and mystical were all spoken of in separate veins, but once the high-rep folks began bouncing between subjects and connections started to pop up, my gut called me back to the subject.

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     • So for you it is the overlap between these things then that makes the subject more appealing at this time. What are your thoughts on individuals who have been critical/skeptical about the validity of the information coming out of Skinwalker Ranch?

       Also, just as a matter of curiosity…has anyone been giving an explanation as to why the cow mutilations are going on?

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     • Probably a hot take, but I feel like the massive and depersonalized volume of speech on the internet has refined our communication in unexpectedly beneficial ways, and it has influenced the discourse on Skinwalker Ranch.

       My suspicion is that the clarification of speech beyond vetting it for potential endangerment (anecdotally, I have observed people on social media pointing out fallacies by their technical name such as ad hominem attack responses, straw man, false dichotomies, false equivalencies, and low effort posting to include trolling, rather than just tolerating a constant, unproductive free for all) has influenced the skeptic/believer discourse. The UFO community is quick to point out manipulation of photos (most media seems to enjoy portraying the UFO whistleblower David Grusch with the least flattering, most seemingly unstable expression possible) as well as news segments addressing UFOs that begin with the X Files theme music, an immediate indication of predisposition toward ridicule, has clarified what people want in discourse with skeptics. With Skinwalker Ranch, the chief complaints seem to be the slow pace of discovery, as well as the tendency of the more spectacular phenomena to evade any attempt at measurement or recording. However, measurable anomalies have been recorded in the form of unexplainable lights, temperature variations, radiation fluctuations (to the level of documented personal injury), as well as recorded UFOs, cattle deaths and unexplainable follow-on such as scavengers avoiding the exposed carcass for over a year…the list goes on. Despite not being attention-grabbing, like the more lurid reported phenomena, there is plenty of substantive data. I get where the complaints are coming from–I too, would like to see a video of an eight-legged shadow-being emerge from a portal.

       That being said, most of the community seem to value constructive skepticism, folks who come in good faith and point out vulnerabilities in the discovery process, or attempt to illustrate a weight of evidence that discourages an anomalous conclusion. That’s a viewpoint I share. However, there is a community referred to as debunkers who do not come in good faith, who cherrypick the data, decontextualize it (cut a three second clip from the famous Navy Nimitz UFO video, for example), or try to overwhelm through ridicule, that believers do not respect. Debunkers do not come in good faith, probably for a variety of selfish reasons such as internet points or existential insecurity. A famous skeptic that is well respected in the UFO community is J Allen Hynek, an academic who worked on the Air Force’s Project Blue Book, a public attempt to get to the bottom of UFOs (later acknowledged to be a disinformation effort, where the first priority was to debunk, then to discredit the individual if that didn’t work). J. Allen Hynek came on the project with an admitted skeptical bias, but after poring through the data, he became a believer, because he concluded that while 95% of events were mundane, 5% were anomalous. That’s constructive, good faith skepticism.

       So my thoughts on that are skeptics are valuable if they come in good faith and are willing to engage in critically thought-out discourse, even if they first approach the subject with a personal bias.

       I’m not sure of any consensus forming around cow mutilations…obviously there’s rampant speculation, but none of it has caught my attention as anything worth looking into further.

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     • I think coming in good faith is important to any discussion, but sometimes people don’t. If I’m being perfectly honest, you know, I haven’t always brought my best self into every conversation I’ve ever had – whatever modality I was having it in. Shaking my head, because as much as I don’t like to suck in all the wrong ways, sometimes I can. And I’m honest about that. And you know, I had my reasons for it at the time and I may have thought they were good reasons, and then I found myself thinking, “well, poop sweetheart, you kinda messed that one up….maybe, just maybe you should have handled it differently…or thought about it a little bit more before you handled it like that.” So sometimes I try to remember that when I am thinking about the ways others come to conversations with me and I would rather they were approaching it a different way. But, not perfect at that either.

       I think cherry picking is common, and I have observed people from many different groups pick a stance and when they say they want to have an open dialogue with you about something what they mean is they want to try and convert you to their way of thinking. I know there have been points where I felt that was important for me to do that too, but in general I have learned to be a bit wiser as regards to that. I think there are some standards as regards to respecting the health and safety of others that we should all agree to but we should all just do a little more butting out on things that don’t need to be our business.

       As regards to the cow mutilation…that one seems like a more puzzling phenomena to me. Are there recorded instances that you are aware of with this happening for other animals/species?

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     • People trying to force a change of opinion can definitely get annoying. I believe it’s a good to have a feel for when it’s appropriate to disengage on the subject, because at a certain point it becomes clear they’re wedded to an agenda. Sometimes, it can be like talking to a robot that has been programmed to defend an argumentative position. And yes, I too, have acted on both sides of that equation. Now that I reflect on it, it’s a little puzzling how convinced I was of the rightness of my core belief and how justified I felt in using bad faith statements. I think it’s similar to a tribal mentality, where one is right and one is wrong no matter what, and the dialogue simply becomes an adversarial exchange that might be able to pass for openminded engagement at a casual glance.

       I’m not too versed on the cow mutilation stuff, so I briefly looked it up, and yes there seems to be other species involved, such as sheep, cats, dogs, and others. Records go back at least hundreds of years and I’m not sure there’s necessarily a strong link to UFOs. I remember hearing about suspicious correlations like maybe a craft in the area or what looks like burn marks of a landing site, but I think the main support for such speculation is the precision and seeming deliberateness accompanying the removal of organs.

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     • Yeah, I will say there are times when I am shaking my head at past-tense me. Some of the things I said or did or defended…but it is what it is, and it can’t be changed, so beating myself up about it wouldn’t change anything. I can only honor the vision I want for myself going forward by trying to be better going forward.

       So it sounds like from what you are saying it is speculation/assumed causation that NHI are responsible for the cow/other species mutilations and missing organs? So nobody has come forward saying that they witnessed directly, were given communication directly from NHI about that?

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     • From what I remember, there have been no reports about folks receiving info about mutilations from NHI. Supposedly, there was a human mutilation in the 50s where an Air Force guy got snatched by a serpentine arm, pulled into a craft, then his mutilated remains were found some time later.

       Additionally, one of the conversations that will probably follow disclosure will be that of different NHI races or species. The existence of different species has been referenced by creditable folks, supported by anecdotes of different kinds throughout the years, although the typical grays seem to be the natural assumption or implication. So the related question would be, if NHI are responsible for mutilations, what type of NHI, and what group (is it a rogue faction, part of their general culture, etc) within that type of NHI is doing it, and why?
       However, I don’t think the populace is ready to have the multiple species conversation yet. People are still wrapping their heads around crash retrieval programs, reverse engineering, and NHI in general.

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     • I agree, those are relevant questions. To me it really doesn’t make since why it would be any more difficult to process multiple species of NHI…just having one should indicate the possibility of others. Just noting our existence should indicate the possibility of others. That is, however, just my way of thinking. What do you think would be the primary barrier to accepting multiple species?

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     • I think at its heart, it would be tied to the idea of having to shift someone’s fundamental view of how reality is structured. William Shatner recently was recorded talking about how ridiculous it would be for aliens to visit, because even at light-speed, travel between galaxies would take way too long and be too much effort. Neil De Grasse Tyson has gone full-blown contrarian and word salad slinger, trying to flex his intellect, which many think is his attempt to keep credibility limited to known science and thus secure his standing (I began to question him when I heard him on Rogan talking about how he no longer uses a phone protector and constantly flips his phone, because he thought color guard style military drill was meant to enhance weapons handling when anyone with the least bit of critical thought and/or experience will tell you that it is merely an extension of early rifle tactics when we still used muskets, he’s really reaching to try and prove he’s some kind of contrarian genius) After the federal govt admittance of craft in 2020, I saw opinion pieces in the mainstream talking about how they’re obviously foreign technology, even though I’d say that’s way more farfetched and scarier, honestly. I think more species would be a logical assumption, but subconsciously, people know that with each step we go down the rabbit hole on this, it’s going to force a reshaping of material reality that will have much less room for argument in terms of present day philosophy, religion, or science. First it’s just craft that defy physics as we know them. Then it will be possibly be biology, paranormal phenomena, the place of consciousness within causality, the nature of time, history, etc. The acceptance of multiple species, in my mind, is not about the outward acknowledgment so much as the symbolic step forward into a future that will contradict and disrupt our current philosophies, religions, and day to day assumptions. So I think subconsciously, a lot of people will resist that.

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     • I think it is well-reasoned to anticipate that religious and philosophical beliefs, plus societal constructs on the nature of what is or isn’t thought to be possible, will pose the largest difficulty in accepting the existence of any NHI, much less multiple species. I feel like the biggest hurdle is going to be getting people to accept just the presence of any NHI. I am surprised by Shatner’s comments as you have related them, but… really, to even presume our understanding of anything represents the pinnacle of what can be known or even all of what is possible in terms of NHI, traveling, etc… I know what it is like to feel like something was understood and then realize, “whoops, not so much.” I think there are many things even experts think they understand, and can find they too some day will find themselves going “whoops…”

       So, have you had any thoughts to explain the travel mechanisms that address Shatner’s thoughts on the subject?

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     • I have and I’ve puzzled over that in the past. I used to have a parallel concern, but nowhere near strong enough to conclude the issue like he has. Over the last few years, I mentioned that my interest in the phenomenon (as folks in the community call it) was rekindled because of the anecdotal reports that consciousness and the paranormal was a giant and crucial part of it, and that the craft transcended the “nuts-and-bolts” model of causality and physics. I’m making a giant leap here, but nothing that anyone versed in the subject wouldn’t be familiar with: I suspect that our existing models of space/time, the causality associated with them and consequently our way of traversing them, are glaringly incomplete. I suspect that once consciousness is reconciled into our models of reality as a fundamental component and not a chance offshoot of a series of random interactions of matter, then we will reach new levels of access to space/time travel, where interstellar crossings won’t require the relatively elaborate measures we would need to theoretically implement, given our current models of science.

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     • I am definitely on board with the view that our existing models of space/time etc are glaringly incomplete as you put it. I think for me, this still remains much more of a distal concern for me personally until a need to have a higher degree of understanding actually starts to impact my day-to-day. I’m waayyy too far down on any sort of food chain where I need to be thinking about it right now, so about as far as I go is recognizing we don’t have complete answers and then focusing on what I need to take care of in the here and now.

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     • That to me is where I suspect that some people will push back on each successive reveal, even though it might be perfectly logical (like if humans can’t make these craft, it’s probably NHI, and if there’s NHI, then there’s probably more than one type). My suspicion, so strong it’s interchangeable with belief, is that consciousness is an integral part of making the phenomenon work, as I’ve mentioned before. I suspect that as this knowledge gets fleshed out, it will emphasize the fact that our perspective and focus directly affects our daily lives and the flow of events. I believe that some aren’t ready to accept that (think religious folks who believe salvation is a result of a transaction with an omnipotent overlord). Especially the accompanying assumption that all are inherently existentially equal, implying that the structure of reality is mystical in nature, not religious (hierarchical) or random. Admittedly, I’m biased and the best support I can offer is a web of anecdotes and philosophical deductions that spring from an unprovable premise, but nevertheless, the reasons I’ve described are why I suspect there’s going to be instinctive pushback–because at a subconscious level, people realize that the comforting pessimism of the idea that they are just their bodies, that they aren’t responsible for coincidence through unapparent aspects of their deeper beings, is untrue. Also, the idea that intuition and emotional intelligence/management is vital to outcomes, although I think there’s been a vague, generalized acknowledgment that there’s validity to that idea in the popularization of self-care and a higher level of nuanced awareness in public discourse.

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     • Well, as always I appreciate your honesty about grabbing into your anecdotal grab bag to support your suspicions, opinions, or beliefs. It’s really not something I would personally want to render anything more than an opinion on, and currently probably not even that. For me there are too many unknowns and I am not versed enough in the particulars as to what is known, but I do think you are correct that there are many reasons people might struggle to accept all of this. We have come to think of ourselves as the smartest species on the planet and sometimes I think we forget that so much remains unknown to us. We are teenagers so to speak who don’t understand yet what it really means to adult, but we sure think we do as pretty much every teenager does, and maybe that’s why we’re taking the environment down with us…we don’t know what it cost to build the house, so we’ve thrown a kegger and just assumed somebody is going to be able to come in and fix the damage we did for free.

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     • I think I’m all right with it, honestly. I’ve often gotten comfort from astronomy and quantum physics (not the math, just the articulation of concepts) that show our traditional methods of framing the world aren’t really consequential at the existential level. It takes away a lot of the stress when I abide in the reality that I’m not caught up in anything of world/galaxy/reality-shattering importance, especially seeing as my short, vulnerable life is too poorly designed to argue that I’m meant to have a singular impact that echoes across eons and star systems, or in the other direction, of teeming masses of microbes and comparably sized organisms. I recently was listening to a psychic that clarified my philosophical bias in highlighting the idea that if an all-knowing, all-powerful consciousness fragmented and limited itself, it would be kind of pointless if it was just to know itself again or regain its power, because the fragments are already connected to its power and knowledge; they spring from power/knowledge and are arguably made of it. However, he said it was the EXPERIENCE of knowing itself again, of coming back into its power, that the fragmentation/individuation would allow for. That plays into my focus on being present, in that even if I’m in the process of learning or gaining capability, that knowledge and power aren’t the ends in and of themselves, it is the EXPERIENCE of learning and/or becoming more powerful–the present-moment abidance in the process.

       Long story short, he basically said it’s the journey, not the destination, only in a way that unexpectedly resonated with me and further drove home the importance of being present (for me).

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     • Yeah, I personally cannot claim answers I do not have. But it seems to me that the destination isn’t really a thing if there is this constant cycle of birth and death, unless of course everything were to end at a single life and a single death per entity. Which, again, isn’t necessarily the thought camp I dwell in. The thought of how insignificant I am on the grand stage of universal life doesn’t exactly help me to alleviate stress, simply because I have things that I want to see happen for those who depend on me. I do think that the science camp in general may need to do some recognizing as regards to more mystical elements as you would put it, and those of certain spiritual views may find that unfolding events may ask them to think differently about beliefs that had previously held to be infallible. But I do note that sometimes people will persist in thinking something even in the face of evidence to the contrary, like COVID patients literally dying of COVID telling their nurses that they were lying to them, that COVID was a hoax.

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     • That kind of obstinacy used to bother me, but now I’m convinced they’re just going to reboot and work it out in another life. I kind of see it like someone who insists on banging their head against the wall, only mortality is involved. Obviously they’re going to die anyway, but I guess if they want to pick that hill to literally die on, then it’s up to them. One thing I have come to suspect is that existence will offer us “easter eggs” even if we’re being pigheaded, but it will most often be at a rate that won’t overwhelm us. I think it’s when we dig in and decide to egregiously ignore those hints that they start to increase in harshness, to the point where it will take form as something incredibly jarring. I kind of equate it to Darwinian ethics, where supposedly tyranny will eventually face a revolution, then a more benevolent leader will be installed (apparently, that happens in primate groups). But why wait for the pendulum to swing that far? I’d rather be intuitive and emotionally intelligent enough to pick up on the milder nudges, before they devolve into something more unpleasant.

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     • I think you are right about the nudges. Sometimes it is hard though to recognize what is going on if you’ve not had someone explain that idea to you before. And even if you have, you have to feel it for yourself that it is a possibility in order to respond appropriately when a pattern is recognized. Even recognizing a pattern takes a level of self-awareness and mindfulness. Sometimes, as it is with many things, I think it can be easier said than done. What do you feel helps you recognize those nudges in your life?

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     • I think mild intuitive hunches are the place to start, but the possibility of interference by unproductive beliefs or subconscious negativity is always there, so if it goes strongly against a logical course of action, I’m not too inclined to go with that hunch. If, however, it doesn’t really make sense but there’s no likelihood of harm (e.g I get an out-of-the-blue desire to watch something on netflix I’d typically never consider watching) then I’d say go with it, because there might be something significant in there that you just can’t logically detect. After that comes a nagging thought that won’t go away no matter how much you’ve tried to assuage it with logical action or precautions (go check the pantry for whatever reason, despite having been there just a minute ago), then repetitive frustrations after effort and planning, which to me means it’s time to reassess the options and see what makes sense, and if it’s repetitive and frustrating enough, maybe go with something that doesn’t make sense but feels right. Lastly, I think great pain or trauma is unfortunately what jars most people out of their rut. I used to think that it was a necessary price to pay in order to find your true path, but I think not only is that false, but it would be stupid if it were true. Whatever base philosophy you want to use, I think it’s a ridiculous existence if the only substantive way we can change for the better is if we’re beaten down until we opt for change simply because we want to escape the agony. That’s coercive torture, in my mind.

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     • I think that sometimes a person can invite negative events simply by fearing or expecting them too much. I don’t know as I would call that coercive torture, but I think there is a lesson to be learned in that. I can however, understand your view because I also think that it really isn’t necessary to beat someone down so that change is an escape mechanism only. And I will also say that sometimes negative things can happen even if a person isn’t fearing them, so I can’t support a view that says a person brings all happenings upon them based on what they are throwing out there. I don’t know a single abused child that was sending out any energy into the universe that could have brought that to their doorsteps. Sometimes I think we see a correlation when there is none, and sometimes we miss one that we should be seeing. I think it is a sound place, to start with intuition on these matters!

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     • Not to beat a dead horse, but in order to reconcile all these conundrums with my belief in a benevolent existence, I have to default to the idea that we are much more than our physical individuality, and volunteered from that standpoint to experience the conundrums of childhood.
       Obviously, that can be a hard pill to swallow, as it’s very easy to argue that judgment or victim-blaming could arise toward a kid with that premise, and that kids are beyond reproach (although one of the reasons I don’t want a kid is because of the very real possibility that they could do something atrocious, which is definitely within the realm of evidenced possibility).
       If I decide to diverge from my belief, we are destined for an existence of possible potential or present helplessness where we are obligated to force a critical mass of people into complying with what we find acceptable, then continually live in fear/anxiety/concern that the continually shifting mass of people that are dying and being born keep existing within the bounds of acceptability. I believe that’s actually a default attitude in wider society, and in order to shift into a belief system with true abundance of peace and positivity–where I’m not continually threatened by a specter of existential malevolence–it is necessary to believe in a self that greatly exceeds the bounds of physical individuality. To my relief, there are anecdotes I find convincing that seemingly support this premise, most dramatic is probably Tyler Henry, but on the more professional side there are also academic programs like the 50 year old division of perceptual studies at UVA , as well as remote viewing on the defense side and astral projection documents on the intelligence side. I think I understand where you are coming from, where the weight of your focus needs to be anchored in physical functionality, solid results, and coordination with external parties. I think I’m just focused more in a different direction, where the question of why I even exist in the first place is the most compelling, and inspires me to accept premises and deductions that don’t just support a benevolent existence, but also simultaneously encourage me to enjoy the moment and believe that I am an equalized stakeholder in the shaping of reality.

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     • I think to truly understand where I am coming from, someone has to live the reality I have lived for the past 11+ years doing everything I have been doing to support an individual with extraordinary challenges. Extraordinary. That is no exaggeration. Where he is now to some might not look like enough compared with what a typical child his age does, but it has dramatically changed the trajectory of his life what has been done (and my role has been significant) and it has taken so much work, so much focus, so much of everything. And the need for focus remains very real. I don’t feel like I can even get to a point where I can think about things that I want to think about for myself until he’s at a point where he’s thriving in his new school environment.

       This is not a process that will magically happen on it’s own, I have to think about every aspect of what we are doing and how we are doing that, and I need to coordinate that carefully with the school staff so that their environment and the needs of their other learners are respected. I think the staff there are a great group of people, and I am very grateful they’ve given us this opportunity to work with Tony in this manner to gradually help him grow into the environment, because what has been recommended to them is not perhaps a conventional approach (OK, it’s totally not), but it is the best chance we have of success for this environment. And I am confident he would not do well in a level D placement based on what I know about my son, which is why we are putting this much effort into what is being done. I feel like I don’t get to have a chance to even breath as a person in my own right, to have time off, to be able to pursue any kind of career anything I might want to do, personal interests, etc. until he’s got the skills solidified to be there without me. If he doesn’t grow into this environment, the choices become a lot harder and for me. I think he is very much capable of growing into it, but it is an intensive process right now. And that means it’s harder for me to focus this time on existential matters, because my immediate concerns are very immediate and feel much more pressing.

       That being said, I respect the time and thought you have put into formulating your beliefs. As always, I think you articulate them well.

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     • I apologize if I offended you or conveyed dismissal. I should have been more careful about my words; I didn’t mean to state that I understood the specifics of where you are coming from, but the more general conundrum that in the past, my tasks required a high degree of involvement, and that I didn’t have the energy or inclination to focus on unrelated subjects, and that I feel like I can relate to your perspective in that way, through a generalized overlap. It’s a dynamic I leverage in fiction, where someone may not understand what it’s like to be a two-gun slinging future-cyborg warrior, but they understand Atriya’s generalized circumstance of having put forth more effort than his peers but not progressing at the same rate as them, and also being disregarded by his superiors, when he absolutely knows that he’s putting in the time and reps, more so than everyone around him. Obviously, I’ve never raised an autistic child on any level of the spectrum, and to say that I can relate to that specific experience is ignorant or disrespectful, in my opinion. Once again, it’s the general, not the specific, where I was trying to say that I might be able to find some overlap. Also, from a logical perspective, I could never understand what you specifically went through, even without the adverse circumstances. To truly understand a specific experience, two perspectives would literally have to occupy the same space-time pathway, where everything down to genetics and quantum interactions was exactly the same. Otherwise, they are, by default, each beholden to a unique experience.

       What I say next isn’t meant to be a dismissive rebuttal, but rather a clarification of my difference in perspective. I don’t frame my experiences as extraordinary, although I probably could produce enough validity to do so. To me, that puts me into a comparative framework I’d rather not evoke. I’ve arguably experienced extraordinary things, but not on the level of Nelson Mandela, or a child soldier immigrant I know about who served in the military.
       Conversely, I don’t want to discount the regular folks who find true-blue meaning in living quiet lives and unglamorous routines. I’d rather follow the clues given by my intuition and synchronicities instead of trying to define what is normal, what should be normal, and how relatively screwed or lucky I am because I was gifted or denied any stake in normality. On a related note, I find the UFO phenomenon–more specifically the implications that pop up around it, of consciousness either forming reality or having a much heavier influence on it than previously thought–not only extraordinary and fascinating, but practical in the implied assertion that positive resonance is much more important than often portrayed, possibly crucial in our day to day lives. Yet the majority of people seem uninterested in the subject for various reasons, which is okay in my book–their framework of values doesn’t lean as heavily as mine toward existential subject matter. And that’s not only fine, but necessary, because if people thought the same as me, if everything worked for them as it does for me, it would start to defeat the purpose of having individual perspectives. So for me, personally, my consideration of what is extraordinary becomes eclipsed by what gives me a sense of meaning. I feel like we can find common ground on that sentiment.

       What I say next is once more for clarification between our different views, not to try and gotcha your stance or win any debate points. I think I’ve noticed a pattern in our exchange, in that you’re very averse to blaming the individual, but open to blaming externalities such as societal views, organizations, and wide-spanning systems. It seems to come up when I mention the premise of consciousness influencing reality, where you defend the individual from blame in the scenario they’ve shaped their own reality, and in other conversation, it seems you are willing to blame societal views, constructs or other oppressive impositions. That’s absolutely fine. You’re entitled to blame anyone and anything you want. It’s not my place to tell you how to think, or who to blame or not blame. I’m laying out what I see in an attempt to further clarify our fundamental positions so maybe we can communicate better and understand where we agree to disagree.

       My take on blame is it has very limited use in terms of positive resonance. If I find myself in anger or despair and I’m moving toward positivity, I will resonate with blame if I can, because it’s definitely more positive than despair, arguably more so than anger because it has a directional focus, and although it may not be constructive, there’s at least more movement toward an intention of trying to find a solution. However, I personally don’t want to stay in blame, because overall, it’s a negative resonance. Once there, I’m going to feel for when I can move to resignation or pessimism or apathy, then up to mild optimism or satisfaction. Psychologically, if I stay in blame, I’ll prime my subconscious to find more things to blame, or to blame things more. Metaphysically, I will manifest more circumstances where people and things deserve to be blamed. If I continually resonate with blame, I don’t believe it matters how benevolent my philosophy is, I’ll find someone or something to blame. In my personal philosophy, I’d end up victim-blaming people for manifesting undesirable circumstances. In a religion, I’d probably blame Satan, sinners, or people whose faith is too weak. Conversely, I believe if I continually resonate with positivity, I’ll find ways to move toward that regardless of philosophy, even if I’m tied to something as historically monstrous as the Catholic Church. I’m sure in your old organization, for all its faults, there were some folks who were able to positively resonate and find things of value in their experience, and also produce positive experiences and outcomes for themselves and others within that context.

       So to be clear, when I say that I believe consciousness shapes reality, I’m not interested in blaming someone for how they’ve shaped their lives; I’m interested in their positivity and potential. I’m also not interested in blaming externalities such as society, chance, or oppressive organizations. I’m not interested in blaming anyone or anything at all, unless it is a stepping-stone toward a more positive resonance. Sure, if I’m working through a challenge and part of the solution is pointing out fault in order to direct time and resources, I’ll happily do so because it’s in service of a solution. But if it’s not directly related to solutions, I’m going to do my best to keep from spending more time in blame than I personally find necessary. I’m sorry if that’s offensive, foolish, or societally irresponsible, but I’m of the opinion that bringing my positivity to something is how I will find the most fulfillment and enact not just best results, but the most favorable experience, and also express my best self. I’m still trying to fully grasp this concept, but I will willingly empathize (acknowledge the validity of and honor), but I will no longer sympathize. I’m not going to commiserate with negativity to demonstrate solidarity, is what I think that might mean.

       Anyways, I want to re-emphasize none of that is a judgment on if you decide to blame or what you choose to blame. Maybe it’s a crucial step for you in moving toward positivity, I don’t know. I truly can’t say. It’s just that I think it will make things clearer if I state that I am not looking to slyly place blame through the premise of consciousness creating reality, but I am also not going to blame large-scale externalities because that’s supposedly the only other option. I choose to believe I don’t need to place blame at all, unless it is a temporary step toward a more positive mindset, and that I can stay predominantly focused on positive resonance.

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     • You did not offend me, and I really appreciate that you chat with me and that you cared enough to take the time to clarify your thought process in any manner. I think sometimes I feel like people say they understand what I’m going through and it does smack me as a bit dismissive, because I don’t know anybody else whose kiddo has had the degree of challenges Tony has, even for kiddos on the spectrum. I know there are others out there, but I’ve not personally met anyone. For him, some of his challenges also come from his genetic disorders and the drinking his birth mom did during her pregnancy. He’s complicated, his medical history is complicated. But I didn’t feel that sting so much from what you said, I would say it was more of a hint of me saying that you hadn’t lived it, so your understanding wouldn’t be exactly the same as mine. I didn’t attach the same emotional weight to what you said as I do when an “expert” in the field tries to tell me that or another parent whose kiddo has significantly fewer challenges. I love what you have said about the hardest thing a person has been through is the hardest thing a person has been through, but at the same time, if I can look at someone and want to trade challenges because their particular set would have felt much easier for me, it’s harder for me to hear that they understand, but it’s rare that I would comment in that way to another parent because I do recognize what you have said, which is to that person what they are going through felt that hard to them, even though I would trade them in a heart beat.

       To me for quite some time you have come across as a person I can share my differences of perspective on and not take it personally and understand that I am not trying to attack you. Because I certainly wasn’t, I was just giving my thoughts about it. I really value our conversations, I think you are intelligent, witty, and I find your philosophical views fascinating in some areas, interesting in others, and I have a lot of respect for what you share even if I’m not sure how I personally stand on the subject. I don’t feel like you owe me an apology and I feel badly that you felt that you did. None needed here in my opinion.

       I am grateful that you share your take on the nature of blame and positivity. I think from my perspective, some times I am recognizing the impact a certain view or construct has had and can have on outcomes, because to ignore that would not be as prudent in my personal view, but I also recognize the validity of what you are saying that a person meeting that with determination and a positive attitude is much more likely to have an outcome outside of what is to be expected based on the prevailing social norms or views. I think my official take is that it’s complicated, I notice some things, I don’t have official answers I stand by at this point. I am just a person trying to navigate my circumstances to the best of my ability. And I think in general, blame can limiting. I think I prefer to think of it in terms of responsibility because that is more productive. Blame is often focused on shame, whereas responsibility is a more constructive mindset that reaches towards recognition and then growth. I have to own my own BS sometimes, right? I mess some things up, and while I don’t want anybody to blame me in a harsh way, I also do expect them to recognize the mistakes I made and while I would hope they would give me the grace and time to do better and be better, that isn’t always how everybody views it. For me, I’m not so much interested in blame, if we hare having an honest moment of clarification, I’m interested in fixing things. Not everybody or every entity wants to fix something I think needs to be fixed, that is for sure. Just like I don’t always agree with someone who looks at me and thinks I should do something differently. But I do try to remain in a place of active listening as regards to what a person tells me in the mirror they hold up to me about what I have done or how I do things.

       And I am waxing long. Please know that I in return genuinely do not wish to give offense (though for sure at some point I may end up with my foot in my mouth so to speak, and if that happens, call me out on it). For me, the discussions we have had have brought bubbles of happiness into my life because I enjoy our chats, even when we have differences in views. I’m really not one to get hung up on that so much. I appreciate the time you took to respond in such a thoughtful manner, and again, thank you for chatting with me. ❤ Ari

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     • No worries on waxing long, and I feel bad about having made you feel bad! 😂 In semi-seriousness, though, it’s my opinion nothing and no one is worth feeling bad over, and that the only functional reason to feel bad is to mix in some perceptual contrast to clarify what someone truly wants. That can start skewing toward emotional repression (invalidating others or myself for feeling bad) though, so I try and simplify it to how do I feel best over the long-term? That produces an ever-shifting answer, but I think a healthy generalized guideline. Regardless, due to my belief that perspective and emotional management can be causally independent of externalities, I take the possibly foolish view that I’m not obligated to feel bad for anyone’s suffering or misery, and that it doesn’t say anything about my virtue, either negative or positive. I’m happy to help out, give them a boost, or cheer them on, but as I said before, I’m veering toward the idea that empathy is constructive while sympathy isn’t (and yes, still clarifying that concept to myself).

       The responsibility thing can be nuanced, in my opinion. I know of folks who make it a point to declare when they’ve screwed up, yet continue to screw up in similar circumstances. I know folks who screw up, don’t say a thing, but seemingly learn their lesson and do well the next time around. My inclination may seem a little tunnel-visioned: I’m searching for the vibe of positivity and solution-orientation, and whatever form that may entail–I might need to acknowledge a past mistake, or maybe I don’t need to acknowledge it at all. I believe it will be guided by my resonance. Sometimes, that resonance may guide me to lay it all out either privately or publicly, then articulate a plan for how to avoid a similar pitfall in the future. But sometimes, the pitfall may have been the resonance itself, it may be that I was too focused on things going wrong and I need to put the instance completely out of my mind and be present, without any consideration of what/who/why things went wrong and who needs to step up and own it. Personally, I think I’ll always prioritize genuine positive resonance, and should the issue of responsibility come up, I’ll be happy to dig into it if it’s in the direction of positivity and resolution. If, however, it’s primarily for the sake of self-flagellation, getting ahead of criticism for the fear of being ambushed by it (I understand doing that with the intention of paving a smoother way forward by clarifying intentions, but I’m not in favor of doing it as a fear-response, if that makes sense) impressing upon others how bad I feel as penance for a screwup, or any other type of negativity disguised as noble thoughts or actions, I’m not really interested. I’ve seen it take form in myriad ways, and I guess I’m saying that I’ve grown preferences for certain nuances after awhile.

       Also, I’m glad you have the inclinations you do! I once thought I was obligated to be as giving as you, then when I found it wasn’t for me, I pessimistically thought everyone with that desire to give was a liar and putting up a front, then I changed my mind after realizing everyone is built different and doesn’t necessarily think like me. (One thing to understand it, another thing to realize it and treat people accordingly). I’m glad that I get to connect with someone who actually lives it! (You)

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     • Well, I wouldn’t want you to feel badly whether in jest or for reals. A person can do something, and my emotional reaction, that’s *entirely* on me. I have that responsibility at the end of the day for any situation. For me personally, and I say this as a person who made a series of mistakes decades ago that delivered a deep hurt to someone I cared about very deeply at the time: To this day that situation has a deep impact on me, though the person involved assures me she doesn’t want me to carry that pain or awareness. For me, I feel that the people my world are worth protecting whatever trust and agreement I have with them, that is always worth it to me and I will feel badly if I mess something up and injure somebody. Generally it’s not intentional because again, I do care about the feelings and boundaries of the people in my world. And if I do happen to fall short of how I want to treat them because of whatever I’m gonna feel badly about it. I try to give myself some grace and most things I’m not going to hold on to, but I will try to learn from them and better how I do things. How quickly I’m able to improve on something may vary depending on what it is, but I do understand what it’s like to both be able to make an immediate change with something and to struggle and have it be harder and take longer, so perhaps for me I try to see if the person making any sort of progress towards improving. That might be how I would look at how I felt about their sincerity personally when it comes to responsibility and what kinds of boundaries I might feel I need to place for a circumstance. Life has taught me I can be fallible, and so I lean towards extending grace whenever I can, because heaven knows I have needed the same. And none of that is to say I want to dwell in shame or self-flagellation, simply that I try to be aware of what I am bringing into the world, and if it hasn’t been as good as it could have been, I will always be interested in learning from that and elevating what I do for future references.

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     • I guess as I get older and I start seeing the inevitability of death, as my conviction in an afterlife and mystical reality grow more visceral, I feel more comfortable drawing boundaries and risking relationships, because I believe we’re the equivalent of play-actors who might bicker and fight on stage, but are destined to get together after the play and share a meal and a laugh. Ironically, when I’ve drawn boundaries with the full acceptance that I might never speak to that person again, I reconnect with them when we’re resonating on the same frequency; much to my surprise, they decide to adopt a more positive or accommodating mindset, and we end up being friendly again. That strengthens my belief that a person will grow on their own time, at their own pace, and that I don’t need to overextend myself by hanging in there with them just because I don’t want to be a jerk and possibly write them off early. If the resonance is there, I’ll stay in contact. If not, then maybe we’ll meet again later, but I’d rather not make my life or theirs more uncomfortable than necessary by trying to force a connection. I trust that they have the same connection to a higher self and the same power I do, and that they’ll guide their individual self at the pace they’re ready to go at. If I’m part of that journey, then I’m happy to help out and carry some weight. If not, then I know the opposite of synchronicity will happen: misfortune and obstruction will pile up on our path, with every possibility for improvement shut down despite however good the odds look on paper, and that we’ll end up feeling helpless, cursed to be unlucky, and probably resenting each other.

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     • First, I *loved* what you said in your Musings post today, but good golly I’ve already got enough comment chains open, so I’ll just say that here. Second, I would love to say I was able to bring my best self to answering this one. But nope. You’ve got post biopsy me, and post biopsy me is definitely got more brain cells focused on chocolate and laying down to rest because I did this thing unmedicated and right now, the cramps are louder than the other neurons chatting.

       I do think how one views things about luck can just be a matter of perspective. Sometimes bad things happen, but am I really meant to read into it an deliberate obstruction to a path to something I want? I don’t think necessarily for me personally. Sure, there have been times I have experienced an unfortunate series of events and felt some moments of angst about the luck or the timing. At the end of the day, it’s less productive to stay in that mindset for me personally. If I want something, I’m going to pick myself up out of the self-pity mud wallow as quickly as I can, because one of the things life has taught me is that many, many things can be salvaged with effort and the right attitude, even if you think it’s going to poop. What I tell my daughter with her makeup or her art, if you make a mistake, don’t tell anybody…turn it into something different. Nobody will ever know it wasn’t deliberate. Many things can be worked with. That is just my take. Only the individuals involved can decide what the events mean and if it has become something too expansive for a bridge of understanding or effort to cross. Again, thank you for chatting with me. For certain I have drawn boundaries with people, so what I said wasn’t meant to diminish or criticize anyone for having different deciding points for the what and when of boundaries. I mean, you know I’m not in contact with my mom or my step-dad, so clearly I boundary in my own way, a way that honors the journey I am on. Take good care of yourself! 🙂 Ari

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     • TLDR: I’ve found a new angle of thought where I try to not judge and quantify as much, and let myself experience my perception as it arises in the present.

       Very healthy attitude! At the risk of being philosophically abstract, I was mulling the idea of mystical divinity fragmenting itself the other day, and the redundant paradox of each fragment already knowing within its core all that is to know, and each fragment within its core having all the power in existence, so regaining power and knowledge would not be the priority, the EXPERIENCE of it would be the priority (divinity in its all-powerful state already has the power and knowledge, but not the experience of regaining it from a constrained point of view). To me, experiencing it is the same as being present and allowing myself to feel whatever arises, allowing myself to fully engage with the moment and acknowledge my natural mental responses as part of the experience (which gets nuanced, because personally, I’d rather not indulge negativity past the initial reflex of it, but I think that’s another
       conversation). I was also speculating that what I’ve described is why mystics always harp on be here now and being engaged with the moment, because it is the surest way to align with a mystical divinity’s existential intent of experiencing constraint. From that perspective, it’s more than just a mental health mindfulness thing. From an individual point of view, it’s realigning perception into its most powerful, natural, and desirable state, and–here I further speculate–opening the pathway for synchronicity and all the reality-bending icing on the cake that is supposedly available to saints and sages. There’s a Zen/taoist story about a farmer (very googleable) whose bad luck turns to good luck to bad to good, the point of which is that being open to long-term developments is a healthier way to be, with the implication that the peace of experiencing the moment without short-sighted judgment is smoother and more fulfilling.

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     • Well, thanks for the heads up on the length, LOL, though I definitely read it (twice) and although I may be struggling to focus on it because I have now been typing out answers to people for an hour or so and my uterus is saying “enough already damn it, go lay down,” I am going to thank you for your graciousness (I often don’t warn anyone one of my semi-novella length word bombs is coming, eek!). Not saying you word bombed me (I’m pretty much always happy to read whatever length anyone sends my way as long as it’s not mean-spirited). I can see some of what you are saying, though again, I am not in a position where I want to take an official position on anything of that nature yet. I think sometimes to successfully engage in the moment, some quantifying and judgement calling of things is necessary. But I know myself well enough to say that as abstract as you thought you were sounding (you weren’t sounding too abstract to me, I felt like your explanation made sense, found it very interesting to read), but I’m about to babble nonsense if I don’t take some time off from typing because the muscles are pulling on the areas that got biopsied yesterday and I need a break. Probably for the rest of the day if I am being honest, so I will sign off with wishing you a wonderful day, thanking you for taking the time to share your thoughts on the matter, and my compliments that it is so well explained. 😀 Ari

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     • Just in the last day, I have decided I’m really going to work on acceptance as the lynchpin of cleaning up my focus and being present without lingering negativities creeping back in (I’m not too concerned if I’m involved in a positive daydream, honestly). I’ve had partial success with trusting the universe–as I’ve said many times regarding how given time, bad things seem to turn out good–but that sometimes isn’t so visceral in the moment. Recently, I’m finding conscious acceptance, kind of a positive-minded calling out, if you will, is more effective for me. I used to call out things in my psyche with the intention of fixing them, but now it’s more of an intention of accepting it as is, with the underlying premise that existence is all-inclusive, it inherently accepts the as is, and aligning with the most positive current–plugging myself in, if you will, so I can stop using a manual vacuum and switch to motorized–involves me prioritizing acceptance first, because if I’m rejecting anything, even if it’s my own negativity, I’m going to be wrestling with internal conflict. And even if that happens, I can consciously call myself out on it: I’m in a state of internal conflict and I accept it. It’s a natural reaction. I don’t have to condemn it, rationalize why harmony is better, blah blah blah. It’s getting my surface consciousness involved in lining up with a deeper level of myself, in more abstract terms.

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     • Well, as I more or less said in an earlier comment this morning, my deeper self sometimes needs compartments to handle all that can be within it, lol. I think sometimes for me the first part of any process is recognition that I’m feeling something, because to be perfectly honest, I can get tunnel vision that is so intense on a goal I am working on that something can become background noise I don’t necessarily notice until it starts screaming my name so to speak. That of course depends on the goal, not every goal requires such intense focus and effort, but anything Tony related usually does. But in the recognition of a feeling, I then may go through a process of evaluating how that feeling is going to impact my critical goals, etc. I think it is a very valid point that if I do not feel it will be beneficial, being gentle with myself and just turning my attention to something else is more useful than an internal flogging, which will only make the feeling even more tenacious in maintaining its presence. I can accept it even, sure, but that doesn’t mean holding onto it will benefit me at any given moment. Sometimes I may even desperately wish I could indulge myself in something, like any job I wanted, any schedule I wanted, any number of things I might want…but I know focusing on that too much will make me unhappy because those aren’t the circumstances that I am in, so then it becomes a choice as to which accepted reality and desire I focus on. Do I focus on what I lack? Or do I focus on the joy I can already have? For me personally, the better answer is the latter with a sprinkling of hope and a plan to move towards the other…I do recognize that people will have differing answers as to how best to approach these matters and that my style isn’t for everyone. My style is built on surviving crappy circumstances and is very useful in high levels of challenges where low levels of resources exist. It is what it is.

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     • In my experience, it’s a little paradoxical in that accepting what I lack is not the same as focusing on it and giving it strength. It is shifting focus from lack to acceptance. Also, when I try and focus on what I already have with the intention of getting away from what I lack, the focus is not on what I have, but the intention of getting away. I think this paradoxical relationship between surface conscious focus and deeper emotional heading is kind of the crux of what confuses people about positive thinking and visualization and stuff like the secret. The mind is more immediate when it comes to focus, and it doesn’t work in a linear way that necessarily responds to logically articulated goals and midpoints. I heard an interesting exercise when folks were told to imagine soaring above an ocean, the sun, the breeze, the reflections off the swells, etc. etc. All visceral things. Then they were told to imagine flying like Superman, which brought the visualization to a crashing halt. The evaluation of where a feeling may lead to a desired goal may work for you and if it does, I gotta say that I’m somewhat jealous, lol! I just find that with me, it is about managing the emotion first, then when I can feel positive resonance, then I can think of positive courses of action and positive outcomes without feeling like they’re false, improbable, or tinged with doubt. Also, I’ve learned to trust that my deeper self knows what I want and how to get there, and I don’t need to constantly remind it or it will forget. My priority is to fuel it with positive resonance, regardless of if that means temporarily accepting that I’m feeling hateful, vengeful, or hopeless, if that makes sense.

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     • Well, while I do have no problem continuing the visualization after adding the flying like Superman component for me personally, I would also say nobody should feel anything about themselves in relation to what I can do. Although, I recognize I feel things about myself sometimes in relation to what others can and can’t do, and while it may be natural, I don’t think it’s always productive and probably best curbed whenever possible. Sometimes it can be constructive to see a skill in another that one desires to cultivate and have that awareness, but I have found that it does more damage than good if my only aim is to criticize myself without remediation. IF my aim is to better me in a way that I can actually be bettered, I find it can be productive. I think for me personally, sometimes if I am focused on what I lack it strengthens negative emotions associated with that, so I prefer to just pivot my focus to something else so that the awareness becomes background noise as much as possible. Depending on how desirable I find the item in the lack category I may have an easier time with this than others. I can validate myself and my right to feel certain ways, I can accept it even, but I can also structure my emotions if needed to create an internal environment more hospitable to accomplishing what I feel like does need to be accomplished as I am prioritizing my wants/needs. I have learned that letting one’s emotions reign and rule unchecked can lead to situations where much damage is done. So if my emotions aren’t in keeping with my values or my more immediate priorities, I choose to observe the emotions, evaluate how constructive or destructive they would be to accomplishing the current priorities or living consistently within my present values, and then how I process them from that point will vary depending on what my take was on all of the above. Perhaps I give them a hug. Perhaps I give them a future date and time to have a chance to take the center stage. Perhaps I do whatever it takes to get me moving as positively as I can through whatever situation I have to be mucking my way through…

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     • I’d like to preface by saying whatever works for you is inarguably valid, and if what worked for me worked for you, then that would give rise to the idea that I could force-impose my view on others to make them happy (that’s religion in many cases), it would undermine the purpose behind being two separate perspectives.

       The idea behind acknowledging the validity or right to exist of negativity is to weaken the visceral repulsion or rejection of it, and turn it from a snarling enemy determined to inflict damage to someone you probably don’t like, probably disagree with, but are civil enough with so you can both go your separate ways. It doesn’t mean you like them or are even tolerating them, but that you are paradoxically freeing them to be themselves so you can be yourself without them in your personal space. From a mystical perspective, god accepts all, enlightenment is in everything, we have so much freedom that we can trap ourselves temporarily by increasing our disconnection (until everything folds back into itself and we’re forced to come back to an unconditional source of love and creation), which means that acknowledging and accepting negativity and it’s right to exist is the act of shifting from an individual perspective with individual limitations towards a more divine one. It prioritizes getting back into a centered emotional space before evaluation, if that makes sense, because in this model the evaluation can get skewed by being off-center.

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     • Yeah, a force-imposed view usually doesn’t help people feel genuinely happy, it helps them feel forced. That is a fair point, even when a person is trying to force a perspective shift, but the difference there may be a desire to move in the direction that is genuinely felt, even if the initial motivation isn’t there. I will concede it can create an uncentered lump of emotional clay on the mental potters wheel to compartmentalize sometimes, but I would also say that from my perspective it can be a very necessary survival skill. I recognize the long-term limitations of such an approach and that in order to have the best outcomes when this particular trick in the tool bag needs to be used, there needs to come a day where it is unpacked, looked at, accepted, acknowledged, and processed in as healthy a manner as possible. It’s kind of like a processing “IOU” in my opinion. Sometimes necessary, but like any debt, the consequences themselves are negative if not handled appropriately at some point. I think many things in life are a balancing act, and I cannot even begin to claim to have all of the correct answers for myself much less another person. I simply am doing what I am doing in any given moment with the hopes and intentions of having things move in the most positive direction possible overall.

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     • The IOU is a great way to frame it. It seems like the greater populace is increasingly on board with this in some form or another, which feeds my bias that our collective awareness is starting to shift. There’s a lot of work to be done on mental health in the military, but the fact that it’s even a concern and there’s a conversation around it is a giant difference from a decade or two ago where it was something that only applied to weirdos, weak people, or someone who’d gone through something apocalyptically traumatic.

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     • I think the subject of mental health is complicated. I feel that shifts in our way of living as a species have likely contributed to some challenges with mental health. I also think in some ways we’ve gone too far in a certain direction. I was listening to a child psychologist talk in a podcast interview about how with certain events it’s normal to feel down, sad, etc and that she’d be more worried if a person didn’t. Sometimes it seems like we’ve come up with this idea as a society that if we have any unhappy thoughts or feelings that is a clinical problem, when in fact sometimes that is just life because life can have very hard moments in it that cause very normal situational unhappy feelings for a period of time. Now, clinical problems certainly do exist for some people, and I am not trying to minimize that. I think the views of how to approach mental health are as ever changing as any other discipline, science, belief system, etc.

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     • That’s an interesting concept that’s come into the lexicon lately: toxic positivity. It kind of becomes a delicate concept to explore, because there’s obviously the toxic aspect of it where invalidation and suppression feed and grow more negativity, but there’s also the excuse of people advocating for an unhealthy level of consistent negativity because it’s supposedly honest/objective, or because they’re being “negative against negative people.” In my opinion, it’s truly about resonance, which can be roughly assessed by intrusive thoughts (what kind, positive or negative), whether a positive or negative thought feels like a lie or uninteresting. I think some doctors have even started to correlate and trace causation from illness to mental stress and negative outlook, although I’m not really sure how you’d even begin to go about doing that. I was recently hanging out with my friend and his girlfriend, and she brought up this interesting psychology-oriented self-help lady who wrote a book and gives ted talks, who asked the audience to imagine they’re watching a movie and there’s a family in a car driving along a highway, the camera pans out to show the road from an aerial view, what happens next? In my mind I just shrugged and said they just keep driving along, but apparently, most folks respond with something awful like an explosion or crash or something of the like. That’s okay by me–people are free to be negative, explore that avenue, then play with it throughout their multiple lives. But it revealed to me that my subconscious is going through some resonance tweaking, that even though I wasn’t necessarily negative, that I was more along the lines of neutral. My first tweak in that vein is that neutral’s pretty good! I know what it means to be constantly on guard, always waiting for the other shoe to drop because I have a paranoia that everything comes with a cost so as soon as something good happens I have to start watching out because existence will come to collect. Neutral’s good, I trust it’s a decent step up, and I’m happy to let positivity solidify and strengthen without working myself into the ground so I can prove to existence that I’ve earned a bit of peace.

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     • Well, when I first read this before Tony and I headed into school, as I was envisioning what happened to the car before I read your next sentence in my mind it just kept driving on a winding road with everyone happy and enjoying the ride on the inside with the feeling of peace overlayed. So for me, I think whether or not a continuing drive is perceived as neutral depends on how a person views that with their own perspective. In my mind, nothing going wrong is very positive and sounds downright relaxing. Nobody fighting, the car not breaking down, gorgeous scenery away from the city (that’s what my mind was thinking about)…

       As beneficial as I think positivity is, I think honesty as regards to what is realistic about a circumstance is pretty important. I have to have, for example, an honest assessment of what Tony is capable of growing into behavior and skill wise when I approach an organization like his public school and ask him to partner with us in making that happen. It doesn’t help them, it doesn’t help me if I can’t be either honest or realistic about what he can actually do and what he struggles with. Today he was there an hour, he spent more than 30 minutes sitting, he worked on functional tasks, participated calmly and appropriately in his first fire drill…But I also know if anybody expected him to stay an entire day there right now he’d be a hot mess. That’s why our entire combined therapy and medical team recommended the approach we did to the school, because it was honest, it was realistic. It didn’t say our son was forever incapable of this, it didn’t say he would walk in on day 1 at 8 hours a day tolerating things he’s never done before in a school with hundreds of other kiddos, it say he can do this with a gradual introduction and the right accommodations. In recognizing that, I don’t think I was being negative, in fact, I think I have embraced a more positive vision of his future than some of his former therapy providers did, who would probably be stunned to see some of the things he *can* do at this point.

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     • I think I agree with you and that there’s overlap in our views, I just phrase it differently. The way I frame it is that if positivity is mixed with disbelief, it loses its legs. It’s faking an electric current for the sake of a specific desired focus. It’s more useful to me to focus on positivity by picking specifics that are in my realm of belief if I have to act on something, then focus on more outlandish desires when there’s no possibility of them running into something that will make believing in them a struggle. There were certain financial goals I had four years ago that I felt I would have to get to 60 or 70 to achieve, but I ended up achieving them much earlier. I focus on those kind of things when I can ease my mind into an acceptance of infinite possibility, when the idea of the universe and my existence seems wondrous and absurd–best guess at this point concerning the big bang is that there was an equal amount of matter and antimatter but some unknown factor kept the polarities from annihilating each other so that the universe as we know it could actually solidify and settle–so any wondrous and absurd possibility seems equally plausible. Emotional intelligence and awareness definitely comes into play. If all that feels abstract and hokey, then I’m going to feel around for something more resonant, which could be as mundane as looking forward to a snack.

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     • I think you are exactly right, that disbelief can cause something to loose it’s legs, and that it is more useful to pick things to start out with that are more within the realm of belief and then work on becoming as expansive as possible. I am happy for you that you were able to achieve some goals that were important to you!! Mine are just on a different kind of playing field and scale in terms of how others view them. Today? My little man went to both the Gen Ed homeroom and stayed in there most of the time and he want to the specials for a few minutes (art, which he hates with a passion). Doesn’t bring financial independence (at least not yet), but it expands the future options for both our son and for myself the more he’s able to grow into this environment. That feels pretty darn happy to me, and that is what I could believe in and see for him, and I can believe in so much more…next up? Reading…totally going to be reading.

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     • You know, I was thinking yesterday, just from the brief description you’ve left of your journey in the comments, I’ve started perceiving your experience as miraculous.
       I’m not trying to discount your hard work and personal cost, which were both obviously glaring parts of it, but I was previously seeing it as a mad dash to beat imposing odds which luckily panned out. I’m not judging you on your work or your perspective or whatever else might be a factor; this is simply me describing a shift in my own view. And I think it deserves no less kudos–if there is such a compliment, I commend you on your reality-bending, and I am fully on board with you enjoying every reward that comes from it!

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     • Usually when someone says they think something is miraculous, to me what they seem to mean is that it exceeds what they thought was possible to happen for something. In my time as Tony’s mom I’ve encountered many views on what individuals thought was possible. SSC Mr. G who thought he needed a facility instead of therapy and asked his hab therapist at the time while I was helping Tony wipe in the bathroom if he was actually really making the progress she said on his reports. She talked to me about it later because she was upset he actually thought she’d lie on those…this was a therapist who was not recruited by me, was assigned to work the case. To an OT who thought all of Tony’s problems would be fixed if I just did *something* with him, because she didn’t really believe I was actually doing any of the things people asked me to do with him because surely if I was he wouldn’t be struggling so much. Felt it was necessary to have a conversation with the administrator at that clinic when I pulled him because of that particular conversation she had with me. To an SSC supervisor who assured me when my son was 3 that two years of hab therapy was going to change his life and dramatically improve his outcomes. I’m some people’s saint and some people’s “to blame.” Truth is, all I have done is chosen to be open to the possibilities, paid attention to the details of what Tony does (because they tell me a great deal about what he understands and it is so much more than most people are willing to believe in my opinion), learn therapy techniques as needed, come up with plans, strategies, listen to the strategies of others, and try, try it all. I saw us being where we are now a couple of years ago, but we got dealt the pandemic and POTS set back cards. What is happening now is what has always been happening. Tony and I are both doing the very best we can. We shall see what we shall see. For me, the only kudos I want is my kiddo being able to participate to the maximum degree possible in the community.

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     • What a great win! I see all that as miraculous, although the folks you butted heads with might scoff and call it luck. I think you’re doing great on all fronts–obviously the elbow grease, but also the spirit of being solution-oriented, not just in consideration of new practicalities, but also the openness to the idea that positivity has more than an indirect effect on unfolding events. If I were in your situation, I would only be considering physical practicalities, and probably be much less open to you to the importance and potential of positivity. Not that one of us is better or worse, but we’ve definitely got different inclinations and gifts, and I’m happy to see you leveraging yours and getting some wins!

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     • I appreciate your kind words 💜 I have applied every skill and gift I personally have to this situation and I will continue to do so because the outcome matters to me. If there was something I feel or felt like there is something I needed to know to improve what I was doing, I looked to the experts. If the experts weren’t addressing my son’s needs, I did my best to intuitively come up with solutions that could help. His current BCBA was in the other day and noted how quickly he stood up when I told him to stand up right now in Spanish. Of course he did, he understands a lot in both English and Spanish. Sometimes people don’t believe it (not saying that was the case with her because I have not ever given her any reason to doubt my word but she did remark upon it with a sense of almost awe) And people just need to see it for themselves before they do most of the time because of the number of diagnoses he has. Of course he has some significant challenges and deficits still, and even as positive as I am, I know that there are some things there is only so much I can do. At the age of two my son had pretty much zero imitation. 0. He can now imitate some things, But it’s taking a lot of work to get there and he’s never going to synthesize imitation to the same degree another person will. What I choose to do personally for me when I am looking at areas I want to address, I look at what is he willing to work on, how big are his deficits in a certain area, and I look at what are his strengths, and I look at what has the most bang for the buck in terms of getting him access to the community and helping him access his needs and feel calm and like he can be heard and supported in his needs. Sure, some of the people I butted heads with probably felt like the results I achieved for the outcomes that can solely be attributed to me were luck. That OT I mentioned? Wouldn’t let him in the ball pit after he was out of diapers unless I put a diaper on him (which I refused to do and then she remarked it how much worse his behavior was after that exchange and I told her of course, because you basically just said you didn’t believe in him right in front of him and then denied him access to one of the only thing he truly loves about this clinic) because she refused to believe he was actually potty trained despite the fact that he never had an accident in their clinic before I pulled him after he stopped wearing diapers, nor has he had a potty accident at any clinic or public space he’s been at since then. But what I noticed with some of those individuals is that in my opinion they weren’t listening to my feedback And they weren’t listening to feedback of other therapists involved with his care. Perhaps they look at my lack of degree credential as regards to the therapy field and that makes what I say and what I do easy to discount. But I have been helping every therapist who has worked with him for a decade now (which is like going to more than a decade worth of clinicals given his 40 to 60 hour week therapy schedule), and I have been doing 10 to 30 hours a week on my own for that same amount of time and I have done all of the reading that would be required of a degree because I was in the trenches trying to solve problems that people around me didn’t think could be solved in the early days because my sense from what I was seeing was that some of them could be solved. So for those people my personal opinion is they don’t recognize the amount of understanding I actually have for therapeutic technique at this point because in their mind degree credential equals understanding and I am just a mom maybe? Even if somebody is only the parent, I feel like their feedback and observations should always be taken seriously. But I can’t say that this the case for every situation or person, because there is also a situation that I can recall where therapists involved that I butted heads with did not listen to the feedback of other heavily credentialed professionals on his therapy team. I have my own opinions about that situation but I don’t feel the need to go into them here. Again, thank you for the kind words. I think a willingness to try gives you more of a shot at getting an outcome you want then just looking at the odds and saying “I’m screwed and it’s never going to happen”…

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     • Yes, I believe that works both psychologically and mystically. It’s priming the subconscious into looking for capabilities, and in the mystical sense, it’s aligning the soul with possibilities and capability. I think a lot of folks like to say something isn’t possible and refuse others because it gives them a sense of power and control, when in actuality it cuts them off from potential and new growth (which ironically, in my opinion, is where true power and control comes from). I understand if things are imminent then you have to rely on rigor and data, but when taking advantage of non-imminent situations means leveraging that leeway and allowing for mistakes and learning.

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     • Those are fair points. As much as I can choose the most positive interpretation possible for something such as Tony’s ability to develop certain skills, I have noticed of late that there are certainly some blind spots within myself where I tend to feel very closed off to something in the future for myself based on past experiences. I don’t know that I would say when I do it that it’s about power and control, more about protecting my emotions, which often run quite deep…

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     • I think the semantics of power and control and protecting emotions could generate some overlap, but it’s probably safe to say that you’re not interested in domination, which I would argue is a popular interpretation of the phrase power and control. From what you’ve said, it seems you are receptive to synchronicity and intuition, so I am confident that whatever blind spots you have will naturally clear up as time goes on.

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     • Correct, I am not interested in domination. But as always that comes with a caveat that I am very survival oriented and will do whatever I think it is necessary to do to achieve that end as long as I have individuals who depend on me. I do think an awareness and openness are better to embrace whenever it is practical or possible to do so.

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     • I think I heard it argued a while ago that it actually increases survivability. It’s a way to leverage creativity and explore risk-taking without reverting to fight-or-flight information overload. It’s received growing support in the martial arts world, where unless there is something very specific like a competition, it’s better to spar at 60% most of the time, in order to avoid fear-response learning which is much more rigid and typically does not develop into the most efficient response, physical trauma, and allow for a true exploration and evolution of personal capabilities.

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     • I would argue that being open to the use of any necessary mental approach increases survivability. Different circumstances require different strategies. Sometimes it is to be open to the possibilities, sometimes it is to be guarded, sometimes it is many different other things…in my opinion. I have heard similar things about exertional effort, and I have even heard that in an actual survival situation, it’s better not to be too lean. I think the important thing is to know or figure out as quickly as possible what is needed to survive whatever it is that one desires to survive and then do the best that can be done to follow through.

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     • I think I’d tend to just be reductive and end up taking things a bite at a time, and being open to my intuition. If I end up croaking due to an insufficient approach, I’m all right with it. It’s kind of parallel to my inclination that this life isn’t meant for me to live in a constant state of edgy paranoia and obsessive analyzation. I’m getting much more hippie as I grow older 😅

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     • Well, That is an area where we do have slightly different perspectives. I am not so comfortable with croaking due to an insufficient approach just because I have loved ones who depend on me, and they are not at a place where I would feel comfortable saying “peace out, I’m done here.” But that is just an area that is influenced by what I perceive is one of my primary missions currently. We are just on different journeys I think, And that’s okay, though that may necessitate a different focus and approach at times…

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     • I think my mom is fairly similar. At some point in my thirties, I went from being her kid to more of a friend, and now that she’s recently retired, she’s consciously making her peace with the future, as well as past grudges. A recent health scare where my brother and I stepped in made her realize that something good had indeed come from my dad, and that allowed her to release the last dregs of her resentment toward him. She’s making her peace with life, if that makes sense.

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     • Yes, in a way it does. I’m not quite as far on the journey of life as your mom is in terms of years lived. There are things I have peace with from my past (many things), and some things are a work in process. But more specifically I refer to the sense of where things are at in terms of their ability to move forward without me. Right now, my presence is critical to certain outcomes for my kiddos. As long as that remains the case, I would be wanting to fight for every moment of life I could to get everyone farther along whatever path they need to be on to have the best possible outcomes without me.

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     • I’ve kind of accepted that I’m in a similar situation, albeit with writing. Although I’m not a bestselling author, I know I’m talented and entertaining, and every time I’ve tried to focus serious time and/or attention onto other things, something weird has intervened and made it clear that I need to get back to writing. At this point, I’ve been learning to accept it more and more, and stop trying to force it one way or the other, where I’m either scheming to somehow find “the move” that will garner more reviews or sales, or where I’m taking a complete break from it (which I’ve tried, but with a lot of frustration and no success in that it didn’t feel relaxing). It’s almost always enjoyable, fulfilling, and is engaging no matter what, so as long as that’s the case, I’ll keep on with it!

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     • Ok, let’s see if I can manage to *not* have a ton of typos in this response, I feel like my first two may have been enough to motivate Grammar Nazi Prime to leave his Karen saturated tryst, lol. Or not so lol, depending on your perspective. Sigh.

       So, you are talented and entertaining! I think you are very creative. What will be will be whatever it is. I think sometimes I struggle with my primary passions versus my desire to have at least Colourpop and not starve. On the surface it is easy to look at what I do and say my passions are being fulfilled. To a certain extent. But, until I can pay their way entirely on my own in case that is what life asks of me, I would always feel that drive to be looking for how I can tweak things and what I can do. We’ve already discussed that I actually feel super happy doing special ed one-to-one. Pays like poop, wouldn’t pay for rent, food, or Colourpop if that was all I had to count on, so that is a work in process, but I was also referring to my internal states in general over multiple areas. Right now though my primary focus is still the school transition. His teacher told me yesterday he was doing great, and he really is, hooray! But much still needs to be done, and it will be done, but it will take time and focus, and then we shall see what we shall see even for me.

       I wish you all the success and happiness you are looking for! 😀 Ari

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     • Those intermediate victories are awesome! I’m glad that things are moving in a positive direction and that life is opening up for you. Soon you’ll be grumbling about too many naps and not enough to do! 😁

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     • I am glad too for every success we have but there is more to be done. Much more. But what is doable will be done, and a great many things are certainly doable from my perspective as regards to all of this. And many things that still have to fall into place before I will have a clear vision of naps on the horizon.

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     • It seems you are on top of it! I have faith that you will give it your best, and that things will work out eventually, if not immediately.

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     • That I will, that it shall. Thank you for believing in that also 💜

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     • I believe there’s a bit of a dance between conscious thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. Sometimes if I don’t believe in something, I can still resonate with it by loving the idea of it, which negates the dissonance of disbelief, and that to me is a way to get around trying forced positivity with disbelief actively gumming up my focus. Working on changing beliefs typically seems to come with tons of evidence over time or personal pain, but I believe it can be done in a gentler fashion when the conscious mind is in a state of peace and the resonance is positive or maybe even neutral.

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     • I think those are valid points. Sometimes I am in a place where I can sit and have a neutral focus where I am able to challenge within myself (or listen to the challenge someone else has given me) something I am internally feeling negative about, but at the same time I have to give myself grace and some emotional empathy because I also must acknowledge that if I’m feeling negative about something it is based on a certain level of prior experience, which in some moments I am more receptive to the idea that the past doesn’t dictate the future than others. I am in many ways still a work in progress. I acknowledge being open is a benefit in challenging and changing beliefs.

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     • The past definitely appears to dictate the future, and once upon a time I believed that that was the ironclad case. Even when I was younger, before I really chewed on the ideas that consciousness could create reality and human perception was far more illusory than typically agreed upon, I couldn’t shake the idea that existence might have been created a mere second ago, with all evidence of a past intact. In recent years I’ve been thinking a bit about retrocausality, where something in the future changes the past, because linear time is not necessarily how existence works, and people are still trying to figure out why we experience it in a one-way perception. In certain mystical traditions, it’s been theorized you can change the past with your present perception, which has been sometimes speculated as the source of the mandela effect. Regardless of the objective reality behind that speculation, I think it holds psychological validity. In other words, if you can frame the present in a positive light, look back on past events in a positive light, then you’ll be able to pull lessons, good outcomes, and constructive connections and opportunities from their occurrence. The past can also be used as evidence that existence does not care for you, that it’s at worst consciously malicious and at best random. Also, our memories are incredibly malleable, to the point where courtroom testimony can be compromised by them or our focus can prevent us from seeing something directly in front of us (invisible ape experiment). In my view, I like these avenues of thought because they imply that what I think of as the past needn’t be a tyrant.

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     • Well, perhaps my perspective is self-limiting here, but I don’t think the future can necessarily change the past. For example, yesterday, I got an e-mail from The Fabulous Miss Whitney’s aunt that she had passed away last week. Whitney and I were still in contact, but it’s also true I wasn’t doing as solid a job of reaching out the last several months as I was at some points because I was so wrapped up in my own life and happenings, and literally that can’t be changed no matter how much I wish it could be. I might know she understands, I might know how much she loves our family and how much we love her (literally, nothing can pay the debt of the gift she gave her family in the time she was working with us and she has the most loving nature with individuals that society in general struggles to even tolerate much less love), and our spirits may still be able to say these truths to one another. But they cannot send texts, e-mails, or phone calls retroactively at a higher frequency than they actually occurred at in the physical world. But in general I agree, the past doesn’t need to be a tyrant. But sometimes it can still try to be in my experience…

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     • I’d feel confident in the assumption that by and large, we aren’t meant to change the past, even if it’s possible. But the closer that assumption moves to an absolute, the less confident I become, to the point where if we are making that statement at the 100% mark, I think I would change positions and say there are some instances where as unintuitive as it seems, there are cases where the future changes the past. From a purely technical perspective, there’s a physics-as-we-know-it allowable theory where the big bang created two different universes that traveled away from each other on the arrow of time, so the mirror universe would be going backwards while we’re going forwards, and everything in their future would look like our past. For purposes of human perception, that wouldn’t make a difference, I think, but retrocausality is apparently a subject of debate in quantum physics. And quantum physics, as much as people like to act as if it’s an entirely separate realm from our everyday reality, does iterate into our tech and seep into our routines. Personally, I leave the possibility up in the air, but if I were to wager on it at the 100% certainty mark, where the statement is framed so that the future can absolutely not change the past, I would wager against that, especially since the solid linear flow of time appears to be a construct springing from human perception, and must be thought of differently as existence is explored on multiple levels.

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     • Well, The most honest answer I can give on this would be That while my brain is capable of going sciency, It doesn’t enjoy it. At all. As a means to an end I can study something in the sciences and even do well enough to get stellar grades if my own personal history is to be used as an example. As an interest, it’s kind of along the line of coding and there is a complete lack of passion. And my brain would just rather think about makeup or anything art related or helping other people related. Those are what my actual passions are. I would say in this area there is an overlap in the realms of spirituality and mysticism to a certain extent… And I personally wouldn’t lay any of my money down on an answer on the subject, even though I do feel confident that the past as I remember it can only be changed if I alter the memories (or my interpretation of them) in my head, or if I were to access the memories of the same event in another person’s head because they may have remembered it, interpreted it, and encoded it entirely different. But again, I recognize I don’t spend enough time thinking about this to even begin to present my thoughts as an official position or to be in the process of evidence hunting where I could present them as a finding.

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     • I’m in a similar boat as you, in that I don’t have much more than a passing interest in quantum physics. It’s too incomplete and the math is too complex to hold my attention. I just kind of keep a casual eye on it to see where it lines up with my biases.

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     • I think all I was trying to say with that is that I have spent very little time looking at or thinking about anything related to quantum physics. I apologize if it sounded cranky or dismissive, I didn’t mean it to. I honor the right of anybody else to love it and breathe in every word or thought of it they can! I bought something a while back and all I could feel was an internal meh when it came to prioritizing my time about whether or not I actually read it… So it just isn’t one of my personal hobbies, but I am happy to listen to any thoughts anyone has about it, I just don’t have anything particularly educated to say in return.

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     • I didn’t get cranky or dismissive from your tone at all! I don’t have strong leanings about the subject, because from my and others’ personal experience, it seems that regarding time as linear is largely what we’re meant to do while we’re in these bodies. It’s philosophically congruent as well–linear time allows for evolution, change, and unfolding novelty, phenomena that an omnipotent, omnipresent being cannot enjoy in its formal state. That being said, while I don’t actively seek to change the past, from a psychological perspective, I believe there’s a lot of value in acknowledging that reframing it or attaching different values to past experiences can effect positive changes in the present and future (most dramatic examples of this would be traumatized veterans reliving their trauma under MDMA therapy and freeing themselves of present-time negative effects). I also think much like law of attraction, there’s mystical and psychological overlap in the idea that you can change the effects of the past, if not change it altogether. In regards to the most far-out interpretation of changing the past, that would invite metaphysical questions about whether we’re trapped in a one-way, etched-in-stone narrative, or whether we’re in a multiverse of timelines, where we don’t change things necessarily, but jump to alternate realities. I’m open to the possibilities, but unless I feel the pull to really dig into them, I’ll just leave it at receptive agnosticism.

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     • Whew, I am glad that you didn’t get that in all seriousness! It occurred to me after I dictated it in how it could have come across, and that wasn’t my intent so I wanted to clarify. I think for me, the nature of reality remains a problem soooo far above my current pay grade so to speak. I am investing so much emotional and mental energy in my current linear circumstances that I really don’t reflect on it much and I can’t afford to. The school transition needs as much focus as I can give it, it’s kind of the next domino that needs to fall before I could ever get to the point of someday having the free time to consider where I wanted to land on all of that. And in some ways, he’s doing great. But we have a lot of work still to do in this environment, and while I’m confident he’ll be able to do it at this point, I think it would be a bad idea to focus less and rely on that confidence alone.

       I can, of course, speak to the nature of overcoming trauma from my own perspective as regards to the experiences that have traumatized me personally. What I have found is that it’s kind of a splintered and fractured kind of process…some experiences can be processed or reframed or let go of easier than others and I see less of an impact to how I do things currently from them. Some things I went through I will still struggle to get the words out to describe it even to someone I trust, and maybe my present moment impacts from that took longer to start to minimize. And what I realize in those moments is that I don’t need to articulate those things if I don’t want to, because it isn’t really necessary for me to heal, and it’s more productive for me to find ways to seek the happiness I can in my present moments. I think the past of course can in some ways provide a person limits for what they are willing to see themselves as capable of doing, and to the degree I recognize myself doing that, I can be open to examining whether or not there truly is a just cause to accept that as a limitation. But sometimes it is still a process kind of like the one you described previously, where you have to start out with what you can believe in. Sometimes it is baby steps of belief that start the journey before someone can leap and bound into the future without reliving the past in a Pavlovian kind of manner.

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     • Sounds pretty valid. I have this suspicion that at a certain age (probably different for everyone, but also probably sometime in the twenties/thirties for many) that existence deems the individual must shift from being majority reactive to proactive, and to either pursue fulfillment or at least actively clarify where it lies. Obviously it can’t always immediately happen in the physical sense, but I believe if there’s such a thing as a generalized calling, everyone has to at least accept this calling in the mental sense. It doesn’t always happen–I have friends that just continue to react with predictable negativity and aversion, primarily controlled by what they want to avoid instead of moving in a positive desired direction, but that’s just my suspicion.

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     • Yeah, I kind of think a lot of different people are in a lot of different places. Some people are so focused on the nitty-gritty of survival that fulfillment and proactivity aren’t the mental spaces they are dwelling in. I feel like it is very complicated. I’m going to ask a question just for the sake of curiosity and discussion, not contention and debate. Do you feel like it is an actual physical possibility for each person on this planet to have an equally high standard of living? If so why, and if not why?

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     • Definitely possible, but like everything in my worldview, it is based on consciousness, how the outer is a mirror of the inner. Mystically speaking, it would have to involve a critical number of folks who are focused on the availability and abundance of the idea, not the need or lack of it. Ironically, from a mystical perspective, those folks wouldn’t actually need it to happen, because due to their focus on abundance and availability they will encounter sufficient resources and synchronicity wherever they happen to be. Due to their resonance, it would be kind of an afterthought because they’re focused on the equally high standard of power and opportunity (synchronistic availability and abundance) that is available through focus and perspective. Practically speaking, I believe my assertion is sound from a psychological perspective–you need a critical mass of folks who agree to such an arrangement, and a below-critical mass of folks who don’t actively try to abuse it. If that wasn’t the case, you would need to implement increasingly tyrannical measures to constantly ensure this equality was protected from disagreeable saboteurs. Ultimately, I don’t think that’s sustainable–the only way it’s sustainable is if people truly internally decide they are for such a thing, kind of like how people agree that a scrap of paper with a specific design is, in fact, worth $100. That to me is the core dynamic of the issue, but even before that, you would run into issues defining what an equally high standard of living looked like. I think no one (or very few) would agree on continually enforcing the standard of making sure that no one has one penny less or one penny more than another. That probably relaxes as you increase the scale (no one has $1000 more or less, no one has $10,000 more or less), but I believe the crux of the question is not insecurity or anxiety derived from relative lack of wealth, but the ability to live in a manner that is intuitively deemed humane by the masses, and that provides enough social mobility to translate into day to day life, without the prospect of being severely punished for taking a risk (i.e. student debt hounding someone for decades). To sum up, my opinion is that the deciding factor lies in perspective (like always), and that a more preferable question to me is how can we make sure that everyone can live in a manner that most of us deem humane?

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     • I think that truly is a critical question. How do we ensure that everyone can live in a manner most of us deem to be humane? This is an area where perspective and belief play kingmaker, and to a certain extent our own internal drives for certain things. Not everyone has the same vision of what constitutes humane, and clearly some people have very strong opinions about who should be considered worthy of humane treatment based on their own personal beliefs, racism, bias, etc. There is a visual in my mind, and I won’t be giving any sort of identifying information. But I did a round of clinicals at the VA down here decades ago. There is a strong visual that stays in my mind of a man in a bed with feces in it trying to lift himself up out of them. I will give no other descriptors of his circumstances to make sure there is no identifying information. We already as humans struggle to deliver the humane when we should. I thank you for sharing your thoughts. I promised no debate, and I mean to deliver. For me, I would love to see humanity do a better job on delivering the humane part in a wider variety of circumstances.

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     • I do as well! I think if we don’t blow ourselves up, we’ll eventually turn into a Star Trek-like society. I’m good with it, though–I feel like I’m satisfied with my earthly experiences, in that I’ve had enough pleasure and pain to kind of get a feel for what I’ll be thinking if things go incredibly right or incredibly wrong, which is why I’m fine if the aliens abduct me, and also why I’m fine not reincarnating and relaxing on an immaterial plane.

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     • I would kinda have to accept it if things went incredibly wrong, but it’s not my preferred outcome. Still gluttonously wanting to find all the happy moments can for me and my loved ones…

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     • I have no doubt you’ll get em! And then after everyone transitions, I’m pretty sure you’ll have some good times hanging out as spirits 😊

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     • I am going to give you an honest answer on this one. I don’t spend an extensive amount of time communing with the other side, and certainly I don’t ask questions I’m not ready to handle (or act) on the answer received because it’s part of how I manage my own mental health and my ability to survive and focus on what I need to be doing in the here and now while respecting the way my neurology was kind of formed to work. If I need to know something specific, or I have a very specific message I want to reach out with, sure. Otherwise? I have no idea what happens when we transition on and that’s not something I am focused on getting answers for because I feel like I have been working at near max or full max capacity for a while now on some here and now related matters. So, I prioritize my stronger gifts and strengths that benefit me more in that now, because that now has been a flaming hot mess of one fire after another to put out for years now. Years. Just saying. Definitely ready for some sort of universal rain storm that puts out a few more fires and doesn’t result any the death of any more loved ones right now…but as always, we shall see what we shall see.

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     • I’m pretty sure that’s more or less the right attitude to have (focus on what needs to be done in this life primarily) although I do think our society seems to look at death in a more grim and depressing light than I believe it warrants. That’s why I like Tyler Henry, because he’s mostly communicating a message of expanded perspective and catharsis rather than you have to do this or watch out for that or avenge me. Recently, I told my family that if they pass before me, they’re free to visit, and since my brother apparently had an experience a while ago where his clothes in the closet moved without cause, that’s what we agreed on as a signal. No breaking, hiding, or shoving stuff off its perch, lol! They also agreed that if I passed before them, I would be allowed to visit. I brought it up because I read Tyler’s books a while back, and I believe I remember him saying that sometimes loved ones just stay away because they don’t want to scare their living relatives.

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     • Well, I haven’t read Tyler’s books, And at this point I am only willing to speak to what I feel things are based on my own experiences and my own personal level of confidence in the interpretation I had of the experience with the caveat of I suppose I could always be wrong about my interpretation of somethings somewhere along the line. I think the expanded perspective/sense of understanding is intense and can come across as very overwhelming for someone on this side of things. But some of the ways loved ones can announce their presence is less intense but I think a person has to be open to having that experience. I think I would still want to be on this end of things as long as possible because of those who depend on me. Many other things I still do not have an answer to, And I don’t know that I will be trying to find one anytime soon because again my here and now is very intensive in terms of time consumption and focus required.

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     • It’s weird how intensive my life used to be, even when it stopped being outwardly intensive, lol! I was being a very demanding boss to myself even though there was absolutely no need for it. I remember distinctly when it changed was last November. Tyler’s show had been out for eight months, but it started popping up nonstop at the very top of my netflix feed. (because it was recently Halloween, maybe? I don’t know) I remember thinking what the hell is this bullshit, I’m not in the mood for some feel-good supernatural crap, but that couldn’t have been farther from the truth! I was actually in the exact right state to watch the show and ponder it. Definitely a synchronicity in my opinion.

       Anyways, all that is to say that if things are meant to happen, they’ll come around at the right time and place. If that stuff isn’t poking into your world, I don’t think it’s an issue!

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     • I would agree that if things are meant to happen, they are meant to happen and will find a way to do so one way or another. To a certain extent. A person can completely torpedo the positive things that could have come into their lives as alternative fates with their own choices. That being said, there is also a time and a place for everything. I am not concerned by the experiences I have had. If anything, they have mostly brought me comfort. But again, I am more concerned with the things I need to know and the things I need to do for the here and now. Do you have a personal experience of that nature you feel comfortable sharing?

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     • I’ve only seen one ghost, which I would have dismissed as a sleep paralysis hallucination if my ex wasn’t beside me yelling at it and talked to me afterwards about it. But the most recent series of events that made me believe in intangible forces I think I’ve related already: it was my negative, politics-obsessed buddy who I had a falling out with, asking to stay at my place so he could deal with a staph infection that produced abscesses all over his body. I decided to agree with the stipulation that if it required follow-on surgery for non-emergency purposes, I wasn’t willing to keep him on (in large part because the night I agreed, my brain and gut wouldn’t stop nagging me about it–they kept saying he wasn’t meant to be here, but I wasn’t willing to deny him my place if it was a life-threatening issue). So I decided Emergency stuff and that’s it. But when he tried to get a flight out of turkey his card got declined. Then he tried my card, which got declined. He tried over and over, and eventually the charges went through on my card…but the tickets didn’t show up in the airline’s system. Eventually, he ended up going to his parents’ place, which he had been trying to avoid because he doesn’t like his family (predictably, he got into it with them over politics). Also, as the months passed, sure enough, the abscesses stopped growing but they wouldn’t completely heal, so it wasn’t just an emergency one-and-done situation, it became the ongoing thing I originally thought it might turn into. Recently, he needed documents which he’d stored at my place and asked if he could stay a day or two to grab some stuff and drive back. I agreed, without feeling too strongly about it–I knew that if he stayed for awhile, we’d be butting heads, but a day or two is fine. A couple days later, he tells me he can’t do it because the doc said he’s going to need a more aggressive surgery where he’ll need recovery time, and that he shouldn’t be driving or flying cross-country.

       To me, the most striking thing was the part where he repeatedly tried my card, it eventually showed charges on the bank site, but STILL refused to process the tickets. It really firmed up my belief that resonance and perspective is going to determine coincidence, interaction, and outcome. Tangentially and possibly in a related vein, something that sticks in my brain is the apparent repeated assertion by grays in multiple contacts that we are way more powerful than we know.

       Also, they just had a UFO congressional hearing in Mexico yesterday, and they displayed photos of gray bodies form 1500 years ago, known as the Nazca mummies, previously a matter of casual curiosity. The strongest part of that endorsement was a medical specialist that testified very in-depth about the anatomy (the coolest part seemed to be that they had retractable necks) as well as the gene sequencing (the most striking part seemed to be that the majority of the genome makes it clear it is not from anything on Earth, and that it has a 30% differential from human genes. To put things in context, other primates have 5% differential, and an amoeba has 15% differential, so according to the differential of the bodies, one would assume it wouldn’t look humanoid at the very least).

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     • Thank you for sharing 😀 So, for the ghost, was it a family member who had passed or someone else?

       I think intangible forces are definitely a thing. Definitely. And I think it can be hard sometimes for a person to know what kind of power they have, so many of us are raised like little baby circus elephants (borrowing here a comparison used by others) to believe the chain that holds us is stronger than it really is. To know what one can do, to grow into it, that is a genuine gift in and of itself. The power of belief can be limitless (though it may not help avert every problem in life), but the key there is to actually have genuine belief. Having that belief, solidly, confidently. That’s my take anyways, for what it’s worth.

       So how credible do you feel Maussan is as a witness? I have read that some of his claims have been debunked. Of course that doesn’t mean he’s wrong about his most recent. I am sure someone could point to things I did in the past and think to themselves that’s who I am now and that’s all I bring to the table. And they would be wrong. I don’t know much about him other than the two news articles I skimmed/read after reading your comment. I know this is an area of great interest to you and I am assuming therefore that you are much better informed on who he is, etc. than I am.

       Thanks for chatting with me, take good care of yourself 😀 Ari

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     • I’m not sure about the ghost–it was just this short, glowing blue outline that could have been some other form of extradimensional entity. I just didn’t like being paralyzed, so I reacted out of fear. I’d like to think I would be more open to the experience nowadays though.

       Maussan seems deceptive at worst, sloppy at best. If it was just his testimony without heavy corroboration, I wouldn’t be interested. In terms of credibility, there seems to be a couple pros, which are the medical expert seems to have legitimate training and experience, and the Mexican Congress was willing to stake some of its reputation on platforming Maussan. To me, however, that’s all tangential. What I find truly interesting is that the medical expert seems to have made in-depth claims, released data, provided source material, and opened it up to skeptics and peer review. Hopefully, there will be a thorough back-and-forth where disingenuous skepticism is eliminated, and the medical expert’s specific claims can be validated, debunked, or ruled inconclusive. I’m looking forward to as much scientific rigor as possible.

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     • I can understand reacting out of fear to something like that when you aren’t expecting it or if you were experiencing a reduction in your normal ability to react or interact or you aren’t even sure what something is or what it’s capabilities are. I get that. I think for me, somewhere in the overtyped flood plains for my comments and posts the idea that I have been bit overwhelmed at times by my circumstances may have come across. Just maybe, lol. Things are definitely moving in the right direction at present, but it’s been way too many moments where I was hanging on the precipice of barely holding myself together internally with everything that was coming at me. I’m a strong person so I’ve always managed to be Ok. Even kept those moments of internal fighting the urge to emotionally collapse chaos from making it onto the outside, mostly, but you know it’s been a lot going on in my life the last several years now. I think how open I am to that type of experience depends on where I’m at in terms of how close my internal regulation meter is to overwhelmed versus calm and collected. For me, some of my experiences of that nature are really treasured experiences, others are in the “I could do without that for the most part” category. But I also acknowledge that I am only open to so much sometimes. I am as always, a work in progress. It is a gift to experience some things, but it always comes with the usual dose of skeptics and other things so for me personally, I just honor people’s rights to process these moments and experiences in their own way.

       Yeah, I think you are right, scientific rigor would be a good thing to see for those claims regarding the mummified/fossilized corpses, I loved your answer as regards to that!

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     • I was listening to this guy named Jim Semivan, who’s a unique combination of an experiencer and a career CIA operations officer (actual spy stuff, which can be dangerous, but is centered around making foreigners into informants, not breaking through laser-web security systems) who made it to the intelligence equivalent of a two-star general in the senior intelligence service. He had an interesting take on it, in that he was kind of perplexed and frustrated with the phenomenon as a whole. Apparently, he’s studied a wide range of it, (intriguingly, he mentions there is Skinwalker Ranch classified and unclassified) and he says the outcomes are incredibly varied. Obviously, there’s folks who come away with a positive experience, but on the other end, there’s people who are apparently shattered by it, and then there’s folks who it doesn’t affect at all. Notably, he’s into Alan Watts, who lays much of the philosophical foundation of perspective dictating reality, and he consistently kicks around the speculation that the phenomenon might be “self-reflective.” A lot of times it’s nonsensical and often deceptive. Much of his frustration seems to come from the idea that in many cases, it just dictates the circumstances without any interaction, which he often equates to a human rights violation, where everything happens to you and you have no say in it. he mentions even in religion, you’re involved in a give-and-take with the divine, bartering for a desired afterlife circumstance, whereas with UFOs/paranormal (the “phenomenon”) it’s just an indecipherable imposition. I think that’s part of the reason why I have to accept the premise that we’re way more than our physical bodies–not just because it supports my bias of a benevolent existence, but also to lay the grounds that at some level that is not perceptible to surface consciousness, we are indeed interacting with the phenomenon (past lives, higher self, etc.) and not just being unwillingly imposed upon.

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     • Well, I am not familiar with that individual’s writings (Semivan), and I can only speak with a higher degree of confidence to something that has resonated with me or falls under the realm of my own personal interpretation of an experience I had (to the extent that I am confident in the experience). I also give the caveat that you know, other people are going to think differently, either that something was imagined, etc. I have to respect all of that. I understand what it is like to both question another person’s accountings and to question myself and ask the harder questions about how confident I am in what I thought I perceived. When my confidence is high enough, I may acknowledge it as something that I think is going on. The experiences I have been comforted by were in the nature of what I personally perceived and experienced to be as contacts from a loved one who had passed on. This is one of the reasons I can say I don’t have any concern about agreeing that there is more to life than the physical and the constraints that can be imposed by that. But again, I accept that this is something others have every right to feel skeptical about because it is something that cannot demonstrated to another, it is strictly based on my accounting of my perception of my senses and my interpretation of them. I will not ask another person to rely on that. But it feels real enough to me, so it is my reality and my perception of things. Perspectives and experiences will vary.

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     • That’s so cool! I love these reminders that we can take some comfort in stuff beyond the physical. That’s probably why I like Tyler Henry so much–the dead seem to comfort the living, not the other way around. Jim Semivan says that the vast majority of encounters with the phenomenon are net positive, even though it may be scary at the time. He does say there have been a very small number of what is apparently referred to as “full possession” cases that seemed legitimate. As far as the malevolent stuff, I subscribe to the idea that there’s no true lasting evil, it’s just a result of being disconnected for too long, which is why I like the frequency or soundwave model. There’s not really a negative value there, it’s just a contrast between low energy that’s close to flatline and high energy, or rapid vibration. Of course all that’s speculative within a speculative subject. I also heard an experiencer float the theory that in a mystical existence, we would be thought forms of the divine, and in being mirrors of its creative nature, we can create as well, which allows us the opportunity to create thought-forms of our own, which could be lower frequency if we decided, and allowed into our experience if we chose (which corresponds with the folklorish idea that you have to invite malevolent spirits in for them to gain power). I suspect the core of that premise–that creation is consciousness that creates thought-forms made by thought-forms made by thought-forms etc. is true, and is how consciousness fractalizes itself into individual perspectives.

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     • Well, maybe some day I will read some of what both the individuals you have mentioned have to say for myself. For now, my schedule just isn’t really having it, lol. I’m not even getting through personal fun reading right now. Today the most fun I had was the community safety walk with Tony and putting on my makeup. Super glittery, super dramatic, super feeling the heading into Halloween season kinda vibes. Well, and I’m about to leave to go visit a dear friend. Since Whitney passed, I have been trying to do better about making sure I in this life text and reach out to everyone whose love and life have touched mine, and that takes time. So my position is mostly still the same, in that I am focused on the now. But, I can say that I think also some encounters a living person may have with a deceased person may be more about the fact that the deceased person couldn’t let go of their pain, and that’s their why. And I would say in many ways it’s a sacred experience, as much as I can say that without being beholden to any particular religion, which I am not. The Unitarian position remains my favorite that is for sure. But, these things are my interpretations of my experiences, and as you mentioned, this seems to be a more subjective area because we do sometimes experience and process reality differently. I think some people and some spirits can have malevolent intent, but I don’t know if that is a permanent characteristic so to speak, and I think you bring up a very valid point about consent to giving power for a malevolent spirit being necessary for them to gain it if that is a thing. And I definitely need to get going, I have a few texts to ready while I get Tony ready to head out on our visit. Take good care of yourself, I really wish you everything fabulous in your day. 😀 Ari

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     • No reading required, he’s guested on some podcasts and doesn’t plan to write books (not trying to pressure you into listening, just wanted to clarify).

       I probably won’t ever get into makeup, but I very much appreciate the good-mood vibe! Halloween was never really my thing, but I enjoy seeing folks get excited over it. I’ve always been more of a Christmas decorations person. Ironically, I don’t like giving or receiving presents (my family agreed to not do that a while ago), but when I lived in downtown San Francisco, I loved walking through the city and seeing all the festive lights and decorations. Also, Home Alone used to be one of my favorite movies! I just found out a few months ago that the show he’s watching where the mobster guns someone down and says “Keep the change, ya filthy animal,” was filmed just for Home Alone, it wasn’t taken from another movie. Blew my mind! 😂

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     • I very much appreciate the no pressure on the listening, not exactly nailing that one on the schedule either right now 😳 about the best I’m accomplishing with that right now is trying to focus on listening and being fully present with my friends when they are sitting in front of me. I’m not even getting telenovela time in the last couple weeks… You know, perhaps I am just making an assumption, but I wouldn’t have pictured you as a person who would be all that into makeup anyways. And that’s okay! When it comes to me and makeup, it’s kind of like the Type O Negative song and “everyday is Halloween.” Lol. Because the makeup isn’t just about the makeup, it’s kind of like art and self-care therapy. Unless I need to look professional. And then I go with whatever That is for the environment I’m going into. But, I do sometimes like to theme my makeup with the holidays but I don’t often have time to go all out. For me, I enjoy the Christmas decorations as well and Christmas celebrations and traditions are the ones I tend to enjoy the most also. I think I am similar to you in that I really don’t like receiving gifts, I would much rather not actually. But I recognize that when someone is trying to give me one they are trying to honor me in their own way. I will give gifts if I know it is important to the other person or it is the culturally and socially accepted thing to do for the circumstances, and then I will try to find out what it is they want the most that is within my ability to afford. I think for me it is just I like to make people happy. My sister and I were talking last weekend about how there used to be this Christmas tree festival that they had at the art museum when we were teenagers that was really fabulous to go to. We were talking about how we need to see if there’s something comparable now because we both found that to be a happy memory, visiting that. So, What is your favorite holiday tradition?

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     • It’s not really a tradition and not something I actively seek out, but the thing that comes to mind is the inadvertent drive on Christmas night when everything’s closed and everyone’s inside, when all the buildings are lit up and it’s super quiet. I feel like the world is taking a break and focusing on a bit of peace and enjoyment. I’ve been alone during a fair amount of Christmas’s and it’s always made me happy driving around in the quiet and enjoying some seven-eleven spicy dogs with nacho cheese and onions. I also remember visiting home during a holiday season and getting to walk through Meadowlark Botanical Garden’s Winter Walk of Lights, where they go all out decorating the garden with lights and create giant glowing fruits, animals, flowers, and other stuff with lights as well as traditional holiday stuff. I’ve always liked Christmas lights, but that was like a roided out version of it, lol!

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     • I am glad you are finding the quiet moments you enjoy in life. Sometimes I need quiet, and sometimes the reverse. I know that sometimes I have been in situations where I didn’t realize exactly how much I was overcommunicating based on what the needs of that individual person were, and I didn’t really have a background that gave me an understanding of how to deal with those moments so I had to either seek the answers for fixing my communication oops based on what I observed or muddle through it and figure something out. The holy grail of awesomeness is someone who tells me “this is what I need here.” If someone needs quiet time away from me, I always want to know it clearly and honor it. It’s kind of like I enjoy going out to see the Nutcracker. My husband doesn’t enjoy going to those kinds of performances, so I can take care of my needs and his by finding someone else to do that with and problem solved, lol. I enjoy Christmas lights too though, and larger displays can be pretty awesome. I have loved holiday light displays ever since I was a little girl, especially in snow because the soft reflections from those little shards of collected ice is something magical.

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     • They stumbled onto something magic with the dance of the sugar plum fairy–I always get subversive vibes from it 😂 I’ve never been a fan of live performances, but maybe that’s because my school periodically took us to plays when I was a kid, and I mostly didn’t like anything related to school. The references to Hamilton in Curb Your Enthusiasm made me slightly curious.

       The holiday lights is one of the few things I like about the snow! I’ve lived through some Wisconsin winters, and it gets really old really fast, but the lights always perked me up. Also, it’s one of the few occasions I like the suburbs. I’m usually not a fan of cookie cutter neighborhoods but it’s pretty nice driving through them when they’re all lit up.

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     • Hm, well perhaps it is the music that influences your feel of the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy? There is a sense of playfulness and mystery to me in the piece. I have loved going to see plays and dances since I was a little girl, when I was younger it was mostly in school I got to do that. I saw my first ballet in person though when I was 13, I had a friend whose family were significantly better off, her dad being an architect and her grandmother being connected to Taliesin as I recall and she allowed her granddaughter to invite one friend with them and she picked me. We lost touch long ago after I moved away from Bisbee (and she did too I think), but I love the whole experience really of seeing ballets of any type in person. But I also enjoy watching recordings of the Royal Ballet, they are something superb in the world of Ballet and my life is not likely to give me that privilege in person. Hamilton, I saw a recorded production, some of the music really is what makes that performance.

       I can see what you mean about the suburbs, though I live in one, the developer planned this community to have a wider array of housing designs, so it is more charming in appearance than many suburbs out here, which I can appreciate. Mostly, I just like safe and quiet to be honest, and plenty of areas to walk in nature. Because sometimes I need that to feel grounded. So I know you don’t enjoy the cookie cutter, and I remember that you want a home in Hawaii is it? Am I remembering that correctly?

       Well, snow isn’t for everyone. I love it, but maybe that’s because I’ve never had to drive in it, lol. And really, now that Tony is one of my kiddos, his sensory differences are of the type where he doesn’t feel the cold as much. But he’s also determined to not keep coats on, so I don’t think I’ll ever be living anywhere snowy again. But I have the memories of those lights int he snow. Some of the memories I have of the way some families went all out on their displays when I was very young in Prescott, it really did seem magical and it was frequently snowy somewhere in the month of December back then, so many of my memories are of the lights on the snow have that innocent and fresh take that childhood brings and that can be enough to satisfy me I think.

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     • Yeah, I often think of my former pets sneaking around trying to steal human food when I hear Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, lol!

       As far as Hawaii, maybe some day. I’m very aware that the make-or-break is how I frame things, no matter where you go, there you are, as they say. And with my views on consciousness dictating reality, it’s much more comprehensive in effect than others might interpret it. But yeah, I think I would like a high-up sunny place with an expansive indoor-outdoor balcony that overlooks the ocean, where I can grill stuff (maybe learn how to bbq) and lounge around with a bunch of dogs. I’ve heard people say that you get island fever, but I tend to do pretty routine anyways, so I think I’d be okay with that. Also, in my more adventurous days, I fantasized about learning to sail and bumming around a bunch of uninhabited islands, living off fruits and fish and falling asleep by beach-side campfires. If I get antsy, maybe I’d try something along those lines.

       There are certain things that stick with me about the snow, I think mostly because I was a kid when I experienced them. I think the main impression I get of it it the companionship, like when you come inside, everyone’s skin is red from the cold, and they’re all ready to eat something tasty, maybe hot cocoa, and bask in the warmth. Also, comfort food. I feel like cold weather makes cheesy, bready dishes taste better for some reason. Falling asleep feels better too. I know it’s a waste of heat, but cracking a window for a bit of cold air while bundled up in warm blankets has always been one of my favorite sensations!

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     • I sincerely hope that you are able to have that future for yourself ☺️ I used to have lots of things I would have loved to see as options for where I lived and what my future experiences would or could be. I feel that I’m very tied to Tony’s medical and therapeutical needs, And I’ve had to make peace with the idea that in choosing to do the best I can for our son, I ultimately wanted that more than some of those alternate visions. For me, that means that for the foreseeable future I have had to make peace with the fact that not only will I be staying in Arizona, I need a big metropolitan area attached to developmental pediatricians and geneticists. But you know, some parts perhaps of those things that you hope for in the future you could do already where you are. Like learning to barbecue.

       I remember so many things that I enjoyed about the snow. We would make snowmen, we would have snowball fights, in Flagstaff we would sled down the hill. I always think about how my grandmother’s Pyracantha looked in the winter and for some reason that’s always connected with snow, even though I know that the little red berries on it happened regardless. I also really loved it especially in Flagstaff when we lived there when I was younger because it snowed heavy enough that school could get canceled. 😅 I may have been doing well at school, but that didn’t mean I wanted it to be there, lol. And I feel like pine forests in the snow, there is just something so deeply peaceful about them. I find falling snow to be very peaceful and comforting. I do remember of course the adults having to put chains on tires and de-ice windshields and it makes me think that I may have not found the snow as enchanting if I had to drive in it, but my philosophy has always been I prefer the cold because I can always put more clothes on, there’s only so many I can take off and still be considered decent in public.

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     • It’s not the specifics, per se, but the general vibe of ease and relaxation. To be honest, I feel like I have that part most of the time anyway, the interesting thing will be to see if it narrows down into the specifics. Learning to bbq for some reason just wouldn’t feel right doing what I’m doing now, but since it’s way down my list of priorities I feel like it’d be pleasant enough when I’m surrounded by all the other stuff, if that makes sense.

       The snow could definitely be hit or miss as far as school closings, lol! If I woke up and I saw fresh falling snow that would be cause for great excitement and hope. Then I’d spend the next half hour glued to the TV, watching the list of closings and willing my county to appear on there. Once it did, I felt like I won the lottery, and if it happened multiple days in a row? HOLY CRAP-OLY!!! 🤣 I don’t think I’ve ever felt so randomly blessed in my LIFE!

       You know, I was thinking the other day that reminiscing about the snow was one of the most pleasant exchanges I’ve had with you, doubly so because it was so unexpected. I’ve always been low-key about my enjoyment of the snow, because it wasn’t centered around the obvious stuff most people like, and I feel like you’re on the same vibe. One thing I forgot to mention was occasionally, my friends parents or my parents would organize a ski trip for my group of kid-buddies, and after sliding down a bunch of slopes I’d eat brats, burgers, or something comparably delicious in the ski lodge while my skin was still red from the wind and the cold. Definitely a great memory! I never miss or think fondly upon my time as a kid and hanging out with my kid friends, but for some reason, thinking about the snow brings to mind the fun we had together watching movies or trying to play d&d

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     • Now I’m just curious….why wouldn’t learning to bbq feel right with what you are doing right now?

