Euphoria sips chai

Euphoria, he/him I write sometimes, and paint and compose once a while, but this blog's mostly a journal of shitposts. So enjoy? I guess???

[emmaharwoods]

you can click on this button once daily to help palestine and support other causes in the middle east for free. it takes literally 5 seconds and could help save lives so please take the time to click and share this link.

[grelliam]

#oh it raises money thru ad revenue and ur click confirms the value to advertisers. neat

[findingmybravado-2]

Proceeds are donated to the UNRWA, which is one of the major funding agencies providing aid to Palestine. Recently, the US and other major countries have escalated genocidal efforts by cutting funding from the UNRWA, as AlJazzera reports : Which countries have cut funding to the UNRWA and why?

This is a direct action you can take to say fuck you to the government directed genocidal efforts, bookmark the tab, add a calendar notification daily, do what you want. Or if your prefer: Donate Directly to UNRWA

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

Rose, describing stalker number 5: Then there was the cannibal of course--

Hayden, horrified: THE WHAT

Rose: Well he kept saying he "wanted to eat me" which is pretty par for the course but he seemed to mean it more literally than most of the other

Shane, nodding sagely: naturally, carry on

Shane: my cannibal—

Hayden, has known this man for Seven Years believing he had Zero Cannibals: your wHAT

Shane, as if it were obvious: everyone gets a cannibal Hayden it comes with being famous

Rose: *nodding alone, as if that makes perfect sense*

Hayden, has never had a cannibal, sort of thought he was famous: o—okay carry on I guess

[writing5ever]

Im sorry I must have misread. Cannibalism is WHAT in the US???

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[catchymemes]

[that-catholic-shinobi]

This is the funniest thing i’ve heard my entire life 😭

[xxleondraxx]

Truth xD

[burntcopper]

This is literally me as a kid.  Dad used to have the responsibility of giving out the well reports that came in on the friday night to anyone who phoned for the rest of the weekend.  The problem was, on saturday mornings, he was doing the food shopping, so I was given a list of approved callers and he’d leave the well report figures by the phone.

Theoretically I was just supposed to list off the numbers.  Except. Very early I started parsing the figures and give my own analysis.  Apparently engineers and geophysicists got a bit freaked out by a ten year old going ‘It’s not that good, the flow’s really slow compared to last week, and there’s gas pockets really screwing up the flow in the east pipe judging by the pressure report.’

Dad still got that yelled at him at conferences: ‘This is the fucker who used child labour to do well analysis!’

‘Was it wrong?’

‘That’s the not the point!’

[greater-than-the-sword]

We found him- the 20 year old with 10 years experience

[feralcryptid3411]

we all know ilya is living drapery. the bisexual lean, the clinging to shane. but depression clingy is different from autistic clingy.

so i posit for your consideration:

autistic shane who becomes like a cat when he's comfortable with someone (speaking from personal experience)

yes, draping himself on ilya at every opportunity, biting ilya's face and then tearing off laughing when ilya jumps up to chase him, leaning his full weight on the top of ilya's head when he's trying to answer emails or be even slightly professional, sneaking his hands under ilya's tank or shorts just to self-soothe on his husband's warmest, softest skin

but also

leaning with his arms dangling over hayden's chest like a living backpack while talking to jackie (probably with the twins on his back), and hayden ignoring it completely

curling up against Yuna's side, shoulders touching, while they watch a game together, each person used to subconsciously dodging the other's wildly swinging arms at a bad call or goal

laying with his head on rose's lap when they go on a "bffcation" to cabo, each on their phones with drinks at their knees, showing each other memes and tipsy giggling

curling his arms around harris's neck and putting his cheek gently against harris's while harris scrolls through the photos he took for the latest social media campaign, talking excitedly about them

and some reporter asks ilya if he thinks shane is cheating on him bc ofc the tabloids have caught wind of this behavior and his face gets that particular smirk that means someone is about to be verbally defenestrated. "genius observation. they hire you at top of your class? breaking news: man is affectionate with loved ones. congratulations your pulitzer will arrive in mail in 6-8 weeks. no, truly brilliant idea for next Centaurs social media campaign. adopt a hockey player. ‘shane hollander: domesticated but not trained. may climb into pockets unsupervised.'"

of course it goes viral. of course shane reams ilya bc what was all that media training for??? and ilya just shrugs and gives him the big eyes like no one talks shit on you but me, but also fuck toxic masculinity and shane sighs and pets his hair and grumbles i knew i shouldn't have let you on tumblr

and of course harris absolutely loves the idea and begs shane to let them do it, which he acquiesces to.

shane's has an entire reel of him hanging off of people and shane is mortified bc he didn't even realize he was doing it but he's not actually mad bc it proves how many people he can be open and loving with, and the response is insanely positive

and then ilya's goes live and it leads with that infamous image of him skating away smirking with blood running down his chin.

and the caption says "ilya rozanov: feral. will bite. has bitten. will never be remorseful. beautiful fur, though." and the last picture is him in the locker room, gear half-stripped off, grinning at the camera with his curls wild and his lower half gear sitting just a little too low, the v of his hips framing his happy trail and nobody's quite sure which fur they're talking about.

