Wanderings

Mesosaurus: Yeah?

Helicoprion: but WHEEL

Mesosaurus: No don’t -

Helicoprion:

Rutiodon: Yeah? 

Drepanosaurus: But CLAW 

Rutiodon: How would you - 

Drepanosaurus: 

Hypselospinus: Yeah?

Igunaodon: But like spike

Hypselospinus: But why would you ne-

Igunaodon:

Camptosaurus: Yeah?

Stegosaurus: But SHARP

Camptosaurus: But what would y-

Stegosaurus:

Paramobula: I’m listening

Pelagornis: but TEETH

Paramobula: what possible reason would you have t-

Pelagornis:

Moschops: Okay?

Cotylorhynchus: But SMALL

Moschops: What? No, why the he-

Cotylorhynchus:

Cotylorhynchus: I’m listening…

Erythrosuchus: But HUGE

Cotylorhynchus: What no pump the breaks there why-

Erythrosuchus:

Kyrgyzsaurus: Okay?

Sharovipteryx: on my BACK LEGS

Kyrgyzsaurus: Wait hold on now, why would you put them-

Sharovpiteryx:

Barsboldia: What if what?

Deinocheirus: : )

Barsboldia: What are you doing, what is this, wh-

Deinocheirus:

Deinocheirus: Alright go on….

Therizinosaurus: But l o n g

Deinocheirus: You eat planet for heavens sake why in the world would yo—

Therizinosaurus: SUCK IT IM WOLVERINE

Pterosauria: Okay… what about it?

Azhdarchidae: But HE A D

Pterosauria: What does that even-

Azhdarchidae:

Diprodontia: how are you even going to do this

Thylacoleonidae: you are like baby, watch THIS - 

Tehuelchesaurus: yep thats basically our identity

Brachytrachelopan: but chonk

Tehuelchesaurus: WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK

Brachytrachelopan: Chungus time

Spinosaurus: Yes?

Ichthyovenator: but HOLE

Spinosaurus: Why would you-

Ichthyovenator:

Gryposaurus: Cool, go on

Parasaurolophus: but more

Gryposaurus: …okay?

Parasaurolophus: and trumpet

Gryposaurus: For wha-

Parasaurolophus: BIIIIIIIIIIGGGG HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNK

Anchiornis: Yes, yes go on,

Yi Qi: but, more skin

Anchiornis: But we are all doing this feth…….

Yi Qi: FLAP FLAP

Asfaltovenator: Yeah?

Eoabelisaurus: But like, nub?

Asfaltovenator: But wouldn’t that–

90 MILLION YEARS OF EVOLUTION LATER

Crocodyliformes: Mmhmm?

Kaprosuchus: But they’re tusks

Crocodyliformes: Oh God..

Kaprosuchus: And I’m twenty feet long

Crocodyliformes: Don’t do it..

Kaprosuchus: And upright.

Crocodyliformes: Please sto-

Kaprosuchus:

Cretoxyrhina: Yeah, what about it?

Stethacanthus: But anvil

Cretoxyrhina: What

Stethacanthus: with teeth

Cretoxyrhina: Nonononodon’t-

Stethacanthus: and teeth on forehead

Cretoxyrhina: STOP

Stethacanthus:

Anomalocaris: oh God what now??

Opabinia: what if… Eye

Anomalocaris: no, stop

Opabinia: but FIVE

Anomalocaris: I SAID STOP

Opabinia: NOSE CLAW

Anomalocaris: YOU WHA–

Opabinia:

Every living creature, like, ever: Oh Jesus Christ what do you want

Tully Monster: :)

Every living creature ever: what

Tully Monster: :)))

Every living creature ever: I’m literally begging you to stop

Tully Monster: :)))))))))))))

Pteranodon: Yeah?

