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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   1728 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for June 21, 2023

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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We visited a LDS church today. We're not going to convert, but it was nice, reminded me of when I used to go to old fashioned American Protestant churches as a child.

We've been in something of a religious slump, on account of our regular church wanting children to stay through a long service, which means the only thing we've done in church for years is take the children in and out, in and out, chastise them, glare at them, go on a short break walk with them, bring them back in again for a couple of minutes.... not only is it frustrating and tiring, but it's unclear what the purpose is.

Can anyone advice on what I should post on LinkedIn (and whether I should at all)? I plan to switch jobs in 6-12 months, and to open the profile to recruiters. Right now I only updated it with a few Azure certificates I got over the last couple years.

I have a few things in mind of what I can post there — like a pyGame project I recently finished, or me tinkering with with a locally-deployed LLM, or how I prepared for the Azure Admin exam. But really, I feel more comfortable discussing stuff like that in an anonymous fashion somewhere on reddit, rather than "humblebrag" on LinkedIn — as the signaling intention is pretty clear when you post there.

Recruiters and HR are being totally trustworthy when they say they’re looking for candidates who are independent thinkers and are unafraid to communicate results on difficult issues, so you should regularly post about racial IQ and crime statistics.

Kidding, of course.

My impression is that LinkedIn posts don't help at all with getting recruiter attention, unless you somehow become viral and have recruiters throwing themselves at you. But that’s like hoping to do a song cover to go viral on TikTok or Instagram to get girls throwing themselves at you, i.e., a lottery ticket.

From what I recall, what’s most important is your profile’s headline and job titles, in particular the most recent one. So you should set those up to contain key words that recruiters search for. And have a photo and and a (mostly) filled out profile. Recruiters are searching for, messaging, and churning through candidates as fast as they can like swiping on Tinder. They won’t linger on your profile for long in the event they even visit it in the first place. And just like with online dating, social proof and preselection are key, so having a fair amount of connections helps (especially with attractive young women and important sounding people). I wouldn't be surprised if there is some sort of ELO/page-rank like component to recruiter search algorithm results with respect to connections.

Not posting at all is more than okay. Posting comes at the risk of making your network cringe and lower their opinion of you, or possibly risking whatever the LinkedIn equivalent of unfriending you is.

That being said, your proposed topics of a pyGame project you finished and a locally-deployed LLM would be easily some of the most interesting posts on my feed. I barely look at my feed but I’d at least skim such posts. They certainly beat the usual “so proud of connecting with the talented women at [women’s conference] #WomenIn[STEM/Tech/Finance/etc.]”. An Azure Admin exam preparation post has a greater chance of being cringe, depending on how unique your experience was, how difficult the exam is perceived to be, and how in demand the certificates are.

From what I recall, what’s most important is your profile’s headline and job titles, in particular the most recent one.

I wonder what to do if I want to switch my role. E.g. if I am currently a dba, or a sysadmin, recruiters most likely will offer only jobs of the same kind. Or whether I should be looking for job postings myself, and only use a LinkedIn account as some sort of a business card / CV.

You can angle your job title(s) as marketing for your next desired role without explicitly lying.

And yes, you should be application-grinding regardless. If you're actively looking to make the next move, planning to passively rely on recruiters contacting you may lead to disappointment.

One thing that personally helped me set goals was the Hamming Questions of the CFAR Participant Handbook. By asking myself certain questions I was able to find goals that were personally meaningful to me.

What are the most important problems in my life?

If I say "Everything in my life is fine, and I'm on track to achieve all of my goals," what feels untrue about that? What catches in my throat, that makes it hard to say that sentence out loud?

One goal I set for myself was to figure out why I had difficulty making/maintaining social connections. This goal caused me to read a lot of material and act on the new information that I learned. I still have a goal of improving my social connections and I'm constantly finding new actions I can take toward achieving this goal.

Another related goal I have is researching (including applied research) an obscure drug called Phenibut to determine how to personally benefit it from it while avoiding addiciton/tolerance.

Goals aren't entirely arbitrary. They can make things worse or better. They can be self-interested or pro-social.

Forming your own rules is a good start. One thing that sharpens the focus is to set tight restrictions. "Take a good photo" is so broad that you could spend all week reading about aesthetics and equipment without leaving your desk - or you could take a left turn and begin wondering whether a photo can be morally good. "Take the best photo you can, using what you have, in the next hour" compels you to stop thinking and start doing. Use the challenge and arbitrariness to your advantage.

