Pure Pastels
Depressed? Try painting a smile on objects you surround yourself with.
Duckstack, recommended by 9 out of 10 dentists
It seems1 that different people are born with different teeth. Some people have teeth the consistency of bike tires, and get cavities very easily, and others have teeth more like rocks, hardened by many years of crunching the same, the rock dust rubbing off and coating the teeth making them exceptionally hard. This is how the caveman lived. “Rocks? You mean caveman toothpaste?” Yes. However, this remedy does not work for everyone. Lets say you are a sad bike-tire toother, and your teeth have become so soft that you can no longer chew rocks. Perhaps this seems absurd to you but many people let their teeth get to this state! You would be surprised. Now, you need something that can coat your teeth, but is still soft enough for you to chew in your whimpering pathetic oral state. Might I suggest The Duckstack?
Printed on pieces of paper, The Duckstack will certainly be soft enough for you to chew without it chewing chunks of you right back. You will win this match of masticating of Rock-Paper-Scissors! Now you may ask yourself how something soft will harden your teeth. The answer is found in ancient Japan.
Japan is a land without access to many natural resources, so the Japanese found themselves in the situation that they had to improvise if they wanted to have any warfare. Japanese warriors carried katana, a Japanese word that translates to “sword” in English2, but these katana would cut right through their sheaths, which was inconvenient. Imagine a sword hanging off your leg, loose and flapping around giving the top of your foot papercuts. Quite unwieldy! And again, they had no natural resources, they couldn’t make sheaths out of rocks. So instead, they used what is today known as the Additive Principle of Particle Physics3: Lots of things together is strong. By layering bamboo leaves, paper, candy wrappers, really just whatever else they had on hand, they were able to construct sheaths for their katanae from origami. I am told by my Japanese father that they would layer 1000 sheets, folded around each other, making the scabbard so hard it could double as a weapon in its own right.
In like manner, if you chew a Duckstack a Day, you will be able to effectively layer your teeth, preventing cavities and increasing your Mohs-per-tooth ratio. Additionally, each Duckstack is infused with Strontium Aluminate, giving your teeth a signature shine that will get all your friends talking!
HUSOTRY
Remember team, there’s no “i” in “Husotry”
The Little One loves Gogurts, and often is found with four or five in his fist throughout the house. Well, I guess he left one for the Littlest One, who has now discovered the Best Chew Toy Ever. Picture him, however you picture him, in overalls, crawling along the kitchen, hands and feet on the ground, Gogurt earnestly packed in his mouth. My deepest fear is that his teething will eventually rupture the outside, leading to an unprecedented and catastrophic sugar rush, hopeless and irreversible addiction, and finally, death. I’m not going to take it away from him though.
Earlier the Littlest One was trying to eat a whole 5 gallon paint bucket. Thankfully, he had the Little One there to inform him: “Hey! That’s not Milk!”
This week, my wife went into their room at night, and the Little One commented “That’s not me!” What is he dreaming?
The next day, I asked him why he was crying, and he told me it was “because mama said I can’t watch TV because I’m throwing a fit!” Pretty tragic. I don’t see any path to recovery.
I took the Littlest One to a barbeque thing, and I let him crawl around on the cement, as a treat. Picture the Littlest One, fixated and hyper alert, as he notices an ant on the sidewalk, and picture him proceeding to chase it around like a laser pointer. Terrorizing this poor ant. Batting at it. Filling this ant with playful adrenaline. They both had so much fun.
The Littlest One has eaten his fill of markers this week, so hopefully next week he’ll gain their powers and become an artist.
The Little One has taken to prefacing random things with “uh oh” and “wait a minute” and “Something’s missing!” which is fantastic. Out of the blue, he’ll say things like “Uh oh, I want dinosaur toys.” or “Wait a minute, something’s missing… I need a teddy bear to hold its hand!” or “uh oh, something’s missing here… I want to blow bubbles!”
Jesse and I talked about career advice, and upon graduating my talk I gave him a filing cabinet as a present. We waddled it outside and waddled around our lawn, waddling around with our filing cabinets. Like True Businessmen.
SELF HELP
First Rule Of Respect: Don’t act like people owe you
I came across this tweet the other day, and it struck me as an interesting cultural artifact from a world I have done a pretty good job at cutting out of my life completely. Everyone naturally wants to be treated well and in fact most people like being consulted with on just about everything, and it is tragic when you put in all this work for a certificate only to find out that somewhere you like doesn’t honor it.
She got a lot of responses telling her that she is “so valid” and “deserves better” but personally I think it is not moral4 to demand people give you something for free or else you will be mad or hurt about it.
I think she probably suspects, in her mind, that the reason people don’t value her expertise is either because 1) her advice is usually bad, 2) she has bad and unsure presentation of her ideas, signaling she isn’t actually an expert (even if she is internally correct), or 3) because she is overweight, but either way this is a charisma thing, and her inability to take herself as she is, and as people view her, and work from there, is the source of this social anxiety she complains of. This self-reinforcing depression a lot of people get into, and the solution to depression is usually grit5. She would probably be immensely happier if she adjusted her approach to these situations, either more humbly, caring less about how others take her ideas, or losing weight.
The weight loss thing sounds unjust, but it is actually fair to expect a competence distribution in a person- if they are poor at managing their health, and that’s all you know about them, it isn’t wrong to assume they’re probably bad at managing other things too. Exceptions don’t dispute the rule- heuristics can be wrong, but they usually aren’t, and unless you are going to be extremely involved with a situation, they are a lot more cost effective than giving every little thing the maximum benefit of the doubt. It is nice if someone does. But you can’t expect everyone to. You can’t demand everyone treat you a way that you haven’t earned, you can’t demand everyone respect your signals. Sometimes in life, especially if you’re trying to integrate into a group, you need to learn new signals. On the old internet, we called this “lurk moar”. Sit back and observe a little, so that you understand the social rules. Don’t expect to know everything. Be patient with your social integration and trust that your real competence will come out and be acknowledged eventually, naturally, if you shine through and 🐝yourself.
HIPPOS: A REVIEW
What the heck lol
Sample size: like three
rish
probably
And I guess by this I actually mean “practical” because “practical” and “moral” are often times extremely closely related
I don’t mean “just stop being sad lol” but “muscle through it to do productive things anyway”