Nyctosaurus: But FORK

Pteranodon: Nyctosaurus you are trying my patience…

I used to be a varsity swimmer, and I was damn good, but I was forced into it by my parents and completely lost my love for it and therein my drive. But in high school I was swimming against such talented swimmers like Olympic Swimmer Missy Franklin. I’ve met her, and the main difference between her and me was that I was strong but had no passion, but she was strong BECAUSE she had passion. 

And I could have been good, really good, maybe even Olympic good. I even have the predisposition for it, been swimming since I was 2 years old, have a mom who was almost an olympic swimmer. Missy didn’t have either of those things, she just wanted it, loved it, had been doing it for a long time, and decided she was going to kick ass at it.

Right, that’s great and all, but I completely missed my opportunity to be an olympic swimmer, yeah? and can never achieve those dreams I had as a kid? No, not even though. There was this whole thought that female athletes peak when they’re 17 years old and lose their skills quickly after that, and male athletes peak around 19. But then Olympic Swimmer Dara Torres shows up. She was an olympic swimmer when she was 17, 21 and 25. Pretty normal age for retirement. She had a few kids. She kicked butt at being a mom. 

And then at 33 years old she decides she’s bored or something gets back in shape and kicks so much ass at the trials that she lands herself on the Olympic Team ONCE AGAIN. And then 8 years later, she decides, heck I’m 41 now, no one has ever made the olympic swim team as old as I am, I want to get in shape yet again and teach these children how sports work.

And she still has the record for oldest US Olympic Swimmer, not even any men have beat out that record.

So basically what I’m saying is you could be an olympic swimmer, you really could be. And there are obviously a lot of things stopping you and trying to get in your way: your brain, society, too much chocolate cake for example. But if you really dedicate yourself to it and love it with all of your heart you could, you really could.

And lets say olympic swimming isn’t your jam? That’s cool too. There isn’t a single skill in this world that you can’t learn if you absolutely love it and want to. Any skill you want is going to take time. There are countless famous people who started learning a skill after 20, 30, 40, or even 50. Not a single person has even been president under age 35 (most likely because you’re not allowed to be, but there’s a reason for that). Whatever you want to do you’re probably going to be bad at first, and I’m talking really shitty.

Van Gogh got started in his 20′s and was thought to have no artistic talent at first and was forced to sit in the back of classrooms where the worst artists in the class sat. So yeah you’ll probably be bad, like really bad and everyone including you will think you’re bad. If you stick with it though, if you’re willing to work for years and years, if you keep loving it after all the pain it’s given you, 

then you might just paint Starry Night.

Jug and Lid with the Head of an Ox, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Egyptian Art

Inlay for Nilotic scene, fish, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Egyptian Art

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and lots of people think this very likely,

“Oh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and they’ve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldn’t know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.”

The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who “suddenly” acts “strange and fey” is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.

To this day, “autism warrior mommies” talk about autism “stealing” their “sweet normal child” and have this idea of “getting their real baby back” which (in the face of modern science)  indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.

But here’s the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because it’s too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. I’d be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.

Pair of Sword-Grip Ornaments (Menuki), Metropolitan Museum of Art: Arms and Armor

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6vasuRFx3t3NTISG6iwUeA

Crab walks around with Jellyfish on its back to protect it from predators

These #jellyfish Cassiopea (upside-down jellyfish) partake in a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic dinoflagellates and therefore, must lay upside-down in areas with sufficient light penetration to fuel their energy source. Where found, there may be numerous individuals with varying shades of white, blue, green and brown.

(Photo Credit: Sylke Rohrlach)

After 10+ years of psychotherapy, almost all of my social anxiety triggers are now at a manageable level—even academic public speaking, which was my #1 worst trigger for most of my life—except for my phone anxiety. It’s literally the one and only thing I’ve never been able to significantly improve.

I have to talk the whole conversation through with my friends beforehand.

I have to get explicit confirmation from my friends that “yes, you really need to ring that person right now”.

I have to write scripts.

I have to take anti-anxiety meds, or get drunk.

I only ever ring someone as the very last resort, when all other methods are unavailable.

