I just read that ask about Vlad that you did and was wondering if you had any thoughts about Jack and Maddie. They have clear love for there kids and when they know they are in danger they will drop everything for them, but they also don't notice when there is somthing wrong going on. Valerie would be another good one, though I think that she mostly framed around how whe is manipulated by others (like Vlad).

(the Vlad ask)

So, I have quite a few thoughts on Maddie and Jack, and they’re probably some of the most complex.

I’ve talked about this before but one of the quirks/ bugs/ features of Danny Phantom’s tumultuous production and at-times-contradictory canon is that there can be multiple disparate readings that are all somewhat supported.  And no more is this true than for the (nominally) good Doctors Fenton.

Let’s talk about the meta-side first because it’s kind of fascinating.

Issa Nicktoon

Sounds kind of dismissive to say it that way but I think it’s important to remember that Danny Phantom is an early 2000s TV7+ (i.e. “for kids”) Nicktoon and some artefacts of canon are clearly concessions to the medium.

As a formulaic episodic kids show, the Status Quo is God - characters rarely experience substantial change or ongoing arcs/ consequences and even episodic A-Plots tend to reset major developments by the end.  (I’ve talked about some of the problems it causes for Sam specifically here.)

Things like hyperbolic cartoonery and Aesops are also in play; characterisation and situations getting hyper-charged or hijacked by the Idiot Ball/ Jerk Ball/ Conflict Ball etc. in service of jokes or whatever “moral lesson” a given episode might decide to be about.  (It’s really not in-keeping for Danny to act like he did in Livin’ Large but the show wanted a “don’t be materialistic/ wealth isn’t everything” lesson so he got Jerk-Balled.)

There’s also stuff that mostly exists for narrative convenience, and that the producers either didn’t consider or actively try to avoid the implications of.  Maddie and Jack being as clueless as they are about their kids is at least partially a convenience to keep them out of the way.  The show doesn’t want to engage with the implications of ghosts being dead people, the implications of ghosts being sentient, or the fridge-logic/ fridge-horror ramifications of a bunch of its one-liners and contrivances.  It wants to be a fun hero comedy cartoon with a spooky twist and it absolutely doesn’t want you thinking about any of it too hard.

Because of that, you kind of have to be selective about when to read things ‘to the letter’ and when to read things ‘in spirit’.  Do you choose to take everything as having literally happened as depicted (even when those things could have terrible or story-breaking implications) or do you take the general impression from the whole and exclude specific outliers on the grounds that they only exist as a concession to the nature of the show?

Maddie and Jack’s Weird Fictional Niche

I also want to briefly touch on the unusual narrative space the Fentons occupy in the realm of hero-story-parents.

(For simplicity I’m going to take inspiration from OSP’s video and refer to the ‘secret’ side of the double-life that teen superhero/ urban fantasy protagonists interact with as the ‘fantastical world’.)

When it comes to stories with child/ teen heroes who have living parents, I feel like you can map most of them against 3 axes:

How aware are they of the fantastical world in general?

How aware are they of their kids’ activities in the fantastical world?

If they are involved in the fantastical world themselves, is it in a way that is supportive or antagonistic to their kids activities?

It’s a pretty stock trope for these parents to be both ignorant of the fantastical world (or at least, no more aware than the average person) and unaware of their kids activities.  This is often done by putting these parents somewhere on the scale between too preoccupied/ overworked to notice what’s going on and actively uncaring/ neglectful/ abusive.  Again, it’s mostly a narrative convenience to explain how the kids can get up to so many unsupervised shenanigans while also having a stable homebase.

Rarer is seeing parents who are directly involved in the fantastical world without being aware of or interacting with their kid’s activities.  I think the most common version here is typically when the parents are studying some tangential aspect of the fantastical world while their kids fight villains/ have adventures somewhere else.

What’s weird about Maddie and Jack is that not only are they fully aware of the fantastical world (being the ones to open the portal), they’re also completely unaware of their kids’ presence in that world even though they’re active in the same areas, AND - most unusually - they are personally antagonistic to most of that world and Danny’s alter-ego in specific. 

That’s pretty unique.  Typically you would expect that to be a villain archetype; a classic setup where the parents act as the main Bad Guys (or are working for the Big Bad) while their kids assume secret alter egos and enter the fantastical world in order to stop them. 

But that’s not what’s going on.  Despite qualifying as secondary antagonists, Maddie and Jack are never presented or treated as villains; they have no ‘evil scheme’ or agenda, they are not sadistic or exploitative.  The show frames them as likeable and relatable (if annoying).

And despite everything, both they and their kids sincerely love and want happiness/ success for each other.

The Fentons as Parents

To me, Maddie and Jack as parents embody the concept of and:  

Someone can love you and hurt you.

Someone can want the best for you and not understand who you are at all.

Someone can sincerely care about you and completely fail to recognise your needs.

Someone can want to support you and never be there when you need them most.

Someone can try their best and it can still not be anywhere near enough.

You can love someone and they can have hurt you in ways that might be unforgivable.

You can want to be with someone and they can be unhealthy for you to be around.

I think this is one of the places where Danny Phantom’s production being kind of a mess has allowed it to accidentally resonate with a rarely-depicted but very real emotional experience.

So, are they abusive and/or neglectful?

I want to be clear that abuse and/or neglect is in the impact, not the intent.  That isn’t to say intent is irrelevant (especially in fiction) but the most important thing is the effect.

And from that perspective…

Yeah, even with the most generous ‘in spirit’ reading Maddie and Jack are at the very least emotionally neglectful to their kids.  They are rarely present for their kids (definitely not consistently) and even when physically present they’re often mentally focussed elsewhere.  They rarely listen to Danny and Jazz; often talking over them, derailing conversations to be about ghosts and dismissing Danny and Jazz’s opinions on the topic when they try to participate by offering counterpoints.  While they don’t restrict their kid’s hobbies we rarely see them actively participate or encourage them on screen, and they often ignore Danny and Jazz’s attempts to express that they don’t want ghosts/ the supernatural being brought into all the family time they spend together.  It’s very easy to read Jazz’s interest in psychology as her at least partially trying to find the emotional guidance and framework that their parents are failing to provide, and to pass that on to Danny second-hand.

The Fenton household seems like it could be a very emotionally lonely and invalidating environment for a child to grow up in.  The thing with love is that it’s not just about feelings: it’s about actions, and (while Maddie and Jack no doubt feel and think that they love their kids unconditionally) what they have routinely shown Danny and Jazz is that - outside of emergencies - they will choose ghosts ahead of their children 90% of the time.

It’s also hard to ignore that - even in a generous reading - the Fenton parents probably do count as physically criminally negligent.  They have a laboratory in their basement where they deal with potentially biohazardous substances but there is no containment separating it from the rest of the house (it’s unclear if there’s even a door).  Danny’s chores include cleaning and equipment maintenance in the lab (some of which can be explosively dangerous) which he does without PPE or supervision.  The unsecured portal releases ghosts directly onto the premises, sending them up through the house on their way to terrorise the town.  Even outside the lab, the kids are at risk of being exposed to barely-tested stuff like Fenton-Foamer.  Maddie and Jack bring unsealed ectoplasmic samples and power sources to the breakfast table, sometimes storing them alongside or even using them to prepare the food their kids eat.  Danny only became Phantom (an event that either partly killed him or mutated him into some kind of hybrid) because a group of teenagers were allowed unsupervised access to a lab containing an un-signposted piece of malfunctioning equipment that was left connected to power.  (And sure, maybe the trio shouldn’t have snuck down there in the first place but “rely on a teenager to never do stupid things” should not be the sole safety precaution.)  None of that is good.

Taking a more strict ‘to the letter’ reading makes them seem much worse; at times crossing the line into ‘wilfully harmful’.  There’s a joke about how Jack has made most of the lab work Danny’s job because he’s too lazy to do it himself.  There’s the iron maiden thing, sometimes they lecture or scold Danny in a way that feels very not good, and then there was the whole bit about putting him in a spinner ‘to get the crazy out’ in The Fenton Menace.  It’s not invalid for people to argue that, based on a strict reading, the Fenton parents could be some form of abusive.

The Problem with Their Parenting

I think the core problem with the Fenton’s parenting can be summed up in this diagram:

The surface level problem is obvious: Maddie and Jack prioritise their work over their kids way too much.  That isn’t to say that parents’ lives should be 100% about their kids but they should be swinging for a better balance.  At the very least they should be able to have more than a handful of conversations with their kids that don’t end in them making it all about ghosts.  It’s like they can’t compartmentalise.

However, it’s that top one that’s the real problem.  Maddie and Jack’s paranoid hatred/ fear/ distrust of all things ghostly is a consuming fixation.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s partially driving their obsession with their work.

That ectophobia also creates a very emotional unhealthy (and at times physically unsafe) environment for Jazz and especially Danny.  Like I said in the DP’s asexual fanbase post every part of their lives from their language to their behaviour is steeped in casual prejudice.  Not only is it psychologically harmful for Danny and Jazz to be internalising these beliefs, it’s yet another thing that makes their love feel less certain/ more conditional.

It’s also a super weird mindset for a pair of supposed scientists to have.

Ectophobia and Bad Science

Maddie and Jack are pretty textbook examples of the Fantastic Racism Trope; they have an irrational hatred for specific paranormal entities and some of the things they do could definitely be categorised as Van Helsing Hate Crimes.

However, while it makes sense for the routinely-terrorised townsfolk of Amity Park to be generally anti-ghost based on their experiences, it’s very strange for Maddie and Jack to also have this mindset (considering that they were the ones who chose to actively seek them out for ‘study’), and even weirder that they are the ones who most strongly spread that rhetoric to the community.

The Doctors Fenton are very unscientific in a lot of ways; they don’t use any form of the scientific method (hypothesise → test → repeat) when it comes to ghosts, and they seemingly went into the field with series of pre-set beliefs that they had formed before gathering any firsthand data.

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” -Sherlock Holmes

Not only that, but they’re very incurious about most ghostly things.  They seemingly aren’t interested in studying the behaviour of ghosts, their habits and interactions (ecto-ecology), or questioning why they might act a certain way.  Their approach seems to be more about hunting/capturing ghosts, taking them apart to see how they physically work and then using the remains to build new, more effective anti-ghost technology.

From that perspective, it’s almost worth questioning whether their anti-ghost prejudice is actually serving a self-protective function: if it’s less about the belief and more about what it enables.  If ghosts are inherently evil, dangerous, non-sentient/ impulse-driven, incapable of feeling pain or emotions and only imitating these things as a manipulative defence/ predation strategy then it’s not morally wrong for Maddie and Jack to hunt them and subject them to inhumane experimentation.  That might explain why their rhetoric has internal inconsistencies (“non-sentient manipulator” is an oxymoron) and why they continue to cling to it and double-down even when faced with contradictory evidence.  So long as they believe it, they never have to feel guilt or question themselves.

Obviously the actual answer is that it’s a Nicktoon and Maddie and Jack ever significantly changing their beliefs/ behaviour is Forbidden by the Formula™ but we’re analysing from a Watsonian perspective right now so hush. 

It would be interesting to know how they might have come about this belief in the first place, since it doesn’t seem to be from firsthand data.  Maybe they’re working from bad anecdotes or folklore, biasing towards the idea of ghosts as evil.  Maybe they’re carrying a personal bias from an early firsthand encounter (perhaps in their college days) that left a terrible first impression.

Whatever the case, the fact that they keep holding onto this hypothesis and dismissing alternatives, rather than actually testing it against the mounting pile of obviously contradictory evidence, kind of shows how unwilling - or maybe unable - they are to consider that they could be wrong.

“one of the greatest human failings is to prefer to be right than to be effective” -Stephen Fry

Narcissism vs Egocentrism

Something that strikes me is that Maddie, Jack and Vlad are in some ways extremely similar.  In the Vlad post, I said that one of the things that makes Vlad so dangerous is that he shows signs of malignant narcissism.  Similarly, I think the main thing that makes Maddie and Jack so unintentionally harmful is that they are supremely egocentric.

Egocentrism refers to someone's inability to understand that another person's view or opinion may be different than their own. …an egocentric person does not necessarily obsess over things like success, beauty, or status. They simply don't consider other people in their decision-making. -Verywell Mind

It’s more obvious in Jack because of his general social cluelessness; his opening line in the whole show is asking if insisting the kids want to hunt ghosts and then completely ignoring that all three say ‘no’; he brings up the ‘Hairy Chin’ nickname because he doesn’t see how that ‘funny memory’ might be embarrassing or hurtful.  Maddie is more socially savvy but there is also a benign condescension/ dismissiveness in her reaction towards views other than her own.  They are both more capable of compassion than Vlad but, like him, they show very little natural empathy. 

They both also tend to assume their perspective is universal/ correct, and/or not consider how their actions might affect other people.  It doesn’t seem to occur to them that maybe other people don’t want to talk about ghosts all the time.  They don’t consider how barging into the school and making a ruckus might impact their kids socially or hurt their relationship with the faculty.  They never develop perspective that maybe they should put aside their exhausting yearly Santa argument for the sake of a positive holiday experience with their kids, even though that argument never goes anywhere.  They don’t seem to include their kids in making family plans and just take it as read that Danny and Jazz will be totally on-board and satisfied with whatever they decide.

At times it’s like they borderline forget their kids but then believe they should/ act like they have a really close relationship with them when they do pay attention.  (They actually do this with Vlad as well - Jack treating him with the same overly-close college-roommate familiarity despite years of silence).  It’s almost a failure of object permanence; they disappear off into their own minds and come back expecting the other person to be exactly the same as when they left - like a reverse-weeping-angel who freezes whenever they’re not being looked at.  And when they do notice something is amiss (or someone gets upset with them) they often default to wondering what is wrong with the other person rather than considering whether they might have done something. 

None of this is to say that Maddie and Jack are malicious, or to suggest that they don’t like or care about their kids.  It’s more like they’re trapped in their own little bubble of being The Heroic Doctors Maddie and Jack Fenton, Genius Ghost-Hunters Extraordinaire and it completely walls them off from the reality of other people’s needs and feelings.  They simply don't consider other people in their decision-making and unfortunately their kids are part of the other people.  They do love Danny and Jazz.  They love them so much… when they remember that they exist.

And it’s worth noting that the behaviours and feelings we see from Danny and Jazz align pretty well to how dealing with egocentricity can affect people:

Low self-worth: feeling irrelevant, as if your opinions don't matter Self-doubt: questioning your own judgment or perception Confusion: wondering if the person recognizes their egocentric ways Sadness: feeling sorry for the person or sad for yourself after interacting with them Anger: frustration and anger over not feeling seen or heard Resentment: becoming bitter toward them for the ways they behave and how you feel after interactions Detachment: a desire to move away from the person as much as you can in order to protect your sense of self. -Verywell Mind

What to do?

I want to reprise the same idea I expressed in the Vlad post:  Maddie and Jack are not Danny and Jazz’s responsibility.  Functional relationships require participation from both parties.  And when it comes to relationships between children and adult parents/ mentors it is not the job of the child to assume primary responsibility for managing the relationship, their parents’ feelings or their parents’ lives.

As it stands, this relationship is not functional or healthy.  Something’s got to give.

Which is painful and complicated because they all do love each other. 

It’s that idea of and again:

You can love someone, you can want their affection, their approval, a positive relationship AND you can be in a position where continuing to stay and try for that will end up doing more harm than good.

I see things going one of two ways:

1. The relationship gives

The kids end up leaving - either cutting contact or at least pulling away. 

There are a bunch of things that could lead to this.  Maybe their parents don’t accept Danny when the truth comes out, and they have to flee.  Maybe Jazz moves out and offers for Danny to come and stay with her.  Maybe they just grow up, move away to have their own lives and rarely come home.

The best outcome here would be Danny and Jazz being able to reach a place where they feel safe (emotionally and physically), unconditionally loved and can start healing into a sense of confidence/comfortableness with themselves: whether that’s just with each other or as part of some kind of larger community/ found family group.

2. Maddie and Jack's behaviour gives

Here something would need to happen to shake Maddie and Jack out of their egocentrism, make them realise how much their ectophobic obsession has been hurting their kids and their relationship with them, and that they need to make a committed effort to change their behaviour if they want a hope of salvaging things.  The thing with love is that it’s not just about feelings: it’s about actions.

