Oh, thing I’ve been meaning to write at some point:
As I think I’ve mentioned, my mental state is, by default, pretty calm and happy and generally positive. Generally, I feel reasonably good, and I feel extra good/happy/warm/energised when I’m sharing an experience (pretty much anything) with another person, or learning something new.
And the primary way I experience affection is a strong desire for other people to mirror my mental state. To feel this sense of tranquility and joy and verve for life that I get around others. And, due to my hyper-empathy, I feel affection for everyone. So a lot of my internal feelings around altruism are motivated by wanting every human being to feel that good as a general mode of existence.
My serious motives that I actually work based on are more complicated than that, because I have complex values like agency over experiences and people being able to feel what they want; not just to feel like me.
But, when I query my lowest-level feelings on what I want to see in the world, what I get back is a desire for a world of tranquil bodhi satvas who /can/ sit on lotus thrones, but are actually just too excited by the universe not to want to explore it for a hundred million years. Which is to say, a world of Alisons.
Reblogging because “tranquil bodhi satvas who /can/ sit on lotus thrones, but are actually
just too excited by the universe not to want to explore it for a hundred
million years” is a very accurate description of my mental state most of these days.
Eeeeee, someone who shares my neurotype!!! This is Great; please tell me all about it and how you got here.
I’m afraid this is the only part of your neurotype I share – a lot of You is pretty much completely alien to me. (Extraversion???? Charming people? Being good at emotional labor?? Doing Scary New Things just because??? Not liking carrots?)
But I also feel pretty calm and happy and generally positive most of the time, and positively bubbly with glee when doing certain things (some sports, like climbing and dancing, learning something fascinating/cool, making progress on a programming or other well-defined and solvable problem). Might be less about exploring the universe and more just about doing lots of the happy things in it, I actually like my routine and stuff just fine. (Although we might be more alike there than I used to think based on your need for a space of your own, if I read some of your recent posts correctly.)
I got here by being a terribly sociophobic ball of constant low-key stress and anxiety and then getting on meds (escitalopram) for the former. And then all the low-key anxiety I’d barely noticed fell away and turns out I’m a pretty happy and chill person beneath that, who knew?
Oh, thing I’ve been meaning to write at some point:
As I think I’ve mentioned, my mental state is, by default, pretty calm and happy and generally positive. Generally, I feel reasonably good, and I feel extra good/happy/warm/energised when I’m sharing an experience (pretty much anything) with another person, or learning something new.
And the primary way I experience affection is a strong desire for other people to mirror my mental state. To feel this sense of tranquility and joy and verve for life that I get around others. And, due to my hyper-empathy, I feel affection for everyone. So a lot of my internal feelings around altruism are motivated by wanting every human being to feel that good as a general mode of existence.
My serious motives that I actually work based on are more complicated than that, because I have complex values like agency over experiences and people being able to feel what they want; not just to feel like me.
But, when I query my lowest-level feelings on what I want to see in the world, what I get back is a desire for a world of tranquil bodhi satvas who /can/ sit on lotus thrones, but are actually just too excited by the universe not to want to explore it for a hundred million years. Which is to say, a world of Alisons.
Reblogging because “tranquil bodhi satvas who /can/ sit on lotus thrones, but are actually
just too excited by the universe not to want to explore it for a hundred
million years” is a very accurate description of my mental state most of these days.
hey. hey, kids. if you’re transmasc, FTM, AFAB nonbinary, FTN, whatever- don’t make the mistake I did. Don’t have top surgery and a hysto at the same time just because you’ll “heal faster”.
you will probably heal faster and have to deal with less insurance fuckshittery but you will also be in a stupid amount of pain and fatigue and some of that will be directly caused by everything from your shoulders to your kneecaps being out of commission all at the same time
Oh man, sorry to hear about that.
I still want to add a caveat to your warning: I had both at the same time as well and was fine (barely felt anything from the hysto), so YMMV. Most of the fatigue and drowsiness I felt were after-effects from the anesthesia, which is a big part of why I decided to have both at the same time – anesthesia is pretty risky and Not Fun for bodies, so going through that only once instead of twice is a good idea in most cases. (Also only a single hospital stay, which is also nice.)
Congratulations on your new best friend! I’m not a professional dog trainer or vet or anything like that, but I can give you some general advice based on my life expirinces:
a quick summary of what you need to do to keep your dog stimulated:
EXERCISE YOUR DOG AND INCLUDE THEM IN AS MANY ACTIVITIES AS POSSIBLE
#1 thing to keep your dog mentally stimulated and emotionally fulfilled and also too tired to eat the couch? EXERCISE. I literally have to walk Charlie 4-6 miles a day for him to get the movement and stimulation he needs. If the weather’s bad or I otherwise can’t take him out, I have to play with him in 20-30 minute bursts three or four times. Remember: Doggo can’t read or watch TV or play videogames so seeing the outside world is pretty much ALL of thier entertaiment. Exercise will also keep doggo in good shape, thier joints working and help them live longer.
