i kinda put the vegan diet on pause while dealing with school. i'm still "vegan" because i'm abstaining from animal products as far as possible and practicable, as the definition goes. but how much effort is required? how thoroughly do you have to check ingredients? at what point is it ok to say that it's too overwhelming? like, it's definitely better to make small changes that you can maintain than to decide the whole thing is too hard and give up up entirely. anyway, i don't buy leather etc, at least not knowingly. but there are probably supplies purchased for my classes that are not vegan so it may be impossible to say what i'm contributing. but then that's true for anyone who participates in society.
i was talking to a friend who is a christian and he was talking about people doing things that they know are wrong. i think this is a context for the religious term "convicted". i've mostly got my emotional issues regarding school under control, so it's time to direct some effort back to not torturing and murdering farmed animals. i haven't eaten their flesh in almost 8 years now, but i gave up on avoiding milk and eggs. actually the main thing is cheese. so i'm not going to worry about checking ingredients for now, because that amount of work would definitely detract from my school performance, but i'm going to refrain from eating things that have obvious cheese on them. now i'm making the goal of maintaining that till august, at which time i will consider possible next steps.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
How big is my family?
A few years ago, I decided to count the number of people in my family.
I am acquainted with some second cousins etc, but I decided to count only starting with my grandparents. So the list included my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and parents, and my cousins and their spouses and their kids and their spouses and their kids. I counted people who were married into the family and then weren't in the family anymore due to divorce, and I counted 147 people. Ever since then, I occasionally think "that can't be right" and I re-count.
I can't really figure out how to give an exact count.
Sometimes people want to know how many "blood-related" first cousins I have. So they want me to exclude people who were adopted? Oh no, include adopted people, they say. OK, but my grandma adopted a grown man in 2009. She said the words "I adopted him." He and his wife and kids come to all the family gatherings ever since then. But it wasn't a legal adoption. But who cares? The government has no right to define families. But when we first met, I suggested that I refer to him as my "cousin" because I didn't feel comfortable adding on a new "uncle" when I was 22, and he agreed to that. So if I'm counting my number of first cousins, I have no idea how to count him and his kids.
Then there's step-cousins. Aunts and uncles who marry into the family definitely count as family, so shouldn't their kids also count? And why should they stop being part of my family upon a divorce? I don't stop caring about them. Except sometimes I kinda do. If someone as an adult leaves the family and never contacts anyone ever again, I'll probably stop thinking of them as family after like 10 years.
So, I conclude that I have up to 170 family members. So far.
And I still find myself thinking "that seriously can't be right".
I am acquainted with some second cousins etc, but I decided to count only starting with my grandparents. So the list included my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and parents, and my cousins and their spouses and their kids and their spouses and their kids. I counted people who were married into the family and then weren't in the family anymore due to divorce, and I counted 147 people. Ever since then, I occasionally think "that can't be right" and I re-count.
I can't really figure out how to give an exact count.
Sometimes people want to know how many "blood-related" first cousins I have. So they want me to exclude people who were adopted? Oh no, include adopted people, they say. OK, but my grandma adopted a grown man in 2009. She said the words "I adopted him." He and his wife and kids come to all the family gatherings ever since then. But it wasn't a legal adoption. But who cares? The government has no right to define families. But when we first met, I suggested that I refer to him as my "cousin" because I didn't feel comfortable adding on a new "uncle" when I was 22, and he agreed to that. So if I'm counting my number of first cousins, I have no idea how to count him and his kids.
Then there's step-cousins. Aunts and uncles who marry into the family definitely count as family, so shouldn't their kids also count? And why should they stop being part of my family upon a divorce? I don't stop caring about them. Except sometimes I kinda do. If someone as an adult leaves the family and never contacts anyone ever again, I'll probably stop thinking of them as family after like 10 years.
So, I conclude that I have up to 170 family members. So far.
And I still find myself thinking "that seriously can't be right".