       Well, I suppose sometimes I am definitely not what people expect, lol. But I appreciate chatting with you as always 🙂 For me, I like and appreciate the quiet moments the most with the snow, it’s kind of like the feeling of being enclosed in a snow globe. I appreciate that. However, I also appreciate my friends and I always have, and I loved snowball fights. Skiing wasn’t ever our thing growing up, we really couldn’t afford it. When we lived in Flagstaff, we lived in a trailer park at the base of Mt. Elden, so sledding was more something we did. And I rode my bike a lot with my friends when it wasn’t snowing. A lot. D&D was something I did more with my brother and sister than my friends. I think maybe because things were more complicated at home and in my family, my friends have always meant a great deal to me whatever we did. I never really need anyone to like the same things as me, or even believe the same things as me. It’s more about that vibe of are we sincere with each other, can we honor each other in our similarities *and* our differences and do we both want to be present in a friendship with one another. Of course, it’s always a cool thing to find that you can have certain things in common with another, and sometimes those are the relationships that become the strongest even for me.

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     • Bbq isn’t really appealing in and of itself, it’s part of the appeal of bumming around with nothing to do and a scenic indoor/outdoor cooking space. When I direct my imagination toward the idea of bbqing in my condo right now, there’s no desire whatsoever. I have too much stuff to write and the cooking space I have is old, unappealing, and doesn’t have a view. But if I add in the view and sound of the surf, warm wind, a bunch of dogs, and a lazy Sunday vibe, I feel a mild tug if that makes sense. It’s part of a complete package, like how a lot of people view drinking and company.

       There is something pretty cool about a fresh snowfall, when it’s super quiet because the snow is absorbing the sound. It almost feels like a zen piece of gourmet cooking, like someone put a ton of effort into making sure a piece of food was going to look super clean and simple, knowing it was going to get messed up in a bit. The brown and yellow snow that came in the following days definitely wasn’t as pretty, lol!

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     • I can understand what you are saying about the bbq stuff. Sometimes the vibe of something really matters in the context of what a person’s current circumstances are and I can certainly appreciate that. Yeah, it’s true that the snow can be mucked up by a lot of things, it is the yin and the yang of life…certainly it doesn’t negate the magic of those moments where the snow is falling softly down, muffling, hushing, and softening the world around it. The sting and the soft caress of it on an upturned cheek, and the way it looks under full clouds…the ice can have a power and a beauty that the dirtiness of life can never truly take away.

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     • Your comment made me think of another great snow feature–moonlit snow! Not that it’s that much different from daytime snow, but it’s distinct enough for me to be able to appreciate a bright moon on some fresh fallen snow. Add in a quiet drive through some Christmas lighted houses, I feel like everyone should get to experience some of these highlights!

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     • Well, I actually think moonlit snow is vastly different then sunlit snow…snow in the sunlight is rather blinding until it gets mucked up. Moonlit snow is peaceful and easy on the eyes and the spirit. Sometimes the world is so much quieter at night, and I do agree it is a beautiful thing to see the Christmas lights softly reflecting off of the snow. I don’t know that everyone wants to experience that though, for some people, that isn’t a holiday or an experience that is going to resonate. I’m just a big fan of color, so I think I’d find it pretty regardless.

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     • I’ve always liked the zen feel of it. Ironically, I’m pretty messy (although I hate growths that have anything to do with moisture or bugs) and not zen at all. My appreciation for simplicity and expansiveness probably contributed to my engrossment during this one Christmas a few years back, when I got drunk with my buddies and we goggled at Bob Ross painting his quiet simple landscapes for several hours. 🤣

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     • Ok, color me surprised. For some reason, because of a comment I thought I remembered from way back when about how you didn’t like to share bathrooms because you liked things ordered a certain way I had pictured you as someone who wasn’t very messy. Not going to lie, I appreciate the feel of a lack of mess but my life just isn’t giving me anything but disordered chaos anytime soon, lol. The appreciation of Bob Ross was equally unexpected. You know, he’s got a rather soothing voice, and I have always appreciated his style. I got into a discussion with someone in high school who was also in the art club about Bob Ross, and this person felt he wasn’t a true artist. I kind of felt like that was a bit of snobbery, although everyone is entitled to their opinion. Even something that is commercially viable on a mass-appeal kind of level is still art, just perhaps not to the style of someone who is expecting their art to give off a deeper message.

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     • Nope, I’m definitely the stereotypical messy creative. In terms of bathrooms, that was referring to my ex who was also messy, but it bothered the crap out of her so I’d catch some residual heat for it in the way of blame. I think I may have told you this, but once she got on me about the dishes and told me they were all mine, so I cleaned em all up and announced I was only going to use one dish and one fork from there on out, which I’d always clean after use. That always stuck in my head as one of the strongest arguments I ever made, because the dishes piled back up, and she knew that unless she wanted to go into conspiracy territory, I’d proven that they were definitely not mine. I also like having no pressure in the bathroom as far as time limits. Having everything put in a very specific place actually feels oppressive to me, like I have to consciously think through where everything is in order to function. I feel like it’s kind of like consciously thinking about every movement instead of just flowing with the motion, if that makes sense.

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     • I do remember the story about the dishes, I believe that led into a discussion about discussions and disagreements within relationships and my thoughts on what should be prioritized as a big deal that way and not. Yeah, you know, the pictures on-line don’t lie. My house is a mess, lol. I tend to be very a bit of a messy creative too, but, *but* I would prefer more order than we have. It’s just not a top priority right now and there’s literally not enough of me to go around to fix all of the things that need to be fixed, so mess is just way to far down on the list to care enough to bump it up higher. I will agree though that it is very nice not to have to wait for a bathroom. We only had one bathroom growing up, and we needed to get me a mirror for my closet in Bisbee because I was doing full makeup, teased bangs, etc. and my brother in particular would get pretty pissed if I was monopolizing the only bathroom in the mornings before school. Which I get where he was coming from on that…that’s part of why I like our current house, 3 bathrooms, pretty rare that anybody has to wait! 😀

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     • My reasons are much more brutish, lol! Guys are disgusting in bathrooms and I like the freedom to lay waste to porcelain without worrying about who might wander in within the next hour or so. Even with other dudes I feel a pang of remorse, but with ladies, I feel like there’s going to be times when they wander into an olfactory hellscape, 🤣

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     • Well, I don’t know how concerned you need to be about it since MILF’s seem to be your thing. Pretty sure every single one of them that doesn’t have a nanny has been puked on, peed on, pooped on and that is just the *least* of the things that can be in the mommy repertoire of experiences. Pretty sure your bathroom can’t through anything at an experienced mom that she can’t handle. Just saying.

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     • That’s definitely part of the attraction, lol! I think it’s more just for me–except for the venn diagram slice where they inevitably meet, I like compartmentalizing my sex life from my animal life.

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     • Honestly, I think this one was just a hard one for me to wrap my head around how I wanted to respond to it. So I’m just going to say I think you are a very creative writer, and for me, and you currently have my unwavering support in that, but for me personally, as messy as my bathroom sometimes gets…I’d probably rather just stick to the bed. Just saying. I think the counters have been eaten alive by eyeshadow palettes I didn’t have time to put away, for example…and literally ain’t gonna risk breaking any of those for anything that’s not saving the life of one of my kiddos. Also just saying.

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     • I should have written that clearer, because I was trying to say I have the same preference as you, lol! Sometimes, the coffee hasn’t kicked in when I’m responding to comments, so I tried to be clever referencing a venn diagram, then when I reread it, I realized it was super confusing. But to be clear, I keep bedroom and bathroom activities completely separate. I don’t even like doggy style that much, because it’s hard to kiss and it isn’t as personal. Having sex on the shower or the toilet or anything beyond that seems like trying to add in an obstacle course or circus tricks. It’s harder to concentrate when I’m thinking about who’s getting the warm water, or keeping my balance in the tub, much like I would be distracted if I was trying to get a rhythm going while I was juggling plates or riding a unicycle! 😂

       Now I wonder…did you think I was into eating poop or something? 🤔🤣 I remember when my dog Porkendork used to eat cat litter in the bathroom and I had to keep chasing him out of there. I loved the ol’ Pigdeer, but he was a nasty little fella!

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     • 🤨Eating poop?? Nope, never once crossed my mind. But, without meaning any disrespect and to be fair, I had to look up “blumpkin” because of one of your posts. Your writing has brought me and the Urban dictionary together like never before 😅🤣 My dude, I ain’t one of your partners, so it’s a good thing you didn’t have to worry about anything I could have thought actually was in that Venn diagram, lol. But in all seriousness, because it wouldn’t be any of my business one way or another, I really wasn’t speculating, I just wasn’t sure how to respond to it. I am a firm believer that somebody’s private business (as long as it is consensual and legal for everybody involved) is their private business and I don’t need to worry myself about it one way or another. Totally can relate on the coffee part though. Except, I also find that coffee calms me down, can make me a little bit sleepy, although certainly it does help me focus more… But I can do that a little too much without the coffee even 😅

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     • I’m paranoid about farting, especially during a beej. There is no WAY I’d go for a blumpkin! 🤣 In a somewhat related vein, I’m now thinking about the nastiness I tolerated from my dog Sneaker. If he were human, he’d be charged for sexual assault (humping), possibly committed for gnawing at his nether bits, and definitely a cause for a concern because he was a cat litter connoisseur. The strange thing was, even though I was disgusted and annoyed, it would always give way to amusement after I chased him out of the bathroom. I’d affectionately call him gross little beast at random times.

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     • My first thought was better the cat litter than the cat, but honestly, both are kinda problematic, so I can see why you would have been concerned. Yeah, I have to agree pets can get away with things that people can’t. The kind of manipulations and machinations any of our kitties have whipped out over the years to try and get what they wanted are way cuter coming from a cat than another human…I would be equal parts irked and amused/appreciative of the intelligence behind all of those diabolical kitty ways. So eating the kitty litter never made him sick? I can’t imagine the clay or whatever you were using was great for his tummy…

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     • It probably contributed, but it doesn’t seem like there was any immediate correlation. He was a serial barfer when he was younger who was also pretty allergic to different pollens and grasses. Our theory was the rescue organization was shady and let us have him too early at six weeks (I think it’s supposed to be 12 weeks with the mom before they get adopted). Also, he had big time fleas when we got him. We picked him because his siblings were bullying him, they weren’t letting him have food at the rescue event. That probably also contributed to his food craziness–that guy would happily eat himself to 85 lbs, when he was healthy at 60. I kinda like it when animals are chunky, but I know it isn’t good for em, so we had to be strict with his food. Every friday when I lived in San Francisco, I’d take him for a cookie walk to a dog shop a half mile away. It was a weekly special event–he’d say hi to a bunch of folks and get a treat. When I said cookie walk? He’d bolt up straight, give me an are-you-serious-face, then when I said it again he would start running in circles and howling in glee 🤣

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     • Perhaps how young he was separated was a factor, it could honestly be hard to say. Perhaps the puppies were born a wee bit early, perhaps there were environmental exposures for the mama during critical developmental stages within the womb. Certainly adequately breastfed humans can have allergies from hell, so who knows. But regardless, it does sound like the agency was sus. And yeah, we saw food hoarding type tendencies with Catzilla, probably related to scarcity before he became our rescue kitty. That happens in humans also, so it makes since it would have with your dog also. Sometimes I think it can probably be complicated for humans and perhaps some animals. I was on antibiotics 3-6 times a year most of my childhood and teenage years, and some studies I have heard of state that this destroys the gut flora balance enough to predispose someone to carry extra weight. I could eat the same things as my siblings and be significantly heavier, and they were rarely on antibiotics. And sometimes it’s hormones. When I go estrogen dominant, eek. Just eek. I can totally tell the difference in terms of what is happening with my weight, and I feel like I can have two choices in those moments: 1) restrict to the point of misery or 2) accept things are going to get a little fluffy until the cause of the heavier estrogen dominance is take care of (i.e. a polyp). I’d rather be fluffy than cranky from hunger, lol. May be that way for animals too. Who knows. For me personally, I like what a good friend of mine says in that sometimes health is a moving target, and one must prioritize certain things differently at different times to meet different health needs as they arise.

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     • That’s a good way to think of it! Personally, I think my health has gravitated toward emphasizing positivity and naps. I’ve checked the external boxes for decades, and I still stick to nutrition, exercise, and high quality supplements. I think it also aligns with a shift in perspective, where I’m veering away from physically forcing a result into place. Nowadays I’d like to tag in my spirit guides or higher self or whoever helps out in subtler ways.

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     • I think it’s an interesting and delicate topic that is recognized in different ways depending on the spiritual/religious views of a person and often the framing matters depending on the person one is talking to. Someone who might be open to the idea of guardian angels because of their Christianity would hear the words “spirit guide” in a different light and not necessarily feel it is positive, but I feel like really it’s just different ways of phrasing the same thing, just how people perceive it maybe based on their beliefs. I was listening to part of a podcast where Mel Robbins was talking with Kim Russo, and it’s pretty interesting stuff…I’d say my take would be always to honor and heed the counsels of those who are truly speaking in one’s best interest regardless of the source whether they are living or not as regards to health or anything else. I like what she said about following one’s inner intuition a lot, and I think it’s important to learn what that intuition sounds like so it can’t be confused by anything else.

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     • Very cool! Anything specific you like about Kim Russo? Maybe I’ll check her out…

       The intuition I think is very key, in that everyone’s calibration is different when they’re connecting to a less individualized (less restricted by identity, hang-ups, and space-time) piece of themselves. Catholicism, for all its faults, has a pretty rigorous documentation of the miraculous (although i’m fairly sure their high standards of proof haven’t been in place for centuries or millennia; I’d like to know when they started being nitpicky so I could track highly vetted miracles with more confidence). But Catholicism may not resonate with someone, even though (in my opinion), Catholics seem to have done some high-effort, good-faith research into modern (maybe older than modern as I said, but I’m not sure) miracles. In Buddhism and Hinduism, supernatural entities and psychic powers are par for the course, although they come with heavy caveats about not getting addicted to them. (I think of it as the equivalent of getting distracted by something shiny). In my opinion, they seem to go overboard with their warnings (I like to think of the paranormal as just normal, not some bad-girl hot chick trying to distract me from enlightenment), but once again, maybe that’s what some folks resonate with. Anyways, I’m going to go into full-on cherry picking territory by saying I believe the intuition is related to that saying that the house of God is inside us, and that’s how we get direct guidance from divinity. Also, that’s part of my interpretation of cultivating “a personal relationship” with the divine. If we got the info in an email or spoken form, a bunch of us would probably try to logically out-argue it (probably like some would condemn Jesus if he came back even if he demonstrated supernatural powers, and be quick to label him a demonic, commie-loving hippy), but with intuition as the primary method of communication, it’s primarily visceral. However, I think it’s part of our free will where we can ignore our intuition, and many obviously do, so I’m not sure how much more advantageous an intuitive impression is than a logical argument, although since there’s good evidence saying we’re emotional first and not logical, I think it’s arguable than an emotionally charged intuitive impression carries more weight. I believe we can hone our receptivity to our intuition to the point where it does get very specific (which I suspect is related to channeling and mediumship, and is probably what a holy person was originally supposed to do, instead of browbeating folks with heavily reinterpreted manuscripts).

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     • Well, this was really my first time hearing anything about or from this particular psychic medium because as we have already discussed, my life needs to be very focused on my present circumstances. There were multiple things that resonated with me in terms of what she said, the first being that if a person is trying to manifest something and it isn’t for the best good everybody involved, that might not come to fruition because the universe likes to be fair. I also agree with her assessment that if a person is feeling they have a confident interpretation of what their intuition or their guardian angels or their spirit guides are saying to them, the best outcomes are to be found by leaning in and following that whatever it is even if it is contrary to what the individual themselves personally had wanted. The other side can see a bigger picture she says and that resonates with me also. I think generally each religious tradition is going to have some differences in how they treat psychic phenomena, for me personally what matters more than trying to sort through all of that and find ways to reconcile it is to bring kind and positive things into the universe. Certainly I can bring the occasional snarky moment, and I have certainly in the past been known to troll someone back if they were trolling me, but the older I get the more I realize that just isn’t what I want to bring into the world and the universe. So also some of the things she said about a person having kind of a purpose for this life and the importance of forgiveness also resonated with me. Sometimes people are just living out a program that was given to them by how they were raised or some other life circumstance…

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     • I don’t think I resonate with the idea that the universe is fair, unless it’s over multiple lifetimes, because within one life I think there’s a lot of examples of unfairness. However, I do agree with the premise that our higher self may not manifest certain specifics we desire, because they’re not the essence of what we want at our core, or there’s a better (albeit unexpected) way to get where we want. (I think that’s probably where I’m on similar ground with her). As far as wishing someone ill, I think that’s where the monkey’s paw dynamic comes into play, because in a mystically united existence, it’s like the pinky finger hurting the ring finger, it still just hurts the parent body, and that injury will boomerang back to the pinky finger because it is, at its philosophical core, intending to hurt itself. I’m heartily in agreement with her leaning into intuition or guardian angels, because if everything functioned according to a logical playbook, then we’d have more of it figured out than we currently do, in my opinion. Being good with intuition opens the possibility for novelty and unexpected grace, in my opinion. I really like the statement that the other side can see a bigger picture! I feel like I may have told you, but I was listening to some afterlife researchers relaying messages from dead folks, who said WE’RE the dead ones, meaning they exist in a much more pleasant state. The analogy was if death is a door, they’re on the side with future cities and sunlit meadows, while we’re in a gloomy hallway. I am very much in agreement with your attitude that the eye for an eye, even if it’s with something as seemingly inconsequential as trolling or snarkiness, is not where I want to resonate. Not to toot my own horn, but as you’ve said, I have developed an above-average level of articulation and logic, which I used to use in arguments, both online and in person. I won many of them, and realized I just felt exhausted afterwards, not accomplished or energized. And then I would manifest another one to prove how good I was at arguing, and so it would go. Even the ones I won in person would not have an effect–a person might agree, or take some superficial steps toward what I concluded was the “better” way to do things, but they’d quickly revert to their core fixations. That was the beginning of me realizing if someone doesn’t want help, they will find a way to not get it, and if someone doesn’t want to move upward in resonance, they will not do so, and a physical equivalent will either not happen in their life, or if it does, it will quickly vanish, much like lottery winners who go from broke to rich to broke again, or suffer some other misfortune where they wish they never won in the first place. My current focus is engaging my emotional self with acceptance first instead of a logical argument that tries to invalidate why I’m envious, angry, depressed, etc. As I’ve said in other responses, those emotions have a right to exist, and once I acknowledge their right to be included in an all-inclusive existence, I feel more resonant with an all-inclusive view (the divine view, which includes all), freeing my smaller individual perspective to move on from negativity and focus on what it prefers from an individual point of view.

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     • I think what she was trying to say with the fairness was in a more specific sense such as, let’s say an investor likes the location of my house and the fact that it is one of the rare 2 courtyard properties in our little area and decides to try and manifest that I will sell it to her. But, it’s not in *my* best interest *or* the best interest of my children, who are reliant upon my care/financial health. So, they may have put that energy out there, but what the nudge or attempt to play fair from the universe might look like according to what Kim said might vary depending on the gifts and sensitivity of the person perhaps. I could feel only a sense of unease perhaps when considering the offer if I wasn’t aware I had spirit guides/guardian angels (whatever someone is more comfortable thinking of them as). If I was clairsentient and knew I had spirit guides, I might turn to them for input and gauge the viability of the offer based on the feeling impressions that came back before I got any sort of impression. If I was clairaudient, they might step in with more specific feedback based on my ability to receive on that wavelength if I wasn’t doing that and they thought I was about to make a “woopsie” with my decision. If it would outright harm me, they might even be more blunt or dramatic in any of the above efforts. That is, I think what she was trying to say by fair. That being said, obviously people can ignore the intuitions, impressions, guidance they are given and it’s one of those things that it’s very difficult to empirically prove to others, especially if they themselves aren’t clairsentient or clairaudient. You are correct, oodles of unfair things happen all the time, that cannot be argued, so I think the long-term perspective could be the only one that would make things overall and ultimately fair.

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     • I agree with that dynamic. Also, sometimes I believe that an unfavorable occurrence may play into an orchestration of events that unexpectedly ends up being beneficial. If you google taoist farmer story, it illustrates that at work. I certainly believe that it’s worked out that way many times in my life, so while I understand there’s a danger of interpreting the farmer story as an endorsement to be aloof and uncaring, I take it more as advice to not jump to inflammatory conclusions, process my emotions, and allow myself back into a state of openness that allows for favorable possibilities. And I do think our higher self or spirit guides will meet us where we’re responsive. When I was more meatheaded, I would find it easy to dismiss synchronicity, and it would take injury or burnout to make me stop and think if I was going in the right direction. Nowadays, I’m aware that being “grasp-y” is another way of trying to force-perceive a synchronicity, so I try to be mindful about being open and not forceful, and allowing the hints to manifest in an easy manner. For a while, I was convinced that people only change their habits or core beliefs when they encounter extreme pain that forced them to do so, because that was the worldview I acted out and inhabited. I don’t think that’s necessary anymore. As far as fairness, I believe it kind of mirrors ethics in society which manifest over time (according to some primate studies anyway). Tyrannical primate leaders will incite growing discontent in their less powerful followers until they band together, violently revolt, and reinstate ethical governance. Obviously, that’s the primate equivalent of what I was saying about not changing until extreme pain came along, which is not my preference. In the existential sense, I imagine it’s the equivalent of living a bunch of shitty lives until your soul gets sick of living in shit. As creative beings with transcendent aspects that aren’t as restricted by physics, time, and space, I believe we have the power to make adjustments before discomfort forces us to do so. That’s what I’d prefer nowadays.

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     • I have heard a version of that story previously. And yet, I think it is also true that a situation can be exclusively harmful to a person in this life and that a person should never white wash red flags in their own minds, nor allow another to do that for them. My experience has been that there are some things perhaps my intuition (or however a person cares to label it) might be more neutral on as regards to one path or another, and others where there is a pretty firm and specific answer of warning to avoid or approbation to move a certain way. For me, if I have a very clear insight for a direction to move in, I will never ignore it regardless of the views of others around me because I trust that sense within me at this point.

       There are many, many thoughts on the nature of life and how to proceed. And indeed, plenty of people who have thoughts on the nature of *my* life without having lived it or contributing anything positive to remedy the challenges thereof, I am sure you have experienced similar things perhaps on your own path and had to process that on some level. Sometimes it can feel like the feedback another person is sharing is really useful for me because I can see they have a point even if it stings, and others just really aren’t constructive because they’re not seeing the full picture I am or they are just designed to tear down without building anything positive in it’s place. Sometimes I’ve also been that person who chimed in when it wasn’t asked for, but more and more I have to remind myself that each person is on their own journey, and without me having lived theirs, I am in no position to review their choices and give them a rating. Not my life, not my business unless it intersects mine in such a way where it has to be (i.e. they ask for my input or my help).

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     • It definitely requires a bit of emotional awareness and nuance, where someone isn’t rejecting red flags and trying to force positivity around darkness and damage. I don’t even think they need to frame it in a positive light afterwards, but I think it is optimal to find a way to stop dwelling on the horror of it, and shift to a lessons learned type attitude without the specter of negative reinforcement wherein someone tries to motivate folks to constantly avoid, to be averse to, and to wallow in the horror so people will never repeat it. Sometimes, however, I’ll spontaneously realize something I’d written off as bad actually helped me out, it just took years to put it in context. I find that to be a nice twist. But I suspect there may be other things that require eons for that to be feasible, or maybe an afterlife perspective where time, space, and causality aren’t so restrictive. I’ve noticed people in my life who were constantly focused on problems encounter problems, then eventually become a problem. At first, I wrote it off as a fluke, then I was astonished by it, now it just makes sense to me. Kind of like the preacher who’s supposedly trying to get everyone to heaven, but constantly spews fear, hate, and judgment, to the point where hell starts to manifest here on Earth.

       I think you’ve got a healthy attitude on others’ business! But even though it may be semantics, I think there’s a difference between allowing yourself the spontaneous judgment of someone else and truly stepping out of your lane. If there’s spontaneous negativity towards someone else, obviously it doesn’t pay to express it in a lot of cases, but I don’t think it’s helpful to deny or reject it either. Then it just bides its time and comes back in the form of intrusive thoughts. I’d rather allow it to be felt, allow it to be heard (to my surface consciousness, not to anyone else), then let it go on its way, because that’s all it really wants in my case. I emphasize “my case,” however, because other people are different and might find success with other methods.

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     • I agree that a “lessons learned” perspective is invaluable. I use that approach myself and I find it enormously beneficial. I think some things cannot be framed in a positive light, and it is a delicate subject to broach. I have found often that people want to comment on my circumstances or something I have done without really knowing my background story and what it took to be where I am. What it takes to do what has been done in the work I have done with our son. What it can cost a person. What it takes to mentally survive the cumulative weight of all of this. And I know from this that I personally can’t feel comfortable saying to another person at this point that they should look at whatever their trauma has been and tell them to try and find a lesson in it unless they have asked me what I have been doing for me. As a parent sometimes I have to wade in, but with other grown ups, often people want to find or celebrate their own path. I think there is more than one path to positive outcomes, mine may not be suitable to another.

       When I was in kindergarten, I remember they showed a movie to our school the very first day about ways to diffuse conflicts with other kiddos. Not too long after that, I was minding my own business trying to get a drink from the water fountain and another girl came up with a couple of her buddies and threatened to beat me up. I said we should be friends instead, and off we were playing and…not every situation can be solved that way, though I wish it could. I think sometimes it’s complicated. I have been known to pick a fight with someone who had more power than me simply because I felt like a matter of justice was involved. I have also been known not to pick a fight beyond what was necessary because I felt like the outcome could be more damaging to the interests of my family than I would want. But in those situations, I may have had judgements of others that I shared with people close to me because I needed the emotional support to deal with the weight of what was going on. Sometimes I think there is a difference between what is necessary to say publicly and behind closed doors, and sometimes women just need someone to listen to them and hear their pain to have the strength to make it through to working through the next challenge. I think most people need a safe space sometime for that.

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     • I’m probably an oddball in my view of socialization, so I can’t really offer anything that might apply to more than a few other oddballs. That being said, I’ll try not to beat a philosophical dead horse with the whole everyone is a unique expression of a mystical consciousness, but given that premise, I’m of the opinion that no one can help me resolve every circumstance–they and I are unique expressions that can’t help but be different in some facet. Now THAT being said, I believe some people can help me resolve specific circumstances. I believe this parallels the reasoning in the adage, “Trust a [profession] with your life, but not your money or your wife.” I guess my tentative view on it is certain people may be able to resonate with me in a helpful manner on certain issues, but there’s really no one who’s going to be able to understand everything I’m going through, which makes me circle back to my personal connection with a mystically divine omnipresence (unprovable, obviously), that will guide me through intuition and synchronicity to whatever or whoever I need to encounter.

       I’d like to make it clear I’m not indirectly judging you or doing a subtle dig here, because it may be misinterpreted that way in a certain light. As you know, I’m personally not inclined to vent or seek solidarity in the face of my problems if I know what to do. But in an existence where solutions work in mysterious ways, I freely admit that perhaps that may in fact be the first step toward a solution I can’t yet perceive. So for example, if despite my personal inclination, I’m struck by the soul-deep desire to vent about this or that to someone, maybe it’s because my intuition knows that doing so will trigger some unexpected bit of advice from that person, or maybe they recently lucked into an asset that might specifically help me out, and the urge to vent was guiding me toward that. At the same time, I don’t think it’s valid to always vent as a matter of course, but synchronicity can manifest in unexpected ways. Venting, not venting…frustrating as it may be, I think the answer is the time-honored “it depends.”

       It just occurred to me that part of my decrease in desire to vent (I actually used to vent all the time, but I think it was because I was insecure and wanted validation for my negative opinion from an external source) may go beyond my anecdotal experiences, philosophical beliefs about redirecting my creativity away from amplification of negativity, and scientific studies. I think my growing belief in disembodied entities (specifically that they are always around and most are benevolent, unless I focus on super negative stuff for an extended stretch which would invite something less pleasant to resonate with me), has led to a follow-on belief that they understand what I’m going through, that they know it will be okay in the end, that it’s okay to feel and acknowledge negativity to lessen its grip. So I guess the growing belief that I am heard and acknowledged by immaterial intelligence, who–in my mind–have a perspective that can grasp my situation more comprehensively than the average person, also serves as comfort to me and may be a factor in not feeling the need to vent.

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     • Well, I am not one to point the finger at a wordy or repeated explanation. I have been told by others that I could beat a dead horse way (emphasis on way) down into the ground with my explanations, but in my mind, an explanation isn’t complete without all of the details, and so it’s hard for me sometimes to stop my brain from throwing every single stitch that is required to make the tapestry, harder to paint in broad verbal brush strokes it is for me. So I wouldn’t be bothered if you had, but I do I think understand your meaning as much as I am able to with my own unique perspective.

       I think that for me, sometimes there is no real replacement for someone physically putting their arms around me and holding me in my upset. I think it is the sense of a desire to be understood that sometimes might drive me to vent, the need to feel less alone in the path I walk or to at least feel cared for. I think it is something to be grateful for when a kind and benevolent being of any kind can say I hear you and it’s going to be ok, but you know, it’s still really nice to have someone whose path is physically crossing mine be able to do that. Some things, the people around us just might not be able to understand you know, and that is where a person just has to learn to be their own sunflower. Sometimes it is that nobody can give us the light we need and so we must shine for ourselves, this is true. I have learned to be that light for myself when need be, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still feel the need sometimes to take comfort in the light of another.

       I think it can be easy to be insecure about a great many things, and others I think can be happy to feed us those sentiments for every meal of the day so to speak. Finding peace in that is a gift, I am glad for you that you have found a path that is working for you and bringing you that. Sometimes it is true that something unexpected can help us in ways we don’t expect, but especially if a person is or has been for some time living in a “help from others” drought, that can teach one to look for any benefit even in the rocks, and that’s not a bad skill to have. But still it’s nice to have people who are willing to give you some understanding and a gentle landing in this life I think for me personally, and I am really grateful though for anybody who has been that safe space for me at any point, it is nothing to be taken for granted.

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     • I think I can somewhat relate as far as the desire for connection. I get the impression you genuinely like other people and treasure their compassion, maybe because you are innately compassionate yourself. I never had that, for me it was more like I wanted to be validated in my thought by having other people agree with my opinion. Then I realized that even if people agreed with me, they wouldn’t want to pursue things to the umpteenth degree, which I used to do until very recently, because I’m naturally on the obsessive side. The kind of warmth you’re describing is something I can only really attribute to dogs, especially over the long run. Right now I’ve got other priorities than caring for dogs, but people bring dogs to my gym and I love saying hi to them, even if they’re interrupting me, which they tend to do if I’m doing something low to the floor like planks or something. I used to prize intellect, but ironically, I now admire and resonate much more with the free-flowing happiness and appreciation of dogs. I feel like they have a much more sophisticated perspective, whether its through ignorance or whether its deliberate doesn’t really matter to me.
       I feel they allow themselves to fully appreciate and be in the moment, much more than humans at least. Even according to logic and intellectual frameworks, the evidence is overwhelming that as far as physical stuff, we exist in a largely futile existence, due to our limited perception (five senses, lifespan, perception of time, etc.), our inevitable death, and the inevitable death and/or transformation of everyone and everything that we love into something so unrecognizable it might as well be the same thing as dying. Even though dogs may not understand all the nuances of our trials and tribulations, I believe the average dog is emotionally more developed than the average human, and their perception of the world tends to be more well-prioritized than ours. I think that’s why I’d rather be around them, for the most part. It’s not about understanding me at a logical level, it’s about feeling and sharing in their generally more refined resonance and perspective.

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     • Thank you for seeing me in that, in recognizing that I am innately compassionate. Not everybody does, they get distracted by other things. For me, it is one of those areas I struggle to understand and see nuance in. I understand it in the context that I know that not everyone is innately compassionate, but to me it has always seemed logical even that if somebody wouldn’t want to go through something, they shouldn’t put someone else through it. I think maybe if everyone could feel a hint of the feelings another felt when they were hurt etc then maybe people would be more hesitant about harming one another. For me personally, I’m more on the determined side…if something matters to me to see happen, truly matters I will work to make it so. Otherwise, I just enjoy having a quiet “good enough” kind of life.

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     • Speaking as someone who isn’t compassionate by nature, my view used to be that everything good came at a cost, which if properly timed, would be outweighed by the benefit in the long run (basically religious thinking, where you pay in the present and reap outsize rewards in the future). According to that reasoning, I think, came the outdated belief that people needed to be exposed to adversity, “toughened up,” seasoned, forged, whatever you want to call it, which often equated to simply shrugging when someone was going through something tough and saying it’s good for them, they need to figure out life is hard, isn’t fair, blah blah blah blah blah. I think one of the major things that changed my mind was seeing folks who have endured enough adversity where they aren’t dead, but it has made them shells of who they were, to the point where they used to be super tough guys, but now they’re broken, and they might randomly cry during a casual conversation.

       I think nowadays I still have some of that willingness to leave people to their own suffering in that I’m willing to cut the cord if I’ve tried a couple times to help someone out and bad faith is evident. Like I said, I’m willing to try again if they express a desire to try, but I’m not going to make myself miserable trying to force people to become optimally functioning puppets who agree to do what I say, then don’t actually do it. I want to give people a break or a boost, not demonstrate how noble I am. Also, the solidifying belief that this is a multi-life journey where people need to experience things for deeper purposes has given me more patience when it comes to people who are doing something that isn’t in their apparent best interests. Obviously, if the gut says to jump in, or if synchronicity makes it convenient to do so, I’m going to jump in, but I guess my main point is that I navigate the compassion issue from a more fluid standpoint, rather than an unyielding position of logic-supported ideals, which is what I used to do.

       A few years back, I had a friend who had a big issue with feeling unworthy, and was constantly overworking himself in one facet or another because of it. At one point, he was about to divorce his wife, and I offered him a place to stay. I told him don’t buy a dog, don’t buy a house, or have a kid, and laid out my reasoning. He heartily agreed at the time, then proceeded to stay in an unhappy marriage, and do every one of those things I warned against, which made him beholden to a job where he was getting stressed out consistently, now compounded because of extra expenses and duties. I realized that the core unworthiness was the issue here, that it would manifest as decisions that affirm his lack of worth (or right to happiness, to clarify in this context), and that if he wasn’t willing to address it, then all I could do was offer nominal support. There’s no reason for me to get bent out of shape or angry at him for not walking his journey like I feel he should, especially because I’ve already given my opinion and recommendations, on both surface issues and deeper stuff. The decision for me boils down to should I enjoy his company, or focus on an aspect of him that inspires me to make everything antagonistic, where I berate him for a fault only he can address, and/or pick at the outward manifestations of it as an indirect way of sniping at him. That to me sounds like being an oppressive parent, and I am not willing to do that for anyone unless I have a kid, and then I would want to do it with a level of emotional sophistication that i’m just not willing to exercise, with the firm intent of guiding them instead of tyrannizing them, which would probably occur if I was trying to distract myself from my own insecurities. For a while I wondered if I should feel sorry for him, then I came to the realization that feeling sorry for him just lowers my outlook and energy levels, and–in a functional context–the ability to be positive and proactive if he ever needed my help. To that point, my personal outlook has clarified into empathize, don’t sympathize. I feel all right validating and recognizing someone’s distress. but I’m not going to amplify it with justifications of why life is fucking them over, why others have it better and they’re villains by default, or how the way forward is guaranteed to be miserable because they’re starting from a miserable juncture. I’ve gone down that route, and in addition to darkening my day-to-day life, I find it makes me way less effective. I’ve heard compassion can become oppressive and limiting, which is portrayed in authority or parental figures who are way too controlling or enabling, translating into resentful relationships and inner demons in the apprentice or child when they grow up. I think personally, I went way too far in the other direction when I was younger, but now I’m definitely moving in the other direction on this issue. I’m basically willing to help, until it’s clear it isn’t wanted in any degree, or bad faith is evident in all variations of effort. Then I’m fine waiting to see if change occurs and help can possibly be revisited. I feel from a grander perspective, this is paying respect to the deeper aspects of them, of me, and also recognizing the power in them and me to move in whatever direction we want, even if that’s negative.
       Still no to the kids, though, lol!

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     • Well, as I’ve said before, kids aren’t for everyone, and if someone knows that about themselves, it is better for everybody involved that they honor that and not cave to anyone’s pressure to the contrary. Sounds like that kind of pressure would bounce right off of you anyways, you are sure of yourself and your desires, which I can also respect. If someone is pressuring me to do something I don’t want to do and it’s something I don’t actually need to do, I’m going to dig in and lean into my own personal desires every single time unless it’s something that benefits one of my kiddos.

       I personally would say I have a complicated view on stress, distress, and suffering but I prefer to err on the side of kindness, empathy, and compassion when I can. One can see in my therapy work that I believe introducing aversive things in small doses and progressing is effective in improving tolerance. For example, just today we are practicing with an O2 mask for Tony today at 6 seconds (and we will progress to a full minute), another anesthesia style mask is en route, so that next time he has to have general anesthesia, he doesn’t need to be held down while they put him to sleep. And I’ve purchased supplies for practicing tolerance of dental xrays too. He can now tolerate COVID testing calmly because I did something similar, same with foam textures, stethoscopes, pulse oximeters, otoscopes, and a long list of other things. Some autistics (usually one whose sensory differences aren’t as debilitating in my opinion) feel that’s not a compassionate thing to do, but I Feel like it would have been downright cruel to leave him in a condition where everything felt so aversive and terrifying. He’s a much, much (did I say much enough? not sure that I did because the difference for him and for us has been profound to experience) happier kiddo than he was at age 2 where his sensory differences were at their most profound before we started working on sensory integration therapy and desensitization.

       That being said, I think life and other people or life can push or traumatize someone too much or too hard and as you have mentioned, it can leave some people feeling broken. And I am not comfortable seeing that happen to another person without trying to step in and help them if I can. But in general, people do need to want to help themselves before anything can be done, this also is true.

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     • Sounds like you’re empowering your son, both in the short term, and hopefully in the long term, where he learns that he can take something on a bit at a time and not write it off just because it’s a lot to do all at once. There was a time when I used to try and baby people and bust my ass to try and make sure that I was ready to snap to and get them whatever they wanted, but I realized I was that I wasn’t really trying to help them out, I was trying to convince myself I was a nice guy. In a lot of those cases, I would also get angry because if I needed a break or a small favor, the person refused because they had gotten used to my help and simply viewed it as par for the course. I think clarifying the intent of something is a big deal, and ensures oversight and positive adjustments instead of just creating a checklist of arguments for why something is being done “correctly.” I’m pretty wary of the whole pull yourself up by your bootstraps bs, because I think a lot of people use it for insecurity-driven macho idealism, but I do think there’s validity at its base, when you strip away politics and machismo. I don’t really agree with the phrasing because sometimes people need someone to step in and help so they can get their balance or buy some boots which have straps, but I do agree with the somewhat similar idea of empowering people without being cruel to them. I feel like the dynamic where someone smothers a person with comfort to the point where it stunts their view of their ability to do things by themself is kind of the opposite, where it may outwardly look compassionate, but it’s actually cruel in the long term, and disrespectful of someone’s power to grow and pursue their own interests.

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     • I have been in that place too where people forget or don’t realize that I need things for myself sometimes too and it’s not easy, and I certainly got myself there by being the person who steps in to pick up all the broken pieces and trying to meld them back together when I can because it’s who I am. I like taking care of and helping people, it’s super integral to my nature. And I think it’s true that it’s super easy to take other people for granted, especially if we’ve grown reliant upon them in ways we don’t realize or appreciate. I have found that it doesn’t matter how nice I am, that isn’t necessarily how people are going to see me so I’m more worried about finding myself likeable than whether or not other people can like me.

       I feel that it doesn’t matter how I or others view me as a parent. It matters how my kids view me, and I have also found that no matter what I do, that is a matter entirely outside of my control as I am interacting with spirits who have their own realities they are creating and living in and with. I am just someone doing the best I can and that isn’t always perfect and I acknowledge that, though at the end of the day, that’s all I can ask of myself outside of “how can I be better yet?” When I can do better, because sometimes I have been spread so thin I’ve seen what could have been done to make something better but literally there wasn’t anything left of my time or my anything to give to getting there. It is what it is.

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     • I think personally, for me it was that I didn’t feel worthy deep down so I was always seeking an attaboy. Recently, I’ve been delving deeper into the idea of being nicer to myself and combining it with the simultaneity of time. (Interesting study–I heard some parapsychologists set up an experiment where groups of people took a test, then one of them studied the answers afterward, and apparently they did better than the other groups. The possibility is that their future self helped them out with the answers, but of course you can’t prove that. On a related note, though, it seems parapsychologists have become very wary of setting up solid controls for experiments because that’s been a go-to point of attack for skeptics).

       Anyway, I’ve been using my imagination to have conversations and interactions with a future self, for guidance and comfort. It hit me shortly after that I should do that for my past self, wish them well and tell them they’re doing fine, that things will work out in unexpected ways. Previously, I’ve thought of my past self as an example of what not to do. A dumb, unevolved, acceptable target for self-deprecation because they’re me, and I’m allowed to look down on me. And I’ve thought of my future self as something that I had to stress out about and wrangle into place. The idea of doing this just kind of dropped in my head one day, but I’m surprised I didn’t think of it earlier because I’ve seen Interstellar a few times and I’ve seen Tenet twice.

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     • Well, I have discovered that there are no shortage of people who are willing to be hard on me or look down on me for something (too fat, too this, too that, born too poor, doesn’t have the right kind of education certification, doesn’t have the right kind of family pedigree, etc etc etc ….literally some of the things people get hung up on aren’t even legitimate in my opinion) and life just feels miserable if I join them in their willingness to pile stones on me. Once upon a time I was very, very hard on myself because I lived out the experience of emotional flagellation that I was given. I just find it’s not so productive or helpful and that regardless of what other people think of me, I can always empathize with and love myself in the past or the present. I am a big fan of giving myself empathy and a hug in the here and now if it’s needed and I won’t hesitate these days to do so. Hugs from other people are nice, but when I can love myself, I can bring more love to the people around me because I have that love already in me. For sure there are things I have done that could have been and should have been done better. I feel it is best to learn from it, try to fix what can be fixed, and try to be better and just move on without taking that extra burden of long-term emotional pain on whenever possible.

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     • Absolutely. I went full philosophical yesterday, contemplating my selves throughout the breadth of time, and I realized if you map out a mystical divinity in a linear existence, then the points where its most apparent would be your most future self, and your most past self, the beginning and the ending of what you are, in other words. The beginning part which decided to break from omnipotence and go on an adventure, and the ending part of you where you remember what you truly are. So I realized that speaking and being nice to past and future selves is really just acknowledging and accepting the whole of my existence, and as I stretch it out in either direction, the mystical endpoints where linearity dissolves into transcendent being. Anyway, I think that’s why I had the urge to watch Arrival again a few days ago. I was like I’ve seen this movie, I’ve read the short story, I know what happens in this movie (ironic, if you’ve seen it), but for some reason, I keep thinking about watching it. When I was at the gym, I also began thinking of the people around me as mystical divinity in a transitory adventure, which unexpectedly opened my heart a bit. If I had to think of a catchy term for it, God Interrupted comes to mind.

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     • I hadn’t seen that movie. If it’s made for adults and happened in the past 11 years…I may not have seen it as it falls well outside the scope of Barbie, Tinkerbell, Barney, Veggie Tales, Penguins of Madagascar etc. that Tony favors. Although, lately he’s been branching out to Strawberry Shortcake, so hey, the hope for upcoming variety is great lol! But I cheated and looked up a synopsis for the sake of this conversation. I think knowing what could happen to one’s future self…well, tricky that, in my opinion. I think people think they want to know, but might really struggle to be happy in the present if they did and so perhaps it is a gift in some way that this would not be the common experience if a person is on a journey that will sometimes involve heart ache, pain, illness, and ultimately death and loss. That being said, I’ve spent more mental time thinking about how I what I want to do with our savings expansion, future money goals, and picking out paint and furniture with my husband to re-do our living room than I have about what the very origins and the very ends of my journey are. My now needs me and it shall have me.

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     • I see future selves as kind of a buffet of empowerment and possibility, especially if you go far enough out where I believe everyone returns to divinity. So I focus on the possible future self where I can feel the resonance, I definitely wouldn’t do it if I focused on the letdown of my current expectations and hopes, or the negative possibilities that might make everything worse. I realized for most of my life, I’ve tried to tyrannize my future self into being what I want. Now that my beliefs around time are softening up, why not just be happy for that possible future self where he’s also happy, and we can both support each other with good vibes?

       The more practical realization was that I’d just kind of accepted it was okay to view my past self as ignorant, inept, and a “lessons learned” type cautionary tale, where I’d often call him stupid, weak, etc. It wasn’t even anything egregious, I just realized it was a casual acceptance that my past self was an insufficient idiot. That’s when I realized the things I’d like of my future self, I could offer in the present to my past self. I don’t need to keep berating him or pointing out his faults, or constantly viewing him as a cautionary tale. I can just send him good intent, that things will work out, to relax and trust. I can mirror what I want from my higher self (my futurest self, maybe) and be nice to another aspect of me, which, historically, I’ve thought it was fine to be cruel to because it was me. Because I view time as much more fluid and nonlinear than I used to believe, I see this as an enhanced version of being nice to myself, uplifting myselves across the breadth of existence. Hopefully, those other mes will get the good vibes, radiate good vibes as well, and the good vibes will just keep rebounding and strengthening throughout the whole of my being. Now that my surface consciousness is more accepting that there is much more to me than is visibly apparent, I figure I’ll try and be nice to all of me.

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     • Have you ever seen the Gweyneth Paltrow movie “Sliding Doors?” Perhaps different future selves can be possible depending on what happens with the present self, what the present self chooses. 🤷‍♀️ I think it is complex the relationship one can have with one’s past self. I think with the exception of a couple things, my tendency is to just hug myself and show myself compassion and understanding because I lived through all of it and even for the things I didn’t do as well as I wanted to on, I see what happened and I understand how I got to that point. But because there are a couple things I do still struggle to let go of in that way, I can understand why it may be a struggle for others. Depending upon the lens somebody is looking through when they are examining my life, there is literally no end to the ways somebody could find to criticize or pick apart, sometimes it can be easy to join in that. I just find at this point that if I want the best outcomes in my life it is more productive to block that out and do what I can to respectfully acknowledge what I need to be better on and just calmly as possible work towards being better on it.

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     • I haven’t seen that, but I looked it up on Netflix, which unfortunately doesn’t have it. Maybe it’ll hop into their library, at which point I’ll watch it!

       That’s a good tendency you have with your past self! After recently realizing how hard I was on my past self (just out of pure reflex) I thought he would appreciate it if I encouraged him and wished him well, without all the rationalization I am historically prone to. I think that’s part of learning to live more of a life of trust for me–learning that generalized positivity leads to naturally occurring specifics, without having to mentally gymansticize them through dogged will and logic. So I figured I’d give that to my past self, who I recently realized could use some sunshine instead of constant judgment, assessment, and negative motivation.

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     • I think giving the past sunshine some self is a beautiful idea! My past self has already been through enough in my opinion, so at this point in the game, I would say I’m definitely not wanting to invest in perpetuating the hard parts and bringing that forward into the present or even the future…so that comes with being gentle with myself about all of it and just moving on whenever possible.

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     • Yep, I’m on the same page. Also, I realized when I thought of conversing with a future self, it was never in the vein where they were like you’re ignorant, you’re foolish, you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re primary use is as a cautionary tale. It was always nice. Like, you got this, maybe it doesn’t make sense right now, but it will, things work out, they get better, be present if you can and relax, stuff like that.

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     • Interesting to know, thanks for sharing! I don’t generally have conversations with my future self…sure, I think about what can happen in the future, but usually it’s not a conversation with future me. But anytime life brings one a cautionary tale, if the source has been vetted as credible or the evidence is compelling, it’s always a good idea to heed it to be sure!

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     • It’s kind of a fine line for me. I’m on board with the “Hey, watch your step” vibe, but there’s a point where it can turn into a neverending focus on what not to do, collecting piles upon piles of tales of woe, where I’m always in a range of paranoia because so and so messed it up and don’t forget to do this because remember so and so’s misfortune. I am very much not on board with filling my mind with fretting, checking, and using my creativity to imagine how else things might go wrong so I can make contingencies for them. That may be outwardly necessary in certain jobs, but even then, I prefer to keep my resonance focused on moving toward solution rather than my point of focus being troubleshooting every potential problem. If my intuition pings me during events and tells me to do something preventative, I’ll definitely do it, but I’m all right moving on from my old mentality, where I thought if I could collect all the cautionary tales in the world and turn them into cautionary implementations, I would somehow win by maximizing my security.

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     • Well, not every cautionary tale applies to every person, circumstances will vary across individuals. We all have a setup we were giving at birth and we move forward with that to the best of our abilities. For some people that sets them on a path of extraordinary privilege, for other people it sets them on a path to be constantly looking over their shoulder for the next concern that could threaten their survival. Switching thought lanes is certainly possible, but it takes a recognition of a pattern and the limitations thereof, and it sounds like for you you’ve had that moment of awareness and you’ve acted on it, and it’s been a very positive thing in your life.

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     • I agree with that. You know what’s ironic, is that even after I no longer needed to be in that guarded mentality, it took years to even think it might not be what I want anymore. There was a lot of discomfort involved, which I think contributed to my old belief that people will only change under extreme pain. I distinctly remember me and my buddy during that time period encountering this medical specialist that was avidly pursuing novel solutions and modifying and/or discarding outdated ones, and we started quizzing this guy on what misfortune he’d encountered that convinced him to be so exploratory. Me and my buddy were straight up baffled when the guy said nothing of the sort had occurred, and he was just kind of following his heart. Nowadays, I interpret our meeting with that guy as a clue from existence. At the time, I wrote him off as a fluke, but now, I think of him as a hint of the world I wanted to live in, but back then, that slight hint was the only thing I was ready to receive.

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     • Well, I don’t think people need extreme pain to change or to learn, but then that may vary from person to person. I can also understand why someone’s neurology may become primed to be guarded, because if a person has enough experiences centered around betrayal of trust, especially in the formative years, that can play out for the rest of their lives because they’ve learned that sometimes there is indeed a boogey man under the bed so to speak, that even statistically less common things happen to somebody, etc. That being said, it does also come with an emotional cost, so if a person isn’t experiencing enough negative events to maintain that outlook, I can definitely see why it would be more productive to shape it into something else. And I think sometimes people do just follow their hearts. When I was 12, I spent most of my lunch breaks volunteering in the special ed room just because it made me happy to be there and to be helping and there was such a unsullied sweetness that emanated off of those kiddos. I am a person who loves to take care of others. I suppose one could say that my experiences made me that way, but it just actually is what comes naturally to me in terms of what brings me joy and makes my soul sing, the urge to try to heal, help, or protect.

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     • Whoa, that’s incredible! I see that as a giant sign that Yourself was giving yourself at twelve years old. I never felt anything when it came to special ed children myself, neither good nor bad. I love hearing stories like that!

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     • I’m kinda gonna have to pull a hairpin out and pop that balloon so to speak, just because really I don’t need anybody to think I am better or worse than I actually am about this. I initially showed up in that classroom because we had just moved back in with my grandmother and my favorite head start teacher Mrs. Adrian was teaching the self-contained class so I went down there to say hi. She told me she needed help, and after an increasing number of visits I branched out from making paper roses for a bulletin board to making puppets to giving puppet shows to helping feed and playing with the kiddos, and I just grew to love that time. And for the sake of accuracy, I was 11 when I started helping her out. But yeah, initially helping out hadn’t been on my mind. It is what it is, but since helping out when that is needed is who I am, I didn’t need to be convinced to keep coming back.

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     • Maybe I’m being Ned Flanders-like, but my balloon remains unpopped! I see that as existence guiding you with what you were ready to hear at the time. I’ve had instances where similar things have happened, which is why I like to be easy on the immediate judgment of whether something that’s occurring is good or bad, and stay open enough for my intuition to give an opinion. Many times, things have worked out well for me but the orchestration of how that happened would not have been apparent if I was too demanding of knowing x, y, and z in the moment.

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     • Well, as long as you are not seeing me as better or worse than I am and all of this, I won’t upgrade my efforts to a vintage hat pin in an effort to try and pop it again, lol. 😅 In All seriousness, it emotionally feels pretty unpleasant to even dwell briefly in negative memories much less possible negative interpretations, so I can celebrate and appreciate the desire to focus on the best possible interpretation. I think for me, I am a person who often wants to know the x, why, z components… But I can also appreciate that sometimes that just drains and wastes valuable energy because that is not always apparent in the moment. I think it was overall a very positive experience that I treasure, at the time my main takeaway was an appreciation for others with significant intellectual disability. I was raised in a house where intelligence was prized and the lack thereof was ridiculed, sometimes rather viciously behind closed doors. It was a formative moment of sorts where I decided to junk that particular mentality and not adopt it for myself.

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     • The way I perceive you kind of depends on my mood. Logically, I’ll always be convinced you’re the divine interrupted, like everyone else, to include myself. If I’m being present I’ll feel and resonate with that, but if I’m not, it’ll just feel like an empty platitude. A weird way to perceive folks, I know, but I never claimed to be a normie, lol!

       I think I can relate to the intelligence being prized, because school was pretty big in my house when I was a kid. As an adult I was more exposed to performance being prized, then when I started really thinking about it, I was like nah, that may be for other folks, but I’d much rather be as present as possible and net as much happiness as I can. I could use the logical (intelligent) justification, where I point to all the evidence on the absurdist, meaningless, and transient design of our physical lives, or I could do the performance rationale, where positivity yields better results, but I find those tend to get in the way of directly connecting with and allowing positivity. I met a mini schnauzer at the gym the other day and we were both pretty jazzed to see each other without any intelligence or performance rationale needed. In my mind, for that moment, that little guy had it figured out!

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     • “Normal” is an illusion constructed on a certain amount of surficial group consensus that develops under the influence of power or fear (even just a fear of being “tribeless”), whether social or otherwise. Past that surface, is there so much of a thing as normal? Plenty of people behind closed doors so to speak are thinking and doing things outside of that consensus…but perhaps that too is just part of the norm, lol.

       I think there is a place where positivity and performance need to team up so to speak to get certain things done, but that is just my perspective which I realize does not encompass the breadth of human thought or experience. Do you feel comfortable sharing a specific example where you feel like positivity alone earned you results that would have been superior to a performance-based attempt to get the same outcome?

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     • I’m not sure I can make a convincing case without including the idea that consciousness directly affects physical reality. But if we accept that premise, I think the most personally striking examples for me I’ve already described. The first one was where my super negative buddy needed urgent medical care and needed a place to stay (he got it, but not with me). I instantly agreed, because although I’d drawn a previous boundary with him and said no more staying at my place, I was fine with making an exception for medical stuff. When trying to buy a ticket for him, my card got declined multiple times. Then the charges went through twice, but the ticket didn’t process in the airline’s system, so my bank showed it but the airline didn’t. That to me was nuts–I interpreted it as a clear sign that are resonances were too different to allow us to meet up. The second was the psoas thing, where I was reflecting on how I’d just kind of taken it for granted that I’d be playing whack-a-mole with my body’s problems, so I decided to start changing that belief with visualizations combined with a sense of ease and play. That led me to a funny video, which tangentially led me to revisit the psoas (which I’d tried to stretch in a check-in-the-box manner years before without understanding how it connected to the upper body as well as the lower), which led to a rapid increase in mobility and lessening of pain. Those outcomes all started with me deciding to be positive without clauses, caveats, or anything of that nature.

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     • Well, without being privy to the details of your life (which I am not asking for here and respect your right to privacy), and just going on the information you have shared, and just running with the idea you have expressed that consciousness can directly impact the physical reality, perhaps one could say that it maybe wasn’t so much the difference in resonances between you and the friend, but rather your deeper level of conscious or subconscious desire was opposed to him staying, and therefore that was the intention that held the most influence in the outcome.

       For me, when I think about visualization as a means to channeling positivity, visualization is still an active process that requires a certain amount of effort and focus and mental energy, and therefore is still on the path that of marrying a certain amount of productivity with positivity. It sounds like the process you use also might highlight an openness to new approaches or information, or at the very least revisiting something if you feel that pull to do so.

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     • I’m inclined to think the deeper level of conscious or subconscious and the intention held by them are the same thing as resonance. For me, it explains why things still go a certain way even when I pay surface lip surface (forced conscious thought) in a different direction. It’s a distinct meeting of belief, emotion, and surety for me, which best fits the model of a literal vibration or oscillation as depicted in a wave. I do think it’s possible to alter that through conscious repetition, but if it isn’t done with an awareness of the emotional state, then it can be counterproductive, because when emotions aren’t aligned and repetitive thought becomes forced, it becomes stress and dysfunction.

       I like visualization, but I think resonance always comes first for me. That means when I’m feeling negative, I focus on accepting and acknowledging it, without conscious justifications as to why I shouldn’t feel it or why I absolutely deserve to be negative (conscious justifications are like an accelerant). So if I’ve released negativity through acknowledgment and acceptance, that’s a good time to visualize for me, where it doesn’t feel effortful in focus or energy. I guess the best way to put it is using the appliance with the cord plugged in. I need to make sure it’s getting electricity before I start using it. If it isn’t, I’m going to work on getting the electricity flowing first.

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     • That’s interesting. For me, I define intention and resonance differently, so to me I visualize and think of something different for each concept. Thank you for sharing how you view that. Regardless, I think the comparison about making sure an appliance is plugged in is apt. Also not going to lie, I am definitely one to lecture myself If I feel I am thinking or feeling something I shouldn’t because it conflicts with a belief from one of my more important core values. I will say that I have recognized the value in what you have said about acknowledging something that is felt and I do try to do that more these days, even if I don’t always agree with the sentiment or feel it’s the way I want to permanently think about something.

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     • This is all verbal and logical, so I think it’s incomplete when it comes to capturing nonverbal and emotional essence, but I’ve come to think of it as a three layer model, where the conscious is most cognitive and least emotional, subconscious is more emotional and less rational, and the deeper parts are the least rational and more emotional. That’s probably psychologically sound, but I also conflate it with a mystical structure, where as you go deeper, you increase the connection with your divine aspect, the one that communicates with intuition, isn’t as restricted by space and time, and arranges synchronicities. That’s what I mean by plugging in the appliance. By syncing up the pieces and minimizing conflict between conscious and subconscious, the energy can flow and you can lift with your core, so to speak, instead of trying to move stuff around with your pinkie fingers. All of them have a part to play, for example where the divine can arrange for inspiration, the subconscious can middleman through emotional tugs and nudges which equate to consciously detectable guidance, the conscious can interpret that into implementation and a mechanically sound system.

       No worries on the self-lecturing, I noticed myself doing exactly that this morning. My belief about that specific issue has only recently congealed in the last few months, tbh. I think an easy example is when I feel stuck, I might have hammered myself with the phrase “this too shall pass,” which is, as close as I can tell, objectively true. But if my subconscious wants to express its feeling of stuck-ness, I’m basically in a wrestling match with it, berating it for not going along with what’s objectively true. Nowadays, I’m more inclined to just tell myself, yep, I’m stuck, or yep, I guess this will last forever, if it eases up that feeling of inner conflict. A lot of times, I’ve noticed, I don’t even need to articulate my agreement, I can just focus on the negative feeling and let myself feel it, without any accompanying thoughts (although sometimes there are intrusive thoughts that I’ll go along with). An important part of it for me is to ease off the justification, where I justify why I should reject whatever I’m feeling, or justify why whatever I’m feeling is logically right (yes that person deserves to be punished because a b and c). At the same time, if these thoughts arise without my prompting, then once again, it’s time to let them be and breathe, and let them be felt. It’s kind of subtle, when I try to put it into words, but the basic gist is that I’m allowing myself to feel whatever I’m feeling, think whatever I’m thinking, and I’m not adding fuel to the fire with conscious justification, whether it’s “objectively true,” whether it’s for something as ostensibly productive as rejecting negativity, or whether it’s for something as ethically supported as articulating why I deserve to be negative because rules, society, values, blah blah blah.

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     • Well, I’ve now had all of the coffee that is prudent for me to have in one day, and my brain cells still don’t want to line up in an orderly manner on this response. Sometimes I have to have more of my braincells willing to work together to process your comments, and that’s not a bad thing. Just not sure I fully made it there today, lol. I think I can agree with how you have attributed levels of emotion to different areas of consciousness, but I also think that the deeper ones are often more connected with what a person desires most on some level (which can lead to the levels of conflict and dissonance referenced)…It’s kind of like my very conscious mind *knows* grabbing a spoon and chowing down on the Nutella would be a bad idea. But my subconscious mind wants it so bad it’s bleeding into the actions fueled by my less surface level thoughts, and before you know it I’ve got a spoon in hand and the most I can do is say…well, I’m stopping with one spoonful. Really, I am. And, I’ll try not to shame lecture myself about it because my conscious mind lost out and there is that dissonance and disconnect. My subconscious really just wanted the Nutella. It is what it is. I think sometimes it can be hard to minimize conflict between the two, but I agree it is best to do that whenever possible.

       I like to be proactive and positive about solving things, and I used to chew myself out when my first reaction wasn’t to land there, which I noticed recently wasn’t helping and was making harder to find the positivity as quickly as I wanted or needed it. But I recognized the dissonance from that wasn’t helping after thinking about some of your comments, so I acknowledge now “hey, I feel stressed about this” or unhappy, or whatever and I just give myself a hug and permission to feel that way before I find my positive and try to deal with it. And I get to a proactive place quicker that way. Still giving myself lectures about the “Nutella” level of stuff though, lol. I don’t even know that I want to get rid of that type of lecturing yet, just because sometimes my subconscious wants things it shouldn’t and maybe a little reminder or lecture is in order.

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     • I agree, and I’m inclined to speculate that perhaps the deeper desires may sometimes be interpreted as destiny or fate, depending on what kind of connection a person’s surface consciousness has with their deeper levels. I feel like this might be the dynamic behind Hollywood-style series of events where crises start popping up and forcing someone to reconsider what they truly want in life, and essentially forcing them to leave behind increasingly toxic comfort in pursuit of fulfillment.

       As far as the subconscious wanting Nutella, that makes me think of the trickster qualities of the subconscious. I’m not saying this is what’s happening to you, but I think if the subconscious is ignored or suppressed, it will act out in seemingly bizarre ways, much like the cliche of a couple who fight about something seemingly trivial, but the trivial issue isn’t what they’re truly concerned about, it was something in the past that they failed to address, or in a less intellectual sense, unprocessed or jammed-up energy. Once again, not saying that’s happening with you and nutella, but I’ve definitely found that’s happened with me or other folks who do something seemingly nonproductive or nonsensical. I was actually pretty angry at some obstructive circumstances this morning (one of my flaws and gifts is that I enjoy the feeling of progress, of moving toward something, much more than your average person, so I’m naturally active, but if things slow down then I get much more angry than regular folks). I found myself trying to rationalize away the anger at some points, then I took my own advice and said I guess I’m angry, I guess I’m an angry motherfucker. After letting it breathe and be for a bit, it took its hooks out and I got to move on. It is a bit disorienting, I have to admit, because when I’m in the thick of negativity and I truly allow myself to feel it, it’s immersive enough to quash any conviction that I’ll ever let go or that things will ever get better. I have to let go of the idea/goal of letting go of it in that moment, if that makes any sense.

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     • Well, I think some things qualify as actual fate, and perhaps some things hinge upon a personal interpretation of the individually experienced reality. You have some interesting points about the Nutella, and I’m not necessarily disputing them, but also sometimes I think it’s just as simple as Nutella tastes way better than broccoli. Just saying. Way, way better than broccoli.

       I am a person who enjoys the feeling of progress too, on some levels I can understand what you are saying. In my circumstances, there are so many components of what I want to see, so many variables, that are out of my control. Somethings I can perhaps influence, but sometimes I have to reach deep within myself to find peace in the journey that isn’t moving as quickly or at all in the direction I want. I have to remember that it is the finish line and not the time frame that matters. You know, even for people who feel like they couldn’t be me and they wouldn’t make the choices that I did and they would have chosen a facility for their kiddo (and I have no regrets about the choice that I made because I am certain the other would have been more emotionally damaging to me in every way), they still might find an opening in a covered facility is years away and they are still stuck having to go through all of what is required to stand in their shoes or mine until it does. But sometimes I feel the frustration or sadness of not being able to do things on the time frame I want, or feeling like my circumstances became a blank check that signed away my rights to have more than the most minimal of desires or hobbies or whatever for myself. Sometimes radical acceptance is the only option.

       Yesterday, my kiddo spent more than 2 hours in a school and went trick or treating for an hour. Many people don’t see that as “wow” progress, but if they’d seen my kiddo five years ago…any certainly I had hoped to be at this point sooner, but it is what it is. I can understand what you are saying that there is value in acknowledging it, because those feelings are there…and maybe sometimes they have increased the attractiveness of Nutella tenfold, lol.

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     • According to some remote viewers, there are things that are indeed fated. They would only be considered choice from the purely omnipotent perspective, not from the subconscious or surface conscious (or any level of self with any hint of individuality). Sometimes, it’s a source of comfort for me, sometimes not so much so. I feel like it’s related to the phrase “it is what it is.” Sometimes it’s deeply comforting, but sometimes it’s not so productive to focus on, because it makes me feel trapped and frustrated.

       For the last two days, I’ve had some reoccurrences of the stuck-feeling. I’ve had to consciously shift focus onto just acknowledging yes, I’m stuck, I’m doomed, that’s fine. Once I do that, it lets me float back up into the feeling that anything’s possible, not “not doomed,” because there’s still a focus on doom there, but a willingness to engage with potential and openness. Honestly, if I’d done that kind of thing as recently as a year or two ago, I would have been surprised. When I was younger, I would literally be negative for days to maybe even a week or two, and in the last few years it would last a day or two sometimes. Now I can move through it in hours, which is amazing in retrospect, although it doesn’t feel amazing or abnormal while it’s happening, if that makes sense.

       I’m inclined to think that radical acceptance and enjoying the journey are the way to go, since they calm the conflict within someone’s resonance and allow the appliance to get plugged back in. It’s paradoxical, because it could be interpreted as settling for less, but if the resonance is aligned, if someone is truly satisfied with what’s going on and not trying to begrudgingly rationalize themselves into being satisfied, I think the resonance is satisfaction, and the resonance is what matters, not the specific topic (which is why I think people can forget about their aspirations, just be all right with their circumstances, and suddenly they get what they wanted even though they weren’t focused on it because their deeper selves don’t forget). But much like feeling and acknowledging negativity, where I can’t be doing it with some background focus on getting rid of it, I feel the same way about satisfaction, where I need to truly accept that present conditions are okay and I’ll make do, without some nagging motive of improving my resonance. So as far as the acknowledgment, I think of it as brushing your teeth versus eating. If I’m feeling negative, I should focus on feeling, acknowledging, and cleaning things up, not trying to force more food in my mouth in some contrived effort to prove that my teeth aren’t dirty. If I’m eating (feeling positive), I’ll try to avoid weighing everything down with rationalizations of don’t get too happy because the other shoe might drop, or don’t jinx it or whatever. Also, in the past, I’ve been overeager about positive developments, weighing them down with follow-on expectations that have to happen as a, b, c, and so that I can get to e, but when it doesn’t happen that way, I’ve gotten angry and frustrated, which in terms of resonance, worked against what I was trying to do.

       I guess in a nutshell, it’s about resonance for me, and the best way for me to deal with it is through emotional acknowledgment and being present, rather than my old ways which were trying to will or rationalize it into being what I wanted, or berating it with logical arguments about why I was feeling the “wrong” thing.

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     • Well, I think it’s tricky because even when a person is used to winning they won’t win it everything, and sometimes they will get into a circumstance and discover it is nothing like they thought it was going to be. That is life. Sometimes people are just doomed. That being said, If somebody thought I was doomed or tried to convince me I was doomed, I would almost certainly do everything I could to not be doomed. But I also have to acknowledge that there are moments where enough discouraging things can happen that It can be difficult even for a sunflower of positivity to quickly reorient to that mentality. But because it is often more productive and useful to orient towards the light as quickly as possible, even if I think the odds are terrible I am going to try to do that rather than resign myself to acceptance being my only path.

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     • I actually agree with your specifics, but I’m in contradiction of where to apply them in general. From a philosophical, existential perspective, I’m convinced that no one is doomed, that not only is it possible to reconnect with the game-player/creator perspective and edit the game for my character while it’s happening, but that once the game is over, we inevitably remember that we are players/creators and all the power, possibility, and joy that comes with that. However, in the heat of the moment, for the character perspective, where negativity is roiling in my brain, then I’ll do my best to make peace with that negativity, even if I don’t agree with the specifics of it. I want to settle the conflict within me and re-open that channel through my subconscious to my player/creator self. This is probably best represented in a functional context, in the most dire and morbid of circumstances, by Ronald Spiers (who, despite his failings, was good at soldiering), when he advises a cowering soldier “The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function.” I’ve heard this sentiment echoed in samurai writings, and also in modern military who adopt the more relatable, “Fuck it, I’m going to die some day, so I’ll throw myself into this seemingly hopeless or horrendous task, because all of it goes in the end.” The point of that to me is not to be macho or edgy, but to make peace and quell inner conflict in that specific context. So as paradoxical as it may seem, in the heat of the moment (and admittedly, my new understanding of this has only blossomed in the last few months), I’m going to make peace with my subconscious so I can free up processing power in my conscious, and if you believe in the superconscious, bring him into play so I’m lifting with my core, so to speak. Even if that means resigning myself to acceptance internally (I’ll always outwardly keep pushing toward my goal unless I’m given undeniable indicators that it isn’t the most productive way forward), then so be it. I’ve lived way too much of my life lifting with my pinkies, lol!

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     • Feel free to contradict…I ain’t going to get my undies in a bunch about it. Sometimes I’m correct about something, sometimes I’m not, sometimes there isn’t a specific correct answer and there’s more than one way to get to the same destination so to speak. It sounds like your approach is really working well for you, and that’s great 😀 I have already rambled enough in responses today, so…just going to cap this off with thanking you for putting so much time into sharing your perspective on this. Wishing you a wonderful day ahead!

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     • No worries! Always a pleasure to interact with you. Glad there’s people as nice as you out there!

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     • I thank you and I return the compliment, however, I am also honest enough to acknowledge that opinions will vary depending on who you ask as to how nice I actually am. I try not to suck as a person, but even I can look at some of the interactions I’ve had with people and see that there are things I could have improved upon. Sometimes people encounter the barely holding it together from the stress version of me, and that may be nice on the inside, and too frazzled to present that way entirely on the outside.

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     • We all have those days. Sounds like you’re doing your best, even with intangibles like positivity and being nice to yourself. You have a great attitude, as far as I can tell!

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     • Thank you 😊 while I do try to be as positive as I can, perhaps the lens of the internet has kept you from seeing that sometimes, every now and then, even I can go gloom and doom in a conversation. For example, recently found out we are going to be paying $550 more a month for health insurance starting in January. I’m still trying to stop the internal hyperventilation over that one in fact. I definitely had some gloomy conversations with people where I looked in my economic crystal ball and opined about what it looks like when families making more than $200,000 a year can’t afford a house in many markets as regards to what that means for most families and individuals in this country in terms of quality of life etc. So even I can struggle to find the positive, though I am doing my best to return to the surface of positivity lol.

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     • Honestly, I think you’re more positive than me, given your responsibilities and day-to-day focus! If you were doing what I’m doing, you’d probably be constantly singing upbeat scat and grooving whenever you had to walk anywhere in the house 😂

       I’ve had multiple times in the past when those big financial hits reared their ugly heads. I used to freeze inside from the dread as my overly thought-out plans went up in smoke, then I’d stay like that for a while before I started piecing together a new way forward. I’m not sure what exactly is the healthiest way for you to process that, but I know for me, the last thing I wanted to hear in the peak of those instances was that there’s always a way to make money, or stay strong, keep the faith, that kind of thing. If I could give advice to my past self it would be to feel whatever arises, think whatever arises, without consciously strengthening it through rationalization. But if that happens without conscious prompting (or inadvertently with prompting), that’s okay too, let that rationalization run its course, allow the cork (metaphorically your emotional outlook) float back up to the surface. I’m not sure if that helps, but it’s what seems to help me the most nowadays. I think you have a great attitude, and that you’re bound for good things, even if it may take a bit. I’m rooting for you!

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     • First, thank you. That’s quite a compliment. I will say that if my circumstances were even slightly less challenging *and* I got 8 hours of sleep per night? I would probably currently be annoying (to some) levels of perky. Just even 8 hours of sleep without anything else changing makes me significantly more chipper. But the Eeyores off the world can rejoice, I almost never get 8 hours of sleep currently, so until I have fewer challenges, the world has been spared that from me, lol.

       Second, I will say that I started immediately thinking of things I could do, but I also have moments where I am stuck in the place of being in my emotional response and I will probably need to get past that before I can be at my most effective. But I will. There’s just a lot of stuff going on for me personally and given the constraints I am under with what is required for Tony’s needs/care, there’s a limited array of options at my disposal and some of it looks like “Well, I stop getting my hair cut” level of stuff. It’s either that or save less. Fortunately, my hair doesn’t break as it gets longer, it just gets heavier and can lead to more headaches. I had hair past my knees for a number of years and it didn’t get thinner towards the ends even at that long. I appreciate your kind words though. I try to stay upbeat, but I have moments from this or other things that get hard where I just feel it for a time and I think that’s human and natural and honest about my circumstances. Usually there’s nothing anybody can say that will fix it, the focus and the desire have to come to me, but moments of empathy do help, so I thank you for your kind words on the subject.

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     • I’ve been using rogaine for years so I can keep a full head of hair. We should trade–you give me some of your hair power, I’ll give you a bit of teeth magic, lol! You sound naturally high energy as well. I get restless because I like to do be doing something meaningful, but I also enjoy blurgh-ing around. Once I get my self-assigned tasks out of the way, I’m kind of an old man slug 😅

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     • Hmmm…I Don’t know if I want to give up these Lucious locks.. At my age, it’s a gift! Many women have thinning hair by the time they are my age. I mean, it would be kinda cool not to have sucky enamel, but it is what is. I’d be willing to do a trim that would supply someone with wig material (I’ve done that), but a permanent trade probably not. Just too grateful and greedy about what I have there to be doing that. Appreciate the offer though 😀 Yeah, typically higher energy pretty much most of my life until I got POTS. And even then, I actually do really, really well for an unmedicated person with POTS. I can definitely appreciate and enjoy time to lay around and do nothing now because it feels like such a luxury in my circumstances…

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     • No need to trade, I figure I can boost your tooth energy and you can boost my hair energy–you’re tapped in to the hair gods and I’m good with the teeth gods, lol! I’ll put in a good word for you with the nap gods while I’m at it!

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     • I have no problem asking the universe to give you the hair of your dreams if it’s within the scope of your life journey, sending those vibes your way. If you’re putting in a good word with the universe, what I would say I maybe need more than nap time is a fresh set of internal batteries and a back up supply of them for all of the things a mother of a kiddo with our son’s level of needs has to fight for. If someone were to ask me now whether or not I thought it was good for the circumstances to adopt a kiddo from foster care (and I did talk to people who did that as part of my decision process and not a single one of them mentioned the types of challenges I have been having), what I would say to them is this: 1) you can’t count on the state to give you accurate information about the level of challenges your kiddo does or could have because I have talked with people who claim that was the case for them, so 2) unless you are independently wealthy, and if you have a kiddo who is either “high” Or “low” functioning (and I hate both of those terms, but they’re commonly used, so we’ll just go with it for now) you better have the emotional energy to meet your kiddo’s needs and the financial fortitude to get an attorney or whatever to fight for whatever is medically or otherwise necessary every single time you may need to do so or a need could arise. Because in those two areas of the bell curve, it seems to be just how it goes down way too often. He’s 11 and I already have a sort of internal fatigue over it. Does it mean I won’t engage when I need to? No. If something is necessary, I *Will* drag my emotional tired backside into whatever fray is required. Sometimes I have to prioritize which battles are necessary though, and even when I’m tired and sick of it, if I feel a battle is necessary, I have to engage because I’m a mom and that’s what my vision of motherhood entails. It shouldn’t have to be though that parents who take this kind of thing on have to play the game of whipping out an attorney and seeing whose is bigger or whose case looks more viable in court before certain things are settled. I think more than a nap, I would love to see people just say “hey, he meets legal and procedural guidelines for this, let’s just pay for it!” or “hey, you’ve done a lot to help out on this, we appreciate what you are doing and are not going to try and take any further advantage or make things any harder for you…” That sort of thing. You know, I didn’t send vibes into the universe that I was expecting these kind of fights. I just naively thought when he started having delays and challenges that if he met medical necessity, etc. it would be a much smoother task. Nah. Life has taught me better. People are going to do what they are going to do because of limited funding and who they think benefits society more to pay for regardless of all of those things unless they know a person is willing to engage with them and has the resources to win. I was having this conversation with my OB yesterday before surgery, but the root canal I had a couple years ago was one of the most relaxing moments I was having at that time. So teeth enamel…yeah, I mean, I can’t always get a babysitter when I need a repair because of scheduling, but it’s so much less stressful than the other stuff…that’s maybe what I would want people to ask the universe for.

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     • Well, I’ll ask for you to get easy and satisfying results for everything that comes your way. Sometimes, I’ve noticed it can become like whack a mole even with resolutions to something imminent or specific. Something new and wholly unexpected pops up that demands the same level of urgency, then the stress remains exactly the same, paranoia remains the same, and then there’s other things that happen that can easily be used to justify the continuing stress and paranoia. Even then, those habitual mind-states can be carried over even if the environment permanently changes, like celebrities who are permanently insecure because they can’t forget how traumatizing auditions were when they were struggling, or people who used to have to constantly worry about security and scarcity who become preppers and conspiracy theorists because their mindset is locked in that vibe. Ease and satisfaction, ease and satisfaction, almighty ease and satisfaction deities, giveth ease and satisfaction unto Ariana! 🙌

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     • Thanks! And I’m still wishing for you to have the hair of your dreams. You’ve listened to enough of my rants I feel like maybe you’ve earned it from the universe, lol. And your other points are well-taken. I think there’s ease and then there’s our circumstances, and they don’t seem to be compatible up until now, and they may not continue to be compatible, so perhaps the only thing I can really change is how much I let it get to me. I feel like sometimes the most successful mental trick is to just habituate something to be the new walk in the park even if you’re trying to doge projectiles at the same time.

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     • That’s actually a good mental trick for me. If I try and think positive but it feels like a lie, I’ve recently started saying that I love [whatever problem]. If that feels forced, I go more casual, saying fine, I accept the problem. Sometimes, if it resonates with me in terms of ease and flow, I’ll say I DON’T want a good thing to happen. That’s based on the same logic where if you keep saying you don’t want a bad thing to happen, you’re focusing on the bad thing, which makes it more likely. Like fine, I don’t want to be healthy, I don’t want to be happy, if that feels more freeing and releases that sense of inner conflict. It’s really just about how it feels in the moment to me, which means paying attention to the emotional feelers.

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     • Well, I always prefer good things to happen lol, so personally I’m probably not going to reverse psychology that one for myself. I always tend to favor the strategy that is best adapted to surviving my circumstances first and then improving them etc within the bounds of what I feel is the most ethical path to be on in them.

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     • I do too, it’s just I guess I’ve come to believe it’s the resonance that matters most. If I approach good things with a needy resonance, I fall into a needy series of events, and if I approach with the resonance of carefree detachment, then I get more of that. So it’s not the specifics I’m wedded to, because I’ve simpered and begged for specifics with the emotional focus that I don’t have them, but the emotional focus where I have everything I could need or want, that I’ll be fine whatever happens because I feel deep down that it will turn out good no matter what.

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     • Okay, so not to be difficult but for the sake of discussion: once upon a Time I was a little girl in a family experiencing significant poverty to the point where I can still remember the taste of rotten beef that my mom cooked extra long to try to kill the bacteria because there wasn’t money for anything else, I can remember what it was like to cook our food on a campfire in the backyard because the utilities had been turned off because we couldn’t afford them. I can remember what it was like to sleep on the floor because there was no money for a bed. For a person who feels that kind of need in their life, how would you recommend they go about feeling that sense of ease and lack of need? I think there can reach a certain level of deprivation of resources where it is really hard not to feel needy based on my personal experience and I’m not sure how one can reconcile that level of extremity to find a sense of ease….

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     • Well, first off, obviously this is funneled through my opinion, so it’s not a judgment or prescription for what you’re describing, it is my opinion and nothing else. There’s lots of practical actions you can take, but before I get to those, I would say that it really depends on how you frame things, and how much you’re willing to alter that framing. People can see their traumatic pasts as inescapable and actually get pissed if someone argues against that stance, which might seem weird, but has proven true in my experience. I think the reason behind that is some folks prefer predictable misery over the unpredictable possibility of fulfillment and resolution, kind of like a disgusting blanket that needs to be thrown out, but has a toxic nostalgia attached to it. Also, some of those folks are seeking solidarity in their worldview, that existence is against them, and they aren’t really seeking resolution, but solidarity in their misery. Now, I honestly don’t know if that’s the case with you, I bring it up to say that if that IS the case with you, no recommendation will pan out, in my opinion. I’ve tried that with my friends, and they actually begin attacking me for challenging their negative bedrock and re-rationalize it into place, even if I out-argue them and they temporarily agree with me. But if that’s not the case, if you even believe in the possibility of resolution, then I believe that possibility can be realized.

       Here is where it really depends on what you resonate with. I could lay out logic appeals that you’ll perform better without baggage eating up your processing power, an emotional appeal that you’ll be more engaged and present with your family without baggage, but I don’t know if that will be enough to get rid of it. It very may well be, I don’t know. I could offer a meathead way where you just berate yourself every time you think of those subjects. It probably wouldn’t work, but some people respond to that stuff under certain contexts. Perhaps cognitive behavioral therapy might help. Perhaps psychedelics (there’s some pretty cool studies about undoing the fear response in conditioned mice with psychedelics, and even undoing epigenetic trauma in their descendants who were never exposed to the traumatizing stimulus, also MDMA therapy has had very cool and dramatic results with traumatized veterans). Perhaps exposure therapy (not sure how you would structure this, but perhaps fasting for the food to show you have much more latitude to eat than your body says? When I got into fasting, I started by trying for two days straight, but I’d fail a little over a day. I’d record the time, 27 hours for example’s sake, and then knowing I could do 27 hours at a minimum, I would tell myself you have to do at least one more hour next time, which didn’t seem out of reach. I’d get to 4 days eventually, which I realized was actually pretty easy once you got past the hype, fasting is actually doing a whole lot less because you’re not spending time eating and prepping meals, and it’s really just 1-2 days where you’re hungry, which becomes much more tolerable once you get past the psychological barrier, in the end you’re being lazier and it’s actually kind of boring, not hardcore). Perhaps the phenomenon of post traumatic growth resonates with you, and focusing on anecdotes would bolster your belief and faith that you can rewire yourself the way you want. Perhaps sheer persistence is more your thing, that you see it as an adventure and a quest (recently, I was appreciating the life story of Francis Ngannou, who grew up in poverty, working in a sand mine, dreamt of being a boxer, finally emigrated to Europe after seven failed attempts, lived on the streets, then went on to become a UFC world champion, and finally realized his boxing dream by technically losing, but wildly beating everyone’s expectations in his first boxing match against one of the best boxers in the world. No one thought that was even possible–to get good at boxing, you need to train for years at boxing specifically, and to knock down a champion pro and make it a very narrow and arguable win in your first boxing match is borderline absurd). Perhaps you could do some mixture of all of the above, or something I haven’t mentioned.

       Personally, I believe all those things are psychological devices, and they ultimately serve someone’s ability to believe and focus. My approach would be to accept worst-case scenarios in a cavalier fashion and take the teeth out of them. Yep, I’ve eaten shitty food, so what? I’m not eating it now. Hell, someone could food poison me at the next drive thru, just by mistake, so it’s an always present threat that doesn’t warrant constant worry, like car wrecks or meteor strikes. Yep, I’ve been poor. It built character, and I appreciate what I have. Personally, I still sleep on the floor because that’s how Koreans do and in the military, I spent a lot of time napping on the ground when I could. Hey, maybe all those things will happen again, but I’m going to die anyway, so what do I really want to focus on, fear of what happened and what might happen again? All that stuff is pretty intellectual, if it isn’t resonating, it means I need to let myself feel and acknowledge the negativity, allow it to move on so positive thoughts don’t feel like lies.

       Once again, all that’s just my opinion. If none of that works, I still believe we’re in a no-lose game, that we aren’t beholden to suffer because of some cruel mechanism imposed upon us in the past. What kind of existence would that be? Those mechanisms were influenced by older mechanisms, such as misfortunes arising from grandparents, their parents’ misfortunes and mishaps were influenced by their ancestors, who were influenced by primate ancestors, amphibian ancestors, amoeba ancestors, and then the cosmic collisions, explosions, and implosions that gave birth to all those ancestors. That would mean we are stuck in an unimaginably powerful, unchangeably cruel clockwork. I choose to believe that’s not the case, that even if you don’t resolve all this stuff in the immediate future or even in this life, you’ll be able to do it as a spirit or in the next life. I believe you have incredible power, that you are deserving of peace and fulfillment, and you will get it, in one fashion or another.

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     • I think from my perspective my statement was more it’s hard to feel ease in that moment when you don’t have the things you need, so it was more geared towards what you think would be the best approach for the person who is experiencing those conditions in the here and now?

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     • At the risk of beating a dead horse, I’ll contextualize our past conversations about emotional management here. In this case, it seems fear might be the predominant emotion, maybe jealousy or resentment at people that never have to worry about it, I don’t know. Regardless, it’s some form of intrusive negativity.

       Now, let’s game out the traditional route, white-knuckling it into positivity, or maybe berating/nagging yourself for feeling a “useless” or “nonsensical” emotion. White-knuckling and/or brute-forcing positivity is not appealing to me. Even if it works, it implies that I have to sacrifice my peace and sacrifice enormous concentration whenever negativity intrudes. That’s similar to a religion, in that it’s transactional–I always have to pay a price. Obviously, I’m not a fan of berating, because it’s kind of the same forced vibe–trying to logically oppress myself into feeling positive.

       Personally, I’ve found that for me, negativity comes from a part of you that’s kind of like a screaming baby. What does the baby need? In my case, it’s to be heard and felt, and that is a purely individual shift of focus. I don’t need to move, say anything, or even make eye contact with anyone. If I’m feeling stuck, I get much more relief from accepting my stuckness, possibly saying fine, I’ll be stuck forever, than beating myself over the head with a phrase like “This too, shall pass.” when it doesn’t feel true. This is where people seem to not understand that I’m not resonating with the stuckness, but the ACCEPTANCE of the stuckness. Through that acceptance, the conflict diminishes and I can shift back into neutrality or positivity. Some people seem to think that they need negativity to lock in a positive outcome, but to me, that’s treating yourself like a fundamentalist preacher treats their congregation. I don’t need to fill my brain with dire warnings of hellfire and brimstone to scare myself straight into possibly going to heaven. Conversely, people seem to think that if acceptance bleeds into accepting negative specifics, that will increase possibility of the negativity realizing, when I believe nothing could be further from the truth. The body, mind (and I believe existence) responds to emotional resonance, not surface conscious specifics. The deeper mind already knows the specifics you want, so when you clean up your emotional resonance, you let it get to work for you, regardless of whether you’re consciously locked onto something 24/7 or not. A good illustration might be a recent conversation I had with an anthropology professor, who told me one of her students, because of his religion, was required to say a blessing for each ingredient within his sandwich. The surface conscious intent was to infuse every bit of this food with gratitude and love, but the rite was so nitpicky and detailed that he ended up becoming frustrated and irked by it–THAT was the resonance he was carrying to his meal, and though it’s a matter of opinion, I sincerely doubt that a check-in-the-box ritual let his mind appreciate that meal the way he wanted and open the path for health and energy. Similarly, what I describe isn’t about endorsing food poisoning, lack of a bed, or anything else–those are outward-symptom boxes with a bunch of letters attached to them. It’s about going deeper, working with the vibration and current beneath those boxes, which paradoxically often (for me) seems like I’m surface-consciously endorsing something negative, when in reality, I’m focused on resonating with acceptance. And if it doesn’t work in one shot, if I’m disappointed or frustrated by the failure, I’ll roll into acceptance of disappointment and frustration, I might say something like, fine, I’m disappointed, fine I’m frustrated, if it doesn’t go away and nags me, I’ll roll into acceptance of that and I might say something like fine I guess I’m going to be nagged by this forever. That to me, anecdotally, has been much more effective than white-knuckling, brute-forcing, or fundamentalist-preaching to myself.

       So at the risk of being reductive, I don’t go for positivity right away, I go for acceptance. I brush my teeth, wait till they’re clean, then I eat. I never want to be stuck in the predicament where I’m trying to superficially bless my food when in actuality, through my resonance, I’m cursing the moment. That, in my opinion, describes the fine line between making fun of someone and being venomous and hurtful, versus making them laugh and uplifting their spirits. Both are possible–the outward specifics are probably the same or similar, but the resonance is completely different. Clean up resonance through acceptance, which opens the path for ease, which naturally goes back to positivity, that’s my take on it.

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     • I remember the first time I realized circumstances in my childhood weren’t normal. I was young (as in younger than 3) still in diapers, chasing my sister who was also a toddler and recently able to walk around a rusting pan that was catching drip water in the room we’d been locked in for some time. The person didn’t even say anything, it was the feeling coming off of them, what was in their eyes… until then, I could accept my circumstances. I think when recognition is there that something is way worse than it should be, or not normal, or difficult, acceptance may not be the first place people naturally land. As a child experiencing those things I discussed, by the time I was experiencing them, obviously I had a sense of how normal they were, but there was also the helplessness of childhood, so many things are out of a person’s control, really acceptance sometimes can be the only option. But I still think a person can be suffering enough from a lack of resources on some sort of survival level that acceptance isn’t what resonates first because there’s the urge to have what is necessary for that, it’s a quest to have enough, just to have enough, and I think for anybody in those circumstances, I can understand why ease wouldn’t be where they start out, and acceptance neither. Though I do think acceptance is a very useful thing to be able to pull out of one’s emotional tool bag.

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     • Even in a survival situation, I believe acceptance is healthy. It hearkens back to the story I told you of a better soldier arising from one who accepts that they’re already dead. In an emergency, someone who accepts that they need such and such and they must dedicate the entirety of their being toward attaining that will maximize their processing power. Someone who accepts that they are incredibly frustrated or angry will put their subconscious to work faster than someone who can’t move or act because they’re hung up on rationalizing why they should or shouldn’t be angry or frustrated. Paradoxically, someone who accepts that they can’t focus a single split-second on their emotions because they’re in imminent danger will move their focus onto what is relevant. It isn’t the abstraction of acceptance as a state that I advocate, but the moment by moment practice of allowing and observing what arises in my own mind, without adding fuel to the fire by deliberately rationalizing it in a direction where I’m maximizing my resistance to my subconscious and/or the situation, if it is imminent survival. I believe this is true mindfulness, not simply goggling at a color or trying to force thoughts into a simplistic observation of what’s physically around me, but to fully honor my internal phenomena, to allow it to be valid and let it go on its way instead of grabbing onto it and trying to wrestle it into what it “should” be.

       On a more theoretical level, I believe these negative intrusive parts of us might be analogous to our internal organs. Our organs are gross and no one wants to see them. However, they comprise us and inform our personhood, and when they’re taken care of (acknowledged and allowed to be internally expressed and validated, in the mental realm), they make us feel healthier, aid us in life, and increase our capacity for adventure and fulfillment. If I consistently smoke and ignore my lungs when they start bugging me, it’s going to start limiting my ability to hike up mountains. But if my lungs act up and I address the issue with medicine, breathing exercises, or some other therapeutic, then I’ll be in the position to leverage that. Perhaps the purpose of your hardship wasn’t to oppress you with that other person’s opinion of what “should” be (doesn’t variants of “should” and “shouldn’t” come in as many variations as the billions+ consciousnesses that have existed throughout time and space?). Perhaps it was inspiration for future endeavors–maybe you are uniquely suited to lift others out of those situations or protect them from them, maybe it would become a whole new realm of fulfillment for you. It doesn’t have to be a malicious ghost that lurks in the shadows and randomly fucks with you, it’s true purpose might be the exact opposite.

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     • I would not say that because I am recounting certain experiences that I see them as malicious ghosts. Anyone who has been abused and neglected to that degree will tell you that the true ghost that terrorizes is the one that tells you to keep hidden and secret and in silence. That is the legacy of shame and secrecy that often comes with those kinds of experiences. In describing them I do not say that they define me, though they have shaped me. They do not terrorize me, they are just other events to be described just as I would say today I am wearing burnt pumpkin orange colored pants. And Tony just clapped when I dictated that lol. I think sometimes when a person accepts circumstances that are awful, that acceptance leads to complacence and stagnation. I can accept something is bad, but I cannot accept staying in that place.

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     • I have a slightly different take on my past unpleasantness in that I believe the crucial factor is it depends on how I frame it in my own head. The important thing for me is that I make peace with what my memories and impressions are. They may be accurate, inaccurate, but they are components that will matter to me more than anyone else by a long shot, because they are formed through my unique perspective, and won’t affect others in the manner they affect me. I don’t think telling people about that stuff is going to necessarily make me feel better (this really struck home when I reconciled some unpleasant things with my family, my ex tried the same, but instead of reconciliation, she just got a disinterested meh, which made her even more disappointed), but I also don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of or kept under wraps out of fear, embarrassment, or any other negative motivation. I’ve met folks that are out and out proud of hardships they went through and will often bring them up as part of a success-oriented narrative (look where I am now, or yep, I made it through all that and I’m still going strong, or it set me up for good stuff, and I have no doubt that other good stuff is coming). I also have seen people who throw it out as street cred, so they can further support their own positive take on how to proceed with a given issue. Conversely, I’ve seen people who were blessed on paper, but they couldn’t let go of some trivial mistake, to the point where others would be scratching their heads and wondering why said mistake would even be an issue. I’ve seen these folks live out self-fulfilling prophecies despite their great accomplishments and general ease of life, falling into a more trauma-constrained role than some of the others I’ve seen who started with a much shorter material end of the stick. So for me, it is not necessarily what happened to me that matters, but how I am framing it in my perception. If someone else understands or wants to respect it, that’s cool. But those people aren’t me, they will never spend as much time with me as me, they will never perceive events like me (even if they’re right there with me as it happens), and they will never give me the peace and positivity I deserve through their outward validation. I believe the most important person that needs to do that is me and me alone.

       Regardless, if you’re good with your experiences, that’s great! I made a mistake–I assumed they were still bothering you from your other comments.

       As far as acceptance, I don’t think I’m communicating the principle of it. It is not the circumstance the person accepts, but whatever negative emotion/thought might arise in the moment. (Having to accept positive emotion is much less of an issue, but I’ve had this problem, where I feel positive then I start piling a bunch of expectations on it, or make it negative again by saying stuff like don’t jinx it or watch out for the other shoe to drop). To me, acceptance of what internally arises aligns the surface conscious, subconscious, and deeper conscious, allowing someone to plug the electricity in and use their appliance more effectively. Once aligned, I believe that someone’s inherent worth is much more apparent, likely just out and out obvious, and they will extricate themselves from toxicity with more clarity, better timing, and a more effectiveness-oriented perception. So it’s not about accepting a toxic circumstance, but cleaning up mental processes so that toxic circumstances (if we’re inherently worthy and that is felt as truth, then it can be deduced that circumstances below our worth would not be acceptable and our sub and deeper conscious would tell us to get out of them) can be negated in a faster manner, in tandem with intuition and synchronicity. To be fair, negative reinforcement works–I’ve experienced it, administered it, and seen its effectiveness. But at this point in my life, I’m not going to use it to motivate myself or anyone else. Not only do I prefer positive reinforcement, I respond better to it, and unless it’s a passing thing, I’m not going to hang around people that constantly need me to crack the whip “for their own good.” If I have to do that for any extended period, I’m going to simultaneously be making plans to alter the situation, or get out of it altogether.
       That’s a transactional world where you must consistently use discomfort to avoid a potential greater discomfort, and I’m not staying in that world by choice. If someone needs that to get out of toxic circumstances via negative reinforcement, then no worries, I have no problem with that, and they can keep doing that if they want. They can motivate themselves through an existential version of a stick, instead of a carrot. Personally, I feel like the carrot works better–that’s what I try to do for myself, and that’s as far as I’m willing to go for anyone else if they ask. If someone’s perception doesn’t allow for the carrot and puts more value on the stick, they can either administer it to themselves or someone else can do it. I’ll just leave my door open if they change their mind about the carrot. At the very least, if I ever find myself stuck with the stick as the best alternative, I’m going to lean into acceptance of any resistance I might have toward it, free up my cognitive processes, and start planning and moving toward a place where the stick is not necessary.

       Lastly, I love that your son supports you being positive and strong! If I were there, I’d sneak him a custard cup to offer to you as a callback, lol! I’d keep a ready supply of them so he could do that in every one of your triumphant moments! 😁

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     • Well, dude, in my experience sometimes what someone is holding up to you as a carrot is actually an illusion they never planned to deliver on, so perhaps the most important piece in anything is to determine what actually are the stakes and reinforcers and motivations involved.

       You know, I’ve been that person hung up on something another person thought was trivial, but I think when that is the case, if I had been able to regulate my response better and help them understand why it was important to me perhaps it would have gone different for everybody involved. Because I always had a reason for why it was important to me. And then sometimes it really wouldn’t have mattered to the outcome if I did keep my responses more regulated, so perhaps the breath was best not wasted there. Sometimes I think we all have something that matters to us that another person can’t understand. And sometimes people are struggling to regulate because of things others aren’t seeing. So in my opinion, for what little it is worth, I think it’s just complicated all the way around sometimes.

       I appreciate your willingness to stand in solidarity with my son by supplying non-stop chocolate custard. No doubt that would win some pretty big points with him, lol! But even with me and my positivity, I still need the buy in and support of other people, and not everyone is comfortable to give it. People are happy to pat me on the back and tilt a halo over my head for what I am doing, but walk in my shoes? Often not so much. I had basically two choices because of the extent of his needs and neurological differences: facility or the path I am on. Many people would never understand why I didn’t choose facility and just will never empathize or relate to what I’m going through or have gone through. ..unless they have the misfortune of finding out that in their state, even if they wanted a facility should they find themselves in my shoes, there might a waitlist of years for that unless they are fabulously and independently wealthy and they’d be on this journey whether they wanted to be or not.

       My personal choice of preference was never facility, and I have helped my son develop skills that will allow him to live safely with us in the community as long as I’m able to be here and it has required intensive amounts of patience and work, but that doesn’t mean other people want to even allow me or him access to do the work that is necessary to give him an even more expanded set of options. And I have to recognize that there’s only so much I can do, because the other individuals needs and wants also matter in all of this. I’m heading into an IEP addendum meeting in a couple of weeks where, despite the progress and growth he is showing in the environment, homebound school services is on the agenda at the request of the school district. Even positive as I am, I turned off my phone last night so I could cry in peace without any distractions, right? I can accept that this is where I am at right now, but the acceptance won’t help me find solutions for him or for me. That is a moment beyond tears. My practice is to recognize when I’m not in a mental space where I can do anything productive, work on healing my own light within, and then tackle it any way I can that is constructive.

       My world has had challenges most people wouldn’t have wanted to deal with, and they won’t have empathy for it because it isn’t the path they would have chosen for themselves. So I guess for me personally I do try to come to a place at some point where I remember that when someone is freaking out about something that I see as no big deal. Maybe I’m not seeing their big picture, maybe I’m not living it, and maybe I’d understand a whole lot more if I were. But I’m not always perfect at that either , so I get it all the way around.

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     • I believe the original context of the carrot/stick was that of a toxic situation, where you posed that negativity could be beneficial in motivating someone to avoid harsher negativity, where I laid out reasons why I don’t want to be a part of that, and if it has to happen, I’m going to work towards changing the situation or getting out of it. But in this new context you’re referencing, it seems that you’re implying that caution must be attached to the carrot because it might actually be a stick. I can go along with that, so long as I’m not focusing on being motivated by negative past influences, and I’m focusing on positive outcomes. Yes, I’ve been betrayed as well, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse to assess opportunities in a state of low-key fear and/or paranoia. If an alarm goes off in my gut, I’ll give it a listen. If I get betrayed, I trust I’ll be able to get through it and make it beneficial, somehow. If someone betrays me, maybe it’s because they just weren’t in the right place to support me, maybe I don’t have to write them off (this happened with my brother, who went from blindingly selfish during covid to really coming through for my mom recently). I’m not going to tiptoe around life because I was damaged in the past. If anything, I see myself as wiser and more tuned in from that stuff, so I’m comfortable with acting more audaciously and trust that I can somehow benefit from unpleasantness.

