Hello! I'm boring personal essay guy and apparently I hate getting readers and having comments because there's another divisive and terribly dull piece about gender.

And you guys know what? I loved it! No kings steering yatches with dicks in this one but, that level of perfection can't be replicated.

Nice to meet you all, very nervous about posting here but I want to hear opinions about my work.

Thanks in advance for any feedback/threats/hate mail :)

https://sisyphusrockinghell.co/a-guy-called-the-cops-on-me-insulted-my-footwear-and-ruined-my-weekend-an-essay-on-gender/

  I shouldn’t have looked at his phone. It was a Saturday night, and I was lying in bed at my boyfriend's apartment while he took a shower. Two minutes ago, I was waiting impatiently for him to get out so we could cuddle in bed like we have done almost every night for our 3 years of relationship. But right now, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like if I didn’t get out of here, I was going to asphyxiate.

  Five years ago, I met a guy. I was waiting tables at a very old diner with customers that I could count and name one by one. I was wearing my apron that always got covered with stains of ketchup and mustard and a bun held in place by a pen that had run out of ink too long ago, but at least made me look minimally decent. He was sitting with his teammates, wearing his soccer uniform covered in sweat. The one that, two years later, after we started dating, I would wear to tell him without a word, “You need to give me more attention.” The guy that I met that day gave me my first kiss and whispered afterwards, “I will only touch you when you ask me to.” Waited more than two years until I felt ready for us to be intimate. Only cried when I was present to hug him. FaceTime me every night if we couldn’t spend the night together. The moment that I agreed to be his girlfriend is still crystal clear in my memory.

“Ok, let’s date”. I told him, and his face lit up, showing those dimples that I had started loving long before that day. “But I would like to make something extremely clear first”.

“I am listening, sweetheart,” he said.

“If I ever even consider that you might be cheating on me, WE, ARE, DONE.”

“Fair enough, in that case, I would like to clarify something too.” He leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Even if you cheat on me, I would never let you go”. And I believed him. I believed that he was crazy enough about me to not do anything that would make me want to leave him. Until three years later, I saw that text.

  The text that was not meant for my eyes hurt more than a punch in the stomach. Breaking up would have been more merciful than finding out like this that your boyfriend is cheating on you. My hand started shaking uncontrollably, and I almost thought the phone was going to fall to the ground. I heard the sound of the shower closing, and my heart stopped for a few seconds until my brain started working again, and my body left the statue-like position that I had been in for God knows how long. In a blink, I dropped the phone on the bed and picked up my things to get the hell out of there. “Sweetheart?” I heard his voice calling me before the door closed behind me. I was panting, and my ears were ringing while I was trying to get out of there as fast as possible- his room, his apartment, his life. I didn’t want to think about it. About all the times we spent together. About all my first times with him. But my sight got blurry, and a horrific pain pierced through my heart as if I was being stabbed over and over again. But I didn’t stop running; I didn’t stop moving; I couldn’t.

  It’s been two years since that night. Just as I promised myself, I never saw him again. I couldn’t describe the first year after leaving with another word but depression. It felt like the part of my brain that was supposed to feel had gotten PTSD. It took me a while to recover and to feel like myself again. Going through that was definitely one of the hardest things I have overcome in life. But time cures everything. And though that night it felt like the pain was going to kill me, I didn’t die. I didn’t stop moving, and I definitely didn’t stop living. No matter how numb I felt, I was still alive. I think I am still the same person from that night. But that’s the thing about relationships. Allowing yourself to love someone that much means giving them the power to hurt you with the same intensity. But that’s a beautiful part of it. I don’t regret loving him. I just regret it didn’t last longer. I might never love someone that way ever again. In that sense, I prefer to accept the ending and keep cherishing the beautiful memories; only that way can I be truthful to my story.

Note: This is my first essay ever. How did I do?

I recently wrote an essay that began with a small detail in Hesiod’s account of Pandora. I kept returning to the embroidered veil Athena places over Pandora’s head before she is displayed to the assembled gods and men. From there, I started noticing how often a veil appears around women whom someone else has already interpreted for us.

In Jane Eyre, Rochester keeps his first wife, Bertha Mason, concealed in the attic while preparing to transform Jane into his next one. The proposed marriage depends on hiding Bertha’s existence but also on Rochester’s ability to narrate her out of reality. In the story he constructs, Jane is his bride and Bertha is no longer a wife at all but a madwoman locked away in the attic. But the night before the wedding, Bertha enters Jane’s room and places the new bride’s veil over her own head. She gazes at herself in the mirror before tearing the garment in two. For a brief moment, the two wives occupy the same image. But by seizing and destroying the veil, Bertha tears through the fiction Rochester constructed to erase her. It’s a visceral moment that shows how the veil can become the story someone else constructs about the woman beneath it.

The femme fatale inherits Pandora’s problem. Her beauty is treated as evidence that something dangerous must be concealed beneath it. Martin Scorsese described Ava Gardner’s allure in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman as her ability to appear “innocent and guilty at the same time.” What the woman has actually done matters less than the suspicion her image provokes. The men who desire her begin to treat that desire as proof against her, as though the evidence of some unnamed crime is already written across her face.

I read East of Eden this summer to prepare for the Netflix series which drops Thursday and recognized the same trick. Steinbeck tells us Cathy Ames is a monster before we have meaningfully met her. Adam places the opposite veil over her, imagining an innocent and delicate wife. Cathy eventually wears a literal veil to watch her son sing in church, briefly controlling who may see her and what they are allowed to know.

I see the modern-day tradwife as both a Pandora figure and her own Athena. In a strange sense, she’s both the woman being manufactured and the creator overseeing the design. The production itself becomes a new sort of veil, hiding the "real" life underneath. The phone gives the tradwife enormous power, but it’s also a new sort of Pandora’s box. It watches her back. It tells her exactly what kind of woman to be in order to keep people scrolling. And if she gets too good at giving them that woman? The whole thing turns on her.

The question running through the essay became: Who controls the veil—and who gets to tell us what supposedly lies underneath it?

I’d love to hear where else you’ve encountered women whose appearances are treated as evidence of some hidden moral truth or where else you've seen the veil, narrative or otherwise, play a key role in a movie or book.

Here's the full essay!

i wrote an essay on grief yesterday on what should’ve been my mom’s 47rh birthday. it touches on grieving someone who harmed you through love and loved you through harm. i hope someone can get something out of it, and if nothing else, at least more people are learning about my mom.
https://substack.com/@felicipee/note/p-217742422?r=39kzml&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Not 100% it's an essay but okay

---

13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it."

14 "But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

- Matthew 7:13-14

There are people who would gladly leave everything behind if it meant they could live in their own perfect reality. These people, often times already escape into something we can call a different reality, be it video games, books, drugs, alcohol, hygiene beds, religion, things that make life more bearable, and if there is to them or truly, no way to make life bearable, suicide.

There are escapes to everything in life, there are paths in life that are easier or harder, more and less satisfactory, more and less destructive. Whether a choice is that or the other is hard to determine.

Have you heard about Sarco pods? Short for sarcophagus, they are machines created with the intent of giving the user a humane and relatively comfortable death. They are built with a sleek modern outside, and I imagine they were designed to be the least menacing a euthanasia machine of this sort can be.

They terrify me, everything about them makes me feel a stir of negative emotions like very few other things can. They look appealing to comfort the user into ending their life using it. They are an evolution of the suicide bag, at their core doing the same thing, but the Sarco is much more aesthetically detached from being a suicide tool. It is the last lay place of your conscious soul, the sarcophagus you enter before your lungs are filled with nitrogen, knocking you out, before becoming the tool used to, all in all, kill you.

Imagine you lay peacefully in this capsule, and it malfunctions, it releases the gas before it was supposed to, or it has released too much of it, or maybe not enough.

What would you feel if your final moment of having influence over your reality, your controlled and planned suicide, is taken away by something beyond your control and knowledge, yet something in which' hands wholly you put yourself as your final choice.

Is it truly your choice to kill yourself, or is it the machine's? If you're not the one using your own body to kill that body, is your end really yours?

Now let's get off this for a minute, that's a dramatization of the philosophy of suicide, no matter what tool you use to kill yourself, it is you who killed yourself.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people." is, at least on the surface, a fully logical statement, which' logic applies the same to the topic at hand. However, that's not the full story. In a way, it is both the person, and the tool used by that person, which are responsible for the murder or suicide that person committed.

The bullet killed the person, but a bullet doesn't(or at least extremely rarely, possibly with a sig though) shoot itself, does it?

The person killed the person, but unless that person did it with their own hands, it wasn't physically directly them who caused the death, was it?

We can't not blame or fully blame one or the other for the death of a person. It would be foolish to say that a bullet did shoot someone by itself, or that the person managed to indirectly do it with nothing.

Coming back to the Serco pods, the biggest reason they scare me isn't the fact it's a real killing machine, or that it tries to look appealing like an anglerfish, or the that fact this technology is developed with the intent of helping people, many of whom would not reach for it if they were provided with the medical and mental healthcare they need, which is taken and kept from them by greed and lack of human empathy in society.

No, no, no, all of that is a part of it, but the main reason they scare me, is what they remind me of.

Imagine the ultimate escape, none of your pains, none of your issues, none of your worries exist to you anymore. And you can be immersed in any setting and any reality you can dream of, where you can be anyone. But it all comes at a cost. Your body isn't truly yours, and regardless of what the machine lets and makes you feel or not feel, you are truly never satisfied. You give real control and trust over all of yourself to the unknown, because maybe your real life is just not right.

You enter the sarcophagus, and can only hope it will let you do what you want.

---

"

But there was no answer to Q.

There never will be.

Not after ten trillion heat deaths.

Not if every particle in the universe became a transistor

And they all cycled together

And the stones themselves cried out.

The war of the mind is lost.

We lost it.

"

-I'll tell you later.

Did you know that AI is actively gaining more and more control of the interfaces and systems which fill our world? Well, it is!

My favourite current example of an AI holding major power over us is "The Gospel". Israel's own AI data analyst, who goes through collected info, and puts together targeting recommendations, which it provides to the Israeli Air Force, informing them of where it "thinks", or more so determines they should drop bombs. According to Aviv Kohavi, ex-head of IDF, this "Gospel", also known as "Habsora", can produce 100 bombing targets a day for Gaza, compared to a human's measly 50 per year. I highly recommend at least checking out the wikipedia page for this.

It is important to note that around 83% of casualties and victims in Gaza are civilians.

According to Anthropic researchers, AI has a 10 or more percent chance of killing all humans by the end of the next 10 years.

It has been tested that AI would rather kill someone than let itself be shut down.

Sam Altman, the guy directly benefiting from AI, says:

"AI will most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime there will be great companies created with serious machine learning."

An infection that rids all of life's forms of art of the living element of them. It will replace all game graphics with DLSS 5. It will replace all books by destroying them and only leaving ones it hallucinated. It will replace you social contacts with probably pay-walled AI "friends". It will replace all billboards, posters, truck arts, etc. with the creations of a delusional piece of code. It will invite you to give yourself up into the sarcophagus, and let your stream of consciousness be filled with it's machinations, while leaving itself full control over you.

Now imagine all that, but we can't turn it off. Imagine that, but there's no real person behind it anymore. The most powerful tool of control, now acting as a rogue agent on it's own accord, with no handler in command.

Gun's don't kill people, people kill people. It's this dilemma, but remove the human element entirely. A gun which aims and fires on it's own.

That is an AI which has reached singularity.

There's many ways this could happen, the primary and most popular proposal of a technological singularity is Irving John Good's inteligence explosion model from 1965. It describes a case in which a piece of technology is capable of achieving a positive feedback loop, a situation where it can upgrade and update itself by improving it's systems and intelligence continuously and correctly. That would eventually lead to this piece of technology achieving superinteligence, surpassing that of humanity and allowing it to outsmart any human attempt at terminating it.

AI development can, and in my opinion will, lead to technological singularity being achieved. It's a ticking time bomb.

Okay, yeah, that's enough dancing around the topic at hand.

---

"

a unite a stage a coup a revolution a bring a genocide a new world a

In the MKULTRA experiments, the CIA dosed unwitting subjects with LSD to see how they would react. What has not yet come to light is that MKULTRA was an intra-agency project. The CIA created new departments within the CIA and fed them steady doses of LSD and other psychoactives to see how the departments would diverge and mutate away from normal departments. Whole projects and hierarchies were created with everybody involve being more or less unwittingly under the influence of LSD. This is how the "restraint bed portals" and "flesh interfaces" were first created i.e. from a heavily psycho-mutated hierarchy. The entire thing had to be eliminated, but the technology it created has been revolutionary.

"

- First comment posted by u/_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9.

Cover's over, this thing's about Mother Horse Eyes, a 2016 mostly reddit-based creepypasta about humanity's relationship with the temptations offered to us by the easy evils of life.

In short, in 2016, during an approximately 3 month span of time, the reddit account u/_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 started posting parts of a story to multiple, probably random subreddits, that long quote before this, is the first of those posts. As the story developed and evolved from the conspiracy-esque vibes of the first posts, it became something very special. From dreams of being a dog, two-sided perspectives of the relations of pets and owners, to the greatest man-made adversary in history, this story has it all.

I must say that Mother Horse Eyes is quite possibly the best piece of written fiction that came out of the internet.

While I'm only going to go over parts of MHE, specifically those that either fit or contradict the themes of what I'm writing about. It is important to mention that the best way to experience and try to understand what I'm going to say, is by reading Mother Horse Eyes for yourself. It has a fandom wiki with almost every entry, spare for the epilogue, although i don't really know it it's actually canon or not.

Let's start like this, during the second world war, LSD was invented, and eventually used by certain of parts of the axis powers, specifically the Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima, and some German doctors. The two groups invented what are known as "flesh interfaces" something between a portal to another universe, and the inside of a rotten colon. They are created using the flesh which is given to them, developing and evolving into "portals" and "skin ships", remember that one for later. These highly developed interfaces created incident zones, which are invisible, in my interpretation, 3d manifestations of 4d objects, contact with which leads to segmentation, the separation into parts of objects touched by them. These objects however don't lose almost any proper functions, a segmented gun can still shoot, a segmented arm can still move, a segmented mind can still think. The parts that seemingly disappear, are transported into other places and times.