Considering how resistant and generally obtuse Maddie and Jack can be towards accepting things they don’t want to realise, this could require a quite drastic inciting incident (Danny being hurt, the kids deciding to leave), although it could also be a slow build of subtle things that eventually breaks the dam.

And I do want to stress that ‘change in behaviour’ bit. This kind of quasi-redemption-arc really needs to be about recognising why the behaviour was harmful and realising they want to be better.  If it’s primarily about absolving themselves of feeling bad or undoing undesirable consequences then it’s still egocentric; in which case there’s no guarantee that they wouldn’t backslide down the line, or slide into a near-identical behaviour that’s just superficially different enough to avoid the same criticism.  The main goal and reward of a redemption path is the character(s) on the path growing into better people.

As for actually reconciling, it would be up to Danny and Jazz to decide when and if they want to accept any prospective olive branches.  Forgiveness is admirable, but not owed.

Like I said, it’s messy and complicated.

Someone can love you and hurt you.

Someone can try their best and it can still not be anywhere near enough.

You can love someone and they can have hurt you in ways that might not be forgivable.

And, as parents, Maddie and Jack Fenton are - quite by accident - some of the most emotionally complex, realistically flawed and believably human characters in Danny Phantom’s canon.

Your Moon Sign and what your soul is craving for?

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Sun is our active side, our vitality, ego and individuality whereas Moon is our feelings, emotions, instincts and personality. The Moon reflects on our personal life, our inner world not very much visible from others. Therefore, knowing your Moon sign you can become more aware with another layer of your personality in rather subjective level.

 You can find out your Moon sign on your Birth Chart (use a birth chart calculator – you can find a such online) by looking at what sign your natal Moon is stationed in.  (Example: you found you natal Moon in Sign of Virgo = Your Moon sign is Virgo). 

So, what you Moon sign talks about your personality?

 Moon in ARIES -Aries is a fire sign, therefore your emotional response is spontaneous and intense.  Moon here gives a quality of self -confidence, adventurous spirit and sudden changes. Emotional needs with this placement of Moon are fulfilled through actions. There is also an emotional need for domineering and lead others. 

Moon in TAURUS – Moon in Taurus is in its sign of exultation. It talks about emotionally stable personality. Emotional needs are met through possessions, beautiful things in life -food, clothes, art, love etc. Moon here makes a person trustworthy, affectionate and warm. On the down side, Moon in Taurus makes a person overcautious, possessive and a slave to routine. 

Moon in GEMINI – Moon in Gemini talks about a strong emotional attachment to siblings and community. Emotional satisfaction comes through communication, social connections and intellectual activities. But Gemini tendencies of nervousness and overthinking are subject to emotional fluctuation and changes, respectively moodiness and anxieties.

 Moon in CANCER – Moon is the ruling planet of Cancer; therefore, Cancerians are well adapted to Moon’s influence. This placement of Moon talks about intuitive, imaginative and protective personality. Feelings and emotions go to family, home, relatives and close people in a such person’s life. But this placement of Moon makes a person very sensitive, moody, critical, overprotective and possessive.  

Moon in LEO – Moon in Leo indicates a strong emotional desire for pride, recognition and leadership. Emotional satisfaction comes when such a person is in the centre of attention, in authority position and enjoying extravagant lifestyle. Creativity, love or artistic ventures are great emotional stimuli. However, Moon in Leo could lead to unconscious needs of self -indulgence, arrogance and egocentrism.

 Moon in VIRGO – Moon in Virgo talks about emotional attachment towards practicality, order, responsibilities and service. Intellectual, analytical activities and desire for being in help, fixing and solving problems give great emotional fulfilment for Virgo Moon. On the other hand, this placement of Moon indicates a lack of self-confidence, and critical and sceptical approach to life, in general. 

Moon in LIBRA – Moon in Libra is emotionally fascinated when it comes to relationship, partnership and marriage. Strong feelings and emotions are expressed towards romantic life, aesthetic, art, and beautiful and pleasurable things in life. However, emotional struggles with Moon in Libra person could appear because of indecisiveness, tendencies for overspendings and even laziness from time to time. 

Moon in SCORPIO – Moon in Scorpio emotions are easily triggered when it comes to mysteries of life, search for inner truth/wisdom; sex and death. This placement talks about very emotional, imaginative and ambitious personality. Such a person is very well aware of the emotions (as a part of the human nature) in a deeply psychological level that they even have the ability consciously to detach themselves from them. The down side of Moon in Scorpio is the tendency of obsession, jealousy and control.

 Moon in SAGITARIUS - Moon in Sagittarius shows a great emotional attachment to matters regarding education, philosophy, religion and higher knowledge in general. Foreign places and travels are at great interest.  It also signifies optimistic personality, great sense of humour and self-confidence.  However, Moon in Sagittarius also suggests that careless, uncommitted and irresponsible behaviour, from time to time, could be the case. 

 Moon in CAPRICORN – Moon in Capricorn indicates that emotional desires go towards earthly targets and materialistic side of life along with practicality and determination. Emotional self-control is a typical part of the personality. But because Moon is in its sign of detriment, shyness, hiding emotion, pessimistic thoughts and worries could make such a person emotionally unsatisfied and unsecure. Patience and long-term goals are key with a such placement. 

Moon in AQUARIUS – Moon in Aquarius suggest that emotions and feelings go towards humanitarian matters, community and social activities. Original ideas, innovations, high tech and tolerance are emotionally intriguing subjects. Although people with Moon in Aquarius are friendly and open-minded, they can experience sudden and unpredictable emotional changes and even can become emotionally detached from others. 

Moon in PISCES – Moon in Pisces are deeply emotional, intuitive and imaginative people. They are gifted with creativity, vision and even psychic abilities. Their emotions are very often source of inspiration for art activities, spiritual practises and romantic ventures. Kindness, compassion and generosity are other personal characteristics. However, Moon in Pisces could make such a person confused, delusional, secretive and disconnected from the reality.

Thank you!

suni astrology

on writing kiddos

Hi, hello there, it’s me again back with the first bit of meta in a really long time. I’ve been incredibly distracted with school as well as my longfic, which was actually the inspiration for this post.  Just to provide some context, I write a story that spans the lives of my two protagonists from the time they are young children, all the way to their mid twenties, highlighting pivotal moments in their childhood that have had some lasting impact on their present day selves, and as such, I have spent quite a lot of time writing from the perspective of precocious kids and moody teens.  

Fortunately, I love kids, and I’ve had years of experience in both being a big sister and working professionally with kids as both a childcare worker and a therapist.  I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time around kiddos and learn the inner workings of their amazing, rapidly developing brains, and so I’m here to share some of the things I’ve learned AND how it can be applied in a writing situation.  I know that lots of people have apprehensions when writing kids, and so I hope that my anecdotal tips will be helpful to someone out there.

I’ll drop the rest behind a handy dandy read more to spare your all’s feeds. ;D

Age and Cognitive Development

When we write adult characters, part of getting their characterization pinned down is understanding how they think, and the same thing applies to kiddos! Cognitive and socio-emotional development are long-researched topics, so there are a multitude of varying theories, and it can be quite complex to break down into neat categories that apply to all kids.  In fact, all kids develop at different rates, despite following the same general trajectory.

Generally speaking, children start out understanding the world primarily through their senses, reflexes, and movements (interactions with the environment), and end with a fairly complex system of abstraction and understanding of hypotheticals.  (Note that these development ranges are based upon those who are neurotypical and neurodiverse characters would not necessarily have the same markers, so if anyone has any specific tips for writing neurodiverse kids and would like to chime in, please feel free to do so!)

0-2 years - highly sensory/motor based, lots of reflexes; learn the difference between self and environment and differences between objects.  Emotions develop more rapidly, beginning with anger, disgust, fear, surprise, happiness, and gradually developing more and more complicated feelings.  Even at 2 years old, they are likely to not have a solid grasp on labeling the ways they are feeling, and things are mostly behavioral and reflexive. 

2-7 years - children begin to understand symbols and develop language, beginning with the basics and progressing to fairly complex thoughts.  Children between these ages think in a very concrete fashion and are highly reliant upon objects, but they do begin to pretend and roleplay. Children around these ages are egocentric and usually struggle to take the perspective of others. However, they begin to develop the ability to identify and express their feelings and thoughts simply, but struggle to understand the thoughts and feelings of others. 

Mommy had a scrunched up face when she looked a the mess in the house. Billy didn’t really know why her face did that sometimes. (approx 4ish)

7 - 11(ish) - Development of perspective-taking and concrete problem-solving. Thoughts gradually become more complex and holistic, though children at this stage of development take things literally, and at face-value. They typically can understand their own feelings and infer the feelings of others from facial expressions, body language, etc., although they may be inaccurate in their assumptions. 

Mommy’s face scrunched up when she looked at the mess Billy made in the floor.  It was the same face she made when Daddy didn’t take his shoes off before stepping on the carpet.  It usually meant mommy was annoyed  (Approx. 7-8)

Mom’s face wrinkled when she looked at the mess Billy had left in the floor.  He began to pick his things up so she wouldn’t fuss at him. (Approx 10 or 11)

11+ - The ability to think in the abstract and understand hypotheticals begins to develop around age 11, however, it’s different for everyone.  Children and teens usually start to have rather complex thoughts and make inferences based on subtle cues.  They’re able to manipulate information mentally and come to develop their own opinions and conclusions. 

Billy’s mother wasn’t even home yet, and he could already see the look on her face she would have when she saw the mess on the floor.  He hurredly began to scrub the stain from the rug.  He was going to be in so much trouble. He knew it.  

Teenagerdom - Most teens have all the complex thoughts and emotions that adults have, but often have less experience and/or ability to cope with and regulate those thoughts and feelings. Many teens are stuck in this place of being expected to behave in an adult way, while still being treated as a child.  It’s a rough time.  Not to mention, teenagers experience a re-emergence of  egocentrism that takes the form of “Everyone is watching and judging me all the time,” and also “Nobody has ever experienced what I am experiencing and if they have experienced it, then they haven’t experienced it to this degree.”  That all settles down with cognitive maturation and experiences; however, the experiences of teenagers often extend well into the 20s. 

Examining the mess on the floor, Billy knew that his mother was going to kill him.  Murder.  She’d chew him up and spit him back out, never to see the light of day again.  It was the end.  Unless of course he could scrub the stubborn stain from the rug.  This had to be the worst thing that could have possibly happened. 

Personal Experience and Intelligence

As I mentioned above, those age ranges are broad, general “this is sort of what should be happening when,” but they’re more guidelines rather than hard and fast rules.  When writing children, it is helpful to consider the personal experiences a child has had in their lives up to that point as well as their intelligence.  Those are not the measure of a person (even a little one), but they make a huge difference in the rate at which a child matures and interacts with the world.  Generally kids who have more difficult upbringings and those who end up parenting themselves and/or caring for siblings, often seem older than they really are, particularly in regard to their behavior. 

Just to provide some examples for reference, the children that I write in my story are mostly nobles who have relatively comfortable, safe, and happy childhoods.  My Cousland, Liss, is generally a carefree, impulsive, emotional, messy, privileged child, and so I modeled her development more closely in line with the “guidelines.”  Nathaniel is also a noble, but he’s more thoughtful, and has kind of been placed into a parental role in that his dad is emotionally abusive at the very least, and after his mother dies, he is the rock that his siblings stand on, and at that point in time, he is only 10.  He has to grow up a lot faster than he may have had to otherwise. As a very strong counterpoint, there are other characters who do not have any environmental privileges during their childhood.  A very good portrayal of this sort of thing is this comparison of Isabela and Hawke’s respective upbringings.

Both intelligence and life experiences can lead to a quicker rate of cognitive development and maturation in some cases, that does not mean that they are “grown up” or in anyway done developing.  Even the brightest kids, even the kids who have faced unbelievable adversity are still kids and they often still experience impulsivity, emotion dysregulation, and other things that one might not see in adults with the same experiences.  Furthermore, some kids may not even experience advanced development, instead regressing from the lack of social support and modeling from attachment figures. 

Basically, nothing is hard and fast. 

Personality

The next thing I wanted to touch upon is personality.  I think there is a tendency to portray all kids as Standard Kids (which I have endearingly coined Standard Kid Syndrome).  It is all well and good if the intention is just to show a Standard Kid; however, if you really want to dig deep into a character, into who that child is, it’s so important to consider personality traits.  From birth, children have dispositions, and as they grow and learn more about themselves and the world, those dispositions become personality.  Personality traits should shine through very early on!  Kids can be open to experience or rigid and anxious, they can be introverted or extroverted, they can be impulsive or restrained, they can be aggressive, meek, funny, serious, meticulous, silly, cool, gruff, grumpy, snarky, sassy, nerdy, quirky, shy, friendly, withdrawn, and so on and so forth.  Children are new humans; they are not incomplete humans. 

The Kid Voice

When writing from the point of view of a child, all of the things discussed above factor into word choice.  Just like writing adult characters, the way a kid talks in dialogue, or narrates even, is influenced by a blend of so many different things.  Young kids’ descriptions are going to have simpler sentence structures and words.  They may introspect less and observe more.  They may express themselves through their bodies and actions more.  They may have trouble describing what they’re feeling, or understanding what they’re seeing.  Teens may describe things more dramatically and intensely than similar adults would.  They may not.  What is important is considering the mix of traits and experiences they have in relation to cognitive development.  It’s really no different from writing any other character.  It just takes research and planning to get in The Zone.

TL;DR

- Understanding how kids think is a good starting point to writing kids

- Personal experiences, intelligence, and the interaction of qualities can influence how a child thinks in a multitude of ways

- Kids have personalities!  They’re not blank slates that have yet to be filled.  They are whole people, and it’s good to give proper care to show those unique, wonderful little minds that they have

- It’s not so much different than writing adults! It just takes some time spent looking through a different lens!

- This is not a comprehensive reference by any means, so please feel free to chime in!

In 2020, The Deutschland Series is As Relevant As Ever

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The final season of the Deutschland spy series begins with an ending. In the opening episode of Deutschland 89, the Berlin Wall falls, giving East German citizens free movement to West Germany and beyond for the first time in decades. What follows in the eight-episode final season is a social study in how different people react when their reality is suddenly and fundamentally altered. In the year 2020, as the world continues to reel from the seismic changes COVID-19 has wrought, it’s an unexpectedly relatable experience.

“Deutschland 89 is really about how people have to reinvent themselves during a crisis,” says Deutschland series co-creator Joerg Winger. “So I think, in that way, it does reflect today, but that was not intentional.”

From the beginning, the Deutschland series—which launched in 2015 with Deutschland 83, continued in 2018 with Deutschland 86, and just concluded with Deutschland 89—has used history as a metaphor for contemporary politics. Because of this and because, as Faulkner famously wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” it has never been hard to find topical parallels in the Deutschland story, especially when the world skews unfortunately closer to the historic tensions depicted.

“I still remember when Joerg and I first started working on Deutschland 83, thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll have to remind people of the Cold War. Maybe they won’t remember any of this,’” says co-creator Anna Winger (who also co-created Netflix’s 2020 German-American drama Unorthodox). “And then the tension with Russia began again, and there was this sort of egocentric writer moment where you’re like, ‘Did I write it and make it happen? Why is this happening again?’ … Certainly, we couldn’t have predicted tension with Russia coming back, but I think that the polarization definitely, the idea that you’re on one side or you’re on the other side, and that there is this kind of way in which the world has become divided, we were definitely exploring that.” 

Deutschland 83 follows East German kid Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay) as he is forced by his HVA agent aunt Lenora (Maria Schrader) and his estranged father Walter (Sylvester Groth) to become a spy in West Germany. Using the real-life Able Archer incident (which some historians believe is the closest we’ve come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis) as setting, the first season is a fast-paced yet complex cautionary tale of what can happen when we lose track of the bigger picture in favor of political allegiances. 

On a more character-driven level, Deutschland 83 is the story of a young man caught between a desperation to stay alive so he can return home to his ill mother and pregnant girlfriend and a desire to keep the world from erupting into nuclear disaster. Because of this, much of the success of that first season and moving forward relied on the casting of the overwhelmed yet capable Martin. When Nay read the script for the Deutschland 83 pilot, he knew he wanted the part.

“I think that the first episode of the whole series is a masterpiece in throwing you directly into something,” says Nay. “I think, dramaturgy-wise, it’s really brilliant. For me, as a reader, I was so addicted. I immediately wanted to know where it went and I so deeply wanted to play that part of Martin.”