"Gentlemen" of the motte. What do you expect in return for... being a gentleman.

I was reading a post in my cities subreddit asking "Do you give up your metroseat for women?".

Most responses were along the lines of "no unless they are pregnant". But some were really making an attempt to claim the moral highground. "My mom raised me to be a gentlemen" from the males to "there are no more gentlemen!" From the females.

I was left thinking thats well and good. But no man is actually taking a purely raw deal just because right? He must expect something in return, not from the individual woman, but the social structure as a whole. I dont know.

What is that something?

I probably wouldn't give up my seat for a random female, unless she's old or pregnant or somehow visibly in need of rest. But if I decided to do it, I wouldn't expect anything in return. For me, being a gentleman means doing the right thing is its own reward. What is the right thing for you is up to you to find out.

My thinking on social niceties is that they make social interaction and pro-social behavior more common between strangers and generally encourages people to be nicer. Things like saying please and thank you, calling someone sir or ma’am encourages the person you are speaking to to be more friendly and helpful and to trust you more. Seeing others do pro-social things builds social trust an$ encourages more of that sort of good behavior.

At this point, social expectations and shaming/threats of violence from Big Baz.

I sometimes wish it was still in style to. I'm in a purple metro and took public transportation for quite a while.

I never had anyone be outright rude when I offered a seat, but I did have women refuse to take it until another man would sit down, so I stopped offering.

I've also only ever had one rude door-opening experience in my life. I think the secret is to, with body language, ensure the person knows that the open door or vacated seat is provided without any expectation. As @raggedy_anthem mentioned, a polite thank you or smile is awesome, but mentally expecting those things will be picked up by anyone you're being a gentlemen to.

My wife got a noticeable uptick in this behavior when pregnant which I think is most appropriate.

The bottom line is I think that the "mean, ungrateful feminist bitch" is still mostly a boogeyman in my neck of the woods. But in NY or Cali I don't know what the balance is.

I give up my seat for elderly, weak, and pregnant people, but not women.

There are lots of reasons why, but the biggest reason is I want to be the kind of person that I like.

pregnant people, but not women.

Doubleplusgood duckspeak! I do bellyfeel.

I also give up my seat for elderly men, so ending that phrase with women would have been incorrect.

Don't do this.

For an opened door, a gentleman expects a polite thank you and ideally a smile

Would be nice, but I don't actually expect it. I wouldn't feel slighted if that didn't happen. I would feel better if it did, but it's like finding a $20 bill on the ground - nice if it happens, but I don't make any plans or expectations based on it. Silent acceptance is fine with me (that said, I'm very introverted, so I in general fine when people I don't know just leave me alone).

If he gets a sneering, “I can do it myself,” he’s not going to continue the behavior.

If the person rejects my help, the right thing is now to stop and get away from that person, especially if they are showing signs of behaving irrationally.

For an opened door, a gentleman expects a polite thank you and ideally a smile. Same for burdens carried, seats given up, high shelves reached, and little protections offered. If he gets a sneering, “I can do it myself,” he’s not going to continue the behavior.

Any man who expects that, or who would be discouraged by a sneer, has long ago stopped doing anything of the sort. It is the year of our Lord 2023, if one consistently attempts to do the courteous thing one will be the subject of constant sneers. Yet in my walks it seems to me, that the Grace of God is in courtesy.

There are certainly emotionally stunted specimens of Homo Economicus wandering the streets, who expect that each act of courtesy will be individually rewarded in a great ledger book. But that man will be so consistently disappointed that he will likely cease to do so altogether, unless he sees an opportunity to give his seat to a woman he finds particularly attractive, and then call her a bitch when she fails to return his attraction.

At this point, I'm quite used to women responding to such courtesies with demonstrations of their independence and Feminism, "You don't need to do that." I've found that a slight smile and "I'm going to stand either way, I can't sit comfortably while you stand, you might as well sit down" gets right past that. ((Or something along those lines, writing dialogue in a forum comment always comes across stunted))

If one does it consistently, it is for oneself, not expecting rewards. Because the rewards are so inconsistent that you'd have to be blind to expect them at this point.

It is the year of our Lord 2023, if one consistently attempts to do the courteous thing one will be the subject of constant sneers

I must be doing something wrong, because I have been holding the doors, opening the doors, and doing the other stuff, for decades now, and I can't remember being sneered at. It could be I just forgot, but if it happened constantly, I'd surely remember at least some cases? Maybe I'm just not live in the right place for that.

