We put so much emphasis on the year, decade, century. I want to be more like my dog though. Thank you for today, whatever day it is.

"You make me like myself. Just a little."

“Just thinking about you makes me hate myself!”

Tomorrow, December 31st 2019

Today is the last day there will be any children or teenagers from the 1900s. As of tomorrow, December 31, 2019, they will all be 20 years or older.

Sometimes you read a story, and at a point just know there can be no happy ending.

You can then choose to put the book down,

Or to see it to the end.

I don’t miss people. It’s like I just don’t have that function anymore.

I’m just happy with the way things were left or I’m not,

So I rush to the end,

Just because I know it’s going to end and I want to make it a happy one.

Edit Dec 28: I take it back.

Swallowing the stone

I swallow the lump in my throat like a stone. The stone that sinks deep into the ocean inside me without a splash, perhaps just one drop. Then it sinks down into deeper and darker blue until the bottom, where it lies quietly with the other feelings. Still inside; just quiet.

Just let the stone sink.

(variation from October 2017's "Grieving/Stones")

I have Baby Yoda fever

Not even an actual Star Wars fan but he's so cute.

Painting by Melody Tadeo

A favourite childhood memory: going to blockbuster to pick out a movie and sometimes a snack at the cash register, too.

Being good at using the brain

Ok this might actually be dumb but i think I just figured out what intelligence is. It's how good a person is at sing their brain; and that is why there are so many different types of intelligence.

Even a fighter with reflexes reflexes by this definition could be considered having that form of intelligence. They are good at knowing to put their body and can think of it very quickly.

Sad Koala :(

Image source: Majesticanimals.net/Heartbreaking images
of confused koala after discovering its home has been cut down

:'(

For anyone wondering, the article attached to this photo explains that this koala survived and is ok. She had suffered some injuries and was taken to an animal hospital where she is in much better condition.

Also, in correction of a previous post, the report in November 2019 that koalas are "functionally extinct" was erroneous. Though they do still need our help, to be considered "functionally extinct" a species must fall within the criteria below:

1. The population is so low that they no longer play a significant role in their ecosystem. Eg. There are so few they don't put significant dent in what they prey on

2. "A population that is no longer viable", or there are none left able to produce.

3. "Finally, functionally extinct can refer to a small population that, although still breeding, is suffering from inbreeding that can threaten its future viability".

Although the label of "functionally extinct" was erroneous, it did come from the very real sitaution that they are in trouble.
If you would like to donate to help koalas specifically, Living With Koalas has put together a nice list of charities to help them:
http://livingwithkoalas.com.au/home/koala-charities/

Sources:
PBS
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/koalas-may-be-functionally-extinct-but-what-does-that-mean
majesticanimals.net https://www.majesticanimals.net/heartbreaking-images-of-confused-koala-after-discovering-its-home-has-been-cut-down?fbclid=IwAR1tco5hYcynTQeESOwBdCSQNACQuB-YTQFHrBu44gUhcXBFBcocExqZTuY

Written 2019-10-21, Posted to sister blogs NN and L~W 2019-12-17, last edited 2020-01-15

Little things in November

It's not November anymore, but a little thing on a walk with my sprightly jack russel, Luna, has really stuck with me.

Ontario is known for its bitter, humid cold, and the combinations of countless browns and white that paint the landscape. But sometimes underrated is the beauty of this time and in its little things when we stop to smell the crisp air.

 

(co-posted on Naturenimbus.blogspot.ca)

One person's foolishness does not excuse another person's maliciousness.

This is one area where I really appreciate some things the Bible has warned, and feel like it has helped me:
Don't be dumb, you'll get hurt.
Don't be evil, or you deserve to get hurt.

"cautious as serpents but innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16).

Imagine a life where you didn't have to wash your hair. That would be extreme luxury.

How I describe imperfection and free will

You know when you go to the store and grab a grocery cart, and it has a messed up wheel? It's still up to you to steer but it is always inclined to go off, and it won't just move in a straight line. That's imperfection.

