#i had this thought on the treadmill and binge wrote it at work

[nvnvmi]

thinking about…

(minors dni)

nanami, who doesn’t love the idea of you working out alone. especially so early in the morning — you could trip and fall, there could be a car whose driver isn’t paying attention, something could happen to you. for your safety, it’s best that he joins you on your little jogs. beside, waking up without you is just miserable.

nanami, who cooks breakfast while you’re showering. he’s seen the protein bars you try to pass off as a meal. you need something more nutritious after such a strenuous workout. there’s a joy in cooking for his wife that’s hard to find anywhere else.

nanami, who wakes up with ease when his alarm goes off while you grunt. complain. kick the covers off while demanding another five minutes. he never rushes you, never chastises you. the alarm is set for ten minutes (five is never enough), and he’ll get your clothes ready. make sure you have socks by your sneakers. you’ll come tumbling out of bed when you’re ready.

nanami, who boxes you in bed when it’s time for a rest day. his arms locked around your middle, he pulls you back against him. not even bothering to open his eyes. “not today, darling.” he mumbles, lips brushing against your hair. “sleep.”

nanami, who sees you staring at him when you run. watching the sweat trickle down his face. coating his neck, back, chest. it’s an everyday thing, but sometimes your gaze last a little longer. breaths, more like pants, a little a deeper (and not from the exercise).

nanami, who thinks you’re just so fucking filthy when your tongue laps up the sweat. desperate little whines as you try to get every drop. he lets his head roll back to allow you better access to his neck, chuckling when your tongue runs across his adam’s apple. “oh, sweetheart, you must be parched.”

nanami, who can feel you dripping through your leggings. soaking through every inch of clothing as the desire starts to built. driven to the extreme by a few salty droplets. when your hips rut against his semi, concealed by his tight gym shorts, he realizes what a mess you’re making.

nanami, who can only take so much. you’re stripped bare, sweaty clothes a heap at his feet as he pins you to the kitchen counter. legs hooked around his waist, cock fucking into you with the prettiest sounds.

nanami, who loves to take his time. to praise you, kiss you all over, make you feel how deeply his love runs. except in moments like these. when he barely has to fuck you to make your brain break, whines broken and his name slurred. he’ll wrap a hand around your throat and squeeze a little too tight, hips moving rougher than they probably should. your cunt is just so nice, so tight, so warm. and when you become a dumb little dog, licking her owner, how is he supposed to react?

“poor little puppy. you’re lucky daddy wants to breed you.”

[erensproudsimp]

Work out

Armin Arlert x reader Oneshot

⚠ Sexual Content Ahead ⚠

Summary : I woke up, thought of gym sex and wrote it

Word Count : 2.3k

"Come on y/n, going to the gym is not that bad plus Mikasa would be joining us too", Annie encouraged you.

"Working out seems so much of trouble that I certainly don't want to partake as I'd rather spend my energy to binge watch anime", you replied flatly eyes not moving away from your phone.

Snatching your phone Annie said with a serious face, "Y/n how do you expect to pull any of your anime crushes looking like a potato? "

"Hey! Give me my phone back and even if I do look like a potato Sasha would love me and don't bring my husbands in this topic!" you ran after her to retrieve your phone.

"Alright then, I'll pay you a KFC meal if you come for one day to at least try it out", Annie suggested.

"I don't know why you're so adamant about taking me to the gym but if there's free food involved, I'm in", you gave in.

"I just want you to stay fit you know and we're starting tomorrow so go to sleep", your roommate said preparing her gym bag.

"Whaaat nooo", you complained unaware of the impact that a stranger you're going to meet will have have on you.

The next morning both Annie and you hopped into Mikasa's car to go to the private gym owned by Mikasa's family and family friends.

"That's actually a relief to be able to work out without fearing strangers looking at you", you reassured yourself.

"Yeah it's gonna be really comfortable and I also would like to introduce you to some of my friends y/n, I know you're gonna like them", Mikasa added.

"Well can't say I'm not excited to meet them", you replied looking at your phone reading a fanfiction.

Couple of minutes later you reached your destination. From the outside the building looked very modern with transparent glasses through which you could see the inside and barely any life around made the place peaceful.

