This is actually two questions in one:

1. How do you counter pessimism in yourself?

How do you keep yourself from sliding into cynicism? Seeing the worst in things? Finding fault everywhere? Losing hope?

2. How do you counter pessimism in others?

When someone’s sharing their pessimism with you, it can feel dismissive or even hostile to go against it. It can feel unempathetic to do anything but corroborate or validate their feelings, even if you feel they’re inaccurate or misguided. How do you respond without sliding into pessimism yourself?

I was chatting with a friend about Thanksgiving. Neither of us find the holiday relevant to us, so this year we're going for something health-oriented (somewhat off-theme, but we liked it). I'd love to have lots of traditions, but I didn't grow up with them. If you found a tradition later in life, how did it come about?

After giving This is How You Lose the Time War a five star review, I started scrolling through other reviews and I found thoughtful, well reasoned arguments for the other side. This is a thoroughly crafted well written book that is not going to be to everyone's taste.

The premise is two opposing secret agents, saboteurs, time and history manipulators who work for conflicting civilizations become aware of each other and start to exchange letters. It becomes a love story.

The nature of the work each main character does to manipulate history across many centuries and many parallel universes makes the narrative confusing. I can't imagine it done effectively any other way, but I also like other confusing time shifting stories where the story starts to make sense later.

The characters only meet through their letters with a couple of exceptions, so some say the love story is unbelievable. For me, it reflects the extreme isolation and loneliness of their work and how even minimal tenuous companionship of a peer would satisfy a gaping need.

The writing includes extravagant romantic feelings and poetic literary allusions to go with the science fiction and time travel aspect. I appreciated it, but people who like romance and poetry don't always like science fiction and time travel and vice versa.

The authors lean into the epistolary format. It's not exclusively letters but a significant percentage of the writing is the letters these two characters exchange.

The creative forms the letters take were fun for me and seemed like a valid extrapolation of actual historical spycraft if you assumed much greater ability to manipulate matter. However some people find them over the top.

It is an exuberant, enthusiastic book that is fun if you like it and possibly cringy if you don't

Users of Tildes, what are your morning routines like? What do you do when you first open your eyes and get out of bed? What things do you think are beneficial and help you start your day? What improvements do you think you could make?

I initially tried to find an existing thread, but my Google Fu was not up to the task. My apologies if this has been asked before.

For me, my usual morning goes like this:

• Get woken up before the alarm by my dog
• Take her out while doing the daily Wordle
• Feed my dog while drinking my morning coffee and reading a chapter from one of the books I’m currently reading
• Get dressed and tidied up
• (If it’s a work day) I prep my things/lunch
• (if it’s the weekend) I’ll typically read a couple more chapters or go directly to the next step
• I’ll catch up on news/Tildes/Instagram
• And then I continue my day (either by going to work or planning out what needs done around the house)

I think the only improvements I could really think of is possibly adding a block of 10-15 minutes to journal. I think a bit of self reflection would be beneficial. I usually do some journaling in the evening, but having both my pre and post day thoughts catalogued could be beneficial.

What about you guys? What do your mornings look like?

I just finished this show, having waited for it all to come out before getting into it -- other Disney+ Star Wars series taught me the lesson that they are much better binged than watched week to week and I was not wrong.

Spoilers below

The endless references to a children's animated show that I have less than zero interest in viewing really drags it down, which is why my main take away as per the title is that it doesn't really work. Most of the premise of the show is finding Thrawn and Ezra -- two characters you have no way of knowing about unless you watched that cartoon. Yet these two characters are constantly referenced and for some reason important, but you're never really sure why.

It kind of works with Thrawn because there's a mysterious villain type of thing going on. But Ezra? Why do we miss him? Who is he? What did he do? Almost none of my questions are ever answered, even after we find him! Aside from simply being told by other characters that he is important, I am never told how or why. Nothing they say or do makes me care about him. They don't show me anything that makes me want to get emotionally invested in him. And no, I am not watching hundreds of hours of cartoons to understand the context. That is simply too much.

This show is in a very strange place between obviously trying to cater to a large audience (it is a Disney property after all, so $$$), but it simultaneously can only be fully understood by extremely hardcore Star Wars fans. I consider myself a fan. I have watched all live action movies and shows, even the laughably bad stuff like the Boba Fett and Kenobi shows. That they intentionally mix together animated and live action storylines though -- especially with any context lacking -- is a major misstep.

I like the Star Wars universe a lot. And while a lot of it is entertaining, it feels very bad to feel left out. It would be different if it was a small cameo or name drop once in a while. But the main storyline gets impacted by this, and it just kind of leaves a sour taste after finishing it.

I was decently entertained and it had some very good moments, particularly the Baylan and Shin duo was intriguing -- which is ironic as I understand that they are among the only original characters in this show. Regurgitating old canon is not the way.

7/10. Entertaining but unsatisfying.

We all have things we hate about our jobs — for many of us it’s the actual job itself — but I’m interested in hearing about the things that you actually like.

They can be big, satisfying things (like the fulfillment of completing a big project) or they can be tiny little insignificant joys (like writing your to-do list with a really smooth pen).

Let us know what you genuinely like about your work.

A few of you mentioned in comments to my previous question that changing your mind could or did affect relationships. To those who did go through such a significant perspective shift, please share your story!

