no writing workshop can help you improve your writing as much as this screenshot can
Stranger Things
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Mike Driver

Janaina Medeiros
cherry valley forever
sheepfilms

romaâ

Origami Around

titsay
h
will byers stan first human second
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

JBB: An Artblog!
art blog(derogatory)
Xuebing Du
Peter Solarz
d e v o n
Misplaced Lens Cap
KIROKAZE
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@theturtleatthebottomofthepile
no writing workshop can help you improve your writing as much as this screenshot can

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hello fandom enjoyer can you explain to me why youve decided the caring and generally kind-hearted male character is a trans man. answer quickly and dont include "because of the vibes" or else the saw trap goes off
hello fandom enjoyer can you explain to me why youve decided the rude and generally snobby female character is a lesbian. answer quickly and dont mention her cruelty towards men as your only basis or else the saw trap goes off
hello fandom enjoyer can you explain to me why youve decided the only female member of the main cast doesn't matter as much as the other male characters. answer quickly and dont include "because shes not relevant" or else the saw trap goes off
Audre Lorde, from "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism" (1981)
Watching the âyou will excel at what you measureâ trap devour basic moral practice in real time is fascinating in a terrible kind of way
If you spend any significant amount of time studying any social science or people-related policy, youâll quickly run into the old adage âyou will excel at what you measureâ. This adage is a warning.
In order to mark progress in any area, we need a way to measure it. So we develop systems to measure complex social systems and behave accordingly. If you want to measure how effectively children are being educated, you can, for example, decide on what they should know by a given age, test them on that knowledge, and grade them in accordance to how well they do on the tests. A higher grade means a more successful student, a better teacher, a better school. Then you can tinker with what youâre testing as necessary, and with teaching methods and soforth to see how it affects scores on the tests.
Except, if you do this, then youâve defined successful education as the ability to get high grades. You invite cheating (on the student, teacher and even school level), you invite teaching to the test rather than for general comprehension and ability, you invite boiling down the experience of education to test scores. And, of course, you invite massively increasing the inaccuracies caused by some people simply being better at taking tests than others. Someone with low to moderate comprehension whoâs good at tests might get a higher grade than someone who understands the material but has anxiety or is unable to properly intuit the meaning of vague test questions. Grades can go up and up and up, while education consistency and quality falls.
This is, as anyone whoâs worked in a school or sends their children to school knows, a known problem. âGrading systems cause huge problems in educationâ is NOT by any means a revolutionary and controversial statement. Over time, grading systems have been changed to favour testing comprehension and skill demonstrations, Individual Learning Plans and testing accommodations have become very popular to give a more accurate idea of peopleâs abilities, and soforth. A good half of my teaching degree was about compensating for the problems in this system. But you canât patch up all the holes, and the pressure from people taking letter grades way too seriously â parents, school boards, funding systems, those looking to hire teachers â are always going to cause problems, make teaching to the test a matter of survival. We measure grades, so that is what we excel at.
The same problem exists in economics. Most countries measure their health via Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is basically a measure of how much money is swilling around in there and itâs an AWFUL yardstick. A country full of sick, desperate people going into massive medical debt has a higher GDP than an identical country not facing a health crisis, for instance. But it is the dominant model, so itâs what investors look at, itâs what other countries look at, itâs what voters look at. Itâs what you must excel at, to be considered to have a âgoodâ economy. Other models exist, and are often proposed as a better alternative, but if one of those were dominant, new problems would exist â weâd excel at what they measure, and drop in what the GDP measures, and cause new economic issues. If you boil a system down to measurements, you will excel at making those measurements go up.
You should never, ever let yourself fall into the trap of believing that they tell you anything useful about how the system is doing.
Morality and justice are social technology. Theyâre a bunch of rules and instincts that both evolution and cultural education have given us to allow us to operate in societies. Theyâre integral to societies in the same way that math is; you need math complex enough to measure the grain, you need morality complex enough to measure the social harmony. People pretend theyâre more than that, but they arenât. âGoodâ and âbadâ are concepts as real as âmillionaireâ and âstraight-A studentâ, and nothing more.
