I mean, really in for it. I hope you've got your butt prepared.
I knew I was in for trouble when I saw today's writer's block:
What do you like most about LiveJournal?
Livejournal has no redeeming features or qualities.
...that sooner or later this company is going to sell it to a place that enjoys pissing off the Russian government that is off of Russian soil... (just not China, please - if you must go to a Communist government, go to Cuba, which is still genuinely Communist.)
I mean what the fuck does this even mean?
Cuba, really communist? Are you fucking kidding me? It's a dictatorship.
Other than that - it's because it's still the place to start if you're in fandom, and because you can still have good, in-depth conversations here. It's very much its own platform, and it hasn't tried to "keep up" with other social platforms. This is actually the smart way to go. Let Facebook be Facebook, let Googleplus be Googleplus - each venue suits a different type of mindset.
I saw an article recently that suggested blog use was down 300%.
They thanked Facetube but I'd like to think I contributed to the downfall in my own way.
To give context, I’m having significant anxiety the last few days, more than I’ve had in several months. So much that despite the dry weather, I woke up in full-on asthma attack last night.
Why? Because something good happened. I’m having a major anxiety attack over something good:
Something good happened.
HELP.
part of this is that it did come heaped with some underlying nastiness, not intended by the people that made the delivery. There is no gracious way for me to ask “can I avoid this specific attitude-holder?” So while I want to embrace this new and wonderful thing, that nastiness has raised all sorts of new fears, and made me ask the question…”is this the trustworthy place?” My deep self says yes, but my ego is a bit bruised.
Oh, did I forget to explain what this post is about?
No I didn't. This is how it starts.
On the other hand, I finally realize why Julia Cameron encourages us to indulge our sensitive natures, to be a little more thin-skinned, to not always “man up.”
Excuse me?
Julia Cameron, who is this?
Oh. She wrote a few books on how to be creative.
Not really sure that's how it works--
Actually, she sounds like someone I might have had to read in pussy sensitivity at some point in my life but I can't say this name is at all familiar to me.
Oh well, small favors.
While some people pretend to be thin skinned as a way of controlling others and most of us see that for what it is to the point of ignoring or steamrollering genuine hurt, I’ve finally figured out the positive side to sensitivity.
The positive side is you get to act like a complete putz if someone stumbles on one of your sensitive spots.
No, I'm just kidding. There is benefit to being a pussy.
You know what to protect. For years I’ve let my work get trampled, let people convince me I’m a bad writer or that I’m grammatically incompetent, and then seen projects get horribly eviscerated as, in the name of being “professional,” I decided not to insist upon my own vision.
And you have to be a fag to do that?
I realize it doesn’t matter if the people that crap on my work are jealous. Knowing the motivation does not help the problem. What does help is standing up for myself, and to do that I do not need a confrontation most of the time. Confrontations are for absolute last resorts.
"Yeah thanks for your advice. I'll consider it."
There you go.
No, to stand up for myself I just need to say these magic words: “I disagree. Here’s why…”
No, just thank them and move on.
In fact, if you're not going to take constructive criticism why are you asking for it in the first place? I hate it when fuckfaces like you do this kind of shit. HERE'S MY SPACE MARINE, HOW DO I PAINT IT BETTER?
Well it's good but I believe you really need to work on your transitions. Perhaps study a bit more on how to create gradients?
NO I DISAGREE WITH YOU MY GRADIENTS ARE PERFECT.
Well, perfection really has no room for improvement so WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ASKING FOR CRITICISM?
I remember in pussy sensitivity we had to do this sandwich method bullshit where we'd say something nice, then a criticism, then something nice again.
Nothing good ever came from seriously using it. Just say it's beautiful and wonderful and move on with your life. People are too thin skinned to accept anything less than complete adoration and yet, according to Julia whatever we're too thick skinned.
Bitch, if people had thinner skin they'd have no skin.
So why am I having an anxiety attack? If I practice the honesty exercise, it’s because I’m scared I will not be properly supported when I need it the most. I don’t need a lot of hand holding.
By your own admission you're 20 something. You shouldn't need your hand held at all.
“We are all connected and it’s important to honor that.”
Life, death and sex are the three most sacred things in the world to me. Even so, I will be just as quick to dispatch a parasite that eats my light bulbs as I am a parasite that eats my blood.
Life, death and sex are sacred.
Oh boy, here we go.
“The spirit was here first; that’s a valid perspective.”
If it were a living person, we’d call that a squatter. If I have obtained my place to live through just means, I believe it is reasonable to expect all previous inhabitants to relocate.
The spirit, excuse me?
Like ghosts?
No, that shit ain't real.
And if it were I know Warhammer has several simple methods for destruction of the undead.
When dealing with spirits, I operate on the following principles/assumptions:
When dealing with spirits I operate on the following principle:
- shit ain't real
Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Outliers posits that successful people spend at least 10,000 hours working on their chosen craft, art or profession before becoming skilled enough to enjoy success.
Sun Tzu actually hit on a similar notion two and a half thousand years prior to Malcolm Gladwell but you know, whatever.
He even said 10,000 hours to get good at something.
Guy really was ahead of his time.
