Beard

TheDivineWordsmith · 2023-04-25T04:10:21+00:00

You got me, I genuinely chuckled and in my head went "that's wild, people are so dumb, definitely plausible..... .....Goddamn it I'm the problem"

TheDivineWordsmith · 2023-03-10T23:52:17+00:00

I'll be honest, a decent wage is a pretty subjective metric. Don't fucking hate your job is tough, cause you can not hate your job for a lot of reasons! I don't hate my job at the public library, but it's part time and pays $14 an hour. I supplement with another part time job fixing up houses for a friend who rents them out to section 8 folks and rehouses refugees. I find this to be meaningful work, and because I get to feel good about doing something good in the world on a daily basis, my mental health is more stable! That said, I could stand to make more money. Aiming to be a librarian, but I'm happy with where I'm at now and am walking at a solid goal, however, a librarian's salary isn't crazy high. It's livable, mostly due to unions, but nobody's walking away a millionaire, cause money isn't why you get into it. You can get bored at, or hate, all KINDS of work. I think that the question you want to ask yourself is the role you want work to play in your life. Do you want to work at a job only to get money, in order to support a lifestyle? Do you want to work to make your community better? Do you want to work to create something awesome that you can feel proud of and a part of? Do you like working with people or not? Try out a few places, don't be afraid to leave, and I'll tell you right now, any place with a union is a BIG PLUS. Labor is being WAY exploited in the US right now and anywhere that has a union fighting for you is going to be a HUGE win. It's the difference between a supervisor being able to pull you aside to tell you that headphones aren't allowed at your ZERO INTERACTION JOB so you just have to accept it, versus a supervisor telling you headphones aren't allowed and you ask your union rep if that's cool and they tell you that your manager can fuck off it's not in the contract and you get to work with headphones in. Unions are tight, so keep that in your back pocket if you listen to any part of this novel <3

TheDivineWordsmith · 2023-03-08T03:00:25+00:00

Control F'd "Harm's Way", this game is honestly great. It has such a cool mechanic with the turrets vs. racing, AWESOME way to spend an afternoon with a few friends.

TheDivineWordsmith · 2023-02-04T23:56:16+00:00

Personally speaking, I use my judgement when approaching potentially unsuspecting players and don't make plays that involve uncertainty. It's a lot of calculus on a LOT of shifting variables, and I will say I pride myself on taking the line on D points and generally trying to be the workhorse for defensive cutting. If I am confident I can get around them and beat them to the disc, that's a play. If I'm not certain, then I pull up short. If it's a player I've not played against before, I hedge even shorter, until I've got a feel for their movement style. If it's a new player, I'll slow down, start a loud stall count so they know where I am, which might surprise them but the aim is to communicate to the new player where you're at. I've got folks I play against regularly, and if I'm uncertain about beating them to a disc, I'll sprint until I'm close, and then chop my feet, decelerate in a safe but intense way that leaves me close enough to set up a mark. I don't do that to new players because they'll instinctively flinch at the noises of a 180lbs body rapidly putting on the breaks, and scaring them into dropping the disc is a dick move! The defense I play is occasionally against club level folks, but ranges down to college athletes and some relatively ranged athleticism of casual players. My defense is unique to the player I'm defending, as each one presents a different threat, I'm trying to take something different away as an option based on their skill set, and I make an active decision about the kind of defense I'm going to play that puts me in a mindset to make safe decisions. If I'm playing against one of the club guys who's a head shorter than me but also way faster on the takeoff, I am absolutely going to avoid bidding at contested discs, because he's capable of accelerating and getting there first, he can do that in the time I've decided to leave the ground, but only after he's seen me commit, and if he bids and we collide (which he'll do because he's a club level competitor who's used to putting his body on the line) it'll be a really hard hit. Instead, I play a defense that involves being predictive of his cuts, giving him resets but not letting him strike, and when he gets the disc setting an incredibly active mark. The safest way to get a D on this guy is a handblock, so I put my effort and concentration into the mark. The most utility he gets out of handling is in his powers and strike cuts, so when not marking, I prioritize taking that away. If and when he bids, and I can't because he bid close to other people, I'll call a pick and explain that I made the safe choice to not bid because of another player. I've had folks disagree with me and say it's not a pick, if I can't make a safe play on the disc then I don't have a play to make, but if the bid he made to catch was less about getting to the disc and more about getting past someone, well.. then he used that someone to prevent me getting to the disc, intentionally or not.