In the vast, vast majority of societies out there, the end goal is essentially the same â to minimise harm to the populace. They want everyone to have as much safety and comfort as possible. Most disagreements are about the relative value of different individuals (is one race, religion or culture more important than another? Is one sex more important than another? Is a king more important than a slave?), or about methodology (is it better for everyone to have to follow strict social norms, or for everyone to be free to express themselves how they choose; which creates more safety and harmony? What social norms are best? How much control should one have over oneâs property, or oneâs animals, or oneâs children? When somebody transgresses, what is the appropriate system for judging and metering out discipline? What is the appropriate sort of discipline?). People disagree radically on both relative individual value and on methodology, but the general goal is the same. Morality and justice are social technology, tools to be used. Law and social consequence is how their power is enacted.
People often forget this. And that is very, very dangerous.
People will decide on what is âgoodâ and âbadâ behaviour, isolate it from the system, and proceed to excel at what they measure. Theyâll decide that âgood peopleâ use certain language and have certain values and âbad peopleâ use other language and do bad things, theyâll look at harmful power dynamics and decide that the world is full of âoppressorsâ (can be ignored) and âoppressedâ (must be supported), âabusersâ (should be mocked and attacked) and âabusedâ (should be believed and coddled), and stumble blindly forward like my robovac with a dirty sensor bumping into every wall in their way. Theyâll see a complex social situation and instead of going âwhatâs the best way to reduce harm?â, immediately try to decide who involved is more oppressed and get their answer from that. Theyâll see people use language they donât like and decide that person must have nothing of value to add to a conversation, because theyâre a bad person.
Today, I saw someone muse that the fact that American football causes huge amounts of brain damage that compounds over many years might contribute to why USA footballers seem to keep doing random unhinged things. Somebody else immediately attacked them because rape and domestic abuse is common among footballers (footballers being the attackers), so by suggesting a physical reason for unstable behaviour, this person was making excuses for rape. You might notice that this response has absolutely nothing to do with protecting people from rape or domestic abuse, and absolutely everything to do with making sure nobody might accidentally sympathise with a âbad personâ by suggesting that brain changes change behaviour. A focus on minimising harm would want to explore this, because removing risk factors for causing rapists means less rapists. Less rape is the goal. âRape is evilâ is the tool used to achieve it. But this person got distracted by the tool of measurement, making sure that the buck stops there.
Yesterday, I saw a post about police violence, pointing out âpolice shouldnât kill guilty people eitherâ. This was a response to how people often protest police killing innocent people, which is definitely bad, but the point is that the police shouldnât be killing anyone outside of strict self defense. The justice system is what meters out punishment, not the personal discretion of a state-sponsored gang with too many combat toys. The role of the police to to prevent violence and capture wrongdoers, not deal out extrajudicial executions. Iâm sure I donât have to explain in detail why this is so fucking important, but one set of tags on the posts made the distinction âexcept for pedophiles and rapistsâ. I have never seen anybody miss the point of a post so badly. Clearly, this person had once again gotten distracted by the system of measurement â pedophiles and rapists are evil people who do evil things, therefore they should be eliminated as expediently as possible â without considering the effect on the system. No, police randomly shooting rapists does not make a better society. If you support the death penalty for rape, thatâs a whole arse different question.
These kneejerk reactions donât just happen with pedophiles and rapists (although they are very effective for it, which is why dangerous and unsavoury elements like to call the groups they hate pedophiles). Iâve also seen people get upset at historical demonstrations of queer unity and support because the people in them called each other words they donât like and get all distracted by minutae on whoâs âallowedâ to âreclaimâ what words, preferring to condemn gay men calling lesbians âmuffdiversâ despite the massive personal risk and great benefit of the demonstration. Iâve seen people quibble over what groups of disabled people experience more ableism than others, and which queer subcommunities are more oppressed, in order to determine who the good guy in a complex situation is or who deserves their support more. Iâve seen people slip all the minorities they belong to into an argument like theyâre laying out the cards to summon Exodia (because most oppressed person is most deserving of support person and therefore most correct person), Iâve seen people distract from arguments theyâre having in order to try to trap the other person into saying something that can be interpreted as sexist or racist so they can show that their opponent is the Bad Person (and therefore theyâre the good person and therefore correct in the argument), Iâve seen people look at two people with conflicting needs (such as an autistic person who verbally stims and one who reacts badly to too much sound) and stop to decide which one is oppressing the other one to determine which one is being ableist.