Slate.com recently ran an article on how the 10,000 hours rule applies to writing, too. Cookies for anyone who can find the original link. Yes, some of us have a natural talent for writing. All the same, even the “naturals” have to log serious time in developing an understanding of the craft as a discipline. In the case of writing, and in this context, discipline is defined as “daily practice that leads to a project’s completion.” This is not the “discipline” of “I was good on my diet.” This is discipline along the lines of what it takes to get multiple black belts in a martial art.
Writing isn't that hard.
When I measure my own career against this rule, I come up with yes, I fulfilled it and no, I haven’t – at the same time.. Technically, I have more than surpassed the requirement. I started publishing political editorials at age 16, I majored in writing at Lakeland and in mass communications at Mankato State, and while I didn’t finish graduate school, my attempted MFA was in creative writing.
Wow that's really boring.
Throughout the latter half of my undergrad, in between my undergrad and graduate school, I also wrote for Llewellyn and picked up freelance work where I could.
If you put every hour I’ve spent putting together the written word, I easily surpass 10,000 hours.
But.
Yes, there’s always a but.
Did I mention this is a guy?
Because it is.
Writing, like the aforementioned martial arts, has different styles and disciplines. Blogging differs from print news writing. Poetry differs from prose. Fiction differs from nonfiction.
I’m not sure I’ve actually passed the 10,000 hours rule in any ONE area of writing. While I love eclecticism
This is starting to sound a lot like excuses to me.
I definitely have not logged 10,000 hours in poetry.
Me neither.
I definitely haven’t logged 10,000 hours in news and political writing.
Hey what do you know? Me neither again.
I guess I have logged about 8,000 hours in nonfiction prose – I get the sense that the book Divorcing a Real Witch is my journeyman’s piece, the book that will take me across that final line .
Divorcing a real witch--
The fuck?
I think I’ve logged under 10,000 hours in blogging, but I’m very close to the line on that one, especially because Fat Chic used to take up stretches of hours every day.
I don't think I've logged 10,000 hours on this nonsense but it feels like ten times that so does that count?
In truth, I find the 10,000 hour rule helpful. For me it’s an “Oh, so that’s what’s going on!” when it comes to recognition, accomplishment, and finishing my projects.
Mastering skills in real life isn't like grinding in an MMO. It's not like you put 10k hours in and bam, level up. You kind of have to be practicing the right way.
It's why The Art of War doesn't stop after "yeah, 10,000 and you're a badass warrior", you know. It kind of goes on about a way he found effective for doing something.
In this case waging war but whatever, the general tenants can be applied to a lot of shit.
Now here's an article entitled "Prohibiting Magic as an Avocation".
Not really sure what these words mean. I know what they mean individually but together they're not making a lot of sense to me.
I guess the main word a lot of people wouldn't be familiar with is "avocation" which is something one does outside of one's occupation.
Or hobby, as we non-cunts say.
Hoodoo has some interesting aspects to it: it’s the jazz of witchcraft practices. By that I mean it’s uniquely American in the continental sense of “America.” It also, in its principles, seems to steward every taboo known to Wiccan magic workers:
Sorcerers, one and all.
it does have death spells, revenge spells and curses. Those coffin nails are not mullein, they are actual coffin nails. Conjure men and women charge for their magical services. These all make those outside the practice so uncomfortable that most do not realize there’s a lot more to the practice than the broken taboos.
It's also complete bullshit. Did you ever consider that?
I remember a girl in her high school Wiccan phase of her life asked to cast a curse on me once but she needed my permission to do it.
1. that makes for pretty shitty spell casting, and
2. I gave her permission and I'm still 100% fine
That was like 7 fucking years ago, too.
Either she can't cast spells, I'm immune to foul sorcery or there's NO SUCH THING AS FUCKING MAGIC.
My American-eclectic Wiccan religious outlook is unlikely to change. I believe strongly in reincarnation and in-life consequences for actions both spiritual and physical; I also believe in the absolute necessity of a feminine presence in the divine as well as a masculine one.
Speaking of powerful sorcery, I've been leveling thaumaturge again in FFXIV ever since they sorted out the nonsense that is leveling a job higher than 30.
Edie managed to kill the elemental god of hellfire in less than 3 minutes but then this baller makes the scene:
He was being sarcastic about the "performance worthy of song" because after that he promptly goes Super Saiyan and fires a giant laser beam out of his spear that was apparently so badass an entire party of 4 rank 50 people could do nothing except stare in awe at precisely how fucked they were.That's the second time you've turned into a complete bitch at the sight of the Empire, Edie.
I'm starting to doubt your credentials.
Magical systems and traditions live in a strange area between religion and, for lack of a better and much more appropriate term, science. It often taps into some stream of energy that lives right next to what faith produces, but with slight flavor changes. What I get when I practice Ceremonial Magic differs just a little from how I feel when I perform a Wiccan-style uncrossing.
Here you go, dipshit, I'm prepared to explain the difference between science, magic and religion.
I'm only going to explain this once and I will broker no disagreement on this.
Religion: belief in supernatural entities or forces to which we are subservient.
Magic: belief in supernatural entities or forces that can be harnessed for the benefit of the user
Science: the rational, empirical belief that observable phenomena have a natural explanation
Only one of these things contributes to your current prosperity and lifestyle.
Here's a post entitled "Paris! Are you Jealous?" and no, no I'm not.
Man this shit is fucking boring.
I think I'm going to do something else now.
BYE~
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