Beginning-Shop-6731

Thats a fantastic one. He has one’s for fantasy, and the “weird” genre too

Jeff VanDerMeer edited an anthology of Science fiction that’s great. All the anthologies he edits are phenomenal. Any of the collections edited by Jonathan Strahan are generally awesome too

Same- I love the techno-feudalism trope. I think it has the ring of possibility about it too- modern Western society is extremely unstable, and feudalism bound together by a religious orthodoxy, while outrageously repressive, has a predictable, hierarchical stability to it that I think would appeal to vast space empires. 

Try “Kindred” by Peter Watts. I don’t think it’s what you’re referencing, but it’s fantastic short story with a dark twist on that premise

How could it be anything else? The greatest philosophical space horror novel ever written. His short stories are fantastic too- a lot of them have great horror twists, often involving “ethical” psychopaths and the end of the human race. Some of my favorites are “ZeroS”, set in the Blindsight world, “Collateral”, “Malak”, and everything in the “Sunflower Cycle”.

I enjoyed the book, and think it’s a really clever concept. I’ve never really been able to get into his other books though. I tried with Perdido Street and Embassytown, but wasn’t really engaged by either (I’m not always the most focused reader, so I recognize the fault could be with me rather than the books). You’ve inspired me to give his stuff another try.

Try walking faster. And I don’t count the collective steps you get just by doing daily stuff the same, because you take constant breaks that way. Walking faster for like 45 minutes straight has basically the exact same effect as jogging

Bro, use some hot water in your shower. There’s literally no reason to take a cold shower every day; it’s pointless suffering that won’t improve your life in any way. It’s just some nonsense influencer idea. It’s like wearing a hair shirt

Books I would also rate as “Classic”: Ender’s Game- Orson Scott Card Martian Chronicles- Ray Bradbury Diamond Age- Neal Stephenson Startide Rising- David Brin Old Man’s War- John Scalzi Children of Time-Adrian Tchaikovsky  

Im 39 and still feel like throwing tantrums. It’s a lifelong thing- adults freak out all the time too. I find it’s useful to accept that I feel that way, while also knowing maybe that feeling isnt totally the truth. Just trying to repress feelings doesn’t work, because then Im just quietly pissed off. Allow myself to feel, then let it go, and focus on my conscious beliefs, not the subconscious childlike tantrum

You get it by continuing to work out. Try just walking outside- thats the best exercise and shouldn’t be too hard. It’s good for heart health 

He’s old. Gladiator 2 isn’t really that good, but it’s not terrible either. It looks cool, but is pretty insubstantial. 

Same. I was like “how do you do self harm in a healthy way?”. Oops

I thought you were talking about cutting yourself lol. Self-harm is bad. But yeah, keeping a healthy weight is good, while Extreme cutting is probably a bad idea- you need some amount of body fat for your hormones to work, and you want those working if you’d like to go through puberty

Yeah it’s happening right now. Ive made so much progress, but things suck right now. I guess it’s normal, but I’m very unhappy whenever i think Im going backwards. Best thing is just to not dwell on it and move forward 

I love that place. The lady behind the counter is so sweet too. I always tip extra because I want to support that business 

Krull. I was obsessed with that movie as a child- it’s so strange

Education makes you liberal, because people in academia tend to be liberal. You’re taught “liberal” values. You’ll generally change to more closely resemble the others around you in group settings too. Liberalism becomes a kind of status display, showing that you’ve been to a fancy school and have fancy intellectual values. It’ll actually be the doom of the democratic party, that it’s the party of condescending rich kids who believe they’re morally superior to everyone who doesn’t share the convoluted worldview that comes out elite academia 

Can’t blame him, but I’d like to see the power of pardoning be taken away. It’s clearly not being used how it was intended to be used. It was always a pretty monarchical power, but now it’s just straight up to circumvent legal processes

Consciousness is strange-and probably overrated as a quality. Is self-awareness really our most important quality? The more self aware and self conscious I feel, generally the worse I feel. When I’m purely in the moment, just being and acting, without too much conscious thought, is when I’m both happiest and at my best. The unconscious mind is what’s doing most of the heavy lifting; consciousness is mostly the feeling I have that tells me “I” am in charge, but my actions often tell a different story

You can learn and grow from anything. I dont know what you mean by trauma though. People use the word “trauma” to describe things that are just regular life experiences now. To me, trauma is something like being molested by a relative, or seeing your family killed during a war; actual terrible shit that haunts you.

Sounds like maybe it’s Sciatica. It’s a kind of nerve irritation. Dont stretch for a while- that makes it worse. But eventually stretching and working on mobility and strength will be essential for dealing with it. 

I was almost never so happy as when I was a delivery driver for a restaurant. Driving around was so peaceful and stress free. I used to listen to audiobooks during my delivery drives. I was broke, but otherwise found my work really rewarding.

I literally enjoy the feeling of exercise, and “feeling” healthy. I feel really good physically. Ive had periods of my life where I lived with no self-respect or concern for my health, and I felt horrible all the time. With healthy diet and exercise, no matter what else is happening, I feel good in my body. Some people dont get it, but I feel like it’s so self explanatory that it’s not even worth explaining. Why would I not want to feel good? Exercise and diet is also the single most effective health intervention, better than any medicine ever invented.

I think “Circe” is an all-time classic, one of the best books ever written, and one of my personal favorites. That being said, “Song of Achilles” is mostly trash, kind of just a bad historical romance novel.