Asking because I have been having such vivid dreams lately and sometimes they touch me so much to the point that half a day, sometimes even the entire day, will be negatively affected - although that might also be my poor mental health (decided against posting this in ~health.mental as I wasn't sure it had that much to do with it).

I definitely have more bad dreams when I'm in a bad place or going through things, like if I feel lonely I will dream about relationships. If I've been really into something, like a game or watching a lot of the same genre of tv or film, I will dream about things towards that genre. If I'm having interpersonal issues, I will dream about those and even have conflicts and fights in my dreams very much related to that person - I have so many nightmares about my father for example.

I'm not into astrology, tarot cards, witchy stuff, etc., beyond it being just for fun. And I feel like dreams are more along those lines although I don't know. I just know they can really affect me.

What's your take?

I’m a software engineer. Any time this topic comes up it’s clear I’m the odd one out. Recruiters will tell me “don’t worry, we’re fully remote!” but that’s not what I want to hear. Co-workers that are mandated to return to office go on a quiet rebellion to stay at home (and to be clear, I love that they are displaying the power that laborers have even without a union). But for me the quality of the work is lower when remote. Video calls suck and are emotionally draining. Collaboration is core to doing work for me. Sure I can close tickets just fine from home. But what if I’m there to wrap my head around the entire system and all of the people involved in it?

A few things I’m aware of that influence my opinion here:

• I don’t have kids
• I am comfortable asserting my free time. I take plenty of time off and typically work six hour days, never with any push back from anyone. I can usually get much more done in six hours than is asked of me
• Programming is my dream job

Thankfully I am still able to find fully in-person opportunities around me. So this is really just a matter of understanding the rest of the labor market. I don’t need to or want to change anyone’s mind here.

It's October, spooky month! So I figured I'd ask if anyone has any creepy, spooky, scary or unexplained experiences they'd like to share. I may have been waiting all September to post this These stories are always fun to read on AskReddit, so I figure it's only right to ask here on the spookiest month of all.

I remembered that thread asking about the update to Cyberpunk 2077, and figured after finishing the expansion I'd offer what I've got. I played the game once on release prior to playing now.

The tl;dr - its a hell of a lot better, can totally recommend it, expansion was cool and fun

The long:

First, regarding the update. It's excellent. The game does feel significantly better to play, because a whole lot less is bugging the hell out. You do occasionally come across some silliness, like four of the same car all at an intersection, or the same child populating a cafeteria. But these moments are far, far less frequent, I think I can count on one hand after 50 hours, the number of times stuff like that happened.

Wanted system is functional now. It just works the way you'd expect, and it is pretty easy to escape. More lawless parts of town are appropriately easier to get away with shit in. Driving feels better but still feels weird to me, like everything is slippery/wheels never have good traction.

The skills/perks/inventory stuff is a thousand times better. It has a few weird things here and there but is easier to follow and use. It's nice not having to really mess around with clothes and just look however I want. Combat is a lot more fun now that stuff behaves appropriately. That's really the theme of it, they did fix what needed fixing, and what we're left with much more closely aligns with folks' original expectations.

Quests wrap up and sometimes into one another in ways which are genuinely very impressive, and I encountered all of one that had an issue with it. I pretty much constantly went from quest to quest and found there was enough variety that I didn't really care about wandering much. I still did, and that is all much improved too. Npcs behave a lot better and look nicer, and jobs consistently finish up the way they're supposed to.

I specialized in blades, pistols, and shotguns, and played on Normal, mostly on my steam deck. I mostly raised Reflexes, Technical Ability, and Cool. I got to turn into a Dragonball ninja assassin, occasionally dualing Japanese cyborg women with katanas in the street. I'd get into shit because melee is genuinely pretty fun to mess with.

The visuals are awesome even on the handheld, the preset for the deck is higher than I expected. Performance was consistently good, on the deck as well as my PC. PC can go maximum and is using a 144hz display, it looks really really good with everything pushed.

The expansion:

It fits squarely within the best of what the game offers. The storyline is complex and goes into the rest of the world in an impressive way, it's like it's always been there. The characters are exceptionally well done, as is the voice acting. The whole thing felt like a great season of a good show, it kinda proceeds like that too.

Dogtown is a really cool area. The detail is wild and sense of place really some of the strongest in the game. I felt uneasy at night in the rain, that's always cool for a game to evoke. It feels both like it's own independent spot and like a part of the city, they really nailed it with how it looks and what's available there.

Conclusion:

The complete package I'd say is totally worth it. Compared to release it is a completely different game. Feels like a much more realized vision, that consistently hits some pretty high notes. Panam is still the coolest, but Songbird was a really well done character too. With the game not being a flaming wreck, it's way easier to get into the storytelling, and it is pretty great for this medium. Especially those major characters, they're interestingly complicated and don't always behave how you'd expect. The overall experience is kinda like being a protagonist in a tv show, quests have their own arcs and climaxes and characters appear distinctly changed by the events as they unfold. That was always there, but now I'm comfortable saying you'll actually have that experience playing it.

My examples have to do with tech/media, but it could be anything - old fashioned or "outdated" ways of cooking, communicating, hobbies, or mending things rather than replacing them, etc.

Owning DVDs

Earlier this year my husband and I had an irresistible urge to watch the masterpiece film that is Shrek. I hoped that one of the most popular animated movies of all time would be available at no charge to me, but of course it was not on Hulu, HBO, Netflix, or included with Prime. So that's great, I'm paying something around $50 a month for all these libraries of media, and somehow find myself paying extra whenever I want to watch something specific. Fair enough though, that's part of the deal I guess.

