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.

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.

There's a good thread going around on Tildes right now about sleep hygiene tips. One of those is making sure you stop using your electronics before bed, to help with circadian rhythms and whatnot.

Determined to make a fool of myself in spite of the above thread, last night I stayed up until 4am in bed reading various junk sites on my phone. As a consequence, I slept in until noon 😭. I don't want to do this anymore! I want a regular sleep schedule... 11-7 or 12-8 would be my dream.

I've tried blocking the problematic sites in the past, and it largely works for me for several months... Until I hit a bad mood patch and get antsy and bored, craving the dopamine hits, wanting to turn my brain off and just scroll mindlessly. (It's very much a self-soothe behavior...)

I think it would be easier to solve this problem if I had an arsenal of things to do that are nice and engaging, but don't involve using a phone or computer. Yet, I'm at a bit of a loss... Seemingly everything involves a computer or screen one way or another these days. I'd love an e-ink device that let's me listen to Spotify or something, but alas, I think I might need to look into low-tech solutions.

What do you do at night that doesn't involve screen time?

I would've gotten the Proton Black Friday offer, but it's only valid for upgrades, not for renewing my current account type. Aside from that I'm looking at:

• Affinity 2 (graphic design software)
• Asesprite (graphic design software)
• Curiosity Stream (streaming service for documentaries)
• Kindle Scribe (I'm particularly intrigued by the pen/notebook functionality on this e-reader)

How about you?

Edit 2023-11-27 - I ended up getting the Affinity deal because it was an additional discount on top of the V1 upgrade discount! So I was able to get the entire V2 package for about 67 USD. The Black Friday discount is 40% and then the upgrade discount is 25% on top of that.

I also would've wanted to get the hydroxyapatite toothpaste from my fave floss brand, Cocofloss (25% off the entire site for Black Friday) but it was out of stock.

Inspired by an old topic from 2021 on here: https://tild.es/uti
How do you think?
Have you ever thought about how you think?

Do you have a voice in your head? Is it your own voice? Do you think in visuals? How strong are the visuals?

Let's have a conversation about it. We all think differently!

As an exercise, if I asked you to sit down and solve a cross word in silence, how would you think it through?

Edit: thanks for all the very interesting and very insightful replies! I've been reading them today and I really appreciate everyone's input.

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.

Where do you think Tildes will be in 10 years? Will it still be around? How will the world be different from today? Do you think the world will be a better place? Be as positive or morbid as you want. Or, just say something, share something, post a link, tell a joke, give some advice. Then in ten years we can all come back to this thread and have a laugh... hopefully.

Personally, I like to check the South Park Controversies Page every now and then.

The page on Quantum Entanglement is fascinating and has so many rabbit hole links that lead to other rabbit holes themselves. I still go back and re-read them here and there to improve my understanding and check for laymen's updates without all pop-science nonsense you encounter elsewhere.

I'll come back and post a few more when I can think of them!

TW for obvious reasons

As the title says. Mass shooting in a mall/concert hall, at least 40 people dead, over 100 injured. (UPD a day later: the count is now up to 133+ dead, 145+ injured)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Crocus_City_Hall_attack

Luckily I live on the opposite side of Moscow from where it happened, but both my girlfriend and my best friend (and a bunch of their friends as well) live near that area. Nothing happened to them, but it's still very scary and everyone's afraid that more shootings can happen soon.

Some of their friends said they heard gunshots directly under their windows. My gf had a very strong panic attack and still can't go to bed.

I'm not as scared myself because as I mentioned, I live far away from that area, but I'm still very worried for all of the people I know who live there.

That's it, I just felt like I wanted to share this with someone.

Hey everyone! I thought since the community has grown quite substantially since I last asked this question^[1] it would be nice to bring it back up again. Without getting into whether or not the specific idea that "strong opinions, weakly held" may or may not have merit, I think having flexibility in your thinking and not holding on to opinions out of loyalty or inertia is a valuable skill to have. So, small or big, what is something that you changed your mind about this year?