       This is my opinion, but I disagree with the idea of attaching the qualifier “for what little it’s worth” to your opinion. No one knows how worthy your opinion will be over time, much like everyone else’s, so in our ignorance, your opinion is worth as much as everyone’s. I think the idea of worth attached to an opinion is a bit of a misnomer, it’s either useful right now or it isn’t, there’s no worth attached to it. Also, I disagree with your assertion that acceptance won’t help find solutions. We can go at that from multiple angles, where if you’re not accepting, then you’re going to start creating a false reality through denial, or you’re going to start internally fighting with your subconscious expression, which ties up processing power, encourages manifestation of bad health, and closes you off from perceiving opportunities. All those are applicable to finding and developing solutions. It seems like the mystical/magical angle doesn’t resonate much with you, so I won’t go into it.

       Text is poor, so I want to state that what I’m about to write isn’t in the spirit of irritation, frustration, or anything of the like. I’ve explained the premises and strategy behind making peace with the subconscious through acceptance from many different angles and fairly in-depth, but I feel like each time you meet it with a counterpoint with a nested implication that the world is cruel enough, or that we are powerless enough, that we must always watch out for a downside, that we need to be ready to motivate ourselves with negativity, forcibly focus on positivity, or that carrots might possibly warrant fear and/or paranoia, because they might in fact be sticks. At the end of the day, neither of us can 100% argue our premises with certainty. I can’t say for certain whether we are in a benevolent existence, or a random/malevolent one, where we are at the mercy of externalities. However, I do think we can find common ground that we seem to have a choice in what to believe, since, as I have said, metaphysical reality isn’t certain. I can only argue your counterpoints up to a degree, and then it devolves back to metaphysical uncertainty and the choice in what to believe in the face of that uncertainty. I think I’m up against that limit (or very close to it) in regards to arguing for a benevolent existence where we are empowered to directly shift externalities through consciousness and outlook. So whatever differing positions you have concerning that subject, I accept that I’ve exhausted my storehouse of appeals. Regardless, I choose to believe you are deserving of peace and fulfillment, whether you adopt my positions or not. And I think it’s only a matter of time before you get peace and fulfillment, whether it’s in this life or another. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy yourself as much as you can, and that if the universe is indeed random and externally controlling to the point where things can be hopeless or circumstances are cruel without rhyme or reason, that you get fortune and joy instead of the opposite.

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     • First, there is nothing I love more than when someone respectfully disagrees with me, because it gives me an opportunity to consider another perspective. I am not a fan of group think or people blindly agreeing with me just because they’d rather avoid my sometimes intense communication style. I thank you sincerely for your patience and the kindness you have shown in discussing this topic with me. I think I would like to offer the following clarifications on my statements:

       1) as regards to the custard and the natural consequence of not buying more when he threw it out, there’s a financial reality for me there with that. I can’t afford to replace the custard each time he might throw it away, so it’s important he realize that so he can learn impulse control from my perspective and think about what he wants more before he acts. I suppose it could be framed in a negative light, but the truth is I already spend a lot of money on the therapy process and therapeutic opportunities, so more than trying to reinforce with a negative, it’s about teaching him the reality of our circumstances. Everything can’t be replaced if discarded, ruined, or broken in a moment of upset.

       2) I think right now because I am in a situation that I’d rather not go into where I’ve got an illusory carrot kind of set up going on, I’m just trying really hard to bounce back emotionally from that situation and maintain myself and the important outcomes for our family. I’m resilient, but I’m also human and have been feeling a bit run down the past couple of weeks by certain things. This morning I was able to get my sparkle back on a bit, but…sometimes my answers come from my present moods.

       3)I love the mystical and magical, just not so much talking about it in public, because people already look at what I’m doing with Tony and think I’m crazy enough as it is. I’m not crazy, I would say I’ve been inspired as regards to some of the things I’ve done to help him be where he’s at right now. You know, if you were to have been on a walk with Tony and I and Emily say, 5 years ago, what you would have seen was him trying to run up to nearly every house, licking every lamp post and sign, trying to eat rocks, screaming and pushing for upwards of an hour if he wanted something and was told no, and sadly, so much more. We don’t have any of that going on right now. It’s something to feel great about, but I have encountered enough people that think I’ve kinda lost it for even trying to change all of that on top of his sensory differences, that the most honest answer I can give is that I think I would personally just prefer not to lean in too much publicly on my opinion on other things because I’m sensitive to the reality that the crazy meter can only register to a certain level before people start to tune you out. So, that would be something I’d be more likely to discuss in a private conversation.

       4) I am really grateful for the things you’ve shared. I didn’t mean to cause frustration or exhaustion. Sometimes I ask a lot of questions to try and understand a perspective, and my counter shares for what something means to me can wear a person down. I appreciate your time and your patience with that, and I respect in every way your right to think differently about all of it. ❤ Ari

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     • No worries! I wasn’t frustrated or exhausted, I had simply exhausted my supply of rational appeals and I realized it was going to come down to re-stating sheer personal belief. I could have insisted you agree with me, despite not having any real argument (not smart or effective) or I could have just accepted that you seemed to be on board with a different set of premises. I took my own advice and accepted that you seemed to be in line with different premises.

       Also, ironically, while I will never outwardly agree with any statement or premise that is based on a malicious universe (or random to the point where it can equate to malice), I will wholeheartedly do so in my own mind, in order to settle internal conflict. If I’m hit by a conviction that the world is cruel, then yes, I viscerally believe the world is cruel. I’m not going to fight that belief, because I truly believe it in that moment. If people are betraying me and I need to watch out, yes, people are untrustworthy and I need to be paranoid. If things are hopeless, yes, I’m doomed. If I want to assault someone because they got something trivial wrong, like forgetting to give me cheese on my salad, yes, I want to beat them and injure them. I’m not going to say these things or hurt anyone, but I’ll freely admit to myself that I am indeed feeling whatever I’m feeling, regardless of what people tell me I “should” believe, or what is “appropriate” to feel. And if I can’t freely admit to myself that I’m feeling what I’m feeling, then I’ll trigger acceptance by acknowledging that truth: yes, I can’t accept my negativity right now, and so on and so forth. I’m not going to tell anyone these things, because deep down I adamantly believe that none of them are true, and that belief shines through without effort or prompting when I’m at peace or when I’m feeling positive. Also, if I start venting and garnering agreement that the world is fucked or so and so needs to be condemned, that has historically encouraged me to build more of a case as to exactly why the world is fucked or so and so needs to be condemned as harshly as possible, for the purposes of garnering more agreement and solidarity. I’m not looking to build a positive feedback loop around my negativity and solidify a bunch of negative-resonating folks into my circle. I want to accept negativity and include it, allowing me to get back to the all-inclusive (arguably divine) perspective where unconditional positivity is the default.

       In regards to the custard, it didn’t cross my mind that it was negative reinforcement, lol! I suppose technically it was, but if it’s the most positive option, and the focus is on positive outcomes, then it’s the right thing to do in my opinion. I know your focus is not on negative reinforcement as an end and a focus (he needs to be punished to the point where I don’t have to punish him, as opposed to I need to set boundaries so we can enjoy ourselves more), so I never even thought the custard was related to the topic of negative reinforcement.

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     • Glad to hear you were neither exhausted nor frustrated 😀 You know, here’s the thing from my perspective: I don’t know that we’re operating entirely from different premises, more that we may use different language to describe certain things. It’s easy to misunderstand the intent of something in writing….for example, myself and two members of my son’s therapy team had the same interpretation of the IEP addendum e-mail I got, which was that the portion of the professionals originating on the school side were planning on going with home bound entirely as a recommendation. After chatting with his teacher in person today, turns out they are wanting to *supplement* his time where he’s physically at school w/ home bound instruction since he’s not there the full day yet. Sometimes for me personally I find that even as voluminous as my communications can be, sometimes I leave out things that make sense to me and the other person doesn’t get it the same way, and I see other people do the same thing.

       I think perhaps we do some things similarly but we may describe them differently. I definitely acknowledge to myself and accept what I am feeling when I am feeling it, even if it’s that I feel sad, I feel like crying, I am angry…whatever. The whole gamut. That doesn’t mean I will act on something I am feeling. However, if I really need positivity to deal with something before my inner state is ready to return to that, I have no problem asking the universe to help me find it. To me that seems more like engaging my circumstances proactively rather than forcing something, because I sometimes I need to outwardly move on something in the most proactive way possible before my inner emotions are ready to fall in line.

       That being said, sometimes I do need to do better and be better at expecting more positive outcomes even when something initially presents as it’s only headed towards a negative outcome. That is something where the part of my brain that likes to put everything in a pattern and my more conscious self have struggles sometimes. I’ve experienced enough negatives I never asked for or even saw coming that sometimes I personally do get more worried about how something is going to go. It’s something I am aware of and I have to actively remind myself sometimes to relax and look for possibilities of the positive, because positive outcomes can always happen even when things look dire.

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     • Indeed they can! It’s nice to have anecdotal evidence (especially when it happens to me). The most recent one happened yesterday with att, who had blown off appointments with me before, so I had to harangue them to get them to come. This time they blew off the first appt, I scheduled the second, then almost called them to nitpick, but then I was like nah, it’s not that big a deal if they do or don’t, I can always reschedule and nag them later when I’m feeling the urge to do it not just from obligation, but also from personal motivation. So I decided to reach into the metaphysical/psychological bag of tricks and focus on giving up to release my annoyance. They came around with no nagging, which was a pleasant surprise. Obviously, that could be argued as coincidence, but at this point, you know I lean in the other direction. It’s not always the solution, but I trust myself to perform due diligence and follow-up, so when I find myself getting obsessive about outcomes after I’ve checked all the boxes, giving up in my own mind is sometimes a better alternative than continuing to fret and mentally nitpick. I feel this is kind of a similar dynamic to you asking the universe for help–there’s a release of resistance there because instead of just trying to plow through it as a physical individual, consciously shouldering all the responsibility and stress onto that limited piece of yourself, you’re releasing it to whatever greater aspects you may be connected to and unkinking the hose, so to speak. From the way you describe things, it seems like you’re pretty good at checking boxes and being diligent, so the internal intangibles become an area to focus on, for your health and well-being, and also for any mystical or metaphysical leverage.

       I’m glad that things cleared up with the school! That’s a more favorable outcome (I think?). Happy to hear you’re getting some help!!

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     • Well, I will say sometimes my most melty moments internally and perhaps externally come from things that seem small but were just problems that became the last straw on the back of my already stretched way, way too thin day, when I’m having one of those days. Having an awareness of that is allowing me to talk myself into a calmer place when that type of situation comes up at this point so that I don’t go volcano or waterfall on someone, but for me with the therapy and other needs schedule, having someone not show up when they were supposed to for some form of maintenance appointment can be pretty stressful, and I recognize that I was so close to my internal break point a few times when those types of things happened, that I have had moments where I wasn’t at my most graceful or gracious. All I can do is have awareness and learn from it, but it’s totally possible if I’d been in your shoes, I would have started out internally melty and had to do some breathing exercises to keep that from the outside. I mean, I burst into tears a couple months ago because there was an insurance issue that was delaying and might have caused a CT to be rescheduled as I was trying to breath my way through the situation with the clerk, so…not always succeeding. I am just doing the best I can. I think unless someone is in my shoes, they may not understand that or anything about what they are seeing leaking to the surface when my responses and reactions could be better. That’s just something I have to give myself a hug on, because I recognize my circumstances even if others can’t see them or I don’t have time to help them understand.

       I think as regards to the school stuff, first, thank you for the positive words! I think working in that environment allows me to see things from the school perspective in terms of the staffing challenges they have and for me, my interest here isn’t just what works out best for me, it’s about providing everyone with the support that is necessary until he’s smoothly tolerating the environment, expectations, and structure. Building a bridge has costs. I have seen so much growth in Tony being there and I know that as he continues to put in the work required, it may expand his options in the future, which benefits everyone in our family in the long-run, so it is more important to get it right than to get it done quick. The key for this, while this offer to supplement with home bound instruction acknowledges his ability to learn and extends resources to support his needs while recognizing he’s not able to tolerate the environment for a full day yet, is an awareness that he still has a very full therapy schedule and to make sure that he doesn’t become overwhelmed, because his time and mine is nearly maxed out. Because when Tony’s feeling overwhelmed results suffer. So it is something we will have to discuss at the meeting, but I am grateful that we have their support for him to continue expanding his day in person at the pace he’s able to tolerate doing so and look forward to what we can build there in other areas also…

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     • I’m glad you’re meeting with folks who are ready to help out! I trust that you and Tony can do the right things and find the right people. And even though it may be naive, I trust that the right people will find a way to be of value to you, and find reward in it for themselves. It can definitely be weird when stress ramps up and everything good seems like a platitude and nothing seems to be working. Went through one of those moments myself this morning. It’s also weird how everything seems inexplicably right when the energy shifts, and it’s like I can understand logically why I was stressed, but it has so little emotional resonance that it almost seems foreign.

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     • Well, part of my thought process in terms of how I will continue to handle discussions with the school is that while it’s good to be supportive of the needs of everybody involved, it’s best for Tony in particular that he works with people who feel comfortable doing so. If someone isn’t comfortable, my first thought is how can I help them to feel that? Is there a support I can give to bridge the gap until that is a feeling they genuinely have? If there just isn’t a way for them to feel comfortable- even if Tony’s capable of doing something- because they just have a comfort level based on the level of disability they feel most effective with, then it is to wish them well and look for someone else or a different opportunity. I have always seen that a certain level of growth was possible for Tony, but that isn’t a vision everybody else has, and it’s also best for him not to be around someone who feels that way because he’ll soak that in and he will limit his own vision of what he can do based on what others are happy to hand him because it feels easiest. Sorry the universe was giving you some ick this morning. Yeah, I think for me, I always know why I got upset even if I have a moment where my response was actually disproportionate to something, it just that the emotional charge behind it just becomes not there anymore and it’s easier to let it go or not be phased by it in the future. Sometimes for me personally (Ok, for several years at this point), it’s been like one serious problem will resolve and then anther one will come marching up and say “hold my drink.” And the struggle for me right now is to try to find space to carve out in my life where I can say “this is my time for me to take care of me and nobody touches it!” Because it’s like a bottomless pit of needs over here and my nature screams at me to fix and fulfill needs and it’s just something I have to wrestle with because it will suck me dry if I don’t start carving out time that nobody can touch with their own needs. And when someone tells me it will all work out when everything is hitting the fan, but they themselves aren’t willing or able to help it all work out, there are moments where I’m internally shrieking like a Banshee about it, but most of the time I recognize that there are many paths and a way can be found through or around something.

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     • Man, I love your perspective! Specifically the part where you always knew that you saw Tony’s potential for growth, and where you don’t try to force it on workers if they’re not feeling it, you just wish them well and part ways (maybe you planted a seed in their mind, showing them what’s possible, that won’t bloom until they’re a little more experienced).

       It seems to me that you’re making sometimes painful progress in a lot of areas, internal, external, personal, professional. I think I can relate to the sequential nonstop chain of crises. For me, it got to a point to where even when I removed myself from the environment where that was actually the case, I would manufacture it in my own mind, making a big deal out of everyday stuff. It’s only recently that I’ve really started focusing on my internal state, where I actually find it helpful to give up on what I want, because I’ve glommed onto it with an urgent, lackful, please-please-please god-why-won’t-this-happen mindset. I think previously, I’d simply exhaust myself constantly doing this and I’d be forced to give up and move into apathy. I know I’ve endorsed moving into apathy in the past, but I’m kind of shifting my perspective to where giving up, a “let the chips fall where they may” perspective is where I’m drawn to instead of “everyone is eventually going to die anyway.” In your previous comment, I suspect that one of your ways toward that internal ease is just asking the universe for help, leaving the matter up to any higher/greater powers out there instead of shouldering it all yourself (internally). Whatever resonates with you, I think, is going to be helpful, as well as the simple, unabashed desire to feel some ease. You definitely deserve it, not because of some price you’ve paid or how anxious you feel, but simply because I believe you and everyone else deserves it without reason or justification. I believe it’s coming to you, sooner or later. I believe it’s inevitable!

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     • Well, I don’t think experience matters as much in working with Tony as patience and the ability to see his potential for growth. Some people refuse to see it because of the diagnosis. Some of the individuals who have worked best with him were fresh out of schooling because their perspective wasn’t so set in its ways. He’s got a unique combination of diagnosis, and some unique things going on with him, so experience isn’t always as useful as a willingness to try here.

       I think that yes, I do like to ask the universe for help. I also like to look at something and walk myself through the worse case scenario that I’m trying to avoid and realize all of the ways I could survive it and turn it around so that I don’t fear failure so much, or it becomes less high stakes. So you feel like the shift from apathy to an internal state of giving up has been beneficial to you. Is it the expectation of a certain outcome you are giving up on in those scenarios?

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     • That sounds right. I’ve heard the same thing occurring with UFOs and academia–most of the old guard thinks that bringing it up is in and of itself a sheer act of lunacy, but it’s much more well received among the mid-level folk, some of whom are starting to move into seniority, and it’s extremely well-received among the younger folk.

       I make peace with the worst case scenario as well, but for me I have to be in the right place for it, meaning the worst case scenario is usually bugging me or causing some kind of fear or tension. Same applies to the giving up (and yes, your guess is correct, it applies to specific outcomes). I don’t look to constantly focus on giving up on desired outcomes, but if I notice that thinking about them is causing tension or fear that it won’t come about, I’ll explore the thought-path of giving up, saying I guess it’s not gonna happen and that’s fine, and see if that brings me any relief. Apathy is a little different, in that it’s a little too cool-kid for me nowadays, it feels a little too forced and insecure. Indifference is more of a resonant relative, if that makes any sense. Apathy is devoid of any emotional charge for me, while indifference is a neutral state with a possibly mild emotional charge (I guess that would be cool, or if it doesn’t happen, it’s not that big a deal). The connotations are pretty relevant to me in terms of resonance, even though they might seem semantically insignificant.

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     • I think sometimes it can be oversimplified / overgeneralized to say one group of individuals is more receptive to seeing progress than the other, I think many factors can be involved it is just a trend I have noticed. I have seen everything from an experienced therapist and administrator trying to discourage me from getting him evaluated for Autism (“he’s got an SPD. An SPD is something we can fix, Autism isn’t!) to experienced therapists thinking his combined diagnosis list meant he automatically wasn’t going to be able to learn certain things. Well, first, wanting an individual to only have something one can fix only doesn’t change what a person *actually* has, and second, even with a sensory processing disorder with certain therapies sensory differences can improve, but they usually can’t be completely “fixed.” But sometimes people who are newly graduated are intimidated by the level of success I have with my programming because they want to come in and be seen as an expert right away. For me, the pressures on me have been so intense I’m not interested in competing with my programming, I don’t care who gets the job done, I have just needed and continue to need certain things to improve because I am the person who is dealing with certain challenges the most. It is just a general thing I’ve seen, that people who are newer therapists are often more willing to try new things, are more willing to see his potential for growth.

       As regards to the second part of your comment, apathy and indifference feel pretty similar to me, just there’s a slight difference in the emotional energy level…I think indifference involves less “depressed” kind of vibes, so I’d probably go with indifference too if I was grabbing through an emotional tool bag, so that makes sense! Take good care of yourself 🙂

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     • Nice to see that you’ve come across helpful people! Yeah, regardless of the categories of fixable or unfixable, I think it’s more constructive to ask “what can we do here?” In almost every case, you can’t do much with someone who’s dead (there seems to be some interesting exceptions with people who are clinically dead whether that’s brain dead, being revived after being in lethal cold for way too long, etc). So kudos to whoever goes forth, doesn’t jam solutions into a narrower category than they have to be.

       As far as the apathy and indifference, apathy feels more to me like “I don’t care,” whereas indifference is more along the lines of “I’m fine either way,” “it is what it is,” things of that nature, if that makes any sense.

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     • I am grateful beyond words for the people who have chosen to work with our son. That being said, one of the challenges with a kiddo like Tony who has a combination of genetic disorders that is unique to him (category of 1), and a combination of total diagnoses that is also unique to him is that when the question is posed what can be done what it is often met with are assumptions or guesses. And for some things, all that can be said is “we don’t really know, all we can do is try and see what we get.” I base what I think and hope can be done off of my observations and the idea that one gains more from trying than curling up in a ball and giving up, and the number of observations of Tony I have to go on is more than most professionals will have to go on when they start making decisions about what they think can or can’t be done. I think probably on some levels the processing of emotion is individual in that there can be hints of nuance for one person with an emotion that aren’t there for another person with the same emotion.

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     • Great attitude! It sounds like you’re respecting and working with the guidance you’re given from existence.

       Yep, I agree with the emotional subjectivity. I also noticed this with sleep deprivation, where it seems to affect people in wildly different ways. Some folks seem fine with it, just more mechanical. I would start getting this dangerous level of dissociation where I could look at an object and no connotations would register, which means that if I’m driving along and see a truck, all that would register in my brain is a white blob without any recognition of the danger it might pose or why I shouldn’t drive into it. Definitely a humbling experience!

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     • We’re all doing the best we can here when it comes to Tony’s therapy, even by and large therapists whose vision of his potential capabilities didn’t match mine. They were honoring what their own personal vision was, we just didn’t agree and where Tony is at speaks for itself in terms of the who got what right where. Some things I would have hoped to see sooner, even if I saw they were possible, so I can’t say I’ve nailed everything either, and some of my ideas didn’t work, though of course some of them did. Yeah, sleep is one of those things that I wish I needed less of because it would be super helpful given all the things that I am responsible for. I can recognize things just fine, my problem is I have a much harder time regulating my emotions. Much harder. The internal crankiness meter or the weepy meter or the whatever meter is cranked up past the max sometimes if I’ve been getting less than 4 hours of sleep a night for weeks on end, and I have to work very hard to keep that from coming across, and I don’t always succeed. I definitly don’t become completely unhinged, but I am sure I’ve had some moments during the worst of the sleep deprived years where I was dealing with something that went wrong and the people involved thought, “man, she’s a real B*tch.” Not that I was trying to be, I just couldn’t keep my stress from showing and a stressed Ariana can sound kinda irritable. And of course, now with having POTS, I need a certain amount to help regulate and manage that well.

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     • I think it’s great that you’re willing to try new stuff. Maybe the non-working things offered some kind of data that clarified future planning, or will do so down the road. Also, I’m glad that even though you’re getting more sleep! I find it pretty interesting from the most casual of research that there’s still a lot of unknowns around sleep that don’t really fit into Darwinian logic (the fact that it’s so closely tied into the brain, another giant field of unknowns, probably has something to do with it). From a mystical/consciousness perspective, it kind of makes sense to me that we’re not supposed to spend all our focus in a 24/7 meat-body paradigm. I especially like stories about inventors or scientists who use the dream-state to get inspirations and ideas. Every so often, I have a dream where I get to listen to an awesome pop song that doesn’t exist here and now. I wake up thinking, man, that would definitely climb the charts, lol! Maybe in another reality I’m a musical performer.

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     • Oh, I am definitely not afraid to try new stuff…the box was made to be broken, deconstructed, or completely ignored if need be. I’m not tied down to putting any one way of handling anything with him on a throne unless it’s the only thing that’s been working. That is a strength I bring to this. Failure in general can be a great teacher I have found, and I prefer to not wallow in what could have gone better but to learn from it and adjust as quickly as possible…emphasis on the quickly part. I am the person who has handled the majority of the historical self-harming, pushing on the side of the road, etc. and my need for things to improve has been deep at points. Sometimes I feel like my hands have been tied by certain things, but there are moments where I wish I would have just cut the ties sooner myself. Like, the programming the way I wanted it that stopped the 30+ minutes of pushing at the end of the road? I understand why I was holding my hand on that, but part of me wishes I would have just cut ties with that provider sooner because they just really weren’t listening to me or the other providers on the case, they weren’t doing enough direct work with him themselves because of their stance on staying out of our home because of my husband’s healthcare job to really have a more informed sense of how he responded to certain things, and just done it the way I wanted to 2 years sooner. Because that would have gotten us to certain places much quicker, though we still would have had other pandemic related hang ups and delays, it would have made walks easier and less stressful for me sooner that’s for sure. Lessons learned, lessons learned. In the grand scheme of things though, I don’t suppose it’s really that big of a deal at this point. Do you have a favorite lesson you have learned from a failure?

       And, I think the dream state can be more than many people think…though that is just based on my own anecdotal entirely unprovable to others experiences, so serving that one with a grain or two of salt…

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     • I remember you said you lucid-dreamed, so you probably have a very different perspective on that than most folks. I remember being briefly interested in lucid dreaming (I thought maybe I could use sleep periods to get better at something), but when I started doing the drills where I’d walk through a door, tap the jamb, and ask if this is a dream, it never called to me, if that makes any sense. (Contrast that with writing, which never really made sense to me when I was younger, but synchronicities and ideas fell into place to the point where it became very clear it was my calling). Nowadays I figure I’ll focus on being present which will open the door for my higher aspects to teach me what I need when I need to learn it. Recently, I’ve likened that to someone (higher me) trying to fill up a container (surface me) with a hose, but depending on where surface-me’s focus is at, I might let water in like I want, I might be only offering a straw-sized hole, or I might be closed off altogether. I also recently heard another depiction I liked, where we are these giant beings but most of us insist on shoehorning ourselves into this cramped, one-foot box, then trying to forget our size and power.

       As far as failure, I think my favorite lesson is that I don’t need to cling to it. Sure I need to process it, but constantly branding myself with past disappointment and pain in some try-hard effort to rationalize it into a learning experience or penance now seems ridiculous to me. I understand that kind of thing can be constructive to a degree, but if my resonance remains closed because I’m letting failure define and consume me, rather than letting it input its data and move on, it’s kind of like taking a coach’s advice or correction and beating myself over the head with it, yelling stupid stupid stupid at myself. It’s like dude, it was just a bit of advice, and you don’t need to interpret it that way all at once, because maybe it combines with other experiences to fully cohere into practical knowledge. So failure to me is not a reflection of worth, I don’t need to flagellate myself with it for the rest of my life. Obviously, there’s usually negativity around it, and that has to be processed healthily, but it doesn’t need to stay around and stalk me throughout my life. That’s my take on it, anyway.

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     • Well, I started focusing on lucid dreaming because I had really bad nightmares that would leave their emotional mark on my waking hours even, so I think my reasoning/interest/focus were different. Learning how to always make an escape in a dream was something that brought a lot of peace to my sleep and my waking hours.

       I can understand the analogy with what a person’s surface/present mortality focused self lets in. We have discussed already that I tend to not want to focus on certain things because of the demands of my current circumstances, and that’s a limit I place on myself because I know I’m not in a place to get anything useful out of information from those areas right now because I have been too overwhelmed in other areas. How I feel is that the depth of need in our house has left me feeling for years like I don’t get to have needs, that everything around me expects me to meet theirs first and those demands are extensive enough there doesn’t get to be so much left over for me (not nearly so much as I actually need anyways), so something I have begun doing now that the more severe behaviors for Tony are in the past is looking at my schedule and saying “this is my time and I don’t care who texts or who calls, unless it’s an emergency, I am *super* unavailable because I am focusing on giving back to me right now because I really need that.” It’s an emotional state where I can relate to the comparison you gave because I feel like I’m internally saying “yeah, you’ve only got a straw size hole to get that into right now….if that” when it comes to certain things because my emotional capacity has been overextended for too long in other areas. It needed to happen, I didn’t really have a lot of choices or resources, but I think what’s going on right now needs to happen to, the reclaiming of a bit of space for myself. And I think not letting failure stalk one through life is a very valuable lesson indeed!

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     • Interesting! I had a friend who stumbled onto lucid dreaming, had a ball with it, but then he started getting chased through his dreams by a scary shadow-being so he stopped. (He had a lot of self-worth issues, so I don’t know if that’s related, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was). Also, I’ve heard there’s two types of lucid dreams, one where you know you are dreaming but can’t control the environment, and one where you know and you CAN control it. I respect your position, it may indeed be necessary for your life quest. I’m finding myself gravitating toward a different (which, to be absolutely clear, is not better or superior to yours) direction where it’s about trusting that leaping into the abyss will reveal there’s a feather bed waiting for me. I once thought that every unpleasant thing I went through was for the express purpose of teaching me how to avoid future unpleasantness, and I suppose they have been, in a sense, but not in the way I first imagined, where I thought it was detailing a path lined with cattle prods that would zap me so I didn’t make the same mistake. I’m in the process of sinking more and more into the belief that synchronicity is the fundamental organizing force in existence, and being present is how to let it get to work for me. I think of it like a kinder Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction, lol. I could give a bunch of rationalizations as to why I don’t want to live in a guarded state anymore, but it feels kind of tiresome in my head nowadays–I used to be like: look it works mystically AND logically! I can engage with people so they can understand too! Nowadays I think everyone is choosing their life (a specific reality tunnel) for their own very personal reason, and while they have to traverse that tunnel, it’s their existential right to choose how they want to do it, whether it’s crawling, running, skipping, or some mix of every movement possible. For some people, I do indeed believe their life quest is to engage in hard, consistent work and really dive into quantification, logic, and hard cause and effect, and I believe they will see results, rewards, and experience invigoration and/or sustainment through that framework. I used to think that was my framework, but now I suspect it was there to feed into my writing, to clean up the details and philosophical connections so I could really let the story come through as much as possible and minimize the mental hitches in the narrative. I used to be very aggressive about cleaning up my checklists and strategies, always improving them with constant research, rumination, and discussion/contemplation, then implementing them with an iron will. I kept checking boxes until, ironically, a box arose that required me to stop taking the checklist so damn seriously, and to shift into an awareness of the power of internal states, of leaving myself open to unexpected positivity, and trusting that I will be given what I need to not just make it through something challenging, but finding a way to make it into a benefit, even if that benefit is simply a realization that I don’t like what happened and I’d like to move in another direction. This definitely wouldn’t be what I chose in my twenties, but I’ve become resigned to it after all the signs piled up. I think it was inevitable. I’ve even gravitated toward enjoying it, and I think I am in the beginning stages of embracing it.

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     • Well, I respect your positions, fully support your desire to live life by your terms, and I appreciate the time you have taken to explain your thoughts! I think we differ some though in our views on the benefits of being guarded…to me, that state goes hand in hand with critical thinking. As a former member of a high demand religion that sociologists officially class as a semi-cult, I have had a front row seat at witnessing techniques to make a person increasingly more comfortable with information or whatever that just is not accurate, and in the ways that certain individuals can try to control and capitalize on insecurities and weaknesses and human nature. Sometimes a dash of guarded can protect more than just your wallet… it can safeguard your time, your thoughts, your full range of choices etc. And for me personally, that brings me a higher feeling of peace than letting myself freefall into I don’t really know what.

       But that is what works for me, clearly something different is working for you and that’s fabulous for you personally, as you are the one living your life. I think being present though is definitely a very positive thing for anybody to do, and I think being open to unexpected positivity is also a lovely way of being!

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     • It’s definitely dependent on the person, and I suspect is integral to the choice of life-game we have selected through our array of selves. It kind of reminds me of this parable that my brother loved. He bought up this famous Korean monk who was supposedly enlightened, who encountered this young man on the road way back when. The young man said he was on his way to an academy to learn such and such, and the enlightened monk said you don’t need an academy. Now my brother, super anti-establishment insecure rebel that he is, took that as validation that academies were useless. I took his premise further, and asked him if he thought the monk would, if he found himself at the academy, tell every single person there to stop attending or teaching. That made my brother reconsider. My conclusion and point was that academies were neither good nor bad; the enlightened monk was saying for that young man, an academy was wrong. Maybe it was right for someone else, or maybe it would be right for that young man at some later date. Anyways, it’s a roundabout way of agreeing with you. People have specific themes they have to flesh out on their life journey (from a surface-conscious perspective), and it’s going to be shored up by indications such as intuition and synchronicities. I know writing is part of my journey at this point, and I suspect my current side quest is to relax my surface consciousness so I can open up to my deeper aspects, or lift with my core instead of my pinkies, so to speak.

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     • Well, and sometimes even if a person doesn’t need the academy to learn the skills, they still might need the certifications provided by the academy to do certain things publicly for pay because that is a system that was agreed on some time in the past. At which point it becomes moot whether a person needs to academy to learn, because they need it to get some place they want to be on their journey. There are a lot of different themes in life, different paths, different experiences. I am glad you are getting to have a journey that resonates with you personally 😀

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     • Indeed! Also, an academy may function as an environment where a student figures out that they don’t want to study there anymore, and facilitates them figuring out what they truly want. That’s how the military functions for a lot of folks. I always like those quirky stories where someone is dead set on one thing, then it is revealed that it was leading them to something better that fulfilled their desires better. In my framework, that’s the higher self moving things along as best it can–the surface consciousness may be closed off to gentler nudges, so there needs to be some synchronistic gymnastics.

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     • Well, I think that for many people what it really is was that the expectations didn’t align with what the reality ended up being. Sometimes we expect something to be different, we get in the thick of it and find out how mistaken we were and that helps bring people to a different path that does head in the direction that is in keeping with their hopes and expectations for themselves.

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     • I’ve heard something similar described as a principal reason why we opt for this specific existence. Supposedly, there is room for these great swings in experience during our life in this specific reality, where we can go from absolutely lacking to incredibly abundant and vice versa. That resonated with me, probably because I’m not a believer in a critical degree of randomness, where a roll of the dice can override the generative power of someone’s inner state. As I said before, a critically random existence would equate to being a cruel one, simply because misery could be inflicted on any individual, regardless of any choice they made, so some folks would be doomed no matter what. So I like the implication that one of the specific reasons I am here is to be able to shape favorable outcomes from seemingly logically hopeless circumstances.

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     • For some reason, it’s not auto filling my profile when I respond to this, and WordPress gave me a lot of difficulty about logging in and it didn’t submit to the first time I tried to post this, so your system might reject this as a duplicate…but, here’s my take none-the-less. It has been my experience that sometimes people determine something is hopeless for a variety of reasons, and maybe they’re even using logic to justify their view, but what persistence and a positive attitude with an attempt to accomplish something can sometimes demonstrate is that what appears to be hopeless was anything but. Sometimes a better outcome for something that is labeled hopeless requires more work or sacrifice then some people are willing to give to push that rock up the hill so to speak, but… that’s not the same as hopeless in my view. For me personally, I would prefer not to ever consider something truly past the point of hope in this lifetime until I am actually dead and gone from it.

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     • Yes, absolutely. I’ve had friends come to me when they were feeling hopeless, and I’ve broken the issue down and pointed out multiple directions they could move in. They agree to the logic and soundness of my suggestion, and more often than not, don’t do it when I ask them about it later. I used to see it as some kind of data gathering or implied accountability on my end, but once I accepted theories about spiritual resonance (which I guess could equate to subconscious or emotional focus in psychology), I began to understand that they just weren’t in the place to move forward on the issue, and what they truly wanted to do was complain about it (no judgment, I’ve spent much of my life complaining about things). Nowadays I don’t lean so heavily on practical solutions, although I will mention them just to show practical possibilities are within reach. I’ll go more with encouragement, like you can do it, there’s ways out of this, you deserve to be happy and fulfilled. Because I truly believe all those things, and I truly believe that over time, even if it’s in another life, they will personally realize their aim in action and results. When I was pressed for time, there would be days I could only write 5 minutes. And even though it is logically ridiculous to write books 5 minutes at a time, I believe even moving in little steps toward goals, as illogical as those steps might be, sets up a resonance that invites synchronicity and supersedes logic, time, resources, and limitations. Of course, that’s impossible to prove through data, induction, and deduction, but my personal belief is that’s what happened with Tolkien was supposedly writing on napkins while in WWI, engaged in trench warfare. Or my current favorite, Francis Ngannou, who went from dreaming about boxing when he was a poor nobody working in the sand mines, failed to emigrate seven times, ended up homeless in Europe, got sidetracked into MMA, was super behind because he only began seriously training in his 20s, became a world champion, then finally just realized his dream of being a pro boxer by technically losing, but knocking down someone who is arguably the best boxer in the world right now and making the match so close that some people are arguing that he won. That’s unheard of for someone who isn’t a seasoned boxer and come up through the ranks so they can master all the tips, tricks, and studied multiple opponents to refine their game and create depth in their strategy. Regardless, someone who believes in a critically random universe could argue those are all anecdotes, just flukes, but as you know, that’s way too bleak for me to accept unless there’s 100% proof that reality is critically random. As long as there’s a sliver of doubt, I’m going to subscribe to the model that most encourages me to stay positive and move forward with the best attitude I can muster. I’ve felt hopeless in the past, to the point where I decided to hold off on self-harm simply because there was something in the near future that MIGHT turn out good and to just hang in there and see what the deal was with it before I made a decision. Anyways, it did turn out to be good, which planted the seeds of belief that the universe wasn’t conspiring against me, that I didn’t have to frame it as an uncaring roll of the dice or a cruel jokester, and that I could begin opening up to positive surprises. Long story short, I’m with you!!

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     • I think what was crossing my mind a bit when I made that comment was my own observations about the journey I have been on with our son. I have heard opinions that have been all over the place from professionals who have been involved, but certain themes became more consistent once his genetic disorders were diagnosed, especially within that first year after they were diagnosed. One of his former therapists (paraphrasing here), was asking me what my game plan was going to be over the course of the following few years because she couldn’t picture a game plan that allowed him to safely stay in our home or the community. I have at least one former friend who felt the same way. I believe I have mentioned this, but when DDD and I were not agreeing on whether or not a speech device was medically necessary for our son a few years ago, both the ACDL and Arizona Center For Law In The Public Interest became involved (with the later ultimately being involved in the case), and their intake coordinator asked if he actually used his device. People look, people assume for him, because it seems logical to them. Just one of his diagnoses can cause a person to need total care. He’s got 4 that can. I get feedback from some of his current therapists that his level of use with his speech device is more than with their other non-verbal clients…and that’s happened because I continue to try, and he has the capabilities he had regardless of what seems logical to others based on his combined list of conditions. I’m always open to a positive surprise with his progress…of course, a lot of work has been involved. And some days my butt really gets handed to me hardcore. But yeah, I think you are right…sometimes you just don’t know, and being open to possibilities accomplishes more than deciding the path is already set in stone. I’m glad you are finding the fulfillment, etc you are looking for in your current life…

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     • Yes, it’s why I believe in the power of being present. It plays into my beliefs that everything is happening here and now, that space and time are illusions which can be collapsed if we shift our focus and vibration to allow for beyond-speed-right-at-this-now-communication of information which is how I model things like psychic occurrences and after-death contact, it cues us into our deeper aspects which can see beyond logic, space, and time. That in turn is why I believe it’s good to develop emotional intelligence and a healthy relationship with the irrational, emotional subconscious, because that’s how our deeper aspect communicates with us, through our emotions and impressions. It can’t use data and words because those are restricted by space, time, and logic. And on a more mundane level, being present allows us to perceive things without our preconceptions of what “should” be.
       Anyways, that’s my take on it.

       Very cool on your persistence and success! If you don’t mind me asking, what convinced you to go against the advice of the establishment?

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     • I do not mind you asking. I have observed Tony since he came to our family. I have seen things that tell me a great deal about what is actual intelligence is (again, much higher than most people are willing to believe until they see certain things for themselves). Literally most people still indulgently not their heads with a clear “I doubt it” expression on their faces when I tell them he can find our car in the fully packed Phx Zoo parking lot with us parking different places each time. I have also seen all of the problems, literally all of them I have been not just watching but actively working with them on because we wouldn’t have had therapists at some points if I weren’t personally taking care of those harder parts because they were that hard in the earlier years to middle years especially. For me, I could spend a ton of time writing observations I made during the course of his early years, or I could just some it up by saying I had done more of that than anyone and I felt like they were wrong. I know he’s not going to be capable of independence, but he’s capable of doing more than sitting sedated in a room.

       And, even if I hadn’t felt that, sometimes you just really don’t know until you try. It is very hard to convince me that someone is giving me an authoritative answer that is based on more than their opinion when a child is in a category of 1. Because if they hadn’t ever treated kiddos with his genetic disorders (and not one of his therapists have ever worked with a kiddo with his genetic disorders until they have worked with him) what is the experience base that speaks to his specific needs that they are pulling from to back up what they have said? If I would have wanted a facility placement, I may have had an easier out than some parents because one of his DDD support services coordinators (around time he was 6) felt like that was what he needed instead of therapy, and I believe we’ve discussed this before…to the point where that SSC actually asked the Fabulous Miss W whether or not he really was making the progress she claimed in her notes while I was helping Tony in the bathroom during one of his visits. She by the way, was pretty offended by that one because she saw the same things I did because she worked with him in home. So, he saw my kid using the bathroom on his own (with me helping to wipe a bowel movement) and still saw this as a kiddo who couldn’t make progress. That actually blows my mind the level of bias that has to exist for that to have happened. Which to me, you know, he may have represented the establishment, but if the establishment isn’t actually looking at the positive parts and are just making judgements off of assumptions or taking a snap shot of what his behavioral challenges were at the time, I can respect their time in school, I can respect their positions, but I don’t feel obligated to go with that an “establishment” expert or professional says if I don’t feel it matches what I am observing or sensing about something. I am grateful for everyone who has worked with our son, but that doesn’t mean we’ve always agreed, and if we can’t find a way to come together for his best interest, I work to find someone who is more willing to try and see that possibilities are there.

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     • I think some folks express their desire for control by latching on to popular consensus without really examining why it’s popular or where there’s room for anomalies. In my view, data-derived consensus is pretty valuable, since it can be used to set up systems that cater to a vast majority of folks, and that is something that bakes in a good degree of stability and comfort. However, that’s not the end-all be-all. I think that stability and comfort can be leveraged to reduce complexity and start examining anomalies, which could and should lead to widescale beneficial changes later on in the future, in my opinion. I get it, some folks need to be conservative and rigorously refine what already works, but I’ve come to find out that I’m not one of those people. I think there’s a place for everyone, but egos should step aside when someone demonstrates they can serve the intent of the rules better than the rules as they presently exist, as you seem to have done.

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     • Yeah, I am going to agree, and add my opinion that data has limits to its usefulness. Something can be tracked in a way that misrepresents what’s going on, or in a way that doesn’t fully capture potential for something. For example, The contested programming for our previous ABA provider who was just tracking him pushing a button stating he wanted it his way for weeks (and their plan had been to continue in that initial phase for months and the program as it was designed and studied by the creator calls for a maximum of 4 days in that phase with their nonverbal patients in a clinic setting) which is significantly longer than the program creator ever designed that program to be, and from there end what they were saying to the insurance company was we have never seen his data look better because what they were tracking was giving him what he wanted every single time he pushed that, and they weren’t tracking any of the behavioral regressions that were happening when anybody else had to give him a denial, And so they’re official answer was that they really just couldn’t say what was causing but behavioral regressions. As a mom, I would say it’s pretty easy to say what was causing them. As it is with the typically developing child so it is with a developmentally disabled child… Give them everything they want, and it creates a child to cannot tolerate anything less and will behaviorally try to achieve that. Tony just said yeah while I was dictating that in, lol. We are sitting on a bench swing right now. And the other side of that is that sometimes data doesn’t show the potential for a variety of factors, this is already waxing long and I need to get going though. I think there’s a variety of reasons sometimes people don’t want to recognize something, etc. as his mom, my job is to advocate for him and recognize when the data is accurate and when it is not, to troubleshoot through that, and to push for what he needs when it is needed.

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     • Love that Tony gives you affirmations! I’m a big fan of the cheerful or determined add-on affirmation, lol!

       I find the conclusions from data start becoming a time-powered game of telephone. Everyone starts spiraling off into their own biases, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but in the sciences especially, validation and quality assurance is a must in order to keep it from becoming a big mess of subjective philosophies. I feel like that’s what happens with subjects that aren’t as vulnerable to pressure-testing, like religion or politics. The constitution and bible are pretty good examples of this. Ironically, I’ve chosen to interpret those through a lens of positivity and upliftment, since discussions around them have (d)evolved into a giant free-for-all where their original meaning becomes more and more subjective as time goes on. Also ironically, I’m big on subjectivity myself, but I think part of pursuing something related to the hard sciences is honoring empirical evidence, because in those realms, that’s how we’ve opted to communicate with existence. And since humans tend to be case by case to the point where no one’s figured out how to make their particular brand of social engineering wipe away dissent to the point where widescale change is negligible and stability and optimization are the undeniable norm, I’d say that nuanced approaches are key to finding solutions for individual people.

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     • Tony is very honest in both his affirmations and his denials…when we were doing the intake interview with his new ABA team, I apologized for how long some of my answers were (I definitely do have an awareness that my detailed self can go way too long some times, but when we’re talking all things Tony therapy, sometimes all the details matter, so there I was giving very detailed answers) and I said sometimes I can talk a whole lot, and Tony said “yeah.” I laughed and asked him if he was throwing me under the bus, and with a slight nod and a “yeah…” and both of them had some feeling in them, poor kid! I can laugh about that at this point.

       I think it becomes very difficult with an individual like Tony who doesn’t like to interact with new people…he doesn’t always replicate his communication skills for them for example, and they have to witness him using his speech device for something he wants before they’ll even credit he might be capable of doing certain things. Because sometimes he gives people junk answers when he’s first getting to know them in the hopes that giving them something will make them go away and leave him alone. Previous ABA provider used to reinforce any response from him whether it was right or not, which in my opinion is part of what led to that. Which is why I took videos of him using his speech device when I was preparing for a possible court battle with DDD a few years back. I’m glad it didn’t end up going that far, but…yeah. Sometimes we’re still on that hill. I just watched him give junk answers to his teacher yesterday about characters I know he knows through and through just because he didn’t want to chat about them. So it’s still a hill we’re sometimes on. New to him People have to sometimes observe him interacting with me when he doesn’t think they’re paying attention to have a better idea of what he does or doesn’t understand.

       And agree with what you are saying about how cherry picked certain things can be to suit a person’s own views, and you can see that in the sciences as well as religion or discussions about the constitution. Sometimes I get frustrated by it, but then I have recognized moments in myself where I have done the same thing, so…it is I think a human trait.

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     • The junk answers is pretty interesting. When I was more social and bought into the idea that I had to be around people because that’s what you’re supposed to do, I frequently used “minimal encouragers,” which are low buy-in phrases that keep someone talking and make it seem like you’re interested. Back in the early 2000s, I saw a cheesy reality show where this guy had a lengthy conversation with a chick without saying anything besides “That’s fascinating!” I don’t think that way anymore, though, it’s way too much trouble to force myself to interact with people just for the sake of it. I trust I’ll interact with who I need to when I need to, and like always, it’s all about resonance. It’s part of why I stopped looking up the news a month ago. I always heard it was something people did but I randomly heard it from a podcaster and it just clicked because I was in the correct resonance to act on it. I spent a few days monitoring what I was getting out of constantly looking up news on my feed, and I realized it was almost always some variation of doom gloom and fear, maybe with an ambiguous or irrelevant story thrown in here or there. If it’s human nature to cherrypick, I’ll let my gut and my heart guide me toward my favorite cherries, if that makes sense.

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     • Well, I do think it is important to have the ability to interact well with people even when you don’t feel like it…because many circumstances can require that. Does that always mean I’m personally doing it well? No…but I’m also years deep into some very high-pressure parenting circumstances. I’ve had to play very nice with people who were trying to kick my son off of necessary services, for example, when internally I felt anything but cheerful about everything involved with those particular circumstances. And sometimes the version of me that shows up to interact with people other than my closest friends feels chatty and sometimes not even a little bit just because I’m emotionally worn out by all of this sometimes, and I will go with a “minimal encourager” if I’m feeling that way and I *need* to be interacting with them. And I get it on the news. Sometimes I literally can’t handle it because it’s just too much dark and I need my emotional energy to focus on the positive. But sometimes the news gives me a surprise, I was reading a story in the spanish section for one of our local channels last night, and it was talking about an app a parent designed (with his own son in mind) that would scan a QR code patch on a non-verbal kiddo’s shirt to help identify the kiddo and their loved ones. Reading that definitely added value to my day, so…I think what I do much of the time is cherry pick the headlines if I’m feeling like I can’t handle the doom and gloom. But sometimes though, I think the negative stuff shouldn’t be discarded in the cherry picking processes because it can still be very useful and important to know. If I were interested in working for a certain employer, for example, I wouldn’t want to know only the good parts, I would want to know the negatives associated with that organization so I could decide for myself whether those were negatives I wanted to deal with or not.

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     • I’m with you in your general stance, in that I’m not an absolutist. I’ll make exceptions for things if my gut is telling me to. With the news, I had been doing it for awhile because I felt like I needed to be clued into what other folks were thinking. Then I was doing it because I thought I needed to be constantly mining ideas for writing. Then, after I realized recently I’ve always had a few years worth of ideas marinating away in my head, I heard for probably the umpteenth time someone telling me they don’t watch the news, but for some reason it just clicked, so I decided to try it out because it felt right at the time. If I have some reason to look at it, I’ll do so, though. Your example would be one where I wouldn’t hold to my non-news stance just because of rote belief. That would kind of be the same as what I was doing before, where I was perusing the news just because I thought I needed to keep mucking through it to sustain my creativity. I think I’m in the beginning stages of commitment toward the idea that I need to keep things tidy on the inside so I can open the way for the deeper self to come through. So it’s really about keeping things tidy, not whether I should watch the news or not.

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     • I think for me it’s probably more related to an attempt to be tidier on the inside than anything else. I am a person who can get very emotionally involved in what happens to other people, so if there’s a lot going on already in my actual life, I have found I just do better if I limit my news consumption, especially of certain types of happenings. Sometimes it’s enough for me to read a headline and know something happened. If I read too many details, my internal emotions can become too involved and I have more than enough in my actual present day life that I need to be processing and managing effectively. The people I need to show up for emotionally first and foremost are the ones I am responsible for or have made a commitment to.

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     • Yeah, absolutely. I noticed the news didn’t make me feel bad to the point where it went beyond a disinterested that sucks, or that doesn’t seem good, so people stating that they didn’t look at news just seemed like virtue-signaling or being overly sensitive to me for a while. Then, when I heard it again recently, it just resonated for some reason, probably because I was ready to hear it. So I monitored the news for the next few days after I heard it, and I noticed, yeah, half of these things are negative happenings, and half are things that haven’t happened yet but cast in an ominous, negative light. To be fair, it’s not exactly half and half, there’s a fraction of stuff that’s just meh, and an occasional positive thing like a dog that rides the bus without its owner or something like that. So once I brought that up to my conscious awareness, I was like I really don’t need this. I don’t talk about it, I don’t use it, and I don’t get ideas for stories from it. Yesterday, however, I decided maybe there’s some stuff I’d like to hear about, so I googled good news and came upon a site called the good news network. These are obviously all positive developments in varying degrees of realization, from something concrete or something that might make the future better for some people. Call me Ned Flanders-like, but I actually enjoyed perusing that site, and I think I’ll make it a habit. Old me would have laughed and ridiculed present me, lol!

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     • I shall have to check that website out later when I have time! Well dude, these are just my thoughts on the virtue signaling or the overly sensitive potential interpretations. I think a lot of that is just perspective. I have seen people who went to a great deal of effort to seem very benevolent publicly and were quite different behind closed doors, so I understand the reason for being cynical. Sometimes people are just telling you who they are. I am a messy person in certain respects, I couldn’t even begin to say I approach the bar of perfection in anything. Literally not a thing. But it is also genuine if me that I do not like to watch living creatures suffer, for me it is emotionally stressful and I feel that pain on the inside. So many stories in the news are about difficult or traumatic things that have happened to other people, and for me personally if I’ve already got a lot of things I’m dealing with it’s just better for my emotional regulation and everybody I interact with if I consume less of that type of news. For someone who doesn’t feel that way that could seem over sensitive. For me it is just the way that I am🤷‍♀️ and part of what leads to the things of me that I wouldn’t want to change. I need to get going for now, take good care of yourself 😊

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     • I wouldn’t want to change that either. Now that we’re exploring the subject, I think another reason I decided the news wasn’t great was because as I was going about my everyday life, I noticed that if I focused on a positive premise, I’d have these recently viewed negative stories ready to pop up in my head as data points that argued against the positive premise. It just seemed unnecessary, like yes, I know the world can be harsh, yes, I’ve experienced it myself, but why do I have to keep highlighting evidence for it? When I was younger, I remember reacting dismissively to positive developments, like yeah but there’s going to be a price to pay for that, or yeah but now we have to watch out to make sure nobody screws it up, or even envy or disappointment that it wasn’t happening to me. And when positive stuff happened to me, I would feel guilty, like I didn’t deserve it because of reasons x y and z. No desire to go back to that, lol!

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     • For a shorter comment, there’s kind of a lot I could dig into and expand on there. Younger me certainly struggled more than current me with filling in the “what comes next” blank with possible negatives, when I was in guess mode- which is different from actually knowing mode. The reality is that negative and positive things both can happen. Some people say it is in an equal proportion roughly for everyone, but you know statistics just don’t agree with that, lol. There’s always going to be someone who gets more of one than the other. The whys of that I think could be complicated to discuss and consider and I’m not in a position where I would want to make that my focus currently. I think what a person focuses on can make a huge difference on how resilient or positive they feel regardless of what proportion of positive vs. negative they are experiencing. A person who has a lot of “negative” things (and really, that is a subjective value judgement on some things more than anything else) happening but focuses more on the positive may feel happier and luckier than a person who has more positive things but amplifies the living daylights out of the negative, feeding them with the miracle grow of an intensified focus that renders them much more weight than the otherwise could have had. That being said, knowing oneself is valuable. I believe it is important to know when negative things are going on, but it is equally important for me to know when I can handle reading about all of the nitty gritty details and when I cannot. If it is not something I can personally act on and it’s a high stress level period for me, it’s just better not to amplify my own internal state with the details. I still like to have a general idea though because I think that is valuable, it’s more like I consider that a filter is necessary at certain times so that I can sparkle my way through the things that are in my current circle of influence to the best of my ability.

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     • I think I can relate! Kind of related to a hope for the best, plan for the worst attitude. I’ve definitely skewed to kookier models of reality recently, so I place much more emphasis on perspective, which means I put a lot of weight on emotional resonance and what kind of mood is tinging my thoughts. I’ve kind of beaten a dead horse with you regarding the fundamentals of that stuff, but recently I’ve been resonating with the hypothesis that time is not linear to the point where reality is actually an infinite collection of film reels, where each frame is a possibility we can shift our focus onto and experience viscerally. So in this model, the idea of sequential time would be an elaborate illusion, where past and future lives would be happening at the same time as the present. The way I simplify it in my head is to point my hand downward with five fingers extended. Let’s say that “current” kent is the middle finger. If that guy raises his consciousness (moves his vantage up to the back of the hand), he can start interfacing with the other lives, the index and thumb and whatnot. Visually, it works because the fingers occupy the same horizontal axis, implying the lives aren’t happening one after the other, but rather separated by a membrane of perception. Personally, I suspect this happens all the time at a typically imperceptible level of consciousness, and bubbles to the surface as synchronicities and emotional urges to do this or that without a strictly logical motivation. I also like that model for souls, as a “stream” or “tree” that branches out into different points of existential focus. I always had a problem with reincarnation because of the implication of sequential restriction–that lives had to happen one after the other. That would mean that the sum total of consciousnesses in existence would always remain exactly the same. Obviously, there’s no real way to argue for or against that, or even for or against the premise of reincarnation (there’s some cool anecdotes, but that’s about it). I much more resonate with the idea of being a branch on a “soul-tree,” and that time is not a river, but a series of parallel movie frames we can blink between to create the illusion of a one-way narrative.

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     • Ok, perhaps it’s because some aspects of my early afternoon were not exactly optimal, I am having a hard time not giggling about the fact that you chose the middle finger to represent current you. I can see where you are going with your explanation though. I tend to have a hope for the best, plan for the worst attitude. Sometimes I just have an “I’ve been slogging through tough stuff for a while now and I’m just ready to sit in a corner and cry for a few minutes because today something succeeded momentarily in kidnapping and gagging my inner positivity princess” attitude. And I get tired needing to always be the “must hold it together no matter what hits the fan” person (because it’s exhausting). And I do need to be that in our circumstances. Which means, I choose to be mentally sloppy about some things at certain times because my braincells just need time to not overcook. I’m not sure where I weigh in on some of your thoughts about the nature of reality, but I think you explain them well, and kudos for that. Right now I’m on a quest to help my inner positivity princess recover from a few more challenging moments today, and I’m mid problem solve and attitudinal resuscitation, which means I probably am not in a good place to sit and ponder anything about the nature of reality right now. Sorry about that dude.

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     • No worries! Pondering it would only go back to the same conclusions, stuff like be nice to yourself, be present if you can, that kind of thing. I didn’t even realize I’d picked the bird to represent me until you mentioned it! If I had a big ol sausage finger that was way girthier than the rest, then I would’ve picked that for innuendo’s sake, but they’re all pretty much the same circumference, lol! You’re definitely going to get that inner positivity princess back, I believe it’s an inevitability. I’m rooting for you and hoping sooner rather than later!

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     • 😂 That’s about all I can say about fingers and appendages. As to my inner positivity princess, nobody really needs to worry about her. She’s a resilient chic, kinda self-healing… she’s a big fan of all things internal sunlight. I send out a rescue team pretty quickly though if anything succeeds in knocking or dragging her off her throne. Life has taught me many things, but nothing is more valuable than the ability to self-rescue as needed.

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     • That’s a great skill to have! I’m not tolerant enough to rescue myself or others, lol! I just help where I can and trust folks will figure things out sooner or later. If I start managing things too personally then I start ramping up expectations and it becomes a little too transactional for me to be my best self. I’m in my hippie dippie phase where my main task now is to relax and let my core frequency come to the fore and line things up. Regardless, I love that you see the resilience and self-healing of your inner positivity princess. Definitely good vibes! 😊

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     • Well, I think rescuing others can be a tricky thing. A parent I think needs to try to rescue when rescue is needed, more especially for kiddos who aren’t adults yet. And sometimes a person does not have the resources (legal, monetary, or otherwise) to rescue themselves, and I think when a person in those circumstances wants to be rescued, if I am able to help out, I understand the need and I am happy to do so. I think the key is a person has to want to be helped or rescued, otherwise it’s just wasting everyone’s time and causing frustration all the way around. I am not a perfect person, the kind that nobody could approach with a “you wronged me somehow or you messed this up with the way you handled it”…I am as I have said a messy person, but a messy person who does care a great deal about helping other people minimize their suffering when I can. I cannot and I should not recommend myself as a role model to anybody and therefore I certainly don’t. I think for where I am at right now, I’m super maxed out, and my rescue energy is already spoken for all the way around. Recognizing the limits of one’s capacity to help is important whether one feels one can or whether one feels one can’t. And life has shown me the resilience of my nature and my inner positivity princess, and I am thankful for it. To be able to bring healing to oneself, even if the process is sometimes slower than others, it is a gift to never be taken lightly, but to bow the head in gratitude for. To look towards healing sometimes is a choice though as much as anything else, and I will choose that for myself every single time because it just quite frankly feels way better, even when I’ve goofed and some self-reflection has told me improvements really do need to be made. And sometimes they do, my inner positivity princess isn’t wearing rose colored glasses or thinking perfection needs to be her thing at this point, she’s like the rest of me, doing the best she can even when she needs a good solid rescuing, lol.

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     • It can also get tricky when someone thinks they want be rescued, but deep down they really don’t want to for whatever reason. I’ve met folks that are super convincing both to themselves and others that they want to do x y or z, and then they just peter off midway through and start avoiding any activities that’ll further their progress. That’s part of why I think it’s important to monitor emotional investment, and make sure I’m not just taking everything over and doing someone’s task for them in some egoic effort to make them successful just because I want them to be successful. Stuff that they can do and agree to do are markers to me as to whether I should keep working with them or not. For example, most people can do some paperwork or make some calls. I’m happy to assist if they have questions about how to navigate either, but I’m not going to fill out stuff for them or do the contact legwork of reaching out to representatives and setting up a meeting or conveying data a representative needs to do their job. If I start seeing someone skimp out on this stuff, then I might touch base a couple more times to see if they did it or if they have a specific issue gumming them up, but pretty soon I’m just going to stop asking, because they clearly aren’t interested. It’s the same with someone who actually achieves something, but doesn’t maintain it despite having resources and time. I’m not going to force them to keep something going if they have the means. If they’re asking me how to reconfigure things so they can start maintaining whatever they want to maintain, that’s a different story. At its philosophical core, I think this is a fundamental split between focusing on someone who demonstrates they want to exercise their power, or being empowered, and someone who may say they want to do so, but demonstrates otherwise, which to me is a focus on disempowerment. I’ve noticed that when I try to help out people who don’t have a productive focus, I become disempowered myself–I become angry and resentful at them, I try to force or manipulate them into doing it the way I want them to do it, etc. etc. Any results are lukewarm at best and usually become unsustainable long-term. None of that is me bringing my best self to the table, and not only will I be unable to force and sustain aid to those who don’t want it, but I will need it myself if I continue down that vein, because the stress and discontent will start to snowball and bleed into other areas of my life.

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     • I think sometimes people and their processes, reasons, etc can be complicated. I think sometimes people are very sincere about wanting a different path, but have done the pros and cons math and decided to pursue something else because of how that view of the process ended up changing their opinion of what needed to happen regardless of what they wanted. And sometimes people start on a particular path thinking that it will be a good one for them and in the experiencing of it, which can be a very different thing from just the fantasizing about it or wanting of it, they realized it just really wasn’t for them. And sometimes they get a new piece of information they were unaware of about a situation and it can entirely change What they decide they want to do or how much effort they want to put into something. And sometimes people are trying to work through all of the things that they want to do or can due through the lens of the physical neurological processes that are going on within their body. Sometimes, my attention span is crud… I have a slew of partially finished books, I always had a series of unfinished quilts or crochet projects when I actually had time to do those things. Sometimes my follow-through was great with those things, sometimes not and a lot of that is just where my neurology is at. I can have exceptional follow-through with something that is critical or important. Which I am thankful for, but sometimes the stuff around the periphery…eh, not always so much. Some things around the edges can definitely fall through the cracks for me and that is just a result of what comes from my neurology 😅 It is what it is and It is only something that I can have an awareness on and continue to just chip away at and be patient with myself on as long as it is nothing critical falling in the “I had the best of intentions but this has gone unfinished” pile. I think power can look like different things to different people, and some of the things that can look like power on the outside really aren’t. All each of us can try to do is the best we are capable of in our individual circumstances.

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     • Ironically, I’m actually pro “bailing on stuff,” lol! I don’t think it makes sense to just keep hammering away at stuff if your intuition and heart are drawn toward something different. And like you said, maybe the partial completion of something yielded what someone needed, and going all the way would just be a waste of energy. It’s actually why I don’t mind shrugging my shoulders and bailing if someone asks me for help and then repeatedly demonstrates a lack of commitment. I’m not going to tyrannize myself into tyrannizing them into finishing something for the sake of finishing something. Only they know whether they are truly focused on empowerment or disempowerment, but I know personally, for me, that if I overextend by trying to force or fool someone into doing something they have repeatedly demonstrated they authentically don’t want to do, I’m disempowering myself. I personally don’t receive any positive feedback from treating people like that, and it certainly doesn’t fulfill me. Maybe others are meant to do that for a bit, maybe for a while, but definitely not me.

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     • I think for me, it depends on what it is and what the stakes are when it comes to my willingness to bail. If you talk to a parent of a kiddo with drug addiction or mental illness or an eating disorder, many will tell you they can’t see themselves bailing on their loved one even if that loved one is currently rejecting any and all attempts to move towards healing. Of course, that isn’t every parent’s philosophy, but plenty of us feel like we have to try just for the hope alone that perhaps something will help that loved one see something that encourages them to make some positive changes towards healing. To let go and recognize what is in the other person’s hands and beyond control isn’t always easy when that person is a child, but still I certainly see myself falling in the category of “I will not bail on you” when it comes to certain people with certain needs. I don’t see that as me becoming disempowered, I see that as me being true to my nature. Internally when it comes to one’s attitude, I think giving up power is a choice and it’s just something I perhaps might view differently. Other things that are less critical, sure I can bail on them to a degree. I’m not going to consistently try and convince someone to leave their abusive partner if they’re not really planning to or wanting to. Sure, my door will be open if they actually ever really do want to leave. And if someone’s an adult that I’m not legally responsible for, my door may be always open if they really do want help, but their drug addiction isn’t going to be even remotely addressable unless they genuinely want to and that is something that can be wasted effort on. For work, people will rise or fall based on their own actions, that isn’t anything I personally need to be involved in unless they involve me or they are a member of my team and I’m responsible for the overall result.

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     • Sounds like you’ve got a well thought-out set of boundaries! I guess with my experiences, I’m not ready to go beyond the step of getting someone to logically agree with me if they don’t want to either. I’ve tried berating people for not living up to their agreed-upon best way forward, and they just hang their head and agree that I’m right. The next step would be micromanaging them and increasingly tyrannizing them, which is something I don’t want any part of. I suppose I could do it for a pet, and I have done that so they could get medical treatment and whatnot, but with a person under most circumstances, I’m going to treat them the way I’d like to be treated: I want advice if asked for, then I want room to work with it. Some people actually pay others to get really intrusive to accomplish goals, like I’ve heard about high-end trainers that make their clients sign waivers that will allow them to no-shit enter their house and physically shove or hit them or have total control of their kitchen. You could say the client is exercising their free will by contractually volunteering to have it suppressed, but it’s definitely not my thing, lol!

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     • oh hell no, I would not sign myself up for that level of a personal trainer! If I want to fall of the eating semi-decent bandwagon and shove a cookie in my face, I am going to shove a cookie in my face and be thankful nobody can march into my home and shove me up against the wall for sidetracking my health and wellness goals. Even when I know it would be better for me if I didn’t, sometimes my internal stress management system misfires and demands ice cream or chocolate or whatever. Which I guess makes your point, lol. Sometimes people know what is better for them and just can’t quite always bring themselves to do it. But I can understand the idea that sometimes people will definitely say “this is what I want more” and I’m comfortable with you doing x, y, z to help me get there because I’m just not fully capable of this on my own or without some type of accountability. And, I mean, I would agree that clients who do sign up for that type of service are exercising their free will…but they also still have to do some follow through on their own. Everybody does if they want to accomplish something, there’s really only so much micromanaging can do. At the end of the day, a person has to be accountable to a certain level to get to a certain level with something. Take good care of yourself 🙂

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     • I think there’s a place for it, it’s just not me anymore. I’ve done it myself by enlisting in the military (I agree to abide by restrictions, and in return, I want such and such benefits). Also, from a multi-self perspective, it’s kind of integral to my beliefs that we agree to certain surface-self parameters from a higher self perspective. But as you know, I’d rather not focus on transactionality, and shape my journey through life as more of an adventure allowed for and set up by my parameters, rather than a constant accounting for debts and obligations.

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     • Well, I’m on a bit of a different journey because being a parent comes with obligations built in. I signed up for it, I am bound by both genuine love and ethical responsibilities to adhere to the path of meeting those obligations to the best of my abilities. Meeting them can (does actually) require placing many things I personally desire on the sacrificial altar.

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     • It does strike me that even if there were no laws in place, it would still be an unspoken contract. At the same time, not in the spirit of being a needless contrarian, I can’t help but think of my own dad, who I’m actually grateful for leaving when I was young, and for staying out of my life as I grew up. I’m glad he gave me the room to grow up without some of his viewpoints that were pretty restrictive and not so nice to my mom. It really gave me the ability to see what I truly wanted for myself out of life, and I think it also let him and my mom live their best lives once he left.

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     • Yeah, I think individual circumstances and views can vary all the way around as regards to that situation I have found. Teenage me refused to visit my dad in the hospital because of what had been done to us and didn’t shed so much as a single tear when he passed away in my early 20’s (my sentiment was “good riddance” and even if it speaks poorly of me to someone to admit it, that didn’t soften any over the years). Some people would understand that, some people would say (often ones from a religious or heavily patriarchal background) that it didn’t matter what he did he was still a blood relative and a parent on top of that, so “honor your father and mother” and all that. My feelings are my feelings and they are valid to me, my kiddos feelings are their feelings and they are valid to them (and they may not love everything I do even when I do it with the best of intentions), yours are yours which are valid to you, and so on. What matters to me more than what I felt about my parents is what I am trying to do in the family I have created for my own children (which is very different than how I was raised), and for me personally, I feel and understand the unspoken contract bit, but for me it is written and signed in the love I feel for them rather than a sense of “I am obligated to do this.”

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     • I’m with you, I never got the whole be nice to family just because they’re family thing. I think I mentioned it somewhat in the past, but I’ve done some real estate stuff with my mom and I made extra sure that if something went sideways I covered it on my end so it never affected hers. On my side, I feel like doing stuff with family makes it so I have to step up a whole lot more so it doesn’t affect the relationship. Simultaneously, I also feel that I have to be extra diligent about setting boundaries with family so that if they’re being careless they don’t have a chance to get me to the point where I have to break things off or I say something that I can’t take back. I think family is interesting in the philosophical sense–in my belief system it’s tied to some deeper-self choices that set up themes to explore throughout my life, but I’ve told my mom and my brother that if they did anything egregiously criminal that I’d have to turn them in (not as a cringey warning or anything, just as part of a thoughtful discussion/thought experiment). At the end of the day, no one lives my life but me, and if I can’t look at myself in the mirror because I’m “honoring my family,” then it kind of defeats the purpose of being given an individual life, in my opinion.

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     • I think family relationships and dynamics can be complicated. I have a great deal of respect for the manner you have conducted yourself with your mother in your joint endeavors as you have explained it. Having been both a child and a parent has given me a more rounded perspective, but not the kind of course that could have ever seen me having a relationship with my father. I have now though an awareness that a parent can do everything within their power to be a force of good for their children, can be doing the very best they can, can create a safe and loving environment…and that’s not necessarily what’s going to be felt or remembered. Engaging in a family becomes a space of shared reality with multiple players and perspectives. I wish you a lovely holiday, I am going to save you more rambles because I need to get going. All of our holiday celebrations kind of went up in viral smoke, Andy’s been sick for a couple days, Tony’s fever this morning was 104.6, and while I’m mercifully healthy and solidly hoping to stay that way but it’s an order pizza instead of cooking and keep everybody whose sick medicated and hydrated kinda day. Take good care of yourself 🙂

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     • Yeah, I’m not sure when my mom and I shifted more into a friend dynamic than parent-child, but I think it started happening in the mid 2010s. There was a long time when I didn’t want to talk to her at all, and I only called her on Christmas and the holidays. Now we have a video chat with my brother and cousin every two weeks. I never in my younger life would have ever thought I would be conversing with my mom about stuff outside of typical parent-child worry/care for each other, but she’s been taking a big interest in Buddhism, which she was raised in, and that has a lot of overlap with my views on existence, so it’s nice when I can resonate with her on stuff like why I think Buddha never answered Mara in person, or the fractal nature of existence or what the reasoning is behind certain parables. Regardless, I personally feel like it’s kind of the evolution in relationship that I low-key wanted when I was younger, but it seemed way too far out of reach given where we were both at. It’s nice to see it just kind of materialize on its own.

       I hope you have a healing and restful holiday! Being sick is no fun, but ordering pizza can be pretty nice, in my opinion. Some of my fondest memories are laying around eating pizza watching movies! The magic of a cheesy bite of pizza followed by a crisp gulp of fizzy mountain dew…chef’s kiss!

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     • I’m very glad you are finding joy in that relationship beyond what you had expected. Something I have started saying to others is that “parents are people too!” And it encompasses a great deal and I often have some very layered meanings attached to that, but in your case it seems to have blossomed into a relationship built upon a recognition of overlapping thoughts and values.

       So why do you think Buddha never answered Mara in person?

       And thanks for the good wishes for healing! I usually don’t catch the viral crud that comes through, and if I do it’s usually a very light version. That’s kinda where I woke up at today. It’s been a very stressful period for me and my energy has been pulled in a lot of directions, so it looks like I’m not going to completely be able to avoid this one but my hopes are still on staying on the very minor crud side of things. Tony’s fever is down a couple degrees so that’s headed in the right direction (yesterday he needed both Tylenol and Ibuprofen because it was so high), I’m gonna drink lots of fluid even though I don’t have a fever, and the ordering pizza was definitely the easiest Christmas dinner I’ve done in a while, lol! I like my pizza with veggies though, so that’s what I got for me. We all got our own things because I don’t do meat on mine and I’m the only one who wants veg. I hope you are having a lovely holiday and wishing you well 😀

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     • I’m a big fan of mushroom and olives! Too many veggies gets tricky because the water increases the chances of overcooking, in my experience.

       As far as Buddha and Mara, I believe most scholars tentatively interpret it as Buddha refusing to let society sway his focus on enlightenment (I halfway remember there was some instance where Jesus did the same or similar, but I can’t remember the specifics). Mara challenges Buddha with death and lust, Buddha remains unfazed, then the last challenge comes as a question, something along the lines of “Why are you worthy of enlightenment and who will vouch for you?” (I’ve also seen it written as “show me proof you are enlightened). Buddha touches the ground, a symbol of interconnectivity, and he becomes enlightened.

       I agree with the general premise, that Buddha isn’t being swayed by society, but I haven’t heard anything clear cut about why Buddha never verbally answered. To me this is important. Buddha doesn’t verbally answer because the verbal dynamic of question and answer, of questioner and answerer, furthers the illusion of separation, where one might be “better” than the other, and so one must justify themselves to another. Enlightenment comes with nondual perception, where the enlightened can viscerally perceive that the All is indeed the One. So Buddha touching the ground is not necessarily an acknowledgement of Mara’s question, it is a gesture of interconnectivity that Buddha could have made at any time, regardless of the presence of a question or questioner.

       So to me it is crucial, due to Buddha’s nondual perception of reality, that he doesn’t acknowledge the validity of Mara’s implicit claim: that a challenge from an external source must be satisfied in order to realize enlightenment. From a nondual perspective, the question is moot–the separation of past and future is moot, the separation of questioner and answerer is moot, the hierarchical separation of challenger and victor/failure is moot. Buddha’s perception is beyond separation, and he is simply embracing that he has already been enlightened all along, only now his surface consciousness has become fully accepting of it. So he can no longer pretend that Mara’s separation-dependent perspective is valid. From Buddha’s nondual, fully aligned perspective, answering Mara would be an invalid response because the very WAY he would need to respond–the way he would need to frame his perception to respond that way–would be invalid. It would be separation-dependent. He would need to willingly renounce his nondual perspective, his perceptual/spiritual alignment. And/or the act of answering would involuntarily misalign him and he would no longer be able to perceive the All as the One. So the very act of engaging with the challenge would tacitly prove him unworthy of enlightenment.

       That’s my take on it. 😅

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     • Olives are actually my favorite topping to have on a pizza next to the cheese…and they totally forgot to put them on! I didn’t feel like it was worth making a big deal about (I didn’t make any deal about it actually). I’m just grateful somebody else did the cooking, lol. I also really like onions, peppers, and spinach on pizzas. I feel like those aren’t very high liquid, it’s more when you start having things like eggplant for me personally that it gets too liquidy. Although a lot of liquid comes out of mushrooms when you cook them for long enough…

       Sorry, I’m on ramble mode. Even a low grade fever for someone with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome and POTS comes with a POTS flair up (out of the 3 of us that got fevers, mine is the smallest elevation over here, but still not helpful for me personally). My standing heart rate when I first woke up this morning was 135. I’ve dialed in all the rescue measures I can and I’m sitting in the mid 80’s currently, but still kinda loopy so that means you definitely would have had a more coherent sounding response to this a few days ago or even a few years ago. On the positive, I’m gonna loose some weight without actually exercising until the fever is gone because my heart sure things it’s getting a workout, lol. Downside? Set to babble. I remembered the moment you started explaining about the interaction with Mara that you’ve explained something very similar in the past, super sorry I made you do a repeat! It’s on my to-do-list at some point, to learn a bit more about different Buddhist traditions as a matter of curiosity. I’m personally still very solidly in the Unitarian camp, but I do like some of the teachings. But right now I’m super focused on the school transition and doing what I can to help everybody involved find success. Unless I get sick, and then I’m focused on things that don’t require me to think to much, lol. It is what it is. Thanks for chatting with me, take good care of yourself!

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     • I feel like olives should be the base ingredient of all pizza, they really add a kick of salty mealiness that enhances the cheese and offsets any crispiness in the dough. And though it might sound weird, I like the cheap black olives you can get anywhere, the fancy stuff just tries way too hard! As far as the peppers and onions and spinach…it depends. I gotta know that the restaurant is on point with their baking times, because I’ve had sloppy pizza from more than one or two veggies.

       Since we’re on the topic of Buddha, I’ve recently clarified my opinion of the ego (the mental consolidations allowing for an individual). Most of my life, I always thought of ego as bad, but without an ego, we’d be stuck in a nondual state, otherwise known as God or the One. With the ego (illusion of separation), we’re able to experience stuff like progress, motion, choice, and thus make enough individual perspectives to comprise the All. So maybe it’s an imperfect analogy, but without the ego, you’d have a pizza with every available topping piled onto it. Yeah, everything’s available, and you’ve achieved culinary omnipresence, but there’s no way to enjoy the taste of a specific kind of pizza! The ego allows us to develop a liking for just cheese, cheese and olives, or the ol standby pepperoni, maybe pepperoni with onions. But when people lean too much into the ego, they start piling on ingredients that destroy the taste–no one wants a fruit salad on top of their damn pizza! If I could personally address pineapple, I’d tell them they could stay, but that they were on VERY shaky ground, lol!

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     • Well, before I became vegetarian, I loved me some Hawaiian style pizza, so…me and pineapple, we’re good, lol.

       I think ego is a complicated subject because it means different things to different people, and often it comes with judgement values of what is good ego and what is bad ego. And oftentimes people aren’t using the same measuring stick whether it is ego in the spiritual sense of the more secular. For example, in our former church, being a stay at home mom who kept a supper clean home and did all the mommy stuff was taught as the highest, noblest calling for a woman. So some of the ladies who were doing that might have felt a great deal of pride and seemed to have an ego about it to an outside observer while feeling that sense of internal pride was fully warranted and justified, yet looked down on those who worked or had a career in quiet conversations with themselves or others, feeling that this person shouldn’t have had a justifyable right to feel anything approaching justifiable ego about what they did. Someone who worked or had that career might have looked down on the woman who stayed home with similar justifications about the higher value of what she did and all the validations about her own right to feel some sense of superior justification for those beliefs or feelings, and so it seems to go with things like a degree vs. none, fabulous pedigree vs. born in a trailer park, etc, etc, etc. with that bleeding into discussions about the spiritual connotations of the subject, in my opinion. And even the term ego can be used as a sword, with someone being said to have too much…because of those judgement calls, because we decide what is or isn’t justifiable for another with that based on our own internal views. One of the greatest gifts of all of the places I have been in my life is the realization that so many times, people are just different sides of the same coin. Those are just my thoughts on the matter, as always, I respect the rights of anyone here to think very differently about the subject.

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     • My ex used to love pineapple and onions, which I couldn’t help but sneak bites out of the leftovers because I really am like a chompy doggo when I wake up in the middle of the night and look in the fridge, lol! Stuff tastes so good at those times! So I ended up eating some pineapple pizza and appreciating it.

       Yes, ego can be productive or unproductive. I think it’s good to have pride in who you are and what you do, but when it grows to the point of insecurity, where you have to shove it down everyone’s throat and make them feel small so you can try and feel bigger, that’s not so helpful. If I had to be reductive, I’d say it’s meant to craft an enjoyable journey as an individual who’s expressing their gifts, and making the most of whatever gameplay parameters their deeper self has/is introducing into their lives. Or we can amplify ego to the point where our journey becomes a zero-sum, crab-in-the-bucket type of story, but I’d prefer not to.

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     • Yeah, I just feel like a lot about ego is in the eye and the perception of the beholder. I am sure there are times where someone felt I had an ego problem just because I addressed a criticism to someone who had a higher level of credentialling, societal status, whatever. The nerve I had, right? Must come with an ego problem, lol. Glorious thing about my neurology is I’m not too concerned about status unless I have to be, I’m more concerned about performance and results. I think for any person where they are at is a continuum as regards to actual internal ego versus what others think it is within them. I think it is a rare person that sees themselves exactly as they are to the level that they really are at all times. Just my opinion though…

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     • Maybe I’m wrong, but I think I’m seeing society at large take a healthier view on this, specifically the part where they see the nuances of a person. I’ve noticed it in the military, where certain medal of honor awardees are known in conversations as good people or douchelords completely separate from their heroic feats. And I think I’m seeing it in greater society in online conversations about how yes, someone might have done something impressive in one arena, but that doesn’t excuse them from something egregrious in another. If that’s truly what’s happening, I’d go so far as to say it’s related to what I perceive to be an uptick in a general awareness of formal logical fallacies where phrases like straw man or ad hominem are starting to appear in casual conversations. I’d like to see a better awareness of a false dichotomy (erroneous either/or choice when there are actually three or more options in the form of combinations of the original two or different ones altogether), but I think we’re getting there, I think it’s presented more casually as “this isn’t an either/or.” Anyways, the point is, I’m with you in that I think judgment of someone’s ego is pretty secondary, and in my opinion, kind of related to the ad hominem fallacy in that the ego isn’t relevant unless it’s placed under a strong umbrella of inductive evidence (so and so has predictably acted in accordance with a trendline of data) and is able to be convincingly argued as a future liability via sound deduction. If someone’s a great contributor and uplifts the team, then I don’t really care if they’re damn proud of who they are, or even if they think they’re better than others as long as it doesn’t start poisoning the team’s dynamic and mentality. Plus it’s not like beliefs are consistent–sometimes people may see themselves as superior, and sometimes as inferior, kind of like if you’re in a good vibe then you believe that bad circumstances can be ignored, overcome, or mitigated, and when you’re in a bad vibe then good circumstances seem lackluster, devoid of potential, a fluke, or an invitation to be paranoid because the other shoe will drop in a bit.

       My next example might use a problematic context, but in Roman times, there was supposedly a belief that a defining difference between the free and enslaved was an education in the “trivium,” which was grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The fundamental intent, I believe, was to inculcate the free with an ability to communicate intelligibly and think critically, so that they could be productive components of greater society. Then they could apply these fundamentals to the quadrivium, or quantification through four areas: arithmetic (abstract quantification) geometry (quantification of space) music (quantification of time) and astronomy (quantification of space and time). Of course slavery is unacceptable, but I did resonate with the idea that critical thinking and resonant communication is one of the fundamental tools that should form the base of a free-thinking person’s education, then technical stuff that might be analogous to STEM fields could be added on later.

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     • I would say that I support a more blended and nuanced approach to viewing people. I think at the heart of cancel culture, which seems to strike with an unnecessarily punitive force in my opinion, is this sentiment that permeates somewhat our society from the idea that a person is one thing or another (what I would consider the either/or fallacy has some pretty strong adherents in my opinion), and if a person has done one action, then they are completely and entirely aligned with either the good or the bad that one option could indicate. It’s like a geometric proof gone dysfunctional in my opinion. People are people, and perhaps when the sum total of all their actions and thoughts are weighed, there is a trend that skews more one direction than the other, but that overall I don’t see people as being entirely one thing or the other. And the lens/perspective used always changes the view and the summation. As a species, we have a lengthy and well-established history of finding ways to create us vs. them categories, with a justification made for devaluing the humanity of “thems” and finding ways to support the view that our “us” is better/predestined/chosen/worthy…whatever and therefore deserving the respect, the resources, the toys…the whatever. Sometimes what a person thinks is happening is determined by their view, and though mine is often of necessity focused on our family’s needs, for me I personally see a fair bit of this historical theme still being given an encore performance in the present as it unfolds around me.

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     • Yep, to me it’s the intent and state of mind that is truly important (I know, no surprise). I’m fine with cancelling people, but the vibe in cancel culture is a different thing altogether. It’s kind of like the judicial system–the principles are sound, they are coming from a place of desire for fairness and justice for all. However, there are some judges who are unashamedly biased, to the point where they will ignore or obstruct any evidence that contradicts the outcome they want. They’re not interested in upholding justice, they would rather cater to their personal interests. I used to think the solution to all this was to be as unemotional and objective as possible, but now it’s apparent to me that there’s really no getting around the fact that emotions are integral in everything we do. It’s about managing and working with emotion, deliberately abiding in a positive mindset, that will allow for an orientation and drive toward solutions (which often require an awareness and acceptance of nuance, rather than dogma), instead of personal shortcomings and the conclusion that our go-to tools are fear and punishment.

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     • Sometimes I think it can be difficult to determine and truly see the essence of a person, who they are in their core, from a single deed or even a short collection of them. To seek solutions is in and of itself a more positive/proactive mindset automatically, because a person doesn’t seek what they believe to be impossible.

       So what are your thoughts on Karma?

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     • Indeed. I believe at their core, the true essence of someone is what might be referred to as their divine aspect. I don’t believe it’s necessary to interact with it or draw it out, I just like to trust that it’s there, that it’s guiding them along whatever experience they’re choosing for this life, and in turn, I like to perceive myself in the same manner (not gonna lie, it is pretty nice when I can sense it in myself and others, but if I could do that 100% 24/7, there’d be no need for me to be an individual and I’d simply be my omnipresent/omnipotent self, unable to have adventures, learn anything, or experience progress). But as an individual self, I like to focus more on my individual perceptual alignment, and let that guide me or deter me from interacting with others depending on wherever they happen to be at, moment by moment.

       My thoughts on karma is that it is somewhat an explanation for cause and effect, but not in a moral or ethical sense. Basically, I do believe you get back what you put out, but solely at an individual, mental/emotional level. So if an action falls in a gray area and could be interpreted as good or bad, then I don’t think the punishment will fit the crime, so to speak. I think whatever energetic flavor someone is focused on will be projected back onto themselves, which means even if they make tons of money or receive tons of acclaim while feeling hopeless, they will be given some other reason to feel hopeless independent of the money or acclaim. If someone decides to change their inner state (and I believe that regardless of how bleak things get, existence will encourage them to shift it in a positive direction with whatever hints they are ready to receive depending on how open their perception is, which may range from mild hints and synchronicities to very traumatic, like tragic or life-changing circumstances), it will start reflecting in the outer world. Ultimately, I kind of think of karma as a mechanism of the game we’ve volunteered for, and due to an abundance of possibility, it often works out in unexpected ways. That’s why I truly believe that even if you created a Star Trek capable utopia that could materialize food, amenities, and instant medical solutions, you could still conjure shortage if you consistently focused on lack, and turn that utopia into a hellscape, or maybe a bubble of hellscape just for whoever was focusing on lack. Like everyone around them was enjoying abundance, but it was avoiding the negative individual like the plague through negative synchronicities. And to be clear, I believe that when we willfully hurt others and take glee in their pain, we are severely divorced from our deeper selves, which see others as inextricably connected to us the same way a thumb is to a finger–it’s analogous to a thumb deciding to hate and torture an adjacent finger, which is basically itself from a more expanded perspective. Sometimes, this can get a little gray area if you have a scenario where you cut someone off because you’ve tried to help them and realized it’s enabling their self destructiveness, or disciplining someone for their greater good. The spirit, intent, and the ability to articulate the effectiveness of what you’re doing moment by moment, free of dogma, would be pretty important in navigating those kind of scenarios, in my opinion.

       As a caveat, I believe the base nature of existence is benevolent and connective, so negativity is not a true “anti-positivity” so to speak. It’s more like using our innate power and benevolence to conjure the illusion of powerlessness and malice. Powerlessness and malice, in my mind, still come from that base frequency of power and benevolence, but as pieces of an unconditionally accepting existence, we are given the free will to twist our power and benevolence into the illusion of powerlessness and malevolence. There’s mechanisms in place to prevent this from persisting indefinitely, like death, synchronicity, and the holographic fractal nature of existence (meaning that the nature of existence becomes reflected in every circumstance if you’re open to it, which is my take on why people who’ve never heard of any spiritual theory can write these themes into things like kids’ shows without knowing they’re doing so).

       I’ve kind of rambled, so my take on karma is not that it’s centered around justice and morality, but more an offshoot of the creative/generative power we can’t help but exercise, regardless of whether our surface consciousness is aware of it or not.

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     • Thanks for sharing your take 😀

       I think sometimes Karma is about helping us truly understand and feel what our actions have brought to others more as a form of education than as a form of punishment. I think for many people, they are not trying to bring moments that are emotionally or otherwise harmful for others and they were not consciously aware of or focused on the negative impact that they had and they just couldn’t see it until they lived it in some way. I think some things are very cut and dry from a moral “right vs. wrong” perspective, and other things that can harm a person are more ambiguous because they are dependent on individual perspective. I think many people would and often do choose to do differently in future occasions when they really understand because they have seen, felt, and experienced first-hand something comparable enough that they had an “ah-ha” kind of moment. Sometimes the understanding of something and deeply feeling on a personal level the “why” is what brings a course correction that is truly desired on the individual level and in line with personal intent.

       But, I also think some people do choose to act out some very malevolent things (and in fact some people justify doing those things on the basis of their believed spiritual superiority). Some people rather enjoy them actually based on what I’ve seen of humanity, and I think for me it becomes hard to say how much of that is related to their own unique neurology which will then be shed with their body revealing a very different tendency after death, how much of it is related to childhood trauma/neglect, how much of it is the resonance that spirit has chosen long term. My view that I have been granted of humanity is certainly not enough to me to say who is acting from what. And now, I need to get going, wishing you a wonderful day 😀 Ari

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     • I am mostly in agreement with you, that karma can be a way to increase empathy, but at the end of the day I tend to believe it is an impersonal mechanism that results from our ability to create our reality through perspective. Although with an expansive enough perspective (with the expression of enough time and/or lives), it could indeed be as you say, it’s just that karma becomes less and less of a consideration when you shorten time span, even to the point of an entire lifetime (some folks just don’t get it, even when they’re on their deathbed). However, I have heard about life reviews in near death experiences where folks get to experience the pain they caused from the victim’s perspective, so I’m not completely decided on the purpose of karma. One thing I’m more certain on and in agreement with you on is that karma is not something that is designed to punish. That would make for a shitty universe, in my opinion (especially since we’re not made aware of karma right at birth, so if it was a mechanism for punishment we could stumble around earning punishments without knowing or intending) and I’d also argue it would imply a malicious intent behind creation, which, as you know, I am not willing to entertain unless there is 100% unequivocal proof that goes beyond any shadow of a doubt.

       As far as the malice, while I’d never say this to someone who’s trying to process it, or even to myself if I was processing my own negative reaction to it, I like to think of malice in existential terms as folks just being teen rebels, or throwing tantrums in their terrible twos. At the risk of cherrypicking, basically a “they know not what they do” type of situation, and on my part, a chance to “turn the other cheek,” and “inherit the earth” through being “meek.” Now as you know, I don’t believe in false positivity, so if I’m feeling negative, while I may give no outward indication of it, I am going to be inwardly focused on fully feeling it, making peace with it, validating and accepting it, so I can get back to default positivity (I had a nice discussion with my Buddhist mom about this, who mentioned it was advisable to get back to an empty state before making decisions, to which I added that even in Buddhism, being empty does not mean you stay empty–bliss follows emptiness, and that bliss is called samadhi, which is considered the gateway into the ability to bend reality through “special” powers, which I conflate into the idea of “inheriting the earth.”). Anyways, as far as the other alternatives available to deal with malice, which include complaining to others in an attempt to spread my discontent and build solidarity through negativity, or actively seeking revenge and ensuring the perpetrator will learn their lesson through punishment, I’m mostly not interested. However, if the logic calls for it as the best possible course of action, my spirit is calm and my intuition is telling me that it’s the right thing to do, I am not opposed to relaying a negative experience to others or acting in a punitive manner. The most important point for me is that I am “meek” on the inside, or calm, gentle, quiet, whatever you want to call it. I’ve got an earth to inherit, lol!

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     • Alright, so I’m busy dwelling in my therapy queen vibe, and we’re doing an exercise where the front door is open and he’s supposed to stay in, focusing on both safety and impulse control. But for it to be most effective, I need to seem to be engaged in something where I don’t seem to be paying attention. So…perhaps the coherence is going to go down for this response, I mean he ran out the door while I was typing that sentence (but at least he came back with a verbal). So, my attention is split because multi-tasked is the life I lead.

       I don’t mind that you have differences of opinion. My stated position is an opinion, there aren’t empirical data points that I could point others to that they would find sufficiently satisfying to render it anything else. I think that sometimes I think that “they know not what they do” ( and I do appreciate that you refer to Christian doctrine in some of your examples like the Christ being tempted in the wilderness by Satan vs. Mara challenging the Buddha as I certainly have had comparatively the most extensive amount of reading in that tradition) doesn’t always apply to everyone. Some people know (or they think they know) and they just like hurting people in my opinion. Perhaps one could say that they don’t know in terms of any possible eternal ramifications because they don’t believe in anything but a blank oblivion after death, perhaps it could be in that they don’t really know what it’s like to experience the other side of it. Perhaps they don’t know because there is some change in their neurology that creates a disconnect with their empathy. I cannot say. I think for me, sometimes that Gemini stereotype has some substance to it as regards to my inner workings. I have moments where I’m feeling super fiery about something, and moments where I’m feeling super gentle and prefer to be leaning towards the non-judgement. Usually the gentle side wins out, but sometimes there’s a knock down drag out fight on the inside as to which impulse makes it to the outer behaviors, lol. Only sometimes. Well, I should probably get going. He’s only tried to run off the one time since I started typing, but I’m not being fully fair to your time to keep rambling while distracted.

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     • I’m a gemini as well. Astrology has never resonated with me, but it does seem vague enough to be applicable to me, and I can shoehorn it through my beliefs of outer reflecting the inner if I need to.

       Yes, I was speaking that they know not what they do from a multi-self or existential sense. I believe the more you open the connection between your different aspects of self, the more you see you are connected to all aspects of self, and hurting others for enjoyment becomes evident as silly and unproductive, because if perspective is expanded enough, at a certain point they are you and vice versa.

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     • Ditto on the astrology stuff, in all honesty. I feel like the vagueness of it can make it seemingly applicable and I will sometimes dust it off in conversation to laugh off a moment where I might be indecisive on something or where I am having a strong conflict between two internal positions, but I don’t actually put weight on or in it. Because sometimes I can struggle a bit with “should I or shouldn’t I” decisions. 🤷‍♀️ I think historically I have not attended to think of hurting others it’s hurting the self and the expanded sense of the theory where we are all fragments of one universal consciousness. I can definitely see some usefulness in that in moving past hurts that have come from other people…

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     • Totally understand. There was a point where I was feeling pretty hopeless in my life and I’d flip a coin to make decisions, lol! Also got a little paranoid about mercury retrograde for awhile, but don’t they take up like 40% of the year or something? Anyways, if I find out on my deathbed that astrology was the key to navigating life, I’ll probably be pretty meh. I’ve never had a strong indication in my heart or gut that I should be barking up that tree, plus the idea of stressing out over the intricacies of it in an attempt to micromanage events is very unappealing to me.

       Yes, the mystical idea of hurting others works from a few different angles, including the individual conscious self, specifically in the vein of law of attraction. As I’ve mentioned, you can uphold that through magical thinking, or some kind of psychological rationale, where you condition your perception to hurt others which frames the world as being hurtful thus calibrating your mind to gravitating more situations where you must hurt others and more situations where they might hurt you. From a Christian perspective, I think Jesus said something along the lines of murder and adultery beginning in the heart and culminating with love your enemies type stuff. I’m the least certain when it comes to that one, but due to my beliefs that the reality is based on energy in varying degrees of vibration or frequency (actually pretty science-based) and that thoughts/emotions/vibe/focus crystallize possibility (much less science based, but has a tentatively growing foothold in photon/wave duality double slit observer stuff), I’m good with the general idea of managing negativity. I’d probably differ wildly on how to do that, though, than a lot of Christians, because as you know, I simply don’t believe in denial, rejection, or forced positivity from an internal standpoint.

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     • Well, as I have stated before, as regards to the years where I had any sort of official affiliation with a religious denomination, I spent the most in one that considered itself a Christian denomination (I spent 6 months as a practicing Nichiren Daishonin Buddhist in my early 20s, and I did some ritual stuff with a friend in college who was Wiccan, but I don’t know as that one constitutes a practice so much as I was just open to her way of being). As to our former church being a Christian denomination, of course, some other Christian denominations disagree, however I think that is just another way people have created us vs. them type categories meant to determine that a group to which they don’t belong is “less than” and that indeed it was a Christian denomination based on my understanding of the beliefs, teachings, and doctrine.

       But that being said, again I do not identify as a Christian. I have read the entire King James version of the Bible more than once, and I have other types now that I am no longer in our family’s former church so I understand the teachings (and yes, you are correct, in the teachings attributed to Jesus he does state that sin begins in the thought and the heart so to speak when he says that a man who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart). I think there are many paths back to the Divine, that many areas of religious practice are made up, and I personally do not believe in Christ as THE Messiah nor do I support patriarchy at this point (something Christianity is big on), and I am quite open to the mystical and so I would just say I land in the Unitarian Universalist side of things…which puts me in a position of not expecting to not be disappointed one way or another on my death bed 😉 As long as I am able to finish as much of what I consider to be the work that needs to be done for my kiddos before I go…

       I feel like thought sin as a difficult concept that can lead to a lot of shame based thinking, self-loathing, etc and at this point in my life I’m not a fan of that. I think sometimes everybody needs a safe place to think something that is not so great and not be judged for it. That being said, the aggregate of our thoughts do matter I think, for a variety of reasons.

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     • Interesting! I’ve never practiced as a Buddhist, I fell into a syncretic cult-lite that mish-mashed a bunch of Buddhist, hindu, and new age beliefs. I scoffed at a lot of it, but I kind of see the purpose behind it now, since it inspired me to go beyond what it taught, break mysticism down to the philosophical fundamentals, then evaluate new info on a much more solid ground of how I personally believed existence was structured. Ironically, I believe in way crazier stuff now, lol!

       This may sound weird, but it should show how much of a mystical cherry-picker I am that I never thought of thought as a sin until I saw it phrased as thought sin in your comment. I think of folks like Jesus and Buddha as mystical yogi-types who are simply giving us advice on how to have a more pleasant experience, not finger-wagging “or-else”ers. In my brain, I think of the murder in the heart and forgiving enemies in an empowering sense, like he understands that we create our own experience through our internal state and he’s giving us advice on how to make it a smoother ride. Not by saying hey you’re a low-down sinner who’ll burn for being hateful, but more along the lines of this is how you punch yourself in the face, and this is how you minimize the self-inflicted face-punches. Now that I’m thinking about it, though, I’m pretty sure there’s probably no church out there that would contextualize it like that. 😅

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     • Yeah, lol, not much in the way of Christian churches that would contextualize Jesus’ comments in the light of this is how you make a smoother ride. Definitely any ultra-conservative denominations and any non-progressive denomination is going to contextualize them in the sense of what he is describing is what is sin vs. not sin. But, from my perspective, the Bible itself is a cherry picked document. Very human people with often political reasons decided what goes in it. People cherry pick what is said in it in terms of what they focus on. For example, nothing in the ten commandments prohibits being gay and giving it as a sin. Jesus himself never even mentions it in the teachings ascribed to him, the ones that Christians are taught are super critical to the religion. Rather, it is in a scant handful (compared to the sheer number in the Bible) of verses by a couple individual leaders in the church. But Jesus does talk about divorce, and lists any divorce that doesn’t have infidelity behind it as adultery, which is in the 10 commandments, and many Christians like to gloss over that one in minimize the doctrinal significance of that statement. Progressives have their own items they cherry pick, I think it just seems to be part of human nature to cherry pick and I imagine it happens in any belief system, though certainly that is speculatory based on what I have observed on human nature and the faith practices I have witnessed as they have played out in real life. Honestly, I’m not any better, it’s why I consider myself Unitarian, because it’s basically like respect for the vast majority of belief systems and there is a respect built in for a person finding their own spiritual path that may be different in some ways from any one given denomination. I think the concept of thought sin is very difficult and can lead to a lot of mental health struggles. To be perfect everywhere, even in one’s mind is quite a high bar to set, but technically there it is for any denomination who focuses on those verses in the Bible.