Later, Nay would find out that Anna Winger had his picture on the wall during the writing process, imagining him as Martin, but Nay didn’t know that when he went for the part.

“I hadn’t played something of that genre, or anything comparable to that before,” says Nay. “So I don’t really know where she had the impression from that this could be a part for me, actually. The things I shot before were more like society drama, feature films. It was really, really, really different.”

Joerg Winger says that Nay was always their first choice.

“There was a discussion we had at a later point with the directors in 83, who were thinking, maybe we need someone who’s more of a conventional hero, like a young James Bond kind of actor,” says Joerg Winger. “But I think, for us, it was really important that he has something vulnerable since one of the tweaks of the spy genre in Deutschland 83 is that it’s a spy show combined with a coming-of-age drama, and Jonas has the vulnerability and almost the boyishness and innocence. He’s a very good, solid person. And that translates also, I think, into his performance.” 

The initial idea for the series came from Joerg Winger’s own military service experience during the 80s as a conscripted Bundeswehr soldier in West Germany, intercepting messages from Russian troops in the German Democratic Republic. But, for many people watching the series who were born after 89, a divided Germany may be hard to imagine.

“With young people, it’s almost like what you learn in school ends with World War II, and then you never really got to the Cold War,” says Anna Winger. “So, for a lot of young people, at least in Germany, they would say to us, ‘This is like science fiction.’ It’s like, ‘Imagine a world, and there’s a wall that goes down the middle of Berlin, and West Berlin is cut off from supplies, and you can’t get across it.’ And you know, if you were to describe all that to anyone who was born in Berlin since 1989, it would sound absurd. It’s like, ‘And the dinosaurs roamed the earth.’ It’s very crazy to them. So, in a funny way, I’ve always thought the show is a little bit like the past as science fiction.”

Nay, who was born in 1990, days before the reunification of Germany, is one of those people.

“I think there’s actually a lot that changed my awareness of close German history, in particular the 80s, of course,” says Nay. “I remember that when I read the first series, the first question that came to my mind was: ‘Were we really so close to a nuclear war? Would anybody have told me if it was so close? Isn’t that crazy that nobody told me before? Is it real or is it just made up, to increase attention?’ I was like, ‘OK, it seems a little odd to me that we were close before to a nuclear war and I never heard that before.’ I’m really curious now what is going on behind closed walls, what I don’t know about nowadays.”

While all three seasons of the Deutschland series explores many of the same themes, the three-year time jump built into the fabric of the show means each season gets a soft narrative reset for its characters and setting. When asked about the choice to have three-year time jumps, Joerg Winger said it was somewhat incidental. Because of Able Archer and some of the Neue Deutsche Welle music circa 1983, the Wingers knew they wanted to start their story in 1983. They also knew that they wanted to do a trilogy and that it should end in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because of this, of the three settings, 1986 is the most random.

“I think it’s a little bit like the Buddhist wisdom: wherever you dig, if you dig for long enough, you’ll find something,” says Joerg Winger of the 1986 setting. “We were a little bit nervous about the 86 question. When we started 86, we were like, ‘OK, so what are we going to find in ’86?’ But then there’s just so much.”

When we catch back up with Martin in Deutschland 86, he has been exiled from East Germany for three years, living in Angola where he teaches English at an orphanage. While the other two seasons in the story keep their focus relatively tight on East and West Germany, Deutschland 86 expands its Cold War scope to visit places like Libya and Paris, where geopolitical tensions are manifesting in different ways but are still part of the same global story.

“We started writing 86 the day after the Trump election,” says Anna Winger, “and I remember feeling really focused on looking at capitalism, because the story of 86 is kind of about the capitalist core of the engine that kept the communist regime going. And you see all these guys who are holding on to what they’ve managed to build at all costs, even though it’s all really coming apart.”

The Deutschland storyline comes to fruition in Deutschland 89. Three years following the events of Deutschland 86, the East German government is in even more dire straits. They are out of money, and the people are protesting. The final season is set against the backdrop of the collapse of the East German government.

“People didn’t know what was going to happen for a few months, and that is a very unusual situation,” says Anna Winger of the time period. “And also, for all these spies, they were really good spies, and suddenly, they had no country, the goals were completely unclear, and they were in the same place. The crazy thing about people in Berlin who live on the East side is they haven’t gone anywhere, but everything else has changed. It’s as if their country completely changed, and they’re still living on the same piece of earth, and that’s wild.”

The Deutschland series may explore East German life in the 1980s at different stages of Communist collapse, but the parallels to the experience of living in today’s crumbling capitalism are striking.

“I think as we came towards the end of the arc of the trilogy, certainly we got deeper and deeper into exploring late-stage capitalism and how that’s the patriarchy holding onto power in any sort of regime,” says Anna Winger. “We’re writing a show about late-stage communism or socialism, but it still has a lot of parallels to late-stage capitalism.”

In the midst of it all, is Martin Rauch, an audience surrogate for an everyday person just trying to live a good life with the people he loves amidst political and social turmoil. By Deutschland 89, Martin is understandably much more jaded than his 83-era self, but he has also somehow held onto his humanity.

“What Anna and Joerg always told me was that when they created Martin and how they wanted him to succeed, he should always have this moral compass that he’s following,” says Nay. “In a big contrast to all the people around him, like [his aunt] Lenora or [his father] Schweppenstette, that they are following rules given from somebody else or they’re following their idealism, their socialist idea. Martin had the chance of getting a pretty uncolored picture of East and West, of both the states and both the sides. He had to find his own [way].”

Martin’s ability to hold onto his humanity, to maintain some kind of admirable moral compass despite all of the things he has been through, is where much of the optimism in the Deutschland series ultimately lies. 

“I always saw it like Martin being in the middle and people from left and right trying to pull him in directions and he’s always trying to see or weigh out which is best for him and also for people around him,” says Nay. “He’s like, yeah, it’s a hero thing I guess. I don’t know. Yeah, Joerg and Anna wanted Martin to keep that. So it was kind of a challenge to, of course, let Martin grow up and let him harden and let him be very, very suspicious, more and more, not trusting anybody because what he learns is that, if he trusts somebody, he’s going to be betrayed so he has to keep it in himself. That is the development that he goes through through all the seasons. Then, given this little lovable touch of hero-ness and moral compass, not losing that. It was kind of a balance act I would say. I gave my very best.”

Ultimately, the Deutschland series ends as it told its story: thoughtfully, and with a fundamental empathy that doesn’t guarantee a happy ending but rather something better. The possibility of holding onto one’s humanity through pain and suffering and amongst forces so much larger than any one person. In 2020, that may be the flavor of happy ending we need most of all.

“In 89, the shit’s hit the fan, and it’s really over, and people are scrambling to redefine themselves,” says Anna Winger. “But I suppose, if there’s a message to the whole thing, it’s that there are possibilities in chaos. And this is truly something I think we can learn from Germany: is that maybe there’s the possibility of reinvention that is positive, that there’s hope in reinvention, and that maybe when things come apart, there’s a chance for something good to come out of it.”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The entirety of the Deutschland series is now available to watch on Hulu.

The post In 2020, The Deutschland Series is As Relevant As Ever appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2JLtG55

Therapy 3 (Removing Bandages)

1. Knowing that I have been insulated with a privileged life, has this led me into an existence of melancholy that has no foundation?

I have always been drawn to the melancholy. Blame it on my upbringing of suppressive emotion from the hardened baby boomer Irishmen around me or on the self-detrimental music I listened to (probably symptomatic of reason #1). In my more religious days, the idea of being sick without a cure always brought an egocentric tear to my eye. I’ve always resonated with the idea of being deprived and stuck on a hopeless ship with no ending destination. Does this fantasy have any merit?

Relatively speaking, probably not. Yes, this life is built on the foundations of pain that we build houses on; creating illusions of safety and decorating them in distracting ways. I grew up in a part of the world though that was well nourished, both literally and figuratively speaking. My parents had flaws, of course, but relatively speaking these flaws were incredibly minor in nature. In fact, the loving/sheltering nature of my upbringing is probably my biggest flaw, since I lack the understanding of how dark the darkness can get. I misperceive my shadow as epitome of darkness, when there are far darker dungeons of pain that exist. I try to understand the hierarchy of pains, sometimes successfully, but even then I still lack the feeling that reinforces the idea and brings it to life.

So why not use the positive force in my life to become a beacon of hope to others, or at the very least not pretend that my life is any harder than anyone else’s? Well, thats where it gets complicated. 

Maybe I’m trying harder with all of the self improvement actions I’m taking. I rarely speak of my demons and are way more present for others (for the most part, I think I’m trying). Maybe just slowing down and stepping into the shoes of others and being more realistic about the depth of my own problems is the keys. Being conscious with the realities around me.

2. In what circumstances have I ended relationships with friends and girlfriends? Were they worthy of these measures?

This is going to be hard.

Rachel: Lack of trust. I always assumed she was up to no good. This was textbook overthinking mixed with a large heaping dose of insecurity. The first time I broke up with her was because I thought I could do better. The second time was the opposite.

Amy: We were not compatible, though I wanted us to be. She had a kind heart, was very caring, and on paper was an ideal companion. However, everything personality and value related just did not compute. I always went into a meeting with her with a “lets make this a good night” attitude and left emotionally exhausted from a night of personality dissonance.

Relationships:

Lex: This one is two sided. I did not trust Lex, similar to Rachel, but there were things to not trust. I always had the sense that Lex was up to no good, and I don’t think that was a misguided notion. Lex loved conflict and drama, and spent most of her time digging into the shit of others. I can’t imagine this did not spill into our relationship as well, although it’s hard to tell where.

I also was not very fair to her. I, again, was very insecure, and would constantly be checking her location (one of my more alarming qualities). She was obsessed “fitting in”, and would put scandalous pictures on her social media for attention. It was fair for me to have issue with this, but I would present it in ways that were not fair to her. I should have communicated it in a simple and non-judging way, which I don’t think I did.

It’s weird, I loved spending time with her but I don’t think I actually loved her. She was something fun to experience but was not good for me, like the Rick and Morty episode where Rick sidetracks Unity from her purpose to have a good time. 

I also just run away from conflict whenever possible, which I did in that relationship. Most issues we had were only addressed when they boiled over.

It was a game to keep Lex. I had to be somebody I wasn’t (or someone I was not yet).

Friendships:

James: It was a wise decision to let go of this relationship. James was self destructive, and worse, destructive to those he was around.

Jon: I don’t blame Jon for removing me from his band. I was not a man of solutions, just problems based on my unpolished philosophies of what music should be. We innately did not see eye to eye of what art should be and it let me effect how I saw him as a person. He also was not communicative towards the end, which I can’t blame him for. Many of his faults were ones I dealt with too, which is probably why we were so close in the beginning before we blew up in spectacular fashion. My youthful whimsical idealism and his old hardened traditionalism would never see eye to eye.

Colin: Colin was caring and a lot of fun to be around. We fundamentally were very different people, however. Emotionality and Self-Made Self Acceptance were important to him, whereas I believed more in a more reserved self growth that came from disciplinary action to day to day life. We would have conversations that would really open my eyes to places that were blind to me, which I appreciated with his view of. He just was not a very disciplined person to be around, and I felt that create a rift towards him. I was also just way too close to him all the time, and felt myself needing space even when he was intruding. 

He also made several questionable decisions against me; which I both understand. I forgive him, but I cannot trust him the way I could before.

Teague: This one is complicated. I think he had a lot of expectations of me that I did not live up to. He wanted me to be forgiving to issues I did not understand. I also did things that questioned my character to him, which I think I understand. I probably looked pathetic in many of my decisions, which is probably why I hid so much information from him. There were things he did that were questionable, but maybe they weren’t the same in degree. Does dating a 18 year old just as questionable as being abusive to your dog, doing a lot of drugs, or attacking the ones closest to you? There was a degree of growth though that he was experiencing, and maybe he clumped me into the parts of himself that he needed to let go in order to grow. I can get that. Still, I can’t help but feel there is an essence of blind destruction that came from him letting me go from his life.

I think I get too close to people. Maybe I just get too close to the wrong people. I think most of my best friends have had fundamentally different approaches to life. They’ve also taken to vices that are in some ways self destructive, such as drinking or drugs. Because I don’t have the inclination to go there, thats why I push away. Theres probably a much more caring way, but its much easier to leave something than to fight for it.

One last question that I (personally) feel needs to considered as well:

3. What does my current/past company say about me as a person? What does my attraction to the history of people with mental illness say about me?

4. What if I am, in fact, a leech of “the light of others”?

Listen, feel what they’re feeling, don’t offer solutions.

Lack of exerted boundaries

Deject people using cold fish tactics

Maturity issues.

Certain issues should be valued in certain degrees.

The Most Influential People in the concrete countertops Industry

Use one layer of concrete paint primer that has a paint roller. Ahead of adding your color, you should use primer making sure that the paint will stick.

One thing we figured out is that it is not a bad concept to vibrate the air bubbles out at a few of various factors prior to every one of the concrete is added. You obviously don't need to spend many time due to the fact you don't need the concrete to get started on setting up in between pours, but even one time in the center will help.

In some instances, paint might take approximately 24 hrs to dry wholly. That is why it is vital to provide on your own enough time to complete the painting course of action.

Concrete is usually manufactured to glance intriguing and exquisite by making use of several coats of paint. Painting concrete is an easy and cheap task which might be completed by most homeowners. So that you can effectively paint concrete or other masonry surfaces it's essential to clean up and prep the region adequately, implement an proper paint, and allow suitable time for your paint to remedy.

In an experiment that associated making use of dolls, Hughes shown that youngsters as youthful as age 4 ended up able to know scenarios from several details of see, suggesting that young children become less egocentric at an previously age than Piaget believed.

Scrub away any Filth, grime, or gunk which is caught to the concrete. You don't have to bother with stains, however, if they are set in and never some kind of object caught on to the floor. Yank off any vines, moss, or other flora masking the concrete.

You'll probably observe drinking water coming towards the area which happens to be great. The concrete shouldn't be so dry the float tears it up rather than easy it out. Float it numerous moments if important to get yourself a relatively clean floor.

), and fixes/work-arounds just in case they come about to you personally. You don't want to invest time making anything similar to this only to acquire it finish up as a small patio in your yard as opposed to the countertop you preferred. Contrary to popular belief, the concrete is a lot more forgiving than you'd Imagine.

in Maine,  wherever I've been working with concrete for thirty several years now, and this Web-site is where I'm able to share with you all the understanding and knowledge I have attained from setting up a myriad of decorative concrete, concrete floors, concrete overlays, stained concrete and also correcting cracked or spalled concrete.

Your closing cost will depend upon the colors, designs, and All round complexity of style you would like to have.

Drinking water cement ratio performs an important role which influences various Qualities for instance workability, strength and sturdiness. Adequate h2o cement ratio is needed for manufacture of workable concrete.

Understanding Conservation An additional perfectly-acknowledged experiment includes demonstrating a Kid's comprehension of conservation. In a single conservation experiment, equivalent quantities of liquid are poured into two identical containers.

Study a lot more: A customized-engineered log cabin will get stained concrete floors and countertops See additional images from this contractor >>

Take out the Mould Enjoy online video of the action. Remove the 2x4 support frame from the edges and finishes with the mold. Very carefully drill two 2-inch screws equivalent length apart, halfway into Each individual in the melamine sides. Be mindful to not drill every one of the way as a result of – you don’t need to disturb the mold edge. Eliminate the screws Keeping the mildew sides to The bottom.

Move together. A Yousana AU - Chapter 1

Summary   Read it also on ao3

------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 1

“What is this?!”

“Uh...the new script of your movie?”

“Don’t play with me, Agnes. Since when has my character a love interest?”

Sana loves being an actress. She loves starting new projects, getting to know the new crew and her character. However, there are things regarding her job that she does not like too much. Like last minute changes in the script that seem completely unnecessary to her. So when she finds out that they have introduced a new character and that it’s no other than a love interest, the first thing she does is storming into her agent’s office to ask for an explanation.

“It just got added. Why? What’s wrong with a love interest?”, Agnes knows that Sana doesn’t like last minute changes but still she hopes she can find a way to calm her down.

“There’s nothing wrong with a love interest, when it makes sense to the story. I don’t think that a love interest is necessary in this movie”

“Sana, I think the writers know what they’re doing.”, Sana’s agent says calmly. Someone here has to be.

“I just don’t understand why the new character can’t just be a friend. Why does it have to be a boyfriend?”

