Can’t market it again unless you call it a remaster.

Epic: I Feel Bad For You

Valve: I Don’t Think About You At All

You can’t cast spells, but it does do magic.

Girls

People go with the information they are given. People don’t do academic research into these things before forming an opinion (myself included). Through cold war times, capitalism was advertised as a morally correct choice (and not just as one type of economic system). Even within this, the American flavour or neoliberal capitalism isn’t the only choice. There can be a more heavily regulated capitalism like in Europe with elements of strong social support. America’s economic success is taken as clear evidence that neoliberal capitalism is clearly the winning strategy and makes them the best.

These aren’t isolated economic theory concepts anymore. These are ideas linked to people’s identity, politics, social groups, morality and sense of justice/right and wrong. This is compounded by a false sense that we live in a meritocracy and just world. As if the world will give money and success to those who are right and good, so we shouldn’t stand in the way of that.

And even of it’s not, global changes are outside our sphere of influence. Carry on trying to enjoy your life regardless.

Be careful, they’ll eat your liver.

I got a floral smelling perfume that was labelled “for men”. Really liked it. But got told a bunch of times “someone’s wearing a lovely women’s perfume”. Maybe I just want to smell like flowers too goddamnit.

Rest? In this economic system?

Everything. I’ve always been a night person, and doing everything is much more enjoyable when there’s peace, no one is going to bother me, no one is going to call on the phone. Whether it is work or studying or watching movies or playing video games or exercise or anything… It is always much better late at night.

I’ve started trying to replicate this in the day. I leave most calls unanswered and most messages unreplied till I’m ready and free. I go to work in a shared office and put in earphones immediately. I try to go to work late and stay late. It isn’t very effective.

Conversation with the wife:

“Are you pregnant?”

“No”

“Well some asshole left his trash on my windshield. And can you believe that a 3 course meal from a midrange restaurant costs $300 now?? WTF.”

No one taught me how to study and I struggled for a long time too. Universities are getting better at it, but high schools still aren’t great in my experience. It is worth spending some time reading about how to study well. It pays off to spend a few hours studying about how to study, and then all studying will take half the time and stick better.

Learning scientists have some fantastic resources that really helped me. Their advice can take any form that works for you: make notes, make flash cards, learn and try to teach your group of friends, make exam questions for your friends.

It is important to see when you are not using these strategies. Understanding a topic and making notes yourself is one thing. Just seeing something online and copying it directly is absolutely not the same. Understanding a topic and teaching it to friends is good, just hanging out to waste time and skim through material and skip the parts you didn’t retain is no good.

The other thing to get around procrastination is to plan out so you know what you’re going to be studying. This makes is more manageable than thinking in your mind “I need to do all of physics”. Instead it becomes “of I could just read the 1st law of thermodynamics today”, then it’s a lot less of a scary mountain to climb. The school syllabus maps out your learning for you.

Part of the challenge is getting your foot in the door. If you’re struggling to start then start with something you can face without scaring you. “I’m going to read this specific topic for 20 mim today” is a lot less likely to scare you away than “I need to study for 8 hours today”. The process builds on itself. Once you start, you’ll find it’s not scary and easy to carry on. Once you know a couple of things and build on that to learn the next thing, then it is quite satisfying for it all to start making sense.

Good luck. It’s not easy. But intelligence you’re born with really doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is if you’re willing to work. There’s no such thing as people who study 30 min and get straight A’s. This is a myth people like to propogate to make it look like innate genius… It’s bullshit.

This is with a discount code. I remember discount codes being offered out by some creators on YouTube to encourage people to join Nebula. I obviously don’t look anymore, but you will likely find one of you look around and wait.

If longform video is your thing, I would highly suggest Nebula. I’ve paid £27.30 for a years subscription. Creators say they get paid fairly and can make content without censorship. It has been exactly what I’m into.

Not only are they not necessary, they’re actually harmful to existence. Admittedly I use YouTube somewhat through privacy front ends, but quitting all the others has been great for my health. Using nebula has also minimised my use of YouTube.

TV isn’t a good barometer though. Most sitcoms have cafe service staff living by themselves in a massive New York apartment.

But wait, there’s more:

Houses cost so much that people don’t have space to do hobbies they used to. There’s no garage or shed to set up as a maker space or studio or to setup drums or a weaving loom or painting canvases.

Intensive parenting is now the norm and the expectation. Kids can’t play in front of the house like they used to. They can’t go out and knock on friend’s doors and go to the playground without a parent from every household going along. The only time children can be left is with a screen, and you’re a villain if you do that.

Expectation from romantic partners also comes into the mix. After all the time and energy drain from the things above, there is nothing left in the tank. My wife would then not be a happy camper if I told her I’m going to be in the garage for an hour for my creative hobby.

Some disposable income is also required (variable amount depending on which hobby you take up).

“It all started the day I was born and then things went rapidly downhill from there.”

Europeans are right.

Floss. Poor dental health affects overall health significantly.

Eat well. Sugar is hidden in everything and home cooked food from basic ingredients seems to be going out of style.

Keep active.

Get healthy sleep.

Meet other humans and do stuff with them.

People will do lots of other things and have small “health hacks”. But if you don’t get the basic things right then it’s not really something you can fix by taking “antioxidants” or other measures.