All you children who love stories...

And like I'm not Japanese but I do know about how bad Japanese Work Culture is and I don't think Toshiro was picked to be the one made an example of in this way by chance, Ryoko Kui's work does seem to be coming from a perspective that is very informed by her background and she's clearly not afraid of putting social commentary and critique into her stories. But even aside from that I know as an American we also get that "kill yourself for your job I'll sleep when I'm dead hustle culture" shit poured into our brains from day one, so legit having a story be like "hey bro actually you refusing to take care of yourself in the pursuit of this goal is kneecapping your ability to actually reach it and you need to take a nap and eat some bread" is also pretty fantastic.

Plus, in a lot of activist circles these days I see a lot of people convinced that you must always be on all the time regardless of how badly it's hurting you, which is so toxic because again, if you are traumatizing and exhausting yourself you CAN'T HELP PEOPLE. Exposing yourself to hell 24/7 so you're a good ally is making you a worse one. You cannot help people with their oxygen masks until you put on your own, you need to rest and take care of yourself so you can help others.

Also like, as a disabled person it's also nice to see rest being treated as necessary. Disabled people get so much flack for being "lazy" and it's very easy to internalize the idea that you must be productive to be worthy of life, but Dungeon Meshi is very pro "you can't do anything if you aren't giving yourself breaks and rest when you need it" and it's really validating!

All around the focus put in rest and nourishment being necessary not just for life but for being a force of positive action in the world is something I think a lot of us could use to hear from media. I love a good "you're beaten and bloody and exhausted but you're gonna keep fighting even if it kills you" dramatic moment as much as the next person but there is still so much to explore in a story that tells you to calm the fuck down and eat something so you can actually do the work that needs doing. It's compassionate and reassuring but also a bit of a wake up call.

The way I explain it to my patients is that our neurons don’t regenerate. They make connections with each other and that’s it. If you don’t use your brain, they make fewer connections and, if one of them dies, you’re gonna miss it, because that was the only one that knew how to do X. Now, if each one of them has many, many connections, you won’t notice the difference when one of them dies. The others pick up the slack.

As of 2024, 45% of dementia risk factors are modifiable. Relevant to this conversation, 5% for less education and 5% for social isolation.

We absolutely are going to see the reflection of this, but it’s gonna take decades and it’ll be too late. So, for the love of your brain, pretend that it’s a muscle and make it work. People complain about “when am I ever gonna use this maths formula in my life?” You’re not. You’re teaching your brain to think logically. Those sinapses will be there for when you need to figure out your week’s schedule. English classes taught me how to interpret data and how to convey it in this text so it’s clear and you understand what I’m saying, not because I needed to justify why the curtain is blue.

Make your brain know how to do different things. Logic games, puzzles, taking care of a garden even if small, planning a church’s event or birthday, learn a new instrument, learn a few words in another language, look at a calendar every day, do some manual labor if possible. Do not, I repeat, do not let your brain get rid of sinapses by letting AI do everything. Your brain uses 20% of your body’s energy — do you really think it’s going to maintain connexions that aren’t in use?

Most cases of Alzheimer’s are sporadic, meaning no family history. Family history of a first-degree relative with Alzheimer’s starting before they were 80yo increases your risk in 2-3x on average.

There was one episode with a trans woman getting different gender-affirming operations, including breast implants. It showed the procedure, and (what I found so fascinating that it's stuck with me for decades), as soon as the doctor put the implant in, a censor blur popped up on the nipple.

And you just know there was a meeting between the TLC lawyers and the editors and producers of the show to discuss what the difference was between a "man nipple" (can be shown) and a "woman nipple" (no no must obscure, 'tis naughty). And they decided that as soon as the implant goes in and the nipple has more mass behind it, that's the moment when it becomes a woman's nipple and must be hidden to comply with TV rules.

But it's the same nipple. On the same person. I know what it looks like; I just saw it. But TV and obscenity rules are rules, and the rules say woman nipple = sexual and therefore explicit, but man nipple = neutral, just fine.

Fields of Mistria

caldarus at the shooting star festival 💫

Elderly is basically like 70-75+. Definitely 80+.

So to reorient ourselves: if your grandma is 80 in 2026 she was was 20 in 1966 (and if she lived in the US) it is ENTIRELY possible she spent some portion of her youth dropping acid, smoking weed, participating in the free love movement, and protesting the Vietnam war. Hippies are old now.

When we imagine the broad perspective and life experiences of old people we have to keep in mind that old people are now baby boomers, the greatest generation is almost entirely gone. I honestly hate the named generation convention where we neatly divide everybody up by what are ultimately pretty arbitrary years, it's all marketing bullshit. HOWEVER it is true that there was a tremendous culture shift in the 20th century, which deeply altered a lot of cultural norms in a fairly short amount of time. Old people now really do have a meaningfully different cultural perspective than old people two decades ago did.