#touchstones

In v5 touchstones are human representation of specific morals the vampire holds, but with how v5 talks about them (or rather barely mentions them) they feel more like memorabilia and the need for them to be human or living gets lost. (Ive seen several people complain about them having to be human and i myself complained about it in the past).

I feel like them being tied to paths/roads of enlightenment or the games just generally putting more light on the passage from human to cainite/kindred and the changes in morality would really make this mechanic shine

A touchstone not necessarily as a person you care/cared about and now you cling to, but a touchstone as the living representation of the core values of your character.

If you mix it with paths of enlightenment, you effectively give your character a tangible goal, even if said touchstone is not on the path of enlightenment, while giving the character the illusion of humanity (if [touchstone] acts just like i do on this path, surely it means im still somewhat human!)

Chatbots feed on some longing we must have to be relieved of our humanity, as if being human is too hard, too much trouble to have to think and judge for ourselves, to define who we are and what we believe, to suffer the inevitable pain of consciousness and love for another human being. This longing seems especially acute today.

So artificial intelligence promises to do what an authoritarian regime does: take our place. They’re two sides of the same coin—one political, the other technological—both forfeitures of human possibility. We’re surrendering our ability to act as free agents of a democracy at the same moment we’re building machines that take away our ability to think and feel."

Hi Selena!

Oooh, this is a really interesting question. Thank you for the ask!

Actually I use a touchstone image in every longfic, that helps me when I am writing and editing it. So here are the three that I've used so far in the longfics: Katsuko/Shingen (because they transformed each other).

Okatsu/Mitsunari (because he was so steadfast - once he knew what he wanted, he very patiently, gently, and quietly pursued her... like the tide returning every day).

Katsu/Mitsuhide (I'll explain later, but this one will likely not make sense until more of the fic is uploaded):

T H E   A R T   O F   R E A D I N G

Helen Cammock: Concrete Feathers and Porcelain Tacks

Touchstones Rochdale

23 October 2021 - 13 February 2022

The Rochdale Principles were laid out in 1844 by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers as a set of principles to operate by for co-operative movements the world over. Working with a group of Rochdale residents, via a series of workshops, conversations and an exploration of the Rochdale landscape and artefacts in Touchstones’ collection, Turner Prize-winning artist Helen Cammock, has created a film reconnecting these long-held ideals of shared responsibility to the communities living in the Borough today.

Concrete Feathers and Porcelain Tacks was co-commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, Contemporary Art Society (with support from the Mbili Foundation) and The Photographers’ Gallery, in partnership with Touchstones Rochdale. Supported by Arts Council England.

Touchstones website

i have so so so many thoughts about this. like i think even in leftist spaces that seem more touchy-feeling on the surface or purport to be ‘holding space’ for people to process difficult emotions... i think the focus can still be so much on the individual in a way that ends up feeling very me, me, me, and does not actually build a real sense of community. it’s important to create spaces where people can share their experiences, but in my experience some groups or classes seem to see the “stand up and share your trauma while we sympathetically Listen and Honor your story” as the end-all be-all of community building... when actually i feel like that can reinforce stereotype threat and put people in this uncomfortable spot where they are expected to ‘lead’ with their traumatic experience or their marginalized identity, often in ways that overshadow the full, complex, multifaceted person that they are. it can be really isolating! idk for me at least i have zero interest in discussing my life story or unpacking shitty experiences with people i have no reason to trust, who i don’t consider part of my community! and i have just thought a lot (and experimented a lot) in my teaching career with trying to build spaces that look/feel different or that allow us to approach social justice work and individual experience-sharing in different ways. 

i feel like after several years of doing this job it’s become obvious to me that you get dramatically better results when you really focus first on building trust and warm, genuine relationships between people -- using laughter and playfulness to defuse tensions and gently subvert people’s expectations of what a Serious Social Justice Space has to look like. the goal for me is to create learning spaces where people are working together to tackle big problems... while also laughing together and telling funny stories about their pets and joking about what’s going on in our lives... while also practicing complex skills and learning to laugh at themselves in a silly, lighthearted when they mess up, and just in general getting really comfortable with acknowledging and showing the messiness and vulnerability of learning new things. if you really invest the time, energy, and care in building those kinds of spaces, then the big, serious, ‘the world can really hurt us, and has hurt many of us, and we want to know now how to build a better world’ conversations & work starts happening within this space where people know each other as human beings and care deeply about each other and are invested in each other’s thriving.