Your path will waver and you might hit a few things. But in the end you are still in control of the cart. That is free will.

Edited 2020-02-17. (I said "store" again instead of "cart". *facepalm)

So glad there are only a few more hours left of this messy semester... Pretty sure the college is trying to turn all the environmental technicians into protesters instead. At least we're learning to be assertive lol

Everybody in environment

As difficult as it can be at times, something I love about being in environmentalism is how everyone is working together with and for everybody. Nothing else about a person matters when you're working together in environment.

There is a scripture that says the Creator allows the sun to shine on both the wicked and the good. Usually reading that a takeaway lesson is that no matter who a person is or what they do, we should not withhold good treatment from them, or how the Creator wants everyone to have good things.

However, it also comes to my mind when it comes to environmentalism. It has always been so difficult to choose a cause, but environmentalism really is for everybody on this planet, and it is a cause that people can be fully united in.

 

Thoughts on Tangled

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like when people are arguing about fictional princesses most people are missing something really huge about Tangled. This is a classic case of emotional and psychological abuse, and I think Rapunzel is actually a good example for survivors.

She has been captive in a horribly psychologically abusive situation her whole life, but is still this positive ball of sunshine who has maintained her own dreams and aspirations and sense of who she is deep down. And she keeps pushing forward even though as she experiences, recovery isn't linear. Like a real victim of long-term abuse, she has these mental blocks, as she cycles through the highs and lows of feeling insanely guilty for removing herself from the situation and thinking of going back, and the manic high of finally being free where she's out of control and doesn't really know how to be a functioning adult. Later, when she realizes what has been going on fully she even gets angry.

It's true Flynn ultimately saves her, but like many survivors part of her process is attaching herself to another survivor of a very difficult childhood, despite her abuser trying to keep them apart to maintain control. And I think it's really sweet what she does for Flynn also, she makes him okay with being Eugene again. Rapunzel doesn't really know what she's doing but can you blame her she has literally been locked up her whole life, but she amazingly rises above her situation and instaed of becoming bitter becomes better.

A Vision

This morning I woke up with sleep paralysis, but instead of seeing creatures I woke up to an explosion. The bomb was coming and I was shocked; we hadn't even heard any threats on the news, there was no time to tie up loose ends, to say goodbye to our loved ones, and most of the things I have been worried about didn't matter. Some strangers' conflict was about to burn us all. And I saw the bright yellow glow menacingly through the window in my room and felt the start of the burn just before I was incinerated and woke up fully.

This has happened to people before, only they didn't wake up. And just as it would be unfair to everyone here is was unfair for them.

It takes courage to do something in a creative, nonstandard way. To risk the reaction, to risk it not being new anymore. But then you expand in your creativity when you're not so afraid of letting it go. You're not losing it, you're setting it free to grow and be built upon later.

But you have to set it free.

Sometimes I pretend to not remember things about people or act surprised when they tell me as if they didn't before so that I don't freak them out with how much I remember about them.

Memory today: Watching 80s-present music videos with the fam
~~
Also, this guy is part of my tribe:

"It's official: Native Americans and Siberians are Cousins"

https://www.rbth.com/science_and_tech/2016/02/23/its-official-native-americans-and-siberians-are-cousins_569517?fbclid=IwAR3FAWwt5A9Bjf57ecxpq5L7qUVp7BRpRnLbHDY7eGdR6swUcFQzbRwZcJ0

Singing a different song

Have you ever tried remembering the name of a song you couldn't remember, while another very loud, and very different song is playing?

It's really hard, especially at the beginning. It may take you a while, but then maybe you just have to remember one word or phrase that stuck with you, a part you know well. Then as you keep singing to yourself, it gets easier and easier, and eventually you feel your own song in your head even louder than the one that's playing, and before you know it you are moving to the beat of your own drum.

The catch is, you have to keep singing.

This is what attitude is, and this is what it is to be a free spirit. A free spirit may or may not choose to dance along with what is playing, but what is sure is you have to keep singing.

