Let's Be Vapid

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[nevver]

Hell Yeah Fuck Die

[ryannorth]

If you’re singing about Old Uncle Casey, you MAY be singing in the 1890s

[emilyvgordon-deactivated2019090]

Hi! I've always had problems identifying with others and have never been good at forming "deep" personal connections. With any friends I had growing up I didn't really go past talking wittily about pop culture or school. When they would go into things like family problems or hot guys, I felt like an alien, but I did my best to converse and react similarly to how they did. In college I was constantly trying to "read" situations and act similarly to the people around me. 1/2

2/2 I watched everyone around me form “deep” friendships that are still strong today. Even now with a job & a boyfriend I feel like a robot that can’t belong anywhere. I read an article that said being “introverted” is not being socially awkward, but it’s that you don’t feel the same incentive to get the rewards that others get from having social interaction. I thought this described me perfectly, but is this a sign of a bigger “thing”? Psychologically I don’t know where this falls.

First off, don’t worry about yourself psychologically too much. I think there are a ton of people out there who are just kinda going through the motions of being “friends” or being “cool”. Not to toot my own horn, but rather to show you you’re not alone, I’ve written two essays about just going through the motions of having a social life for Rookie. I think of myself as an introvert, even though I present as an extrovert, because being social exhausts me so much that I think of most of my social stuff as something to recover from. I still love it, but to me it’s almost like exercise: so healthy and wonderful and beneficial, but fucking tiring and I need a shower.

I think some therapy could do you good, if only to help you get more in touch with your own emotions, to get you feeling less like a robot, and to help you figure out your own version of what social means. Not to be weirdly crass, but you’d be a dream client- smart, aware of yourself, introspective. I also recommend a great book called “Quiet" by Susan Cain. 

Basically, you need to figure out what you want. Do you want deep friendships? Do you want to feel like you belong? Do you want to find a place where you feel heard and understood? What does the dream version of doing, how is that version of you relating to people? How much effort are you willing to put into getting there? What if you get to that version of you and you feel exhausted by how social you’ve become? 

Be careful that you’re not basing your wants on what you’re “supposed” to be going for. What every person needs is a space where they can express and feel intimacy. Every person needs to feel heard and understood in their lives. The beauty is that you get to figure out what that looks like. I definitely don’t want you to feel like a robot, but I also don’t want you to assume that you get your needs met the same way as everyone else. 

Therapy, reading, and connecting to the times that you haven’t felt like a robot will get you into a place where you feel satisfied with yourself but not overly taxed. Good luck to you.

[purplebuddhaproject]

Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a priority.” “I don’t go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.” If these phrases don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently.

Wall Street Journal (via danger)

Great advice.

(via emilyvgordon)

[robhorninginternalexile]

As more information about ourselves is captured within “Big Data” platforms and systems alongside the data about other individuals, algorithms will be used to assign identity markers to us, place us in categories, regardless of whether these correspond to how we think of ourselves. The system will...

[letsbevapid-blog]

Algorithms might turn our identities into Keynesian beauty contests, and it will become more crucial for us to be centered in our own experience.

[swiftonsecurity-deactivated2020]

I want you to imagine someone for me. Her name is Jessica and she is 17 years old. She lives in a two bedroom apartment with her mother and uses an old laptop she got from one of her mom’s ex boyfriends. With it, she browses the portals that serve as her connection to the community constructed...

[letsbevapid-blog]

This sums up all of my anxieties and hopelessness about how the general public experiences/deals with Information Security.

swiftonsecurity is SO GOOD, you guys.

[two-fisted-dynamo]

[patvamos]

“True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature. But this? Using scissors to cut off the tip of a slice of pizza? I don’t know what this is. ”

― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting

[letsbevapid-blog]

GPOY (circa 2011)

[humansofnewyork]

“I moved here from Jamaica when I was six, and my accent was so bad that I had to spend two years in ESL classes before anyone could understand me. I remember feeling very frustrated. I was surrounded by people with really thick accents who were trying to tell me that I needed to get rid of my accent.”

[letsbevapid-blog]

I worked pretty hard to gain a USA midwest accent -- consciously at first, then constantly. It's amazing what a 12-year-old's brain can do when confronted with the threat of outgroup status.

[neilcicierega]

http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/

http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/

http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/

http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/

http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/

http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/

http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/

http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/

http://www.neilcic.com/mouthsilence/

[letsbevapid-blog]

I don't understand many of the references on this album but the whole thing feels important. This whole thing is distinctly early-to-mid-2010s.

[hwy95eh]

What we saw in the 20th century was an anomalous blip when music had a physical form. That was very unusual in the course of human history and it will soon be very unusual again. Music has this intrinsic pull towards the dematerial, towards the unbuyable. It’s a slippery, ghostly thing.

- Jace Clayton (via hi54lofi)

[registeroneplease]

danah boyd* on her book, It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

I’m fascinated by danah boyd, not only because her research pertains directly to me, but also because it’s refreshing to listen to an adult discuss teenage interaction with social media in an informed way that doesn’t come across as, “WHAT ARE THESE YOUTHS UP TO AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, HOW DO WE STOP THEM?” 

If you don’t have time to watch the whole video—it’s an hour, so, understandable if you don’t—at least try to watch the portion on the relationship between underprivileged kids and social media. It’s pretty interesting and sadly not surprising that teenagers who are already systematically discriminated against face the same problem online (starts at 33:19 in the video). 

*My reason for not capitalizing danah boyd’s name is not out of laziness (which is usually my reason for that kind of thing, TBH). She’s chosen to not capitalize her name, along with the pronoun “I,” and instead of having me poorly describe her reasoning for this, she wrote a blog post about it, which you can read here. 

[myhumaninteractionsafterall]

[paulftompkins]

Technicality no down boo over?

[letsbevapid-blog]

Technicality no down boo over

[rangordnung]

Consciousness is the instrument of a many-headed and much divided master… a means and tool by which not a subject but a struggle wants to preserve itself.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Nachlass (via crematedadolescent)

[takeustogloryarchive-deactivate]

[letsbevapid-blog]

When I was very little, a friend of my dad's (who was also our landlord) used to jokingly call me "woman." It'd make me cry. That only encouraged him.

This scene brought up a lot of emotion in me I didn't know I carried.

[bubblenoma]

[pyreo]

this is not necessarily tru as the raptors may have been talking about a man

[meladoodle]

statistically speaking i’m bound to have a couple raptor followers. can any of you guys confirm this?

[judgebunnie]

Also neither raptors were...

[humansofnewyork]

"Sometimes I’m not sure how to ask for help, without making them think they made the wrong decision in hiring me."

[letsbevapid-blog]

I've been at my current job at a large software company for three years. This is my first job out of college.

I started this blog as an escape from feeling like I wasn't smart enough for this job.

If you've been working at a job (or even in the same industry) for at least two years, one of your responsibilities has to be to help new hires. Mentors are absolutely important. Please be welcoming and inclusive to recently-hired employees. They need your help, support, and encouragement more than you think.