[kiefbowl]

the most important virtues for the young woman are as follows: time theft, selfishness, orgasms, irreverence to authority, sacrilegious behavior, a questioning mind, and eating regular meals.

[fireplacechannel]

imagine spending your entire life doing exactly what your parents asked. taking every pointless brand deal wearing the clothes they tell you to wear. keeping quiet. playing the version of a son that you think they want. being exactly who they seem to want you to be. and then you get a partner and they immediately start calling him their favourite son and giving him a level of warmth and love that they never gave you. Oh and the whole time you were hiding who you actually are from them so you could be perfect? they kind of already knew you were gay and just chose to ignore it and keeping pushing you into more spaces full of homophobic (and racist) people. but you’re not their favourite. they like your boyfriend more because he’s actually sad and he’s actually suffered. not like you who has gone through Nothing. People have gone on killing sprees for less.

[finnglas]

when i was a tiny baby queer (aka a 24-year-old), i went to my first pride festival probably three months after i kicked ex-gay therapy to the curb and came out to my parents. being the people they are, my parents came with me. they weren’t really sure about this whole gay thing, but they loved me and wanted me to be safe and happy and wanted to be involved in what was important to me, so they came along. (i also think my mother still might have thought i might get drugged or murdered or beaten by a protester of which there were plenty.)

anyway i wanted a memento of my first pride, you know, and this one vendor was selling keyrings, and i liked it, so i bought one. do you remember those italian charm bracelets that were all the rage like 10-15 years ago? it was a keychain like that, and it had a rainbow rooster, a rainbow cat, and then just a rainbow, and so I bought it.

i run into my mom a couple of vendors over and she goes oh you bought something? what’d you get? so i showed her, and i was like, “I’m not sure why it’s a rooster and a cat. Seems kind of random. But I liked the rainbows.”

and my mom, who was some form of minister’s wife for most of my childhood and teenagerhood, stares at me like she thinks i’m joking.

“What?” i say.

“…it’s a cock and a pussy, Jules,” she says flatly, and that is the story of how i died at the age of 24 while attending my first pride festival.

[finnglas]

I love how every June this one gets dug up and passed around again, lmao.

[finnglas]

oh no is this what we’re doing now

[finnglas]

…relic…

*crumbles and blows away on the wind*

[hazemsuhail]

If this page suddenly goes silent one day, know that my brother Samer didn’t make it. I will never forget those who saw him suffering from severe bombing injuries, lacking his vital medications, yet chose silence and kept scrolling.

[hazemsuhail]

I feel completely shattered and deeply ashamed begging strangers for help every single day. This endless nightmare has stripped us of everything, forcing me to sacrifice even my own dignity just to keep my brother and my family alive.

[hazemsuhail]

​I want nothing from this world except to see Samer healthy and free of pain, and to save my family from this slow death. Please donate so we can afford his essential psychiatric and medical treatments before it’s too late.

Please Please donate GoFundMe

[hazemsuhail]

I swear these donations are our only way out. Please keep supporting us to save my brother Samer. 🙏

[mintflavoredcookie]

vetted by gazavetters, the number is #75 !!!!

[hazemsuhail]

Samer's life depends on the next hand that reaches out to him. Please don't just share this post. Help us keep his heart beating.

[copperbadge]

I’m working on an audio transcript using voice recognition technology, and this gentleman has a very nice accent, but when he says “got” the word is often noted down as “God”.

We don’t know what God tested and what God registered as true or untrue. 

We don’t know what God entered into the code since the last time we tested. 

We don’t know what God ticketed as an issue and what just God ignored.

Now we know what God changed, but we don’t have a record of what God approved. 

[jumpingjacktrash]

“We don’t know what God ticketed as an issue and what just God ignored.“

[animatedamerican]

voice recognition theology

[quietwingsinthesky]

like the betrayal’s always going to be worse if they cared about you and it didn’t matter. someone discards you because they didn’t give a shit, then you can be angry about that, you can feel vindicated in that, you can get over it. but if they can look you in the eyes and say “I love you. I would make the same choice again.” You will never sleep peacefully again, is all.

[quietwingsinthesky]

“I thought they cared about me, but they were lying this whole time.” <- tired. boring. removes all the nuance of this relationship to make it easier to move on from.

“I thought they cared about me, and I was right, and every minute they were there for me, every time they said they were proud, every laugh we shared leaning against each other bruised and breathless, all of it was real. and they still left me behind. They could put their love aside. I couldn’t.” <- insane. will never leave you alone. reminds you that even the worst people are still people and can still care about even the ones they hurt the most and that undoes neither the harm nor the love.

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[eggies]

This is quite literally the state of fandom

[byjove]

everybody: you’ve got to advocate for yourself in medical settings!

medical professionals when a patient advocates for themselves in a medical setting (x100 if that patient is a part of any minority): damn. you’re a hypochondriac crazy bitch who has every mental illness and is seeking every narcotic in existence. that’s the only reason you’d be disappointed in the care you’re receiving here. in retaliation, we will be even less helpful and less sympathetic. our jobs are hard. people are dying. we don’t have time to deal with anyone who is slightly inconvenient for us.

