You Ever See A Joke So Good It Kicks You Out Of Your Doomscrolling? Like Yep, THAT Was The Dopamine I

I urge you to immerse yourself fully in the life that you've been given. To stop running from whatever you're trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. Instead, the world may become something worth paying attention to.

Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke, MD

Brennan: Make a religion check for me

Ally:

Sources: Fantasy High Sophomore year, ep 17 and ep 20

Same Energy

Sources: Fantasy High S1E16 & The Unsleeping City S1E17

simple poem 002

why do I feel so stuck when I have so many choices and tasks that can move me forward?

I fear that at my default level I do not truly want to live; merely exist in comfort and continue to get by.

thoughts from another day 002

It’s all ephemeral and transitory and I feel unmoored and adrift with an overwhelming desire to be anchored and secure.

I feel like I’m swirling in this world of ideas and experiences, and I want to reach out and grasp them and capture the abstract with language. The expand and contract - get all of the thoughts and ideas into one place, and then break it down, organize it, understand it; and condense it back down to something cohesive.

But there are two many things there are too many things and ideas and people and complex interactions and relationships and how do you even begin to know where to start, how to start?

I feel like I’m being crushed

Genuinely useful and insightful. I think I've internalized a lot of these tips already as I've been actively working on getting better at small talk, but seeing it spelled out like this is hugely helpful.

One of the stranger things about training brand new nurses is explaining how to min max small talk. It feels very weird to coach people on how to chat.

This, right here, is the moment that Dimension 20 hooked me.

In the split-second gap between the first and second halves of Murph’s question, you can almost see a switch flip in Brennan from giving an analytical, factual measurement to the spark of fully understanding the storytelling implications of Murph’s question. 

As I watched him realize that the best possible choice for this exact moment is for the butthole to be goblin sized, I began to truly understand the narrative power of DnD and everyone at that table.

Source: Fantasy High S1E2

Where I first heard about Dimension 20: this Nerdsync video

Honorable Mention: Gorgug asking people if they’re his dad

^^^ this one is what got me to start watching Dimension 20 in the first place, but the moment above is when I was truly hooked.

thoughts from another day 001

I love getting wrapped up in and enthralled with a story, but it also feels unproductive. Leaves me feeling like lack of motion or progress in actual life. Needs to be in balance with the rest of my priorities. I have a strong immediacy and recency bias, compounded with primarily extrinsic motivation makes me feel unmoored and ephemeral and also stagnant.

thoughts from another day 004

wow, getting myself into community space, and seeing people living their lives and being kind and just being human is so good for my soul

He was a capped jug; the contents there for sure. Rain on the outside didn't stir the brew.

Ray Bradbury

from the short story: Powerhouse

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL

“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”