We decide to rent the movie on Amazon for $5. A couple years ago, I'm pretty sure renting movies like this was more around $2-3 and they've been slowly bumping it up. Okay. Everything gets more expensive. We try to start streaming the movie, and Amazon gives us this pop-up that says they've detected the hardware we're streaming it on (it's apparently a bit outdated,) so it's going to choose a specific version of the movie for us, one that didn't use some new technology related to streaming quality. That's fine in itself, but it just got me thinking about how much control these streaming companies have over all of this. My TV is at least 15 years old, works perfectly fine, and I don't see myself replacing it anytime soon. My imagination went the dramatic route, picturing a future where Amazon and its ilk will only stream to newer computers/TVs, either for a legitimate technological reason, or because they've struck a conniving secret deal with the TV manufacturers. Again, dramatic I know, but my point is just the general idea that these companies make all the decisions with streaming; we own and decide nothing.

Ultimately, I realized I could have easily found a DVD of Shrek for $1-2 at practically any used bookstore, and I would have not only saved money, I would have avoided giving my money to Daddy Bezos, and gained ownership of a fairly permanent copy of the movie. And what could be better than the ability to watch Shrek on repeat for the rest of my life?

So basically my husband and I have started a DVD collection. We have date nights at used bookstores and pick up all kinds of unexpected treasures. Childhood favorites we had forgotten about, classics we haven't seen in years, DVDs with extensive special features, some with really nicely designed packaging. For some reason, browsing the DVD shelves is like the fun version of scrolling aimlessly through endless streaming catalogs and not being able to decide what to watch. It reminds me of one of the greatest joys of growing up as a child in the 90s - getting to go to Blockbuster (or in my neighborhood, "Mr. Movies") and frolicking around with your friends/siblings, physically checking out the cases, and debating over which ones are the best (Mom is on a budget, after all.)

I have been pleasantly surprised by how novel and enjoyable it has been.

Owning Music

My second thing started when I realized I really want to spend more time away from my phone. I've also been jogging recently and have been annoyed/confused about what to do with this massive phone that I want with me for music (I try to buy small phones but they barely exist anymore.) Probably inspired by my recent "discovery" of the joys of DVDs, I decided to spend $25 on a tiny, simple mp3 player that clips onto my clothes. A music player that isn't also a social media machine which is connected to the entire world and every human being I've ever known, at any given moment. Just music.

Then I realized that I haven't owned any music (or paid any artist directly for their music,) in at least a decade. I genuinely didn't even know where to buy music at first. The last time I bought music, I was 17 years old and hadn't yet freed myself from the Apple/itunes ecosystem ("freed" myself from it, right into the Google/Pixel ecosystem, of course.) Someone suggested Bandcamp, as when you buy music on there it comes with the option to download mp3s. I've had fun discovering some new artists on the platform. And although I really like supporting artists directly, to make my collection a bit more frugal I've started picking up a couple cheap CDs when we go shopping for DVDs. I just export the music as mp3s with some free software. I'm not an audiophile, and the quality seems just fine to me. Next, I think I'll visit my parents and get some mp3s from their boomer CD collection.

All of this also prompted my husband to dig out an old hard drive of his, which we found had a massive goldmine of all the music he listened to in college (and he had/has fantastic taste in music!) Some of my favorites, plus all kinds of random bands and genres that I wouldn't necessarily think to seek out on Spotify, but they're in my lovely collection now, so why not listen? :)

(A bonus to exploring the old media was finding some ridiculous photos and memes he had saved from college. Bless him and his radical vulnerability, I couldn't believe he was willing to browse the hard drive with me while having no idea what was on it. Thankfully for him, it was mostly just good music, along with photos of sharks with large human teeth photoshopped onto them. He is so pure.)

The DVD/MP3 thing seems like a no brainer now that I've tried it, and I'm sure it will seem silly to some of you, but it simply didn't occur to me for years. Maybe something about my age - being 31 years old, the transition to streaming media happened just about exactly when I graduated from highschool and became an adult. I had no personal DVD collections to bring to my first apartment, and I certainly wasn't going to buy any - Netflix was all the rage, around $8/month, and practically no one actually paid for their own account. And having only purchased one or two physical CDs in my life, I did have a large mp3 collection from iTunes and Limewire as a teenager, but that died pretty quickly once we moved from iPods to phones for music, which happened around the same time. I think I transferred MP3s to my first one or two phones and lost them after that.

Anyway, in a world increasingly impacted by enshittification, with companies relentlessly pushing towards the breaking point of what we will tolerate when it comes to how we spend our time and money, I'm sure there are other "hidden in plain sight" realizations I'm missing out on.

What I mean by short/immediate thinking vs. long-term.. let's take the experience of learning a new skill (for example, riding a bike). In the beginning, the skill is difficult as you're carving out those new neural pathways in your mind. It's grating, unnatural, uncomfortable. It seems that the rational way to think about this experience is "yes, it feels uncomfortable right now, but if I keep attempting this, eventually the discomfort will lessen, and it will get easier. It won't be like this forever." For myself (and I assume some others?), I instead get stuck in a mindset of only seeing the present moment: "this sucks and therefore it will always suck!" Yeah, I can catch myself thinking this way and correct it to consider the long-term, but that's not my default. My default is short term, now, only now.

