a while ago I read this sci-fi short story from the 50s where a guy is kidnapped and interrogated by aliens using a very sophisticated lie detector, but he realizes that the lie detector works off technical truth, and with some careful phrasing and misdirection, he manages to make them believe that humans are a race of immortal, overpowered, omniscient telepathic beings. and it works.
my favorite part is when he tells them that humans are "capable of transportation without the aid of spaceships or any vehicles, just by using mental power to control physical matter". it's true, we can. it's called walking.
okay I found it, it's The Best Policy by Randall Garrett
and it has other gems such as "I know beyond a shadow of a doubt what every member of my race thinks of you" (they don't know you exist) and "every human knows exactly as much about the location of your home planet as I do" (nothing)
kids were roleplaying with minecraft figurines and one of them had their figure go up to the other and say āiām in love with youā and the other one replied āsword slash to the chest. and youāre on fireā
gonna post a controversial take alright are yāall ready??
ā¦
actually typing out emoticons like XD and :D and :V never should have gone out of fashion and you can pry them out of my cold dead hands okay I know emojis are fun but THEY DONāT CAPTURE THE EMOTION IN THE SAME WAY
There is no emoji that captures what I mean by :P (I do NOT mean āhur hur goofy-ass face!ā) and the one for :^/ is not great. And lest we forget, š¤·š»āāļø is absolutely inadequate compared to ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
This would have had me crucified on tumblr 10 years ago but maybe we are ready for this conversation now:
If you are a socially anxious person, you have to socialize. Your panic/anxiety attacks will only get worse and trigger more frequently if you constantly avoid contact with The Public. Not saying that you need to be a social butterfly- but there is a genuine problem with not being able to order your own meal at a restaurant. And it cannot be solved by always having someone else do it for you.
This is a PSA to about 3/4s of the Portland Youth populace
everyone who reblogs this and is like "I ordered my own tea this week" or "I only barfed once when I had to give a presentation'- you are doing amazing sweetie. Have patience with yourself, you are relearning a skill so difficult that people get 4 year degrees to do it professionally.
personally I am of the opinion that vegans who are like āthe way our food system currently works under capitalism on a large scale is exceptionally cruel to all animals including humans and is not sustainable, so Iām doing what I can to make the most ethical choices available to me about what I eat and encourage others to do the sameā are generally very reasonable people who I agree with in spades. but vegans who seem to think human beings are not themselves animals who are ultimately also part of the food chain but instead some kind of other paternalistic higher entity that can never engage in ethical and sustainable hunting practices (and especially the fringe Iāve seen who think other carnivorous animal predators are also evil and need to be eliminated) are people I regard as foolish at best if not actively anti-indigenous and racist
I love your agreeable and amenable and flexible nature and how none of your wants and needs ever get priority and how nobody even knows what they are to begin with and how you never start or engage in conflicts and never express even mildly unsavory opinions and get along with everyone from every conceivable group, thatās so trustworthy. hey quick question. do you happen to have an enormous pressurized reservoir of rage and resentment you feel like you canāt ever analyze or express because that would break the rules for the kind of person you are and if so, do you think a lifetime of squashing it down might ever backfire?
By the way, you can improve your executive function. You can literally build it like a muscle.
Yes, even if you're neurodivergent. I don't have ADHD, but it is allegedly a thing with ADHD as well. And I am autistic, and after a bunch of nerve damage (severe enough that I was basically housebound for 6 months), I had to completely rebuild my ability to get my brain to Do Things from what felt like nearly scratch.
This is specifically from ADDitude magazine, so written specifically for ADHD (and while focused in large part on kids, also definitely includes adults and adult activities):
Executive functioning skills range from working memory to cognitive flexibility to inhibitory control, and beyond. They power our daily func
Here's a link on this for autism (though as an editor wow did that title need an editor lol):
Practical Strategies for Enhancing Executive Functioning Difficulties in Adults With Autism - Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as
Resources on this aren't great because they're mainly aimed at neurotypical therapists or parents of neurdivergent children. There's worksheets you can do that help a lot too or thought work you can do to sort of build the neuro-infrastructure for tasks.
But a lot of the stuff is just like. fun. Pulling from both the first article and my own experience:
Play games or video games where you have to make a lot of decisions. Literally go make a ton of picrews or do online dress-up dolls if you like. It helped me.
Art, especially forms of art that require patience, planning ahead, or in contrast improvisation
Listening to longform storytelling without visuals, e.g. just listening regularly to audiobooks or narrative podcasts, etc.
Meditation
Martial arts
Sports in general
Board games like chess or Catan (I actually found a big list of what board games are good for building what executive functioning skills here)
Woodworking
Cooking
If you're bad at time management play games or video games with a bunch of timers
Things can be easier. You do not have to be stuck forever.
Advanced guide to getting in the loop. Supplementary to "Civilization Essentials." If a movie is on this list, then it has one of these: -Po
Not all these movies are necessarily good, but the ones that gave me small pop culture epiphanies. It made me realize that 30%-40% of the jokes from modern sitcoms are references/parodies- and these movies are their source material.
^^ This is also true for socializing. So many people I thought were naturally funny were just doing movie bits.
[I actually do have a job, I am just a big fan of lists and graphs and flow charts etc.]
I was 12 when the first of my siblings was born, so I have very vivid memories of the way my mother was excluded from a lot of spaces because people find children annoying.
If you think "children should not be allowed in this space," you HAVE TO reckon with the fact that you are now excluding parents (and very often women specifically) who don't have access to childcare. You are isolating people who are poor, or rural, or single parents, or any number of other factors that might prevent someone from having on-demand childcare. You are cutting them off from being able to exist in public. You are denying parents and children the ability to fully participate in society.
My mom spent several years only leaving the house to buy groceries or take me to school, and even then, people would still come up to her to complain TO HER FACE about how she shouldn't bring a crying toddler to Walmart. Entitled strangers would literally try and demand that my mom leave and come back without the kids.
"Why can't your husband watch them?" Because he was at work, usually working extreme amounts of overtime so we didn't get evicted, because landlords don't like it when you stop paying rent.
"Why can't you send them to daycare?" Because that costs money.
"Why can't your teenager stay home with them and babysit?" Because I also deserved to be able to leave the house for something other than school, and taking me to the grocery store was how my mom taught me to manage a household budget, shop sales, and meal plan.
"Don't bring your kid in public if you can't CONTROL them and make them stop crying!" Kids cry when they're upset, and being dragged around a store is upsetting! Don't be an asshole! Children are human beings who are still learning how the world works, and they don't have a lot of agency. You'd cry, too.
"Spank them until they learn to stop crying!" That's just straight-up child abuse, Jesus Christ.
What the fuck was our family supposed to do? Never go to the grocery store? Starve because strangers couldn't handle a toddler existing in public?
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