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i would 100% have done the same (i haven't heard of this game)

fun fact about me:

when I was a kid doing the "they loves me, they loves me not" it didn’t take very long for me to figure out that I should only pick flowers with odd numbers of petals, buttercups being my most frequent pick.

And then I felt like that was cheating so I picked flowers with numbers of leaves to many for me to bother counting, daisies, and then i went back and forth depending on my mood.

optimisation

i've been thinking about this for a while, and i even wrote about it as more of a rant, but maybe i've stewed on it enough to be able to talk about it in a more refined manner. i'm watching a video about conformity in social media and books, and it mirrors my thought process in a sense. i've been frustrated by how everyone seemed to read the same books, and even though i was once a part of that crowd, as a means to be a part of the excitement, a part of everyone, it felt eventually a bit too monotonous. the disadvantage of appealing to everyone's tastes is that you regress towards the mean. please overfit your books, and the readers with the right amount of noise will find you perfect for them. i've leaned into my tastes and the weirdness of them, and i truly do love absurdity and surrealism in my art. what's art without some boundaries being pushed?

in the video, she talks about the hesitation to ‘try’ something new, to find, seek, discover, and instead the appeal of choosing what the masses have approved, and enable yourselves to get a decent, palatable, and risk-free experience. the one thing i have learned from finance is that there is no return without risk, and in that case, money is quite an important thing to risk. i don't believe a few hours of your time are too much to risk for a piece of art that may affect the way you view the world.

this optimisation problem can stick in your head, as a way of desiring to maximise your experience in the world. i want to achieve the most i can, have the most fun i can, live the most i can, and there's no better way to ruin all these goals than this thought process. there cannot be any enjoyment with this feel hovering like an omen, reminding you to enjoy experience live more more more. breathe, listen to the air flow, feel your arms and legs, and remember that we exist here. we're lucky to. (quite literally, do you know the probabilities?) imagine everything you've ever experienced, and know that most people will not have felt what you have, and that it is you here. trust yourself, nobody knows you better. what do you want to do tomorrow?

my heart is lost adrift in a sea far from land oh, what I would give to float to a beach astray

there lies no comfort here out in the cold vastness of the water oh, what i would give to find a land to lay on

shouts to the sky are futile no god rescues me but to be honest anyone who would save me would be no less

passivity

what are you waiting for? someone to grant you permission? the perfect and permanent emotion? a shooting star to magic away every problem you have or have ever had? alright, wait away then. but no one is going to live your life for you while you wait to become someone else.

-user @pollen

what's the thing you're most proud of doing in 2024? there has been a recent movement in the recommendations i have been receiving across my media consumption sites. (not the professional ones, just public sites). even though i've been off most social media for a while now, towards the end, i'd been receiving more and more stuff that just said: leave, take a break, breathe. the very nature of hyperpersonalisation states that i could be watching things that none of you have ever reached through endless scrolls. when any of those creators ask: “what is your hobby?” and before you can "answer" them, they quickly add a caveat. “media consumption is not a hobby!” and maybe it's not. but why?

what did you do this year? my friends asked me as it ended, and i paused for a second. what had i done? then i remembered, i've started writing a blog (semi-regularly), i've tried to start learning the ukulele, and as i string this thought process along, i've started realising: it's just action, isn't it? you have to choose to do it.

what question does the trolley problem pose at its core? would you choose to take one death on your conscience, or let five deaths simply happen, as deaths do? are you strong enough to make that choice within a split second? now, consider the inverse: are you willing to take action, choose to do something that's going to improve you as a person that's not simply passive intake of media, bearing the cost of effort? and if the choice sounds obvious, why is it so hard?

what do i want to say? i'm not always sure. maybe i just want to tell all of you: there's nothing like the feeling of having done something well, so please do it as much as you can. maybe i just want to tell all of you: i will be very proud of you if you try. maybe i just want to tell you: i care about you. i would be very happy if you were happy with yourself. you got this. i'm here for you.

sincerity

we are in an irony epidemic. there is such a loss of sincerity and everything has to be a joke at all times.