You could expand this to so many things: enduring temporary struggles and not letting them get you down (the situation isn't permanent, it will change), not partaking in addictive behaviors (deciding not to do something that might feel good, because you're considering the long term consequences), procrastination... list goes on and on. To me, it always seems rational to consider long term impact of your actions. If you don't, it seems you're blowing off this entire swath of information which could/should inform your decisions in the present moment.

On the flipside, I'm not saying you should only think of the future and disregard the present... just when making decisions, it seems better to consider both, that's all..

I have been trying for 10 months to change this about myself, yet I continue to slip back into this pattern of constant "now" thinking. I know it leads to irrational decisions. I'd love to hear others thoughts on this. Have you struggled with this? If so, how did you manage to overcome these thinking patterns? For anyone: are you more naturally a "now" thinker, or are you lucky enough to naturally consider the long-term, or maybe you bounce between both? I have no idea if this is a common experience, or if it means something is inherently irrational about the way I think.

Before I visited Suzuka, I found reading people's experiences (mainly on reddit) to be helpful, so I thought I'd post my own thoughts from driving down this past weekend.

I came from Tokyo, driving to Suzuka and parking in one of their official lots, and I stayed at a small resort about 50 minutes by car away from the track. The race tickets, and parking ticket were bought from the official "mobilityland" website, and it was 14,000 yen for a parking pass for the weekend, and I paid I think about 9000 yen to get there, and 6500 yen on the way back in tolls. For two people it worked out to be cheaper then the trains (and more fun to drive it!). They had some cheaper parking options as well in an unpaved lot, but I get the feeling the official parking passes sell out super quick, so you should take what you can get. There was a lot of unofficial lots nearby selling day parking, but I think you'd have to arrive very early to use them since most of them were full by the time I strolled up to the official lots around 9-10am. Speaking of which, if you buy the official parking ticket, you get an exact assigned space to use for the whole weekend, so no roving up and down the lots looking for a space. Also some people were sleeping in their cars as well so that's an option if you want to save on a hotel..

Crowds (cars and people) were managed really well. I was dreading leaving the parking lot at the end of the race, but I got out before it was crowded at all, and was able to make a beeline for the highways.

About the stands, my tickets were in Q1, at the final corners closest to the track. Aside from seeing Logan's accident in qualifying they weren't the best seats. The monitor was absolutely worthless, it was so small and so far away that without binoculars you couldn't tell the position of anyone on the track, or what lap they were on. There was also a pole blocking the middle of the monitor as well which was very distracting. Washrooms were quite far from these stands as well, although underneath the neighboring Q2 stands there was a water bottle filling machine which was pretty nice. Speakers were playing only the Japanese audio, and they have a FM radio station with the same Japanese commentary. I had hoped to get live timings on my phone, but there was basically no internet due to the huge number of people.

If anyone has questions, please ask. Overall I had a great time, although after the exciting Singapore race prior to Suzuka, this was pretty boring by comparison. Max held the lead at the first corner, and he just extended the lead over the whole race. Seeing Perez get retired and then suddenly show up again was really weird/ confusing, also it was good to see Sainz fighting with the Mercs.

Recently I've been getting Instagram ads for those "side quest" decks that are designed to make you do more spontaneous things on a day to day basis. Things like, "Go to a local coffee shop you've never been to" or "Talk to a stranger". I've been slowly sinking into the fall season apathy and winter blues and have been looking to spice my life up, but I kinda don't wanna spend money on a bunch of cards.

What are your experiences with spontaneity in your daily life? Anything exciting that has come out of it?

This year I spent a bunch of time in different countries and wrote about it a month ago here

I'm curious of what other people say when someone (say, a coworker or a complete stranger) asks prying questions-- or even questions you just don't feel like answering!

Personally, I enjoy giving irrelevant answers to the busybody I run into at least once a week, from the classic "I'm going to iron my dog" (more of an excuse, but still great for befuddling), to the recent favorite: "This human suit is chafing and I need to remove it to apply baby powder."

Minor Starfield lore spoiler's ahead

Originally written for /r/games, but the last discussion thread of Starfield in that place saw many user who said they personally like the game downvoted and replied to by mentally-questionable individuals that said not-so-nice things.

As I pass 170 hours in Bethesda newest, hottest, controversial game. I am happy because it is just as fun as I had hoped it to be.
Yet as I explore the cities it has to offer there is always a small detail that I keep failing to ignore (whenever I'm not busy thinking of new ship designs that is).

200,000 units are ready with a million more on the way

So say the slender being that has been tasked with creating an army to defend a galactic spanning government of countless worlds. At this point Montgomery, Zhukov, MacArthur, Jodl, or any-other-WW2-command-figure-of-your-choosing are rolling on the ground clapping each other's backs laughing their socks off. Because 1.2 million is an absolutely puny and pathetic number of troops for a galactic war.
I'm no Star Wars deep lore fan, I understand that fans and later authors has since tried to 'fix it' by making the Clone War more that just the clones. And yet those 1.2M clones was all there was when episode 2 released to theatres.
Most Sci-fi writings has similar a problem with scaling to their subject. It is not news. It even has a tv tropes page (the page is more about distances, but it's in the same ballpark).