(The song I was trying to remember: Afterglow by CHVRCHES)

~~

It's hard to stay sensitive in a harsh world. Just keep singing. And if you have stopped, start again, even if it's hard.

Grocery meals for when you forget your lunch

When I'd forget my lunch or be in too much of a rush in the morning, my go-to meal is to go to a grocery store and buy a whole bag of bagels and a whole container of cream cheese. Maybe grab clementines too, or even a box of granola bars if I'm with people.

Then I find some sort of utensil for spreading and bring the rest home with me as groceries instead of paying a lot for a restaurant meal.

Instead of paying $2.50 for a single bagel with cream cheese at Tim Horton's, I'm paying a little more for today's lunch and future easy-to-pack lunches.

If I ate meat I'd buy some cold cuts too when I was feeling fancy, and just use the free bags for produce to wrap it. And then get some pre-sliced Italian bread.

Avocado would be nice, though you need to make sure you have something to cut it.

Or cheese and crackers. If you can't get a hold of utensils, you can use cheese strings or the Babybell mini circles in the wax. You can even pick fancy crackers.

I've also bought containers of muffins, although normally I'm not feeling like muffins in the middle of the day (they're more like cake, and they burn my throat with all the sugar).

Boxes of rasins are another option if you do want sugar, or guava cheese.

A can of tuna with the tab and crackers. Though the can with the tab is usually pretty pricey. Have also bought resealable bags of baby carrots, and ready-to make salad kids. (Those kits are also expensie, and usually have meat in them).

And when I'm feeling super fancy (and ready to carry home some heavy stuff), a bottle of Boathouse

Just checked google. Yogurt is a good idea too, and bulk nuts (But I'm picky about types of yogurt.)

Wow someone else wrote something like this!
https://www.healthyeatinghub.com.au/7-convenient-supermarket-meals/
I like the smoked salmon idea. I've nearly done that a few times with the bagel, but am always afraid it'll make my backpack smell like fish.
Forgot they have precut and washed veggies in many places now.

It's strange how the new worst day of your life can make you no longer fear the remnants of the former worst day of your life.
(backdated by one day)

I could drive on the highway at night forever. and think and watch the lights and see their lines when I squint my eyes

Look around. The last time my body will be in this place, but the highway and the building beside it and everything here will keep going on even after.

I have lived thinking the highway and it’s lights were for me. And maybe we do have something special. In a way the way they are for me, because I am the only one who sees them quite this way, but it makes me happy to know this place and this ground I traveled over will still be here when I’m gone.

I am in wondering if the lights ever time. I tend to look at everything like it’s my first time seeing it, but today I tried looking at it as if it was my last.

The highway I have gone over hundreds of times. Imagine if I knew this was my last time. It feels so different.

Exams are coming and I have been drinking so much tea.

Exams are coming and I have been drinking so much tea.

I have a concentrated cup of green tea in the morning , sip and continually refill a cup of mint tea throughout to keep me fresh, and then have chamomile tea at the end of the day.

Green tea to wake me up for work, mint tea to sustain the work, chamomile to wind down from the work.

Just Dicovered Gregory Alan Isakov

No. I choose to hope.

My mind suggests talking about this. But my heart says that this is something I have to shoulder alone for now.

Whether or not I tell anyone can't change anything.

~~

Please no. Just please be nothing.

Pictures of people shouldn’t last longer than people. People should just keep lasting. 

Someday they will.

Some relationships are like highways in the wintertime; messy. Like when there’s tall, dead yellowish brown grass sticking out on snow on the side of a highway and the slush in the edge is all salty and dirty.

Does everybody do this thing where you flatten the slush at this stage so that it’s smooth, or are me and all the people at this particular bus stop crazy?

One on the left is doing it.

She made a design.

Then the one on the right with the camel-coloured bots started too.

I think if you do this it means you’re creative.

The whole bus stop is creative.

