ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
"Can't you see how fortunate you are? You have worn yourself out through ceaseless striving, you have filled your muscles with pain and anguish. And what have you achieved but to bring yourself one day nearer to the end of your days?"
I'm probably out to lunch.
User ID: 4030
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
1d ago
I usually opt for whatever is cheapest. I guzzle the stuff because it scratches my carbonation itch and my need for hydration, so buying in bulk is important for me. If price was no object though, if you have a Wegmans nearby, they have some really interesting flavors. I'm partial to the Cherry Vanilla and especially the Ginger.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
5d ago
+1. I've been getting into NA alcohol this year and the industry has really stepped up their game as of late. Heineken 0 is solid, and there are lots of boutique options with interesting flavors hitting the market.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
6d ago
I don't think your clock speed hypothesis explains why you're hearing things differently. I'm not extremely well-versed in the mechanics of auditory perception, but I don't see how differences in the subjective experience of time would impact the immediate experience of an auditory phenomenon. Perhaps you'd remark that an entire album was over faster than you anticipated, but literally perceiving individual songs as faster-tempoed seems unrelated. I don't believe the auditory cortex communicates much with the time-keeping areas of the brain, though I'm open to convincing.
Also, it was my understanding that older adults perceive time as faster because their lives have less novelty, more routine, and that individual years are lower in proportion (i.e. 1 year as a 5 year old is 20% of your life, 1 year as a 50 year old is 2% of your life). I'd be very interested in seeing the research discussing neurological explanations.
Another thing that crossed my mind is the cortisol awakening response. It seems like it could be worth investigating, even if I have no plausible hypothesis for how it could be affecting you.
No clue why you are experiencing different tonality. I wonder if it has anything to do with altered memory states after waking, where you're hearing the song and perceiving it sounds differently than you remember because your recall ability is worse, for example. Have you ever experimented during these instances? Next time it happens, maybe pull out a piano and see if you're hearing those tones differently, too.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
7d ago
That's honestly sick. I didn't realize people still did that. If you don't mind me asking, do you live in a rural area?
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
7d ago
I agree with you, it's pretty shocking how well-preserved underground music scenes are in many cities. Sure, talk to some oldheads and they'll explain how things used to be better, but the superficial elements and structure are well intact. I've spent my fair share of time there, and I share your assessment that they can be a great place to build community. However, there are some notable diminishing returns that have prevented me from really investing:
- It's a coin-toss if the people you meet are sane and basically stable. The proto-netizen culture means that many attendees are poorly adjusted, mentally ill, or otherwise represent the strangest and most idiosyncratic corners of the internet.
- It can be difficult to extend or grow relationships beyond the time you spend at events. A lot of people aren't too keen on doing things outside of the events. It can become monopolizing.
- Gentrifiers are a bit of a scapegoat, in my opinion. The far bigger risk is insularity and egotism. People get a hint of authority, esteem, or responsibility in the scene and can become competitive. Beefs, drama, and crises are common and so much conversation devolves into gossip.
- These scenes are undeniably progressive, and often anarchist. This can be cool as a tourist, but being an earnest participant in the scene is difficult if you don't share these ideals.
- You pretty much cannot have a stable sleep schedule and partake in these events with any regularity. Sure, you can leave at 12, but after midnight is when the real socializing happens.
- Cultural currency in these spaces often comes from how in-the-know you are about the scene. I found it difficult to keep up with and did not enjoy feeling the social pressure involved with not knowing.
My general belief about third spaces is that they are only dead because we've killed them. People aren't going to them because they don't want to. Despite it all, music scenes have remained a desirable place to be. I think it's because they interface well with online identities, as you suggest. You can post yourself going to an event and it is "cool." It feels exciting and transgressive and worth sharing. You're not going to post every time you attend a 3D-printing hobby group to hang out with retired engineers.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
7d ago
As @porkpiehat points out, this picture is hardly representative of Texas demographics as a whole, nor do I think it represents some canary-in-the-coal-mine for mass immigration into the state. It is far more indicative of the fact that the University of Texas has become a good school. It has a competitive admissions rate that is only getting more competitive and recent rankings indicate it is well-within the top 50 colleges in the United States.