Quest for the Peoplefield

So where does Starfield go wrong in this? The ships are puny. The wars and the numbers stated are puny.
Certainty more ways than one, but the one that I wish to focus on is this: where the hell are all the people?
A brief summary of the lore. Humanity has invented FTL and has seemingly solved all energy problems. They had to evacuate Earth, but this was successful and so the starfield should be absolutely teeming with tens of billions of human souls spreading to all corners of the galaxy and its many already habitable worlds.
And yet, Starfield feels so barren. I see no grand interstellar civilizations. Only dirt huts on a hill surrounded by walls that support barely a thousand people. Yet this dirt hill is supposed to be a capital or an interstellar superpower. Heck, they are even scared shitless of their own fauna.
The opposites capital is no dirt hill, yet still smaller than a modern earth country town.
And it's not like the main population centers are just outside player-accessible areas. All the NPCs ever talk about are Akila, New Atlantis, and Neon. These tiny puny cities.
It doesn't feel like the evacuation of Earth was a success. It feels like it was a catastrophe, and all that remains are scattered remnants playing civilization.

And yet... The Starfield is actually lively, just not where it should be. There is a scale imbalance, because spread across nearly every world in the settled systems are countless research stations, outposts, deserted or populated, you name it.
Yes, those procedually-generated buildings that spawn nearly everywhere you land in the settled systems.
Where did these come from? Surely the UC couldn't have built them. Manning just the ones that I have come across in my playthrough would empty New Atlantis 10 times over!

Bethesda built their open-world game style upon Fallout and Elder Scrolls. For both it makes sense that the worlds are sparely populated. One being post-apocalyptic wasteland, and the other a medieval society.
But now they have built something in a completely different realm. But they way in which Bethesda built the scale at which the game is presented remains the same.
So why did they go with this approach? I don't know. Maybe they just like making "small" worlds and didn't want to fit the new universe. Maybe the idea of 'climbing any mountain you can see' is a very hard rule and they didn't want to limit player movement in metropolises, that would undoubtedly be unfeasible to make fully traversable.

But lets pretend they actually tried. And perhaps it can be done without really changing how the game is designed or played.

So you can do it better huh?

A Microsoft executive plays the game as it's nearing launch. He feels there is something missing with the scale of the Starfield universe.
So he does the only rational thing he can think of and storms into the street and picks the first rando he can find, puts the Bethesda crown upon his head, and orders him to fix Starfield's problem of scale.
The exec is later found to be mentally ill and fired, but it does not matter for I am now king of Bethesda and my words are design directives.

Tell, don't show

The simple solution that requires no real work but some change in lore. New Atlantis is no longer a capital, just a administrative and diplomatic outpost. Akila is now just a small border city. The real population centers are now on entirely different worlds. Inaccessible to the player.
Why can't players go there? Well it shouldn't take much suspension of disbelief to acknowledge that governments might not want any random idiot, in a flying hunk of metal capable of tearing space-time at it seams, to go anywhere near their main population centers without considerable control.
NPCs should no longer talk of sprawling New Atlantis, Neon, or Akila, but rather these other places that you can see on the map but are not allowed to go to.

Show enough

The population planets are now accessible, but restricted in where you can land freely. On the map it should show big cities. And just like how you cannot land in water, you can neither land anywhere in cities or its surroundings.
Just like with New Atlantis and Akila, you can land at a designated spot. The difference is when you look into the horizon, because rather than a procedurally generated landscape you will instead see a sprawling metropolis that tells you "Yes here! Here are all the people!".
The other change would be that, unlike the landscape, if you try to go beyond the player-area of the city you will hit a wall. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
New Atlantis and Akila can stay, but like the other solution they would change status.

All in all the scale issue is no big problem and the game is fine as it is. This was just something that has been on mind for some time and I wanted to put it to writing. So do you agree that Starfield has a scale problem? If yes, how would you fix it? Or maybe I missed some crucial info-dump and the entire premise of this writing is wrong?

I have Bipolar I with minor psychosis, CPTSD and OCD. I was born into an emotionally abusive family, and they are the only people i know, because i am also chronically alone and have dealt with feelings of loneliness on some level since i was a young kid. I had some online friends who helped me a lot with mental health issues but i lost access to them. The main reason im suicidal is because i feel like i have really bad luck. No matter what i do it ends up amounting to nothing. Everytime i start having hope i lose it because something bad happens to me again.
I hear about mental illness and people having a successful life despite it and despite feeling hopeless, but i just dont see that its possible to ever have a life worth living.
I really hope there are other people who relate, or maybe people who used to be that hopeless but ended up living a good life.

I've been climbing for about 2 years now and yesterday I was finally able to complete my most difficult route yet without stopping for a break! I've tried this 6C about 15 times or so and only finished it twice, but I usually fall or have to stop to rest in the middle, so I was really pleased I did it in one!

What about you guys?

(P.s apologies if this is the wrong place for this. At first I was going to post in ~sport but that looked more like pro sport news)

Title says it all. I'm only in my late 20s and I've been his primary care taker for most of my adult life. There isn't any other person I've spent more time with in my entire life. I'm trying to prepare myself for when the moment he's gone and I know it's going crush me all the same.

This will be my greatest loss in life so far. I know everyone goes through something like this. What did you do when a moment like this came? What did you do when it felt like you couldn't get up? I have know idea how I'm going to get through this, I just have to believe I will.

EDIT: Thank you for all your kind words and we'll wishes. My dad passed away September 23, 3:30 PM local time with his boys by his side. I'll love him and miss him every single day.