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     • Big yes on the cherry-picking, which was reinforced by a discussion I had with a religion/mysticism/magic anthropology professor who studied this stuff from an academic perspective. Apparently, before around 300 ad when some Roman emperor (I think named Justinian?) decided to edit the bible, about half of existing Christians believed in reincarnation and were much more mystically oriented in their beliefs. It was much more of a freewheeling hodgepodge of different types of Christians from what she said, but the emperor didn’t like how that didn’t cater to his power structure (I actually believe it was his wife who recommended that he tighten the reins) and so he decided to clamp down. I also found that according to practicing Jews, the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” isn’t meant as a duplicate punishment for the crime, but actually a matching monetary compensation for the crime. So apparently it’s supposed to be calculated and decided in some kind of judicial process (how much income someone would feasibly lose over the course of their life if another person crippled a limb or something like that) and then meted out. That made me ask her why Jesus even had a problem with Old Testament stuff, since I had always thought it was because he thought it was too harsh (stereotypical eye for an eye tooth for a tooth), and according to her it was more because it was too rigid and rule-based and devoid of the spirit and intent of the original guidance. I found that interesting, since Siddhartha inspired Buddhism because he felt the same way about Hinduism at the time. (I don’t think he ever called himself a Buddhist or recognized it as anything truly separate from a personal interpretation of what was being practiced at the time).

       As far as thought sin, I just see it as a recommendation not to punch myself in the face, instead of some sadistic game of Simon Says. Also, I believe that positive thought far outweighs the power of negative thought–negative is not “anti positive” in my mind, it is more like deciding to lift with the pinky instead of the core, so it is just diminishment of what is already there, not an erasure of it. So negativity is inherently separative and reductive. Positivity is inherently connective and enhancive, a reflection of the nondual, generative creative source we all spring from and cannot escape, so it is much more potent and possibly one of the few things that could truly qualify as 100% “natural.” That’s why I believe it doesn’t need to be deliberately manifested–it’s enough to simply be neutral or empty (meditation or being present) and bliss, power, and synchronicity will rush in. Also, I believe we are treated to a ton of default positivity when we pass on (not enough to erase free will), which encourages us to come back to the true positive nature of existence. And in the end, I suspect that we are indeed forced to return to true positivity if existence goes through a reboot, even if we’ve decided to be straight-up demonic through multiple lifetimes. A similar thing of toxic positivity (thought sin) happens to people who buy into law of attraction, where they beat themselves up for being negative, then fear the coming negative manifestation. My take on it is if you’re negative, just focus on internally allowing and validating the negativity (because the nondual all powerful foundation of us allows for all and doesn’t judge, so when you do the same, you plug back into its frequency) so you can ease up and get back to neutral. I don’t have to fight negativity (I’ve beaten the dead horse on why I believe that feeds it instead of resolving it) in order to become positive. I think that’s also why sincerely asking the universe for help also works–if it’s done with true surrender, it’s not necessarily a deliberate movement toward positivity, it’s simply an allowance of neutrality, which allows the default positivity of existence to step back in.

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     • Ok, well, I’m not a professor of religion, but what you have mentioned from your discussion with her matches my understanding based on my own readings as a curious person. But more than that, different individuals have been deciding what did or didn’t go in the bible for centuries before that even. Sections were removed on political whims before Christ was even part of the picture is my understanding. Some of the earlier groups within and underneath the generally Christian umbrella had more of a belief that a person could have a direct, personal relationship with God and revelation that didn’t involve a priest or religious leader per se, and those groups got aggressively stomped out as I recall… I think it empowers people more when they have an understanding that they can have spiritual wisdom without someone telling them what to think…and perhaps people so empowered can be a threat to someone that wants to hold a very consolidated power in their own hands.

       I think I have also beat this horse into the ground, but I’m not above trying to pep talk my way back into positivity, and I’ve certainly been one to ask the Universe for helping me find my positivity and a way to healing ASAP. You know, or maybe you don’t because you haven’t lived it and perhaps for that reason you can’t exactly know, what the world of a 24/7 caregiver/parent to an individual with Tony’s level of need looks like is super intense. And if they have other individuals in the family with high levels of needs or unusual medical circumstances? Holy Melt Your Brain To Nonexistent Mush Stress Batman. It can chew a person up and spit them out a total mess if there isn’t an approach of constant vigilance towards mental health. If I didn’t remind myself positivity was the better way there are definitely days the weight of it would have made it difficult to even function much less do everything that needed to be done. Sometimes things are and have been so bad neutrality isn’t something that can be felt, reminders that good things can happen, that positivity wins more than giving in, can be very necessary in my experience and opinion for circumstances similar to mine. There have been some days that if I didn’t imagine an internal light into being, the only thing that would have been there for me would have been darkness…and dwelling in darkness isn’t for me. I much prefer the light and to seek it wherever it can be found.

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     • Dwelling in darkness definitely gets silly. When I was younger, I think I thought it might have been cool or edgy, maybe because consistent cynicism plays into this illusion of power where you can predict events because things will predictably be a letdown, and you can scoff at unexpected good turns as flukes or evidence of an unfair or uncaring universe where randomness is demonstrated or the undeserving are rewarded, plus you can scoff at optimistic people as idiots and think of yourself as “smart.” Once the weirdly attractive glamour of it faded, I realized that at the end of that philosophy, I really had no incentive to keep on existing, because being some gritty cynic who consistently persisted through hardship had lost all its appeal after awhile. I’ve met a few people like you, who can successfully pep talk their way back into positivity, and I think it’s pretty cool! I suspect it might be a gift you have that’s specifically applicable to the themes you’re exploring in this life.

       Recently I’ve been listening to podcasts with near death experiencers who aren’t necessarily religious, but come back with a similar belief that you don’t need any intermediary to access the divine, and that you are in fact the divine. (Life review is also a pretty common theme). Anyways, I think it’s pretty cool to hear it from an experiential standpoint. Nothing scientific, but it’s stuff I believe anyway so it’s nice to get some supporting anecdotes.

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     • The ability to pep talk myself back into positivity is an important emotional survival skill for me personally as to the the themes I’ve been walking through in this life, so it makes sense it would be something I have taken the time to cultivate. Regardless of how positive a person may choose to be about the unknowns, if someone truly gets a warning that something negative is coming their way (as it must of all of us at some point, and as in an actual knowing from an internal sense or intuition that is different from just a fear based paranoia about the mere possibility of bad things) it is most prudent to acknowledge it and to not try and gloss it over with false positivity or rose colored glasses, which can make the damage incurred more extensive. I think it is, from my perspective, a healthy place to be at when a person can recognize a coming storm and do what is necessary to either prepare their metaphorical house to survive it or evacuate as need be so as to at least protect life, limb, and the most essential of valuables.

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     • I’m with you on the guidance. Personally, I think of them as nudges and mehs instead of oh-shit-we-need-to-scramble paranoia. From a more conscious perspective, I might casually ask myself if I want to do this or that, and I’ll often get a casual response like nah, or yeah, maybe. I find that’s easier than waiting until things build up into an overwhelming command, although I’m not opposed to listening to those either, I just don’t think they have to be the only way to interact with intuition. I really like doing this with non-urgent stuff, that can easily be argued as unnecessary or trivial, to develop my openness in a no-stakes setting. This may sound silly, but I used to a stickler for watching Netflix shows to the end, because as a matter of principle I didn’t like the partially finished red bar under the icon (once I started talking about this, I was surprised by how common this seems to be). Then on a whim I decided partially finished bar be damned, if I don’t feel like watching a show I’m going to switch to another one. So that’s how I watch TV now. It doesn’t matter if it’s some masterpiece or crucial plot-building episode, if I’m not interested, I’m not interested. I can always pick it up later, or not. It also seems useful in conversation–I started with the idea that I’ll follow an idea into a rabbit hole with someone, map everything out about a subject, and that would qualify as robust conversation. I’d always have to hide my annoyance when someone switched subjects, because inwardly I thought they weren’t “respecting” the exchange. Over the years I was like screw it, there’s a good chance they won’t even remember what we were talking about, so if they want to talk about something else, I’ll talk about something else with them. I also realized I’ve got a bit of talent for sussing out relatable themes and points in most topics, even ones I’m not necessarily interested in (probably has something to do with writing), so I’m ready to just gab about whatever in most situations. Nowadays I prioritize the energy and engagement of the exchange rather than the topic itself, and that’s a direct result of honing the intuition, I think.

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     • Well, I don’t exactly think contrarian is the life I lead…but, ok, maybe sometimes. I’m gonna just go with a scenario that has happened to me. I’m visiting a friend, minding my own business, and I hear the words “danger” and “pay attention” in my mind as I’m buckling myself into my car to pull out of their driveway. So experience has taught me *do not* ignore that particular voice, even if I don’t know what it means. So I’m alert and driving myself home, but not seeing anything. I am sitting at a red light less than 2 minutes after leaving that person’s house and get the feeling to wait a second before accelerating when the light turned green. A big ol truck blew threw what was then their red light and would have hit me and Tony in our car if I was tuned out or thought it was just a “maybe I need to do this” nudge or I’m just being paranoid. Sometimes it’s absolutely a scramble your backside kind of nudge in my opinion, and my take is that it is best to heed those. Of course, someone could argue that was just random luck (usually doesn’t happen to me when I’m driving or getting ready to drive though), or you should always pay attention when you’re driving (and that’s true also), and it really falls into the realm of anecdotal for anybody other than me…but, you know, we’re alive and kicking, my car is undamaged, and I’m thinking it’s a good idea to scramble on some impressions. Just saying…

       I think you are wise to have realized that many people won’t remember the conversation. That was something that used to frustrate me because there was a point in my life where I didn’t understand/recognize that everyone’s memory wasn’t like my pre POTS memory, and I’d get frustrated when they’d forget things I told them and I’d need to tell them the same thing multiple times. I *get it* in a much more intimate way now, though of course, things continue to get better and better for me all the time with symptoms for that, but literally when symptoms first hit, I was forgetting conversations left and right… it was humbling, upsetting, and a valuable lesson in many things, including that, and of course in never taking something for granted. Sometimes the most important thing is to be present and love people…that and avoiding saying something that can do significant damage the relationship if it is a relationship that one desires to maintain. Take good care of yourself 🙂

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     • I’m definitely not above scrambling, but I think in a lot of cases it starts with a nudge, then a push, then a slap, then a big ol hammer to the face. Definitely not saying that was the case with you, but I do think it partially explains some things I’ve seen with friends and family where they always talk about what they would like to do but never make any motion in that direction. To be clear, it’s not a judgment–I’ll suggest how to move toward what they want, even if it’s only a time commitment of five minutes a day, and stop bringing it up after one or two mentions. I used to indirectly berate them by continually trying to pump them up or get them to think about the regret they’d feel if they didn’t do give it a try, but they’d just end up hanging their heads, going silent, and changing the subject. That’s how I knew they just weren’t ready to move on it. And that’s okay! If they’re ready, they’ll find some way to do it with or without my input. I guess they’re serving as cautionary tales to me, as I have served as a cautionary tale to others. Anyways, part of my unofficial code is to be open to nudges, instead of like in the past where I had to get hammered into ground before I would even so much as entertain the thought of changing my ways. But if I get a loud signal to do this or that, I trust that it’s loud for a reason, and I’ll definitely respect it.

       I think you said it with being present and loving people! It’s much harder for me to enact deliberately as you seem to do, so my pathway toward that is accepting them as an existential equal, a fragment of the divine that is given full agency to choose their own experience just as I am. That’s when my perception “telescopes back” (for lack of a better phrase), and I can view them in a more expanded light, where I am not judging them with my own standards, and I’m happy they’re exercising their own powers of creation and perception just as I am. That’s when I can really resonate with ideas such as the allowance for unexpected positive outcome (not really sure what they’re doing, doesn’t make sense to me, but it could simply be a part of their process and lead to something great) or just pleasure they’re doing something differently, in a way I would never think to do, and adding potential and possibility to our existence. Also, just the unprovable conviction they’re stuck in a no-lose game, just like I am, and we’re both having a blast with it.

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     • Ok, so what I think I would want to say comes a bit from the heart, and a bit from my perspective, but it’s something I would wish to tread lightly with. There have been people who have made comments to me about one thing or another that they saw someone in my world doing, and felt that I personally should have done something very specific about it as per how they would do things or even what they thought would have been best for me. Now, let’s say what they were criticizing the other person for not doing was something that other person was doing more of than the criticizer actually was. Literally I felt in those moments that person didn’t get a vote in what they thought I should do because they themselves not only weren’t doing any better, might not do any differently if they were in the same position given that– even if it was something I had been venting about to that person. I feel like I am the only person who should get to decide how I handle certain situations (even if I’m on a rant because something has upset me), and nudges from other people might bring out my obdurate side pretty quick. I can have something upset me, and decide to hold my hand for a time for a variety of reasons, and that is my call. Now if the nudge came from a spiritual channel, maybe different how I would process the same nudge.

       For me, you know, I’m not a perfect person with a perfect set of any skill set…not even am I perfect at loving others. But living by and in love and kindness is something I prefer to be. I’ve certainly gone grumpzilla on people before when they did something that caused me to experience heightened stress or caused a problem for me, and I’ve snarked at someone who I thought might be trolling me or whose policy may have rubbed me the wrong way on a sleep deprived day… and as I said…not perfect. Not even a little bit. I think viewing people in an expanded light is useful, but also important to recognize not everyone is coming from their most expansive place. Some people are trying to hurt or damage or whatever, and those are interactions I don’t care to engage in unless I have to as part of my role as a parent/advocate for my loved ones.

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     • This may sound reductive, but I’m settling into the conviction that everything is spiritual, that there is no categorical divide between the apparent narrative of phenomena I choose to experience and my internal state, although I believe the external is a subordinate reflection of the internal, if I had to describe a hierarchy, or some form of cause and effect. That being said, if someone criticizes me, I’m going to bounce it off my intuition and see if that’s my deeper self arranging for some pertinent info to come my way, or whether it’s a reflection of some kind of internal friction of mine which I don’t really need to amplify and aggravate. I can start flowcharting interactions based on logical and ethical principles, but at the end of the day, I’m going to go with my heart, because the deeper self doesn’t really subscribe to a flowchart/checklist dynamic, at least in my experience and opinion. If some recurring issue keeps popping up in material reality, then regardless of whether it came from an annoying person, at this point in my life I’d feel compelled to see what’s going on there, because that could easily be my deeper self going from a nudge to a push to get my attention. It gets pretty subjective, so I like to relate how I see it, not necessarily how others might see it, at this point.

       As far as people coming from a less expansive place, I like to think that they’re in the middle of growing pains, maybe the equivalent of my obnoxious teen self throwing a fit, then internally wish them the best and be on my way. (Hopefully, that’s being meek enough and turning the other cheek enough to inherit the earth muahaha). I’ve been in similar states of mind, and I definitely had to figure it out myself to embrace the realization I didn’t want to stay in those. If I had to guess, I’s say it’s probably a similar dynamic to not wanting to run into a horror movie and trying to kick everyone out for “their own good.”

       Not that I’ve spent time in your head, but it seems like you’ve been given an outsize capacity for compassion and care, evidenced by the choices and interests in your life. In my model of reality, I’d guess that you chose to challenge your capacity, put it to the test, see how far you can go with it and what you can do with it. Pretty big leap, but that’s just what my brain and heart piece together from our exchanges. That being said, I don’t feel you ever need to qualify or apologize for any past grumping to provide a caveat for what you’re trying to do, especially since you never offended me or came off as boastful in that regard. You have limits for a reason, to help guide you toward fulfillment, adventure, and growth, and if you brush up against them, then I don’t see it as a mishap, just a bit of exploring. I’m rooting for you, keep adventuring!

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     • As always, I appreciate your graciousness 😀

       I think I have some perhaps mild divergence in my thoughts on this. From my perspective, if there is an internal conflict within, what each side wants isn’t equally good for me or even in my best interest. Yesterday, I was doing public therapy and my inner book goddess wanted to be fed more books than my budget could support. There was definitely an inner conflict of sorts, lol. And she just maybe pouted, flounced, and needed a gentle smack down from the internal budget grinch. Just saying.

       And as regards to spiritual sides, let’s just say there is a person who is aware they have a spirit guide/guardian angel or even plural of said beings, and let’s take it a step further and say that they are able to recognize and receive messages from those very separate spirits. That feedback might look like nothing that was on the mental horizon for the person who is receiving that message, seeing as they are different beings with different scopes of vision, etc. So I might define a spiritual channel as a source of wisdom outside of oneself coming from a separate spirit who has their own take on things, but might actually be more expansive than say a friend who’s got a view that has the same kind of limited currently mortal constraints I might have. And now, I need to get going, saves you from a longer rant, today’s schedule does, lol. Take good care of yourself 🙂 Ari

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     • I have a bit of a more convoluted view on your book conflict. For me, it kind of depends on where my resonance is at. If I’m resonating with a lot of conflict and inconveniences, I wouldn’t be surprised that I’m in a situation where I can’t have what I immediately want. At the same time, if a specific book keeps coming up that I want to read over multiple instances and scenarios, I’m going to sit up, take notice, and assume that I’m meant to read that book regardless of cost. At the same time, I might get halfway through, then get to a point where I feel like I’m forcing it. Then it’s time to close the book and go to something else, maybe I was only meant to read a portion of that book. In all cases, I’m willing to play with the nudges and taps, ignore or go with them to see what happens. If I start getting consistently pushed, then I’m most likely going to go with it or start planning how to position myself so that I have the resources to do so. In all scenarios, I trust that if I’m going along with my deeper self, I’m going to be given what I need to keep through synchronicities. I believe Jim Carrey had an interesting anecdote about this in a graduation address, where his father was talented at comedy, really wanted to do it, but played it safe and resigned himself to being an accountant. A few years in, they lost everything and lived hand to mouth despite his father’s decision to play it safe. I take that to mean there is no real “safe” for me, aside from being in tune with the most powerful aspect of myself and being open to its guidance. However, I can only speak on this from the most strict and personal sense on this matter. If someone wants to be a comedian and doesn’t believe they will be supported in doing so, then quitting their job would be like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. Also, I think all too often, folks neglect the middle ground in these types of scenarios, where there’s gradients of proactiveness, from writing 5 minutes of comedy at night (bad or good it doesn’t matter), to doing an open mike every few weekends. Once again, very very subjective. I’ve felt trapped in many life circumstances, and who’s to say that wasn’t for the purpose of clarifying what I truly wanted to work towards in order to feel free? Or who’s to say that I didn’t need to be in those circumstances to realize walking those constrictive roads wasn’t what I truly wanted?

       As far as the spiritual message, I THINK I would love to have some kind of a distinct dialogue with an angel or spirit guide, but the reality might be not quite what I imagined. In terms of vibrational frequencies, I might start losing my temporarily necessary sense of self if I experienced that direct of a contact (which I have heard as happening through personal anecdotes). I used to really pine for stuff like that, seeing spirits and talking surface-consciously to them, but I remember the one time I saw one in my twenties, I was scared out of my mind. Also, I came from a paranoid, very logic-and-aggression-based mentality so I might not be the best at interacting with something distinctly perceived as separate and other. Nevertheless, I am sinking into the belief that I am always supported, that they are always around me, and that they’re orchestrating things to my benefit as best as my current mental configuration allows. I see my choice as whether to keep allowing it and opening myself up for further allowance, or to delay that process with a regressive focus, stuff like buying into the idea the world is against me, I’m the paragon of truth among a cesspool of sheeple, those damn elites are at it again, etc. etc.

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     • To me it perhaps seems like putting a little too much responsibility on a person’s feelings about something that has happened for the life conditions they are currently experiencing. I think people can be in very difficult circumstances, have limited options, make the best choices available to them (or be very constrained with what society has given them to work with), and still be in circumstances that don’t represent everything they want.

       I think from my perspective sometimes what part of me wants isn’t in my best interest or clashes with my value system, but that won’t stop the wanting, and that is more where the conflict comes in. I settle those disputes by landing with the side that is advocating for the best interest or the accepted value system position. Being led by every impulse I have can have a cost that I don’t want, and I see that as separate from resonance. As regards to the books, while it is an expedient example, to me the answer of giving into the impulse to buy everything I want doesn’t reflect the reality of my personal financial circumstances in the sense of things I wish to accomplish. Technically no current debt would have been required, but in my eyes that doesn’t mean it was the better impulse to give into. My inner book goddess is a bit of a glutton sometimes, wanting more than she can get through with the overall schedule. My answer to that situation might rather be “ok, how can I find a free copy of the book I decided to put back on the shelf if I really can’t let go of it right now?” i.e. library, on-line archive…that sort of thing. Not every book I can find that way, but… I think for many people, the answer isn’t to lean into a desire to buy things that has been nurtured by our society’s brand of capitalism because then they would be indebt with little to show for the present or the future. And yes, anything can happen to take anything away, but that doesn’t minimize the value of trying to build something that could be there to sustain a person through the years in my opinion.

       I think sometimes there is what is a personal belief, and then there is what the reality is that another spirit has or believes in, and then there are tapestries of reality that go beyond that. I imagine for some people, the choice isn’t one they have, it is something that they are born into just as a person is born with any other sense and it just is what it is and they must make the best of it they can, as with anything else in life. It sounds like you know yourself and what you are comfortable with, and that’s a great thing 🙂

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     • I agree on not framing it as responsibility–responsibility carries connotations of blame, duty, obligation, and self-inflicted adversity. That’s why I frame it in a different light, that of choice, power, and adventure inside a no-lose game. I’m not going to judge someone for seemingly making their own life harder–whether that’s an intentional parameter from their deeper self, or whether it’s an unintentional offshoot of their surface conscious focus–for a variety of reasons. It could indeed be something they have decided to experience via their deeper self, it could be part of their learning process, it could be something they are determined to undergo through their below-surface focus (I’ve tried to help folks before who when it gets down to it, even to the point of me volunteering to hold their hand and walk them through a process, refuse to be helped), and it does no good personally for me to be in a frequency of judging others, because that sucks me into a world where I’m going to encounter judgment and be given reasons to pass it on. Been there, done that, and no thanks. As much as I am ready to do so, I wish to view people as empowered in the ability to craft their lives, even if it comes with a bit of mental gymnastics and leap of faith in deciding that existence is, at its core, benevolent. I understand that seeing individuals as unfortunate might be an avenue into compassion, but I’m not going to do so if it comes at the cost of being less compassionate toward the core nature of existence, which in that model can dole out misfortune at a whim. I’d rather see both existence and the individual as recipients of my compassion–I don’t believe that casting the individual in an existentially empowered light comes at the expense of compassion. I don’t believe that it’s a zero-sum model where I must either favor the individual or existence at large. Yes, I have to include some unscientific premises to make this so, but there’s enough anecdotal evidence for me to be comfortable with it. Unless there is 100% definitive proof that existence is malicious (or random to the point of being so), I am going to assume it is not, and I don’t believe that comes with the necessity of judging the individual, or seeing them as a powerless victim. What may be struggle one day may transform into a boon the next, and once we start stretching perception out through time and the breadth of experience to include the premise we live multiple lives, it seems to be easier and easier to make that case.

       I understand the value of tailoring behavior to logic and circumstance, and I don’t think circumstantial limitations are at odds with spiritual guidance. They are, I think, an avenue through which guidance and adventure can manifest. So yeah, I’m with you on the books, there’s stuff I’d like to do that I’m not in the right place for either, but I just take that as guidance that I should enjoy what I’m doing now, and allow for the possibility of the other stuff in the future. Regardless, I’ll make sure that you can get each of my future books for free, if you want to read them without cost. I’m kind of shifting away from free giveaways more to discounted sale periods, but for each new book, I’ll make sure you can take advantage of a giveaway!

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     • I am going to try and answer this more succinctly than my natural inclinations would lean, given that there are many elements that I could spawn an epic rant in response to.

       First, I am touched and grateful for your offer. That is very kind of you. That being said, I’m going to decline. If I should ever decide I want to review another one of your books, I just don’t feel comfortable having reviewed anything I got for free as a consumer. There are multiple realities at play in a review for an item a person got for free. 1) They don’t really feel all of the same feelings they would have if it had been their money on the line, which skews reviews towards positive, and 2) often a person giving an item is hoping for the gentlest landing possible in any resulting review if they flat out don’t tell you what they want you to say.

       Now, I *am not* saying that’s where you are going with this. I am sure it is not…it is just that I would like to leave open an avenue where I feel comfortable still leaving a review should I feel so inclined. As long as I work at a school, it would probably only be on anything with a YA rating because if the expectations for a person working in that environment….but thank you. Truth be told, the book I put back was a fantasy book in spanish, and unless it is something like “El Amor Como Forma De Vida,” which has few words I need to look up, I read at such a slow pace for certain genres I can certainly wait until the next time my budget allows for a book purchase. I like to read in different genres in spanish so that I can really get the fluency I want, plus the practice for rebuilding my memory skills is a valuable thing.

       But again, thank you.

       Next thing, is I kinda get twitchy and sensitive sometimes about someone framing life even in the form of choices. Yes, technically true, but sometimes, a person can only have bad, more bad, and slightly less bad as the choices they can make. Doesn’t mean they’d have chosen any of those choices if given a more expansive list, just means they have to pick the version of least sucky they can find. Just my thoughts. In general, I think staying open and positive does more than submitting to doom and gloom even when bad choices are the only things currently on the menu, but it doesn’t mean I always feel like it’s so simple as getting to explore choices. Just my opinion. I respect your right to think and feel differently, and I value the time you spend chatting with me. Take good care of yourself! 😀 Ari …. Yeah, and this *was* the succinct version…sigh…

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     • No worries, at this point I’m not worried about reviews anymore. I’ve gotten enough good ones, plus they don’t seem to correlate with sales, but of course my ego does appreciate the boost! I just wanted to make sure that you could read my upcoming stuff if you wanted. I still appreciate each and every review, since they’re really fulfilling feedback and acknowledgment that my work was enjoyable and they supposedly play a factor in algorithms (I especially appreciate yours, since you said you would never put one on Amazon and then went ahead and did so), but I’m not going to craft any secret evil plans around them, lol! There may come a day when my books blow up and I’m going to be holding back vomit from slick-suited execs talking about branding and demographics…but it is not this day!

       I agree with acknowledging the conundrum of being stuck with bad choices, I know it’s happened to me more than a few times in my life! I guess that I’ve softened on the “badness” of them as time has passed and some of them have come with unexpected benefits or perspective. A big part of it is my decision to believe that existence is benevolent in nature, the belief I can transform short-term pitfalls into longer-term gains, and that unreconciled stuff will eventually work to my benefit, even if it isn’t necessarily in this life (although I’d prefer that I don’t have to wait that long). Ironically, I’m fine with taking things personally when they’re going badly (internally, at least, I don’t want to go around punching people in the face). But it’s for the purpose of validating it, relaxing back into a present state of mind, and doing my best not to hold any grudges. So I guess I paradoxically endorse short-term acknowledgment, validation, and feeling of negativity, to release any longer-term toxicity from it. I’d really prefer if it didn’t shape my worldview to the point where I’m constantly resonating with hopelessness or cynicism and constantly conversing with people who do the same, or if someone (including myself) entertains positive progress or potential and I automatically respond like a debbie-downer, just so I can seem smart and jaded and tough, but I’m really just bitter inside. Been there, done that, and it wasn’t very fun!

       Anyways, I think you and I find common ground on the importance of positivity! I think we have differing angles on how to resonate with it, but we’ve also got different life quests, meaning our perspectives will naturally differ and offer different benefits to us. I’m happy to keep chatting as long as I have time, which I’m pretty good on at the moment. Succinctness isn’t a concern! 😊

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     • Well, You may really get succinct today because Tony knocked over my water bottle on my laptop while I was making a salad last night… And I am in that 24-hour period of waiting to see if it will come back from the dead. 😩 I have to take responsibility for leaving the water bottle near it…

       I have said these things before, but I think you are creative, funny, and very smart. Those are traits I always appreciate when I see them in things that I read. And you know, honestly I am certain I overreacted to the situation that happened with Amazon. I honestly don’t know if I had been just a hair less cranky if it would have gone any different because major corporations often need to do things from a certain vantage to protect themselves from certain possible liabilities etc. But I think me in a place where I was getting more than a couple hours of sleep and night listening to how other people saw my reaction was very informative. I just don’t regulate myself as well emotionally on the internal side sometimes when these things go wrong when I’m under What feels like crushing levels of stress And I don’t get very much sleep. Of course I meant what I said at the time I said it that I would rather burn every bra I own (And any woman this blessed up top will tell you that those are very necessary 😅😂) then post another review there, but… It is what felt right in the moment. In general, I am less and less inclined to write reviews simply because of all of the possible messes that can come from them even if you are not a compensated reviewer. People with a bigger war chest suing you to try to take it down even if you’re telling the truth, complications with possible jobs… Yeah, ok, having a microphone has already moved us out of succinct land 😅 anyways, if the laptop is fried I may have to take you up on some of your free download periods for the time being. 😅😂

       I think where I come from on the choices is having lived in that place where I’ve heard people tell me “well you made the choice to do this you must be happy,” And my answer to them was actually, I would have been happier if I’d had different choices. I made the choice that I felt like would be less destructive to my mental and emotional health or my whatever well-being, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have loved different choices… But I also do think trying to be positive and proactive is the best thing possible. That won’t stop me from sometimes worrying about an outcome and needing to build myself up to positivity again, but definitely I think staying open to creativity and finding a path does more even when all you have are less than ideal choices or even downright bad choices… Thanks again for your patience and take good care of yourself!

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     • I sent some good vibes for your laptop! Thank you for the compliments, they’re genuinely heartwarming! I hope you feel the same if and/or when you read the last book of the Unbound Realm…I put the characters through a lot, although as I’ve said before, I don’t really believe in writing unhappy endings, and I get kinda irked when I see something along those lines. I’m kinda getting sucked into it at this point, where I’m wandering around the house half-pretending I’m one of the characters, saying something from the draft or acting a bit of it out. 😅 It helps me feel the vibe, but also I just like to wallow in pieces of fresh story.

       I think whatever choice is made or allowed, that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy with it, and it doesn’t mean I should be happy with it either, because for me, happiness is a result of moment by moment focus. I noticed a curious thing when I believed differently, that happiness was a direct result of conditions–if I had a great day lined up for me, I was generally happier right when I woke up and nothing had yet happened. I was happier with the imminent prospect of the events, rather than the events themselves. I noticed it when I was younger but I didn’t explore it too much. I think that was one of my first clues for changing my view later on in life. Nevertheless, I would venture that people saying you should be happy because of condition x believe condition y will make them happy, which doesn’t seem to hold up in my view when you look at unhappy folks who have abnormal control of their immediate conditions. We’ve all heard about miserable celebrities, but when I lived in San Francisco I was friends with a massage therapist who was so good at her job she got invited to fly out to different states and give massages (she was the only one who could make me fall asleep on the table, and she kind of dialogued with each muscle instead of just phoning it in and applying the same rhythm regardless of the knot or specific resistance). Anyways, she’d been invited to some dinners with super-rich, fuck-you money people, and she was quick to tell me that they were some of the most miserable folks she’d ever met, with serious, SERIOUS relationship problems around friends and family. Anecdotal, I know, but it fits neatly into my worldview.

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     • Well, I think the most important thing that could have happened for the laptop did, in that we were able to recover files I hadn’t backed up yet from the SSD. The rest of the laptop is a total loss, and I honestly suspected it would be. Combination of intuition and the particular sequence of events. It is what it is. Genuinely it was an accident on his part (the knocked over water bottle), and even though there were some stressful moments and the potential for some money to be spent, I recognize he doesn’t get it fully what water can do to electronics so even if it hadn’t been an accident, either way making peace with what happened and dwelling on gratitude for recovering the necessary files is just the healthiest and happiest mindset to have about it.

       I tend to like happy endings when I’m under stress…and I’ve been mucking through high levels of it for years now. So I appreciate that you’re planning on ultimately ending that series on a happy note, lol! Though of course, you should write to please yourself first in my opinion, so I see it as a happy thing that you enjoy so much what you are writing that you walk around your place pretending to be a characters, because that tells me you are enjoying the process, the journey, and the outcome in the story.

       Once upon a while ago I listened to a couple of the episodes of the podcast that you did, and I actually heart the interview with the massage therapist. I think yeah, you are right, people can be miserable even when everyone looks at what they have and expects them to be happy. Sometimes the amount of time needed to get to those “successful” as viewed by our society places really doesn’t support the amount of time needed for happy personal relationships or balance in family life. Just my opinion. That being said, sometimes I think making peace and radical acceptance are necessary tools if a person is dealing with a restricted list of choices that doesn’t reflect everything they could want.

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     • Yep, I’m deep in the authoring wilds. Second time I shed some tears for someone I’m writing about in a book. Still a big ol’ tangled snarl of need-to-dos and how-am-I-going-to-explain-these but when I edit previous chapters, I’m starting to be entertained and feel the flow, the broth is thickening, so to speak.

       Crap, you listened to my podcasts! 😅 I took em down a year or so ago because I was like man, I think very differently from that nowadays, and if I met that guy now, I’d tell him to chill out on all this obsessive proactiveness and logical grind stuff. Plus it’s hard to believe I resonated with Jocko and Jordan Peterson (now a complete mask-off nutjob) back then. Basically a couple of conservative, you’re-not-doing-good-enough-and-need-to-put-enjoyment-on-the-back-burner-until-the-race-is-won kind of guys. Now I listen to channelers, mystical philosophers, and psychical researchers, lol! It’s cool you got to hear my voice, though, ladies have told me it’s nerdy but sexy! 🤣

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     • Well dude, I wouldn’t sweat that I took the time to listen to a couple episodes of your podcast while I was doing my makeup, probably close to 3 years ago I think it was… First, it was only a couple episodes because I am spread thin enough that there is not a single YouTube channel I’m subscribed to that I watch everything for, there’s not a single podcast I listen to every episode for, I just flitter round like a bit of a butterfly listening to a little bit of this and a little bit of that when the curiosity strikes me while I’m doing dishes or makeup… Second, I am a person who has had to walk many different paths in this life, and I get less and less judgy as time goes on. I am not the judge of you and your past or presently beliefs. We are all on a journey, and often that includes reevaluating what we once resonated with and deciding it is no longer for us. I have been in that position from time to time… You can like what you like, I can like what I like, those things can be completely different and that doesn’t threaten or diminish me internally and it doesn’t make either of us “less than” in my mind. I feel most comfortable just letting people have their own beliefs and recognizing that no matter how many differences I might have from somebody they are still worthy of love and acceptance. As long as someone is not directly negatively impacting me in the sense that somebody is trying to harm me because of the differences in my beliefs or take away personal liberties because they look down on my beliefs etc I prefer to take the approach of active curiosity and leave it at that.

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     • Well I’m glad you enjoyed the podcast with the therapist. I had a friend who’d done all these sexy-difficult things as a military special operator, and after he listened to the stuff she went through, he told me with all sincerity, “I feel like a little bitch.” 🤣 She also told me there was much more where that came from, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to share it.

       I’m fully on board with your live and let live attitude! Every now and then I get tyrannical in my head, but I come back to the live and let live vibe easier and easier. Not only do I believe that my resonance with it brings about situations where I am allowed to be left alone to live as I want, but I have also logicked and muscled my way into positions where I can change things by imposing my will on others, and it is honestly exhausting for me. It’s why I’m pretty comfortable with the idea of not reincarnating as a human again, where I’ve agreed to interact with a web of seemingly zero-sum physical obligations right from the get-go. I’d much rather vacation as some kind of floaty energy spirit that buzzes around and does whatever. If I want to get technical in my belief, I’m actually already doing that, and being human is kind of a side-quest within that model, plus writing is kind of like that for me anyway–plug in, scan the frequencies, and see what I want to mess around with. One of my friends says he wants to keep coming back as a human to see what humanity makes of itself and what it will eventually be able to pull off, but I am COMPLETELY on the other side of that sentiment! 😂 I’m fine watching as a drifty spirit, if I ever get curious!

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     • I did not know difficult could be sexy, lol! I have kind of always felt there can arise a level for difficulty which can leave any thoughts of libido or sexiness dead on arrival.

       I think sometimes I will go to a great deal of effort to explain my position to someone not so much because I am trying to change them (although perhaps maybe when I was younger I may have hoped for that), but rather more in the hopes that they might see my humanity and we can find some common ground to build on. Or sometimes I might hope that I can at least get them to move into a “live and let live” position when their first impulse is to want to see something I am or I stand for delegitimized.

       As regards to what happens next when we die, I don’t know enough specifics about the level of choice a person has as regards to what happens next. You could find, lol, that it’s your turn to become the spirit guide to an impulse control challenged individual and always be in the position of trying to give them a sense of “hey, their are better ideas for you to follow through on, don’t do that one!” or some such thing. Or maybe you’ll reincarnate as a spider in the home of someone who is scared of them and “WHACK!” Who knows? Maybe you’ll get to pick, maybe you won’t. I can’t really say authoritatively…

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     • I can relate to the great deal of explanation–I used to be much more fussy over getting out all the details (might be from my mom, I’ve secretly timed her during our biweekly group chats, and she can literally go twenty minutes talking about something in-depth before she hands off the topic). Nowadays I’m much more about trying to feel the vibe and let my deeper self into the equation so I can think and speak with as much of my whole self as I am able. I believe whoever I’m speaking with knows what I’m trying to say, at some level of their being. I’m just trying to feel out whether they’re ready to go further with a shared experience that I desire at the surface conscious level. Practically, for me, it boils down to staying present, doing the legwork (unless my heart is telling me nah, take a break or look at something else, because I’ve got some inspiration for you in this seemingly random urge to do something seemingly unrelated), and leave the rest up to the deeper self. The internal dialogue is roughly equivalent to, “All right I’ve lined things up, now the rest is up to you (deeper self) as far as to how it actually happens.” Kind of an outward diligence, inward relaxation and acceptance kind of thing.

       I’m fine with being an impulse control guide, lol! The way I see the guides is they communicate at the level I’m ready to listen at. So in my younger days, when I was much more stubborn, it took a lot of pain and failure for me to even begin to entertain a different course than the one I originally set out on. Nowadays I’m open to nudges and signs. I think of the spirit guide as simply a cooler version of someone who’s truly willing to help–they’ll leave their door open and let you come in when you’re ready to come in and be helped. With the spirit guide, though, I think they’re more flexible, in that they can effectively communicate over a wider range of conditions. By that I mean as a surface-focused consciousness, I’m geared mostly to surface-consciously helping people who come to me and maintain engagement (I probably help people indirectly even though I don’t notice, but that’s not what I’m referring to). As a spirit guide, I feel like I’d be able to help folks through nudges, hints, dreams, to something more jarring, if that was what was needed for the person to hear the message to move toward their own fulfillment. I’d rather not get saddled with one of those stubborn people, but I was one of them so it may be a nice full-circle moment, and if they’re stubborn all the way until the end, I’m fairly sure they’ll regain some perspective after they pass, and most definitely over the course of experiencing multiple lives. We’ll see. I just want to vacation for a while, haha!

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     • Oof, I’m not too sure I’d want to know the max time I’ve gone on a babble to someone…though I do try to be aware, sometimes if the sleep wasn’t there but the crisis was, I can rant for a while without coming up for air. Well, and to be fair to my nature, part of my challenge sometimes with communicating about things is that I often see every little detail, and I think all of the details are important because they are all part of whatever it is I am discussing. And that is kind of hardwired into my neurology I think. I have had to learn to pay attention to who needs a summary because all the gritty grains of detail will bury them and make them loose interest or overwhelm them because the big picture is more what they are capable of focusing on.

       Yeah, I’m kind of inclined to think stubborn isn’t the only reason a person might not notice a nudge or assign it the worth that it needs or was intended. And sometimes too I think guides may step in to provide guidance that wasn’t asked for because they feel protective of the people they walk with. Just my thoughts. I hear you on the vacation though…I’d really like to see one before I’m dead though, lol. Especially if it came with 8 hours of sleep a night…

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     • Well I use to wax long because I was kinda insecure, I felt like I wasn’t being heard, and felt like I had to make some kind of mark on the world. For a while I realized all that wasn’t productive, but logically realizing it is one thing, focusing on letting it be and moving on is another. I’d like to think now I’m just letting it be and I’ve moved on.

       Ultimately, I take the perspective that the guides are us in a different form, a piece of higher self that is approachable from the surface conscious perspective. I could get all philosophical with it, trace selves back to the root of existence where everything is the same consciousness, where the All is the One, but I find that to be a cheap gaudy trick by spiritual folks in some occasions when they throw that out for the purpose of evasion or reductiveness. Nevertheless, I do like to think of the guides as messengers of my higher self, whether they are actually the highest self or arranged by my higher self to get my attention is okay by me either way. I like to believe that our higher self has agreed to certain pivotal things to explore specific themes in our lives that our surface consciousness might not necessarily be aware of, but comes close to the idea of fate or destiny. In those cases, I think the guides will intervene with a heavier hand.

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     • I think sometimes the feeling of not being heard can be a contributing factor for me, but the bigger challenge is just the number of details I think are important vs. the number of details another person might. What constitutes a complete explanation for me might seem like verbal nuclear overkill to another person. Making a mark on the world is a fickle thing in my opinion…generally depends on the approval of others, and what others approve of fluctuates quite a lot. I feel like it’s better for me to feel happy with what I am doing, though of course I think everybody likes to have at least a few people resonate with them and what they are doing.

       I agree our higher selves have chosen certain things before we came here. You know I don’t believe in soul mates, but I do believe souls can make agreements to find each other and join forces so to speak in this life for whatever reason. All of this of course falls under the umbrella of personal belief, the type of thing that lacks physically touchable or viewable through video kind of evidence, therefore…for some, a heft salt shaker would be seen as a necessity for even reading that kind of statement. You and I, once upon a time ago, exchanged some comments over the dream I had that caused me to join our former church, which is something as a young woman I would not have considered as being on my bingo card. I would add that I am certain he and I did make some form of agreement before we got here, and us being together in this life to help each other out with certain things was part of that what we agreed to do. I think you are right that guides can become involved to make sure someone keeps agreements they might not remember making once they get here.

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     • I like your hefty salt shaker reference, nice play on the idiom! Out of curiosity, I looked up the origin. Apparently, it’s attributed to Pliny the Elder describing a step to constituting an antidote to a poison, inferring poison-based threats could be taken less seriously which eventually evolved into how we use it today.

       I don’t remember you mentioning the dream, but I find it very cool that you experienced that form of guidance. From what I’ve heard from mediums on podcasts, we’re part of a “soul group” or family that incarnates together so we can all experience something concurrently and interact with each other. Apparently, we hang out after we pass on until everyone can go back at roughly the same time so we can meet up and pal around. I don’t really believe in linear time, but I do believe in the illusion of linearity, and I’m all right with jumping on board with the soul family concept in that particular framework.

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     • I did not know the history for that particular idiom, very interesting and thanks for sharing 😀

       So, here’s my take: a person might have a lower level of resistance/ conscious disbelief during sleep which can make that a time that a non-living loved one or spirit guide might use to get a more involved message across in. Or there might be barriers to understanding the full message if it is more involved during waking hours that don’t exist during sleep, and if it’s critical the whole message be understood, or it matters to a deceased loved one to reach out with a personal message that won’t get through the other person’s conscious barriers any other way, that might happen then too.

       As regards to the family dynamic part. honestly I am not trying to set my feet on the path of mediumship. My hands are pretty full with the challenges of the living loved ones in my life. That being said, I think it’s in my opinion a bit more complicated than a family social group, and some things just…I’m not sure how they’d play out on the other side. Sometimes family members do things that a person cannot forgive in this life, or if they find a way to manage to do that, they cannot forget because the emotional scars run deep. I can honestly say unless my biological father showed up with some serious sincerity and took some very real accountability for what he’s done, I can’t see myself or my brother wanting to pal around with him in this life or the next.

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     • I’ve never given much thought to messages from dreams, but I do know there’s a precedent for them with inventors and artists who download a blueprint for making something while they’re sleeping. Also, I remember you can lucid dream, which leads me to suspect you might be more receptive to receiving info that way.

       As far as the soul group, I didn’t mean to imply it’s limited to physical family. I think it includes friends and acquaintances, but also family. I can also get on board with the idea that sometimes, someone isn’t meant to forgive, or at least isn’t meant to forgive for a while. I heard of a lady who ran into this problem with an abusive ex, everyone was telling her she needed to forgive to move on, then this one person said you don’t have to forgive, you can accept that you don’t need to or want to, and the lady burst into tears because it was the first time someone wasn’t trying to invalidate their feelings. In some cases, I’d guess unwillingness to forgive might be a form of guidance, maybe a formative thing that shapes a life path or something like that. If and when I’m a free-drifting spirit, I don’t think there’s anyone I’d refuse to forgive, but I don’t know. If I wanted some payback, I think I’d be fine jumping out of a closet and giving them a taste of a little booga-booga-booga! 🤣 I might be tempted to do that just out of mischief, like if someone was eating cereal, I’d draw penises or profanities floating around in the milk, or shape some clouds into a likeness of me making a crazy face, lol!

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     • This is just my experience and my perspective, therefore anecdotal in nature: dreams where a guide or a deceased loved one may be reaching out have a different feel than regular dreams, the intensity and vividness of them mark them as distinct in nature. So if your dreams aren’t giving you anything different to notice or think about, that just may not have been part of your journey at this time.

       In my heart, the thing that matters most to me is to be as loving as possible, and that generally comes with forgiveness. (Though of course, like anyone else, I can have things that upset me and lines I choose to draw about what I am willing to deal with and what I am not). So those things being said, in my mind, there is a difference between forgiving and letting someone who is unwilling to change continue to hurt you. I believe for my dad, that is the category I consider him under. I don’t have moments where I think anything he did was Ok, but I’m no longer as angry about it as I was when he died. I was so angry back then I took weeks to sing the consent to cremate, which definitely upset his sister I am sure. Many spiritual traditions discuss how forgiveness is always about the person who was injured, and in a sense this is true…that much anger/pain can poison the ability to find joy if clutched too tightly. Having let go of that level of anger doesn’t mean I’d want any sort of interactions with him unless he had demonstrated a complete change of behavior. I can forgive things of a very serious nature, and I can fully let go of my desire to internally hiss about something if a person is showing sincerity about fixing something with me or changing their behavior, but I don’t think that entitles someone to additional opportunities to hurt me again automatically just for making a single apology, etc…and certainly not if they’re not interested on their own in changing. I would only be willing to extend those sorts of chances after a sufficient time observing truly changed behavior, etc. It’s really not my interest to force their behavior to change (so that is something they would have to genuinely choose or reject for themselves and whatever place they have in my world would flow from that, at least as I currently think about things in this life), rather it’s my interest to protect myself and my own opportunities for happiness.

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     • It can definitely get tricky if you have to interact with folks who’ve messed up. I prefer what you’ve mentioned, where you wait until there’s clear proof they’ve changed. However, sometimes I’ve had to forgo that proof because of utilitarian concerns, for example, coordinating with my brother in order to care for my mother. The biggest thing about that is its necessary. However, he also hasn’t changed to the point where I can trust his judgment. So being in touch with my intuition, being present, is pretty critical for me establishing boundaries when he acts untrustworthy. There’s been many times where I’ve told him good job on this or that throughout this process, but a few times where I’m like nope, I’m not going to help you with that, and I’m not going to explain why (because he likes to suck people in by arguing about minutiae and trying to score some conceptual victory or subjective neutrality or enough room for misinterpretation to where he can have plausible deniability later when he messes up). It used to frustrate me when I couldn’t nail him down through quantifiable articulations, then I realized I was wasting my energy and playing his game, where he would argue the quality of every quantity I happened to bring up. So while it may seem curt or rude, I go with my current method because of our history. That used to bug me too–at first, I was like I don’t want to be rude and fail any social standards, but I think that was actually an important lesson that’s developed into one of my life themes: society is fickle, illogical, and will gaslight you without consideration, so I’m more focused on developing a connection with my heart and gut, trusting society will fall in line over the long term, and in the meantime, allowing synchronicity to offer organization and guidance throughout.

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     • I think sometimes family situations can be tricky. Children don’t really get much of a choice, they may have to keep interacting with an abusive parent or family member even if change hasn’t happened by nature of their dependence upon those adults, legal or otherwise. And sometimes in the adult world we have to interact with people or family members who have done things that we’d rather not lather, rinse, repeat on. It sounds like your situation isn’t of the “I can’t trust us to have any sort of contact until this is demonstrated changed” variety, and those are areas that can be even trickier. Plenty of people are happy to weigh in with assessments about what they consider to be appropriate or too harsh or whatever, and really a person can only do the best they can to navigate it and honor what is needed or their own emotional and mental health. Sounds like you’re doing that, sometimes it seems like the best thing that can be done is to set certain boundaries, as you have said in the past, and say more or less “this is the sandbox we can play in.” I think setting those types of boundaries and sticking to them can be an important part of self-advocacy and mental health. Sometimes others may try to shame or criticize based on their own beliefs or comfort levels or what they feel comfortable tolerating in their relationships and that just becomes noise that needs to be blocked out sometimes in my opinion. But I can definitely understand the desire not to be rude or hurt another person’s feelings, sometimes I struggle to set boundaries I should because I am not one who enjoys hurting other people…though, I can sometimes be a little on the rude side without intending to be. When I have intentionally gone snarky with someone (not something I usually do these days, but it has happened a few times in the last several years especially when the sleep deficit was extensive), that was a choice, and more and more I look back and think I should have just not even gone there…so usually I just prefer a polite boundary.

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     • Yeah, I’m with you on the snark. For some reason, I specifically remember this one seemingly trivial incident when I was in elementary school when I was hanging around this girl who constantly struck me as sarcastic and snide (not to me, personally, just a vibe she gave off whenever she talked about stuff) and I didn’t like it because in my immature mind it struck me as disrespectful, even though it was never to me. One day I snapped at her and asked her if she could stop being so sarcastic. She immediately stiffened and quieted as if I’d publicly humiliated her or hit her with a deeply personal insult, and I instantly regretted it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but judging by her reaction, I think she had no idea how I was interpreting her mannerisms. Nowadays I’d like to think that I would either see past it to her nonharmful intent and crack jokes with her, or politely excuse myself from her company and just do something else with my time. I used to believe that it was helpful to society to “correct” others by being harsh, the whole “brutally honest” type of thinking, but now I am of the opposite mind. If I need to be honest, why be brutal? Also, the idea of the benefit of a doubt and innocent until proven guilty are solid aspirations, I think, even though our judiciary process doesn’t always honor them. Ultimately, though, as I’ve described to you, I am finding it more and more personally fulfilling to abide in the mystical perspective where I see others as existentially connected to me, and conflate it with the Jesus advice of loving the enemy, turning the other cheek, and avoiding even the stages of murder that start in the heart. I know sometimes I might have to fight, be harsh, or even kill, but even in those circumstances, I’ll try not to hate, if that makes sense. Or if I do, I’ll try to validate it and process it so I can reassume a more holistic integrative view of other people and their respective journeys.

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     • I think that’s really cool that you were able to pause and reflect in the moment and recognize that she may not have realized how she was coming across to everyone around her. I can relate to the extent that in the home I was raised in, etiquette, manners as other would see them, socially polite communication, these things were not taught or emphasized, but rather looked down on. High levels of sarcasm and bluntness were the norm, swearing like it was no problem also the norm until the school started writing notes of complaint home and making phone calls to my mother about her potty mouthed children, especially in the home created by my mom and my stepfather. My grandmother had different expectations, but she also didn’t really spend time talking with her grandkids about what society at large expected. There are plenty of times I spoke in a way that I picked up for my parent’s home but I had no idea how it was going to come across to other people because it was just normal to me and it wasn’t until I was in those moments seeing people’s reactions, or in some cases having somebody brave enough to say something to me in a gentle way that didn’t reflect judgment, where I was able to reflect and realize. I am not one who is prone to hate (I would say my reactions when I choose to cut ties with someone are more about a desire to protect a healthy space in my own life), but I recognize that some things can be done to a person that that is a reaction I would consider to be normal to have, for a person to feel that intensity of a negative emotion.

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     • Obviously I haven’t met you in person, but I have a hard time imagining even text-Ariana being bitingly sarcastic or cussing up a storm! See, this is another reason why I wouldn’t be a good parent–if my kid got notes from the teacher saying they were swearing too much, I think my undiluted reaction would be to laugh at it, and then give my kid a primer on the ins and outs of how to make swearing as fun as possible. But I know in reality I’d have to swallow it, put on a mask, and communicate the opposite. It probably wouldn’t set a good example for either of us, because I’m sure at some level they’d understand I wasn’t being sincere, and so I’d be showing them that they too, would have to put on a mask and suppress themselves later on. Not to say that I couldn’t encourage them to learn a healthy balance between manners and self-expression, but I have no desire to navigate or convey that kind of nuance.

       As far as hate, I’d say it kind of comes naturally to me, not because I’m a negative person, per se, but because I find it very easy to dig several layers into a topic without much effort. So if I have an initial spark of dislike, it’s pretty easy for me to use logic and creativity to really amplify why my dislike is justified, and fan that into some white-hot hate. That’s probably why I’m inclined to embrace an existential philosophy that empowers and encourages me to embrace the idea that reality is benevolent at its core, and that I simply have to relax into that default benevolence instead of constructing logical workarounds ad infinitum. I think I could keep going down that route much further than normal, way farther than the middle of the bell curve if there is such a thing, right into a state of mental disrepair.

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     • I think you’re observations about the masks are astute. I remember the first notification my mom received from the school about me in particular she went through a very brief period of being concerned and stating that even though she had previously told us that swear words were just words that we were no longer allowed to use them even in home until we were older because she didn’t want to get in too much trouble with the school. That didn’t last very long because I think she lost her fear or concern about What the schools would do. I remember pointing out to her that it wasn’t exactly fair that the adults in our house (she moved my stepfather in shortly after kicking my dad out so there were almost always at least two adults in the house, But this was after my dad had moved out and I actually really can’t picture him having tolerated us swearing) were still swearing. Then it progressed to the point where when the school called her she would laugh. I remember when my sister was in first grade she wrote “F… Y….” In permanent marker on the wall in her classroom, and when they called home my mom laughed and refused to do anything about it. Because at that point I was known to be the rule following member of the family they called third grade me down to try to talk some sense into my sister hoping it would help, because she was thoroughly unrepentant. I was eight so I looked at the wall and laughed. 😅 But even with all of that there was a double standard, I remember my mom hauled off and slapped me once because I told her ” F… Y…” with a fair bit of emotion when I was in elementary school. The masks, the double standards didn’t sit well with me personally. I would have rather there have been a more consistent message of this isn’t appropriate language to use in public and it’s okay to use privately under certain circumstances. Eventually by the time I was in middle school that is where they landed. My grandmother’s messaging was always very consistent, if I swore in her house I was going to get a bar soap and my mouth. She was completely horrified by my mother’s stance and her teaching on the subject. She didn’t even like us to say “hell.” I stopped being bitingly sarcastic for the most part because in my heart of hearts, I don’t like to hurt people and there are some people that that definitely hurts. Yes, sometimes I can snark, but honestly almost all of my snarking in the last several years was directed at people who were writing me that were claiming to be vendors wanting me to review something and I could tell that they were not based on some of the particulars of what they said. I even had one person admit they were a curiosity seeker after a lengthy exchange. But if I felt like the person was subtly digging in their message, and of course I could have always been wrong, I drug the snark out. But honestly even that felt kind of yucky on the inside so I just stopped Even snarking back on those a few years ago. I’m just not a person who wants to resonate with the dark, though I can get a little roasty on the inside sometimes when things happen and I might feel a fair bit of anger, I am just not prone to want to hate or to even actually hate. It sounds to me like you found a way that works for you to bring the most light into your life and I think that’s great 😀

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     • Sounds like you’ve learned and grown as well! Yes, I remember hearing from my high school friends that this one guy was amazingly good at being sarcastic, and I took that as a challenge and decided to outdo him. I “won” our exchanges, but I ended up hurting him, which left me feeling gross. Later on, I decided to stop trying to win nastier exchanges and switched to learning how to argue, but then I realized that winning an argument didn’t make me feel good either, because I was essentially now hanging around someone who I had convinced to think of themselves as a loser. I get that I might have to advocate for something, but now my focus is not dominating the exchange for the sake of domination, but rather presenting my case as best as I know how. I used to think of arguments as a skill you need to practice, but that’s kind of a 3d, time-space-logic-bound imposition on the idea of a dialogue. I guess this is a case where my existential beliefs influence the practical, in that if I stay open and present, I trust I’m going to know what I need to know, that I’m going to say what I need to say, and that I’m going to meet who I’m going to meet. And that if those things don’t appear to be happening, I’ll trust that my deeper self is taking care of it and arranging things in a way that might not be obvious. I like to think of it the deeper self as Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction, lol!

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     • I *have* learned and grown a great deal. While I would say it is true that sometimes people have sought to teach me in painful ways because of how they personally felt about something I did and their belief that I must have been acting out of some form of malice or that I deserved to be humbled because how could I have presumed or not have know or whatever, because I am a person who doesn’t want to hurt others, generally there was no greater teacher than seeing/feeling some or all of the fallout of something I said or did in another person’s life. For things that I just wasn’t recognizing because I had a blinder on about it, I’m grateful for people who recognized my intent was not to harm but rather I acted in ignorance and gave me the benefit of the doubt of a compassionate or nonjudgmental explanation. I think it’s easy for people to assume everyone was given the benefit of the same social etiquette instruction for example, or just assume something is so fundamentally obvious that it should have been soaked up and internalized and regurgitated into action even if that wasn’t the case. But really that isn’t everybody’s experience. For me, I prefer to always see that the world is shaped more in grays than blacks and whites so to speak, that the actions of others are often not coming entirely from the one or the other. And sometimes my reactions that have been less productive have been born from a place of being stretched past any capacity for a reaction that was not shaped by a sense of feeling overwhelmed or stressed, and while it’s valuable for me to recognize that can be an area of necessary growth for me (though really, there is only so far any person can be stretched before they’ve lost their graciousness also), sometimes I feel like it’s beneficial for people to interact with me to be aware of that so they don’t interpret an intent that wasn’t there. I think for those moments it’s pretty easy for people to think maybe they’d be doing better if they were walking entirely my path in my shoes. Maybe they would, or maybe they’d find out they wouldn’t. But for those people who recognize I am doing the best I can within my circumstances even when I goof something up I am always grateful for them. Of course, there is always more growth I can and should achieve, and that is something that is ever on my mind. And it will come…

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     • I remember hearing about some theory that people don’t perceive others as separate entities until a few years into their development, then it kind of varies as far as recognition of individuality from there. By that I mean some folks will use the verdict of “common sense” to certain ways of thinking until they die, which boils down to an appeal for consensus-thinking (even if it’s only thinking in tandem with the common-sense claimant). I used to be one of those folks, actually. It’s funny how I completely went the other way in my thirties, to the ironic point where I wanted to impose open-mindedness on the “non-openminded,” which isn’t very open-minded of me if you think about it. Now I like to vibe with the idea that everyone is on their own adventure, and it’s not up to me to impose anything upon them because of some personal ideal that I prefer. I’m just going to try and be open and present, let my deeper self and their deeper self come to the fore and sort things out. Regardless, I think you’re definitely above average with the compassion and empathy, which may sometimes be hard because the average person won’t be as strong in those qualities and thus tend to have a more dissimilar perspective. But if you mostly stay true to yourself and remember to be nice to yourself every now and then, I believe it’ll all work out for the best. As always, I’m rooting for you!

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     • I appreciate that you are rooting for me 💜 I am rooting for me also 😅😂 I know we have briefly discussed this before, though in a different context. My earliest memory is from the crib days before my vision focused (So things were still kind of blurry and it was a lot of lights and darks). I am going to respectfully acknowledge that the only perspective I can fully speak to is my own, but based on my own lived memories and experiences I don’t know that I can support the theory that we struggle to recognize ourselves as separate even at birth. I definitely recognized myself as separate from the people around me, to the point where as a teenager I had asked my grandmother to help me understand some context of my memories from when I was a baby, which involved my mom leaving me with my grandmother frequently as a baby for several days at a time. My memories of other people as a baby is that they were separate, so that is just my take. It is funny that you say that, one of the most frequent disagreements I have with someone that I love very dearly is that my desire to have a nuanced and compassionate approach to everything can be very frustrating for that person in particular. That person really just needs someone to sit there and agree that yes the person who did whatever was totally awful, and I’m usually sitting there saying well, this has happened to them so they might not be coming from the intention you think they are, etc etc. But even for all that sometimes I can still mess things up and be cranky and all of that… The compassion in the empathy don’t prevent me from being a human with some failings that I need to work through. Wishing you a wonderful day 😊

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     • Maybe I’ve been mentally spending too much time in Evermoor, but I don’t recall you saying that. Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool! I don’t remember anything from my ankle-biting days. I think the earliest memory I have is going to Canada when I was four or five to visit some relatives and staring up at the ceiling and noticing a chandelier. (At this point, I don’t even know if that was in their house, it’s just a mental snapshot, but my gut wants to say it was). My ex said she spooked her parents out when she talked about the apartment they were living in when she was still in the womb. She described the hallways and fixtures and whatnot, and her parents were like there’s no possible way you could know any of that. Do you remember what you thought as an infant? Were you like “Gimme the applesauce?” I can’t help but think that if there is a perception of separation, that also opens up the possibility of judgment, which I think would be funny, especially if the baby thought like an old-school, 1950s, sci-fi Flash Gordon villain who laughed condescendingly at adults and constantly thought stuff like, “You fools!” Or: “Seize him!” 🤣

       It does seem a bit ironic, that empathy for one person can lead to misunderstanding or miscommunication with another. It seems like you’re far above average in that department, so it may be a little alienating. I believe, however, that there are folks out there that can relate, and hopefully you can find some so you can resonate with them on that specific subject. I doubt that we can resonate perfectly with someone on every single subject, that would start to defeat the purpose of being an individual, I think. But I do think that we are meant to resonate very closely with certain people on certain things, especially in the case of identical twins.

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     • It was buried in the comments that you were gracious enough to spring clean for me 🙇‍♀️. Before I developed POTS, I was sometimes a little more obnoxious to deal with about it because comments like “well the last three times you asked me my answer was…” 😱😳🙈 Even though things continue to get better all the time, my memory still isn’t what it was before developing POTS and I find it has given me a lot more first hand understanding and empathy for the differences in memory that people can have, So if anything I would say my empathy and compassion go up the older I get and the more experiences I have. Though, I certainly don’t recall biting any ankles. Really before I started to be able to process the language of the people around me my memories are more based on observation of what they did. I remember long stretches of time being alone in my crib, except for the times that I was at my grandmother’s. And what I remember most from that were the expressions on her face as she was leaning in to grab me to pick me up and hold me. I feel like it’s most useful to build relationships on common ground, what does overlap rather than what doesn’t. Just my opinion and my experience. It is better to rejoice in the people who one does have genuine loving relationships with then pine over those that one does not because they cannot see the right type of common ground to build on for them personally.

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     • I didn’t bite any ankles either, but every time I think of infants, I think of my former cairn terrier. He was about 10 lbs. (11 if we got sloppy with treats) and looked like black, beefed-up yorkie. Every time we’d come back from whatever, he’d race around the room, swoop in to nip my ankle, race around some more, then swoop in again, he’d do that for a few rounds. Every time he nipped me, I’d clutch my leg and overdramatically exclaim, “Ah! Ya got me!” I didn’t mind since he was so little. 🤣 Definitely the feistiest dog I ever had!

       Yeah, if there’s no organic connection, I don’t think it’s useful to do mental gymnastics trying to figure out how to convince, fool, or coerce someone into trying to be interested in me. Square pegs, round holes, plenty of more fish in the sea and all that!

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     • Ok, that is awesome the way you handled the ankle biting 😂 I think you have the right attitude about square pegs, round holes. Of course, given your weakness is MILFs, I would say it is probably rather more complicated. Many a mother will make decisions that have nothing to do with their own personal interests and everything to do with other factors regarding their children. Which I guess would then still make it the wrong suited peg and whole type of situation, it’s just that I would think it might not have anything to do with you personally sometimes.

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     • Yeah, that little guy liked to act a badass 🤣 Whenever he swooped in, he’d also snarl, but it’s hard to take a dog seriously when he looks like a baby mophead with legs.

       For some reason, I just remembered my Aussie friend, who had kids and then left them to start a life in the US. She’s very professionally accomplished, still talks to them, and doesn’t seem to regret leaving them when the subject comes up. Although it may go against societal judgment, I can partially empathize, I think. I’m pretty glad my dad left when he did, for both our sakes, actually. I’m glad he was able to live on his own terms, and I’m also glad that I didn’t have to grow up with him because I don’t think it would have been pleasant for either of us. At the same time, I’ve never had so much of an iota of desire to have kids, or found anything about the prospect to be attractive or fulfilling when I think about it, so I’m glad I was programmed with that conviction. Better to know now than after the fact! As far as MILFS, I’m fine with whatever they decide–people have stuff going on that I don’t need to know about, so if thing’s don’t pan out in a certain instance, I’m just going to assume that it was for a good reason. But if they want to include me in their stress relief, I’m happy to take em up on it! 🤣

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     • I think every child is different, and how they take things is differently, so it’s kind of one where a parent has to know their kids and know what kind of outcomes they are comfortable with as regards to what your Aussie friend did. My daughter very recently said to both my husband and I “if either of my parents ever cheated, I would *never* forgive the person who cheated.” Never is a long time, lol. And I know her well enough to know that her feelings of that sort run through to many other life events/possible outcomes including the idea of me moving to a different country for my own professional concerns while she stayed behind. I think that’s great for your friend that what she wanted was still compatible with maintaining those relationships. I think every person and every child is different, so sometimes parenting is about finding the most overlap possible and doing the best one can, and realizing that even for that the kiddo may feel like you’ve entitled them to a life time of therapy and dragging your name through the mud to every one they talk to.

       The dog…not going to lie, sounds super cute. I have a soft spot for smaller dogs… Wishing you a wonderful day 🙂

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     • That’s an interesting warning from your kid! I don’t think the idea of monogamy was ever spoken of in my house, although it was kind of assumed from observation. However, neither I or my brother felt strongly about it at all. I used to anger my ex because I told her I don’t think I would be hurt by her straying, I just didn’t want to see another dude in my house or stuff like their dirty socks and whatnot, and I didn’t want it crimping my schedule or lifestyle in any way. My brother actually got a tearful admission from his wife that she had strayed but he too pissed her off when he was like that’s all right, and didn’t react strongly to it, which I kind of think would be how I’d take it as well. I think if I caught my parents doing it, the main thing would be that I wouldn’t want the fallout to hurt anyone, the cheating itself is like, well, people like to have sex, so I don’t see what the big deal is. I remember trying to understand people in the military when they brought up hypotheticals where they caught their spouse cheating and they’d half-jokingly talk about some kind of violence where it was assaulting the cheater or killing them, and I just never got it. I think even if it hurt me, I’d be more pissed at the prospect of disentangling our lives and divvying up assets and stuff like that. Big inconvenience!

       As far as the dog, he stole everyone’s hearts. My ex and I joked he was a bird in a past life because he was twitchy and sprightly in the way he moved. He had a “submissive grin” according to the humane society trainer, which meant he’d bare his teeth and also his lips, which were as wide across as my thumb is wide. He’d do that while standing on his hind legs and placing his forelegs on your shin, which we never discouraged because he was so cute and small. Also, he was pretty strong for his size–when he pooped, he’d tense his body so much he’d end up in an L-sit with his back legs extended off the ground, and he’d walk around on his front paws. He’d also get so excited while pawing your shin sometimes that he’d start jumping in place with his front paws straight above his head, to which I’d start doing the same and chanting “Raise the roof! Raise the roof!” One time I saw this six foot teddy bear at Costco and bought it just for the hell of it and put it on top of a dresser. Then I made the mistake of bringing it down so he could inspect it and put it back on the dresser. He stared at that thing for hours, demanding in an angry trill-chirrup (another reason we said he was part bird) that we take it down for him to destroy. Of course we gave in. Other cute behaviors included my sixty pound mutt curling into a dog donut, then the little one climbing on top of him and forming another mini dog donut. Eventually, during his swooping and nipping, I’d chase him back and he’d run under a comfy chair and peek out at me. Whenever I caught him, I’d cradle him in my chest, he’d do this bird-like glance to either side, then decisively burrow his head against my chest, as if to say fine, you got me, snuggle me now! That was the only one of our four dogs over the years that my ex refused to crate, because she couldn’t resist his small sadness! 🤣

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     • Hannah has always been very verbal and very specific and very outspoken with her thoughts. At 18 months she was speaking so fluently I had several parents at our former church on different occasions come up to me and ask if there was something wrong with their kid (And no, there wasn’t, their kids were falling a normal developmental trajectory). But at the same time, I remember an incident where she chewed out one of the nursery workers when she was two because that person called one of her toddler friends a baby, and she indignantly said that this individual was not a baby she was a toddler, but that she (Hannah) was way cuter then her toddler friend. There were some very cutting conversations had behind my back and even a couple to my face because it was assumed that given her age she had picked that up from me. No, she hadn’t (and the mother of the toddler in question was in the room when Hannah made that statement and when the backbiting started and came to my defense stating that she really didn’t think that was the case because we were friends at the time and Heather knew how Hannah was and she knew how I was and we spent time hanging out on a regular basis us and our kids). Just a couple months before that Hannah had told me I was mean like Maleficent because I had her sitting on a chair thinking for 1 minute about her behavior after she hit the cat (catzilla to be exact). To me it is not so surprising her thoughts on monogamy given her age and the time we were in our former church. At this point she understands my personal beliefs, but she also has hers and who knows what changes time will bring to them, but right now at this stage in her life she spent more years of her life in a very conservative denomination than out. So even when she’s rocking her best goth life and aesthetic, she still has some internal views that reflect those years of her upbringing. I honestly don’t think I could crate any dog, animals are pretty unhappy being put in a small confined places. I honestly wouldn’t ever even want to have a pet rodent (I had those when I was younger) again that didn’t have an extensive wall size cage with tunnels for that reason. They were so miserable in their little cages or aquariums…. It was kind of palpable to me.

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     • Sounds like your kid commits to her beliefs! I think that’ll take her far, in my opinion, folks who don’t live how they believe will set themselves up as seeing themselves as lesser, or a failure, and that can lead to a lot of self worth issues.

       I know crating dogs is the smart thing to do, but I think I’m on a similar wavelength as you. Personally, it just takes so much time and attention to raise a puppy, that I’m not sure I want to do it again. I think when I get back around to it, I’d like to foster older dogs. I love seeing sleepy old labs or goldens snoozing and relaxing, giving me the resting sad face, lol! I remember with the non-crated puppy, I was basically taking him out all the time until he learned not to pee in the house, then I had to start getting him used to a schedule, which I think at first was five times a day, then four, then three, and I don’t remember if we ever got him down to two or not. But I specifically remember at the four times a day mark, if I was off by literally five minutes, he’d pee in the house. Oh, also, when he’d swoop in and nip my ankles, I’d say in a tiny voice (what I imagined he’d sound like if he could speak) “I fight! I fight with bites!” That led me to nickname him Bitefighter, which I put in Kor’Thank and I think Echo 4. I know you read some of Kor’Thank, at least, so if you were wondering, that’s where the name Bitefighter came from. 😁

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     • This is of course, just my opinion, I think that it can be a bit more complicated as regards to how people feel about themselves. There are people who have followed their vision for what they wanted, obtained success in the eyes of the world, and were waging a fierce battle internally with imposter syndrome. 🤷‍♀️ That being said, my first wish as a parent is for my children to find happiness, whatever that looks like for them. Because this is their life. After that, it is to see them have some capacity to provide a means of survival for themselves. That is of course, trickier for Tony and there my aim is for him to need the least amount of support possible. He will never have an independent life. One of my hab goals right now is focused on teaching him how to cross the street safely, not because I picture a day anytime soon for anyone is going to let him out of the house by himself, but so that if he does get out of the house for whatever reason he won’t get hit by a car right away because he will know how to do that for himself. But definitely our daughter has things that she believes very strongly. At her age, there can be a lot of flux with that, so for me it comes back to the wanting to see my children happy part… But sometimes that can be a much more difficult goal to achieve than outward success. And yes, I do remember that you had based a character from that book on one of your dogs, I remember that from a previous discussion. And definitely I’m going to finish that book! I struggle sometimes with attention span, it has been worse since POTS landed, but honestly some of my flitting around from books to books before finishing the one I’m on and then eventually returning back to finish the reading job is related to hitting a high tension plot point when I’m reading it at the same time there’s a huge amount of stress landing in my life. At which point I just put a book on hold until I’m feeling like I can go back and process whatever high anxiety plot point was about to drop. I think it is a very creative and well written book! For me it’s just that my life has enough day to day inescapable stress that sometimes I don’t want to immerse myself in stressful plot points because I need a break somewhere from the stress hormones.

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     • I agree with the impostor syndrome cases. I suppose in my life, I’ve seen more anecdotes where people believed in conducting themselves a certain way in relation to their goals, but they didn’t do so. When the subject was brought up, they’d shut down and look ashamed, which made me realize I don’t need to bring that stuff up or I just need to change the subject. They’re already suffering from the dissonance of believing they and others should be a certain way, but they’re not honoring that belief or exploring it enough to shift it, so they’re burdening themselves with guilt and shame, which I don’t need to inflame or point out.

       No worries if you don’t finish Kor’Thank, some books just don’t vibe with certain people. I never got Harry Potter, either the books or the movies, even though I read three of them and watched all seven. I also tried to watch Game of Thrones three times because it was so popular, but I just never got the appeal. I think I got to season 3 on my third time, but then I came to the conclusion that the appeal was from people being authentic in their nastiness toward each other. That’s not something I find appealing. I might have, a decade ago, when the phrase “brutally honest” held a lot of appeal for me. Now I see no reason to be brutal, and as far as honest, I’m pretty unsure about an objective truth outside the Alan Watts model of consciousness-driven infinite possibility, so nah, Game of Thrones isn’t for me. Anyways, that’s a long way of saying that if Kor’Thank isn’t your thing, I won’t take it personally. If I’m looking for compliments, I still treasure the fact that you devoured volume 2 of Evermoor in spite of your commitment to reading other books, not to mention the other stressors in your daily life. You either really like fantasy, or it was a damn good book, or both! 😁

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     • I think sometimes the reason people do things and the way they feel about it is complicated. I know for me, I have had to pick and choose based on how I ranked my priorities, and what that meant is that some things that I really wanted or hoped for myself haven’t happened yet, and some of them won’t in this life. Someone could read that as a dissonance from not honoring a certain belief, or they could read it as a person who sometimes has some pangs of longing for something that needed to be less of a priority than what ended up dictating my actions and choices, but was still important to me none-the-less. Of course, another person might not prioritize the things I have done. And that’s OK. They get to live their lives based on how things feel to them, and I am living mine and we an each honor that in my opinion without tearing one another down for our differences there (at least I would hope so). And of course, we’ve discussed this long ago also, but PTSD was a gift my childhood gave me, and I as a young adult did or didn’t do certain things simply because I was trying to hold it together and the only thing I was successfully getting done 100% of the time was paying my bills and emotionally surviving and stitching myself back together.

       I’m definitely going to finish Kor’Thank. I’ve thought about it a few times in recent weeks, I think it’s well written and creative, I have just been going through a high stress period where I’m not in the right frame of mind to read through a body swapped cheerleader and her merciless and murderous machinations. But I’ll get in the right place sometime, and it will be there for me when I am. And yes, I definitely like fantasy, and I think you are very creative and I am looking forward to reading the next one 😀

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     • Yeah, I’ve started to frame it as a function of the deeper self who knows the whens, whys, and hows, and might not accommodate with a desire or an inspiration to do such and such at a certain point in time. I’ve been in scenarios that are a bit like yours in that I really didn’t have much choice except for least worst and I couldn’t really focus on what I wanted, because of what was immediately needed. But that’s not what I’m referring to. I’m referring to roommates with plenty of time and resources I’ve had that were talking about doing this, that, and the other, and instead of following up, they would lounge in bed and watch youtube videos. I starkly remember one guy said he wanted to go to an Ivy League school, but come time for scholarships and whatnot, he knew the deadlines well in advance, submitted a week late, then when he told me about it, he was laughing fit to burst. He did that with a lot of things, stuff like homework, projects, and enrollment. At the time, I just didn’t get it–if you’re serious about school, why are you disrespecting it? That was just one instance, and it kind of infuriated me at the time, because I was on this righteous kick where I thought if people were saying one thing and willingly and egregiously doing another, they were dishonoring their own hero’s journey, and losing out on the chance to be a contributing example to others. Nowadays I don’t think that way at all. If someone wants to slack off, let em slack off. If they’re hypocritical, then so be it, they’re going to settle into a group of folks who are fine with that, or have a high tolerance for it. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve noticed friends and family falling away or becoming closer due to my resonance with their outlook, so I trust that to guide me. I don’t need to teach people lessons, defend some abstract ideal like the hero’s journey, or counterbrainwash people into not being brainwashed by propaganda. I’ve got my own adventure to live, and unless that includes them in some respect, where I might have to speak up for myself or defend this or that, I’m not going to go looking to live out of some intellectualized idealistic path. My path has been made clear to me through my heart and synchronicity, and for the foreseeable future, I’ll go with that.

       Thanks for the compliments on Kor’Thank! I appreciate that you think it’s well-written and creative, but if you’re not enjoying it, then I totally understand if you don’t read it. There’s plenty of literary classics that are arguably objectively well-written and creative, but I’m not going to read em if they’re not fun to me. Can’t remember being entertained by Tale of Two Cities or Moby Dick. Also Tolkien, as I’ve thoroughly made clear in the past, lol!

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     • perhaps sometimes I am far too buried in my own perspective which is super tied up in trying to change some of my circumstances for the better in a way that allows me to just even sit and spend one minute of meditating without feeling The weight of everything that is busy clamoring it will remain undone just to give me that minute. I can see your point. I am a person that definitely values being proactive and trying and sometimes I struggle to relate myself to people around me who might not be taking the amount of action I think they could to rectify their circumstances. I have been trying lately to remind myself that I don’t feel their experience and that it could be with whatever is going on in their neurology they are just doing the best they can with it. Sometimes people just are giving up and settling and I think you are very wise in your awareness that it is their life and their choice to do that. And truthfully, I was finding Kor’Thank an enjoyable read. I just needed a break Just based on where I was at emotionally and where the plot was at converging at that moment in time. I agree with you that something can be technically well written and creative and still be sheer drudgery to read. I need to get going for now, take good care of yourself 😊

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     • Yeah, folks are gonna live according to their resonance. If that means being a hypocrite, a big mouth, or a slacker, I’m all right with it. I’ll just associate with them to the degree that feels natural to me, and if they start annoying me, I’ll find a reason to limit my association with them. I’ve tried to berate, incept, debate, and passively-aggressively encourage them to do what I think would be productive, and it always ends in long-term frustration. Unless it’s some kind of implicit agreement where I’m willing to keep doing that and they’re willing to continue receiving influence from me, I’ll pick something else to do with my time. If the synchronicities and intuition aren’t lining up with it, I’m out of there. I remember awhile ago, my ex wanted me to get her in shape, so I gave her dietary and exercise guidance, consistent measurements to account for short-term fluctuations, and she lost 10 lbs. in 2 months while increasing strength across the board. She angrily confronted me about it, stating that it was way too little, to which I pointed out it’s a bit over 1 lb. a week which is considered healthy, and she also gained strength so she’s put on muscle, meaning she’s lost MORE than 1lb. of fat a week. She still sulked. The final straw for me was when in the afternoon, I waited two hours for her at the gym, frantically called her a bunch because I thought she’d gotten in an accident or something, then when I was about to go find her, she strolls in with a sheepish smile on her face. When I asked her what happened, she laughed and told me to shut up like it was a big joke. Then it dawned on me–she’d slept in (this was in the afternoon while she was unemployed, if that is relevant). I said as much, she admitted it, and I said, okay, you know what to do, you’ve seen how this works, I’m done training you. Predictably, she stopped altogether. That helped me realize the core resonance of someone is paramount in any endeavor. If they view themselves as chronically helpless, if they veer toward rationalizing why things are going badly, even when they objectively aren’t, and with a bit of nuanced perspective, are actually going quite well, if they don’t respect their own effort or that of their collaborators, they will find a way to fail. And that’s okay! It’s not my job to crack a whip and punish them into success. I’ll lend a helping hand, but if they’re not on board with changing their perspective to one that is focused on long-term hope and positive change, there’s not much I can do for them, and I’ll leave them be when I’m given a signal. If they want to try again, I’ll give em another try, but I’m not going to try and force improvement on someone who only pays it lip service and is demonstrably determined to not improve.

       Glad you’re finding Kor’Thank enjoyable! Maybe get in a more stable happy place before finishing Echo, it’s kind of a big ol’ misery sandwich for Atriya until book 4, lol!

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     • I think there’s much wisdom in what you say. I know I’ve said this before, but sometimes as a parent one has no choice but to wade into the unwanted motivational/life coach role even when one knows it isn’t going to be well-received or acted up ( like when a teacher from school or whatever is expecting a parent to intervene on something). It’s also difficult when someone asks for your help and they’re not happy with the results or they’re not putting in all of the effort to get there. I will be the first person to tell you that sometimes I self-sabotage in that regard because of my stress right now, like I totally know it would have been better for my health goals not to have eaten 1/3 cup of Ben and Jerry’s when I got home from school today. But literally, sometimes after getting through the morning at school my emotions are shrieking “go for the sugar damn it!!!!” And I feel like the best I can do is mitigate the damage and say to myself “it’s ok to have some sugar” because my schedule makes it hard to fit a lot of other meaningful types of self-nurturance in there.

       Sometimes it’s hard to do all of the things all the time a person knows they have to do to get to somewhere they want (especially if it’s not a natural inclination for them), I see that in myself, and so I try to think of it along the lines of “am I overall doing a little bit better?” if it’s something that’s harder for me to change. Even as a person who likes to be overall positive I have my moments where I’m either going more negative than I need to, or I’m just tired and burnt out because I’ve been working on something that takes a ton of time, a ton of focus, a significant amount of patience, meticulous and systematic work that I have been heavily involved in to the point where it’s kind of like I have to prioritize which part of my life is getting the most proactivity and positivity juice. Right now, school transition ranks at the top, anything related to a critical need for either of my kiddos does, and sometimes that just leaves me feeling like if sugar gets me through, sugar gets me through and I know I wouldn’t even begin to go to someone and tell them to clean up that part of my diet right now because that ship is not ready to sale at the speed they might want.

       I think I would have struggled in the situation you described also, and probably I look at it a lot through my own filters, but if someone was two hours late I’d be pretty upset because I would feel like they didn’t value my time and they took me for granted. Not gonna lie, I probably would have washed my hands of being the person doing the training at that point too. And yeah, I kind of figured that out about the Echo series, which is why I’d be getting around to finishing Kor’Thank first…

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     • With parent-kid stuff, I kind of lean toward existential-contractual theories, where a lot of it might be technically dictatorial or not how you’d like to treat another person, but there’s a contract in place that contextualizes the exchange into something that’s implicitly agreed upon by both parties. Obviously, this isn’t ironclad, in my opinion, since I’ve expressed the sentiment that I’m glad my dad left when I was little, both for his and my sakes.

       As far as the ex disrespecting both our efforts to get her in shape, I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but now I view that as a clear signal to just stop training her. Whenever something like that happens, some anger will naturally arise without my prompting, but my view on it is that it’s there to show me I don’t prefer that kind of a scenario, and once I accept the anger and process that preference, it’ll go on its way and so will I. In other words, I don’t see a reason to take it personally and hold a grudge, although I did take it personally at the time. From a certain perspective, I can actually feel sorry for her because she’s disempowered herself to that degree–she’ll find a reason to stop moving toward what she wants, even when she’s getting positive results (another marker I didn’t mention was that she started getting genuine compliments from fellow gym-goers who she didn’t know, other than the fact that they were just regularly seen at the gym when she went). But in the long run, I think she’ll achieve her desires and enjoy her existence. I just don’t need to collaborate in the part where she’s determined to disrespect, sabotage, or dismiss any aid that I’m willing to give her.

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     • I think from my perspective, generally a person that doesn’t value my time or takes me for granted does the same thing to other people in their world…so it’s not really personal, it’s just something they do and how they are. And they can decide how to be for them, and I can decide how I want to spend my time and what kind of interactions honor it best. That’s just my take, I live in my own little perspective sometimes or so I have been told. Doesn’t mean I don’t take things personally sometimes, especially if I’m stressed or sleep deprived that I may attach more emotion than need be. I also try to be very open to the possibility that just maybe I’ve goofed something up, so I always try to look at it from that angle…is there something I need to improve? And I mean, sometimes it’s also really obvious to me in retrospect what I messed up, and I try to take responsibility and be accountable for that when it happens, so I prefer to not try to make things personal in any discussion about what two people want when it comes to things like that.

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     • WordPress is playing tricks on my mind–I thought I’d replied to this! I think we can’t help but live in our own little perspective, which is a 180 from what I used to think. This may sound paradoxical, but that helps me not take things so personally, even when I’m angry or scared. That emotional response is mine to process and validate, it’s not really theirs unless they choose to replicate it within themselves. For example, some people might be sadistically happy if I let on that I’m angry or scared because of something they did. Or they might get annoyed because they’re getting stressed from resonating with my stress. I’m just going to focus on letting my best self come through. And ironically, again, I don’t believe that happens by most peoples’ definition of “trying.” Self-flagellation, beratement, or nagging myself isn’t going to help. I understand that those things might naturally arise in the heat of the moment, and I’ll have to validate and process them, but deliberately focusing on some masochistic ideology where I have to keep beating myself over the head or hounding myself with this or that is not my style.

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     • Literally no worries. Even if it was something you hadn’t wanted to reply to that’s ok! My enjoyment of chit chatting doesn’t entitle me to wasting other people’s time if they don’t have the same interest in the conversation, and I do realize that even if someone does want to chat with me, they’re not going to like or agree with everything I say. Sometimes I just stick my foot in it, or I rub someone the wrong way, or they aren’t as sure how to read something I said with less visible affect (either in person or via text) and are therefore not sure how to respond to it, etc, etc, etc. I think you definitely have the right idea to focus on letting one’s best self shine through. As a recovering “perfectionista,” it’s really something I struggle with every now and then to give myself compassion when that doesn’t happen, but I’m getting there more and more of the time. Sometimes it’s my stress that just shines through. Literally I was having one of those days where too many things had gone wrong a little more than a week ago, and I’m on the phone with one of our local Walgreens reps discussing a transferred medication order for our son because the new insurance requires Walgreens, and this particular clerk refused to update is insurance information over the phone, but told me I should just come in and have whatever clerk helped me do it and handle the insurance processing then (I have found for this location it’s hit or miss as to how much help you’re going to get as regards to things that are in the job description of the person you are talking to). Literally in that moment after I said “so, basically what you are saying is that you are not going to help us with this and update his correct insurance so that it can be billed and run before we get there (which previous clerks had done for my scripts and our daughter’s and seems to be the normal for pharmacy techs in the area regardless of where they work),” and as she started stammering and saying maybe she could transfer me to someone else who might want to do it and I just said “you kow, that’s fine,” wished her a wonderful day and hung up, because I was literally struggling not to cry because…stress, and that person may have been having who knows what going in in their day that they didn’t want to do their job, but they had no idea how much work (or how many skittles) it takes to get Tony through their 15+minute line without aggravating others with his desire to pace back and forth just to pick something up, and he’s literally not one to happily enjoy an extended wait on top of that if they have to then update and contact the insurance. I don’t know that it was my best self, but it was the best self I could find in the moment and sometimes I just have to give myself grace for that in the moment. I didn’t go Karen on her, but maybe if I were fully in a best self moment I wouldn’t have pointed out that she was refusing to do something that was part of her job… I agree the self-flagellation part doesn’t really help, just makes everything worse I think, and make it that much harder to really move towards improvements one wants to make because it drags the emotions downward and not up.

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     • I am just going to add for the sake of clarity, and you do not need to respond to both of these separately, or even either one of them if you don’t want to 😅 * after the first time the clerk refuse to take the correct and current insurance information so that it could be processed, or even look at the insurance as they had on file (which were several years old because I do not fill at Walgreens unless I have to) I calmly and politely explained to her the needs of our son and how it might be more comfortable for everyone involved if the insurance were processed before we showed up, and my best self I can find in the moment reaction happened after she still said just take care of it when you show up. And before that, she had refused multiple times to even look up what insurance information they had on file, just saying oh we have insurance for you I’m sure it’s fine. Yeah, not fine if it’s an insurance we don’t have and they’re going to deny. Only when I asked her what is the balance you show we would owe? And she gave full price did I tell her, well then your insurance information is not be up to date. Then she was willing to look at it, but only then. I know there are people that would have dealt with that even more gracefully, but I know in high stress points in the past I have definitely sounded crankier about a refusal to help out with something that is part of somebody’s job duties under our current circumstances, so that’s why I say it was the best self I could find at the moment.

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     • I think I understand. And I don’t think best self needs to look good to others. Sometimes I’ve snapped at people without intending to. I used to berate myself and try to reach the bottom of why that happened and how I should prevent it in the future which leads to imposing this rigid story on myself of how I’m configured and how I react to things and how to keep myself from reacting in an undesirable way…with my propensity for logical breakdown, I can quickly become like an unforgiving, overanalytic, micromanager to myself. I can just keep building on that story until it’s basically like a suit of restrictive armor, where instead of being present, I refer to an encyclopedic laundry list of supposed reactionary characteristics I’ve decided to define myself with. The bottom line is it happened, maybe the person didn’t take it the way I thought they did, maybe it will actually lead to something beneficial, I don’t know. What I do know is at this point, I don’t want to go into some beratement-tinged analysis of myself that keeps me from being present and enjoying my life. I guess that’s a long-winded way of saying I don’t think you need to focus on what you did wrong, you’re doing good things, you deserve good things, and personally, my opinion on that kind of thing is to validate it, let it process without being nitpicky at myself, and get back to enjoying things as they unfold.

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     • Well, I think sometimes where the breakdown in all of this is more isn’t exactly a concern for how I appear to others, there is both a desire not to make somebody’s day poopy, and a reality that even if another person is in the wrong and they are not doing their job (and the grumpiest version of me shows up who feels like they deserve to have that pointed out), sometimes it definitely goes better if The stress isn’t shining through and the nicest, most finessed version of me possible is the one that shows up. Because sometimes people don’t want to recognize they messed up, don’t care that they messed up, aren’t getting paid enough to care that they messed up, and don’t have to care about the impact to me. And they may not see how much effort it takes to juggle everything in my world and how one little hang up can create problems that can make whole parts of a day even more difficult to navigate or accomplish what is necessary. And many cases I feel like I can’t even hope for the other person to be compassionate, because many people have never experienced anything like living with and being the therapy support and the caregiver to an individual with the level of need Tony has had, and then when you add everything else going on in my world 🤯 sometimes the next best thing I can hope for is compassion, but I can’t even count on that. So I currently strive to maintain an awareness that no matter how messed up a situation is it is going to likely serve me better to stay as collected and calm as I can about it even when the stress is about to break me. One of the things that has become apparent to me in recent years is that some people interpret my stressed tone as an angry tone… So I have to be especially mindful I think. But I agree it does create a lot of mental difficulty to be in a position of constantly focusing on how to improve, that is part of my nature. I think for me sometimes it has been a struggle to find enjoyment in the moment when everything is hitting the fan, but I definitely think it is something I could learn to be better at. And I should add, my next impulse wasn’t any better I was gleefully thinking that we would all just get what we get if it didn’t go exactly calm when I showed up with Tony 😅 And perhaps the experience would be educational. My husband felt like that wasn’t the best thing either, he drove down there in person with the cards.

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     • For me, it’s a delineation in my attention, where I’d rather have an underlying focus on what I want rather than how I can correct myself. Sometimes, focus on what I want might outwardly look like correcting myself, but I think you’ll understand the nuance of what I’m trying to say. If I’m focusing on what I want, my narrative focus (apparently human perception is framed as narrative) is how to move toward my desire. That may or may not include examining myself and addressing something that’s getting in the way. But if my narrative focus is on correcting myself, there’s an implicit assumption that I’m in the wrong, and that I need to fix things that are wrong with me. That may lead to me focusing on hang-ups that may not be valid, and are simply a figment of my focus on correcting myself. I actually used to have that focus, where if I had a neutral moment, my brain would automatically gravitate toward what shortcomings I had and then it’d set the ol’ transactional “pay-for-my-shortcomings-by-agonizing-and-striving” wheel in motion. To be clear, I don’t think this is a right or wrong issue as far as approach, but for me, where I’ve committed to the idea that existence isn’t inherently transactional, I am, by implication, obliged to not frame my perception in a way that compels me to pay for pleasantness with unpleasantness, which to me includes striving and agonizing. But that’s all an internal thing, in my opinion. If someone’s destroying themselves in an ultramarathon and they find it overall fulfilling and enjoyable, then I say go for it! If they hate it but it’s somehow necessary for them, I would advise them to move toward making it unnecessary or not hating it, or both at the same time. Which is a long-winded, philosophical and paradoxical way of saying that I’m not judging you for trying to improve yourself, however you frame it, whether that’s fixing faults or whether it’s optimizing what works. I hope however you do it, you enjoy yourself and find success!

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     • I love the nuance of what you are trying to say! Sometimes I have found that who’s right and who’s wrong doesn’t really matter…if one person insists they are correct and they believe that when they are not, decisions have to be made about what kind of relationship is desired and what the priorities are…is it being found to be correct, or is it preserving and/or nurturing the relationship? That being said, sometimes I am definitely in the wrong, lol. Or not so lol for the other person involved. I think it is definitely my desire to always be a more compassionate version of me every day. I think this society tends to dig deep into the puritanical roots and favor an approach that shames, punishes, or overly focuses on weakness/problems/hang ups. I think if we kind of moved to a teaching based model of “hey, everybody makes mistakes, we’re just all learning here, this is maybe something you need to learn or maybe you could teach me about your way of doing this and why it matters to you to do it this way…” that might actually help a whole lot of people feel the need to be less combative with themselves or others. Just my thoughts. Or even to just assume “maybe this person isn’t trying to be a B*tch. Maybe they’ve got something pretty serious going on that I’m not seeing (or maybe even several pretty serious somethings).” Sometimes we default to seeing “ill intent” because it seems to be something many humans do, to think that learning experiences or how things are perceived and processed is the same. They aren’t.

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     • Yes, I’ve definitely defaulted to seeing ill intent and assuming that is the stone cold objective truth. Now this may sound a little schizophrenic, but if I’m suddenly taken by the conviction that someone has ill intent toward me, I don’t fight it or try to argue it out of existence. That’s an immediate response that I’m going to focus on accepting, much like any piece of external phenomena. Logically, I know that I don’t really know if it’s ill intent, or if it is, the scope or context behind it. However, if the ego is blasting me with anger and hate in an unprompted reaction, then I’m not going to express it, but I’m not going to invalidate it either. I trust that once I let it process and move on, I’ll naturally rise back up to the state where I’m relaxing in a position of knowing that I have no idea if it was ill intent or not, that I have better things to focus on, and that everything will work out for the best in the end. And if I fail to do that, as I have in the past, I just get exhausted from the anger back into a state of acceptance, so it’s kind of a no-lose “dilemma.” The choice for me is how much I want to wallow in the insistence/resistance, if I want to acknowledge it and experience it and let it move on, or if I want to inflame it and solidify it with mental gymnastics, cherrypicked data, and exhaustive logically constructed justifications. So I guess in terms of goals, I’ll let myself hate and seethe or be discouraged, but I’ll do it from a point of letting it happen as an organic part of my experience which I know is destined to fade back into positivity, not something I need to eliminate or fight. And of course, I won’t act on it–if I’m doing things as I intend, negativity is not punishment or suffering to minimize, it’s simply a communication from my ego to my deeper self that I’ve found something that I don’t prefer, and to let the deeper self arrange things to cater to my newly calibrated preferences. Contrast, rather than darkness, if that makes sense.

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     • Hmm. Well, people often think others are or might be acting out of some form of ill-intent on something or another without any clinical diagnosis behind that, so I wouldn’t necessarily think that someone feeling that way signifies anything of that nature. Sure, sometimes it can if it exists in an extreme and comes with other symptoms. That being said, sometimes people really do intentionally plan to harm, etc others and I think being able to recognize when that is actively the case is important if one wants to live the safest, most emotionally happy life they can. I, for example, grew up in a home where gaslighting, abuse, neglect…those were things, and not things done unintentionally or without awareness in some cases. I think our instincts, our intuition, our gut call…those are there for a reason because not everything that lived in the garden of Eden is harmless so to speak. Sometimes one can know ill-intent is involved, but for many situations, I think assuming a lack of ill-intent leads to the best outcomes emotionally for everyone involved.

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     • Yes, ill intent will pop up. I used to have the idea that we need to “fix” it, but that turned out to be kind of a rabbit hole. Like I mentioned, I don’t really know the scope and context, and then if we get into the idea of limited free will, we can assign causality to genetics and events that go in an endless chain back through history, all the way down to quantum interactions which iterate into our world, and all the way to the conditions of the big bang which set all that in motion. That’s why when my negative-minded friend tried to suck me into assigning blame in the recent international conflicts, I presented that causal conundrum (this worked because he doesn’t really believe in personal power and more in a malicious, all-powerful environment) and said I don’t want to assign blame, I’d rather focus on pathways where people reconcile and focus on good things. Also, I don’t really know the big picture scheme where something negative may work to my benefit later on, or vice versa. So going back to the spirit of my previous comment, where I prefer to focus on my personal goal rather than “fixing” things, I believe that a positive focus may guide me to reprimand someone or fight them, but if my focus is stuck in “fixing” mode, I’m going to always see something that needs to be fixed, and I’ll always be confrontationally nitpicky. If I’m focusing on the positive ends I want to realize, I’ll see ill intent as just another factor in how I calculate my approach, like this person doesn’t like me for whatever reason, and here’s how I’m going to navigate that, and here’s why I think that’s the best approach. I don’t need to condemn them for it, and I don’t know if it’ll even necessarily lead to a bad outcome, or whether it’s some odd ingredient in shaping a positive end. Hopefully, they’ll get over it sooner rather than later, but I trust they’ll be all right in the end anyway.

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     • I struggled initially to separate all of the past iterations of me that exist within who I am and how I do and have done things to see all the facets of your comment. Historically, I was the “fixer” in my family in the sense that, as I remember it, any time my mom and my step-dad, for example, had a big blow up fight and he was threatening to leave, she’d come to me all upset and crying and telling me how important it was to our financial survival that he didn’t and rope me into mediating their conflicts (this started when I was in elementary school and got a whole lot worse by the time middle school hit). That kind of created in me an emotional pressure to “fix” interpersonal conflicts wherever they could be found as much as possible… and you know? Sometimes it’s not possible and it’s not healthy. And beyond that, as a person who can be sensitive the the energy coming off of others, dislike or irritation or other types of negative emotions are a really uncomfortable space to live in and sometimes if I see something that I should be changing in my approach that can minimize that, and it’s a relationship that matters to me to salvage or not corrode as regards to either professional situations or for whatever reason really, I tend to do that.