Eh. I doubt it's any more admirable to do it to satisfy my internal sense of morality than it is to do it to enjoy grateful smiles or whatever.

Internal sense of morality here is really just self-image - the point of giving up your seat is so you can think of yourself as someone who gives up their seat, so you can avoid the shame of sitting down while a woman stands.

I think offering your seat to a young woman is probably seen as pretty weird, but opening the door isn't, I think most polite people hold the door open for everyone if there's someone immediately behind them.

I stand if the woman I am with gets up from the table to depart (except obviously in domestic situations at home.) Weirdness scale there?

Perhaps undue (but not creepy) politeness, I think.

About even with being the guy who says grace at a business dinner. SUPER WEIRD, but also a total power move.

Interesting. I wonder if age is involved here, as in generation. Like taking my hat off indoors, this sort of thing has always just come "naturally" to me, via I suppose seeing it done around me at some formative point in my life. I've been called weird before, but maybe never super weird until now.

Yup. Not in the same universe of commitment/effort. One takes ~5 seconds of "discomfort" and the other anywhere from a couple of minutes to hours. I don't understand why these actions are being grouped together in the same category of things. It's "selfless" and "prosocial" to die for your country as well but you'd sound like an idiot comparing it to giving up your seat.

What benefit do I get? The itch of how I would feel if I were sitting down and a woman/older man were standing up goes away.

I could reason out that it trains one to courtesy, to think of others, to consider oneself in relation to others in a certain way. I could speculate that training causes one to carry oneself in a certain way, which will cause people to treat you well.

But I'm not sure I really buy that project. It's kinda cope. It just is how I was raised, and what I think is right, and if I don't I'll get itchy.

From the Stoic perspective, it is an opportunity to undertake a discomfort, for the purpose of greater appreciation for the seats you occasion to enjoy. In this sense, being able to go without is a privilege that wards off ingratitude and unhappiness.

"You will not be punished for your sins, you will be punished by them"

Conversely, a good deed is its own reward, and a good conscience can really bring a lot of pleasure intrinsic to it.

In return for protecting women you don't know you theoretically get a culture where strangers will protect your wife or daughter when you aren't around. That bargain doesn't hold any more and women would be insulted at the idea that they need protection but I think it was a nice idea while it lasted.

Is any women who isn’t pregnant/disabled/very old actually going to be flattered by you offering her your seat? Surely the vast majority would find that really awkward and borderline demeaning?

Not in Japan; they'd think it quaint and exotically foreign and tell their family about it at dinner. I still don't do it. My commute is long, to which my posts here attest.

As an American guy I would think it’s extremely bizarre. The two women I just surveyed on it agreed.

I am also American. I don't go back much but I'm from the south originally. I have also spent a small amount of time in southern California. In the south there are no trains to speak of but if you were, say, in a waiting room, standing room only, and gave up your seat to a female, it might pass unremarked, assuming you were of more or less equal social standing. In California I would expect a sarcastic reply or a bewildered expression followed by a refusal of the seat.

I don't give up my seat for women. Like the responses you mention, i do give up my seat for expectant mothers, the elderly, the infirm, just like the sign on the train windows suggests. Anyone who seems distressed by standing i might offer my seat. People then refuse and we do the dance and i insist.

As for being a gentleman in the sense you're describing, i don't expect anything. I don't expect anything from taking my cap off indoors either, or removing my shoes at the door, or eating with my utensils instead of my bare fingers. I don't put my feet up on public furniture. I don't cut in line or spread all my stuff out on the train seat. I hold the door for women, but I also hold the door for whomever is walking after me, even if that someone is Dwayne Johnson (so far it hasn't been.) I do help women with heavy things, carrying heavy loads, etc. I don't expect any recompense, though a smile or a thank you is nice. I have never thrown my coat over a puddle of water for a woman to tread on. I do open the door for my wife, except for the times when I don't.

I do these things because I was raised to do them and because they seem benign and probably net positive behavior.

A healthy soul. It's not a transaction, it's axiomatic. You don't do it because it delivers good results, you do it because it's good to do.

I would argue that it only appears axiomatic because it was useful for the millennia humans lived in tribes where a small action to a neighbor or stranger benefitted the group’s sum total good (including expansion of lands and progeny down the line). If the well-being of my descendants is inherently tied to the well-being of the person down the street, which it is in pre-modernity, then the rule of always helping neighbors or strangers is optimal for the group’s good. Today, spending even an iota of thought on a stranger is worse for your own group’s interest, unless you are picking and choosing who to help.