What does this have to do with Indians? I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this. Indian immigrants to America tend to be wealthy and predominantly come from the upper castes of Indian society. They, much like other Asian groups, tend to perform better than comparable white students, and as far as I can tell, there is a strong cultural emphasis on academic and material success among recent Indian immigrants, resulting in them being more likely to travel out of state for college. All this amounts to the fact that they will be drawn to a strong academic program like UT. UT, in turn, wanting to have the strongest academic class, will admit relatively more Asian students, as most colleges these days tend to for the aforementioned performance reasons. Thus, more Indians at the University of Texas - estimates on U.S. News suggest 25% of the student body is Asian. I doubt most of these students remain in Texas, though perhaps they stick around Austin for a time for their first jobs. Hardly some mass migration ploy. These are skilled and intelligent students who are assimilating as best they can, seemingly successfully if they're at a football game having a great time.
Let's look at the University of Alabama for comparison. Alabama is a similar flagship state university, but it lacks the academic pedigree of UT. To no surprise, its demographic profile is more akin to the rest of the country: 67% White, 1.5% Asian, which is actually lower than Alabama's 1.8% Asian population.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
7d ago
Good notes, thanks! I'll start it once I have the mental bandwidth to tough it out - right now I'm a bit worse for wear. I might read it on Kindle so I can have hyperlink footnotes, I'm still deciding.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
8d ago
I haven't read Infinite Jest yet, so I'll have to take a rain check on that part but agreed. He is very good at writing about ugliness, not in an immediately grotesque and flashy way, but in the small ways ugliness creeps into everyday life under the guise of rationalizations, assumptions, and habit.
Do you think it's worth reading Infinite Jest? Any words of wisdom to someone planning on reading it?
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
8d ago
I just checked and that essay is a part of his other collection, Consider the Lobster. I'll get to it next. Honestly, I can't imagine anyone better able to capture the despair of a porn convention than DFW.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
8d ago
I agree, none of these concepts are exactly new. I am more remarking that they are more prevalent among Gen-Z compared to Millennials. I think in the Millennial collective consciousness (or maybe the Obama-era Optimist conscious), they were the generation that equalized dating, that wouldn't be shallow, that would bring about positivity and equality and love and sexual libertinism. This is idealistic, to be sure, and practically speaking plenty of Millennials weren't this way. Even so, it's still notable to me that Gen-Z is taking baby steps against that mindset.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
8d ago
It's hard to say. This feels more subtle and insidious to me. If it were simple generational differences, I would imagine the Gen-Z swing would be more pronounced. In my eyes, the Gen-Z mindset doesn't seem like a wholesale repudiation of Millennial behaviors, rather a refinement of them taking into account the cynicism of the era. I think it explains, in part, why people aren't dating as much: so much ink has been spilled about the disastrous consequences of dating the wrong person, particularly their impact on your career.
My uncle, a retired Green Beret, used to always say "You'll lose money chasing women, but you'll never lose women chasing money." I think he's a chauvinistic goof for saying that, but I can't help but feel like everyone in Gen-Z, male and female, has internalized that mindset to some degree. Just substitute money for whatever an individual's prized social currency is. I may have a biased sample, of course, but no one wants to risk getting "slowed down" by a relationship.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
8d ago
I'm currently reading David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Good Thing I'll Never Do Again. It's quite enjoyable, though I prefer his fiction a bit more. That said, now on my second DFW book, I can understand why his prose is considered a bit controversial. It's purpley at times and his word choice, while always apt and appropriate, does occasionally veer into the pointlessly obscure. Still, he's quite a remarkable author and I envy his ability to distill complex, nigh-indescribable emotions into a few sentences.
