floretGnostic

I don't mean you can't get good at things through repeated practice. You can do that, I have done that, but I don't trust it.

I was driving this morning and thinking about how I have never developed the blasé contempt for it most people seem to despite never having caused an accident in 20 years because my sense of time is such that I might as well have been driving for a week. I'm a good, safe driver, but I do not have a heap of confidence in my driving despite having regularly done it for two decades because my sense of time is such that those two decades may as well not have happened.

I finished editing a novel today. When I publish it, it will be the 64th novel I have published in the last 10 years, not counting ghostwritten work. You'd think after a decade and 63 novels I'd be confident that I was capable of writing, editing, and publishing a novel—even be confident about the timeline for this—but no. No, I feel like I'm doing it for the first time, every time, and I was surprised to have finished the editing at all, let alone on time. Because those other 63 novels were published in a past I have a vague at best concept of. I have a record that says it happened but I do not feel it.

I cannot trust my future behaviour because for me there is functionally no past. I know it occurred, I have records, but I don't feel it the way people without this kind of memory issue do. I feel inexperienced at everything I've ever done and I cannot accurately estimate my skill level at anything, particularly not on the fly.

Current goal: $0/$400

Like, if right now you don't make any noises in response to sexual stimuli or pain or whatever, that's fine. I imagine you might even have some trauma to work through. An environment you needed to be quiet in, a belief the sounds you did make were inappropriate, or some other taboo against noise.

But, you can change yourself. Rather easily, too. Just start making the noises you wish you made. It'll feel silly at first. Well, maybe it'll feel hot at first, too. I highly recommend perceiving it as hot. But it'll feel performative in any case.

And if you keep going, it'll become automatic. You'll shortcut the process. You'll forget to notice the intent. Learn to use it and use it without thinking. And eventually you'll have to stop yourself from not using it.

Plenty of the time it's actively beneficial too. Helps with pain tolerance, and I'd expect other kinds of sensitivity too. You're a social animal, it's comfortable to perform a social component. It's useful to do so for just your own mind.

Y'know. I was so totally convinced that all men were jealous of women, like I was... I saw being a man as a horrible burden. An obligation I was stuck with. And on a subconscious level, the scariest thought in my mind was growing old as a man, living my whole life fulfilling my patriarchal obligations, and never once living for my own happiness.

I was so jealous of trans women, too! They knew in their hearts they were women, so they didn't have to be men. They knew they had other options... Not like me... But now I know that it's something you choose. You never get it handed to you, like some kind of permission to be a woman. You just decide you want it, and then you are one.

So if you're reading this, and you relate to this at all... You know you don't *have* to be a man, right?... There are other options open to you...

Happy birthday @energyscarf! Thanks for being such a wonderful friend throughout the years 🧡