#and needing to learn those patterns

[ant-diary]

I think I have maybe decided to tell someone I no longer want to be friends with them, but I'm wondering if I should give it a few more days before I commit to it

[ismyteadoneyet]

I think I accidentally uncovered yesterday why my family generally are fine with generative AI, especially when it comes to arts and "creative" matters.

I am (famously) quite bad at taking compliments (though I have gotten WAY better at it, and am actively working on it), and was drawing on my tablet while my parents sat next to me. My mom complimented my drawing skills, following it up with "I can barely draw a stick figure".

(Side note: this might be a me-problem, but I think that combining a compliment with a "comparison to the speaker" gives the compliment a sour undertone, but again, that might just be me. I've seen too many posts and things about "comparison is the theif of joy" or whatever the quote is, to feel comfy with accepting a compliment that essentially boils down to "holy crap you're so much better than me!!" 🫠🫠)

I thanked her, and replied with something along the lines of "it's all about practice, and I have practiced a lot," to which she countered with "no but like, you've always been good at drawing," to which I tried explaining that, like a muscle, I have been drawing and doodling a lot, in other words, practiced, right? I have always had an interest in drawing, which of course helps keeping me motivated to actually get better at it. And if she wanted to be able to draw more than a stick figure, I am certain she would be able to if she did practice (I brought up PewDiePie's drawing videos as an example), but she dismissed it entirely as something she wasn't able to do.

Even though my mother, having an interest in the human body and as a result knowing damn near every single muscle in the body by the latin name because she studied that, refused to accept that I have done the same to get better at my own skill, because, of course, I never went to school for it, right? I don't have a diploma to prove that I have practiced an ungodly amount of hours and watched more tutorials than I will ever care to count.

Being "good at drawing" (and other arts) is (I think) something my family simply believes that you either are born with, or you're not.

And that's where the justification for gen AI comes in, right? Because if arts is not a thing you practice and study to get better at, it is probably, in their minds, ableist to talk bad about gen AI, because "how can you gatekeep expression in art like that?" (My brother once pulled the argument that "well what if someone wants to make a comic and has the story and all but can't draw? Don't you think they deserve to create that comic in other ways, then?" to which I have never been more confused because what the entire fuck do you think other comic artists did to achieve that in the past, my guy??)

I eventually gave up when my mom kept asking me to "just accept the compliment" but I haven't quite been able to. Because if the compliment is just regarding something "I had since I was born", what has all my practice been for? Why have I "wasted" all this time trying to get better if I was born with the skillset I have now? Why is the compliment directed at me if my parents were the ones bringing me into this world? Shouldn't they be patting themselves on the back for bringing such a creative spirit to life?

[louisarmpits]

I want to learn how to knit socks

[gl1tchxr]

corrupted paradox design to go along with the juxt one

[riverbeatsaber]

I know that the Imperial system is bad and all but I gotta say. I do really like how it works for sewing

[smimon]

Don't talk to me today guys, there is only one thing I can think about and it's that damn hug from Häärijä

[mars-ipan]

overcoming anxiety (through practicing the things that scare you) is so interesting. i used to be horrified of taking up space or alerting other people of my presence. now i'm compelled to tell strangers i like their outfits or hair or earrings- on bad days i tell maybe a quarter of them. do i still overthink it? absolutely. but i call attention to myself to tell someone else my opinion. and with the way they tend to smile and tell me "thank you!" i'm pretty sure it's taken to heart.

i used to be horrified of making phone calls as well. this is one i'm still getting over- i just Don't Like Doing It. i used to have a phone call routine that i still joke about- realize i need to call someone, cry, avoid it for a few days, suck it up, write a script, memorize the script, cry again, final script read, make the call with the script in front of me. and i would be Exhausted by the end of it. i don't cry when i need to call people anymore. i'm even needing scripts less and less- i've found out that people actually won't kill me if i talk a little too fast or stumble on my words. i doubt i'll ever like making phone calls- i especially hate robots (i'm afraid they'll mishear me and direct me wrong or a person will suddenly show up and i won't be prepared)- but i can make them now.