Friday, April 27, 2018
anti-punishment essay i wrote in 2009
I'm not sure how this is going to work out, but I'm planning on not punishing my kids. That doesn't mean I will let them do whatever they want. When you say you're not going to punish your kids, people think that means you will let them do dangerous things. I won't. I won't let my baby play near the stairs unattended, I won't let my toddler play in the street, I won't let my kid smoke or drink alcohol. But I'm not going to accomplish that by threatening him with any kind of punishment.
When your kid is a baby, you serve one major purpose. You are supposed to keep your baby safe. If your baby tries to climb in the oven, it doesn't make any sense to punish him, because he didn't know he was doing anything wrong. But you have to keep him safe. That's why having a baby is a full-time job. You have to actually watch your baby. This is why people baby-proof their houses, though. Before your baby can walk, it is easy to keep him away from dangerous things. After that, you might not be fast enough, which is why a good parent keeps sharp objects and dangerous chemicals locked up, out of the baby's reach. And you don't put your favorite book on the floor and then spank the baby when he tears it up. The baby has no way of knowing that tearing the book is wrong. You made the mistake by putting the book there.
But during all this time, you should be explaining to your baby why he shouldn't be doing things. Like, if you are playing with him outside and he starts to go into the street, you pull him away and say, "No, baby, don't go in the street, you could get an ouchie," or something. He won't understand what you're saying at first, but if you repeat it every time the situation comes up, he will get it eventually and you won't have to worry. There was a commercial where this parent was telling her toddler son, as he sat in a high chair, about why he shouldn't smoke cigarettes. "It's never too early to start teaching your kids about the dangers of smoking," the voice-over said. He doesn't get it at that age, but by the time it matters, the message will be familiar to him. People know this intuitively. Don't you say, "I love you," to your baby, even though you know he doesn't know what the words mean? It would be silly to wait until he knew the words to say I love you for the first time. You say it all the time, from the moment he's born, and one day he figures out what it means and he knows you've been saying it all along. It must be pretty important if you've been saying it every day for his whole life. You can apply this to anything you want your kid to know.
Most kids won't openly defy their parents. There is a stage where they try to be sneaky because they think as long as you didn't say they couldn't do it, they can do it, even if they know you would says no if you knew. But after you know, they'll bargain with you, and maybe cry about it, but they accept your verdict. They don't realize that it's possible to go against what you say. But they will reach an age where they realize they don't have to do what you say. To prepare them for that day, you really do have to give reasons for your decisions. If you always limited your kid's cookie intake, but never gave a reason, then when he realizes he can make his own decisions, he might just eat cookies constantly and get sick and fat, and if you never gave a reason why he should brush his teeth he might just stop doing it and not realize until it's too late that not brushing your teeth lets decalcification and and cavities happen.
But even if you have explained everything to your kid all his life, there may come a point when he decides to do something you think is dangerous. He might know all the dangers you've told him about but he might decide that it's worth the risk, for some reason. You can try to persuade him not to do it, but in the end you have to respect his rights as an individual. If you were to try to coerce him into not doing it by threatening him or if you were to physically detain him so he couldn't do it, you would be wrong. You would be a bully and a tyrant. Think about what you would want a person to do for you. You would want people to keep you out of danger that you're unaware of, you would want people to inform you of dangers, but if you decided something dangerous was worth the risk, you would want your decision respected. That's precisely what you need to do for your kids. You have years to inform them of the dangers. But your kid might decide the danger of being an astronaut is worth the excitement. Or he might decide that drugs make him feel good enough that it's worth the health effects. And if you want your decisions respected, you have to respect other people's decisions. Or, if you're intent on being a tyrant, you have to make sure you're impervious to attack. But I strongly recommend the former.
But what's so bad about punishment? What harm can spankings and time-outs do? Wouldn't they only re-inforce the messages about the dangers of playing in the street and eating too many cookies? I don't think so. These sentences from Freedom and Beyond by John Holt express two problems with punishment. "A child whose life is full of the threat and fear of punishment is locked into babyhood. There is no way for him to grow up, to learn to take responsibility for his life and acts. [...] To bow to a superior force makes us feel impotent and cowardly for not having had the strength or courage to resist. Worse, it makes us resentful and vengeful. We can hardly wait to make someone pay for our humiliation, yield to us as we were once made to yield" (104).
