He Was A Capped Jug; The Contents There For Sure. Rain On The Outside Didn't Stir The Brew.

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

simple poem 003

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

thoughts from another day 001

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.

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 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

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.

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

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.

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)

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”