[1] https://tildes.net/~talk/11mw/what_is_something_you_have_changed_your_mind_about_in_the_last_year

Whether you work indoors or out on the field, with your hands or with your mind.
Whether you create things, fix them, sell them. Or whether you work with people or look after them. What gets you up in the morning, keeps you going through the day (or night) and makes it enjoyable? (or bearable!)

Every time I would be in the market for something particular, say, a keyboard, or a camping tent, I would ask google, “What is the best air fryer, Reddit.”

I would get the link to the subject, however niche it was, and see discussions from assumedly real folks talking about the subject I was curious about. It was informative, and I could research deeper into brands or products I didn’t know about before.

Is there another site that even comes close to that? Or are we currently in a dark period until something like that comes along? I don’t typically use advertised websites to tell me “lists of the top ten handheld gaming consoles.”

Just wondering if there’s an alternative to my previous method of research.

Just wondering how many average 10 year olds you think you can fight off before being overwhelmed. Here are the basic terms of fighting: the kids are very angry at you, each one will fight you until they get hurt enough to quit or become unconscious, you are unarmed, and you are in a gated school playground as the battle arena. The playground is about 50 feet around, closed gate around in an octagon and closes up top like a dome. First one kid comes at you, then it adds one each time you defeat a group. Defeat 1 and 2 come, defeat the 2 then 3 come, and so on. Each group arrives by sliding down a pole into the middle playground and sliding down the slide. From there, they rush at you full force.

I feel confident in my abilities to fight. I'm pretty sure I can get to group 13, so that would be roughly give or take 70 kids if I can take a few out in that round.

What do you think?

I was inspired to share this after seeing this comment on another thread: https://tildes.net/~talk/162y/not_entirely_sure_how_to_fill_the_void_reddit_has_left#comment-87j6

Again, new to tildes here, so not quite sure if this sort of thing fits. It's not really a question, more, sharing something I do that I thought could be interesting for others. Maybe it belongs in a different group.

So the last few years I've started doing this little exercise: I will pick a time frame (usually few days, but a 24 hour period is great). I will turn off the phone (not just silence, but turn it off), turn off my modem, turn off the radio and music, pretty much any electronic device, and just... sit there.

I get bored quickly. But when the boredom comes, I sit with it. I analyze it. I try to understand boredom itself, and the unpleasant sensation its causing. I try to be aware of any urge that comes to distract myself from it, and I deny that urge, and see what happens internally when I deny that urge.

The boredom is uncomfortable, I won't lie. I really want to do other things. But I realize I'm capable of enduring it, and I so I sit there, because I want to see what will happen. And then something kind of wonderful happens: once the initial discomfort passes, and I accept I'm going to keep doing this, in the absence of things to distraction myself with, my thoughts begin to gravitate towards things that are genuinely important to me. What are the problems that I want to solve? What are the ideas that I want to work on? How do I want to make the world a better place? (Not what the news tells me is important, or friends, or the internet, it's all fucking noise - what problems are important to me?) This sounds like it should be so obvious, of course you know what's important to you, right? But something about this exercise illuminates it (for me at least). Almost like, I've got this tiny little flashlight, that I can point to whatever is important to me (we all do). When I'm in society, connected, I find that everyone has their flashlight on. Then big companies, news outlets, whatever, they have these giant ones, spotlights, all pointing in different directions. When all of this is on at once, it's so bright I don't even notice my own. I'm constantly distracted. I start to wonder "huh, that spot is bright, I wonder if I'm pointing my flashlight there." It's so easy to get confused. It's only once I turn it all off, and the world is dark, that I can clearly see what I'm pointing at. It's just so easy then.

This is not meditation, actually it's pretty much the opposite. I am not trying to clear my mind at all. I'm trying to see where my thoughts go when it's free of noise. Where they go is very revealing to me.

