eyes never closed

“When we were kids, the Phonics Wizard came to our town to show off how the letter E can change the sounds of vowels. He turned a can into a cane, a pin into a pine. This one kid had a cap and he changed it into a cape, that kind of thing.

my serious answer to this would be moderate-high dose psilocybin followed by regular exercise and concentration meditation practice.

The serious no-joke answer to this is because psilocybin and other psychedelics increase the entropic temperature parameter of the brain (see carhart-harris's well-supported entropic brain hypothesis) meaning that it dramatically increases neuroplasticity, flattens the habit energy landscape, making it easy to break existing habits and form new ones. For someone who's used to lackadaisical hedonism, going into a trip with the intention of cultivating discipline will allow a clean switch from old habits to new ones.

age gaps are actually not a problem in themselves (as long as both participants are adults blah blah you know the drill). the potentially harmful dynamics between two partners with a big age difference arise from other factors that are associated with age. more wealth. more stable life situation. a big gap in relationship/dating experience. this is of course worsened if you add gender and/or racial dynamics to it. age in itself doesn't create this imbalance, we just exist in a system where older people are more likely to have other forms of privilege over their younger partner.

As an older queer, allow me to say: the walls of the closet are load-bearing. It is our job as a community to stand in front of that door and tell everyone who wants to peek inside to fuck off.

This honestly goes double for "glass" closets. The closet maybe be glass. But god damn its our job to not shatter it for someone else bc plausable deniabily is so so incredibly important sometimes.