[byjove]

Yeahhhhhh. Whenever someone comes online to speak about a negligent, discriminatory or extremely unprofessional and uncomfortable experience they had in a medical setting, medical professionals tend to swarm them just to remind them over and over again that their job is sooooooo hard and patients are soooooo mean to them and that there are soooooooo many sicker people, like the sicker patients aren’t also being humiliated and abused, like hospitals do not stabilize people and dump them back on the street to die, like deaths due to medical errors aren’t a major problem, like racism, ableism, classism and misogyny isn’t rampant in the medical system from the top down, perpetuated systemically and individually by providers. So many doctors and nurses hate to admit they’re wrong, they hate to admit they’re complacent, they hate to admit that their patients are all people, often having the worst day of their life.

[tieflingkisser]

[writing5ever]

I remember once in my introductory course for philosophy the professor said something to the effect of how Aristotle or idk Plato was a genuis cause he knew more than one language. And someone responded completely genuinely "that's not hard" and the professor was like "okay maybe you're bilingual but not everyone is" and we all just went we're all at least bilingual, like you are too. You're speaking English it's native to NONE of us. And we could see him have a moment, where he asked us to raise our hands for the number of languages we know and most of the class got to four. He just went 'huh, guess you're genuises' and someone snarkily from the back went 'or maybe just indian'

[friend-crow]

Genuinely kind people don't get enough credit. People seem to think that being nice is just a personality trait, but it's actually a commitment to treat people well, even when it's hard. It's not just being nice to the people you like.

It's choosing to be kind to people when you're in a bad mood, or when they're being annoying.

It's choosing to be kind to people who your friends don't like.

It's choosing to be kind to people who you don't particularly like.

It's choosing to be kind to people who you envy.

I'm not saying that you can't be a kind person and stand up for yourself, or tell someone to fuck off when they're doing something genuinely harmful, but there are a million petty reasons people use to justify treating people badly.

It is a conscious choice, made over and over, often several times a day, to treat people with kindness and respect, even when they make it hard. So appreciate the consistently kind people in your life, because they work hard to be that way, and they really don't have to.

[friend-crow]

Something that comes up when I discuss kindness with people is that people who I experience as being kind believe that they're just faking it. They don't believe it counts if you're kind to someone who you're secretly annoyed by.

But that's exactly what kindness is. It's making the effort to treat people well when you don't feel like it.

If anything it should count MORE when it's not effortless.

[coinandcandle]

Kindness is often a choice, and choosing to be kind is a wonderful thing.

[twiststreet]

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Edited down a long tweet. (x)

[cacophonila]

[runs hands down face]

Okay this is the problem with sharing pop science stuff online and content aggregation accounts

The study is real, it's very easy to find by searching up the author's name + study. Give it a read yourself. It's written in a pretty accessible way imo.

Note that it does not put forward any explanations for why this effect happens, only that it does. In the conclusion it posits many possible reasons for why, and that it's most likely nothing to do with the specific action of walking, merely any semi automatic repetitive activity. They also acknowledge the study did not account for the social company the walkers were in, which is a pretty massive factor imo. Considering the conclusion brings up MANY alternative explanations and future experiment possibilities, it's decidedly not "killed every alternative explanation" like the tweet says. The actual paper ends like most scientific papers, listing alternative possible explanations, these are preliminary results, more research is needed, wider demographics of people need to be included, etc.

Another thing is the phrasing of these tweets are like red flags flapping in the wind to me. Any short form social media content that's 1. Pop science 2. Conveys absolute certainty 3. Ends with self improvement biohacking adjacent advice, should set off alarm bells.

Look at the implications that if the tweets were true, it would mean wheelchair users and people with mobility issues would be inherently worse at creative tasks.

So who is this person that's tweeting this, rephrasing this paper in a "helpful" way that is sure to get shares from people who really value being creative and are looking for any way to become more creative in their -

OFC ITS AN AI BRO

You wanna see what his recent articles look like?

CAN WE STOP GETTING BAITED INTO PLATFORMING GRIFTERS

[keepingitreluctant]

Thank you! There were so many red flags in the first post's language. The original paper straight up says that the mechanisms weren't isolated! Also there is no single part of the brain responsible for creative idea generation, it involves communication between multiple brain networks.

[lastoneout]

Glad I wasn't the only person who looked at this and thought that it was weird to say this study is SO perfect when the way it's framed here directly implies that people who can't walk are inherently less capable of being creative than people who can.

[lastoneout]

I can't leave a reply but to the disabled people in the notes who now genuinely seem to believe their mobility issues have robbed them of their ability to be creative pls don't think that! That's not what this study said! You're dealing with ableist misinformation from an AI bro, the study did not make these claims. I encourage everyone who's shared the version without the corrections to take them down, this misinfo is hurting already clearly hurting disabled people and should not be spread.