“I see your point but it’s too late to change now. They’ve already cast the role!”

“Wait, what? Who?”, Sana asks frowning, she hasn’t seen anyone new on set.

“It’s a newcomer. You might have heard of him anyway. Yousef Acar.”

“Yousef Acar? Wasn’t he a model? Does he even know how to act?” Sana can’t believe this.

“Let’s hope he does or it’s going to be a long three months of filming.”

“Great, so not only have they introduced a totally unnecessary love interest but they also casted an egocentric model who doesn’t even know how to act for it” Sana says exasperated, she’s put so much effort into this project for it to be ruined by an amateur, even if she knows everyone deserves a chance.

“Sana, don’t you think you’re being prejudiced now? You’re usually not like this.”

“I don’t have anything against models, I just don’t think that he’s ready for a big movie like this.” Is she being too harsh? She only wants the movie to turn out really good.

“So what are you saying?”, Agnes asks Sana, waiting for a clear request Sana obviously has.

“That maybe he shouldn’t have so many scenes. Most of them aren’t really necessary for the plot. When I’m searching for my long lost sister I’m not looking for a boyfriend, I’m just looking for someone that can help me find her in that foreign country.” Sana really can’t hide her annoyance in that last sentence. She loves a good romantic plot like the next person but in this movie, when it’s about sisterly love, it’s honestly not necessary.

“But Sana, if they cut those scenes, they would be cutting your scenes too. Do you realize that?”

“Yes, I do. But it’ll be better in the big picture. I’ll gladly have less scenes if that means the story doesn’t turn into a huge cliche” When she got the script to this movie Sana instantly loved it and really doesn’t want it to be ruined by something like this.

“Alright, if it means so much to you .. I’ll talk to the writers and see what we can do.” Agnes knows how Sana always tries to make every single one of her projects as great as she can. If she didn’t believe that this is the right choice, she wouldn’t be so adamant.

“Thank you Agnes, you know you’re my favorite agent”, Sana says cheerfully as she turns around and leaves the room.

“I’m your only agent!”, She hears Agnes say after her

-x-

Yousef had never thought about acting. Being completely honest, he had never thought about modeling either, that had been just his way of trying to help his parents. But he really liked his job. So when his agent told him that they were thinking about him as the love interest of a new movie he just couldn’t say no. The fact that the main character was played by the one and only Sana Bakkoush didn’t hurt either.

While the thought of working with Sana Bakkoush, on a real movie set, is exciting to him, Yousef can’t stop worrying. He’s never acted before and he really looks up to Sana. She’s from Oslo, as Yousef is, and she has managed to make a name for herself in the Hollywood industry. The last thing Yousef wants is to screw up and end up looking like a complete idiot in front of her. And of course, he wouldn’t want to see the project ruined because of his inexperience.

Yousef has been on sets before. He is a model, not only did he do photoshoots but also short advertisement in video form. However, the set for a movie like this is completely different. He is overwhelmed the first time he sets foot on the set. People running around trying to get the props perfect, adjusting lights, rolling cameras to the right position. Needless to say Yousef feels unsure of what to do.

“Who are you?”, Yousef hears from behind him and quickly spins around to be faced with a guy who looks at him skeptically.

“Uh...I’m Yousef, Yousef Acar? I play Hakan, the love interest in the movie.”, he answers, hoping that he didn’t sound unsure of that fact.

“You shouldn’t be here. The writers are waiting for you”

“Oh, where should I go, then?” Yousef wonders why they would want to see him now but decides not to ask. He would find out soon enough.

“Follow that hallway, second door to the left”

It’s not hard to find the right room. A sign on the door says ‘Writers room’. Still, why does Yousef feel like it’s the wrong room? Even when it’s painfully obvious that that’s not the case. Taking a deep breath, looking down on himself to check if he’s presentable, Yousef lifts his hand and knocks.

“Come in!”, he hears and finally opens the door.

He did not know what to expect. How could a writers room look like? Well, he’s still surprised to see three people, two men and a woman, sitting at a big table, with laptops in front of them. It’s a relatively big room and has huge windows. Why is Yousef concentrating on insignificant things like this? Because he’s too nervous to do something that could go wrong.

“You must be Yousef.”, one of the men says. Yousef knows the names of everyone in this room but right now he’s not able to remember them.

Yousef nods and steps closer to shake each person's hand.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

The woman smiles at him. “Likewise.”

“I’ve been told that you were waiting for me?” He attempts to sound confident and not like he has no clue of what he’s doing here.

“Yes. We wanted to welcome you into the crew.”, the younger one of the two men says with a smile.

“And also give you this, it’s the new script”, the woman adds, holding out a stack of paper to Yousef.

“New script?” The confusion is clear to be seen on his face.

“Yes. There have been a few changes.” Changes?

“Oh, okay. I got the script just yesterday evening so I thought..” Yousef had to learn quite a lot of lines since yesterday evening. They would not start filming today, at least he wouldn’t, but he needs to rehearse.

“Yes, but the main actress made a request to which we changed some things.”, the older guy says.

A request to change the script last minute? Why would that happen?

“Something I should be worried about?”

“No, just that we had to cut four of your scenes”

“For something in particular?” He just doesn’t understand why they would change things so shortly before the start of filming.

“The actress was just not comfortable with those”

Not comfortable? She’s an actress. Shouldn’t she be used to have a love interest in the movies? He probably has seen all her movies so he knows that for sure. Then what is the problem? It’s not like there was some intimate scene that could make her uncomfortable, he would’ve understood that. But that Sana made an explicit request to shorten those scenes or take them out completely gave Yousef a feeling of disappointment. He thought that Sana was the type of girl that wouldn’t let the fame get to her head. Clearly, he was wrong.He just can’t grasp it. Sana already plays the main character of the movie. Why would she want to take away from other actor’s screentime? It’s not like he cared that much about screentime. He only wants to enjoy the experience and do his job. But still. It’s his first acting job and the first thing he is told is that he’ll be in less scenes than he thought he would be in and that the reason for that is that “the actress was just not comfortable with those”. How is he supposed to not care? He can’t help but feel sad. He was really looking forward to working with Sana and learning from her. But now, he’s not so sure anymore.One of the reasons he was so excited to work on this movie was that Sana Bakkoush is playing the main character. Someone who Yousef thought was not like many other Hollywood-actors. Well, she had just proved that she’s like the rest.

“Okay...I should get going then, work on the new script and so on”, Yousef says, he really needs to get out of that room.

“Of course, go get to work”

“Thank you again for choosing me”

“We’re sure we made the right choice with you, just don’t make us be wrong about it”

Yousef leaves the room and closes the door behind him while looking at the new script in his hands. He had to read all those pages just yesterday and now he can do it all over, with ‘a few’ changes. Turning the pages Yousef tries to see which parts have been rewritten or taken out completely. He’s so focused on what he’s reading that he doesn’t see the person turning the corner at the same time he is until he bumps into them, the script almost falling to the floor.

“Oh, I’m sorr..”, he looks up from his script to see who he bumped into. His eyes land on the girl he has been thinking about in the past ten minutes. The girl that made the writers change the script last minute and take away from his scenes. He’s looking at no other than Sana Bakkoush. A script in her hand, coffee in her other hand. He thought their first meeting would have been different.

“I’m sorry.”, he finally says. “I was focused on the script and I didn’t see you”

“It’s fine, I wasn’t paying attention either”

“Hi, I’m…”

“I know who you are” Sana interrupts him “You’re the love interest”

“Well, I prefer Yousef, if you don’t mind”, He says annoyed, he’s getting tired of everyone referring to him as just the love interest.

Sana raises her eyebrows at the boy. He prefers Yousef? Well, Sana prefers a lot of things, like not having a love interest for her character when it’s not necessary, for example, and still there she is, accepting the facts. She wants to reply with a snarky comment, but she knows that wouldn’t be wise. She’ll have to spend a lot of time with that boy and the least she can do is try to be polite, even if she really doesn’t feel like doing that.

“Okay, Yousef”, She says putting emphasis on his name “I guess I’ll see you soon”

---------------------------------------------------------------

This is the first chapter!!

We really hope you’ve liked it!

Thank you so much for reading♥

Someone was asking about where I get my understanding of lack of empathy and ikve been having a lot of trouble on mobile but

From Stout, the Sociopath Next Door

One important link in the neurobiological-behavioral segment of the chain may consist of altered functioning in the cerebral cortex of the sociopath. Some of the most interesting information about cortical functioning in sociopathy comes to us through studies of how human beings process language. As it turns out, even at the level of electrical activity in the brain, normal people react to emotional words (such as love, hate, cozy, pain, happy, mother) more rapidly and more intensely than to relatively neutral words (table, chair, fifteen, later, etc.) If I am given the task of deciding between words and nonwords, I will recognize terror over lister much faster, in terms of microseconds, than I will choose between window and endock, and my enhanced reaction to the emotional word terror can be measured by recording a tiny electrical reaction, called an “evoked potential,” in my cerebral cortex. Such studies indicate that the brains of normal people attend to, remember, and recognize words that refer to emotional experiences preferentially to emotion-neutral words. Love will be recognized as a word faster than look will be, and a greater evoked potential will result in the brain, very much as if love were a more primal and meaningful piece of information than look. Not so for sociopathic subjects who have been tested using language-processing tasks. In terms of reaction time and evoked potentials in the cortex, sociopathic subjects in these experiments respond to emotionally charged words no differently from neutral words. In sociopaths, the evoked potential for sob or kiss is no larger than the one for sat or list, very much as if emotional words were no more meaningful, or deeply coded by their brains, than any other words.

Taken together, such studies indicate that sociopathy involves an altered processing of emotional stimuli at the level of the cerebral cortex. Why this altered processing occurs is not yet known, but it is likely to be the result of a heritable neurodevelopmental difference that can be either slightly compensated for, or made much worse, by child-rearing or cultural factors.

From Hare, Without Conscience:

Many of the characteristics displayed by psychopaths-especially cially their egocentricity, lack of remorse, shallow emotions, and deceitfulness-are closely associated with a profound lack of empathy pathy (an inability to construct a mental and emotional "facsimile" ile" of another person). They seem unable to "get into the skin" or to "walk in the shoes" of others, except in a purely intellectual tual sense. The feelings of other people are of no concern to psychopaths.

One rapist, high on the Psychopathy Checklist, commented mented that he found it hard to empathize with his victims. "They are frightened, right? But, you see, I don't really understand stand it. I've been scared myself, and it wasn't unpleasant."

In order to survive both physically and psychologically, some normal individuals develop a degree of insensitivity to the feelings ings and plight of specific groups of people. For example, doctors tors who are too empathic toward their patients would soon become emotionally overwhelmed, and their effectiveness as physicians would be reduced. For them, insensitivity is circumscribed, scribed, confined to a specific target group. Similarly, soldiers, gang members, and terrorists may be trained-very effectively, as history has proved over and over again-to view the enemy as less-than-human, as an object without an inner life.

Psychopaths, however, display a general lack of empathy. They are indifferent to the rights and suffering of family members and strangers alike. If they do maintain ties with their spouses or children dren it is only because they see their family members as possessions, sions, much like their stereos or automobiles. Indeed, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that some psychopaths are more concerned with the inner workings of their cars than with the inner worlds of their "loved" ones. One of our subjects allowed her boyfriend to sexually molest her five-year-old daughter because "he wore me out. I wasn't ready for more sex that night." The woman found it difficult to understand why the authorities took her child into care. "She belongs to me. Her welfare is my business." She didn't protest very much, however-certainly not as much as she did when her car was impounded, during the custody hearing, for nonpayment of traffic tickets.

These are how I understood “low empathy” before I found Tumblr.

From the beginning of February to April 4th, I was in intensive, in-patient treatment in acute psychiatric care at Mission Hospital Laguna Beach in the latter phrase’s domain, and Palomar Medical Center Escondido. I do not know if I have mentioned yet on this forum, but I have severe bipolar I disorder with psychotic features (though I prefer the term “manic-depression”), and complex PTSD from a near lifetime experience of emotional, physical, and sexual violence perpetrated by everyone from three childhood neighbors of relatively close age, my first serious boyfriend Jack raping me on November 10th, 2010, and numerous strangers raping me on August 23rd, 2013, (which is known colloquially as gang-rape, and in medical and psychological literature as multiple perpetrator rape or assault; also, I find “shell shock” or “rape trauma syndrome” to be more accurate). 

I suppose there are some dates we unfortunately never forget. Though I’m grateful to remember dates like my April 24th, 2016 wedding anniversary perfectly, there are less savory dates where my mind grinds to a halt, and I can still feel this chill and violation in my body; (my partner JP and I eloped in a humble courthouse in Laguna Niguel or Hills that aspirational and awesome April, I can’t remember precisely, because the suburbs roll into one sometimes sullen spread).

I’ve also weathered other attempted assaults. While we were visiting for what we assumed was a business dinner, our former friend Brandon and his coworker Daryl derailed and exploited our out-of-sorts and vulnerable situation, from a dank and dreary, paradise-paltry, backroom bar adjacent to San Francisco, to a nearby Outback Steakhouse. A computer programmer named Jonathan also tried to assault me one night, when I was stone-cold sober and he was drunk at a USC student-organized, lukewarm artistic function, where he pinned me down in an interactive, poorly safety-informed, and dark exhibit room. 

I also dealt with an extremely abusive relationship, psychologically and physically, with my ex-boyfriend Wade Kubat, who I was romantically entangled with for more than 2 years, beginning in early 2013 when I attended Saddleback College, a community college in Mission Viejo, California, for a year before transferring to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He is currently in a band called The Catamites, which has played a couple of times at most, and which is named in an inherently misogynistic way, as catamites are the young boy lovers that Greek philosophers kept due to abhorrence of females. Our relationship was plagued by his drug addictions primarily to heroin, but he also abused substances from meth to codeine, and imbibed hallucinogens, which I realize are not addictive inherently, but which provided sensations I believe he sought compulsively. He also cheated not only on Riley Johnson with me, (or me with Riley Johnson, as she was in San Francisco for university and I was with him the majority of the days of the week most of the time), with multiple women from Emmy Ricciardi to more. He also once feigned punching my face in front of his brother when we were in a tiff about the ownership of a guitar I had purchased for him for almost $1,000 when we were together, (we broke up and mended mediocre all the time), and I was scared he would bodily harm me, and also that he sets negative precedents for his innocent sibling. He also would tell me cutting nonsense constantly, like that my life was meaningless, and all of my suffering was instead just worthless and manipulative histrionics. I believe he projected many of his own issues onto me due to a profound paucity of self-awareness.

Wade is languishing in poverty and basically always has with a mother suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s, and a father who I believe has a drinking problem, and issues with rage and sexual inappropriateness towards myself and Wade’s “official girlfriend”, Riley Johnson, such as jokes as to whether he could “have” one of us; I do realize that this may have been a method of ethically questioning Wade’s decision to be unfaithful and inauthentic to essentially everyone he’s ever met, including himself. I feel this economic condition is the only reason Wade has never sought or received mental health treatment, as it seems clear to me based on our relatively lengthy period of time together, that he has some severe type of mental illness, and personality disorder. I offered to try to cover therapy for him when we were together, and he declined, and he also declined my offer to drive him to therapeutic appointments he was entitled to as a rape survivor; he was actually raped as a teenager, perhaps 16 or 17, by... Guess who? Riley Johnson, his “official girlfriend” depicted here, likely spending a substantial portion of her income on increasingly ridiculous and cheap-looking ensembles that betray an unfortunate allegiance to fast fashion companies that destroy the environment and workers’ lives, from illness to disasters which snuff out those flames completely.

Riley graduated in a timely manner from San Francisco State likely due to its ease as an unimpressive campus and the lack of rigor in her fashion merchandising major, and has no presence online insofar as career trajectory; based on her LinkedIn, she is still a waitress at a seafood restaurant called Pacific Catch where she met her boyfriend Zac Hannah, who goes by Premature Zaculation on Instagram, which I find a sad and precise username. Riley used to work as a salesperson in an Ugg shoe store, which is a position I guess she’s lost. Zac studied creative writing at the same school according to Facebook, which is astounding to me as an author, as I believe writing is about insight, and certainly, that is polymathic, passionate, and basically unteachable insofar as the academic environment.

