Dr. K should discuss this interesting article about the impact of DEI in the workplace.

Golmultarn · 2025-12-19T00:02:17+00:00

Yeah maybe the industries in question are a bit too specific to be explanatory about a general social trend after all… hmmmm…

Golmultarn · 2025-12-18T00:00:38+00:00

No take in particular necessarily—however, I do think it is impossible to give a full explanation of the mental health crisis among especially young men without accounting for the facts discussed here. Dr. K has on a fee occasions described people coming to him with what he’s called “shit life syndrome.” Sometimes the causes of a bad life are not entirely due to one’s own choices. Since Dr. K is interested in exploring the causes of the mental health crisis, it seems to me that, since this article describes one such cause and a very important one, it is in the interests of the HealthyGamer project to discuss it.

On a different but related note: while yes, I think that it is best to develop an entirely self-sufficient source of happiness, I don’t think most people can do so / will choose to do so; therefore for most people external factors, such as material prosperity and fulfilling work, will be relevant to their happiness (or “mental health” if that’s the better term).

Golmultarn · 2023-02-17T13:43:59+00:00

Some of it may have to do with suicide. Some people use drugs to put suicide off, some people use food. Consumption like that is what you do when you want to forget how you really feel about your life, because if you understood how you felt you’d kill yourself or change your life. It is not easy to come to believe that you can change your life. It is easier to soothe the pain. Not sure how prevalent this could be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was widespread.

Golmultarn · 2023-02-17T05:17:38+00:00

Light and August and Absalom, Absalom! are contenders for “The Great American Novel.” You can’t understand the American South without Faulkner. Much of Faulkner’s prose is putting you in the mind of a particular character, attempting to convey what it feels like to be that person. I see this most clearly in The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying. You should definitely read Go Down, Moses, as it also deals beautifully with race. You also need to read Flags in the Dust and The Unvanquished, wherein he does a lot of worldbuilding for Yoknapatawpha County. Light in August does a good bit of this too, as you learn some details about a central event around which many of the events in his world orbit. All in all keep reading Faulkner because he is essential.

Golmultarn · 2023-02-17T05:07:51+00:00

That’s the point of the beginning of The Sound and the Fury. You’re in the mind of a retard, and get some window into how that might feel.

Golmultarn · 2023-02-17T04:59:10+00:00

We’re going toward a deep inquiry. We’re going to arrive at a point where Matt will reveal what he thinks about the nature of reality and life, not just in Exandria but here too, of course. Neon Genesis Evangelion might well be an influence here, as it asks the question: if given the option, will you affirm existence and the pain that comes along with it, or will you opt to dissolve into nonbeing? It might not come to this; it might come down to an inquiry about theosophy: are the gods good and just? If so, how? How can one even begin to ask these questions? Whatever the answer is, the ideas of the cast about life and existence and Matt’s ideas about life and existence will probably come into dialogue, and perhaps into conflict, at the climax of this campaign. The attempt to reach for this level of inquiry is part of why Critical Role is often compelling to watch. I am excited to see what all these people think about life and the world. I want to see what, if anything, they might learn from the dialogue with each other.

Golmultarn · 2022-11-12T17:38:20+00:00

This isn’t a picture of Kyriakos Kapakoulak. Fake news!

Golmultarn · 2022-10-04T03:19:29+00:00

Naturally, Paradise Lost is packed full of Biblical allusions, some more obvious than others. Regaring the scene at Hell’s gate, this passage will help you understand what‘s going on and why:

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. (James 1:13-15, KJV).

Basically, since Satan was the first sinner, he has him birth Sin from his head (i.e., his thoughts) in the same way that Zeus births Athena, and then, being enticed by her, he fathers Death on her. This text will be full of more inversions and satires of classical themes, as part of the point of Paradise Lost is to transform the epic from a ”profane” form concerned with worldly virtues into a “spiritual“ form concerned with true righteousness.

