jbrains
@jbrains@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on I this a firm and polite way to tell an opinionated coworker to stop pushing his agenda I don't care about? 3 days ago:
“Unsubscribe.”
- Comment on Am I supposed to ask stupid questions here, or *not* ask stupid questions? 1 week ago:
The mere fact that we’re answering your question provides sufficient context to clarify the group’s intentions, no?
- Comment on Am I supposed to ask stupid questions here, or *not* ask stupid questions? 1 week ago:
Yes, but that’s why there is a sidebar.
- Comment on Why is currency so essential? 1 week ago:
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens. Enjoy.
- Comment on How come liberals dont hate conservatives the way conservatives hate liberals 1 week ago:
I relate to your position. You are wrong. You absolutely do choose to hate or not hate. This lies entirely within your control.
I used to have the impulse to hate them, but I don’t any more.
On the list you cite, emotions is the one thing you choose, even though it doesn’t feel like that right now. I don’t expect you to believe me. I will cite Lisa Feldman Barrett and the book How Emotions are Made and you can decide whether you want to explore or not.
Either way, peace.
- Comment on Will I ever be seen as truly British? 1 week ago:
You might be able to find people who accept you, even if the average Brit doesn’t. People have strange ideas about whom to hate and why.
It’s complicated and I can’t pretend to really understand your situation, but I trust that feeling pity for them works better for your mental health than any other reaction, including trying to ignore them. Whatever you do, don’t let yourself believe them.
Peace.
- Comment on How come liberals dont hate conservatives the way conservatives hate liberals 1 week ago:
I can both understand and relate to being afraid of them. As you wrote, they do real damage and they seem intent on doing more and they seem to feel it’s their mission to do so. From what I can tell, they have been programmed to see the very concept of progressive thinking as evil. Fearing them seems sensible, because being aware of the threat makes it easier to defend against or protect oneself from.
But how exactly does it improve your life to hate them?
- Comment on How come liberals dont hate conservatives the way conservatives hate liberals 1 week ago:
Are you afraid of them or do you hate them? Those seem like two independent opinions to me, but I’m wondering if you’re conflating them.
I’m afraid of them and I don’t hate them.
- Comment on When investing your money, what is considered a good rate of return? 2 weeks ago:
Anything at least 2 points higher than the best rate of return you are getting now.
- Comment on Why do Americans measure everything in cups? 5 weeks ago:
I’m not arguing that it’s wise. I’m merely arguing that it’s not nearly as inexplicable as that comment made it seem.
- Comment on Why do Americans measure everything in cups? 5 weeks ago:
Take a 1-cup measuring cup, chop celery until it’s full. That doesn’t sound difficult to me. I infer it’s merely not what you’re used to.
I tend to prefer to weigh ingredients, but I also have measuring cups and spoons and using them is not so onerous. 🤷♂️
- Comment on 1000 years from now physics is forgotten and all that remains is the legend of two hobbits, Charm and Spin, and their quest for the Higgyboson. At this point, is physics true? 5 weeks ago:
I’m a bit surprised by the question, so I’d rather ask: what would it meant to you for physics not to be true in that hypothetical future?
- Comment on How do I stop wanting to be on a relationship? 1 month ago:
I can understand it all and relate to some of it, but nothing in that description sounds like “lonely” to me.
When you feel like a failure, do you picture someone who is judging you to have failed? What expectation of theirs are you not meeting?
When you feel empty, what’s missing for you?
When you feel obliged to be with someone, obliged to whom? What did they do for you that leads you to now feel that you owe them something?
When you feel like something is wrong with you, who is judging you as being wrong? What expectations of theirs are you not meeting?
Whose voice do you hear saying “This is not OK”?
Maybe these answers will reveal something to you to help you make more sense of your feelings.
Peace.
- Comment on How do I stop wanting to be on a relationship? 1 month ago:
How can you be alone and not feel lonely?
This seems like the key question. Relationships or not might not actually matter here.
What does it mean to you to feel lonely? What kind of lonely is that?
