Yeah it looks that way. Based on what I’ve read, seems that the light gets that intense but ya gotta be real close (like <1 foot) to make use of it.
Regardless I’ll probably do well sitting close to it for an hour a day.
Why do cool people on twitter hate punctuation it makes everything slightly ambiguous and frankly seems a bit rude
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You may not be their target audience.
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I’m sure you’re right. This is just one of my particular bugbears. I would guess it’s a rejection of latte liberals who get high off red-pen pedantry. But still. Attack the semi-colon; make fun of people who use m-dashes, revel in comma splices, please. The period is a bridge too far. You’re killing me, man. It’s like insisting on whispering everything you say because your obnoxious English teacher told you to sit up straight.
Mods please delete this rant. Muah.
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Check the tape cassette!
The white space is just as important as the text in a poem, whether it’s the counter that shapes an O or S , a line break after a word or a caesura within a line. With space, one can shape sound and language to create a poetic field. And with that, one may express a silence . When we write or type, our focus seems to be on a small percentage of the paper, which is, where the text is placed. But around it there lies a pause , a momentary rest that hibernates. Much like a semibreve rest within a measure or like a crease pattern after unfolding a sheet of paper: space holds rhythm and structure. Plus, what are letters, words, punctuation, and sentences without the music and form of the page? A particular text that comes to mind is “Lecture On Nothing” by John Cage in which he composes measures of white space:
imo it’s tedious inscrutable bullshit but what do I know
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I can’t remember the name of it, but there was some literary book that was an old book but the author had cut out selective pieces of each page and published this new version as its own story.
It was quite an interesting experience. The cuts out of each page meant that if they lay flat, the next page was an overlay on top of the next that juxtaposed the top layer words on top of the pieces you could see of the next page.
You could read it like that or lift each page and try to read around the holes. There wasn’t really a “right” way since neither of them really made sense as a narrative. It was an exercise in experimental forms for a novel.
Anyway, just more on the experience of the shape of language. I find the topic fascinating and often consider the impression a page makes when we see the shape of the printed words but haven’t yet read them.
Compare, for example, a page of rapid-fire dialogue to a wall of text/exposition.
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Wasn’t a book, that was MAD magazine.
I’m gonna sound like a quack but I take 6000 IU of vitamin D daily, and I think it improves my overall mood and reduces my tendency towards depression. Might be a cheaper option to explore?
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I read about that but haven’t seen a study where causation was established.
Still take 1600 IUs a day though.
Light box was less than $100. Worthy investment.
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Well apparently I’m always hungry and sleepy.
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Covid thread is telling me I should probably be able to hang out with all my vaccinated friends again.
This is huge. I’m losing my mind here. I think I deal with isolation much better than most people, but holy lord it’s getting to me. I’m not sure if I mentioned this but I’ve been seeing stuff out of the corner of my vision a lot and i’m 99% sure it’s from being stuck here living the same groundhog day over and over again.
I’m so excited - I might even be motivated to clean up my house and throw a superbowl party for all my vaccinated nurse friends.
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That sounds like a great plan, jmakin.
The anticipation alone might lift you out of the funk.
Well the year has already been a doozy, but I’m feeling good.
I listened to a speaker yesterday say that before you consider self harm or ending your life, give yourself a single day where you take off the mask and just be yourself.
I don’t indulge suicidal ideation anymore, but I have often fantasized about discarding my false self. So I did that for a day in as much as my tortured and fearful mind will let me.
I don’t want to reveal more details than that except to say it was a good idea and worth the effort. My IRL people have been a great source of support and encouragement, and I am happy to say a few Unstuck posters have grown into those IRL people.
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So. This has happened twice now.
Monday I took my dad to a hospital check up for his broken arm. Nothing particularly happened, long wait, lots of people, and bit stressful.
Came back home, completely on edge. Feeling super tense and unable to work all afternoon.
Today. We did a work meeting all day at my bosses house. First time face to face. (Outside). 40 minute drive there. 40 minute drive back. Again, not a particularly stressful day, and the meeting was good and relaxed.
Drive home felt really weird. Made a couple of driving mistakes. By the time I got home I felt way over stimulated, super tense… Basically had to lie down in a quiet space to read UP and chill.
Feeling fine now, but worried this is a trend now.
I guess being at home non stop, or at least at familiar places or relaxing at dinner etc (in Melbourne so things have relaxed a lot) my exposure to stress and stimulation has gone way down. So shouldn’t be surprised. Any one else experience this?
I’m fairly certain I have mild bipolar (not gonna go into it, but it runs in my family, so I know what I’m talking about), so I’m generally good at tracking my mood, nothing has stood out lately, and I’m not particularly up or down, so I think this is different to that.
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Hello rugby, sorry to hear you are experiencing this. What I think:
Given the state of the pandemic and recent insurrection in America, stepping outside my house feels like stepping into a war zone. It’s not just that we aren’t receiving the same stimulation, it’s that we have good reason to practice hyper-hypervigilance.
But in my experience, hyper-vigilance is a potent tool that takes hours or days to cool down. For example, victims of abuse can require years of transition just to go from a lifetime of hyper-vigilance to maybe learning to relax now and then. But in the meantime, their cognition can be just as debilitated as yours trying to function through the fog.
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Of course you feel that way, Johnny. Anyone would in your position having been through what you’ve been through.
This is a weird story, but it is how I relate to what you described. When I was a lot younger, I used to sit in the grass and peel the blades of grass in half. I was next to mute and would go days or weeks without speaking. Most people dismissed me or treated me like I was a problem to fix. No one took the time just to sit with me and share what I was going through.
But a friend who was more like a big brother at the time one day stopped trying to fix me and just sat next to me in the grass. He picked a blade of grass and split it in half next to me. I didn’t know what to say but also didn’t need to say anything. It was a comfort just for him to sit with me and split the grass and try to share my experience without somehow trying to persuade himself to adopt it as his own.
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