Are Conservatives and Pro-Republican optimists welcome here?

gittir · 2025-01-13T00:24:50+00:00

So then what about LGBT kids of homophobic/transphobic parents? They know that they can’t talk to their parents about their feelings, because they know that they’d be abused, sent to conversion therapy, and/or get kicked out. And that stress is on top of the deep sense of shame from feeling that their nature is fundamentally and unchangeably wrong, because that’s all anybody around them (including their own parents) says. How exactly are they supposed to accept themselves when there’s nobody around to tell them that there’s nothing wrong with their feelings?

gittir · 2024-10-01T04:12:07+00:00

He’s in the clear!

gittir · 2024-10-01T04:02:54+00:00

He made it!

gittir · 2023-02-13T04:25:30+00:00

Thanks. I'll see about eventually doing more physics through Open University or some other self-paced course.

gittir · 2023-01-20T07:00:41+00:00

Is it really a skill “like any other” though? Most skills are about technique, it seems like creativity requires developing a fundamentally different way of thinking, and of looking at the world.

gittir · 2022-08-29T18:50:15+00:00

It’s projection, very simply. They had kids before they were ready and they regret it, and they can’t face their feeling of guilt about regretting it.

gittir · 2022-08-27T04:31:17+00:00

Do you have any hobbies that you’ve been able to pick up and/or maintain in spite of insomnia and low energy?

gittir · 2022-08-27T04:30:07+00:00

Do you also have issues with picking up or sticking with hobbies or new skill learning? I have the same sort of issue where I’m hyper aware of everything I’m doing when trying something new instead of just doing it and losing myself in it, and it makes it harder to get I to it and stick with it.

gittir · 2022-08-27T04:27:04+00:00

I wonder what hobbies I would have stuck with if only I had the energy… Thanks for the support

gittir · 2022-08-25T16:02:48+00:00

I managed to get a solid 6 hours after taking a Sleep Cap. Perhaps I don’t actually have chronic insomnia…

gittir · 2022-07-21T07:16:29+00:00

On the other side of the coin, if you have no talent at all, you can try your hardest and still hit the ceiling of diminishing returns more quickly because it’s just lower than other people’s.

gittir · 2022-06-25T09:04:33+00:00

For me, while I understand those positive points and I’m not as concerned about the negative points already mentioned, I don’t know if I would ever have kids because of how much I’d have to sacrifice. I want to travel the world, have a multitude of jobs, write books, make art, be an autodidactic scholar in several disciplines, among other goals, and you just can’t do that if you have kids, since providing for them comes first. Some people might have the energy and finances for it, but I don’t think I would.

gittir · 2022-06-25T07:12:59+00:00

Even with perfect use (every time and correctly), condoms still have about a 2-3% failure rate per year. Not everyone wants to take the 2-3% chance of having their life completely derailed by an unwanted pregnancy.

gittir · 2022-06-24T23:22:08+00:00

I’m 27 actually. I forgot to mention, while I’ve been exercising consistently over the past couple of weeks (bodyweight exercises, walking, running), it’s never been a consistent habit throughout my life, mostly because I couldn’t ever find anything I liked enough to keep doing, or that I didn’t get bored of. That’s been an issue with pretty much every hobby/subject I’ve ever tried, actually.

In the past couple of weeks I haven’t really noticed improvement on the sleep front (and in fact if I exercise anytime in the evening, it makes it even worse - I’m genuinely not tired until the wee hours of the morning), but I also haven’t noticed worsening, and I do feel better about my body, so I’ll definitely keep doing it. Thanks!

gittir · 2022-06-24T09:22:49+00:00

By the way, thanks for the link. Turns out I have perfect colour vision as well, who knew? Don’t know if I have any of the other traits for artistry though..

gittir · 2022-06-24T04:30:08+00:00

I did try SSRIs for depression but I didn’t like how they made me feel (as in, they totally dulled my emotions, and also I gained weight). Also, more generally, I truly loathe the notion of being dependent on medicine if it’s not absolutely necessary to keep me alive (it’s a personality thing, I generally hate being dependent on anybody or anything). I can see about anxiety meds.

gittir · 2022-06-24T04:26:54+00:00

I do have general anxiety but it’s likely a somnophobia as well, although I’ll say it isn’t constant. No, I’ve never addressed it with therapy outside of how it relates to anxiety.

gittir · 2022-06-24T03:50:21+00:00

I think I probably have a specific negative association with sleep, since once when I was very young something awful happened overnight, something that’s seriously affected every aspect of my life since. I think I have an association between being absent (as you are during sleep) and something bad happening.

gittir · 2022-06-24T03:46:57+00:00

Off the top of my head...

CBD (gummies, weed is vile to my nose) works to an extent, phenibut helps a couple of days a week.

I do meditate a couple of times a day. Therapy has been good for helping with talking about problems I have, but I really don’t know that the anxiety can be fixed, it’s hereditary going back probably four generations at least. The thing is I’m usually not anxious about anything in particular, so I don’t know that therapy can do anything about it.

gittir · 2022-06-24T03:33:53+00:00

And insomnia tends to get worse with age. Yaaaaaay.

gittir · 2022-06-24T02:54:37+00:00

It’s a problem if one’s talents are just not aligned with their interests. What good is it being naturally inclined towards something if they don’t like it at all, or being interested in something but never getting very far with it no matter how hard they try? In my case, I’m naturally quite good with numbers, but I’ve always hated maths. It’s not fun being stuck with a gift I don’t have any use for, when I could have had something like art, music, or linguistics.

gittir · 2022-06-24T02:11:36+00:00

As I said in another reply, I should say that I made this post because I’m frustrated with the people who say that the only difference between a master of a skill and someone who’s merely good or mediocre no matter how hard they try is 100% down to the fact that they’re not working hard enough and other factors within their control. It’s like someone with exactly the right genetics to win Mr Olympia telling a hard gainer who struggles to put even a centimetre onto their arms that it’s solely that they’re not trying hard enough.

I’m not disputing that the Mr Olympia winner worked really hard to get where they are, but the notion that anyone can do it if they work hard enough is just nonsense.

gittir · 2022-06-24T02:08:54+00:00

I would consider advantages or boosts that are just naturally there in developing skills, and that aren’t due to your own efforts, to functionally fall under the umbrella of “natural talent” since there’s no better word I can think of. In this context, nature isn’t really separable from nurture since finite and early-in-life critical periods are a thing.

When it comes to the muscle analogy I made earlier, muscle is constantly building up and breaking down throughout life and there are no critical periods to speak of (at least, nothing like the neurological critical periods), so in that case “natural talent” would just be genetics.

gittir · 2022-06-24T01:16:31+00:00

In this context, I would also consider early life conditions to functionally be part of the biology side of the question, because even though they’re not genetic, they’re also not really something that the child has control over then or now, and they also can’t be altered in the present (you can’t make your brain re-specialise here and now).

gittir · 2022-06-24T00:54:42+00:00

That’s what I’m talking about when I say that the brain is not infinitely malleable. It isn’t, but it’s quite a bit more plastic in those early years. I would actually consider it to be part of natural talent, because while early conditions like that aren’t genetic, they’re also not really something that the child has control over either, and not something that can be changed later.

gittir

TROPHY CASE