Reflecting on this Quora question changed the way I look at life

"Is your motivation rooted in negativity (guilt, anger) or positivity (appreciation, desire)?"

Thank you user Evelyn Krasnik for posing this question.

https://www.quora.com/Is-your-motivation-rooted-in-negativity-guilt-anger-or-positivity-appreciation-desire#

I know you meant to twist things to make me feel bad, but it has just made me hope that more people like you become more like people like me.

Please don't stand by, stand together.

What do you wish everyone knew about bullying?

Melody Pinto · Add Credential

Answered 28m ago

Sometimes the effects of what you say and do to people never go away. Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try on our own many of us have years or even decades of being bullied that many of us can’t simply forget.

But secondly and even more importantly, that even if it takes help, the effects always can get better and become livable. You can feel good again.

Thirdly, an apology can help more than you might imagine, alongside a resolve to do better.

And fourth: please don’t stand by, stand together.

I wish to understand others the way I wish to be understood.

Things I’ve learned from my music teachers about playing and teaching music

Mrs Miller - Be patient

Mr Moss - be creative

Mr Kite - have fun

Mr Moon - tone over tempo

Stephanie Pesant - feel for your students

Mr Petersen - Practice the music you love

Mr LeGendre - There is something to love in every person’s style and performance

~~

Something experience has taught me - give your audience a beautiful experience. This gets me out of my head, and lets me focus on giving my heart to them through the music, trough shaped sound.

“I want to stop talking in bright green and want to be able to use my more natural, earthy voice and its free flow.”

Sometimes silence is scary.

I don't like sitting in mental silence. No epiphanies. Just there, feeling so disconnected from everything outside when inside nothing is right. I look inside and see a very distorted space. A lot of emptiness. And when I can manage to conjure up a thought or an image it doesn't make sense, it looks like an abstract painting of a person where the eyes and the other parts of the face or body are in all the wrong places.

Disconnected. I'm in the air again, and the lack of gravity is making me light-headed.

And there is no weather balloon in sight.

~~

Sometimes I turn the TV on just to hear other peoples' voices.

“I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud.” - Carl Jung

In the new world, I'd want to be able to meet Carl Jung. Every time I read something he wrote I feel like I have something to learn from it.

I think there is a subtype if depressed person that is a “depressed optimist.”

Though I woukdn’t  describe it as being a subset of optimist; then we’d also have create things  we should also then have subsets like “anemic optimist”, “feverish optimist”, and “optimist with eczema”, and “underweight optimist.”

Edited December 28, 2019

Who is going to steal my comments now?

Challenges are rocks in the river. They interrupt our daily flow, and they may even make us turbulent, but we keep flowing around them.

At around 6:30pm tonight in Toronto we just saw a comet disappear into the unknown colour, west-north-west, chasing the sun.

(The colour is green purple orange blue. Grey. Mermaid-coloured.)

posted 2019-10-29

I wonder if the average height of university students is greater than the average height of (community) college students.
posted 2019-10-29

Anxiety is not being able to stop wondering if she person who shifted over to make room for you heard you say thank you.

Challenges are rocks in the river. They interrupt our daily flow, but we keep flowing around them.

But if there are too many, it can make us very turbulent.

(posted 2021-04-09)

Remember, even the worst week of your life can only last seven days.

Cafe making

Having trouble being productive with your homework? Want to do your work at a cafe but don't want to spend money on cafe snacks?

Life hack: make muffins, brew some tea, and and put BGM on in the background

2022-04-06 edit: Oh no the youtube video is gone. I'm pretty sure it was this album:

Rainy Jazz ~Relaxing Jazz Radio~ by Cafe Music BGM Channel

https://music.apple.com/ca/album/rainy-jazz-relaxing-jazz-radio/1372037948

I used this as the background music for an origami party before, and it set the most perfect mood for a perfect day.

Yesterday I took a couple old bus routs I haven't taken in a while. It was good to be reminded. To remember how it feels to be scared like that, and of what many girls feel all the time still.

