Hmm... Maybe not as extreme as a corpse, but if you handed someone composed of mostly metal an extremely corroded piece of copper, I could see them reacting like you just handed them a very moldy orange.

To reach "handed a decomposing roadkill squirrel" level, maybe give them something with identifiable parts similar to what is in their body, like corroded circuit boards, batteries, wire connectors. That's a more direct reminder of mortality.

ok if sportsball is auth-right, stocks are lib-right, and astrology is lib-left, what is the missing auth-left esoteric gibberish hobby/obsession

"und here ve see a honey bear not engaged in a life and death struggle about anysing. These honey bear are placid and peaceful creechers, and consequently bad television." Also "And since I'm so eeeeevil, you vill all die ze slow vay: under ze drill!"; "He steals from the poor and gives to the rich; stupid bitch!"; and "Oh! Oh! Oh! A suspicious brown paper bag I have found on the premises!" (said any time I see a brown paper bag) inevitably followed by "Blimey! Whatever did I give the wife?"; "Arthur is up at 6 o'clock every morning working on special training equipment designed to keep him silly. *THUD*"; "ARE YOU THE BRAIN SPECIALIST? MY BRAIN HURTS", "Gloves. Glasses. Moustache. Handkerchief. I'M GOING TO OPERATE" and every other line of that sketch; etc. etc. etc.

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

Thirteen definitions:

First. Aristotle, or whoever is the author of the book On the World, addressed to Alexander: "What the helmsman is in a ship, the charioteer in a chariot, the leader in a chorus, the law in a city, the commander in an army, the same is God in the world, except that in those cases authority is laborious, disturbed, and anxious; whereas in God it is easy, ordered, and tranquil."

Second. Saint Leo, Sermon 2 On the Passion: "God is He whose nature is goodness, whose will is power, whose work is mercy."

Third. Aristotle, or whoever is the author of the book On Wisdom According to the Egyptians, book XII, chapter xix: "God is He from whom come perpetuity, place, and time, and by whose benefit all things endure; and just as the center of a circle exists in itself, and the lines drawn from it to the circumference, and the circumference itself with its points, exist in that same center: so too all natures, both those pertaining to the intellect and those pertaining to the senses, consist and are confirmed in the first agent (in God)."

Fourth. God is providence itself over all things; for, as Saint Augustine says, book III of On the Trinity, chapter iv: "Nothing happens visibly and perceptibly that is not either commanded or permitted from the interior, invisible, and intelligible court of the supreme ruler, according to the ineffable justice of rewards and punishments, graces and retributions, in that most vast and immense commonwealth of all creation."

Fifth. The same Saint Augustine: If you see, he says, a good angel, a good human being, a good heaven; take away the angel, the human being, the heaven; and what remains is the essence of good things, that is, God.

Sixth. A certain Gentile king said that God is darkness beyond all light, and that He is known by the ignorance of the mind.

Seventh. Elohim is He who reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly, as the Wise Man says.

Eighth. Elohim is He in whom we live, move, and have our being, Acts XVII, 28.

Ninth. "God, says Saint Augustine in his Meditations, is He whom neither the mind reaches, because He is incomprehensible; nor the intellect, because He is unsearchable; nor the senses perceive, because He is invisible; nor the tongue utters, because He is ineffable; nor writing explains, because He is inexplicable."

Tenth. "God, says Saint Gregory of Nazianzus in his Treatise On the Faith, is that which, when spoken of, cannot be expressed; when appraised, cannot be appraised; when defined, grows by the very definition; because He covers the heaven with His hand, He encloses the whole compass of the world in His fist: whom all things do not know, and yet by fearing they know: whose name and power this world serves, and the momentary succession of the elements replacing one another bears witness."

Eleventh. "God is He who hangs the mass of the earth by three fingers, who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and weighed the heavens with a span. Behold, the nations before Him are like a drop from a bucket, and are counted as a speck on a balance, the islands like fine dust. And Lebanon is not sufficient for burning, and its animals are not sufficient for a holocaust. He who sits upon the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers," Isaiah chapter XL, verses 12, 15, 22.

Twelfth. God is He of whom the Wise Man says, chapter XI, verse 23: "As a speck on a balance, so is the world before You, and as a drop of early morning dew that falls upon the earth."

Word already had a word count?! That WORKED?