If you've ever read something and thought, "This sums up my feelings exactly," then you know how I felt the first time I heard The Golden Rule. I felt that "do not unto others as you would not have done unto yourself" was a perfect summary of how I governed my own actions. And the fact that it was this common saying with a name meant that it was agreed upon in our society. I apply this golden rule to my children. It is the very first principle from which all else must flow. If you agree that it is a good rule, then you must teach it to your children through example, in how you treat others but most importantly in how you treat your children themselves.
When your kid is a baby, you serve one major purpose. You are supposed to keep your baby safe. If your baby tries to climb in the oven, it doesn't make any sense to punish him, because he didn't know he was doing anything wrong. But you have to keep him safe. That's why having a baby is a full-time job. You have to actually watch your baby. This is why people baby-proof their houses, though. Before your baby can walk, it is easy to keep him away from dangerous things. After that, you might not be fast enough, which is why a good parent keeps sharp objects and dangerous chemicals locked up, out of the baby's reach. And you don't put your favorite book on the floor and then spank the baby when he tears it up. The baby has no way of knowing that tearing the book is wrong. You made the mistake by putting the book there.
But during all this time, you should be explaining to your baby why he shouldn't be doing things. Like, if you are playing with him outside and he starts to go into the street, you pull him away and say, "No, baby, don't go in the street, you could get an ouchie," or something. He won't understand what you're saying at first, but if you repeat it every time the situation comes up, he will get it eventually and you won't have to worry. There was a commercial where this parent was telling her toddler son, as he sat in a high chair, about why he shouldn't smoke cigarettes. "It's never too early to start teaching your kids about the dangers of smoking," the voice-over said. He doesn't get it at that age, but by the time it matters, the message will be familiar to him. People know this intuitively. Don't you say, "I love you," to your baby, even though you know he doesn't know what the words mean? It would be silly to wait until he knew the words to say I love you for the first time. You say it all the time, from the moment he's born, and one day he figures out what it means and he knows you've been saying it all along. It must be pretty important if you've been saying it every day for his whole life. You can apply this to anything you want your kid to know.
Most kids won't openly defy their parents. There is a stage where they try to be sneaky because they think as long as you didn't say they couldn't do it, they can do it, even if they know you would says no if you knew. But after you know, they'll bargain with you, and maybe cry about it, but they accept your verdict. They don't realize that it's possible to go against what you say. But they will reach an age where they realize they don't have to do what you say. To prepare them for that day, you really do have to give reasons for your decisions. If you always limited your kid's cookie intake, but never gave a reason, then when he realizes he can make his own decisions, he might just eat cookies constantly and get sick and fat, and if you never gave a reason why he should brush his teeth he might just stop doing it and not realize until it's too late that not brushing your teeth lets decalcification and and cavities happen.
But even if you have explained everything to your kid all his life, there may come a point when he decides to do something you think is dangerous. He might know all the dangers you've told him about but he might decide that it's worth the risk, for some reason. You can try to persuade him not to do it, but in the end you have to respect his rights as an individual. If you were to try to coerce him into not doing it by threatening him or if you were to physically detain him so he couldn't do it, you would be wrong. You would be a bully and a tyrant. Think about what you would want a person to do for you. You would want people to keep you out of danger that you're unaware of, you would want people to inform you of dangers, but if you decided something dangerous was worth the risk, you would want your decision respected. That's precisely what you need to do for your kids. You have years to inform them of the dangers. But your kid might decide the danger of being an astronaut is worth the excitement. Or he might decide that drugs make him feel good enough that it's worth the health effects. And if you want your decisions respected, you have to respect other people's decisions. Or, if you're intent on being a tyrant, you have to make sure you're impervious to attack. But I strongly recommend the former.