First of all, this is a lot about me and myself and I'm sorry it's a bit self-centered; it's been bouncing around my head and I want to get it out somewhere. Please let me know if this isn't appropriate here.

Secondly, teachers or those in training to become one: I want to hear your thoughts on this question.

Why am I becoming a teacher?

I've been finding that I'm asking this question of myself a lot lately. My goal is and always has been the same for years: I want to teach, I feel good teaching, I feel I have a purpose and that purpose has been what's driven me forward when I wanted to give up. Truly though - why do I want to be a teacher?

I could do the same style of work in other settings. I could become a tutor, self-employed or otherwise, and assist students in a specific capacity. I could be a YouTuber, creating video essays on self-researched subjects of passion. I could be a writer, bringing the same content through literature to a wholly different audience. In all of these, there is the potential to make more money, reach a wider audience, and leave a more indelible impact upon the world.

So, why am I becoming a teacher?

15 years ago, I dropped out of college, suffering depression. I wasn't the only one depressed; aside from the millions of others reeling from mental health issues, the economy was entering a recession in 2008. I was a NEET - jobless, out of school, and seemingly stuck. My family (read: my dad, stepmom, and sisters) had abandoned me - they had other matters to worry about than their wayward son - and I was fortunate my mother whom I'd dissociated from years before reached out to me. With her help, I got back on my feet, moved across the country, and began looking for work with slight hope. I volunteered one day to read at the school she worked at, and the teacher in the room went to the admins and demanded I be hired on the spot. I was.

Thus began a journey of discovery. I was good at something, and I felt good about doing it. I felt something to replace my depression and self doubt: worthiness.

Over the years, I honed my craft and continued sporadically attending school - when I could afford it - in order to become able to lead my own classroom in our private school/daycare. That was 7 years ago, and I've been teaching prek (4-5 year olds) since then. I'm able to teach reading, writing, mathematics, chess, life lessons, history, biology, astronomy, geology, entomology... the list goes on and on. I have a passion for learning, and for sharing that learning.

Is that why I am becoming a teacher?

The biggest obstacle to achieving my ultimate dream - teaching in public schools - was always the degree. I had dropped out of college twice - in 2008 and again in 2013 - before finally completing an Associates degree in 2016. I felt that, financially, getting my bachelor's would never happen. Massive student loan debt (private debt north of $30k) and low wages in childcare meant I wasn't getting anywhere. Life changes though, and the stars aligned - the private debt was written off, I got out of defaulting on my federal loans, and just in time to qualify for a state program to get me in school again and have a full ride scholarship. It was happening!

Now we live in a post-pandemic world... Do I still want to become a teacher?

At first, attitudes were siding with teachers. There was sympathy for their struggles and worries, the low pay and high barrier to entry. That quickly changed, as it did for medical workers and others in the pandemic world. Teachers struggle more now than they have before. Fewer resources, more troubled students that desperately need help, more resistance from parents and communities trying to prove that teachers and schools aren't necessary in the way they have been, and more burnout and shortages across the nation.

I see all this and yet I press on. Why?

The thing is, I'm not sure. My resolve is strong and I've been persistent and diligent in my schooling. I've worked too long and hard to give up this opportunity. Why do I still want to teach, though? Why not find an administrative job with potentially more pay and better work environment? Why not leave education altogether and use my skills elsewhere?

It comes back to what drove me forward in the first place: purpose. I feel in direct connection with the future by doing what I do. I feel like in some miniscule, imperceptible, but meaningful way, I can help create a better world tomorrow by doing what I do today. It gives my life meaning, and nobody and nothing can take that from me. I've changed hundreds, potentially thousands, of lives already. Students return years later to tell how much I meant to them - these are students I had known at ages 4 and 5 who still remember me a decade later!

So, why am I becoming a teacher?

Because someone has to do it, and that someone might as well be me. I enjoy my work, I enjoy the ups and downs, I enjoy the struggles and challenges and overcoming them, I enjoy making difficult topics understandable to young minds, I enjoy what I do even when I hate it. To me, that's love.

With good luck and a positive outlook, I'll be graduating with a degree in Early Childhood Education next September. It may not be prestigious, it may not make me a lot of money, but it will allow me to continue on the path I've set myself. Thanks for reading.

• What’s a mistake you’ve made recently?
• How and when did you realize you made it?
• What were the consequences of it?

The question is open to big serious mistakes and little silly ones alike. That said, please meet shares mistakes with kindness and compassion rather than judgment.

We are all imperfect humans, and mistakes are often how we learn. Let’s all learn together here.

One time I asked someone what they thought about the phrase "people are temporary" and it ended with them telling me:

I don't like saying goodbye to people because I don't know if it's going to be the last time.

That just stuck with me and really got me thinking how precious our time is.

In an effort to make life feel a little more joyful, I added a new calendar to my calendar app called "Nice things". In this calendar, I'm putting all sorts of nice upcoming things to look forward to (album/movie/game releases, the start of Fall, when my preorders will ship, upcoming eclipses and equinoxes and full moons, you name it). My goal is to feel more connected with the passage of time, rather than letting each day blur into the next. I want things to anchor and ground me each day.

Along the same lines, I'm curious: What are you looking forward to? What things on the horizon have you excited for the future? What would you put on a hypothetical "nice things" calendar?