I'm still uncomfortable with boredom, I don't think that's changed at all. But I've become comfortable with sitting with it, and the fruits of this exercise have made it worth it to me. Moreover, the more I've done this, the more uncomfortable I've become with all the noise. I used to think I loved being connected, but now that I realize I don't have to be, it's actually the opposite... I really don't like having my phone on, I don't like having my modem on, and I dislike news, politics, and lots of that kind of stuff. It makes me feel almost claustrophobic. I find a lot of calm in being away from all of that. I'm still very grateful for these things, I just feel uncomfortable being connected to them 24/7, and I like to be away.

I’ve noticed that when I’m not at work, I’m at the house and even when I think of going out, I can’t think of anything to do.

I enjoy going to the movies, but that’s pretty much the only getting out I do. When I hang out with friends, it’s typically to bars, but I’m feeling unfulfilled drinking to drink.

What is there to do?

Wasn't sure where to post this.

I needed a break, I am a reddit Mod and was hoping to become super active here as well. But, it was taking a bigger impact on my mental health than I knew.

I stopped posting here, on reddit and instagram (really the only platforms I use) and it really helped with my stress levels and even sleep patterns. I read waaaay more books and felt far more focused then I have been in years.

I dont know if there are any CGP Grey fans here but I am a big fan of his and was inspired by his choice to do the same.

http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/cyclops

Coming back into things I am thinking I will limit myself and try and work on pacing my internet usage.

Anyway, kind of a random post, but I wanted to share it with someone and I thought our community here would apreciate it (Reddit probably wouldn't).

“There are no girls on the internet” is one of the “rules of the internet” of the olden times. It was a tongue-in-cheek saying that meant two things. The first interpretation is that women don’t hang out on online forums because only loser guys do that. This obviously wasn’t totally true, but it felt true because of the second interpretation: gender doesn’t really exist on the internet, or at least it didn’t back then. Someone posting on IRC or 4Chan could be male, female, black, white, or any combination or race or gender, but you wouldn’t know that. Your post just existed in a void, completely separate from your social identity. While sexism and racism existed, someone wouldn’t be discriminated against on those grounds, because on the internet there are no girls. Only people.

People who brought up their gender were accused of being attention seekers who couldn’t get by on their own merits. This was probably just a shitty excuse to justify harassment (ie tits or gtfo), but there might have been some truth to the idea that your gender and race have no effect on the legitimacy of your opinion.

Today on the internet, a the “rule” “there are no girls on the internet” is completely done away with. Not only is the social makeup of the internet much more diverse today, all of the major networking sites have profiles on which you can proudly display your gender, race, sexuality, etc.

I only just now came to realize this difference as I was reading some threads that posted statements like “as a gay man” or “as a girl who...”. These kinds of statements used to attract ridicule, but are now accepted as the norm.

I’m not sure if this is an improvement or not. I do think it’s an improvement that harassment is no longer tolerated, but I struggle with the concept that it’s okay to that someone’s race/gender/etc can legitimize a claim, but it is not okay to think that it could deligitimize someone’s claim.

Again, I want to add a disclaimer that I do not think it is or ever was good to harass people, or to discriminate based on identity. I just want to start a conversation about how the internet has changed in this respect, and whether or not online discourse has been hurt by this change.

I recently turned 36 and found a sense of nostalgia sending me down a rabbit hole, mostly around the "old internet" of my childhood. I know "old" is subjective, but for me, it was the time period of like 1998 to 2005 - my middle and high school years.

AOL had just really brought the internet to the masses. I remember the mad rush of trying to log in to the Nickelodeon chatrooms and messaging my friends on AIM. Up until AIM shutdown a few years ago, I would log on every once in a while to my old account and just look at the usernames - recognizing friends, and trying to place others.

I had a group called "Pokemon" on my account, which sent me searching to find anything on an old Pokemon Battler bot for AIM that was by a developer, "CoolKid". I got to the point where I was beginning to think it was something I made up, before finally turning up "SuperPokemon! by CoolKid" on archive.org. I wonder whatever happened to the developer, as nothing about them remains on the internet, but I wish I could thank them for all the fun times I had with my friends.

Which then led me down to thinking of some of the online friends from my past. In retrospect, I wasn't as careful as I should have been online, but I never had any bad experiences - everyone was super nice and helpful in the little communities I found myself in. I've only been here a few days, but tildes reminds me of that time in my life.

