Latest Posts by anthonypeawashere - Page 2

You are owed/entitled to nothing.

An important part of minimizing your own unhappyness is letting go of the idea that you are obligated to recieve, or keep, something. Anything. Epicurus said that "He who is not satisfied with little, is satisfied with nothing". But he's dead now, so I won't just quote him without explanation.

In modern society, more is never enough. Yet we believe that if we just had more, we would be happy. Honestly thinking it over, this probably stems from the fact that most people try to 'achieve' happiness and then maintain it indefinitely. Which, of course, isn't possible. If more was enough, any millionaire would waltz around in eternal bliss, and Elon Musk wouldn't need to micromanage his image to feed his ego.

So if achieving more doesn't make us happy, maybe lowering our threshold for what we consider 'enough' will? Well, for me it certainly removed a lot of misery (Though not all of it - I'm still not brave enough to touch and hold a larger spider in my hand) from my life, without needing any money.

You, reading this right now, almost certainly feel like you are owed something. There's a simple way to check. If you were to lose both your legs, would you be angry? What if you lost the love of your life much too early? Oh, and I'm willing to bet that most people would be angry if their phone was stolen, enough so to let it ruin their day. This misery is because you feel that you are owed your limbs, or partner, or whatever you hold dear. But to who? The universe? It's silly to think that you feel the universe owes you your legs, and that cursing it and being bitter would change it's ways.

And indeed, with time, people who lose limbs return to their regular state of mood. So you might aswell minimize the time between you losing something and accepting your circumstances. Which is to say: You might as well start accepting that you are, on a spiritual level, owed fuckall.

You aren't owed people's appreciation or adoration no matter how good of a person you are.

You aren't owed a good girl just because you're a nice guy who would treat her like a queen (If you find yourself identifying with this one, you should maybe just try not thinking you are owed the affection of others from being a merely decent person)

The only thing I would argue you are entitled to is air. More specifically, you are entitled to breathe in air that isn't filled with Co2. This is because you're genetically designed to panic in such a case, no exceptions. So in that one instance, the harmony of nature is on your side, and you can freely panic to your hearts content.

With all this being said, I am definitely owed a heart and a repost by you. Otherwise you're a bad stoic and will go to stoicism hell (Las Vegas).

On Sisyphus (And why Camus imagines him happy)

The story of Sisyphus is one that hits particularly close to home, and I'm sure I don't need to explain what it's about.

Similarly, Albert Camus' interpritation of the story, the one that ends with "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" has become pretty famous too, albiet more of a meme. There's a lot to unpack here, but I litterally have nothing better to do, so let's find out why Sisyphus is one lucky guy.

Sisyphus attempts to outsmart the gods, and as punishment, he must roll a boulder up a hill, knowing that it will roll back down once he reaches the top. Not only is that pretty funny, it also seems disgustingly similar to how modern life works. Doing laundry, waiting for the weekend, you name it.

It is a common thought that these things are tedious and eat up our limited time on earth, thus making us miserable. With that mindset, you would imagine Sisyphus as the most miserable human on earth. After all, he has been condemned to spending the rest of his life only working a menial task without any reward or meaning with the task at hand.

This was undoubtedly what the gods had in mind when they handed out this punishment, but Camus claims that it isn't all that bad. Personally, the line in "The Myth of Sisyphus" (which is the essay Camus wrote on the matter) that sticks with me the most is: "One always finds [their] burden", which I try to remember before I make a decision that supposedly will make my life easier.

After all, the people wealth large enough to never have to partake in work or laundry or any of these things do not enjoy a perpetual state of bliss and unconcern (unconcern is apperently a word). Their burdens simply lie elsewhere.

What am I getting at with all this? Well, I'm saying that, provided he was given enough time to accept his situation, Sisyphus wouldn't actually be happier if he was one day let back into the world and relieved of his boulder hauling duties. He would probably be happy for a while, but he would eventually find his burden, and go back to hauling a now metaphorical boulder.

So far we've established why Sisyphus would be equally miserable with or without his boulder, but why then is Sisyphus supposed to be happy?