 -ethel cain, on tumblr

i've written about this before, but i saw this video that mentioned this tumblr post and it reignited my feelings about the subject in question. it's terrifying being vulnerable. when i write about anything i feel and send it out into the world (even though it is just my handpicked list of people who watch my close friends stories), i am satisfied, or sometimes, even proud of the writing i have done, and i do feel i often get iteratively better, but it is absolutely nerve wracking to think about the event of you reading this.

[...] the people that do offensive stuff like to [...] pretend like what they're doing is fringe and cool, you know, but i've started, at least recently, started to feel that like offensiveness and edginess is maybe the most mainstream thing that you could possibly do and [...] it, sort of, is thriving on the illusion that it is this sort of, like, fringe thing that no one will— “i can't believe you went there!” oh it's like everyone is going there. isn't like everyone going there nowadays? and nowadays, i feel like the edgy stuff is sentimental, or if you're being emotional or honest, that's the stuff.

 -bo burnham, [...] responds to youtube comments

this quote ended up being longer than i expected, but i didn't feel like i could trim anything from it without losing information that i felt was necessary. as a child, a lot of decisions are made for you, and many work out, because the people making them care about you and want you to be well. i believe it is our responsibility to continue to make choices that work out for us when we have that power. maybe this illustrates where i really lie within the free will vs. determinism debate.

for a while, i only had three movies on my letterboxd profile, and i couldn't figure out what the fourth should be. and one day, as i was going through my mutuals' diaries, i saw that alia had logged words words words, and it hit me. it had to be inside. bo eschews honesty and sincerity in a way that's gripped me since the first time i watched it, and the rawness of his words hits you like a truck, to use an internetism. there's nothing as powerful as a word from the heart.

Rowaelin Masterlist

Regular Fics:

Multi-chapters:

One-Shot

Special Event:

Kinktober 2021 (on hiatus)

Mr. and Mrs. Whitethorn’s six Yulemas

it's been in the pipeline for a while so i got around to replying to it now actually

ohh okay thought we were in the same board haha. best of luck to you too!! you'll do great i'm sure of it <33

(also realised i wasn't following you?? weird. anyway hope it's okay to send asks here)

we are not in the same board if it helps

change

the first part of changing yourself for the better is finding out the parts of yourself that you wish to improve on, and accepting them (and yourself) as they are. you can never be perfect, and that's okay. i've heard these sentences hundreds of times from different self-help sources, but you only realise that it's true when you actually feel it. you cannot hate yourself into being a better person. this ties into the conversations i've had about diets, and my personal belief that if you simply launch yourself into a hard diet (no scope for error, guilt when you can't adhere to the rules), a rebound is inevitable. love yourself, and change to a you that you wish to be (without hating the now). there's no better way. there's none healthier.

i've changed enormously over the past three years, and i don't believe i would recognise me of before too strongly, and i couldn't have done it alone. as i thanked kriti for the part she's played in this, she just told me: “it's just friendship”, and i'm always reminded of the massive debt we would owe our friends if they weren't all strictly non-transactional. i wouldn't have changed this much without my friends, and i would definitely not be the me i am. i hate all my friends that will call me out in an instant if i say something wrong, and yet i would be nowhere about them. there's no space for my ego there.

i can tally up my progress over the past three years, and almost none of it is academic. true, i did learn one very big thing: how to love what i learn, but the seeds for that already lived in me, germinating whenever i had the fortune of a good subject or a good teacher. i have learned much, much more about everything outside the classroom, challenging my understandings and beliefs. at the end of the day, a holistic me is who will be there to deal with the world. i hope i've done well with him. i hope he never stops learning how to live.

ohh okay thought we were in the same board haha. best of luck to you too!! you'll do great i'm sure of it <33

(also realised i wasn't following you?? weird. anyway hope it's okay to send asks here)

we are not in the same board if it helps

You're rude

i'm the sweetest person wdym