But what's so bad about punishment? What harm can spankings and time-outs do? Wouldn't they only re-inforce the messages about the dangers of playing in the street and eating too many cookies? I don't think so. These sentences from Freedom and Beyond by John Holt express two problems with punishment. "A child whose life is full of the threat and fear of punishment is locked into babyhood. There is no way for him to grow up, to learn to take responsibility for his life and acts. [...] To bow to a superior force makes us feel impotent and cowardly for not having had the strength or courage to resist. Worse, it makes us resentful and vengeful. We can hardly wait to make someone pay for our humiliation, yield to us as we were once made to yield" (104).
If you've ever read something and thought, "This sums up my feelings exactly," then you know how I felt the first time I heard The Golden Rule. I felt that "do not unto others as you would not have done unto yourself" was a perfect summary of how I governed my own actions. And the fact that it was this common saying with a name meant that it was agreed upon in our society. I apply this golden rule to my children. It is the very first principle from which all else must flow. If you agree that it is a good rule, then you must teach it to your children through example, in how you treat others but most importantly in how you treat your children themselves.
Friday, December 22, 2017
santa and other lies
The christmas right before I turned 5
My birthday is in january, my sister's birthday is in november, so she had just turned 5 and I was going to turn 5 in about 3 weeks.
we woke up early in the morning, at like 4am, and I suggested we go open presents. My sister wanted to wait, but I said we could at least go into the living room. My parents weren't awake. I thought they would not like to be woken up at 4am. I said we could open the presents that were from Santa, because those presents have nothing to do with our parents (I would have actually called them "my mom and daddy" because my mom is not my sister's mom.); the person who gave us the presents should be there to watch, and presumably Santa could see us using whatever magic powers he had. So we opened the stockings and the presents that said they were from Santa. (My mom claims we also opened the presents that said they were from her and daddy, but I don't remember it that way.) Some time later, my parents came into the living room, wondering what all the noise was, and they saw us playing with the presents, and my mom was all :O and I was indignant and confused about why she even cared. I said, "They're not from you." My dad laughed incredulously (and I now understand why) and my mom started to say something like "yes they are from me". She stopped herself before finishing the sentence, but the bit she did say combined with her breaking down into tears gave it away: The presents WERE from her. I looked around at all the open presents, and then started telling her how much I liked this and that.
I was so overwhelmed by her sadness and trying to make her feel better, I forgot to be mad that my parents lied to me.
I moved on from the issue and didn't say anything about it for a while. I had my birthday party a few weeks later, and I got garfield pajamas. My mom suggested I try them on, so I went to my room to change, and then I ran back into the living room and hopped into her lap, on the couch, and said
"Is santa real?"
"What do you think?" she asked singsongily.
"Well ... you can't see him, which means he's invisible, which means he's a ghost, and ghosts aren't real, so that means santa isn't real."
"OK, if that's what you think."
"Yes," I said, scrutinizing her face for more confirmation, and getting nothing.
I was annoyed by her lack of answer, but I was also pretty sure that if santa were real, she would have just told me he was real.
Later, like the same day or the next day, I asked my dad the same thing.
"Is santa real?"
He laughed through his nose and said "No," shaking his head.
It seemed like maybe he thought I was ridiculous for ever believing it, but I was more interested in ascertaining the truth than defending myself.
"What about the tooth fairy? and the easter bunny?"
He laughed and shook his head again. "No."
"Is any of that stuff real?"
"No."
"OK. That's what I thought but I just wanted to make sure."
Almost a year later, as the next christmas approached, my mom asked me if I wanted to make a list for santa. For a second I was about to say, "What? Of course not, I know that santa isn't real now." But I hesitated and then I decided that it could be fun to do it even though it's not real. So I said Yeah, kind of excited. I put a lot of effort into the list. I was smiling and laughing the whole time, and my mom was too. I thought we were both laughing at the joke, at the fact that I was writing a letter to an imaginary person, but I found out years later that she thought I actually still believed santa was real at that time. Like, what, she thought I forgot all about the previous christmas? about the time when I asked her if santa was real and she didn't just fucking answer me?