This is all fucking bullshit. Itâs meaningless nonsense. The only reason any of this matters is in how it relates to causing actual real world harm. Iâd rather be called a tranny bitch by someone who votes in support of my healthcare than the most polite and up-to-date language by someone who votes against it. Iâd rather know about risk factors that make someone more likely to be an abuser or rapist than shy away from such things because I donât want to risk thinking of them as anything other than an Unknowable Evil. I donât fucking care what Problematic âą views someone holds about a cartoon and I donât care whoâs the Most Pure or the Most Oppressed or who used to say slurs online when they were fifteen if theyâre behaving appropriately now. None of that fucking matters, and itâs not justification for harassing or hurting people.
Your sense of justice and morality are social tools. Sharpen them, clean them, look after them. And use them to build with purpose, rather than blindly hacking at whateverâs in front of you. Or youâll just make a mess.
Everyone's so upset about what's going on on my normal and functional space ship.
Excellent you can join ranks with that one doctor who this story made late for surgery
#same#started reading suddenly it was 5 fucking am
Read about my normal and functional spaceship to absolutely destroy your sleep schedule
This happened to me with their (now finished) serial novel Curse Words, and then their (currently unfinished) story Charlie MacNamara, Galactic Ace when I caught up to Curse Words while it was still in progress.
Simply put, itâs just a thing that happens when it comes to reading Derinâs stories.
I've been reliably informed by many, many readers that these stories are specifically crack for ADHD people who usually have difficulty reading and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. That's such a random demographic.
Look it happens
#cannot start reading it is already Late
Do you have to do surgery tomorrow? No? Then how bad could it be to start reading.
#me watching horror movies: noooo why would you open the door covered in warnings not to do that!#me reading thos blog post: I should start reading time to orbit
You should do it, nothing will go wrong. You are the master of your sleep schedule and will get plenty of rest. It'll be fine.
#I am one sentence in and my suspected adhd brain started to fucking. VIBRATE#what the FUCK#I am so happy and am going to get a normal amount of sleep tonight
Ahaha yes another one
Join the ADHD Reader Army
Congratulations, you did invent time travel after all! Unfortunately, instead of the Soviet moon conspiracy thing, all itâs good for is warping your readers several hours into the future.
... I'll take it.
#why is it always 3:30 when I spot this post
Because that's the ideal time to start reading the story
Congratulations for creating an infohazard for ADHD people specifically
#i'm at work and it's 9am#I should totally read this instead of work right?#what's the worst that could happen?
Yes you should
#stories#ha HA it's 2 in the afternoon and I have very little to do (aside from groceries)#you can't trap me this way I have time to read!
Go on then. You have time for 122 chapters.
#im so tempted to start reading it#but it's 9pm and im worried ill stay up the whole night
All nighters are good for you
#dammit i opened it like an IDIOT and now the sun is coming up#i'm on chapter 28 but i'm going to get FOOD and go to BED
Bed is overrated, grab a snack to munch while you read.
This is evil. I have to sleep before my exam, but I'm really curious now.
(I'm barely a few paragraphs in, I'll be able to stop in time, right?)
of course it'll be fine
oh hey this post is finally on my dash!
checking in to say i read the normal spaceship story all in one night last september & then immediately sent it to my mom like HI HELLO PLZ READ THIS SO I HAVE SOMEONE TO TALK TO ABOUT IT PLZ.
we both give you money on patreon now.
cheers :D đ„
Thank you so much for your patronage I love money
#seen this post a few times now#i usually move on#today i see it at 3 am#decide to check it out#immeditely able to tell#it will hook me#in the first sentence. somehow.#so i bailed immediately#because i have to get up in five hours.
