#i say 'one-liner' bc small stuff is what will help me feel more motivated to write tbh | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tenacityblitz · 4 years

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all the numbers u haven't done

roleplaying habits questions.

1. what’s a grammar rule you find yourself breaking or ignoring a lot?

Offhand I can’t really think of anything?? English is my first language so I don’t knowingly break any grammar rules anyway. Unless possible excessive use of commas counts bc I use commas a lot.

2. are there any languages besides english in which you think you could comfortably roleplay?

Unless Gibberish counts bc I learned that stupid crack language back when I was a kid but good lord I would not have the patience to actually type out a reply like that.

3. how often do you reach for a synonym dictionary when writing? how about mentally?

Sometimes but not too frequently. Depends on how flowery I’m trying to write something or if I’m thinking of a word but I don’t like the first descriptive word that came to mind for what I’m trying to express.

4. how often do you need to translate your own or the other’s writing with a dictionary or google when writing and reading replies?

Never tbh. Especially since I don’t RP in any other languages, all my RP partners have a good enough grasp on English that I can always tell what they were at least trying to say in their reply.

5. do you listen to music while your write?

I used to need music playing in the background to help me focus on doing drafts, but nowadays I need more silence than anything to help focus and produce what I think is a quality response to a longer thread. Short one or two liner things idc what’s in the background.

6. do you have ideal writing circumstances when you can do a lot of drafts or tackle really long ones very easily?

I can fluctuate with when I best write. Typically I write better at night when the house is quiet and any noise happening in the house is a noise I make, but I’ve had writing inspiration hit me at any time of the day before.

7. are you a morning, day, evening, or night writer?

Bold of you to assume I’m awake during morning hours that don’t include 5 AM bc I’m still awake haha. When I’m not swamped with commissions to do I typically write better during the day or at night when I’m the only person awake in the house and I don’t have any outside distractions from a person IRL.

8. how does tiredness affect your writing?

Not overly so sometimes, I know there’ve been times in the past where I powered through replies even though I wanted to go to bed just because I was riding the motivation train and I didn’t want to lose it and not get to those last replies for who knows how long. But on Discord at least I often have reply to Discord threads be one of the last things I do before I go to sleep so I go to bed knowing I don’t owe anyone a reply on there.

9. have you ever written a serious reply intoxicated?

Not a serious reply anyway. I’ve been on the dashboard before while intoxicated (ColossalCon East was a prime example haha) but I’ve never really RP’d while that intoxicated

10. how much do you proof-read as you are writing vs. proof-read at the end?

I’ll proof read as I go but also give it one last read before I actually hit publish.

11. when you are writing a reply, how much ahead in the thread do you plan?

Entirely depends on the thread. I could write it on the fly or I could have days to think about it from external factors keeping me from getting to the reply as soon as it comes back to me.

12. is there ever been a time when you’ve had to drop a roleplaying partner because you’ve found their writing style exhausting?

Yes actually, gather round for RP horror storytime haha. Flash back to 2013 while I was still in the Black Butler fandom. I stupidly decided to give writing Sebastian a try at the request of a Ciel I’d made friends with (probably through my old Alois or Lizzie blog). She was a nice enough girl, close enough to my age so she seemed plenty mature, and had been what I thought was a good enough writer to warrant trying my hand at a muse I wouldn’t have otherwise thought to try. Legit within days of me making the Sebastian blog she was getting super clingy in her IC posts making Ciel a whiny baby missing Sebastian, would try and guilt me in IC posts to get on and write with her, and I dealt with it for about two weeks before I deleted Sebastian’s blog without warning and deleted the girl off Skype. To this day it’s the only blog I think I’ve ever consciously deleted.

13. does writing roleplay things in public spaces make you uncomfortable?

Not really? I wouldn’t be crazy about a stranger reading over my shoulder while I was writing bc that’s just weird, but I’ve gone to Starbucks or one of the local malls before on my off days (back when I was still at my last job) and I’d do RP stuff there just to get out of the house.

14. how often do you need to change the icon in your reply while or after writing the reply?

Typically I don’t put in icons until I’m done writing the reply unless I go into the reply knowing exactly which one I want to use, or think of a good one while I’m writing it out.

15. do you first get in the “zone” when writing, or do you start writing and “enter” it that way?

Nowadays I just start writing and then get into the zone after I get the first reply done. Discord replies I can chug out any time of day without difficulty, but for whatever reason Tumblr I have to be in the right mindset for.

16. what is your biggest obstacle to writing every day, if time doesn’t count?

Back when I was at my last job, it would be getting a lot of writing muse while I was busy at work and unable to get on my own laptop or sneak onto Tumblr on an office computer and at least type out the bulk of a reply (yes I was employee of the month many times haha), and by the time I was able to get to my own computer or be safe enough to get on a work computer, that writing muse would be gone.

17. what’s your inbox count currently? what did you do to get it so high/low?