i get overwhelmed really easy. just a thing that happens to me. my brain is really really good at taking one task and breaking it up into thousands of little tasks and it feels like i'm drowning. if i try to make it fewer larger tasks then it starts to feel insurmountable. i was completely lost on how to deal with this (other than avoid until you get that panic attack and can do work in the post-catharsis calm until 6:00 AM) until one night when my dad (who i often meet late at night due to overlapping mental illness symptoms) asked me how to eat an elephant. i looked at him, confused, and he said "one bite at a time." that was way more effective than any other analogy i've seen has been. "light at the end of a tunnel"- i don't feel like i'm moving forward, i feel like i'm scaling a wall. "steps on a trail"- i can see my destination, but it feels impossible to move forward. but eating an elephant? that sums it up perfectly. this huge task which seems impossible at a glance. but it must be done. so you eat the elephant, a bite at a time. every time i'm overwhelmed i repeat that phrase to myself. it hasn't made any major changes yet, but it keeps me calm enough to start before i hit the panic attack, which i'll take.

i was such a perfectionist growing up- i actually thought it was a good thing (school always taught me to strive for perfection). but it made me scared to try new things- if i wasn't immediately good at them, then it clearly wasn't for me. i'm still not great at starting new hobbies, but i try a lot of new things within the hobbies i already have. i test out different ways of making art, i try new puzzle games i don't understand, etc. and the feeling of steady improvement reminds me that i don't need to be good right away. some of the most satisfying moments don't come from immediately being good- they come from achieving that skill over time. i'd like to try to learn to sew soon.

idk it's interesting. i rewire my own brain's fear response by doing the Horrifying Thing enough times for me to understand that no i will not die. and while i'm doing it it feels like nothing is changing. i get so stressed every time- it can actually take a lot out of me (turns out fight-or-flight burns a lot of energy). but i look back at then vs. now and i realize how far i've come, and i can't help but think "huh. neat"

[knightofleo]

[asterdeer]

video called "pirate shirt tutorial that actually makes sense" with a thumbnail clickbaitingly copying bernadette banner's style, which does the exact same thing as bernadette banner's video but more confusingly and without a diagram in the video itself, also failing to understand that bernadette banner's channel is primarily a history channel and not a sewing tutorial channel so telling people they don't have to hand-sew the pirate shirt or they don't have to thread-pull is unnecessary because bernadette banner literally said "do this however you want, i just do it this way because it's how i learn about historical dress practices" in her own video. couldn't ask for better youtube entertainment

[a-whole-lot-of-things]

i'm trying to learn jubilee line on guitar right now, and it's so rusty and there are some very obviously incorrect parts but like, i'm so happy with what i've been able to do so far

though it's taken literal months to get the little parts done that i have - even just finally getting the smallest bits done, or kind of close - it has been so so worth it

[mrtheinsatiable]

Hell yeah automatic renewal on my library book

[himikochan]

god I have such complicated feelings about this but as a professional stitcher, I wanna say that if a pattern is well written and actually made by someone who knows what they're doing... fuck it do it go for it you'll learn more

Sewing pattern: this is NOT for beginners

Me, a beginner:

[thepandalion]

being the world's worst morphology fan on main right now but literally every time I use/think a word that has the "de-" prefix I almost melt like that's such a fun prefix and I love that it just means the removal of the noun following it. like. idk why.

[flatstarcarcosa]

"I mean, we've seen it, so we know it's here and now it knows we're here, and I get the feeling it's watching us," says Reese, voice low and eyes high up towards the ceiling. "But there's something about it that just feels wrong. Something that kicks off a warning deep in the back of my brain, something that's screaming... that this is what we used to be afraid of in the dark." Vader hums. "Nonsense," he says, "I am the only thing you should be afraid of in the dark." Reese rolls their eyes, falling a few steps behind while taking the hint to let him lead. "And yet here we both are, and so are the lights."

[catboybiologist]

half baked morning rant

I do want to make it clear that the reason I talk about HRT and its biological effects so much is not because HRT or medicalization defines your gender.

Its because, for me personally, the interface of my biology education and my transition was mostly centered around figuring out what sex hormones do. I learned about basic biology principles like DNA organization, gene regulation, cell biology, and physiology in high school and undergrad. Taking that understanding and extending it to the mechanisms that hormones use to change gene regulation, and by extension, the rest of your body broadly, was something I did as my understanding became more complete in later undergrad and grad school. It was the key to me starting my own transition.