Curious to hear from others: What random hits of nostalgia do you have you had lately? Is there some random, highly specific thing from your past that you miss, like my AIM Pokemon battler?

I just got home after a long, extraordinarily stressful, and sensory overload inducing appointment at a government office that I had to do to get some paperwork dealt with. Partway through it, I realized that some sort of stim/fidget toy would probably help stave off some of the worst of it, if I had something small I could keep in my purse. (Ideally something that wouldn't be too awkward to use in public... though I'm not concerned about looking a little awkward, that ship sailed long ago, haha.) Wondering if anyone here has some good recommendations on stim toys suitable for adults that I could bring with me next time, and/or any suggestions for unobtrusive ways to stim that I could do just on my own without needing anything special. I only found out I was autistic relatively recently (in my 30s), so most of this is still very new to me - any guidance is very appreciated!

Let me start by boiling this idea down to a couple of phrases that I've heard online. The first is one you've probably seen around here a few times; the idea of "Enshitification"- which i think basically boils down to "paying more and getting less". I know there's a better definition of it out there, but this is what it means to me: because of inflation and greed in general, things that used to be free or low-cost are not only becoming pricey, but their quality is degrading too.

Which brings me to the next point: between subscription services that basically say "you don't actually own this; you're just renting it", and otherwise being unable to afford things, in... other places... online, some were saying "Oh, at this rate, the new slogan will be 'You'll own nothing and be happy about it!'"

Also, I'd better bring in some context for the next part: I was able to leave the US, and am currently living in Asia. Which means I'm coming into more contact with various East Asian philosophies. And as I examine these philosophies, I have to ask "Is owning less ACTUALLY a bad idea?"

Now, I realize that in many ways this turns into an Eastern vs. Western philosophy argument. For starters, the idea of "individualism" and "you have your own stuff" is very central to Western ideology in the first place- to brush on a tangent with political ideology, I think part of the reason why words like "Communism" and "socialism" cause such a freak-out is because they bring up this idea of "Wait, I have to SHARE something? No, it's MINE!" (plus the extreme example of sharing toothbrushes is always used, and I think everyone can admit that's just gross and disgusting... but I digress). In fact, some of you may remember the phenomenon that came out several years ago with Marie Kondo and minimalism- an idea that in her home country of Japan is very commonplace, but in other places like the US was a totally foreign concept. I expect some very major geographical differences also played a part in why this mindset was received very differently in the two countries. To be more specific: Japan is a small island country (especially when compared to the US), so the Japanese have to be VERY mindful of space; whereas America has TONS of space, so people keep buying crap to fill said space.

Anyways, this brings me to my next point: there was a survey done within the last year or so about what places were the happiest. I don't remember exactly which country ranked the highest, but I do remember it was a Scandinavian country. But more to the point, the reason why they were so happy basically boiled down to "We don't have a ton of stuff, but we're very happy with what we DO have." When I read that, my immediate reaction was "Well, no wonder places like the US are miserable- we're always being pushed to Buy More Crap, with a good dose of FOMO mixed in."

Now, let me fully confess something: even though I'm talking about maybe having too many material possessions is what makes us miserable... well, some of my biggest hobbies involve collecting things. For the one most relatable to Tildes, I have TONS of videos games for a variety of systems that are on my "I'm EVENTUALLY going to play and beat that game". Other hobbies of mine involve new things being available to buy, with many people saying "This is a MUST-HAVE!". The good news is that at least recently, I'm not buying some much of this kind of item.

So... all this idea to say that people are becoming more miserable and depressed. There's no doubt a variety of factors are involved, but it seems to me that if we bought less crap, some things would start changing (and a few things possibly breaking), and maybe we'd be a bit happier. Of course, this completely goes against the Consumerism idea that is heavily pushed in America, but maybe that's a GOOD thing.

Yesterday someone on /r/lgbt posted this picture of themself at a pride event, and several people in the thread commented on OP's self harm scars - one asking them to please and thank you spoiler tag the image and post a trigger warning as they found the sight of OP's self harm scars triggering.