- Comment on Do straight lines and flat planes exist in nature? 1 month ago:
Edwin A. Abbott has entered the chat…
- Comment on How can a person be very sad, irritated or angry and still not show it on their face ? 2 months ago:
You answered your own question in part. After years of practice, the thoughts I have during formal sitting meditation have spilled out into everyday life. I find it easier to let thoughts flow through me, which helps me react much less strongly in moments such as you describe. Meditation is one way to cultivate that kind of relaxation. It’s not even control, but rather repetitive practice and habit.
Trying to control yourself in those situations tends to lead to uneven results, because exercising willpower like that tends to be draining and therefore very sensitive to whatever els is going on for you. If you manage to control yourself, you’ll probably want to get out of the situation as soon as possible in order to recover.
I have found a couple of thoughts helpful:
- This moment will pass.
- That kind of reaction (what I used to/typically do) is not helping.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Calmly. With subtle determination.
Of course, none of these are quick fixes.
Peace.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
One does not do this. The singular “they” is many hundreds of years old.
- Comment on if 4^1*3 + 4^2*3 = (4^1 + 4^2)*3 ... 2 months ago:
What would it look like to you if there were one? I’m not sure what kind of “similar” you have in your mind.
- Comment on What is wage theft exactly? 3 months ago:
That’s kind of you to say, so thank you.
- Comment on What is wage theft exactly? 4 months ago:
Well, there’s literal wage theft, which other folks have explained clearly here, then there’s figurative wage theft, such as artificially depressing wages in order to redirect money to executives that they couldn’t possibly spend nor reasonably need.
This sense of wage theft is more nebulous and therefore easier to be confused about. It wouldn’t surprise me if you asked ten people about got ten different answers about it. There’s nothing about my answer here that’s authoritative; it’s merely a short summary of how I understand the term as commonly used.
- Comment on Does anyone feel like an actual adult? 5 months ago:
I suppose it depends how you think of being an adult.
No-one is going to save me. I am huddling with my family for warmth and hoping we all make it to death without disaster striking. If disaster strikes, our survival depends on us and people will be looking to me to take charge.
That sounds like adulthood to me.
- Comment on Military Time vs 24hr? 6 months ago:
It is literally a foreign concept to the vast majority of them (only other countries use it widely in everyday life) and the military is one of the very few contexts in which they will experience it.
- Comment on Is there an alternative to saying "so-called" which doesn't suggest potential falsehood? 6 months ago:
“what is (generally/widely/typically/often) known as” comes to mind. Any variation of that would do the job.
It can also work not to use any term, but rather to introduce the name without fanfare. This implies a neutrality of judgment. “Western countries belonging to the ‘Paris Club’.” Even in speech one can often hear the introduction of a term by subtle changes in tone of voice.
- Comment on When does the future begin? 7 months ago:
Always.
- Comment on What makes a content creator an influencer?? 7 months ago:
If enough influential people call them an influencer, then they become an influencer.
- Comment on Buying neices and nephews Christmas presents? 7 months ago:
You should stop buying presents for anyone that you don’t want to voluntarily buy presents for. This is always true.
If it feels forced, then that means you don’t mean it. So stop. It will be fine.
- Comment on Are metric measurements like decameters and hectometers ever used? 7 months ago:
Dekametre and hectometre, rarely. Mostly mm, cm, m, km.
In Europe, hg is relatively common, whereas in Canada, prices for deli products are “per 100 g” instead of per hg.
Also in Europe, cl and dl are common in recipes and bottles of alcohol, but in Canada, almost uniquely mL and L.
- Comment on What is "attention", really? 8 months ago:
In what way does your second paragraph contradict your first? They seem independent of each other to me. The two together mean that a thought is something that we can attend to, and I believe that’s true in part because I have experienced it.
- Comment on What is "attention", really? 8 months ago:
Why “though”? We usually reserve that word when we’re about to introduce a counterexample or some other means of contradicting a claim.
But thoughts are also particular things, so clearly one can direct their thoughts to particular thoughts. And even to the act of thinking in particular about thoughts, because that is a thing one can think about.