For a while I had forgotten why I used to wear a fake wedding band, and felt silly over it. Yesterday I found myself in a situation where once again I was trying to discreetly move my ring to the left ring finger again.

The Water You Don't Have to Run Through

"Privileged" is a relative term. Personally I don't consider privileged as necessarily being born into unfair advantage, or something that you shouldn't have. It's about not being born into a situation of inherent disadvantage.

Think of it this way: we all have to run through an obstacle course. This is life. We could choose different paths with different obstacles we may or may not know about. But there's a catch: Some people are forced to run the all spaces between the same obstacles, but through water. The amount of water you don't have to run through is the amount of privilege you have.

If you were born into a situation where you end up with struggles totally outside your control; being a minority, having chronic physical or mental illness, that's not a one-time obstacle you can just push to overcome one and for all, is a struggle that affects literally everything you do.

Some people care and some people don't. But even if you're a selfish person, are you also stupid is my question.

You don't know who of these people you'll need to be at their potential someday. Who has the monly mind that could come up with a cure for an incurable disease you're going to have someday, who will be able to help save your family from a disaster, to talk one of your friends off an edge. You don't know who you'll need to help you, where they are now, or what only they can do for you or your loved ones that all the money in the world cannot buy.

Edited 2019-10-25

Feet on the Mountains

October 24, 2019, posted Jan 5, 2020

I am picturing a red weather balloon

My mind is being crowded by the colour red.

I have a very slow-brew creative process. It can take years even for me to figure out how to express something, and that "ah-ha" moment could just pop up at any time, even when I'm supposed to be doing or thinking about something else.

~~

I'm envious of people who can so easily lead with Ne, and can just sit down and brainstorm, and access and develop their ideas so quickly.

For me even brainstorming is too organized. It's more like a brain-webbing, where different ideas have an undercurrent connecting them and making them flow into eachother somehow because as much as I might call something a "new idea", it usually takes me a little while to really stop thinking about a theme.

A lot of people have not been loved enough.

"I want to live like an island person."

Why is "tongue" spelled that way. Or "eight". Or "phenolpthalein." "Colonel".

No matter how you pronounce it this doesn't make sense. sieves seevs sivs

A fine line

There is a fine line between what people consider unique or “exotic” vs what they consider weird.

A fine line between “often seen”, and boring.

~~

I do hate certain parts of human nature. But I don’t hate humans. I hardly even dislike people, just certain things we do sometimes.

There are also things we do sometimes that I do like.

Q: What's something that makes you uncomfortable to think of?

A: Swimming in butter.

Posted 2020-05-29

A field book log (Instead of speaking to you in poetry I started having to speak to you in lab report...)

Instead of speaking to you in poetry I started having to speak to you in lab report.

A collection of letters becomes a field book. Just state the facts. Be perfectly accurate. Don’t erase, don’t scribble anything out; strike through only. Always use a ruler. 

From flowing, verbal sketches to having to include every (clarifying) detail, and instead of painting a pretty picture or making a unique and special picture with words, I become a black and white printer.

I don’t want to just be right right according to political definitions. I want to do and to speak right by my own conscience. 

Sunset Progression Throwback

Two years ago:

Minor car accident

I just wish there was someone, anyone else here who would just say "at least you guys didn't die" or something.
     Everything is "oh no the new car" and "oh no the insurance."
     How about at least the only injury that occurred at all is I have a bit of a sore back, and headache from the mild concussion from earlier this week is worse. Though I'm pretty sure that's just from the talking.

     This morning I called Grandma and told her what happened.
     She said "at least nobody got hurt. It could have gone a lot worse."
     She's the best.

"I'm having the time of my life here.

To clarify, I mean the worst time of my whole life."

(I'm not really. Just thought it sounded funny :P)

'Family'

I look around the subway. No babies or young children. Chances are, at some point each and every person on this train has wished they were better-looking.

Nobody here needs to wish that.

Make your own happiness.

