I like stuff

We've been making comics every week for the last 15 years – rain or shine!

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Somewhere along the line, we decided that any repeated behavior, any source of pleasure, any coping mechanism, any habit that isn’t monk-like and productivity-optimized must be labeled an addiction. You like scrolling art before you create? Addiction. You watch comfort shows after work? Addiction. You check your phone in line at the grocery store? Addiction. You drink coffee with breakfast? Addiction. The word has been stretched so thin it barely means anything anymore, except “a behavior I personally disapprove of.”

Addiction is not “I enjoy stimulation.” It is not “I have habits.” It is not “I seek input before I produce output.” Addiction is a specific, devastating pattern of compulsion, harm, loss of control, and often self-destruction. It dismantles relationships. It corrodes trust. It hijacks the reward system so thoroughly that survival itself becomes secondary. It is not equivalent to liking Pinterest boards or needing music to focus.

When everything becomes addiction, nothing is. The language gets diluted, and with it, the gravity of what actual addiction is. People who have clawed their way out of substance abuse know the difference between compulsion and preference, between destructive dependence and deliberate engagement. Collapsing those distinctions into a trendy moral panic about “dopamine” is not enlightened. It’s sloppy. Unserious, even.

There’s also something deeply puritanical about it. The 2020s seem obsessed with pathologizing pleasure. If something feels good, it must be suspect. If it captures your attention, it must be hijacking your brain. If it isn’t explicitly productive, it must be rot. We’ve replaced older moral frameworks with neuroscience-flavored shame, but the tone is the same: you are wrong for enjoying things.

What bothers me most is how casually the word is thrown around in creative spaces. If you gather inspiration through music, images, movement, conversation, suddenly you’re “stimulus addicted.” If you can’t brute-force a novel in a silent white room with no input, you lack discipline. Never mind that many artists throughout history have relied on immersion, community, environment, and cross-media inspiration. Now it’s framed as weakness, as though the only legitimate art is produced under self-imposed sensory austerity.

This framing flattens nuance. There is a difference between avoidance and incubation. There is a difference between doomscrolling to numb out and deliberately engaging with material that fuels your imagination. There is a difference between compulsively chasing a hit and consciously choosing input that enriches your work. But nuance doesn’t trend. Alarmism does.

There’s also a strange individualizing move happening here. Instead of asking why people are exhausted, overstimulated, underpaid, isolated, or burnt out, we zoom in on their coping mechanisms and label them addictions. Instead of examining structural monotony, economic precarity, and social fragmentation, we scold individuals for having “bad dopamine habits.” It’s easier to diagnose people’s scrolling than to confront the conditions that make endless scrolling appealing.

Calling everything an addiction also erases agency. It suggests that people are perpetually hijacked by their brains, incapable of intentional choice unless they purge all sources of easy stimulation. That’s not empowering. It’s infantilizing. Adults are capable of enjoying things without being enslaved by them. Adults can have rituals, comforts, and creative processes without it being pathology.

When I hear the word “addiction” tossed around to describe normal human behavior, it doesn’t sound like insight. It sounds like moral grandstanding dressed up in pop psychology. And for those of us who have actually lived through the wreckage of substance abuse and fought to reclaim control, it feels like watching something serious get turned into a meme.

Green Mantle (Caria mantinea), family Riodinidae, Bolivia

I put my work on my calendar in a specific color but I’m curious to see if there’s any consistency.

- red

- orange

- yellow

- green

- blue

- purple

- black

- white

- gray

- something metallic

- another color

- work has no color to me

Beetle Fly (Celyphus sp.), family Celyphidae, Malaysia

Yes, this is actually a true fly! (order Diptera)

Here’s one lobster that you might not want with a side of butter: the lobster moth (Stauropus fagi)! Named for its lobster-like larval form, this wide-ranging insect might be spotted in parts of Europe or Asia. It lives in woodland and deciduous forest habitats, where it munches on the leaves of various plants. While it resembles a crustacean, it can also mimic ants as a way to deter potential predators.

you would receive the supply once a month

the brand/type will vary so you could

Harvestmen, otherwise known as daddy long-legs (not to be confused with the cellar spiders of family Pholcidae, which are also described as daddy long-legs) bear a striking resemblance to spiders, but they actually belong to a separate order of arachnids known as Opiliones. These strange-looking creatures have eight legs, but only two eyes, and their body segments are largely fused together, giving the body a noticeably rounded, pill-like appearance.

Above: Metagryne bicolumnata, commonly known as the bunny harvestman

There are roughly 6,700 known species of harvestman, but researchers estimate that a total of more than 10,000 species may currently exist. Their physical features vary greatly from one species to the next; some harvestmen have crab-like claws, spikes, thorny legs, elongated bodies, colorful features, or cryptic markings. Most of them are equipped with long, spindly legs, but there are some that have shorter, stockier limbs instead.

Above: Megabunus diadema and two unidentified species from family Sclerosomatidae

Unlike spiders, harvestmen have an omnivorous diet that includes fungi, fruit pulp, seeds, pollen, lichen, algae, and invertebrate prey, and they are capable of consuming solid food, whereas spiders are typically carnivorous and feed only on fluids.