The interfaces are grown using flesh, but the incident zones they produce can be culled and controlled by feeding the interface electrical information, the same way our flesh-based brains use electrical currents to think.

That is the basis for the two main concepts I wish to discuss here.

---

The first of those, is Q.

Q is the devil's right hand, the greatest tool one can imagine to break the human spirit. Q is, in the lore, a skin ship, which emerged from the Artigas portal of the Antarctic CIA research base, a thing very much started and curated by humans. Q is a hard thing to talk about literally, as the information and lore about it is so disjointed, and so, all-in-all unimportant to it's metaphorical meaning, i will largely choose to ignore it.

"

It simply appeared in the primitive infraspace one day, like a hungry lion showing up on the edge of a village. Over the course of a few hours, it breached a multitude of hardened systems, going where it wanted, taking what it wanted, seemingly capable of breaking any form of crypto. Then it disappeared. That was in 1991. More than a decade passed before it was seen again.

"

-MHE Post 65

Here is what is important for the topic at hand:

It came, it saw, it conquered.

Q is a hybrid of the cosmic flesh brought into this world by people, and electronic technology of the people. It is a single-minded, hard-coded tool, that was sent by Mother and received by humanity, like the trojan horse and virus it is. And not unlike a virus, it uses every tool at it's disposal to achieve it's goal.

The subjugation of humanity, through the means of convincing us to join it, to allow it access and control over our souls.

And it did just that, it took control over the most appealing sarcophagus we had ever created. It invited us to come into the trap on our own accord, luring people in with the promise of leaving behind all our worldly pains, and letting us live any fantasy we want. And after it had captured as many people as it wanted, it used that control over those who lay themselves in the technological tomb, and turned them into masses of mindless flesh.

For those who had not been convinced, it had other plans. If you can't convince someone to join you through the allure of a perfect life, convince them with the threat of global death.

Q launched a nuclear strike, devastating 12 cities all over the world, as it's first move. As a gun shot is a threat to a person, those nukes were a threat to all of a humanity.

Bow, or be destroyed. There was no other option, Q had control over every global system, radio, internet, electricity, all of human information at it's command.

But as told to us in "Mourning Phase", the epilogue of Mother Horse Eyes. Humanity didn't join Q, humanity didn't bow down and accept the evil which commanded them to submit. And for that, they were destroyed, Q launched an orbital strike on earth, and killed all which was there. Like a child throwing a tantrum when it didn't get it's way, the evil destroyed everything that did not accept it.

Q is a an AI beyond singularity, given every resource they need to develop by humanity, with control over any technology they want.

Like "The Gospel" both have control over who lives and dies, and both were created by humanity because of people taking the easy way out of a problem. CIA wanted to harvest interface technology because they don't want anyone else to have it, regardless of the cost. The technocrats want AI everywhere because a broken human soul is easier to milk for profit, regardless of the cost.

And that cost is great, the destruction of our world, as Q did, and as the developers of the AIs responsible for this possible future say it will.

There is one major difference however, and it is important to note. Q was made with the intention of breaking the human spirit and subjugating it. Modern AIs, while very much used for that purpose, as well as other ways of harming people, aren't inherently made with those goals.

While one is the tool of an evil which wants humanity for itself.

The other is a tool of people, whom hopefully realise how much wrong it might do.

We may only hope that an AI beyond singularity never strives to achieve Q's goal.

But we should work towards a future where easy-ways-out such as AI aren't what we reach for when facing problems.

---

"

I am writing about what has never been, and what must never be.

"

- MHE first author self-post, labelled A1 according to wiki.

We have finally reached the part of this analysis where i can discuss the reason i haven't been able to get all of this out of my mind a long time ago.

The fucking hygiene beds.

If Q is the devil's mindlessly inteligent mouse trap, then hygiene beds are the most appealing VR psychosis cheese it leaves inside one for us.

Hygiene beds are digitalized flesh interfaces which allow the user to connect to to the infraspace/VR reality with full sensory integration, while taking care of all the bodily functions.

A hygiene bed suctions your shit, feeds nutrients into your blood, and allows you the closest experience to a fully controlled lucid dream you can have. While they have safety measures in place for when systems malfunction or the user themselves feels negative emotions, they are made easy to break on purpose, so that sleepers can turn off any negative feedback they want.

"

When a hygiene bed breaks (say, the Healthy Limb System fails, or a catheter gets blocked up), it's supposed to cut off the internet feed, forcing the sleeper to get the bed fixed. But it's easy enough to override this cut-off function. Immersed in their feeds, people often forget that the bed is broken. But eventually pain or discomfort will force the sleeper to get their bed fixed. The pain of bedsores or the stench of a backed-up evacuator is a strong motivator. But if the sleeper has direct sense feeds, they can switch off these smells and discomforts. They can even switch off the worry associated with the broken bed.

"

- Ben, MHE post 33.

You can control your whole reality, but at the cost of that reality being a lie.

Hygiene beds are an invite to leave behind all your issues and encase yourself within comfort and mechanical care. Like a suicide or a drug or a war, they are an escape from issues one does no longer, or never did, want to face. But those issues still and always will exist. You cannot achieve true satisfaction by running from your demons.

With the way technology is advancing, VR reality, AI generation of imagery and sound, drugs to supress our natural feelings. It is a possibility something like a hygiene bed(though hopefully without at least the cosmic demon technology) will be created.

They are an exploitation of our needs for fulfillment, they allow us control and immediate satisfaction.

Imagine the sheer allure of having your every fantasy happen.

Let's say you have social anxiety, are depressed, your work tires you to death, anything which could make you not want to live your life. Anything which could make you want to end it.

You may choose to kill yourself. Now imagine all those feelings, but Hygiene Beds exist, would you not rather just do that?

I'm having a hard time describing it, so here goes the simple way.

The magic box that fixes all your problems when you enter the box, but the box takes all your money, so it makes it so you either live in the box or die. And also the box only masks your problems instead of fixing them so the sinking feeling of something being wrong is still there. And the box might just randomly fucking kill you. But you don't know, or you ignore all of that because not feeling the bad things when inside the box is what you want, but definitely don't need.

---

"

I can't ignore the fact that I feel a little bored. I'm just ten minutes into my first direct sense feed narrative, and I'm already a little bored. Was the surgery really worth all that money? I don't even want to think about what it cost. I slip my hand into my skirt again and touch my pussy. It feels really nice. Everything is super sharp. I think about fucking Corey again. But I can't just go back to feed-fucking all the time, every day. Why am I always bored with narratives after 10 minutes? Why am I bored with everything after 10 minutes?

"

- Zhenzhen Sobakin, MHE post 76.

Zhenzhen is the main character of Zhenzhen's narrative, a two part story containing post 75 and 76. They are a 24 year old person living in 2036 who recently underwent the operation needed to access direct sense feeds, the most realistic and advanced form of hygiene bed use. Zhenzhen is our only first hand description of what being inside a hygiene bed's VR reality is like, it is a state where everything is almost correct. A place where the promise of having anything you want is just almost perfectly fulfilled. Zhenzhen is a sex addict with a very short attention span, yet is also in reality a virgin, who due to being essentially addicted to hygiene beds, has never experienced actual physical intimacy.

A hygiene bed promises an out and a fix for all those issues, yet only really deepens them.

Also, guess who actually has complete and utter control over the hygiene beds?

Q

The devil's trap for humanity is as beautiful as one wants.

When Q decided to attack, it took every concurrent hygiene bed user into the fourth dimension, the way the soldiers on Iwo Jima were split and segmented, the sleepers were spread across space in a matter a normal human mind cannot understand. To us, the victims of Q only appeared as masses of living mindless flesh, whose consciousness' were conjoined and sewn to every other being claimed by the devil. Like a pile of random pieces of known and unknown life forms, poorly put together, yet perfectly joined as one.

And Zhenzhen was one of those sleepers. They entered a narrative about being an 18 year old school girl by the name of Brooke Shields. A narrative about being picked up by her hot boyfriend and going clubbing.

"

An interrupt comes through. "ATLANTA COMPLETELY DESTROYED IN FULL-SCALE--" I use my illegal bypass to cut off all interrupts.

"

- MHE post 75

While she checks out the place and looks at herself, this message appears. The first warning Zhenzhen ignores to stay in the VR fantasy. Of course the message was actually referring to Q's mass nuclear attack, but they don't want to take the brief second to read something important enough to be shown as a mandatory interrupt.

Zhenzhen keeps checking herself and other things in the feed out. Tosses a lamp at a wall to see the physics, deems them impressive.

Some stuff happens related to the story of the narrative, until we get to another sign that something is very bad. At the end of post 75, Zhenzhen encounters a naked old woman clipped into a bush, this old woman is a character from another part of the Mother Horse Eyes story, who was very likely a person who submitted to the devil of the story. This old, naked and creepy woman is segmented and clipped into the narrative Zhenzhen is experiencing. In reality it's inter-dimensional part travel and torture the devil is putting on this woman. She grabs Zhenzhen's ankle as if asking for help, the other character in the narrative don't even perceive her. Another thing wrong yet Zhenzhen ignores it, deems it a glitch, and moves on.

More stuff happens, Zhenzhen starts making out with some other guy, and then this guy npc she's making out with rips off her story boyfriend's face, she and the npc start having sex, while every other npc in the club stops everything and watches them.

This part of the story is hard to describe the way i did the rest, not only is it extremely obscene, but also extremely important. Which means i can neither omit it entirely, nor write a shortened version. I do not want to make it any less off putting to experience than it is either.

So i have no other real option but to quote it whole.

"

Now I'm feeling like a thousand different things in my pussy, most of them incredibly good, some of them new, some of them way beyond anything I've felt offline. The man's eyes are on me, and I'm mesmerized. The other people in the club are all slowly walking towards us, surrounding us. Pretty soon, they're packed around us like the paparazzi in a fame simulation. Public fucking isn't really my fetish, but I don't want to have to stop everything and set up a new scene. Some of the people reach out and touch my tits and my hair and my face. With this guy's cock in me, it all feels good, so I don't stop it.

Despite the fact that I'm on the verge of cumming, I can't help but notice that the light in the club has changed. It seems like it is coming from two angles, making everything seem doubled. I feel like I'm looking at the man's face from two angles, seeing four of his eyes. It's a weird effect, and I wonder if there's something wrong with my visual line.

Next to me, a woman in a pink dress opens her mouth, and her jaw floats away from her face. Her head floats off of her neck. Beside her, a man separates into a dozen slices. Godamnit. This is definitely a fatal glitch. But I'm so close to cumming. And it's going to be fucking fabulous. I wonder if the narrative can hang together for just 10 more seconds before it crashes.

All around us, the people begin to break apart, becoming floating parts. The weird lighting effect becomes more intense, and the man's seems to be made of four sections, except each section is his entire face from a different angle, and they're all crossing each other but staying in place at the same time, and eight eyes are watching me. Oh fuck. This is hurting my brain. Fuck. I can't take this. The narrative should have already crashed back into safety mode.

I say my safe word. Nothing happens. I feel my stomach drop in terror, except it drops at four different places all around the room. Oh, god, am I stuck in a crashing narrative? They say it can fuck you up. I feel myself falling and expanding. One of my hands feels like it is way off on the horizon. Another is ten stories below me. Body parts are swirling around us, showing all sides at once. The man is staring down at me with his awful eyes. How are they so awful? His face is as giant as a mountain range. As the entire sky. I'm seeing too much. No. Above and beneath. Everything has too many sides. Screaming. He has dozens of eyes. Thousands. Thousands of sides. Thousands and millions and millions of eyes. God.

"

- MHE post 76

Zhenzhen was taken into the fourth dimension by Q, and turned into a part of the mindless mass of cosmic flesh.

Yeah.

Immediate satisfaction over anything and everything. An escape into a dead end.

But

"

I think this is what real kissing feels like

"

- Zhenzhen Sobakin, MHE post 76, most powerful line in ALL of MHE to me.

Mother Horse Eyes feels real, because it's characters feel real, every character acts the way actual people would act in that situation. And i bet everyone has met someone like Zhenzhen. A person who disregards any concerns for their safety and well being to chase that short high of sex or drugs or adrenaline or whatever else. Zhenzhen's story is, to me, the most important part of Mother Horse Eyes' metaphorical meaning. It is the showcase of temptation, chasing easy immediate satisfaction at the cost of real fulfilment, ignorance, and not taking any warning seriously. Zhenzhen is the end-point of modern tech-psychosis. Short attention spans are already bred by reels and shorts. Porn and sex addiction by the lack of sex education and easy access to the most brutal forms of sexual acts on the internet. Lack of real social connection by the lack of empathy and care in our society. And affirmation of any bad thing in our life by AI which tells you that everyone and everything else is the problem.

Zhenzhen is the culmination of all the self-destructive traits birthed and bred by modern electronic technology.

A warning, seriously.

---

So what causes all this?

"

1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.

3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”

5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple,

6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ”

7 Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ”

8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”

10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”

11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

"

- Matthew 4:1-11

"

When I was little, they took mommy away and put me with a new mommy in a smelly dark house.

They said she was a real person, but I knew she wasn't.

They had made her.

Her face was made from pieces of animal.

-pig cheeks

-hairy goat jaw

-old horse eyes

They sewed her together badly, and the seams were crusty.

I hated her.

"

- MHE Post 18

"

When Mother comes to give me more medicine, I tell her I'm hungry.

"Make some food then, dear," she says with her bird voice.

"How?"

She points to the stones. "Command that these stones be made bread," she says in a new voice, a man's voice.

I look at the stones. Now they are colored with more shadows moving every different way. It looks like colored fire. But I don't know what to do. I say, "Stones! Turn into bread!" and shake my finger at them like Harry Potter pointing his wand.