Perhaps an equivalent example would be how there’s a difference between doing extra help in a group project, and then secretly helping a competing project.

Right, but doing little things like this don't require any thought at all. Very likely you are spending more thought here, arguing over these trivial rituals of etiquette, that it does to enact them.

If I’m a person who rides the bus daily, the thought is not trivial

what you've just described is an axiom of "humans are animals and human behavior is nothing more or less than the expression of evolutionary drives." Having applied that axiom, you then find that the question answers itself. The thing is, the axiom is itself a choice, or more accurately a composite of a large number of smaller choices made over time. Different choices result in different axioms, which result in different self-evident answers.

You could claim that it's really biology at the base, not axioms. You can even argue that there's no such thing as free will, that choice is impossible, that we're all deterministic or pseudo-deterministic machines winding slowly down. The thing, though, is that none of these statements actually generate meaningful predictions; if I act in a way evolutionary theory wouldn't predict, you'll either claim that my evolutionary drives are misfiring ala the beetle that tries to mate with beer bottles, or else claim that there's some indirect benefit. Meanwhile, some groups really do act as though they believe that we're just animals, and others act as though they believe we are not, and the predominance of those beliefs correlate with changes in population-level behavior.

Today, spending even an iota of thought on a stranger is worse for your own group’s interest, unless you are picking and choosing who to help.

...You understand that your appeal to scientific rationalism here isn't actually grounded in science, fact, or objective truth, right? Like, at all? What do you think the rate is for people getting stabbed in fights over bus seats, versus the rate of people getting stabbed for offering someone their seat? How close do the rates of those two need to be for the increased risk of not giving a seat to be offset by the "resource advantage to the community" of keeping it?

Maybe evolution selects for the sort of person who just adopts a simple, hard-and-fast rule, and it's the obsessive search for loopholes that's the misfire? Alternatively, maybe my community is better off with the sort of person who is aware of and cares about others, rather than focusing all their attention on seeking selfish advantage?

Alternatively, maybe my community is better off with the sort of person who is aware of and cares about others, rather than focusing all their attention on seeking selfish advantage?

It’s not at all clear to me that “selflessness” is actually the operative virtue here. The OP wasn’t about giving up one’s seat to a person who is infirm, elderly, or pregnant; in those scenarios, it is credible to claim that the “selfless” act would be to give up one’s seat, since the other person would very obviously benefit more from sitting down than you would, and would be harmed more by being made to stand than you would be.

But, you’re not suggesting that every person is obligated to give up a seat to every other person; this would lead to wacky and madcap scenes of people endlessly rotating seats, each one eagerly vacating the seat as soon as it is occupied. The OP was about whether it’s gentlemanly for any man to give up his seat to any woman; since the average healthy young women is only negligibly more harmed by standing than the average healthy young man is, it’s unclear why a man giving up his seat to a woman is an obligatory act, let alone a “selfless” one. I’m not even disagreeing with you that axioms in general are useful, nor even that this particular axiom is maladaptive; I’m merely questioning the justification you’ve provided to support the continued existence of said axiom.

It’s not at all clear to me that “selflessness” is actually the operative virtue here.

"Selfless" might be the wrong term, but I was aiming for an antipode to the sort of merciless winner-take-all competition implied by: "Today, spending even an iota of thought on a stranger is worse for your own group’s interest, unless you are picking and choosing who to help."

it’s unclear why a man giving up his seat to a woman is an obligatory act, let alone a “selfless” one.

The idea is that men should inculcate self-sacrifice toward the worthy, and while individual women might not be worthy, women collectively are. Women are, indeed, wonderful, or to put it a bit more precisely, good women are of incalculable value. Cementing this attitude is well worth the minimal deadweight loss from minor sacrifices granted to the unworthy; given the triviality of the sacrifice, attempting more than the most minimal gatekeeping is probably a net-negative.

The counterargument, implied by the OP, is that a substantial percentage of the woman one is likely to encounter in an urban American environment today is not a good woman, and is therefore unworthy of the sacrifice. And that furthermore, by continuing to reward women despite their doing nothing whatsoever to merit that reward - and in fact, in many cases, actively doing harmful things and displaying harmful attitudes that are the opposite of the things that ought to earn the reward - we are allowing women to become utility monsters and auto-defectors.