(little side tangent: i feel like as a white teacher who works almost exclusively with students who aren’t white, creating that kind of space can also help establish me as a trustworthy adult who sees them in their full, complex humanity and isn’t mentally boxing kids into categories or leaning heavily on assumptions about their lives or experiences... but that’s a subject for a different essay, lol, as it’s something i think about a lot. but that’s been a transformative shift for me too... and i think what i’ve learned is that there is a MASSIVE difference between a myopic ‘colorblindness’ (as in ‘i don’t see your race/ethnicity/linguistic background/gender identity or how it shapes your lived experience’) and an approach to cross-cultural mentoring that really emphasizes: ‘i want to know and understand you deeply as a person. your lived experiences and your connection to larger communities and your own perception of your identity are all hugely important to knowing and understanding you as a person. but we are not just our identity labels, and i do us both a disservice if i freeze up or get super self-conscious about race or act like we can’t connect as human beings/listen respectfully and lovingly to each other/find common ground/laugh together just because we haven’t had the exact same experiences.’)

i guess i am thinking about all of this because the vibe was so good today, but also because after i spoke they wanted to go around in a circle and talk about what the year had meant to them, and every single one of them said something along the lines of: i’ve never been in an academic space like this before; i didn’t know these spaces could exist here; i didn’t know that you could have a learning environment where it felt like every single person was rooting for me and helping me figure stuff out instead of competing with me or trying to show me up; i would come in feeling drained and overwhelmed and leave feeling energized and capable. WHICH I MEAN god what a teacher’s dream, truly, to have students feel that way about a learning experience, and to see them already spontaneously talking and thinking about the next projects they want to tackle.

the other thing i really loved hearing was that many of them said some version of: ‘you were firm but loving; you pushed me and held me accountable but i knew it was because you cared about me.’ i loved that because i think that was just like, my biggest goal for myself this year -- to get better at holding kids to high expectations and expecting them to work hard/take initiative, but also providing the loving support and structure all human beings need when they are learning how to do something new. i think i really succeeded there. also lol i think the biggest personal success was the student i had to have a Serious Talk with a few weeks ago turned to me at the end of the luncheon and said (this is a QUOTE, i wrote it down as soon as i left lol so i could remember it forever), ‘a lot of times when people try to hold me accountable i’m just like [rolls eyes], whatever, who cares. but with you i felt like you weren’t yelling at me. i felt like i let you down by not living up to what i’d promised to do, and i wanted to figure out how to do better next time.’ that was REALLY nice to hear because i feel like i’d spent some time since that conversation wondering if i’d even gotten through, or feeling like maybe i’d been too harsh/too direct and had damaged the relationship in some way. but it felt like the two of us got this really good moment of closure, and i feel like it was a good lived-experience confirmation for me of like, oh, actually, you can be really direct with kids about what is and isn’t okay and still be loving, and in fact that kind of compassionate directness and boundary-setting can actually be one form of showing love and strengthening an interpersonal relationship, not something that harms the relationship. so that was really good for me and i hope good for her, and i really appreciated that she took the initiative to approach me and say that to me.

ok extremely sorry to post a pocket article (i am becoming my mother lol) but like all humans i am vulnerable to things that confirm my own experience!! anyway i know i have written before about how i feel like each half-decade of my life has had a different core theme or lesson to teach me, and i feel like this article perfectly encapsulates what the core lesson or value or driving force of my early 30s has been.