Recipe for happiness

Recipe for happiness

Establish your base
*add seasoning taste*

(posted 2021-04-09)

Random thoughts from today, September 28, 2019. Tree Frogs, children's glasses, Anti-Insight, Analysis of Ambiguous Data, Glass Half Full...

Humans are the same way as other animals, where bright colours and pretty-looking surface adornment can be a protection. It can prevent others from trying to take things away from you, can make you more intimidating, and make others afraid of what will happen to them if they were to attack or eat you. Like tree  frogs if you stand out people are afraid of you, and like birds if you don't look pretty people will feel bold enough to try to threaten you.

~~

It's ironic but wearing children's-sized glasses means looking less like a child when you have a very small face. The hard part is finding ones that aren't plastic purple Dora the Explorer and Tonka.

~~

Whether you go with MBTI, without MBTI, MBTI but "I am a mix between two types", MBTI but I only list one letter for simplicity... whatever you go with, just don't be anti-insightful.

~~

Strengths: "analysis of ambiguous data"
In other words, I'm good at looking back on situations that aren't very clear-cut and being able to figure out exactly what went wrong and which part to regret.

~~

I've always wanted to be able to log into one of those pop-up-from-the-browser authorization logins and actually have the credentials to log in. I do, this is legitimately my username and pw why are you not letting me see the expired paaage

~~

The way I learned about optimism was not “expecting the best to happen because that’s what you want”. Rather it was to “see the glass half full” so that your focus is not on what you don’t have, but on how to make the most of what you do have. This replaces despair with hope.

We should opt to come up with a new title other than optimist to describe someone who has a positive attitude, because it sounds like a common definition is that optimists live simply with the expectation that things will turn out favourably, so it makes people who aren't pessimistic sound delusional.
~~

(throwback)
Life is like a game of cards. We do our best with the hand we’ve been dealt, and in the end the goal is to have all our cards on the table.

~~

For a few years my bio has been "I'd say I left my heart in Mongolia but have never actually been there before." When I go to Mongolia the only downside is I won't be able to use that anymore. Guess the new one will be  "Left my heart in Mongolia. #RIPmyoldbio."

~~

It is incredible what a good night's sleep can do for you.

~~

Peeeeeeeas and peirogieeeeees

~~

You can’t force people to be comfortable with you, or logic your way into making them feel comfortable around you. People are not at fault if they just don’t feel a certain way about you.

The Hu Fanart

Who is your favourite band?

Yes they are!

Who though?

No, the Hu.

~~

Normally I wouldn’t run to social media with this type of news, but this is kind of my anti-social media because I don’t think anybody actually reads this blog.

Jaya liked the fan art painting!!

I hope Jaya got my thank-you in the caption too, for sharing their music. I really wasn’t expecting him or any of The Hu to find the Instagram post and wish I hadn’t put such a concise version of my thank-you message up. The one in the official Facebook fan page is no essay or anything, but it’s a little more specific.  Jaya is also especially an inspiration as a flautist.

I do hope they read the longer one, or at least feel the gratitude and good feelings somehow.

Since childhood I have been captivated by the nature the horses and the culture in Mongolia. My default bio is “I’d say I left my heart in Mongolia, but have never actually been there before.” When I listen to their songs, it makes it feel less far away.

I remember back when my calculator costed more than my cell phone.

Windward and windwise.

Seaward and seawise.

Treewards and treewise.

Onward, open skies.

The hill that was almost a mountain

Somewhere between Mayo and Keno City, Yukon. June 2019

"That's not a mountain, that's a hill."

I called it a mountain. I still think it's a mountain.

My friend from the Rockies who knows a lot more about mountains than I do did not think it's a mountain.

Another friend said there must be a specific measurement that ultimately distinguishes a hill from a mountain.

We are all both right and wrong.

The concept of a hill versus a mountain is made up by people. What is there is what is there, the cause that created the effect of what we see in that picture was what is was. But as for the sounds and symbols we use to refer to it, there is no universally accepted definition.

