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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   938 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for October 21, 2026

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).

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Kill me, I've been put on yet another wacky project that I advocated for. I guess it's nice to be seen, but I really just want to scream into the void (that is the internet) because my mental sanity is collapsing under the weight of too many non-related projects, that I am expected to put serious time into, with serious reputational damage if I don't. I wish I could split myself into 3 people and then give myself an icepick lobotomy. I wonder if insurance covers those??

What's the etymology of the phrase "No rest for the weary"?

If you could split yourself into 3 people, kill your boss and let 1 of them do a life sentence in prison for it.

Nah I like my boss, I do want to murder-suicide one of the PIs on an existing project for being a controlling micromanaging twat. Every other burden is my fault for having too many interests and my boss for indulging me.

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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."

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