So you have five entire hours to read! Great!
#first time seeing this and itâs 11:57pm#Iâve got midterms in nine hours i have to be up in six i can Not do this today man#Im certain this will Not replace the near encyclopedic notes this fucking class requires memorized with its adhd indulging contents#no certainly not
Reward for after midterms
time to orbit stop reading: unknown
Unfortunately I donât trust myself so I donât dare click that link. Yet. I can tell youâre gonna get me eventually
@silvergryphonart, same.
I started reading time to orbit at 8 pm. It's now 5 am. And I have to get up early and do a bunch of work tomorrow
I think you mean today
#i'm on ch40 out of *checks archive* 140ISH and i keep putting the phone down to do other stuff and then just picking it right back up#i did Not pay attention to an important phone call yesterday#i overcooked my pasta#was almost late for work bc i was sitting in the car#printed at least 300 letter openers by touch alone in padprint bc i had my phone open on the desk trying to read#went to hide in the bathroom and was accidentally in there for like 30 minutes instead of just 5#still reading at 4am and fell asleep phone in had at 3% battery#meant to take a shower and sat on the bed in a towel clutching the phone on its charger for an hour instead#burned my toast#only on the desktop right now bc the phone is charging (now 4pm) in another room#I literally CANNOT STOP READING THIS BULLSHIT 80HD CATNIP SCIFI (affectionate)#time to orbit: unknown
I'm sorry but this is so funny
Have fun with the other hundred chapters
well then. its 7:20pm. I just got off playing minecraft for nine hours straight. tomorrow is sunday. nothing could possibly go wrong, right? right? i'll have dinner first and will then be uncontactable for ~12 hours probably. we'll see!!
oh my.
binged every chapter in one day.
I may have forgotten to open the tab to start reading but also I don't exactly want to play with fire hereâ I'm incredibly busy for the entirety of this week including the weekend. do i... dare i do this...?
Yeah it'll be fine.
It's 5:30am and I've been awake for an hour due to jetlag, might as well start this now what could possibly go wrong
Oooh, i should check if a new chapter dropped yet. (I dont pay attention to schedules; i have no good concept of time lol)
One dropped 5 hours ago.

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social skills training, solmaz sharif
PACING IS ABOUT LOAD BEARING WALLS.
*staples violently to my own forehead*
This is such good advice.
All I will add is: WRITE THOSE BREAKFAST SCENES if you want to, they can be absolutely critical in getting a handle on your characters. Or even on the setting. Write them all to fuck. Go hogwild.
Then cut them. They're for you, and for the characters. Not the readers.
Ocean Vuong, On Earth Weâre Briefly Gorgeous
Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic
social skills training, solmaz sharif
N has name of the wind vibes and by that I mean I just think they would like it
Also this:
Sorry

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Free to watch âą No registration required âą HD streaming
an incomplete list of unsettling short stories I read in textbooks
the scarlet ibis
marigolds
the diamond necklace
the monkeyâs paw
the open boat
the lady and the tiger
the ministerâs black veil
an occurrence at owl creek bridge
a rose for emily
(I found that one by googling âshort story corpse in the house,â first result)
the cask of amontillado
the yellow wallpaper
the most dangerous game
a good man is hard to find
some are well-known, some obscure, some I enjoy as an adult, all made me uncomfortable between the ages of 11-15
add your own weird shit, I wanna be literary and disturbed
The Tell-Tale Heart, The Gift of the Magi, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County, Thank You Ma'am
the box social by james reaney. i remember we all had to silently read it in class, and you would hear the moment everyone reached the Part because some people would audibly go âwhatâ
wHat did I just put my eyes on
âThe Veldtâ by Ray Bradbury
Not quite a short story, but read in class: âThe Monsters are Due on Maple Streetâ from The Twilight Zone
Harrison Bergeron, Cat and the Coffee Drinkers
âWhere are you going and where have you beenâ by Joyce carol oates
âThe Pedestrianâ by Ray Bradbury
the lottery by shirley jackson
i canât believe Roald Dahlâs âThe Landladyâ wasnât already mentioned and also itâs not so much unsettling as more absurdist but âThe Leaderâ by Eugene Ionesco definitely made me go wtf
Ett halvt ark papper. I cried so much.
