Hello, lovelies

Right now you might be thinking things like "I need to change myself, I need to change how I think, I need to change who I am".

And the solutions you reach for (that you have been taught to reach for) will be things like "try harder, lock in, focus more, think better, do things better".

That shit doesn't work.

If a problem exists "inside your head", sometimes you can solve it in house, but a lot of the time you cannot and such attempts are wasting energy.

Instead, you need to change what's "outside your head".

Change what clothes you're wearing, take a shower, eat food, dress up nice, change who you're talking to, change what you're eating, put posters on your walls, change your phone wallpaper, change what name people call you, change how you talk about yourself, change how you sleep.

It feels like because it's indirect it'll be less effective, that's not true. That's not how this works.

A lot of the time you'll try to justify like "I need to change what's inside so that I can change what's outside", but this causality is wrong. Changing what's outside will change what's inside much more effectively.

In fact, your "mind" is not this magical special thing, and all that shit around you is part of you. The people around you shape your environment, your environment shapes your behaviors, your behaviors shape your body, your body shapes your mind. It's all continuous.

Aim up the stream of causality and shoot right and you'll minimize the effort needed to achieve the desired result. Practice and you'll get better at doing that. Do it right now and you'll get results fastest.

Because publishing houses will not continue printing paper books if libraries are their only customers.

It also goes without saying that bioessentialism inherently can’t be trans inclusive no matter how hard you try. “All men including trans men—” probably not. “This is only a woman’s issue—” is it really? “Afabs only—” why? “All trans men are like—” what? what are they like? finish the sentence i dare you.

Do exactly what you're paid for and nothing more

Absolutely refuse to be available to contact when you're off the clock

Never prioritize work over your own health, wellbeing, or family because that would be insane, it's just a job.

Have a little glass of wine

Take as long as you feel like for lunch

Deeply understand that work doesn't matter

Old Millennial American speaking here. I need you to adopt this mentality as early as possible and hold to it. The older you get, the harder it is to begin this practice and claw back the extremely unhealthy effects of a workaholic lifestyle. I am speaking from 20 years of experience.

This does not mean having a shitty attitude at work, or not doing your job, or relying on co-workers to carry your water.

This means you do what it says above. It also means not making work and productively your entire personality; not tying your productivity to your value; and not becoming so emotionally enmeshed in your work and workplace so that you are living and dying by what happens there.

goodrx is the most well known one, but if i'm trying to find the cheapest price for a patient i compare it to scriptcycle, and use whichever is offering the best price. you just type in the medication (PLEASE make sure you're getting the right drug, dosage, and quantity) and your zip code and they will spit out some offers for you

some pharmacies may have their own discount card to compare to as well!

if you are getting a name brand medication, you can also look at the manufacturer's website to see if they offer any evouchers for you to use too

One thing about this that I can share with you is that I, as a 13 year old boy, read Atlas Shrugged. I read it as someone very committed to the ideology, who wanted to believe it, who wanted to like it, and there are two things I can share with you about that book from that time period.

The writing is terrible. It has the slowest, most boring, most pretentious prose you could possibly imagine. Calling it glacial would be a compliment. It makes glaciers look like Formula 1. There is no description for the pacing outside of hellish torments. It is like being condemned to watch a dog with an itchy ass wear the Himmalayas away only by scooching. It is like counting the grains of sand on a beach while Alexa reads off random phone numbers. It is like dipping saltines into lukewarm tapwater while listening to white noise in a beige room with no doors. It is like wearing a blindfold and being told to guess what a man is painting by sound alone, but there is no man, there is only a dog licking cold vaseline off a window. Forever. It is all of those things and more.

There is a multipage rant about how affairs are Good and Rational that is so insanely desparate that even middle-school-autist me thought she must have been having an affair while she wrote this. And then I googled it, and the answer was yes, she was. She called her philosophy Objectivism, because she believed, like everyone else in the world, that her ideas and motivations were Pure and Rational and Ojectively Correct, but I still find the name accurate, because it was really written with one Objective in mind, and that was finding a way to never admit that Ayn Rand had ever made a mistake in her life.

I was going to rant more about this but I kind of lost my train of thought. The book fucking sucks. It was propaganda of such remarkably low caliber that it actually helped me move out of those circles. Every time someone talked about liking the book, I'd reply with something along the lines of "Yeah, I especially loved the part where she destroyed the post modernists by unequivocally condemning affairs", and if they agreed with me, they would have lost my respect forever, and if they looked very embarrassed, I could at least acknowledge that they had a soul, albeit small and malformed. I had dozens of people claim that they read the book, and only three or four actually passed the test.

A local paper had some great photographs, all taken by Nicole Hester:

The day before, Rep. Justin Pearson tries to attend a Senate Committee meeting and is barred access by the Sergeant at Arms.

Lawmakers and protesters link arms as the descend the capitol steps.

Once inside the chamber, Democratic representatives continued to stand together with arms linked.

They continued standing together with arms linked as votes were cast.

Democratic representatives take a group photo protesting the redistricting.

Rep. Justin Jones burns a photo of the Confederate flag with the words, We will not go back.

And stomps the ashes.

KeShaun Pearson being escorted from the building by the Staties.

KeShaun Pearson (left) being taken into custody. Rep. Justin Pearson (right) showing his support of his brother.

Additional information: State lawmakers have been gunning for Pearson and Jones nearly their entire terms. Most notably, in 2023, the House expelled them for participating in a protest at the Capitol. Their districts had to have special elections to have them reinstated.

Pearson is one of the plaintiffs of a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the redistricting.