Well, it basically boils down to a misleading segway. See, Sisyphus doesn't have to be miserable when he hauls that shitty boulder. It sounds insane, and Camus even states the absurdity of it. But if Sisyphus wanted to defy the gods one last time, could he? Could he end up happier than before he even got his punishment and end up with the last laugh? Yes, he could, and here's how.

The key is not to recognise the abusrdity of the situation. Instead of thinking about what a waste of time and how meaningless this task is, Sisyphus must instead do the opposite: Attempt to do the task to his absoloute best ability, without yielding to the idea that this task is, inherently, meaningless.

Should he succeed in this fundemental rework of his way of thinking, he will start enjoying the work. See, humans have a deep need to do a good job. When you procrastinate, or cut corners, or whatever, you will feel a tiny hit of misery (probably shame). That's just how we work. But the opposite applies too. If you truly commit to your task, no matter how meaningless or ineffecient it is, you will get a tiny reward.

If Sisyphus decides to push that boulder with all his might, every day, knowing damn well it will roll down again, he will be happy. He has defied his own misery, and found meaning in the most meaningless of tasks. And when the boulder rolls down, he will breathe a satisfied sigh, and walk back down to start pushing again.

Sounds pretty absurd, huh? One must imagine the people that are free to do menial tasks everyday happy? Well, you are free to imagine anyone any way you like. But I certainly imagine Sisyphus happy, along with any garbage worker and bus driver that find joy in their work.

While you're right, entirely right, the thing is It shouldn't even be a 'i have to do x' in the first place. You should always get a reason for doing what it is that you are doing, otherwise dicipline will just be associated with negative feelings, and by that point it's back to square one of why we even go through the motions. The ironic exception is training dicipline itself, for which tasks that are inherently unnecessary are great.

You gotta want to do it, or failing that, at least convince yourself the task has meaning (If you're good enough at the skill of self-convincing, "getting the task done" can be meaning enough, too). Personally I just don't aknowledge the feeling of "I don't want to''. "I don't wanna go buy groceries" "Ah that's alright do it anyways"

So I guess what I really mean isn't that you can't recognise your own wish not to do something, but instead that you recognise it and just do the task instead of spending that expensive mental energy convincing yourself you HAVE to do it for your or someone elses sake.

Still, getting a free reason to want to do your tasks are a great thing, and is a boon you should cherish while you have it.

Finally found where this came from.

Taxes?

14 Million (according to the national government of health) saved. 6 dead. I repeat. FOURTEEN MILLION PEOPLE have been estimated to have kept their lives because of the vaccine. "World renowned immunologist" Ais also a Britsh politician, who are notorious for being morally bankrupt, and he himself was part of a far-right populist party, he also opposes efforts made to oppose and slow down climate change. But here's the best part. This guy, scummy as he may be, works IN CREATING VACCINES. He helped FOUND a CANCER VACCINE institute. Anti Vaxxers are genuinely so dumb they can't even do basic research and have to do cherry picking to this degree.

Trying to explain the nature of dicipline.

Dicipline, and especially self dicipline, is not something that you can force through sheer willpower. You have to do useless things to get it. And you can't tell yourself that you're doing it for the sake of dicipline, it doesn't work like that. You have to do things for no reason. And if you find yourself asking: Why am I doing this? you should answer: "I'm doing this unnecessary task because it is unnecessary."

After all, when your boss tells you to do a task that is useless for your work, or you have to learn calculus that you will never, ever use in your adult life, will you have a better time with a brain that is geared towards hating unnecessary things and will feel frustrated over the task, or one that not only is used to dealing with these types of tasks, but can even find meaning in the meaningless, through dicipline.

Stoic excercise: The reverse marshmellow test

Time to train up some dicipline! Remember that real dicipline isn't about muscular men at the gym, or soldiers obeying orders. True dicipline is personal and comes from within yourself, and nobody can force self-dicipline upon you (hence the name). The reverse Marshmellow test Take a piece of candy, chocolate, marshmallow, whatever you want to have. It doesn't have to be candy. It can be anything, so long as you desire it in the moment. Place either 1 or 2 pieces in front of you.