When I was 7, it was easter, or the day we were doing easter, and she said to me and my sister that we should go outside so the easter bunny could come. We went out and came back a while later. As we walked in, I said
"Are you done hiding eggs?"
And she said something like "what, it's not me, it's the easter bunny".
and I was like ok enough of this shit. I know that there is no easter bunny. I know that there is no santa. I know that there is no tooth fairy. I know it is you doing these things.
And I think that was the point at which she finally gave in and stopped pretending that I still believed.
Why did she want me to believe lies? She was upset that I thought the presents weren't from her, but she kept pretending after that that I still believed that.
She also kept asking me to take pictures with santa and stuff, but after that I just started refusing to do it, because I didn't want to feed any remaining delusion.
My brother was born when I was 6. The christmas and easter stuff wasn't important for a while, because he was a baby and didn't know what was going on. My mom telling him that santa brought him a thing didn't feel like a lie because I didn't think he even understood the words. He was a baby for a lot longer than most people because of his autism.
The first time I remember it mattering was when we lived in Lubbock. My mom "hid" eggs for my brother. We moved to lubbock on may 31st 1998. That was after easter. Maybe we did easter late that year, or maybe what I'm remembering happened in 1999. Anyway, the eggs were just sitting around in plain sight. We handed him a basket and told him over and over again what he was supposed to do, and led him around the house and pointed out eggs and told him to put them in the basket and he followed us around in a daze apparently having absolutely no idea what was going on. And my mom told him that the easter bunny brought the eggs, and I shouted that she was lying and it was actually her that did everything, and she gave me a look like you'd give someone if they were telling a 5-year-old that their dog did not die peacefully in their sleep but had in fact been in agony for months, and I was like "what, i'm not going to help you lie to my brother", but really it was all pointless because he had NO idea what was going on.
But he did end up figuring out how easter and christmas worked after that, and he believed my mom. I told him every time it came up that she was lying. I told him every facet of the truth. I told him how I figured out santa wasn't real, and how our sister figured it out (which happened the christmas she was 6, but I didn't include that story in this post), and how when I asked daddy if santa and the tooth fairy and the easter bunny were real, he just flat out told me No they are not real. I told him to ask daddy himself. But he never did. He said he didn't think mommy would lie to him. When some of his classmates said that santa wasn't real, he mentioned it to her, and she asked what he thought, and he said "I think he's real," and she said "OK.". And he still continued to think santa was real for YEARS after that.
My brother is supposed to be a genius.
They thought he might be retarded in kindergarten, so they gave him an IQ test, and he scored a 184.
He's supposed to be a genius, and he didn't believe that his mother could lie to him.
He's supposed to be a genius and he fell for "what do you think" and "ok".
He's supposed to be a genius and he believed santa was real until he was 10.
Maybe IQ tests are bullshit.
This is not where I thought this post was going.
My birthday is in january, my sister's birthday is in november, so she had just turned 5 and I was going to turn 5 in about 3 weeks.
we woke up early in the morning, at like 4am, and I suggested we go open presents. My sister wanted to wait, but I said we could at least go into the living room. My parents weren't awake. I thought they would not like to be woken up at 4am. I said we could open the presents that were from Santa, because those presents have nothing to do with our parents (I would have actually called them "my mom and daddy" because my mom is not my sister's mom.); the person who gave us the presents should be there to watch, and presumably Santa could see us using whatever magic powers he had. So we opened the stockings and the presents that said they were from Santa. (My mom claims we also opened the presents that said they were from her and daddy, but I don't remember it that way.) Some time later, my parents came into the living room, wondering what all the noise was, and they saw us playing with the presents, and my mom was all :O and I was indignant and confused about why she even cared. I said, "They're not from you." My dad laughed incredulously (and I now understand why) and my mom started to say something like "yes they are from me". She stopped herself before finishing the sentence, but the bit she did say combined with her breaking down into tears gave it away: The presents WERE from her. I looked around at all the open presents, and then started telling her how much I liked this and that.