When you went inside, Mikasa took you both to the changing room where you left your stuff on the shelf to change your outfit.

Putting your towel on your shoulders followed by Annie, Mikasa led the way to her friends who were lifting weights.

"Hey guys", Mikasa said to get their attention, "This is y/n and Annie and this is Eren and Armin", she said pointing at each person respectively.

"Pleasure to meet you two", Armin said as Eren nodded with him.

You swore that the moment you saw the blonde boy, your heart skipped a beat. He was so effortlessly gorgeous.

"Same here, hope to have a good gym buddy relation with you two", Annie replied as you were lost in your reflection. Snapping yourself from your thoughts, you agreed with her.

After that y'all left the boys to let them do their previous activities and went to train yourselves. With your unfit body you were tired from the first exercise itself and was laying on the ground trying to catch your breath.

You failed to understand how could Mikasa and Annie keep going but you were not going to give up and decided to look at it as a new challenge for yourself.

Picking yourself up, you went to do something easy as a starter which was skipping ropes.

Little did you know that the blonde guy had been sneaking peeks at you from time to time smiling to himself.

One hour later, everyone decided to take a break to refuel their energy.

"So, what are we going to eat", you questioned.

" Why not soup? I've been craving miso soup for a while," Armin proposed, everyone settling on soup.

Getting into the car, Eren drove us to the nearest fast food restaurant. Inside you sat between Annie and Armin. Filled with anxiety of Armin being so close to you, you fidgeted with your hands to keep yourself stable. Armin noticed your restlessness and asked if you were okay but you couldn't possibly tell him that you were crushing hard on him so you just replied with a 'I'm fine' and concentrated on your food.

"What are your majors?" Eren asked you and Annie to make conversation.

"I am doing engineering and y/n's an art student explaining why she's so lazy", Annie responded.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Annie, I am not lazy", you said passive-aggressively looking at Annie with murder in your eyes.

"Says the girl who could barely run to take her phone from me yesterday", she coughed smirking.

"No- I - bye-", you stammered making Armin erupt into a fits of laughter. His laugh gave the impression as though angels came down on earth to bestow you with blessings which in this case was the cute sound of his voice. You didn't realise that you were staring at him until Armin spoke, "Is there something on my face?"

"Yes," you said casually swipping the little ketchup stain near his mouth with a tissue. His cheeks were a light pink colour because of your action and he thanked the heavens for not letting his friends noticing what just happened.

"Th-thank you", he bashfully thanked.

"Sure", you said looking away to hide your blush.

Finishing your meals, y'all returned to the gym to continue training then took your leave after two hours. Saying your byes to the boys, Mikasa gave you both a ride to your dorm.

Throwing your body on your bed you heaved a sigh of relief that you were able to survive this first day of going to the gym.

"Tired already y/n ? Too bad we're going to do this routine everyday", Annie commented.

"I guess time to fill the fridge with energy drinks", you jumped out of bed to buy bundles of different brands of said drink.

The only thing that would be keeping you going about working out was that you were able to see Armin everyday.

Due to your classes running late one day you reached the gym at 06 00 pm. Everyone was still there; you greeted them and went to use the treadmill. At around half past seven your friends were hungry and decided to go to a nearby takeout to bring food to the gym because you didn't want to come out of exhaustion.

"You guys go ahead, I would keep y/n company", Armin told them.

Soon you were left alone with Armin and not knowing what to say out of shyness you excused yourself to the bathroom.

There you freshened up yourself to make yourself look more presentable to your crush. Luck was in your stars as you were wearing leggings that gave your ass a nice curve with a matching colour sportsbra.

When you came out, you saw that Armin was missing. You assumed that he too went to the restroom and decided to do squats. A little while later the man indeed returned from the wc. His breath was caught in his throat when he saw you.

He came up to you and asked if you needed any help regarding your training.

"Actually I do, would you assist me in doing sit ups?" you requested.

"Yeah sure, I'll hold your shoes while you're doing them," Armin accepted.

Laying your body on the mat, you watched Armin going in front of you to your feet and held them down. You began to lift your body with your hands on the back of your head as you realised how close your faces were being when you were raised up. You never realised how broad his shoulders were until then and you gulped hard.