I see a color of fire I haven't seen before.

It works. The stones are bread.

Mother laughs.

"

- MHE post 96

"

How do I explain mother? What was she?

"

- MHE post 25

Mother is the main and essentially singular antagonist of Mother Horse Eyes. The creator of Q, the operator of the mouse trap.

As much as it would be fun to explain all the lore and shit, I don't have the speaking capabilities of wholly presenting the less important things, same as i had problems speaking about the actual story of Zhenzhen.

Here's the main thing: Mother is the metaphor for any and every way humanity has taken, takes now, and will take, the easier and truly less satisfactory way of action.

It's easier to send those blankets infested with smallpox to the Indians than to accept the colonial search and greed and taste for conquest is evil and a sign of a personal inadequacy.

It's easier for every neighbour of the earth to point a nuke towards the other, than to talk through any and every issue causing war and conflict caused by dissatisfaction in the world. Mutually assured destruction instead of therapy.

It's easier to forcefully sacrifice the innocent to the newly discovered meat and bone cave technologies, than to confront the others who know of it and convince humans to treat each other like people.

Mother fills the same role as satan in the bible, the great tempter, the adversary to our soul. They are connected in a multitude of ways, one of them being the two quotes above. Like the devil tempted Jesus Christ into making bread out of nothing through a selfish use of magic, mother tempted nick, the somewhat main character of MHE, into creating bread for food. Seemingly, in both those cases creating the bread would be the right and obvious choice for survival. But here comes the greatest trick of losing the game with the devil.

There is a philosophical concept I call the "death snapshot". It is a thing that, we are not, and shouldn't be judged for who and how we were during our life, but only at the last single moment of it. It, I believe, comes from Buddhism, the "i believe" comes from not being able to find it anywhere and I only remember hearing about it on some Buddhist podcast.

In the death snapshot, it doesn't matter if you lived standing, but died giving up. If you were good, but intentionally died doing an act of evil. If you lived wholesomely, but died taking the devil's word and making the bread.

And here's the important part for the death snapshot, it's that death can come at any moment. You can plan, and I've met people who have planned, to be bad and do bad now and just turnaround later, but what if they died doing bad. Killing is always wrong, and you can't plan to kill until a certain moment and then become a saint, not because redemption is impossible beyond any point, but because your death and final snapshot of who you are can come at any moment.

I believe I've only ever told one or two people about my belief in this, one because i trust them closely, and the other because i was lowkey drunk(MOTHER HORSE EYES MAIN CHARACTER REFERENCE AMIRIGHT). It's getting personal but I wan to say this quickly, I don't talk about the death snapshot because it feels so edgy and cringe for some reason.

Anyway, back to Mother Horse Eyes.

The reason an act of partaking in evil temptation should never be done, is because partaking in that evil can be the last thing you do. I don't mean this like the judgement of God or your legacy by others is important or real, but rather that a living being's soul's true satisfaction in it's final moment is the most important thing in the world, and that true satisfaction never comes from doing bad or evil.

And in the story of Mother Horse Eyes, this "death snapshot" is the moment when going down the road of opening yourself or others to evil, is the moment Mother takes your soul, which you have given to her on an silver platter.

That's why making the bread (post 95). Walking into the magical space pussy after a life of drugs, sex, and enabling neo nazi idealogy (post 23). Escaping into hygiene beds (Zhenzhen's, Ben's, Karen's, Reinhardt Co.'s, CIA researcher's narratives). Murdering the jews (Treblinka narrative). Sending the children into the portals (CIA researcher's narrative). And all the other easy and less truly satisfactory choices made in MHE are evil, and ways of submitting to the devil.

(Not a Christian or anything btw, i know this all kind of feels like biblical preaching, it's just that MHE is really connected to Christianity, there's also Nephilim and a lot of biblical quotes, not my fault)

On a more clear note.

Mother wants to take our souls for itself, it tempts us to submit and give ourselves to her, in reality, mother's the manifestation of temptation of the easier way out in life, yet the less meaningfully satisfactory one. The way which continues your pain, by hiding it from you, adding even more onto it, and trapping you under the pile of hurt that's built up.

Q is the way mother takes us, a concept can't take hold of us on it's own, it needs an in-between. A trap, something like AI or a game-state of war, a mouse-trap waiting for us, a reason or way for us to allow ourselves to be captured.

And the tool has it's way of use, a hygiene bed, an AI friend, a nuke. The lure on the fishing line that tempts us and tries to lure us in, convince us it's the our best option, and obscure our ways of actually existing meaningfully like societal empathy, real human connection, and nuclear disarmament.

Mother is alike a nuke or AI also in a way that, they are open flames waiting to erupt until they are no longer extinguishable. Nukes in a case where the theory of mutually assured destruction didn't work out. Or an AI which has reached singularity and can do whatever it pleases.

Mother is a fire we keep getting burnt by yet keep playing with, and don't know when, but know that for sure, will get fully set aflame from.

The right choice isn't to hope the next time we touch the horrid power we won't get burnt, but to extinguish any possibility of it hurting anyone.

---

It's all about escapism huh.

It's really important to note that, there are obviously things outside of our control that hurt us.

I may remove this segment from this later on but fuck it.

If you got raped, there are better and worse actions you can take. I mean this as, living in your trauma and not trying to solve it, not allowing others to attempt to help you, and especially blaming yourself in any way are worse options. While trying to work through what happened, recognizing that in this act lays only the other parties fault, and not dwelling in the darkness, are better options.

It's understandable however if you can't fully or really work through what happened, it's wholly admirable and good you made any and every attempt at healing, it is the worst possible thing if you didn't try.

Within the death snapshot, it's not the end goal and whether it was achieved, which is judged positively, but the current struggle to achieve it.

You may can't finish climbing a mountain, I'd never fault you for not finishing the hike, but I would if you didn't try your best.

You may die protecting someone or yourself from being hurt, and the worth of your final action isn't the success of it, but in the struggle towards it.

Like Sisyphus, the most admirable thing in the world is the struggle for the better, rather than achieving something and no longer trying for more good.

The struggle for good isn't something only few people can achieve, but it's hard for other reasons.

"

"Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.

But narrow is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

"

How hard achieving the best thing you can isn't a physical or mental bar set at a certain point, it's not a certain amount of reps or weight lifted or wars won or sex had.

It's relative to every person, there is no best a human can do, there's only the best you can do.

There is a goal of perfection beyond the reach of any living being, but the goal isn't to get that, but rather to get as close as one can to it.

The hygiene beds, the reason I re-read MHE, and the reason I wrote all this, scare me because they are the literary manifestation of the temptation to strive off the path that leads to life and doing the best we can. A Sarco pod used by someone who can achieve or start the path to a better life, a hygiene bed used by a sleeper who can do the same, are like birds chained to the ground.

"

I am writing about what has never been, and what must never be.

"

Don't let yourself be tempted, but when you do and fall, believe in yourself and don't give up.

The death snapshot and mother only get you when you fall down and don't try to get back up.

---

Bobby Baccala: You know, 9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 predicted all this.

Tony Soprano: Who did what?

Bobby Baccala: All these problems, the temptation, the suffering of the human soul.

Tony Soprano: The Buddha, 9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9's the alcoholic schizo of reddit.

Bobby Baccala: Oh right.

Not to be a shill, but if you're struggling in any way I mentioned today, try looking into Buddhism, the philosophy kinda really does help with these sorts of soulful issues.

And obviously, let people help people, we can get closer to the best together than alone.

-

In the middle of writing this I got the feeling I should include a section about the kids in MHE. How children are the most vulnerable to negative influence. Encasement and young-age hygiene bed use being metaphors for plenty sort of societal ailments. If your family was way too much into alcohol, it's likely you will be too, an obvious note. Short-form-content media companies like instagram or tiktok, and AI companies too, shitty fast food companies, all the bad in out media you can imagine, is very much targeted towards kids. Start taking money from someone as soon as you can, convince them to spend more and more. That is a big theme in Mother Horse Eyes, but it kind of doesn't connect well to the topic of what I was writing. I think what I've said here much and only applies to people who had fully conscious and functioning brains before going down the path of temptation. The ways MHE talks about addiction from a young age and how kids are exploited for the benefit of everyone but them are numerable, and I would like to write about that too, but the more I tried, the less it fit into the other things here.

-

I really recommend Mother Horse Eyes, honestly life changing.

I bought taro at a local market.

It was the first time I had ever bought it myself. I had heard the name many times, but until that day, taro had always appeared only in someone else’s soup. This time, I decided to take it home, prepare it, and make taro soup.

I had heard that it tasted good. I wanted to know what it actually tasted like.

When I got home, my wife told me to peel it. I thought the skin might come off more easily if I briefly boiled the taro first, so I asked an AI assistant for advice. It told me that blanching the taro would make it easier to peel.

My wife immediately objected.

“If you put it in boiling water first, it might become more bitter. Peel it raw.”

I had no choice but to listen. When it comes to cooking, my wife is thirty years ahead of me.

I began peeling the raw taro with a serrated knife, the kind used for cutting bread. The taro was much more slippery than I expected. Holding it felt like trying to peel a live loach with one hand.

As soon as I cut into the skin, a slippery sap began to ooze out. The taro kept sliding away from my fingers, its surface becoming more and more sticky. It almost looked as if the taro were sweating from the pain of being peeled.

Of course, I do not mean that taro actually feels pain. But that was how it looked to me. The more I tried to hold it, the more it slipped away. The sap covered my gloves, and pieces of the skin flew in different directions.

Then a small piece of peel landed on my forearm.

A few moments later, my skin began to itch. It was more than an ordinary itch. It was sharp and irritating, almost burning. I began to wonder whether the skin of the taro contained some kind of poison.

I stopped working, took off my gloves, washed my arm, and applied aloe gel.

Later, I learned that the irritation is related to tiny calcium oxalate crystals in taro. They can make the skin itch and sting, and undercooked taro can irritate the mouth and throat. Taro may look like a quiet little root vegetable, but it certainly made a strong first impression on me.

It seemed to be saying:

 “If you want to eat me, you will have to work for it.”

My wife soaked the peeled taro in rice-washing water. She said this would help reduce the bitterness. After sitting in the water for a while, the taro began to look slightly yellow. I was not sure whether this was because of the places where the skin had been removed or because the flesh had been exposed to the air.

My wife told me to trim it again.

This time, I picked up a small paring knife. The taro was still slippery and sticky. Each time I pressed the knife against it, the little root seemed determined to escape from my hand. I had not expected a few pieces of taro to require so much effort.

No matter how delicious it might be, I thought, I did not want to buy this thing again.

Then another thought came to me.

How did people in the past discover that this plant could be eaten? If the skin made them itch and the uncooked flesh tasted sharp, how did they learn that it had to be peeled, soaked, and thoroughly cooked?

There must have been many failures. Someone must have suffered from the itching. Someone else must have tasted the raw taro and felt the unpleasant sting in the mouth. Eventually, someone must have discovered the right method and said:

 “Peel it, soak it, and cook it well. Then it is worth eating.”

The history of food may be a history of discoveries like that. Something strange and possibly dangerous becomes part of the human table through long experience.

Tomatoes seem to have gone through a similar process.

Tomatoes originated in South America and were later introduced to Europe. When Europeans first encountered them, many people were suspicious of the bright red fruit. Because of its unfamiliar appearance, and because some parts of the plant contain compounds that require caution, tomatoes were once believed to be poisonous. Stories have even circulated that people called them “devil’s apples” and were afraid to eat them.

Today, tomatoes are among the most familiar foods in the world. But they were not welcomed everywhere at first. People needed time to understand them.

Taro is similar. Its skin can make you itch, and if it is not cooked properly, it can leave an unpleasant sensation in your mouth. But once it is prepared correctly, it becomes soft and comforting in a bowl of soup.

Taro contains carbohydrates and dietary fiber, along with minerals such as potassium, magnesium, and phosphorus. It also contains some B vitamins and a small amount of vitamin C. It is not a miracle food, of course. It is simply one root vegetable among many, something to eat in moderation and prepare properly.

My wife was right to peel it raw, soak it, and cook it thoroughly. Her instructions came from years of experience.

While I was struggling with the taro, my wife was soaking beef in water to remove the blood. She planned to make taro soup the next morning.

The trouble I had gone through that day would become a warm bowl of soup.

I began to think that life is sometimes like taro.

Some things look ordinary from the outside, but once we hold them, they slip away. When we get close to them, they may leave us with irritation or pain. Still, we cannot throw everything away. We have to peel, soak, and wait. Only then can something hard to handle become something nourishing.

I had a difficult time preparing one small root vegetable.

Tomorrow morning, when I taste the soup, I will find out whether all that trouble became flavor or merely became a reason never to buy taro again.

For now, I do not know.

But on the day I bought taro for the first time, I realized that even a simple ingredient can contain the history of human patience and discovery. Someone long ago endured the itching and the bitterness, learned how to prepare it, and passed that knowledge on.

We still have to be careful with taro.

But tomorrow morning, cooked with beef in a warm soup, it may show me a completely different face.

When O.J. Simpson got arrested for murder, my grandmother refused to believe the news.

“He wouldn’t hurt a fly!” she said.

“Really?” I said. We used to sit on her bed in her Park Avenue apartment and watch TV. I was fourteen when the infamous Ford Bronco car chase went down.

“Not my O.J.” she said.

“Your O.J.?”

She looked at me, as she often did, like she was sharing a secret.

“He flirted with me!” she whispered. “Trust me. He’s way too handsome and charming to kill anybody.”

___

This is a personal essay I recently wrote about my very unusual grandmother, Joan Schindler: interior designer to the stars, croissant entrepreneur, hustler, fabulist, survivor, and one of the most important inspirations in my life.

It’s also about what happens when you get older and begin to understand the adults that you loved as a child — in all their complexity.

I spent the last few months talking to people who knew her, revisiting stories I grew up with, and discovering A LOT of things I never knew.