#2 issue: Dogs are crazy social animals and You Are Thier Friends, Family And Soulmate All At Once, they wanna with you, doing things with you, or just in your general vicinity all the time. Obvs you can’t take them Everywhere for safety and health reasons, but when you guys can be together, make that an option for the dog. Teach your dog Kitchen manners so they can hang out with you while you’re cooking and eating. Watching TV? Cuddle dog on couch! Going on errands and it’s not too hot or cold out? Bring doggo in car for the ride. Family game night or a party? Take doggo for a walk first to shed some excess energy, and allow them to meet guests!
#3 DOGS LOVE BEING TRAINED. no really they’re interacting with thier favorite person, getting treats and doing something fun! it’s great! If they’re reasonably good with other dogs, training classes are funtimes for both of you, that will make doggo easier to take care of and also a lot safer. If you can’t afford classes, there are a zillion books and youtube videos on how to train your dog (some much better than others but I’m gonna farm this post out to actual dog training people to talk about that) and doing a 15-minute practice session is also good playtime.
How to keep your dog Comfortable:
Go throught and Puppy-proof your house for Obvious problems BEFORE doggo gets home, and be ready to do it after too. Cover and hide cables like powercords or ethernet, lock up ALL food but espcially food that could be dangerous to them (If you’re not particularly attached to them I reccomend getting rid of rasins and grapes, as they can kill a dog in under half an hour if they eat enough), ckeck to make sure all your doors shut properly, and keep anything you wouldn’t want mistaken for a chew toy up where Doggo can’t get to it.
Keep a close eye on your dog’s behaviors, and if you notice something that makes them uncomfortable, mitigate thier exposure to that thing, or help them learn to chill about the thing. Dogs are just like people in that they have random things that frighten them. Most dogs don’t like the vaccum, so do the vaccuming while doggo is out being walked or at daycare. Practice touching sensitve areas of your dog (ears, paws looking in thier mouth. lifting up thier tail etc) and giving them treats and cuddles, so vet exams are less stressful.
Give them comfortable things! If you don’t want your dog on the couch, make sure they have a comfortable place in the living room with you. They like toys to play with, some dogs like having a blanket to snuggle with (some even like to be tucked in at night, like charlie).
Make sure your dog likes thier food? that seems like a dumb thing but if you notice your dog leaving food in thier bowl or seeming disinterested in thier food, there might be something wrong with it. Or you’re making them eat something they hate. Imagine if you had to eat your least favorite food every day!
There’s more, but it’s also 1 AM and there are people who know way more about this than me.
Steer clear of self-described dog trainers or “dog whisperers” who talk a lot about dominance or even mention anything to do with alphas, that shit has been disproven for ages, and of using aversive stimuli (anything that hurts or scares your dog) which has been shown to further aggression (and is just generally no way to treat a friend).
Of all transwomen, a third are what we call “Core Transwomen”. These are the women whose names begin with “Al-”. We’re talking “Alice”, “Allison”,
“Alicia”,
“Alyssa”, “Alana”, “Aleah”, and so on. Women with these names are always trans and have always been trans.
Next we have the “Inner Ring Transwomen”. These are the ones whose names begin with “A-”, but didn’t have enough points to afford an “L”, like the cool kids. Here you have “Amelia”, “Amber”, “Amy”,
“Anna”,
and so on. Some women with names beginning with “A-” have also, at times in our history, even been cisgender. However, these are believed to have died out during the last glaciation.
Finally, we come to the “Outer Ring Transwomen”. These have names beginning with “E-” or, rarely, “I-”. They are commonly named “Emma”, “Emily”, “Esther”, “Elizabeth”, or “Isabella”. These names are problematic, because they sometimes lead to confusion with ciswomen. While ciswomen long ago abandoned the open plains of the letter “A”, they have not yet been cleared from all the other vowels. As part of the Millennium Development Goals, we are hoping to phase out all ciswomen with “E-” names by 2020.
It may interest the reader to learn that there are a total of six transwomen currently outside of this system. However, every single one of them is named “Sam”.
I expected this post to go much worse than it did because in Russian “core transsexual” is how they translated the “true transsexual” labels of types 5 and 6 on the Benjamin Sex Orientation Scale. I was relieved to discover that (1) it’s a shitpost, and (2) this expression in English doesn’t have the extremely problematic connotations that it has in Russian.
