put down the chat gpt. consume too much caffeine and nicotine and write a paper that you barely understand while you approach hallucination territory from too little sleep and too much raging. engage with academia in the way god intended
it's crazy how, if you're not conventionally attractive but you're confident and know your worth, it will both attract people who are also confident and comfortable in their own skin, but also act like one of those dog whistle frequencies that absolutely drives the most miserable, insecure people (men AND women) out of their minds. people will see you just living your life and not being paralyzed with insecurity with every decision you make and go "oh pretty girl let's hate on her" and honestly all you can do with that is chuckle and move on
going on the internet to stare at things. going to a antique mall to stare at things. going to the aquarium to stare at things. going to an art gallery to stare at things. picking up a book to stare at things. going to the cinema to stare at things. &other such cases
is another book too much to ask for at this point
Genuinely like you are going to have some of the most boring coworkers and neighbors in the world. You are gonna have annoying people who are loud and have the most reddit opinions and personality you can think of and who are just as awkward as you and who may make jokes in poor taste. But you still gotta be able to just like talk to them about the weather and shit. Hear people talk about their kids or their jobs or what movies come out recently. Obvs this has limits with like outright bigots but as a general rule you gotta cause that's the only way you can build real life community. You'll never be able to borrow a cup of sugar or host a block party or organize a union by only talking to people who you like. If you wanna build a better world with those around you you gotta learn their names first.
ao3 🤝 spotify 🤝 pinterest
holy trinity
The West has deemed the lives in Iraq and Syria as small print
my hobbies? Uhhhhh symbolism mostly. metaphors and implications and the like.
feeling like all your friends have much more fun with each other than with you
being relieved at accomplishments rather than feeling a sense of achievement
feeling like you're missing out when you're alone, but when with other people all you want is to be alone
anytime you say a bit too much you feel like you've overshared and should literally keep shut all the time
anytime someone laughs you immediately assume its about you or directed at you
you hate being humiliated in even the tiniest way
One thing that has made me a much more well-adjusted person is a clip I once saw of Hank Green saying that anyone can be in amazing shape as long as being in amazing shape is one of their top three priorities.
(This is obviously a generalization that isn't true for everyone. But it is true for most people and I'm proceeding from there.)
This "top three priorities" framing has genuinely reduced my tendency toward jealousy and self-comparison a lot. Now when I feel envious of someone’s spotless, aesthetic home, I think to myself, “Having a spotless, aesthetic home is probably one of their top three priorities. It’s definitely not one of mine, so I shouldn’t expect my home to look like that.”
Or when I see an influencer with a body that takes a ton of work to maintain: “Maintaining that body is obviously one of her top three priorities, because it’s her livelihood. My livelihood is my brain, so I’m never going to prioritize my body like that.”
It also helps me to identify areas that I actually DO want to prioritize more. I realized in recent years that my envy for my friends who prioritized writing more than I did was NOT going away, so I started to prioritize writing more. (Not top three, but higher priority than it has been in the past.)