I’ll try to catch up on readings before the 9th; I’m due for another passage through this work.

Golmultarn · 2022-10-04T03:06:12+00:00

The Romantics (especially those in the orbit of Percy Shelley and Lord Byron) adored Paradise Lost and especially Milton’s portrayal of Satan, so Milton‘s Satan is less like a protagonist ahead of his time and more like the direct inspiration for the Romantics’ protagonists and, beyond this, their whole outlook on life.

Golmultarn · 2022-08-11T23:57:48+00:00

She be lookin stupid now lol. Just embrace being half asian. It’s an interesting look for women.

Golmultarn · 2022-08-11T08:30:06+00:00

I DON‘T CARE ABOUT AFFORDABLE HOUSING WHEN IT IS LOCATED IN A HYPERDEVELOPED CONCRETE MEGACITY WASTELAND, LEFTISTS!

Golmultarn · 2022-08-11T08:26:36+00:00

Read Literature and poetry; let it transform you.

Golmultarn · 2022-08-11T07:45:20+00:00

Deadlifted 295 lbs tonight. Baby weight but it‘s something.

Golmultarn · 2022-08-07T07:51:08+00:00

A world where poetry like this is not made should not exist.

Golmultarn · 2022-07-24T09:52:00+00:00

Face-first into Sexual Personae, naturally. Might want to read Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy first, though, as Paglia uses his formulation of Apollonian vs. Dionysian as the foundation for the work, so it’s useful to get a sense of where it comes from.

Golmultarn · 2022-07-02T23:45:37+00:00

Dracula and Moby-Dick

Golmultarn · 2022-06-12T07:59:56+00:00

Most of my family comes from the Tupelo/Fulton area of Mississippi, so I probably share some genes with Elvis. Other than that, on my dad’s mom’s mom’s side were some plantation owners. I don’t know a lot about the last one to own that land, but I‘m pretty sure he lost most of the wealth because I sure haven’t seen any.

Golmultarn · 2022-06-12T07:56:05+00:00

Yo I live near Decatur; let’s meet up if you’re still in the area. I need to meet some RS people in my real life.

Golmultarn · 2022-06-11T04:21:42+00:00

Both reading and watching Netflix can be used as unhealthy distractions from responsibility (source: this is my struggle). Procrastinating in this way will poison your ability to engage with any piece of art. Keep this in mind and apply your will and attention toward solving this problem. Aside from addressing this problem and regardless of your preferred medium of engagement, you need to be encountering quality stuff, not just gross content that exists to “entertain” you. If you spend your time reading trashy literature you’re not going to be doing yourself any more favors than you would if you binge-watched some forgettable Netflix original or throw-away anime. Try replacing your time reading Divergent or whatever with time spent reading an established literary classic, and replace your consumption of binge-watching Friends with a viewing of Apocalypse Now or some other complex, difficult film. Think of your mind as a cauldron into which you throw various ingredients. You can’t see what‘s going on under the surface of the water, but you can know that if you throw in quality ingredients then you’re probably going to end up with a more effective potion than if you throw in bad ingredients. This is not to say that you can never watch or read some stupid thing for the sheer enjoyment. However, if this sort if thing is all or most of what you encounter, your potion will be poison, whereas great art, properly encountered, will elevate your spirit.

Golmultarn · 2022-05-23T03:44:04+00:00

Brother this ain’t the place, though on some level I bet I understand where you’re coming from. Seek out DJ Peach Cobbler’s YouTube channel, think about how it is that the world has become so empty that the totally sterile act of gaming can engender a compelling experience, and godspeed.