Anyways, I remember that once I told Wade, and he responded positively, to my assertion “You have a pathological sense of destiny”, which I explained to him when we were at the Getty Museum in the ancient-inspired and meditative outdoor garden, after looking at the painting that reminded me most of our relationship, the Italian Renaissance-era “An Allegory of Fortune” by Dosso Dossi. The painting depicts a female Fortune resting without rest, fleet-footed and poised to possibly leave a lightly rendered bubble that reminds me of economic fiascos, and a masculine Chance with lottery tickets clutched above a golden cup, and in this mental configuration, I would be Fortune, and Wade would be Chance. My family has an abundance, and his family is abject, and one would think we’d compliment each other perfectly, but perhaps he didn’t think he deserved me at the time, or we were both too unstable, or he’s in love with himself to the point that he continually dates women who are basically his doppelgängers in a very disturbing pattern of self-melded matches from Shannon Soufflay to Julianne Glass. 

I am not a clinician, but I have much experience with psychiatric/psychological diagnoses, and I believe Wade could also have bipolar I disorder or potentially schizoaffective disorder, and I am almost certain he also suffers from complex PTSD, and additionally has issues with narcissistic personality disorder. He has severe boundary issues, as evinced by one night when I was sleeping under a bedside light, and he tried to sexually assault me in my slumber, his bizarre level of benevolence when I was living in Paris as opposed to in physical proximity, (he seems to idealize the unavailable, as he was constantly confronting me about Riley’s non-existent superiority to me as a partner when it was obvious she was egocentric, damaging, and intellectually feeble), and his unwelcome liaisons with plenty of women, yet anger at me when I was dating during my summer abroad.

Anyways, that is all for now, but I included photos of my first meals prepared at home, since hospitalization and likely forever, to demonstrate that I’m majorly self-sufficient when given adequate space. My family has issues trusting me to basically care for myself, which is logical due to the severity of my disorders and how they have prevented me from self-care in the past, but I’m a very economical and efficient person, and given the wealth my family is blessed to have, I have very few constraints when it comes to expressing myself in any medium, including cooking, baking, and upkeep of the house. 

I’m following a ketogenic diet to aid in my recovery, and my first night feeding myself, I oven-roasted a steak to medium-rare, and ate Brussels sprouts caramelized with balsamic vinegar and coconut oil, with Trader Joe’s mushroom medley and crushed walnuts, and had extra leftover for today. The steak was marinaded with a rub of black, garlic and Himalayan salt, and butter with thyme, rosemary, and lemon and onion spice with most ingredients sourced at Costco. For my partner’s dinner, I used the same butter to prepare pan-seared chicken thigh, more Brussel sprouts on the stove, and rainbow cauliflower mashed with miniature avocado dices. For my partners’ breakfast today, I made chicken breakfast sausage, and hash browns with the remaining butter and coconut oil, and made an omelette with 3 eggs, an avocado, red bell peppers, onions, spinach, and mushrooms. I put the leftover hash brown and sausage concoction in the refrigerator, and ate the remains of the omelette today for lunch. Also, before I cooked for my partner, I had whole fat yogurt with two tablespoons of almond butter, hemp seed helpings, muesli, and fresh raspberries for breakfast. I’ve also been partaking in decaffeinated green tea and seaweed-infused kombucha throughout the day, and will be continuing to remain well-hydrated. My partner JP is currently on Wellbutrin and is under-weight, so providing them with more highly-caloric sustenance is essential to ensure they maintain their strength.

I’ll also make a list of the vitamins and supplements I’m taking for later posting. I also purchased some organic essential oils: eucalyptus, lavender, and cypress, for use in massage, and could also use coconut oil to administer to myself and my partner, since it is anti-bacterial, so does not clog pores and is an amazingly effective moisturizer. I specifically picked eucalyptus, because I joke always that my frequently marijuana-high partner looks like a red-eyed koala when they’re all haze and daze, and they’re from Cypress in Orange County. I also bought an amber candle from Voluspa, since my preference is for warm scents. I’m currently reading “Healing Depression and Bipolar Disorder Without Drugs”. I also tagged “eating disorder”, as I suffered from binge-eating disorder as a child after my neighbors molested me, and dealt with anorexia athletica/orthorexia as a teenager, and focusing on mindfulness in food preparation and enjoyment has allowed me to deal with the truly insane fluctuations I have experienced in my weight as I’ve attempted, often futilely until now, to control my disorders.

Sketchy Behaviors | Jenny Sharaf (SF)

Never afraid to reinvent herself or her art, San Francisco based artist Jenny Sharaf’s works are fluid and spontaneous; her approach fearless and at times vunerable; and her style cool and comfortably bad-ass.  We’ve not only been fans of her visual and abstract creations, but also her passion to work with her community in SF and Oakland to spread art and creativity – from her work with the Lab’s 24-Hour Telethon, The Parking Lot Art Fair to her most recent project- the Public Art Tour.  Sharaf shares some insight into her work and process; important issues and themes; and her thoughts on the contemporary arts scene in this installment of Sketchy Behaviors.  

Photographs courtesy of the artist

Tell us a bit about yourself and your art background.  

My name is Jenny Sharaf and I live with my partner-in-all-things John in San Francisco where we are the parents of an 80lb blue nose pitbull named Lola. Though i live in San Francisco, my wanderlust is at an all time high and if I’m not traveling the world, I’m plotting my next escape.

I grew up in a relatively small beach town in Los Angeles called the Pacific Palisades. Surrounded by salt-licked-waves and girls tanning on smooth beaches, my favorite place growing up was the bluffs; where I could sit above it all and watch it from a distance. I certainly was not your typical California beach babe, but I was wildly inspired by its appeal.

I found myself in San Francisco and went back to school at Mills College to receive my MFA. At Mills my ideas about feminism and California culture collided and my art was heavily influenced because of it.

My life now is a state of constantly making art. Whether it be painting, working on something digital or organizing big public art events in the city, or climbing some construction scaffolding in Paris to smack one of my stickers on the side of a building, I am always finding news ways to reinvent myself and my art.

How did you end up creating art and doing it professionally? And what have you learned along the way?

I’m just doing what I love doing and sometimes people agree to pay me for it. I create new work and new concepts non stop, I contact people that inspire me in hopes of collaborating. Even though I’m afraid at times to be vulnerable, I put myself out there every single day in hopes of new people discovering my art and hopefully falling in love with it. Being an artist can feel very scary, I think maybe I love being scared.

You’ve mentioned “process” as an important aspect of your work.  Could you take us through your creative process?

When I’m in the studio or working on a project on site, I always love that intense moment of chance and not having a plan. It takes a serious level of trust in yourself and the materials.  Those are the wonderful times that feel one-the-line and frightening, but are always rewarding.  In those painting meditative moments, I have no sense of time and space. My best work and most dynamic ideas come out of a period of making and thinking simultaneously.

What important issues and themes do you find yourself and your work drawn too?  Why are these important to you and how do they permeate into your works?

Artists are vitally important to our culture, our story and our future. They represent our freedom of speech and expression. The contemporary moment that we are living in feels very historical. Artists are more necessary now than ever and we all should critique the world around us through whatever means possible.  As I’m finishing this interview, I’m watching Trump’s first week in office. It doesn’t feel real, but it very much is. This is a call to duty. This is the first president that rose to power on twitter and a tv game show. Currently it’s scary times. I suggest everyone find a great apocalypse outfit.

The colors and abstract drips of your work are some of our favorite things.  You recently created a beautiful interior for last year’s Fog Fair and a mural for the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs.  How did this come about and how do you approach the design of interiors and exteriors?

Both of these opportunities came through curators & designers following me on instagram. Charles de Lisle and Cultured Magazine invited me to collaborate with them on a “reading room” for the FOG art fair. It was a lot of fun and it was a moment to make something large, inclusive and accessible to an art crowd. For Ace Hotel, their art director at the time; Matt Clark, approached me after seeing an instagram post by artist, Thomas Campbell. The art world is sometimes a really nice place after all! It’s also really wonderful when one project leads to the next.

Whether you’re calling it “placemaking" or whatever new buzz word we’re using, it’s rewarding to create a work of art that people want to include in their own story. I will always love painting on canvas, but it feels much more exciting to do “murals” or large-scale installations, where the audience can insert themselves and interact with the art directly. It’s less egocentric, even though I do always appreciate a @tag :), but mainly just so I can see others enjoying my work!

From painting, murals, videos, installations to paint on paper and digital works, do you have a preferred medium and if so what do you specifically enjoy about it?  Is there a medium you’ve have yet to tried and are dying to?

I’m always dying to try new things, new ideas, new materials. I probably have about thirty ideas going in my head at any given moment.  As as a preferred medium, I love paint and always have. It’s the most temperamental and if you do the dance, it will talk back in this amazing way. It’s literally fluid (duh), so you have to be a bit go-with-the-flow to fully embrace the stuff. There’s nothing better than a painting session with your headphones blasting and paint just flowing oh-so-naturál. There are a million things I want to try that I haven’t yet.  It’s hard to predict where it will go….That’s part of the reason I love being an artist.

What has been some of the best art advice you’ve gotten and some of the worse?

Best art advice– Dream bigger. Don’t be shy. Don’t glass-ceiling-yourself.

Worse art advice–  Be practical and realistic.

Not only are you a passionate artist, but you’re really activity in your community with various projects that are focused on community engagement and about promoting the arts.  Can you talk specifically about how you founded The Lab’s 24-Hour Telethon and tell us about it and its purpose.  What other community based activities are you working on or currently developing?

Throwing big art events in the Bay Area is really important work to me it helps keep the art scene alive for the community and for myself.  I was approached to come up with the task to raise money for the The Lab. I grew up on TV and I’ve always been particularly enamored by it because my parents were in the business. They were TV journalists and were always deep diving into the life of some interesting personality. I loved the idea of bringing that to life in a new form and so the The Lab’s 24-Hour Telethon was born. It helped majorly that Cinefamily had been doing a super awesome telethon as well. It was in the zeitgeist. San Francisco needed a version. It ended up being a big success that I am extremely proud of. Since then, I’ve done projects with San Francisco’s Department of Public Works that involves giving new life to public places by highlighting our local contemporary artists.

Most recently, I’m working on a program called Public Art Tour. It’s going to be an online experience and a series of big public events, bringing attention to local artists and San Francisco’s downtown public art. We are scheduled to do a massive party under the Bay Bridge, closing down the Spear Street’s cul-de-sac and making some legally permitted-noise;) Maybe Vans wants to set up a skate ramp? Call me.

The Parking Lot Art Fair that you founded in the Bay Area sounds like a super fun and exciting get-together.  How would you describe this event to folks?  What has been the best aspect of this for you?  

It was a blast. Basically, The Parking Lot Art Fair was a renegade art fair outside of a “legit” art fair at Fort Mason (in San Francisco).  All the artists set up very very early morning, as soon as the parking was free and permitted. At that point, the chaos began. The best part was being able to see the Bay Area art scene spread out in oceanside parking lot and realizing how much talent and weirdness this place still has left. San Francisco and Oakland have had many growing pains in the last few years and because of it the art scene has also foregone many changes. In terms of housing costs (studio space, etc) a big portion of our community has had to leave. So to be able to celebrate a more fringe art scene feels insanely gratifying.

How would you describe your personal style? Favorite Vans?

My personal style is all over the place. I like to be comfortable. When I’m not in my painting white or navy onesies and painted Vans (raw canvas pair I’ve probably had for 10 years), I love to play with fashion and try on different looks. Right now my look is very Gloria Steinem plus a sixties-Italian-cyclist inspired; ripped black jeans, my boyfriend’s cashmere sweater and a fringe black suede jacket. I always wear sunglasses - my look never feels complete without them.

My favorite vans are the classic black and white checkered low tops. They always look effortless. OR the high top surfer-girl-chic sneaks.

Name 5 of your favorite artists, followed by some of your top 5 favorite bands / musicians to create too.

Artists: Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, John Baldessari, Joan Brown, Alicia McCarthy

Music: Paul Simon, alt-J, Jungle, Ace of Base,Haim

What are your thoughts on the state of contemporary art?  The good, the bad, and the ugly.

The good - the art world is accessible than ever because of social media and the internet.  You can basically get anyone to see you work these days, which is a big change from ten years ago.  

The bad - there’s still a lot of old white guys that seem undeserving of shows, but they know people and they already have money to create massive bigger-the-better machismo art.

The ugly - the art world is huge, and can be incredibly hard to navigate and can be mean. We should all work harder to be nice to each other, especially about something as special as art.

You’ve worked with various clients and done many collaborations.  What have been some of the most rewarding projects? What do you like best about collaborations and what are some of the aspect you’d like to see changed or evolved if any?

I love collaborating with cool brands. Working with the Ace Hotel is always awesome. Such great people and a company that really gets the creative experience. I just worked with this handbag line Luana Italy. They really let me do whatever I wanted and honored my voice as an artist, which I always greatly appreciated. I think big brands are finally embracing and empowering the artist's’ voice– allowing the space it takes to achieve that.

What would you tell folks who want to follow in your footsteps?  Pitfalls to avoid and/or words of inspiration.

I’d say, don’t follow in anyone’s footsteps. That’s always something to remind yourself.  Make your own path and listen to your own visual / conceptual impulses.There is absolutely no rule book or how-to guide to being an artist. It looks different for everyone.  I by no means have figured it out, but I do try to practice trusting the inner voice and taking risks.

Lastly, what’s up for 2017?  Any exciting projects you can let us in on?

For 2017, I plan on working hard, painting like a madwoman and traveling. I’m doing some fun projects with B&O Play by Bang and Olufsen as a cultural ambassador- public art events, listening parties, contemporary art experiences.  Also, I’m curating a weekend at Ace Hotel and Swim Club Palm Springs on March 18th called “What’s Your Name / Who’s Your Daddy” featuring Sahar Khoury, Alicia McCarthy, Francesco Igory Deiana and Jess Meyer. Also, planning some mural projects overseas, but it’s too early to talk about. Don’t want to jinx it! Follow me on instagram to keep up with it all:)

Website | Instagram | Public Art Tour

Oh, I’m deeply sorry! I never intended to cause any sort of trouble, I just didn't want you to come off as something you weren’t. It was never my intention to bring any sort of mental health discourse into your blog, I just wanted to help.

[referring to this conversation]

All good Nonnie.  No harm, no foul.

I think this is a good reminder for all of us to be careful about the assumptions we make when engaging with people online.

For the record, I’m more than happy to be fact-checked when I’ve posted or shared incorrect/ outdated information - I try to do my own basic checks where I can but that doesn’t mean I’m always going to get it right.

The reason I was confused by (and also pushed back on) your first ask was that it seemed to be based on some pretty unfounded assumptions.

Your ask implied that the Vlad post was reinforcing harmful stereotypes about NPD, which was very baffling because I could cite sections from the post where I had said that Narcissism wasn’t inherently villainous, that it wasn’t the sole cause of Vlad’s villainy, that he was capable of change, and had even given some examples of heroic characters with narcissistic/egocentric traits.  It was like you had somehow assumed the direct opposite of what I’d actually written.

Your ask also talked about how there weren’t “subtypes” of NPD in the context of the term “malignant narcissism”, but that wasn’t even a claim I had made.  I was using the term to specify a subset of problem behaviours and thought patterns - similar to how we use terms like “toxic masculinity” and “exclusionary radical feminist” to avoid tarring whole demographics with one broad brush.  Granted, I may not have been super clear about this (although in context, it was a fandom character-meta-post, not a dissertation on NPD) but your assumption still seemed to come a little out of left field.

Then there was the assumption that did bother me.  I said the following to contextualise the position I was speaking from:

This might be coming from personal experience - I’ll spare you the details but there are some abusive malignant narcissists in my extended family and I’ve observed this kind of behaviour and its consequences in real life.

Your ask seems to have extrapolated this to an assumption that 1) I was claiming that all abusive people have NPD; 2) that I had “automatically” decided my relatives had NPD just because they were abusive and that I was the kind of person who would do that, and; 3) made some indirect assumptions about the nature of the abuse my family had experienced.  Even though 1) I never said or even implied that and had actually refuted the “all narcissists are villains” thing earlier in the post; 2) you had no information on which to base this, and; 3) you again had no information on which to base this.  Just as a general rule, if someone is talking about their personal experience with abuse, it is not a good idea to automatically assume you know things that haven’t been shared with you, and it is a very bad idea to act on those assumptions without checking.  Even if you have had experience with abuse yourself, you should not assume your experiences are comparable.  In this situation you knew very little, and your assumptions came dangerously close to putting words in my mouth (as well as feeling more than a little dismissive).

