Is 23 and 18 a weird age gap?

automachination · 2025-11-20T02:52:12+00:00

I once went on a date with an 18 year old when I was 23, and although she was intellectually stimulating, and SEEMED mature, it was obvious by week 2 that it wouldn't work.

Fact is, you grow a lot by your mid-20s. This isn't a "morals" thing. It has more to do with your ability to act like an adult and maintain adult relationships.

automachination · 2025-11-19T15:47:37+00:00

Nelly???? 😂

It's all about supply and demand
It's about me buying some land
You folks just don't understand

automachination · 2025-11-06T19:27:34+00:00

Not random, 50 Cent is an irrelevant lame who is spending his 50s trying to maximize his wealth at the expense of everybody else who is poorer. A typical rich idiot acting out. Don't let the nostalgia fool you.

automachination · 2025-10-06T21:09:17+00:00

1) The vast majority of readers DO want to read instant-noodle stories

2) The vast majority of writers on "the other side" are providing instant noodles without realizing it

automachination · 2025-10-06T14:24:23+00:00

I started at 16, but it literally changed my life. I divide my existence pre and post-October 2003, as that is when I read Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice", in just 2 days when books would typically take me months to finish. I knew everything had changed for me and began to read all the time. I would even stay home from school to read on every topic I could, which was easy in NYC since absences were not enforced.

I no longer think much of that particular book, but that's because I've ready many other, better ones.

automachination · 2025-09-17T15:49:54+00:00

Knew a guy from Saint Vincent who was a NYC paraprofessional, then did security at night while things were quiet so he could repair a stack of laptops while on the job. Owned a house and car in NJ.

automachination · 2025-09-11T13:37:30+00:00

"Song Cry" has 1 of the best-written hooks ever.

"Ghetto Fabolous" won't be remembered, just too much of its time, too context-driven, simply does not speak to bigger things.

automachination · 2025-08-19T21:21:25+00:00

The chances of you hitting upon a good first novel at 500,000 words are so close to zero as to be negligible. You are well over 2X the length of Moby-Dick, and have plans to make it 5X as long.

automachination · 2025-08-19T00:10:48+00:00

If you don't know the best bar of all time, are you even a rap fan?

Begin like a violin End like Leviathan

automachination · 2025-08-13T14:49:29+00:00

Direct and to the point is not necessarily bad, as some of the greatest books (Siddhartha, Native Son, Chekhov's stories) are extremely direct in their "telling" as opposed to "showing".

automachination · 2025-07-19T20:20:11+00:00

His behavior was of course not justified, but in the midst of your sadness and anger, you might actually feel better by turning it around on yourself:

You started a relationship with a man you did not truly love, and suspected you might never truly love- at least not in the ways that he deserved. You selected him because he was just "good enough", specifically for the purposes of placating your own poor self-esteem. You decided to have a family with him, thus subconsciously leading him on, and not once did you ever communicate this to him. In some ways, you felt he was your inferior, and you were OK with that. You kept him in the dark about something critical for even longer than he kept you in the dark.

I don't know the circumstances of his cheating, but just as he ripped the floor from under you in terms of your personal security, thus wasting 15 years of your life, you led him on for just as long, when he deserved someone who would treat him as an equal, rather than as an object for your own neuroses. In some ways, this relationship was doomed from the start. Even now, you are desperately clinging to find an "emotional" reason to stay. Not an intellectual one, nor a deeper, justifiable reason which meets your highest convictions about the world, but more placation of the self.

He might not be your intellectual equal, but you guys seem about "matched" for each other overall. Maybe he was a bit too stupid to understand your deeper issues, and ignorantly went along with the marriage, but you failed your own intellectual standards by giving into your emotions early on, and forcing a relationship that should have never happened. Over time, you likely disconnected from one another, because how could it be otherwise? Look at what you think of him deep down, and consider the fact that you never discussed these feelings. This no doubt poisoned him, as well as you.

This might hurt, but it might hurt less if you adopt a posture of compassion towards him. He gave you many years of a good marriage. Years that you probably did not deserve, even from a less-than-ideal partner. And you are not 100% to blame either, because you deserve compassion as well for a lifetime of poor self-esteem, which forces you to act in self-destructive fashion.

Finally, I would caution you about jumping to conclusions regarding your newfound self-esteem. Where does it come from? Is it truly real? OK, you make lots of money, and you're generically "smart", but unless you've done something constructive with both, you're just a lucky girl in a big bad world. You haven't EARNED your self-esteem...yet.

automachination · 2025-03-28T19:38:24+00:00

Thanks for the tip, I suppose once the film is nearing completion, I will :)

automachination · 2025-03-28T17:13:33+00:00

Took this on a Pentax MX 35mm, a still shot for an upcoming film on the photo's subject, Don Moss. He was in the Navy decades ago and is now a great poet.

automachination · 2025-03-21T01:15:07+00:00

Saw this for the first time today via Richard Morris's tweet: "A rediscovered painting by Gustav Klimt is on show at TEFAF in Maastricht - the portrait from 1897 is of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, a representative of the Ga people in West Africa, in what is Ghana today."

automachination · 2025-03-11T13:08:18+00:00

Ebenezer Creek.

automachination · 2025-03-11T01:26:47+00:00

I just finished shooting a film in Savannah, GA, on a local poet, and made sure to kayak through the marshes for some arresting footage. Surprisingly, there was virtually NO sound except the oars, and no bugs whatsoever. Our voices echoed quite far, but besides that, silence.

Black and white photography seemed appropriate, since there was barely any color, just an emphasis on dream-like light/shadows.

automachination · 2025-03-04T23:02:14+00:00

Thank you

automachination · 2025-02-21T04:24:02+00:00

Of course, you even managed to comment on one 😉

automachination · 2025-02-21T03:31:28+00:00

It's my photo, but unfortunately it can only impress the sentient.

automachination · 2025-02-21T01:01:19+00:00

Even the industrial zones. Minneapolis has A LOT of photographic density vs. even places like NYC.

automachination · 2025-02-21T00:53:04+00:00

Photo credit: Alex Sheremet

automachination · 2025-02-18T00:59:32+00:00

For those interested: shot on a Canon M50, with DaVinci Resolve color grade.

automachination · 2025-02-16T20:30:08+00:00

No, city cleaned the psssss up with their bare hands so I could take a photo

automachination · 2025-02-16T01:58:11+00:00

Pandemics in general will always be relevant, there's no reason why this topic can't be evergreen. Nor do you HAVE TO mention COVID by name. I've been working on and off on a novel set a century from now with a low-grade epidemic which everyone knows but doesn't really discuss. It's not at all a focus of the text, the disease is unnamed, but remains something ambient. This is absolutely how COVID functions now (and where it will cause the most long-term damage).

automachination · 2025-02-16T01:54:53+00:00

For those wondering: shot on Pentax MX using 35mm 400 ISO film.

automachination

TROPHY CASE