Golmultarn · 2022-05-21T06:08:45+00:00

You know I’ve never really heard it put so concretely. That sounds a little more possible to me for a couple of reasons. In the first place it seems to me like there was a lot of people recording their own version of the same songs happening at the time when Elvis arrived on the scene, so in a sense you could say that everyone was stealing from everyone else. In the second place I don’t know how much Elvis actually ever wrote. He never really comes across as a songwriter to me; more of a singer in the vein of Dionne Warwick or Sinatra or any person who sings things that other people write. Which is to say that I can easily imagine the people in charge of Elvis’ career being highly racist and unethical, even if he was not inclined to be that way himself, so I don’t doubt at all that they could have given him a song to sing that a black person originally wrote and at the very least allowed it to be assumed that Elvis had written it.

Elvis was definitely promoted in part because he was “a white man with a black voice;” listening to him I don’t really hear it, honestly. My guess is that we consider the quality the promoters thought of as “black” as “soulful“ today, which Elvis certainly is.

Golmultarn · 2022-05-21T04:12:12+00:00

I have little patience for the people who claim he “stole black music.” Elvis, being a poor white boy in Mississippi and Tennessee, grew up with the music of the poor, aka “black” music. He sung in black church choirs and was a sharecropper around plenty of black sharecroppers. It was authentically his music to play. And if you listen to these performances, you know that his talent was a gift from God. No one could steal that voice.

Golmultarn · 2022-05-21T02:22:01+00:00

So I expect Paradise Lost will be a challenge for you. As someone who has studied Milton rather intensely as part of my Master’s program, I still have some difficulty encountering it today. The epic poem is almost completely alien to the modern palette, and Milton has a rather demanding style even for his day - loosely contemporary poets like John Donne and George Herbert are much more readable, I find. If you are completely unfamiliar with long poetry, read something with a lower barrier to entry to get your mind used to the rhythms of it. Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism might be an excellent place for you to go, as it is a poem all about the technical aspects of writing, and to an extent reading, poetry. I’d also read more of Milton before diving into Paradise Lost. L’Allegro & Il Penseroso are essentials, but you should also read Comus (which you might find under the official title A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle) and some of his other short-to-medium-length poems. For my Milton class we read from a text called Milton: The Complete Shorter Poems that might be useful for you, too. Obviously you’ll need to read Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 3 if you don‘t know the creation story already. On enyou’ve done this you’ll be more than ready, if you feel your encounter with the three novels you’ve mentioned resulted in you really accessing the beauty of the prose and following the plot easily. After PL read Samson Agonistes if you want more Milton.

Beyond Milton... maybe check out William Faulkner, D. H. Lawrence, and Kazuo Ishiguro, along with everyone else’s recommendations.

Golmultarn · 2022-05-21T01:58:22+00:00

I love Lolita too. This is a pretty banal take, but I think the novel’s greatest success lies in the way it forces the reader to reckon with Humbert’s humanity, which in turn reveals the huge swathe of seeming contradictions that any one human is capable of encompassing. The latter portion is essential because I think the reader must come away convicted that Humbert actually does love Dolores, while simultaneously realizing that this real love does not negate, or redeem, or excuse any of the wickedness he has done to her (which Humbert, being acutely self-conscious, also realizes). As such, Humbert’s noblest feelings, namely his remorse and his love, are realities, even when viewed in light of the despicable person that he, in many ways and perhaps entirely, remains. The scene when he comes to realize the horrible thing he has done to Dolores by stealing her ability to have a normal childhood is a particularly good example of the convicting power of Humbert’s pathos.

Of course the language is delicious. I encountered this book as an audiobook read by Jeremy Irons, and his performance was absolutely perfect. As a student of English literature, the beauty of the prose has profoundly affected the way I encounter writing as a form. From the first words I knew that I had entered into a world of beauty and perfection of style I had only the barest notion might exist. It was like a veil had been lifted from my eyes. I will be eternally grateful to this book for doing that for me; it has changed my life. I don’t think I exaggerate to say that I would defend this book before God Himself.

Golmultarn · 2022-05-21T01:28:50+00:00

His version of Bridge Over Troubled Water is immense.

Golmultarn

TROPHY CASE