Culture warry, but I don't have enough meat or a specific post to include this on the main thread: in your opinion, how much of current dating discourse and the corresponding social trends are due to changing material conditions and economic anxiety? I've seen much more dialogue about how Gen-Z women are regressing to the mean compared to their Millennial women counterparts - more concerned with materialism and man's ability to provide, more expectant of chivalry (though they've renamed it "princess treatment"), more averse to hookup culture. Gen-Z women are much more considerate than Millennials of the fact that there are determinants of partner quality beyond just "love" and that a purely "equal" relationship is not necessarily ideal. This is despite (or perhaps because of) their ostensible feminism. I've also seen talks of how looksmaxxing is a response to changing socioeconomic conditions, that it is a means of restoring some sense of control. The theory goes, the economy is becoming increasingly obtuse and inaccessible to many young people, so to cope, they turn to something they can more immediately affect change upon: their bodies.
What do you think?
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
9d ago
I am very unsettled by how much we know about this guy. Yes, he's no longer a member of an active jury, but I feel like it's unheard of for a juror to be practically doxxed and berated publicly, even if he was obstinate or unreasonable. I can't even begin to imagine the chilling effect this will have on jurors assigned to future high profile cases. I'm extremely disappointed in our media for fueling this extravaganza.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
10d ago
I won't go so far as to say that all poor people are low-agency, but certainly low-agency people tend to be poor and exist in higher concentrations in poor areas. The blighted aren't damned forever, but any efforts at rehabilitation have to be coordinated and significant enough to overcome the social inertia of years of pessimism, apathy, and lack of opportunity. It's much easier to just let them tumble down and funnel new development into "good" areas.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
11d ago
Unrelated, but I really enjoy that you maintain a personal site and use it liberally. I'm considering starting one of my own. Would you speak highly of NearlyFreeSpeech.net as a network host?
I think some of this has arisen from the K-shaped economy. Any cities that survived the general contraction of manufacturing and industry are now bimodally organized: either a neighborhood is well-to-do with white-collar/tech/service jobs and the resources to match, or they're blighted, decaying, and continually downtrodden.*
*I don't think gentrification and the proliferation of "artsy" neighborhoods represent a meaningful alternative. They're too few and far between and often fail to generate much economic growth.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
11d ago
Username checks out.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
11d ago
A sentiment I'm seeing in this thread is essentially that Democrats propose policies that, when you hold them up to the light just right, are indistinguishable from mere gibs, so why shouldn't Trump do the same thing? I agree with the many posters here that democracy has increasingly shifted into a "to the victor goes the spoils" mindset, where politicians are incentivized to promise their constituents as much material benefit as possible if elected. However, it's my recollection that most Democrat gibs are at least presented under the pretense that they solve a problem or have a social benefit. Even reparations for the descendants of slaves, which are arguably the most diffuse and nebulous use of government funds, have been justified many times over with varying publications, media efforts, etc. We can discuss the veracity of these claims, but they're at least granted an air of historical importance and societal justification. Trump, in contrast, is simply saying "vote for me and you'll get money," without even gesturing at some social purpose. Simple quid pro quo. I don't see how this can be anything but concerning.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
18d ago
I have meditated in the past and I agree, it's helpful. Thanks for the suggestion.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
18d ago
I'm not going to follow through with that - it was an idea, is all.
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
19d ago
Lol, thanks. As a part of the aforementioned "lifestyle changes" I'm cutting out alcohol for the time being, actually. I would normally agree!
ratherblather
psychiatric help 5¢, but the doctor is out
19d ago
Does anyone have experience with short-term use of psychotropic medications (SSRI's, Benzos, etc.)? I have experienced an absurd amount of situational stress and grief over the past few weeks - long story, very tragic - and am looking for a little chemical help to make it more bearable. However, I don't want to be on them for very long and I know that coming off meds can be difficult once you start. Anyone have personal background? And yes, I'm trying to make lifestyle changes but any advice there would help as well. Appreciate it.
Perhaps middle-management isn't the perfectly apt term, but I still think the dichotomy (that some employees are concerned with appearances, and others are concerned with the bottom line) holds regardless of how you categorize the respective camps.
There is credible reporting that a deal will be signed at the U.N. soon. It could fall out between now and then, sure, but this appears to be more than just Trump's usual theatrics.
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