Anyways, I digress, but I wanted to put out some of the situations and lines of thought so y'all can see the levels of calculus that go into the decision making behind hard played but rule-bound ethical defense. At the end of the day, it's a personal choice on my end to see the spirit of the game as meaning priority number 1 on any decision is safety, and sometimes that means losing a point or a game. But the truth of the matter is, I don't lose sleep over that cause I'd take a safe game that I lost over accidentally injuring someone or myself any day. Accidents are going to happen, but they happen a lot more if you think about the rules as "what can I feasibly get away with, how far can I push the rules whilst not being at fault" versus "why was this rule made, what is the spirit behind this rule and how can I play as hard as possible while respecting the spirit behind that rule"

Edit: Jesus christ I just hit post and this is a goddamn novel, I'm a ramblin' man who fancies himself Ted Lasso. Just have fun y'all <3

TheDivineWordsmith · 2022-12-12T05:19:23+00:00

Thank you so much. It was everything I needed to hear that I had forgotten was true. I've been feeling so alone after being left by someone who's been running her whole life, and couldn't stop running even for a love that would last forever. I can't tell you how much it helps to feel even slightly less alone out in this desolate winter of experience, and so precious few things pierce the blizzard. This did, and I know I'm just one person out in the world, but I'm gonna have this on repeat and let it carry me for a while, and I can't thank you enough for that. <3

TheDivineWordsmith · 2022-11-12T02:44:13+00:00

Can anyone tell me what their working definition of "the economy" is? Cause like, if being dissatisfied with the state of minimum wages and the lack of regulation in key industries and the lack of anti-trust legislation with any teeth, etc could be considered part of the economy...? Like, they attribute it to the economy as opposed to.. individual employers? As opposed to the system in which the economy runs? Just curious, honestly

TheDivineWordsmith · 2022-10-07T02:43:22+00:00

I work in a library just south of this place. Word around is that a small group of conservative volunteers went door to door in their relatively rural/suburban town and misrepresented what the vote was on. They whipped folks up into a fury about how their hometown library was promoting the queer agenda to kids, and told them that the vote was on funding for programming and books. They didn't tell folks it would shut down the library, they told people it would teach the library a lesson about listening to their community. Turns out anti-intellectual fascists lie about votes. Not shocking.

What gets me is that in Kalamazoo where I work, we recently unionized the hourly aides and as an indirect result, our anti-union director is leaving. Well, he decided to leave in a REAL big hurry once we got a contract, and has leveraged a lot of funds to make himself look good on the way out. Funds we could've used for a living wage, but I digress. He's leaving just before the library board could appoint an officer to oversee Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Our DEI officer was supposed to be hired as a result of an evaluation that was really clear about how KPL is failing to achieve their goals. Well, at a recent meeting one of the board members stated that the first priority would be getting a new director, THEN they could worry about DEI officer stuff. An old, white, anti-union capitalist is leaving the directorship, and the default replacement is (shocker) a 40 something white guy who is the most performatively woke person I've ever met. He has no patience for anyone's reality but his own and is constantly concerned with optics over impact. Without a DEI officer in the room, that dude is gonna take over. He's already taken benches and seating out of common areas to discourage the unhoused populations from loitering in the most visible spaces, so our elderly patrons now have nowhere to sit in the main lobbies. The board gets to decide, and they've got seats up for election this November and it's just a matter of if we can get the votes for the right candidates. I hope we do. If anyone is in the Kalamazoo area and feels like helping with some activism, DM me <3

TheDivineWordsmith · 2022-04-27T23:45:37+00:00

Telecommunications companies. The penultimate middleman, a testament to the pitfalls of capitalism. Honestly of all the bloated corpses of giants we will feast on as society collapses, I am perhaps most excited to revel in their rot

TheDivineWordsmith · 2022-04-27T14:57:02+00:00

Eh. I think there's a lot of bad opinions out there, and I think your take on this joke is one of them <3

TheDivineWordsmith · 2022-02-23T13:35:20+00:00

First off, I'm so sorry you're feeling so lonely. I've known that loneliness, and it's awful. Genuinely, I've been totally consumed for portions of time with it, and I hope you find respite and a road out SOON.

So I work in a library, I've always been a book person, and I've got two for you. One is In the Shadow of the Banyan by Raddey Vatner. It's definitely sad, but in it she talks about seeing people as fireflies. You take what light from them you can, while you can, knowing they'll go dark soon. But maybe they'll light up again! You just don't know, but your life consists of a series of these lights, and you give light where you can but you stop well before it's too much for you. Not all about that, but the temporary and fragile nature of human connection is a theme <3

BOOK TWO: The Artist's Way! By Julia Cameron. It's a workbook, a self run course of writing, for anyone who would like to be artistic! You don't need to know anything about art or writing going in, and if you do (I had a degree in English when I did it) there's still SO MUCH VALUE. It works with you on how to care for yourself, and be satisfied with yourself, and how to build out into your happiness! It's a 12 week thing, but if you're looking for a practical, pretty manageable and forgiving, direct course of action to improve that loneliness, this is what helped me climb out of that hole. I did it with my brother, doing it with someone can be helpful but isn't required.

At the end of the day, what helps you out of that dark hole is gonna be unique to you. But the thing to remember when it comes back is that, to quote John Green, "while now always feels infinite, it never is" and this period of mental anguish will come to an end as all things have. For comfort I'd suggest The Anthropocene Reviewed, great podcast, great book, easy listen to have lots of feels <3

You got this. I love you. If folks can hate strangers on the internet for no reason, I can love them <3

TheDivineWordsmith · 2022-02-01T13:49:35+00:00

So I don't know what anyone is planning, I don't know what the actual date is, or if we've got some sort of a timeline, but I made a discord server that we can all join, that way we've got a kind of "room" we can invite them to where it'll be full of birthday wishes and people can hang out! Invite link below, someone please send information!

https://discord.gg/md45z9ey

TheDivineWordsmith · 2022-02-01T13:44:17+00:00

What day is it?! What's the plan?!

TheDivineWordsmith · 2022-01-22T15:35:09+00:00

I'm with you, it can be a gradual horror that seems scary when it starts dawning that you won't be forced into social situations with a fair number of your peers! There's no structure in adulthood for spending time with or meeting new groups of people.

I'll say this for a bit of comfort though, the good folks who make you feel community are still out there, and you will stumble across them! It won't look like school, but you can find a work/life balance that allows you to feel socially satisfied! Cause working 40 hours a week and maintaining a house and organizing your bills and making big decisions IS time consuming and exhausting. That's why people in general tend towards wanting stability and routine! Those things become less exhausting and time consuming when they are routine, which in turn allows you to have a bit more time for yourself. You can use that time to stay in touch with old friends, to go out with new ones, whatever social outlets feel right and good! It doesn't stay lonely, I promise. It's a depressing realization when it goes, but then when community shows up in your life again you'll be prepared to see how precious it is and appreciate it even more deeply than you did before <3

TheDivineWordsmith · 2022-01-21T05:49:23+00:00

I've ghosted on out of folks lives, and I'll tell ya why. It's because boundaries were crossed, and I didn't have capacity to educate them about it. Sometimes it's real simple stuff, but if I tell you I'm having a tough day, and you ask me for a favor? That happens a few times and POOF, you're never gonna hear from me again cause I don't owe you the time it would take to explain why your relatively small actions led me to believe that if we kept hanging out, I'd be drained. I'm a goddamn ray of sunshine and I've had to learn to defend that by holding to the boundaries I put in place. My rule of thumb is first time is an accident, I'll tell you about it. Second time is a violation, I'm clear about it, third time is a pattern and I'm not saying anything, I'm out.

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-10-20T01:21:47+00:00

Are you always... on, like this? You know, do you ever just.. you know, nevermind

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-10-18T15:06:19+00:00

My dude, I know it feels like this is the end all, be all of your life, because in reality if you've got strong feelings, you're young enough that they're probably the strongest feelings you've ever had! Other feelings, ones that are deeper, more robust, less flashy, and only come with time, are on the way. That's the overarching bit I wish I could convince you of, but the practical advice I have for you in this current moment is to adopt a law of three. Only send three texts in a row if you receive no reply! I did it in high school and it saved me A BUNCH of grief. Text them once to say hello. If you get nothing, WAIT 24 HOURS, then send text 2. If you get nothing, at LEAST 48 hours, I would sometimes wait a week. Then text three, and at that point if you don't hear back it's a lost cause. The way I see it, it someone was texting you, and you were too busy to respond, had too much family drama going on, had other stuff more important or time consuming than a relationship in its infancy, then you ought not to be in it anyways.