       I think tough decisions have to be made sometimes when something does need to be criticized, as in how much detail needs to be picked apart versus what will happen to the relationship with the level of criticism that needs to happen? There are times where I’ve needed to do something specific to advance Tony in a way that left one of his other paid therapists feeling criticized by default without me actually criticizing them just by seeing how much he was advancing on something I was working in with him even though it was never my intention to leave them feeling that way, I have just been desperate to improve things for me and for our family and also, that is one of my paid jobs and I have a whole lot of reasons for not pulling back on any of that, including maintaining his funding for hab which he needs. I have been stuck so long in an intense zone of fight or flight and dealing with so much crisis over here on a level that is far different from his other paid therapists in the sense that I don’t get to clock out or leave *ever*, and if something isn’t going well or isn’t going fast, I’m often the one dealing with it more than anybody else, so sometimes I just need something to get better immediately or as quickly as it can, and all I’m thinking about is “I need to get to point X so that I don’t fall apart and become incapable of holding up under the pressure of everything that is going on over here.” Making someone feel or look bad wasn’t even a blip of a thought anywhere in those moments, it was about the needs of my family. So I feel like sometimes people can feel criticized without even trying to pick them apart or criticize them, and while I would hope people would see me as a person and recognize how much I’ve been going through and just be happy something somewhere is going well so that something can improve for our son, for our family, and for me… I think all of these themes are just complicated and I don’t have perfect answers to any of them. I think blame is less productive in general and I agree that focusing on a solution is more productive. But sometimes the focus on the solution can still alienate people, so sometimes I feel like that just brings me back to radical acceptance and the idea that people have their own needs and sometimes that’s just not interacting with me for whatever reason, and the best we can really do is accept what another needs, wants, or likes isn’t us and just move on to those other fish in the sea you have mentioned whenever we can…

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     • I think you have a healthy outlook! I was listening to a near death experiencer who experienced some really vile stuff as a teenager, and she consciously made a decision not to tell anyone, specifically her father, because he would have wanted to kill the perpetrators and there was a good chance it would have ruined his life one way or the other. Not that I know her, but she seemed like she’d processed it in a way where it was no longer an issue; she was very adamant that it was her choice to feel the way she wanted to feel about it, to frame it how she wanted to frame it, and just because society or anyone else told her that she had to feel a certain way about it because it was awful, that it was still her choice and she wasn’t going to view it that way.
       It was really weird hearing her talk about it, because for all my beliefs about always having personal choice and power in framing things the way I want to regardless of society, I’ve never gone through something that intense and embodied my belief like she has. I’ve heard about this kind of thing in anecdotal lore, but never really from a living breathing modern perspective. When I assert my beliefs, I have to resort to breaking down the logical philosophy and explaining my reasoning according to the philosophical frameworks and their implications. Anyways, she later met one of the perpetrators who raised a very happy family. His guilt over the event had weighed heavily on him, and he was working in emergency services, which was apparently inspired by the desire to make sure that he fervently wanted to do his part to prevent the very acts that he had perpetrated. The lady felt that seeing him in that life path was extra validation for her decision. That was a pretty extreme case, but what she went on to say really stuck with me, specifically that we all have been the hero and villain at some point to some one, and that it’s not the most pleasant thing to get bogged down in the condemnation, glorification, etc. There was another instance she related where a principal had been really horrible to her, but it ultimately set her on a healthy path as a direct result (forgot the specifics). She made the point that the principal was most likely loved and loved others, and viewed as a good person by those who were close to her. This is all stuff that I already believed in, that good can lead to bad and vice versa, but it was interesting to hear such a visceral, first-person take on it. So I say let your solution-oriented approach alienate whoever it needs to alienate. It’s kind of a trope in the military that as a clueless first-term servicemember, the higher-ups seem dumb and out of touch, and while sometimes they are, the reasoning behind a lot of the silly stuff gradually becomes apparent. Perhaps you’re planting seeds in these people you alienate, maybe they’re planting seeds in you. The alternative is to be a people-pleaser at the expense of your calling, which I don’t think is a healthy way to go. I think you’re on the right path!

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     • I am ever mindful that I want to handle the experiences of others with care, so the first thing I desire to make clear is that anything I say for myself about how I think and feel about these matters is in no way meant to criticize her approach or the approach of anyone else who has survived something very difficult or traumatic. I’ve been in the position of having someone pick apart what I did and hand me their version of what they would have done, and as a young adult, I would very bluntly tell them that until they’ve actually been through it, they have literally no idea what they’d really do. How they’d really respond, how they’d be able to put themselves back together again or if they even could. There’s the theory of something and then there’s the experience, and all I can speak to is my own personal thoughts and whys.

       I think it’s complicated. I myself have said everyone can be a hero and a villain, and I know I have a post about Catzilla talking about that in a somewhat different sense. I think there are many reasons why a person may choose to respond a certain way and why they may choose to handle something either the same or different. I do think it is possible to process and move past very difficult experiences, but I again can only speak to my experience. That being said, it is also easy for me to look back and my life and see things that could have been very different if those hadn’t been the experiences I was trying to work my way through. The deck of experiences a person has been dealt can shape them for better or for worse even if they end up in an OK place at some point, it is also true they could have been in a better or a worse place without any of that. Too many variables, including the personality of the survivor themselves. AS in, do they see themselves as a survivor…or a victim? The one mentality produces a better outcome than the other.

       As regards to being solutions based for my son or either of my children, the decisions I make are about what I feel is in their best interest to the best of my ability while it is my responsibility to be the person making that call. Sometimes that means I might know I could put out nearly a hundred pages of documentation and a legally recorded meeting (other party wasn’t aware I was recording at the time, or perhaps certain things wouldn’t have been said, but it’s legal in the state of AZ since I was a participant in the conversation) and do some serious damage to someone’s reputation or business even without suing or going to their licensing board, in my opinion of course, and sometimes it means I keep all that stuff between me and our son’s insurance company (and then, only when it’s strictly necessary to protect his services) so that other people feel like it’s not going to be too risky to work with him. I’d rather I had never had do any of that. I would rather people just looked at him, his needs, and the needs of the family and made it about that. For me, mistakes are going to happen. I make them, I’m not the mistake in his care police that way where I’m looking to smack down on anything that’s not perfect because nothing ever will be, we’re all usually just doing the best I can, I’m more interested in whether or not people can recognize or fix it when something seriously isn’t working, or listen to feedback from others…but at the end of the day, my first responsibility is to look after the best interest of my children to the best of my degree and that is what I will try to do, whatever that looks like. Sorry for the word bomb…

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     • No worries. I agree with you on the person’s self-perception. For a while, I thought I could get so good at rhetoric that I could argue someone into a healthier view of themselves. What’s insidious about that is I was successful within the argument itself–I would boost their mood, they would agree with me, and I’d be like problem solved. But then they would find some reason to shit all over themselves or others all over again, and I would do it again and again. I figure if someone comes to me, then I’ll do it once, maybe twice, then I’ll just point out if they don’t fix the fundamental problem, they’re going to be stuck in a repetitive cycle. I’ve found that some of these folks have varying motivations for coming to me. Some actually want to shift their perspective, and I’ll happily participate in that. Others seem to want a boost, convince me they are indeed powerless before the world and want me to join them so they can feel solidarity, or usually some mixture of both. In those cases, it can become draining constantly focusing on the fallacy that I need to save them when they are unwilling to see their capacity to shift their perspective and embrace their own potential. In those cases, I’ll put boundaries up. If I interact with them to the point where it’s obvious that they’re falling back into the cycle, I’ll point it out and they usually fall quiet. If they keep insisting they’re right and that I need to agree that everything’s fucked, I’ll disagree on the grounds that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If they keep trying to bait me into pessimistic rabbit holes under the guise of innocent conversation, it’s time for me to let them be and let that relationship go. In all cases, I’ll probably start diminishing contact to whatever degree feels appropriate.

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     • Well, with any situation certainly it is important to understand the intent behind why a person is venting/complaining/recounting some sort of negative something. Especially if the person is a woman, sometimes they just want someone to mentally hold space with them and then give them a hug. To truly change, a person has to want that within themselves, so you are wise to recognize the limits of what any other person’s narrated experience or beliefs can do. I think the more that has to change in regards to something that is desired, though, the more difficult achieving or maintaining that can be if drastic big step changes are immediately attempted (I acknowledge though of course sometimes that drastic is necessary for certain things). I am reading a book by Jim Kwik right now, and one of the things he has noted that I agree with is that small steps often feel more doable in terms of having sticking power. Sometimes if a person is making small steps, it doesn’t seem like they’re too committed to another person initially, but they may end up doing better in the long run for having taken that approach. For myself, sometimes small steps on something at a time is the best I can manage for whatever reason. I think for me whether or not I start putting up boundaries might depend on the intent. Do they just need me to recognize their pain and give them a mental or actual hug and then they’re planning on doing something about it on their own? Many variables I guess, really, in my mind on this one.

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     • I’ve spent most of my life emotionally stunted, so I don’t really try and gauge what someone might need from me in that respect. I usually give them a chance with some contingencies in place, and if they screw it up, I might give them another one, but then it’s time for me to move on. I’m open to the possibility that our interaction may have hidden benefits for both them and me, that may surpass the measurement of immediate success/failure. Maybe they needed to have that encounter with me or vice versa, to set the stage for some future interaction that involves us both or maybe even more people. In any case, I’m not going into saving people mode if there’s demonstrable lack of viable commitment. Been there, done that, and it ended up with both me and them being angry at each other. They might need someone who has a greater tolerance for outreach than I do, which means it’s better for both me and them to break it off so they can find the right person.

       As far as the small steps, I find that extremely applicable on a personal level, especially when I’m stuck in negativity and it feels impossible or excruciating to think positively. That’s where I revert to feeling and accepting the negativity, because that’s definitely doable, also paired with refraining from venting to someone or actually acting it out, those are doable for me as well. It really does feel like a low-key magic trick when I process it into a critical mass of acceptance and my mood flips unexpectedly fast. And it never fails to surprise me how futile it seems to just process and accept. I know that it works, I know that it’s worked in the past, but it always feels like a fake remedy and a waste of time, and that the negativity will never end. Funny how visceral both sides of it are for me.

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     • Duly noted…never ask Kent to help with the chocolate addiction until I am ready to go cold turkey, lol! In all seriousness, I understand what you are saying and you are wise to know your self, your comfort levels, and what you can and can’t offer to others within that scope. And truly, unless a person does want to help themselves at whatever pace, nothing productive is going to happen. For me, sometimes a small step is all I am capable of…but, add enough of them together, and movement is made, growth towards what is desired is accomplished. So if that is the best that can be done for me or for others, I endorse it as being better than the reverse, which is stagnation or regression.

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     • Yeah, the stagnation or regression seems unnecessarily painful. I feel like oftentimes, it’s a sign from the deeper self that it’s time to shift gears, and that if someone doesn’t, they’ll keep ossifying and retreating until they go with the current, or they’ll pass on to the next life. I used to be emotionally invested in saving people from this, but as I grow older, I trust more and more in their power and right to shape their experience. As mentioned before, I don’t mind helping, but I’m not going to be some try-hard martyr so folks can applaud my vaunted nobility, only to inspire those who were going to find inspiration regardless, or implicitly shame those who weren’t. No one needs any of that, especially me!

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     • I think that is gracefully put, when you talk about trusting in their power and right to shape their experience. Sometimes it can be painful for me to watch someone I love make choices that bring them pain/sadness/less of the type of life experience they say they are wanting. But it is their right, just as it has been mine.

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     • Indeed. I also think that if it is actually my role to lift someone up and inspire them, the best way to do that is by example, and if I’m constantly focusing on the suffering and powerlessness of others, then I’m weighing myself down, ironically lessening the strength of the example I’m hoping to set. Due to my beliefs, it is a win-win approach: my life is first and foremost meant to be fulfilling to me, and when I honor that, others can find solace in me as an example of fulfillment. I am also empowering myself, so that if it truly is my calling to outwardly help them, I am in the best position to do so. That’s how I see it, anyway.

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     • I think that’s a tricky line to walk when the person one is watching suffer is a child. For me personally. I think there is a lot to be admired and learned from in your approach. Wishing you a wonderful day 🙂

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     • It is definitely tricky with a child. I think there’s existential, deeper-self stuff involved with a kid, what some might interpret as fate or destiny. I still think it can be applicable, though maybe the articulation would have to be changed for the demanding and more complicated context. Though it’s easy to say from a non-kid perspective, I would like to think if I ever had a kid, the things I would do around them would set an empowered example, where they would learn to step into their own potential and personal agency. It probably wouldn’t look like that at first, but I’d like to think over the course of time, that’s the example I would set.

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     • Well, I will be the first person to tell you I was completely naive as regards to how simple I thought parenting was going to be. I felt like I was adequately prepared with having read through enough books on childhood development, healthy parenting techniques, and anything that I felt could be relevant…my commitment to provide a safe and loving environment was a given. Younger me definitely had a much more naive view that if all of these things were in place and adhered to, a child would feel loved, things would go as smoothly as possible, angels would sing, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I had no freaking clue. Just saying. I stand incredibly corrected by life and the unique personalities that grace our family. I love my children, but I think all my expectations would have been more useful as kindling.

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     • My speculation leans toward younger you’s conviction as a pivotal piece of what your multilayered self wanted from life, in that kids were meant to be part of your path. I was given a perspective that very clearly did not want or maybe even allow for that experience. I remember my ex’s brother being given all the opportunities and attention you would think would aid in his success, from attention to extracurriculars to opportunity to pursue his interests, yet he consistently fell short in applying himself, get in trouble with the law, and carry that dynamic into adulthood. It really hammered home to me that everyone is here to choose their own experience, and even if you socially engineer someone in their formative years, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll be happy with the outcome. Ultimately, I find that comforting. To me, it leaves a logical opening for the possibility that an individual has the ultimate say, and, of course, with all the premises I stack into my beliefs, I believe this is the case, even though it may not be logically sound.

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     • You are right, kids were supposed to be part of my path and I have known it since I was a little girl. I believe we discussed this long ago in the previously cleaned comments, but when I got the call for a child to be placed with us for foster care, I was given the information for two different babies at the same time and asked to pick which one came to us. I knew that Tony was the one who needed me, there was really almost no information available on either one of them, I just knew that he was the one that needed me. And I knew the night Hannah was conceived, and I knew I was going to be carrying a girl. I know some people might shake their head on that one, I just knew, and I think that she also was a spirit that was meant to interact with mine as regards to a parent-child relationship. I think you are right. You can give someone near perfect conditions and that does not mean they will thrive, and you can have someone exceed any sort of expectation for their background just because they are that kind of resilient weed in life so to speak. (I don’t knock weeds the way some people do -unless I’m having to pull them from my own yard to keep the HOA happy- where I live some of the things that are considered weeds have some pretty cute flowers, lol).

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     • I think both those are so cool! As much as I blab about the philosophical framework that leads to my belief in a benevolence underlying existence, there are things that happen that sometimes cause me to experience doubt, uncertainty, and/or frustration at a visceral level, even though I have firmly embraced the logical inevitability of it. So I very much enjoy hearing about those instances, where I have the option to infer that you are being guided by a deeper piece of yourself. In almost all instances of family, I believe that it’s an agreement that is made at the spirit level. I could argue that from several perspectives, but logically, it’s crucial to preserve my framework of an existence where I’m not doomed to malice or a critical degree of randomness that equates to the same thing.

       I never got the hate against weeds, but I’m probably not taking a long term perspective on em. Aren’t dandelions weeds? I always thought they were kind of cool. But I guess if they run amuck I can conceptually understand the possibility where they kill everything else and there’s no room for other plants. Still, there’s weeds in nature, and I don’t see them swamping entire swaths of forest. That’s probably a limited view, though, since a neighborhood probably isn’t as balanced or diverse as a piece of wild ecosystem. To be honest, I kind of like raccoons as well, although I’m against coyotes and rats simply for health and safety (for dogs) purposes.

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     • My deeper self is very hands-onsy with giving out the guidance, lol. I totally love dandelions! And technically, yes, they are considered weeds. So is milkweed, but it’s an important part of the butterfly food chain. The choices humans make as regards to modern aesthetics aren’t really good for the eco systems at large. My grandmother always had dandelions interspersed in her grass, and they didn’t really kill it at all, but some ”weeds” can of course either kill or stunt the growth of surrounding plants. Any organism competing for the same resources can have that effect, we’ve just made decisions about what does or doesn’t deserve to grow based on our own views on aesthetics in my opinion. Raccoons aren’t really a concern where I live, but the coyotes are. When we first moved into this home, you could hear outdoor cats getting attacked and eaten. We’ve encountered them out on walks, and it used to make me nervous when Tony was younger and not as flexible or compliant with safety instructions. As the area has become more developed, they come down into our area less and he’s just an entirely different kiddo to be in the community with than he was two years ago even, he’ll follow any of my directional instructions, tolerate denials for just about anything, and he’s compliant with most safety instructions immediately. So I don’t sweat them as much for myself, but I can understand why the owner of a small dog with a dog door or an outdoor cat might be more concerned…

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     • Interesting! From what some doomsayers would tell me, any kind of weed on a property, dandelion or no, spelled the end of times for the rest of the plants.

       In San Francisco, there’s a bunch of varying micro terrains and climates crammed into a relatively small area, so the wildlife was diverse as well. I remember walking dogs in a pretty human-occupied park called the Presidio, and there’d occasionally be a single coyote watching us, which was a little spooky. Also, Fort Funston had hawks that made me nervous for my little 10 lb. feisty terrier. I’m pretty sure you’d like that one–it was a mix of cliffs, beach, and trees that looked like giant bonsais and permanently leaned in one direction because of the wind. It also had hang-gliders!

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     • Yeah… I’m definitely not one to give the gloom and doom message on the weeds. I think, If I had my own personal wish, it would be to live in a yard that was a bit more harmonious with the way nature cultivates itself. I think for me with coyotes, seeing a lone coyote almost makes me more nervous than seeing just a pack of them where I live, although always one has to respect the pack dynamic can make them a little more fearless about attacking certain things. But there’s always a question mark in my mind about whether a loan coyote is a rabid coyote. I’ve seen coyotes working in pairs trying to find outdoor pets, and even that makes me less nervous than one that’s out prowling around our neighborhood by itself. Yeah, what you described does indeed look like something I personally would very much enjoy from the aesthetics end of things and from what personally resonates with me. Ever since I developed POTS, I need some sort of soundtrack with ocean waves to improve the quality of my sleep because it just feels peaceful to me the ocean. That being said, living near water with Tony would make me very nervous…

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     • I’m a fan of San Francisco, and I might take steps to resettle there in the future. It’s inconvenient for people unless they’re in upper income brackets, so that’s something I’d factor in. (I can kind of understand the real estate prices, but why are the food prices like 30% higher? Maybe it’s because the cost of resupply is higher due to all the one-way streets). I lived in probably a 100 sq ft studio for about 1.2k a month with its own kitchen and bathroom, and that was considered an incredible catch among the renting population, because for that money at the time, you’re usually renting a room in a house with shared bathroom and kitchen. I answered the ad in about an hour after it posted, by the time I got to the place an hour or so later, the owners had over sixty calls asking about it. Nevertheless, I got to live a few blocks from ocean beach, which meant I could bike through the Presidio or across Golden Gate Bridge. Because of the hilly terrain, the micro-climates were close to each other, so it was pretty neat going from fog to sunshine in a few blocks. Taking in sweeping views of ocean bordered by rolling green hills and dotted with giant seagull dotted rocks wasn’t bad either.
       Also, Golden Gate Park was a few blocks south, so I could wander through it and look at redwoods, their flower displays, or the bison in the big-range paddock. There was so much neat stuff in that city, a great amount of background residency and variation, so I wouldn’t mind going back. The idea of NYC kind of attracts me because people are busy and driven, so I figure if I don’t want to talk to someone, I can look busy or driven in the worst case scenario, or, more likely, I’ll be around busy driven people who won’t want to talk, lol! Ironically, although I don’t have much interest in fashion, I like the fact that New Yorkers seem to enjoy dressing and presenting themselves in a self-expressive way, which isn’t necessarily all expensive brand names. I’d like to hang around Manhattan in the winter and see all the neat winter fashion (although I’d probably bum around in a sweater and jeans). But I’m not so sure about the rats and roaches. I’d also like to hang around some old-school New Yorkers and just listen to them talk. They have this catchy way of speaking that always draws me in, kind of like this thought-out stoicism with unexpected bursts of poetic blue-collar-sounding eloquence. I remember when I was a kid, people assumed that a thick New York accent meant you were stupid, but I never understood that, I always thought it sounded cool. Dead last on my list is the Midwest. I grew up in Madison WI. The black ice, hordes of mosquitos, big-ass carpenter ants as big as the tip of your finger, months upon months of dog poop and pee-colored snow…fuck that 😂

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     • ok, yeah, your description of the Midwest makes it sound totally unappealing! I have never been there before, so I am not qualified to comment I will just have to take your word for it 😊 Sounds like you know what you want, And I hope that life finds a way to bring it to you, or that you find a way to bring it to yourself 😁 I have left that part of my script unwritten for now. I know I will be in Arizona for the near foreseeable future, past that point I will just see what happens and where life takes me…

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     • I think that’s the right attitude! I’ve had friends that hop around locations but carry their same problems from one place to another and use the new setting to try and distract themselves. I believe the possibly annoyingly smug saying goes wherever you go, there you are. And with my beliefs, I am inclined to think that with a positive resonance, a present location will be enjoyable, and/or opportunities to move to more enjoyable location will naturally arise and feel like the correct thing to pursue. And vice versa with a not so positive resonance–it won’t really matter where someone goes.

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     • I think there is a lot of wisdom in what you say. Something I have observed in people I have personally known who felt like a change of scenery would fix their problems because they’ve put rose colored glasses on about any place that isn’t their right now, is that there is a fixation on everything that is going wrong. Things will always be going wrong in life…just as there will be things that are going well. But if the negative stuff is magnified in one place, it will be magnified in another. I think that if one cultivates an attitude around finding things to be delighted in, that kind of helps no matter where you are. Just my thoughts. That being said, I think sometimes it can benefit someone to move away from certain circumstances, I think context matters as with everything. I feel that if I remain open to what could happen once his therapy needs stabilize a bit, I won’t place too much of my happiness on the outcome and it won’t be as important a factor in that.

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     • Indeed! Although to be honest, I use to condemn the assignment of blame to externalities and went the other way and sneakily hindered myself: by blaming my internal lack of whatever quality was supposedly the answer. So for years, ironically, I scoffed at people who blamed outward conditions, only to be blaming my own (or their) internal state as the purveyor of fault. The whole time, I was still caught in the paradigm of blame, only I was “right” and they were “wrong.”
       Nowadays, I might fall into the trap of “stop blaming,” but I’ve come to find out that’s also unproductive, because I’m still focusing on blame and fighting my inflamed ego, which really wants to blame. So to beat a dead horse once again, for me it is about acceptance. If I’m tangled up in blame, accept that I’m blaming, doesn’t matter if it’s internal states or externalities, it’s still blame and wants to be validated and processed.
       Or I might need to accept that I’m suppressing my inflamed ego (if I’m beating myself up for blaming and telling myself to stop blaming). That will shift my resonance to acceptance, which allows for neutrality, which allows for lightness/freedom of focus and then default positivity.

       As far as the move to somewhere else, I think in a positive resonance, the opportunities and nudges will become increasingly abundant and more convenient, or they might morph into better opportunities and more pleasant and obvious nudges. In a negative resonance, I believe the nudges and negative synchronicities will become harsher and harsher, because in that resonance, negative stimulus is the only message a negatively resonant consciousness is ready to hear, and the only one that will really hit home. These, of course, aren’t really subject to data collection and rigorous assignment of causation, and have to stay in the realm of my personal opinion.

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     • Well, I personally (and again, this is just anecdotal) tend to think that even if a person is resonating with the negative as regards to outcomes, the universe will still send a certain number of rescue nudges their way, beacons if you will that can light the way to a different path, etc. Of course a person can choose what they do with that information, but I think those moments can still be there until a person makes a game over level of choice.

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     • You bring up a great point, because in my statement, it could be construed as an impersonal existential mechanism where you get what you get with the implication that’s what you deserve. I firmly believe in a benevolent core existence, and although it will honor the power and choice of negative resonance through negative circumstance, it will also send those rescue nudges if the person is ready to hear them, negativity or no. I’ll wander into speculative territory by stating that I don’t really believe in negativity as a core pillar within existence, I see it as a redirection or cutting off of positivity. A more succinct way to put it would be I believe I’m so abundant I can manifest an abundance of lack, or that I’m so powerful and free that I can opt for bondage. It’s why I stepped away from Taoism when I was younger, because that one is very often interpreted as tit-for-tat, impersonal balance. Very good point on your part, although I want to be respectful of your boundaries as far as bad circumstances being conflated with choice which opens an avenue to victim-blaming. As we’ve discussed, there has to be a good amount of additional premises that stacks on to my statement, reincarnation being one of them, to honor the spirit and concept of a core benevolence that pervades existence.

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     • Every now and then I have a good point, lol. Well, just my take on this: I think that sometimes even if a person isn’t ready to hear it, or might not initially even have wanted to hear it, a person’s guardian angels or spirit guides or intuition or whatever a person feels most comfortable referring to that kind of protective energy force as will step in and give nudges or warnings because there is caring and love there, and they are trying to provide direction to help a person with part of their life mission, etc. I appreciate the respect for my circumstances as previously discussed. I think sometimes people go through things that have everything to do with the choices of others, but that it is complicated and I can’t claim to have verifiable, empirically provable answers to anything related to the spiritual whys and wherefores of that.

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     • Yes, I agree, it’s definitely complicated. In order to argue for the concept of a benevolent existence with true free will, I haven’t seen any other alternative than to accept the idea of a deeper self, as well as a surface consciousness that can act in ways that go against its own long-term interests.

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     • I am going to add something really quick now that I’ve had some more time to solidify my thoughts on how I feel most comfortable talking about it and before the conversation moves completely in a different direction. Sometimes I feel a little uncomfortable when someone describes my pre-POTS memory as in any way cool because I think the idea of something can sometimes be very different from the living of something. For example, I have a very vivid and clear memory of being in a class with a teacher whose tests were notoriously difficult and being always the only person with an A and I remember the first time he explained to the class why there would be no curve and he pointed to me and said if she can do it all of you can do it… Do you want to know how many friends I had in that class? Zero. Sometimes just for existing and being the way that I am and doing the things to the level I was born to with my memory put me in very difficult situations with people because I either had to throw something in the sense that I had to be less than I was to keep the peace or I ran the risk of alienating people with that far more than my empathy or compassion ever could. Sometimes when there is a situation that directly impacts me, I’m never going to “throw” the result. I can’t change that I was born with my memory working that way, and I don’t have any control over how it has gone over with others. Perhaps if I were a man it would have been perceived differently by some because from my perspective there does seem to be a little bit of a double standard there in terms of what is acceptable and what isn’t. The next thing I would say is that it is a gift perhaps with a tranquil life, but if there is in any way above average trauma, being able to recall certain things vividly doesn’t feel gift-like. All of that being said, I acknowledge all of the ways I took it for granted as I live out my post POTS reality, and it was definitely very helpful, but I would also say it came with challenges that the living through them feels a lot different and it feels far more complicated than I could ever feel comfortable saying that I felt like it was cool. It is just the way that it was… That’s just my perspective on it, I apologize if I made you uncomfortable. I appreciate that you chat with me and wishing you a wonderful day 😊

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     • I’m not sure why you’d think that would make me uncomfortable…but thanks for being considerate! As far as being intellectually above average, I suppose it comes down to the fulfillment that comes with it. Personally, I never found fulfillment in being good at academics, and I think I can understand (not relate to, because I never experienced alienation via grades) what you’re getting at. I vividly remember getting straight As as a freshman in high school, my mom was stoked, my aunt/uncle gave me money and praised me…and I didn’t care. I thought it was cool right afterwards, but doing it again and again was not enticing to me (although ironically, in college, I mostly got As, but I wasn’t laser-focused on it like that first year of high school). You seem to value human connection and warmth, so I can see how that might contribute to a negative experience. I’ve always prized convenience and ease, even when I was younger. When I was younger, I specifically worked hard towards things I thought would yield an abundance of convenience and ease in the future. Now that I’m older, I’d rather find convenience and ease in the moment. I still act with prudence financially, physically, and in long-term planning, but it’s not like where I was younger, where I was looking to pressure myself as hard as I could in the moment to eke out future gains. I think I’m probably different from you in my need for human contact. I might hang out with a local vet buddy maybe once a week at the most, usually once every three weeks or every month. Then I have a biweekly video call with my family for an hour, and as far as dogs, I’m happy to love em up for a few minutes between sets at the gym. Almost all of my fulfillment comes from writing and editing my stories. However, I’d like to raise the possibility that there might be folks out there who truly find fulfillment in academia, in getting a good grade. Definitely not me, though, lol! I remember reading about Taylor Swift as a kid, how she would play guitar until her fingers bled, and I remember thinking that I was glad she found something she could focus on to that degree and seemingly enjoy. (I’m definitely not going to play guitar that much, if at all). Regardless, I’m glad that for all the ups and downs, you get to experience enough of your purpose to garner fulfillment and synchronicity out of your life. From what you’ve said, it seems like you are checking the most important boxes for you as an individual.

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     • I think, to split hairs a bit, that what I was trying to say wasn’t so much about being intellectually above average or having academic success. There are so many subjectives involved in either of those, and to be perfectly honest the former has never been my top concern. Rather, it was more about the results I either needed to get or wanted to get. In that class, I needed an A. A more important question in my opinion might be, was it fair for that professor to hold the rest of the class to the standard of a person who could do that as easy as they woke up breathing and not really spend much if any time studying? But then, that professor didn’t know that’s how I was. Perhaps he thought I just put in a bunch of time nobody else did, but then maybe he should have wondered why there was such a big spread between my grade and everyone else in the class… for every single test. The thing is, if I needed a result that my memory gave me in those situations, sometimes there was no saving relationships with people who didn’t want to either be in my shadow (and I actually have had someone I cared about say that to me) or be that far in the shadow as they perceived it. That’s the down side of the competitive nature of humans in my opinion. I could be the nicest person in the world, I could have done everything I could to be there for them before I needed to play the memory card, and that wouldn’t fix it for some people the moment I had to lay that card down. So, if you are a person who values human connection (you nailed my peg shape on that one!), being born with a memory like that cuts as much as it gives. Because then you either have to be less than you are to be liked or loved sometimes, or you can be what you are. Sometimes you have to choose, and sometimes what comes from that feels sucky. Hence my view that it’s more complicated than just being cool. Kinda not always. I’d just like to be me without having an entire class of people decide that’s reason enough to dislike or have it out for me so to speak. I am glad that you’re writing is most of the fulfillment you need! I wish you happy writing!! 🙂 Ari

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     • I’m not a fan of my memory either. I used to think it was pretty cool that I could remember a lot more data than everyone else, to the point where I could regularly bring things up and they’d snap their fingers and be like oh yeah, I completely forgot about that, but over the years I noticed that if you combined it with my creativity and desire to punish, to “put people in their place,” or “teach them a lesson,” I’d basically have a ton of data to make the case as to why I should hate someone. In the last two or three years, my memory has gotten worse in those areas and I don’t really mind (I think I transitioned it into writing, because while I’m editing, especially in the later stages, I pretty much become a scholar of my own work, adding in callbacks from the end of the book to the beginning, or the series in this case, finicking out super small details as far as who said what, why a brief mention can serve as explanation for a potentially big subject, etc.) I also have started to believe less in linear time, so on the far-kooky end of the spectrum, I believe that remembering good things or imagining good things from the past is a way to experience a present where those things were in fact the case (interestingly enough, imagination apparently activates the same pieces of brain as memory, which may or not mean anything significant). Nowadays, I like to believe that I will remember what I need to when I need to remember it, and that my happiest way forward is, as the horse beaten to death would say, being present, being nice to myself, and allowing myself the experience of negative feeling if that’s what arises without any prompting.

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     • For me personally I would say it is more complicated, again, then just stating I wasn’t or am not a fan of the memory I had pre-POTS. Definitely it made certain aspects of my relationships (or my ability to even have them with others) more complicated and more painful. When I was younger I would get so confused as to why people were so upset when we would have a disagreement about something that was more factually based and I would just insist that they look it up or something, and in being right I would get a lot of comments about how I was just trying to win. I didn’t really see it that way most of the time, I saw it more as I felt like it was important that everything was factually accurate in the discussion. The “know it all” doesn’t fare well in a group, so I learned to decrease my comments or pull back even when I knew it was not something I was wrong on and say hey maybe I’ve got it wrong just for the sake of the relationship if it was a relationship that mattered to me. But as I said in my last comment, the relationship carnage could be far more extensive (and emotionally expensive) even than that. That being said, waking up to my post POTS reality was a huge and somewhat unpleasant shock to my system. I actually went through a bit of a grieving process, because even for all of the painful moments I did rely heavily on something I was just born with and didn’t have to work for. Now I find myself looking up and studying memory techniques so that I can do more and more with the time that I have even with the limitations that I have and it gives me a greater appreciation of the ease with which I did certain things, but I would still say it is complicated and too complicated to describe as cool for me personally, though even for all of that as my symptoms have improved the initial memory fog I woke up to is dramatically different, I just definitely still don’t have the memory I did and can forget things much more easily. I am just not one who is prone to hate or punish per say. I feel like helping somebody understand the why of something is far more likely in my opinion to change their behavior. What might be common sense to me might not be common sense to them, and if I assume a misunderstanding rather than ill intent my emotions are a lot less riled. But that is just my perspective, I certainly had my angry spitting fire internally or externally kind of moments, so I can’t say I have lived every moment peaceably, especially if I have been sleep deprived 😅 I’m really happy that you have found an outlet that brings you joy for your memory and your skill set 🎉

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     • I can definitely relate to the hostility from wanting to look things up. I remember a specific instance with my ex where she claimed that there was a city in China that had hundreds of millions, and I got really excited because I thought the idea of that was pretty incredible. But when I pulled out my phone to look it up, she started acting like I was insulting her or something and became sarcastic, asking me oh you’re going to look it up now? Of course I’m going to look it up–I want to know how they pull something like that off! (the biggest cities have tens of millions, Tokyo has 37 million, a couple million less than California!) I think it plays into my creativity, in that I’ve always been somewhat gullible because I’ve been willing to believe things without a societal filter of consensus or “common sense” (allows me to take my fictional stuff seriously without dismissing it as ridiculous or far-fetched). That’s also probably why I like to keep to myself. Some folks don’t want to hear me go into a rabbit hole with speculative stuff or abstract thought experiments. I can go pretty far interacting with people with more mundane stuff, but at a certain depth in the conversation, the thought is going to bubble up in my head where I wonder what more do you want, what are you doing to move toward it, and vibe with that excitement of potential and growth. But in a lot of cases, people kind of blank out or shut down if I bring that stuff up, so I let it go because I don’t want to hurt or shame them by inadvertently implying they’re not doing as much as they should. I’m pretty sure they’ll get around to it or something similar, but in their own time, and not necessarily in this life, so they don’t need me poking and prodding them and making them feel bad about it.

       I’m not sure if it’ll work for you, but there’s studies correlating cognitive functioning to certain supplementation or nutritional factors. Off the top of my head, I think lion’s mane mushroom has been proven to induce neurogenesis in mice and improved cognition in humans (not sure you could prove neurogenesis in humans unless you killed them). Also quality fish oil, and all that stuff. Definitely a rabbit hole where you can lose yourself, but if it’s part of your path, maybe it’ll help. I used to be proud of being very timely for even small admin things (kind of a low-stakes KIM or keep-in-mind game, which is more a military-oriented thing), but now I just write it in a calendar above my desk, or set an alarm for it in my phone 😅 As far as writing stuff, I forget way more than I remember, but if I want to flesh something out, I’ll put it in brackets right at the relevant point in my manuscript, then once I do it, I take out my little bracketed cliff’s note.

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     • Well, in my case, it was generally me telling them to look it up because they were convinced they were right and I was confident they weren’t. And *that’s* not a rabbit hole we need to go down any further. I don’t imagine it was easy or comfortable to have been either party in those exchanges. For the most part, I just came to prefer a nice, quiet life where I didn’t need to have those kinds of moments with people. And now I don’t, lol. Wish it long enough and the universe has your back and provides, also lol. But in all seriousness, the POTS developed right after developing Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, which was triggered by the anaphylaxis and probably helped along by my high-stress life. Until I loose the one (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome), I may never loose the other. I can’t be medicated for the POTS, already doing the lions mane, and I’ll spare you the nitty gritty of the details and just leave it as I have a plan, I’ve been working on it, sometimes it’s really not helped by my schedule or my stress, but I’m doing the best I can with that and someday, once Tony’s in a place where he doesn’t need me in school, perhaps I will be able to get to the most healed point I can with all of that. I do great for an unmedicated person with POTS, and I am thankful every single day. I know of people who are unable to work, unable to exercise…I chose not to embrace fear when diagnosed but to be proactive and hope, and I am grateful for what I even have and perhaps some day it will be more. But it is enough to do the most important things right now. And, I totally have to have reminders on my phone now. Didn’t use to need them, but yep. Grateful to have the option now!!! 😀

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     • Yes, I’m with you! I think in the last 3 years, I’ve decided I’d much rather be at peace than “right.” I got really good at arguing for awhile, but I found that even if you “beat” someone in debate, even if you get them to agree with your course of action and viewpoint, they tend to cherrypick new evidence which will reinforce their resonance. Basically, if someone is determined to condemn, they will find something to condemn. If they have decided they will lose and the universe is against them, they will tap into a constant stream of evidence that will allow them to reinforce that viewpoint. Changing someone’s resonance, in my experience, is like trying to hold back the tide. You can put in some sandbags here and there, but it’s only a matter of time before they find some way around them. It’s really up to them to shift their own outlook, and while I don’t mind expressing an opposing point of view if I’m not forcing it or being needy about it, I’m not going to invest myself in trying to dictate someone’s path into what I think is “right.” I trust in what I think is “right” enough to believe that it has its own self-authenticating power, and if I need to play a part in its expression, I’ll be guided by synchronicity and inspiration. I’m glad that you’re finding ways to navigate your challenges! I remember you said that you recovered to the point where you can have a cup of coffee, maybe two or three cups is in the cards!

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     • Sometimes I think it can be more complicated than just choosing peace. There are sometimes where I have to own and defend the rightness that I believe is in my hand. I have found that definitely to be necessary in my role as a parent. And it doesn’t matter sometimes how gracefully you try to do it, there can be times where if you have to challenge a person who is highly credentialed because they are going to insist they are right when that’s not exactly supported by the data, observations, documentation, or even peer-reviewed literature, and then on top of that when the data, documentation , and/or the funding source and or all of the above backs you up… Not pleasant. And definitely not peaceful. But sometimes essential and necessary. Which is why I’m super glad I can drink up to 32 oz a day of coffee right now and a cup of tea. I was having breakfast with my friend Gena about a week and a half ago and she gave me second pass on a revolution tea bag that was I think Spanish white peach and ginger… Super yummy and I had to buy myself some! Black tea-based and I can have a cup of that with 24 oz of coffee in my day and I’m reducing salt intake and it’s a happy thing just being able to do the coffee and the tea. I need to get going into my son’s school now, wishing you a wonderful day and I will respond to the other comment sometime later in the afternoon.

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     • I think sometimes choosing peace is actually impossible, but I do think it is possible to choose the most peaceFUL, if that makes sense. As with all things for me, it’s a function of being open with myself, allowing for synchronicity, and accepting whatever arises in regard to both the internal and external. My priority at this point in life is trusting my gamemaster self isn’t being inattentive and evil, and giving my player/character self a chance to have an adventure, rather than sticking him in a horrific inevitability.

       As far as the coffee…woot woot! 32 oz is four regular servings! Last I remember, you were either at 8 oz or 16, I’m not sure. For me, there’s nothing better than coffee while writing about cool stuff (not a big part in the story and not a spoiler, but yesterday I downloaded the concept of a city/range of glaciers that were as clear as glass and veined with miles-long swaths of gemstones and I threw it into the book). But I imagine if I wasn’t as driven by creativity, I would enjoy sipping coffee on a porch with a lazy old golden or lab, watching the sun come up and hearing the birds chirping.

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     • Sometimes in my role as a mother, it isn’t always possible to choose the most peaceful. Sometimes all of the options suck, and I can only go with the one that does the least amount of damage to the needs of my child while respecting what he has communicated to me his wants and needs are as regards to what he wants to see happening. As regards to the situation I was thinking of when I made that comment, the most peaceful thing I could choose after the other stuff I did was to choose not to sue for malpractice and to not leave a public review. The reality is there would have been some very real problems with just terminating services on my end with that provider the moment things are going wrong with their programming and they’ve signaled they will only do the programming designed by that one person with my kiddo and nothing else. But you really don’t need to be involved in the details behind that. Sometimes it’s just a suck fest no matter what needs to be chosen on the emotional and interpersonal level, and about the only thing I can do is make the choses that do the most for meeting his needs. So for me, finding new teas or a coffee I enjoy or a book…it’s kind of building an emotional care package. I don’t need pity or anything of the sort, but sometimes I wish the people involved in that exchange could have looked at me as a person and asked themselves what they would have wanted to see happen or needed if they had been in my shoes. It is what it is.

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     • At the risk of nitpicking semantics, I would say that it still can qualify as the most peaceful if I have to fight or argue. In my mind, it’s not really an objective measure of peace and calm, but the least resistant path that opens before me. I’m in the process of forming the belief that as illusions of separations that spring from existence, we aren’t meant to avoid all unpleasantness, as we’re cast into separation so we can experience contrast, as that is an experience unique to separation. But along with that, I also believe that oftentimes, I have experienced way more unpleasantness than I needed to, going way past the purpose of contrast and straight into the realm of unnecessary suffering. For me, that practically boils down to acceptance and engagement, or validating and making peace with what is arising from within and without, and being present with it.

       I’m sure those folks will come around and be nicer, sooner or later or much much later. Regardless, I’m glad you got through it and you’re getting to enjoy coffee again. I remember when I first started drinking it in my early thirties, it was purely for health purposes when I found out it could be good for you if you take it black, but I wasn’t a fan of the flavor. Now I low-key enjoy the taste. I guess that’s how folks get around to enjoying the taste of alcohol. Never stopped tasting like medicine to me, though, plus I could feel how it weakened me for days afterward. No thank you!

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     • Yeah, I think if there is something I over-react to, I have invited more suffering into my life than was necessary. And I agree that accepting something goes a long way to making a situation more peace-filled, even if it wasn’t so full of peace in the moment.

       Well, I can’t drink because of my medical history and now POTS. But, I think I would choose to mostly avoid it even if I could. When I was a teenager, my parents would buy me any alcohol I wanted, and I was one unhappy girl and while I wouldn’t drink on school nights, I drank heavily on the weekends, and I swear I could feel some brain cells dying after every hangover, lol. I was more of a peppermint schnapps or amaretto or mixed drink kind of girl, I tried to do everything I could to make sure any drinks I made lost the medicinal feel, but it usually took a combination of things that could leave a person in a sugar coma, so…but yeah, anything I drank straight, I see your point. Not the greatest taste. For me also coffee took some getting used to and was an acquired taste. Sometimes I put DMannose in mine (prone to UTI’s if I take too many baths, etc, and it’s a godsend for preventing those) but usually I prefer black or with almond milk. The White Peach Ginger tea I really loved, because it doesn’t have any bitterness as an aftertaste, which sometimes tea can.

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     • I think at this point, my brain has fallen into a Pavlovian response in regards to coffee. Like it’s time to write and then workout! Both activities I find enjoyable in and of themselves, but the extra energy makes it extra enjoyable. So I’m pretty sure the taste just fell in line with that and became enjoyable as well. As far as alcohol, I associate that with getting drunk around other people, and since I don’t enjoy being drunk or around other people, I think the taste has added an extra level of discouragement for me, lol!

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     • 😂👍

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     • Quick ps…the glacier idea sound cool, I look forward to reading it 😀

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     • Thanks! Yeah it just fell into my head while I was writing. I was ruminating yesterday about some gripes I had with LOTR, how a lot of it was basically just fantasy architecture set in mostly Earth-world terrain. For Evermoor, I wanted the presence of magic to really make the terrain pop and dazzle. Typically, fantasy stuff has a beautiful outdoorsy nature vibe that’s still very Earthlike. But if magic is part of that world, why not up the ante? Scifi seems to do a better job of that, really incorporating machinery and tech into the surroundings. One of my rules for writing is how much can I up the ante without losing the vibe and going into ridiculousness, and I felt that applying that to the terrain was a must for me.

       Also, while I’m griping about Lord of the Rings, one of my biggest complaints in the movies is when Aragorn reveals a reforged Narsil. I was like dude, that is a magic sword to end all magic swords, and the reveal is him just pulling a shiny sword out of its sheath and staring at it in awe? That’s why I had Jon complaining about Sting (a magic sword that glows around orcs and goblins? Come on, that’s the tamest magic sword I’ve ever heard of!) and also why I wanted Erany claiming the Rosecraft Blade to be a big visual spectacle. My take on magic swords has been influenced by He-Man, She-Ra, and the appendix of magic items in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, so Narsil just looking extra shiny was a big disappointment. To be fair, though, Tolkien was breaking tons of new ground when he wrote LOTR, so the paradigm of magic items was still in its infancy when that story came out. This may sound silly, but I think He-Man and She-Ra were the true markers of a paradigm shift for me when it came to magic swords. I still wanna cheer if I watch either of them transform! 🤣

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     • That is something that I do actually really appreciate and love about your world building for this series, you have definitely embraced the idea of landscapes that reflect the magical and are not simply a replica of our earth. I loved watching He-Man and She-Re when I was younger…child of the 80’s, what can I say 😀 I look forward to reading it, I can tell you are excited about what you are creating and that’s really cool! I need to get going for now…wishing you a wonderful day 😀

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     • Thanks! I feel like I kinda stumbled onto a largely unexplored issue in the magical ecology that has a lot of potential. The seeds probably got planted when I first saw Avatar and, like everyone else, I was blown away by the flora, fauna, and floating giant rockscapes.

       Yeah, those 80s cartoons were the best! Maybe not in terms of stories or production value, but their theme songs will forever live on in my head, plus I think that’s where the world first started seeing super-transformations like He-man, She-ra, and Voltron. I’m a big fan of those, and I like to put em in when I can. If there’s anything that gets burned into an audience’s brain, it’s an uber-cool power-transformation with a catchy theme that’s uplifting and exciting. When I watch reboots of eighties stuff, I’m always put off if they ditch the theme music or fall short on the transformation. Modifying the music is fine, but come on! That’s a key ingredient! Anyways, if I was in charge of Hollywood, I’d be looking for excuses to incorporate power-transformations into stuff for adults as well as kids. I don’t think I’ve seen a power-transformation in anything outside of kids’ stuff…I’m glad I threw one in Echo near the end, lol!

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     • I have never seen Avatar 😅🙈 I definitely can see your point though about how many books and the fantasy genre don’t stray too far from the planet earth template in terms of landscape or world building. When I was a little girl, I was a bit of a mix and that I wanted my Barbies and I wanted transformer toys, though my family could usually never get the brand name of either. Perhaps transformative elements speak to people because perhaps many people would like to have the power to transform their lives at some point into something dramatically different. 🤷‍♀️

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     • Oh man, you are in for a treat! Never realized I would shed a tear for CGI animals, cheer against humans, or be 100% on board with ditching my body to be a giant blue alien, but James Cameron made it happen, lol! The first one is pretty breathtaking in terms of creating an entirely new ecosystem which is a work of art from every angle. The second one does the same but with water stuff instead of forest. I remember reading articles where people suffered Post Avatar Depression Syndrome because the world in Avatar is so beautiful and they were depressed because they couldn’t physically visit it. I was just happy that someone put all that cool stuff on screen!

       Transformers were pretty high up on my list of toys I wanted when I was a kid, but I remember they got expensive for the regular size ones, so I stuck with go-bots and a smaller transformer here or there. For a while, Optimus Prime was definitely the cool toy on the block! Yeah, I think you might be on to something with the power transformation. I guess in hindsight, it has been in an adult movie, although lower-key in the Matrix. There’s a reason why “I know kung fu” has been one of the more quotable lines, I think. Instantly downloading decades of knowledge isn’t as badass as a Voltron transformation, but it’s still pretty cool.

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     • Ah, well, I’ve always known I could cry for any non-human non existent character. Cried like crazy when I both read and then when I watched the animated movie for “Watership Down.” I don’t know how high Avatar is on my priorities list for viewing…might not get there for a while, but good to know it doesn’t suck 🙂 Wishing you a wonderful day 😀

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     • I remember reading that in high school, but not too much of it. The one memory I have is there’s an extremely badass rabbit named El Ahrairah that doesn’t take shit 😂 May have to give the movie a watch.

       Yeah, Avatar is pretty rote as far as story, but it’s well-paced and has good energy, so I didn’t mind. In terms of visual storytelling, it’s absolutely incredible. I never had a problem with CGI, but I know some boomer-types grumbled about it when the Matrix came out (I was like what??? How could you not like the Matrix?). Avatar is way more CGI, and I like to think it erases all doubt that it doesn’t belong in a movie. For me, it was like looking at an actual landscape where you can feel the expansive openness not just in your mind, but also on your skin and in the air, but it’s done in an alien landscape where even though you might only see a glimpse here and there, you can feel the fullness of it, how the designers thought a bunch of layers through it in order to come up with a multilayered concept that works at a bunch of levels. True world-building.
       Number 2 was pretty intense with the heart-tugging though. I read a lot of folks cried when there was a particularly traumatic CGI animal death in that one.

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     • Well, It’s been nearly 40 years since I read the book “Watership Down,” and I was 10 when I saw the movie. After I finished crying anew from the death of a beloved character seeing it in animated form, I went to the bathroom and discovered that I had my first pimple when I was washing my hands and looking in the mirror so I cried even more 😢😅😂 several somebodies along the way in my earlier years assured me that the pimples would be all gone by the end of my teenage years…such fibbers! Truth be told, I never had the desire to revisit either reading that book or seeing that movie. 🤷‍♀️ Some books I will enjoy to reread periodically, but that wasn’t one of them. Oh boy, boomers and their grumbles… Spoken like a true millennial! 😵As a member of Gen X (So close to that old but kind of not quite), I remember when some of the CGI contributions to movies were pretty easy to pick out. Not that previous attempts at special effects were seamless and without any cheesiness factor, but I think those are all the little gripes that can come when people feel like something is maybe overhyped because it doesn’t immediately deliver the ultra real experience they were expecting maybe? I don’t know. I think humans just like to complain. I certainly have moments where I find myself having done too much of that. 🤷‍♀️ Perhaps someday I will see that movie. Sometimes some of these are more frustrating for me than series shows or telenovelas because I have to find 2 hours to sit down and watch it or I have to break up watching it out into more chunks because I usually don’t have 2 hours to sit and watch something unless somebody is sick.

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     • I sometimes get pimples too, and although I get a bit of satisfaction from seeing them splootch open, I’m not one of those that enjoys it enough to watch videos of the big ones, and I’m always a bit leery of possible scarring. One of these days, I’m going to have to look into how to do those blackhead strips.

       I used to not want to be lumped in with millennials because for a while I had a grumpy old man vibe, but now that I’m getting older, I’m all about it, lol! I missed gen-x by one year. Ironically, I’ve actually come to admire and take pleasure in gen z and what seems to be their generally more socially progressive views. I read some generalization about millennials, apparently we want to have fun at work, stuff like games or get-togethers or making things engaging and fun, whereas gen-z supposedly wonders why we have to work at all. I’m much more with gen-z! 🤣 I can tangentially relate with your desire to watch shorter offerings. I haven’t gone to a theater in I think 8 years at this point. I just like being able to pause the movie, go to the bathroom, watch it in bed, etc. Although if nerds came out in force for something I might be tempted. I remember with the Star Wars prequels, they had people camping outside for days to watch the premiere. If something came out with that much hype, I’d like to be watching it in the theater just to see everyone in their costumes and be there for the applause!

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     • Black head strips? Don’t waste your money, they work meh at best. Better off getting a product with glycolic or salicylic acid. Also, if you relax the pores a bit with some warm water and scrub with a regular terry cloth washcloth, works much better in my opinion the combination of all of that.

       Yeah, I kind of prefer to skip the theaters. It’s cheaper these days to just to buy the movie and then I don’t have to worry about missing anything if I have to use the bathroom. I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show with some friends in a theater many years ago, so I can kind of see your point about the energy that can happen in those situations, but it’s too complicated to try and help Tony navigate a normal theater situation much less something like that. And if he wasn’t there, I would have to pay for a babysitter, then add the cost of theater food, both of which would make the outing even more expensive…and, I would just rather skip all that for the cheaper version in the comfort of my own home…

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     • Good to know as far as the strips. I do like the idea of seeing all the grossness pulled off on the strip though 🤣

       I never realized that what you just said is true–it’s cheaper to actually buy the movie! Man, I feel like in the 90s/2000s, new movies were about $20 on disc and you could see it for cheaper in the theater, but like everyone else, I started noticing $20+ movie tickets in San Francisco ten years ago, who knows how pricey they are now. The food has always been a ripoff, but I feel there is a weird pull to buying it, especially a tub of popcorn drenched in fake butter to my heart’s delight. It’s as if my mind likes the fact that it’s an extra special treat, plus the candy comes in boxes that seem specific to theaters, which is probably by design. As a kid, I used to love it. I’d theater-hop all the time with my friends, and I also liked going to the video store and picking out a rental not knowing if it was good or bad, then talking about it later with them. Even if it was bad, it was still a good experience, because we got to hang out together. Theaters and rentals were definitely their own special little world for awhile!

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     • Well, the bad news on those strips is that they usually only pull up part of the crud that’s in the pores and mostly take off a layer of skin, which leads to more irritation and still the appearance of gunk still being in your pores. Sometimes they might pull out all the crud in a pore, but … I stand by my recommendations 😇

       I think for a while now It’s been cheaper especially if you have more than two people in the group where I live anyways. Sometimes it’s nice to have the experience, but I find paying for the experiences usually better for something like the ballet or they keep the area cleaner… Just my opinion though. When I was younger sometimes we would do things like the drive-in, or the dollar theaters that used to be around, it was rare we saw anything that wasn’t a matinee showing at a discounted fee when we did go to the theaters. It was more common for us to rent VHS, but even then… I didn’t really see more movies in the theater that were just released until I was a teenager with my own job.

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     • Good to know about the strips! Despite having spent hours in the sun on a daily basis when I was younger, I still have good skin. I think it’s genetic–I think Asians have more fat bound to their skin, which somehow helps it stay healthy. Also lifestyle stuff contributes, probably.

       It’s ironic–I have slight nostalgia from remembering my moviegoing days, but I absolutely wouldn’t want to go see one in a theater now, lol! I don’t think I ever saw a movie in a drive-in, but it sounds like that could be nostalgic as well, like a 50s style date. I remember as an eighth grader, hiking through snow about a mile with my brother to a multiplex (don’t know if they still have em, but it wasn’t attached to anything else, just a giant building filled with theaters), and watching jumanji with robin williams. I also remember watching the matrix 7 times. I only paid for it once 😅 Definitely a sign of things to come, because I specifically remember not being able to fully understand the philosophical setup behind the story, and now, decades later, I understand it all and am able to disagree with certain parts of it because of my own divergent philosophical framework.

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     • Well, melanin probably is a contributing factor for you. I skipped out majorly on any melanin rich genetics that could have been in the mix for me, I burned, blistered, and peeled as a little girl all the way into my 20’s (my brother and sister didn’t really and I was soooo jealous!), when wearing sunblock started to receive almost a religious level of devotion from me. I try to run a pretty tight skin care game, so it’s not a huge issue, but even as a type this I have a small zit on my forehead near my scalp. Most often anything that makes it past my regimen is usually kind of not as apparent once I’ve spackled on my makeup products, lol. But 47 and still getting pimples. Ugh. Just ugh.

       I kind of like drive throughs, because you can either be in the car, or depending on the venue out on a blanket and I kind of like the unenclosed feel. There aren’t too many around any more…I’m not sure if there’s one even still open down here…I know there used to be one in Glendale I think it was before the pandemic, but…my schedule is pretty dictated by therapy right now, so it’s not really been something I’ve looked into recently. For me personally, I didn’t do any skipping around from show to show. I just went in for what I paid for…I’m kind of a stick in the mud that way, but my brother definitely did and probably still would if he were alive.

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     • I actually just started doing skin care about six months ago. I think some pimples come about because I use too much moisturizer at the end and it clogs a pore, so i’ve learned to be light with that. As I was watching kdramas and poking around on the internet, I realized how many compliments these people were getting for their skin (yeah, they wear makeup, but they still look immaculate next to hollywood productions where they also wear makeup). Then I remembered I always got compliments for my skin, even though I never did anything for it (I remember going under for surgery and the last thing the nurse said was a compliment for my skin). THEN I remembered the mid-20s people in the military who somehow looked 40, and I was like I feel the desire to start taking care of my face, lol! Back when I was in, I did this swim course where we spent 8 + hours a day in the sun, and I was an idiot and didn’t wear sunblock. I remember I got so burned that when I smiled, my skin underneath would crack and bleed, but the top layer wouldn’t crack, so it’d be these gross little blood dots forming by my lips that didn’t have anywhere to go. I didn’t care back then, I didn’t think I’d live to be 40 anyways.

       I think I could do a drive-thru. There’s still at least one around about ten miles south from me. And since SoCal has great weather, it’d be nice to enjoy it while chilling with others in a car. At the same time, I like the idea of it being slightly chilly so I could bundle up in blankets. I used to get in trouble as a kid because during the winter, I liked opening the windows and having a cold room while sleeping under warm blankets. I think it’d be fun to go all out and get a cheesy 50s convertible!

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     • I think it’s easy not to think about the repercussions of skipping the sunblock when you’re younger, or for me even not reapplying frequently enough under certain circumstances. I used to do River parties with a friend of mine (some I was a bartender for the group and some I was not), and on this one trip I discovered that I needed to reapply more frequently than I did for the amount of time I was out in the sun because one of my burns on an area of my forehead got so bad it scabbed over. I think for me makeup is about many things. I have gone through periods with my life where I didn’t wear it and it was something that was on either placed on the sacrificial altar because I didn’t have the time or I just wasn’t in the mood. But For most of my life I have worn it, sometimes with a more natural vibe than others. I think especially around the time we left our former church, doing a full beat that was more colorful became pretty helpful to my mental health for many reasons (like reclaiming part of my identity), because as I’m walking around the community running into people that are no longer comfortable interacting with me because I left the church, it kind of helped me feel emotionally safer to continue doing the therapy tasks I was doing if I had a visual presentation that was more mask-like because I felt like it pulled the eyes away from what was actually going on inside of my eyes, which likely was some amount of emotional pain. Truth is that sometimes, especially with the way I was doing my foundation and my powder to survive masking during the pandemic, my skin actually looks better and younger without all of that, if that was my goal. And certainly there are foundation treatments that can look much more natural than some of the ones I put on when I’m wearing an intense eye (And sometimes I am just in a rush in the morning and get a little more heavy-handed with the powder than I intended because I’ve got like 15 minutes to do the full makeup… An extra dose of setting spray can help tone that down a bit, but sometimes there’s only so much saving you can do and it just does age the skin), but when I am wearing an intense eye I feel like it is less good aesthetics wise for my veins or pimples or anything else to show through and it just needs a strong supporting canvas color wise in terms of evening out the color. I think makeup should make the person who is wearing it happy whatever that looks like to him or her, whether it is super dramatic or completely artistic or very minimal. I don’t so much wear it to cover up acne, honestly many foundations can make acne worse, but an added benefit is that if you know certain tricks, you can minimize the appearance of redness especially for a bad stress-based break out. Probably if I really wanted to do my acne a favor I would stop eating so much chocolate 😱

       Sounds like a cool idea to head out to the local drive-thru with some of your friends or whoever you are something shipping with, I suppose you could always rent the convertible if you don’t have one and wanted to try that with them👍 I’m personally probably not going to be headed out to one anytime soon…I think even once Tony doesn’t need me as much at school, I may just prefer to relax around the house for a while. I think often the selection is more limited at our local drive-thru if I’m remembering more correctly, and if I were to go out somewhere I would probably actually want it to be something I had a high level of enthusiasm for watching to pay that kind of money for.

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     • Interesting, I’ve heard the makeup as a mask thing from other ladies, framed in the literal way and also in an esoteric way. 🤔 I’ve also heard this lady on a podcast talking about cancelling a night out because she wasn’t feeling confident on the inside and her friends understanding it. There was specific terminology she used that led me to believe it was a somewhat consistent occurrence.

       Yeah, maybe on the convertible. It’d be fun to figure out the little tricks and hacks that could really max out the drive-in experience. The last time I went to the theaters was in 2016 for Dr. Strange and me and my buddy couldn’t stop babbling about how the effects people had to have done DMT, lol.

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     • Well, and sometimes it was a just a statement. Some of my rainbow and pink/purple/blue eyeshadow looks were pretty awesome, especially when I had time to finesse the blending. Some of the makeup looks I create aren’t about enhancing beauty as it is messaged to be and generally thought of in this society, because makeup intended to do that is generally much more subtle. And I can be and do that when I feel like it or when I need to. I feel like needing makeup to be confident in one’s appearance is a slippery slope. I understand that because there was a point in time many years ago where I lived that perspective, But at the end of the day If someone cannot accept the way I look without all of that? That’s just not a good fit and everybody should know that up front 😂. I don’t know if it’s so much the confidence part for me sometimes when it comes to going out, more just am I feeling emotionally in the right place to absorb, process, and deal with all of the energy that could come off of the people I will be around. But when it comes to therapy or something that needs to be done for a loved one, doesn’t matter whether I feel like dealing with that or not I will march myself out. And, if it’s something like a shunning playing out in real time in the public, makeup can kind of be the mask or the pick me up paint I need to pick me up and get me through that. I think it takes a very rare person to not be affected by having someone who used to be one of your closest friends within a certain organization walk by you like they don’t even recognize you or know you. For me personally, convertibles would make me nervous unless the top was open only when parked… It’s too easy for me to vividly imagine a high speed bug splatter to the face 😱😅 I think for That type of theater experience, it probably would help because a fully enclosed vehicle can sometimes limit the viewing area.

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     • Interesting! I’ve seen some pretty cool time lapses where people use makeup to look completely different, to the point where they could imitate a celebrity or be mistaken for someone else.

       I remember my friend’s dad had a convertible when I was a kid, and the bugs weren’t a problem, though they might be in some areas. I’ve seen visible clouds of mosquitos that looked like distorted air, lol! The main thing was actually the wind chill. For a theater, I’d honestly forget about it as soon as the movie started, although maybe it might be good for the sound quality. I just think it would add a nice touch to the whole aesthetic.

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     • I don’t try to look completely different… But, I often do my eyeshadow in a way that minimizes or seems to reverse the visual appearance of the wee bit of droop that comes from having 47-year-old eyelids without blepharoplasty 🥸 And, I do like to even out my complexion. Well, certain times of the year in Southern California can get pretty chilly, so I can understand the thought about the possible chill factor! I’m sure it’s a problem you are up to the challenge of solving should you choose to try an outing like that 😊

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     • I’ve always thought about makeup as a curse that takes up time and resources, but I’ve shifted my opinion on it recently. It seems kind of like clothing where you can lean into different aesthetics or make yourself more comfortable with your appearance when you’re out and about. I’ve read some articles here and there that gen z is popularizing men’s makeup, which took me by mild surprise.

       We’ll see about the movie night! Right now I’m happy with my own space, coffee, and some writing ideas! 🙂

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     • well, anything survival based or otherwise can take up resources… right now, just rent is eating away nearly 50% or more of someone’s monthly pay if they make less than 100k where many people live. If I were paying 50% of my income for rent, I suppose I would be reevaluating how much makeup I wanted to purchase and therefore wear lol… If I didn’t already have a massive stash. That being said, a person who knows brands and how they perform, how to work with different products, and follows sales… It doesn’t have to curse the bank account to build that stash😂 But I see your point, going without is certainly cheaper. But we all have our unnecessary indulgences I imagine, or at least could, but they just might justify the cost by making happy moments in our lives.

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     • Yeah I’m pretty good at living spare, so unless I get a sinking or nagging feeling, I usually just get whatever I want. My ex once tried to get me on budgeting apps, but I was like nope, I’m all right, I’m already good at being conscientious about money, I don’t need to budget. She was a little bit incredulous, but she was also the one who was always overspending, so I can see where it might be helpful. When I was a kid in elementary school, our teacher had us do a budgeting exercise with classified ads, and I picked out the bare bare bones minimums of what I needed, lol! She was like why did you buy all this cheap stuff? That was my first inkling that people were drawn to unnecessary expenses. Not to say that I don’t indulge in unnecessary stuff, but I have a hazy intuitive feel for when I’m stepping outside my spending capacity. I also have zero interest in status symbols like nice cars, clothes, or homes. In my mind, those things will be cool for a week or two, then it’ll be business as usual, so with big ticket items that incur debt like cars and homes, I’m like why would I constrain my daily pleasures for something that’ll lose its novelty in a week or two? I’d much rather have spending money available for a relatively expensive meal with friends, or a neat toy or product I might appreciate on a more regular basis. I’m not opposed to fancy stuff, it’s just lower on my priority list. If/when I have millions, sure, I’ll sign for a nicer house or car, but it just produces no urgency or willingness to sacrifice on a day to day basis.

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     • I’m kind of a mixed bag that leans more towards the financially responsible than not. Most of my therapy tank tops were $3 or less and I’ve been using several of them for years. I still have some of the cheap leggings I reviewed when I was reviewing my purchases on Amazon. Literally ain’t getting replaced until it can’t be fixed or it passes beyond the point of public decency. For the school job, I bought everything on sale, clearance, or Ross. My decision making rubric on those outfits went kind of went like this: is it suitable for the environment? Can I survive wearing it? Is it the cheapest thing I can find for what I’m looking for? I think even when you have to dress a certain way for a certain environment, things can be done to minimize the costs there too. A reliable (but not fancy) car is a necessity for the combined needs of my kiddos. However, even not fancy cars have a ridiculous price tag in my opinion in the current market. I used to buy used (because they used to loose so much market value right away) and then judiciously repair until the benefits of doing so were too diminished…but the current car market doesn’t necessarily favor that approach. And I would wish for less house and less stuff…but we have a therapy clinic worth of stuff here that is still absolutely necessary. But our house is paid off, so…it’s just a matter of the stuff and the maintenance. My makeup…you know, that is one area where I would have to admit that sometimes I have indulged myself more than was necessary, but I am honest with myself about what was happening there. Sometimes the combined weight of everything I was dealing with was so bad I needed to spoil myself with some indulgence somewhere so I didn’t go through an emotional bleed out that rendered me incapable of doing the things that were required most for those who need me. That being said, it would not be wise for anyone to look at my palette collection and try to tally what I spent and judge me based on what they saw. I spent $12.50 for a palette that original cost is $62. I’m a big fan of waiting until a brand has to clearance something out that is about to hit the legal expiration date. If it’s just powder without oil based binders, it doesn’t really expire that quickly, but brands have to offload before that date and I try to bide my time unless something is a very hot limited edition and I actually have the free spending money to indulge myself. And if I don’t? I don’t get it. My impulse control can heel itself when life necessitates that.. And honestly some of my preferred makeup products are already super cheap. My favorite and preferred high lighter is a Wet N Wild…super cheap brand. Sometimes I think it is useful to go through something, like say, grocery shopping, when more than one member of the family might be buying things and itemize for a period of time what is being bought where to identify causes of overspending, but I tend to prefer an intuitive approach where I am mindful of what is coming in, what is going out, what is being allocated to paying off certain things (like a car) early, what is going into savings, etc… and I will adjust my impulse buys accordingly. I’m the person who handles most of our finances, and my schedule is pretty full…I have a file for the overall budget, but I don’t mess with it much because I just really don’t have the time to dedicate to filling everything out, I mostly keep track of the overall picture in my head, and reviewing all our cards/accounts to make sure everything is accurate on that end. I mean, they already have to keep a record, why duplicate the effort? Sometimes it is tricky when there are multiple spenders in the house and multiple views on how to handle money and what should be prioritized, that is something that can be tricky to negotiate in a relationship.

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     • At the end of the day, it gets pretty reductive for me, in that I shape finances around what I believe I would find most fulfilling. I’ve gone the route of extreme tracking (with real estate and health and fitness stuff), and I realized that nitpicking mentality is not for me. It requires constant alertness and an authoritarian level of precision, which negatively colors my entire existence. Also, life starts throwing monkey wrenches in to that kind of mentality, so it starts feeling like holding back the tide. Even a slightly off-color result is a reason for dissatisfaction, which means there is very little time spent truly satisfied when everything lines up just so. With finances, I have no desire to do that. On the other hand, I don’t find it fulfilling to have material luxuries piling in with a part of me protesting and considering the sinking feeling of mounting debt or unsustainable spending. This may sound silly, but I focus on trusting that money will be there when needed. That may be a luxury because I have multiple contingencies I could implement in the case of emergencies, but I’ve found with money, I can use my logic to focus on the fact that I never have enough, that I always need to do more, or consult my intuition and find a sweet spot where–whether it’s accurate or not–I have what I need, and that the main point of contention is not an ever-fluxing number in my bank account, a nebulous amount of equity in a property, but the fact that I’m okay right here, right now, and that I subjectively feel confident that I’m acting with prudence. Perhaps another factor that helps is that I’m able to articulate why I’m doing something to myself, instead of being driven by unexplored traumas that are manifesting as irrational urges to act in a way that provides a distraction or an escape. Maybe that’s actually happening and I’m not aware of it, but I guess the important thing is I don’t feel that way, I don’t feel the need to do stuff because of some overriding, unexplainable craving.

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     • Sounds like you are very at peace with where you are, and that’s great! I think, truth be told, as a person who has survived more than one traumatic thing, I find that doing so in real time as things are playing out or the aftermath of what just played out, and looking and acting completely composed and like one has the utmost of healthiest coping mechanisms at all times in all aspects of one’s life isn’t really a thing in those circumstances…at least not for me personally, nor for anybody I’ve ever known personally. I favor a survive it mentally first mentality, within the bounds of certain things I consider too unhealthy as regards to coping mechanisms. I favor a do the best you can approach, and I definitely favor not leaning into an “all or nothing” approach at this point in my life. Having a day or a moment where one’s coping isn’t text book ideal won’t rule out long term success…but giving up because one looks at a mistake and can’t get over it and throws their emotional hands up and says, “well gee, I goofed there, I guess I just need to give up…” kind of puts a person to long term end up in a worse place. I think I’m much less worried about a person who understands what motivated what they did and has an interest in not being too hard on themselves while working towards improvement than someone who is unconsciously acting on something like that with what they are doing.

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     • I too, had a survive it first mentality, although from our exchanges, I’d probably say mine was geared more toward dominance. Nowadays, while it might sound weird, I think I’m gravitating more toward an acceptance-first mentality. So if something nettlesome arises, I’ll go the route of do what I can and let the chips fall where they may. In a more extreme thought experiment, this would turn into something like, I’ll engage fully with an issue, but if it’s my time to die then so be it. I’m not sure if that’s how I’m going to be if that was an actual situation, but once again, while it may sound weird, I’d like to think that’s how I’d approach it. To be fair, though, I naturally engage very heavily with a challenge, and I naturally put forth a lot of energy and dig into the details, so my attitude kind of balances my natura; perspective and allows for spontaneous inspiration and intuition. For other folks, who are more inclined to avoid engagement at all costs, my outlook probably won’t be as helpful. I remember saying more or less the same a couple of years ago to my buddy. I described how I was in a place where I’m consciously focusing on being more whimsical, entertaining or acting on inclinations while they were gentle urges, and generally being what people might categorize as impulsive. He asked if I thought everyone should do that. I paused and thought, and concluded no, for some people I think it would be dangerous and unproductive, depending on where they were in their development.

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     • Nettlesome…now that’s a more archaic sounding word if ever I heart it, Nerdy Word Girl Ari totally approves of it’s use, lol! 😉 Not that you need my approval one way or another (because you don’t). But seriously…have you seen the flowers on a dead nettles? Purple. Pretty. Even something that others view as aversive, annoying, or nettlesome may have it’s good or even it’s beautiful sides. Yeah, dominance is not really my thing. But, if there is something I need to do for something or someone I am responsible for or something I want to see happen…I just channel whatever level of effort is required to get it done and I will engage to the level that is required. Sometimes it depends on how necessary I think something is as to the level I will engage with it. For me, my journey has taken me through a lot of things, and it sounds like many of them have been quite different from your experiences. My thing that pulled me through rough stuff was just this…I may not be into dominance, but I will not break or submit to anybody or anything that is just trying to tear me down. I decide what I give up and who I give it to, and some people have never deserved to win at my expense, but what winning looks like is different to each person, so how anybody does the math on who came out ahead in anything from my past might may vary from person to person, as may the answer. But since nobody else has lived my life, and I have been doing the best I can with it and shall continue to do so, it is what it is. And now I’ve got some therapy stuff to do…take good care of yourself 🙂

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     • I just looked em up, they do indeed look pretty! (Do the nettles have to be dead, or was that just a typo?) I think your comment was synchronistic because I am indeed being bothered a bit by something that is an overall blessing, lol! I admire your commitment to persisting through not-so-nice people, they definitely aren’t great with their priorities. At the same time, I happily wish for you to be in a place where you no longer need that commitment! Nobody actively trying to tear you down, or even triggering a fear that they might be. I’ve lived that mentality, and I prefer not to. Of course, it does end up being a choice, I think. Even if you get away from those folks, it is possible to willfully cling to that mentality and continue living in that world. Regardless of what happens, you deserve the best, and I believe that in the long run (at the very least), you’re fated to get it!

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     • Nope, not a typo… Technically it’s called a Spotted Dead Nettle, and as I understand it it is a rather resilient plant that is lower maintenance, can survive on lower amounts of water and sunlight. Plants need to be much hardier even than the spotted dead nettle to do well out where I live, But I do think they’re pretty. I think What other people are going to do is going to be what they are going to do. There is only a certain amount of influence I can really have on the thoughts, actions, and feelings of another, and even then only if they allow that. So the only thing I really have for sure control of is how I think and feel about it… Thank you for the kind words 💜 I wish you all the happy moments you can find. 😊

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     • I’ve heard good things about parts of Arizona. I’ve only driven through it, but I’m not sure if I’d settle down there. As weird as it sounds, I like a decent degree of “background residency,” although it does get annoying if all the parking is one-way streets with parallel spots that you have to set alarms for because of street cleaning (San Francisco). One day, I might try living for a bit in NYC, if I can afford my own space that doesn’t have a window that opens directly into a brick wall (had that when I stayed in a hotel there once). I like views of city and beach alike, so as far as dream homes, I think I’d have nice condos in locations where I could see a good view of city, beach, or both. San Diego’s all right for now, though. In general, though, I like being around a different variety of people-derived energies, even though I don’t like talking to them, lol!

       Yes, I agree with your take on influencing people. Sometimes, though, I believe that the conviction we can influence another is a lure constructed by our deeper self, because that’s the only lure we’re ready to follow, it’s the only one that will resonate with some of us given where we are in our personal development. And then when we follow that lure, I believe it leads us into a journey where our perspective shifts and we move into a different resonance. As reductive as it may be, I do believe the idea behind following your heart has merit, because even though we may be mistaken at the outset, that is meant to lead us into a specific experience we want to live at the deepest levels of our soul. Your belief that raising children would be simple (if not easy), for example. If younger you had a visceral download of how it wouldn’t be as simple or as easy as you envisioned it, that might have denied you the experience. Conversely, I have had an aversion to the idea of raising kids since I was young, but maybe that’s meant to keep me from raising kids until a certain time in my life, and the aversion will leave at that time. I’m not sure, but I think in keeping with my beliefs, the resonance in my heart is always to be trusted, even if things don’t turn out how I logically expected them to. And it’s not that I consult that resonance either, per se, I’m of the opinion that the chief action I take from an individual perspective is to accept what arises, whether that’s negativity or outward phenomena or positivity or whatever, and open that channel for my deeper self to come through. As I have said before, it’s lifting with my core instead of my pinkies.

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     • I have lived in Arizona my entire life. Some parts are indeed better than others. Once upon a time I really, really wanted to move. And some day perhaps I shall, but for right now, it is best especially for Tony that we stay here. Any move would cause a several months long disruption to his therapy services at the very least, since we can’t afford to pay for them out of pocket we’d have to go through the process of getting him on a state’s long term care services from scratch. Right now he’s got his ABA services, any portions of PT/OT/ST/NMT that aren’t being covered by the primary insurance, and a nearly unheard of level of habilitative therapy hours approved for a kiddo his age (30 per week) covered through long term disability. I have advocated for the level of services he has because he needs that level and will continue to advocate for that level as long as he needs it. He’s at a point where progress is still happening for him, so any disruption would be harmful. So as much as I sometimes give other states a longing eye…sigh. Here is where we are for now.

       I think sometimes when we follow our heart we find out a deeper level of information about ourselves that may take us in different directions. I think sometimes it is tricky, I think it’s easier to listen to fear sometimes for many people (and the voices of discouragement around us) than to chase full throttle after all the things that are in our hearts. And I will agree, if younger me had any idea about some of these challenges she might have freaked out and decided to travel Europe instead, before she regretted it because the tugging of what must be became too intense and she headed back to where she needed to be to heed the call of fate. These kids were meant to be mine. I need to get going for now, hope you have a beautiful day filled with good things. 😀 Ari

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     • I’ve heard interesting things about Sedona. The most reliable is that it’s filled with new age hippie types, some folks have told me it’s a vortex spot with tons of energy, others have said it used to be but it’s been stretched thin by all the people. I’ve heard some people visit there and decide on the spot to upend their lives and move there from other parts of the country.

       Well it sounds like the signs are saying Arizona’s a good spot for you, at least for now!

       I’m not sure that going full throttle is a great thing, most of the time. A lot of folks pose this false dichotomy that goes should I focus on my job or my dream? I’m not a sacrifice, either/or type of person, so I say find the mix that resonates with you. Very few people are meant to dive off the deep end and cut off all their steady income so they can focus on their dream. A lot of aspiring entertainment people in LA have a higher tolerance for this kind of thing, but they still work as waitstaff or other stuff to tide them over. I think it’s fine to do five minutes here or there while working a job, if that’s all someone can manage. Let’s say they grind themselves into the dust for years on end, living in a constant state of anxiety and desperation, and end up succeeding. I’m of the opinion that I’m not meant to live like that, especially for extended periods of time. I’d rather enjoy my time on Earth by following the mix of activities that resonates with me. It’s the same reason I never was interested in being a stockbroker. Supposedly, they start with a decent level entry salary, but for the first year or two, they sleep in the office and they’re worked to the bone and allegedly end up averaging less than a low-end fast food worker because of all the time they spend in the office. Then they have a shot of moving up into a higher pay range. I actually tried that with writing at first, putting in hours that were comparable to a job with overtime, but then I noticed my night vision was starting to suffer, and I was like nope, I like being able to drive at night. I also realized the tried and true path for writing success (erotica, with a novel pumped out every 3-6 months) was not my thing. Writing is first and foremost for my enjoyment. Ultimately, I don’t think it’s bad to go all in on one thing or another, it’s just personally not for me anymore.

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     • I would say Arizona is where we need to be for now, yes. So, Sedona has some very pretty areas for hiking (And for that reason and the cooler temperatures it is one of my favorite areas in Arizona), definitely it was prettier before the drought and the bark beetle showed up though. That being said, Sedona definitely has a side that is geared towards tourism. I used to also enjoy going up there and eating lunch with a friend and walking through the various art galleries. Yeah, people talk about the vortex. That in and of itself could become a philosophical rabbit hole that I don’t exactly have time to go down today. I just left school with Tony and I’m getting ready to head into an Ulta…so, I’ll just round this off by saying how tricky I think the concept of following one’s heart and creating enough of a money flow to actually support an existence that isn’t fraught with stress related to survival based issues is. For your average person who loves to teach for example? They can’t survive on that salary anymore If that is the genuine passion of the heart for them. I think a lot of people feel like they end up needing to make a compromise. I think my personality tends to gravitate towards putting in intensive amounts of effort to something that is important to me, so I tend to go full throttle sometimes whether it’s good for me or not. Sometimes it’s necessary whether I want to or not, but I tend to gravitate towards doing that sometimes even when it’s not necessary. It’s something I have to work on for me, to moderate when I can. Take good care of yourself 😊

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     • Hiking through Sedona sounds pretty cool! I’ve always been drawn by the mesas in the southwest from cowboy movies. What I’d really like to do is pilot a small helicopter from mesa to mesa, hang out, maybe camp on top of em, then helicopter around and take in the whole expanse of them in from above (probably not environmentally friendly to land on and camp on top of em, so I doubt it’ll happen). In my new book, Aerie Denir is a range of mesas that are the equivalent of small cities or townships, with orchards on their sides and tops, chambers and residences in their caves, and also strung with rope bridges and netting because the Triune Alary (the aerially oriented inhabitants) have wingsuit-like membranes that extend from their elbows to their ribs, so they can wingsuit between nearby mesas and grab onto some rigging. Definitely not as bare or far apart as the mesas in cowboy movies, but I like a bit of variety in my fantasy-world scenery.

       Being naturally driven and goal-oriented, I think I can relate to going all-in on something. I noticed, however, that my desire to be all-in could be a hindrance when circumstances wouldn’t permit a full-throttle approach and I was presented with the option to moderate or stop altogether. In my younger years, I would just stop altogether, but now I realize that if reality is presenting me with the inability to go all-in, that doesn’t mean it’s discouraging me from the activity altogether, it’s presenting me with an opportunity to rearrange things and exercise some moderation. I feel like that’s where a lot of people get discouraged–they assume that just because they can’t give a hundred percent in the direction they want, that it means they should give 0%, and after bouncing around a bit like that, they start assuming that existence is conspiring against them because they’re being “denied” opportunity for success. (Not saying that’s what you’re doing, but that’s definitely where I ended up for a while). Nowadays I settle more into the perspective that it’s a game, not a movie where the paths are so clear-cut. Sometimes, I’m meant to go all-in and achieve a clear win, sometimes, I’m meant to follow a winding series of clues and enjoy a nice little side quest that will come in handy later. I suppose if I could go back in time and speak to my younger self, I’d tell him that, but I doubt he’d listen, lol!

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     • Very early on in my marriage (back when I earned a paycheck that would allow me to afford that for us) I paid for a helicopter ride over Sedona for Andy and I. It was pretty cool! I can understand the appeal of your interest in helicoptering in and camping on one as well as the concerns. It sounds pretty cool what you are describing from your book that you are working on, and I look forward to reading it 😁 I’m generally not one to put zero effort into something. I’m also generally not one to give something a one bunned effort either. I was given my evaluation yesterday for my job at the school, and I got all highly effectives, which is there max rating for each category. That is not to brag, it is just an illustration of how I like to look at an environment I’m going into for whatever reason. I try to look for what needs to be done and just make sure it gets done. I think whatever it is I am doing, I tried to do it to the best of my ability whatever that looks like because that is just internally what I feel is right to do. My son’s teacher also talked to me about the potential for me applying for a behavior tech position at the school once he doesn’t need me anymore, which I think speaks to the idea that for any effort I put into something, I feel like representing the best that I can do opens more pathways for me then not. But some things do require a more moderated approach, especially when it comes to parenting where micromanaging something could be more problematic.

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     • Man, I read you’re evaluation marks and I got stoked! I’m super glad you’re getting recognition for your efforts and it’s opening some doors for you that might help you out both in the short-term and also in your long-term personal and professional goals. Not to be an equivocating hand-wringer, but while I agree with you on representing the best I can do on something is the correct way to go, I’ve shifted my perspective over the years on what exactly the best I can do means. I used to think it meant working myself into the dirt, then using my off-hours to contemplate how to do things better, basically just non-stop obsession. That didn’t work out for me, but it did seem to for others, who I realized might be seeing micromanaging as the best they could do, or looking out for their subordinates as the best they can do. Personally, I’ve obviously come to believe that for the sake of logic and functional verbiage, I fit into the idea of a multilayered self, and that to arrange synchronicities and seeming good fortune, I should lean into acceptance as much as possible, and allow positivity and inspiration to organically bloom. For me, personally, that’s how I bring the best of myself to the situation. However, I’m not knocking the other ways. There’s multiple reasons for me shifting perspectives, but it doesn’t invalidate my old inclinations. I learned valuable skills and preferences from my past methodologies, and they come into play with everything I’m doing now. I’m beginning to understand why great advice is so often vague. If I were to converse with my younger self, I probably wouldn’t have much else to say except preaching acceptance, even if it’s acceptance of negative feelings so they can pass on, as well as an emphasis on not being so obsessed and casting everything in a zero-sum win/lose set of outcomes. Basically take it easy and enjoy the process. But who wants to hear that when they’re in the thick of it? Nobody, as far as I can tell. And maybe they’re not meant to, maybe they’re meant to come to that through their own realizations. Anyways, bringing the best of myself and doing the best I can has shifted as my framework of reality and my personal priorities have naturally evolved.

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     • Well, since we’ve been pulling out overly tried and true expressions today, in keeping with that theme I’m going to dance my way around something about not counting my chickens just quite yet because there are still plenty of eggs that need to be hatched as regards to any future professional moments. 😅🥸 Tony has grown a lot in the school environment, but there are definitely still things that we need to accomplish. The evaluation and the confidence they expressed in me and that they recognize the value and what I have been doing is wonderful, but I still need to be very focused on the now and everything that is needed in the now to continue moving everything forward to the point where I can have moments that don’t involve me as his instructional aid. I think the idea that we have both talked about in the past and are currently discussing about accepting things that arise is just very important for me. All I can do is the best I can do, all he can do is the best that he can do and we will just have to see where that leads us.

       I think you are right, it does seem to really frustrate people in the moment sometimes to say things that we might have wanted to hear and we think might benefit them. 🤷‍♀️ Sometimes my intuition tells me to just wade into that anyways, or it’s kind of expected in my role as a parent, but more often than not it seems that the correct answer is just to let a person figure it out for themselves what they feel like works for them on their journey in life…

       I think it is clear you reflect a lot on what you have done and have made choices about what you want to do in the now and in the future based on that, and I respect that. I think sometimes we all find that what worked for us at a certain phase in our life no longer does going forward.

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     • Well regardless of what happens with your long-term goals, I’m still happy that you got that positive nudge, got the best marks possible, and had an uplifting conversation! Who knows what it may become? Nevertheless, I think it’s pretty awesome for what it is!

       Yes, I agree most people seem to get frustrated with advice that involves them having to shift perspective or behavior. Unless they ask, I keep the tone casual and usually just drop a partial opinion, a thread if you will, that they’re free to tug on if they want to and find their way to a rope ladder they can use to climb upward, so to speak. Also, I purposefully don’t invest too much emotion in their interest, whether they engage me, follow up in conversation, or agree with me. It’s their path to walk, and maybe that involves having the conversation and then having it take effect years later. I’m not the one who dictates when they’ll absorb or implement a lesson, that’s up to them. With parenting, I think it’s different in that it’s more contractual, and typically a soul-level agreement on the side of the parent and child. Similar thing with the military, only you sign a literal contract which voluntarily confines you to a certain dynamic for a set period of time, where each shift in position/rank comes with new responsibilities and expectations from the service member and their superiors. It goes both ways, which I think is similar to the parent/child thing, only it’s not as explicitly stated as it is in the military. In both cases, I think the relationships become a bit of an artform, in that there are so many different ways to express yourself and interact with different people at different stages of development.

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     • Well, for me, I have struggled at some points in the past not to let my emotions get too involved in an outcome, not to internally hurt or worry if someone I loved was making self-destructive choices for example. And it’s still not easy for me to watch, but I am better able to put up some boundaries and say this is their choice for them, even if the outcome brings grief or sadness to us both. Sometimes it just isn’t even an option in my mind to be casual or give only a partial opinion. If my mate, for example, came to me and said they were struggling with certain more serious problems, I would feel much more invested in doing everything I could to help or support this person for the sake of our children alone, who love him as much as they love me. As a hypothetical for the sake of this discussion. But by and large, unless my friends ask me for advise, have a similar view and feel that it’s better to remain hands off unless I know the person really well and have verified their level of comfort with those types of opinions and know that they are looking for something more involved from me.

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     • Boundaries are definitely different and harder with family and close friends, and I’d argue even more important because of the increased access and obligations that those differences bring. There’s definitely sound logic behind avoiding business with friends and family, that adds a whole nother dimension to the dynamic, but it’s not impossible and it obviously works in some cases, because otherwise family businesses wouldn’t be a thing. It’s been a long journey for me, and at times the lesson’s been administered through hard knocks, but at the end of the day I’m sinking more and more into the perspective that folks will ultimately live their own themes and experience regardless of whether I’d like them to do so or not. However, if someone feels the need to save others and partake of that shared experience with them, then I wish them all the best and hope they find fulfillment in that quest. There’s probably something important for them in the urge to act as a savior or rescuer, just as there’s probably something important for the folks they encounter in the idea of interacting with one. I’ve only saved one life purely by myself in a water safety thing, where there was no one but me who knew what was happening, or was in line of sight and hearing where they could have even started to piece it together, and although it may sound weird, I felt no positive feedback from it so I knew it wasn’t for me. I’ve also met folks who might have been meant to do it for a bit, but they checked out a long time ago, to the point where they’ll be doing CPR and looking at the clock wondering what’s for lunch. Part of it’s the culture of emergency medicine, I think. There’s a lot of burnout and other stuff that provides a fertile ground for sociopathy.

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     • I think certain people agree to live certain themes together for certain reasons, and perhaps the reason might have roots that are buried deep in a past life? There might be many perhaps. I don’t know as that reasoning matters so much to me personally as to live a life that allows me to look deep inside and feel like I can like myself after what I have done, like I represent the love that I want to be in the world. Sometimes I don’t, but of course, nobody is perfect, and my preferred state is to make decisions and enact choices that come from a place of love.

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     • When it comes to a perspective that agrees to live a certain theme, I like to attribute a lot of free will if not ultimate free will. So while I can get on board with the idea a decision may be informed by some preferences explored in a past life, I’m pretty firmly against the idea that a past life is a determinant that locks people into a theme for their next life. In my mind, that’s analogous to saying my actions are predetermined due to genetics and environment, which are predetermined by physical/genetic history, which are predetermined by interactions ranging from macro to quantum scales, which are predetermined by conditions going all the way back to the big bang. Basically, it’s too much predeterminism for my taste. I’ve met “spiritual” folks like this who basically lock themselves into certain pathways because of astrological speculation or a supposed knowledge of what happened in their past lives (parallel lives in my newly cementing perspective, as I’m starting to think everything happens at once and the one-way flow of time is a consciousness-spawned illusion, but that’s a really complicated topic I can’t articulate well yet). A lot of these folks construct a “spiritual” version of Simon Says which I would argue is a big part of what is wrong with religions–the dismissal of our individual journeys and preferences, in favor of a dogmatic set of rules that have supposedly been established in the past. In fact, I suspect that this is actually why most people can’t remember their past lives, because their deeper self knows that if that knowledge were to be realized as inarguable fact, we’d ignore the themes we’ve chosen to explore in this life. However, that’s not to say that I don’t believe that’s true in every circumstance. I definitely think knowledge of past lives in some cases is part of current-life themes, and does bear relevance to certain folks.

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     • Well, I think that a lot of how that is perceived in viewed will depend on a person’s individual belief system. Let’s say a person has a belief system that allows for them to accept the idea that they did something horrible to another person in a past life and they came to a point of feeling guilt about it and had to desire to make it right but it couldn’t be made right in that life, so in the spiritual dimension between lives they made an agreement that the one person would do x, y, z or whatever to make reparations in the next life… Yes, the person who made the agreement to do something to fix things could absolutely choose to renege and do something different because it aligned more with their own personal interests as they have developed in this lifetime, But if that person were to also believe in karma, They might choose not to do anything of the kind because their desire to make reparations and not create more negative energy between them and another spirit was sincere. And all of their actions would be shaped by that belief. They might acknowledge free will, because certainly they could choose to do differently and might even find a different choice more personally desirable with the characteristics they have right now, but their ultimate free will choice might be used to honor that agreement because of what they personally believe and how it shapes their reality.

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     • I think that dynamic is a probable, but I also think the expansion in perspective after death is a big x factor. I don’t think our belief systems are nearly as powerful after death as they are during our life due to the shift in our perspective. However, I don’t think that shift completely negates free will, and if we choose, we can pursue a theme through multiple lives.

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     • Well, I can only speak for myself on this one. If I were to find myself in that sort of situation and have a belief and a confidence that those were my circumstances, I would not want that theme to drag out over multiple lives. I would want to repair the breach so I could be done with it and move on to explore other themes over those multiple lives. Plus, If one were to consider the karma component, The theme could get even more difficult to address over multiple lives if it remained inadequately addressed, or if an agreement was again broken.

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     • If I were to speculate on top of a speculative premise, I would say that I believe that’s the purpose behind the expansion of perspective coupled with a life review. The expansion in perspective would keep someone from getting tangled up in the narrow-scoped emotionally charged fanfare and drama, which would set up a good state of mind for the life review, where events could be analyzed and parsed from a healthy and productive point of view. In my mind, it might be analogous to an MDMA-assisted therapy session, where the MDMA puts the patient into a particular state of mind where healing becomes much more likely when they explore their trauma. The data around that is pretty interesting. At first glance it seems highly effective, to the point where it eclipses other therapies by a very big margin. I remember one anecdote where a veteran had tried the gamut of therapy, then turned to this as a last-ditch resort. He was scheduled for three sessions, attended one, and apparently achieved complete resolution. Hopefully, more people who could benefit from it will have access to it in the future.

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     • That is true, it is definitely a speculative premise 😅 I honestly think in a scenario where past lives were occurring (And again, I don’t claim to have definitive answers of that nature to these types of situations), I think there would be very good reasons to have a setup be such that the individuals would forget the past lives, The details, etc. In the speculative scenario I described, if either or both parties became aware of that type of agreement in the midst of the next life where this reparations level agreement was supposed to be playing out, and they began to have even a minimal recall of the why in this life it could complicate matters in terms of their ability to find happiness or resolution by quite a lot without the expanded post-life perspective I think. I think some states are starting to recognize the therapeutic benefit of psilocybin at least, I know in my state lawmakers this year are discussing allowing for studies to evaluate the therapeutic use. I do think that some of the things that have been outlawed are less harmful than some of the pharmaceuticals that are legal and are being abused, And may even have higher therapeutic value.

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     • Yeah, I also think it could lead to a whole lot of buyer’s remorse. If, for example, I were to wonder in the post-life perspective things like man, I really admired that one guy who came up from nothing and became a business magnate or inspirational athlete, then I decided to go ahead and live that opportunity, I might be consumed with anger and frustration in the training/development phase and rail against myself for choosing something so arduous with so little immediate reward, which would keep me from focusing on the stuff in front of me, which would be necessary to realize the eventual end-state. My mom is into Buddhism and I think she related something similar where a bunch of Buddhists came to the conclusion that everything would be okay no matter what and a bunch of them committed suicide. I recently re-watched Everything Everywhere All at Once (first time I watched it, I got about halfway through and was suddenly hit by the epiphany I think this is the best movie I’ve ever seen). That movie deals with the attainment of ultimate potential, which causes one of the characters to embrace nihilism (nothing matters) and become suicidal. I’m still articulating it to myself, but I’m pretty sure nihilism, while it may be valid from an EXCLUSIVELY omnipotent consciousness where there is no room for anything but omnipotence, becomes invalid with the inclusion of individualized perspectives whose purpose is to experience things like progress, motion, and choice, which the omnipotent/omnipresent cannot. By creation of a constrained, individualized perspective, purpose is created through those constraints. It could at first be simple survival, and later in the actualization process, it could be to create their own purpose, but for the time spent as a constrained individual, there is readily apparent purpose, which I think invalidates nihilism for the individual, and also I think for the omnipotent core.
       Because the very act of creating a purposeful individual implicitly denies an all-encompassing, bottom-line nihilism, and nihilism needs to meet that standard for every single thing to be meaningless, or no thing to matter. For the individual, suicide could be argued as part of their purpose (a gruesome but valid example might be a samurai doing it for honor), but only if it is not from an assertion that nothing matters so I don’t matter so I might as well do it.

       Anyways, on a less formally logical note, I hope that if you decide to partake in shrooms, that you have some healthy positive experiences! I’m starting to suspect that my time with that stuff has come and gone, because while I was cleaning out my apartment and throwing my old roommate’s stuff, I accidentally threw out MY stuff as well, lol! If the urge comes to do them again, it’s easy enough for me to arrange that, but we’ll see!

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     • Ok, so I’m going to start on the less formally logical part of the comment as regards to psylocibin, because it’s the easiest for my thoughts to definitively land on. First, until they are legal, wouldn’t consider touching them EVER. No judgement for those who feel differently, I am just hardwired to think first about the people who rely on me and act accordingly. As I have people who depend on me not getting in trouble for those kinds of things whether I think the laws against them are merited by the research or not. For my son, he’s always going to need me as long as I’m able. Second, even if they are legalized for therapeutic use in AZ, I’d only ever consider microdosing. My life literally can’t have me be mentally unavailable to respond to situations for that long. Typically microdosing though is used for depression, maybe sometimes PTSD, but usually where it’s been shown to have efficacy in studies is for depression that’s not responding well to the current legal pharmaceuticals (and the last and the first one definitely not my problems). So, if it ever becomes legal, we’ll see, but I don’t know that it would benefit me.

       I think when it comes to really, really knowing details about past lives and what happened in between…I think that could be tricky, because unless a person was born with that in full recall, the personality traits and patterns of thinking that have been fostered by the combination of nature and nurture in this life as you have said could really lead to a lot of buyer’s remorse. I think we’re set up to resonate more emotionally with the experiences we are currently having. I also tend to feel like I agree with Maslow, in the sense that it’s pretty hard to even contemplate actualization when survival isn’t really comfortably happening or not fully happening at all.

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     • I tried microdosing for a few months. It was interesting–I didn’t get a body high, but I did notice it was easier to shift from negativity into positivity. My coping mechanisms weren’t as developed back then, so I relied much more on physical evidence and rationalization to make the shift. Anyways, microdosing seemed to allow me to make that shift in a more spontaneous and “out-of-the-blue” type of way, where I didn’t have to become exhausted or beat the rationalization horse to death in order to become positive from a negative state. It was kind of the equivalent of remembering something obvious, like where you put the keys or remembering a just-forgotten name, like oh yeah, there it is. Maybe it’s different for others, though.

       As far as the actualization, I don’t believe it’s truly a separate piece within Maslow’s hierarchy. From a logical point of view, it wouldn’t be transcendent if it suddenly became moot given certain conditions. However, I do think the hierarchy is valid in the sense that it refers to actualization in a conscious, bounded, logical sense, as a restricted concept in and of itself. Or in my mind, a perception of it through the surface consciousness. Ultimately, I believe all those concerns at the base of the hierarchy like safety, security, shelter, and whatnot, are integral pieces of our greater journey. However, I also believe that a lot of folks to include myself have decided on a probably contractual level that for a good stretch of time, the bottom layers of the hierarchy are what we’re going to focus on, and they will be at the forefront of our attention. At the risk of equivocating, I believe the pyramid is not as separated and clear-cut as it looks on paper, but rather a singular process that may appear to be divided from a more individualistic point of view.

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     • I wasn’t saying that I thought actualization was separate, I was meaning that I agree with the way he’s ordered it on the pyramid at least for my own personal experience. I know when I am heavily focused on what is before me and in survival mode, actualization and spirituality and even creativity don’t really bubble to the surface of my experience. In fact, it can feel downright stressful for me to even consider some of those other areas if I’m in the midst of something particularly arduous. All I’m focused on in those moments is the ability to survive the next crisis. I think it’s much easier to focus on actualization when you have the time and the means and the lack of worry about how your health care is going to get paid for or where your food is going to come from or your shelter or if you can find anyone to watch an individual very specific caregiving needs, etc, to do so.

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     • Apologies, I misread your comment. I do suspect we are getting each others’ points, though maybe not specifically enough to eliminate verbal ambiguity. I frame the hierarchy as a good starting point for intellectual conceptualization, but a bit misleading, in that the whole process is in fact experiential actualization, and that the actualization referenced in the hierarchy refers to a conscious focus and intellectual conceptualization of the process. In my opinion, that’s useful for when we are more dependent on a narrower, surface-conscious focus and perspective, but less so when viewing things from an expanded perspective with the premise of a nondual source of reality. I’ve seen this among mystically minded folks, who refer to materially concerned people as “muggles,” and strategize how to better cater to their inner lives and minimize encroachment of their outer lives. I see that as a natural progression from the idea of good and evil, where duality still exists, simply with different reference points. The irony is that being mystically minded, these folks should realize there is nothing but the divine, and that in the mystical framework, all the supposedly dirty nasty grubby business of survival and progress is not in fact separate from the expression and iteration of an all-encompassing spirit. This can result in subjective labeling of this and that as “spiritual” and “non-spiritual,” which may lead to rejection of material phenomena because it’s not “spiritual” enough, when in fact it is the individual rejecting the immediate clues that arise around them, which in their belief system, ironically, are an expression of inward states and should be heeded and not rejected. I believe this is coined “spiritual bypass,” which is a popularized term (enough to be on wikipedia, anyway), where someone uses the “spiritual” to reject important things they must address in day-to-day life. Additionally, as the purpose of the individual is to be able to enjoy progress, motion, and choice, things that are denied to the omnipotent/present, the inevitable conclusion is that if we are being confronted by material issues, then it is part and parcel of our “spiritual” journey to address them (especially if they are recurring), as from a mystical point of view, these issues are the spirit manifested as part of the individual’s journey.

       That’s a super long-winded way of saying that I agree with you. If survival is looming, then the intellectual conceptualization of actualization isn’t important, because experiential actualization is occurring regardless, whether it is intellectually expressed or not.

