wishiwereaturtle

Latest Posts by wishiwereaturtle

Yes. Have YOU considered that sometimes working on hard things is both necessary and worthwhile?

[gripping the sink] perfectionism does not help me avoid embarrassment or shame. perfectionism is in itself a form of shame. when i struggle with perfectionism i struggle with shame. when i struggle with perfectionism i struggle with shame. when i struggle with perfectionism i struggle with shame

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL

“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”

You ever see a joke so good it kicks you out of your doomscrolling? Like yep, THAT was the dopamine I was looking for when I opened this app, I'm all set now

can't stop thinking about this

Genuinely useful and insightful. I think I've internalized a lot of these tips already as I've been actively working on getting better at small talk, but seeing it spelled out like this is hugely helpful.

One of the stranger things about training brand new nurses is explaining how to min max small talk. It feels very weird to coach people on how to chat.

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wow, getting myself into community space, and seeing people living their lives and being kind and just being human is so good for my soul

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endless consumption leaves no room for thought or solitude or reflection or doing anything meaningful, no wonder I feel like a fucking waste of space. But even though I see this connection, I can't find it in myself to stop. 

(see also: behavioral addiction)

(also see also: reread dopamine nation 👀. also probably digital minimalism and relentless elimination of hurry)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

A gorgeous, aching love letter to stories, storytellers, and the doors they lead us through. Absolutely enchanting.

When I saw this book at the library, I picked it up off the shelf because I remembered someone telling me it was their favorite book they had ever read. But this quote above (that was on the back of the book) was what convinced me to check it out and take it home.

This book was absolutely gorgeous; one of the loveliest books I’ve ever read. The prose is flowing and poetic, wrapping you in the warmth of the beauty of written language. The plot is a story within a story that twist in and around and through itself in interesting and exciting ways. The main character is a girl who’s grown up with conditional privilege, and must now discover and learn what it means to be strong. It is a story full of love - not only romantic, but also of friendship and family.

10/10 absolutely recommend.

He was a capped jug; the contents there for sure. Rain on the outside didn't stir the brew.

Ray Bradbury

from the short story: Powerhouse

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It’s all ephemeral and transitory and I feel unmoored and adrift with an overwhelming desire to be anchored and secure.

I feel like I’m swirling in this world of ideas and experiences, and I want to reach out and grasp them and capture the abstract with language. The expand and contract - get all of the thoughts and ideas into one place, and then break it down, organize it, understand it; and condense it back down to something cohesive.

But there are two many things there are too many things and ideas and people and complex interactions and relationships and how do you even begin to know where to start, how to start?

I feel like I’m being crushed

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I spend my hours doing neither what I should be doing nor what I’d like to. my eyes unfocus on the the task at hand my hand catches my heavy head as it pounds and sinks down under the waves bubbles slip from my lips as the depths suffocate me with darkness I am split by a screaming and thrashing for something to change and a hopeless, relieved resignation that this is how it always has been and this is how it always shall be

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My head feels heavy and my body’s full of lead slowly poisoning itself and going mad I feel like I could sink my fingers into my skull, and rip out a piece, like a chunk of cake pull myself apart the pieces don’t quite fit as they are like a jigsaw forced into place where it doesn’t belong

I went to see Everything, Everywhere, All At Once recently, and I genuinely think it’s my new favorite movie. It’s a fun, sci-fi adventure where the main character discovers she has the power to access the memories and skills of different versions of herself from other dimensions. But it’s also a story of family, love, and generational trauma, of depression and nihilism, but also of empathy, kindness, and the fullness of life. It was astoundingly beautiful, hilarious, and exciting.

10/10 highly recommend.

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I love getting wrapped up in and enthralled with a story, but it also feels unproductive. Leaves me feeling like lack of motion or progress in actual life. Needs to be in balance with the rest of my priorities. I have a strong immediacy and recency bias, compounded with primarily extrinsic motivation makes me feel unmoored and ephemeral and also stagnant.

Handmaid’s Tale / The Testaments

Handmaid’s Tale

like the giver but about sex

trying to “protect” women but just 100% turns them into objects

removes the beauty and partnership from marriage leaving it cold and dead

poignant look at trauma and how past weaves into the present and the present is numb

“it didn’t happen that way either. I’m not sure how it happened. Not exactly.”

creates so much shame

juxtaposition of night with commander vs night with Nick. Nick even gets a name

The Testaments

“One person alone is not a full person: we exist in relation to others.”

"an interrogation of faith and institutional religion, how it affects how we view ourselves and others and the world around us, even in ways that we might not realize, and how hard it is to deconstruct beliefs that we have incorporated into who we are, both harmful ones, and harmless ones, and what that can feel like for someone."