Following yesterday's question about showering, I was really interested in how often everyone brushes their teeth. I know dentists recommend 1-3 times a day, with once being like "you'll be fine if you do it properly," and thrice being like "yo, don't brush too hard because you can damage your enamel," but I also know a lot of people do it more than three times a day and I suspect a lot of people do it less than once a day...

I try to do it twice a day...sometimes I miss my evening brushing because one of our cats sleeps in the bathroom so that she has her own space and if the dog (who wants to eat the cats) is already in the bedroom, sometimes I don't feel like escorting him out first. Not great, but at least I'll get it in the morning. And I do sometimes forget in the morning on weekends, but I try to do it as soon as I realize that I've forgotten, and I try to make sure I don't skip nighttime brushing if I forgot to brush in the morning.

I'm interested to know how often people shower or bathe - but I'd also be interested on your thoughts about other people's frequency. Do you feel strongly about how often one should be cleaning themselves, and what factors go into this? I would certainly hope it's reasonably frequent for warm-climate athletes, for example.

We all have something that makes us stand out. Sometimes it’s seen by others as a good thing; sometimes it’s not. Sometimes we love it ourselves; sometimes we don’t.

Tell me the story of when you discovered a meaningful difference about yourself.

(Any difference works here: major stuff, minor stuff, identities, abilities, preferences, etc.)

Also, I hope it should go without saying, but please make the comments an inclusive and supportive space.

Apologies for the wordy title. Generally speaking, I do not hesitate to ask for things - needs, wants, help - especially in a professional context.

I realize though that most people are not like me, and I think it would come across as a bit narcissistic if I started asking my acquaintances and friends about their perception of me. It's a bit of a self-serving question even here, but oh well.

In any case, I turn to you: what is your honest opinion about people that ask for what they want? Do you have a positive or negative perception of them? Or maybe you can share some interesting anecdotes.

I was thinking about this today as I heard about Instacart going public. I've never used Instacart because I refuse to pay the cost for the convenience of grocery delivery. I've paid for grocery delivery in other ways but instacart feels too much.
I've stopped paying for doordash, which I had never been big on, but the fees got too high

I have and will however pay for a cleaner to come clean my apartment every 3 weeks. I will also splurge on a car wash, as driving through an automatic wash with a fountain soda is a weird happy place for me.

What are your "absolutely will" spends and what are your "no way in hell" spends?

For context, this was neither in the US nor Europe. This is not my first language and some terms are direct translations since I am not aware of actual usage.

I'm coming from an intense experience: my first son is born. In the days before that, I cared for my pregnant wife during the passing of her mother, who spent 3 months in the hospital fighting multiple conditions, chiefly neurological.

Two days after the burial, we went to the hospital for several exams. My wife was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a potentially dangerous pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure.

We spent almost a week in the hospital. My wife did not want a c-section, so our doctor employed multiple methods to induce labor over the course of several days.

There are no men in the maternity ward. Men do not sweep floors, do not take calls, or take any position of care.

I did not see any men in the hallway, although I assumed there were some hidden in the bedrooms.

When the nurses entered the room, they did not look at me. I was not a father, but rather a "companion" whatever you would use in English for someone who is just kind of there. When they had instructions pertaining to the care of my wife and son, they never addressed me. They only addressed me in matters lacking importance, like "Get me a towel", or "Is there any cotton left?".

The tone and body language were of contempt and distrust.

When my wife was soon to go into labor, I decided to go to the bathroom, since I expected to be locked in a room for many hours. When I left the bathroom (which was in the same room where she was), my wife was not there. She was gone. I looked for information and realized she was in the delivery room.

When I was in the bathroom, someone asked me to get something for the doula (a woman), but didn't tell me why. I did. You see, they had time to request me to get something for the doula, but couldn't use the same time to warn me that my wife was being taken to another floor.

That was incredibly traumatizing.

At every step, the message was very clear: "You are not welcome here". "You are not qualified to care for your wife and son". "You are man, and, therefore, a menace to this environment".

Well, fuck them. I was there for my wife since day one. In every contraction, every second she needed me, I was there.

I was the first person to touch my son when he left the womb.

We had to revolt to leave that place as soon as we could. Our personal pediatrician had to intervene because apparently, the maternity ward didn't really trust my wife either -- they just pretended. The kid was slightly underweight. I was convinced that the long stay at the hospital was the main factor impacting breastfeeding. My wife needed to mourn the loss of her mother and required some sense of normality and routine (we are so incredibly happy in our day-to-day, I was confident she would improve!). Turns out that I (and our doctor) were right. We're home now, and the kid's gaining weight again.

At every step of this process, I was invited not to care. "Get out, father, you are not needed here." "That is not a job for men, let the women do it for you".

Earlier today, a neighbor came asking "Are the girls helping you out?". I gotta be honest, I snapped. "No", I said. "This kid has a father". "Oh, but the feminine touch is special!". "It is not", I answered.

Well, fuck them, because I do care for my son, and I will continue to do so. I fully acknowledge and respect the special connection a mother has with their kids. I cannot bear a child, and I lack the ability to produce milk. Other than that, there are no tasks my wife can do that I cannot do as well.

I am not an angry person. Thinking about this makes me very angry and I hate that feeling. I feel a long-lasting trauma is forming. I'm pretty shook-up.

I love my son, I guess that ultimately that is all that matters.

I'm just glad I'm now home, and that I am no longer the only man in a place that considered me a foreign body, trying to eject me at every chance.

