site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2557 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 7, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So I started feeling really sick in the early morning hours of December 3 (extremely bad sore throat, uncontrollable coughing, pounding head, aching muscles, etc) and started suspecting COVID. Yesterday I finally got around to taking a RAT test. Coughed some sputum into a tube, mixed it with the buffer, squeezed two drops of the mixture onto the specimen well, and it came back positive.

It isn't affecting me as badly as I expected especially considering that I'm immunocompromised - it absolutely hit like a train early on, but the worst of the symptoms seem to have dissipated within the first two to three days of experiencing them. The most annoying part of it at this point is the low-level brain fog and the stress of trying not to cough or to otherwise spread it when I do have to go out in public, both of which are to be expected and are not particularly unique aspects of COVID.

During this period I've been staying inside for the most part and playing online chess and Scrabble with random internet people. And trying to learn Blender. I'm halfway towards making a donut in it.

EDIT: I just had breakfast, and can conclude that my sense of taste is definitely gone now or at least diminished. It's very surreal to eat a burger and receive all the textural input without the accompanying taste you would associate with it. It's a profoundly neutral experience.

The most annoying part of it at this point is the low-level brain fog and the stress of trying not to cough or to otherwise spread it when I do have to go out in public, both of which are to be expected and are not particularly unique aspects of COVID.

Do you put on a mask?

Do you put on a mask?

I do, yes.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats