I genuinely believe that people don't appreciate just how much of all the bad vibes right now are still largely a COVID hangover. It was a profoundly traumatizing event for American society, on the order of the civil war or the great depression and we've largely decided to just pretend

*pats back consolingly*

my legs are protesting my recent decision to exercise them

dishy mcflatface

*gulp* m-me?

the emperor has no clothes

retuvn

I find this idea quite endearing

GOALS

Do you encounter a grue?

Omigod Omigod Omigod, my plantain has a teeny little sprout :3

Or how to enjoy fiction while not inappropriately updating on the "evidence" you experienced in the "world".

For example, if you had to choose between a bunch of negative or positive inner simming your plans, you should lean to simming the success case. Because the brain runs a little bit on self-confirming prophecy! Ideally, you want a sandwich of visualizing success before and after predicting failures.

I think the concept of epistemic hygiene got too caught up on how to avoid contaminating others with your icky biases and not enough on how to clean up the aftereffects of using logic in your head. Because, you know, thinking stuff isn't actually a neutral action.

It's driving home that Art is not a esoteric talent, it is a skill and I could get better at it but I'd have to practice >:X

Today I used the box technique to draw the best chair I've ever drawn and I'm mad about it

Good pitch, good pitch!

I disagree in fact but emotionally I'm right there with you

newer computers are less effective boat anchors than older ones

laptops are basically useless

Oof, Lo siento

a Reading strategy from writing a summary video in they say/i say ch. 2

i finally put this in sidetrail like i've been meaning to. good thing i procrastinated till after the refresh, eh?

Gawd I wish that were me :'-(

If I get job security, meals and housing, and free healthcare I'd consider it.

Today I channeled Loki for flexibility. My offering is to be telling people terrible jokes, also maybe burning a piece of beef later to keep with tradition. "He's not picky" , except I am highly skeptical. He's gonna want something really over the top next time I know it.

The Tarot Deck - Elements A collection of usable elements from my future personal tarot deck.

Check it out.

The Most Important Post - Thinking Half Done In trying to write for my substack, I have a significant problem: Some part of me refuses to write anything than the absolute most important thing that could...

So, I wrote a thing about writing a thing. Beware, may contain trace amounts of madness.

What happened to sidetrail? There was some and then there was one (now two)?

i just walked "What happened to sidetrail?" by @valerierayne13.bsky.social

sidetrail.app/@valerierayn...

In the rationalist metaphor, your brain is not inherently a map. It's a paper in the territory, a particularly powerful (cruxy) piece of it actually. Drawing on that paper, no matter whether you draw a detailed map or nonsense, is not a neutral act with no consequences on the territory around it.

You might be familiar with the idea of a "speech act", in which you say words not to encode a concept or transmit information but to alter reality in the act of saying them.

There's an analogous idea of a "belief act"–filling your mind with an idea not for reflecting reality but for creating it.

I have decided. Fuck trying to find a leftbrain frame for magical thinking, I'm gonna become a witch.

No more distantly appreciating the aesthetic; time to cast spells. It's dumb to believe in the psychological power of ritual and not be making regular use of it to adjust my own psychology.