Should you pick 2 pieces: Allow yourself to take one, WITHOUT guilt. You are mature enough to make your own decisions and guilt is the bane of happiness. Set an arbitrary amount of time for yourself. It shouldn't be too long, because this is an active excercise that will take the time you set for yourself. I'd recommend 15 minutes AT MOST, but 2 minutes is much more reasonable. Even just 40 seconds is great! Now place the two pieces in front of you, sit down, and don't do anything. Neither productive nor unproductive. You may let your thoughts run as wild as you like, but you physically have to sit and look at the two pieces (this is the only reason why you shouldn't go for more than 15 minutes. It may take out a chunk of your day if you go any higher). If you manage to wait the time you set for yourself without taking the first piece, you may take the second. You don't have to eat it, but if you do, you can do it with a feeling that you 100% entirely earned that piece. Should you pick 1 piece: Put the piece in front of you and set some amount of time for yourself. Sit down and look at the piece. You don't have to clear your mind, but you may not do any chores/actions, practical or otherwise. You might notice that you aren't focusing on your piece, but instead practical work to do or just whatever it is your brain is thinking of. This is okay. Let the brain do what it wants, this is natural and healthy for a mind to do. It will eventually get these small 'chores' done and you will either be at rest or back to focusing on the piece. It's boring, but just keep waiting until the time is up. When the time is up, take your piece and eat it if you feel like it.

Bonus challenge! Try to convince yourself in your mind to take the piece early, or that you're just wasting your time by sitting idle (you're not, and believe me when I say that you waste much, much more time on other things).

(mid-challenge) What if I rationally don't want to do this anymore, and I'm starting to feel uninvested/in a worse mood? Fair enough! This may happen if the time that was set is too long. Here's what you do in the situation: You cancel the excercise. You haven't done anything wrong and you shouldn't feel guilt or shame. In at least an hour or so, you can try the excercise again if you'd like, with a shorter time. Finally, remember that 30 seconds isn't a bad time, and isn't important how long you can go for. You just have to be willing to challenge yourself with your time.

On temptation

Temptation is a word that is loved to death by christians, but is actually used to describe any old impulse the body or mind may have. Temptation is wanting to eat all the time. Temptation is the desire to lay in bed on a monday morning. Temptation, temptation, temptation. The thing is, though, that temptation also has a different meaning, which is the 'actual' definition of it: Being tempted (be it by yourself or others) to do some thing. Horrible explanation, so let me use an example: If you want to stop cracking your knuckles, a christian would say that cracking your knuckles is a form of temptation. But I would say (not from stoicism in particular) that temptation was the feeling you get when you don't crack your knuckles and you then start wanting to. That's temptation. This kind of temptation is directly linked to dicipline, and it can be used to train your dicipline.

Instead of avoiding temptation, you have to expose yourself to it in a controlled amount. If you just supress your desires (which come from a natural place way most of time), you will not achieve anything and it will bounce back some way or another. But if you instead tempt yourself on purpose, imagining and telling yourself how easy it would be, you will build up your own dicipline, especially if/when your brain takes it up as a habit in itself. Train it up, see what happens!

When you get lost and you end up in the enemys spawn

right wing trolls acting up on tumblr always fascinate me like what are you doing making a fuss about pronouns on the pronouns in bio website you’re in enemy territory like are you lost or something

On Gambling

Gambling is a practice that will never yield positive results, and serves only to further the misery that we may bring upon ourselves. Never have I seen or heard of a person who came out of a casino happier than when they went in.

Partly because the high of winning is either followed by the next day's compensation, should they choose to leave with their winnings, with the thought of going back lingering in their mind.

Partly because, should they keep playing, they will inevitably lose all their earnings (and probably more after that), or move back up to the previous example.

And partly because the low of losing is one that can only be satiated by either winning the losses back (Which is what casinos prey on) or accepting that the money is gone forever, which casinos do everything in their power to make difficult.