"How much do you plan on doing?" Armin asked.

"I'm setting a limit of thirty but let's see if I manage to exceed it." He nodded. Gosh, how does someone manage to look cute and hot at the same time?!

At your 15th sit-up you lifted up your body to make eye contact with him as you were with the previous sit-ups but this time it lasted longer because you stayed still. Both of you gazed into the eye of each other without saying a word your faces becoming closer. You didn't realise what you were doing. It wasn't long until both of your lips touched each other. When your senses were brought back to you, you pulled back so quickly. For a second you saw a frown on Armin's face.

"OMG! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do this, I swear," you apologized frenzily.

"It's okay, I don't mind at all," Armin just chuckled at your reaction. He came closer and tucked your hair to your ear.

"Have you ever realised how beautiful you were?" he whispered in your ear making all your blood rush to your head.

"I - I- mmph," you were cut off by Armin

colliding his mouth with yours. He sucked on your lower lip asking permission to let his tongue enter your mouth. You opened it a little only for him to stuck in his whole muscle.

You left out a small moan feeling his tongue roaming everywhere while his hand untied your hair and was playing with it.

He had the most tender lips that you ever felt in your life. Giving you a forehead kiss, he held your face in his hands stroking it with his thumb.

You crawled to sit on his lap as he continued to shower you with affection. His head pats were so gentle, you were melting under his touch. He bowed to gain access to your neck and gave it a subtle lick and then proceeded to find your sweet spot kissing you everywhere. A small mewl left your lips when he kissed a certain spot. The man was proud of himself to have found it and attacked it with hickeys. At this point you were shaking on his thighs and in his embrace.

Your hands reached the bottom of his shirt and pulled it off him. His sweaty body glowed in the light yet he looked so heavenly. You couldn't help but lick his collarbones leaving your saliva on his skin.

The fear of getting caught by your friends during this sinful moment turned you on.

Armin's hand gave your ass a tender squeeze before making you lay your whole body on the mat as he left a trail of kisses from your neck your stomach. He grabbed your waist to kiss your on your bellybutton.

"Is it okay if I remove it?" he said hinting at your leggings. You lifted your lower body to help him remove it and threw it away. He gave your core a kiss then carried you in bridal style to place you on the bench press.

He spread your legs and buried his face between them. You wouldn't have never expected such an innocent face to do such unholy things to your body in your life. He sucked your clit which sent electrics all throughout your body. He ate you out as though you were the most tastiest meal he's ever had. You crushed his head with your thighs but he didn't seem to mind that as he continued doing his job. You were pulling his hair so hard screaming his name making sure people passing nearby could hear how good he was making you feel.

His soft hands ran through your thighs making small circle motions on them to soothe you.

"Ar-Armin, I-,"

"It's okay love you can spill it on my face, I want every single drop down my throat," Armin panted.

What he said set off a trigger and the knot in your stomach snapped. All your juices went on Armin's face and he ensured to have swallowed everything.

He retreated away from your opening swipping your cum with his fingers and licking them off. While you were collecting your breath, Armin took off his sweatpants and let his hardened dick free.

"Do you mind if I -," he insinuated with his dick at your entrance.

"Please Armin don't hesitate," you were practically begging him. You expected him to slide it in but instead he was stroking your folds with his swollen member. This felt so good it sent you in a rollercoaster of immense pleasure. You could feel his veins pulsating against your own pulsating clit.

While he was caressing your cunt, his hands went to grab your boobs and fondled them.

His up and down motion continued as he was mixing his precum with your wetness.

Your overwhelming neediness pushed you to grind on him as he was moving so slowly. With instinct you lifted your hips as shivers were sent through your spine. Noticing this Armin picked up speed and with his hand rubbed your clit hard. He bent over to give you a kiss on your nose then to make out with you.

"Ah-ah, y/n-I'm going to cum," Armin moaned.

"Cum with me Armin," you breathed.

Suddenly he picked up more speed and thrusted faster. His dick was moving so quick on you, the lewd sound of your pussy's liquids filled the gym. Armin held your hands and intertwined your fingers. He let out a grunt as he came on your stomach and you on the bench.