Oh, no, this is and always was a shitpost. Whoops.
I did recently (as in, long after this post) find out that “core transsexual” was once a term in the English medical literature several decades back, though. It was originally used to refer to asexual transsexuals, as they were believed to be transitioning out of a deep-rooted sense of being incarnated in the wrong body. Meanwhile the other two categories were either “homosexuals” out to tempt pure and innocent straight men into teh gay, or “heterosexuals” with a case of “““transvestic fetishism”””, so no one with a sex drive should be allowed to transition.
Then Blanchard came along and said that, actually, the homosexuals were fine but the asexuals were secretly also “transvestic fetishists” who shouldn’t be allowed to transition. Which, on the one hand, is some sort of utility improvement, since more androphiles than asexuals wanted to transition at that time. But, on the other hand, you know trans history is a sadness when you read that fucking Blanchard was at one point responsible for reducing the amount of gatekeeping. 😦
Hey what about the Natalies? There seem to be quite a few (based on the fact that I know two while not knowing all that many trans women)!
Huh, I used to model the reason people replied to my posts about personal issues instead of reblogging them was that they felt like the posts were private in some way and shouldn’t be shared around, even though I try to repeat as often as possible that I don’t mind any of my posts being reblogged unless I specifically mark them as not being for reblog.
But I think my model is wrong, because people also overwhelmingly prefer to use replies over reblogs even on posts I specifically ask to be reblogged. So now I’m guessing it’s a thing where most people just don’t want to reblog things in general, or only want to reblog things that rise to a certain level of quality. (ie, preferentially reblogging high-quality posts about Chinese having too many puns, rather than low-quality posts about me wanting company at the airport.)
This is useful to learn and will help me more effectively curate my Tumblr presence.
This is basically true of me (although it took at least a couple of years for me to see the
purpose of the reply feature at all). For some reason I just prefer not
to have other people’s personal posts
show up as posts on my blog. On some level, I guess I’m trying to make my tumbleblog feel more like a “real blog” and less like a spot where I put my social interactions on display, if that makes sense?
This is interesting to me, because I’m just literally the opposite. I definitely try to make my Tumblr feel /to me/ like a place where I have my social interactions. Mostly because I like social interactions enough that they motivate me to pay attention to Tumblr, and therefore write blog posts.
If every person who reply-replied to my posts replied as reblogs, and therefore made it easier for me to have conversations that way, I’d probably make about 2-3x as many OPs (especially effortposts). Because Tumblr just isn’t interesting enough to hold my attention if I’m not using it for conversation. (This is also why I /only/ blog on Tumblr, because no other blogging site is as suited for tricking introverts into having social interactions with me.)
The main reason I’ve been posting so often for the past few days is because suddenly everyone wanted to comment on my BDSM posts. And, as much as that was awkward, that’s kind of what I require to ever be an active Tumblr user. (This is also why I check my notes obsessively but never read my dash.)
So, basically, the only way to motivate me to produce content is to turn that content into conversations with me. PMing me works for this, but reblogs create much bigger conversations, which is why my Tumblr presence is optimising for reblogs-with-commentary 100% of the time. I’m indifferent to likes, only slightly value replies in the abstract, and only care about reblogs without commentary because they get new audiences to comment. I literally only care about audience-interaction and, every now and then, I don’t get a lot of those conversations, so I disappear from Tumblr for weeks at a time because it stops serving any of my personal interests.
Huh, okay, interesting! That’s somewhat motivating to use reblogs more. Although, is there a reason why you don’t do the “new post quoting and replying to various replies” thing that a lot of people do? That seems like a good way to get more conversation.
It’s just significantly more effort to do right, requires a bunch of formatting, is almost impossible to do on my cellphone, and 60% of the time Tumblr just irrecoverably fails to tag people I try to tag, so I can’t ensure they participate in the conversation.
So I generally write off replies as not worth responding to, even if the things they say are sometimes valuable. They just can’t be turned into conversations easily enough and consistently enough to be worth bothering with.
Hard same to all of this, both the optimizing-for-comments (though I’m not as good at it as you) and the hating replies/the reply interface. Just reblog my posts with comments, people; I can’t stand copying the replies out of the notes and deciding which of three hideous-looking ways to quote them.
“another-normal-anomaly continues to be me irl“ so what are you, if not you irl? Or are there just two of you irl? 😛
Anyway, this thread is really enlightening to me. I tend to avoid reblogging things too – not that my blog is much of a blog, but I figure that followers (not that I have that many) would find long exchanges rather off-putting and boring (since us mere mortals can’t be as interesting as you), especially if it means they have to scroll through the same thing multiple times on mobile.
Omphaloskeptomai 