I was so overwhelmed by her sadness and trying to make her feel better, I forgot to be mad that my parents lied to me.
I moved on from the issue and didn't say anything about it for a while. I had my birthday party a few weeks later, and I got garfield pajamas. My mom suggested I try them on, so I went to my room to change, and then I ran back into the living room and hopped into her lap, on the couch, and said
"Is santa real?"
"What do you think?" she asked singsongily.
"Well ... you can't see him, which means he's invisible, which means he's a ghost, and ghosts aren't real, so that means santa isn't real."
"OK, if that's what you think."
"Yes," I said, scrutinizing her face for more confirmation, and getting nothing.
I was annoyed by her lack of answer, but I was also pretty sure that if santa were real, she would have just told me he was real.
Later, like the same day or the next day, I asked my dad the same thing.
"Is santa real?"
He laughed through his nose and said "No," shaking his head.
It seemed like maybe he thought I was ridiculous for ever believing it, but I was more interested in ascertaining the truth than defending myself.
"What about the tooth fairy? and the easter bunny?"
He laughed and shook his head again. "No."
"Is any of that stuff real?"
"No."
"OK. That's what I thought but I just wanted to make sure."
Almost a year later, as the next christmas approached, my mom asked me if I wanted to make a list for santa. For a second I was about to say, "What? Of course not, I know that santa isn't real now." But I hesitated and then I decided that it could be fun to do it even though it's not real. So I said Yeah, kind of excited. I put a lot of effort into the list. I was smiling and laughing the whole time, and my mom was too. I thought we were both laughing at the joke, at the fact that I was writing a letter to an imaginary person, but I found out years later that she thought I actually still believed santa was real at that time. Like, what, she thought I forgot all about the previous christmas? about the time when I asked her if santa was real and she didn't just fucking answer me?
When I was 7, it was easter, or the day we were doing easter, and she said to me and my sister that we should go outside so the easter bunny could come. We went out and came back a while later. As we walked in, I said
"Are you done hiding eggs?"
And she said something like "what, it's not me, it's the easter bunny".
and I was like ok enough of this shit. I know that there is no easter bunny. I know that there is no santa. I know that there is no tooth fairy. I know it is you doing these things.
And I think that was the point at which she finally gave in and stopped pretending that I still believed.
Why did she want me to believe lies? She was upset that I thought the presents weren't from her, but she kept pretending after that that I still believed that.
She also kept asking me to take pictures with santa and stuff, but after that I just started refusing to do it, because I didn't want to feed any remaining delusion.
My brother was born when I was 6. The christmas and easter stuff wasn't important for a while, because he was a baby and didn't know what was going on. My mom telling him that santa brought him a thing didn't feel like a lie because I didn't think he even understood the words. He was a baby for a lot longer than most people because of his autism.
The first time I remember it mattering was when we lived in Lubbock. My mom "hid" eggs for my brother. We moved to lubbock on may 31st 1998. That was after easter. Maybe we did easter late that year, or maybe what I'm remembering happened in 1999. Anyway, the eggs were just sitting around in plain sight. We handed him a basket and told him over and over again what he was supposed to do, and led him around the house and pointed out eggs and told him to put them in the basket and he followed us around in a daze apparently having absolutely no idea what was going on. And my mom told him that the easter bunny brought the eggs, and I shouted that she was lying and it was actually her that did everything, and she gave me a look like you'd give someone if they were telling a 5-year-old that their dog did not die peacefully in their sleep but had in fact been in agony for months, and I was like "what, i'm not going to help you lie to my brother", but really it was all pointless because he had NO idea what was going on.
But he did end up figuring out how easter and christmas worked after that, and he believed my mom. I told him every time it came up that she was lying. I told him every facet of the truth. I told him how I figured out santa wasn't real, and how our sister figured it out (which happened the christmas she was 6, but I didn't include that story in this post), and how when I asked daddy if santa and the tooth fairy and the easter bunny were real, he just flat out told me No they are not real. I told him to ask daddy himself. But he never did. He said he didn't think mommy would lie to him. When some of his classmates said that santa wasn't real, he mentioned it to her, and she asked what he thought, and he said "I think he's real," and she said "OK.". And he still continued to think santa was real for YEARS after that.