Why?

Because it was the first time I realized that the "basic biology" arguments of transphobes were complete and utter bullshit. From that point, it was a cascade. As in, wait, if dynamic changes in gene expression aren't considered "biological" to them, then why am I believing anything they say about anything else? When they talk about gametes, and try to include infertile cis people in their definitions of biological sex by talking about what gamete you're "intended" to make, what do they even mean? Why does my current gene expression not define that "intent"? And wait, back up, why is the brain suddenly not considered part of our biology? Why are neurological differences suddenly not "biological"? Why can we say someone's thinking patterns aren't "biological"?

Backing up even further, why does any of this matter more than psychological gender, or sociological gender? If the way we navigate society is gendered, that affects a lot of our lives, and we're just throwing that away?

Basically, being educated about how deep the biological changes of HRT really go was the first domino to fall when I worked through my internalized transphobia.

This is one of many reasons why I hate, hate HATE the concession that uninformed allies and even many trans people themselves give: "well NO ONE is saying that you can change your biological sex, sex and gender are completely unrelated, sex is binary and gender isn't!!!!!"

Well. I am saying that you can change your "biological" sex, I am saying that biological sex isn't binary, and I am saying that misunderstanding of those points has set back transgender advocacy. It makes medical decisions surrounding us less informed, it poisons conversations about how we interact with society, and it makes trans people feel like their gender and sex are less "real" than cis people's.

Not to mention the horrific way it discards intersex people from the conversation entirely.

Recently, I've seen this point enter the mainstream a little, by using intersex people and variation of sex in other species as a "counterargument" to "binary biological sex" thinking. It still doesn't sit right with me. One, because it uses intersex people as a prop for trans advocacy while not actually addressing the needs of either group. And two, because it completely disregards that your current biology and physiology is not 100% predestined from birth, and using people who were "born this way" as a prop does absolutely nothing to increase people's acceptance of trans people who change their biology later in life.

Ugh. This got away from me but yeah. That's my sipping coffee ramble for this morning. If anyone wants to add comment or correct me on discourse here, please do. Especially if you're intersex- this is all the observations of a perisex trans woman.

[calebslittlecrow]

Expecting To Wake Up In Your CR

Okay, granted, not everyone has this problem - but a lot of people carry around this little assumption and expectation to wake up in their current reality again. No matter what they do. You've got your script ready. Your method is comfy and your chosen subliminal slaps. You feel ready and everything is in place. But deep down? Deep down you prepare yourself for your alarm in the morning. Prepare yourself for the same room, the same body, the same boring reality trot. It's like saying to the universe "Surprise me!", but also slipping in a quiet note saying "Please don't. Just copy yesterday". It's not new knowledge that your subconscious is running the show behind the scenes. But what we sometimes forget is that our subconscious picks its believes from us... from our habits, patterns, the things we repeat over and over again, even the ones we are not fully aware of. And since most of us are raised in a world that values logic, linear thinking, the "you only live once" mentality, it's no surprise some of us struggle with seeing any other reality as "just as real". Not your fault, it's just conditioning doing its work. Shifting goes basically against everything you have been taught to expect, so it can feel hard to rewire that believe on the go. You are a bit like a Roomba - just doing your little routines, bumping into some unexpected furniture on your usual way, programmed by years and years of subconscious patterns and habits. Cute, but kinda confused a lot. Doesn't mean you are broken, just shows you are human. What you can do is trying to catch that thought, the expectation of waking up here, before it starts to settle in again. Don't just say "I hope I shift". Hope is passive. Try something like: "I believe it's possible to shift" "I expect to shift" "My CR isn't the default. My DR can be the default too." You subconscious learns best from repetition, dominant believes and a sense of familiarity. So start feeding it those things, instead of doubt disguised as fickle believe. Once you start treating your DR as absolutely inevitable, it becomes harder for your brain to argue with that over time. You're not failing, just learning. And every single time you turn those pesky little thoughts in more productive ones, you are rewiring your believes. That's not small, that is huge! That is taking your power back from just letting things happen. You are basically standing in the doorway to your DR, you just need to find your way to step into it.