Advice on managing extended periods away from the World

Here’s a few tips for people who are currently self-isolating:

  1. Hold fast to whatever is waiting for you on the other side. It doesn’t matter it feels foolish, or whether there is certainty of it happening exactly as you plan in the end. Hope can deliver us from the darkest of days.
  2. Be goofy AF. Crack jokes. Be odd. Let your mind wander when it needs to. You need to let that pent up energy out often. Channel it into whatever creative nonsense you can think of.
  3. Food is fuel. Eat what you need, but ration the good stuff. You’ll need the good rewarding pick-me-ups spaced out in time.
  4. Make a time-keeping record / log. Put all your thoughts, poems, songs, rants, etc in it. Bonus if you can collaborate on it with others.
  5. Share your thoughts with others and commiserate often. We are all in the suck, and it doesn’t matter how much worse anyone has it. Your feelings are valid, and need acknowledgement.
  6. Write letters to loved ones, and record videos for them to watch (and facetime now that that tech is available). I always felt special when someone went to the trouble of making something like that for me, and letting me know they care. And I felt good making them too.
  7. Have a project. Something long term that you have to work on gradually. Education, making, hobby, art, etc.
  8. Make and share playlists for your various moods, and embrace the moods you feel fully. Get all the joy, rage, pain, and everything out. Scream if you need to. Don’t worry about looking crazy, because the World is crazy, and we are a reflection of it.
  9. Get to know people that you would never talk to in your normal routine. They will change your life.
  10. Reward your accomplishments. Because you are a survivor, thrill hunter, a champion, and a badass.
  11. Be a dick as little as possible, and share whatever you can.

Monotony is murder. More:

  1. If you got video games, play them. Play them all. Feeling like you are exploring that world will help when you can’t go explore your own world anymore.
  2. Stop struggling. Yes this sucks, however reminding yourself constantly that it sucks is only going to make it suck more. As another comment said. Settle in.
  3. Make entertainment out of even the smallest things. Got a dial lock laying around? See if you can get it to open without knowing the combo. Got a tie? Look up some tie knots and start practicing.
  4. Socializing online is important as hell. If its in a video game, in an online platform like DnD, or even just calling a friend on Facebook.
  5. If you have substances, forget them. Drinking or smoking when you are bored is gonna turn into something you don’t like.

During trying times we can use words to soothe our souls and relieve pain

I believe the national day for poetry has come and gone without me posting anything – mostly because I’ve been in a mad rush to stock up on DIY materials before all the stores are shut down.

And with each day, my sense of dread and doom increases as I see no escape from the rising wave of COVID-19. We’re all gonna get it. What’s more scary, we might already have it and are asymptomatic. We might have given it to someone by touching a handle. We might have inadvertently caused someone to give it to their elderly nana or their young’uns.

So I’m clapping at all the people who self-isolate, who can stay the fuck at home, who are responsible enough not to touch anything all while scrubbing my hands every chance I get singing “Staying alive” by the Bee Gees.

Continue reading “During trying times we can use words to soothe our souls and relieve pain”

Un Couteau Dans Le Coeur

I watched a movie this weekend – French, 2018 – about a serial killer that would target Gay people who appeared in cheap pornos. Badly acted, filled with absolutely forgettable characters (both the actual movie and the movie within the movie), it did offer one good insight.

When the leading lady fails to seduce the film editor, Lois, she screams at her from the top of her badly-acted voice, that she loves her and has done so for quite some many years.

I’ve loved you this hard for 10 years.
I never thought I could love this hard, this long.
This love is too much for me.
It’s too powerful.
I’m terrified of losing you. It’s driving me insane!
You can’t refuse a love like this.
It’s criminal.
You must love me.
Love me.
Love me, love me!

So I started thinking. Why do some people think they’re entitled to another person’s love and affection just because they think it’s deserved? Love goes both ways, so does attraction, and when one side is coming on too strong, you have psychopathic behaviour forming. Stalking. Love bombing. Manipulation and threats from either harming someone else or their own self.

Yes, it’s painful if you’re the one who’s actually loving. Yes, it’s frustrating. But take it from the other side’s point of view. It’s not their fault if they don’t reciprocate the feelings. It’s hard – but you have to move on. Find things to do with your family and friends. Block them – out of sight, out of mind. Don’t push it or they will pull away.

“Love is something which should find you, instead of you searching for it.” The more you search, the more it gets delayed.

Rejection is never easy but knowing how to limit the psychological damage it inflicts, and how to rebuild your self-esteem when it happens, will help you recover sooner and move on with confidence when it is time for your next date or social event.

Unfortunately, the greatest damage rejection causes is usually self-inflicted. Indeed, our natural response to being dumped by a dating partner or getting picked last for a team is not just to lick our wounds but to become intensely self-critical. We call ourselves names, lament our shortcomings, and feel disgusted with ourselves. In other words, just when our self-esteem is hurting most, we go and damage it even further. Doing so is emotionally unhealthy and psychologically self-destructive yet every single one of us has done it at one time or another.

When scientists placed people in functional MRI machines and asked them to recall a recent rejection, they discovered something amazing. The same areas of our brain become activated when we experience rejection as when we experience physical pain. That’s why even small rejections hurt more than we think they should, because they elicit literal (albeit, emotional) pain.

What do you think? Ever loved or been loved and not have your feelings reciprocated?

BoJack Horseman on Death (Finale)

It is really, really hard for people to get endings right. It was a running joke in IT Chapter 2 and while the writers think it’s good, the legions of fans will soon come screaming and petitioning for a re-do as it wasn’t well done. Lost, Dexter and more recently Game of Thrones have died a shameful death with lousy written endings.
So you can imagine the pressure the writers from BoJack Horseman were under.

Continue reading “BoJack Horseman on Death (Finale)”

15 beautiful pictures from Romania

The Romanian landscape is approximately one-third mountainous and one-third forested, with the remainder made up of hills and plains. The climate is temperate and marked by four distinct seasons. Romania enjoys a considerable wealth of natural resources: fertile land for agriculture; pastures for livestock; forests that provide hard and soft woods; petroleum reserves; metals, including gold and silver in the Apuseni Mountains; numerous rivers that supply hydroelectricity; and a Black Sea coastline that is the site of both ports and resorts.

The Romanian people derive much of their ethnic and cultural character from Roman influence, but this ancient identity has been reshaped continuously by Romania’s position astride major continental migration routes. Romanians regard themselves as the descendants of the ancient Romans who conquered southern Transylvania under the emperor Trajan in 105 CE and of the Dacians who lived in the mountains north of the Danubian Plain and in the Transylvanian Basin. By the time of the Roman withdrawal under the emperor Aurelian in 271, the Roman settlers and the Dacians had intermarried, resulting in a new nation. Both the Latin roots of the Romanian language and the Eastern Orthodox faith to which most Romanians adhere emerged from the mixture of these two cultures.

Judah – BoJack Horseman – sings for Princess Carolyn

Guess who’s hooked on the new season of BoJack Horseman? While I think I’ll make a later post discussing the views of “toxic masculinity” and “Hollywood media accusing established actors for past transgressions” another time, there was a scene in the new season which absolutely blew me out of the water. One of my role-models (Lovely Efficient Judah) sings for one of my other role-models (super-efficient and ambitious Princess Carolyn) and confesses his feelings in a very unconventional manner. I was 🙂 and could not believe it was happening. They should make an amazing match.

Here I am rooting for the love of two fictional characters again!

Continue reading “Judah – BoJack Horseman – sings for Princess Carolyn”