jacksheerin's recent activity

  1. Comment on Those who journal, how do you do so authentically? (How to stop “self-editing” or “censoring” yourself and your thoughts?) in ~health.mental

    jacksheerin
    Link
    So "The Artist's Way" was apparently written in 1992. I found it in 1990-something and it was a huge help to me in many ways. The most important thing I learned was a wonderful tool to accomplish...

    So "The Artist's Way" was apparently written in 1992. I found it in 1990-something and it was a huge help to me in many ways. The most important thing I learned was a wonderful tool to accomplish exactly what you are seeking here.

    That tool is simple, powerful, a little scary and so very pretty. Over the years I have recommended it to several people and it has worked for each and every one of them. I hope the same is true for you.

    The tool is called “Morning Pages”.

    So what are “Morning Pages”?

    It is 3 pages, handwritten. Front of one page, back of it, then front of next. Done. This exercise is performed each morning, first thing after you wake up.

    What do you write?

    Whatever you like. You fill the pages up. Each morning. That’s the discipline, that’s the commitment. That’s it.

    If you try this and you don’t know what to write start with:

    “This guy on the internet said I should try this and who the hell knows maybe he’s an idiot why am I doing this nonsense…” and on and on and on.

    Until you fill the pages and meet the discipline.

    You won’t carry on like that for 3 pages, no one does. You may start like that.. I often do. Usually about halfway through page one the part of me that wants to talk to the rest of me takes over and controls the pen.

    Your handwriting does not matter. Your grammar does not matter. Your sentence structure does not matter.

    What matters is you do it every day and you fill the 3 pages and meet the discipline. That’s it.

    You mention “self-censoring” and “self-editing, avoiding writing certain thoughts or feelings and just overall not being as authentic or honest or genuine as I should be”. None of that matters here. The pages do not matter. The act of writing them is all that is needed. When you are done with your pages burn them if you wish. Put them in the trash. Make paper airplanes and toss them out a window. Whatever you like. The doing is all that matters.

    Why would you censor that?

    Do it for a month like that and you won’t have to ask yourself if you should keep the pages going forward. You’ll tell yourself. You’ll write it down and make sure you know what you want to do. Maybe you don’t do it every day, eventually. Who knows? Well you will and you’ll tell yourself when you know. It really is this easy.

    I do mine in a composition pad like this. It’s cheap. It fills the requirements and I can’t rip pages out without making the whole thing a sloppy mess. I like that. I also don’t write it on the weekends. That’s me. I’d suggest you make a commitment to every day for a month and then let yourself tell yourself what you need to do going forward.

    Try it. Everyone I have suggested it to that has tried it has learned and grown from it. You will too, if you want too.

    Best of luck!

    4 votes

  2. Comment on Any Kult players? in ~games.tabletop

    jacksheerin
    (edited )
    Link
    I ran Kult back in the 90's. IIRC 1995-99 most likely. I distinctly remember the Kult 3rd edition cover but I suspect I must have been playing 2nd ed. The 3rd ed. came out in 2001 and...

    I ran Kult back in the 90's. IIRC 1995-99 most likely. I distinctly remember the Kult 3rd edition cover but I suspect I must have been playing 2nd ed. The 3rd ed. came out in 2001 and college/family/work had long since split up my old group by that time!

    It's a hell of a game. For a certain type of person. Kult focuses on divinity, depravity, addiction, insanity.. etc. The older editions had a stat that addressed your characters mental balance. As you indulged in too many heinous acts you'd lose the balance and your physical form would begin to represent the monstrosity you were indulging in. The idea behind this stat was as you went up or down you could eventually reach a divine state, "awakening", and pierce the veil of our current, illusory, reality.

    Not exactly light stuff is it?

    However for a mature and experienced group it's a lot of "fun", where fun is a dark and sinister exploration of mankind's best and worst.

    I honestly don't know how well it would go for a group of inexperienced players going into their first game.

    do you know of any TTRPGs that are similar? Vampire the Masquerade, maybe?