He looked at you with such love in his eyes and reached out to wipe your tears and kissed your hands.

He fetched your leggings while he also cleaned the bench leaving no marks of this incident. Since your legs were shaking so much you could barely walk, Armin carried you to the bathroom.

After you went to pee, he made you sit on a stool and he tied your hair back in a ponytail. Hugging you from the back he asked, "Are you feeling okay now beautiful or do you need anything?"

"Water?" you replied.

"Anything for you," he went to fetch the requested item.

Just at that moment your friends returned.

You thanked the universe for not making them arrive while you were making love with Armin and you kept your cool acting as though nothing happened.

Thus, this was the start of a wonderful relationship.

End.

Thank you for reading. :)

[ghostbustermelanieking]

oddly specific memories i have of listening to tma

in honor of the finale, and because i am a sentimental asshole, i bring you this potentially uninteresting and completely pointless list. i'm gonna miss this show a lot

half my original reasoning for listening to the podcast was to motivate me to walk on the treadmill. this did not work. but i did it the first time, when i was going through the trailers and anglerfish, and i remember the room where my dad keeps the treadmill is really dark and the spooky chanting sort of freaked me out

after the treadmill, i ended up listening to the bulk of the first four episodes on the couch, and halfway through i let my oldest cat, winnie, who always lived outside (i know, i was very against actually keeping her outside) in the house. and she jumped up on the couch with me, which she literally never did. (she was very grumpy and not super affectionate.) i had that cat since i was five, and she passed last june, and i really miss her. quarantine kind of gave us the opportunity to hang out with her a lot, because we were home so much. so i'm glad these memories are kind of intersected in my mind. (below: a pic i have from that day.)

my friend sarah relistened along with me the first time around, which was extraordinarily sweet of her, and also led to some interesting interactions. for example: she forgot when it was revealed that sasha was dead, so she accidentally spoiled that for me when i asked when the others would find sasha (and i spent all of season 2 just like. anxiously vibrating over this fact). she also made this post, when i was still in like early first half of season 1, and my immediate thought was "oh no martin is dead." i hadnt even MET martin at this point

back in early quarantine, my mom had this rule that we had to do something new every day (to keep away the depression... ha ha). anyways, all i wanted to do in my free time was sit around and listen to tma (and also watch this show i was into on netflix), so i came up with some lame excuses, one of which was "i'll give myself a pedicure." this led to the memory i ultimately associate with mag 56 (trevor herbert 2) being me sitting out on our roof balcony thing, giving myself a horrendous pedicure

another time, my family wanted to go play tennis, and they brought me along and brought a hammock for me to lay in. there was this excess material from the hammock, and the sun was in my eyes, so i ended up pulling it up and over me to block the sun and creating this ridiculous hammock cocoon thing. one of the episodes i listened to that day? "tucked in."

before i ever started the show, my friend sarah stayed with me while i was pet sitting. i remember when she got there, she'd just listened to 150 and was telling me how freaky it was (she was still trying to get me into the show), and she was like "of course we're staying on a CUL DE SAC." (that was also the weekend she watched us for the first time and was very upset because i slept through the whole thing, which is scary when you're staying somewhere by yourselves.) anyways, i spent the whole show waiting for the scary cul de sac episode

while i was listening to the show for the first time, my step-dad (an artist) started painting an EYE on the door downstairs near my bathroom. a fucking EYE. he didn't finish it til i had finished the show. but still weird!!

i binged like 12 episodes in one day to finish season 4, which is not impressive at all, but it's still my personal record. i just remember staying up late in my dark bedroom (til like.... 11 i'm lame and i go to bed early), listening to like 158 & 159 & 160 and just being knocked on my ass by how good it all was... i was SUPER spoiled by this point, through my own fault, and i knew exactly what was coming, but actually experiencing it was nuts

the second week i listened live was 167, where the public release was delayed by a couple hours by accident. i spent like 20 minutes refreshing spotify, thinking it was broken, before going on tumblr and seeing what the deal was. (and 167 remains one of my favorites of s5 because i remember just going "thank god it was worth the wait.")