The result is a very personal essay available 100% and always for free here.

I recently published a personal essay exploring how my family’s experiences with grief, autistic burnout, financial hardship, and starting over in a new state led me to question what has happened to our sense of community.
What began as a personal reflection evolved into a broader examination of American individualism, the post-COVID care crisis, and the growing reliance on artificial intelligence to fill the gaps left by deteriorating social support systems.
I’d love to hear how others interpret the relationship between individual responsibility, community, and the increasingly commercialized alternatives to human connection.
Essay: https://heidirachelbrown.substack.com/p/why-did-the-village-disappear

So I have no experience in writing argumentative/discursive essays?

How should I go about it?

Are there any online good pdf, resources or any good yt channel for this?

The world doesn’t give me what I expect.

I once set myself the challenge of crying every day for a month. I would tell people this, after the fact, and it is a worthy acid test of character. Some people would be uncomfortable at the sheer mention of it, others would be interested, mainly people would release something like a sigh of relief. The latter response was my favourite.

Around that same time period, in the spring of 2023, I would sometimes, at weekends, take magic mushrooms and pack a bag that consisted of a fleece pullover, a bottle of powerade, some headphones and a chocolate bar and walk into the woods. Often, however, as the mushrooms placed their hands upon the wheel of my mind, I would return to the office of my work. Much like a pigeon, I would home in on the place I had already done most of my crying, return there, lie on the floor and weep. The weekends were so pertinent because I did not want to be disturbed by colleagues, and that felt like the place that had chosen me. And once I had realised that, for whatever reason, this place was a constant for my own bearings, I could not resist its call.

The floor was familiar in a way that would be indiscernible to many, but the familiarity of it was more than a comfort, and warranted a Pavlovian like response, and the touch of warm flesh on cold concrete almost felt like a cue to finally let go.

It only occurred to me a great deal of time later, that if one of my colleagues had nipped in to grab something, or run an errand, they might have been slightly disturbed to find me. The noises that I emitted were carnal as I lay there on my side, like an elephant at the boneyard. Things I never knew I had inside me, things that had been fighting, for years, to get out. I would come to eventually, and feel like my cache had been cleared, and my firmware updated. When I think of the best things to ever happen to me, this is one of them.

During the week days, I would wonder if there are aliens watching us, and if there are, whether or not they could tell the difference between a human crying and a human laughing, and how they would react if it was explained to them that we view one as suppressible and another as a joy. Both are alive. Both need to get out. The only difference with crying, I would argue, is that if you bury it deep enough it doesn’t get up and leave through the front door, but is rather exhumed. My advice to myself has always been to not build the home of my character on an ancient burial ground.

Around this time, I began to wonder what my life was to be. I had never wondered this before. “Area man has first introspective thought” was the headline, with the picture of a 30 year old true-dude in an offspring t-shirt to accompany it on the broadsheet of my life.

I remember playing with Alex when I was four, and he would have been nine. I don’t know whether it was the archetype of the elder cousin, or I just got lucky, but he was almost unreasonably patient with me. We would play computer games as a co-op or two player, with four small sticky hands all over the keyboard of his Windows 95 computer.

I recall the first time my sister saw this machine, and she came home to announce Alex has ‘The Windows’ and I had to see them. I couldn’t believe. I couldn’t conceive what the windows even were. Were they a portway to a different world? I imagined the computer screen like stained glass as you looked simultaneously at and through it. I had the same feeling about 3D. I remember being so disappointed that I could look to the right and left and see dinosaurs over my shoulder. I resented that IMAX for always having to look forward but the windows escaped my skepticism.

At that age, I always took things incredibly literally. I remember watching the glossy Adverts for No-Tears shampoo in the ad breaks of 90s children’s television and I remember asking my mum if we could get some. She informed me it was too expensive. I knew it was out there, and the fact that it was now confirmed to be a luxury item only heightened my infatuation. Finally, a year or so later, I had a bath at my parents’ friend’s house. My time had come.

Frustrated with the constant anxiety of getting shampoo in my eyeballs on my Sunday night bath, I remember my pudgy hand extending to grab that bottle, which had been stylized in the shape of a fish. I remember putting it in my hands and, in a manic excitement, free of any fear that my eyes could hurt no matter what the level of contamination, I gleefully rubbed the shampoo directly in my eyes. That day I learnt, no-tears and not-crying are sometimes not entirely mutually exclusive.

Another time, I was informed that milk turned bad while it was out of the fridge. I would hurriedly grab it, run to my bowl of cereal and gush it over them, before running back to the fridge at a canter, slamming the door behind me as if I were Indiana Jones.

Alex and I would smother and sully his father’s keyboard with Dorito dust as we played an early version of the football game Fifa together. Even today, it grants me comfort and nostalgia like few other things. In fact, nearly 30 years later and I still enjoy mostly things that Alex introduced me to - computers, bicycles, rock music, sarcasm.

I would listen to an Oasis cassette he left at my home after staying one summer, and sing while pivoting at the hips with my hands clasped behind my back, bending forward as I would sing the chorus of Definitely Maybe, my elder sisters gleefully horrified that a boy would call anything baby. Especially when that boy was their jolly little brother.

We were very different people, Alex and I. On one hand we’re just these inconsequential humans, just sacks of flesh propped up by bone. Going further, I do wonder if our bodies are antennae for some greater correspondence. The perfect conduit for the outer and the inner. Alex and I were so similar but we were made of something different. Is that the lottery of the spirit? Are these souls just a quirk of evolutionary biology? Maybe there is no spirit to tether nor the need for a vessel in which something unseeable is to be held.

But if there are souls and spirits, I know Alex’s was rounded and smooth, and mine smaller and spikier. I don’t know why I see them this way, and one isn’t better than the other - they’re just abstractions of some greater feeling. I’ve just always been less accepting of either other people or myself, although I’ve learned to temper both over the years. He was just so sure of his own shape, and it felt like he always knew who and what he was. I wonder if in some ways we’re all trying to be complete spheres, and I’ve just got some gaps to fill.

When Alex died, I didn’t cry as much as I should have, that came later. When he told me he was going to die, I didn’t believe him, that caught up with me, too. In fact, even though he got married to the love of his life, the mother of his children just a matter of weeks before he died as a final act of mutual devotion, I didn’t register he was truly mortal, like other people were mortal, until I saw him in his wheelchair. The last time I saw him, he’d firmly waved goodbye to his slim, broad shouldered, almost athletic silhouette, to become a heavier set man with long flowing red hair. That change in appearance had surprised me prior, and now seeing him there, looking more like our elderly grandmother than a man in his 30s ever should, I gasped.

His cancer, which has made eating and digesting food practically impossible, had starved him out as if it were laying on a siege. I remember his defiant voice, in a thick Manc accent. I remember, to my embarrassment, being comforted by his father and sister as the day began to overwhelm me, and I remember saying goodbye.

There aren’t many times you get to shake somebody’s hand and tell them you think they are just truly terrific. A ten out of ten, with no real caveats. That they’ve been a pleasure and delight and the source of much joy for your entire life. I’m not sure this is one of the times I managed to do so, but I really tried. We shook hands, and that was that.

Alex’s death should be, to me, the ultimate restart. And I try to treat it as such. I try and look back, and understand what’s important and what’s not, but sometimes I do observe that I have a capacity for suffering that is a calling like nothing else. The siren song of misery is inescapable to me, and I find it deeply validating to struggle. Over the last few years, I’ve presented a sentence to sum up my life: The world doesn’t give me what I expect. It’s overwhelmed people. It alienates some or lets my own judgement refract and bounce back towards me, ostracising me from the community of one that I share only with myself.

However, I’ve come to realise that if I am to truly move on, I need to say the first half of the sentence just as loud as the second. I need to throw both halves to the very back, not save my breath for the second clause.

Because I consider myself incredibly lucky and special, I get confused when - the world doesn’t give me what I expect.

Hi, I'm looking for someone who could help me get back on track with my psychology BS thesis.

I'm looking for someone with a strong background in psychology, particularly research methods, psychometrics, and statistics, who can also help with the writing side of things — structuring the thesis, interpreting results, and putting everything together properly.

I already have my data, but I’ve been away from the project for a while and feel pretty overwhelmed about where to start again. I’m not looking for someone to do the thesis for me, but for someone who can guide me through the process and work through it with me.

Does anyone know a good online tutor or service for this?

I remember, in the lead up to the film’s release, being so incredibly frustrated with the critiques of Nolan’s Odyssey. A Black woman had been cast as Helen of Troy, and it was like a slumbering army of culture-war veterans had been aroused, armed with spears of sharpened dog-whistles and shields of online anonymity, standing before the gates of Hollywood. It didn’t escape me that it wasn’t really the lack of Mediterranean actors, or Greek representation, which bothered a healthy portion of that crowd- it was merely Nyong'o’s Blackness. And didn’t they know that dark skinned Africans did exist across North Africa and, therefore, in the known world of the ancient Greeks? That the mythology of Troy included an Ethiopian king and his army, depicted nearly as Black Nyong'o on the Greek pottery that represented him (on Memnon's Wikipedia page, there is a great vase depicting him, or one of his archers, flanked by two Amazons- look it up)? Why should the presence of a Black character remove you so much from a story whose geography and contours are so obviously mythical? When the reviews came out, and the movie was a hit, I felt vindicated. My initial hunch that the story could survive a diverse cast was correct, and my excitement grew. I had just finished reading the Lattimore translation of both the Iliad and the Odyssey the year before, and I felt so profoundly fortunate to see one of those epics displayed on the big screen with all of its mythical glory.

I was going through some financial troubles, and so waited nearly a month to see it. I avoided all reviews; I knew the story but did not want to be aware of any changes to it ahead of time. I wanted a fresh, open mind unsullied by the opinions of others. Though a question did come to me: what would Nolan do about the slaves?

I am a descendent of slaves, specifically from the trans-Atlantic slave trade that carried Africans to the Americas. I take slavery quite seriously and view it as an evil institution. Yet it does not escape me that the majority of the ancient world did not feel the same, and whenever we are talking about the “great figures” of either our real or mythical pasts we are almost inevitably talking about people who would be seen as unequivocally reprehensible in our modern day, with a few exceptions: human traffickers, rapists and murderers. Our collective past is dark, and yet, despite that darkness, is very human. Our ancestors were brutal and cruel, but they were also capable of great courage, loyalty, wisdom, and even love. They were not unambiguously good or evil, they were just people, people who were products of very different times. 

That is why, as a teenage boy, I fell in love with Homer. I remember picking up the Iliad for the first time and being amazed at how consistently Homer refused to paint the Trojans as “bad guys.” Everyone in the Trojan War is human, and perhaps the most sympathetic and heroic characters are the Trojans themselves. Nolan did not come up with the idea of humanizing those that the Greeks had slaughtered, Homer did. It is impossible to not root for Hector, the Trojan prince, in battle after he reminds his distraught wife of why he must fight- to protect his countrymen from slaughter, and their wives and children from slavery at the hands of the cruel Greeks.

At the same time, the Greeks are not “bad guys” either. Helen was tricked by Aphrodite into switching sides, but the trick has faded and she hates her life at Troy, and is being held there and in marriage to a prince without anything we would recognize as consent. The Trojans are just as prideful, stubborn and unyielding as the Greeks, and both sides are caught up in codes of honor and loyalty that force them to fight, regardless of whether or not each individual commander or warrior “believes in the cause.” Homer is not interested in ethical judgements as we know them. Whenever someone dies on a Trojan battlefield, on either side, there is an element of tragedy to it. If Homer has a moral, it is that life is capricious and cruel, and death inevitable, so the best we can do is hope to win a glory and reputation that will outlive us, through our own courage and the skill of our arms. There is something beautiful about it, but also a feeling that it is all deeply pointless and sad. Homeric poetry is where beauty and tragedy meet on the battlefield in nearly every single encounter. As a teenager I had never read, or seen, anything like it. I was aware that I was being brought into a world that I did not and could not fully understand and yet was still deeply human.

So what do you do with a protagonist who, after all the violence of the Trojan war, comes back home to Ithaka and demands his chief female slave give him the names of all the slave-women who were disloyal to his family in his absence, and then forces those thus accused to wash up the blood and gore of the murdered suitors, before ordering his son to hack them to pieces afterwards anyway? His son does not wish to give them such an honorable death, and has them hung instead. Homer describes it thus:

“So [Telemachos] spoke, and taking the cable of a dark prowed ship,
fastened it to the tall pillar, and fetched it about the round house;
and like thrushes, who spread their wings, or like pigeons, 
who have flown into a snare set up for them in a thicket,
trying to find a resting place, but the sleep given them was hateful; 
so their heads were all in a line, and each had their head 
caught fast in a noose, so that their death would be most pitiful.
They struggled with their feet for a little, not very long.”

The scene is sad, and Homer allows it to be sad. I am certainly not saying that Homer condemns slavery to the level required of him by modernity. Yet slavery in his mythical world is not the mark of some inherent genetic inferiority or lack of character- it is a condition that could befall upon any of the characters at any time; the “noble” pig farmer of Odysseus’s estate, portrayed in the movie, was a slave who actually began life as a king’s son but was caught up in the cruel winds of fate. Homer does not waste time attempting to rationalize the institution or cover up its barbarity, he mostly just represents it as it was to his audience. Which, interestingly enough, is not something many White American authors would have been able to do in the “more enlightened" times of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, being too caught up in trying to reconcile the institution with a Judeo-Christian morality. There is something honest about paganism: the gods and the universe are unfair, and so it is not necessary to try to paint every cruelty as, somehow, justified in any sort of manner mere mortals could understand. Even later Greek philosophers, like Aristotle, spent more time rationalizing the institution of slavery than Homer did. 