But most of all, gambling is miserable because it is built on a complete and total lack of dicipline. "The only winning move is not to play", after all. Casinos draw in the impulsive and those in a vulnurable state of mind, knowing they won't have the dicipline to keep their winnings or cut their losses.

Many lose all track of money and just start playing on emotions, because the gamblers fallacy actually relies on "I just need to get my money back, then I will no longer feel down", which would only hold true if you were to immedeately leave the casino once you've minimized losses.

I imagine that the most successful gambler is as miserable as the one who lost it all; Both lost their most valuable asset long before they put down their first bet.

What the meaning of life isn't.

Nobody knows what the meaning of life is, this is pretty commonly known. However, people are surprisingly good at knowing what the meaning of life isn't! For example:

If I asked you: "is the meaning of our time here on earth to drive cars?" You'll probably answer no, because intuitively, cars isn't... the meaning, yk? Obviously you can argue why with examples and reasoning, but you don't need those to know that driving cars isn't the meaning of life.

Is the meaning of life eating food, surviving and then having offspring? Some people will say yes, and it's a fair answer. Biologically, it is why we are here, after all. But most people don't find this a satisfactory answer, which is where the question takes a more spiritual turn. It's less "what is my purpose" and more "how do I feel accomplished in life". Accomplishment is a hard feeling to keep. You may have it, periodically, but it quickly slips away. This is the same with happiness.

Humans have (due to advertisements and ESPECIALLY social media) gotten used to the idea that being happy means actively experiencing happiness all the time. It doesn't. Being happy is more of a skill, something you steer towards when given the chance but otherwise don't stare longingly at when you don't have it.

Even though the situation in Europe is far less insane, my grandparents just-

My grandmother never worked fulltime a day in her life. She had no education past high school, she just walked up to a place, asked for a job and got it.

My grandfather finished his college degree when he was like 30, and then worked in a completely different industry where his education barely helped him.

They bought a house for dirt cheap, and have lived in it for over 40 years.

Meanwhile my parents both have high positions within companies, and they make (from what i can guess) between 3 and 4 times as much as my grandparents ever did.

Here's the kicker. My grandparents live 2 streets away from my parents. Their house has like septoupled in value and it is truly a testiment to how different the world was in the 70's than it is today.

As for me? I can't afford to move out before my college degree in aerodynamics is completed.

I just want to be able to quietly work on a computer tap tapping away with my cat sitting with me, is that really such a hard thing to come by? It is. Degree this, experience that. I get it, I do. Of course you'd want people who meet certain criteria, that makes perfect sense. If wishes were fishes and all that.

We force their prices down under the threat of murder and re-animation. Imagine just how horrible that really is - being torn apart alive, just to (unwillingly) be 'cured' back into a form capable of trading. And your protectors, the golems? Their villager friends are forced to build them under slave-like conditions, so that we can remelt them into usable iron. Villagers live in sustainable, small communities all until WE come into the picture with our swords and industrial machinery.

But the bitter, awful truth? The villagers are evil beings too. They have banished thousands of their own, hence the pillager/evoker/vindicator/witches (less sure about the witches, as they are shown to live alone). These people are forced to gather together, creating huge mansions where they practice the occult an an attempt to get on decent terms with otherwise hostile mobs. Ever thought about why woodland mansions are so rare, yet villages so common? The woodland mansions also contain many... shall we say, observations, about the world. The inhabitants are men of science and knowledge, pursuing magic and truth. They may be evil, but they are the closest thing to the player in game. And they are only evil because of the villagers. At the end of the day, the Player will annihalate mansions and enslave villagers (sometimes even enslaving vindicators for fun, as they arent very useful for work). The vindicators (and gang) know this. They know of the Player's evil. That's why they are hostile, and why pillager patrols will lock eyes with the player even if they are far enough away that the Player is not a threat (no other hostile mob will look at the player without taking some action like attacking, fleeing, or whatever).

So why do we view Illigers, who keep to themselves in their faraway mansions deep in forests, as evil, while villagers, who have doomed them to this fate and refute all technological progress past mastering their own limited trade, are considered good?