I hyperventilate and cry afterwards.

I’m also a 28-year-old scientist with three degrees and a teaching position. I’m normally a logical (albeit emotional) person. But anxiety is not logical.

Anxiety is due to inability to correctly perceive threats—more specifically, due to both increased expectation and increased frequency of false recognition of threats in response to neutral stimuli (this is called “pessimistic bias”). Social anxiety simply means that this inability to correctly perceive threats is specific to social interactions, rather than generalised to all aspects of life. (For example, a resting facial expression or lack of verbal acknowledgement is more likely to be perceived as anger, disgust or rejection by a socially anxious person than a neurotypical person. But a socially anxious person is not particularly more likely to worry throughout the day that they’ve left their stove on.)

Therefore, socially anxious people learn to cope with this bias by becoming hypervigilant to social cues such as posture, hand gestures, nodding, eye contact, eyebrow position, mouth tightness, tone of voice, talking speed etc., and then using all the available information to attempt to be logical and “talk down the anxiety”. We also learn to be high self-monitors, which means that we closely observe our audience and constantly (subconsciously) monitor their responses in order to ensure that they accept us and deem us “appropriate”.

But non-verbal social cues aren’t available during phone calls!

There isn’t any body language to read, or eyes to look into. You can’t monitor your audience for approval. They don’t follow the script you prepared. All you have is their voice, which is usually masked (everyone seems to have a “phone voice”, “customer service voice” or “professional voice”) and distorted by the phone and is therefore useless. All of a sudden you’re back to relying on a single neutral stimulus, and the pessimistic bias kicks in, and you start to panic because you’re not getting constant feedback.

It’s a Recognised Psychological Thing™.

Phone anxiety (actually, phone phobia) is one of the most common, most recognised and most treated phobias in the world. Social anxiety—of which phone phobia is an extremely prevalent trigger—is one of the most common, most recognised and most treated anxiety disorders in the world.

Since we spend so much of our lives around transparent fluids like air and water, we often miss seeing some of their coolest-looking flows. Here, we see a layer of water only 3 centimeters deep but a full meter wide. It’s seeded with tiny crystals that reflect light depending on their orientation, which allows us to see the flow. Initially, the tank is spun up, then left stationary for 2 hours while evaporation cools the water. 

Normally, the resulting flow would be too slow to notice, but that’s where the magic of timelapse comes in. With it, we can see the wriggling dark lines marking areas where cool, dense water sinks and brighter regions where warm fluid rises. What begins as an array of polygonal convection cells quickly merges into a couple of large, rounded cells. Check out the full video below, where you can see the streaming patterns far better than in animation. (Image and video credit: UCLA Spinlab)

“Listen to me– all of you out there! You were told by this man– your hero– that America is the greatest country in the world! He told you that Americans were the greatest people– that America could be refined like silver, could have the impurities hammered out of it, and shine more brightly! He went on about how precious America was – how you needed to make sure it remained great! And he told you anything was justified to preserve that great treasure, that pearl of great price that is America!

“Well, I say America is nothing! Without its ideals– its commitment to the freedom of all men, America is a piece of trash! A nation is nothing! A flag is a piece of cloth! I fought Adolf Hitler not because America was great, but because it was fragile! I knew that liberty could be snuffed out here as in Nazi Germany! As a people, we were no different than them! When I returned, I saw that you nearly did turn American into nothing! And the only reason you’re not less then nothing– is that it’s still possible for you to bring freedom back to America!”

10 year old me, absolutely overthinking the shit out of this: but it feels wrong to do good deeds only to gain something in return, isn’t it inherently bad if my reason for helping isn’t just to help but so I can boast about it in a notebook?

14 year old me, staring at my paper: how am i supposed to do that when we only summed up what happened? what are the details someone experiencing this would focus on? what were the opinions of people about that? what words that are long since out of fashion would I use? what was the culture like back then and what references would someone make? If I don’t do it it sounds unrealistic and fake can we please do more research first