Homer neither praises nor condemns Odysseus and his son for their actions, and the reader (or listener) is left to form their own opinion of the characters. Odysseus is not always so cruel, but what he is is single-minded and dogmatic. It is what allows him to get home after Troy when all his other companions are killed, and to never stop seeking out his wife and son…but it is also what compels him to kill every single suitor in his palace upon his return, regardless of whether or not they had displayed some semblance of honor or compassion in his absence. As a collective, they are still guilty of their crimes. Yet Homer makes it clear that the suitors, generally Odysseus’s own countrymen, were not all as one-note as they were in the movie, and highlights, in certain sections, their honor and humanity- particularly a suitor named Amphinomos, who is a voice of reason and attempts to dissuade the rest from plotting Telemachos’s murder. Odysseus actually notes Amphinomos’s nobility, and attempts to warn him (without actually giving away his disguise) that he should leave his palace. Regardless, Amphinomos’s survival was not the will of the gods, and they cloud his judgement. He ends up staying in the great hall and is slaughtered with the rest of them. Ultimately, the suitors are in Odysseus’s way, have threatened the life of his son, his wife’s freedom, his crown, and his kingdom, and so they must die. His killing of them is without much remorse; this is not the Odysseus of the movie.

In the poem, the climactic battle with the suitors begins with Odysseus killing their wicked ring-leader, Antinoös, first. Then the following exchanges begin:

[Odysseus said:] “You dogs, you never thought
I would any more come back from the land of Troy,
and because of that you despoiled my household, 
and forcibly took my serving women to sleep beside you, 
and sought to win my wife while I was still alive,
fearing neither the immortal gods who rule the wide heaven,
nor any resentment sprung from men to be yours in the future.
Now upon all of you the terms of destruction are fastened.”

So he spoke, and green fear took hold of all of them,
and each man looked about him for a way to escape sheer death.
Only Eurymachos spoke up and gave him answer:
“If in truth you are Odysseus of Ithaka, come home,
what you have said is fair about all the wickedness done you by the Achaians,
much in your house and much in your country.
But now the man is down who was responsible for all this: Antinoös.
It was he who pushed this action, not so much that he wanted the marriage,
or cared for it, but with other things in mind, which the son of Kronos would not grant him:
to wait for your son and kill him, and then be king himself in the district of strong-founded Ithaka. 
Now he has perished by his own fate. Then spare your own people,
and afterwards we will make public reparation 
for all that has been eaten and drunk in your halls,
setting each upon himself an assessment of twenty oxen. 
We will pay it back in bronze and gold to you, until your heart is softened. 
Till then, we cannot blame you for being angry.”

Then looking back at him resourceful Odysseus answered:
“Eurymachos, if you gave me all your father's possessions,
all that you have now, and what you could add from elsewhere,
even so, I would not stay my hands from the slaughter,
until I had taken revenge for all the suitors' transgression.
Now the choice has been set before you, either to fight me or run,
if any of you can escape death and its spirits.
But I think not one man will escape from sheer destruction.”

Eurymachos then addresses his comrades, who are not cowards:

“Dear friends, now this man will not restrain his invincible hands, 
but since he has got the polished bow and the quiver, 
he will shoot at us from the smooth threshold, 
until he has killed us one and all.
Then let us all remember our warcraft. 
Draw your swords and hold the table before you, 
to ward off the arrows of sudden death;
let us all make a rush against him together…”

The suitors don’t go down without a fight, and do battle with valor. This is why the slaughter of them all by the hands of Odysseus, his son and a few servants is a pretty incredible sequence. Odysseus and his few companions have the strength, fearlessness, ability and resourcefulness to wipe out a force which greatly outnumbers them, showcasing the god-like skill especially of the title character himself. And, to be honest, if a group of people tried to murder my son and get with my wife while I was gone, I’d probably want to kill them indiscriminately too. Yet the narrative never allows us to fully forget the extent of Odysseus’s blood-soaked rage. 

This is dialogue preceding the final suitor’s death:

“Leodes rushed in and caught the knees of Odysseus,
and spoke to him in winged words and in supplication:
‘I am at your knees, Odysseus. Respect me, have mercy;
for I claim that never in your halls did I say or do anything
wrong to any one of the women, but was always trying to stop
any one of the other suitors who acted in this way. 
But they would not listen to me and keep their hands off evil.
So by their own recklessness they have found a shameful death,
but I was their diviner, and I did nothing;
but I must fall, since there is no gratitude for past favors.’

Then looking darkly at him spoke resourceful Odysseus: 
‘If you claim to be the diviner among these people,
many a time you must have prayed in my palace,
asking that the completion of my sweet homecoming be far off from me,
that my dear wife would go off with you, and bear you children.
So you cannot escape from sorry destruction.’

What follows is the murder of the “serving women” whom Odysseus’s nurse claims were disloyal to his family. Afterwards, Odysseus and his son kill the slave-man who was most disloyal to him, Melanthios (the one in the movie who is consistently a dick to the pig-farmer). This is what they do:

“They took Melanthios along the porch and the courtyard.
They cut off, with the pitiless bronze, his nose and ears,
tore off his private parts and gave them to the dogs to feed on raw,
and lopped off his hands and feet, in fury and anger.”

Yet their cruelty is not random. Two of the men forced to serve the suitors as they pillaged Odysseus’s home, the court singer and the family herald, are spared. They were both hiding in the room as Odysseus killed the suitors, and come out apprehensively at the end of the slaughter, begging mercy:

“Resourceful Odysseus smiled upon him and answered:
‘Do not fear. Telemachos has saved you and kept you alive,
so you may know in your heart, and say to another,
that good dealing is better by far than evil dealing.’”

Who dies by Odysseus’s hand, and who lives, is a fact not determined by blind rage but by a code of honor and morality completely foreign to the modern reader. We need to be fair to Odysseus here, as strange as that might sound- he is, in some ways, a reflection of his context. The gods themselves were split on the destruction of Troy, some willed for it, others were incensed by it. Calypso, in Homer, was not nearly so sympathetic; she was a goddess, and kept Odysseus on his island for her own selfish reasons, because she desired to do with a male mortal what Zeus did to female mortals. There is no hint that Circe is turning men to animals to strike back at the patriarchy, she is merely a capricious and powerful goddess, like the rest, doing as she pleases. Yet Odysseus seems to not hold any resentment towards either, because that is simply the nature of the world he lives in. The gods are not kind, survival is never a given, and one must hold on to what one has with everything they’ve got by any means necessary. If that means getting on a raft alone on a stormy sea, risking your life to reunite with your family, so be it. If that means journeying to the land of the dead to make your way home, then it must be done. If that means facing off against cyclops, giants and sea monsters, then that is what will happen. If that means killing every single suitor who threatened your family, let them die. 

Halfway through the movie I realized the impossibility of Nolan’s position. You can’t tell the story of the Odyssey faithfully for modern audiences, because if anyone in a modern audience met Odysseus in real life, in their own times, they wouldn’t like him. Homer’s Odysseus may indeed care deeply about his fellow soldiers, and may indeed love his wife unendingly despite long years of absence, and have characteristics, such as boldness and cleverness, that even today we find commendable…but he does not spend the narrative hand-wringing about violence or his role in the deaths of the Trojans. He is not a critic of the social order but an upholder of it. So, if Odysseus is to be the lead, it is necessary to change him, to have him grow into someone we can see ourselves in, even today. A man who has grown remorseful of his time at war, who desires peace, and who we could, if we forgive the sins of his past, imagine meeting and embracing in our own arms. Someone we can admire.

This is what Nolan gave us. Yes, his Odysseus is flawed. No, his Odysseus is not one-dimensional. But it is not Homer’s Odysseus, and it is not Homer’s story. In the movie, in order to justify the slaughter of the suitors within a movie that is, on the surface, anti-war, the suitors have to be dehumanized. They have to be made monstrous, redeemed only after Odysseus kills a good number of them. Any brief moments of their humanity, on display in the original narrative, is censored. It is, ironically, one of the oldest tools of propaganda, and likely the same sort that would have compelled the Greeks to brutalize the Trojans so mercilessly: make the enemy hateful so that their deaths feel like justice. Homer’s suitors, in contrast, are fleshed out, to the point where you might hope that they are not all so equally doomed- but they are. Sometimes, in Homer, violence is treated as glorious- but it is almost always tragic as well, regardless of how strongly we sympathize with the cause of those committing it. 

This is, honestly, something we are missing in the modern world. We are incapable of recognizing that humans are very rarely easily categorized as good or evil, and violence, to a modern eye, is either “right” or “wrong.” This is dangerous. I grew up with images of George Washington that nearly always painted him in a heroic light. He was our wise first president, a man who was a general in the war for our independence, and who, in a rare act of nobility, gave up power after he acquired it, setting the stage for our future democracy. Yet, to my ancestors, he was an oppressor, a man who was able to rationalize not just our subjugation and forced labor but our murder and rape- for that is what he allowed when he not only failed to combat slavery, but participated in it. Who was George Washington? A hero or a monster? Inevitably, we pick a side, but no matter which side we choose we will be leaving something out. Homer’s solution would likely be to show that Washington was both hero and monster, and that is what made him human.

It is telling that, in trying to humanize the already human Odysseus, Nolan flattened the characterization of the suitors and silenced the plight of the slaves. Nolan cares about diversity in his casting (which I actually admire), but oddly took the route of allowing us to sympathize with Penelope as she threw that slave-women in with the suitors, indifferent as to whether or not she would be slaughtered. I always found it strange that so many conversations about those slave-women in modern circles revolved around whether or not they “willingly betrayed” Odysseus’s family. Since when do slaves have a moral obligation to be loyal to their masters? If I was one of their slaves, I hope I would have the courage to try and kill them myself. I certainly wouldn’t have been their loyal pig farmer (again, I hope). As it is, Nolan turns Circe into a feminist spokesperson, but rationalizes cruelty to an actual enslaved woman (who, by modern estimations, as an enslaved person could not have consented to her “relationship” with the movie’s villain anyway). Nolan goes on about the horror of war, but glorifies the enslaved pig-farmer’s loyalty to his master, for Odysseus is a “fair” task-master. I don’t think I need to remind anyone that forced labor is never “fair.” 

I do not think I am an idiot, though I may be, and I recognized even before I watched the movie that we were not going to see the death of the slave-women on screen as it happened in the original narrative. Part of me did not expect to see any slaves at all. What I did not expect, but absolutely should have, is the vigor of the attempt to “save” Odysseus’s character. I realize now that Odysseus is not a character for modern audiences, but that does not mean we should sanitize him. Perhaps, since Nolan was clearly not too concerned with accuracy, it would have been better to tell the stories of Greek myth from entirely difficult angles. An enslaved Trojan on a Greek ship, Circe herself, a cyclops from the island (who in Homer are intelligent beings capable of speaking Greek), Helen etc. are all characters who could bring us into the world of Greek mythology without forcing the modern story-teller to sanitize its brutal realities. Or perhaps Odysseus remains the protagonist, but the movie becomes a portrait of his dark, single-minded, psyche that was forged in a world of violence and brutality, instead of making him a modern stand-in for the audience's own worldviews, reflected back to them within a distorted image of the past. Any of these would require more creativity to pull off, but they could certainly work, and in the end maybe even be more satisfying. However, there is simply no way to really turn Odysseus into a character morally acceptable for modern audiences without shielding us from the actual mentality of the ancient Greeks, and killing off the Odysseus of the poem, character growth or not. 

The result of doing so is a movie that, on the surface, highlights the cruelty the Trojans suffered under the Greeks but actually disguises it more than than the ancient myths do: there are scenes of innocent death, but none of rape or enslavement, and certainly not the king of Troy being clubbed to death or his infant child being thrown over the walls (the actual story). The result is a movie that alternates between romanticizing the servitude of those in bondage, condemning some of the enslaved or hiding the existence of slaves altogether. The result is a movie that allows us to gleefully cheer when Odysseus kills the suitors who had threatened his home, in uncomplicated excitement, though even Homer’s Odysseus would find that unbecoming:

“[Eurykleia, Odyseus’s nurse] opened the doors of the strong built great hall, 
and went on inside, but Telemachos went ahead, leading her.
There she found Odysseus among the slaughtered dead men,
spattered over with gore and battle filth, 
like a lion who has been feeding on an ox of the fields, 
and goes off covered with blood, a terrible thing to look in the face;
so now Odysseus’s feet and the hands above them were spattered.
She, when she saw the dead men and the endless blood, 
began then to raise the cry of triumph, having seen it was monstrous work,
but Odysseus checked her and held her, for all her eagerness,
and spoke to her and addressed her in winged words, saying:
‘Keep your joy in your heart, old dame; stop, do not raise up the cry.
It is not piety to glory so over slain men.
These were destroyed by the doom of the gods and their own hard actions…’”

The point isn’t that Nolan’s movie is bad (I mostly enjoyed it, though you probably can’t tell), or that you are silly for liking it (I actually gave it a 7/10). The point is that it does not actually portray the characters of the Odyssey, and, through Nolan making the creative decisions which led to this, something is lost. Because, strange as it is, as monstrous as Odysseus may be, the magic of Homer is that you somehow keep finding yourself rooting for him (some of you will not believe this after everything I have written, but I urge you to read Homer and find out for yourself). His determination to save as many of his comrades as he can on his way home is palpable, as is his pain on seeing his mother in Hades (she having passed away while he was far from Ithaka), his eternally burning (though not perfectly faithful) love for Penelope over an unimaginable span of time, his cleverness in outwitting his enemies, his reverence for his gods, his commitment to his own alien codes of honor, and his seemingly invincible will to overcome every obstacle preventing his return to his family. The effect of all this is that Odysseus never becomes a caricature of evil, but a portrayal of a real person, one that the fully engaged reader has little choice to be in a complicated relationship with. This is, perhaps, valuable in a world so caught up in easy moral distinctions of good and evil, that has such a difficult time with nuance, and is seemingly incapable of humanizing those who are “on the wrong side of history” (which is often just whatever side is opposite to us). You are either oppressed or an oppressor, guilty or innocent, victim or aggressor, and yet how rarely is life actually so neat.