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So much of our time is spent in self-focused ways. What happens if I do this? Or that? Doubt. Fear. Self-judgement. The judgement of others against ourselves. Planning. Scheming. It’s a whole lot of I, I, and I. You get the point.    Yet there’s a paradox: all of this self-focus is not very good for ourselves. Studies show that self-absorption is associated with clinical depression, personality disorders, and anxiety.    

On the other hand, releasing from such a tight attachment to one’s self is a hallmark of flow, or that highly sought after state of being fully in the zone. Losing oneself is also the goal of most spiritual disciplines. (And athletic and creative ones, too.) The more you forget about yourself, the better you’ll feel, the better you’ll do, and the better you’ll be.    

Unfortunately, the current ethos promotes self absorption. Examples include social media; the supposed importance of building a “personal brand”; or the self-improvement and self-esteem movements. More than ever, it seems, we’re being sold the idea of a separate self. This is a trap. And while there are a handful of ways out, I want to briefly explore two of the most dependable ones.

Pursue Mastery (In Anything)

More than 2,000 years ago, in his Aristotle wrote that integral to a meaningful life is striving for arête, or what we might today call excellence or mastery. Aristotle pointed out, however, that achieving arête — be it by throwing oneself fully into a work of art, intellect, or athletics — is not always pleasant: “A virtuous life,” he wrote, “requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement.” But he also wrote that it is in such virtuous acts — making ourselves vulnerable and giving something our all — that we lose ourselves.    

Centuries later, in his wildly popular Drive, a book that at its core is about what makes people tick, author Daniel Pink makes a similar case: “Mastery,” writes Pink, “is pain.” Yet, like Aristotle, Pink also argues that mastery is meaningful, that the benefits of taking on a challenge out of one’s own volition and losing oneself in an activity are immense.    

For a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, psychologist Carol Ryff surveyed more than 300 men and women, in order to identify correlates of well-being. She found that people who had “a feeling of continued development,” and saw themselves as “growing and expanding” were more likely to score high on assessments of life satisfaction and self-esteem than those who did not. Other research shows that when people throw themselves into an activity for the sake of the activity itself — and not for some sort of external reward, like money or fame or Instagram followers — they tend to report long-term well-being and fulfillment.    

Attempting to master a craft may seem inherently selfish, but that’s not the case. In interviews with over 100 highly productive scientists, artists, and other creative types, the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered that many found meaning in their lives precisely because they lost themselves in their pursuit, or because they turned themselves over to it. He coined this “vital engagement,” or a relationship to an activity that manifests when one becomes fully absorbed in it. Meaning, Csikszentmihalyi writes, “derives from the connection of the individual to a tradition, enterprise, and community of practice that lie beyond the self.”   

[...]

Be Kind

As meaningful as devoting oneself to mastery may be, devoting oneself directly to helping others is perhaps even more powerful. (Of course, the two aren’t exclusive.) One of the world’s foremost happiness researchers, Sonya Lyubomirsky, has told me that her research continues to show that one of the best ways to boost both happiness and meaning is to perform acts of kindness, such as volunteering, mentoring, coaching, or even just writing someone a letter of gratitude. When individuals participate in these activities, she says, they report more positive emotions, both immediately and over time. 

A recent series of studies published in The Journal of Positive Psychology, “Prosociality Enhances Meaning in Life,” bears this out. The psychologist Daryl Van Tongeren and his colleagues asked over 400 participants how often they engage in altruistic endeavors. He then asked them how meaningful their lives felt. Those who were more altruistic reported more meaning in their lives.    

Though the exact mechanism by which performing acts of kindness enhances meaning is unknown, researchers speculate that doing so makes us feel more connected to and rooted in community. Additionally, doing nice things for others affords us a purpose that is beyond ourselves and the opportunity to contribute to a greater cause — both of which are associated with increased meaning.