Now, again, I’m not saying I fully buy this line of reasoning. I don’t bear anywhere near the level of ill will and distrust toward random women that some commenters here do. Also, if other respondents are correct that average women seem to react poorly to being offered seats, perhaps it is because those women are cognizant of precisely the web of reciprocal interpersonal obligations and standards of behavior which your preferred social regime would enforce, and they have decided to opt out, precisely because they are unwilling to take on the expectation of living up to the standards necessary to merit the reward in the first place.

For my sanity: am I overreacting?

The apartment complex I’ve been living in for 4 years suddenly changed the parking policy and, one week after sending the email mentioning the change, towed my wife’s car that cost us $300 to get back.

We consider this an overzealous enforcement of an aggressive policy (the garage is never more than half full), and we are extremely pissed, but management is not playing ball with us after we asked for them to give us a credit.

We’re moving out now, so if we short-pay our last month’s rent by the amount of the impound invoice, what are the ways it could bite us in the butt?

We pretty much have zero recourse otherwise.

Does the lease you signed contain anything about parking?

"You may not be guaranteed parking. We may regulate the time, manner, and place of parking of all motorized vehicles and other modes of transportation, including bicycles and scooters, in our Community Policies. In addition to other rights we have to tow or boot vehicles under state law, we also have the right to remove, at the expense of the vehicle owner or operator, any vehicle that is not in compliance with our Community Policies."

Never signed anything agreeing to the current regime of getting towed if I don't supply the correct plate number. A commenter points out below that the manner in which I was informed of the policy change may not have met legal standards.

If you're wondering what the Community Policies are, it's another section in the lease and does not appear to have anything to do with parking. Things like consenting to having my photo taken in common areas and letting them know if I get convicted of a crime.

Can you elaborate on the policy? Whether you're overreacting or not depends on whether the policy is arbitrary and intended to generate revenue or was implemented for good reason and the consequences are intended to be a heavy-handed enforcement mechanism. If, for example, the new parking policy was intended to provide open space for moving vehicles or delivery in a certain time window, I would consider it reasonable for the complex to start towing people straightaway in order to keep that clear.

I'm actually kind of surprised how many people are jumping straight to, "no, fuck them" without determining why they have this policy in the first place. If you've ever rented property out, you've probably had an experience where you only started doing something like this after a dozen violations of what you thought was a pretty reasonable policy.

Sure. There was no catalyst. New management moved in a year and a half ago, and this is just another change they’re making about how things are run. Parking is in a multi-level parking garage that has never been near capacity, so no problem that’s being solved as far as I can see. They claim increased residency, but I’ve never seen with my eyes as many vacant units as there are now since we’ve moved in.

Old policy: open parking. Residents and guests alike are allowed anywhere that’s not handicapped or a clearly-marked reserved space.

New policy: You must register your car, and if your car plate number is not on the list we give to the tow truck operator (who visits nightly!) he’s going to take it away.

Here’s the thing though, our old management collected our vehicle information anyway, and when I marched in the office and asked a useless rep what the deal was, she showed me in their system my wife’s car make, model, year, and color. Yes, we changed the plate number when reregistering with the county, and it didn’t match, so away it was towed.

As far as I’m concerned the car had every right to be in the space it was taken from. Our sin was not complying with what, as far as I’m concerned, is an internal record-keeping matter for the back office. They’ve pissed off a lot of residents with this, because they’ve been sending increasingly defensive reminders by email lately.

As far as I’m concerned the car had every right to be in the space it was taken from. Our sin was not complying with what, as far as I’m concerned, is an internal record-keeping matter for the back office. They’ve pissed off a lot of residents with this, because they’ve been sending increasingly defensive reminders by email lately.

The question is, is this worth your time?

You could escalate this to your local court by launching a claim (or shortpaying rent if the building consortium is your landlord). But is it worth the hours of paperwork and attendance to escalate this issue? There is no guarantee if you escalate this that the building will back down and quickly refund you (or let the shortfall in rent go).

I can't really see a solution that would be less than $300 worth of time here. I'd consider just moving on with your life and being upset for a short time and getting over it, rather than potentially get entangled in a legal dispute for what in hindsight is a small amount of money. If you push this through you may regret it once your emotions have cooled.

As per other comments, don't do anything illegal and try to get your revenge through legal means such as leaving a horrible (truthful) review on the building on various sites.