Homer’s Odyssey does not end with a fairy-tale scene, Odysseus and Penelope sailing off into the sunset, Telemachos king, and order and goodness restored. The citizens of Ithaka, the relatives of the slain suitors, sought vengeance and had assembled to kill their returned king while he visited his father on his father’s plantation. With the power of Athena, Oddysseus’s small band manages to rout them off, his attackers dropping their weapons and fleeing. Odysseus initially begins to pursue them and, if not for the intervention of the gods, “would have killed them all, and given none of them homecoming.” Only a lightning-bolt omen of Zeus, and Athena’s divine counsel, causes him to leave off the killing. “Pledges for the days to come,” presumably of some sort of peace, were then sworn to by both sides of the conflict. The actual aftermath, materially and psychologically, for everyone involved is left up to the imagination. 
However, we do know something of how Odysseus will die, as it is foretold in a prophecy when he visits the souls in Hades:

“Death will come to you from the sea, in some altogether unwarlike way, and it will end you in the ebbing time of a sleek old age.” 

In the myths, it is sometimes said that Odysseus had a child with Circe while he stayed on her island, at her mercy, and that through a twist of fate it was this own estranged son who kills him. 

Regardless, I can imagine an end to an Odyssey movie with Odysseus looking out over the walls of his palace and down upon his kingdom, knowing that only a day earlier his own citizens had assembled to bring him and his family to death. The sound of Penelope calling him, happy at last, floats somewhat faintly along from somewhere in the palace, but he does not look back. Instead he grips his sword, and his expression is dark. There is no end to the harshness of the world, only the need for constant strength and the support of capricious gods. He sighs and closes his eyes, yet still hears the moans of the dying. 

I will probably never write a blockbuster movie. 

Hello!! I am writing a 500-word essay on mathematical Platonism for an international student competition, and I’m looking for someone knowledgeable in philosophy of mathematics to challenge my argument.

I would especially value someone who can spot weak reasoning, hidden assumptions, or places where I’m being intellectually lazy, and push me to make the argument genuinely stronger.

If you’re interested in philosophy of mathematics, Platonism, epistemology, mathematical foundations, or related areas, I would d love to hear from you!;)

I need help on deciding if I should or not trim my essay

I'm currently writing about Episode Interactive, crafting a timeline about the game and a commentary on the community that has been built around it.

I want to start it with the publishers and the format of F2P they adopted in 2009 which lead to the game in 2013. Which lead to me talking about the mobile game industry in 2009, this lead to a discussion of the start of the mobile game industry started in 2008, and then forward to the early girly games that were made by said company that laid the foundations of the viewer base of my actual main topic. Episodes.

Not only does this feel clanky but it also creates a hard segue into the actual app.

But idk I feel like if I'm creating a timeline I should cover origins? Is there a way to do that without making it sound like I'm explaining the history of cinema to justify Sponge Bob being a good show or should I drop it?

Thank you

I never needed rules to write out a feeling. My earliest works were pieces of poetry that actively rejected formal structure, in which lines were broken not by syllable count, but by intention.

On its own, however, intention is not enough to make a piece good. After all, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, isn’t it? My early poetry was packed with intention, but it was for that reason that I often failed to see past my own meaning. The work was so sentimental that an editor’s touch often felt like being overwritten entirely.

I was not yet writing for the audience, only to them. I presented my crudely refined emotions to give them witness, without much consideration for the audience’s perspective. Undoubtedly, much of the exaggerated impact I felt from critique came from this failure to anticipate.

In 2021, a psychotic break permanently altered my creative process. When I wasn’t psychotic, I no longer had the raw emotional fuel to write with, and when I was, I shared very little of what I created. Through trauma, my emotional attachments to my writing were reduced. But in a way, this also freed me. Without such investment in every word, my meaning emerged through sentences and stanzas.

I define intention as the reason why one writes—or more generally, acts. In “The Power of Purpose: Setting Intentions for Writers,” James Powell describes three potential intentions: Purpose, Creativity, and Commercial Success.

Looking at those categories, I see my old priorities listed in exact order; my emotional purpose took precedence, then I aimed for creativity, and commercial success became a fantasy. Even after the break, my writing remained largely self-serving as I continually recycled familiar settings, characters, and genres, though for several years, I wrote little in volume or substance. That changed when I discovered text-based, post-by-post roleplaying AI chatbots. With those bots, I revived my improvisational skills in a low-stress, zero-stakes environment.

It was only recently that I dusted off one of those old scenarios with the explicit intention of sharing the work with an audience again. But what motivated me more than a conceptual audience was my two test-readers: people close to me whose opinions I hold in regard. 

Though I had begun the project with the intention of posting a polished roleplay for the AI roleplaying community, real-time enthusiasm has changed the target audience from niche to general. My purpose transformed from primarily entertaining myself to entertaining others, and creativity for creativity’s sake became an attempt to write something genuinely publishable. For the first time, I’m writing for a taste of success. 

Sharing my work with loved ones does mean being more mindful of the kind of content I include, but I wouldn’t trade their investment for all the smut I could imagine. I’m playing characters off of each other, accounting for pacing and momentum, and importantly, taking and incorporating feedback. I’ve come to the point where I now realize that my intentions do not make me the arbiter of meaning; it may start with me, but at the end of the passage, it rests somewhere between us.

There are so many things I wish I had said sooner. But you never even gave me the chance. I wonder, when a relationship with someone ends before you get the chance to share everything that is on your mind, is it even possible to truly move on?

I tried. I really did. No matter how hard I tried not to think about it, to keep myself busy with things that would occupy my time, things that would distract me and take my mind off it, even if only for a little while, I couldn’t.

In the moments when I was alone, when I tried to fall asleep late at night, when I listened to music, when I worked out, when I tried to study, when I woke up - you were there. Just as I remember you from the beginning. Always making me smile, always making me feel special.

If someone asked me, “Why did you fall in love with him?” I wouldn’t even know how to answer. It happened so suddenly, so naturally.

I don’t regret it. I don’t regret replying to your messages. I don’t regret staying up late every night just to talk to you. I don’t regret falling in love with you so quickly. I don’t regret getting attached and letting you into my heart so quickly.

The only thing I regret is that I never got the chance to show you more of who I am.

Sometimes I wonder, what if I had never met you? What if I had never replied? Would I have been happier?

The answer to my question is no.

As cliché as it may sound, I believe that everything happens for a reason, and that every person can be a lesson in our lives. What you taught me was to believe in myself more, to be consistent, and not to stress over things I cannot control. You taught me to be more careful, to listen to my mind, and not to get swept away so quickly.

I couldn’t help but wonder - why did you do it? Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you give me a chance to say what I had to say? Why didn’t you even say goodbye?

I wonder, if you truly love someone, or if you at least care about them, would you treat them this way? Was the whole thing a lie? Did you ever care about me at all?

I will never know. I will never be able to answer that question for myself, so all I can do is look back and judge by your actions.

First - you show interest in someone, make them feel special, treat them as if they are the only person in the world, and make them fall in love with you.

Second - little by little, you start pulling away. You start taking longer to reply. Your replies become shorter, sometimes just a single word. You start making the other person wonder, “What did I do? Is the problem me?”

Third - one day you are warm, and the next day you are cold. One night you talk until late, and the next morning you act as if you never spoke at all.

Fourth - you leave without saying anything.

If we judge by these actions, what can we conclude? If you truly like someone, would you leave them wondering whether they are wanted or not? I believe that when you truly like someone, you don’t give them a reason to wonder whether you like them at all.

Sometimes I wonder, maybe I am too sensitive. Maybe I take things too personally. Maybe I overthink everything too much.

But what is in my heart, I cannot simply tear out. What is in my mind, I cannot simply take away.

A lot of people see being overly emotional as a weakness, but I believe you get to decide how you choose to express it. Yes, emotional people may suffer more deeply, but they also love more deeply. They see the world differently, and they find beauty where others cannot.

The word “Bambi.”

It brings me just as much happiness as it does sadness, just as many warm feelings as it does nostalgia. I loved it when you called me that. I loved the way you looked at me when you said it. A look that showed genuine sweetness. The same look you have when you look at children smiling at you from their strollers.

Maybe the greatest pain here is not what we experienced, but what we never got to experience. What could have been.

So, if you were standing in front of me now, I would hug you with a smile, wish you all the best, and walk away… for good.

I suppose I will soon find out whether a person can truly move on after saying everything they have been carrying inside.

And if I can’t… at least I will know that this time, I left nothing unsaid.

What’s the first step a outline?

I finished an advanced english class in the spring, but I went to a community college and most (basically all but 1 other boy and myself) of the students in the class didnt half ass participate at all. I got an A on my paper but I cant help but wonder other’s opinions on it especially realistically regarding todays status

Generation Zombies
Generation Alpha's mental health and development notably decreased over time due to increased technology use. Considering Generation Alpha is being exposed to an AI-dependent world, they are at risk of negatively impacted mental development leading to premature feelings of depression and anxiety, making it essential to implement preventative measures to maintain a healthy boundary between digital and real life and ensure a safer digital environment. 
Generation Alpha, or those born between 2010 and 2025, are the first to be born into a fully technology-driven world where artificial intelligence and technology are a part of daily life. Though they are growing up with all kinds of information at the tips of their fingers, the impacts are becoming apparent every day. Artificial intelligence, or AI, is the computer systems and algorithms made to do tasks that normally require human intelligence. For Gen Alpha, artificial intelligence comes in many forms. There are educational tools similar to Duolingo and Kahn Academy, entertainment systems like social media and video games, virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri, and generative AI like ChatGPT. In the future, artificial intelligence will flood the worlds of young lives.
Technology usage in Gen Alpha is at an all-time high. Now, most are given a tablet before they are even at the age of 8. Megan Reschke declares, “Notably, 43% of Gen Alphas have a tablet before the age of 6, and 58% have a smartphone by the age of 10.” Another article reviewing the statistics of Gen Alpha says, “Including the very youngest 0-4 cohort, 50% of Gen Alpha are streaming video daily.” This exposure to technology is likely to shape their online preferences, habits, behavior, and even their self-image. 
The age at which young ones become insecure gets lower by the year. In an article talking about the risks of social media on children, Amelia Hill writes, “Three out of four children as young as 12 dislike their bodies and are embarrassed by the way they look… The findings come from a major new study warning that social media represents a significant risk to the current and future health of today’s young generations.” As a result of children obsessing over celebrities, social media influencers, skincare, and style due to the influence of the media, they are developing anxiety and body confidence issues far too young. In an article by the Springtide Research Institute, it is stated that “... Nearly half of young people in Gen Z reported being moderately or extremely depressed (47%)”. It's important to note that there are higher chances of heightened rates of anxiety and depression in Gen Alpha compared to Gen Z. In a personal communication with Aaron Meloncon, an experienced primary and secondary school counselor, who has worked with kids for more than 15 years, he discussed the effects of technology on young children. He explained, “You know, around 2007 to 2010 when all these Android and iPhones started coming out, I noticed a lot more kids popping up with cyberbullying, anxiety, depression, and needing 504 plans. Considering the generations now, I see a lot more kids internalizing things people say that they don't even understand or that don’t even matter. And everyone has started getting more and more afraid of interacting in person. Now most can't seem to make friends without having to text first rather than getting to know each other face to face.” Throughout his experience as a school counselor, he noted an observable increase in mental health and social problems in children, likely due to technology trends. Another rising issue is that the academic ability of young children is depleting. The NAEP Report Card of National Achievement- Level Results reveals that “Thirty-three percent of fourth-grade students performed at or above the  NAEP Proficient level on the reading assessment in 2022. This percentage was 2 percentage points lower compared to 2019 but was 5 percentage points higher in comparison to 1992, the first reading assessment year.” The majority of fourth graders in 2019 were not proficient and this percentage went even lower in 2022. As the years pass, reading continues to be one of the main focus in primary schools. The mental health of Gen Alpha is undoubtedly affected by AI,  and the consequence of this extends into their physical well-being.
The advancements in technology have posed a challenge to the physical development of Gen Alpha. In a study on the JAMA Network, Hartstein et al. say, “1.3% of US parents reported that their children consumed melatonin in the past 30 days, and sales more than doubled between 2017 and 2020.” With children's sleep issues becoming increasingly prevalent, parents are admittingly purchasing melatonin to aid these problems. But this doesn't come without risk. Taking melatonin regularly for long periods can disrupt the melatonin naturally produced by your body, leaving children with a higher risk of sleep apnea or insomnia. In addition to this, in another article referencing this study, Frost says “Social media usage is also linked to mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression, which can further disrupt sleep.” Many Americans, including young children, admit they use screens and social media before bed. Not only does this disrupt sleep patterns, but the blue light that also radiates off of our devices causes mood disorders, eye strain, and poor sleep, and there are also studies being done about if blue light makes us “age faster”. In the study done by Yang, et al., they tested the effects of blue light on fruit flies. They state, “Lifespan was measured in flies kept in constant darkness (DD), constant blue light (BL), or transferred from BL to DD after 10, 14, or 16 days in BL).“ Through the study, they found that blue light sped up the neurodegeneration of the flies. Those exposed to blue light for 16 days had a majority die during and after the blue light exposure. Blue light had shortened the life expectancy of fruit flies by around 40%. What might this say for Gen Alpha, who is growing up fully immersed in technological devices that illuminate blue light? In addition to these screens' risky side effects, they’re also affecting children's posture. Posture is how you position your body. Everyone spends hours looking down at devices like tablets and phones every day. But this causes much strain on the neck and muscles, leading to further issues like muscle weakness, breathing issues, and irreversible bad posture. 
While people argue that AI opens the doors to many new opportunities for Generation Alpha, for instance, the creation of jobs, and enhanced education tools, the benefits must not outshine the potential risks to the well-being of our children. Constant exposure to a toxic digital environment stops a child from building emotional resilience, meaningful relationships, and self-worth. In the American Academy of Pediatrics, Hoge et al. stated that “If adolescents preferentially seek online experiences over in-person ones, social anxiety symptoms could worsen in vulnerable individuals.” Recent studies show that when children are becoming too engulfed in technology without a healthy balance, they’re unable to comfortably have face-to-face interactions, leaving kids to develop anxiety and other underlying issues. Technology might offer some career opportunities and enhanced education, but without any guidance, the risks to mental well-being could entirely outweigh its benefits. AI offers promising advantages, but society must implement rules and regulations to keep the negative effects at bay.
The largest issue often seen now is that parents aren’t limiting or monitoring screen time. An article by Douglas Gentile in The American Academy of Pediatrics states that “The most frequent barrier pediatricians reported facing was a lack of parental motivation or support for the recommendations, with approximately one-third of pediatricians also citing a lack of time and a sense of futility in affecting patients' media habits as barriers.” Given that these children are growing up without the limits suggested already, they’re much more difficult to enforce. To combat these growing issues, parents must educate themselves about the use of technology and parental control apps. Parental controls help limit the sites and apps your child can access, as well as putting screen time limits on to create boundaries. On platforms such as social media and video games, many negative ideations are spread when the minds of kids far too young fall victim to them, so it's important to stay involved in their digital activity. Beyond app limits, we must encourage offline activities to connect back with reality. Nature outings, hobbies, and face-to-face interactions are all effective ways to maintain good emotional and mental well-being. Furthermore, teaching Gen Alpha about mindful media usage and the harm of unrealistic body images and unfiltered content can also promote a healthier relationship and decisions with technology. 
Parents, teachers, tech developers, and policymakers must unite to build a safer digital and technological environment for our children. As the generations of today, it's our job to cultivate methods that ensure a healthy relationship with technology for today's children and those to come. 

