River Searching for the Sea Part Whatever: AI-generated image and sky waterfalls

Generated by Nightcafe AI (prompt by myself, user Melodious)

"水路 detailed matte painting" Series

Like a river searching for the sea,

I know not where I am going, the path ahead's sinuosity,

but know I am where I am supposed to be.

See you at the outlet.

In a previous post or two, I've probably described how as a child I always wondered where rivers got so much water that they just kept flowing. Where do rivers get so much water?

Someone said it came from the mountains, and I imagined mountains high up near the clouds, with some equivalent of a river or waterfall pouring out from the clouds down the mountain. This AI-generated image with the prompt 水路 meaning "waterway" in Chinese (with an artistic modifier selected) is the closest thing to depicting what my little brain could come up with.

As I grew older I continued to collect answers like "from the mountains", "from the rain". The water cycle as a whole made perfect sense, but exactly how such long, moving channels, some of them very wide too, could be constantly replenished with so much water was not something I knew how to envision. After all, the water just keeps flowing forward with its previous space being replenished, not like a lake that could act as an enormous bowl catching water or rain barrel.

What I didn't understand at that time was watersheds, and that the bowl is much bigger.

(For more information on watersheds, see my naturenimbus.blogspot.ca post about it.)

As I learned more about hydrology and quantifying runoff, this concept became much clearer . 

Rivers are replenished by tiny drops of rain and other precipitation. It seems impossible, but they are. Rivers collect runoff, rainwater that has flowed across such a large area of the watershed, funneled into water channels. They start with tiny streaks, and they combine into creeks, and creeks into rivers.

Answered prayers work this way, too. Sometimes we wait and we pray and we watch for something like a waterfall from the heavens. Because life is so hard, we may wonder could we be replenished by anything less than a miracle?

Sometimes the answer is big like a flood, other times it is countless little things like rain scattered across a wide area, but in this way God hears us and answers our prayers, and can give you the strength to keep enduring.

Whatever Suits Your Style

Who decided that suits look good?

Or tulle?

Sorry but I don't like the way Western suits look, or most suits deemed suitable for formal occasions to be fair, with few exceptions. Just an aesthetic preference. 

NightCafé AI Art Profile

https://creator.nightcafe.studio/u/melodious

Still need to comb through to decide which will stay published, but yeah this is super cool.

Chinese idiom for "out of the frying pan into the fire"

避坑落井 

bì kēng luò jǐng

dodge a pit only to fall into a well (idiom); out of the frying pan into the fire

https://www.purpleculture.net/dictionary-details/?word=%E9%81%BF%E5%9D%91%E8%90%BD%E4%BA%95

Beauty in the four-eyed beholder

Ok this is not a rule, just an observation, but often compatible people who wear glasses have similar glasses

 The colours of the sunset are the guarantee.

Kinds of best friends

You can have more than one best friend. The value of a friendship is not something I look at purely in a "quantitative" way, but they can each be just as valuable with qualitative differences that makes them unique and special in their own way.

I remember talking to certain friends about this. For example, there is the other half of my brain; my twin; and the love of my life. Each are immeasurably important, special, and irreplaceable.

The way I see it, twin flames are like narwhals and unicorns.

I don't think the psychic part is real, but there is something functionally similar enough or with similar enough effects to make a person naturally wonder.

~~

^The effect is doubled for us because people already thought we could read minds lol.

Being asked if you are psychic on a semi-regular basis is just part of growing up INF 👯

When we give into self-pity in a valued relationship,

And instead of putting effort to save closeness we put effort into actively trying to prove distance and a narrative of our victimhood,

(Like a self-fulfilled prophecy)

We lose closeness and trust in ways that may never be explained.

Of course I’ll never be the same again

Of course I’ll never be the same again,

And I’d never want to be.

No matter how big or small, all the changes are more writing on the wall that read:

“Amara was here.”

Sad hydrology (early hours rambling, Meet You at the Outlet)

Hydrology. Aside from stats, hydrology is one of my favourite applications of math. (How you wrapped your head around economics still puzzles me. Oh yeah, I told you this already. It's nice that we have come full circle with numbers together.)

We talked about the water cycle in the meeting today, and it reminded me of our conversation about the river. I'm glad we got to talk about it.

My sweet friend, I wish you could have stayed with me longer. But I know you will be there at the outlet. 

You beat me to it.

I remain a river searching for the sea. I cry my eyes out and cry out all the tears, threatening to leave the river dry. 

But as I have faith that a river is fed by rain, I have faith that I can be sustained enough to meet you at the outlet.

Meet you at the sea.

Why no wedding ring (Version 2, I think)

If I were to get married, I wouldn't want a wedding ring.

Maybe making one out of plants to use for the ceremony that can be put in a scrapbook. But after that I just want to wear a random ring for that external signal.

I don't want to tie it up with an object, and although I know that's not really what people are doing I will emotionally process it like that object is relevant or almost like part of the marriage itself if I wear it all the time. 

Which isn't a good thing to be reduced to to begin with, aside from the fact that it would be so devastating if it were lost or stolen.

Have you ever seen that photo of the rings at Auschwitz? It is a photo of a huge pile of wedding rings stolen from the prisoners.

That might be one of the most disturbing photos without any biological thing in it in the world. (Photos of bodies or something, of course that is completely awful in an immediate way).

But it is so deeply unsettling to look at that picture for what it means.

~~

What has made me think about rings again is I have been wearing a specific type of ring that you liked.

I wore it the first time I went out with people since the terrible day. It was bittersweet, and nice having the reminder of you throughout the day. It also served as a tangible reassurance to myself that going out and seeing the flowers or spending time with people doesn't mean I'm trying to forget you; naturally-occurring evidence that on the contrary, I really wanted that reminder of you all the day, and in truth I wish with my whole heart that you were there.

I'm not going to wear it all the time, because I don't want not wearing it to ever mean that I'm not thinking of you or wishing you were there. But it was really good to have on that first day.

All at once

It’s pretty easy to keep track of how long I’ve been studying Mandarin. I know many people kind of test it out and start slowly then gradually create a more regular routine, but I just started Duolingo the next day and then just kept studying every day.

Sometimes a change happens, all at once, and for better or worse it just becomes every day for the rest of your life.