ĐĐŸŃŃ Ń ĐŒĐ°Đ·Đ°Ńа, Đ. ĐšĐ°Đ»ĐžĐŒĐŸĐČ
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
All Summer in a Day by Ray BradburyÂ
Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, by Donald Barthelme
I read Ray Bradburyâs âAll Summer In A Dayâ in seventh grade (it wasnât assigned, I was just going through my textbook for new stuff to read) and as a bullied kid with SAD, it Fucked Me Up.
An Ordinary Day with Peanuts, by Shirley Jackson
Eh, this was more like community college, but The Star by Arthur C. Clarke
Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
and this story that I canât remember the name of and canât find, though it might be by O. Henry? itâs about a bunch of demons who want to stop Santa Claus from going through with Christmas, and he must travel through the mountains they inhabit to escape their vices? (good christ I canât remember the name for the life of me)
Ok but the laughing man and a good day for bananafish but j.d. Salinger
The City (195) Ray Bradbury. An intense commentary on colonialism and space exploration. I read it for a sci fi survey class.
Another short story I read in that sci fi class was Vaster than Empires and More Slow (1971) by Ursula K. Le Guin. A commentary on humanity and how human we believe ourselves to be. Also, an interesting commentary on mental health.
In the Woods Beneath the Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom, written in 1947 by Ango Sakaguchi. It made my skin crawl the first time I read it.
Also going to recommend For A Breath I Tarry by Roger Zelazny, a commentary on whether AI can become human in a future without humans: http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/ZELQZNY/forbreat.txt
whoever posted âThe Laughing Manâ and âA Good Day For Bananafishâ is Correct
the scarlet ibis
marigolds
the diamond necklace
the monkeyâs paw
the open boat
the lady and the tiger (I assume you meant Stocktonâs The lady or the tiger?)
the ministerâs black veil
an occurrence at owl creek bridge
a rose for emily
the cask of amontillado
the yellow wallpaper
the most dangerous game
a good man is hard to find
The Tell-Tale Heart
 The Gift of the Magi
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County
 Thank You Ma'am
The box socialÂ
The Veldt
The Monsters are Due on Maple Street
Harrison Bergeron
Cat and the Coffee Drinkers
Where are you going and where have you been
The Pedestrianâ by Ray Bradbury
The lottery by shirley jackson
The Landlady
The Leader
Ett halvt ark papper.
ĐĐŸŃŃ Ń ĐŒĐ°Đ·Đ°Ńа, Đ. ĐšĐ°Đ»ĐžĐŒĐŸĐČ
A Sound of ThunderÂ
I Have no Mouth, and I Must ScreamÂ
All Summer in a DayÂ
Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby
An Ordinary Day with Peanuts
The StarÂ
Lamb to the Slaughter
The laughing manÂ
A perfect day for bananafish
The City (link goes to compendium of short stories)
Vaster than Empires and More Slow (1971) by Ursula K. Le Guin.
In the Woods Beneath the Cherry Blossoms in Full BloomÂ
For A Breath I TarryÂ
All of Flannery O'Connorâs shorts.
I didnât read it in a text book, but âI Have No Mouth, and I Must Screamâ haunted me for life.
Adding to the list of Bradbury: âThere Will Come Soft Rainsâ
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke. (I never re-read it and suspect if I did, Iâd find it had issues, but I still think about the ending.)
âW.S.â by L.P. Hartley
âLost Heartsâ by M.R. James
âThe Facts in the Case of M. Valdemarâ by Edgar Allan Poe
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
My Fatherâs Hands by Calvin R. Worthington
In the Vault, by H. P. Lovecraft.
The Feather Pillow, by Horacio Quiroga
What a Thought! by Shirley Jackson
There Will Come Soft Rains - Ray Bradbury
Itâs been mentioned multiple times but have to say it again: I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream (also there is a video game go play it).