-  HelloFutureMe Book Review

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why do I feel so stuck when I have so many choices and tasks that can move me forward?

I fear that at my default level I do not truly want to live; merely exist in comfort and continue to get by.

There's not an answer at the back of the book

In the middle of episode 2 of Dimension 20's The Seven, Jawbone's speech to Penny hit quite close to home for me.

As someone who was a high-achieving student, I currently feel so overwhelmed facing the reality of the sheer volume of choices I have to make for myself in the adult world. Up to this point, I "could always just try harder to keep every single plate spinning."

And now, suddenly, not only are there too many things to successfully balance at the same time, but there's no objectively right answer on what I should be doing with my life.

~

I am continually blown away by Brennan - both his incredible depth of understanding of the nuance of human experience and his ability to capture that deep truth, pull it out, and articulate it so profoundly within these beautiful story moments.

Jawbone is not trying to give Penny empty reassurances that "everything will be okay if she follows her heart." It is out of his desire for her wellbeing that he, in truth and love, gently but firmly conveys the difficult reality of stepping into adulthood.

And by cutting through the fluff and grasping straight at the heart of the issue, Brennan drilled in to exactly how I've been feeling lately. In that moment, I felt both a deep discomfort to the vulnerability of feeling so seen and exposed, and also a great warmth and assurance to feeling so seen and understood by someone expressing a true depth of care along with their depth of insight.

~

In conclusion, D&D rules.

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You have a real bond with these friends. That matters. Yes things change over time, but also, you can hold on to things that matter to you.

What I see, if I can, be honest with you, is a little bit of anxiety, maybe like, in your life you've never had to choose, because you could always just try harder to keep every single plate spinning. And maybe, as you approach adulthood, something is coming that might actually mean that something gets dropped.

...

Flawless grades, [you] keep a lot of things in the air, I think there might be, a part of you that is feeling anxiety, again, not just around the social aspect of all of this but the fact that, for the first time, you're starting to see that in adult life you're not on the rails anymore. We structure the lives of kids to have an amount of brass rings where you can grab them all. Year after year, there's grades and there's finals and there's all these things, and as you approach adulthood, all of a sudden, you're not on a ride, you're in the amusement park, and it's closing. Eventually. And you gotta decide what rides you wanna go on and what brass rings you wanna get, 'cause you, Penny I need you to hear me here, you're not gonna be able to get them all.

...

Again, mostly it's - you know what you gotta do. And the hard thing is this, Penny. Stuff that's coming, no one's gonna give you a grade on most of it. Your friend group? You have to decide the right thing to do, and there's not, an answer at the back of the book. It's just gonna be what, you, want.

Brennan: Make a religion check for me

Ally:

Sources: Fantasy High Sophomore year, ep 17 and ep 20

Same Energy

Sources: Fantasy High S1E16 & The Unsleeping City S1E17

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I no longer fit within these walls for I have grown and stretched under a different sun and the confines of old spaces feel just so

Empathy without accountability is a shortsighted attempt to relieve suffering.

Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke, MD

This, right here, is the moment that Dimension 20 hooked me.

In the split-second gap between the first and second halves of Murph’s question, you can almost see a switch flip in Brennan from giving an analytical, factual measurement to the spark of fully understanding the storytelling implications of Murph’s question. 

As I watched him realize that the best possible choice for this exact moment is for the butthole to be goblin sized, I began to truly understand the narrative power of DnD and everyone at that table.

Source: Fantasy High S1E2

Where I first heard about Dimension 20: this Nerdsync video

Honorable Mention: Gorgug asking people if they’re his dad

^^^ this one is what got me to start watching Dimension 20 in the first place, but the moment above is when I was truly hooked.

Same Energy

Sources: Fantasy High S1E16 & The Unsleeping City S1E17

I urge you to immerse yourself fully in the life that you've been given. To stop running from whatever you're trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. Instead, the world may become something worth paying attention to.

Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke, MD

Lessons of the Balance

Conclusions from Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke, MD

The relentless pursuit of pleasure (and avoidance of pain) leads to pain.

Recovery begins with abstinence.

Abstinence resets the brain’s reward pathway and with it our capacity to take joy in simpler pleasures.

Self-binding creates literal and metacognitive space between desire and consumption, a modern necessity in our dopamine-overloaded world.

Medications can restore homeostasis, but consider what we lose by medicating away our pain.

Pressing on the pain side resets our balance to the side of pleasure.

Beware of getting addicted to pain.

Radical honesty promotes awareness, enhances intimacy, and fosters a plenty mindset.

Prosocial shame affirms that we belong to the human tribe.

Instead of running away from the world, we can find escape by immersing ourselves in it.