My brother is supposed to be a genius.
They thought he might be retarded in kindergarten, so they gave him an IQ test, and he scored a 184.
He's supposed to be a genius, and he didn't believe that his mother could lie to him.
He's supposed to be a genius and he fell for "what do you think" and "ok".
He's supposed to be a genius and he believed santa was real until he was 10.
Maybe IQ tests are bullshit.
This is not where I thought this post was going.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Relationships are not all business transactions.
Here's part of a message from hunter from 2-15-17. So maybe he doesn't think like this anymore, but idk, we haven't talked about it.
"also, my second point that i thought of last night deals with the philosophical concept of the individual. i propose that to be a perfect partner, you must, in every scenario, put the needs of your partner above your own needs. In other words, you need to be entirely selfless towards that person. However, individuals are inherently selfish - they have a biological drive to be selfish in order to survive. When resources are plentiful, up to a certain point this selfishness is harmless to other individuals. However, when resources are scarce this selfishness harms other people while keeping the individual alive. Relationships in general are entered into by individuals with the understanding of mutual benefit. But sometimes there are diamaterically opposed opinions about the allocation of resources (kinda like scarcity). In these cases, at least one individual has to suffer without that resource for the conflict of selfishness to be resolved."
It seems like hunter thinks of other people as a resource.
You don't have to use other people like that. He thinks people are using him because he uses people.
I don't want a perfectly selfless partner. If I did, I would just want a programmable robot, and I do not want that. The point of having relationships with other people is that they are other people. They are different from you. I don't do things I hate with someone just so they'll do something with me that they hate. That's not a friendship anyway. I might do something with a friend that I wouldn't want to do alone, but that doesn't mean I hate the thing. I don't do a thing for a friend so they'll owe me. I do a thing because I love my friend and want to do a thing for/with them.
I think hunter-in-february doesn't actually like me. I'm not sure about now. I think that our relationship is just more distant, because he doesn't want to do things with/for me because i'm me? I definitely do that more than he does, but I'm not sure if it's actually because I feel closer to him than he does to me, or if it's just because he has this different, stupid idea of how relationships are supposed to work. maybe that means he doesn't feel close to anyone. but I do hear him saying a lot that he wants to be closer to other people. other specific people, other people who maybe also have the same kind of shitty attitude towards relationships that he has. but it seems based on how he described his desires towards those people that he doesn't really have that attitude that he purports to have. So maybe he's just confused about his own feelings.
Regardless, the model of relationships that he described is terrible.
"also, my second point that i thought of last night deals with the philosophical concept of the individual. i propose that to be a perfect partner, you must, in every scenario, put the needs of your partner above your own needs. In other words, you need to be entirely selfless towards that person. However, individuals are inherently selfish - they have a biological drive to be selfish in order to survive. When resources are plentiful, up to a certain point this selfishness is harmless to other individuals. However, when resources are scarce this selfishness harms other people while keeping the individual alive. Relationships in general are entered into by individuals with the understanding of mutual benefit. But sometimes there are diamaterically opposed opinions about the allocation of resources (kinda like scarcity). In these cases, at least one individual has to suffer without that resource for the conflict of selfishness to be resolved."
It seems like hunter thinks of other people as a resource.
You don't have to use other people like that. He thinks people are using him because he uses people.
I don't want a perfectly selfless partner. If I did, I would just want a programmable robot, and I do not want that. The point of having relationships with other people is that they are other people. They are different from you. I don't do things I hate with someone just so they'll do something with me that they hate. That's not a friendship anyway. I might do something with a friend that I wouldn't want to do alone, but that doesn't mean I hate the thing. I don't do a thing for a friend so they'll owe me. I do a thing because I love my friend and want to do a thing for/with them.