As someone who has very similar scars as OP I said fuck that, I disagree. I found it offensive that the sight of someone else's scars somehow grants you the right and allows you to tell them to cover up or hide themself because they find it triggering. To ask to have trigger warnings and spoiler tags added is unfair, in my opinion - the commenter then replied that it's not that hard to do. But for me it's obviously not about the effort it takes to do it, it's about the fundamental principle of asking someone to cover up or hide their body that I take issue with.

OP said elsewhere that they have struggled with mental health in the past but moved on, and clearly they are now at the point that they feel comfortable or don't mind that other people can see their scars. And I certainly feel like they should be allowed to wear whatever they like. I think that showing scars like this is 1) brave, 2) helps reduce stigma surrounding self harm, and 3) should be entirely that person's prerogative - their body, their choice.

So I am curious what you all think about this?

Is it fair to expect or ask someone to tag their picture like this, to hide their scars, to cover up, etc.?

So a few weeks back someone posted an article here about Super Recognizers. These are people that can instantly remember 80% of a persons face and can identify that face easily later on. It talked about how these people are getting hired by police departments across the world.

It caught my attention because my wife has always been freakishly good at facial recognition and recall. Well, she took the test, which led to another test, and today she received her official invitation to join Super Recognizers International!

This is a big deal because her company is about to go under and she has been considering leaving lately. This will open up doors for her to find work she can do from home on a flexible schedule. Thanks @skybrain for posting that article and thank you to the Tildes community for being here!

Hey I'm @Ten and I'm an... oh wait, wrong forum.

Anyways I've already introduced myself before but I wanted to start a new one so all of the new people can get in and feel welcome.

I'm Ten, formerly /u/TheLetter10 and other accounts for ~8 years on Reddit. I'm 34, am disabled, trans and really messed up. I was interested in ~Tildes because I miss the early days of Reddit before it got really bogged down by memes and poor "Reddit Policy". I stream on Twitch under (original name) theletterten and can usually be found around the whole internet under that or variation of that. I have so far invited three really cool people to Tildes and I can't wait to meet more of you <3

Also shoutout to my good friend @icecapman10

Edit June 3rd, 151am: I have read every single comment so far and I love the different types of people we've got here! Love them!

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?

As a preface, this comes from the perspective of an American looking in on Europe. I'm curious in particular what any Europeans (please include your country of origin/ethnicity if you feel so inclined) feel about this post and the future of the EU.

Europe is a unique region, to put it lightly. The extremely high level of development relative to the rest of the world over this last millennium as well as so many technological innovations in that period of time led to a Europe ready to exert its influence upon the rest of the world. We can comfortably say that, while examples do still exist, colonialism as an institution has largely faded. Europe is a much more varied continent culturally and ethnically despite a space roughly equal to that of the USA. We've all heard the common sayings about 200 miles is long in Europe where 200 years is long in America and generally speaking that does hold true.
That said, Europe in the modern era really does feel like many small countries functioning as one big entity with the European Union. The EU has only gained credibility and legitimacy and it is now the institution I expect to hear from on matters within the EU first, even ahead of any individual nation state.
All of this to say, I think a united Europe is the strongest possible future for Europe. No individual state in Europe is large enough to exert an influence upon the world without the rest of Europe behind them. Globalization, while diminished in recent years, is still happening and I don't see a decentralized Europe as "winning" globalization as dozens of individually tiny states.

I could continue writing, but I think you understand my position. Now I would like to point to the article I found that really made me think about this, here.

I would also like to ask, what do you see Europe and the European Union standing for? Should it continue to centralize or is the current level of control enough? Too much? I didn't mention Ukraine or defense in this post but obviously that has a huge impact on all of these questions and I would love to hear if that has impacted your perspective on this admittedly grandiose idea for a united Europe.

People from all countries welcome to discuss, but please do mention your country if you feel comfortable doing so!

Edit: More reading for anyone interested.