@yofuckreddit was almost there:

I'd leave nasty reviews across the apartment-review-scape and conduct some careful, impactful vandalism.

But just leave the reviews, and forget the misdemeanor stuff. Why risk exposing yourself to liability, when you can hurt them more, legally? Just one vacant apartment that takes them an extra month to fill will cost them more than you could safely do in damage, and "Google 'apartment towing scams'" plus your personal details is the sort of review comment that will turn careful tenants away for a decade. Nobody wants to trust a landlord who gets kickbacks from auto theft.

So that takes care of revenge. As for recourse? Check your local laws. In Texas, for example, there's all sorts of fun bits about "The landlord has the burden of proving that the tenant received a copy of the rule or policy change." (preceding a short list of options that doesn't include email), as well as "may not be effective before the 14th day after the date notice of the change is delivered to the tenant, unless the change is the result of a construction or utility emergency", plus a whole swath of signage requirements, plus a $100 civil penalty on top of the towing fee they'd owe you. This is all small-claims-court/credit-report-level stuff either way you take it, but unless you're about to miss a bill payment for lack of $300 I'd say it's better to be pressing a claim than defending against one.

This is very interesting… I may reply back on top of my email mentioning a few of these details.

Thanks.

You aren't overreacting. Skipping out on rent and squatting/forcing eviction procedures would be really damaging to them but also to you.

I'd leave nasty reviews across the apartment-review-scape and conduct some careful, impactful vandalism. You could wait to leave the reviews until you're fully prepared to move out but I'd want to let management know it was you who left them and why. They made what... $100 off that $300 tow? Fucking assholes. Landlords are scum.

I don’t think you’re overreacting, I would be pissed as well. 4 years of the same policy and they tow your car within a week of changing that policy? Yeah. That’s uncharitable to the point of viciousness.

As to your options, if you don’t pay full rent, won’t they just take it out of your deposit? Id be careful trying that.

Maybe you could ask them to split the cost of the tow? Barring some sort of vandalism or a poor Yelp/google review, I’m not sure you have any way to get back at them

How much do they hold in escrow for your deposit? You should 100% fuck with them one way or another, perhaps cost them damages in excess of $300 that they can’t trace back to you (this is trivial). But you need to own property to avoid this in the future.

I was thinking he could jam up the toilet or cut an electrical line (after tripping the breaker), but he’d have to be careful about not getting blamed for it.

They could give you a bad reference, send it to collections or take it out of your deposit. It sucks but I think for that amount of money it's usually not worth pursuing very far. If you think the new parking policy violated your lease you could try small claims court.

I don’t know, but as someone who just spent the morning driving across Dallas for a similar reason, I’m pretty pissed, too.

I wouldn’t wish driving across Dallas on anyone. I’m going to be there this weekend.

I'm sorry in advance.

Does anyone have experience of fixing poor forward-neck posture? I'm happy to do 10 mins of daily stretching, as long as the stretching will actually work. Or is it fixed by doing something else? What exactly is the mechanism?

I do facepulls at the gym, which may have helped my rounded shoulders, but my cervical spine still gives me away as a nerd.

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An ambitious goal you could set here is being able to do a good back bridge. If you’re good at the back bridge you’ll have absolutely no trouble with being stuck in thoracic flexion. Even if you never quite make it, that sort of training will be very helpful.

Try searching around for yoga, gymnastics, or flexibility programs that have that as a North Star.

I managed to improve mine with a combination of changing my seated habits, physiotherapy, and personal training. The single biggest difference for me was learning to be comfortable sitting up straight driving or typing. A lot of people have started saying 'wow you're actually really tall' since it improved, so it's well worth the effort. If you, like me, have trouble remembering; put post it notes up everywhere that remind you to push your neck back to 'overcorrect' -- it's unlikely you're actually going too far backwards and it all trains the neck muscles to sit where they should. If you're self concious, they also don't all have to say 'fix your neck you big nerd' so everyone around you can read them. A blank post it in a certain position can carry meaning for you when you see it and just look like a blank note to everyone else.

I'm glad that facepulls helped you with rounded shoulders as I'm trying to do that myself. Can you give more details? How long did it take you to get rid of rounded shoulders? What weights for the facepulls allowed you to achieve this?