this one car ride where sarah and i made some of our friends listen to the first three episodes of the show. it was the middle of the night and we were just like blasting down i40 listening to anglerfish and do not open etc

the night the what the ghost episode publicly dropped was the night after my graduation, and i was sleeping out on the couch in the living room so my grandfather could sleep in a bed. it was super dark, and i am a jumpy person, and i Remember being mildly disgusted with myself because the corny sound effects were actually freaking me out. (i think i mightve actually seen something weird that night, maybe, but that's another story.)

the weekend my parents moved me into college, we couldn't get the cable in the house we were staying in, and we were all sitting around doing nothing, so i jokingly suggested starting tma with them, and they were like ok grace. my step-dad promptly fell asleep and my mom zoned out -- which is probably good, she doesn't like horror and she's super claustrophobic, so it's probably better we never got to do not open

my brief roommate in college talked about how she was into those youtube channels where people just read scary stories, so of course i was like try tma out. so she listened to the first episode on her own, and we were out one night, and she started mag 02 while i went into an ice cream place. she was into it (she kept being like open it, ya pussy) and wanted to keep listening while we went home, and even back in our room. i had only been in town for a couple weeks, and barely knew my way around, but i also didn't want to turn the gps on and be interrupted every five seconds. so i tried to find our way back on my own. it took the entirety of mag 03, and into mag 04, before i did it. so now i will forever associate across the street with all those wrong turns i took in a dark, semi unfamiliar city, trying to get back to our college without a gps

the day of the early drop for 179 was the day i moved back home from college -- a five hour drive by myself. i ended up listening to it on the final stretch of the trip, when i was super tired and it was dark and i knew it'd probably be a crazy episode. just me full blasting down i40, drinking an energy drink (which i never do) through a hole punched in the top, listening to daisy's death

186 early dropped the day after initial u.s. election day (when we still didn't know anything). my mom had set up a "watch party" in the living room with these giant air mattresses, and we all sort of spent the day crowded around the TV watching the numbers. not much of a memory, but i remember sitting on that air mattress and listening to martin's monologue in the midst of that messy week

i had a virtual therapy appointment on the day of 187's early drop, and my dad was home, so i drove to an empty parking lot to do the session in some privacy. i was trying to listen to the episode before the session started, so i ended up listening to the last half sitting in my car, in the pouring rain, just staring at my radio in shock (187 remains one of my favorite s5 episodes)

my friend sarah had just come home for winter break the day 189 dropped, and we decided to listen together, just like driving around in circles drinking coffee and listening and speculating on whether or not that was really martin

i started my relisten right after thanksgiving and was just kind of blowing through fast as i could through the whole of december. i had to go back to college to empty out my dorm, and i went to the beach after, and i ended up listening to mag 11 while just like walking around in circles in the tide pools. the closer it got to christmas, the more christmassy i wanted to keep things, so i would like. listen in the mornings and turn on one of those Netflix fireplaces and get all cozy

my other friend went with me on a mini bagel road trip in december, and he was still trying to get caught up, so we listened to mag 169, 170, and 171 on the drive home. (by this point, i was accustomed enough to s5 and smiting scenes to automatically reach for the volume controls when jude perry and jared hopworth died.)

when i relistened to mag 47, i was sitting with my cat beezus. i paused the episode to write this big long meta, so i was in a different headspace when i pressed play again. jon immediately yelled for sasha and i immediately jumped, and beezus gave me a searing glare and just got up and left

i relistened to piecemeal while i was cooking, which i thought was kind of funny and also disgusting

after christmas, i got into the habit of bringing my cat georgia into my room in the mornings, and she'd crawl under the covers with me while i listened to tma

one story i've always liked to tell from my first listen is how when i first listened to the meat arm grinder episode, my dad asked me to help him cook hamburgers later that day and explained how hamburgers are ground up (to my disgust). i hit meat grinder in my relisten and um. you'll never fucking guess what i made for lunch that day

so i had all these arbitrary rules for myself when i started tma last april, and i've broken like all of them. i started listening to tma while virtually working -- you just pull it up on your computer and it works. (i got the life scared out of me when one of my coworkers started talking over the podcast, wondering who it was that had walked into jon's office and why he wasn't reacting and why i didn't remember it.) i also started listening a lot while driving, which led to several long meta posts i wrote being typed up in a parking lot somewhere

i spent the entirety of 194 anxious-cuddling georgia. (i tried to do this for 198 and then didn't have any anxiety to cuddle her over.) i fully plan on doing this for 200, where i am sure i will need it again

my favorite place to listen to tma probably ended up being the roof room at my mom's, and unless something goes awry, this is where i will listen to the finale. (with georgia, of course.)