Despite this, there have been many moments when I have felt like a hill that was almost a mountain. And sometimes, being so close made it all the more painful. Many people have felt this way.

How would you answer this: what is the tallest mountain in the world?

(We’ll talk about that later.)

To anyone who has felt that way before, I'd want to tell you there are more to people than their mountains and their cliffs. People are less like single mountains; we are more like entire landscapes stretching farther than the eye can see, with more diversity and dimension and dynamics than the human eye can catalog.

Many would answer that the tallest mountain in the world is Mount Everest. However, others would say the underwater mountain, Mauna Kea.

Some geographers go by a standard that a mountain must be at least 300 metres above sea level. In Scotland, any mound with a distinct summit is a hill, no matter its height.

People will call things what we call them. Just as much as a mountain does not make up the whole world, it may mean the world to someone just for them. And that is okay.

While my friend and I never did agree on what to call that one aspect we focused on, all of us there agreed that the landscape was nothing short of breathtaking.


Reference
How It Works Team. (2016, October 26). When does a hill become a mountain? Retrieved September 12, 2019, from https://www.howitworksdaily.com/when-does-a-hill-become-a-mountain/.

written 12/09/2019, edited and posted 2019-10-02

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t deciding to have a family kinda like choosing to work in a group project for the rest of your life?

'How to empathize' answered by Gemma Roberts in under 5 minutes

Gemma Roberts' clear and intuitive video, answering this commonly-asked question in under five minutes:

How to empathize from Developing Your Emotional Intelligence by Gemma Leigh Roberts

Is love a type of happiness?

Sometimes my mind wanders, meanders gravitating towards the dark places where it visits.
     But not always. Sometimes these are violent surges. It does not drift to these dangerous places, it crashes and heaves, threatening to never let me up for air.

Not "do you read the news", but "does it move you?"

Just possessing knowledge alone does not make someone a good person. Most politicians are probably aware of more things  happening around the world than the average citizen, but that in itself does not make them good people.

The real question is ‘does it move you?’

In school I remember teachers who opened their class at the start of the year by having the students raise their hand if they read the newspaper ("and not just the comics"), and then proceed to chide anyone who didn’t.

The world is not a better place because someone put the newspaper back down on the table. The benefit of knowing is when it is used to deepen understanding what others are facing; letting it sink in can move a person inside and out; it can help refine their perspective, make them more sympathetic or appreciative, and then perhaps lead to some positive actions, big or small.

This effect is not inherent, so instead of asking "do you read the newspaper?", a question of more value to me is "does what is happening move you?"

Better than when a person can list 100 problems that don’t move them at all, is when a person knows of even just one thing happening and uses it to motivate them to be kind.

“When mind has been visiting the dark places again, and

My heart is too heavy to flutter,

You send the light through the darkness, and the wind under my wings, and the rain to replenish what has been lost through tears,

And so in those places you make me never lost forever.”

I am extra forgiving of people from my past in middle school, even though that’s when a lot of people were the worst.

I feel like that’s an age where a lot of us are going things behind the that are actually super messed up, but we’re still so young and naive we don’t even realize how messed up it is. It’s affecting us, but we don’t know how to deal with it, because we don’t even know that it’s not the way things should be. So we just act out, having no idea what is wrong with us until years later.

Many people at eembarrass dog themselves form that age, and angry at their old schoolmates. Instead of seeing it this way, I feel like it would be better if we appreciated the fact that I’m spite of it all, we made it out alive, together.

To bring a full-size sketchbook or a mini sketchbook, that is the question.

Well, as long as there is a foot drawn in both of them I guess you can't go completely wrong.

Extroverts

Are

Not

The

Majority

We just think they are because they’re louder lol

Living Life in the Third Person - Intro

Living life in the third person - intro draft2

For most of my life, I rarely photographed people. Especially myself. Something hurt a little though when I realized that I had almost no photographs from special moments with the people I love

Now I take selfies and express my feelings more. It has felt like something has been missing from life without writing all the time, but when I was writing I was missing life. It was my way of escaping life after all.