I also want to mention the nature of anonymous asks.  When you send me something on anon it’s as though we are strangers speaking for the first time.  The only way for me to recognise you as a regular or returning visitor is for you to deanonymise and send me things using your handle.  I can’t even guarantee that the person I am responding to now is the same person who sent the first ask (reasonably I would assume so, but I have no way to confirm).

I believe you when you say you had good intentions and were trying to help.  But from my end what this looked like was that a stranger had come onto my blog, made a number of largely unfounded (and in one case easily disprovable) assumptions about my intent, my experiences and my personal character based on a single post, and had then concluded from those assumptions that I was “slightly ableist”.  In this context you might be able to understand why I pushed back the way I did and why it would have raised a light warning for potential bad-faith discourse.

And look, Nonnie, I’m not mad at you.  It’s hard to communicate tone via text but I’m not angry and I’m not spelling this out with the intent to shame you or make you feel bad.  I just want to make it clear how things went awry here and how it felt from the other side.

I can’t speak to your experiences (literally: you’re anonymous).  I don’t know what your corner of the Tumblr community looks like, what its conventions are or how long you’ve been there.  I can’t know your relationship to mental health or abuse.  It can be an emotionally fraught topic, with a lot of potential stigma and trauma attached.  I don’t know what mindset you were in when you read my post, or how it made you feel.  And I certainly don’t expect you to know information about me when I never made that information available.

All I know is that it’s a good idea to be conscious of the assumptions we might be bringing to our own engagement.  Confirmation bias can be a heck of a thing, especially for stuff we’re already hyperaware about.  Before we decide to confront someone, it’s good to take a breath (if we can) and check that we’re doing so based on what’s actually there, not what we think we’ve seen (or in some cases maybe even wanted to see).   And even after that, it helps to consider exactly what we hope to achieve.

The best intentions are only as good as their execution.  As they say: to assume is to make an ass of you and me.

In this case, execution could have used a bit of work.  But no hard feelings.  We all mess up sometimes.  Just, maybe be a little more careful in the future?

Why Are Millennials So Anxious And Unhappy?

Source

Here are some of the negative stereotypes of today’s young adults, known as millennials—that is, those born between 1981 and 1996: They’re entitled, shiftless, egocentric, hypersensitive to criticism, and unable to cope with the stresses of real life.  But they’re also said to be diverse, open with their emotions, deeply empathetic, and interested in making substantive, important changes in the world they’ve grown into. The truth is, although no one can really agree about the millennial generation, one thing is fairly certain: They’re stressed out. Up to 17 percent of them are depressed, and 14 percent suffer from anxiety. Millennials seek psychotherapy more often than members of Generation X or other, earlier generations.

They may need it, too. Money is one of the most common focal points for millennials’ worries. Many of them have trouble finding jobs, are still living with their parents, or harbor serious concerns about making enough money to start their own lives in earnest. Today’s young people face greater financial difficulties than Americans from previous generations. Almost 30 percent of millennials see themselves as less well-off than they had expected to be, 10 years ago. They’re having trouble saving money, too, because of the 2008 recession, ballooning student-loan debts, and the rising cost of living.

But millennials’ money problems are only a part of the story. More importantly, these worries indicate just how concerned they are about what’s coming next—about making the right choices today in order to ensure a stable future. In truth, decision-making itself may be the number-one reason why millennials are so depressed and anxious, and why they feel the need for psychotherapy. I've previously written that many of my millennial clients are, for the first time, facing big choices that are likely to have lifelong consequences, and that they feel profoundly uncertain about how they should make these decisions. But there are other facets of decision-related anxiety, as well: Some young adults may find that they have too many choices and that trying to distinguish between their options is overwhelming. Others are seized by “analysis paralysis,” having difficulty seeing why one option is better than another, and feeling unable to make a choice at all.

At the age of 25, for instance, a young person is likely to confront most of life’s big decisions in the next 10-to-15 years. Metaphorically speaking, people in this position see their lives as a series of rooms, each of which is lined with doors. Whenever they make a choice, they walk through one door, only to realize that all the others have closed. Then, as they see it, they find themselves in a smaller room, surrounded by fewer doors than in the first. These doors, too, will all close when they walk through one  In fact, every door selected leads to a room that is smaller still, until ultimately the people making choices imagine finding themselves in a long hallway, stretching out ahead to the edge of vision, with no doors (and no choices) left to make. This model looks even more dire when you consider the millennials’ realistic, money-related fears: ending up less successful than their parents or failing to support themselves at their current standard of living.

In addition, it’s important to remember to be kind to yourself when you’re going through a stressful time. Not everyone finds the right life partner, creates an artistic masterpiece or founds a successful company before the age of 30. If you’re hard on yourself in this way—expecting too much of yourself and feeling stuck—try to exercise more self-compassion. Don’t expect perfection. You’re allowed to make mistakes. Take careful note of the aspects of your choices that you can control, as well as those you can’t—and don’t blame yourself for not getting everything absolutely right. Rather, when you do make a decision, try to accept and gain comfort with the act of stepping purposefully into the unknown, even as you acknowledge that uncertainty is a part of living. Instead of berating yourself about making the “right decision” every time, just try to make the decision as well as you possibly can, using all of the information and resources available—and then, afterward, live with the outcome as naturally as possible, knowing that your deciding process was a good one.

That's all good and well but I feel like the summation of this article does not address the initial hardships outlined in the beginning. For me, I'm lucky enough to have a job that is 'relatively stable' but that has fluctuating shifts from day-to-day which causes me lack of sleep, anxiety, and interrupts my life significantly. My pay is adequate but not anywhere near (not even in the same ballpark) as what my parents were making at this age and employees at my company have gone without pay increases for a number of years now. Furthermore I'm also aware that coworkers of mine who started before me (particularly ones that started before the 2008 recession) were offered substantially higher wages for the same exact job coming in the door. So immediately there's a devaluation of my time and resources as an employee that separates me from older workers.

Perhaps what bothers me most is the constant dread that I'm going to be let go because the company is constantly striving for automation and reduction in headcount to save money. I have worked this job year after year knowing with complete sincerity that I could be let go at any moment despite how hard I've worked and how much time and effort and energy and sacrifice I've put into my job every day. There is no job security and therefore no real way to plan for the future because those plans get cancelled the minute my source of income is jeopardized. Don't get me wrong, I'm plenty fortunate and privileged. I recognize that and am extremely appreciative of it (which also prevents me from looking for other work because I'm wary of starting something entirely new and beginning again at square one). I don't know if I will ever be able to retire and that scares me a lot too. I literally lose sleep over it because I don't see a way out. A best-case scenario might look like me doing exactly the same thing until the day I die, all because of rising living costs, aging parents with medical needs and their own standard of living, and me trying to keep sane while building my own life. Vacations are very difficult to take because there aren't enough coworkers to cover me (and if there were that would indicate to management that there's a surplus of workers which would lead to firings). Working from home helps a great deal, however, because of travel time and expense and because it's my home where I feel safe. At least there's that (and to me that's a very big benefit that I cherish).

But the reality of things, the overwhelming "oh my god what am I doing and how am I supposed to handle all this" seems to get worse as I get older, not better. The picture isn't becoming more clear, it's becoming more complicated. This isn't the world that Gen X and prior generations know and still expect to be true. And I think that's a huge disconnect between us. I once mentioned this to a family member in her late 50s who said "well that's because you're not doing what you love, you're doing something you -have- to do." That's all good and well, but how many people do what they love? That doesn't seem even remotely like a reasonable goal to which one can aspire. If you fall into something that you enjoy doing then wow, that's awesome. But for the vast majority of us we're just trying to get through each day and it's agonizing. For me I feel robbed of so much time because the alternating shifts and extra hours and the sheer exhaustion of dealing with my work consumes weeks at a time on a constant, unbroken cycle. Working weekends means that I have random single days off during the week, which I accept joyfully don't get me wrong, but who can effectively recuperate from a ten-day stretch of odd hours in one day? My life feels unstable because I have no idea when I'll be working, IF I'll be working, and what I'll be doing from one week to the next. I'm slowly giving more and more of myself to a ship that may be sinking right beneath my feet. And if it does sink, I won't have much to show for it aside from experience but even that's a weakening commodity. We've all seen the memes of employers saying "you need to be fresh out of college with ten years experience", etc.

And all this goes without saying that I'm extremely stressed at work. I give 100% each day and I'm burned completely out. What I do is not something that's ever really been "in my wheelhouse" but I've learned and continued to strive to be the best at it that I can possibly be, despite how out of character it is. I'm frustrated and I'm losing sleep and I don't know how to get out of this situation. And I don't see any better alternative. Except the lottery.

Stephen King - On Writing | A Memoir on the Craft

Stephen King - On Writing | A Memoir on the Craft

I believe large numbers of people have at least some talent as writers and storytellers, and that those talents can be strengthened and sharpened. If I didn’t believe that, writing a book like this would be a waste of time

V.C.

There were more doors than one person could ever open in a lifetime, I thought (and still think) - “endless possibilities of life”

By the time I was fourteen, the nail in my wall would no longer support the height of the rejection slips impaled upon it, I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing.

I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused of someone of wasting his or her god-given talent. if you write(or paint/dance/sculpt/sing), someone will make you feel lousy about it, that’s all.

Mindset of writing

If stone sober people can fuck like they’re out of their minds - can actually be out of their minds while caught in that throe - why shouldn’t writers be able to go bonkers and still stay sane.

Writing is a lonely job, having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches, just believing is usually enough.

Stopping a piece of your work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit in a sitting position.

I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing

Toolbox

Vocabulary

It ain’t how much you got, honey, its how you use it.

Put your vocabulary on the top shelf, and don’t make any conscious effort to improve it.

Use the first word that comes to mind, if it’s appropriate and colorful.

Concision

"My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun"

"My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss. I'll never forget it”

You might also notice how much simpler the thought is to understand when it's broken up into two thoughts. This makes matters easier for the reader, and the reader must always be your main concern;

Adverbs

To write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine.

On Writing

Good writing consist of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style)

Reading

To be a good writer, you must read a lot and write a lot. You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by force of your writing until it has been done to you. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time(or the tools) to write, simple as that.

The real importance of reading is it created an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one’s papers and identification pretty much in order.

Once weaned for the ephemeral craving for TV, most people will find they enjoy the time they spend reading. I’d like to suggest that turning off that endlessly quacking box is apt to improve the quality of your life as well as the quality of your writing.

We read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience helps us recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them.

You learn the best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.

You must begin by being your biggest advocate, which means reading the magazines and publishing the kind of stuff you write.

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open

When you write, you want to get rid of the world, do you not? Of course you do, when you’re writing, you’re creating your own worlds.

Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right - as right as you can, anyway - it belongs to anyone who reads it.

The place can be humble(probably should be. and it really one u needs one thing: a door which you are willing to shut. The closed door is your day of telling the world you mean business; you have made a serious commitment to write and intend to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

But you need the room, you need the door, and you need the determination to shut the door. You need a concrete goal, as well. The longer you keep to these basics, the easier the act of writing will become.

If you're a beginner though, let me urge that you take your story through at least 2 drafts; the one with the door closed, the one you do with it open…

Keep the door closed

There comes a point when you want to show what you're doing to a close friend, either because you're proud of what you're doing or because you're doubtful about it. My best advice is to resist this impulse. Keep the pressure one; don't lower it by exposing what you've written to the doubt, the praise, or even the well-meaning questions of someone from the Outside World. Let your hope of success(and your fear of failure) carry you on, difficult as that can be. There'll be time to show off what you've done when you finish... but even after finishing I think you must be cautious and give yourself a chance to think while the story is still like a field of freshly fallen snow, absent of any tracks save your own.

Here's something else - if no ones says yo you, this is wonderful! you are a lot less apt to slack off or to start concentrating on the wrong thing.. being wonderful, for instance, instead of telling the goddam story.

You've done a lot of work and you need a period of time to rest. Your mind and imagination - two things which are related, but not really the same - have to recycle themselves. My advice is you take a couple days off - go fishing, and then work on something else, something shorter, preferably and something that's a complete changer directions and pace from your newly finished book.

Resist temptation, you'll very likely decide you didn't do as well on that passage as you thought and you'd better retool it on the spot. This is bad. The only thing worse would be for you to decide the passage is even better than you remembered - why not drop everything and read the whole book over right then? Get back to work on it! Hell, you're ready! You're fuckin Shakespeare!

After 6 weeks - Revising/Rewriting

If you've never done it before, you'll find reading your book over after a six week layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience, It's yours, you'll recognize it as yours, even be able to remember what tune was on the stereo when you wrote certain lines, and yet it will also be like reading the work of someone else, a soul-twin, perhaps. This is the way it should be, the reason you waited. It's always easier to kill someone else's darlings than it is to kill your own.

With 6 weeks of time, you'll also be able to see nay glaring holes in the plot of character development. I'm talking about holes big enough to drive a truck through. And listen, if you spot a few of these big holes, you are forbidden to feel depressed about them or beat up on yourself. Screw-ups happen to the best of us,

When reading your own draft - only god gets it right the first time and only a slob says "oh well, let it go, that's what copyeditors are for”

I love this part of the process because I'm re-discoverying my own book, and usually liking it.

Underneath, I'm asking myself the big question: Is this story coherent? What I want most of all is resonance, something that will linger for a little while in Constant Reader's mind and heart.

Most of all, I'm looking for what I meant.

The forumla for revision

2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%

When to open the door

Someone once said - All novels are really letters aimed at one person. At various points, the author is thinking, "I wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?"

And if what you hear makes sense, then you make the changes. You can't let the whole world into your story, but you can let in the ones that matter the most. And you should.

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scrubber's heart, kill your darlings

What to write about

The big question - what are you going to write about? And the equally big answer, Anything you damn well want. Anything at all, as long as you tell the truth.

What would be very wrong, I think, is to turn away form what you know and like or love, in favor of things you believe will impress your friends, relatives, and writing circle colleagues.

When I'm asked why I decided to write the sort of thing I do write, I always think the question is more revealing than any answer I can possibly give. Wrapped within it, like the chewy stuff in the center of a Tootsie Pop, is the assumption that the writer controls the material instead to the other way around. "The book is the boss”

What you know makes you unique in some other way. Be brave.

If you’re a lawyer, your story about lets say lawyers & gangs whatever will be very good because its grounded on experience and truth.

Structures of Writing

Stories and novels consist of 3 parts - Narration, Description and Dialogue.

Narration Moves the story from point A to B, and finally point Z

Description Creates a sense of reality for the reader.

Small example -

The cab pulled up in front of Palm Too at quarter to four on a bright summer afternoon. Billy paid the driver, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and took a quick look around for Martin. Not in sight. Satisfied, Billy went inside.

After the hot clarity of Second Avenue, Palm Too was as dark as a cave. The backbar mirror picked up some of the street-glare and glimmered in the gloom like a mirage. For a moment it was all Billy could see, and then his eyes began to adjust. There were a few solitary drinkers at the bar. beyond them, the matire d’, his tie undone and his shirt cuffs rolled back to show his hairy wrists, was talking with the bartender. There was still sawdust sprinkled on the floor, Billy noted, as if this were a twenties speakeasy instead of a millennium eatery where you couldn’t smoke, let alone spit a gob of tobacco between your feet. And the cartoons dancing across the walls - gossip-column caricatures of downtown political hustlers, newsmen who had long since retired or drunk themselves to death, celebrities you couldn’t recognize - still gambolled all the way to the ceiling. The air was redolent of steak and fried onions. All of it the same as it ever was

The maitre d’ stepped forward. “Can I help you, sir?” We don’t open for dinner until six, but the bar -

“I’m looking for Richie Martin,” Billy said.

If you want to be a successful writer, you must be able to describe it, and in a way that will cause your reader to pickle with recognition. When it's on target, a smile delights us in much the same way meeting an old friend in a crowd of strangers does. By comparing two seemingly unrelated objects - a restaurant bar and a cave, a mirror and a mirage - we are sometimes able to see an old thing in a new and vivid way.

Practice the art, always reminding yourself that your job is to say what you see, and then to get on with your story.

Dialogue What brings the characters to life through their speech

And the cardinal rules of good fiction is never tell us a thing if you can show us, instead. "Annie seems particularly happy that day" If I have to tell you, I lose.