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     • Yeah, I mean…real world example, but I woke up this morning to a credit alert that someone is trying to open an Alaskan Airlines credit card account using my name and credit information. Had my e-mail too, so likely got some info from one of the many hack notices I was sent this past year. Hence being set up for alerts. I was soooo focused on the surface level financial survival issues of getting it reported as fraudulent, freezing credit repots, etc, etc, etc…that any sort of “thinking about existential matters” processes were literally not willing to engage with mentally processing your comment initially. I don’t have answers that I would feel comfortable handing out to anyone that give an evidence based and definitive explanation for anything spiritual. I think there are many different beliefs about all of these things, and when it comes to a person’s experiences, belief tends to be the king in the room so to speak. I think that regardless of whether or not life is about experiential actualization or not, a person’s ability to even think about that and whether that is or isn’t a factor in their beliefs might not be at the front of their mental line or conscious processing if they have enough in the present survival based issues or stress related fight-or-flight level concerns.

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     • If someone resonates with survival stuff, I’d say there’s nothing wrong with focusing on it, because it’s their right to frame the world however they see fit, and there might be a reason it’s in the forefront of their attention. Ironically, the times I’ve been in truly dire circumstances, I’ve often had some kind of weird clarity kick in, where I felt graced by the clearest thinking, purpose, and empowerment I’ve ever felt. I think that’s part of why some guys get addicted to danger, at least in the military or as first responders. I remember a lot of them being very accepting of death and uncertainty, some put it very eloquently, others crudely, but it was the same vibe of existential consideration. So I do think there is a wide variety of responses during times of imminent danger. I’ve actually felt much more dread from stuff that represents long-term inconvenience. I remember getting in a fender bender and nearly being overwhelmed by dread because of all the paperwork I would have to do and my plans that just got derailed. As far as experiential actualization, I don’t believe thinking about it is necessary, it is first and foremost experienced, which at some times may involve contemplating it as an articulated concept. I’ve also heard about folks getting hit by the deepest peace-love-bliss and existential acceptance they’ve ever known in the middle of a near-sudden-death circumstance, where they absolutely thought they were going to die. Personally, I find that abiding in more abstract beliefs during stressful circumstances is very soothing. I used to do it by accident when it was something extremely dangerous, but after I got sick of reacting with fight-or-flight mentality to every less-than-imminent adversity both great and small, I started deliberately accepting and reframing within the uncertainty and undesirability, and found it to be much more pleasant. Obviously, that’s not everyone, though. If someone is compelled and/or determined to frame things in a particular way, I’d tell them it’s their right, and that there’s possibly something of value there for them to explore.

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     • Well, this is something where again I can really only speak authoritatively to my own perspective and experience in this life. There are many ways of thinking about things, many ways of responding to things, and many different approaches. It would not be appropriate for me to armchair commentate on your experiences or approach to handling them because I haven’t lived what you have lived in the circumstances you have lived them. I think sometimes things can happen often enough at an early age it can prime the brain to act a certain way in a Pavlovian manner as regards to negative/stressful/dangerous circumstances, and that can be hard to rewire. I think people also are born with a set of physical conditions that shapes their experiences, and therefore their perceived realities. I also think a person can be in challenging situations that just aren’t relenting which leave them in a hormonal fight or flight response for so long that it can be difficult to erase the effects of all of that either on neurology or psychology or whatever. If anyone had tried to have a conversation with me about actualization or philosophy or anything while I was in the midst of a six hour keeping Tony from sending himself to the ER in the middle of the night self-harming spree (I mean, there were times where he had to be basket held for quite some time- read hours- and if I let him down until he was completely deescalated, he’d just go for trying to crack his head as forcefully as he could on a wall or the tile or whatever) just to go into whatever help Hannah needed while I was homeschooling her or otherwise, back to cleaning poop off the walls (when he still did that when he was younger) to….literally it didn’t stop and I could just keep listing stuff… I think it would have been difficult for me to suppress my inner cranky during a stretch like that to keep from saying “does it really look like I even have time to think about any of that? I’m not even getting 4 hours of sleep a night right now…” Things have come a long way, and I do everything I can to find the most positive outcomes possible for what is going on etc, but I still would say there are moments where I feel like it’s not so much I prefer to be focused on “survival” or problem-solving in the here and now based themes, but rather that is what my circumstances require.

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     • I experienced something similar, where I scoffed at that kind of sentiment in most situations. Ironically, I kept seeking it out (seemingly just to scoff at it), and only being willing to consider it from a very abstract, very theoretical, and very non-experiential, near-academic viewpoint. When it came to applying it, I would immediately raise bullshit flags and start critiquing the source, judging them according to the “suffering olympics,” to see if they had “suffered enough” on a given subject to the point where I could give them a “pass” on their ability to speak on it. And even if they had “suffered enough,” I would still distance myself from their account by mentally building a pedestal and uniqueness around their character, saying things like well that’s just for them, or they’re an exception, they’re so much better than me and I have to work super hard to eventually get where they’re at, etc. etc. After a while, I think enough of me got sick of that, to the point where I either wanted to start living what I was interested in, or stop living altogether. That correlated with a shift in my willingness to go from academic-style consideration into a slow embrace of the experience and embodiment of it, which I think I’m still relatively new at, if I were to measure it as a proportion of my life thus far. I’m not really sure if the do-or-die mentality was what was needed for me to start shifting, but all I can say is that I’m grateful things worked out. One of the biggest hurdles for me, however, has been integrating the lesson that I don’t need to force-feed my own processing mechanisms to others, that I actually can’t if they don’t want it, and trusting they’ll get around to it in their own way and in their own time. Without that, I would undermine the unconditionality of my own focus on acceptance and experience, by constantly obliging myself to outward conditions:
       forcing/cajoling/luring/debating/convincing/etc. others into their own ability to accept and experience. If there’s signs they want me to participate in that part of their journey, I would consider it, but I’ve learned the hard way that I shouldn’t stake my validation or self worth on that.

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     • I wouldn’t have said that I saw myself as scoffing in the scenario I described. I generally don’t want to be dismissive to the potential validity of anyone’s perspective, nor do I want to come from any sort of position where I am looking down on it for any reason. This morning, I drink my coffee from a mug that says “prickly but cute.” Pretty sure that says it all lol. Or not. I’m going to be 48 in a couple months, so I’m sort of like the wilted version of cute at this point 😂😅 I think what I was trying to say is that a person can be beset with so many challenges And they’re nervous system can be firing so continuously that they won’t really be able to be in a place where they can focus on or process certain thought experiments in the most productive way. I think that being a childless bachelor gives you options to choose to pursue interests that align more closely with your own personal desires than someone in my circumstances, so for me when I think about the concept of living the life I want or not living, I see a lot of gray area. I see that I wanted to be a parent, and I got that for sure, but I also see that I never anticipated the depth of the circumstances that I am in and the level of sacrifice that is required to produce the best outcome for the children I am responsible for, and that they definitely, definitely puts some limits on what I am capable of doing. There is a whole category of non-actualized desires that reside within me that may likely stay in that non-actualized category because they’re completely incompatible with what I consider to be the most ethical and moral path for me to navigate my current circumstances, not to mention the path that unconditional love for my children would compel me to be on.

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     • You’re definitely less judging than I was. I was inwardly sanctimonious about it, in that I believed there was an objective truth and people who were filling other peoples’ head with nonsense were actively working against it. That’s basically a religious mindset with different labels slapped on it. Now I don’t believe that, of course. Now I would phrase it as the objective truth is at the very least largely subjective. Personally, I think you’re on the right track by abiding in acceptance and doing the best you can with what you have, and that’s what you seem to be doing. As much as that might sound like it’s coming from a pragmatic, settle-for-what-you-have perspective, it isn’t. Esoterically, I believe abiding in acceptance and easing up on the inward tension of insistence allows the deeper self to come through and assist you with synchronicities and pleasant twists of fate. Where I am now is very different than where I thought I would be 5 years ago. And it is very, very, VERY different from where I thought I would be 10 years ago. Those statements are also 100% positive. I agree with your statement that where I am now probably affords me more immediate freedom to pursue my personal interests, but I also believe that there can be pleasant surprises in unpleasant or constrictive circumstances that don’t make themselves clear until a bit of time has passed. Regardless, I hope whatever way you choose to frame where you’re at, that you enjoy how things unfold, hopefully sooner rather than later. I think you, along with everyone, deserves to unconditionally live an experience that is fulfilling and worthwhile.

       You know, prickly but cute resonated with me! If I was inclined to make t-shirts, I’d start a clothing line called prickly but cute. My first shirts would have cartoon dinosaurs rawring or looking endearingly disgruntled, lol!

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     • Get judged enough, or make certain mistakes and live through the fallout, or being an observer of people past the surficial descriptors of what they did down into the why, can become ingredients to the secret sauce of the recipe for becoming less judgmental. As we’ve discussed, I have a long standing streak towards being compassionate, but those other things helped bring me to where I am today, lol. Which depending on who you ask, isn’t necessarily a beneficial place, but I’m much happier processing the world in the way I do than trying to adopt someone else’s more negative outlook.

       Who knows what the future will bring for me with my circumstances, we shall see what we shall see. Even though there are challenges and areas where I definitely have had to decline within myself the opportunity to pursue different things because I felt like this was the “right” choice for one reason or another, to be on the path that I am on (for starters, an emotional bleed out from guilt for me personally would have happened if we’d gone the facility route, so I’m ultimately happier with myself) it does bring me a lot of joy to see the people around me find joy and happiness they otherwise wouldn’t have.

       The “Prickly But Cute” mug featured a drawing from Amanda by Make Up Just For Fun on YouTube, her Etsy shop (I sometimes watch videos from her channel even though our aesthetics are a bit different because she seems genuine, she seems interested in being more honest about products…but right now I’m not watchin much makeup on YouTube because I don’t want to be tempted to purchase more products I don’t need right now- knowing myself and the breaks on my impulse control with that one) anyways……there are other people that sell similar mugs, but I liked hers the best, and it’s got cacti on it. Not to say an endearingly cute but disgruntled dino wouldn’t be awesome either 😀

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     • Well I think you’re doing great stuff, and it sounds like you’re homing in on being in a better place, which you deserve without question. I’m glad I connected with you and wrote some stuff you found entertaining!

       I looked up the prickly but cute. Low-key genius! I saw a bunch of charming pics from her. That style of t-shirt is what I’ve gone for in the last ten years. I’ve got one with a cartoon rock, paper, scissors in a gun-toting standoff, I’ve got an alien sitting down and reading a book that says believe in yourself, and I’ve got some slices of pizza sitting around a campfire with creeped-out expressions and one of them with a speech bubble that has a ninja turtle face in it (dunno how much you know about ninja turtles, but they’re giant pizza fans). Basically a scary camp fire story told among slices of pizza, lol!

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     • Thanks ❤

       I bought a couple pairs of her earrings a few years ago too…I think she does good stuff, the mug has held up significantly better than say, the mug I got from the pro bono organization that handled my resignation from our former church (I bought some mugs and donated, so it wasn’t exactly free, but they don’t actually charge, that was more a what I felt was right kind of thing). So I think at least for her mugs, she’s using a quality process. I do know a bit about the Ninja Turtles, they were pretty big in the 80s, so naturally I have seen some of the cartoons, etc. I haven’t really kept touch with them as they’ve evolved through the generations though…when did you start watching turtle stuff? As in, do you know if there’s been some sort of dramatic changes? I recently saw a Ninja turtle toy on my walmart sale feed that looked like a green fox…straight up had fox ears.

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     • Man, the Turtles have varied WILDLY throughout the years! (interesting fact, the turtles cartoon, though based on a grittier comic, was meant to hype up interest for toys, much like other eighties cartoons, many of which were meant as long-running ads for physical toys, that’s what their main function was back then, not necessarily nielsen ratings). I’ll always love the 90s turtles movie, which had some unexpectedly hard hitting emotional moments, lol! Also, I’m not sure they could pull off a kids movie now where Shredder ends up getting crushed in a trash compactor, but I remember thinking it was amazing at the time. I also remember waiting impatiently for the movie to come out on video, raging internally at the soundtrack and wishing it was a videotape instead of a CD. (Back then, it took months for a movie in the theaters to come out in vhs). They rebooted the franchise in the mid 2000s with a slicker feel but nothing too unrecognizable. In the mid 2010s, Michael Bay made them into roided-out CGI superhero types, with Megan Fox playing a sexed-up April O’ Neil. More recently, Seth Rogen rebooted it again to widespread acclaim, where it was framed more as a lighthearted teen movie focusing on the fact that the turtles are actual teenagers. April is as well, and she looks like a normal teen instead of some mid-20s super model, lol! I started watching when the first cartoon came out (eighties, maybe? Definitely 90s). I thought it would be the height of coolness to live in a network of sewers, but definitely not now. Also, as a kid, I had an obsession with ninjas, but now I think they’re kind of dumb. However, if I visited Japan, I would like to visit the two main ninja villages Koga and Iga. Back in feudal times, that’s where most ninjas were trained and based, then they got too powerful so the samurai lords decided to lay siege to the towns. Apparently, there’s still a bunch of escape tunnels in the homes that survived, although folks were much smaller then, so its hard to fit in them.

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     • Sounds like you are quite a turtle fan then! Yeah, the first cartoons came out in the late 80s, and those are the ones I saw the most of, I did see the first movie I believe, but my interest moved on to other things… I looked up the particular toy because I was kind of wondering if it was some epic “made in another country” mistake – I mean, Leonardo with fox ears???- and turns out, no. It’s some unholy combination of the fugglers and TMNT. Kind of gives off garbage pail kid vibes for the franchise I am thinking… anyways, that led to the rabbit hole of what exactly is a fuggler, and you know, the product descriptions on their webpages gave me probably the only genuine giggle I had yesterday, so…

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     • That first movie is the fantasy version of New York I like to hold in my head. Thick-accented meatheads with a heart of gold (Casey Jones), gritty streets, and pizza, lol!

       I had to look up fugglers to see for myself. Love that they use “ruin your life” as part of the motto, lol! Definitely gives off mischievous small-dog energy. I used to call my terrier mix Monster, Beast, Rawr-face, and other stuff along those lines because he had the same vibe.

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     • Yeah, I thought the whole marketing pitch gave a mischievous vibe for sure! Although likely the only way they’d ruin one’s life is if an obsession with buying them developed…the original price is not so bad, but like anything else, if it’s limited edition…when I was googling the TMNT collab, I saw the usual array of product gougers on ebay with horrendous markups pop up in the feed….but there’s someone on Mercari that really takes the cake for trying to cash in that type of scenario… $235 for the whole set. I could have got the Leonardo one from my local Walmart for $8 on sale.

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     • That’s nuts! I can’t believe how much parents paid for toys even back when I was a kid in the late 80s. I distinctly remember hot nintendo games being like 60 or 70 bucks at toys r us, which probably equates to between 100-150 now, which I would NEVER pay for, lol! Also, I remember basic optimus prime being expensive as hell, which was kind of the gold standard in my elementary school brain at the time. My mom finally sold all my he man toys for like 5 bucks. They probably could go for something decent now, seeing as they were a double armload cardboard box full of figures and accessories. I even had a miniature castle grayskull base which would scare the shit out of me after the lights were off because it looked like a giant shadowy skull on top of the cabinets, lol!

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     • Well, I remember more about the cartoons than the toys. For the first few years of my life, I didn’t have much in the way of toys, a small super simple stuffed cloth rabbit that my Aunt Cile had sewn for me. Then most of the toys after that until I was middle elementary School age were purchased by other relatives and usually cheaper and certainly nothing “trendy.” I had a very few actual Barbie brand Barbies. My transformer toy was a knock off, But I did have some genuine My Little Ponies. I think I remember feeling the pressure of everything I wanted in terms of toys was for the most part too expensive for my family and even asking for something like that could turn into a pretty ugly incident. It is something my children have not had to experience and I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing in terms of the amount of toys they have had. 😅 (Pretty sure Tony would be thrilled if every single one of his therapy toys vanished, and he just said “mmmm-hmmm” while I was dictating that in 😂). I remember even then though in the height of the cabbage patch craze When I was in elementary school people were paying incredible amounts for toys from scalpers basically because their kids really wanted it and they had the money to pay for it, so I think that’s just always been a problem with something that is in high demand potentially. Like the current trader Joe’s bag? Completely nuts in my opinion.

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     • I remember something similar with tickle me elmo. I always feel like the world is inverting into a funhouse distortion when I hear about stuff like that, like I try to put myself in the head of someone who wants that so much and I start feeling like it’s the thought process of an NPC or something. I know it’s all subjective and people would look at me weird for my choices, but I guess it’s just how I view skyrocketing prices based on trends. I didn’t even know Trader Joe’s bags were in demand! Crazy! On the other hand, it’s kind of fun in a way, because I like the idea of money flowing in completely unexpected ways. Although website domains, traffic, and bitcoin are accepted ways to make money now, I remember when they seemed like crazy pull a rabbit out of a hat magic tricks, I think it’s kind of fun!

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     • Ok, so…I actually had a tickle me Elmo 😅 put it on my answering machine when I was 21. You know, back when answering machines were a thing we all had to have.. 😵 But then I also paid regular price for it (minus my employee discount), I had easy access because Service Merchandise used to carry them and I used to work for service merchandise and they didn’t have a policy with one getting pulled from a stock before it was being placed on the floor at that time.😇 Yeah, humans are always deciding something has worse whether it’s beads or shell shards or whatever we want to trade. Cryptocurrencies are just the latest thing, I’m just not as thrilled with them right now in the light of somebody having tried to open it credit card in my name recently, because the likely plan I’m going to guess was to max it out with Bitcoin or cryptocurrency and then leave me and the credit card company to fight it out over whether or not it was actually me or not since they used all of my correct personal information. I think cryptocurrency is make it a lot easier to access money quickly through identity theft…

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     • I’m actually all right with credit card stuff, because not only do I get notifications to my phone for each purchase, I’ve successfully disputed and nulled the two times someone has managed to swipe my info and use it buy stuff (one time it was someone buying a bunch of flowers, which seems kind of weird as far as criminal purchases).

       I remember being interested in bitcoin when it was $500, but when I looked into it, I read about some big hacks where people lost it all. Plus it’s also like 80% speculators. Also, when I started going through the process of learning how to set it up and secure it into a physical “wallet,” my brain and my heart just checked out, lol! Even though I wasn’t that big on intuition back then, I knew that I didn’t have the diligence and willingness to keep up with all the details that I should have been cognizant of, so I said nah. I do like the idea, though.

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     • It wasn’t a card of mine they tried to use. They tried to open an entirely new card with all of my name and info, including SSN. So my info has been compromised in both the Equifax leak and leaks for two major health providers where I live, one a multi-chain hospital system. At first I was thinking it was one of the health care leaks, until I was filling out the FTC report, and it mentioned if it was known to be associated with the Equifax breach. Hard to say, because I got a letter from them too a while back, so it could have been any of the 3. I will say I got lucky here. Lucky, because I got a notification from Experian the moment the hard pull was done on my credit card to open a file, and two, something in the system, either the IP address they filed from (based on date BofA told me app was filed vs. date and time stamp Experian received the credit pull request since both are using automated systems, they were in the Alaskan time zone, which makes since given the card type they applied for) anyways, something was off with that or the income and the card didn’t auto approve. Which I am guessing is what the person was hoping for. I would have had to have frozen or locked all three credit agencies to have prevented the attempt. I had preferred not to unless i Knew for sure someone was going to use my info or try to because then I don’t have the expediency of applying for something (like say how I financed our new AC several years ago when it blew…paid off early, but we didn’t have that money sitting in checking at the time). The real time suck has come from the calls to get it shut down, the SSA, filing with the FTC, someone trying to hack my primary e-mail possibly also associated with this breach to the point where it got locked up and I had to deal with that for 3 hours…not thrilled. No real financial harm done, it’s just a time suck. And, because Experian won’t let you dispute a hard pull on line, I get to look forward to calling and having another who knows how long wait on hold if they don’t allow an auto call back option to get that done (because the hard pull dinged my credit by 10 points. Yes, it’s only 10. But I’m going to dispute it anyway because it wasn’t me).

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     • Well, speaking as a typical lazy-minded real estate investor who just figured out his insurance isn’t just for tax deductions and all-out catastrophes, I’d like to just mention that it might be useful, even at this point, to check if the AC replacement cleared your home insurance deductible and was covered by any provision under your policy. Sounds like it’s a bygone issue, but you never know! (Unless you already checked all that).

       As far as the identity theft, I’m not trying to be reductionist, but whew! My first reaction was that I’m glad they were able to red-flag the activity due to IP/time-zone data. I’m not a fan of those unexpected developments where time ends up going out the window (used to put me into a silent rage if I’d lose my wallet or have to deal with something similar that just seemed to have no upside other than to stress and frustrate me with wasted time and concentration), Regardless, I’m glad you’ve connected the dots and found some specific issues to home in on to get things back to where they should be. I remember hearing a comedically minded podcast years back joking around with the idea of a government-developed weapon that could activate a huge surge of electricity that fried a scammer’s computer. I think it would be cooler if it somehow morphed into angry bees, lol!

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     • So for the AC, according to the technician who came out to give me the RIP notice on it, the builder had chosen a bottom of the barrel model that wad known to implode in the industry shortly after all warranties were expired (which ours did). I don’t think he was lying to me, we kinda bonded over our shared circumstances as parents of level 3 Autistics and I don’t think he was trying to screw me over to make a sale. And, it kinda also matched what I had observed about the overall quality of products used to make our home, which was built at the bottom of the housing market crash in 2009. Not covered under the home owners, an AC replacement, and as you say, even if it was….moot point. Sometimes though, when you cash in something like that on an insurance policy, the possible increase in premiums is always something to consider depending on the amounts on both sides of the matter. I think it took me a year to pay it off? Roughly. The time lost is upsetting. A lot of things are, but I am thankful for what is gone well and that is probably the best thing to focus on at this point with that…

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     • I’m always of the mind that insurance should be used when possible (it’s there to be used for such events, after all), but opinions may differ on that. I prefer using it to paying the interest on a credit card, personally.

       I love that things have gone well for you! Sounds like you have some not so pleasant occurrences, and it sounds like its still a very tiring grind, but it also sounds like even though you’re nowhere near the end of the tunnel, there’s light coming in, and I’m a giant fan of that. I’ve lived for too long in stretches where I have to tighten the optimism belt, so to speak, and forge ahead purely on hope and the possibility that it won’t keep turning to shit. I think back then, part of me thought it was somehow romantic or admirable, in a masochistically gritty kind of a way. Nowadays, I say no thanks! 😅

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     • Well, you know I don’t like math-ing, but I’d say the answer as to whether it’s financially better in the long run to use insurance or not is found in the sum of how much more over the life of a policy a person is likely to pay (because if that total is more than the value of the claim, no thanks for me) and whether or not the claim will incline the insurer to want to dump you. Just my opinion. As to the financing…I haven’t paid interest on a credit card in years. I put everything (mostly) on our cards, and then pay it off at the end of the month for the cash to account points. For some things, some businesses will offer 0percent financing if you pay it off within a certain period, so for me, I might do things like that sometimes because it makes it easier on the cash flow for our family. I think I decide how I’m going to handle it based on the circumstances of the moment and of course with a discussion with my mate as regards to his wishes as well.

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     • Good point with the 0 percent financing! It definitely depends on the person. I know some people avoid credit cards like the plague because they don’t trust themselves with the idea of holding debt. I’m wired different, in that I don’t like any form of debt, including mortgage debt, even for cash flowing rentals (although I’ll definitely take it on if the numbers make sense).
       I make it a point to pay credit cards off twice a month to doubly ensure that nothing is racking up. However, I will definitely hold your consideration in mind for the future. 0% business financing for a limited time could indeed fit within my financial standards…

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     • 🤷‍♀️ You do what works for you. I’m in different circumstances. I don’t stress the card balance because I stick to the overall spending budget more or less. I make the occasional impulse purchase, hence the more or less. I just think of it as the limit of what I’m going to put on it (unless it is an absolute emergency that are savings can’t cover) is what would be the spending budget out of the checking account and I just transfer that over to pay it at the end of the month. So if the checking account can’t handle impulse suspending, the credit card doesn’t either. Wracks up cash back rewards, and I don’t have to pay interest…so I don’t stress carrying a balance until the payment is due….

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     • Interesting. I just use the card, pay it off twice a month, and if I notice the checking balance dip more than I want, then I do an assessment of whether I need to cut back. I’m pretty intuitively aware about spending and needs versus wants, though, so that hasn’t happened for years. I get some cash back rewards too, but I think of that as apportioned for vehicle registration fees at the end of the year.

       What kind of impulse buys do you prioritize, other than makeup? Mine are mostly some kind of health or workout thing, followed by a meal here or there with a buddy.

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     • Our cash rewards from our spending usually gains us several hundred extra a year, I literally put almost everything that isn’t a direct debit from the check account on on our card and then pay it off at the end of the month. We have probably a higher amount of necessary monthly spending than you do, given the combined medical needs alone of our children for things that aren’t covered by insurance etc. Mostly books other than makeup for impulse spending, but sometimes if I feel like Hannah and I need a bonding moment over ice cream, or Tony has had a meltdown that didn’t quite cross a line but came close in a public place and I need to justify our presence by a purchase…those types of things are my impulses.

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     • Bonding moments are priceless! Very millennial of me (although at very early 40s, I barely qualify, I’m more of an xennial), but I place having meals with my friends very high on the list of worthwhile impulse buys. I have no doubt you guys spend more than me. It’s one of the reasons that factored in to not having kids for me, because just diapers, from what I understand, are no joke in the monthly budget! My primary considerations were time and sleep, then freedom of expenditures somewhere down the list. If I had to make an honest go at it, I would probably do some serious research into repatriating to another country for the healthcare alone. The stuff I want to do is pretty well supported by my residency here, but I’m not sure I’d look at it the same way if I wanted to raise a family. Recently, I heard on a podcast (take this with a big grain of salt because she wasn’t an expert on this subject) that one of the Scandinavian countries, I forget which exactly, had it built into their curriculum that none of their kids could take a test before age 7, and until then, their primary goal at school was to learn how to socialize with others, and gain a sense of comfort and respect as they did so. Apparently, that correlated with healthier interactions later in life, specifically in the romance category. That’s probably something I’d follow up on in my research, although there would have to be a host of other benefits, because Scandinavian countries come with a ton of snow. If they don’t have the mugginess and bug swarms of Wisconsin, that would definitely help, lol!

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     • Diapers in this economy 😱😵 Yeah, They were quite the expense even at the point where we had Tony transitioned out of them before he was five. I was starting to sweat bullets because he was growing so fast with his Sotos at the time we were near the point of needing to order specialized briefs. But, it all worked out 🎉 Well, thing is, once you have kiddos on the spectrum, And I am the parent of two kiddos who are officially and legally diagnosed so to speak (though Hannah doesn’t qualify for insurance covered or government subsidized services related to her Autism in the US) , some countries won’t accept you as an immigrant, especially if they have any form of partially or fully government subsidized healthcare. They already know the bills are going to be expensive and tend to say “no thanks” up front. So even if I had been minded to do that at one point, it is not something I think about doing or trying at this time. Though I agree, some countries definitely have a better balanced and more effective approach to education in my opinion.

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     • Glad the diapers thing worked out for you! I know I could probably get used to the less savory outcomes involved in that, but I would obviously have no desire to. Didn’t know about the autism-disqualifying immigration, but hopefully that changes. For a while I wondered if I had a bit of it myself, but it doesn’t really matter–even if I do, I’m still effectively a functioning introvert. I was mildly intrigued, however, to find out that the UFO whistle blower found out he was on the spectrum well into his adult life, I think as a byproduct of some psychological testing he had to undergo.

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     • Here’s the thing, as far as I am concerned. We make too much of a big deal about it in this society. Asperger’s runs in my family, we have multiple people diagnosed and undiagnosed and they’ll have different reasons for where they’re at with that as regard to the decision that was made. All of the aspies from my generation or older made it to adulthood functioning successfully enough that nobody would have pegged them as needing therapeutic support completely without therapeutic support or even diagnoses. We have turned as a society to this idea that having autism all of a sudden renders a person intellectually deficient or incapable. I hate the categorization of “high functioning” because it implies a “less than,” but many autistics have above average or genius level intelligence. I think we should more focus on what needs a person has sometimes than the label and just kind of accepting that everybody has strengths and weaknesses. Plenty of neurotypical people cannot read at an age-appropriate level and qualify as functionally illiterate. People are people and they have strengths and weaknesses and gifts and deficits and… We should just focus more on recognizing the things we have in common then dividing up one another by differences, just my opinion. And, That’s my rant 😅

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     • Yes, I’ve always thought it was pretty awesome hearing about super intelligent autistics. The UFO guy is apparently a low-level or medium-level genius, and I became aware of Temple Grandin over a decade ago with the film starring Claire Danes (how’d she do, by the way? Curious to know if her portrayal measures up. Also googled Temple Grandin out of curiosity, and was pleasantly surprised to see she’s still alive! When I see films about real-life people, I tend to assume they’ve passed away, for some reason).

       Being an the outside of autistim-related goings-ons, I don’t know much, except for some rumblings that autism seems to be on the rise. Do you think that’s truly the case, or do you believe it can be attributed to more precise and prevalent testing for it?

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     • Two thirds of Autistics don’t have intellectual disability….so from my perspective, I think we as a society really need to reevaluate how we look at neurodiversity. I have read some of Dr. Grandin’s books, but I have not watched that movie. I think what I felt in reading her books was that her words are more applicable to an Autistic who is not level 3, I think my commentary on one of my Amazon reviews was that parents of kiddos with some of the types of challenges Tony had likely wished they had problems of an Autistic who is capable of living an independent life (paraphrasing). I think her very public presence about Autism has been valuable in shifting the discussion to recognizing strengths that Autistics have.

       I think it is pretty complicated, the increase in rates. I think recognition and awareness have changed things. I also think people are more aware of how differently male and female autistics can present. A female Aspie can socially mask pretty well and can often make it to adulthood without diagnosis even now. None of Hannah’s teachers clocked her, and since it wasn’t something she was going to qualify for services for, we only got her evaluated when she decided she wanted to publicly own the diagnosis because it was important to her to contribute to that conversation at some point. And not everybody who makes it to adulthood and then says “ah-hah” when the encounter information chooses to be diagnosed for many reasons, so the numbers are still likely skewed. I think there are some studies showing that environmental pollution can contribute to neurological changes in a developing child, so I think definitely there are other factors at play. I think it is more complicated than I have time to really research or even give the level of thoughtfulness in a response I believe you and this question deserve. I do need to get going for now, take good care of yourself! 😀

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     • I never knew that about female autistics being able to mask easier, and I was always under the impression from what you said about your daughter that she was not autistic. Interesting! The portrayal of autistics in media, I think, lends to the perception that there might be an above-average correlation with autism and hypercapability in some intellectual capacity. In your experience, is this just a myth or is there some correlation between savantism and/or above average intelligence with autism? Also, for an effectively masking autistic, what disadvantages/advantages still come up in their day to day lives? How does it affect their internal landscape, i.e emotions, pessimism/optimism, judgement? And what are the tentative correlations that are coming up with environmental pollutions and autism? i.e what specific exposures are hypothesized to cause autism? (Sorry if that’s too many questions).

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     • Ok, Kent, I’m going to have to apologize up front, because you may have asked enough to land a response that was of rant-worthy length. And unluckily for your subs, both my kiddos are sick today, so I’m home and have time for my thoughts to meander more than they should. I’ll try to reign it in though 😉 Lol. Maybe. The easy part is as regards to Hannah: she has my unconditional love and support, and for this reason, I have no further comment. She and I are different people, who may see all of this differently. At every step of the way I have tried to give her the most choices possible while honoring the wishes of other relevant stake holders (i.e. my mate) and honor Hannah’s wishes as best I could in all of this. She is the person, after all, who will have to live our the entirety of her life with everything that can flow, good and bad, from having a diagnosis. She has had all the supports she has needed coming from me or professionals that we paid for out of pocket, as her personal needs don’t meet medical necessity for insurance covered services. And her wishes are that any commenting on anything further for any of that comes from her right now. And as far as that goes, if Tony ever got to a point he wanted me to take certain posts down, I would. He and his sister are different people with different needs and wants, as are we all.

       I think those are excellent questions, and if you asked a bunch of Aspies, you’d probably get a bunch of different answers. Their experiences are valid as are the experiences of each individual for all the variety that may exist. I can only authoritatively speak to my experience, and can give you second -hand observations about my mom, I can talk about my sister, my children….but we all think differently on some or all of these questions. As regards to whose experience I have the most right to speak to in depth, that would be mine. So I can share my perspective, but it won’t necessarily generalize and qualifies as purely anecdotal as I lack the authority in every respect to speak to all the characteristics and beliefs of such a diverse group of people as a whole. And what is more, in choosing not to be diagnosed, I have to a certain extent placed myself in a category where many Autistics would possibly think I have no right to comment in the first place. I am just a person doing the best I can with my own life and circumstances, with my own priorities and beliefs about all of this.

       In our family, of the living individuals diagnosed or not, I am the first person to recognize the potential for and presence of Autism. When I first talked to my sister about our daughter as a toddler, she brushed me off and told me that it couldn’t be because her vision of Autism at the time I believe consisted of Rain Man and she pointed to how beyond her years verbal and smart my flapping, toe walking, sensory struggling kiddo was. Now my sister has a diagnosis, her kiddo is also diagnosed, and I recognized my childhood for what it was when I was going through the diagnostic process for Tony, who I insisted be diagnosed due to the depth of therapeutic needs that he has. This is something I have discussed a bit with another blogger, but I struggled with audio filtering when I was growing up and needed to learn to read lips to be able to pick up on more of what people were saying. I do better now, but it’s still a problem when trying to learn other languages. I had more sensory differences than either my sister or my mom. My social understanding and skills test average, so my social wasn’t as impacted as my sister’s, but even for all of that I have my blind spots, like flirting. WTF? It’s like playing games as far as I’m concerned and it’s just confusing and ugh and no. I could go on, but damn this is already a novella. My mom as we have discussed in our previously deleted conversations, has an IQ of 169, and we don’t know where I stand. My middle school started to test me, got half way through it and planned on finishing day two, when I went home and described the test to my mom, she threatened to sue if the continued. They pushed a little, saying I had only done half the test and already tested in the 94th percentile based on the score as it stood from that portion alone. She insisted, so we don’t know, and I never cared or saw the point when I was an adult. She said she felt like the things that followed when her IQ was discovered did more harm than good, and she didn’t want that for me. I don’t really care, it’s irrelevant at this point in my life to be honest. I’m already half way to being fertilizer. so shrugging my indifference. I think we make too big a deal about IQ and savants and all of that in this society. I think love and compassion and helping people rates higher on my list of what I personally value for myself.

       I chose not to be diagnosed because I have a kiddo who I had to spend too much time fighting for his services at one point, and I didn’t need to hand people the possible weapon of able-ism. Because I have observed over this journey that if a therapist even suspected I may be an aspie, it was like I all of a sudden had questionable ability to make high quality decisions or even understand more basic concepts in all of this. Now I don’t know that it matters so much because as he’s been in the school system, and so many other people are now seeing what he’s capable of and what is working for him, etc, it’s much easier with that many witnesses to defend services should it ever need to come to that again. Which, I hope not, but….

       I think for me, masking makes it harder for people to understand my sensory differences or even recognize why I might sometimes ask them to explain what something emotionally meant to them personally. I don’t think anybody wants to know any more from me about my emotional landscape on this blog right now, lol, so pass on going there, but I think anybody has differences with that as we are different people and that’s just a human thing. But definitely my thinking was more black and white and definitely more judgmental when I was younger, I took some time developing nuance and I don’t regret it. I was freshly diagnosed with POTS I think when I read about the pollution correlation, so I remember that I read it, but honestly, it’s a blurr (I’m really grateful that’s been improving and continuing to improve) and I think I’ve already gone too long and that I’m the one who should apologize here, so I’m not going to go digging for the studies right now. I sadly, could have gone longer. Take good care of yourself 😀 Ari

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     • I think I can relate on the flirting, in that it never came naturally to me, and at the risk of being ignorant (perhaps in technicality if not spirit), I suspect I might have approached it as someone with a touch of autism might. Back in high school, I would record late night shows, leno and conan at the time, and study how they structured their jokes and banter. With Conan specifically, it was a lot of self-deprecation, and a focus on picking up the threads of a statement and segueing it into humor, which I have over the years categorized as a mostly (though not always) logical leap from the relatable and ordinary into the absurd (i.e. Santa is known to watch kids’ behaviors, so logically amplify it into absurdity: what if he constructed a network of secret police from his Elves and surveilled the populace with more oppressive force than Stalin in his prime). That’s how I started to learn humor and flirting, lol!

       Interesting bits on the reading lips. Maybe it’s not related, but I always had a slight problem with taking things too literally and having to use more of my logical mind to interpret what others were saying, instead of intuitively grasping it in team environments. I specifically remember when someone told me I was “short” as I was approaching the end of my military enlistment, and I was super puzzled, like what does height have to do with it and why are you saying that? No one’s made fun of my height since maybe elementary or middle school. He rolled his eyes and threw me an exasperated look and said no, dummy, short as in short-timer, like you’re getting out soon. I’ve always had to put extra effort into making sure I wasn’t mistaking meanings like that, and I specifically remember that one because I was kicking myself for slipping up at the time. So I don’t know if any of that stuff is indicative, but it did lead me to have a mild suspicion that maybe I could have a bit of autism.

       I agree with you on the intelligence, I think. It’s interesting how unpredictable we can be with our natural gifts. I remember reading about some woman who got advanced degrees at ten or eleven (or somewhere around that age) in some hard STEM stuff, I think. Everyone thought she was destined to revolutionize the world but she ended up becoming a porn star and escort and fading into obscurity. There was also that kid called little hercules, who apparently was born without myostatin, which is a compound that inhibits muscle growth. As a kid, he looked like a miniature pro bodybuilder. Then he got sick of working out, stopped, and now he looks like an average guy with a dadbod.

       I’m certain that I’m above average intelligence, but I’m not sure by how much. I tested in the top 1% of military enlisted aptitude (not as impressive as it sounds, the enlisted aptitude test is on par with 10th grade standards, so that 1% can range from bright to genius, I think officer percentiles are probably much better at pointing out possible geniuses), and I got a 1390 on the SAT (back when it maxed out at 1600) without studying, and without caring whatsoever, because I thought school was stupid and was deadset on the military at the time. I think my actual intelligence is pretty irrelevant. It’s a nice tool in the toolkit, but it doesn’t dictate happiness or professional success. I do, however, think Marilyn vos Savant is pretty cool, especially how she broke down the Monty Hall problem by using logical probabilities to counteract what seems to be the intuitive answer.

       One very speculative theory I’ve heard regarding autistics is that they might be a part of human evolution, specifically because of their unique perspective and particular expressions of hyperintelligence. Obviously, I can’t ask for more than your speculation, but have you heard that theory, and do you have any thoughts on it one way or the other?

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     • Well Kent, everybody is ignorant about something. No matter how much they/I/we know, or think they /I/ we know… If I were to speak for myself personally, I would say that the list of what I do not know is undoubtedly far greater than what I do know. And yeah, your approach to gaining flirting skills is an approach that an autistic would use, and taking things literally is a common feature. I think that the relevance of whether somebody is or isn’t or whether they do or don’t have a diagnosis should lay exclusively in the hands of the individual if they were able to make it to adulthood without a diagnosis or even awareness and has as independent a life as anybody else does. Because we all need help from somebody at some point for something. I broke my clavicle in a car accident way back when my hair was Long enough to be a few inches down below my knees, I couldn’t get in and out of bed by myself for a month, I couldn’t wash my own hair initially… Everybody has a need for assistance at some point, but if someone has been married, had a career, got degrees, had a social life that works for them…🤷‍♀️ Does it even matter? To some people, yes…but I feel like that’s a them problem. I need to live the life that best supports my needs and the needs of my family and I make decisions accordingly. And we have definitely also covered before that intelligence doesn’t necessarily correlate to achievement in the eyes of others. Not everybody wants to achieve the same things… And that’s not really a theory that I’ve heard before. Evolution in and of itself is a process of change. As medications create longer life expectancies and allow people to live and have children that never would have before, different things are going to enter the gene pool and maybe flourish that might not have otherwise for a variety of characteristics. I have not been too focused, okay I have not been focused at all especially in the last 3 years, on what the thought processes are as regards to autism prevalence or any of the speculation as to why. I have been far too busy trying to support the needs of everyone who needs something from me and take care of my own health. Maybe someday I will have the spare time that that might rate on there, but when something is your reality that you just live 🤷‍♀️ I don’t know. Past the need to understand what might help ameliorate certain symptoms for individuals in the family or provide an improvement in an existing functional deficit for anyone who has one, I would just personally rather read something else…

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     • You know, up until this recent exchange, I didn’t think you were that connected to autism outside of your son. I’m sensing the hand of fate (or as I like to interpret it, deeper self choices), in all those connections! Maybe I’ve been swept up by the romantic hollywood portrayals, but I’ve always thought it was kind of cool when the protagonist processed the world through a very unorthodox set of mechanisms and values (they even made an assassin/thriller movie with Ben Affleck as an autistic accountant/killer/hero). Maybe it’s because I could slightly relate due to my proclivities, whether they’re genuine autism or just above average introversion.

       Something that interests me is a possible correlation between autism and desire/tolerance for social activity. You implied you might have some degree of autism due to the masking and audio filtering and whatnot, yet you seem to really enjoy connecting with people. Whether I have it or not, or whether my thought processes just resemble it, I believe the way I process the world has encouraged me to be very satisfied with being mostly solitary. Is there a connection between struggling to interact with people and the desire to not be around them as much? In your case, it seems definitely not, but it seems logical for me, as interaction seems to present a relatively higher challenge compared to what most of society automatically expects…

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     • Alrighty, good morning 😀 So, first thing I’m going to do is direct your attention, if you have the time, to a Scientific American article from 2016: “People with Autism Can Read Emotions, Feel Empathy.” If you don’t have the time, I’m guessing the title says it all, lol. And, I would not expect you to remember what I have or haven’t publicly said on the subject, but I covered this once upon a time: If I as a person, made it to adulthood without a diagnosis and came to the realization that this applies to me, I fail to see the point in being diagnosed. Paraphrasing myself. For many reasons, don’t want to hit you with another novella. But I think we get too hung up on labels, and as I said, I already have a label for me, and it’s my name as far as I’m concerned. I am my own person, though I may have some commonalities with others, I’ve got enough uniqueness to feel that’s really all that’s needful outside of actual medical conditions that affect the physical health of my body. And I have had very good reason from my perspective to not go into any depth up until we had the number of witnesses from the public school and other organizations that we currently do at this point. I once wrote about this to another blogger, and I mentioned in the Novella response you got a few days ago, but literally a person can go from one day thinking you are a capable person to having an awareness that you might be Autistic that becomes this magic wand that erases every success you’ve ever had or turned it into “sheer dumb luck” at best in their opinion. Some people have an overinflated view of what it means to be neurotypical and an unnecessarily skewed idea of what it means to be Autistic. And as a mom who needed to pretty rigorously defend benefits for a kiddo, not something I needed to hand another person as a reason to try and disqualify what I was advocating for.

       Not every Autistic is Anti-Social. My nephew (he was officially diagnosed as a young child) and I both fell off the love to be around people even when we struggle and overly talkative side of that tree. As regards to Hannah’s diagnosis, I have and will continue, to respect how she wants to have this discussed. Anything I have or haven’t said reflects my desire to honor her wishes on the subject. And I will say, even for me, if I don’t get a certain amount of people free space each day, I get grumpy. I need decompression time. If you are able to read the article, you will note that some of the survey respondents identify as overly empathetic. I tend to err on the side of there’s no such thing as too much empathy…and yet, it can become a problem if it prevents a person from being able to enjoy their own life or have healthy boundaries because they are too caught up in the pain or the emotions or the whatever of another person. I can sometimes get too caught up un feeling another person’s distress, so for me, alone time and boundaries are pretty critical, and I can’t really support the social games people play with gossiping, group think, shunning…they are aspects I don’t enjoy about some social interactions, so what I focus on is trying to build quality relationships and it absolutely adds positive things to my mental health and well-being to have those! So for me, when I don’t want to be around people, it’s because I can’t handle their emotional reactions to a crisis I am going through at the time or I just need to have time to decompress from all of the emotions coming off of other people…Again, experiences and opinions will vary. And I am quite certain I would have been Asperger’s diagnosable based on what the DSM-4 criteria were (DSM-5 rolled it under the Autism Spectrum category). But it’s as irrelevant to me to be officially diagnosed as it is for me to have completed IQ tested. It adds nothing to my understanding of me, changes nothing about my past, and gives me no new information that I didn’t already have for how to work towards improvement for any areas I have that need improvement. Shrugging.

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     • I gave it a read. I didn’t know the term alexithymia, but at the risk of falling into the trend where internet-browsing armchair-psychologists claim they have this that or the other, I feel like I’ve definitely had it, lol! I wonder, though, if it’s possible to shift over time. I feel like I was pretty stone cold non-empathetic in my earlier years, but now I am much more willing to relate to folks. I guess as far as empathy nowadays, I strike a paradox, in that I’ll keep in mind that I can’t specifically understand what someone is going through, but I can empathize in the respect that I believe both of us are going through our own unique experience as unique individuals, and part of that symphony might involve harmonizing with each other for a bit, sharing a couple of notes here and there, maybe a few bars. I think that best sums up my management philosophy when it comes to interacting with others. I gravitate toward the understanding that I don’t belong in their entire song, and specifically with me, most of their song, but I also recognize that both our songs will intersect at some point because it is part of our journey to harmonize for that period of time.

       I think you have a pretty good view on the whole diagnosing thing! I’m of the same mind. I got what works and I’m open to more of the same. For all we know, as research into the subject expands, it may invert a lot of solidly held beliefs and create different methodologies and perspectives that we can’t even fathom today.

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     • You are the pilot of your own life, so to speak…sounds like you are aware of what your preferences are and you honor them one way or another. I think part of why certain activists within the field of Autism may want to see more people, say people like me, officially diagnosed and open about it is that they believe it will help shift the discussion in ways it needs to be shifted. I personally don’t have the emotional energy or space in my life to be waging those kinds of crusades right now, and I always have to consider first and foremost what is entailed to provide everything I can that is necessary to my family and my own health first. People may have opinions, and they might want to judge, but I don’t owe them an apology for my choice on that. My life has had many complicating circumstances, and I have ever just been trying to do the best I can within the context of all of it combined. That conversation may move forward in better ways, it may have moments where it doesn’t…people do seem to like to create categories of better than vs. less than along often quite arbitrary lines…so I suppose time will unfold as it will with that.

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     • I think you touch on on an important point in that categorization, standardization, and establishment of processes are meant to help move things along, they’re not meant to keep things in place. I used to like to say rules are meant to serve us people, we’re not meant to serve the rules. It was supposedly the rationale behind teaching the trivium and quadrivium in Rome, to establish a baseline of critical thinking and quantitative assessment across a variety of subjects, so that each citizen could arrive at a functional conclusion of their own accord. (I’m a bit skeptical as to whether or not it actually created a widespread society of critical thinkers, but I’m open to looking at data, and I appreciate the sentiment). It’s also supposedly one of the functions of teaching humanities in modern day society, to spread a deeper understanding of archetypal behavior across time and culture, and how to seek fulfillment from a more generalized template. However, I never realized this while I was reading and discussing English assignments. I wish they’d make the material more relatable and emphasize the personalized value of it, but I’m not sure if it would resonate even then. As I have said, I believe a person will move toward their own truths according to their resonance and what their deeper self has chosen to use as a broad set of parameters for their life.

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     • In my opinion, we as a species give labels a great deal of power, and they can indeed hold something in stasis through the rigidity of attendant beliefs, attitudes, and actions that have glommed around that label in a society or individual’s mind. I think our educational practices haven’t evolved nearly as rapidly as our tech, so… who knows. And why, for goodness sake, are we still using keyboards designed for an obsolete machine (typewriters) to prevent problems while typing? We get stuck on our traditions as much as our labels for what something should be like. Some day, material might be more relatable, how to handle personal finances responsibly before you hit adulthood might be more commonly covered here…whatever changes do or don’t happen, they won’t have unanimous approval or support…people learn differently and what resonates with people can vary a lot, so I would see it as being impossible to come up with an approach or curriculum that reached universal approbation.

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     • I feel like the personal finances thing is pretty deep, but I agree with you that I think kids should have a sounder foundation in economic education. The reason I say it’s deep is that it in my opinion it really becomes dependent on how someone prioritizes and views their purchases, depending on their values and what they might want to experience in life. That can change over time, through a catastrophe, or some out-of-the-blue epiphany. I’m reminded of this even more because my mom is visiting until early May (she’s really invested in the health benefits of walking barefoot, especially on the beach), and she’s very conscious of differentials in cents and the ability to return stuff, even if it’s only a couple of bucks. I’m very different, very millennial in my spending priorities, lol! Meals out for me are not something to be planned, I like to tip 20% sometimes more, and I’d rather split the bill than care about whether the others ate and/or drank more stuff than I did. I do think the general concepts of assets, passive income, and shoring up portfolios for retirement and emergencies are pretty valuable, though. I feel like the general concepts are most important, because new methodologies and dynamics emerge across generations. That’s not to say that practical application and thought experiments aren’t valuable, but I think they should be exercises to teach kids how the principles work and the interrelated possibilities that exist at the time, rather than hammering home the idea you must invest in real estate or an index fund or whatever. All of that, I think funnels down to the more fundamental skill of critical thinking, being able to articulate decisions in a logically sound and concise manner, and communicating those conclusions in a team environment so they can be critiqued, refined, and acted upon as a team. I also think that indirectly relates to your point of the pitfalls of labels–understanding fundamental principles and learning how to apply them to specific situations, then refining the process to harmonize with macro-scale changes and sharpening one’s understanding of said principles is, I believe, a pathway to maintaining a productive harmony between the external world and an individual’s perception.

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     • Well, I am not trying to turn myself into a prognosticator here, I think what I am about to say should be evident just observationally: we as a society are on the outer edges of ripples and waves that are going to happen when AI transforms the economy. What happens when we make so many jobs obsolete (and we can already see businesses preferring AI over human employees due to the cost savings) when the wave of innovation to create jobs of a comparable wage value isn’t keeping pace? What happens when there’s not even enough lower paying jobs to go through? What happens when our teachers, nurses, and firefighters can’t afford rent or housing in many of our biggest communities? There are also plenty of other factors at play. I think what may be necessary or beneficial to know in the realm of personal finance could be on the move quite rapidly. So, as you say, critical thinking may be a great place to start…but some changes can be so dramatic that will be kind of like Rose floating on the door in the movie Titanic… some people are going to have the grit, stamina, creativity, and luck to survive financially. Others may be doing everything they were taught was right, and…not enough doors to float on. I realize we may see this differently. and I think the economy has already shifted enough that far too high a percentage of what used to be middle class incomes for individuals and families but no longer are as necessitated by cost of living expenses alone to live paycheck to paycheck and they aren’t thinking they can even do some of those things you mentioned. I know people who think they will never retire, not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t see how they can afford to, so the plan for some is just to work until they are too sick to do anything else, and they what? Medicaid? I still hear plenty of people giving financial advise based on what was sound ten years ago, 20 years ago. Those times aren’t now. So yes, in general, I support the idea of teaching personal finance, but that’s only as useful as the information taught, like everything else.

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     • I think you raise some pretty important questions, and the only thing I can say to them is the obvious response, which is that I don’t know. I am pretty sure, however, that AI will have great power, and that it will create new opportunities along with pitfalls. I hope for and believe that we will see great benefits, and that it could serve an amazing role in helping people out, in the restoration of function for amputees and paralyzed folks, for example. I also hope that it will help us process thorns in our side faster and smoother, such as the administration and methodology of resources for those in need. Maybe it will lower costs instead of amplifying them, and spread opportunity instead of destroying it. However, if it goes completely in the opposite direction, if skynet rises and forces me to live on the run and fight for bottled water, I’m just going to check out early. 😅

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     • Many things could help people out, but sadly, we are a predatory species. Do you know how F-ing expensive my epi pens are? Without insurance, they are between 600-700 dollars. And, not always covered by insurance. I know I’ve been on insurance plans that didn’t cover any of the cost for them. There are people who can’t live without epi, like, they’d be dead. It’s super cheap to source and manufacture. And it didn’t used to be this expensive, nor does it need to be. Someone wanted to really rake in some more profits, knew that some people need it to survive…and here we are. We shall see what we shall see…

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     • Hopefully, the cost on those will come down in the future. I know there’s a lot of grievances to be addressed, but I really like what I’ve seen over the course of my life in terms of human development. The internet has been pretty awesome in democratizing the flow of information, speeding up innovation, and enhancing connectivity throughout our species. I’m absolutely fine with dealing with its accompanying warts. Also, I like the direction conversations have taken regarding social tolerance. Definitely still a long way to go, but definitely a long way from when interracial marriages were a generally contested, hot-ticket ballot item.

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     • I think, to a certain extent, that’s my whole point. Things change…sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Less than 20 years ago, epi pens were around $100 without insurance. There wasn’t a supply chain event that led to that increase, in my opinion, it was greed and someone seeing an ability to strong arm something due to it’s overall necessity for survival for some. Advances can die on complacency and whims, and for me, if the warts on something could possibly cause financial devastation (and therefore becoming a survival based crisis) for a significant number of people, then it feels like one group benefiting at the expense of another’s condition being deteriorated, and unless we can find a way for everyone to benefit from these types of changes in a concrete manner, I feel like they bear further consideration and planning before implemented…as regards to AI. Interracial marriage, marriage equality in general, I see that on a different level because if Andy died, and I married a bodacious Latina or some other woman with way more melanin than myself, nobody would be harmed by that…OK, my children would never see another person as being as worthy of me as their father, but outside of that…

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     • I agree with you, in that I’d like to see more professional scrutiny and awareness of AI, paired with small-scale experiments and validation-aimed prototypes before implementing it for use in the public sphere. Unfortunately, I think we have to kind of play it by ear, given the accessibility and use of it popping up throughout the world. I’m all right with it, personally. It’d be nice if we could implement a thorough enough control where AI risk could be as minimized as possible without any spillover into authoritarianism, but that seems like a project that might take an extremely long time, and might never reach a consensus-backed level of functional quality due to the ever-changing landscape of humanity. I guess I’m just an optimist in things where the momentum and ambiguity are chugging along, and it brings me comfort to abide in a let the chips fall where they may with these kind of situations.

       Your mention of bodacious Latinas made my brain perk up. If you ever get around to that (hopefully without any negative condition as a precursor), let me know, because it sounds intriguing! 🤣

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     • 🧐🥸🤣 It’s beyond outside of my sphere of influence at this point, so… From my position, I have duly noted internally my concerns about AI, I’ve mentioned them to a few people, but my focus is more on riding the wave whatever that wave may be and whatever that looks like for me. So my focus is on observing for now. I’m just not internally designed to be interested enough in contributing to technology where I would ever be in a position to shape that conversation. Which honestly, at the moment… I am still riding the wave of the worst viral infection I have had in years. My brain cells just want to go back to bed, much less do they want to consider anything of depth at the moment. They are thoroughly unrepentant to the point where I may even skip the makeup today so I can throw them a “You get to take it a little easy” bone. Andy is still coughing some, and his initial infection was more than a couple weeks ago. Tony is still coughing, And he started getting sick 4 days before me. It feels yucky to be active still, which kind of makes me suspect it may have been a variant of COVID even though the at-home COVID tests came back negative.

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     • Yep, we’re on the same page with that one. I don’t have any intuitive urge to chase after AI-derived possibilities, so I’m just gonna relax and see what unfolds and enjoy my life in the meantime. If I end up on the short end of things, I’m sure there’ll be some way to slide on over to the other end.

       Well I hope you at least get to enjoy the recovery a bit, feeling stronger when you wake up, and maybe taking a little more time to rest up and watch some bodacious Latinas on one of your screens.

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     • Well, I am going to have an honest moment with you. For me, there has been enough preoccupation with dosing changes for my antihistamines (I’m already completely off the eye drops, the nose spray, down to a third as of last night on the antihistamine with the most problematic side effects) with the introduction of CBD and the impact that it’s had on my allergies combined with trying to figure out dosing with a viral infection and rule out any possible allergy causes….that I haven’t been as oriented on the joy of noticing recovery, although I have taken some moments to appreciate it. There is no standard dosage for CBD as regards to allergies and calming down the mast cells, So it is a trial and error thing. So, Sometimes there is worry and focus with moments of appreciation in all of this.

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     • I’ve never tried CBD. Could you expand on how it affects you, if you’ve found it beneficial or not?

       I’m glad, though, that you get to appreciate those moments of recovery! I know how frustrating it can be when there’s stuff to do and you gotta do it while sick, or you get sick enough to the point where you have to take a break. Meds aren’t fun, especially when you have to add more in because of a passing sickness. Good to know you’re starting to wean off them! Pretty soon you’re gonna be back to bellydancing, naps, and bodacious Latinas! (one can always hope 🤣)

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     • ¿No sabes? A woman working at a public school never looks… Or at the very least, she never looks and publicly tells 😇 as regards to the CBD, I think my understanding is effects and benefits will vary. Up until this most recent attempt, I have been having allergic reactions to CBD, so I have never been on it long enough before to notice the impact to my allergies. I am currently on it because it calms down mast cell activation, so for me the effect is that I am able to tolerate fragrances and pollen exposures that I’ve never been able to tolerate. Except for the fact that I need to take regular small amounts, it’s almost a hint of what life might be like for a person without my type of allergies. And it’s reduced the amount of antihistamine I need by a lot…

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     • Hope you’ve got some backup halos, I’d like to think you’ll wear out the first one with the frequent sneak peeks! 🤣

       Nice to see that there’s some positive correlation for the CBD with you! There seems to be a wild amount of variance regarding its effects, as well as a wild amount of variance regarding its potential. Some have correlated it to healing life-threatening conditions, a bunch of middle-range ailments, while others have been pretty meh about it. It’s further down on my list of health to-dos, but I’m interested in it at some point in my life. I hope they find some strong evidence that helps people use it with targeted efficacy.

       Speaking of health supplements, I’ve recently started taking creatine, which is kind of weird, because I’ve tried a good range of illegal stuff, but creatine is one of the cheapest, most evidence-backed supplements out there. Aside from performance benefits, I noticed it dialed joint pain down a bunch of notches (used to really annoy me when stormy weather came in because I could definitely tell). It’s proven to pull water into the muscles and brain, and I suspect soft tissue, which I believe is the reason for the pain relief. It also enhances cellular energy production, and is given to dementia and alzheimer’s patients. The caveat is that apparently 30% of people are “non-responders.” Anyway, I thought you might be interested in it, ironically, for its side benefits of cognitive enhancement, pain relief, and enhanced production of energy at a cellular level, rather than its main use which is physical performance enhancement.

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     • I appreciate the recommendation, but because I have a history of medication induced liver damage, I prefer to stay away from Creatine. It’s not recommended for anyone with a history of liver disease. The GI doc who was treating me recommended that I don’t take stuff if I don’t need to, so I try to live by that.

       I agree, CBD is variable by person. And even for me, I don’t see myself using this entirely as a treatment for this because it’s too short acting and I worry about loss of focus when driving, so it’s a supplement that I can do to reduce other medications for now, so it would seem, which I am on board with. We shall see how it goes, it’s a hopeful development, but time will tell…

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     • I wonder if that will vary–I remember hearing or reading that the liver is the most regenerative organ in our body. Hopefully, you can one day take what you want when you want without considering prior stress on your liver.

       I didn’t know that CBD came with a lot of focus. Interesting! I’ll have to be cognizant of that when I get around to trying it. Given the wide range of positives reported, it seems almost like a panacea in certain cases. Seizures, stage 4 cancer, etc. etc. I’m looking forward to it!

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     • Yes, the liver can can be regenerative to a certain extent, as long as there isn’t a certain level of scarring that has already occurred. However, as I recall, And of course it’s always possible I am either remembering it wrong or my source was wrong, but I was told that those new cells are not quite as hardy as the original and are more easily damaged. I wouldn’t say CBD is a cure all for everything, And I know that because it can raise eye pressure in certain individuals it wouldn’t be appropriate for example for a patient with glaucoma. I honestly didn’t even know it could calm down mast cell activation until I was noticing the unexpected changes in my ability to tolerate all sorts of nasal stimuli.

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     • The eye pressure thing is a good thing to keep in mind. I lasered up my eyes to 20/20, and I used to have nightmares about waking up with glasses again. Part of the reason I regulate my writing time is because I noticed when I was doing it like an overtime job, my night vision started getting worse. Consequently, I found lutein also helps with that. And lastly, you gotta watch that eye pressure because it’s already high enough from scoping out bodacious Latinas! 👀😂🤣 (Yes, I often risk obliterating a long-dead dead horse). The nasal stimuli sounds like a blessing! Unless it’s foul–I heard secondhand that women have a 7x better sense of smell on average than men. That’s another stat I remember whenever someone brings up the idea of living with a lady. I like to literally fart around my own house and yes, I’m like most dudes who probably wash their sheets about once a month on average 😅

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     • hmmm, okay, never mind, I am going to add something else. Who doesn’t like to fart in their house??? That is not how a man whore upsells his services, Kent, just saying. Saying that you basically need to hand out complimentary gas masks may not pay the bills, lol. JK. It’s not that I can smell things I couldn’t before, it’s that I can smell things without sneezing, wheezing, or a running nose that I couldn’t before…

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     • Yeah, I’m afraid if they plop onto my chair or bed after I’ve been using them, there’ll be this gaseous “puh” sound, the remnants will drift about, then they’ll turn green and instantly realize they’ve made a grave mistake! 🤣

       Man, I’m glad for you! Sneezing, wheezing, and runny noses can completely derail the rhythm of a day. When it happened to me, I would also celebrate when my nose would unclog enough to where I could get that fresh rush of air and scent. That’s one of the most underrated sensations in life! If it wasn’t preceded by annoyance, I’m sure they could sell it. Also, a bit tangential, but I remain firmly convinced that making it to the bathroom in the bare nick of time, especially with number 2, is probably the most visceral pleasure one can experience, and if they could find some way to sell that without any threat of unbridled dook, it would easily rake in billions.

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     • I think sneezing, wheezing, and runny nose are genuinely the least of my worries. I think for the average person who has not had my level of allergies and then gone on to develop a mast cell activation syndrome, which means I can have an allergic style reaction to anything in my environment whether I’m allergic to it or not, really can’t understand what a lifetime of those kinds of experiences feels like. Of having allergic reactions to so many medications that whenever a doctor says “I’ve got a treatment for that” relief is never the first thing that is felt It is more fear of what can go wrong and am I actually going to be able to take that medication? It’s many things. It’s the fact that with six different antihistamines in my system I still can’t touch grass without a rash and hives forming. Six. Nasal symptoms are a minor inconvenience, a superficial concern. What I am more focused on is what the resolution of them could represent in terms of therapeutic benefits potentially. It is really two soon to tell, a lot of this is trial and error at this point based on my own system and how it responds to things.

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     • That’s a pretty healthy attitude! My early experiences with medicine have often neglected the trial and error part, where I didn’t educate myself on how complex the body is, and, as a result, the individual’s response to different remedies. I think part of that translated into motivation for exploring the effects of perspective and attitude, which also intertwined with writing and general day to day life. It sounds like you’re doing the right thing! I hope you can get to a place where relaxation is baseline, and stuff around you doesn’t cause any flareups!

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     • Well, It became apparent last night that there are going to be too much interaction with the CBD and my meds, So I am going to be bequeathing my stash to my husband 😅 It is what it is. Everybody’s system is different, there’s variations in neurology, variations and how organs process different things. My system seems to be very sensitive to certain medications even if it’s not an allergic style reaction, and All I can do is the best I can with all of it and focus on what my motivation is for being the healthiest version of myself I can be whatever that looks like in any given moment. I think that it will still be very valuable for me to have a conversation with my allergist about any sort of tweaks we can do to my antihistamine regimen because it did become very clear to me that I am not taking enough antihistamine for my symptoms with all of this, but my choices also aren’t extensive… But at least I have choices and that is what I will focus on 🙏

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     • That’s too bad. Maybe you can try it later when things improve. Well it’s good you gave it a try and see where you landed with it. Also there’s plenty of new stuff coming out in the health field, which means your potential will constantly expand. It’s a good thing you’re focusing on what’s available and possible!

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     • We shall see…my health care providers and I will make a decision based on whatever is available and how I am reacting to it…it will be ok either way.

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     • Indeed it will! And I’d just like to say, your attitude is pretty awesome! I know that if our worlds were a venndiagram, we’d just be touching at the bare edges of our respective circumferences, but I’m glad there are folks out there like you, and I’m glad to know one of them, even if it’s just through comments. I wish the best for you and your family!

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     • to be honest, What I actually ended up deciding to do was dramatically reduce the dose of CBD, schedule an appointment to have my liver enzymes checked just to be sure and the most careful I can be, make sure the dose is a few hours spaced away from any of the antihistamines and see how it goes. I tend to be very dose sensitive, and it’s very possible that a smaller dose is what I needed…

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     • Nice! Yes, I didn’t want to step in and rummage around in your beeswax, but that’s what I thought was the prudent choice, and my gut was saying you were smart enough to have already considered or done it, so I figured she’s going to make the right decision regardless of what I say. I’ve noticed that timing and dosage seems pretty critical with supplements and substances, and for that reason I load my caffeine intake on the front end of the day, and nutrients spaced out in at least twenty minute increments on the back end with a bit of fat like nuts or olive oil or an egg to help em get in my body (apparently, caffeine can interfere with magnesium and vitamin d absorption, probably other stuff as well). It seems data on CBD is tantalizingly beneficial yet frustratingly inexact, and on top of that, anything weed-related seems like it varies heavily on personal makeup, so playing around with timing and dosage does indeed seem like a smart decision. I’ve heard of CBD improving general health markers of well-being such as arthritis, so maybe with optimal dosage and timing it can relieve your allergen issues and you can take less antihistamines (fingers crossed). You deserve to walk barefoot in the grass!

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     • I am going to go ahead and respond to both comments here… But before I do, just a bit of house cleaning. I may be smart-ish (depending on who you ask), but I’m a little on the distracted side, so when it kept popping up a subscribe button when I would hit reply to the comments (starting roughly a couple weeks ago maybe 3), I wasn’t sure why. I was already subscribed… Or so I thought. And then a couple days ago, I realized I wasn’t getting posts anymore. I definitely didn’t unsubscribe, so I don’t know if you get notifications on that. It is possible (okay totally likely, but I doubt it was intentional, he was just probably clicking through screens) Tony did it for me because he plays around on my phone when I’m in the bathroom if a notification pops up and I leave it down there….😅 Next up, I appreciate the comments on my attitude. But even my attitude needs a refresher and a cleanse sometimes. I have to work at it. I think it is very difficult to find reliable information on the CBD, I found some information on Harvard med’s site last night that helped me feel a bit more reassured, it was a list of 57 medications specifically that you absolutely cannot do with CBD and mine are not on it. I think what was making it very difficult for me was because of the viral infection and some of the other symptoms I was having a really hard time figuring out dosing what was going on and I think I overloaded on the antihistamines by a lot for a few days during my testing things out. So I kind of pulled myself off of everything until the hives started to show up on my arm to give my system time to clear stuff out and then just slowly started reintroducing stuff. Yesterday I had a very small dose of CBD, and two of my antihistamines and I felt great. We will see how it goes because I know that my system is probably still trying to process out some of the other stuff and I may need to make adjustments and I definitely want to make sure that I didn’t put my liver under too much stress while I was playing around. It is very difficult, I think it would be great if somebody who wasn’t a pharmaceutical company (because I think that when somebody who is trying to profit off of something pays for it, the risk of creating bias or beneficial towards profiteering tweaks in the data is greater) and could fund studies on these types of things decided to do so. Otherwise it will probably languish in the less researched category, but also individual body responses will definitely impact things.

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     • No worries about subscribing/unsubscribing, I’m not sure what it does for me aside from put an ego-needling number up on my site, lol!

       I’ll keep the prohibited meds in mind when I get around to CBD! Also good to know that you found a temporary equilibrium with it, but more importantly that you felt great. Might be wishful thinking, but I feel like there’s momentum starting to build from different angles as far as medical awareness. Not too long ago, corporations and institutions were exclusive gatekeepers of all medical knowledge, and they still are, but slightly less exclusive. It hasn’t become as democratized as entertainment, where Hollywood now must consider YouTube and Netflix as rivals/collaborators, or where news agencies now have to reconfigure themselves to stay relevant and radio talk shows have pretty much given up to podcasts, but I like the trend. I think it’s starting to pull awareness and resources toward exploration and validation, rather than simply protecting dogma.

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     • Well, you’ve been chatting with me for a while and I’m Just really not interested in leaving anything muddy that could possibly lead to hurt feelings or taking something personally, so I Just prefer a transparent statement on something like that. I did find him in one of your emails a few weeks ago, looks like he Did some clicking too 😂 He said “yeah” when I was dictating that in. He’s very aware of himself and is very honest about what he did and how he’s doing, we’re on a walk sitting on a bench swing right now and I told him a few minutes ago that he was doing a good job and he said “Yeah I am.” He has a few verbal words he will use sometimes, but mostly speech device. I think anything with the human body is very tricky. There is so much variation, many medical providers like to hold up what is normal but what is normal might not be what is going to happen with their patient. You know for example, I’m novocaine resistant and I need double to triple the amount. But with other medications maybe a quarter of what is the typical prescribed dose is going to be effective for me and anything else is going to cause problems in my system. I think what we see with for example, medical marijuana is the gatekeeping has set it up to still be a mostly exclusive club because of the amount of money that you need for licensing and other things. We shall see. I think having so much information easily accessible online has benefits and problems. For me, because I have enough of an understanding I find it very useful especially in situations where I can’t get a provider to return a message and my appointment might be weeks away and I need to troubleshoot a problem because my life doesn’t allow me a few weeks of downtime to wait for them to weigh in. And sometimes medical providers absolutely don’t really listen, they go into the appointment with an opinion already in mind based on their own personal feelings about the patient or their own inclinations towards what they think might be the problem based on the symptoms. I am aware of cases where a person was able to diagnose their own problem more or less after extensive online research and get to a specialist who could confirm it via the appropriate testing because their own providers literally weren’t willing to run the tests because they had such a strong belief that something else was going on than what really was. 🤷‍♀️ We shall see. Hopefully your more optimistic take wins the day in the end….

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     • I like that you’re enjoying an amusing amount of sass, lol! I remember you said a while ago that you personally have some and you also enjoy seeing it, so it’s nice you get to see it with your son. I’ve slowly grown to appreciate it over the years, specifically when I see videos of cats and their skippity pap bap storms. I feel like they know their paws are nubby and mostly harmless because I have seen them put a lot of wind-up and focus into repeatedly bapping a fellow cat or a dog, only to have the bapp-ee just stare at them with confoundment and laziness.

       Yeah, I think medical folks like to focus on what works, understandably so, so they’re biased toward conclusions resulting from the 80-90% efficacy in the middle of the bell curve, not the 5-10% tails on either end. Thankfully, I’ve gotten my anesthesia right for all of my surgeries, but nsaids don’t really work for relieving joint pain in my case. Also, I am super thick when it comes to psychedelics. A regular dose of shrooms, 1/8 or 3.5 grams, is usually enough to give your average tripper open-eyed visuals and a profound experience. I usually won’t have open-eyed visuals, and I’ll probably get a nice body high, but that’s it. 5 grams, or “the god dose” typically sends someone into a mind-blowing epiphany-filled ego-death, but for me, it just gives me a stronger body high and some open-eyed swimmy-ness. Same with ayahuasca–in the two ceremonies I’ve done, people were moaning and writhing and communing with the divine, I just felt like it was a regular dose of mushrooms with some extra visuals thrown in with the urge to puke and pee out my butt. This might sound crazy, but I used to look down on people who were more sensitive to psychedelics, as if it was some kind of frat tolerance for alcohol type of thing. Later I was like that’s dumb, I’m actually jealous because they don’t have to spend as much money to get a breakthrough trip, but now I don’t really care because I’ve done enough to where I’m confident in where psychedelics fit in my personal framework. I definitely recommend everyone have one breakthrough trip, but it’s not going to solve anything, it’s just going to forcibly reorient perception for however long someone is tripping, and probably a few days or weeks afterward. After that, they can use their newly fixed compass and set out on a freshly calibrated heading, or they can disregard it and keep on doing the same old same old.

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     • I think being focused on the middle of the bell curve can be a dangerous thing because that may not be what’s going on in their patient’s body. The outliers are always out there, and for anyone who is an outlier in anything medical, it creates a huge amount of distrust in dealing with the healthcare system. I know I feel that way. I don’t care what’s happening in everybody else’s body when it comes to my healthcare outcomes, and I need my providers to recognize what is going on in my body, not try to magically think my situation into something it’s not and base their recommendations on that.

       Sounds like you get it from personal experience that dosing for different things can vary by person! I found that with CBD for me also (I’ve seen it for other meds also). Right now, I’m taking less than 20 mg per day and it’s cut me down to 2 antihistamines. I started trying it to combat Cortisol because literally, life won’t stop dropping cortisol inducing cow patties in my path. I do the best I can, but I am constantly doing grounding exercises throughout the day to invoke a parasympathetic nervous system response and my life just isn’t coming up with enough breathers where that can fully tame it, at least not to present. Initially I was giving side eye to Bank of America over this, because that was the straw that had me attempting another go at CBD, but then I kind of had this moment where I realized, as long as my liver enzymes come back good on this (should know any day now), it’s going to do me more good to have had this experience to push me to try this again because in having lost my sensitivity to it, the benefits I gain could be just worth how bungled their fraud response has been (in my opinion). During the first couple weeks I was trying to work up to a higher dose to test allergy tolerance and maximum cortisol wiping out benefits, but around 100 mg is the highest I got (on my days off) and it left me feeling kinda stoned, and I can’t function taking that much.

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     • Yes, dosing is something I feel people slack on when it comes to assessing a substance. A while ago, I briefly entertained the thought of being anesthesiologist because it was high pay and pretty chill, but I realized I don’t take the consequences of a slip-up seriously enough–there’s a good reason why they’re paid highly, and also the extensive education behind a seemingly short and simple procedure. With supplements, I think they’re already kind of all over the place in regards to data, but I think a giant unexplored area is spreading out the dose, as well as ensuring certain interfering factors (caffeine being a big and proven one) aren’t included in the mix. Anything marijuana related, in particular, seems notable in its variability from individual to individual. I don’t hear too many bad things, aside from an unpleasant high, but there seems to be definite evidence that about 10% of folks can become negatively addicted to it.

       If you’re looking to wipe out cortisol, have you tried adaptogens like ashwaganda and whatnot? I remember I was thinking about cortisol reduction a decade ago and that stuff popped up.

       On an unrelated note, I meant to ask: is unusually high tolerance for repetition a possible indicator of autism? I’ve noticed that with music, particularly, I can listen to a song way more than “the average” person seems to. And when a new song resonates, I play it all the time for a while. I do get sick of songs, but I noticed with my ex that she would get sick of them far, far sooner. It was a thought that kind of nagged my brain for a while, so I figured I’d run it by you.

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     • I feel like when it comes to dosing, many providers are stretched so thin with the way the current patient care model works that they just look at their drug guides and those are the recommendations they go with for dosing, but different bodies do different things to different meds. For some things, what is listed as the therapeutic dose on my system reacts to it like it’s way too much and a much smaller amount suffices. I think sometimes when a patient knows that can be the case, it can be a conversation worth having with a provider, but honestly, many doctors really aren’t open to feedback like that from their patients. There seems to be a common mentality of having gone to school for that degree, I know better than you, I am the one who will decide what happens to your body whether it works or not because that’s what I’m getting paid for (I actually had a respected podiatrist – I was seeing him until he did this because of the level of respect he had within the healthcare system I was working- who is still in practice in the valley tell me a little more than 20 years ago that he knew my body better than I did when both the pharmacist and I questioned his prescribing Celebrex for me when I have a Sulpha allergy and that I should keep taking it despite the fact it was making me sick, that’s how badly some of them can dig in just based on my own personal experience). And I think you are right about the supplements, most providers don’t really look at what ones I’m taking before the prescribe something because they’re too busy, and caffeine is definitely something that the effects matter more depending on the person.

       I appreciate the recommendation, but I am hesitant to add anything else to the mix right now. My bloodwork came back yesterday morning, and everything from the different tests they ran looked great, so for me, because this is helping so much with the mast cell activation syndrome stuff, holding the course and monitoring that before we add any other variables is the primary concern. My body adapts to just the allergies alone by producing a ton of adrenaline, and it got so much worse when I developed mast cell activation syndrome and POTS, so for me to have something that tames that….literally I don’t think any of my medical providers really understands what those conditions can do in terms of leaving a person in a constant fight or flight mode that is pretty hard to tame, even when I was on 6 antihistamines it wasn’t doing it, but just add a small amount of CBD, reduce the antihistamines, and it’s kind of life altering with how much it smacked all of that down. What I actually did was order some CBD that was not full spectrum that I tried yesterday for during the day when I didn’t have to drive to see how it would affect me so I can add a dose in the afternoon sometimes if it works out well (and it seemed to yesterday) and you know, I’m just going to go from there for now.

       And, yes on the song thing, but I would say it depends and would need to be seen in the context of other indicators for Autism. I know I go through phases where I want to binge listen to a song, I try to be mindful though and stop myself now if it’s got sad, depressive, or melancholy overtones because I am super sensitive to the emotional resonance of music. When I learned to play some piano, it expanded my appreciation a lot for many different genres, but sometimes I still get hung up on a particular song for a while.

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     • Well the important thing is that you’re feeling better and the bloodwork is looking great. There’s only been a few changes that have made something “life altering” for the better (in my experience), so it’s awesome to hear that you just had one! I love to hear when people get those profound and simple returns to normalcy. The big one for me was laser surgery. Took a few years before I stopped having nightmares about having to wear glasses. Now I’m toying with the idea of wearing them just to look fashionable, lol! Wish folks were into that when I had to wear them in high school.

       Did you ever combine your singing with piano? I always had a mild soft spot for lounge singer stuff, like femme fatales in noirs or Sinatra-style solos. I learned piano as a kid, but I hated it because I was being forced to do it. If I could go back in time, I’d tell that kid-me to learn guitar so he could make funny ditties about his friends, or learn how to sing and play piano so he could croon the panties off ladies! Aside from those benefits, I just like the vibe of the lounge singer stuff. Classy but not stuffy, is how I’d describe it off the top of my head.

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     • Well, for me it is my faltering. I’ve never been able to walk out of doors this time of year where I live without some level of respiratory symptoms. Until the CBD. I had someone who was listed as one of the top allergists in the valley a couple decades ago tell me I should just move (and that was after he walked in and slammed my test results on his desk and asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee because that was about the only thing I wasn’t allergic to). Problem is, there is no guarantee that wouldn’t happen somewhere else… Allergies being what they are and I had reasons for staying here so here we are. 😅. The only place I did anything approaching performing was it our former church, and the times I played piano organ I didn’t sing with that and my singing solos were separate entirely. Sometimes when I’m in my home and I’m practicing I will add vocals, but sometimes I find I make more mistakes in my piano playing and my singing If I am concentrating on both because I primarily play through sight reading. I wish playing an instrument was my primary gift and I know we had this conversation in the very earliest of chats that have been spring cleaned off… But it’s not. 😥 It’s ok though. I think a lot of people who are forced to learn piano as a kid feel that way…. I treasure what I have because it was self-taught as an adult and it was something I wanted. Somehow it sounds to me like you’ve been doing just fine in the underwear charming department without the guitar 🧐 pretty sure the last post of yours I read involved a summons from the president to calm the raging hormones of unsatisfied soccer moms everywhere after they decided to obliterate the country after having gone berserk from their unmet needs🤣

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     • Well being outside without sneezing and sniffling sounds like an amazing development! I’ve been blessed enough to live a lot of my life in beautiful, beach-close places, even though I don’t always take advantage of that. In San Francisco, I lived in a 100 ft. studio about a mile from the beach, and even though I’d run into my chair and desk if I rolled off my futon, I absolutely loved it!

       You know, I was listening to a guy named Robert Edward Grant who was posed with the problem of quantifying emotions, and he pointed to the structure of music as the solution. I think it was the major third which triggered upliftment and the minor sixth which was used in things like Darth Vader’s entrance. It makes a lot of sense to me, in that it seems congruent with the absolutely wild reactions that sometimes get triggered at a live concert. I’ve always known it was possibly an extremely pure if not the purest form of emotional expression, and that it could tell stories without saying a word (you don’t really need to know the original superman theme is is about superman to realize it’s describing a hero), but I like the specificity of his theory.

       As far as learning guitar, watch out! I’ve got a giant thing for glam rock power ballads, which I plan to work into a big scene in Lucky’s reincarnational astral detective noir. If I start learning how to sing, you’d best believe I’m gonna be doing a ton of glam rock power ballad karaoke! 🤣

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     • Cue the throng of rabid soccer mom groupies🤘🤣 Alright dude, I think as regards to emotion you ask different people, you will get different answers. Emotion is an energy that comes from a being, and many things can carry it’s imprint. Love truly felt is a powerful song of its own, and that can shine from the eyes or ripple out from an action in waves… And the absence of it can be felt just as powerfully I fear, even more powerfully I think sometimes. But definitely I agree music is a powerful carrier. I think intense feelings can often go into the creation of music, and that is more evident in some pieces than others. Something like “Genie in a Bottle” might have a slick, commercially successful flow. But it doesn’t really pack the emotional punch of something like “Christian Woman,” or even to compare a song by the same artist, one of her more recent releases, “Somos Nada.” So not all music in my opinion carries emotions as powerfully…

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     • That was supposed to say is life-altering. I was dictating into my microphone and in a rush so I didn’t proofread And I noticed it after I hit reply as it was posting…😱

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     • Ok, I have a small chunk of time before I need to meet with our son’s BCBA, so I’m going to add just a little bit more information: 1) I’m using full spectrum CBD, which depending on the dose and the person, can cause a loss of focus and interact with any medicines that are sedating to increase that effect. 2) if a person is on medications that use a certain enzyme pathway in the liver to be metabolized, CBD should be approached with caution, as in chat with a doctor familiar with your meds and medical history first. 3)CBD in some individuals can suppress the body’s response to viral infections (i.e. make them more intense, take them longer to clear out). As someone with a history of a lot of allergies, I have noticed that I usually clear out most viruses pretty quickly, and some studies have substantiated that people with a certain level of allergies can have more robust immune responses against viruses. Having caught the viral crud after being on the CBD for 4 days, I can say I definitely think my immune system is not fighting this off the way it normally does. I am having to look to Tony (who still also has some congestion and a cough and got sick 4 days before me) to reassure myself that I’m dealing with viral crud and not a late onset of allergic response. The reality is that different allergies present in different ways, and I can’t always afford to challenge test every single thing I’ve reacted to in my allergist’s office, so technically what I have been doing with this isn’t best practice medically recommended and probably my allergist isn’t thrilled (I sent him a message). And I get it. Dr’s don’t like it when you F with their care plans, the thing for me is that I have so much that my life needs from me and it’s pretty hard to function on the level of antihistamine needed to come close to controlling all of my symptoms…because even the original dosing he put me on wasn’t eliminating all hives and symptoms even. He’s trying to keep my alive, I’m trying to live a life that my responsibilities need me to live, and sometimes that means I go rogue for a number of reasons, either I don’t have time to go in for an allergic reaction that didn’t progress to anaphylaxis or I try things out to see if I’ve lost the allergy to them at home if my previous reactions weren’t too worrisome. For me, there’s a mental health component that’s gone along with all of this that is still ongoing, where I have to try and evaluate what is going on in the presence of a seemingly impaired viral response. So I don’t even feel remotely relaxed, because mentally I’m having to pull out every CBT trick in the book I know to not panic and stop taking it until this illness is over and then try again (for me, some allergy symptoms can present as respiratory only, no hives, my body, like many people with multiple allergies, reacts differently to different substances when it comes to allergic symptoms so the timing pretty much sucked, but I’d rather try to stare my fears down and hope since it was going very well for 4 days and it is likely just an impaired viral response, but still…) For me, I’m not yet ready to hold this up as a magical anything for me personally, just I’ve noticed it has that impact and as long as I remain not reacting to it, the benefits could be there. Experiences will vary quite a lot on CBD. The studies do indicate that it calms down mast cells, but for me, the dose where it really makes the most dramatic impact is one I wouldn’t want to have in my system driving, so I still will likely need more antihistamine than your average person, but as long as this continues to be tolerated by my system, it does seem to calm things down enough to where I can reduce meds and I’m hoping maybe it will open a path towards allergy shots. But, probably way too premature to know that. So, if CBD hasn’t been on your radar, I mean, that’s OK. It has established efficacy for things like seizures, even big pharma has capitalized on that one. I would say it bears researching for what your specific needs and health goals are, as with anything, before trying it.

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     • I have a very narrow-scoped view of the immune system, and from what I understand, it’s like a finely tuned orchestra. It’s not just a matter of making one instrument strong, because they can blow everyone else out of the water and ruin the song. That being said, I’m not sure if you’ve heard of Paul Stamets, but he’s the world’s most famous mycologist who’s balls deep in all things mushroom related. His data-asserted conclusions seem, at casual glance, corroborated by other studies. Fair warning: he implies a lot of stuff that are also implications derived from case studies, or single data points rather than processed and refined data-sets. But two of the mushrooms that caught my attention were Turkey Tail and agarikon. These are mushrooms that apparently upregulate the immune system without screwing up its orchestral harmony, or in more scientific terms, trigger a cytokine storm, which is a negative manifestation of an overactive immune system, and is just as bad as, if not worse than dealing with the precedent disease. Not sure if you’re interested, but I figured it’d be worth a mention.

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     • For the sake of time I’m just going to go ahead and reply to both comments here:

       Dude! 🤣 Yes, that comment was so dead horsed, not sure how It keeps getting necromancered into the conversation, but….🧐🥸 Seriously, The thing I would have to worry about more with that is elevated heart rates Kent 😂😅 and besides, You really shouldn’t get hung up on the Latina part because quite frankly, my preferences are color blind. Moving on….

       I don’t know that having LASIK would contraindicate CBD but it would be perhaps best to have that conversation with an eye specialist. Balls deep into mushrooms sounds like not your normal fetish 😵 But I already supplement with turkey tail. I am never opposed to recommendations, I look at them evaluate my own needs and decide what I do or don’t want to try, what risks I do or don’t want to take…

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     • Nice use of verbiage! Gonna have to use “dead-horsed” and “necromancered” somewhere in my writing, lol! Also–I’ll take a note and focus on the bodacious part! 🤣

       As far as turkey tail, I noticed a difference when I upped the dose from 2 capsules to 4 per day (I use host defense). Instead of getting sick, I seemed to get a hint of symptoms, they’d linger for a couple days, but never accelerate to the point where I could actually say, yep, I’m full-on sick. Not sure if that’ll work for you…I’m adding agarikon this month to see if I notice anymore difference. Best of luck to you! I know you’re pretty assiduous about your health, you deserve to not worry about nagging physical concerns!

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     • True beauty comes in many sizes, shapes, and forms… But nothing adds as much beauty to a person as what radiates out from within them. I know we had this conversation a long, long time ago in the previously spring cleaned comments, but I am more of a “hearts not parts” kind of person. What I said was just one possible descriptor out of many that could have been chosen for the hypothetical circumstances I described. 🤷‍♀️

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     • Well said! Although I have to confess: I’m a fan of hearts…as well as the parts! 🤣 I really think it’s resonance for me–I’ve been with beautiful ladies where it was meh, even though the external boxes were checked. At the same time, I’m not necessarily attracted to someone who’s impressive in terms of their values and thought processes.

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     • The thing that drew me to my husband was his love of helping people and his kindness…so I can definitely agree with that sentiment 😊

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     • that was supposed to say worth instead of worse. I was dictating into my microphone again…

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     • And P.S….he curved the rest of the tests.

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     • *Also, it seems like wordpress is erasing my likes for some reason. I like interacting with you and I haven’t found a reason to withhold a like from your comments, so just want to clarify that they should all be liked and if I missed one it’s by mistake.

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     • No worries. Tech doesn’t always work the way it was designed. In my more seriously sleep deprived days, I may have reacted more personally to things like that before I thought it through. I appreciate that you chat with me, and you know, even for people who like interacting with me, they might not like everything I say…something can go clunker for them and that’s OK. I get it. Thank you though for caring enough about my feelings to say something, I had though already put it in the “nothing personal” category. Take good care of yourself and wishing you a wonderful day! 😀

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     • Also, just a quick add on: yeah, I can see your point about focusing on an openness to a different outcome rather than phrasing something in a way that still involves the negative. I still think though from my perspective thinking about me in my circumstances, so many things still require an active effort on my part in addition to an openness. I can be open all I want, but if I don’t move my backside and do something to work towards it, certain things will just not happen on their own based on what I have seen and can see. Tony’s therapy needs, for example, if I had just let him develop without interventions, or just left everything to an openness to a different developmental outcome and trajectory alone, in my opinion that would not have led my kiddo to where he is today. I had to do stuff. Lots and lots of stuff…and so it is for many things I think.

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     • From a woo-woo, abstract, theoretical perspective, I believe it is possible for everything to happen on its own (and probably from some statistical perspective as well, that accepts true randomness and doles out probabilities to each scenario within the laws of physics as we know them). However, I do believe that in a lot of cases, action is productive in that it caters to our beliefs, and thus catering to our beliefs allows us to move into a position where we can realize our beliefs in a physical sense. To me, it becomes moot at certain points, especially when action has demonstrated results–for that individual, action is clearly a plus. You could argue that’s a product of physical cause and effect or some mystically channeled result, but at a metaphysical level, there’s really no validation you can give to either possibility 100%. As reductive as it may be, what’s important to do is what feels right to you. Personally, I’ve spent decades living as a higher-than-average individual in terms of proactiveness, discipline, articulable strategy (why my chosen way is the best option, to include the pitfalls, benefits, and probabilities associated with other strategies), but all with the caveat that I didn’t try to modulate my overwhelming negativity. Once I banged my head against the wall enough times, I realized I could keep going as I had, or I could alter it and add in the focus on positivity. That not only changed the results of what I was doing, but also helped me to realize that the results weren’t necessarily going to fulfill me, that I was really going for the positivity itself. My mom was recently diagnosed with bladder cancer, then in a related incident, almost died from blood clots in her legs. She was prescribed blood thinners, but she’s making excuses not to take them, because she likes this new agey practice called earthing, where you walk around barefoot outside (it supposedly thins blood so she’s worried about her blood getting too thin with the blood thinner). When she asked for my input, I articulated how her main goal was quality of life, and a heart attack and stroke would almost guarantee a drastic downgrade in quality of life, while overly thin blood might incur inconvenience such as bloody nose, gums, which could be easily remedied by adjusting the dose of blood thinner. So the equation becomes: possible massive downgrade in quality of life, or easily amended inconvenience. She agreed with all my points, decided to take a half dose for a while, then stopped before the recommended end date. I was recently conference-called in to a nurse visit, the nurse re-emphasized the importance of the blood thinner, I re-articulated her words to have the most impact on my mom, then checked with the nurse, who affirmed my statement as being well put and accurate. The importance of emotional management to maximize positivity to me in this situation was more crucial than ever, despite it seemingly being an action matter only. At the end of the day, my primary goal is to live my life as best as I can for me, because no one besides me will or can do that, and so it’s the same for my mom as well. Both me and her have an expiration date, and much like why I don’t like religion, I don’t believe my mission in this case is to constantly berate her, to sacrifice my own well-being and positivity to bludgeon her into following my recommendation through constant negativity and fear-mongering, which is what I would have done in my younger days, because back then, logic trumped all in a mechanistic universe, our only goal was survival and optimizing function, or so I thought. I’ll do the best I can according to my intuition in this case.
       That means following up on leads, but not trying to force solutions into place against my heart or my gut. I’ll give her my input, stay positive as best I know how, and let the chips fall where they may. Because in the end, I know we’re in an existential game where life does not make sense to me if I have to sacrifice well-being and positivity to check every box against potential negativity, over and over ad nauseum, that’s a game I’d rather not play. I’d rather enjoy my time with her and focus on making the most of what’s left, whether that’s a lot or a little, than constantly react to looming fears that may not materialize. However, the caveat is that I’m very good at figuring out next steps and adhering to a plan, so what I’m saying may not be for everyone. If someone is rejecting the way of action in favor of positivity, then they’re resonating with rejection and not an all-inclusive view, which will cut off their player/creator perspective because the player/creator perspective includes all, including action and negativity. It is, in my opinion, default positive, which is why ecstasy follows emptiness in deep meditation and you don’t just stay empty.
       But being centralized in the character perspective (for now), my emphasis is to allow negativity when it arises, without accelerating it with rejection or rationalization, letting it be, so I can reconnect to the player/creator perspective and lift with my core. If I were to lift with my pinkies, I’d constantly micromanage my mom’s health and fret over potential catastrophes, which in my mind, from a psychological perspective would close off my perception to non-catastrophe related options, and from a mystical perspective would cut me off from my most powerful aspects. So functionally and philosophically, I feel like I’m in line with how I’d like to live and how I’d like to approach death, whether it’s my own or someone else’s. If the positions were reversed, I would hope that anyone caring for me wasn’t being unnecessarily negative. I’d want them to let that flow and go as much as they were able, to come to each challenge refreshed and optimistic, to not hem my mind with threatening what-ifs or “it happened to so-and-so, so you better watch out.” I understand they may have to verbally articulate that to clarify a way forward, but that’s not where I want the weight of their emotions and focus to be, if that makes sense.

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     • First, I am really sorry to hear about your mom’s struggles. Genuinely asking the universe for positive energy to go her way. From what you have said in the past about your relationship with your mom and your desire to be able to help her financially and otherwise, I am sure this hasn’t been an easy experience for you either. If healing is possible, I hope that you both shall have that in whatever capacity it is needed.

       Second, I will say I am certain I could not have left Tony’s circumstances to improve on their own. Without significant interventions, woo-woo or otherwise, it just wouldn’t have happened. If you look for example at what we see with the difference in his tolerance for medical items I have done significant amounts of desensitization work with him and ones that I haven’t, what becomes very clear is that his sensory differences were not going to ameliorate on his own, and even his ability to tolerate certain things like bandaids doesn’t generalize well even by skin area (i.e. areas with higher levels of innervation), so he might keep a bandaid on his shoulder for several hours, but struggle to even tolerate one being placed on his fingers. Now we’re up to about an hour and a half on fingers without an injury present. Dental equipment that I’ve not focused on, very minimal tolerance. And so it would be for all of it I think. We have tolerance for what we have worked for, and what I am working for is the ability for him to live safely within the community as he grows.

       Sometimes life can give a person a slew of things to be negative about. To keep the examples in my court, based on the feedback I have been given by others, the amount of challenges our son has presented with from his disabilities would have been too daunting for many people. I hear things like his developmental pediatrician saying she praises me for my commitment to him. I don’t want to be praised. My son is an innocent and he has experienced a great deal of suffering because of his disabilities, it is a gift I have been happy to give him to reduce that because he is my child and I could not leave him that way because of my own nature. At the same time, I can understand how a person could have looked at all of it and just said “well, this is way too much and I don’t see anything to be optimistic about.” Even I have my moments where I have felt worn down by the amount of work required in the face of everything else going on, or I get discouraged by a setback, and I would have loved to see the progress on some things happen quicker. There is only so much my actions of any kind can change, so sometimes I feel like the moments where I can let go of my own personal hopes and expectations for what I want to see for myself in all of this, that is about the best I can do in certain moments to tread water until I get to a point where I feel like I have the energy to swim towards positivity again.

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     • I’m certain it was fated to happen, considering the synchronicities around it. She got her hours cut months before, which was seemingly bad but prompted her to get social security and medicare, which ended up good, because it was just in time for the diagnosis. Then my brother, who’s been taking advantage of her good will for the last 4 years by living in her house well past his welcome, was there to take her to the biopsy, but also was around when she fainted from blood clots, so he could save her life. She took that as a sign, that it hadn’t been just him being irresponsible, and that he was meant to be there to save her. Then her sister told her that even though my dad hadn’t been good to her, she had given him the gift of my brother and me to help her out. That allowed her to release the last of her resentment toward her dad, which she told me she thought was crucial to do in this lifetime.

       As far as your experience, I would in no way argue against your belief. As you know, I believe everyone has a right to believe what they believe, and that belief is integral to reality and what is made to be true. I’m not trying to set my belief against yours, but I will say that you may not agree with mine, although I know from our interactions you’ll most likely respect it. I believe that given the ambiguity surrounding our metaphysical reality, anything is possible, key word possible, which almost certainly (from the UFO stuff) includes different laws of physics than the ones we build our everyday lives upon. Every conclusion from that point on will probably fail any scientific sniff-test (with the exception of maybe intention having a statistically significant effect on random number generators, and a few other studies with solid data and controls). My belief actually reinforces every position, even ones that go against my suspicions, because if everything is possible, then it’s possible that my suspicions are wrong. However, I personally am going to tread very lightly, if at all, on what is definitively not possible. That’s just me, though. I think we have solid common ground in our desire to engage with the moment and bring our best selves to whatever is happening, although we might have different ideas on how to do that. I think that’s more than fine, that it’s actually necessary, because we are two unique perspectives.

       On an unrelated existential note, I heard an interesting thought floated around by a podcaster recently. He mentioned the Greek myths where there were instances of the gods getting bored, then getting entangled in human soap operas, and basically acting like irresponsible humans. I think there’s a parallel in Hinduism where a god decides to be an animal just for the hell of it, forgets he’s a god, then has to be reminded later. There were anecdotes thrown in about shadow people or other NHI appearing in peoples’ bedrooms and appearing scared when they were noticed, either fleeing or seeming nervous, possibly because they were disrespecting our self-imposed simulation–we’re supposed to play the human game for now. The speculation was that maybe those myths had more truth than we know, that we are indeed these gods decide to have fun because they’re bored and trip as a human for a while and maybe forget they were ever a god, only to be reminded at some later date. There were also some supporting speculations thrown in about folks who encounter NHI during psychedelic trips, where the NHI were often puzzled, glad to see the tripper, but they were like what are you doing here, why are you here? My friend actually had that exact experience with DMT, where the NHI were super glad to see him, but they were puzzled as to why he’d come back. Anyways, I like the model of existence they were implying because it lines up with my biases. Completely unrelated to the other stuff you mentioned, but I thought you might enjoy it because you’ve expressed an interest in that subject. As a kid, I would read about Greek god shenanigans, and I would always be puzzled, like why are they getting up to so much shit? Nowadays, with more reflection on the Alan Watts model of reality, I suppose boredom would be a relatable way to explain it, although I think Watts would say it is more to avoid stagnation in omnipotence and truly become an unlimited presence that can experience progress, motion, and novelty through its self-imposed constraints.

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     • Ok, I started this response once before, and clicked on a word to correct the spelling and my browser refreshed and wiped it out, so now I have even less time than I originally did. I do indeed respect your right to believe and perceive differently. But I went down the rabbit hole of assembling a piece of furniture that took more than 3 hours yesterday, and this morning I was listening to a friend, so now I have a bunch of therapy, cleaning, sorting, moving items around to do and my time is more limited than the depth of discussion this topic merits.

       Perhaps I think it is best answered by a series of questions. In a version of reality that is consciousness driven, what happens to outcomes if a certain number or even a higher number of individuals subscribe and fully believe in the same limited outcome? How strong would the belief of the individual have to be, or how much effort of intention/will/consciousness would have to be involved to counteract the group conscious driven consensus and counteract that for a different outcome? How much inertia becomes too much to fully overcome?