    Vampire would be much more accessible to new players. Similar in theme? IMO no, but fun and not a bad start for new players. I ran a lot of Vamp back in the day, it's a great game.

    If you want something a bit closer to the vibe of Kult consider Call of Cthulhu. Cthulhu is a horror game based on Lovecraftian themes, but vastly simpler than Kult. The character development is not there at all really. When I ran Cthulhu I used to write spare NPC's that I could hand out to my players when they were killed off so they could get back into the action!

    One thing that simplicity accomplishes is it speeds getting new players involved and in on the action without a massive commitment. If you try it out and everyone enjoys it.. well the first hit was free, always is.. "I've got this other game I wanted to try."

    It's hard to gauge its popularity just from YouTube videos

    So back in the day I used to run a lot of Vampire LARP's at conventions in the NYC/NJ area. I don't recall EVER seeing a Kult game listed on any schedule ever. I don't believe it was ever "popular". Good? Yes, for the right people, but not popular.

    I don't mean to talk badly about Kult. I loved the game and enjoyed running it and writing my campaigns, but it's not an easy game to start with.

    2 votes

  3. Comment on Could we get a ~jokes, ~humor or ~funny group on Tildes? in ~tildes

    jacksheerin
    Link Parent
    They do provide one thing to the community. They provide a sense of inclusion, validation and participation. If you post comments you belong. If your comments are upvoted then your belonging has...

    Often times, entire threads on serious topics could consist of responses aimed at sarcasm or “wittiness” for the sake of being funny. Ultimately, these threads provide nothing to the community.

    They do provide one thing to the community. They provide a sense of inclusion, validation and participation. If you post comments you belong. If your comments are upvoted then your belonging has been validated. The jokes/puns/memes are effortless participation. Little thought is required. Votes are nearly guaranteed and now you are "one of us." Everyone wants to be part of the group.

    However because it is so easy and effortless it's a cancer. Once these joke comments are allowed anywhere they will spread. People will learn the behavior in one area of the site and they will repeat it everywhere else. Attempting to understand a complex topic and comment upon it is work. A one line sarcastic quip is not. Once that behavior is rewarded it will not stop.

    There is nothing wrong with that sort of effortless participation ... but I am not interested in it. Is the rest of the group? People want this because they want to belong and they do not want to put in the work of commenting/posting worthwhile content ... but the group decides what is appropriate and what belongs.

    If we "stay serious" that will exclude some people. Good. There are plenty of other places for the content they desire. They'll find them. No harm done.

    12 votes

  4. Comment on Near-death experiences in ~talk

    jacksheerin
    Link
    Eight or nine years ago... I honestly can't be certain, I was riding home from a gas station having purchased a 6 pack of PBR "pounders". I had not had anything to drink, I don't ride motorcycles...

    Eight or nine years ago... I honestly can't be certain, I was riding home from a gas station having purchased a 6 pack of PBR "pounders". I had not had anything to drink, I don't ride motorcycles with alcohol in my system. However my wife and I were moving out to a new place and I was packing up my tools and I thought "Jump on the bike and get some beer and come home and pack up your tools." So I got on my KTM 400 RXC and I rode out to get some beer. On the way home a deer came out of the woods and hit the back of my bike a few inches in front of my rear axle. She was apparently behind me when she hit. I probably had little time, or chance, to react.

    I don't know. I don't remember any of it. I know she hit behind my sight line from looking at the mark she left on my swing arm. I know she died on impact because my neighbor told me she was laying there after the accident. I know I was in the hospital for a long time and I am very lucky.

    I know I wasn't speeding because the police told me I wasn't speeding. I don't know that they are right but this is consistent with my habits. I didn't want my neighbors to hate me so I rode like a gentlemen a few miles from the house.. I was ... reasonable away from the house.

    I was in the hospital for a good long time. I was "normal" when they released me. I had suffered a "traumatic brain injury" A TBI. But I passed their tests. I got back to being me a few years later. I remember it. It's remarkable to wake up again.
    I am very fortunate.