Right now I have 15 IC asks. I won’t lie, two of them are from last years Valentine’s Day bc I was away at Katsucon at the time of receiving them and by the time I got home I still just never got around to answering the asks, but I didn’t want to delete them either so I just kept them for posterity. Some are from this past Christmas that I was terrible and haven’t answered yet bc I’ve been so swamped with commissions, some are from other random meme’s I’ve reblogged and gotten an ask or two for and also just never got around to. I’m horrible at replying to asks most of the time and I know it but I always appreciate whenever people take the time to send me an IC one.

18. how many drafts is a paralysing amount?

I’d guess I’d say over 15 like para thread replies would make me be like -insert meme song- ‘how could this happen to meeeee’. I’m not quite at that point yet but I’ll get there eventually if I’m not careful lol.

19. if you are writing a wrong reply that’s not working out, do you save what you have to be continued at another date, or do you scrap it and rewrite?

Usually I would just draft what I have and go back to it. I can’t remember the last time I scrapepd an unfinished draft and completely rewrote it.

20. longest reply you’ve ever writen on mobile?

N/A because I don’t do replies on mobile. I’ll send asks on mobile but I never reply to actual IC things while on my phone unless it’s something stupid and cracky or one-liner-ish.

21. does the total amount of threads you have going on matter to you, or just how many you owe?

Doesn’t really matter. I can have one thread with one person, I could have five threads with one person. @shinvcho is an example of the latter lol

22. what’s your thought process when you format? any unspoken rules you follow?

I’ve kept to the same formatting for years and years tbh. I’m too lazy to do excessive formatting beyond italicizing and/or bolding specific words for emphasis and spacing out the start of a new paragraph. Anything more than that to me is just tedious and unnecessary; I don’t want to make it difficult for my partners to read.

23. how does your follower count affect your mood?

Anyone who says they don’t appreciate or enjoy even a small spike in followers is a liar, because we live in an age where validation is held in high regard and it feels good to get the validation of seeing more people enjoy what we do on our blogs enough to put us on their dashboards. But it also doesn’t really matter to me when I lose followers because I have a mutual checker so I can unfollow a mutual back if they did so first so I don’t feel uncomfy still following someone who no longer wanted me on their dash lol.

#ooc #THIS IS WHY I QUESTIONED HOW MUCH U ACTUALLY LOVE ME I HAD TO DO BASICALLY ALL OF THEM LOL #creturae

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socialattractionuk · 5 years

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Why Seneca Can Help You Select Your Perfect Dating Mentors (Podcast Transcript)

You can find the original article at http://www.socialattraction.co.uk Connect with us Google+

Okay, welcome back to today’s episode where we’re going to be looking at a philosopher called Seneca who was around from 4 BC and died in 65 AD. So this is pretty well just after Julius Caesar. I’ve wanted to read this book for ages because he’s a Stoic philosopher and I just find that time in history to be hugely interesting.

And actually, the book of his that I’ve just read is quite, is more of an essay. It’s called “On the Shortness of Life.” And the reason why I ended up reading this book is that I was thinking about language and the structure of it and what we really get from communicating with people. And there are a few things that came up. I mean, first of all is to show off our intelligence and to highlight attributes about ourselves. I mean, that’s typically why most of us speak.

And the second reason is to show loyalty which is either, you know, loyalty from someone else or loyalty to someone else. I mean, I think that there’s obviously functional conversation where you’re asking directions and stuff like that, but if we just accept the premise at the moment that, you know, when we communicate, we are either showing loyalty or we’re showing off our genetics.

When we come at it from that approach, it makes you look at your communications differently.

So, for example, putting it into perspective, if you’re going to go and meet a friend for a coffee, typically using this parameter, what you’re really doing is having an opportunity to show off your intelligence to each other but also to show your loyalty to each other.

And I find this quite interesting because, say, for example, you are more self-confident and more self-assured and didn’t seek validation from people, what benefit would you get from having your friend’s loyalty? And that, that’s quite a deep question, actually, so I’ll say that again. If you were completely self-assured and you didn’t need to seek validation, why would you go and meet your friend for a coffee? Because all you’re really doing in getting out with that is highlighting your intelligence to each other and also getting loyalty from each other.

And that really hit home with me. It’s interesting, it’s like okay, well, in which case, then, how much of my time am I wasting because how many times am I going to meet people or communicating with people in a non-effective way? And that’s what kind of led me to read Seneca which, as I say, I’ve, I’ve wanted to read for ages but something popped up in my Facebook feed about this book “On the Shortness of Life” and it, I thought okay, well this is … probably should be reading this. And there are a few things. Obviously, it’s a very small book but there are some really great quotes that we can, we can look at.

I mean, he talks about how we can form a partnership with philosophers from the past so what he’s basically saying is you’ve got the present moment which most of us miss. You’ve got the future which doesn’t exist. But then you’ve got the past, and in the past it’s finite, so it’s happened.

So when we give our time to studying the past, we’re really taking on the wisdom from previous history in the present moment. And his view is that that is how we elongate our lives, which is quite an interesting concept ’cause it’s like, well, it’s not necessarily that your lives going to be longer.