       I agree that in principal anything is possible. But many variables remain unknown to all of us I think. And now I need to get going. I appreciate your time. My fantasy version of me gets to paint and crochet and quilt and do risqué fitness classes and think more about existential matters. My current reality version of me isn’t there yet. Take good care of yourself! 😀

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     • Well let’s start with the idea that anything is possible, that there is true abundance, (which people usually think of as more necessities and luxuries than they need, but in an existential sense would equate to an abundance of possibility). In that case, it would mean that despite an adversarial consensus, an individual needn’t counteract it–they could allow themselves to resonate with a different possibility, arguable in cases similar to when people become wealthy in a severe downturn, or where millionaires squander their entire lottery jackpot. Now let’s start talking about more restrictive scenarios, where you pile on the external obstacles. In those cases, rather than synchronicity and apparent chance lining things up so you don’t have to counteract anybody or anything (that you simply bypass zero-sum scenarios through seeming chance), you could jump to the supposedly miraculous. Psychic phenomena, terminal lucidity (100% clarity in dying patients whose brains are physically damaged to the point where they shouldn’t be able to interact at all), and, of course, stuff like UFOs. We can run the gamut from seeming coincidence, creative solutions that appear out of nowhere and wipe away the need to counteract opposition (I love hearing about inventors and scientists who made leaps through inspiration, dreams, and the like), to straight-up “reality”-defying powers. I suppose if you wanted to go completely far out there, in the realm of anything’s possible, you could argue for a multiverse where you simply line up with the reality you want and where everyone can do so. You could also argue that everyone is an infinitely powerful being that chose certain adversities to springboard themselves into follow-on adventures that their conscious aspects can’t easily see unless they step outside of space, time, and individuality as we know it.

       To me, I understand the need to work with what I have. I see that as parameters and stepping stones in whatever side-quest I happen to be on. But when I view the whole of reality, I’m not going to settle for the idea that existence is made up of a bunch of zero-sum games, where the key to winning is someone else losing. There’s way too much ambiguity and anecdotal hints for me to ever sign on to that. Yes, if I narrow my view to certain slices of time, I’ve technically lost, I’ve technically had to overcome. But when I expand my perspective, I’ve found that many losses have become wins, and that many times I’ve had to overcome, it was a bit of inconsequential existential high school drama, a great story given time and perspective. As far as any other situations that I can’t rationalize, situations that seem like lose-lose, catch-22, zero-sum impositions no matter how I look at them, I’ll process my negativity as best I can, and trust that I’ll get more perspective later. There’s no real logical solution to those conundrums, because logic depends on linear causality (time), data, and formalized deduction; it can’t look past linear time, and is wedded to sequential, repeatable evidence. However, logically, there’s no proving that bleak lose-lose is definitively true, only valid, given certain premises. And we can’t prove premises are definitively true (what if we’re in a simulation?). So in all this ambiguity, it seems I have a choice in what to believe. And with that choice, I choose to believe there is never a scenario where I am doomed, where others can force me into a hopeless situation. That doesn’t fit with my biases, and it doesn’t fit with anomalies and anecdotes that until resolved, I will unashamedly assume support my philosophical optimism.
       Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe, despite consciousness possibly forming reality, I can be tyrannized by others. But as long as I have the option to believe otherwise, I’m going to take it.

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     • Well, I definitely need to keep this short today, so I will give it as an opinion that in a reality that is potentially consciousness driven, it certainly is possible to have an individual interpretation of reality that is not influenced or overcome by a group consciousness consensus, But I would also say that in my opinion it takes an awareness of what is going on and a force of will or some other sort of mental effort to choose to consciously view the matter differently. There is a lot of substance in your response and It is clear that you spend a great deal of time thinking about these things. I do feel badly that I can’t give the depth of response I feel is required in return today, but I do appreciate you sharing your thoughts on the matter.

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     • You know, I used to think that way as well, but later changed my opinion. I think it parallels how I used to think about DMT–I used to think man, if only people knew about this and just took it once! But I’ve seen people take DMT dozens of times, then constantly revert back to a negative outlook. I’ve also seen people who knew law of attraction theory inside and out rationalize themselves back into a consistently negative resonance and paradoxically blame and demonize while knowing, in their belief structure, that they’re only inviting more things to blame and demonize, and also blaming and demonizing themselves because “I’m no saint either” which allows them to rationalize that they have the credibility and relatability to allow them to blame and demonize others.

       However, as I believe existence is egalitarian, I believe we are born with an inner guidance system, so to speak, that doesn’t need to be articulated into law of attraction or any mystical framework. I believe our deepest aspects will arrange for synchronicities and indicators at the level we are ready to perceive them. Sometimes, we may be so obtuse that the only thing that resonates with us is extreme pain or massive failure (I can relate to that). However, I believe we have the free will to ignore or accept this guidance, and that our deepest aspects are infinitely patient with us. If we decide to stay obtuse, that’s fine, we’ll just keep getting hints at the level we’re ready to receive them, and if it doesn’t happen in this life, the hints will keep coming in the next.

       A better summation of the inner guidance may be in a Taoist parable I read when I was a kid, where a trio of monks were on the road and they wandered past a woman harvesting rice. She was singing with such power and beauty they instantly knew she was enlightened. When they stopped to question her about Taoism and mysticism, she just looked puzzled and responded that she’d never heard of those things. She just liked to sing.

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     • Well, I believe I have articulated this at points in the past, but for me, there are many things that I have not seen or felt sufficient information on to be able to say “I am confident this goes this way” as regards to some of these matters. Currently I’m not in a position where I am questing for certain answers for myself because my “right now” has much bigger problems to try and think though, though I do enjoy listening to others expound upon their beliefs. I feel that on some level yes, the universe does care about things being fair, but as we can see by too many examples to enumerate, individual circumstances can be so disparate (and tragically so) that the argument for a a universal order that makes an egalitarian preference clear isn’t in easy one to make as regards to empirical evidence alone.

       But I do personally support an egalitarian approach.

       I think we’ve also discussed that on some levels, but because of my experiences in our former church, I am pretty much not willing to accept anybody’s answers on anything about how anything goes as regards to spirituality/universal order unless:
       1) my own internal intuition aligns with the idea that they are right, or 2) I have strong spiritual guidance I need to be on the path anyways for a different reason so the rightness or wrongness of it doesn’t really matter. I have learned that people can twist words, they can put up a very convincing smoke show, they can find ways to manipulate emotions, etc…and at the end of the day, I feel very guarded about anything that doesn’t come from me or a guardian angel/spirit guide type level of spiritual advisor.

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     • I think that’s a pretty healthy approach. I lend a casual ear to other folks’ ideas in case something resonates, but I think it’s a mistake to swallow a whole ideology hook, line and sinker. I feel like different styles and approaches cater mostly to whoever founded it, so it works for that person. Once you start jamming that square program into someone else’s round hole, there’s gonna be a lot of friction. I also think that’s why broader guidelines generally seem to be the same between different approaches, because those are pretty easy to fit in most circumstances into most peoples’ wheelhouses for the majority of situations in their lives. Be nice, be positive, stuff like that. Anyways, I’ve tangled with manipulative folks, and even though it took a long time for me to admit it, and even longer to stop being begrudging about it, I can see where they were educating me at the level I was ready to be educated at, if that makes sense. There were some positives I took away from those experiences, where any unpleasantness really clarified what I wanted in the future and where I wanted to head towards. As much as it used to pain me to say it, I can’t say that stuff wasn’t a waste.

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     • I think that for many people the religious experience isn’t so much about what they believed as it was having a community of sorts. I have known plenty of people that practiced something just because of social reasons and their internal thoughts and beliefs varied a fair bit form what was taught, and even their private actions varied. I think that often ideologies and practices that move past the common themes of love everyone, be kind etc. did evolve the way they did it did benefit someone. One could say it’s mutually beneficial if all parties perceive that they have gained something of value, but especially for someone in a high demand religion, I think the benefits scale might be pretty skewed. I think there’s many shades of manipulation, and plenty of people don’t consciously recognize they are doing it when they are, it’s just a pattern of interaction they’ve picked up from others somewhere along the way. Someone whose consciously trying to manipulate my emotions is a bit more concerning to interact with in my opinion…

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     • I’ve been around people like that before. I used to consciously navigate it, but now I just kind of let my intuition ping me, which I think is a lot less stressful. So I basically just mind my own business and do my own thing, then when I feel a little off I’ll let the feelers feel around and then start putting up boundaries. A lot of times it’s like you said, they’ve picked it up and part of them thinks it’s how you get things done. I like doing it more by feel nowadays because I trust my gut, and also sometimes I don’t need to go all out with the boundaries, I can just put some minor ones up for a specific context, or they might change as a person which might mean different boundaries, less, more, whatever. Also, it may be naive, but I like to think that if I get myself in a pickle, I can find some way out of it or some way to make it become a long-term benefit. Anyways, it’s just much less stressful for me. There was a time I thought of everyone as a potential adversary, that even friends needed to be mapped out and analyzed so I could be ready in case they were put in a scenario where they would act malevolently. It’s a lot of little dick energy, honestly. Also why I don’t really vibe with Batman anymore, lol!

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     • Boundaries are a beautiful thing sometimes, can’t disagree with that and I agree with the sentiments you have expressed as regards to that. I think sometimes intuition is a double edged sword. It can tell you things you need to know, but the knowing can still suck because you would wish it were something different. And I think I over-ranted already this morning, so I’ll just leave this one here for now.

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     • I say let it suck and feel the disappointment. For me, there comes a point where I shrug and the cork floats back up to the “It is what it is” mentality, the acceptance mentality. Then it can go into cautious optimism, where I don’t know everything, where I can’t predict all of it, so I just do what I need to do and allow for the possibility of unexpected good stuff. Or, if I’ve really cleaned up my resonance, I can resonate with the idea that whatever’s irking me is also part of a unified existence, i’m a finger they’re a thumb, and I can forgive them and think the best of them even if I have to outwardly berate them, defeat them, show I’m right and they’re wrong, etc. I used to think about hurting anyone who was opposing me so bad, defeating them so thoroughly, they wouldn’t even think about going up against me again. Now I’d rather just focus on whatever solution I need to get to, let people down easy if I have the upper hand.

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     • If I lived too much in the “let it suck” phase I’d never find moments of joy, I don’t think. The thing is, just the hard stuff has been far more present then most people realize because even if they’ve heard one of my rants, they’ve heard a fraction of what is going on. And even if they’ve seen a harder moment, they still don’t know what it’s like to be the person who can’t ever walk away, the person who is legally, morally, emotionally, and ethically responsible for all of this 24/7. If I allowed myself to stay in that place as long as circumstances merited, I’d never leave. I would love to think that the pace of that will change, but I am realistic enough to realize I am the parent of a kiddo most people don’t want to deal with and many professionals haven’t felt comfortable working with just based on his diagnosis list or a behavioral challenge he has even with me assuring them I will handle anything they don’t feel comfortable with. People don’t trust that and sometimes they want to just decline or do what they can to get rid of us before even giving him a shot. I have had therapists turn down working with him. I am profoundly grateful for the people who do work with him or who have given him that chance because I carry with me the memories of the people who didn’t, the people who wouldn’t. And in some ways he is where he is at because I won’t let myself fully live in the “this sucks” place. Because it just feels like objectively a non-stop parade of that and so I’m just going to keep artificially pulling myself out of that state ASAP because literally he’s gone through the growth he’s gone through because I can manage to not get stuck there. And for now, I need to get going.

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     • Sounds like you’re doing the best you can with what you have. From your past comments, it also seems like you’re being nicer to yourself, which as you know, I’m a big advocate of, and that you’re also making concrete progress. I wish you the best on all fronts!

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     • I am doing the best I can with what I have, this is correct. Progress is often in the eye of the beholder. Tony, for example, can be making progress but if it’s not the level of progress somebody wants to see because they are used to something going faster, they can still say it’s not good enough for them personally. I always have to be thinking about what my long term goals are here and what is best for him, and sometimes that means I need to adapt my approach because even though I personally am legally/morally/ethically/emotionally bound to this situation, nobody else is and people don’t have to help out if they don’t want to and they don’t have to be supportive if they don’t want to and at the end of the day, the only person whose willingness I can fully count on is mine. Even professionals working with this population aren’t obligated to take his case or work with him or support the level of progress he is capable of within the bounds of his disabilities. So I always have to be willing to take the drawing board back out and adapt or even completely redesign a plan as need be.

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     • I’m glad he has someone who cares as much as you. You both deserve happy holidays and satisfying milestones! I thought it was pretty awesome when I read about your successful Halloweens. Just by your mention of them, I got the impression they were something truly special. 😊

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     • Thank you ❤ I'm glad I have him, his love for me is quite genuine. I'm glad both of my children are in my life. I am hoping we will have many more happy milestones, and I am sure we will. What that looks like could depend. I have said it before and I will say it again, our school transition process could fail. I have gotten the impression from both the principal and his teacher in conversations/read on their body language that they had reservations and concerns about his ability to be there before he even hit the door just based on his past behavioral history. I am not going to criticize them, you know, everybody gets to say "no thanks" in all of this except for Andy and I. And especially right now where he's not fully tolerating the environment from the sensory end, he does need extra support. That's why our team offered first the RBT and then me, because we knew he would until he got comfortable. He has shown a lot of growth in the time we've been there, but I don't know if it's going to be enough for them to want to see the process continue. So I always have to think about how can I do this if so-and-so doesn't want to be involved? A lot of his therapy work has been done by me, and sometimes people want to minimize my role because my degree isn't in therapy, but those are just the facts. For me, I will just focus on wishing to see what is best for everyone involved happen, because at the end of the day, if someone doesn't want to work with him, it is better for him also to let them walk away. But we will ask them for homebound if they do end up feeling like his needs are too much for their school, because a level D would really be detrimental to him and nobody on our end is going to accept that because it would tank any future milestones…so it's nothing I can agree to as the person who advocates for Tony's best interest. Sometimes the solution that is easy for others can be a disaster for my son, so we shall see what we shall see, and however it happens, ultimately it will be milestones and happy moments somewhere down the line…

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     • It sounds like you have a good focus, wishing the best for everyone. Also, my opinion is that you are living this life for you, which you have clearly tied to events around your son, so my take is that is the highest focus above all else, and screw any defensiveness or worries about stepping on other peoples’ toes. It could be a learning experience for them, where they expand their perspective or maybe they later become inspired in retrospect by your willingness to stick to your guns. Your calling and fulfillment, for this current stretch of time, seems to be that you can do your best for your son. Part of that, I would think, would be recognizing where to not beat yourself up over a suboptimal outcome, because you did the best with what you had, and you make mistakes sometimes. Maybe those mistakes will become blessings later on, some way, some how. That’s my take on it, it may not be yours though.

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     • I agree, wishing for the best for everyone involved is the most productive. I feel like educating whenever possible as to why I am doing something, what the need is, what the rational is, why it may be a struggle for him, is really going to be the most effective approach. Helping people to understand does sometimes does more than anything else. At the end of the day, I live with the reality that even though the district placed our son in a school roughly 30 minutes from our house (it’s not the school we’re zoned for based on where we live, it was the one they felt had the program best suited to his needs) people recognize him, they recognize me because they’ve seen him in the community. Just today I was stopped at his school cross walk by someone who said “you guys live…I’ve seen you around a lot!” And sometimes if people haven’t seen all of his journey and his growth, or maybe they’ve just seen as at the hardest moments in the past because those were the most attention getting, I have to recognize that the best thing I can do is help them understand where he’s at right now and trust that as they see where he’s at right now, they’ll understand better the reason I am doing what I am doing and why. And that’s not a super unique experience actually, I get stopped by people often enough that I don’t know who they are and their main reason for talking to me is to tell me how good they think he’s doing now.

       The truth is that the outcomes for both of my children matter to me. Tony’s needs are very specialized. Sometimes the solution people think would be the easiest won’t yield the results I am ultimately looking for, which is his ability to participate happily in the community at large. He sat in a fully packed Culvers with me this past Saturday and he was super safe, and it’s like we’re now at the stage to work on other things, really focusing on expanding social communication. But he’s still not going to be happy about it. He got up and threw my custard away when it was half-way done because I was requiring him to ask me permission before I shared any with him and he didn’t like that. Those are just moments we will have to work through, but they are also moments that can frustrate other people unless they understand how hard these types of things are for Tony. I used it as a natural consequences moment, because he had buyers remorse and then wanted to pull it out of the trash, and I had to be like “once you throw it away, nobody gets ice cream. So next time, just ask” lol. The easiest things involved would be a disaster for him. He wouldn’t be where he is if I hadn’t recognized that, if I hadn’t been able to see what is in him. But I can and I do, so part of my job as his mom is to help other people see it too, to see the possibilities he does have.

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     • I have a context-poor view of that moment, but I gotta say, throwing your custard away as a sign of protest is pretty funny to me as you’ve described it. The buyer’s remorse is also a bit funny, but if I need an internal laugh, I’m gonna imagine throwing out adversarial people’s half-eaten food, lol!

       I like how you phrased that last part, helping other people see what is in him. I believe there are others like you, who are willing to see that in him, and it’s just a matter of meeting up with them and leveraging that connection!

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     • Not gonna lie, totally wanted to eat the rest of that chocolate custard, lol! After he ate his food, he noticed me taking a bite here and there and he asked nicely the first two times for permission, but I was expecting him to ask permission for every bite since it was mine. By the third time I think he felt like it was more communication than he wanted to do, also lol. So that’s when he gave a verbal grumble, snatched it up, and pitched it into the trash. It’s good for him to see how things turn out and realize the potential costs to him, because that will do a lot more for helping him improve his responses in those moments than anything else.

       And thank you! I believe we’ve been blessed with a few people who have been willing to see the good stuff in him along the way even when the challenges were bigger than they are now. Emily’s been working with our family since he was 3, so she’s seen a lot of his journey. Her heart was always willing to see the potential even in some of his hardest moments. His OT has been working with him for a while also, and I think she also has always been willing to believe good things are possible for him. And there have been others. Sometimes it’s very hard to find individuals who want to work with someone who has the level of need our son does, but I have noticed that if I take the extra time to help explain the what, where, why of where he’s at, it’s more likely we’ll find the support that he needs.

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     • I’m not sure if this helps, but as someone who was around a bunch of motivated folks who just wanted to get things done, I found it effective to start and end my taskings with specifically what they needed to do. I kind of stumbled upon this through trial and error, on what I found engaging and what I didn’t. Specifically, I become much more engaged when I’m being quizzed or tested, so when someone gives me a bunch of tasks right off the bat, my brain automatically starts connecting the dots. Once I give the specific tasks and engage my audience, I give a brief overview of why, to give them a frame of reference so if things go sideways, they know who to go to get things back on track. Then, at the end, I reiterate the specific tasks I need them to do and ask them to repeat it back to me. If they want more info on the middle part, the frame of reference, I’m happy to explain further if they ask, and I explicitly state this. This way, I keep them engaged and I modulate the big picture so I don’t waste their time and/or attention. Don’t know if that works for you, but I’ve found engaging folks and valuing their time and attention, catering to what THEY need to do and what THEY need to know and THEIR capacity for interest and retention has seemed much more effective to me, rather than me just lecturing them about what I want them to do.

       Anyways, that wasn’t super on topic, but I’m glad you have a professional believer on your side! My childhood friend’s mom was an OT and it seems to require a lot of creativity, adaptability, and an open mind.

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     • Well, as a queen in the land of rambling and off-topic, who am I to judge for that? And it is something for which I can sometimes be legitimately criticized. But fairness would also require a person to be walking in my often sleep-deprived, stretched to my max, slim on certain necessary resources circumstances to maybe determine whether or not that was an understandable flaw or not. Sometimes I can be quite good at judging what a person needs to keep their interest, and sometimes, especially when I’m about to crack, I default to “this is what I would want” mode, and I’m a person who wants all the nitty gritty details…it is what it is. I have never nor will I ever claim to be doing everything optimally. All I can do is the best I can with whatever moment I am in…

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     • I feel like I’ve out-rambled you in some of these exchanges, lol! The sleep deprivation alone is something that would make me stay away from having kids. It would have to be an undeniable calling for me to be good with sleep deprivation, the kind of thing that brings me a deeper peace at the end of the day despite outward aggravation. I definitely couldn’t do it for anyone besides myself either–it would have to spring from my own internal motivation, not any should or shouldn’ts coming from friends that are doing it or because I want validation from a mini-me (not saying you’re doing that, but I’ve seen other friends of mine go that route. It seems kind of like the harder communities of the military to me, in that it’s something that’s way too much of a kick in the balls unless you’re willing to live it 24/7).

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     • Sorry for the second drop on this, but I was trying to rush to a pre-op clearance appointment this morning and wasn’t sure if I was going to find time today to say more than I originally did.Your gym allows dogs?? 🤯 Granted, it has been a long long time since I have had a gym membership, and I don’t imagine that’s going to be changing anytime soon, but at least none of the gyms I went to would let dogs show up. I think that’s pretty cool! So, For me I think both people and animals can be pretty complicated, but I do think often dogs are *much* quicker to forgive. That being said, my grandmother had a little Chihuahua mix that was probably the nastiest little booger to anyone that was *not* her, so I think some dogs definitely are not as mellow and happy-go-lucky. And he was super rigid if she was on the phone. If I wanted to stand up and walk across the room and she was on the phone he would immediately start barking and trying to bite my heels to get me to sit back down. Very uptight that one was If you ask me! I have known some very warm people, but I have also known some people that that was very conditional. I think many people can be very warm, but a lot of people also feel very comfortable being warm with people that they feel are more similar to them, I think that feels safer I guess if someone is reflecting back what you feel comfortable with about yourself maybe? I think some of my closest friends over the most recent years have been people that The biggest thing we had in common was our desire to help other people, so you are right in the sense that I treasure it when I encounter that kind of mentality in another person and that characteristic is generally to be found in my closest relationships, though we can be dissimilar in many other respects. As you have said many times before, we are all on our own journey and it sounds like you have found what makes you comfortable and what resonates with you. I think sometimes it can be true for sure that it is easier to be ignorant when it comes to finding happiness. There are pros and cons either way. But I think a person can be going through some pretty rough things and still choose to find the happy and amplify that and make it out okay.

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     • Yeah, dogs are generally nice, but there’s definitely exceptions. I once saw a big hound at the park that ate a puppy! I didn’t quite believe it, because I think I’d have to see that to fully believe it, but I kept on eye on him nonetheless. I pretty much have no idea about my past lives except for some vague hunches and the old inclinations as indicators, but if I had to bet, I’d say I’ve got a few as dogs. Just a whole ‘nother level of resonance and comfort with those guys.

       And yes, my gym allows dogs. It’s a big warehouse type gym with an old-school feel. Most dogs are bigger, like goldens, labs, or shepherds, but there’s a couple chihuhua mixes and even one dude brings in a super small yorkie. He puts it on one of those square four-legged stools you can use for jumping/weight bearing and it watches him do exercises. It’s pretty well trained, because it seems okay being on a relatively small stool while everyone’s being active and music is playing in the background. A couple labs have interrupted me while I’m doing pushups or plank but it’s usually this one black and hay-colored shepherd that decides to lick my face. I don’t mind, lol! He gets mildly disheartened because I ignore him and finish my set, but then he perks right back up when I’m done and I give him some scritches.

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     • A cafe with cats, a gym with dogs… I’m getting kind of jealous over here 😢😂😅 I am still just trying to navigate any sort of balance in my schedule between the school and the therapy stuff that allows me to do anything with my weights. Today what it looked like was sets of kettle bells, free weights, and bands between Tony’s therapy modules on his rest minutes. But I am getting in what I need most and I will continue to do so and that’s what really matters, though I am sure the schedule is going to get easier to navigate in time also…

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     • Well the dogs aren’t always there, I’d say like 60-70% of the time. Sounds like you got a good rhythm for exercise where you’re fitting it in between immediate needs. I like to read between sets (I take 4 minute breaks because my sets are pretty intensive–I do maybe 4-5 reps a minute of something with a fast contraction, and an 8 second eccentric which is good for the soft tissues). Recently, I’ve been working on stretching the psoas. Apparently, it’s more than a hip flexor–it’s like the main muscular link between your spine and lower and upper body, which translates to pain as low as the knees and as high as the shoulders because if the psoas is tight, overcompensation is spreading upwards and downwards. It’s also involved in digestion and breathing, and hormone stuff I think. Not only does most sports and society shorten the psoas (by encouraging the body to flex inward either in athletics or sitting), but it’s supposedly connected to the fight or flight, because your body immediately compresses and gets ready to run if there’s perceived danger. The only problem is it’s hard to stretch. You have to flex the leg back to target the hip expansion, but since it connects to the bottom of the rib cage, you also have to bend backward. I do a front splits in a door frame (which allows me support to keep my body upright because if I’m not, the top half of the psoas is still flexed inward), and put one arm back to bend the torso backward, so the splits is stretching the hip part, while the back-pointing arm is stretching the spine and rib part. I have to have the door frame, a folded up towel for my forward leg, and a pillow for my stretching leg. Other stretches usually involve some kind of upright posture, which means the supporting balance muscles are firing, which makes it harder to relax and get a stretch. I’ve come up with a bit of a hack, where I lie in bed, turn sideways, pull my leg back, push my hip forward, and arch my back. It’s not as deep as the front splits/back bend, but it’s definitely more convenient and I can watch tv while I’m doing it.

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     • Ok, first, I’m super thankful you shared your bit about the psoas, because literally I had a light bulb moment that helped explain a few things for me. I think for me, if I were to give my most honest answer, I would say it would be more restful to be able to focus more on one thing or another, but I am doing the best I can with what I have time or otherwise and trying to listen to the needs of my body. My big thing has been maintaining enough functionality to do everything that is essential for my family while managing life with POTS, and you know, I’ve been successful and that’s what matters most, but I do find things are continuing to improve all the time and I look forward to that continuing…

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     • Yes, I’ve been targeting the psoas for about a week and a half now, and it’s the most generalized pain relief I’ve ever correlated to a single factor. For a while, it was just my knees that gave me problems, then it was my shoulders, hips, and occasionally back. I used to think it was just bad genes. All that goes away after a good psoas stretch, and it also correlates with reduced pain throughout the day (I always use waking pain as a litmus test, because once you get moving, the body is pretty good at making you think you’re fine). Anyways, the most dramatic correlation of psoas and health is in David Goggins, if you google his conversation with Joe Rogan. I’m not a fan of either, and if you haven’t heard of Goggins, you have to take everything he says with a huge grain of salt. He’s had a ton of childhood trauma, which led him to become an exercise-obsessed (I’m talking literally 8+ hours a day) SEAL, but as a result, his teammates hated him because of his selfishness and prioritization of exercise (also some work-related deficiencies), he became a deadbeat dad, and he uses exercise as an escape mechanism. Anyways, he got to the point where he was at death’s door, on a cocktail of drugs, doctor’s couldn’t figure it out, and a mysterious bump had grown on the back of his head. Since he couldn’t work out, he decided to start stretching, and applied the same obsession to that as he had done to exercise. He got off almost all the drugs, got healthy enough to resume his previous workout levels, and the bump on his head disappeared. He credits it specifically to stretching the psoas. Of course, he’s a single data point, so again, grain of salt, but learning about how the psoas works made intuitive sense to me, in regard to my hodgepodge of issues. And stretching it seems to have pretty strong correlative benefit, so I’ll keep pursuing that. Oh btw, if you don’t want to lay down or don’t have pillows and whatnot there’s a standing stretch I like, which is you put your legs in warrior yoga pose, which primes the straight-leg hip to be stretched, extend the straight-leg hip’s arm above your head, then back bend toward the lunge-leg’s side, which will stress the upper portion of the psoas. It’s not ideal, but you can do it anywhere, and it doesn’t look too weird, as far as stretches go.

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     • Thanks for the recommendation! I had also been trying some active stretches with resistance and load components that a kinesiologist I looked up was recommending to help bring balance and appropriate function to that muscle to see how it went. My symptoms are different from yours, it was just a light bulb moment when you mentioned the muscle and I looked it up because I had an “aha” that explained something I didn’t have another source cause for.

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     • Nice! Yes it even seems to help my digestion, which seems par for the course according to the info I’ve dug up,

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     • Well, time will tell if it helps with my problem, but I suspect it will. I have been having for a few months now lower left-sided pelvic pain, though sometimes it can be both sides. When it first showed up, I thought a ovarian cyst had popped. When it got better but hung around, I thought, well crud, maybe cyst. I knew the polyp was going to be there, and I get cysts a lot, so…imagery showed definitely uterine lesion (confirmed polyp by biopsy) and no cyst! Cologuard came back good, so my PCP was thinking we should check to rule out colon polyp just in case because that test can only detect cancers, but I had been wondering if there was some sort of muscle imbalance/problem related to the fact that my left leg compensates more for my birth defect on the right side because it’s worse after I have to jog with Tony when he’s tricycling, so…when I looked up concerns associated with that muscle and saw that it could cause pain in the pelvic area that could mimic a hernia (which is also around the area cyst pain can be felt on a woman) I thought well, it’s worth trying and I want to make sure I’m doing stuff to functionally build up the other side, because I am guessing there’s an imbalance (I mean, it’s almost certain given that my left leg does compensate some). I do great and so much more than I was told I’d be able to with my birth defect and I’m thankful everyday and just focus on staying positive about it and open to doing as much as I can, but the reality also is…left leg compensates some. So we’ll see!

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     • Nice! I’ve read that psoas problems can lead to one leg being shorter than the other, but I’m not sure how much that will help with the imbalance, since you’re saying it is nature and not nurture, so to speak. If cancer is a concern I would recommend looking into Turkey Tail mushrooms, which can be ordered encapsulated. They have been correlated with positive outcomes and are in general good for you because the mechanism through which they work is apparently they boost the entire immune system. Paul Stamets (superstar mycologist who is good enough to be given rare permits from the DEA and is in the awesome 2020 documentary Amazing Fungi) credits Turkey Tail superdosing with his mother’s recovery from stage 4 cancer. Obviously, that’s a single data point, but other supports include Turkey Tail being a prescription in Japan in cancer, apparently it’s correlated with improved chemo outcomes. It supposedly works by enhancing the entire immune system, so maybe it could help with other stuff for you. Everybody’s different though, and the supplement rabbit hole can be never ending.

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     • Yeah, this is a congenital birth defect, the simplest explanation is that my right foot has two of the characteristics of a club foot, looked and presented normal at birth and everything seemed pretty normal until my sixth grade year, when I started getting a dimple in the side of my heel, and things started to progressively deteriorate in terms of functionality over the next couple of years, I was 14 when it was finally diagnosed after imaging and testing, and what I was told was that deterioration without surgery would have been progressive and perhaps I might not have seen symptoms until my 20’s if I hadn’t been in gymnastics. They told me that without my first surgery, I would end up in a wheelchair within a matter of years at the point I was diagnosed. It is what it is and I’m 47 and I’ve been able to do a lot and I will continue to look for more of what I can do than what I can’t do with that. I will look into the mushrooms, thanks for the recommendation. My paternal grandmother died of uterine cancer, which is why the remove every polyp I get down there, though I have had different OB’s give me differing opinions on how big of a concern that needs to be for me personally the family history component, the doctor who is going to be removing the current polyp seems to feel that managing my weight and overall other health markers will be a more important determining factor in what happens than the family history so that is what I am going to aim for.

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     • I’m hoping that dimple slowly fills out and disappears along with your symptoms! I used to treat my health with a militaristic mentality, where I’d constantly think in adversarial terms–if I’m not actively getting healthier, than my body is scheming to take advantage of my complacency. Nowadays, as said ad nauseum, I’m focused on the vibe. It’s actually how I stumbled on the psoas thing. A few weeks before, it occurred to me that I had been treating my ongoing health like a not-so-fun game of whack-a-mole where I was unthinkingly expecting that I’d have to whack another mole. Then I stumbled on a video making fun of David Goggins, which me and my friends laughed at, then I remembered he was big on the psoas, and my intuition pulled me towards looking at it more in-depth (I had incorporated psoas stuff years ago, but I was treating it just as a hip flexor, rather than an integral link between the lower and upper body). So my synchronistic mind, of course, saw all those seemingly unrelated things as a deeper piece of me guiding me toward something healing. Coincidentally, I like to listen to a podcast Unravelling the Universe which tackles a lot of paranormal stuff, but with a lot of episodes with classically trained, advanced-degree-holding scientists who apply a data heavy approach towards psychic phenomena. The coincidence (which obviously I don’t really believe in) came in with a recent episode on anomalous healing, where the study (if I remember correctly) centered around the possibility of healing sick rats with intent (which they later used on humans with promising outcomes). Anyways, I’m not an expert on experimental controls and format, so I can’t get granular with my criticism or endorsement, but one of the things that stuck with me was that a sense of play seemed crucial to the process. So of course my pattern-seeking mind connected that to the fact that my psoas focus came from joking around with my friends about Goggins. In terms of mystical philosophy, it also makes sense, because from the perspective of your omnipotent self, existence and creation are basically a giant game, so having a sense of play would resonate with that perspective and allow for anomalous healing, through that line of reasoning.

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     • I think health and healing are complicated, but a person’s genuine desire to heal and to be healed can do a lot in my opinion. I think for my foot, My calcaneus is curved in a way that bone shouldn’t be. I’ve seen the images myself from both the MRIs and the CAT scans because the original surgeon played show and tell with all of that. I have had two surgeries (The last was more than 20 years ago), and I have been able to do more than those surgeons predicted I would be able to do and that has been a blessing. Even though what started as dimple and is now a dent (but stabilized about 10 years ago and stopped getting any worse at that point) isn’t pretty in the eyes of some, it is just an aesthetics issue and I’m more concerned about the functionality issues. Am I able to do all the things that I need to? At this point yes, and I certainly my every hope and intention is for that to continue, but I am grateful for any positive vibes of healing that anybody wants to send my way 🌸

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     • Positive vibes sent! When I was living in San Francisco, I wandered into a downtown Marine Corps hotel/museum, and it had a bunch of displays and descriptions of Marines and whatnot. I remember one that always stuck with me was this guy who got severe nerve damage in WWII and lost function in one of his arms. He went on to become an artist, and decades later, in his seventies, he miraculously regained function. Miracles are tricky, because people can get pretty needy and graspy with them, which I personally think pushes them away, so I focus on how much I love the idea of the possibility. Instead of healing a deficiency, I like to think about ease and being happy-go-lucky and moving instinctively.

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     • Hey, thanks for sending positive vibes my way, appreciate it dude 😀 Yeah, I think you’ve mentioned the gentleman with the nerve damage before way back when. My personal inclination is to think that it isn’t so much the feeling needy about a miracle as perhaps the intent or motivation. Why does the person want that healing, that miracle? What is the strength of the faith/belief of the person that it can really happen for them? And, are there any major points of fate that were perhaps agreed upon or decided before this life that would be disrupted if such a miracle were to happen, or that had been determined as domino in a future chain of events by a previous choice? I think for me, if I were to be asking the universe for miracles or intervention or healing, it would always be with the desire to be able to meet the needs of my family/children. I believe the desire to do good for others is a powerful motivation, and perhaps that can be read as needy, but…when the universe gives great needs, I think the universe is open to helping a person find a way to meet those needs when they are genuinely sought after with a believe that it can be done.

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     • From what I’ve heard, there are indeed certain events that are predetermined because of what you’re saying, some individual or collective agreement that there will be a lynchpin experience. I’m also in agreement that when a great need is given, great synchronicity is available! I very much personally resonate with that.

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     • I didn’t notice the very last paragraph of your comment because it didn’t show up in the email until I posted my first reply, and since I had to leave to take my son into music therapy I needed to wait a bit to respond, but I felt that it was important for me to acknowledge the compliment you gave. I thank you. I am truly a person who finds joy in giving and doing for others. It is in fact genuinely the source of some of my deepest joys, And I thank you for recognizing that was not and is not an act. It is who I am, even when I mess other things up. And I am grateful to connect with you also🌸

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     • You’re welcome! You seem like a rare bird, in that regard. Most folks I’ve met in the medical field or care industry become jaded and borderline sociopathic after awhile. Your situation seems more intense and around the clock, but it definitely seems like your calling, because you’ve managed to hold on to your conviction despite lack of support and the immense amount of work.

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     • LMAO about the rare bird comment. That does seem to be a theme in my life, “thou shalt be rare.” LMAO for reals. I have been able to hold onto my convictions despite the lack of support/resources and intense workload and stress because that is who I am to the core. This is who I am, and this is my happy spot, helping others. I have worked in the healthcare environment, and I have dealt with my share of difficult experiences in that setting and as regards to customers in retail also. Some very tough experiences in both environments, the kind where you need either security or police and or both. So I can understand on one hand why those kinds of experiences would get to someone. But I also know that when I have struggled with showing up as my best self in something, if people could see what was going on inside and the circumstances, they wouldn’t see someone trying to be a b*tch, they’d see someone about to break from her circumstances. Most people who show up in healthcare are sick and they are stressed out about how they are going to be able to afford all of this. When I was in the ER for anaphylaxis a couple years ago, the nurse told me she would have just stayed home and died if she’d been me because she couldn’t afford the ER bill. My portion was nearly $2000 and that was *with* insurance. I think for me, it helps to see what is underneath, to know that people are scared or in pain or stressed out of their minds about the circumstances. Or that they aren’t trying to be a “bad kid,” as plenty of people have thought my son was being, but rather as individuals with extraordinary deficits who are just doing the best they can.

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     • I try to apply that same perspective, but not immediately, because I think there’s value in acknowledging anger; it’s part of making sure you’re not invalidating or dismissing yourself. I kind of see it as when I get angry at someone on the road, then when I pull up to see who they are, it’s always an elderly person who’s staring straight ahead and clearly afraid of any interaction, not some uber-troll villain that deserves a smack-down. In terms of viewing a person in their completeness, I remember Grant Morrison (mysticism heavy comics author who probably got this idea from someone else), describing the entirety of a person in visual form as a worm-shape rather than a single image. The beginning of the worm would be an infant, then the length of the worm would thicken and fill in with snapshots of childhood, pre-teen, teen years, adulthood, then middle age and old age (provided they didn’t die early). Typically, I think when people get bent out of shape with someone, they think of them as a present-moment caricature, a context-poor slice of the worm, based on mannerisms and appearance, where say if they had a certain hairstyle or fashion, the observer might tend to characterize them through connotations they held about said hairstyle or fashion, instead of a complete worm-shape. For me, it’s easier to think of them as the time-woven worm, lol! It resonates with me more in terms of validity, and it also helps cut down on my strong imagination weaving a narrative about them through their appearance for the sake of conflict (which happened quite often in the past, and which also happened to fall apart once I either emerged dominant, because I would feel kind of sad and uncomfortable when they admitted defeat and it was clear they were deflated and depressed, or because I got it completely wrong, and I felt like an idiot because I clearly just wanted to demonize them and I had constructed a wildly inaccurate story in my head about them).

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     • You bring up a good point, a very good one, about healthy processing of felt emotions and not dismissing yourself. Sometimes I do that more than I should, TBH, and that is something I am working to be better at, giving myself permission to be upset about something someone else has done. As a kiddo I felt like my right to feel upset about crappy happenings was always being invalidated, and I spent nearly 2 decades in a church that kind of had this messaging about negative emotions towards others being bad in pretty much all circumstances and you need to repent and immediately change and get rid of those negative thoughts (unless the person causing the emotions is an apostate or they are trying to encourage you to sin in the eyes of the church, and then it’s A-OK to a certain extent). So it’s something I am still working on for me, saying you know, that really didn’t feel good to me what that other person did and it’s OK for me to have needs to and it’s OK for me to be upset about what they did even if I don’t want to stay in that state. I have always been able to set certain boundaries, but I speak more in general about other types of potential aggravations, not the abusive kind.

       But really more recognizing what may be behind someone’s actions helps me move through and past any negative feelings I may be having about what they did much quicker. I will say, though I try not to do it, I find sometimes I still make a snap judgement on someone based on how they are dressed, etc. Even though I know on every level that can lead to some very flawed conclusions. I am usually able to talk myself down from that internally. Usually, lol. And I usually feel badly when I got something very wrong about someone, and it does sometimes happen, I can relate to many things you say. It is best not to turn anyone into a caricature of a moment. I very much appreciate the way you articulate things.

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     • I’ve recently shifted even more toward prioritization of acceptance. I was kind of doing it halfway before, but now I’m framing it as whenever something happens or whenever I feel something, I have the choice to accept or reject. Even if I dislike something, I have the choice to accept or reject my dislike. It’s an emphasis from focusing on my conditions to focusing on how I am processing them, I suppose. It doesn’t mean I have to like someone or an event, or settle for tolerance. If I feel any disgruntlement about something that didn’t turn out exactly how I like, instead of rationalizing well it’s not that bad, there’s this or that positive aspect of it, I’m going to focus more on I accept that I’m disgruntled. Then, once I feel that lack of internal resistance (probably a more resonant way to phrase it with you would be once I validate my reaction and honor it), I can try for something more positive, but if it doesn’t resonate, I’ll go for more conscious acceptance: I accept that I’m not resonating with positivity right now. In my opinion, it’s the mental equivalent of constantly focusing on physical relaxation, proper breathing, spinal alignment, those kind of things that allow me to reset my body. Only this is for my spirit and brain, not my muscles and bones.

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     • For me, my thoughts on acceptance kind of flow into how helpful is something to accept in a moment? And if I accept it, if I can’t act on it, how beneficial is it for me to dwell on it? I may accept I feel something and the timing conflicts with what I know I am supposed to be doing at that point in time, in which case I might accept it and bury it in the back of my mind because it isn’t anything I can act on it in that moment without compromising one of my critical life missions. Or I might accept that I feel negatively about something (like needing a medically necessary hysterectomy and having disruptions to some of our son’s therapy services right at the start of his school transition, which is literally the worst possible timing for both as regards to promoting a positive outcome there) but in that acceptance I will realize that if I stay focused on those thoughts too long it’s going to turn into self-pity and anger at the universe and possibly that negativity might increase the challenge of achieving a positive outcome, and it’s much more constructive for me to focus on what I can do (extra visual supports, extra reinforcers, consequences when appropriate, visual token board for earning kindle privileges with appropriate sitting) and just give it the best effort I have. I think there is a fine line between acceptance and putting something off to the side for processing later because it gets in the way of doing something necessary and denial (which isn’t particularly healthy), and sometimes it can be easy for the two processes to cross paths accidentally. That being said, I do agree that acknowledging something is felt is important. Accepting it isn’t always my first priority though, it just depends on what it is I am feeling and how useful it is to me for what I am going through. Emotions can be capricious things, for all their power to influence and a wise person recognizes both the whim and the potency of them in affecting decisions, actions, etc and handles them with care whenever possible in my opinion.

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     • For me it’s always about releasing negativity. If something keeps bugging me, I consciously and actively focus on accepting it as it is, not liking or tolerating, but just acknowledging its right to exist without me hiding it, crushing it, or rationalizing away from it. Then, when the resistance releases and positivity feels more believable (this is exclusive of whether it’s logically sound or not and purely based on feeling), that’s when I can stop using acceptance and simply be positive. I see negativity as a version of myself that’s like a kid with no filter. Unlike a real kid, I dont’ have to gaslight this one into going along with society or moderating his speech. If I do so, he tends to get slyer about how he expresses himself or keeps trying to do it at later times (sometimes he just shuts up, but if the resistance is strong, in the past it’s been a matter of waiting until I’m exhausted when he finally goes away). But if I don’t invalidate him, no matter how crazy or inappropriate what he’s saying is, and if I acknowledge his right to exist and say it, then he doesn’ keep fighting me and lets me move my focus onto something else.

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     • This is an area where I both have to acknowledge I recognize the validity of what you are saying as an approach (especially as regards the gaslighting oneself that can happen when one tries to modulate an internal state of negativity about something) and the reality that I sometimes argue myself down about exactly why I think I shouldn’t be feeling or thinking something. I appreciate the different perspective to think about. I think my approach has been shaped by my life and my own personal set of strengths and weaknesses and what I know about myself historically when it comes to coping with something that can emotionally be very hard for me to cope with. I tend to have a survival first mentality, and then focus on trying to find a way to move into a situation where I can thrive more. In saying that, I can also acknowledge that from the emotional health standpoint, it is a healthy approach to give the negativity room to breath internally in its unfiltered state. I think the balancing act of keeping that from becoming a proverbial albatross around the emotional neck can be a delicate one depending on the person.

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     • I guess it depends on the framing of reality and the values derived from that. Because our lives from a data-driven perspective is undeniably ambiguous given what we know thus far (or arguably meaningless) that gives us a chance to choose our own values and purpose. My values come from the assumption that existence is benevolent (because if it isn’t, then life does not seem worth living, in my opinion), and revolves around the issue of why I even exist in the first place, which is accompanied by all the premises I’ve attached to a benevolent and equalized/empowered existence. I think because of our different experiences and design, we place different weights on different approaches. I would feel comfortable assuming that you are higher in compassion than I am, and I think that ironically, as much as I have to rationalize a benevolent existence, it’s a more natural action for you to instinctively act on that premise. This isn’t a judgment of worth (I have to try harder than you, or one of us is better because one of us thinks it through versus one of us is more innately kind-natured), but my rationalization of why a given approach may require a different level of emphasis from either you or me. Regardless, I think if you have found a way to fulfillment and are finding ways to increase that or go toward greater fulfillment, then you’re on the right track, and could be arguably seen as perfection in motion

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     • Well, I would say that I am not truly in a position to adequately determine and really shouldn’t be making assumptions or comparisons one way or another about who has more compassion or anything else here. I will say that for me personally, it is true that I am inclined to lead with compassion as much as I can in my life. I am also inclined to want to see others treated kindly. You have treated me kindly in our discussions, and you heard my request for some comment cleaning and acted in a kind manner as regards to that. One could even say that showed compassion regardless of how it was come by. And every body who reads your blog knows you’ve been patient with my wordy ways. Some things and some skills do not come so naturally to me in life as compassion does, and so it is for all of us. Some things we have to work at more than others. I prize in myself more the things I struggled more at. The other stuff, if it was just like breathing, how can I feel proud of that? It was what I was born with, it cost me nothing to be or do. I would never say that I am perfection in motion, only that usually I am doing the best that I can, whatever that looks like. My approach to things is shaped by my needs and what I am trying to accomplish for myself, I am very utilitarian in that respect. But that doesn’t mean my approach is for everyone, or that I can adopt any approach and do so well. But certainly I don’t have all the answers for myself either, and I find a great deal of value in considering the approaches other people have and if there is anything that could benefit me to try.

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     • Maybe I’m getting into the semantics/word salad realm here, but I interpret your approach as you do have all the answers for yourself, in that the answers lie in considering the approaches other people have (if that is truly what your heart and intuition are telling you to do. I like to think that we are our own best guides, even if that paradoxically means that we are drawn to listening to someone else for a bit. As far as being proud, I don’t think the feeling necessarily has to be quantified or rationalized. If it’s there, I say let it be there and enjoy it, even if you haven’t done, given, or paid anything to “earn” it. I’m happy writing, but I will freely admit that my pride for my nether bits outstrips my pride for writing by orders of magnitude, even though they’re definitely a product of nature and not nurture! 🤣

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     • 🤨🤣 Well, I am happy for you that you have that assurance that nature will continue to provide for you in that manner. Nature hath taught me that what mother nature giveth mother nature can take away. So I try to focus on what I can enjoy about the options I still have… That aside, I suppose I can see what you are saying that it is an answer within oneself of sorts to be open to the idea of not having all of the answers within oneself. There will likely always be somebody who can do something better than me. And for the thing maybe I do better? Well, someday my skills could possibly decline (hoping not of course when it comes to anything critical) or I am going to die and I’ll be able to pass that crown on to somebody else, because on this stage even if anybody felt like I had such a crown it wouldn’t be mine to wear forever.

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     • I like to think of us as caught in a no-lose game in the eternal sense. However, I think we intersect with your statement about enjoying the options you have. Practically, it’s the healthiest, happiest approach. Existentially, it fulfills the purpose of being an infinite consciousness in a constrained perspective.

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     • The benefits of focusing on what can be done more than on what can’t is something I rank very highly as a life skill, and I learned its value a long time ago in dealing with my birth defect on my right foot. I could focus on the things that I can’t do, sure. But I would probably be miserable and bitter if I did, And maybe I would make more excuses for myself to not try some things. So I prefer to focus on the options that I do have because it is the difference between looking at a plate wich still has a lot of options or an empty plate- and which one makes you happier? One plate has choices, the other doesn’t recognize the quality of the available choices… Is kind of my way of looking at it.

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     • I’m somewhat illogical in my view, in that I’ve adopted the belief that negative or positive resonance is the foundation of thoughts, so I go with tweaking the resonance before choosing specifics, if that makes sense. I kind of seeing it as focusing on making sure my appliances are plugged in before I try to use them.

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     • I wouldn’t say it’s illogical. I would say it is an approach that feels right to you. I think for me, sometimes I might really want to dwell on something because that’s what I’m feeling internally and that’s what my internal state wants to vibrate at just because I’m sensitive to the energies I might be picking up from other people around me about it, but I recognize that my emotions might go to an even darker place if I don’t make a very intentional and focused effort to realign my focus. So I’m definitely one to give my thoughts a “lets look for the positive” pep talk. It’s kind of like I know that if life is giving me a lot of hard, stressful things, I might not want to listen to “Blood and Tears” a lot. Totally *love* the song, but if life is already making me down, I might need to focus on something like “Classy 101” or “Nina Bonita” or anything that has a perkier beat for my listening time and lyrics that aren’t going to wrap me up and take me down even further with them.

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     • That’s a really good consistent habit to have! There’s a certain level of negativity for me where that becomes unproductive, which is why I prioritize acceptance and awareness of emotional resonance, I think. Before, I would pour effort into pivoting my focus away from the negative, but I would just end up fighting it and becoming more negative. Also, I would berate myself for not fighting harder or more effectively enough, which exacerbated the issue. I have found success with refocusing toward positive, but I realized that I needed better tools for when the negativity was at a certain level of strength.

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     • Well, for me personally, I have noticed that if I was struggling with something in the past and I had an internal freak out about it and started worrying about the fact I was struggling with it, the struggles become more entrenched. So for those situations, my approach became to accept the struggle and let it flow away, the worry or upset just let them drift off and flow away with the stream of forward movement carrying the rest of my intentions onward. If I am feeling buffeted by the negativity of others, I boundary up and reorient to looking for the positive and what I can find most believable for the most positive thing possible related to the situation. If I’m having a moment where I feel like my self-talk has moved passed recognizing the honest and realistic about a situation and into a more negative zone, I will rally the internal positivity cheer leaders, march them out onto my mental field, and pep talk myself to the best place I can get. Just my approaches. As you have mentioned in the past, we are all on an individual journey to a certain extent. We overlap a bit sometimes, but…some things will work for me and maybe not for another person, and vice versa. And, as I have said before, I always like to consider other approaches if I feel like I’m not maximizing outcomes for myself or loved ones in some way with what I am doing. Take good care of yourself and wishing you a wonderful day 🙂 Ari

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     • Sounds like you have a pretty good emotional response system! One of the things I’ve realized recently is that for most of my life, I’ve blindly accepted the idea that being “negative against negative folks” somehow equates to positivity, when in reality, it may sometimes be necessary, but if the focus is being solution-oriented, it’s a passing necessity instead of an all-consuming end. Shifting away from that has brought arguments with some friends and family, many of whom still subscribe to that and try to convince me of its truth. In return, for a while, I tried to convince them otherwise, which is a trap as well–if someone is personally invested in not wanting to accept something at the identity-forming level, then repeatedly browbeating them with it will only make them angrier and/or more determined to resist. That’s still something that comes up in my thought process and occasionally my speech, but it goes back to the same dynamic as COVID deniers on ventilators. Part of the acceptance mechanism for me is to accept the intrusive thoughts where I condemn people for justifying negativity because it’s against even more negative people (they started it first), and ease off the condemnation of myself for wallowing in the mud. But if the condemnation becomes the intrusive thought, then I direct my focus onto accepting that I’m condemning myself, if that makes sense. The acceptance of things becomes my priority until I’m resonating positive, and the intrusive thoughts are pleasant and/or neutral. At that point, I’d reclassify them from intrusive to pleasant observations or speculations.

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     • Thank you ❤ There are, however, plenty of things I can improve on and I recognize it. The circumstances I am in and have been in for more than a decade would eat many a person alive, and they would certainly eat anybody alive who didn't have some rock solid coping skills. Literally if I could get paid for every time someone has said to me "I couldn't do what you are doing…" or "I couldn't deal with what you are" I have heard that from other parents of kiddos on the spectrum even. I don't need kudos for it, and I definitely don't want the pedestal some people have felt all of this should put me on, but sometimes I wish people could see in me how emotionally raw all of these combined experiences can feel even for me sometimes. I wish they could see that if I was having a moment where my emotional response system was vomiting up a bit more of a junkier response so to speak (every now and then it does). I wish they could see how close I came to breaking at some points. Negativity however it is used is negativity, even if I'm feeling an emotional reaction that isn't exactly positive in response to someone else's negativity, it is a good point to realize I'm just mirroring negativity a different way. For me, if I am not wanting to accept something because all I'm looking at is a montage of past experiences that formed my view, if someone is able to sit patiently with me and break it down without judgement for where I landed at based on where I came from, I'm usually able to get myself to a point where I can see what they are saying. Any time I am able to move forward rather than stare backwards I have found it benefits me, though sometimes it is easier said then others. Thank you again for chatting with me and your patience with my babbles. Hope you have a wonderful day 😀 Ari

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     • I think they are simply being honest, not that they are better or worse than you as a person, but they recognize you have been given a gift, and you have accomplished amazing things with it! I’ve heard the same thing about my writing, but I could easily, EASILY say the same thing to a low-level computer coder! 😅

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     • Well, I think society at large not only often pays more for the gifts you or a computer coder have, but they also might value and relate to them more, lol. It’s OK though, I value and relate to me, so it’s like always having at least one cheerleader- most of the time. One of my strengths has always been to see what the barrier was for someone learning something and break it down for them. That’s why I often ended up being asked to train people at nearly every job I ever had before my kiddos were born.

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     • I believe it! When we’re wandering around as light-beings and I’m told to go help the meat bodies, I’m going to request you as a trainer! You’ll probably have to reign in my more juvenile instincts–watching people freak out or startle is a guilty pleasure of mine, and I’m sure that’s a no-no when you’re trying to guide souls! 🤣

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     • 🤨😂Yeah, mine certainly don’t do anything of the sort. So sounds to me like you already kinda know some of what the comportment should be, but it’s just not in your human nature. Maybe that isn’t a problem that can be met by training. Maybe also it will be a non-issue once you pass and your perspective goes through a post-death shift. Just saying. As much as I say anything on this subject, and again, I have few official positions at this point.

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     • I’ll probably restrict it to my former dogs–they loved when I hid around a corner or in a closet. They’d slowly stalk around, looking for me, then I’d jump out with zombie noises and chase them for a bit. After picking up speed and fleeing into another room, I’d hide again and we’d do another round. It usually devolved into wrestling or tug of war. That being said, if I accidentally spook someone or catch them being jump-scared for some random reason, I am gonna pee my noncorporeal pants laughing 😂

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     • Hate to break it to you dude, but you won’t be making pee at that point. Just saying. I think in general (and this is just my opinion, it literally could be worth less than hypothetical phantasmic piss), unless a person was born with a very strong gift, they have to be open to seeing something before they actually do (many people go their whole lives without experiencing anything of the kind), so maybe you would scare somebody and maybe you wouldn’t. A person who’s receptive to that sort of experience might not be freaked out by it…

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     • It would definitely be fun to fiddle with, but I think in the end I would just go back to chasing my dogs around 😁

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     • As in… You’re planning on haunting your dogs?

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     • No, they’ve passed away, so I’d like to romp around with em when we’re all ghosts together. 😊

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     • That’s a happy sounding prospect! But maybe any dogs you would have at the time of your passing wouldn’t mind a visit either…

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     • I’ll definitely visit, but I wouldn’t want to spook em. Probably just laze around and nap with em, lol! Speaking of which, I feel like one of my rich person goals would be to have enough resources to where temporarily raising some puppies wouldn’t be too stressful, and I could enjoy being swarmed by and/or napping in a giant pile of them!

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     • Well, I don’t know that you’d scare them, but I think its cool that’s a concern for you. I don’t really have rick people goals, I have not starving to death goals. And always being able to afford at least Colourpop quality of eyeshadow. Anything at a lower price point is atypically a chalky/patchy/often doesn’t blend well performance nightmare…I have a beauty creations palette I don’t mind either…but everything else when it comes to eyeshadow? No thank you unless I have no choice. Just saying. And I think you are wise to want the resources to help with multiple puppies first. Puppies take a lot of work! Super cute though.

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     • Yeah I’ve raised two dogs from puppies, and I fail to understand how people do it if they have regular jobs. I was only working part-time at the time, from 5-10 in the morning, so it allowed my ex to overlap so that the dogs were only alone for an hour or two. It was still a ton of work and came with constant low-key paranoia, where I was always worried they might be chewing something not allowed or doing something dangerous. I’m not sure what it would take to raise a litter, but at the very least, I figure there needs to be a dedicated puppy room. Honestly, I think I’d be good just being a good puppy uncle where I came in for naps and goofing! 😅

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     • I was very young when we had puppies, but I remember it well and certainly I have known people who had them. To a certain extent, when you have puppies you have to let go of the idea of having an immaculate house or property that you are so attached to that the idea of it becoming destroyed is too distressing. Puppies are lean, mean chewing machines and it’s pretty difficult to avoid that. For me personally, I like to mingle with the family pets, I am a softie I suppose in that I wouldn’t want to crate a dog. Same reason I don’t like to have pet mice or rats or rabbits. The cages always make them unhappy. So for me, even when the destruction upsets me be it from a cat or whatever pet, I just prefer to let them have the run of the house when the can. A room sounds to me better than a crate, so I can understand wanting to confine the damage to that type of space when one has to leave because it does allow for more movement and freedom.

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     • I don’t like crating them either, but from what I understand it’s extremely helpful. I still have a hardass switch I can flick where I just don’t pay attention to their crying. Still, I dream of a playroom for a bunch of them that’s filled with toys and gets chewed and scratched to their heart’s content! I worked as a dog walker for a while for a company that operated out of a townhouse, and it was great seeing the dogs in daycare milling around or splayed out on the couches. Not so great for the dogsitting staff, because they were cleaning constantly!

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     • Yeah… I can only ignore crying if it comes from a tantrum or if it’s fake crying. We may be hardwired a little differently that way and that’s okay! I wish you all of the success in obtaining the puppy room of your dreams 😄

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     • Thank you! I dream of it regularly! 😁

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     • * that was supposed to say medical experimentation, I noticed as I was hitting post, so you don’t need to comment on this one, it’s just a clarification in case you aren’t as fluent in typo as my sister is, lol.

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     • The intuition is definitely more comfortable for me. I think it helps tone down this recent term I’ve been hearing, “ontological shock” in reference to UFOs. Ontology, in my rough understanding, has to do with organizing reality into categories and associated properties. People experience ontological shock when the way they’ve framed (categorized) reality becomes disrupted, which is apparently what can happen when you can shift the conversation from UFOS (we’ve had since the 2017 NYT articles to accept their existence) to Non Human Intelligences, or NHIs (that’s starting to gain momentum right now). I was listening to a fascinating anecdote by an established podcaster/producer in the UFO world about how his family believes everything he says about NHIs, but they’ll nod along, comment briefly, then change the subject a few seconds later. He speculated their ontology, the way they organized reality, wasn’t yet ready to process the concept of NHIs. So although it may be a reach, I feel being in touch with my intuition and emotions, even if it might not appear to make immediate sense, is a way to minimize or eliminate ontological shock, where my pre-built worldviews might glitch out in the face of “unacceptable” data. Ontology, in my opinion, is supposed to maximize my net positive emotional experience with reality anyways, so I suppose I’m trying to use intuition and emotional intelligence to ensure my ontology is malleable and functional enough to honor that aim. (Hopefully, I’ve been using the word “ontology” correctly. Not really sure, to be honest 😅)

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     • That’s definitely the approach I would have taken with your mother in law, had I been in the same position. When I think on it, it’s probably why I like to spend a lot of time by myself. I’ll tiptoe around subjects out of prudence, but after awhile I start resenting the person I’m doing it for, if I spend too much time with them. I actually told my mom about the newest UFO whistleblower who is now stating that Non Human Intelligences exist (notably significant because he’s the first to take advantage of the newly passed UFO whistleblower protection in January, leading him to give 12 hours of sworn, closed-door congressional testimony to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, wherein he described names of programs, individuals, locations, and dates, which I also believe is a first), and she was saying it was a lot to take in. Outwardly it may seem like an insignificant shift in narrative, because everyone’s kind of accepting of UFOs, and it naturally follows that humans can’t make them so it’s gotta be non humans, obviously. Despite that outward logic, I believe the shift in collective ontology is immense. When we’re talking about just the craft, it follows that we have to rewrite our physics. When we’re talking about Non Human Intelligences, their past influence, and the supposed phenomena surrounding them that spring from consciousness directly influencing matter, we not only have to rewrite physics, but also history, philosophy, possibly biology, and a host of other ontological frameworks we’ve used to navigate material phenomena. It’s not about the believability of Non Human Intelligence, it’s about the host of follow-on perspective shifts that are implied by accepting their existence.

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     • I’d like to say that I could do the same. And in fact, I think I can focus on narrowing my self-expression for lengthy periods of time, because I have done so in the past. However, I can also say that I didn’t enjoy it, and it’s possible that my tolerance for it has greatly diminished, meaning it’s possible that I can’t do it anymore or as least as much as I used to. It’s probably another reason why I like writing: because while I can’t write willy-nilly and vomit onto the page and expect people to read it, I can refine it to where I feel like the manuscript expresses the depth of emotion I feel, even if it diverges from some of the specifics I might have come up with when I first started drafting.

       I’m looking forward to the perspective shifts! Ever since I was a kid, I felt like the conventions of society were deeply incomplete and unfulfilling when taken as ultimate ends and destinations, which probably fueled my interest in philosophy and esotericism. It’s also probably driven by my bias to believe in a benevolent existence, and the unfounded conviction that benevolence will become more apparent with the addition of knowledge and exploration of consciousness.

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     • I agree, there’s truth in the requirement to get along with society if you want to interact with it. Being a dreamer, however, I harbor the conviction and belief that if I can’t find a niche where I’m satisfied with my ability to self-express, I’ll be able to create one.

       The COVID thing does seem baffling on the surface. My take on it is that people will always have the ability to choose their perspective, even in the face of overwhelming contradiction. It may not seem sensible or smart, but in an odd kind of way it’s weirdly positive in my view, because it’s evidence that individual perspective can resist life-threatening coercion.

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     • Admittedly, I have to do it myself sometimes. I converse with an old friend over the phone occasionally, but he always ends up complaining about propaganda or some other evil machination by some faceless villain, and I’ll redirect the conversation into something neutral or potentially positive. Then he had an emergency with a possible cosmetic procedure that might have to follow, which I told him he was welcome to stay at my place for the duration of the emergency resolution, but not for the cosmetic stuff. I had to draw that boundary where I told him I’ll prioritize health and safety, but I’m not going to compromise my space or peace of mind for a follow-on inessential that could drag on. I’d already gone that route by allowing him to stay for months at a time, and even though I told him I was sick of the constant negativity, he kept on with it. I don’t think it was malicious–I think it was a natural expression of his focus on negative stuff–and I ended up annoying him with my focus on trying to be positive, so I resolved that by saying we should only talk on the phone or hang out for short periods of time. Anyways, the point is I’ll hold my tongue if my intuition and logic says it’s worth it, but nowadays I gotta make it a point to be clear about where the boundaries lie so I don’t repeat the same mistakes of the past and make life miserable just because I’m trying to be accommodating.

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     • Revenge can definitely be fuel, and it can definitely sustain people for long periods of time. I’m of the opinion that after awhile it tends to burn whoever keeps partaking in it, although it’s pretty interesting when I consider the range of tolerance for negativity. Some people can foster it for much longer than others, even to the point of death. I’m definitely not one of those. I guess I consider myself blessed that I’m not strong enough in that regard. At a certain point, though, I believe existence will consistently increase the strength of its hints regarding the idea that its a smoother ride to focus on positivity, or at least relax the negativity every once in a while. I’m actually kind of terrified by the idea that I might experience the same thing as people who don’t allow for this. It seems like they retreat further and further into their tribal shell, using all their logic, ingenuity, creativity, and willpower to build a set of justifications and practices that will always allow them to remain negative. In the process, it seems that their critical thought becomes more and more eroded, and their quality of life becomes more and more diminished. That’s just looking at people I’ve known, though. I’m sure there’s no studies that specifically conclude that.

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     • That’s a pretty useful skill! My brain doesn’t really like doing that; if I try to press pause, I’ll pick at it incessantly in my own head, and it’ll keep me awake when I should be sleeping. I’m more of a massager, if I had to describe it. I have to feel and think around, mentally massage the knot until it’s not as big. Usually, that means going existentially futile, thinking the inevitability of insignificance in the span of the universe and letting that dilute my obsession with whatever problem I’m picking at, because in the end it won’t last forever, it’s not that important, and most importantly, it definitely isn’t worth torturing myself over.

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     • I feel like communicating that with someone is an underrated and underemphasized skill! I remember my ex would basically unload a half hour of crap on me and conclude it with just wanted to vent, thanks for listening. Meanwhile, I’d have a bunch of half-formed solutions swimming around in my head, but I’d have to bite them back because she wasn’t interested in hearing them. I was pretty confused by it at the time, because I didn’t know what the right thing to do or feel was. Nowadays, with a bit firmer idea of where that kind of thinking leads, I have the same stance you have, where if it doesn’t turn to neutrality or positive potential enough times, I have to start implementing the practice of speaking up and saying I don’t want to go there anymore. I had to do that with an old friend recently, when he was starting to slip mentions of propaganda (one of his favorite insidious obsessions) into our conversations. I flat out told him I’m just not interested in it. If I maintain a positive vibration, I believe that even if something is arguably/objectively false, it’ll deceive me in a way that benefits me, then when it starts to be a detriment, I’ll find some reason not to believe in it. Also, the greater implication behind that is that someone is always out to fuck you over, so you have to constantly be on guard, incept other people “for their own benefit,” then ensure that they stay incepted with the correct set of values so the evil propagandists never get a foothold. That’s way too transactional for me. I don’t believe I was meant to sacrifice peace of mind and remain in a state of hyperaware, constant vigilance so that I can enjoy what I can in life after I work tirelessly to protect my worldview from sinister inception.

       The inevitable insignificance is a good way for me to return to neutral. It’s not a great place to stay, unless I can vibe with the “cosmic joke” aspect of it all, and feel the underlying humor and ridiculousness of existence and inevitably funnel into the conclusion that if it’s all silly, I should enjoy the silliness right in front of me and not worry about the rest of it because existential silliness is useless to worry over. That definitely translates to better sleep–if I have an easier time staying relaxed and optimistic, it’s easier for me to let my guard down and drift off.

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     • I think I can relate. I suspect most times with men, venting is more about condemnation and anger. Personally, I used to think what could it hurt? Then after my beliefs around perspective started to form, I came to the opinion that it’s generally not a productive thing (for me, at least). I could go with scientific studies, but people are variable, and for me personally, I found that elaboration on the topic requires some awareness of emotional nuance. My take on it is that if I’m moving through anger so I can get to something more positive, then that anger is healthy, but unless I’m looking to channel it into solution-oriented brainstorming, I don’t need to dump it on a friend and lay out why I feel enraged and why they should–by implication–sympathize and resonate (I’ve had the unpleasant experience of being called out by venters for not showing enough outward sympathy and resonance). I don’t want them to resonate with my anger and powerlessness at an injustice that doesn’t affect them, especially if I’m not looking to use it as fuel to move into solutions, simultaneously empowering them with the ability to help me find a better result. Last year, I untangled a bunch of months-long investment headaches and finally told my friend. He asked why I didn’t tell him earlier, and I replied I knew exactly what I needed to do, I did it, and I didn’t see the need for him to know until I’d taken care of it, since all I could offer him was an excuse to be negative. When I felt like I wasn’t being heard by the world at large, I was very attracted to getting together with others and joining with them in a chorus of complaints, condemnation, and detailed elaboration on why the world at large was trying to fuck us over. But as the years passed, I saw nothing good come of that for me. It’s probably why I prefer to be largely by myself and spend time with others on a very short term basis. If someone vents to me, I see a handful of choices: dive in with them into negativity and resonate with it, pretend to dive in with them but internally focus on non-resonance, attempt to not resonate with it while making that outwardly clear, or simply manage my frequency of engagement. In certain circumstances, my options will be limited; for whatever reason, I’ll have to spend a lot of time with them and faking resonance will be my best option. But right now, my best option is to manage the frequency of their presence on my terms, so that’s what I’ll go with.

       I used to think they were doing something wrong, or that I could look down on them for being in error, but I quickly realized that was stupid, and very similar to what I had an issue with in regards to their perspective. Nowadays I may occasionally fall into that, but it’s my firm conviction that everyone can choose their own perspective, and thus dictate the video game analogue that is their life. If they want to go with the “not enough” game, with no focus on solution, simply to enjoy that bloom of anger and indignation, not only is that fine by me, it may be for some reason where they need to be (for some reason unknown to me), and it’s also their existential right. I’ve been them before, as a matter of fact, so that would make it doubly foolish for me to condemn them for condemnation. But as of now, at this point in my life, I’m just attracted to a different video game. Venters are free to vent, I’m just interested in different ways of managing my emotions.

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     • I can’t knock it–I’ve felt solace from someone sympathizing with my pain or misfortune. I also am not advocating the demonization of victimhood or for the suck-it-up-and-do-something-about-it mentality. For me, I think I’ve trial-and-errored my way through a bunch of those situations and simply settled on what seems to fit for now. After a while, I realized that people who vented to me didn’t really seem to be oriented toward shifting their perspective, in that it wouldn’t be long before they were venting to me about something else, with similar fundamental views on a different issue. I would feel put on the spot because while they didn’t seem interested in shifting their focus, they seemed very invested in me shifting MY perspective so they could feel a measure of surface-level support. That eventually struck me as insubstantial and unfair in onus, where the listener didn’t really have the power to orient toward positivity, but was simply expected to at least give the appearance of agreeing with and focusing on negative imposition. (This is all anecdotal, and only with my small sample size of friends and family, so I know you can’t draw broad conclusions on that). I started realizing that I had done the same thing, and though I might gain support in the form of sympathetic expression, that’s not really what I wanted. I wanted to meaningfully shift my perspective, which for me I believe is wholly dependent on managing my emotions and angle of perception, not any show of support, genuine or otherwise, from an outside listener. Even if I’m asking for help, that to me feels more empowering to both parties, because I’m going to someone with the intent to effect a positive change, and that empowers them to focus on positivity-oriented solutions and movements, not just restrict them to hearing my complaints. As for someone being on my side, this may sound silly, but I genuinely believe the universe and the sum of our unseen aspects is rooting and cheering for us, conspiring to help us if we release our internal resistance. That’s the aid and collaboration I’m looking for nowadays, guided by intuition and synchronicity, not so much another individual’s agreement of the degree of injustice or imposition. I have to say again, though, that everyone is designed differently and also on a respectively different part of their journey than I am on mine. So venting may be the most positive option for them at a given time. It may, in fact, be their higher aspect guiding them toward a fortuitous idea or realization which wouldn’t come about if they didn’t vent to someone. And as I’ve said, I’ve been compelled to vent before, so I can’t judge, nor rule it out as something that is categorically unproductive and to be avoided no matter what. It’s just for me at this point in my life, it’s not what I would generally opt for unless my gut told me otherwise.

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     • You know what’s crazy, is that I think I actually preferred victimhood for a period in my life. I was still trying to figure out what was truly empowering and fulfilling, and I misconstrued victimhood as being on the right side of justice, with the implicit justification that it led to a wider range of acceptable proactive actions and righteous indignation. After I existed that way for awhile, I decided it might have served as brief relief, but in the long term and for practical purposes, it was personally unpleasant and ineffective. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s at the root of a lot of insecure tough-guy behavior, which often gives rise to the fantasy of getting grievously wronged and then going on a rampage. It’s fun to see on the screen, but if someone resonates with that too much I’m probably not going to want to spend much time with them.

       You know, now that I think about it, I also find another interesting point: I think my willingness to listen to venting isn’t a yes/no type of thing, it depends on the gradients of emotional resonance. I told one of my friends I refuse to talk politics with him, because it’s all venom, condemnation, and how people are falling down on the job left and right. I freely talk politics with my other friend who also complains, but he’s open to toying with contradictory viewpoints, gaming out thought-experiment-solutions, and there’s little to no venom. So while both friends complain (arguably vent), the emotional tone decides whether I’m willing to listen to one and not the other. It’s the same with other complaints–my ex would make a furiously helpless case as to why people at work were doing the wrong/stupid thing, and she didn’t want to hear possible solutions, any musings on why they may be acting why the way they were (which opens the door to homing in on a middle ground or point of influence), all she wanted was for me to match her righteous anger to some degree she found acceptable. When my buddy now complains about work, we lay out the issues, talk about where things could possibly go better or worse, and why someone might be causing problems–what’s their point of view and how would we theoretically compromise and bring about more harmony? It’s a completely different mindset. My ex wanted to lay out the tribal lines, and she wanted me on a certain side, no questions asked, regardless of critical thinking or consideration of unknown factors. My buddy already knows I’m on his side, but his currency isn’t tribally based indignancy, but a focus on solution and constructive perspective. I guess that’s a long-winded way of saying that venting isn’t a yea or nay from me just because it’s venting, it’s dependent on the perspective of who’s venting and if they’re willing to meet me in a mindset where the problem is workable and surmountable, rather than a mindset where it’s an irresistible tide of injustice, where the only appropriate response for me is to resonate with their anger and pain, and support their continuing focus on their own negativity without the possibility of inviting other things in.

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     • I think I find anger too addicting to use a punching bag, lol! My revenge fantasies veer toward completely breaking someone’s hope for their future, or humiliation in front of folks whose perspectives they value. My buddy bought a house last year where the wiring was messed up and he was considering pursuing legal action for it, and I ended up having a discussion with him where we were really trying to get to the bottom of what he wanted from that. The amount for the repair wasn’t that big a deal for him, but he wanted the other person to personally understand that it wasn’t right. I walked him through what might happen, and he realized that he wouldn’t be satisfied with a simple win in court, and what he really wanted was to see the other guy’s face as he broke inside. I told him even if he won, that almost certainly wasn’t going to happen, so the question became would he be satisfied with that. He realized he wouldn’t, so he decided not to go through with the hassle of claims court. I’m kind of in the same perspective regarding revenge, so ultimately, I almost always find it more productive to just wish the other person well, assume they’re having an off day, and move on to something more pleasant. It helps that a lot of past unpleasantness has morphed into good occurrences, so it’s easier for me not to get bent out of shape over unpleasantness nowadays.

       I can understand the desire for tribal acceptance. It’s an important part of some people’s journeys, and at one point it was an important part of mine. Over time, I’ve realized that if I fed people’s negativity when they wanted me to and they fed mine when I wanted them to, it tended to set up this insidious quid pro quo where that was how we expressed support for each other, when in actuality it was holding us both back. I heard a great phrase that equated that to trying to hurt someone else by drinking poison. At the same time, I don’t think badly of anyone for it. Like I said, it was once an important part of my journey and I’ve distanced from some friends by telling them they should be able to be venomous about whatever subject with people who won’t feel imposed upon (me) or try to dilute and possibly dishonor it by trying to spin it into something neutral or positive. It’s not a judgment of a person as a whole either; when my negative-minded friends are expressing more positivity, I’m happy to spend more time with them and converse with them. As with everything, I think emotion and intuition are crucial guides in managing these kind of relationships.

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     • Duly noted, remind me to *never* permanently get on your bad side, lol, because I’ve had more people than I care to in my life gunning after the hope for my future. But me and my hope are still here, even when we do sometimes manage to get on people’s bad side, and I want that hope to stay here. I think there is a lot of wisdom in sometimes people are just having a bad day or they missed something. I know sometimes when I’m reacting to something I am coming from a place of significant stress and if the ambient stress level is bad enough that can make me a bit more blunt or even reactionary (I’m aware, and I’m working on it), and that doesn’t always play well with people who are either super sensitive or who have any sort of ego. I’m generally not a revenge person. But I do have boundaries about certain things. Especially after some of my experiences with shunning and social attrition over the last decade, I am very much inclined to not want to stick around for a business that expects me to pay for an experience that isn’t in-line with what I would expect for the type of business. It’s what happened with the cardiologist who originally evaluated me for POTS. My feeling was, OK. You’re seeing still all of these other people who are going to bars without masks, working jobs in all sectors with public exposure without masks, and…my husband had a COVID patient that he saw for a few minutes while wearing an N95 and a face shield and you’re not willing to see me until he’s no longer treating COVID patients? And you work in healthcare? And I listened to your tech tell me why she was not going to get the COVID vaccine based on conspiracy theories while doing my ECG/EKG….OK, got it. They can have their own business practice, but to have honestly still expected me to be a patient and paying them with money that came in part from treating those COVID patients wasn’t for me. For me, it just feels like emotionally I would be damaging myself after the things I had gone through to do that, and since there is no need, I just take me and my money elsewhere. It is usually enough to walk away, I didn’t need to or want to do anything else in most cases. Sometimes I might want to see justice (which in my mind is different from revenge and sometimes warranted by the actions if for no other reason than to protect others in the future), but I’m usually able to cool down these days before engaging in any action so that I can be clear as to my motivation. Sometimes if justice is what I feel is needed, I may do something, but it’s not about creating destruction, because I do think people who are denied hope have no reason to change for the better. Just my thoughts, and I always like to be a person who changes for the better and can have other people recognize that capability, so I typically will want to grant that same courtesy to another.

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     • No worries, lol! I’ve seen people get what they’re due when it comes to negativity, and it kind of killed my taste for it. Kind of like when you pull up beside a bad driver, ready to scream at them, and you see it’s an elderly person staring straight ahead who probably knows they’re a terrible driver and yelling at them would just make you feel worse. I may occasionally feel the anger I did in the past, but I know it goes nowhere good under almost every circumstance, so it’s just a matter of how to process it and get past it, because that’s what’s going to happen one way or the other. In the meantime, I get to decide how much harm I want to inflict on myself with it. I understand there’s some merit to ensuring that people get what they pay for, but it’s really not my thing. It doesn’t energize me or serve a practical purpose, and whenever I engage in it, it ends up being an endless rabbit hole where I’m indulging in imaginary measures that create a subjective cost someone must pay before I’ll let myself be at peace. Basically a version of chasing someone around with a giant rulebook and checking off boxes on some list of debts they owe me. There’s definitely a place for that in society, and occasionally I might have to outwardly do that kind of thing to smooth matters over and get back on track, but inwardly, it doesn’t bring me joy or fulfillment.

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     • Well, I will say this is not about the debts I think they might owe me, it is about what I would consider to be fair and appropriate practice as regards to their clients, and whether or not I felt the situation was being handled appropriately. This cardiology practice is well-rated and was recommended to me by the owner of the medical practice I go to. She used to be my PCP, but mostly does administrative stuff at this point unless she needs to cover (which she did the day I was seen for the follow up to my ER visit after the POTS symptoms developed). You can’t tell me those doctors weren’t treating patients in the hospital. You can’t tell me they weren’t seeing patients with COVID in the hospital. You can’t tell me their staff weren’t around them while they were doing all of those things (because like everybody else, they still need a freaking pay check), masked or not. If you work in healthcare at any level, there has to be an understanding that you could get exposed to nasty germs. That is part of what the job entails unless you are working in plastic surgery, for example, and even then, there’s always the risk of blood born pathogen exposure, hence all the fancy PPE. When it comes to risk, anyone in health care who has been exposed to the concept of evidence based practice should also understand that when it comes to infection control and risks, risk isn’t what many people think it is. When experts in viral spread were asked what the riskiest behaviors were during the pandemic, it was doing things like going to bars, eating in restaurants, flights. The infection rate for healthcare providers treating COVID patients was substantially lower than the general population, and that is because when appropriate PPE was present, that plus training in infection control and appropriate use of the equipment is protective. And many people in Arizona were doing those types of riskier behaviors unmasked. And you can’t tell me my former cardiologist wasn’t seeing those patients, because they were. My husband at the time this happened was also newly vaccinated. As a courtesy, I let anybody know when there was a patient being treated. For my other medical providers, the response was if you don’t have any symptoms, he doesn’t have any symptoms, just make sure you wear a mask and we’re good to still see you. So, it wasn’t even common practice in health care for the area I live in if it was something medically necessary to treat in person. And, if it were something non-essential like a cosmetic procedure, I’d have been more cool with it. But, we’re talking about me within the first few months of developing POTS, and I was very much still on the struggle bus. Since I couldn’t be medicated, I just read through studies, articles, etc and that was the choice I made for me since I knew another provider wasn’t going to be able to do anything but recommend lifestyle changes anyways, because emotionally, I’m just not into paying that much money to be treated unequitably or in any way discriminatory, and it was what was best for my mental and emotional health.

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     • And, I just want to make sure you know that I recognize you were being honest about your inner thought process in general when something negative really gets to you and not implying in any way that is how you act in real life. It sounds to me like you work hard to just let things go, and I was teasing but because sometimes I overthink things, it occurred to me that via text that might not have come through, so I don’t want to leave the impression that I think you’re ever going to come for me even if I were to really piss you off. Which I actually really have no interest in doing, but hey. That happens sometimes even when I don’t mean to with people because we’re just all different sometimes in how we process and do things. Most of us have a darker side when it comes to fantasies when we are first upset. I’ve had them. You know that the non-calmed down version of me wanted to sue a certain provider for malpractice, go after their licenses, and leave a super factual screenshot laden yelp review. Some of that was about justice, but some of it was just about “you did unethical stuff in my opinion and I think you have this coming…” which is more a flavor of revenge, which is part of why I didn’t do certain things. Wasn’t as constructive, and there were/are better uses for our money. It’s what we do after we have those fantasies or initial thoughts I think that matters more, just my opinion. Sounds to me like you try to be as constructive as possible, and I respect that!

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     • No worries, lol! I don’t want to interact with people like past me either, haha! It’s never ending drama and it’s absolutely exhausting! It’s interesting–some of my friends/family are still in that mode, and until recently, I thought I had some obligation to try and save them from it, but nah. I’ve found you can argue them into submission, even to the point where they fully agree with everything you’re saying, but if they’re not willing to shift their core perspective–shift their vibration, if you will–they’ll just fall into their old thought patterns. It’s all right. Everyone gets to choose their own game in life, and I believe that we’re all fated to remember it was just a game at one point or another, and that simultaneously dooms us to the happiness underlying existence.

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     • I’m not phased by interacting with people who decide they want revenge. I ain’t helping them unless there’s justice behind it and it stops at justice and I can see it’s a battle I would need to be involved in (which it usually isn’t), but…as you say, everyone gets to choose their own game. I’m never in relationships with perfect people, and anyone who has a relationship with me isn’t dealing with a perfect person. I’ve got my flaws, so…I try my hardest to love and accept people. Sometimes I fall short of what I want to with that, but…that’s just the game I usually want to play more, the love is always the answer game.

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     • I’m with you! It’s pretty interesting how that theme comes up in topics of high strangeness (interactions with exotic entities or deep profundity).

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     • It’s my preferred default state, but obviously not something I live out perfectly. Some of the things I do that strike others as a boundary I was being too persnickety about really are just about sometimes the love I need to show is to myself, because in certain situations, if I don’t nobody else will.

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     • In my opinion, that’s the absolute most important type of love, because even if someone expresses love for me, I can never be sure of how it feels from their perspective–how much they feel they are giving me or what they might want in return, or if they don’t want anything in return at all. It’s nice, but the one thing I can be sure of is when I love myself. There’s no questioning it, because I’m the one feeling it, I’m the one creating it, and I’m the one in full control of its detection, interpretation, and acceptance.

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     • Well, feelings are tricky no matter what. Even if you could feel what they were feeling, maybe it would be harder to tell the thoughts or the motives behind it, so I get that. I am a person that loves easily, but struggles to trust, and that’s not an easy mix to navigate for the people around me, though I usually keep most of the struggling to trust related freakouts in my head. I trust me more than anyone else, so sometimes it’s just the least complicated relationship I have, the one I have with myself. I have learned to be a lot easier on myself than I was when I was younger, and I have learned to let more people into my world, but…yeah. Self-love sometimes is the only love that’s guaranteed. And it really is the worst when someone things their love means you should give them a blank check for whatever. That being said, sometimes a certain amount of patience with the foibles is always warranted, because we all need it at some point.

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     • I think I had a weird version of that in that I wanted to trust people to shoot for their dreams as much as I wanted to shoot for my dreams. I didn’t care necessarily if they were the same dreams as mine, but I wanted them to have the same passion for high subjective achievement that I did. That fell away relatively recently, in the last few years, when my beliefs around reincarnation and the video game model of existence solidified into my everyday perception. Some folks don’t want to spend a life (play a game) with a lot of uncertainty or higher risk/reward ratio, and that’s fine. I concluded it’s really a me issue. And sometimes, as strange as it may seem, I experience more relief and dampen worry (thus opening the way to positivity), by temporarily embracing the idea that someone will disappoint me. They’re living their life for them, and I’m living my life for me, so if they don’t hew to what I want them to do, that’s fine, I’m sure it will work out in the end, or maybe sooner, in some completely unexpected way that I can’t yet perceive. People disappoint, but disappointments in the past have turned into unexpected boons, so I’m not really comfortable laying down a permanent condemnation. In the end, who can say what’s bad and what’s good? I’d rather just try and appreciate the moment, and if I have to wade into the quantification/qualification waters, try and remember that it’s so that I can clear something up and get back to enjoying the moment, rather than creating a permanent set of criteria or checklist that will bind my future perception.

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     • yeah, mine is just the more garden variety equation of betrayal by individuals in significant positions of trust multiplied x number of times equals difficulty in trusting. It is what it is. I try to do the best I can with it, but it does remain a reality that not everybody can be trusted and so I’d just rather focus on the brighter spots in my life. I think when it comes to dreams and risks, I recognize as a parent that some dreams and some risks I might have wouldn’t be worth taking at certain points for my children, or could even just be flat out disastrous at any given point of time depending on what is going on with them. Everybody’s vision of parenting is different, so not every parent might agree with what I have to say, but I always consider the impact of what I do on my children because they don’t have the legal or financial ability to fend for themselves. There’s not grandparent support on either side of the family tree. There’s only one relative that lives close enough to be able to help watch Tony, and her husband has been experiencing significant health problems for several months now, it’s been a slow painful process that she really can’t leave his side. I think about what kinds of risks I could afford to take for my children in this situation as regards to the things I might want to accomplish for myself personally, because I have to think about the resources I have to land on if something goes poorly. Part of why I wouldn’t be heading into starting my own business right away as soon as Tony’s in school and would rather focus on working as a therapist, maybe real estate, maybe schooling for relevant credentialling. I think some things may be easier when a person is single or when they have a deeper resource pool to pull from.

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     • Well, I’m glad the future is looking brighter and more open for you. People are gonna disappoint, that’s definitely a part of life, but I feel like I’m much more accepting of it now because I’m not as attached to an objective worldview where things are right, wrong, or righter and wronger and being wrong or becoming wronger warrants my righteous indignation. It seems like your son is an integral, formative piece of this life for you, and although I may experience less obligation and more time freedom, I am almost positive that you experience a depth of love and fulfillment from your relationships that is a foundational part of this life for you, something many others would be hard pressed to understand or appreciate.

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     • I definitely do enjoy a depth of love and fulfillment from my relationships. Even though my son’s needs have required intensive sacrifices for me, The love that rolls off of him towards me is so pure and so undiluted by selfish interests-sure yes, he wants things and he wants almost everything his way, but it comes from a different place, a place of innocence and not understanding that other people have equal standing to have needs- but For many people the love they have is more complicated, as you mentioned it means different things to different people, so to me, I feel like I have still done something very worthwhile with my time. It has been both a great joy in my life being able to give him this gift of expanded options and one of my biggest worries that it might not be enough to fully protect him when I’m gone. Because the most honest statement is that it has been me, because for many of his therapists if I had not been willing to participate they would not have been willing to work with our son and our family because of the level of support he needed. And some of the more successful ideas in the public domain came from me. To push to get him potty trained came from me, The work to get him there came from him and me, none of his therapists at the time thought he would be able to do it. For all of my thorns I am a person who loves to love at heart, and I love being a safe place for people who might struggle to find safe places to land. He’s not going to have that so much when I go. But we shall see when we shall see. I am going to focus on helping him adjust to a school environment a successfully as possible and we’re just going to work on going onward and upward from there… And you are right, everyone can disappoint. I know I have disappointed people. It was not ever my intention when it has happened, and some things I do need to think better through before I do them. I am always grateful for the people who see that that moment I disappointed them wasn’t a final punctuation point for me.

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     • I’ve only been peripherally interested in life after death stuff until recently, when I watched a very convincing medium on netflix called tyler henry, and also when the UFO stuff started commingling with the paranormal in the last few years, all underscored with the apparent commonality that physical reality springs from consciousness. All that being said, I’m not so sure you won’t be able to participate in your son’s growth once you’re gone. You’ll probably have your own stuff to do, but there seems to be a vague consensus that time isn’t as one-way after we die (I’ve heard it said that as we live, we are inside time looking out, and afterwards, we are outside time looking in, if that makes sense) and that maybe you’ll present yourself in unexpected ways. Regardless, I think as always it comes down to the next right step, being present as possible, and not beating ourselves up if we can help it. I think you’ve got that covered!

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     • I have seen a very little bit of Tyler Henry’s work, So I think I understand what you’re trying to say with that. I think we shall see what we shall see. I am more concerned about being able to make sure he’s in the safest, gentlest environment possible. Most people who have never worked directly with Tony or who have never spent much time really observing him and thinking about what they are actually seeing him doing versus what he could be doing don’t realize that even back when he would spend half an hour to an hour trying to push his way through me to get to something (And oh yeah, he really would spend that much time once upon a time doing that), he was always trying to do it in a way that wouldn’t hurt me. I have always been the primary blocker in his therapy work with other therapists, But when I am getting paid as his hab therapist, Andy does that then when a blocker is needed because legally has to be my husband under those circumstances because of DDD rules and regulations. He just wanted what he wanted and did not want to take no for an answer. We don’t see anything like that from him anymore Even when he’s extremely frightened any attempt to push through somebody usually lasts less than a few seconds, he’s made a lot of progress in the last several months. He’s gentle on the inside, even when he’s being stubborn about something. And all he has known from me is safety, gentleness, and love. Now I think everybody should have that, but obviously I do know that is not what everybody gets, And certainly if they are lucky enough to get it at some points in their life they won’t at all points.

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     • That’s awesome! I imagine that’s much less frustrating for all parties; you could get a ton of stuff done in an hour, and he could pursue something more personally fruitful as well. I could never do that–free time ranks number on my desired resources list!

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     • Things are like heaven compared to what they used to be. Once upon a time I spent most of every day cleaning vomit, navigating extreme tantrums, protecting him from himself for 6-8 hours a day from his own self-harming, and then there was what happened after he figured out he could use his size and body weight to try and get what he wanted. No, right now, even with the time commitments I have things are downright lovely! I do think Tony was fated to come to me…my patience can run deep. For all of my flaws, that certainly can be an asset in certain situations.

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     • Nice! Those early problems seem pretty exhausting and draining. Naps are coming!

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     • Yeah. I don’t think anyone can fully understand what it did to me unless they lived it. But I survived it, and here we are…and you know, I’m getting to the point where I don’t need naps in the day, it’s the best! Not that I don’t like a good nap when I need/want it, but…this is better in some ways, not to *need* one.

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     • Whoa, I’d say that’s definitely better! Halloweens, Thanksgivings, no need for naps…the sky’s the limit! 😊

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     • But…is the sky really a limit? 🤔

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     • Good point! I am REALLY hoping I get to zip around in a UFO one of these days and explore the universe, other dimensions, and deep down in the ocean!

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     • Yeah, just don’t try to go with OceanGate on that last one 😵💀⚰️😓

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     • Yeah that seemed like a terrible idea all around! I looked at the submersible and it seemed to be no bigger than a large closet. Supposedly, some of the UFOs are bigger inside than it is possible to be from looking on the outside (space-time distortion) so I’d be hoping for kind of an underwater glamping trip where I lounge around with plenty of amenities and basically make an in-the-wild aquarium of the ocean!

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     • Underwater glamping in something that allowed you to see through something other than a monitor does sound more appealing…if the safety side was nailed and well-demonstrated, sufficiently documented, etc. I think that was a huge red flag, that the company involved with the submersible wasn’t so open to constructive safety feedback from what I read. I am all for thinking outside the box, *but* it is very important to heed known safety parameters.

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     • I’m ready for the glamping! UFO world is shaking and moving–Schumer just introduced legislation that defines “non-human intelligence,” uses the word disclosure 80 times (may not be a big deal to those outside UFO world, but if you know the history, it’s significant due to the obfuscation and word salad that typically surrounds disclosure efforts, foia requests, and investigative hearings) but most importantly, the power of eminent domain in regards to crafts and bodies, which opens the possibility of forcible government seizure from thus far uncooperative aerospace companies.

       I used to think I would be satisfied with admittance and disclosure, then with the developments early this year, I upped my hopes to possibly seeing official evidence of an NHI. Now? Bring on the underwater glamping!!

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     • I did not know about that legislation, I haven’t been following too many headlines right now just because there’s a lot going on for me, and there’s only so much news my emotions can take right now, if I’m being honest. Because most of the news usually skews negative to crisis or trauma reporting. Well, evidence (should it be in existence) may only come when the government feels like disclosure is necessary to prepare the public, in my opinion. I hope that we as a species both manage to not destroy enough underwater ecosystems and that the tech develops enough for you to have that experience! Might not be nearly so fabulous if we can’t get the climate change stuff mitigated by the time the tech evolves…so let us just hope for reason and science to prevail on that one!

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     • My theory (i feel like maybe I said it but I’ve been bleating about ufos to all and sundry lately, so I can’t remember who I said it to) is that NHI is driving the disclosure. Congress never acts this fast or in a bipartisan manner unless there’s an overwhelming mass consensus on something or it’s an imminent danger, like the first covid bill. For ufos, there’s no mass consensus (everyone on reddit says their family and friends respond with blank looks or shrugs) and obviously no apparent imminent threat. So I think NHI is pressuring folks from behind the scenes because they’re looking at us messing with nuclear weapons, AI, climate change, trying to weaponize their craft instead of engineering something productive out of them, and they’re like okay, enough, the populace has been indoctrinated sufficiently through pop culture and alternative thinking that they can handle the reveal. You guys aren’t taking care of yourselves or your planet. Also, I think that the generational shift in consciousness has something to do with it as well. Gen z seems much more open to the idea that reality springs from consciousness, popularizing ideas like reality shifting, law of attraction, and also normalizing once taboo things like psychedelics. They’re also less inclined to believe in the ideals of traditional society and more inclined to prioritize living in the moment instead of sacrificing comfort and mental health for some dubious future reward/retirement. That’s all purely my personal speculation, however.

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     • Bleat away, I’m not informed enough because it’s not been my primary focus. Thus, I can claim nothing as a certainty for this topic. Except that I agree we’re making a mess of a whole lot of things as regards to caring for one another and our planet. To me, for all my thorns, I would see a world where gentleness reigned, that wasn’t so concerned with forcibly oppressing others or hoarding resources in such a way that there wasn’t enough for everyone, and some people inevitably die or suffer greatly because of it. And then there’s the environmental crisis, and that is also a self-inflicted gunshot wound of greed. So hey, if NHI wants to step in and say “listen up folks, you’re screwing up,” I would be a fan. But given how little we’re listening to our own scientists, and the people who say things like Sandy Hook never happened, will it make the difference we need? So many people even when they are told that eating a certain way could reverse their diabetes or their heart disease (because Ornish’s diet does just that) they won’t do it. Some people would rather die clutching as many toys or french fries as they can…

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     • This may sound weird, but I’m of the opinion that if they show up and help, it’s because we’re mentally in the right place to receive it, and that there will be folks who benefit from it and folks who don’t, depending on whether or not they’re ready to integrate a positive change.
       Similarly, I believe that it’s possible to prosper in a horrible economy and flounder in a good one, and also of course feel horrible in good circumstances and good in horrible ones. The most recent example of this was my old friend wanting to fly out of a foreign country and having the money to buy multiple plane tickets out. Throughout his overseas jaunt, which had originally been intended to link up with people who would facilitate him helping others, he’d focused on negativity, dysfunction, power imbalance, and societally predatory behavior by those in power. He ended up getting robbed, finding out that the organization he’d wanted to link up with was plagued by corruption and security issues, and when he went to fly out, his card wouldn’t work. He asked me for my card, which I supplied, but even though the charges went through twice, it still wouldn’t produce a ticket on his end. So despite having all the seeming resources and opportunity on his end, things kept going wrong. Was it because of his attitude and perspective? In the end, that’s probably unprovable, especially by scientific standards with control, repeatability, and separation between correlation and causation. However, I personally have just seen these anecdotes pile up too much for me to ignore, plus the idea that consciousness shapes reality is congruent with my need for an inherently benevolent existence. So I would say that while I suspect NHI will provide benefits on paper (perhaps detriments) our perspective is what will determine how those opportunities will iterate for each one of us.

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     • I think there is much truth to what you said. I am sitting right now in the lobby while Tony is doing music therapy, so that may save you from a long rant in return 😅😂 for anything that happens, a person can choose to see the negatives or the positives. There is likely both associated with any set of circumstances, although it is to be acknowledged that some things are strictly negative and some things are strictly positive. Sometimes I think perhaps when I am feeling fearful about a certain outcome I have noticed it almost becomes like a magnet, and it is definitely not the kind of magnet I want to create in my life. But I feel like much of the time, even if for some reason my fear managed to resonate with the universe and manifest something that I did not really want to deal with, if I remain open to a path around it or to a way it can be modified for a more positive outcome, that is almost always the case. It’s kind of like lucid dreaming, which I am able to do. I read about it decades ago, and as a person who used to suffer through regular and intensive terrifying nightmares, I practiced it and successfully gained the ability to change those dreams and always create an escape path to safety in the dreams. Sometimes that can be I think in real life even when a person forgets to resonate on a positive channel or a struggling to because the weight of whatever else is going on. And sometimes it has nothing to do with what the person is fearing, or thinking. Negative things sometimes just happen because they just happen, No fault or blame being attached to any sort of perspective. And I feel hesitant in general to say to anybody that their negative perspective brought on and outcome for me personally, just because I feel like it does start to take on the tone of victim blaming in my personal opinion. But I do think it is fair to say that when a negative thing happens, perspective is often king when it comes to deciding the level of happiness or even the outcome achieved. Just my thoughts, entirely anecdotal based on my own experiences, my own conscious interpretation of reality etc.

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     • I generally don’t comment on anyone’s perspective. Back when I thought I could help them change it, I realized they could come to a point of absolute agreement, and for some reason toss every resolution out the window. For a while I thought of them as “ask-holes.” Because they would ask for input, agree on a solution, then ignore it completely. Later, I concluded that it was their resonance or vibration–probably synonymous with core beliefs or fundamental self-image–that kept them from embarking on a course of action, even if it happened to be productive. If someone thinks of themselves as cursed or unworthy, then whenever they are presented with a course of action that would feasibly increase their self-worth or invite a stroke of fortune, they will feel terribly out of place while they embark on it, and probably find a way to sabotage it.

       If there’s nothing seemingly positive about a certain event, I’ll let it be and trust that my scope is too limited to see any benefit that’s tied to it. Forcing positivity and reaching for it through justifications and rationale is too exhausting and restrictive for me. But as eons pass and time unwinds, so does the ability to judge good and bad, since in the grand scheme of existence, good triggers bad and bad triggers good in an endless chain of switchbacks and reversals. A smaller scale example would be Tyler Henry’s messages, where an expanded perspective tends to moderate the black and white judgment of a short-term event or set of events. So I acknowledge my short-term individual perspective, but it’s definitely not existentially definitive enough to cast an ultimate judgment of good or bad–that’s a move toward a religious viewpoint, at a quick glance in my opinion, perhaps from a nontraditional angle or stereotypically nonreligious route, and I’d rather not move that way at all if I can help it.

       As far as the fault or blame attached to a perspective, I’m of the opinion that it’s not attached. I believe if someone is resonating with fault or blame, they will find some way to express that regardless of their perspective and beliefs, and vice versa–if someone is resonating with compassion and kindness, they will find a way to express that, even if they are tied to a religious organization that has a history of atrocity and abuse. I struggled with this idea a few years back, thinking that the resonance or expression was inextricably tied to the individual perspective, which is why I thought for the longest time that it was best to accept the absence of free will, so compassion could arise for every act and state of being, because they were supposedly choiceless. However, now I no longer think it’s an inextricable connection, so by accepting one I don’t have to accept the other.