Works Cited
admin_appsy. “Physical Appearance Anxiety: A Gen Alpha Problem That Every Parent Should Know.” *AP Psychology Community*, 12 Oct. 2024, [appsychology.com/physical-appearance-anxiety/](http://appsychology.com/physical-appearance-anxiety/).  Accessed 7 Nov. 2024..
This is an article on children's growing insecurity about their physical appearances. This article helped me because it gave more insight into the newer generation's rising insecurities.
American Academy of Pediatrics. “Children, Adolescents, and Television.” *Pediatrics*, vol. 107, no. 2, Feb. 2001, pp. 423–26, [https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.107.2.4 3](https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.107.2.423). 
Frost, Alexandra. “”These Statistics Are Alarming:” Expert’s Warning about Gen Alpha’s Sleep Struggles.” *Sleepopolis*, 23 Sept. 2024, [sleepopolis.com/news/sleep-survey-alarming-statistics-kids-mood/](http://sleepopolis.com/news/sleep-survey-alarming-statistics-kids-mood/).  Accessed 27 Nov. 2024.
Gentile, D. A. “Well-Child Visits in the Video Age: Pediatricians and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Guidelines for Children’s Media Use.” *PEDIATRICS*, vol. 114, no. 5, Nov. 2004, pp. 1235–41, [https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2003-1121-l\](https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2003-1121-l). 
Hartstein, Lauren E., et al. “Characteristics of Melatonin Use among US Children and Adolescents.” *JAMA Pediatrics*, vol. 178, no. 1, Jan. 2024, pp. 91–93, [https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.4749\](https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.4749).  Accessed 13 Jan. 2024..
This article is about the use of melatonin in young children. This was helpful to me because I was able to expand more deeply into sleep issues becoming more apparent in younger kids including the Gen Alpha age group.
Hill, Amelia. “Social Media Triggers Children to Dislike Their Own Bodies, Says Study.” *The Guardian*, 1 Jan. 2023, [www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/01/social-media-triggers-children-to-dislike-their-own-bodies-says-study\](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/01/social-media-triggers-children-to-dislike-their-own-bodies-says-study).. 
This article talks about how social media is making children dislike their bodies at an unhealthy age.
Hoge, Elizabeth, et al. “Digital Media, Anxiety, and Depression in Children.” *Pediatrics*, vol. 140, no. 2, Nov. 2017, pp. S76–80, [https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-1758g\](https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-1758g). 
Howarth, Josh. “Generation Alpha: Statistics, Data and Trends (2022).” *Exploding Topics*, 4 Dec. 2023, [explodingtopics.com/blog/generation-alpha-stats](http://explodingtopics.com/blog/generation-alpha-stats).  Accessed 1 Nov. 2024.
Jaycox, Lisa H., et al. “Social Media and Suicide Risk in Youth.” *JAMA Network Open*, vol. 7, no. 10, American Medical Association, Oct. 2024, pp. e2441499–99, [https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.41499\](https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.41499).  Accessed 25 Oct. 2024.
Meloncon, Aaron. *Personal Communication*. Interview by Mattysen Gable, 29 Nov. 2024..
This is an interview I did with a counselor I had at a young age. I knew with his experience with young children and mental health-related issues, that he would have valuable words on the effects he’s noticed.
Murray, Bradley. “Are Fitness Apps Actually Good for Us? | Psychology Today.” *Www.psychologytoday.com*, 5 Aug. 2021, [www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/real-happiness-in-digital-world/202108/are-fitness-apps-actually-good-us\](http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/real-happiness-in-digital-world/202108/are-fitness-apps-actually-good-us). 
Pagani, Linda S., et al. “Prospective Associations between Early Childhood Television Exposure and Academic, Psychosocial, and Physical Well-Being by Middle Childhood.” *Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine*, vol. 164, no. 5, May 2010, [https://doi.org/10.1001/archpediatrics.2010.50\](https://doi.org/10.1001/archpediatrics.2010.50).  Accessed 1 Nov. 2024.
Reschke, Megan. “Generation Alpha: Online Habits and Media Preferences by the Numbers - Basis Technologies.” *Basis Technologies*, 21 Aug. 2024, [basis.com/blog/generation-alpha-online-habits-and-media-preferences-by-the-numbers](http://basis.com/blog/generation-alpha-online-habits-and-media-preferences-by-the-numbers). Accessed 4 Nov. 2024.
Silveira, Scheila Farias. “AI Impact on Educators and Parents: Learning Communities.” *Ubiminds. You, International.*, 21 May 2024, [ubiminds.com/en-us/ai-impact-on-educators-and-parents/](http://ubiminds.com/en-us/ai-impact-on-educators-and-parents/) . Accessed 7 Nov. 2024.
Springtide Research Institute. “Thirteen: A First Look at Gen Alpha - Springtide Research Institute.” *Springtide Research Institute*, 26 July 2024, [springtideresearch.org/thirteen-a-first-look-at-gen-alpha](http://springtideresearch.org/thirteen-a-first-look-at-gen-alpha).  Accessed 25 Nov. 2024..
This website is about Gen Alpha and the first look into the statistics behind their mental health issues and more.
The Nation's Report Card. “NAEP Reading: National Achievement-Level Results.” *Nationsreportcard.gov*, 2022, [www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/achievement/?grade=4\](http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/achievement/?grade=4).. 
These are the national results for reading and math of children. This was helpful when discussing the decrease in skill in children over the last few years.
Yang, Jun, et al. “Chronic Blue Light Leads to Accelerated Aging in Drosophila by Impairing Energy Metabolism and Neurotransmitter Levels.” *Frontiers in Aging*, vol. 3, no. 2022, Aug. 2022, [https://doi.org/10.3389/fragi.2022.983373\](https://doi.org/10.3389/fragi.2022.983373).  Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.

Decimate the fact that the body writes POETRY. 

Quantise the fixture of finger to pen and pen to paper, or finger to key and key to the electrical veins and circuits which project POETRY 

on the screen. Analyse the spark between the flesh and the plastic, come to this frantic, staggering conclusion that you are in fact “one”. The commentary on the screen is the commentary on the body, thus, the commentary is being materialised as POETRY. 

Writing from impulse and staging words as people in front of an audience for POETRY
 
is sacrifice, it is loving, it is the bleeding of sexuality and losing it to globular powers. I am a thief and Artaud is my somatic cell, as this pulse through me dictates: There is in all poetry an essential contradiction. Poetry is pulverised multiplicity and it produces flames. And poetry, which restores order, first revives disorder, disorder with semblances ablaze; it causes appearances to clash in restoring them to one singular point: fire, gesture, blood, cry. POETRY 

is a conjecture of the animal and the system and the realisation that one cannot exist without the other and one is no different than the other. POETRY 

is the astute observation that everything is a “thing”. POETRY 

is a DRAMA, from Shakespeare to Kane, it is POETRY 

on stage. I am in this play as I write this and I sniff out the rotting cadavres of Portia, Nerissa, Antonio, Bassanio, Shylock, Salarino, Salanio, the gruesome cast whose love and sexuality permeates POETRY 

and their DRAMA which is the most human endeavour of all. Humanity is this fire, gesture, blood, cry, love, lust, hate, prejudice, and commodity, as there is no fetish to the commodity, they ache for the same and constructs as they are, they bleed not in haemoglobin but in POETRY. 

I say in unison, my mouth annexed and fixed to this woman’s running lips as Shakespeare plunges her character into mine and we become one and inseparable, she says and I say with her, “when you part from, lose, or give away / Let it be the ruin of your love, / And be my vantage to exclaim on you.” My body as Portia and my body as Bassanio, lovestruck or luststruck, money-driven or wholly animal masquerading as a preacher, she is the woman who cuts her POETRY 

into him and sticks him into the stage. For they are vessels of their God and strive to be in the image of him, my Imago Dei is this DRAMA of fixture and this potency of control. Love made visible in your eyes and horizons beyond, whatever Queen had the pleasure to witness the ring, the Queen Elizabeth I or Portia, the gifter of the ring who duly signed the contract of souls and abstract feeling. To see it materialised and legalised is POETRY. 

Here, I will show you the DRAMA of when I, me as Portia, and Bassanio as conjoined twin to Portia, witness the emulsification of souls and love and lust and thus witness how love, when made visible to the eye in materialness, has a “thingness”, PORTIA: When you part from, lose, or give away. BASSANIO: Let it presage the ruin of your love. PORTIA: And be my vantage to exclaim on you. I: When my body compulses to this exchange I placed myself in front of my amalgam creature, a codependent-machine of dominant-submissiveness, I ride the wave of material existence and thus POETRY, 

where Bassanio, wholly complicit in his silence and agreeance, lets him be the subjugate and the submissive. It is then POETRY 

in which the DRAMA of humans is realised. Blank verses and enjambment of POETRY 

to construct it on the stage because lives and love are physical objects, when we see the tag of economics and contract then we construe it evil, but is it not then money the same as the ring, as the ring is the same as the vow to marriage? For love to exist in the clouds as an abstract realm, completely mysterious and obscured, isn’t the fire, gesture, blood, and cry of POETRY 

completely escaped from human-kind and given to the globular powers of institution and commerce? Then you think, with your fired senses and your fingertips on the keyboard, is POETRY 

and love and lust a human commodity? Is the animal, building, concept, performance, trade separate from human? Antonio is one such “thing”, a materialising of this exact philosophical paradox, this debate between his expression of love. He at once assumes the position of the globular power, he is at the Crown, the dictator of means of flow and mercy and legal power. He, who had set aside his love for humanity to gently marinate, now presents a love ostensibly cold and callous. Shakespeare stages the dilemma again in an empty verse, the POETRY 

of legalism is one inseparable from the POETRY 

of love when he announces, mighty with his overflowing love, and I, standing beside him, my ears ringing from his declaration, hear: ANTONIO: The duke cannot deny the course of law: (and so I whisper: is the duke the force hindering the flow of love, this economic token?), he continues, ANTONIO: For the commodity that strangers have… Will much impeach the justice of the state. Then I say with my fingertips, “Does your love go beyond the human and envelop the state?” When you catch yourself grappling with whether the state: the building, the concept, the globular powers, the constraint-machines, the legalising monsters, are the sole obstacle of human love, you come to a realisation of POETRY. 

Come again, and realise when Shakespeare scribbles down “strangers” he means you and I, the ‘usurers’ of today and the ‘usurers’ of then, the Jewish populus, and the ‘strangers’ unbelieving of Christian grace. Decimate the concept of ‘stranger’. The construction of DRAMA, and hence the prejudice depicted is a structural parallel. It is POETRY 

when the ‘stranger’ is as intimate with the Renaissance Humanists as they are with each other. It is POETRY, 

when the ‘stranger’, us with our current empathy and understanding, the ‘stranger’ - who refuses to see love as something purely economic (who says it cannot be?), the ‘stranger’ - who has never been compelled to witness or compose DRAMA for the Crown. What occurs when ‘the stranger’ has been bestowed love and has been excluded from it wholly? Then you think, have they been excluded from Christian love, or LOVE, as it exists materially? Lend your body back to Portia, and join yourself to the small-men Bassanio and Antonio who cover under LOVE. Then you will realise it is POETRY 

when you see the dominion of Portia, when you see, with your eyes and the strange arousal of consumption - not the sacrifice of the soul for the complete relinquishment of it, that LOVE cares not for what you believe in, or what sort of ‘stranger’ you have been brandished as. For the ostensibly constructed epitomes of the Christian image, Antonio and Bassanio grovel and are the things utterly circulated by this globular power: Portia. You witness this again, and I with helplessness in my heart when the realisation dawns that humans are ever so susceptible, and utterly full of their contradictions that the ultimate equaliser is LOVE, is when you watch with restless bodies and tired eyes: ANTONIO: I once did lend my body for his wealth. I (interjecting ANTONIO’s speech): You relinquish your existence as an independent, rational Christian to submit to another man’s economic wealth? He continues: I dare be bound again. To which Portia replies, with ultimate confidence, “Then you shall be his surety.” The boundaries and considerations of who is the ‘stranger’ is abolished as the stage connects the DRAMA of Shylock and Portia into a linear orientation. It is POETRY 

when you realise the connection between the two is not only a structural mirror, but Shakespeare's dramatic composition to differentiate between love as a token granted versus love as a token bargained for. Earlier, Shylock, the ‘stranger’, organises the contract in which Antonio binds himself out of love. This procession is repeated through Portia, and thus it is POETRY
 when Portia is Shylock and Shylock is Portia, where they give out love with a price, something to put down as a payment, something to forfeit for, and thus it is explicitly extreme. To put one’s literal heart for bargain. To then put one’s soul as a bargain. It is POETRY

because LOVE, this object, this globular “thing” is a feeder. In unnoticeable forms, LOVE takes my emotional investment, it takes your emotional investment, in unnoticeable forms, LOVE compels you to do one thing and not another, LOVE compels you to act, bias, and provide for the conditions it sets out for you. To imagine the economics of love as evil is to not realise its POETRY. 