    When I was in the coma a guy who I'm not going to name called me and got my wife on the phone. He asked her if I still wanted to be a RiderCoach for the MSF. She said "Well he's in a coma and uh.."

    He said "Well if he recovers and wants the job let him know he has a spot."

    So anyway I took the job. Awhile later. And I am back now. Waking up is a trip.

    Feels like home after a minute though.

    Wear helmets. Take precautions. Don't do (too much) stupid and best of luck.

    Sometimes you don't see life until you almost lose it. -J

    8 votes

  5. Comment on What is your favorite TV show that you rewatch often? in ~tv

    jacksheerin
    (edited )
    Link
    Without a doubt the British series Utopia. If the first 5 minutes of season 1 ep 1 doesn't hook you then move along. It got me that quick. I don't rewatch it "every year" but I do rewatch it...

    Without a doubt the British series Utopia.

    If the first 5 minutes of season 1 ep 1 doesn't hook you then move along. It got me that quick. I don't rewatch it "every year" but I do rewatch it "often".

    The original was made in 2013/14 and then in 2020 an American version was made as well. I was hesitant to watch it thinking they would destroy something I valued but then I saw John Cusak was involved and I was in. No regrets there.

    Is it as good as the UK version? IMO no. But it could have been.. it came close. It's well worth the time. I've rarely watched something as good.

    Edit: I'm rewatching the UK version now... because I have too. The American version furthers the plot a bit more and that is awesome. They are both excellent.

  6. Comment on I, like many of you came from Reddit. But what brought you to Reddit? in ~tech

    jacksheerin
    Link
    17 year club on reddit here. There was a list floating about at one point of the first 5000 users, I am one of those apparently... though I can't find the list anymore! Anyway I came to reddit in...

    17 year club on reddit here. There was a list floating about at one point of the first 5000 users, I am one of those apparently... though I can't find the list anymore! Anyway I came to reddit in the early days, when it was genuinely a good site. I hear people calling reddit "social media" and that sort of freaks me out. To me it was a discussion forum and link aggregator. I did actually meet and interact with many people I met on reddit back then though, so who knows. I came to reddit from Usenet. Usenet was basically turning into bins and spam and reddit was similar to what I had found in the alt.whatever discussion groups. I found Usenet when I was in university and that then reddit then here and who knows where else is my trajectory.

    Tildes is reminding me of reddit in the early days, back when we actually had rules and they were enforced. It's nice. I hope it lasts a while

    2 votes

  7. Comment on Introductions | June 2023, part 2 in ~talk

    jacksheerin
    Link
    Hi everyone! I'm Jack. Yet another reddit refugee... sort of. Deimos sent me an invite and I activated the account in 2018 but I never used it until a few days ago. So anyway I was/am a 17 year...

    Hi everyone! I'm Jack. Yet another reddit refugee... sort of. Deimos sent me an invite and I activated the account in 2018 but I never used it until a few days ago. So anyway I was/am a 17 year vet of Reddit. I mod a couple of small subs now but I used to mod /r/motorcycles back in the day. Eventually the sub changed around me and I wasn't a good fit so I stepped down.. at this point it feels like Reddit has changed as well and I'm once again not a good fit. That's ok, this seems like a good spot. I have been pleasantly surprised to see the amount of D&D and RPG posts on the main page here. I'm old enough that I started playing D&D in the very late 80's. Red Box anyone? It was weird and not cool at all and it's strange for me to see RPG's being accepted and normalized. So cool. I used to run Vampire LARP's in the late 90's. I did a Cthulhu LARP once. So uh.. do I do any non-dork stuff? Um.. I'm a linux user? I'm an english major though and my computer-fu is a mess of "Whatever it's mostly working close enough."

    Oh, and I read a lot of books, english major, go figure. I am slightly addicted to ellipsis .. Thanks for the invite Deimos! Sorry it took so long to get myself here!

    5 votes