but which would you say came first: The Dragon or elon being perceived by others as The Dragon?

i’m sure, as with any big personality, this relationship evolves concurrently and interdependently. I just wish more had seen through him sooner. it was not difficult to predict that he would ultimately undermine himself faster than he would naturally fall out. we will keep seeing more of his type unless we can get a bit faster on the uptake.

in addition to a play on selective/strategic nudity, i find flipping the script/fucking the patriarchic hierarchy to be both arousing and fulfilling as well.

well, according to legend Siddhartha Gautama was raised as a prince and he still figured out that privilege and wealth causes suffering. alas.

spot on. doesn’t help that he’s a household name with lots of fanboys. actual notoriety of a malignant narcissist partner can easily amplify the self doubt that gets spurred on by gaslighting and other manipulative methods. not to mention she has children with him so she can’t just cut him off completely. can’t say i feel for her, but i sure would want to be in her place.

i don’t know either, but i do know that with the kimchi and kombucha trend train taking over the west, learning about fermentation should be much more accessible. maybe there are some creative alternative prep methods, like pairing less salt with celery juice, or even seaweed - or starting with leftover whey/brine from a previous fermentation. if i were you i’d try a deep focused dive on fermentation methods around the world and experiment. hope you figure something out and when you do, brand it and revolutionize cuisine!

are you by chance an enterprising individual? it sounds like you’ve stumbled onto an underserved and untapped market: healthier alternatives to traditional base ingredients. i’d be very surprised if there were not methods waiting to be discovered for prepping bean paste, fish sauce, doubanjiang etc in more health-conscious ways. the question is, who can combine culinary expertise, fermentation knowledge, cultural respect and a drive to innovate?

it’s so… glossy. genuinely beautiful shading and highlights. but can you imagine spending time zoomed in on that crotch to get the knuckle sheen just right?

thank you. i really should have picked that up by the “send flowers” upsell. can you imagine? in a unlikely set of circumstances, the additional option to have said flowers delivered could trigger a rather unfortunate infinite loop.

this is blowing my mind

I might reframe this pursuit (finding stuff to do merely because you find pleasure in the activity) as self care-in a very practical sense. I’ve tried before, especially during stretches of time without medication, to pick a specific time within a given week, say Tuesdays and Thursdays after dinner, to meaningfully allocate my focus towards an unspecified non-productive activity. Sketching, jigsaw puzzles, taking a walk, reading a book, etc. By keeping it unspecified I can easily swap out one activity for another when the time comes and by viewing it as block of recurring scheduled time that is tied to my existing schedule, it’s much easier to remember to incorporate it into my day. As contrast, if I planned “to take a walk next Thursday after dinner”, chances are I’ll end up forgetting beforehand or get caught up in something else.

I suppose if I squint I could say adhering to this schedule change could be considered exercising discipline, but to me it feels like an ambiguous and pressured oversimplification.

i’m so sorry you live under that pressure of others expectations. having the capacity to take a disciplined approach and self moderate your behaviors is an important skillset, no doubt. but that is not the same thing as feeling and nurturing intrinsic motivation.

from what i understand, dopamine plays a massive factor in contributing to motivation in most people.

made a todo list? here’s some dopamine. finish a task? have another drop of dopamine.

meanwhile, the dispensing system in an ADHD brain is faulty and thus does not deliver the same sense of accomplishment that would generally fuel an NT to continue their productivity.

warm take: while i agree finding strategies for “manual mode” are import, so is, imo, learning how to sit comfortably in that unproductive space. counter productive as it may seem, sometimes it’s the weight of that pressure to feel motivated that’s the stressor, not the lack of motivation in and of itself.

yeah, definitely not the right time for that. 100%, two parties is insufficient and in an ideal world we would have 5-6 parties who actually discuss and compete over policy. but it would have to be accomplished strategically, not when totalitarianism is holding a full house.

further, the “iron dome” of israel wouldn’t cover the state of florida. can you even imagine the logistics of trying to install one to cover the continental united states?

i want you to know, i specifically looked for your update post. so glad you have found resolution.

oh, there is definitely a tape.

“passable level of technique, entirely uninspired work without any semblance of originality”

they saw right through him.

is this like a spanking thing?

love your come/pepsi metaphor. i think it was a piece in the atlantic not too long ago comparing desantis to sweet-n-low and trump to high-fructose corn syrup. but that was describing him at his peak. if memory serves that was just before one of his staffers was publicly fired as the fall guy for a neonazi pro-desantis clip that went viral. right around the puddingfingers incident but before he decided to single-handed bring down disney. he has fallen so far so fast.

it will be interesting to see how haley fares in this. i have some of those “old republicans” in my family who hope haley will wind back the party’s clock pre-trump. a nice fantasy. i do wonder how large that demographic is. she is pulling in koch support so there are big players trying to move some pieces. but i certainly don’t see it actually happening.

i definitely get the sense that this is going to be a vicious and chaotic election cycle no matter how it plays out.

six months ago i was worried. now he’s just the punchline.