It’s more that if you spend time looking at people from the past and studying them, that you’re going to have more knowledge and live the present moment better.

And this kind of just again hits home a little bit further when it goes to, you know, meeting women. I mean, how many of us waste so much time messaging girls, of going on dates that we don’t really care about? I mean, time is a resource and if we were looking at it the same way we assign, you know, money and budgets, then we would certainly act differently with it.

So I think the first lesson on, on this is if you’re just meeting up with people just to get a bit of loyalty, then obviously you can work on your self-esteem so that you’re more confident in yourself.

But secondly, with women, I mean, why go on a date with women who you’re not specifically attracted to? What? Just to get a little ego kick and make yourself feel better?

I mean there are certainly better things you could do with your time such as reading philosophers like Seneca to understand why you are doing things and what your motives are, you know. And the time spent reading rather than going on a date that’s going to put you in much better stead for the rest of your life as, as opposed to just continually living out trying to get validation which, again, you know, you’re going to be seeking for the rest of your life if you go about it that way.

Now it’s, it’s also funny, I mean, he goes on further. There’s a really, really nice quote which I think I’m going to read out, it’s, it’s just interesting. He-he’s talking about like Aristotle and, and other philosophers like Pythagoras and he said, you know, “None of these will be too busy to see you. None of these will not send his visitor away happier and more devoted to himself. None of these will allow anyone to depart empty-handed. They are at home for all mortals by night and by day.”

And that is such an interesting quote because it’s like how many of us are on social media all the time, looking at our phones, waiting for women to text us, looking at texting our mates.

And we’re just waiting all the time for people to get back to us. Or we post something online and we’re waiting to see how many likes it’s got. What Seneca’s getting at here, I mean, obviously this is 2000 years ago, but putting it to modern-day is like, you know, don’t wait for anyone else. You know, spend your time, your time doing something more effective and he’s saying that if you look at people from the past, that they’re there permanently. They’re not going to change. They’re there, you know, to educate you and, and to be there all the time.

So a different parameter or a different perspective would be, don’t just look at your time, you know, like you’re waiting for people. Actually, claim it and let people be there, you know, that are always going be available to you. There’s one final thing actually which was great and this was a real thinking moment for me. I’m heavily into reading and, and self-development anyway, and I can’t believe that this is the first time

I’ve ever read Seneca because some of his one-liners are unbelievable. But this is a very interesting one a-and I think it’s worth giving it some thought and I’m just going to read out another quote because this is so powerful.

He says, “We are not in the habit of saying that it was not in our power to choose the parents who were allotted to us, that they were given to us by chance. But we can choose whose children we would like to be.” And it’s the end sentence there that’s the powerful bit. “But we can choose whose children we would like to be.”

That is such an insight into life because think about this. There is all of this literature from the last few thousand years that are available to us to read and to develop and to learn. You can choose anything. Economics, philosophy, psychology. It is all there and you can learn it from those books and the reason why this is so powerful for me is because after I had my car accident and I set up Social Attraction I pretty well had no one in my life that was supportive. And, you know, not only that but people used to say it was never going to work, it’s a waste of time and, you know, perhaps at that time in my life, I wasn’t obviously as developed as what I am now. But there was no one to support me.

So what I did, I sought solace in books, and I would read books from the most successful people that have ever lived. And they gave me confidence to actually carry on and develop my life and the reason why Seneca’s quote, I guess, hits home there again is like, you know, if you want to achieve something in life, you don’t have to go out there and ask a thousand people their opinion.

Find the person in history that has already achieved what you want that … Trust me, there is enough literature there and read what they’re saying. Then find someone else and read what they’re saying.

And what will happen is not only do you gain their wisdom, but there is something fundamentally powerful about reading on a daily basis people that are telling you that you can achieve something because where else are you going to get your confidence from?

You can obviously visualise it, you can meditate on it, do all these things, but having people there that you can pick up whenever you want in the mornings, in the evening, any time, and read their powerful words is life-changing. And for me it was sensationally important. I read so much and I sought solace in books and, you know, I-I developed my life so much from the knowledge I got but also just the confidence gained from completely reading positive stuff on a daily basis. I mean, it was, you know, it was life-changing for me.

Just to go back to Seneca. I think that that is an important lesson on our time and h-he talks about how you should look at time like a resource like money, apart from the time are finite whereas money isn’t. So actually the one thing that we should really look at is how we spend our time. And when we link that into what we’re saying about communication and what we’re looking at get-getting we can begin to paint a picture about how, if we change our fundamental views on our time, we can start being more productive.

So rather than going and meeting a friend for a coffee, we can read about something to do with a philosopher or read about weight training, you know, go to the gym more. But can you can assign your time differently with the knowledge that I’ve described in this podcast. So I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode and I will catch you tomorrow.

Listen to The Gary Gunn Show Podcast #11 – Why Seneca Can Help You Select Your Perfect Dating Mentors

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