I started going to the gym 2-3x/week a few months ago around March. So it was quite easy to throw in a few sets of facepulls at the end of every workout, at the very least it's another way of hitting my shoulders and back. I do about 2-3 set of ~10 most times I go to the gym. Regarding weight, bias towards lighter with good form, and if you can finish the set easily, increment the weight, but not so heavy that your form gets worse towards then end of the set. I do them on the cable machine and as described here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=eIq5CB9JfKE

I can't 100% vouch for their efficacy as I don't have before/after pics, nor was I carefully tracking my posture. I also do other back exercises which could have helped too.

I had a lot of success with this routine. I do it once a day in the morning but you can do it more than that.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FTV6UCh-yhs

YTWL on the floor.

I had to look it up

If you had to construct a curriculum of developing radical self-reliance and independence as an adult, what would it look like? Think: the Jeffersonian ideal of the Democratic citizen, someone with the bravery to speak up, spontaneity, a great deal of flexibility, a love of free play and exploration, and competence in a variety of disciplines.

The curriculum would need to be gradual, in my opinion, gentle even, to establish new habits to displace those cultivated through years of compulsory schooling and hierarchy in the work force. It would also likely need to ultimately be multifaceted, taking on e.g personal spirituality and financial independence at the same time.

Take command of something, anything. The Jeffersonian man was meant to be a leader, if not of the polity of his family (or slaves as the case may be).

Become a Boy Scout Troop Leader, teach youth group at your church or start a charity event there. Start a small side business with part time employees, or a hobby sports team. Hell, just throw parties.

In my mind, building the perfect citizen means building someone who can both obey orders and give them, and it is impossible to learn the one properly without the other. The Great Chain of Being is often philosophically skewered, but I think it is a valid worldview in so many ways adhering to both advancing human quality and human happiness.

I mean honestly, I’d suggest regular camping trips (for a week or more, and not bringing modern equipment with you, (except maybe a cellphone in case of a need for rescue)). It will force you to learn to be independent because you can’t just pop over to Piggly Wiggly if you run out of something. You need to learn to get for yourself and do for yourself if you want the thing done at all. You’ll also learn to do free play simply because the standard video game and internet won’t be there, so you’ll be doing for yourself.

IMO this would look like a slow increase of freedom and responsibility. Most natural types of freedom by nature force you to be more responsible. For example, if you're your own boss, you need to set your own hours and decide for yourself when enough work has been done.

I think modern jobs train us to be irresponsible. Do the bare minimum and go home. Don't change anything, even if it would improve things drastically, because that's against policy. Don't solve problems or do others' jobs because you will not reap the rewards of your labors.

Same with "modern" relationships--If you are not long-term committed I think you are less responsible for the ultimate fate of the relationship.

So at its most basic I think the way to become more free, self-reliant, and independent would be to get a self-directed job and start a family.

Reading materials and other strategies are also helpful I'm sure.

What if it was radical rather than gradual? Why leave triggers for old habits around while you're trying to break them? I suggest instead a series of larger jumps.

Sure! Radical works, I was merely trying to provide some shape for an answer, not necessarily to scope any suggestions to my own biases on change management.

Not strictly wellness, but I've found a new and amazing source of entertainment:

I've been reading Xianxia novels recently, and some of the translations are.. outlandish to say the least. The current book I'm reading, Reverend Insanity, has a relatively good English translation, which is what makes the sheer insanity of some scenes or depictions particularly entertaining.

So what I do is take either particularly interesting or wacky scenes or descriptions and drop them into Bing Image Creator to see what on earth the AI thinks they might look like, and since this is a relatively advanced model, it does a good job.

Dear reader, whatever you think this screenshot is before viewing, it's not. But I can assure you the whole thing makes sense in context. I think that's even funnier. Someone wrote this and someone else translated this with a straight face after all!

https://ibb.co/4T9R4M6

Slightly less insane, but just as chuckle-worthy:

I'm particularly fond of bottom left. The text that's being cropped out is-

Countless beings were living on the continents. The sky had birds and giant dragons, the ocean had sea monsters and fish, the earth had ants, tiger-elephants… There were all kinds of living beings forming an unusual food chain on the three continents!

In these three continents, the hairy men were the only rulers, occupying the dominant position.

https://ibb.co/PjWHYnn

Man's got style!

And this one is just plain badass:

https://ibb.co/2sYkKXR

I just read the novel as usual, find one of the more eyebrow raising scenes and throw them right in. It's fun!

Well, these are cool, I imagine one day we’ll be able to create these in real time as we read.

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