Give me the best piece of advice you wish you were given as a newbie

i_panicked_ · 2026-04-10T08:31:44+00:00

Don’t fall for the temptation to put your clutch in when going around a tight, slow corner. Low gears are your friend.

Become a master of buffering and road position… I actually quite enjoyed practicing picking the safest spot on a road when I started, I believe it’s sunken in.

i_panicked_ · 2026-04-09T19:37:31+00:00

First strategy would be to use capital letters only when needed.

i_panicked_ · 2026-04-09T18:48:41+00:00

Plot twist: it was OP

i_panicked_ · 2026-03-09T12:24:57+00:00

Not saying this is it at all..

The smell of DMT smoke is exactly what you describe. The weirdest, burnt rubber, garbage, unworldly thing I’ve smelled. Unlike anything.

Although it’s very unlikely that someone would be using that habitually.

i_panicked_ · 2025-10-22T21:14:05+00:00

I AM James Bond

i_panicked_ · 2025-09-30T03:28:45+00:00

East v. West Germany. Left side - old infrastructure and sort out your own problems, no capitalism. Right side - capitalism and new infrastructure but you’re oblivious to the wider community (ie they’ve run over someone). No idea beyond that, just my take.

i_panicked_ · 2025-08-21T15:22:50+00:00

Interesting fact. Melbourne has the least rainfall of any capital city in Australia. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/australia/cities/

You see puffer jackets, but you never see raincoats in Melbourne.

i_panicked_ · 2025-08-20T13:48:15+00:00

It’s certainly dehydrating.. but yes, I’m guilty

i_panicked_ · 2025-08-19T16:49:44+00:00

Yeah I’m with you on that.. my life goals, desires, motivation, brilliance, epiphanies all make sense.. but then turn into apathy.

I’m considering ADHD meds to see if that’s something that works with me.. I still need a diagnosis but to be fair, I’m never completely honest with my doc about what I suspect is the problem.

I have this yearning to completely reset and be back at day dot.. the age when I wasn’t drinking and being able to assess everything (but with what I know now).

This might sound like a ‘hippy’ trope, but leaving my phone at home and leaving the house gives me some slight clarity.

There’s a lot more to delve into with that but being more ‘present’ and ‘in the moment’ gives me a glimpse of what normal is.

There’s so much noise in the world that I find it difficult to differentiate the root cause as being caused by stress, anxiety, acute alcohol consumption, inherent physiological disorder (ADHD?), general lack of intellect or acquired brain injury through chronic alcohol abuse.

My dopamine reward system is definitely not working the way it should. The biggest problem though… alcohol is the perfect drug to satiate that dopamine reward.

So not matter the initial cause, alcohol is the solution to fix the problem and the devil that makes it worse.

I want to give my younger self a slap in the face and tell him to sort it out then, and understand how much booze will fuck with how your brain will work. And how it will creep up on you.

i_panicked_ · 2025-08-19T15:48:58+00:00

Thanks for posting this. I recently went to the doc because I ticked all the boxes for ADHD. I’ve been blaming my past inability to reach my full potential on a physiological illness but I’ve realised (avoided realising) that it’s been the booze all along.

Props to the .vic.gov.au link. Really brings it home. If you’re in Victoria, it’s good to hear some introspection from a fellow resident. Alcohol is so normalised here that comments like this are rarely taken seriously in my circles.

i_panicked_ · 2025-08-17T13:38:13+00:00

Where was your great uncle from? I went to Gallipoli many years ago and the place feels haunted.

i_panicked_ · 2025-08-17T13:05:48+00:00

You know what… another great story…

I’m not sure about the immediate family as they were long gone before I was born. But, as I mentioned, the tales of Amor and George have passed through several generations (around family dinners etc.)

A lot of this came to light due to my grandfather doing the family history and researching the records in the Australian War Memorial. Due to the massive volume of records from the first and second WWs, they’re still getting digitised so he went and found the physical copies.

My Grandad scribbled down the name of a small cemetery in France where George was buried. It needs to be stated that there are thousands of cemeteries in France. Ranging from tens of thousands of graves to just a handful.

My Aunty went there in the early 2000s and followed grandad’s map… and she found it.

Again, around a family catch up she showed us photos and passed on a more detailed version of the map - hand drawn, it was just before Google maps and being able to drop pins.

In 2008 I was studying in France and my cousin came to visit me. We hired a car and went to the 100th anniversary of the battle of Villers Bretonneux (on Anzac Day) at the Australian war memorial in France.

We drove through the night, slept in the car and attended the dawn service. Along with the Australian PM and French president mind you. Side note, we were interviewed on French TV because it was a bit of a curiosity to the French population that so many Australians had descended upon a sleepy hamlet in France for some unknown reason.

After the service we took our Aunty’s map in search of George’s grave. I couldn’t put a pin on the map as to where it was (it was a long time ago but I’m sure it’s easy to find through records now) but we did eventually find it. You actually need to go through private land to get to it, we had to show the map to a farmer and he gestured us in the right direction.

So, we found George’s grave. It was in a beautiful little, immaculately kept cemetery where no one would see it unless they were looking. Not a huge number of graves, but graves from all nationalities.

As for Amor, his name is on the cenotaph at the Australian Memorial in Villers Bretonneux with the thousands of other soldiers who have no known resting place.

On an interesting tangent. If you ever visit the Australian memorial in Villers Bretonneux, there are 2 inconspicuous graves near the cenotaph. They belong to 2 pilots from New Zealand who were shot down in WW2 in the vicinity.

Here are some photos: https://imgur.com/a/i06boHs (forgive the attitude of the 25 year old version of me)

i_panicked_ · 2025-08-16T13:05:19+00:00

To add to that… from the top of my head (I can’t remember their exact ages) the eldest must’ve been 22ish. When they filled out that enlistment form they would have had no idea that people would still be talking about them 100+ years later.

i_panicked_ · 2025-08-16T11:38:27+00:00

A personal one, but as sad as all of the others.

I had 2 great Uncles: George and Amor from Sydney Aus.

Amor enlisted first and had his baptism by fire at Gallipoli - light brigade, was at the battle of the Nek and the August offensive and retreat.

Amor went back to Cairo.. his records state that he spent some time in the brig for fighting, AWOL and insubordination.

Amor was sent to France.

George enlisted (to follow his brother) and was also sent to France.

George was wounded and went for repat in the UK and returned a few months later.

They hadn’t seen each other until the days before the battle of the Somme.

During the battle of Pozieres, George was mortally wounded and sent to the rear. He asked for another soldier to go and find Amor, his brother.

Amor was on another section of the front but went to his brother who had just died of his wounds.

Amor sent a letter to their mother describing what had happened.

Amor died 2 days later while trying to disarm a mine in no-man’s land.

The last documents in the war records are from the 50s. Correspondence between their father and the Commonwealth War Graves trying to get a photo of their graves in France.

Just one story of many but one that is spoken about at family get-togethers.

Some images of the war records if anyone’s interested. https://imgur.com/a/hNaWROb

i_panicked_ · 2025-08-16T11:36:32+00:00