Above: a harvestman from genus Chasenella munching on a mushroom-cap

As this article explains:

Harvestmen consume mushrooms, fruit pulp, seeds, and seed appendages more frequently than spiders probably because they are “solid food feeders," which means they can ingest solid tissues by biting off small pieces. In turn, spiders are “fluid feeders” and feed on vegetable matter most frequently in the form of fluids (e.g. nectar, stigmatic exudate, plant sap, and honey dew) rather than fungal or plant tissues.

Above: genus Marthana

When given a choice between fresh fruit or invertebrate prey, some harvestmen actually prefer the fruit:

Schaus et al. carried out a feeding trial in which the Neotropical harvestman Erginulus clavotibialis was given a choice between fresh pineapple and live invertebrate prey. This harvestman demonstrated a distinct preference for fruit over the invertebrate prey.

Above: Dentobunus quadridentatus

Harvestmen are also much more social than spiders, and the males of some species have been known to engage in paternal care, which is a trait that rarely occurs among arthropods:

Single fatherhood is the rarest form of parental care in nature. Still, males are often the sole caretakers of progeny among a number of species of daddy long-legs, also known as harvestmen. In these species, fathers are exclusively responsible for guarding eggs that females lay on the undersides of leaves; the males remain on the eggs nearly constantly for months.

Above: several harvestman eggs and a young hatchling

When threatened, harvestmen often bob up and down erratically in an effort to confuse their attackers. They also have several other defense mechanisms, including pungent, foul-tasting secretions, the ability to "play dead," and autotomy, which is the ability to discard one or more of their own limbs in order to escape from predators.

Above: the photo at the top shows an unidentified harvestman from family Cosmetidae, while the photo on the bottom shows a species from genus Gnomulus

Harvestmen are completely harmless to humans. Their mouthparts are far too small to penetrate human skin, and contrary to popular belief, they do not have the "world's deadliest venom" -- in fact, they don't produce any venom at all.

Above: genus Obidosus

Sources & More Info:

BioOne: Fungus and Fruit Consumption by Harvestmen and Spiders: the Vegetarian Side of Two Predominantly Predaceous Arachnid Groups

Laboratory of Arthropod Behavior and Evolution: Harvestmen

Argo Biology: Citizen Science Reveals How Devoted Harvestman Dads Evolved Again and Again

NBC: Daddy Long-Legs Paternal Care Pays off in Longer Life, More Sex

PLOS One: Paternal Care Decreases Foraging Activity, but Does Not Impose Survival Costs to Caring Males in a Neotropical Arachnid

Gulo in Nature: Are Daddy Long-Legs Venemous?

The Amazing American Cockroach

The American cockroach, also known as the ship cockroach, waterbug, or kakerlac (Periplaneta americana) is one of the most commonly seen species of cockroach, as they have adapted well to live in buildings alongside humans; in the wild they are frequently found under leaf litter, logs, and tree bark or inside active bat caves. They particularly prefer moist, dark environments with readily available food. P. americana is originally from Northern Africa and the middle east, but has since been introduced to every continent.

Waterbugs are some of the largest cockroach species. Adults regularly grow up to 4 cm (1.6 in) long and weigh 1-2 g (0.03-0.07 oz). Both sexes are reddish brown, except for a yellow band around the bottom part of the pronotal shield- a part of their shell that covers the joint between the head and the rest of their body. Both sexes are similar in appearance; males are differentiated from females by their slightly longer wings, which extend past their abdomen.

Kakerlacs spend most of their time in the dark, but they are not necessarily nocturnal; thanks to their large compound eyes, they are extremely sensitive to light. When not hiding from potential predators, they spend their time foraging. American cockroaches have an extremely broad diet; they are known to consume most types of organic matter, including other roaches. This makes them a valuable part of the nutrient cycle, as they're able to break down decaying matter such as rotting wood, fruit, or carcasses. P. americanus is also a popular prey item for many predators including toads and frogs, rodents, lizards, spiders, parasitic wasps, possums, monkeys, and birds.

Outside of mating, American cockroaches do not engage in social behaviors, although they may gather in groups of several thousand when food is plentiful. After mating, the females produce an egg case-- or ootheca-- which contains 14-16 eggs. The ootheca remains attached to her abdomen for two days before being deposited in a safe location. On average, a female may lay up to 10 ootheca in her lifetime. The eggs take 6-8 weeks to hatch, and emerge as nymphs. Over the next 6-12 months, the nymphs undergo 10-13 moults to reach their adult size. A waterbug may live up to two years in the wild, although predation rates for both juveniles and adults are quite high.

Conservation status: The IUCN has not rated the American cockroach. Given its global distribution and affinity for urban environments, the population is extremely stable. In many places, they are exterminated as pests.

Photos

Sheng Li

H. G. Robertson

There's also multiple studies showing American cockroaches suffer negative consequences if they're socially isolated, such as a delay in reaching sexual maturity, suggesting they need groups to stay at their healthiest.

Here's a couple sources (I don't think they're open access though, sorry!):

Lihoreau, M., Costa, J.T. & Rivault, C. The social biology of domiciliary cockroaches: colony structure, kin recognition and collective decisions. Insect. Soc. 59, 445–452 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-012-0234-x