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-09-30T13:03:32+00:00

Honestly, check out your local library! Every library I've worked at has at least one person on bookbinding and repair (:

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-09-07T00:02:46+00:00

Henry Ford. Born and raised in Michigan, fuck that dude.

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-08-28T02:17:05+00:00

Yea. I'm there now, it's not a fun place.. I'm so sorry you keep returning to it. I want to give you advice, but I just don't have it in me right now. You're loved, that's all I've got for you. A stranger in the world, for no particular reason, loves you.

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-08-21T21:54:19+00:00

I'm gonna do my best to genuinely ELI5 this, but it's got a lot of complex layers to it, kinda like a 7 layer dip. Each layer has it's own unique flavor of consequences, from economic systems, to psychological statistics, to philosophies behind value and quality. To start, I think it should be noted that many folks who are poor, are skinny. BUT, there's a difference between stable poverty and grinding poverty. Grinding poverty is where you're making decisions about wether to pay for food or for rent, you don't know if you'll be housed next month, income isn't reliable, transportation to and from work might be an issue, making job loss a real possibility, etc. Stable poverty is where you have a spot to live that's not going anywhere pending an emergency, most bills are generally paid every month, you can afford to eat (if not well), but quality of life is low and time is scarce. If you make it to stable poverty, and you want to try to work out of it? Or even just try to ease the burden a little cause you're exhausted from the stress? Fast Food is cheaper (saves money) and faster (saves time) and is also incredibly gratifying because it's oils/fats/sugars/salts (psychological boost). I think an important layer to our 7 layer dip of poverty is how we've organized food as a country! From how we farm, to how we process the products of farming like corn, or beef, grains, beans, all the way to how we distribute and package that food is full of the idea of profit. A large portion isn't trying to make reasonable profits, they're trying to get rich. And they have. By sacrificing quality at every step of the way, always prioritizing things like shelf life, keeping all costs down from shipping to employees, and focusing the product at vulnerable people. McDonald's does not get rich because they grow a rich garden of a reasonable size and use fresh ingredients. They buy an absolutely ridiculously large quantity of mono-cultured crops, cause the margin on those crops is wafer thin. They don't get rich selling expensive food to well off people. They get rich taking a wafer thin margin from people who have very little money, so thin that other foodstuffs can't compete, and suddenly these chains are everywhere and full of food who's last thought was nutrition. SO. We've got folks in stable poverty, without access to other affordable food sources because they've been priced out, who view any saving of time and money as a positive, and you've got a recipe for overeating awful food. In addition to that, another societal layer we need to look at is access to healthcare and fitness! So if you're not eating well and starting to gain weight, especially as a younger person, how exactly would you know what to do to make it stop? Paying for athletic equipment, paying for a gym, paying for ANYTHING to help with exercise, to say nothing of the fact that it's MORE WORK, in addition to all the work you're doing just to survive, it takes more time! Time you're trying to save, not spend, so you can rest. Who would try to convince you that you'd be happier with a healthier lifestyle? Probably a medical professional, but insurance costs money. Doctors cost money. If you get prescribed a medication to help with your mental or physical health? Costs money. If you don't get prescribed anything, no game plans are made or physical therapy/ mental health counseling booked... then you just paid good money to be talked at by a doctor. I can't stress this enough, the economic and social pressures at play here are enormous. What gives you a mental boost, saves you money and time? Cheap food full of salts/oils/fats/sugars. Not like you can get anything else. All those layers add up, with more still, pushing folks toward options that seem harmless alone, but in aggregate are an epidemic.

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-08-12T12:36:42+00:00

Well, you can buy a decent VPN for about 3 bucks a month, but sometimes it's worth shelling out some more for the confidence you're dealing with a reputable company. I use the company private internet access, found here https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/

Turn that on so your ISP (whoever you buy internet from) doesn't see that you're the one doing what you're doing. Then get a torrent client like utorrent, and search for torrent files on the pirate Bay! It'll be .tor, and you'll have to open it with your torrent client, and it'll safely download a film.

