I Urge You To Immerse Yourself Fully In The Life That You've Been Given. To Stop Running From Whatever

[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

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.

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”

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

simple poem 001

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

thoughts from another day 003

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)

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

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.

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.

simple poem 004

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