My additions:
The Damned Thing by Ambrose Beirce
Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant
The Repairer of Reputations by Robert W Chambers
The Repairer of
Reputations by Robert
W Chambers
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
âThere Will Come Soft Rainsâ is such a good one, I highly recommend
Gentle reminder that you can be 100% pro choice and still understand that aborting a fetus because it will be disabled as a human is a eugenicist idea that comes from absolutely horrifying ideas that have been placed in western culture as a result of more overt eugenics movements in our past.
In my personal opinion, allowing people to choose to abort fetuses with a high likelihood of developing disabilities that alter quality of life is not eugenics.
Disability is not like race, ethnicity or gender in that you are born with or discover your identity and it usually stays the same for a long period of time. Anyone can become disabled at any time in their lives, and anyone can be born with a disability and not know it until later in life. Therefore, I doubt that the population of people with disabilities will be erased or even reduced unless the government outright bans carrying fetuses likely to develop disabilities (which would be a clear violation of autonomy anyways).
I think the conclusion that choosing to abort fetuses likely to be disabled is eugenics operates on one or both of two assumptions: firstly, that every person has an inherent right to biological children, and second, that aborting a fetus is equivalent to ending the life of a child or adult with their own unique beliefs, culture, etc.
No one is entitled children, they are a very real commitment. Anyone can decide at any point for any reason that they don't have the energy or time or health to carry a fetus to term. Selectively aborting fetuses likely to have disabilities is not taking away the right of people with disabilities to exist in the world and doesn't take away from disability culture. While western adoption (can't speak for other countries) is a messed up system, adopting children with disabilities is a way to celebrate and participate in disability culture and disability justice without giving birth to a biological child who may be likely to have pain/significant mobility issues/risky pregnancy /etc.
I do think that if you want to have children you should be prepared to have a disabled kid, but it's not my place or anyone else's to decide who can and cannot terminate a pregnancy.
I think people get mixed up a lot about what is fun and what is rewarding. These are two very different kinds of pleasure. You need to be able to tell them apart because if you don't have a balanced diet of both then it will fuck you up, and I mean that in a "known cause of persistent clinical depression" kind of way.
When people say they enjoy things, they usually mean one of two things. The first is that these things are fun; that is, they satisfy immediate emotional needs or desires for pleasure. Candy Crush is fun, for people who are into that sort of thing; waterslides are fun, watching TV is fun. Fun, in the way I'm defining it for this post, is the party food of pleasure; immediately and usually temporarily satisfying, and after that, mostly satisfying only as a happy memory (although some of these activities, like watching a TV show, can generate further opportunities for pleasure down the line like daydreaming, discussion, and making fanart). Like party food, this kind of fun is a good thing to have, and someone who doesn't get enough of it is at high risk of stress-related health concerns. Also burnout. A lack of fun is a major contributor to burnout.
The second kind of pleasure that most people talk about is rewarding activity. The lack of rewarding activity in one's life is a major contributor to depression. It creates a sense of purposelessness and worthlessness and generates a low attention span, sapping the ability to feel long-term motivation or pleasure. People usually try to pick themselves up with the first kind of fun, which is a band-aid but not a very sticky one; the lack of rewarding activity grows and festers over time. Rewarding pleasure involves working on something long-term that feels worthwhile. There are usually also spots of fun (or you wouldn't have gotten into the activity enough for it to become rewarding), but there also tends to be long slogs that aren't that fun. Nevertheless, when people report on doing said activity, they will speak about it with great enjoyment and remember it being enjoyable and claim they like it. (I like being a writer. Writing can sometimes be boring as shit.) (Look into CsĂkszentmihĂĄlyi's work on experience sampling and flow states for more info on this, it is FASCINATING.)
In Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal sums up what she thinks are the most important contributing factors to rewarding activity. These are not the only factors, but I agree that they're a good baseline of the critical ones. I'm going to paraphrase them using different language. The four big contributors are:
Satisfying work. This is the vaguest one because different people find different things satisfying. Basically, the task itself should feel productive, and you should not feel bad about doing it to the point where it causes you distress. Satisfying work involves clear goals with actionable steps and a clear product, preferably something that you can see, touch or use. A clean house, a new high score, a freshly built table, a happy child.