I think hunter-in-february doesn't actually like me. I'm not sure about now. I think that our relationship is just more distant, because he doesn't want to do things with/for me because i'm me? I definitely do that more than he does, but I'm not sure if it's actually because I feel closer to him than he does to me, or if it's just because he has this different, stupid idea of how relationships are supposed to work. maybe that means he doesn't feel close to anyone. but I do hear him saying a lot that he wants to be closer to other people. other specific people, other people who maybe also have the same kind of shitty attitude towards relationships that he has. but it seems based on how he described his desires towards those people that he doesn't really have that attitude that he purports to have. So maybe he's just confused about his own feelings.
Regardless, the model of relationships that he described is terrible.
Saturday, September 16, 2017
about my sexual desire, possible tmi.
https://theacetheist.wordpress.com/2013/12/13/differentiating-sexual-attraction-and-sexual-desire/
I experience sensual attraction and desire and generally want to fulfill that by hugging and leaning on people and stuff like that, mostly upper-body stuff, although lower body is not off-limits or completely unenjoyable*.
I experience arousal thinking about some people, and want to do some kind of touching with them in response to that arousal, but I'm not sure ~what~.
I've been calling myself asexual because I have been generally disgusted by "hand jobs" and piv, and I don't have an urge (like the attraction described in the acetheist post) for either.
But I don't seem to have an urge for *any* specific thing relating to that arousal, just a vague desire to do ~something~ about it, so
I want to try new things to see if anything is satisfying/enjoyable.
and I am also tentatively willing to try *those* two things again, because maybe those individual experiences were just bad.
I've also considered the possibility that body dysphoria is a reason I don't like genital contact, and I'm still not sure if that's right.
* I've really liked [name] touching my leg with his hand, whereas I've at most tolerated that from other people.
I experience sensual attraction and desire and generally want to fulfill that by hugging and leaning on people and stuff like that, mostly upper-body stuff, although lower body is not off-limits or completely unenjoyable*.
I experience arousal thinking about some people, and want to do some kind of touching with them in response to that arousal, but I'm not sure ~what~.
I've been calling myself asexual because I have been generally disgusted by "hand jobs" and piv, and I don't have an urge (like the attraction described in the acetheist post) for either.
But I don't seem to have an urge for *any* specific thing relating to that arousal, just a vague desire to do ~something~ about it, so
I want to try new things to see if anything is satisfying/enjoyable.
and I am also tentatively willing to try *those* two things again, because maybe those individual experiences were just bad.
I've also considered the possibility that body dysphoria is a reason I don't like genital contact, and I'm still not sure if that's right.
* I've really liked [name] touching my leg with his hand, whereas I've at most tolerated that from other people.
Friday, September 15, 2017
triple, quadruple, etc.
A thing I want is to be in a "relationship" that consists of more than 2 people. I put "relationship" in quotes because it's a poorly defined word. I'm not sure what makes this kind of relationship different from the ones I have with my parents and cousins and stuff. There is a difference between a family relationship and a friend relationship, and I don't know if I can explain it, but I feel the difference very clearly. But I can have both with one person. But this other thing, I'm not exactly sure how it's different from family or how it's different from friends. I think it is different, but it's all muddled in my mind.
But there's a thing I want. I wonder why. I've tried to make it happen here and there, by asking people if they were interested, and no one is interested, except possibly one person, but it doesn't work for the two of us if there's no third person.
Maybe if I ever got to actually try it, I could figure out why I want it, or I could figure out that I actually don't want it.
I don't have a specific number in mind other than "more than 2", but maybe if I ever actually got to try it, I'd find that I have a more specific preference.
But there's a thing I want. I wonder why. I've tried to make it happen here and there, by asking people if they were interested, and no one is interested, except possibly one person, but it doesn't work for the two of us if there's no third person.
Maybe if I ever got to actually try it, I could figure out why I want it, or I could figure out that I actually don't want it.
I don't have a specific number in mind other than "more than 2", but maybe if I ever actually got to try it, I'd find that I have a more specific preference.
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