I like to think I have broad interests. Part of what I like about Tildes at this stage in its growth is that I'll probably encounter folks who are highly knowledgeable about areas I'm totally ignorant in, simply because the userbase isn't too fragmented into niche groups quite yet, but the convo won't necessarily be too esoteric for me to follow. I like encountering tangential references that lead me into entirely unfamiliar topics, especially when I can learn from the people who are particularly interested in it. I tend not to post very often myself though (primarily because I'm a painfully slow and/or bad writer)... but I wondered how many other tilderinos are like me.

So, in an effort to contribute to the site, what topic or field could you talk about for hours at Tildes level of discussion, whether by education or interest? Mine would undoubtedly be soccer. I've played and followed it for 30+ years, and could easily bore you with all sorts of minutiae of the on-field side of things, but it's the world's game, so there are all sorts of tie-ins to culture, language, politics, etc. that help inform my non-sport conversations as well.

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?

Time for a story.

Some of you might remember that I was planning on going abroad. I intended to visit New York City with one of my best friends, setting foot in the United States for the first time in my life. I have had reservations about the actions and the state of politics of the US for a while, but I'm by no means an activist; I largely settle for small discussions regarding this topic, online or among friends. This means that I had not considered the current administration as a deterrent to my week-long trip.

For the sake of what I'm about to talk in the rest of this post, some additional personal details are needed for context. I am a EU citizen and a second-generation immigrant, child of a parent born in North Africa. I was fortunate enough not to have to go through having to acquire a "real" visa as my country is part of the ESTA program. This program is a fast track of sorts that allows a non-citizen to get clearance to get into the US by providing information through an online form. As I went through that automated process, I arrived at one step that worried me: they asked about being a citizen of another country. Now, I have both an EU ID and passport but I have double-nationality from my parent and so I also have ID and (an expired) passport from that country.

That country is not unstable or known to host terrorists or extremist organizations but I was wondering if I would be lumped in with immigrants from more troubled countries and so I hesitated to put that information at all. But then I figured that it would be a bad idea to lie and then have to explain why I lied if they figured out. And I didn't visit that country for a decade. So in the end I did input that info. This decision stayed with me and caused me anxiety until the end of the 72 hour waiting period. I thought about being denied while having already spent roughly a thousand bucks on the airplane ticket and the hotel. Fortunately in the end everything went through. That put my fears at ease.

Let us fast forward to the day of the trip. My friend and I had the good idea to stay up really late the night before even though our flight was outrageously early. I think I slept for 3 hours if that. And during the 8 hour flight I absolutely could not sleep despite my best efforts. This is just me setting the stage for some heavy sleep deprivation.

Arriving at JFK, we eventually stumble upon the horribly long queue for customs. When we got to an officer, my friend went first, giving his passport and scanning his fingerprints. I went just after him, doing the same. However, the officer seems to have an issue. They close their booth and ask me to follow them. My friend's watching and is like "wtf is going on", the only thing I manage to say is "welp later I guess", maybe not realizing what is going on.

My passport withheld, I'm led to a waiting room... and told to wait there, no reason given. The officer tells me that "it" should be quick. As I scan the room, I mostly see Arab or Asian people with an additional one or two white-passing people. I sit and get my phone out to message my friend where I am and what I was told, when an agent immediately tells me that no phone is allowed. I can only imagine how panicked my friend was getting at that point.

An hour passes.

With still no reason given for what I'm going to call an arrest, I then had had time enough time to see people go through, leave and for others to take their place all the while I listened to the officers talk to each other and interact with the visitors.

The ratio of people stayed mostly the same, meaning the majority was comprised of Arab and Asian people, roughly half didn't speak English at all. There were two types of processing. The first one was people waiting 20 minutes and getting called to a counter in the same room, getting their passport back and being allowed to leave. The second one was people waiting at least half an hour and getting summoned to go with an officer to an ominous corridor, staying at least half an hour and then being allowed to leave.