Mastery. Rewarding pleasure is often something that you can get better at. There are things to learn, practice, improve. Improving your ability to solve tricky code problems, getting better at painting landscapes, figuring out fun new strategies in Magic: The Gathering, being able to build computers better or faster or cheaper. Mastery does not require becoming the best at something (although some people enjoy that specifically also), merely seeing progress in yourself and being able to take pride int he fact that you are better than you were.
Social connection. Rewarding pleasure often involves social or community connection. A long-term social group that discusses fan theories of their favourite show. Your weekly tabletop rpg. Teaching a room full of kids who to make leather belts. Working at a small bookshop and making small talk with all the tourists. Some people find social activity to be fun in the 'immediate pleasure' kind of way, some don't, but it is a critical factor in mental health and in the long-term... rewardingness (?)... of a hobby. Animals can also partially fill this niche, but be warned, they are far, far less effective than people. Your cat might be able to stop you from committing suicide today. You cat alone will not make your life satisfying.
Contribution. Humans are community animals and have a need to be something larger than ourselves or, more specifically to be of service to something larger than ourselves. Looking after kids, cooking big meals for others, creating art or physical products for others. Teaching the next generation how to read. Serving your God. Saving a species of small fish from extinction. Volunteering at your local charity shop or soup kitchen. Being a member of a crowd to reach the Guinness World Record for "most people fit into a storage crate". Making useful tutorial videos, being an entertainer, joining your local queer support group or political organisation. Humans fucking love to be part of something bigger than their own brain and they fucking love to help people.
The world is full of rewarding activities, and not all of them rate high in all four categories. The woman working in the charity shop warehouse and chatting with her coworkers isn't necessarily all that interested in mastery of her job (although I've worked in these places and some people do take pride in learning to be as efficient as possible), the musical hermit training to become the best violinist in the world might not be all that interested in social connection or how the audience actually feels about him. You might have noticed that I've listed hobbies, jobs, and non-employed but important life work (volunteering and childrearing) as possible rewarding activities; you can find rewarding activities everywhere. (In fact the lack of rewarding pleasure in our work lives is a very serious problem that companies keep trying to condescendingly band-aid over. The late David Graeber had a lot to say about this and I highly recommend his work, particularly Bullshit Jobs, which is a book specifically discussing the lack of above points 1 and 4 (satisfying work and sense of contribution) in so many modern workplaces and its distressing psychological ramifications). Rewarding activities are not 'fun' all the time; in fact, CsĂkszentmihĂĄlyi's work found that many of them are quite unfun most of the time. They do, however, create long term pleasure, and are emotionally and psychologically critical.
One final point: research shows that computer stuff counts less. This isn't a 'hurr durr edison was a witch get off your damn computers and get a real job' point; plenty of people do most of their rewarding activity on computers, because the supply cost is so low (most of us already own some kind of computer) and it's so much easier to find an existing community. But it does, psychologically speaking, count less; your brain isn't very good at seeing computers stuff as as 'real', on a primitive sensory level, as things you can touch with your hands or people that are right in front of you. Your massive community of fellow fans on the internet are less effective at filling your social needs than the crochet club at your local library, even if you like the people on the internet much more. It doesn't have to be everything, but ideally you should have at least one physical meatspace social club and at least one physical meatspace hobby, craft, or volunteer job. (They can be the same thing. You can volunteer at a soup kitchen for both.) They don't have to be the most important thing -- I care way more about my writing (electronic) than my crochet (meatspace) and I do the writing a lot more -- but the meatspace thing should exist, if you can manage it.
"rn I feel like reading about someone's quiet daily life, maybe a diary or letters, set in a place or context I don't know much about, without turmoil or tragedy" oh! do you have any recommendations for books like this?
This is one of my favourite types of books! Here are 30(ish) recs...