Dialogue is a skill best learned by people who enjoy talking and listening to others - particularly listening.

Some people don't want to hear the truth, of course, but that's not your problem. If you expect it to ring true, then you must talk yourself. Even more important, you must shut up and listen to others talk

I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.

Every character you create, is partly you.

Practice is invaluable(and should feel good, really not like practice at all) and that honesty is indispensable. Skills in description, dialogue and character development all boil down to seeing or hearing clearly and then transcribing what you see or hear with equal clarity.

Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to them it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story.

~~Plot?~~ I won't try to convince you I never plotted like I never told a lie, but I do both as infrequently as possible. I distrust plot for 2 reasons.

Because of our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning;

I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible.

My basic belief about the making of stories is that they are pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow.

Plot, I think, the good writer's last resort and dullard's first choice. The story which results form it is apt to feel artificial and labored. I never demand a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way

Most of the ideas come from "situations" - what if vampires did this what if what if

these are all situations which occurred to me - while showing, while driving, while taking my daily walk

I believe stories are found things, like fossils in the ground, he said that he didn’t believe me. I said that’s fine, as long as he believe that I believe it. Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writers job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.

Why Write

I did it for the buzz, I did the for the pure joy of the thing, and if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever

Writing did not save my life - but it has continued to do what it always has done: it makes may life a brighter and more pleasant place.

Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends, In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.

The rest of it - and perhaps the best of it - is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. Writing is magic, as much as the water of life as any other creative art, The water is free, So drink, drink and be filled up

Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it(whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening(or reading/watching), every outing is bravado performance, because you as the creator are happy.

If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it.

Quotes [No theme]

"there's just enough of me left inside to know that I am globally, perhaps even galactically, fucked up.”

"and telling an alcoholic to control his drinking is like telling a guy suffering the world's most cataclysmic case of diarrhea to control his shitting”

The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death. Writing is at its best - always, always, always - when it is a kind of inspired play for the writer. I can write in cold blood if I have to, but I like it best when its fresh and almost too hot to handle.

Remember you are writing a novel, not a research paper, the story always comes first.

It seems to occur to few of the attendees that if you have a feeling you just can't describe, you might just be, I don't know, kind of like, my sense of it is, maybe in the wrong fucking class.

“One word at a time”

9 Things You Don’t Know about Yourself

https://healthandfitnessrecipes.com/?p=7587

Steve Ayan, Guest Waking Times

Your “self” lies before you like an open book. Just peer inside and read: who you are, your likes and dislikes, your hopes and fears; they are all there, ready to be understood. This notion is popular but is probably completely false! Psychological research shows that we do not have privileged access to who we are. When we try to assess ourselves accurately, we are really poking around in a fog.

Princeton University psychologist Emily Pronin, who specializes in human self-perception and decision making, calls the mistaken belief in privileged access the “introspection illusion.” The way we view ourselves is distorted, but we do not realize it. As a result, our self-image has surprisingly little to do with our actions. For example, we may be absolutely convinced that we are empathetic and generous but still walk right past a homeless person on a cold day.

The reason for this distorted view is quite simple, according to Pronin. Because we do not want to be stingy, arrogant, or self-righteous, we assume that we are not any of those things. As evidence, she points to our divergent views of ourselves and others. We have no trouble recognizing how prejudiced or unfair our office colleague acts toward another person. But we do not consider that we could behave in much the same way: Because we intend to be morally good, it never occurs to us that we, too, might be prejudiced.

Pronin assessed her thesis in a number of experiments. Among other things, she had her study participants complete a test involving matching faces with personal statements that would supposedly assess their social intelligence. Afterward, some of them were told that they had failed and were asked to name weaknesses in the testing procedure. Although the opinions of the subjects were almost certainly biased (not only had they supposedly failed the test, they were also being asked to critique it), most of the participants said their evaluations were completely objective. It was much the same in judging works of art, although subjects who used a biased strategy for assessing the quality of paintings nonetheless believed that their own judgment was balanced. Pronin argues that we are primed to mask our own biases.

Is the word “introspection” merely a nice metaphor? Could it be that we are not really looking into ourselves, as the Latin root of the word suggests, but producing a flattering self-image that denies the failings that we all have? The research on self-knowledge has yielded much evidence for this conclusion. Although we think we are observing ourselves clearly, our self-image is affected by processes that remain unconscious.

1. Your motives are often a complete mystery to you

How well do people know themselves? In answering this question, researchers encounter the following problem: to assess a person’s self-image, one would have to know who that person really is. Investigators use a variety of techniques to tackle such questions. For example, they compare the self-assessments of test subjects with the subjects’ behavior in laboratory situations or in everyday life. They may ask other people, such as relatives or friends, to assess subjects, as well. And they probe unconscious inclinations using special methods.

To measure unconscious inclinations, psychologists can apply a method known as the implicit association test (IAT), developed in the 1990s by Anthony Greenwald of the University of Washington and his colleagues, to uncover hidden attitudes. Since then, numerous variants have been devised to examine anxiety, impulsiveness, and sociability, among other features. The approach assumes that instantaneous reactions require no reflection; as a result, unconscious parts of the personality come to the fore.

Notably, experimenters seek to determine how closely words that are relevant to a person are linked to certain concepts. For example, participants in a study were asked to press a key as quickly as possible when a word that described a characteristic such as extroversion (say, “talkative” or “energetic”) appeared on a screen. They were also asked to press the same key as soon as they saw a word on the screen that related to themselves (such as their own name). They were to press a different key as soon as an introverted characteristic (say, “quiet” or “withdrawn”) appeared or when the word involved someone else. Of course, the words and key combinations were switched over the course of many test runs. If a reaction was quicker when a word associated with the participant followed “extroverted,” for instance, it was assumed that extroversion was probably integral to that person’s self-image.

“When we try to assess ourselves accurately, we are really poking around in a fog.” ~Steve Ayan

Such “implicit” self-concepts generally correspond only weakly to assessments of the self that are obtained through questionnaires. The image that people convey in surveys has little to do with their lightning-fast reactions to emotionally laden words. And a person’s implicit self-image is often quite predictive of his or her actual behavior, especially when nervousness or sociability is involved. On the other hand, questionnaires yield better information about such traits as conscientiousness or openness to new experiences. Psychologist Mitja Back of the University of Münster in Germany explains that methods designed to elicit automatic reactions reflect the spontaneous or habitual components of our personality. Conscientiousness and curiosity, on the other hand, require a certain degree of thought and can therefore be assessed more easily through self-reflection.

2. Outward appearances tell people a lot about you

Much research indicates that our nearest and dearest often see us better than we see ourselves. As psychologist Simine Vazire of the University of California, Davis, has shown, two conditions in particular may enable others to recognize who we really are most readily: First, when they are able to “read” a trait from outward characteristics and, second, when a trait has a clear positive or negative valence (intelligence and creativity are obviously desirable, for instance; dishonesty and egocentricity are not). Our assessments of ourselves most closely match assessments by others when it comes to more neutral characteristics.

The characteristics generally most readable by others are those that strongly affect our behavior. For example, people who are naturally sociable typically like to talk and seek out company; insecurity often manifests in behaviors such as hand-wringing or averting one’s gaze. In contrast, brooding is generally internal, unspooling within the confines of one’s mind.

We are frequently blind to the effect we have on others because we simply do not see our own facial expressions, gestures, and body language. I am hardly aware that my blinking eyes indicate stress or that the slump in my posture betrays how heavily something weighs on me. Because it is so difficult to observe ourselves, we must rely on the observations of others, especially those who know us well. It is hard to know who we are unless others let us know how we affect them.

3. Gaining some distance can help you know yourself better

Keeping a diary, pausing for self-reflection, and having probing conversations with others have a long tradition, but whether these methods enable us to know ourselves is hard to tell. In fact, sometimes doing the opposite—such as letting go—is more helpful because it provides some distance. In 2013, Erika Carlson, now at the University of Toronto, reviewed the literature on whether and how mindfulness meditation improves one’s self-knowledge. It helps, she noted, by overcoming two big hurdles: distorted thinking and ego protection. The practice of mindfulness teaches us to allow our thoughts to simply drift by and to identify with them as little as possible. Thoughts, after all, are “only thoughts” and not the absolute truth. Frequently, stepping out of oneself in this way and simply observing what the mind does fosters clarity.

4. We too often think we are better at something than we are

Gaining insight into our unconscious motives can enhance emotional well-being. Oliver C. Schultheiss of Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany has shown that our sense of well-being tends to grow as our conscious goals and unconscious motives become more aligned or congruent. For example, we should not slave away at a career that gives us money and power if these goals are of little importance to us. But how do we achieve such harmony? By imagining, for example. Try to imagine, as vividly and in as much detail as possible, how things would be if your most fervent wish came true. Would it really make you happier? Often we succumb to the temptation to aim excessively high without taking into account all of the steps and effort necessary to achieve ambitious goals.

Are you familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect? It holds that the more incompetent people are, the less they are aware of their incompetence. The effect is named after David Dunning of the University of Michigan and Justin Kruger of New York University.

Dunning and Kruger gave their test subjects a series of cognitive tasks and asked them to estimate how well they did. At best, 25 percent of the participants viewed their performance more or less realistically; only some people underestimated themselves. The quarter of subjects who scored worst on the tests really missed the mark, wildly exaggerating their cognitive abilities. Is it possible that boasting and failing are two sides of the same coin?

As the researchers emphasize, their work highlights a general feature of self-perception: Each of us tends to overlook our cognitive deficiencies. According to psychologist Adrian Furnham of University College London, the statistical correlation between perceived and actual IQ is, on average, only 0.16—a pretty poor showing, to put it mildly. By comparison, the correlation between height and sex is about 0.7.

So why is the chasm between would-be and actual performance so gaping? Don’t we all have an interest in assessing ourselves realistically? It surely would spare us a great deal of wasted effort and perhaps a few embarrassments. The answer, it seems, is that a moderate inflation of self-esteem has certain benefits. According to a review by psychologists Shelley Taylor of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jonathon Brown of the University of Washington, rose-colored glasses tend to increase our sense of well-being and our performance. People afflicted by depression, on the other hand, are inclined to be brutally realistic in their self-assessments. An embellished self-image seems to help us weather the ups and downs of daily life.

5. People who tear themselves down experience setbacks more frequently

Although most of our contemporaries harbor excessively positive views of their honesty or intelligence, some people suffer from the opposite distortion: They belittle themselves and their efforts. Experiencing contempt and belittlement in childhood, often associated with violence and abuse, can trigger this kind of negativity—which, in turn, can limit what people can accomplish, leading to distrust, despair, and even suicidal thoughts.

It might seem logical to think that people with a negative self-image would be just the ones who would want to overcompensate. Yet as psychologists working with William Swann of the University of Texas at Austin discovered, many individuals racked with self-doubt seek confirmation of their distorted self-perception. Swann described this phenomenon in a study on contentment in marriage. He asked couples about their own strengths and weaknesses, the ways they felt supported and valued by their partner, and how content they were in the marriage. As expected, those who had a more positive attitude toward themselves found greater satisfaction in their relationship the more they received praise and recognition from their other half. But those who habitually picked at themselves felt safer in their marriage when their partner reflected their negative image back to them. They did not ask for respect or appreciation. On the contrary, they wanted to hear exactly their own view of themselves: “You’re incompetent.”

Swann based his theory of self-verification on these findings. The theory holds that we want others to see us the way we see ourselves. In some cases, people actually provoke others to respond negatively to them so as to prove how worthless they are. This behavior is not necessarily masochism. It is symptomatic of the desire for coherence: If others respond to us in a way that confirms our self-image, then the world is as it should be.

Likewise, people who consider themselves failures will go out of their way not to succeed, contributing actively to their own undoing. They will miss meetings, habitually neglect doing assigned work, and get into hot water with the boss. Swann’s approach contradicts Dunning and Kruger’s theory of overestimation. But both camps are probably right: hyperinflated egos are certainly common, but negative self-images are not uncommon.

6. You deceive yourself without realizing it

According to one influential theory, our tendency for self-deception stems from our desire to impress others. To appear convincing, we ourselves must be convinced of our capabilities and truthfulness. Supporting this theory is the observation that successful manipulators are often quite full of themselves. Good salespeople, for example, exude an enthusiasm that is contagious; conversely, those who doubt themselves generally are not good at sweet talking. Lab research is supportive as well. In one study, participants were offered money if, in an interview, they could convincingly claim to have aced an IQ test. The more effort the candidates put into their performance, the more they themselves came to believe that they had a high IQ, even though their actual scores were more or less average.

Our self-deceptions have been shown to be quite changeable. Often we adapt them flexibly to new situations. This adaptability was demonstrated by Steven A. Sloman of Brown University and his colleagues. Their subjects were asked to move a cursor to a dot on a computer screen as quickly as possible. If the participants were told that above-average skill in this task reflected high intelligence, they immediately concentrated on the task and did better. They did not actually seem to think that they had exerted more effort—which the researchers interpret as evidence of a successful self-deception. On the other hand, if the test subjects were convinced that only dimwits performed well on such stupid tasks, their performance tanked precipitously.

But is self-deception even possible? Can we know something about ourselves on some level without being conscious of it? Absolutely! The experimental evidence involves the following research design: Subjects are played audiotapes of human voices, including their own, and are asked to signal whether they hear themselves. The recognition rate fluctuates depending on the clarity of the audiotapes and the loudness of the background noise. If brain waves are measured at the same time, particular signals in the reading indicate with certainty whether the participants heard their own voice.

Most people are somewhat embarrassed to hear their own voice. In a classic study, Ruben Gur of the University of Pennsylvania and Harold Sackeim of Columbia University made use of this reticence, comparing the statements of test subjects with their brain activity. Lo and behold, the activity frequently signaled, “That’s me!” without subjects’ having overtly identified a voice as their own. Moreover, if the investigators threatened the participants’ self-image—say, by telling them that they had scored miserably on another (irrelevant) test—they were even less apt to recognize their voice. Either way, their brain waves told the real story.

In a more recent study, researchers evaluated performances on a practice test meant to help students assess their own knowledge so that they could fill in gaps. Here, subjects were asked to complete as many tasks as possible within a set time limit. Given that the purpose of the practice test was to provide students with information they needed, it made little sense for them to cheat; on the contrary, artificially pumped-up scores could have led them to let their studies slide. Those who tried to improve their scores by using time beyond the allotted completion period would just be hurting themselves.

(function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:10162674340441958,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-8962-3608"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="http://cdn2.lockerdomecdn.com/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");

But many of the volunteers did precisely that. Unconsciously, they simply wanted to look good. Thus, the cheaters explained their running over time by claiming to have been distracted and wanting to make up for lost seconds. Or they said that their fudged outcomes were closer to their “true potential.” Such explanations, according to the researchers, confuse cause and effect, with people incorrectly thinking, “Intelligent people usually do better on tests. So if I manipulate my test score by simply taking a little more time than allowed, I’m one of the smart ones, too.” Conversely, people performed less diligently if they were told that doing well indicated a higher risk for developing schizophrenia. Researchers call this phenomenon diagnostic self-deception.

7. The “true self” is good for you

Most people believe that they have a solid essential core, a true self. Who they truly are is evinced primarily in their moral values and is relatively stable; other preferences may change, but the true self remains the same. Rebecca Schlegel and Joshua Hicks, both at Texas A&M University, and their colleagues have examined how people’s view of their true self affects their satisfaction with themselves. The researchers asked test subjects to keep a diary about their everyday life. The participants turned out to feel most alienated from themselves when they had done something morally questionable: They felt especially unsure of who they actually were when they had been dishonest or selfish. Experiments have also confirmed an association between the self and morality. When test subjects are reminded of earlier wrongdoing, their surety about themselves takes a hit.

Another study by Newman and Knobe involved “Mark,” a devout Christian who was nonetheless attracted to other men. The researchers sought to understand how the participants viewed Mark’s dilemma. For conservative test subjects, Mark’s “true self” was not gay; they recommended that he resist such temptations. Those with a more liberal outlook thought he should come out of the closet. Yet if Mark was presented as a secular humanist who thought being homosexual was fine but had negative feelings when thinking about same-sex couples, the conservatives quickly identified this reluctance as evidence of Mark’s true self; liberals viewed it as evidence of a lack of insight or sophistication. In other words, what we claim to be the core of another person’s personality is in fact rooted in the values that we ourselves hold most dear. The “true self” turns out to be a moral yardstick.George Newman and Joshua Knobe, both at Yale University, have found that people typically think humans harbor a true self that is virtuous. They presented subjects with case studies of dishonest people, racists, and the like. Participants generally attributed the behavior in the case studies to environmental factors such as a difficult childhood—the real essence of these people must surely have been different. This work shows our tendency to think that, in their heart of hearts, people pull for what is moral and good.