The original title I conceived of for this was “How are you your own hypocrite?” but I didn’t like that it came across as negative and judgmental. Nevertheless, you can use that as a jumping off point for what I’m trying to get at.

I think we all have ideals and beliefs and values that we simultaneously hold but also fail to meet on a regular basis. I also think these can be hard to identify. We all like to think that we’re consistent individuals and, when something is out of alignment, we often find very good reasons or explanations for why that is. Sometimes those can be valid, but sometimes they’re really just motivated reasoning aimed at keeping a sense of internal consistency in ourselves.

I’m interested in people exploring the inconsistent areas of themselves (it’s been something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately), but I think to do that this topic needs to be a space where people can be open, honest, and vulnerable.

Please do not jump on someone for the inconsistencies they share or for their failure to meet certain standards. Please do not use this as an opportunity to get in arguments with others.

The whole point of the thread is to explore difficult areas rather than judge them. If people feel that they will have to be pressured to defend themselves in doing so, they simply won’t comment and the whole thought experiment will be for moot. Think of this as a shared space for thoughtful self-reflection and commiseration rather than a battleground.

Last year (June 2022) I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. I had surgery (which left me with a permanent stoma) and I had a bit of adjuvant chemo to kill off any remaining cells. I've been discharged from oncology, and I've started my 5 year surveillance. Staging is complicated but my I was pT3pN2bM0 (tumour was stage three, I had lots of lymph node involvement, but no metastasis).

Alongside that I've had problems with gall stones, starting in April 2022, and ending this year when my gall bladder was removed.

When I tell people about the cancer they pull on their serious face and say things like "oh no how awful hope you're okay glad to see you're doing so well now it's good news that you're in remission", and when I tell them about the gall bladder they're kind of baffled and not at all concerned.

But here's the thing: cancer was not such a big deal. I do have a permanent stoma, but for some reason my brain has disconnected that from being a cancer thing. I had a relatively gentle chemo regimen (short, and it was CAPOX which is less rough than other meds) -- don't get me wrong, chemo SUCKED, and left me with neuropathy in my feet, but I got through it. When I compare that to repeated[1] hospitalisation for cholangitis (a gall stone stuck in a bile duct causes bile to back up and that causes pretty severe problems), well, those repeated hospitalisations were a much bigger deal for me.

English NHS hospitals tend to have dorm wards. In the ward I was on there were 6 beds to a bay, and 5 bays to the ward, and then a further 6 or 7 single occupancy rooms. Some of the bays were smaller, and had 4 beds. Once the hospital was very full, so I spent a night in a bed (proper bed, not a trolley) but in the ward corridor. I spent over 60 days in hospital for the gall bladder stuff, and just 7 as an inpatient for the cancer. (And Sartre was right, hell is other people ).

There are lots of health forums online and I always feel deeply uncomfortable in the cancer forums. I feel okay in the ostomy forums[2], but I don't use them because they're all a bit odd.

I dunno what the point of this post is. Maybe it's "sometimes cancer is treatable and the person isn't particularly bothered by it", or maybe "people with cancer want support, but sometimes that support won't have anything to do with cancer".

[1] When a stone gets stuck they need to do some emergency work to stabilise you and remove the stone. And if you keep getting stones stuck they want to remove your gall bladder. There's some discussion about when to take the gall bladder out. Hypothetical Bob has a stone stuck - you stabilise him, so do you take the gall bladder out then (when he's still recovering) and then monitor him for a few days and discharge him home to fully recover? Or do you stabilise him, then discharge him home to recover, and call him back for planned surgery to remove the gall bladder? Evidence is inconclusive about which is best, so there's a bit of a lottery depending where you are in England. My local hospital took the later approach. The problem was that i) I had cancer, ii) My gall bladder was very active in kicking stones out and iii) we had several Covid pandemic waves causing huge disruption. These meant that by the time I had recovered enough to have the surgery, and they had a space on their surgical list for me, my gall bladder had kicked out another stone and that reset the whole thing again. They gave up this year and took my gallbladder out.

[2] Online health forums can have this really weird dynamic. English speaking forums are usually dominated by Americans, and Americans fall into 2 groups: 1) People with bad or no insurance and 2) People with good insurance. When someone says "I'm having this problem" the replies from the first group will all be along the lines of "go the the vet and buy this fish medicine" and the second group will be "here's a huge list of tests and products to use".

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I am in England, and so I am very fortunate because all treatment is free and a cancer diagnosis opens up quite a lot of support.

I'm curious to hear about the people or things in your city or region that add their own unique charm or character -- perhaps they're unknown or barely known to the rest of the world but are important culturally to your area.

I'll throw out a few of my picks for Dallas, Texas:

• The Ticket is a local sports radio station that's been around since 1995, which is an eternity when it comes to AM/FM radio. On the surface, this doesn't sound that interesting, but the station goes way deeper than just sports. Most of the listeners are loyal and almost cult-like in their dedication. People say that when they listen, it's as if they're just hearing some of their friends talk on the radio. I'd go as far as to say it has introduced some vernacular into the Dallas area lexicon that you don't typically find in other places (i.e. you can have a conversation with someone and they'll say a phrase in a way that instantly tips you off that they're a listener).
• Robert Wilonsky is a local writer/historian/everything Dallas guy. Not only is he passionate about Dallas, but he has a knack for writing and can turn a very boring civil matter into an exciting read.