[probuccalfat]

the moment you start feeling ugly as a woman you need to hit up a local suburban walmart and take a good hard look at the average woman to realize an average woman is not serving curated algorithmic beauty and aesthetic

[loveridden1999]

[stuckinapril]

I think part of getting better is complete ego death. Like you’re not above setting a timer for 5 minutes and focusing on a task. You’re not above doing a very simple 3 minute workout to start. You’re not above reading for 10 minutes a day when you first get out of your reading slump, even if you used to read for hours. You’re not above starting slow and then building up to where you want to be/where you once were. What you are above is total inertia. Doing something really is better than doing nothing. Radically accept where you are, radically accept your limits, and go from there. Don’t let your ego get in the way.

[februarytrash]

being sad and horny is a privilege

[kiefbowl]

I saw on insta this morning a reel of a woman who's been hosting a dinner party for friends for the past two years show snap shots of the parties each month for the last year. and I'm interested in that in general, I'd like to start hosting more. so I go into the comments and there are just some rank ass ppl saying things like "oh so you're rich rich" and "some of us don't have money." Is it fun living so miserably?

[kiefbowl]

maybe this is abstract but I think this is fallout from phone addiction fr. it's easy to say "well I'm burnt out at the end of the day" about scrolling on your phone rather than doing hobbies if you're so addicted you'd be doing it anyway. and it will suck up time. you will lose skills. and I'm not saying this on a high horse, we're all struggling with it right now including me. But if you're not deliberately working on distancing yourself from phone addiction, you will spend your life watching other people have lives and think that the only barrier is your own unavoidable situation in life. girl I think it's you actually. you can make some sandwiches and ask some friends over.

[theambitiouswoman]

If leveling up bothers you, it’s probably because you’re imagining that next version of yourself in an environment you outgrew a long time ago. Ofcourse it feels uncomfortable. Ofcourse it feels irritating. Ofcourse it feels unfair. You’re trying to expand while mentally staying in a space that can’t hold you anymore. Growth doesn’t feel natural when you’re still attached to places, people, and patterns that were built for your old identity. You’re not afraid of leveling up. You’re afraid of what it will require you to leave behind

[aetas-aurea]

When I am researching something that matters I filter specifically for older sources and treat anything recent with a proportionally higher level of skepticism.

What scares me is the cumulative epistemological effect of existing in an environment where nothing can be verified and everything has a potential agenda and the tools for distinguishing real from manufactured are degrading faster than most people’s ability to compensate for that degradation. The rational response to that environment is a level of skepticism that most people find socially and psychologically uncomfortable to maintain consistently. So they do not maintain it. And the people who understand that are counting on exactly that. There is no longer a visible seam between real and manufactured and that is a relatively recent development.

AI generated content is now indistinguishable from organic content in most cases and that threshold was crossed earlier than most people realize. The woman giving you a genuine looking review of a supplement from what appears to be her kitchen is not necessarily a woman or a kitchen. The comments section of any viral post is increasingly populated by coordinated responses designed to look like spontaneous cultural moments.

The micro influencer pipeline specifically has become so sophisticated that the disclosure requirements that were supposed to create transparency have essentially become another layer of the performance. The aesthetic of authenticity is now the most valuable and most deliberately constructed commodity in the attention economy and the people constructing it are very good at their jobs.

Pre 2019 information is significantly more reliable as a baseline because the incentive structures around content creation were different and the tools for mass manipulation were less developed.

Archived forums are some of the most valuable information sources available precisely because they predate the current content economy and were written by people with no particular incentive to sell you anything. Reddit threads from 2012, old Makeupalley reviews, archived forum discussions from niche communities.

The Wayback Machine and Google’s date filter are tools I use regularly and I think everyone should know how to use them. Filtering search results to a specific date range immediately changes the quality of what you are accessing. The older the source the less likely it was optimized to manipulate you and at this point that alone makes it significantly more valuable than almost anything produced recently.