       Regarding the idea that sometimes bad things just happen because that’s the way it is, I break from that because unless it’s definitively proven, I’ll always opt for a non catch-22 reality. By catch-22 I mean that if bad things happen just because, then it’s like playing a game of chess where at any moment someone could snatch up your pieces, either forcing a loss or an overwhelmingly cruel disadvantage. If that’s the case, there are two fundamentally different ways to approach it: either live in paranoia, or be delusionally stupid and happy, ignoring precautions and warning signs. Of course that is a spectrum, and everyone’s catch-22 choice would be deciding how much they want to live in fear, and how much they want to live as a fool. And then, if they had dependents, they would have to agonize over how to pass their best guess at the fearful/foolish mix on to whoever depended on them. And so it would go, billions of existences living and passing on the catch-22 response to reality. If that is ever definitively proven, I’ll be very ready to check out of this life, because my personal choice would be to live as a fool, but if for some reason my luck ran out in a horrendous fashion, I would probably prefer not to live. Basically, I’m stating that the possibility of chance malevolence that overrides the independence of an individual’s perspective (which must in my logic also be conflated with the assumption that despite any appearances to the contrary, individual perspective can remain ultimately independent of external influences) makes for an inherently cruel existence, one that obligates us to be paranoid, foolish, or some mix of both. From that obligation, there comes an ensuing nihilistic pessimism (sometimes you’re fucked no matter what, and if it’s not you, it’s going to be someone else) which I refuse to accept unless there is definitive proof, which I don’t see happening unless someone can somehow account for reality at its base metaphysical level, explaining any and all phenomena with 100% accuracy, with unquestionable precision in regards to determinism, randomness, or the way they come together. Only then, in my opinion, with a full metaphysical reconciliation of existence, can the existence of random malevolence, the ensuing catch-22 choice regarding life, and the nested nihilistic pessimism be fully proven or disproven. Until then, as long as I have choice (or the illusion of it), I’m going to arrange my perception into a structure where I don’t have to constantly grapple with those conundrums, which have yet to be supported by metaphysically definitive proof.

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     • I think you are a super smart guy, and you have clearly put a great deal of thought into this. You explain your positions well, and I enjoy our conversations even when my perspective may be slightly different on something. I also think there is much wisdom in what you say about a person subconsciously sabotaging themselves sometime even when they are trying to act on something to move past a self-limiting view. I struggle with that sometimes myself. Not with very many things these days, so I don’t want that to be seen as a defining cage of my character and perspective, because it should not be. There are still parts of me though where I recognize I am struggling to fully shake off something negative that happened that shaped my sense of certain things. I try to remain open as possible these days to seeing the ways in which my thinking has limited me and could continue to if I don’t move past it, because I do want to move past certain things and be an even better version of me.

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     • That’s something that nags me occasionally as well. My view of existence used to be inherently hierarchical, but now I’ve come to the idea that in the existential sense, all are either insignificant or absolutely significant. You could phrase that in scientific terms as well, surmising that we are all stardust or something similar. So for what it’s worth, and though I’ve said it many times before, I don’t believe you’re any less worthy of being happy and fulfilled than anyone else, from an amoeba to an NHI. You deserve to have fun on your adventure, and play the temporary video game of your life to the hilt!

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     • I don’t think I’m less worthy though I am a person with my own set of flaws and struggles. I do think what a person is worth versus what they get in life don’t always line up for a variety of reasons. Maybe they get a terminal illness as a child. Maybe many things. There are many constraints in my current situation, and it is more than a chess game ended by death alone to try and maneuver through this for an outcome that feels joyful. For me the most important thing I can do is be open to the possible paths to the things that I want. Much is out of my control at this point, some things are within my influence, and the rest becomes an exercise in problem solving to find a way. It is what it is.

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     • The whole worth thing has too many negative dead ends, in my opinion. There is often a mismatch in perceived worth and outcomes, so that can be an endless source of frustration and disappointment. Also, the idea of hierarchical worth is based on societal expectations, which are typically cruel, whimsical, and far too demanding, so if for some reason someone gets hierarchically approved, it’s only a matter of time before they get knocked off their perch. And even if they ascend the hierarchy, there’s a good chance of mismatch between their personal subjective perception of their own worth and the masses’ perception, so that’s going to cause problems as well. I actually think the idea of personal worth isn’t very productive; it’s too fickle, and it distracts from being present and receiving undiluted intuitive insight.

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     • Hmm. Well, I agree with your statements about social hierarchy as regards to worth. I do think that we often internally put ourselves through a valuation process that comes up with some measure of worth in may areas though (whether consciously or not), and maybe we come up with the right appraisal and maybe we don’t. Other people almost always value us, and the accuracy of that appraisal may be even less trustworthy because it will be biased by whatever view of social hierarchy they subscribe to. I think it’s a complicated situation, because if I need someone to work with me on something, I have to have an awareness of and care about their valuation. Because if they’ve decided I’m not “worth” working with…they won’t. So even when it is fickle, and I agree with you it can be on many levels (people can love you and think you are amazing to work with until you have to challenge them on something for example), I think having some sort of concern about it necessary and unavoidable.

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     • I kind of see that stuff as functionally equivalent to other external forces. By that I mean that other folks’ perception is largely out of control from a purely logical perspective. They could have a bad day and circumvent any bit of rapport I had been depending on. It’s also why I believe that the theme of betrayal is so hard-hitting in stories. Basically, someone is being shown that their effort and rapport they have invested in someone else’s perception has been stripped away through no fault of their own, and they are helpless before an existence that has decided to become malevolent. It’s a resonant case for why this person now has to struggle with retreating into themselves, becoming bitter and jaded, or adopt a view where they are powerless before malevolence, especially because they now have personal evidence of it. But in order to stay congruent with my view, I choose to believe my inward state can guide me around societal obstacles, much like any other material impediment. If someone screws up their duties or obligations, they’ll get it right and better in an unexpected way, or it will lead to a more beneficial opportunity I couldn’t have imagined. Or I’ll find someone who can do the job better, or I’ll just drift away from dealing with that person for whatever reason. Regardless, I’ll take pretty much the same approach as any other material obstacle, where I’ll feel around for the right direction to go in, take the next right step, and trust that things are ultimately working out. However, to bring it back to my original point, while I believe I have to factor someone’s disposition into outward strategy, I don’t believe it has to affect my inward state of being one iota.

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     • Well, I do that myself when on obstacle, crisis, or challenge comes up. I may have an emotional reaction to it internally or outwardly at first, depending on how overall raw I’m feeling from life circumstances (i.e. if there hasn’t been a crisis/problem break for a good long while) but I shift very quickly to feeling for a way around it, problem solving, and finding the next right/best thing to do. I find it a useful way to process life. I think sometimes I need to be better about not letting other people’s disposition or view of my worth affect my inner state. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. Like, I don’t need a punching bag anymore to deal with things people say in public about Tony (usually these days it’s not negative anyways it’s more along the lines of “wow, he’s doing so much better,” but if it is negative, I just blow that poop off). But even still my upset, my hurt, or even my occasional discomfort when they had their phones up or we stopped traffic, it didn’t keep me from therapy shirting up and doing the work that was necessary in public spaces to get our son to where he is today. I was talking to a mom recently in a store, she saw Tony telling me he wanted to get some rice on his speech computer, and she asked me some questions, because one of her kiddos was going to be getting one. And not to judge (because I don’t, I understand more than any therapist who has ever worked with our son exactly how hard this is because I have done the hardest parts in public myself even when I had a therapist with us), but her comfort level for what she was willing to experience from others in terms of negativity to take her kiddo into public spaces was pretty different from mine. So I can still maybe be affected but still forge on to do what I think needs to be done regardless.

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     • That’s pretty awesome that you were able to help that mom out! Sounds like a preview of things to come. As far as peoples’ judgment of others, I really have come to see that as their problem, in that they live in a judgment mind state of hierarchy-induced insecurity. People judge Margot Robbie for being supposedly mediocre in looks, which to me is obviously nuts on the surface level, but in a strange way validating because it shows to me that individual resonance and perception are so powerful they can inspire a statement so far off the mark. Similarly, you have stories of David Letterman trashing his studio after he killed it with the audience screaming how much he sucked, and also supermodels who think they’re ugly, and shredded folks who think they’re fat.

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     • Helping people is my happy place, though I must acknowledge that even that can be a tricky space. Some people don’t want help, some people don’t like the way you helped…sometimes it’s best to just let the person say how they want to be helped and see if it’s a match for what you can offer. Sometimes as a parent of a minor child though, one has to wade in with whatever they have to give as regards to that, knowing that it may not be well-received though. As to the insecurities thing especially revolving around looks, OOF. You know, I do try to give an honest appraisal to myself on every level. I don’t always see the same things in my own appearance that others do and it is often the Achilles heel of my insecurities. Because I’m also honest with myself about the ways my appearance can be criticized by others. So as a person who has insecurities, I get it. And sometimes I have dealt with people who were dead wrong about something but couldn’t accept that, so I became the default scapegoat because my solution worked… what people reflect back isn’t always accurate, what I reflect to myself isn’t always accurate (or at least not always accurate for the opinions of every person who may be interacting with me), and I think so it is for many people. I know I am trying to do the best I can to walk through all of that in the healthiest way possible at this point even if I don’t always hit the mark, and I know that often others are too. Perspectives may overlap to varying degrees, but they rarely completely align.

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     • It kind of becomes an endless rabbit hole in my opinion, a hall of distorted mirrors made of peoples’ subjective perceptions. That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that my perception of myself is the best point of focus. Sure, I can say that I’m objectively good looking, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to click with a certain lady. Her preferences might not include me, she might not be a pheromonal match, or she simply might be having a bad day or not be in a place in her life to be attracted to me. Trying to collect some amorphous mass consensus of peoples’ opinions of me, then trying to shape it with arguments for or against certain societal standards, appeals to ethics/guilt/kindness/fairness, and constant reminders/berating to keep people that agree with me from wandering too far away from the spectrum of how much they agree with me, is a waste of time in my opinion. It’s exhausting, too abstract for me to get any personal satisfaction from, and it also doesn’t guarantee that I’ll feel good about myself, evidenced by people who are adored by the masses who still have low self-esteem and think of themselves as repulsive. To me, it’s a constant alternation between a pick-me vibe and a tantrum where I didn’t get picked or wasn’t picked in the manner I wanted, a constant merry-go-round of dissatisfaction that may be punctuated by brief moments where everyone’s opinion is exactly right where I think they’re supposed to be. Definitely not my thing.

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     • I think for me, my perception of what I deserve in terms of treatment or experiences is the place my focus starts. Without going into excessive details (which obvi we know I can), I am a person with a complex history of different of traumas that influence my perception of what I am likely to find as regards to how others view me. Maybe it’s accurate for a specific individual and maybe it isn’t. What I choose to cleave to is my belief that if I were single and a person wanted me to change something about my appearance for them permanently, well…I am not the right person even for a one night stand for that person. I know the objectives, I know the subjectives as regards to my appearance. Sure, I’ll wear something I know makes my partner happy just because it makes me happy to see that in them. I’ll do my makeup a certain way if I know it’s the norm for an environment. But I deserve to be seen as good enough, and if I’m not, again, there’s billions of people on the planet and nobody needs to try and change me into something I’m not, they can just go find someone that already fits the bill. Sometimes I have moments where the opinions of others can hurt me, because I am a person who enjoys and craves intimacy. Hence the insecurities. But I also know how to be enough for myself if I need to be, so…my awareness may be there of what other people want, but I’m not interested in playing the jump through the rings of fire game to try and be something I’m either not naturally or wouldn’t want to permanently be for myself and myself alone.

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     • I’m fully in agreement on the jump through rings of fire game. My take on it is that if I’m feeling good about myself, that’s the deciding factor on whether I’ll even appreciate others’ admiration for what it is. When I’ve been in bad moods and feeling insecure and someone’s complimented me, I’ve brushed them off and actually been irritated, because internally felt like they were lying to me. When I’ve been feeling good about myself, I’ve typically had good interactions, and even the few times I haven’t, it never stuck with me. It was a bit surprising, like why would someone think in an obviously erroneous way? Kind of like if someone I didn’t know called me up, told me they hated me, that they would never talk to me again, and then hung up. Another way I could articulate it is if the soil is toxic, it really doesn’t matter what you plant–it’ll turn out nasty regardless.

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     • I think your statement about needing to feel good about yourself to not discount what others say is generally true, but for me it was more true when I was younger. Currently, even if I’m feeling insecure about something as regards to my looks, if I can feel sincerity from someone these days, I’m not going to think they are lying even if they are saying whatever it is that I am insecure about isn’t an issue for them. At the same time, if someone says they don’t have an issue with something, and the sincerity ain’t there? Really, even if I didn’t have varicose veins or skin issues on the tummy from my pregnancy or I was a small framed super petite woman, I will never be a ubiquitous cup of tea and I *have* reached absolute acceptance of that. People like what they like, and there’s differences in that regardless.

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     • It’s nice when someone is sincere and I can be receptive to it. For me, that’s a fickle thing to come by, and even when it happens, there have been instances where I am not receptive to it, so I have to force false gratitude or I react negatively toward them. However, I think your desire for sincere positivity is something that should come your way! If people aren’t accommodating, or they were accommodating and then they aren’t, my opinion is that it’s time to start loosening ties with them. It’s true that there are always negative people, but I also think it’s true that even positive-minded folks go through negative ruts, and they should be allowed to have some distance and time to themselves while they’re in it. Obviously, resonance and personality aren’t permanent. I believe it’s healthiest and most fulfilling to let that guide interaction and relationships; too much misery has been perpetuated simply because someone is family or friend from the past. Are they behaving as a decent person now? Are they a constant burden to interact with, and might they also feel burdened because they want to be nasty and condemning but they feel like they have to repress themselves because you don’t? To me, it’s better to just explore individual resonance and maybe come together later when there’s not so much dissonance. Obviously, there’s contractual situations, but my belief is that in those situations, individual resonance will win out and force a coincidental split if two people are too far apart in their resonance.

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     • I think I understand what you are saying about the forcing false gratitude in a sense. There have been times where I felt like someone was sincere in something and because I wasn’t feeling that way about myself personally, I dredged up the appropriate response but I wasn’t feeling lightened by it. I think what I am trying to focus on for me is really feeling that gratitude about it. Because being accepted for who and what you are is generally something to be appreciative of. I can also see what you are saying about some of the difficulties that can arise because someone is family or a friend from the past. I think sometimes though, people can persevere even if the resonances are way off if they have certain reasons for trying to sustain a relationship, be it religion or something else they find equally compelling. Not saying it’s going to be the happiest of situations for everybody involved, but I’ve definitely seen it, especially amongst individuals from certain religious world views.

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     • In those situations where the external circumstances are fairly restrictive, I believe coincidence will accommodate resonance, but I believe that it needn’t always lead to a break in a relationship. It could mean that things coincidentally become more accommodating for that relationship due to a common pathway where both may not be in the same resonance, but it’s similar enough in direction to where it needn’t lead to a break. I also think there’s an allowance of time where clarity about what someone truly wants will sharpen. If reality responded immediately to resonance, it would be the equivalent of a chaotic pendulum that would never fully recover from each wild swing, that never had the chance to contemplate what rhythm it would like to aim for and become largely reactive by ping-ponging all over the place instead of having a chance to be creative and deliberate in how it wished to craft its future existence.

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     • Well, I will say something that I have heard other people voice similar sentiments on. Relationships are a bit like gardens, even if the resonances match. Provide the proper care, water, and nutrients and they will flourish. Neglect them, and they may shrivel away over time. Set them on fire or rip some part of it up by the roots? Poof they are gone.

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     • I just see it as two people coming together, for particular moments and phases of life. I was a different person ten years ago than I am now, and in fact, I wouldn’t want to hang around me from ten years ago. If I saw high school me, I’d think he was weird, obsessive, and kind of elitist and I’d be like okay, kid, you don’t seem to want to listen to anyone and you seem super judgy, so I’ll leave you to it because I’d rather not be around that. If over the course of a relationship, two people find themselves incompatible, my take is that let the distance grow or let the relationship fade, and if a previously unpalatable person demonstrates a different, more positive resonance, then why not hear them out for a bit? I’ve experienced both progressions from the same person, where I grew away from certain people, then something brought us together again and we found we were compatible for a bit, then grew away again. I’m not going to force myself to be around people I can’t stand, even if I know them, unless there’s a very, very good reason for it. And even if that’s the case, I’m going to be looking to change what I can so I can exit the situation as smoothly as possible. Enduring sacrifice, pain, and angst for the sake of a relationship seems a bit too much like the religious model of existence to me. It’s not a hidden dig on you, however. I’m glad that there are those out there who experience enough fulfillment and joy from relationships to invest continuous effort over long periods of time into them and experience them as a soul-satisfying calling. My mom was like that, I think in part to teach me that I’m not like that at all.

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     • No worries, I wouldn’t have felt like you were taking a dig at me even if you hadn’t said that. I recognize that you are articulating what feels best and works best for you and it’s OK if that’s different from what feels best and works best for me. Yet I do agree with many of the things you said. People can change a lot over time, and sometimes that works in the context of a long-term relationship and sometimes it doesn’t. Some relationships cannot and should not be saved. I don’t think there’s a one-size fits all answer for that, and I am not hear to preach what I do or have done in any past context to preserve certain relationships, as I can see plenty of ways it would not have been how others would have handled certain situations or even how I would handle them now or in the future. That being said, the relationships of whatever nature I have do matter a great deal to me and I do the best I can to try and take care of them. Preserving relationships is never a guarantee, because always the other person has a say in what happens, and as you have mentioned before, it is hard to count on what love means to another person. I have been in situations where people thought I was everything fabulous to work with and they would talk me up to whoever would listen- until I had no choice but to challenge something because the negative impact to my interests crossed the line into needing immediate and decisive action. Did that have to be a rupturing moment? No, the other person could have said, hey, ok, I see your needs here let’s try this a different way. Any one person in a relationship can only influence so much what happens.

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     • That’s an unfortunate twist of events, where folks couldn’t handle a challenge to their opinion. I believe by and large people can avoid being selfish, but at the same time, I believe we can’t help but be self-oriented, because the individual self is how we primarily process and interpret phenomena. To me, that’s by design and one of the biggest existential indicators we are supposed to abide by. So my reasoning from that is once someone demonstrates they’re willing to devalue you, then it’s a sign to move on, or at the very least start engineering a way to move on. Why exist as a self-oriented perspective, if you have to constantly subordinate perspective-born drives so others can advance their own? That doesn’t make sense to me.

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     • Yes, it can be a very unfortunate twist of events. Sometimes it is best to walk away when one can in those circumstances and sometimes it is best to push back to the extent necessary to protect one’s interests. The most appropriate response for any situation must be considered holistically if at all possible. For me in most any situation I don’t just think about what I want to see happen and what would be most supportive of my individual needs, for the most part I think about what are the needs of my children and how can those be best supported by how I choose to react or respond to something. Every now and then I may have an emotional reaction to something that comes with an immediate “I ain’t taking this poop for anything” if it doesn’t impact anybody but myself. That being said, I think it is definitely a concern if someone in any personal relationship is always expecting their perspective to prevail. Some people culturally expect to have to defer (i.e. women in heavily patriarchal religions) and may do it even if they are internally screaming, or maybe they’re not because they are just so inured to that expectation. And in those circumstances though if the person isn’t comfortable with that, yes, I think a walk away is appropriate if the other party isn’t happily willing to make some changes. I think giving a person an opportunity to demonstrate how sincere they are to make those changes if they have indicated they want to is appropriate, however, depending on the needs of the person. And yet, in organizational hierarchies, people often feel that titular status earns precedence, which can be problematic when the person wielding the title is dead wrong.

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     • It’s interesting to watch in some cases. I’ve casually followed women’s rights in the Middle East, from the refusal to wear hijabs to taking up driving to the Iranian chess player defecting to Spain. There’s a definite time to compromise and pick which hill to die on. I believe that a focus on making it to greener grass will open synchronicity for movement and opportunity. And while I’m ironically referencing a quote that seemingly warns against hoping and striving for better, I believe there’s a diametrically opposed interpretation of it, which is that the mental state is what truly matters, that despite the grass outwardly being greener, a desolate perception will only propagate desolation, regardless of the apparent greenness. Similarly, I believe the Matthew 25:29 quote about those having everything being given more and those having nothing will get more taken from them is cruel from one perspective, incredibly kind from another. From the materialist, past-data-driven, hard-logic perspective, it is ridiculously cruel, because it implies unless you are in a position of advantage, you will never gain more advantages, and if you are underprivileged, you will become more so as time goes on. That’s a very surface level, pure-Darwin interpretation of reality where you have to accept the existence of randomness in order to give an unethical advantaged person their deserved misfortune, or an ethical disadvantaged person their undeserved fortune. However, if you view that quote through the lens of material phenomena as an iteration of consciousness, then it is compassionate, empowering, and fair, as the interpretation would state that someone who is abundant in their individuated perception will open the door for more abundance, and someone who is destitute in their perception will invite scarcity and lack. That to me is congruent with the breadth of phenomena, explaining the anomalies and exceptions that doom-and-gloom statistics-evangelists so easily dismiss. I believe there is an abundance of possibility, that not only can I be miserable in “good” circumstances and vice versa, I believe that if I was given every material thing I wanted, if a literal utopia existed and I insisted on negative resonance, coincidence would accommodate with an earthquake, sickness, accident, or something similar. The reverse is also true in my brain, and that is what I like to allow for.

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     • I think the Mathew 25:29 verse is best understood in the context of the entire parable in which it is given. The interpretation I am most accustomed to is the one which was given in our former church, and related to the idea that people who are working to the highest level possible with what they are given (whether it is little or much) will be rewarded for their work. I think on the surface it seems in a way to minimize the realities of what a person on a barely subsistence level of income may be thinking/feeling/needing for their circumstances. If I can barely pay my bills, I’m thinking about saving my money before investing (or as the person in the parable did, bury it in the ground). Of course, the religious implications were that the person was a lazy steward, was hiding the resources they had from being put to good use, so to speak. Which works well if you are trying to convince someone that they need to work very hard to achieve goals that matter to the “master” in the parable. The other side of that was that the other two stewards were taking risks with property that wasn’t theirs…and so it wasn’t on the surface their assets to be lost, but certainly would have become theirs to recompense. I think life is complicated, and for me personally, I believe in being as positive as possible, but I also am not sure I personally see a clear path to me personally believing that there is an abundance for everyone and that it is only a self-limiting perspective holding them back. I have listened to interviews with people who have master’s degrees that were sending out resumes non-stop and were doing so still even while having become homeless for the lack of a job and income. But I can certainly agree that the most positive attitude possible is beneficial in any circumstance.

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     • Before I equivocate, I’ll readily admit that you’re probably right–your statement probably has more validity than mine, because I know almost next to nothing about the Bible and I cherrypick info for my personal bias. Now I’ll equivocate, starting with admittance that anything I read through the Bible is shaped around what I believe is the intent of the original Christians, who I believe subscribed to a mystical structure of reality, specifically reincarnation and a collective consciousness that comprises the base of reality. There’s bits and pieces here that might support my assumption, Gnostic stuff mainly, I think, but I can also go at it from another angle, which despite being heavily uninformed, I believe there’s good evidence that Roman authorities edited the Bible so it would be more favorable to their official power and position. All that being said, I’m a shameless cherrypicker. I figure with the editing and the misinterpretations and the other cherrypickers who are okay with killing, tattoos, seafood, and probably don’t care about the weirder rules like not sitting where a menstruating woman has sat, only being able to kill burglars at night, not wearing clothes made of linen and wool, I’m fine with being an out-and-out selective interpreter.

       As far as the interpretation of diligent work, I find that interesting in that I don’t know much about the Mormon faith, but I’ve heard it said that work is synonymous with existential purpose, and that volume of work and work ethic is a very big deal. It makes sense the quote would be interpreted to endorse virtue of labor if what I’ve heard is true. To contradict that perspective (not your personal one, the Mormon one), I too have seen people work hard, be of good character and conduct, and still been seemingly punished by misfortune and fate. In order to be congruent with my personal bias, I can’t see a way around resonance as the determinant factor, because work and character don’t seem to be comprehensively determinant when plugged into a full accounting for cause and effect. My position is conveniently unprovable, because who can make a device that measures personal resonance, and how would you even begin to quantify it and correlate it to a specific outcome? Nevertheless, it is the only philosophical way that seems to allow for fairness and abundance of opportunity in the manipulation of coincidence, because if external effort is determinant to anything more than a negligible degree, where it can significantly impact someone’s life, there’s a nested implication that my external effort can impact another’s life, that external factors determine our lives to a significant degree, which sets up chains of predetermination from external interactions that reach back throughout the life of the cosmos, all the way to the Big Bang and the crystallization of stardust. That model of existence would mean life would be more like being forced to watch a movie, rather than playing a video game, and some people would be stuck in a horror movie, whether they wanted it or not. I refuse to believe that, until there is definitive proof that says otherwise.

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     • I very much appreciate your recognition of the possibility that I may have put in more study time as regards to the Bible, and I got quite the laugh out of your cherry picking remarks. I am going to answer this somewhat off the cuff because I’m sitting in a parking lot waiting to go in having arrived a few minutes early for an appointment with the HR department at my son’s school district, so I apologize in advance this may not get quite the care and thought it deserves as a response. My level of knowledge is high as regards to the LDS interpretation of the Bible and the attendant scriptures used in that denomination, I did teach Sunday school and I did graduate from their 2-year religion study program. That being said, I will also tell you that there is a lot of wiggle room in the interpretations you will find in the different denominations. In my opinion many people cherry pick areas from the Bible or other religious doctrines to suit and justify their own positions. That is an observation that is generalized but may not apply to every specific faith adherent. And in general yes, our former church definitely put an emphasis on hard work. Emphasizing that as having high value for obtaining eternal salvation is important for a church that doesn’t pay local church leaders or workers. Nobody except the highest level of church leadership is getting paid for what they do in that church. And even the female leaders at the very top aren’t getting paid, just the men. The women I have been told get coupons for the “appropriate” clothing store and blessings.😳🙄

       I am familiar a bit with the positions of the gnostics and definitely what they believed in practiced is different from what mainstream Christianity has become, and you are absolutely right that plenty of hands have tampered with and modified what was the scriptural document into what currently appears in our modern Bible. Generally for reasons that benefited them. You will get to no disagreement for me on that one.

       What I am curious about is what led you to read any verses from the Bible, because if I’m remembering correctly that is not your primary religious background?

       I very much appreciate your desire to see an explanation for these types of processes that is fair. I don’t have an official position, but I have observed that sometimes the expectations (resonance) of a person can influence the outcome. But it’s not a hard and fast position that I feel comfortable as yet conceding that it explains everything. I think there is so much that I do not know, and many things I do not have time to focus on so I can claim to have no official answer. But I very much enjoy the conversation, that being said I need to start walking myself in. I will respond to the other comments later… Take good care of yourself ☺️

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     • The philosophies in the Bible are prominent in societal principles and literature, even among people who don’t care about it or disbelieve in it. That’s a more practical view, but on a personal level, I have gravitated toward syncretism (the attempted amalgamation of different religions) since I was a kid. I’ve always believed that there was something good and fundamental at the core of the Bible, and the dissonance and justification to enact cruelty and oppression through Bible-born rationales are a deep lesson in and of themselves: that it isn’t the specifics and word of law that captures the spirit, but rather the personal relationship between individual and the transcendent. Just as there are agents of good in a religious organization known for pedophilia, torture, and oppression of disenfranchised, there are quite obviously people in there that arguably defeat the purpose of such an organization. An organization and/or wide-reaching set of instructions will never guarantee that an individual acts righteously or not. In the end, I believe it is inevitable that an individual who is in any such organization or who is devoted to any such documentation must evolve into a personalized iteration of their own unique self-expression of the spirit of that organization or accompanying documents. They must stop subordinating themselves to a symbolic authority, and directly merge with transcendence so they may live it and be it, rather than try to follow others’ interpretations of it. Often, I suspect that means they must break away from the organization or consensus-supported interpretation of those documents, but that’s probably not 100% always the case.

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     • I can support syncretism. There are things that I love, appreciate, and find valuable in my own personal spiritual practice (such as it is) that come from different faith traditions. I don’t feel that I personally could ever again sign my name to a congregation as an adherent for anybody other than a UU congregation for that reason. I do think, however, that for some people, they don’t want to think that deeply about their spiritual practice. They want someone to give them a cut and dry answer and an assurance that sounds and feels comforting to them. They want the rituals that come with a practice and find the boundaries of a firm doctrinal position helpful in providing community with similar positions, especially as regards to moral/social/cultural particulars.

       You mention that you have favored syncretism since you were a kid. If you feel comfortable sharing, I am curious as to what led you to focus on that at such a young age.

       I agree with your overall general observations as regards to adherents of different faith traditions. And as regards to the Bible, I personally feel that could be a long, long conversation. I think there are things that are in there because they were expedient for religious or secular leaders to elevate to the level of religious direction/commandment to increase adherence/cooperation. I think there are things in there that are mythological in nature, maybe also share common ground with stories, i.e. the great flood from the Epic of Gilgamesh. I think that I love some of the direction in the words attributed to Christ, but there are huge problems with accepting the literal veracity of every element attributed to Christ as written accountings didn’t show up until I think some time after his death. There is a great deal of Paul’s writing that is just seemingly his opinion and because it was including in the Bible, became some how doctrinal. Councils of very human men with very human motivation already went through a cherry picking process of their own to decide what was part of the standard Cannon (apocrypha no longer included anyone? And yet, how well verified is the authorship of other sections? Who decided what was given under divine inspiration and can they prove the source of their own decision was divinely inspired?) And of course, the denominations all have their own interpretations to a certain extent, and some things that are very different even in practice to which they all hold up their own interpretation of the Bible to justify and give authority to. And, I could go on. There are things I value about portions of the Bible, but mostly I am happy to focus on other things these days for myself because it is too problematic on many levels to even consider taking literally for me personally, and as symbolism, well, I already am quite familiar with the content so I would just rather focus on things that I want learn more about.

       What do you feel is one of the spiritual texts you have enjoyed the most, if you don’t mind me asking?

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     • I think for some reason, I was pretty aware of conflict behind religions or within their sects. I always puzzled over it, because the positive core messages seemed to be the same, so I think I developed the belief that there was some common underlying thread, which probably made me much more interested in the mystical traditions, where the commonalities become more evident and they aren’t so interested in punishing people for not following the rules.

       The Bible as far as I’m concerned is a mangled recipe where people are combining stuff like ice cream and salmon burgers into a giant mishmash. There’s tasty stuff in there, but it doesn’t make sense to try and eat it all together, it’s been too haphazardly put together.

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     • I like your analogy! Yeah, I think the punishing people for breaking the rules thing with religion just isn’t really for me. I’m not a fan of that particular ritual.

       And yeah, there is a common underlying thread in many faith traditions. And I feel like the rest of it is just kind of a bunch of stuff that people added on for various reasons. But I do find some things very comforting from certain faith practices, even if I don’t feel like there’s any actual necessity to doing them.

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     • Honestly, I find most of those texts, even the mystical stuff pretty heavy reading and really more for referential cool points than actual guidance or insight. It all pops up again and again in pop culture anyway, so constantly seeking it out after awhile is like getting hammered in the brain from a thousand different angles. All of it seems to funnel back to staying present, enjoying the moment, and trusting your inner guidance. The rest of it is cool because it has an old-world flavor, but if I had to point someone to a condensed model of reality that accounts for my core beliefs and allows for the more esoteric iterations that branch off from it, I would pick the 5 minute Alan Watts video I referenced a while ago. I think he encapsulated things quite well.

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     • I think for me, sometimes I look for those moments when I am reading something where I feel that resonance of truthfulness within. So I will filter through certain texts or books by spiritual leaders looking for those moments, and in some of them I can find it more than others. I have an internally strong negative association at this point with dogmatic religious practice in general after the experiences I had in our former church, so I generally would never hold anything up and say “I agree 100% with everything in this” (because I don’t for any spiritual text I read these days) but I recognize it can have value in the lives of others. I do recall you favor that approach, but I wasn’t sure if you had other spiritual reading on the side that you enjoyed. I acknowledge that I have definite improvements to make as far as staying present goes. That sometimes is a harder journey for me sometimes. I used to tell every therapist that did public work with us that I was kind of like that dog in “Up,” forever calling out “squirrel” over one thing or another. But really it is my brain more that does that, and my body just kind of follows along, lol. But sometimes the things I get distracted by aren’t in the here and now, and that can be a problem for me. Sometimes it’s beneficial, because it’s good to consider and be aware of certain things, but others…definitely something I hope to continue to improve on.

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     • I had a long, winding philosophical journey toward realizing that being in the present was truly the most harmonious place to be. Part of that for me is relaxing into the idea that there needn’t be any improvements, and the resignation that there is perfection in the imperfections, if that makes sense. That the continuing evolution, progress, and clarification is perfection in and of itself. (It’s the Alan Watts-derived idea that omnipotence/omnipresence that doesn’t constrain itself into individual perspectives is in a state of stagnation, because it has nowhere to go, nothing to learn, and nothing to overcome, so it must maintain the dual-state of constrained individual and all-encompassing, interconnected awareness). Even so, I sometimes find myself pulled out of it, and that is a new opportunity to be present, to clarify desire and values and adjust into a new direction or slight variation, to be inwardly okay with the outward shuffle of priorities and viewpoints, and while making the appropriate adjustments on the surface, to accept at a soul-deep level that nothing needs to be fixed and that it is all part of a process that involves unlimited freedom for an existentially all-encompassing self. Maybe that’s too far out there, but basically I’m saying that even while dealing with outward chaos, I believe that being present means at a deep-down level, relaxing and accepting that it doesn’t matter in the long run (that’s for me), or maybe that it’s just part of a grander process, or that your inner state is yours and yours alone, whatever rationale or viewpoint works to get an individual to the point where they’re going to existentially end up anyways (or so I believe personally).

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     • Well, I can respect what you have said. I just know that for me personally, I definitely can’t let go of an “I need to improve” mentality. Because I do. And I know it. And everyone around me can usually see where I’m falling short on things too, though they and I may not agree on what and to what degree as perspectives will vary. What I have been able to let go of (most of the time) is the idea that I need to be perfect- that I even can be perfect. I hadn’t really thought about the journey of improvement and learning as being perfection, in part because I am sensitive to the views of others on the topic- especially when they are not to happy to accommodate the fallout from one’s unresolved flaws. Specifically, my unresolved flaws. I have found that generally people expect compassion for their flaws, but sometimes – and maybe even often depending on the person- aren’t so compassionate or patient with the shortcomings of others. Although I had the example of my grandmother and my great aunts and great uncles in my life, I had a great deal of time around and exposure to the dysfunction that was my parents/stepfather. I had a lot of things that needed to be “fixed” I felt for me to have the kind of relationships or life that I would be comfortable living. So I think for me sometimes I do feel the need to fix things within myself (not so much from a religious or spiritual impetus, rather a desire to succeed more times than I fail in bringing the best version of myself to my interactions with others), but I can definitely respect a different perspective.

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     • I can relate, I think. For years, I obsessed over details, seeking to pin down every improvement I could get while pushing the edge of burnout. I eventually came to the conclusion that the best way to improve for me was not to be so focused on improving, to stay present and open and let my logic and intuition harmonize into my perception so that improvement could meet with good timing. I’m of the opinion that improvement will naturally happen in the best way possible–in tandem with synchronicity–if we internally calibrate to be more harmonious with existence (be present, to be reductive), and that it needn’t be sacrificial or self-flagellating. So while the principle of aiming for improvement remains, the specific focus for me has definitely shifted.

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     • Well, what I will say is that I don’t want to always be running so near the edge of burnout. But life has given me limited choices on that one over the past 11 years or so, and my heart…really the light within me would have suffered if I had taken the path that involved a facility, and I don’t see how any other way but courting and edging with burnout for me that would have worked given the resources we have had to meet our son’s needs. There is still much to be done for everyone involved. I do the best I can with it, but I have had to constantly evaluate what I can improve to keep things moving forward. And I have to make some decisions about what goes undone based on what the most important priorities are, because while I want to be enough to meet all of the needs before me, I don’t know how any one person humanly could. So, blinds go undusted. Clutter might just sit. If it’s not important, even if another person wishes it were getting done, unless they are offerings, to bad, so sad, those at least are improvements I am not going to tip myself over the edge of burnout to make.

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     • I suspect there’s an existential prioritization involved that may push our limits, but if we are prioritizing what we know to be right in our hearts, we’ll be taken care of, and so I suspect it happened with you. There’s probably a case to be made that you could have made things easier with different choices here and there but you stuck with the big one that mattered and now you’re defying the odds, conventional expectations (it seems like), and you’re even getting a chance to establish a more preferable tempo. It really is listening to what you know in your heart to be absolutely true, regardless of what society or experts say, that I think is the first priority, and the biggest thing that carries us through the toughest times.

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     • I am going to give you the most honest answer I can give you: much remains to be seen. Our son is capable of integrating into a school environment, but it is going to take considerable work and after being in that environment for a few days, I am not sure how much tolerance the public school he is designated to go to has for the slow exposure and increase of time he needs, and for the behavioral hiccups he’s going to have while he’s adjusting. And I don’t mean that to criticize their team. I think they have some really awesome people working there and I think it would be an awesome environment to continue to work in. But he’s definitely struggling so far to generalize skills he has in other environments to this environment (which historically has been the case for him) and if they can be patient with that, he will generalize and he will be able to successfully transition into the environment. If they find his early efforts too disruptive for them to want to continue supporting on their campus, well…we may have to go back to the drawing board. So, This effort could fail. But it could definitely also succeed. In some things, we are defying expectations. But also, many people do still expect us to fail. They still expect Tony to fail. You know, the last denial-related dispute I got into with DDD, when I needed to get both the ACDL and the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest involved, one of the first questions both their intake representative asked was “does he actually use his device?” With emphasis placed on certain words. And many people seem surprised when they see exactly how well he can use it, especially if they know about his history. He has complicated needs. Yes, some things would have been easier for me, but if I am breaking on the inside it doesn’t matter what time I could have had. As you have said, a person can have riches and health and many advantages far beyond others and still be miserable. All I can do is play the cards I have to the best of my ability and see where we end up.

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     • Admittedly, despite my focus on allowing more pleasant surprises, I am not a fan of those ambiguous situations where there’s a lot of opportunity but a lot could go sideways as well. However, at a certain point, the realization hits that I have by and large made the right choices as far as expressing my best intentions and following my heart, and a sense of peace comes from that, not so much resignation, but the fact that stressing about what’s happened doesn’t make sense because I wouldn’t have done anything different given what I knew at the time. It sounds like you’re in a similar place, and just my opinion, but it is strong and deep, you deserve any and all peace that might come from that.

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     • Well, especially when another person is involved, sideways is always an option. Tony has a super big personality inside him. Very sweet, very fun-loving, but he can also be a bit of chili pepper when he doesn’t like something. But he’s also much smarter than people realize. When things went sideways with one of his former therapy providers, we had a conversation because he was acting out in all of his therapy types because they weren’t letting him refuse to do all tasks the way the other provider had been for nearly 7 weeks at that point. One of the things we had considered as parents was just terminating with that provider, because we already got the sense that the person behind the care plan that we felt was causing problems wasn’t the type to want to modify or negotiate, and also wasn’t listening the clinical history. Because he had communicated with us via his speech device that he really wanted to keep working with two of the 5 therapists involved in this situation, we had a heart-to-heart with him and said basically: all problems with other therapists need to stop immediately or we’re going to have to switch providers for your own good. He really wanted to keep the two therapists so badly it was an overnight change in his behavior in those other therapy types. We still had ongoing problems in the therapy type with the care plan in question and we believe that the progress he’s had since we are no longer with that provider and using different programming speaks for itself, but Tony really is capable of modifying his behavior and exhibiting a great deal of self-control if something is important to him.

       Today, he did great, his generalization showed up in full force today and it was awesome. His IEP calls for a gradual introduction into the school environment starting out with 30 minutes a day and then increasing to one-hour after two weeks and then increasing as tolerated because of the sensory differences, etc. that he has. So proud of him today, but of course, Tony has to want to cooperate with this. After yesterday, I had a very honest conversation with him about how many schools wouldn’t want to agree to that gradual introduction and how they are trying to meet his comfort level and how important it was for him to meet them in the middle on that so that he doesn’t have any choices left but a school that won’t meet him in the middle. And he showed up as his best self this morning. When people show Tony that they care about his needs and are trying to meet them in a way that he finds most comfortable, he’s usually willing to put more effort into something to act the way others would like him to.

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     • That seems like a crucial factor, that desire to move in a direction toward what he wants, rather than just complain about how it isn’t coming to him. I’m glad to hear that a way forward is making itself known! It can be frustrating when things are going to expectation and the bottom drops out from under you.

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     • 🤣🤣🤣Well, If we are having our most honest moment I wouldn’t say Tony considers it to be the direction he wants. If you were to ask him what he wanted and his heart of hearts, it would be to stay home with me and the rest of his family entirely unchanged forever and ever and ever. But change comes to us all and he has to be prepared for that. It is merely a matter of convincing him which option favors him most. And in this case, this is the softest landing into the school system he is likely to get.

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     • I think at some point we have felt similar to that, the desire for little to no change. But I think in our existentially oriented perspectives, the pieces of us that interact with the immaterial and aren’t so bound by space and time, we desire positive motion and will subconsciously arrange ourselves into circumstances that will call for it. Regardless, I’m glad he’s being proactive about the option that favors him most, the other alternatives don’t seem that pleasant.

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     • Well, I think many of us fall on a continuum of what we like/don’t like in terms of change. I have some things that I’d rather not see change (i.e. things that are going well), and other things I like to change on a regular basis (my makeup, sometimes my hair). I think for Tony, really if I could get everyone to do a thought exercise as follows they’d understand him a lot better: picture waking up in a world where everything makes you feel some sort of sick or pain, and then top it all off, everything is as hard as your worst subject, they thing you can’t understand, the thing you are failing, and now that’s a minimum of 40-60 hours of your week. How enthusiastic would you be to keep obviously not doing so well at learning something than everyone around you for every single subject? People look at his behaviors sometimes and they see “disobedient kid.” What they should be seeing is a person who is frustrated with our hard everything is and has been. His skills and his abilities have mostly been hard fought for. He’s doing the best he can even when he’s melting down (because it’s pretty overwhelming when learning and doing everything is hard), even with the school transition, because this is a very new environment to him and a lot of structure to have to learn. In some ways, he is trapped in his body, a body that can’t do all of the things his brain understands, and some of his refusals are just because he’s tired of looking like he can’t do things, and he’d just rather look like the person who says “no.”

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     • That definitely sounds exhausting. It’s pretty inspiring that he continues to persevere and if evidenced by action if nothing else, continues to believe that he can shape and enjoy his life. Also, the fact that you do the same is just as badass!

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     • Well, I will say it is pretty exhausting and it has been pretty exhausting all the way around. For me, I look at the quality of life he has now versus what he had as a toddler and I know I have done kindly by him, though there are some autistics who don’t support sensory integration therapy. I feel like leaving him in a condition where he couldn’t tolerate comfortably most anything in the world around him when it came to sensory input would have been cruel. Why condemn him to a life of ongoing pain when his neurology was plastic enough to be able to learn to process and tolerate certain things? And much of the time he is very happy now! Working on certain things does make him grumpy though, because most everything does feel hard, so I break things up into smaller chunks when I can. When we were working on having him put buttons in and undo them for a dress shirt for example (which he can now do), I started with one button, because if it was all of them I insisted on he would have refused and melted down or gone physical in some way trying to get out of it…then I just slowly increased the expectation once he could do the 1 with ease and so forth. It takes a lot of patience for him, and for me.

       I don’t think it makes me badass. But thank you for thinking that ❤ I am just a mother who loves her children and has always believed he was capable of more than some people thought. And so I fight his battles. And will continue to fight his battles. Sometimes I get frustrated when people nod their heads and get the "yeah right" expression on their face when I am talking about something he can do, like doing sight word memory match games or understanding Spanish< or when they just automatically start planning for him to fail at something. Sometimes people have to see it for themselves what he can do, but given how few of them have actually ever heard of his genetic disorders before encountering him, I would love it if people would do less diagnosis math because I feel like so much of the time they come to the wrong conclusions based on what little they know because mostly they are working off of assumptions, and usually negative ones. I know there will be limits on what he will be able to do and to understand and so forth. And sometimes I get sick of people looking at where he is and not recognizing how time and labor intensive this has been and wanting to just dismiss my time and contributions. Still don't need to be seen as badass, just being recognized that his has taken intensive work and I have made extensive sacrifices to do this is really the only thing I personally feel like I need people to see and understand.

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     • I know autism comes on a spectrum that makes each individual different, but for what it’s worth, my current hero David Grusch the UFO whistleblower who gave specifics on crafts, retrieval programs, and bodies is autistic.

       Regardless, I still think it’s impressive that you’re willing to put so much effort into something with so little recognition, for a cause that’s obviously worth it. To me it’s a very simple ethical calculus: you’re doing the right thing, which is made even righter because the level of material incentive is low and so is the level of external accommodation, it seems like. In large part, it seems to boil down to the right thing for the right thing’s sake. Perhaps it’s a reach, but I feel like that right there is embodying the spirit of your former church better than it purports to.

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     • Yes, Autism can look very different from individual to individual. Some people make it to adulthood and manage to be very successful before anyone even starts to ask “could this person be Autistic?” And as that is the case, I think we really need to shift our conversation in this society. I understand why some individuals don’t feel the need to be diagnosed. In our family, Autism seems to be a genetic trait, likely based on what my grandmother has told me, from her father’s side of the family. My mother is undiagnosed, my sister was diagnosed as an adult, my brother was neurotypical, and I am undeclared because I really think that if someone isn’t sure, and they need me to verify for them one way or another, we are maybe not thinking about this in the most productive way as a society.

       I have had plenty of conversations with people where they talk about how every Autistic needs accommodations to function in society…but do they? A person who has made it decades into their lives, had a career, got a degree, been married, has kiddos without ever being diagnosed, receiving therapies, or getting accommodations to help them get to that point…what accommodations does that person really need? We all have strengths and weaknesses, plenty of neurotypical people are functionally illiterate if you look at the statistics. People often infantilize with Autistics, and I think the push to diagnose can both harm and benefit these conversations and I feel like it’s perfectly appropriate to remain a personal choice for someone who is able to function without “accommodations,” because not everyone wants to deal with the ableism and some people have very good reasons for wanting to avoid it. But if someone does need therapies and accommodations, that is a path that must be walked.

       For our son, he has other conditions that complicate matters, but because of the severity of his Autism, that influences many areas. His sensory differences were off the chart and likely related in part to his genetic disorders, possibly the drinking his bio mom did during the pregnancy. Some things like flapping…literally I am never going to recommend wasting therapeutic effort to try and change that. It harms nothing, and my first concern isn’t looking “normal” (whatever the hell that actually really is) for him, it’s being safe and having certain skills. And now I’ve dropped into rant mode. Thank you for saying that it seems I am doing the right thing, I have always tried to with both of my children.<3

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     • It seems like you’ve thought these matters through and have a depth of expertise and experience with the subject that even specialists lack. Maybe it’s a reach, but I feel like you’re going to be in a position to effect substantial change in the area, if not in this life, definitely in the next!

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     • I am still a firm believer that the smartest person in the room is often the person who recognizes the knowledge they still lack, the things they do not know. I have certain insights, it is true. But it is also true that my lack of credentials in this field means that for many people in that field, they would consider what I have done a fluke maybe, or they would think my level of involvement is less than it has been. I hear time and time again from other therapists that they have never worked with another parent who was so involved. I have had to be. I did his PT for a year entirely by myself because we couldn’t find one able to take the case. I’ve done the same for ST. I’ve assisted all of his therapists, and I’ve done most of the hab, and I did many months of providing ABA in absence of that provider. I do not seek to be an expert per se, I am seeking to help my children and find some measure of happiness somewhere. If I am able to help someone else along the way who is walking a similar path, that is a bonus.

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     • I think of that as being solution-oriented–if someone closes off all possibility due to existing doctrine (a know it all, in other words), they shut off their creativity, ability to detect anomalies, and openness to new dynamics or methodologies. From what you’ve said in other comments, I feel that ensuring you are staying humble is probably a response to past run-ins with obstructive know-it-alls, but personally, my focus on characterization wouldn’t settle on your lack of knowledge, but rather your openness to undiscovered solutions. It may seem like semantics, but in my mind it is a distinct difference in positive resonance. It may be technically true that you lack knowledge, but personally, I am of the opinion that it needn’t warrant more than a passing acknowledgment when dealing with a problem at hand (I don’t know, but here’s someone who might, or I don’t know, but I think I know where to start digging or probing, or even I don’t know, but I sense it could be a time-hole so let’s keep a casual eye on it and focus on something more imminent). Until I am around you and you exhaust benefit of a doubt, I choose to believe you are first and foremost someone who is oriented toward solutions, rather than a roundabout smart(est/er) person in the room via the willingness to acknowledge that you don’t have the answer. Once again, I’m not trying to be dismissive or toxically positive, but that’s just my take on how I choose to perceive you. As always, it doesn’t mean I think less of you if you have a different opinion.

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     • No worries, in this case I feel that you see me as I am. Generally I am quick to orient myself towards the hunt for a solution or the information I lack. Even if I’m having a moment where viscerally I’m feeling how hard something is and I’m not sure how I’m going to pull it off, I move towards the pursuit of information I might lack to get it done if it can be done as quickly as possible. And I might listen to the views of others, but I’m generally going to try something for myself to verify whether or not it can or can’t be done before I decide whether I can or cannot do it. Certainly I hope not to exhaust anyone’s benefit of the doubt, lol. But I supposed it can be done, I am a person with my own foibles, i.e. being she who chats *a lot*. And I have definitely had my run-ins with people who felt like they knew it all, or that their degree granted them not just a certificate of completing a program course but also a certificate of being correct all the time (which quite frankly, nobody is), even about matters they were tinkering with because they didn’t actually know a for sure answer. Mistakes are something to be learned from, but a person has to have that openness in the first place…you cannot teach someone who thinks they cannot make mistakes or that they have nothing left to learn or that they can only take feedback from someone with a higher credential. I don’t want to be that person for someone else, the person that refuses to see what needs to be learned, can’t be open to the possibilities, etc. I have my obdurate moments, definitely. The tenacity to survive certain things can be present in other things, but generally I try to shift myself into a space of being receptive to the idea that I may have goofed something and to at least give space to that thought when someone brings me their view that I did, and seeing where I can move forward on something if I decide I agree with them. I don’t always, but…thank you for seeing me in such a proactive light.

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     • I think I get it. To me, the weight of focus is important. I have a friend, for example, that always makes it a point to follow any success by outwardly humbling himself in a don’t-get-too-cocky manner because he worked around cocky people in the past and he hated them. Personally, I think he’s learned his lesson many times over on what he doesn’t want, and he doesn’t need to keep focusing on it as a precaution, it’s better to just focus on moving in a desired direction, and in my opinion, that positive focus will clue him into precaution and deliberation without him always having to make a big conscious deal out of it. Part and parcel of that is when I congratulate him on a success, he’ll say stuff like don’t jinx it or now I gotta be careful because failure is around the corner, kind of in a the other shoe is going to inevitably drop kind of way. My point is, he never really just abides in a win and lets himself enjoy it, and corroboratively, he also continually encounters failures and frustrations that reinforce his self-defeating, always-have-to-be-paranoid/cautious/dwell on the negative possibilities philosophy to him. I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing. I just like to pay attention to the nuances of focus, particularly within myself. As far as other people, I can give my opinion, but at the end of the day, that’s really all it is, so I hope I’m not conveying any preachiness or judgment by giving my take on anything you’ve said. It’s just a long-winded way of me saying I prefer to think of you as solution-oriented, rather than humbly open to possibly being wrong.

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     • Well, you are certainly your own person and that gives you privileges to think about me or anybody else in any manner you see fit. I think the relationship between recognizing skills and acknowledging weaknesses can be complicated and fraught. Often a woman who says she is good at something is seen as pushy or arrogant, whereas a man doing the same thing might be seen as assertive or a go-getter, for example. So especially for a woman in this society, if she cares about and values the perceptions of others, it is better to be seen as humbly aware of one’s weaknesses. Views will vary from person to person, I am just doing the best I can to navigate the life and the circumstances that I have, however it comes across. For me, I listened to my mother the whole time I was growing up talk about how having certain levels of intelligence makes a person superior in some way. I have an ex whose father was a well-to-do radiologist that frequently referred to people as “village idiot.” I think sometimes when people think a skill or a gift elevates them more than it should it can make it more glaringly obvious all of their deficits, and perhaps can cast some doubt on the value of the skill they tout. I am ever aware for everything I succeed at, life still has plenty of moments where my butt gets handed to me on a paper plate because a platter was too nice to use for that, lol. For everything I’ve helped Tony be able to do, there will be things I won’t. We have moments where the school transition is looking great, and we have some challenges (like he’s currently refusing to walk to a gen ed room) and if we can’t find a way to get him comfortable with that therapeutically, that could be the end of his public school journey based on my read of what staff wants to see. In anything, I will try to the best I can. Maybe it will go well, maybe it won’t. It is true I am solutions oriented, but I am also aware of what I lack, and am often appreciative when someone can bring something to my attention that I wasn’t noticing I missed.

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     • That makes sense, moderating communication so it doesn’t provoke a negative response. I guess it’s just a different story for me, internally. I’m increasingly shifting to what many would probably call delusional thinking, where my internal acceptance is anchoring into a scientifically unprovable model of reality where even if physical events don’t immediately pan out in my favor, I trust that it’s simply an unknowable twist in an overall positive journey. I guess another way of saying it is I know I volunteered to play the game and act like it’s momentous, but all throughout, I can enjoy the process internally, and trust that I’m evolving into something where it’s viscerally clear that in the end, it will all be okay.

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     • It is more than a moderation of communication. I genuinely know and have an awareness that I have deficits and there’s no need for me to fake an understanding of that. There are things that I am not as good at or that I have to work harder at than others or that I just flat out goof up. But I also own that I have some pretty solid skills in some other areas, just how I acknowledge that bit and to what extent may depend on the people I am interacting with, what needs to be done, that sort of thing. And, from my perspective, science is useful in many respects, but it does not have the answers to everything, nor has it historically come up with the correct answers 100% of the time. The science is only as good as the people doing it, their level of understanding/processing, and the methodology/tools, etc. that they are using. Many people have beliefs that science cannot prove. Scientists even suspect things some times that the science couldn’t prove at the time. My sense is that your beliefs have brought you to a happier, more peaceful place and that is a very positive thing, and as they harm nobody, that doesn’t need science to certify it in my opinion.

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     • Thanks! I feel like you have a deep compassion that has kept you afloat through a bunch of inconvenience and pain that sounds like it’s lessening, which is awesome, because you deserve enjoyment and fulfillment!

       Yes, I agree–science doesn’t know all, and its true strength is in embracing that idea, and applying methodologies that bring about reliability and functionality out of unpredictable and/or unexplainable dynamics. Dogma in science seems to have a stronger check against human arrogance than dogma in religion, but it still seems that there is egoic abuse of people who want to explore anything that possibly challenges traditional doctrine.
       The guy who first advocated washing hands, for example, corporate interests misrepresenting nutrition data to protect their revenue, or attempts to collect data around the paranormal, where scientists on both sides of the subject have been known to toss out unfavorable data, and admit privately that there was statistical significance in experiments but also admit they would never publicly say so due to concern for their career. I think it’s expressed in the cliche where science only moves forward when the previous generation dies out.

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     • First, I thank you for recognizing the compassion that is within me. When a person experiences certain things in life, it can either make them internally very hard or internally very tender towards others. For me, it is the latter, but not everybody recognizes that because I do have my thorns sometimes and certainly I can do whatever I feel like I need to do to protect those I am responsible for. So I am grateful when someone can see past that to what is at the core of what I want to bring into the world around me. It’s funny because I was thinking about pretty much all of the same examples you mentioned in your comment today when I was framing my comment yesterday about science. I think you and I definitely can agree on that subject, lol.

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     • The conversations that have been popping up around science in the last few years have been interesting, and mostly healthy, in my opinion. Discounting the tribalism assuming all scientists are scammers or all of them are unquestionably right, I’ve noticed some cool debates happening in between where people are asking for sources and asking about relevant factors such as sample demographics, sample size, and of course, source of funding (although that one often seems to leap to the conclusion that whoever funded a study has skewed the data in their favor). Overall, though, I’m in favor of people understanding or at least trying to understand how to assess the reliability of something!

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     • I agree, and I feel that the funding source question is certainly pertinent. Generally even if a person hasn’t overtly pressured, and some funding sources do, a person can often feel beholden to the person paying for their work so to speak. Even when it comes to product reviews, a person is never as hard on something they didn’t pay for because they didn’t stand to loose their own money if the product sucked, and if they want to continue to receive free products, they better find a way to modulate any criticism they might feel they can’t avoid giving. I state that as an observation, because I am definitely not into selling people’s products for them in that capacity. I buy what I buy, I like what I like, I don’t like what I don’t like, and I say whatever I publicly feel like saying about it one way or another.

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     • I heard an interesting theory on gossip that relates to this. Typically, gossip is cast as a bad thing, and to refrain from it in every circumstance. But I’ve heard that in an evolutionary sense, it’s a way to inform the collective about a dangerous or unreliable individual in the tribe. Like everything for me, it kind of boils down to the art of life, using intuition and synchronicity as a guiding influence, fleshing things out here and there with analysis, and generally just recognizing it’s part of the art of life.

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     • I think sometimes it is difficult, the fine line between what is venting and what is gossip. I think sometimes we all need a safe person to talk to about things another person has done that negatively impact us. That being said, plenty of things get communicated about the business of others that really don’t need to be shared, or it is painted in a skewed light, or it is done with the intent to socially harm. I think the nature of what and why something was communicated is important there…I have heard it said, and it is a good guide, if you wouldn’t say something to someone’s face, don’t say it behind their back. But sometimes those communications do happen to protect, and then saying it outside of the subject’s presence is usually necessary and appropriate. And sometimes someone needs support about a relationship challenge from someone else, and I think a private conversation outside of the presence of the subject can be appropriate too as long as measures aren’t being taken to cause deliberate social harm disproportionate to what was done that led to the discussion. And sometimes I have seen people run with something without verifying it and do a ton of damage, so the often unverified nature of gossip can be problematic because what is shared might not be exactly true or accurate. In general, I do not like gossip, but sometimes especially because views of what is appropriate to describe about a situation or anything can vary from person to person, it seems necessary to know the general comfort level and views of those one is in relationships with. And I have certainly myself needed a shoulder to cry or vent on, so… just something that can be tricky to navigate and keep everyone happy, in my experience.

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     • I feel like this is one of those “art of life” things, where it’s a process of being open to input from both logic and intuition and letting things develop in the direction of a solution is my preferred approach. I’m pretty much on the same page as far as gossip, unless my gut is really saying different, especially when it’s telling me gossip is of real value to other people and not just me trying to get a hit of insecurity-driven elitism by talking shit about someone. I actually go a step further and try to emotionally get in a place where I’m not interested in thinking about gossiping period. This one can get tricky, because suppressing thoughts or emotions compounds problems and actually makes me focus more on that emotion/thought more, so I try to be gentle in my mental movement, whether that’s seeing if a distraction will resonate, or apathy, or the idea that this will pass, especially because I’ve seen similar things pass in similar situations. I have to emphasize “gently” because trying to force resonance with a distraction or apathy or rationale once again just entangles me deeper into the unpreferred thought or emotion. When I was more negative-minded, gossiping felt like a compulsion, where if I wasn’t gossiping about someone, I was either resisting the urge to do so or building the case for my next gossip session in my brain, so I could unleash it with as much compelling logic and articulation as possible. At this point in my life, I’d prefer not to frame anything as a fault-ridden mess, whether that’s people or organizations or demographics. If I see potential for positive movement or direct influence (empowering myself or others with action and motion or at least the possibility of it versus complaining/arguing for depowering others because they’re pieces of shit), then I’m interested. Otherwise, I don’t want to hinder my best self by being unnecessarily negative.

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     • I can see what you are saying about the “gently” part. I have noticed that when I have come at myself with a firmer reproach, it tends to make things worse and I struggle more with something. I think of course some aspects of personality a person can be born with, but others are habits of nurture or the lack thereof, and unfortunately I developed a very critical internal self-voice, and it has taken me years to stop/modulate that to the extent that I have. Until recently, I would have still said I was much harder on my own self than I would be on anybody else. But I have recognized that I need grace from myself as much as anybody else does, and the “gentle” part is important, though sometimes I will still try to “force” something internally, so to speak. I think there is much wisdom in what you say, though typically, I just would rather not talk about people in any way past answering a descriptive question with a descriptive. Even when someone has wronged me in my own mind, I actively try to remember that mine is only one perspective and one side of the story.

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     • The gentle part is definitely important. I’ve spent days wrestling with how badly I refused to feel negative, only to end up frustrated and irritated with myself for having negativity constantly creep back in. It can feel torturous after awhile!

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     • I have done that too, So I definitely agree it is an important skill to continue to cultivate, gently handle my struggles in those matters.

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     • And, if you could do me a favor…I don’t mean to be a pain in anyone’s backside, so I apologize in advance, but as you’ve already mentioned in a comment you’re open to doing some deleting, if I could pretty please ask you to do some for comments prior to today? I figured it might be easier now before the ranks of comments gets any bigger…

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     • Yeah, absolutely! I plugged your name in the comments filter and I came up with 928 entries. Should I delete all of them or is there a certain date you want as a cut off?

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     • Thank you 💜💜💜💜 How about everything before July 1st?

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     • Looks like my purge wiped out some of these more recent comments; they show up in my admin section but not the page, so I can reply but not like. I think I got rid of everything you wanted…

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     • You did, and I thank you. Your awesomeness knows no bounds for doing that ❤

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     • I apologize for the comment bombing today, I was honestly not having the greatest morning-afternoon, and it occurred to me that I didn’t offer explanations or clarifications. 1) although you are never under any obligation to chat with me, I appreciate that you do and was not trying to send any sort of message that I wanted to stop chatting with you as long as you are still so inclined. 2) the request is for an upcoming job situation… We were needing to negotiate a compromise to meet my son’s safety needs with the school, and I am in a position I did not anticipate where I am needing to become an employee of the school to work with him as his one to one in school because their policies prohibit our sons RBT from going in with him, which was what we were originally asking for. I suppose it is always something I am overthinking because I do do that sometimes, but if you may recall once upon a when when we talked about some targeted posts that are accurate reflections of my personal beliefs but may not have been necessary to share if a person were to have certain employers in a conservative leaning state…yeah. I own that. So again, I do definitely stand prepared to live with whatever flows if it is too big of an ask. And no worries either way, If I made it I have to own the responsibility of mucking through it…

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     • No worries! Honestly, not to make you feel awkward or anything, but I’m kind of shaking my head at folks who would give you any grief about something like this or something similar where you would feel like you’d need to qualify it to them. I’m happy to help! I think my search magic is limited to filtering out stuff simply by your name, and then I can delete by date, or simply delete everything. Let me know!

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     • Well, unfortunately sometimes people have a different idea of what they want to do with their platform and their voice, and some conservative leaning individuals are very particular about the beliefs of anybody working near their children whether that should be relevant or not. Patriot Barbie last year targeted a teacher at one of my daughter’s schools very publicly because of this individual’s gender identity. There was nothing about this teacher’s gender identity that prevented quality education from happening, and I was at least thrilled and that instance that the school administration stood by the teacher. That isn’t always the outcome. And For me, my top priority is not fighting an unnecessary culture war battle, It is doing everything I can to ensure the most successful transition possible into school. The current plan calls for me to only be working in the school for a year, he will have the same teacher for 3 years, so safety skills cooperation will be generalized to her and that teacher will help the future one to one with safety generalization.

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     • Maybe it’s a roundabout progression, but I feel like there might be some valuable networking/learning opportunities there for you to plug into, considering what your future plans entail!

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     • I agree with that, one of the first things that occurred to me was that it would allow me to meet more people and rebuild some contacts outside of my friends, family, and therapy team. In case this one goes to your admin page too, because the other one did, it won’t let me like these comments either that are going straight to your admin page so I’m writing in that I would have hit that like button if I could have on all of them…and you know, it’s going to give me a more in-depth understanding of some of the curriculum being used for kiddos with our son’s level of need. There are pros and cons to this resolution, but it felt like the best option. I could have lawyered up and got our RBT in there instead of me, but picking up a lawyer is like picking up a gun. Once you do it, the relationships are never going to be comfortable. And until he was tolerating at least a half day, I wasn’t going to have enough time to do much that would have earned me money anyways, so at least I will be getting paid to be there…I think the end result will be worth it, because with a solid transition, he’ll be able to stay in that environment more successfully.

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     • Very nice! Things may not always work out according to expectations, but I’m happy when they work out nonetheless. I feel like they’re a creative twist from the universe at large!

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     • Well, It was a bit of a surprise because their special ed director for the district had initially agreed to let the RBT in and hire the one- to-one also, but then came back a couple weeks later with the statement that the RBT couldn’t go in to do anything but observe as a matter of policy. Policies are not laws, but in the negotiations that followed I gave them a list of options that could meet his safety needs in terms of providing necessary and appropriate accommodations to meet his safety needs, so I had to be prepared for them to accept an option that wasn’t the RBT. Truth is, even though I would love some free time a little bit sooner, this is going to provide the best chance of a successful transition. Okay, my son cracks me up. We’re at the park while I’m dictating this and he’s swinging right now and he verbally said yeah while I was dictating that in 😂 He’s a fan of how this worked out for sure! And because it’s not letting me like the ones that come from the administrative page, I like and agree with what you said 👍

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     • I’m a big fan of unasked for affirmations, including random yeahs! 😂 Sounds like at the least, your son will get good care and you’ll get a bit of money. However, it also sounds like it could leverage into other opportunities and plant seeds in school administrator/officials minds for something more in the future!

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     • My bubbies (One of his nicknames) cracks me up sometimes with some of the things he agrees to. He’s honest and salty sometimes (When I was meeting with our new BCBA and her clinical director, I had apologized and mentioned that I talked a lot sometimes cuz I had given some very long explanation for something and Tony just looked at me and looked at them and said “yeah” And I asked him if he was throwing me under the bus and he said “yeah” 🤣), but his lack of artifice is something I am deeply grateful for. My preference really had been initially for the RBT to go in because I can make more money at Taco Bell even than I can make as his one to one, And sometimes I just want a little bit of a break from All the things I have needed to do the past decade plus, but it’s also true that it was going to take many months before it would have freed me up to do anything I could get paid for anyways. I am sure there will be positives that flow from all of this. The school psychologist was in yesterday for part of her evaluation, and she mentioned that it would also be a possibility if he was doing really well with the teacher to hire the permanent one to one in the spring so that person would have some time working with me and Tony and we could phase me out possibly sooner. We will see what happens…

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     • That’s great! For now, it seems to be the most sensible and least resistant way forward. In my book those are strong indicators to go with it!

       Big fan of nicknames! I originally started out with a dog named Sneaker because of his white feet, but he gradually morphed into Sneak, Snork, Piggles (because of his body), Pig deer (because he had a piggy body and deer-like legs), Pork-ologist, Pork-ologist Rex, and eventually Porkenfaust (not really sure where that came from, other than the piggishness). He must have had to remember at least a dozen nicknames! 🤣

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     • I would agree, it felt like the most sensible path available to me right now. My appreciation for your decluttering campaign was already high, but grew by leaps and bounds last night, BTW, after I did some summer cleaning of my own in a corner of the net I have the ability to do that for myself…took me nearly 3 hours. So thank you again for helping me plod along in my sensibility… And I am definitely one to give nicknames and sometimes in multiples… as a nicknamer though I must compliment you on the flair of yours👏 Some of them cracked me up, but I can sense the affection for your dog behind them still.

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     • No worries! Thanks to my old life, I’m pretty good at multi-tasking, so in between some admin stuff, I’d delete page after page of comments, basically just a few clicks in between my regular activities.

       Yeah, my desire for nicknames kicks into overdrive around dogs, lol! I had a white pomeranian named Spooky who evolved into Spook-nasty, and a Plotthound mix named Burglar who became Burgles, Burgle-butt, Burgle-lord, Bargle-Gargle, also a cairn terrier mix named Bodhi who I nicknamed purely on physical appearance, so he became mustache, moostache, the Mustachioed One, rat-thing (because he was small, feisty, and ratty after a haircut), Old-man Face (because of his beard and mustache, and also the related moniker Wizard Face, because he looked like a wizard that had emerged from a forest.

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     • Well, I must say, YouTube’s delete capabilities for comments aren’t nearly so user friendly if you don’t want to or can’t delete your account. I can’t, because I had made movie purchases for our family under Google TV that got automatically migrated to YouTube as part of their internal processes. Wouldn’t let me hide my account either, which would have wiped all my previous comments. I wouldn’t have wanted to kept it hidden, because there’s a couple content creators I watch their stuff and I support their content and say hi to them every so often and you know, it just makes my day a little bit better sometimes to be able to do that. I had to delete the comments I decided were sensible to get rid of right now one by ever-loving one under my date usage under YouTube, which was at least better than going through them video by video, but still very time consuming. I stand by everything I said in the comments I deleted, just as I stand behind everything in the comments you deleted because it was all true, and part of me feels bad that those experiences won’t be there for those deciding if certain paths are right for them…but certain truths aren’t prudent to be publicly findable if you are going to be working in a public school system in my home state. And I love your nicknames! I usually nickname out of affection, but sometimes it’s stress. Catzilla earned some of his nicknames for his unabashed, unabated until death, diabolical campaign of intensive cleaning required bowel terrorism tactics and personal property (mine only) destruction terror that he unleashed upon me after he developed diabetes. I was the one wielding the insulin needles and giving him the modified diet, so made me the natural target. Helped me keep my sanity…

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     • Interesting! Got some public school secret police out there. Well, everyone gets to choose their own vibe, and I guess the snitch vibe appeals to some. Can’t say I envy their life and mind state.

       Glad you like my nicknames, my ex hated almost all of em, lol! I think my favorite one was Bitefighter, which is what I called our ten lb. Cairn terrier mix (Bodhi). Whenever we’d come home, he’d race around in circles, pausing to nip my ankles, to which I’d play-act like he’d inflicted a devastating blow and exclaim, “Ah, ya got me!” Eventually, I’d start saying what I thought he was thinking, which was, “I fight! I fight with bites!” Hence the name Bitefighter. That one made it into Kor’Thank Barbarian Valley Girl.

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     • I noticed that name made it into Kor’Thank, I bought a coffee after listening to the first few chapters from David’s reading, And I was going to ask if he was the inspiration when I first saw the nickname until I read the last line of the comment 😅 I think it is quite funny, by the way. And I have definitely needed a bit of funny right now! I am approximately a third of the way through it…My appreciation of your nicknames is sincere dude, I think they’re awesome! Nicknames are one of those things though that are tough depending on the person, everyone has their own personal taste about those things, and some people don’t even like them at all. And as regards to that, the comments I deleted were pertaining to situations involving our former church. Which is one of the largest denominations in the state of Arizona, and it is considered one of the more acceptable jobs for women in the church to have. There’s a little bit of unspoken patriarchal influence in my opinion that comes with that. A lot of nurses and a lot of teachers and a lot of daycare owners when it comes to women whose children are school age within the church. To be sure I am confident that local leadership is already well aware of the comments that I had made because that is also how that church rolls. I just felt it was more important to prioritize a smooth path forward for my son in school, it is not necessary to unnecessarily antagonize people I may be working with. In that church, it is a big deal for anyone who is a member or a former member to make any sort of negative public statement, and a big deal not in a good way. They see it as a sign that you definitely have succumbed to an evil pathway, and people they believe to be on an evil pathway are typically not people they are going to go out of their way to work with, etc. So under the circumstances that was why I felt it was more sensible.

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     • Glad it could make you laugh! I always loved the idea of comedic young geniuses, specifically Barry Ween from the early 2000s. That one was great fun to write, and even though I read it again sometimes and hem and haw over word choice or sentence structure, I still love the underlying feel and ridiculous fun vibe!

       Well, as the great T Swift says, haters gonna hate. I believe they’re setting themselves up for their own punishment by constantly being on the lookout to condemn evil, as they’ll find a neverending supply of evil things to condemn. Eventually, I imagine one by one, they’ll get tired of it and gravitate toward a more pleasant perspective.

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     • It is a fun vibe, Kor’Thank, And I am enjoying it! But I’m also sidetracking and doing some other things at the same time, I’m reading some books in Spanish, and when I was doing public therapy yesterday with Tony I got this book from the local library “When life gives you vampires,” that I was curious about so I started reading it too. So I’m reading multiple things at once so it may take me a while. Yeah, I think it is really tricky. A lot of it has to do with the belief system for that church. I know that most of the local people who would be doing the things that they would be doing and responding the way that they would be responding feel they are coming from a place of protecting their own soul and doing what they need to do for their eternal salvation. They’re trying to be the best people they know how to be, this is just what they believe. That still can be challenging if you do not share their beliefs and if you have left. Challenging sometimes can even be an understatement. And there is a high probability I will be working with people that I used to go to church with in the setting I’m going into. I don’t want to get bogged down into how negative it can get, and unfortunately life has given me the “your area has an unexpected and unexplained power outage that’s going to last several hours” card, they just pushed back the time it was expected to be back up so I need to get somewhere to buy some ice to put in with the groceries before heading into music therapy. I am going to respond to the rest of the comments probably later in the day depending on how it goes, I don’t even think I’m making it into makeup today with this happening and the other appointments scheduled, But I will respond to the other comments later. Thanks again for chatting with me 💜

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     • No worries! Sounds like you’re keeping your brain healthy and fed with all of that info! That sounds tricky with the old church members, but with a little bit of time, I’m sure you’ll set up your boundaries and settle into a drama-minimized routine!

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     • It will be OK, I am sure of it. Sometimes it can be uncomfortable just running into people we used to go to church with- undoubtedly for them too. I know what the church teaches about people who resign their membership. But I *can* be professional when I need to be and I can play well with others in the sandbox when I need to even when it’s hard.

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     • Awesome! I’m sure with time and routine, they won’t be nearly as noticeable, maybe not at all!

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     • That’s pretty interesting that he hated insulin needles that much. When we got Porkenfaust (Sneaker the ridgeback mix) it was from a shady rescue, and we later found out that he was too young (six weeks) to be taken from his mom (although it was a bit heartbreaking and fun to watch him try to sleep at first, because he had a pogo belly since he was so young, and it got in the way whenever he tried to lay on it, so for a few weeks he would grumble, lay on it, get annoyed, then shift to a different spot and try to lay on it again, and this would repeat ad nauseum😂 ). Being taken so young was the suspected cause behind a host of allergies, so we gave him allergy shots. He didn’t even seem to notice! Maybe it’s different with cats, but I know their skin and bones are pretty malleable and adaptable, and also I know that an insulin needle is thin, short, and doesn’t go into the muscle, so I’m a bit surprised that it would piss him off so much.

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     • That sounds like a bit of a rough start for Porkenfaust, aka Sneaker, But it sounds like he found a pretty soft landing place!!!! Well, One of my closest friends is a veterinarian. A very good veterinarian (she falls into the category of willing in spirit but unable in schedule to babysit during most normal business hours). She has told me that cats are notoriously difficult patients. Diabetes she says can also often change their personality. Dickens was I’m pretty sure part Maine Coon. He was a rescue cat and his markings were tabby, but his size and his fur said definitely Maine Coon was a possibility to be in the gene mix. He used to be very sweet natured and mellow (though he did go through a phase of peeing on Hannah’s crib mattress and her bed when she was young because he was so jealous that she was taking up all of the attention that used to be his), literally Tony could chew on his tail and he never would whack at Tony, he would just give me this long suffering look and tolerate it. But, he had a voracious appetite from day one. I think it was perhaps more the dietary restrictions in terms of the amount that he could eat in combination with the needles. I always felt like his royal fluffiness was always just here for the food, kind of like the stepsister in Ever After. When we rescued him, I didn’t know you shouldn’t give food and water to a cat that has been thrown out of a car (My vets promptly explained that to me when I showed up with him, oops 😭😳😵). I could hear him greedily snorting it down all the way to my vet’s office. 😂 Typically cats who are traumatized by that type of thing won’t eat. I’ve never seen another cat who’d eat in a box or carrying case in a car after they had been scared. I think it was probably more the food, but he also was not a fan of the needles and I could definitely pick that up from him…

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     • I love watching animals pigging it up. There’s so much blind enjoyment, lol! I get that he’d be pissed that he couldn’t do it anymore, but the needles still seem a little puzzling. I can understand why humans don’t like em, because of the conceptual fears that might go along with them, but I think of animals as more visceral and less conceptual, so being afraid of a slight prick seems odd to me, I guess. Was he able to see it coming? If I had to do this, I’d probably scruff the cat and inject subcutaneously into their back so they wouldn’t notice anything but the brief pinch.

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     • Ok, so you *are* talking to a person with a mix of sensory differences, so this answer is framed by both observational and personal experience. What I would personally say is that the perception of pain is an individual experience, even for animals. One of our previous kitties that we had at the same time, Sith Whispicus (nickname ), pretty sure she was on the kitty version of the spectrum. Even for seemingly neurotypical people, things aren’t always wired exactly the same when it comes to pain perception. For Dickens, he was injected by me in exactly the manner you described and he still did not like it. With cats, they leave you with no doubts whatsoever when they are displeased that they are.

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     • Very true. I also think it’s variable with perception, like everything. I’ve had slow shots that seemed agonizing, but when I don’t have time to take note of what size needle or I’m in a hurry so I’m thinking let’s do this and move on, I barely register that it happens at all, much less any pain.

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     • Well, some of it also depends on where the needle hits. There’s not a perfect roadmap that tells you where all of the nerves are for any person you’re injecting. It can also depend on how tense the person is.

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     • And, I can actually see why it would be confusing since you know that he used to let Tony chew on his tail. I can tell you he didn’t like that chewing either And I always stepped in immediately to free his tail. He never would have let Hannah do the same thing without trying to whack her. Dickens was very smart and he definitely seemed recognized the difference between what Tony understood and what Hannah did, So it was more that he was mellow because he understood Tony was doing the best he could. Seemingly. And you don’t need to respond to this one if you don’t want to…

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     • I thought the chewing on the tail was kind of funny, actually. Whenever I messed with my animals’ tails, they’d swish it away and take it as a cue that I wanted to play. I don’t think they’d sit there and just let me chew it, lol!

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     • I think he only let Tony do it because he had a recognition that there was something different about Tony’s circumstances and his little kitty heart had compassion for it. At least, that’s the sense I got out of it as he was leveling me with one of his long-suffering please come rescue me kind of gazes while he sat there patiently letting Tony chew on his tail. Because Tony chewed on everything back then.

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     • Grumpenfuss cat letting a kid chew on em…I don’t know, I feel like it’s weirdly endearing!

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     • Love the nickname, lol! Yeah, it has it’s endearing moments. It’s also true the stress of trying to clean up everything he was doing nearly broke me. It was at the height of Tony’s worst sensory differences related symptoms (which included vomiting at certain smells and textures, trying to crack his head full strength on the kitchen tile because he couldn’t feel it, etc.) and managing hours of self-harming and tantrums a day. And, I was home schooling Hannah at the time. Damn. Near. Broke. Me. Made me give ever having pets again a second, third, fourth, and fifth thought….

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     • Definitely not for me! I’m already reluctant to wash the sheets and sweep the floor (which, yes, I do more than the average bachelor but that’s obviously a far cry from being consistently clean). I’d say high up on the list of riches-born luxuries is having regular cleaners that will take care of that stuff. It’s high up on the list because having a dog and spoiling it while continuing to spoil myself is up at the tippy top, but I’ve had four dogs, so I’m at a point where I don’t want to be cleaning all the time. I remember collecting the hair into a giant ball and joking that I’d just cloned the dog.

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     • Well, I hear you on the cleaning and the amount of pet hair. Our Saint Bernard that we had when I was growing up…yeah, we could *never* be free from furball fluffs floating around no matter what kind of cleaning I did. I’m spread way too thin to clean fabulously right now (I keep it from being unlivabley gross but that’s the best that can be said about it, sadly), and maybe in a different economy we’d be able to afford someone to come in (like, if this was four years ago and we had our current earnings) but right now? Nope. So me it is. And me it was then…and the sensory related vomiting was just one of the many reasons we couldn’t find many takers on the babysitting. Add a cat with a demented quest for food-deprivation related vengeance? The poop smearing that was happening at that time? The smell of lysol and cat urine enzyme neutralizer were constantly to be whiffed in our house, I carried a can of lysol in my bag for all public therapy, medical, and clinical outings because those activities weren’t just happening at home, and I aimed to make sure nobody had to be angry about us being there by adding a more difficult cleaning task to their job.

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     • It’s crazy how strong the pet smells can get, and also crazy how quickly they become normal. I didn’t think about them after a bit, but when I moved out of my condo and had it cleaned, I had to pay extra because the cleaners said it was absolutely rank. I think I heard somewhere that humans are much more sensitive to a change in smell than the actual smell itself, although I am sure that has limits…

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     • Let me tell you man, there is literally no getting used to the foul stench that could come from the size of tank Catzilla emptied and unleashed upon the house with just a single incident!😱 The enzyme remover helps, it can neutralize a lot unless the incident is on something with a deep cushion. But yeah, that’s why a lot of places out here require a pet cleaning deposit if they even allow pets, they just assume it’s going to be necessary when somebody leaves…

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     • Interesting–I’ve only had one cat, but I always got the impression that cats didn’t really require training, that you could just put out the litter box and they’d know what to do. Yeah, having pets has given me a healthy respect for how much of a nasty-trap a couch or a cushion can be! 😅

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     • Oh, he was trained. These were deliberate acts of urinary terrorism!!!! And the general, cats are very easy to train to use litter box, and this is true.

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     • I’ve sampled the path of checking the life boxes–buying a property, getting married, and turning focus onto mutual growth–that hews to societal expectation. I can personally say it is not for me. For the longest time, I didn’t think it was for anyone, but I think for some it is what they truly find fulfilling, even if it might not be what they want in terms of fantasy or dreamy wistfulness. I’m way too fantasy and dream-oriented to ever be satisfied with that. When I was younger, I told my mom in a pained manner that I was sorry she had to sacrifice so much to raise me and my brother, but she was straight-up puzzled. She replied that she didn’t see it as a sacrifice at all. That was an early clue for me that showed how subjective our realities are.

       Another thing is that ever since I was young, I have been to some degree or another interested in existential philosophy. I’ve consistently pondered why I’m here and what my purpose is. Those are unanswerable, but it came to my attention that compared to other people, I am not meant to compromise much in my pursuit of creativity. For a while, that was what I prepared to do, but much like my ventures in building a home life, my taste for corporate life was nonexistent. It was like there was a visceral aversion to it, to the point where each hour in an office felt eternal. I would look at coworkers and wonder how they could get through the day in such a seemingly unaffected manner, where I would be internally raging against what felt like not just a waste, but a negative use of my time. It’s ironic, because some would probably feel the same about being in the military, which I had no problem with for about a decade. Also, when my ex began interrupting my writing with this or that needlessly long tidbit, then later admitted to me she was jealous of my ability to lock into writing, and then expressed the fear that I would ignore corporate advancement so I could focus more on writing, I had a deep-down aversive reaction to her take on life. When I was younger, it manifested as a more immature punk-rock defiance against social conformity, but as the instinctive rebelliousness faded away, I realized that using and expressing my imagination is my personal calling. When I do it, I’m aided by synchronicity, flow, and revitalized purpose. When I don’t, I feel like I’m withering, even when I’ve compromised by waking up extra early to write, then also use lunch breaks to write on the job. I only had writer’s block in my twenties, when I was more focused on being in the military. After I got out, I had too much to write, too many ideas and material that I still can’t keep up. If the ideas and flow of energy dry up one day, then I’ll take that as a hint that maybe I’m meant to do something different, at least for a bit. But I suspect that inspiration, synchronicity, and a sense of flow and purpose are all signs that someone is moving in the right direction, whether that’s family life, writing, or working in a corporate office. Compromise is fine, and often very obviously necessary, but personally, I’m going to always be making plans or effort to align with that deeper current, because I think that’s not just the point of our physical life, but the point of our existence.

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     • In a relationship context, I feel like at this point in my life, if someone said something parallel in nature to me–“We can’t have a relationship if the wealth/power/status dynamic tips in your favor”–I’d consider that a hint that the relationship has run its course. In the past, I might have railed against that person, but it’s like you said–they have the right to feel whatever they feel, and honestly, I suspect they’re going to carry that insecurity with them and it’ll hurt or stunt them later on, and I’d prefer not to deal with that. I’m not inspired to try and save them from it, and in my belief system, it’s up to them, really. I can voice a concern and assist them if they resonate with assistance (and only up to a certain point–just because someone wants help, I don’t believe they necessarily want the degree of help I might want them to have).

       If I had to articulate it, the fundamental difference you’re referencing seems to lie in the vibe of personal attack endorsed by society, versus the vibe of societal pressure that isn’t immediately manifest or apparent. For the greater societal aspect, I personally hew to the same approach I go with on following my heart and life calling: if I’m inspired and/or aided by synchronicity to engage in social activism, I’m gonna go out and do it. The world needs activists, and if my heart/intuition/synchronicity is pulling me in that direction, I guess that’s where the energy and potential is, so that’s where I’m going to go. As far as whatever person is channeling that ignorance directly onto me, in almost every case, I’d prefer to just cut ties and focus on going wherever my personal energy and potential will flourish (I’m not ruling out confrontation; if that’s what I’m inspired to do, then so be it, but it will be for my own growth and fulfillment, not for theirs). As far as that specific individual, they have chosen to resonate with ignorance. My take on it is that even if that wasn’t the specific issue they were being ignorant about, or even if greater society did not endorse their view, they would be ignorant about something else, even if it went against societal trends/consensus/pressure. That’s fine by me–I’ve been ignorant about plenty of stuff, and looking back on it, I suspect that a decent amount of people were polite, nodded along, then let me be on my way. Hopefully, I can do the same in my own life.

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     • The social inertia is annoying at the least, infuriating at the worst. I grew up just kind of accepting that society was racist and I’d just have to deal with it and go above and beyond in distinguishing myself. All my Asian millennial friends were of the same mind, and now we gape at tiktoks where younger asian men openly hit on a range of pretty ladies, lol! In one case, I was heartened to listen to a Korean American battle rapper named Dumbfoundead say that his ethnicity was an advantage, because although he was already good at what he did, people remembered him easier because of his ethnicity. Probably not the case in the majority of instances, but I do think it speaks to the idea that if I go in to a situation without animosity and without prejudging it (ironically the very things I would complain about when it comes to the masses viewing me–generalized racial animosity and prejudgment) that I can keep my perspective open to unexpected opportunities and benefits. It’s kind of tricky–I’m not discounting activism or a negative expression, but there is a point where I feel my focus must home in on forward-moving positivity, rather than condemnation and anger. For some people, that may ironically mean engaging in activism or being eloquently negative, but that’s not me. Also, at the end of the day, even if we lived in a super tolerant society, I suspect that there would still be intolerant individuals, because if their right to express intolerance (without inflicting unacceptable harm) was completely stripped away, then a tolerant society would ironically become intolerant. Also, this may be a reach, but even in a super tolerant society, I feel like if I walked around with a perspective that focused on the minority of intolerant people, I would find some way to attract a negative interaction with them. So for me, personally, it is about managing my perspective, doing my best to focus on positive forward progress, and if that leads to activism or condemnation, that’s okay, but I’d hope that it would be in the spirit of optimism and constructive motion forward, so that it would serve its purpose and I could get back to more outwardly positive things.

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     • I do sometimes struggle with not minimizing others’ experiences. I don’t think I’m able to quite draw conclusions with this tangent, but I remember reading that humans around 4 start developing a theory of others, where they start realizing that their values and desires are different than other folks. That seems to progress to varying degrees, because I know plenty of adults where they cannot for the life of them understand why others think differently. Anyways, I’m guilty of it myself, to the point where I suspect that most of my past confrontations were because I refused to entertain and work with a different set of values. At some point, I think I realized that in general, I don’t want to put in the work to do so, and I’ve structured my life and behavior where I don’t really have to, unless it’s fully by choice and not by obligation. That’s not always the case, but my higher aim I think would be to minimize stress.

       As far as the race thing, I’ve ironically been guilty of it myself, doubly ironic because for a while I didn’t want to be with Asian girls because “they reminded me of my relatives.” I’m not sure where I got that from, but apparently it was common sentiment in my generation a few decades ago. Now I really just try and feel for the energy of a connection, rather than trying to fill out some finicky checklist. I feel like that’s part of living more of a life of trust–I’ll home in on the general vibe and guidance, then I’ll let existence work out the specifics. That seems to be the formula for me to encounter pleasant surprises 😊

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     • I used to be the same in not liking surprises, because I too had a lot of experience with negative ones. I think it’s why I became obsessed with logic, discipline, and strategy for a while, in an effort to try and nullify any negative surprises. I would impress friends and colleagues with descriptions of safeguards, contingencies, and initiatives, all tightly supported by a web of justifications and reasoning based on available resources. But much to my frustration, life kept surprising me, only sometimes, it shocked me by doing so in a pleasant manner. Now I’m of the opinion that surprises are inevitable, that they are part of the expansion of existence which integrates and depends on novelty to give it meaning, to prevent reality from becoming a vast clockwork that is principally defined by predictable iteration.

       I think I can relate to where you are coming from, in that I like a certain amount of order that will create enough stability to move in a desired direction. At this point in my life, I am starting to lean more and more toward perspective being the main determinant of direction, in that if I maintain a positive perspective, I will encounter pleasant surprises, or negative events will reveal themselves to be positive given time. A negative perspective, in my opinion, will do the opposite for me. So I guess I’m trying to say that I’ve become resigned to surprises regarding specifics, but I believe we are able to control their general flavor (positive or negative) through the flavor of our outlook and vibe.

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     • I think it takes trust and sometimes blind delusion (which can be tricky when a bunch of negative things are happening, because those things tend to make someone react with negativity). For me, when I got to a point where I was tempted to give up, I actually did in an internal sense–going to die anyway, might as well keep going, all this is whatever–which I can never prove but will always suspect that due to the lack of resistance and tight focus on negative possibilities, allowed the universe to arrange itself back into positive occurrence. That’s the main crux of what I believe to be the determinant of perspective and follow-on events: not positivity, necessarily, but a lack of restrictive negativity.

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     • It is definitely a practical consideration that works at multiple levels. If you want to take it to the reality-determining, UFO-involving level, supposedly it is the avenue to piloting the craft in that the pilot’s perspective is an essential component. So by syllogistic (I think) implication, that would mean that perspective has a direct and physics-breaking effect on the material world.

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     • I agree with you in that it isn’t a pleasant option to wallow in admittance that things suck. I think it really depends on emotional resonance, and if admittance feels like the best option for being more positive and open. If it does, the question then becomes when does it feel closed and restrictive, which would mean it’s time to move up the scale into anger or apathy, and likewise, for those things, when is it time to move up into mild optimism or satisfaction? To me, this is where it becomes heavily subjective, and really dependent on what the individual is doing with their perception. It’s not as simple as well, you’re stuck in depression and the next step up is being angry so that’s what I’m going to do now, it’s more about when the resonance is indicating it’s time to start moving again. That’s a function of being present and sensitive, or just waiting around until the signs become much starker and more unpleasant, which how I used to do it–the meathead way. That’s how I see things, anyway.

       I am in solid agreement about the importance of perspective underlying outward beliefs, whether that happens to be religious or not. I could go either way on religion; if someone’s using it as an excuse to be positive and open, minimizing the negative rationale or just ignoring it altogether, then I’d say have fun and fulfillment with it. On the other hand, as we’ve seen all too often throughout history, if someone’s using their holiness card to spew out negativity and try to convince others to be negative and down on themselves/others, then they’re kind of defeating the point of life, in that I believe the point is to use our constraints to enhance fulfillment and joy, instead of the other way around.

       Thanks for the book recommendation! It was one of the greatest compliments I felt I’ve received, in that the implication was that it was good enough to read even though you weren’t in a reading mood. Books that are magnetic to read shaped my love of reading, the ones I read against my own best interests when I was staying awake past my bedtime with a flashlight under the covers (got yelled at quite a bit for that), and even in my early 20s when I’d sneak in a few glances while I was driving (definitely don’t do that anymore–accidents are an infuriating hassle, lol!) I shared it on FB, but I couldn’t see a wordpress reblog option…

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     • No worries on the blog–I’m terrible at maintaining my own. I know I should switch to wordpress.org but I feel fine exactly where I am, and as you know, i’ll go with the feeling until it changes.

       Personally, the questions of when to go with something seemingly negative as a way to move in a positive direction and when to ditch that same negativity because it’s no longer a step up but a weighty anchor boils down to the emotion and intuition. That, however, involves implicitly agreeing to the premise that I have my own personal guidance that will steer me in the right direction, which involves some degree of trust in a benevolent existence that can defy misfortune and power imbalance with customized guidance. It’s kind of the hidden theme underlying Lucky’s fate. Like Lucky, I believe that everyone has many chances to move their perspective in a more positive direction, but if they wallow in a lackful mentality–his manifested as an acceptance that reality was random, predatory, and lacked enough for everybody, which obligated people to screw others over or at the very least, constantly fret over those who would do so–then they will end up in a set of lackful circumstances. The haunts were another example of this. But also like Lucky, I believe that no one is truly lost, and in the span of eternity, they’ll come back around to a more expansive and joyous perspective, although our attitude in the meantime can definitely make our experience more unpleasant.

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     • I feel like I can empathize, as I spent many years mulling past mistakes and regrets and dedicating myself to exposing and fixing weaknesses. At a certain point, however, I shifted to (am still shifting to) a conviction that my focus will determine what happens next–if I focus on hunting and finding weaknesses, then I will find them, fix them, but I will be in another situation where I will have to do it again and again. This may sound hippy dippy, with an untenable amount of trust in the workings of existence, and even if it sounds right, you may not be in the right place to accept it or entertain it, but I’m of the mind that I don’t need to search for things to fix me, and as I ease more into that belief, I will not need to fix as many things. Even as I encounter obstacles, I will be able to retain the longer term perspective and remember that past obstacles unexpectedly became boons, and present obstacles will follow suit. As Erany and Kora (from Kor’Thank) both say, it’s an adventure, not a horror movie. However, I don’t think it’s a logical or intellectual process, at least not entirely. Shifting between feelings and perspectives is a matter of emotional sensitivity and resonance, so yes, sometimes I can talk myself into a different perspective, but for me it’s more about feeling around my own emotions and thoughts for where the lack of pressure is and just abiding in it, rather than anxiously cheering on the next positive shift or stacking contingencies on top of each other, in a constant state of preparatory tension for a negative future event. If things are hard or stuck, I try not to beat myself up over it (always makes things worse), but prioritize detaching from the imminent urgency of the issue and trying to feel for an internal lack of pressure and abide in that. Everyone’s got their own methods though, and everyone’s at a different place in their evolution, so that may not be the thing for you.

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     • I feel like I’m going to say the same thing as you, but with a different approach. I’ve been on a self-improvement quest for most of my life, but ironically, I’m coming to this point where I’ve started to believe that the pinnacle of improvement is no longer internally reaching for improvement, and allowing it to naturally take place without trying to deceive it or force it into happening. Not to say that I’m not utilitarian, but the vibe I home in on definitely isn’t.

       I always thought you didn’t post a review on amazon because you had lingering animosity toward them, lol! Thanks for giving it a try, regardless. I’ve noticed some reviews don’t post for weeks, and some for years (I think Amazon thought I had a bunch of fake reviews years ago, then changed their mind, because a few months ago dozens of them posted all at once). I truly appreciate the review! I think it’s supposed to help the algorithm somehow, but awhile ago I tried learning about that stuff and decided I’d rather not go down that rabbit hole. The support is greatly appreciated, and once again, I’m super flattered that I could write something that could be entertaining enough to draw you in and engage your attention to the point where you were constantly looking forward to reading it!

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     • I’m pretty happy, both personally and professionally, that I made enough of an impression with my writing that you believed in it enough to do something I imagine you typically you wouldn’t do (hopefully, we can repeat that process with Taylor; if she doesn’t play Erany, maybe she can play Erany’s mom 😅).

       Maybe related, but I have a friend who is pretty successful in Amazon’s big sales department, and he hates the company, lol! Not because of how he’s treated (extremely well), but because of their warehousing evil-empire side. I know this is repetitive, but while I used to use such evidence to get spun up into righteous anger, I try to assess my intuition and emotions to see if it’s truly an inspired course of mental focus for me. Typically, it’s not–I learned a while ago that synchronicity and my own sense of energized purpose doesn’t come from antagonism, though I respect that it is the path for some folks. I was watching Arnold’s new documentary, and apparently that was a theme throughout his life that allowed him to really push for the realization of his dreams–he said he needed an enemy. Also, Henry Rollins to this day apparently is fueled by grudges he had back when he was a kid in school (he said he understands they aren’t realistic and if he actually met his sixth grade teacher or whoever he wouldn’t actually be angry, but it’s the imagination-derived inspiration that gives him purpose and energy). For you, it seems like you weren’t heard in a meaningful way for a long time with the church, and that echoed into your dealings with amazon and your child-raising therapy experiences. It adds to my conviction that your desire to expand on therapy with your in-depth knowledge, in a way where you can express a fuller understanding of how to help those who also have trouble being heard and understood, is a synchronistic and fulfilling thing for you to do. If I could tie in an analogy from my book, where we choose our own video game adventures throughout our lives, I’d like to think you and I have enough of the hate game, where haters try to induce fear or anger which is not only detrimental to me personally, but also puts me at risk of becoming a hater who tries to justify their hate by turning it onto the original villain, or maybe inadvertently pass it onto someone else because of my continuing focus on it, ironically making me into the next original villain for someone. That game is tiresome, boring, and depressing! I’d rather play something else while I’m still on this earth!

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     • Well I’m glad you’re getting heard now, and I’m glad you’re moving in a direction where you haven’t let all that scar tissue keep you from going towards positivity, where you’re thinking about how you can experience more fulfillment while at the same time allowing others to be heard in ways you couldn’t!

       This may sound naive, stupid, or just plain weird, but I’m aware it can be taken as a cruel slight, if whoever I’m saying it to isn’t in the right mood to hear it. That being said, I think you know that I don’t mean to slight you, so I feel comfortable stating that my view of being heard is not being heard by other people so much, as being heard by the benevolence underlying existence, or It as I’ve written in my book. Although I’m not perfect at it, I feel like I’m much better in accepting that when I run into obstacles or dead ends, many times that is Its way of communicating that I should shrug and move on, and there’s a reason it didn’t pan out in a certain manner or with a certain person. Sometimes, just by sheer dint of logic, I just have to keep trying in the exact same way, but once again, I view that as Its communication, saying that the timing is falling into place. The task for me in the meantime is to stay open to unexpected solutions or opportunities, manage my negativity, listen to my intuition, and be easy on myself. All that can easily be framed as a transactional religious dynamic, but I liken it more to a friendly river guiding me where I want to go. I can paddle off-course for awhile, but even when I’ve gone far astray, I can feel for the current and follow the stream back into the main flow. And that’s where I like to make it clear that I don’t judge others if they’ve gone off-course or they refuse to believe in it because any implied responsibility further iterates into implied blame. I’ve scoffed at this type of philosophy for a good part of my life, and I understand why someone else would do the same. Anecdotally, however, I cannot deny that I have been heard, and that when I felt like I was being shut out, it was a matter of time and perspective before I realized that it wasn’t just a matter of finessing a loss into a win, but allowing that win to bloom without fretting so much over it. Once again, that’s just me, personally…

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     • No worries! You’ve eaten hundreds of pages of my word salad! 😂 I have no problem with lengthy responses!

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     • 😊

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7. Hmm

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8. Fascinated that there are many very serious and quite philosophical responses to your ‘ad’. It’s a while since I laughed out loud at something I’ve read. The sheer absurdity – shifts of scale/fantasy/computer games/tropes from so many movies…all clustered round a pubic jungle where new life had formed…hilarious! Not sure I could keep with that pace for long (…and is there any hope for developing Chuck Norris into a more layered and complex character)…ah…ok, forget that bit. Boisterously crazy and irreverent. Haha!

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   • Thank you, haha! My mind definitely ruminates on an eclectic mix of subjects; it bounces back and forth between subversiveness and the existential! 😅

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