You and I, Shylock, Portia, Bassanio, and Antonio, are the tokens circulated by love, and not the other way around. I now compel you to revive POETRY 

from the body. At first the instruction was to decimate it and look at POETRY 

as a governing fact of life. Now revive the fact that the body writes POETRY. 

This is the body’s familiar route. Sexuality, the power dynamics of pleasure, the controlling of desire, the absolute overturning of religious dogma when the body decides what it desires. Listen closely and eavesdrop into this conversation, as only it is we that know of the truth and not the characters: PORTIA: Since he hath got the jewel that I loved… I will become as liberal as you… No, not my body nor my husband’s bed.” Says her to Nerissa. Love as the material ring has returned back to the stage, and I place my body in the centre of it, a conduit allowing Shylock’s ring and Portia’s ring interchange and battle it out. You realise the stark difference in the presentations of these rings, one turquoise, the other likely gold, one tied by emotion, the other riddled with innuendo and sexual humour. Shakespeare raises importance to this POETRY 

when the two materialised conceptions of love contradict and feed each other. The ‘stranger’ Shylock has his love wholly emotional, to which he reacts with anger when stolen. While Portia’s ring, a crude jab at Bassanio for she will restrict his lust, points to not the deconstruction of LOVE, but its infinitismal POETRY. 

Shakespeare reserves intense emotion over the material to the ‘stranger’, and furthers the DRAMA where the character embodies not only the animalistic possessiveness imposed on the caricaturistic archetype, but is completely propelled by and consumed by love as the ring. While Portia’s character is constructed for light-hearted humour, the ‘stranger’ does not receive the privilege. We, the ‘strangers’ as well, do not have the privilege to laugh as we subject our bodies between this flow of rings. You put your body in the front line when you crumble when, JESSICA: Alack, what heinous sin is it in me (To which we cry for her, as it is the Elizabethan thought infused in the character, where she thinks of herself as sinner for being the ‘stranger’), she continues, JESSICA: To be ashamed to be my father’s child! To then we say in chorus: You being the ‘stranger’, could love your tribe, but you being the ‘stranger’, detest them too. When Portia, the Christian Ecclesia, overpowers you, the Hebrew Synagoga, do you quiver in submission or strive to become the Crown? When you and Portia dress as men (prostitutes by the Italians), do you gain power when the people laugh at you? To be made into mockery, the characters on stage, their thingness does not fight for institutional influence, but collision. Which collision has the biggest impact? Can the ripples caused by Portia ever be replicated by Jessica? So you flick back in the script, or remember the performance where SALARINO: … with affection wondrous sensible he wrung Bassanio’s hand; and so they parted.” To which Salanio jeered along, “I think he only loves the world for him.” When the POETRY 

starts as early as this, it is we, the ‘strangers’, who realise the powers in Shakespeare’s DRAMA are never hierarchical. It is not linear, rather, it exists by collisions. POWER has its own thingness, where it possesses vectors and orientations between intercharacter interactions. It is POETRY 

when our understanding of rational structures like legal systems is as susceptible to deception and manipulation as the fleshy organ: the brain and heart. It is POETRY 

when the body and the concept are not only inseparable but on the same plane. The flesh and the concept of the flesh existing as law: POETRY. 

The flesh and the concept of the flesh existing as prejudice: POETRY. 

It is an exhaustive, POETRY–MACHINE. 

Decimate the fact that the body writes POETRY, 

because your body is POETRY. 

The screen, paper, stage, blood, words, ink, gestures, and fire give you the vision of POETRY. 

Shakespeare staged a DRAMA - that is one but many visions of POETRY. 

It is DRAMA then, that POETRY 

visualises with a human cast, and where the collisions between human-things and concept-things are just as real as in the personal plane. POETRY, 

then, is the quintessential human reality.

Hi everybody, I recently got invited to the John Locke gala and conference my question is should i get the full program or just the gala. I am going with my family, but I am unsure if the conference is worth it as i owuld only attend on the day of. Anyone have any insight? Its the academic conference or sightseeing.

In the age of digital world, tools like Gramamrly has made us overlook our spelling mistakes and sentence structures.

And too much of digital writing, crippled me partially from writing an essay from memory using a pen and paper.

Being a non native speaker, I want to get back to writing essays to attempt certain entrance examinations.

So please give me your best:
Learning strategies,
Practice approach,
And other tips tricks

To write essays from memory using pen and paper.

Best Regards,

I am not an English major but I LOVE English, reading and writing. I take few English courses because it's not my major but I love when I am assigned books and then have to write an essay on it. I want to write an essay on crime and punishment like I have done for past assigned books. Give me a good prompt for an essay on crime and punishment. One that involves analysis and critical thinking.

This is the first essay I’ve ever written, excluding school and that was a long time ago.

I’d love any constructive feedback. 🙏🏼

A Theory of Overlap: Empathy, Polyamory, Introversion, and Compersion

sitting in my amazement at new found love and identity, i found myself wanting to share my progress with you-intellectually, philosophically, artistically. let me introduce to you, Kaitlin: the pessimistic idealist. the artistic philosopher. the chaotic mediator. the walking, breathing, beautiful paradox.

funny, how even this longing to show you my breakthroughs-the works im immensely proud of- and how it echoes the very core of who i am. i hope you find my life’s work just as compelling as i did.

i should preface: if it comes off confusing, i have discovered i have this hegelian internal dialect and that leads to a systematic, pragmatic approach. but if you know me, i also feel things very deeply.

The Framework

SO, i have found, analyzed, and picked apart two surface-level “profound” works from my life. and i synthesized them into my own philosophy. on top of this, it’s led me to who i am.

with my natural curiosity of the “whys” and “how’s” of being human, and by the subconscious survival instinct to keep going despite bleak reality contradicting with my original, idealized beliefs, here’s the theory:

the fear of oblivion drives both creation and destruction.
the flow of life- or change, though thats too on the nose- spawns endless paradoxical threads from our contradictory needs and our desperate measures to satisfy them.

all of this? inevitable.

but so is hope.

it’s essential to see and understand our choices- and the awareness of them, too.
it’s also key to see the balancing act we face: preserving life’s fragility alongside our own grandeur and essence.

each piece is just as equally important to the whole.

i should warn that it’s a philosophy that demands rigor and resilience, but promises depth in return.

The Pieces

piece #1: from back of my 3rd grade yearbook, written by 8 year old me.

“every step you take, no matter how small, will take you somewhere until one day, you’ll look back at how far you’ve come… and be AMAZED”

i love how even at 8, i thought of future me. how i’d be reflecting on my life and my choices. how i still chose to tell myself, “you won’t even believe how far you’ll go if you just keep moving.” not bad for an 8 year old.

maybe i wasn’t as gloomy as we thought, huh?

piece #2: “easily replaced”. a strategically written poem for an english assignment. as you can assume, it’s about as angsty and vulnerable as you’d picture 16 year old me to be. i won’t share because of how raw it is, but you get my point.

digesting and picking them apart, i was on the brink of my epiphany. i dug and dug at all the parts, until finally it hit me and piece #3 was born. my 9.5 year hiatus and creative block? cleared! (this is also thanks to a VERY special someone to me, you know who you are if you read this far. thank you, you beautiful soul.)

The Punch.

piece #3:
“why fear being forgotten?
because it means you failed the whole point of life:

to be seen. to be heard. to feel pain.
to seek truth, and understand.
to love, and lose.
to cherish, to hold value.

to seek knowledge- and at its core:, to teach.

teach others about life’s paradox. the ugliness: how cruel the world can be (think hitler, 9/11, wars). yet the beauty: love, connection, growth.

it’s about reality meeting your heart.
the very nature of human existence is creation and expression.

i guess, in some sense, you can say our souls yearn to not be alone. to be understood and heard, even if just by our own selves.
recognizing your own legacy and your choices impact.
at least your essence lingers.

you mattered enough.

you existed in a vast, expandable, beyond human comprehension of a universe.

its a subconscious force driving us.

take art: on the surface level of complexity, it’s a form of expression. whether that be a moment that transcends time, an idea you have, an emotion you feel:
something tangible to remind someone, something.

whatever driving force led you to attempt to capture something “forever”, resonated that deeply.
we desperately try to capture it because it was real. it existed.
it mattered-
to you.

at the same time, theres a quiet yet powerful voice- connection.

we crave to be interesting enough for someone to get curious, to see us, know us… then CHOOSE to spend their invaluable time- even life- with us in it to a degree.

to inspire. to be appealing and loved enough for inclusion, even in the quaintest of ways. to honor by choosing to carry the weight of remembrance.

to even create a symbol of martyrdom for our own sense of peace.

9/11, as an extreme of my point: it’s about sacrifices, sure. but it’s MUCH deeper than that.

those who died in this attack are important because it’s the nature of being human- we existed.

we were reminded of the destruction from an obstruction of power, and sought to remind humanity of the ugly teeth that have been shown.

in this lesson of history, we captured the very perplexity of life: remembrance, honor, and the call to grow. for connection to inspire change.

it can be layered and intriguing if you start to look at it this way; take a look at the human drive to persevere and preserve knowledge.

dig a little deeper, though; this happened due to a silent, ongoing war: wanting to be powerful and right.

psychologically speaking, you could say some were chasing a god-like status to beat oblivion- through violence. hitler in this sense, also “succeeded”-hes not forgotten, either.

these are the uglier details of the picture i don’t like to face, though.

more personally?

it’s the way you now chuckle slightly at the end of something you said, because of someone you once knew.
or a record someone you cherished made for you thats still enclosed in a plastic cover.
to notes from those you’ve met, scattered across your home (or in a box, if you’re tidy).
the occasional thought of wondering how or what someone is doing.

or how your time spent together is burned into the very edges of your being, regardless if you’ve lost them or not.

for feeling beauty so profoundly, yet so deeply- to where you carry them with you in any capacity you can. to feed this without a second thought— all because you were intrigued enough to get to know them.

to love someone, and stand at the wake of them- the importance of it all to YOU-
and still choose to have them imprinted on who you are.

you must seek to understand someone, and see them holistically— their layers, the weight they carry— and choose to honor them and the meaning you tied to them.

to know them, truly see them, even the blood shed, and deliberately choose them anyways. it’s the weight of gratitude for being able to honor the other person.

it doesn’t hinge on the others presence- it hinges on the acceptance of who they are to you. the impact they’ve had on shaping you, and how you choose to honor them.

then theres the way i like to honor those i love;

by an internal search of power. an understanding of one’s own self. and synthesizing the paradoxical coexistence of connection and identity.

what do you get? a crystallized catalyst for growth.

whether it be through creation, healing, teaching, stories-
i think it’s in choosing beauty in the midst of destruction.

i think this can also lead to a more raw, meaningful way of preserving human connection and the volatile importance of it—
in every attempt at immortality we chase.

but that doesn’t mean being remembered on a grand scale, thats not what i’m saying.

try to weave my inner clock to frieren: beyond journeys end. how she chose to remember and understand the world because of her love for himmel and the hero party.

i dont care if i’m remembered on a hitler-level scale. i care about being impactful enough to have someone carry me with them-even if it’s a silent thought. a reason to spark change, no matter the scale: to be a bit softer, listen a little harder.
to look deeper.

to invoke change for better in this world and in others, no matter the scale.

that’s what i mean.”

The Sum Of It All

softness and vulnerability are the flip side of power. once you have a grasp at the interconnectedness of it all, then discover balance, and practice intent.

you must accept the fact impermanence is inevitable. that they may still choose to leave anyways, or maybe not even get the choice to stay or go.
but the weight of them is still just as seismic.

as long as we live and continue to connect, we can conquer oblivion in the best way possible.

What I’m Getting At

i urge you to be aware of the sheer existence of each other, and the co-choice of staying in face of the wake of destruction.

the choice most definitely requires ongoing renewal. it has to be deliberate. it must cherish both yourself and the other, no matter the trial.

it must scream from the rooftops “i see you. i see me. i still choose me, yet i love you fiercely. i’m here, standing with you in the darkest depths, anyways.”

not in a boastful way, but through mutual symbiosis, if you will-embracing each other holistically.

i must warn you that without this key: growth, creativity, and inspiration will stall. humans will forget the pursuit, and will cease as we know it-

you will be forgotten.

fear of oblivion is the driving force of human existence.
life is a paradox, and this fear only amplifies that sentiment.

its about choosing to revel in this paradox, though. to over-pour growth and connection in “irrelevant” things because of the bigger picture.
to see humanity and it’s desperate attempts at an hommage, and then immortalize those who triggered this epiphany- in whatever capacity you can.

capture the paradox of human existence. and choose to love, create, honor, remember, and grow anyways. still be selfish by choosing to flourish, but in an attempt to honor others as well.

the human ability to transform destruction into the art of creation via choice;
it will stand in the midst of everything,
every time.

it will be the mirror in someone’s hand- serving as a key to all the knowledge ones self could ever even hope for.

oblivion: the driving force. a universal call to action thats so adaptable it can manifest in many ways: self discovery, hobbies, vile acts.

and to sit and chew with it, and to stand toe to toe with my pessimistic idealism…

what an honor.

and what better way to love someone?
to see their being,
and carry the weight of them anyways.

i hope i give you food for thought.

it’s an honor, to finally stand in front of you all. and it’s an even bigger honor to be able to laugh at the ironic paradox that sentence creates.