Primary sources wherever possible. The actual study, the actual book, the actual documented account rather than someone’s summary of it which has almost certainly been filtered through at least one agenda by the time it reaches you.

Trust your own experience over anyone else’s account of theirs. This is the most radical and most consistently useful piece of media advice I can offer. Your direct experience of something is the only data point you can fully verify.

[soundcarvings]

I told my beautiful friend today that “When you feel misunderstood then you must commit yourself to understanding others” this is the remedy. This is the medicine.

[rainformation]

formative years? aren’t they all?

[hikinguk]

Dragons Back, Peak District

[probuccalfat]

you’ll often find people make up rules for themselves and then get upset when nobody else lives by them

[hersacreddivinity]

[aligning-and-attracting]

Don’t fall into the trap of supporting a community that expects your unquestioned loyalty but gives you minimal return on your investments. There comes a point when you have to think about yourself; in fact, as you grow from teenager into young adult, you’re supposed to be selfish (to an extent) and focused on starting your life. Your family shouldn’t insist upon coming first; they should be encouraging your growth instead of hindering it or forcing you to choose between disappointing them and letting yourself down.

There’s also an argument to be made for letting people who failed you figure things out on their own. If your parents neglected you, forced you to care for their children, or were never able to put your needs ahead of theirs, you don’t need to support them. Some people are a liability, blood or not, and you as a child are not obligated to come to the rescue or act as a bank account for people who had years to plan before you came into existence and years to grow up after you were born. Some communities might push honoring your parents at any cost, but if they never did right by you, why prioritize their happiness over your health and well-being? Some people will never be able to pull it together, and it’s not on you to bail them out, nor are they entitled to being bailed out by anyone indefinitely.

I’d also encourage anyone younger to be careful what they’re getting themselves into in terms of religious and/or political organizations. Some people will make these things their only personality traits, give their time and money to them, allow these organizations and their leaders to use and abuse them, and gain nothing in return. Grooming isn’t just a romantic process; you can be groomed into giving your hard-earned money, time, and effort to a group that doesn’t respect you, has no plans to support you, and always has their hand out to take from you, and many people of all ages are.

Finally, there’s nothing wrong or abnormal with only supporting and engaging with communities that you feel welcomed and supported by. You're not a traitor if you stay away from people who feel entitled to you or your money, and some issues just aren’t your problem. It’s okay to step away from the struggle, and it’s normal to not want to stay in the same loop of being told to respect your elders when all your elders do is act as a barrier between you and the life you want, judge you, and refuse to reflect on their own actions or believe they could ever be wrong but expect to be able to tell you why you should be accommodating them and their needs above your own, no matter how detrimental it is to your mind, body, soul, or wallet.

[afrohairinspo]

[stuckinapril]

I promise you things will get so much better when you start processing people’s behavior as information rather than a verdict on your self-worth. If someone doesn’t text back, suddenly pulls away, whatever it may be, the solution isn’t to put on a tap dance for them and try to regain their approval. It’s not to crash out on them and try to force them to react a certain way. It’s just to take a step back, take a deep breath, and assess what this tells you. What’s this saying about them? What’s this saying about you??

[naamahdarling]

That has to be the most humiliating way to describe one of Earth's most terrifyingly effective predators.

[sapphic-and-stupid]

Picture of her from the USA Today

[teaboot]

I would let her kill me for sport

[vaelus-malewife]

[shower-thoughts-last-responder]

[financeprincess]

Sorry to break it to you but you literally have to face your fears and slaughter them. Otherwise you will live a small life that you do not want. You literally have to view your biggest fears and attack them head on. You have to fall into the abyss to find your way out. The easy path does not exist. There is no get out of jail free card. You have to allow yourself to die a spiritual death over and over again in order to reinvent yourself into the person you are actually supposed to be. And you have to be painfully honest with yourself and the people around you. It’s horrible but it’s truly the only way.