The belief that the true self is moral probably explains why people connect personal improvements more than personal deficiencies to their “true self.” Apparently we do so actively to enhance appraisals of ourselves. Anne E. Wilson of Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario and Michael Ross of the University of Waterloo in Ontario have demonstrated in several studies that we tend to ascribe more negative traits to the person we were in the past—which makes us look better in the here and now. According to Wilson and Ross, the further back people go, the more negative their characterization becomes. Although improvement and change are part of the normal maturation process, it feels good to believe that over time, one has become “who one really is.”

Assuming that we have a solid core identity reduces the complexity of a world that is constantly in flux. The people around us play many different roles, acting inconsistently and at the same time continuing to develop. It is reassuring to think that our friends Tom and Sarah will be precisely the same tomorrow as they are today and that they are basically good people—regardless of whether that perception is correct.

Is life without belief in a true self even imaginable? Researchers have examined this question by comparing different cultures. The belief in a true self is widespread in most parts of the world. One exception is Buddhism, which preaches the nonexistence of a stable self. Prospective Buddhist monks are taught to see through the illusionary character of the ego—it is always in flux and completely malleable.

Nina Strohminger of the University of Pennsylvania and her colleagues wanted to know how this perspective affects the fear of death of those who hold it. They gave a series of questionnaires and scenarios to about 200 lay Tibetans and 60 Buddhist monks. They compared the results with those of Christians and nonreligious people in the U.S., as well as with those of Hindus (who, much like Christians, believe that a core of the soul, or atman, gives human beings their identity). The common image of Buddhists is that they are deeply relaxed, completely “selfless” people. Yet the less that the Tibetan monks believed in a stable inner essence, the more likely they were to fear death. In addition, they were significantly more selfish in a hypothetical scenario in which forgoing a particular medication could prolong the life of another person. Nearly three out of four monks decided against that fictitious option, far more than the Americans or Hindus. Self-serving, fearful Buddhists? In another paper, Strohminger and her colleagues called the idea of the true self a “hopeful phantasm,” albeit a possibly useful one. It is, in any case, one that is hard to shake.

8. Insecure people tend to behave more morally

Insecurity is generally thought of as a drawback, but it is not entirely bad. People who feel insecure about whether they have some positive trait tend to try to prove that they do have it. Those who are unsure of their generosity, for example, are more likely to donate money to a good cause. This behavior can be elicited experimentally by giving subjects negative feedback—for instance, “According to our tests, you are less helpful and cooperative than average.” People dislike hearing such judgments and end up feeding the donation box.

Drazen Prelec, a psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explains such findings with his theory of self-signaling: What a particular action says about me is often more important than the action’s actual objective. More than a few people have stuck with a diet because they did not want to appearweak-willed. Conversely, it has been empirically established that those who are sure that they are generous, intelligent, or sociable make less effort to prove it. Too much self-assurance makes people complacent and increases the chasm between the self that they imagine and the self that is real. Therefore, those who think they know themselves well are particularly apt to know themselves less well than they think.

9. If you think of yourself as flexible, you will do much better

People’s own theories about who they are influence how they behave. One’s self-image can therefore easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Carol Dweck of Stanford University has spent much time researching such effects. Her takeaway: If we view a characteristic as mutable, we are inclined to work on it more. On the other hand, if we view a trait such as IQ or willpower as largely unchangeable and inherent, we will do little to improve it.

In Dweck’s studies of students, men and women, parents and teachers, she gleaned a basic principle: People with a rigid sense of self take failure badly. They see it as evidence of their limitations and fear it; fear of failure, meanwhile, can itself cause failure. In contrast, those who understand that a particular talent can be developed accept setbacks as an invitation to do better next time. Dweck thus recommends an attitude aimed at personal growth. When in doubt, we should assume that we have something more to learn and that we can improve and develop.

But even people who have a rigid sense of self are not fixed in all aspects of their personality. According to psychologist Andreas Steimer of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, even when people describe their strengths as completely stable, they tend to believe that they will outgrow their weaknesses sooner or later. If we try to imagine how our personality will look in several years, we lean toward views such as: “Level-headedness and clear focus will still be part and parcel of who I am, and I’ll probably have fewer self-doubts.”

Overall, we tend to view our character as more static than it is, presumably because this assessment offers security and direction. We want to recognize our particular traits and preferences so that we can act accordingly. In the final analysis, the image that we create of ourselves is a kind of safe haven in an ever-changing world.

And the moral of the story? According to researchers, self-knowledge is even more difficult to attain than has been thought. Contemporary psychology has fundamentally questioned the notion that we can know ourselves objectively and with finality. It has made it clear that the self is not a “thing” but rather a process of continual adaptation to changing circumstances. And the fact that we so often see ourselves as more competent, moral, and stable than we actually are serves our ability to adapt.

About the Author

Steve Ayan is a psychologist based in Heidelberg, Germany, and is an editor at Gehirn & Geist.

This article was originally published on Scientific American. Read the original article.

Like Waking Times on Facebook. Follow Waking Times on Twitter.

Credits: Original Content Source

Will He Marry Me? Performs He Love Me? Through Teecee Go.

Are you still having issue discovering the keys to from just what females prefer during the course of sex? Hanging around all of them leaves me with a delighted feeling, and then then, I am better as well as even more beneficial around the people I are along with in the future. They vocalize their standard song Auld Lang Syne" to welcome the new year and also observe that till Third January. If the hubby is certainly not delighted along with the sex in their married life, he makes sure to look somewhere else; this can be unsafe for your relationship. You could help make 2 cases in the course of any type of 3 year time frame without any reduction of NCD but your security will certainly be actually lost. An uplifting concept which is going to also establish the motif for the party would be actually the background. Share a few from these comical friendship quotes along with the good friends which create your life a brighter as well as your days a satisfy. Current economic challenges have actually forced everyone making some difficult selections when that comes to the family budget. Review them, consider just how they make you think as well as how similar to others you might switch your life around. Jack Canfield as soon as pointed out that he merely carries out traits that create him delighted, as well as he is actually a very pleased guy! When I happen to decide on songs for praise leading, the best method to lead you in tune choice is actually to permit you to understand exactly what goes with my thoughts. Sir the fantastic Dr i am satisfied and also incredibly happy wherefore you have provided for me. I will certainly suggest you my friends around that possess emotional issues or even health and wellness to call him right now by means of e-mail oshogumspelltemple @ due to the fact that he has carried out surprises in my lifestyle and also i feel he could help you out in any sort of problem. Therefore, yes, Commenter, I may prefer to enjoy or think minutes of happiness as well as internal love, despite the only thing that is actually taking place. I feel this is actually certainly not simply my duty however my responsibility to aid keep a much more nurturing vibration on this planet-- specifically now. A girl who is willing to experiment is something that every guy imagine, thus if you desire to make him truly delighted, give him an odds make an effort something brand new. You will discover some center explanations for this, and also comprehending these causes will definitely assist you create the appropriate adjustments. Bear in mind: every person needs 12 hugs a time, so be sure to give them all the hugs they need for a terrific emotion every day just before night time. I knew exactly just what it took to create me capable to throw up, and that was actually creating myself so total to the point where I believed likeI was heading to throw up anyhow. Men will not presume you're egocentric if you do it in a way that praises their desire to make you delighted. Despite the fact that, this may believe odd for time, but once you perform it, this does not create you feel therefore. If you desire to make your fan believe essential, at that point this phrase would be the ideal one. Without his support, we would still be actually living in our dreamland of joy and happiness and assuming whatever and everybody around will certainly make our company delighted. When you have your and also make it interesting every opportunity you possess sex, attempt different factors. If you're satisfied, male is going to be with you in your atmosphere and certainly not modify a point. Yet in any case, they made me tremendously very satisfied, and that created me desire to show and quit on all the other points that are actually making me pleased in today times. Just, if your near relatives and also friends mored than happy individuals, there's an exceptional opportunity that you will definitely be too. Mindfulness can easily assist you to be pleased along with what you have by permitting you to really appreciate what you have. You are actually probably looking for suggestions to memorialize this happy event in a major technique if therefore. That seems counter-intuitive, however performing whatever you can to serve your man's every urge is actually NOT the way to create him satisfied. I promise if you are going to begin being actually grateful for things in your lifestyle that create you delighted, and even dissatisfied, you will experience a terrific upswing from brand new electricity. The secret is to create the choice every day ... find one thing to become delighted approximately. Still, that doesn't suggest you need to allow your emotional states dictate every little thing you do or state. Due to the fact that he stopped working to notice you received your haircut previously today, this doesn't make any sense to decline to go to a party with him this evening. This is actually all-natural to rejoice when you experience truly exciting factors in your partnership, your lifestyle, or even your occupation. My sweetheart left me and informed me ends I was actually wrecked as I adored him so much I determined to call a spelI wheel and also I satisfied a close friend that informed me from a great medical professional and I chose to call him and also he told me in three days my partner will certainly phone me and also beg me to acept him I thought he was joking in three days everything occurred as he mentioned I am actually thus delighted could likewise call him at; efespelltemple @ for any type of type of support, or contact +2348106985072. As a matter of fact, I would claim that a few of these love quotes have a great deal of electrical power that they may also recover a dead partnership if you utter these quotes to your passion. To earn it that little additional exclusive, make some details in it, birthday celebrations as well as pointers. Through declaring and also focused on pleased notions, your favorable expectation tends to attract individuals to you. These could be composed of some excellent publications to review as well as bags that she may profit. Allow me to show to you my beloved 10 best ever Adorable Lifestyle quotes as well as clatter your day up. Our happiness my buddies is actually something that our team should service without allowing other people's activity to affect this or to have an adverse influence on it. Make a point of residing a delighted life without allowing people's action determine the means you are trying to reside your life. YOU are the a single that may create you think far better and also through don't doing anything will definitely receive you nowhere. She loves all of them for being men, except exactly what they could be. Males are actually normally pleased that females are actually ladies. Our experts just posted a link to that to our brand-new facebook webpage named Create a satisfied and also healthy life". So, right here are actually some standards for each female available reviewing my article, that will definitely make your spouse crave for you! Seriously, all of us acknowledge that innovation is fantastic, but when you spend lengthy hrs facing one, this is important to take a break as well as be sure there is actually even more to life in comparison to the virtual If you liked this short article and you would like to get additional information pertaining to yellow pages uk residential (just click the following web site) kindly take a look at the web page. .

My Spouse Failed to Create Me Happy.

The surprise for lots of people comes when they understand their neighbor Joe and also his wife from time to time meet for drinks and also some kinky sexual activity with their other next-door neighbors Bob as well as Suzy coming from two doors down. Bear in mind: every person needs 12 caress a day, thus be sure to give them all the caress they need for a terrific emotion on a daily basis just before bedtime. I understood specifically just what it took to create me able to throw up, and that was making on my own thus complete to the point where I believed likeI was mosting likely to vomit anyway. Men won't assume you're egocentric if you do that in such a way that honors their desire to make you pleased. Despite the fact that, this might feel unusual for a long time, but once you perform this, this doesn't make you feel therefore. If you would like to create your aficionado experience essential, then this key phrase would certainly be the correct one. When my fan left me i never ever taught that i will have the capacity to obtain her spine nevertheless she has placed me through, Yet i am therefore satisfied that after the disturbance of Dr.Zabaza i had the capacity to acquire my aficionado back after 48hours and also i may happily that who ever require aid in arriving fan back ought to consult with Dr.Zabaza on these contact particulars listed below +2348182620374 or zabazalogan @ for correct understanding of exactly what i possess simply witness. Viewing you handle the breakup thus properly will definitely make your ex lover discover he skips you like crazy. If you intend to follow their top and also learn ways to create a person love you, here are some do's and also perform n'ts to keep in mind. Those crazy emotional states that you believe due to your anxieties need certainly not specify you. Furthermore if you focus on the things in your life that you are actually happy for certainly not only perform you feel more pleased but you likewise begin to entice more traits that make you happy. I generally locate myself writing out a web page of satisfied factors when I reside in a excellent and happy spot and also I'm anxious it's going to pertain to a conclusion soon. When you wish to obtain your ex-boyfriend girlfriend back asap, you normally make the very same oversight as many individuals carry out, as well as you also recognize that it is actually certainly not going to work. You could try contracting and create a good lifestyle performing exactly what you really love if you really love constructing things. Don't attempt to perform traits in the dark considering that that will definitely lead you to redo the exact same blunders as several various other men usually make. All material published on this internet site is actually the duty of the party uploading such content. You make me happy whether you know it or otherwise I am actually therefore happy understanding you are the one that ill love for the remainder from my times. Select a stylish food selection coming from the starters via the deserts that may create the celebrant, and also the guests, think unique throughout the meal. Yet there are points you can possibly do making things operate even more easily as well as to prevent shooting yourself in the foot. The wages appreciation for the lots of sacrifices that moms make for their loved ones, present is actually monitored in the entire UK as well as the globe. The words that create you understand that you are not alone, that there are actually others around which have been harmed and are actually enduring as you are actually. The 11 track album just takes 31 mins to get through, and its own high energy, medium-paced tunes are terrific for whatever sort of state of mind you have actually found your own self in this particular full week. Create something special for your male at the very least on the weekend break, when you possess sufficient opportunity to invest along with each other. You may be actually organizing an 80th special day party for an evening owl which possesses additional power than the average teen. The satisfied microbes can be taken in or even taken in with the skin layer while gardening. Climaxes likewise illuminate the human brains like a Christmas time plant, as well as has actually been actually technically proven making our team Healthier is our team sleep around once a full week. When I recall at my lifestyle, twenty years eventually, I discover that I truly had no idea that I was actually or exactly what made me delighted. There are numerous things that can easily create everyone pleased, however to opt for some of the could be actually the hardest component. If you make a decision truly then react as well as do not surrender, you will definitely have the ability to end up being a successful remain at property mommy which not only enjoys being actually along with her household as well as little ones - and also of course her kids appreciate her visibility in the home - however can easily clear up volume from amount of money. Relationships are neither unhappy nor happy; this is actually an unprejudiced and neutral aspect produced when two people collaborated for whatever cause. This's part of your core being, but appreciate this when she is actually about and offer her your full attention if you desire to maintain her pleased. I hated being an unfilled vessel, and as I started courting, I expected that special somebody ahead throughout, pack me up, as well as make me pleased. Charming life quotes are one such a manner in which make certain to take instant smile on your face. I suggested a man which's name is actually PREDICTOR AHMED he is actually effective and can help designate spells to rejuvenate one's gone, lost, misconducting lover as well as magic money incantation or even spell for a really good job or even fortune spellI am actually right now happy & a lifestyle testimony cos the male i had wished to marry left me 3 weeks just before our wedding and also my life was upside down since our relationship has actually gotten on for 3years. For additional friendship quotes, browse through the popular relationship prices quote section of, a site that concentrates on 'Leading 10' lists from quotations in dozens of classifications. A survey finished by Gardeners Planet Journal reported that 80% from those that gardened thought pleased and also contented with their lives compared to 67% from those which performed not backyard. Manuals with twists, delighted ends, catastrophes as well as at times with no ending whatsoever. LOVING/having INTEREST for your work, companion, city you stay in, your family members, people around you - ALL OF create a HUGE variation with ones amount in contentment!!!! You possess a wonderful remarkable mind, which glob in between your ears will certainly formulate one thing that will certainly create you abundant and affluent. The excursion is actually led by specialist manuals who are actually proficient as well as competent in their languages (English, Spanish). This will obviously create you relatively abnormal as well as the viewers feelings this incredibly swiftly. When he acquired right into one of his dark moods, Andrew was regularly thus happy that it believed especially disconcerting. And also if you intend to make your male satisfied in the real sense, after that you will definitely must make certain changes in you. Caution should be had, however, when attempting to eliminate a curse, as inexperienced casters could really compound that as well as make this worse. Here is more on yellow pages adverts youtube (http://changebody2017.info) check out our own web-page. People toss colours on one another as well as dream Satisfied Holi." People likewise make exclusive recipes at their residence as well as consume with their close friends.