The officers at the counter chatted within themselves in a friendly manner, typing on their computer at the same time, a nice front immediately shattered by how they talked down to everyone. One elderly person went to get something in their luggage placed at the opposite end of the room when two officers yell at them to sit back down. An asian person was using their phone unaware of the restriction when an officer warns them: "Don't use your phone. Don't use your phone! Hey! Don't use your phone! Oh for the love of- DON'T. USE. YOUR. PHOOONE." Apparently talking slowly to a visitor in a foreign language means they can obviously understand what the office is saying and that they're just acting like they don't understand. And more variations of cliché American cop tropes.

A half hour passes - still no reason given.

My friend tries to approach the room to get information and I hear an officer asking firmly for him to go away. (Un)fortunately an officer finally summons me. They lead me into a room and I'm invited to sit down. The officer apologizes for the wait, and then begins an hour long interview. They are very friendly and ask what places I intend to visit, they ask me about my childhood, my parents, my relation to my other country, my education, my hobbies, my jobs. Then I'm asked to unlock my phone. They go through every app and ask me to explain what they all do. They capture my Facebook name, contact names, what is open in my browser, and more stuff that I can't see.

I cannot describe how distressing it is to see an officer of the law go through your phone. I could not predict if they would stumble problematic material or if they would interpret things the wrong way. This is why I hate people that say "oh I don't care about privacy, I've got nothing to hide". You think I have anything at all to hide?! I am a law-abiding citizen of my country, I have never harbored any intention of committing a crime in my entire life, I can't harm a fly for heaven's sake!

And finally after all of this I am allowed to go. I get to my friend and hug them and try to get out of this place as fast as possible.

Maybe you're wondering if I tried to oppose any of this? Hell no. Not using my phone, waiting without reason, giving an ungodly amount of personal information and give access to my phone to a stranger, I did not fight through any of this. Why? I was afraid. I was an alien going through customs in the Patriot Act era. It was very clear to me that if I tried to block any of this process I would not go out of that airport to the US. I have my principles in privacy, but I did not want to waste a literal thousand bucks and more of my time.

So I went along.

Hi all!
I'm new to Tildes and thought it'd be a great idea to get to know the other Tildes users.

Just post something about yourself. Maybe where you're from, what you do for a living, a hobby you have, anything!

For the past few months I felt less and less inclined to engage in conversation on Reddit and other discussions platforms. The risk of any expression being met with a (severely) negative response is just too great. I don't know if it was always like this and that I just don't find it worth it any more or if there is an actual trend of people being more of an asshole more of the time to each other online.

I've only joined Tildes a couple of days ago, and enjoy most of my time here. I've also noticed that I'm now more active again on other platforms. It's made me want to express myself again. I put more effort in my contributions. I'm not necessarily getting more pleasant responses, but there are fewer negative ones, I think.

Does this sound familiar to any of you?

Long story short, I grew up believing that a great deal of worth of someone's life was effecting change, especially politically. That's why I valued activism. It took courage, especially considering I don't live in a developed country.

The older I got and more problems I faced, I started to realize how unsatisfactory, even hollow this was. Modes of activism I engaged in didn't seem to fulfill me emotionally anymore, they were mostly impersonal, and they didn't seem to change anything. I have a lot of views that are extremely unorthodox for the place I live in, and I don't see any political movement that internalizes those values. I am extremely alienated from the "nation" I am supposedly part of, and from the political movements within it.

Another angle is that I recently realized how misguided I was. I was mostly doing mental labor, believing in the axiom that ideas can change things. But after some time and readings, I started thinking activities that aim for collective action and concrete changes (e.g. syndicates) were much more important. These are not available to me.

I feel like I have wasted a lot of my time. I pursued ideals more than my own emotional needs, believing they would make me happy and fulfilled, and they didn't. I pursued a way of engaging in politics that felt good but didn't effect change.

Don't get me wrong, while this is exasperating, it's also extremely liberating, joyful even. I enjoy the moments of quiet destruction that bring about the new. I no longer feel ashamed to admit I want comfort and stability in my life, and I don't want to take unnecessary risks. I have enough problems as is.

With this being said, I haven't given up on effecting change. I think it's much more convoluted and different than what I imagined when I was younger, and it's not generally about "going out there and showing up" or writing political texts and such. There are also levels to creating change, as it's not a binary thing.