Today I find my writer’s voice in telling stories. I still write for myself, but not just for myself. I write for an unknown person who will read it someday. And interestingly enough, living life in the first person has helped me personally be less concerned about myself, Without that third person narrator whispering over my shoulder and making me nervous 

The characters still live inside my heart, though they occupy less space in my head.

If you want to correct someone don’t just lunge at their jugular or of course they’re going to be defensive instead of receptive

(posted 2021-04-09)

Living life in the third person - I must have been half asleep when I wrote this

Living life in the third person - an essay about the mind of a writer

Now I take selfies and express my feelings more. It has felt like something has been missing from life without writing all the time, but when I was writing I was missing life. It was my way of escaping life after all.

Today I find my writer’s voice in telling stories. I still write for myself, but not just for myself. I write for an unknown person who will read it someday. And interestingly enough, living life in the first person has helped me personally be less concerned about myself, Without that third person narrator whispering over my shoulder and making me nervous

#lunarwinds

The characters still live inside my heart, though they occupy less space in my head.

Stories concluded in ways that are often very surreal, and might be unusual or unsettling for a reader who doesn’t know how to take it.

It’s hard to think about them all.

I will tell you that the couple everyone would be rooting for did marry eachother. And they taught me a lot, especially about love. They taught me what real love looks like. Eventually, I found it in the first person.

Because of this I spend less time thinking about them. But they live on in other ways, and I assure you they are getting their happily ever after.

While they are getting their happily ever after, I am learning to live a little happier, even after it all.

(Break)

I am able to live with my heart on my sleeve a little more. Being more than a nonconformist; a more free spirit.

I am closer to the kind of person I’d like to be now than I was before.

Daisies and clear water with a warm breeze through the tropical trees on the shore.

(Posted 2021-04-09)

What we fear and what we love

We all have our values and our fears.

There are many people like me. I value positivity. I want to optimize the situation so far as is in my power.

Some fear being disappointed.

You can’t have a plan of action for everything but you can have a plan of attitude, is what I say.

We can be motivated by fear and can also be motivated by desire. By our desire attraction to things to be a certain way, or by being repelled by another.

Secretly, I fear regret. A lot. A fear of disappointing myself. And sometimes it motivates me. That is what makes me overreact when someone is being what I perceive as negative; I feel it threatens my ability to make the most of whatever happens, threatens to put me in that place of regret later. Of wishing I had done better.

I might explode sometimes a bit. Or lash out. Or say “you’re not being realistic you’re being pessimistic.” (Well if we only acknowledged the positives would.

So I might react like a scared animal. Run away, Lash out if I feel trapped, because I don’t want to resign to freeze.

But when I remember that when you talk negatively to me you just want to save me from disappointment, I am able to feel calm. while I still don’t think or feel the way you do I don’t feel so bad about what you say anymore. I resent you less, and yes take what you say with mrow salt, but that’s okay.

It takes some optimism to realize this, but at least I know it’s because you care ;)

We have different fears, but maybe we can meet in the middle. We both value each other, and what we say is because we want the best for each other, and that’s a pretty bright place to start.

Updated August 1, 2019

Pessimism vs Realism

Sometimes, in a discussion where a person brings up a potential unfavourable outcomes they are accused of being negative. Sometimes this is true, other times it is not.

If you are discussing an uncertain situation and you *only* acknowledge the potential favourable outcomes, would you call that realistic?

Be one to act

Have oh ever walked up to a xwalk and forgot to push the walk button?

It happens sometimes.
But what if the next person comes and assumes the first person did?
(What if they don’t want to make the first person feel like they don’t trust hem to do heir one job?)
What if a big group of people do this? And people line up on the other side too, and think “there’s no left turn and they would have

Act. Be one too act, to do something that’s not your job. It help you be in a society that makes sure nobody and not all of us get left behind.

Backdated from 2021-09-26 posting, when this was found