It's simple. The villigers are useful to us. They give us things that we want. That's why we 'protect' them, so that they can make us more powerful. Ever noticed how a raid can only ever happen if YOU enter a village with a bad omen? Neither pillagers nor illigers want to harm the villages themselves. They are trying, in desperation, to halt the Players progress and save themselves. That's why if you leave the raid and come back, they will just have killed everyone, then gone home.

Actually, thinking it over, a big part of what the evokers search for is eternal life, right? They create vexes out of thin air but they can't make them last. Maybe that's why they imprison allays, to study them. Anyways, they have somewhat succeeded? They have totems that can reverse death, but they can't seem to use them (given that they die as normal and instead drop the totem on the ground). But the player can. The player can still die, but he (btw i'm calling the player a he cuz the default skin in Steve) respawns. And his progress remains. For some reason, the Player is beyond death itself. And interestingly, Zombies and Skeletons always look like players (zombies do occasionally spawn as villagers, but rarely). Even the dead version of players still walk around, their flesh rotting and resporatory system unable to breathe without creating a hissing sound. They are also capable, in theory, to equip any item, if it's put into their hands. The same goes for armor. Even skeletons, beings that have no flesh living tissue, walk around. They are able to use a bow, and are scarily fast when they aren't aiming. The player is so far beyond death that even his own decaying or decayed bodies roam around and interact with the world around them.

Absolutely hate it when minecraft stories portray villagers as stupid/inferior to the player/s 👎👎👎👎👎 Big thumbs down👎

Biblically accurate cat

"How do you do, fellow alligators"

Anyone ever have a day so bad you just start laughing from the absurdity of it?

I remember I had a day that, on paper, was awful. Bike had somehow had both of its wheels punctured, so I had to walk to school (it wasn't too far away from where I lived so if I made haste I wouldn't be late). While I'm walking, Aeolus decides to do everything in his power to ensure I fail. It was like walking against a leafblower, only bigger and proportinally stronger. However, while I pass the only place on the route where there are puddles, a truck speeds by, splashing a small tsunami directly at me. By this point I'm in a seriously bad mood, but it gets worse, as the moment I step foot on school grounds I trip on dogshit and fall in the earth-mud combination that the ground has become after yesterdays rainfall. On the way home I pass under a tree and I kid you not, like 3 acorns fall on my head and fall down my clothes, (these were like, decently heavy, not enough to hurt me but enough to be uncomfortable to be hit by). Then, when I get home, I realise I have lost my keys. By this point I am barely holding it together, but I can still go to my grandparent's house to get a spare and return it. Annoying, yes, but better than standing around in dirty clothes waiting for someone to come home. When I make it up there, I realise that they aren't home either, so I go to retrieve the spare key for their home, and after getting in, i realise that I don't actually know where their keys are. I call my grandmother, and she reveals that alas! The spare key is with them, as they use 1 keychain for all their keys. This was the point when the entire situation became so absurd that I just began laughing at it all, full on belly laughing at how comically unfortonate the day had been. I laughed most of the way home (it's a fairly short walk), and then it happened. As I got home to wait, my mom opened the door. She had been working from home all day, and heard me try to open the door but had been in the bathroom, and by the time she unlocked it I was already off to get the spare key. When I heard this I laughed hysterically she got genuinely worried, and then I showed her the back of my clothes and explained the entire thing, after which we both laughed like hell about it.

So it was a good day in practice, haha

What you just described is like.. a critical chunk of the Human Condition.

The feeling of not being capable of the thing you're "meant" to do is such a human struggle, and it's something that everyone feels. It fundementally stems from the fact that our instincts are unaligned with our way of life, and when those instincts aren't met, we become miserable.

So we feel abandoned even if we are surrounded by friends and family, because we have abandoned ourselves by abandoning our instincts. We get punished, and try to compensate. By creating. We want to put our mark upon the world, to let others know we existed. That's why we built pyramids, and later wrote graffiti on said pyramids, and later yet made Tumblr posts about Greek graffiti on the pyramids.