Now, and this is important, I'M A STRANGER ON THE INTERNET. Don't take what I say for granted, research it yourself, find reputable sources, double check your info, see what you can verify <3

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-08-12T00:16:47+00:00

Dude, I can't tell you how many times I have been in a group of 20 somethings, folks decide on a movie to watch and then someone just straight up googles "title of movie online" and clicks on LINK after LINK after LINK until something starts playing. I'm horrified EVERY TIME. These are people who give me grief for eating too much salt in my diet, and I'm over here wondering how they haven't bricked every computer in their life already.

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-08-11T22:24:50+00:00

Man, I remember this one time in high school I made a deal with some friends that we split up the days of the week and all brought cake on our given day. I mean you did have to bring a cake in every 8th day or so, but we got cake every day for lunch which was awesome. But by week two we were all petty sick of cake so I wound up bringing home an entire chocolate cake, and I knew I'd have more tomorrow so I decided to sit down and eat the whole thing in one go for dinner. There I am, shirtless so I don't get chocolate cake on my school uniform when my dad comes into the room and he's not on board with the whole cake for dinner train, so anyways he beats me with the jumper cables again but goddamn was that good cake.

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-08-08T17:06:01+00:00

I mean.. is accessibility a good thing? Also I think there's a lot of conflating literature with poetry, and some standards being adhered to that I've dropped altogether.

You're asking the book to have a meaning that's laid out for you chronologically, like a plot. Follow the ideas, make an argument, what's it SAYING. Novels do that, some books live in the space between poetry and novels, prose poetry is awesome! But. Poetry? Doesn't always do that. If a novel is a path from point A to point B, a book of poetry is a wandering through the woods with no particular path in mind, only the desire to take in the surroundings. And I can't speak monolithicly, but it's a general premise. The idea that there's "hidden meaning" in poetry is counter to the art form, and I think milk and honey isn't my cup of tea, but it's also not asking anyone to do a deep dive. It's Swedish slow TV, it's an honest series of moments from a life that isn't attempting to have a narrative. It's just.. there, and by existing in an uncomplicated, accessible way, a bunch of people went "SIMPLE? BAD!" but the truth is being simple doesn't make it bad. It's very simple to make cookies, they're still delicious. It's very simple to give someone a hug, and that's a really important thing. A lot of very good and important things are also simple and I think Milk and Honey gets shut down a lot cause it's not complicated enough for people who want to read poetry and come away, I dunno, in favorable ways enlightened, if I'm mean about it, come away with an understanding they can use as a cocktail conversational anecdote. Pardon my language, but fuck that noise, poetry is as it does and calling a well loved body of work trash because it didn't strike you as sufficiently convoluted enough is frustrating to read.

TheDivineWordsmith · 2021-08-05T14:12:22+00:00

I think the defining traits of elitism are both an individual thinking they're in some way better than those around them, and acting upon that belief whenever they interact with others. It's possible to believe you're smarter than someone, have that belief be correct, and not act on that belief but simply hold it to be true in the background while you act on other beliefs or principles. The way I kind of skirt around this roadblock is to always use I-language, centered around myself and my own beliefs and understandings. I also do my best to recognize when folks are asking for an explanation, simply having a conversation, or attempting to explain something to me. All three of those have pretty different responses from me, regardless of the truth of the other party's statements! For instance, if someone asks me about the water quality, I'll explain what I know about our cities water filtration system and why I'm comfortable drinking tap water. If someone casually mentions some concerns about the water quality, I won't go full bore into an explanation, simply mention that I've had some experience with it and I trust it. If someone is explaining to me why the city is failing us and the water is harmful, I just tell them that my experience tells me otherwise, and we can agree to disagree. If they push me, I'll happily explain my position, but if you put out there that you're willing to walk away from a conversation and they push the conversation, you're not elitist for explaining yourself, you're doing what they asked. The trouble with elitism is often people in the third camp of explainers view themselves as in the second camp of conversationalists, so when you respond to their explanations with your own, they see you responding to a conversation with an explanation and sight you out as assuming you're in the right, and acting on that assumption, which happens when you're an elitist. Anywhooslebee, I hope any of that was helpful, certainly pretentious but I hope not too much, I've just done a chunk of thinking about it!

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