For the past four years, I've made a post on January 5. The first two were unintentionally on the same day. The third was intentional, and the fourth wasn't completely intentional. This post is intentional, and, fittingly, it's my three-hundred-fiftieth post. This post will be similar to 2023's post: a reflection of what happened since … Continue reading 350
Salvation
Salvation, damnation -- I could have made either choice in my last apartment. After one fateful trip, I'd come to the conclusion that choices poise alternate realities in which those choices have been implemented. Solutions already tried and failed. And then it seems we forget and so we end up trying the same things and … Continue reading Salvation
Digi-Dysphoria
In the article "Pausing AI is the only safe approach to digital sentience", Holly Elmore, an executive director of PauseAI, is speaking my language. Rather than existential risk from AI, I'm more concerned about suffering risk, what's known as "s-risk." Suffering is something that I constantly think about, and as Elmore says, "We could be … Continue reading Digi-Dysphoria
Rift
Different/Splitting Off Last month, I wrote something I still resonate with: I've felt like I'm flying solo, like I don't relate to (as in "identify with") others. […] I can feel I don't relate to people's pastimes and interests. I questioned if this was like some form of insanity, if we were to define being … Continue reading Rift
I Am
After eight years, it turns out I'd been right all along? In September 2016, I felt I finally had a word that explained the way that I was. I'd broken down in my therapist's office, wishing I was dead, and three days later, I told my dad to take me there again. Since I didn’t … Continue reading I Am
Friendgredients
Trust Perhaps somewhat like a plant’s delicate stem, trust can be so easily broken and so difficult to repair. Protect it if it is given to you. Trust is fragile. Trust is sacred. Vulnerability Vulnerability—openness and honesty. It can follow from trust. If someone trusts you, they can feel more willing to be vulnerable with … Continue reading Friendgredients
Consider It
Yesterday I came home to find the stem of one of my sprouts snapped. It appeared that the leaves had gotten too heavy for the stem. I felt crushed; I thought it was essentially dead. See? I thought. This was why things shouldn't be brought into existence. I'd lamented before about the sprouts' sudden appearance, … Continue reading Consider It
Eterni-phobia
I'd been avoidant of again listening to Purity Ring's song "Begin Again" (from their aptly named album Another Eternity). Because I don't always like the idea of eternity, of eternal recurrence. Of life (and thus the suffering—not only my own but others' too) continuing on and happening again and again and again. Of reliving life. … Continue reading Eterni-phobia
Trans-Label
Last time, I was unable to put into words what transcendence was to me, so I thought about it. I think for me, it has more than one meaning: to go beyond my current, everyday confines, like when I speak of "transcendental experiences" in which I experience something mystical and/or some ultimate truth seems to … Continue reading Trans-Label
Not-dentity
I'm not a man. I'm not a woman. To go from being referred to as one to the other—it's helped me realize that not only am I not one, I am not and don't want to be the other either. Yet I will continue to drink the polyjuice potion tea. And when referred to as … Continue reading Not-dentity
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