May Sarton's The House by the Sea or Plant Dreaming Deep
Gyrðir ElĂasson's Suðurglugginn / La fenĂȘtre au sud (not translated into English unfortunately!), also Bergsveinn Birgisson's Landslag er aldrei asnalegt / Du temps qu'il fait (exists in German too)
Gretel Ehrlich's The Solace of Open Spaces, which iirc was originally written as journal entries and letters before being adapted into a book
Kenneth White's House of Tides: Letters from Brittany and Other Lands of the West
Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book
The Diary of a Provincial Lady, E. M. Delafield
Growing Up with the Impressionists: The Diary of Julie Manet
Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim (do not read if you don't like flowers)
The Road Through Miyama by Leila Philip (I've mentioned it before, it feels like this gif)
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, I keep recommending this one but it's so nice and I love snails
Epicurean Simplicity, Stephanie Mills
The Light in the Dark: A winter journal by Horatio Clare
The Letters of Rachel Henning
The letters of Tove Jansson, also The Summer Book and Fair Play
The diary of Sylvia Townsend Warnerâhere's an entry where she describes some big cats at the zoo. "Frank and forthcoming, flirtatious carnivores, [...] guttersnipishly loveable"
The Letters of Rachel Carson & Dorothy Freeman were very sweet and a little bit gay. I mostly remember from this long book I read years ago that Rachel Carson once described herself as "retiring into her shell like a periwinkle at low tide" and once apologised to Dorothy because she had run out of apple-themed stationery.
Jane Austen's letters (quoting the synopsis, "Wiser than her critics, who were disappointed that her correspondence dwelt on gossip and the minutiae of everyday living, Austen understood the importance of "Little Matters," of the emotional and material details of individual lives shared with friends and family")
Madame de Sévigné's letters because obviously, and from the same time period, the letters of the Princess Palatine, Louis XIV's sister-in-law. I read them a long time ago and mostly I remember that I enjoyed her priorities. There's a letter where she complains that she hasn't received the sausages she was promised, and then in the next paragraph, mentions the plot to assassinate the King of England and also, the Tartars are walking on Vienna currently.
Wait I found it:
R.C. Sherriff's The Fortnight in September (quoting the author, "I wanted to write about simple, uncomplicated people doing normal things")
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Pond, Claire-Louise Bennett
Rules for Visiting, Jessica Francis Kane
The following aren't or aren't yet available in English, though some have already been translated in 5-6 languages:
ăăăæć ·ćș / La papeterie Tsubaki by ito Ogawa
ććł¶ăž / La pĂ©ninsule aux 24 saisons by Mayumi Inaba
GiĂč la piazza non c'Ăš nessuno, Dolores Prato (for a slightly more conceptual take on the "someone's everyday life" themeâI remember it as quite Proustian in its meticulousness, a bit like Nous les filles by Marie Rouanet which is much shorter and more lighthearted but shows the same extreme attention to childhood details)
Journal d'un homme heureux, Philippe Delerm, my favourite thing about this book is that the goodreads commenter who gave it the lowest rating complained that Delerm misidentified a wine as a grenache when actually it's a cabernet sauvignon. Important review!
Un automne Ă KyĂŽto, Corinne Atlan (I find her writing style so lovely)
oh and è„żăźéć„łăæ»ăă / LâĂ©tĂ© de la sorciĂšre by Kaho Nashiki âsuch a little Ghibli film of a book. There's a goodreads review that points out that Japanese slice-of-life films and books have "a certain way of describing small, everyday actions in a soothing, flawless manner that can either wear you out, or make you look at the world with a temporary glaze of calm contentment and introspective understanding [...]"
I'd be happy to get recommendations in this 'genre' as well :)
âDid you have parents or just some people who thought they should own somebody?â
â Catherine Lacey
Oof.

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Voting as Fire Extinguishter (poem by Kyle Tran Myhre)
When the haunted house catches fire:
a moment of indecision.
The house was, after all, built on bones,
and blood, and bad intentions.
Everyone who enters the house feels
that overwhelming dread, the evil
that perhaps only fire can purge.
Itâs tempting to just let it burn.
And then I remember:
there are children inside.