And the thing is, creating doesn't fix the Human Condition, the same way acceptance of the loss of a loved one doesn't conclude your period of grief. But it ensures we can at least die knowing we achieved things. A small consolation, but nevertheless, we chase it. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The thing with humans is we create. We create such advanced things that draw deep parallels into our own selves. Not only that, we draw those parallels. We compare everything, we build those thoughts and put ourselves into the shoes of others.

And this is a silly thing to be upset about. I absolutely do know that. I watched the Steven Universe movie. Great movie, amazing music, adorable stuff. Mature as well of course, since the show itself has a lot of deep and important topics that are enjoyed by young and old.

I'm sure someone already said something about it before. But Spinel. She was sweet. Designed for fun. Designed for Pink. To avoid boredom, to keep her happy. And seeing yourself so plainly in another character and the parallels of trauma can be heart shattering.

To be created for someone's joy. And then they grow bored, annoyed. Bothered by your existence. They become too mature for your antics. They anticipate the trouble you can bring. Neglect, abandonment. To be left alone so long when all you wanted was to bring joy and pride. To know they dropped you off for others they did find joy in. To be forgotten.

Not only that. Knowing that you have trauma and don't really want to cause trouble in the end once you're awake to your actions, yet can't stop yourself. The pain runs under the skin. You lash out, and you can't take it back after. You can't begin again. Moving on is hard. You can't go back to your Pink, you can't fix those old friendships either. Or worse, Pink is your family. And now, you can't even go back to them either. The shock and darkness that would follow. It's just a lot to consider.

Yes, yes, yes!

Only thing I can add to this is telling yourself "I will do x", where x is something that is somewhat inconvenient. The point of x is doing it because it sucks and is inconvenient. Doing this wont just build dicipline, it also shows your brain that you're loyal, which builds up trust, and eventually self esteem. X also shouldn't be a large thing, and can be a series of things.

RECLAIMING DISCIPLINE CAN LOOK LIKE:

• keeping small + manageable promises to yourself daily

• healing your attention span (ex: reading books, watching movies without scrolling, letting yourself be bored)

• moving from "I'll try" to "I will"

• reframing pain + difficulty as often where the growth happens

• showing up as the person you want to be

• making mindful & nourishing choices VS choices that result in instant gratification

In Denmark, we have a popular song which has the line "Man siger efter stormens pisken kommer solen frem, men den hjælper sjældent dem der er blevet våde", which basically means "After the storm the sun comes out, but it rarely helps those who became soaking wet".

When your life stabilises it doesn't mean you should suddenly feel alright. It means you can now BEGIN to heal and dry off.

You don't have to force yourself to bounce back so quickly. I read something recently that said "when you come in from a rainstorm, you don't expect yourself to be dry and warm right away", and it really resonated with me. It's okay to take time to dry off and warm up. Take the time you need to process what happened to you.

I had a person track me down because I had edited a single stat on a single item in The Binding of Isaac's fandom wiki. They contacted me on Discord. They said it had been tough because I wasn't on the official Isaac discord server. They added me so that they could inform me that I had made a wrong edit, and that they had reverted it. That was it.

A strange interaction but welcome nonetheless.

Remembering that time the Soviets pulled a 1:1 recreation of a B-29 (pictured) out of their asses, slapped a red star on it and called it the TU-4.

As far as I understand, they seemingly did this by attempting to make it a 1:1 replica, even when they had specific technologies or building techniques that were superior.

The Soviet Union also had to reverse engineer it from near scratch, as even the thickness of the Hull had to be figured out (America used imperial whereas everyone else used metric), and the very best thing about it is that their main motivation to do all this was to show the Americans that they had the ability to drop a nuke (which, mind you, they had just barely invented), with the whole 'we engineered your $60 billion dollar plane in two years" aspect merely being a bonus.

They made the plane as close as possible to prove to the US that they had a bomber that could attack the mainland, because that was easier than making a new design and proving what they wanted to prove.