At this point, I want to primarily live for myself, participate in some kind of change without risking myself to the point of overwhelming anxiety, and make more personal and real connections with people in general, including during effecting change.

What I've written here is a bit rough, but it's still an ongoing and raw process for me, and this post is more of a conversation topic, rather than a properly structured argument. I am interested in hearing your opinions. Has anyone had similar experiences, or things this post reminded you of?

Perhaps this is a bit of an odd conversation topic, but I just humiliated myself by dropping a bottle of red wine (for no reason whatsoever, I just cant hold thigs apparently) that I'd just paid for as I left the store.

The loud gasp from a nearby woman and the man singing 'red red wine' were both objectively funny, but I couldn't help but feel humiliated as I scrambled to clean it up. I'd also like to give a special shout-out to the man who came to help me clean it up.
I'm coming to you Tildes in an effort to feel less shame. What have you done recently, by accident or on purpose that has embarrassed you?

The definition of a lot of money and what would qualify as indulgent is an exercise left to the reader, but assume you're otherwise in good financial shape and you got whatever investments, donations, and balances out of the way.

I started reading Liz Plank's For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity, and it opens with the author's experiences asking men this question (emphasis mine):

The more I read about men’s relationship to directions and maps, the more it explained the absence of a substantive and open conversation about masculinity. While women are encouraged to ask questions, men are expected to pretend like they know everything even when they don’t, even when it comes to large and existential questions about their gender and their lives. As I traveled across the world, from Iceland to Zambia, I asked men the same question over and over again: What’s hard about being a man? Every single time I asked that question it was like I had just asked them if unicorns can swim.

It was met with a pause, a smile, and then followed by another long pause followed by the words: “I’ve never actually thought of that.” When I asked women that same question about their gender—in other words, when I asked women what was hard about being a woman—it was like I had asked them to name every single thing they loved about puppies. I got nearly the same response from every woman I spoke to: “How much time do you have?” Judging from the conversations I would strike up with (half-)willing strangers, women had spent a lot of time thinking about how their gender impacts their lives, but men visibly hadn’t. While that conversation had been blossoming with women for decades, for men, accepting directions was proof that the system was broken, which goes against the natural impulses of what being a man means: not to admit confusion or ask questions.

I thought it was a worthwhile question to consider, and I'm interested to hear how people here on Tildes would answer it.

Also, while I'm confident in our community's ability to apply the principle of charity, I do know that discussions about gender online can often become contentious. I would very much like this to be a place for people to be able to share open and honest truths about themselves, even if those are difficult or revealing. If you are replying to someone, especially someone who has just opened up about their own personal experiences or beliefs, please make sure you are being thoughtful and considerate when doing so.

Finally, while the question is specifically about men, I don't want to limit responses to men only. I think women and non-binary people definitely have valuable insights into masculinity as well and I welcome your voices should you choose to answer.

By putting the word SILLY in the title, I mean SERIOUS ISSUES such as those are strictly prohibited:

• politics
• religion
• abortion
• capital punishment
• gender politics
• anything else that usually causes trouble or heated discussion
• anything that could lock this thread

Allowed subjects:

• movies
• television
• technology
• love
• food
• animals
• any seemeling stupid thing that will definetely NOT cause any kind of heated discssion

Watching the drama around kagi unfold and it has me wondering how much you take into consideration a creator's view on things like homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. when deciding to use a product. I think most of us have a bar somewhere (I would imagine very few on this website would ever consider registering on an altright platform), so where is that bar for you? What about art? Have you boycotted JKR or dropped your opinion about Picasso because they're transphobic and misogynistic respectively? Is it about the general vibe of a product or piece of media, or are you more discerning? What goes into this decision and why?

I very much would not be. My son had a rough birth, but it probably wouldn't have killed him or my wife.

Both my brothers had children in the last six months. Neither of the kids would have survived, and one of the mothers would definitely have died.

The better question might be: how many of you can say for sure you'd be alive without modern medicine?