this list is super uninteresting, like i said, but here it is. i'm gonna miss this show a lot. i can't wait to return to it, later in life, and make all new listening memories in the process

[ashleyfanfic]

from bound to be together random prompt 12 or 22 :) thank u so much ❤️

12.    “Give me attention.” As requested, this is set in the bound to be together universe even though I wrote that one with @justwandering-neverlost​.  Quarantine has plagued all of us. It’s getting to the beans, too. ;) *~*

He kept his eyes on his laptop, trying to get the last of his report finished before the deadline. Being locked down for over six months had worn on everyone. He thought working from home would allow him to get more work done, but the truth was, he spent more time trying not to do anything. His co-workers all appeared to be doing something similar. On their last Teams meeting, they’d been told off by their boss that their job performance was lacking of late.  Of course it was. They were all stuck home, no way of socializing with others except through online meetings and emails. There were texts sent back and forth between each other, but even he was ready to be around other people. He couldn’t imagine the hell that Dany was going through being stuck with his dour self. This was having a profound effect on her. 

She tried to stay up beat. He could see it. Their wedding had been postponed indefinitely, much to their chagrin. There was only so much Netflix they could watch. He’d already seen Tiger King, twice. Binged Supernatural, Criminal Minds, Lucifer, and watched more documentaries than he ever had before. Their home gym in the basement had seen an upgrade that included a fancy treadmill and more yoga equipment. Dany found it funny, at first, that he would simply sit on the steps and watch her work out, but after several sexual adventures on the floor, she’d banished him upstairs while she worked out.  And sex. They’d had more than they ever had before. How many times had they been sitting on the sofa, both lazing around when she’d suddenly run her hand up his thigh, bat her gorgeous eyes at him, and they’d end up fucking on the sofa. Or when she poured cereal and he walked up behind her and slip his hand down her yoga pants to find her already wet. He was thankful all those months ago she’d been put on the pill. He couldn’t imagine the money they’d be paying in condoms.  They’d also worked on honey-do lists. They’d added a gorgeous subway tile to their kitchen back splash that they’d ordered from the nearby Home Depot. Bought new rugs from Wayfare. Jon had even built a few new bookshelves for their guest room/office.  Which was where he was currently hiding. Normally, he’d take his laptop down stairs, set up in front of the telly with Dany as she did the same with hers. They’d spend the day snacking, checking emails, and watching something they agreed on, but this deadline hanging over him told him there wasn’t much time for him to sit and socialize with his gorgeous fiance.  He had two paragraphs left when the door opened. “How much longer?” He looked up at her. “Not much. Probably two paragraphs.” She sighed as she leaned against the door frame. “Ugh, I need you to hurry.” “Something wrong?” “No. Not really,” she said as she drifted into the room and skimmed her fingers over the spines of the books. She turned her violet eyes on him. “I want you to come back downstairs. Give me attention.” He smiled. “Believe me, I’d love nothing more. I have to get this done.” “I know,” she huffed and left the room.  He ran a hand through his hair, thinking about what he’d rather be doing with his gorgeous fiance. Maybe he’d spread her out on this desk when he was finished. The thought sparked his fingers to fly over the keys quicker. *~* He had his headphones on for the Teams meeting their boss insisted on. At four thirty on a Friday afternoon. Their reports all turned in, he congratulated them on getting things completed and let them know that they would take next week to review them all. He glanced up momentarily as Dany walked by the door, but she didn’t linger. His boss continued to drone on and he tried to look as if he was paying attention but his thoughts had drifted. She was back in the doorway, only this time she was very naked and his eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, and he was very not listening any more. He looked back at the screen to see if anyone had caught his change in expression, but everyone seemed equally not engaged. He watched her saunter across the room and stand just behind his computer screen and lean her hands on the desk. He hit the mute button on his meeting and kept his eyes on the screen.  “Are you trying to kill me?” “Nope.” “Get me fired?” “Never,” “Then for the love of all that’s holy, please put on some clothes.” She grinned. “I had a better idea,” she said as she sank behind the desk. His cock instantly hardened, knowing exactly what she had in mind.  “Dany, if they see you...” “Scoot closer to the desk and try not to react,” she said as she slid her hands over his thighs. He did as she’d said and when he’d adjusted in his chair, she’d tugged on his sweats and freed his cock. He checked again that he’d muted his microphone, paranoia too much to be ignored. She tugged his pants all the way off and then she was licking the head. He adjusted the chair height, allowing it to sink closer to the floor to give her more room.  He leaned back in his chair a bit, and tried not to react to what she was doing and to listen to his boss and he continued to drone on and on. Telling them he didn’t know when they would be able to return to a physical work location. Thank fuck for that. He couldn’t get his cock sucked at work by Dany. Which she was doing brilliantly, if he did say so himself. Her tongue swirled around the head as her hands stroked over the heated flesh. Oh, he was going to pay her back for this. Bend her over the arm of the chair and fuck her hard. Or take her to the shower and torment her with the wand. He knew how much she loved that. He shifted in his seat as she drifted to his balls, licking and sucking them as well. He hoped her intention wasn’t to make him come while he was on this fucking call. There were a lot of things he could hide, but the way his face contorted he didn’t think was one of them.  “Jon, what do you think?” Oh fuck! They asked him a question. He unmuted his microphone and hoped they couldn’t hear Dany slurping over his cock. “Apologies, I missed the question.” He boss frowned. “We were discussing changing work hours. I said it might be more conducive to have everyone work four ten hour days and have Friday or Monday off. Which would you rather?” “Monday,” he answered quickly, trying to keep his eyes from drifting to look beneath the desk where his girlfriend was earnestly sucking his dick into her mouth. He thought she must have thought it was her mission to distract him from even being able to speak. She was succeeding. He heard a rather loud slurp and muted the microphone again he dropped his hand to the armrest then his lap to slip his fingers into her hair. She hummed around him.  “Alright, that’s all I have. I’ll open the floor for questions.” Please! NO one ask questions.  It was silent and his boss bid everyone farewell and to enjoy their weekend. He logged off, made sure it had disconnected, then closed his laptop. He pulled back from her and she released his cock. “You’re evil,” he panted.  “I told you to give me attention,” she smiled up at him as she ran her thumb over her swollen bottom lip. He crooked his finger at her and she moved on her knees closer to him.  He tore his shirt off and toss it across the room. “Oh, I’m going to give you my attention until you beg me to stop,” he said as he pulled her to stand in front of him, moved his lap top aside and turned her to face the desk. He smacked her arse, then gripped it in both hands. “Bend over, Dany, and don’t lift your hands off that desk.” She did as she was told and he could see the smile on her face. This was what she wanted, and as he lifted her leg to prop on the desk, he was more than happy to give her his undivided attention. Until she screamed for mercy. 

Prompt List

[itsaheavenleeworld]

Today I weighed myself for the first time since November.

I've always had problems with food. I remember being as young as 6 years old and not wanting to wear shorts because I thought my thighs were too big. I remember being in the 3rd grade and thinking my stomach was too big. I remember when I was 9 and comparing myself to the other girls wondering why I wasn't as small as them.

When I was a teenager I was frequently criticized about my weight. I remember at 14 I posted on MySpace (RIP) that I was a size 3 and someone said, "I'm a size 3 and you're significantly bigger than I am." That comment haunted me for a while. I remember being 15 and googling ways to induce vomiting. I remember having a food journal where I wrote down my weight, what I ate, and my total calories. Some days it would say things like "5 mini wheats, 7 grapes, 5 glasses of water." I set goal weights and gave myself unrealistic time frames to reach my weight. When I didn't reach my goal I punished myself.

I was 16 the first time I went a whole day without food. I remember being so proud of myself.

I remember going to the gym 5 times a week using the excuse that the treadmills had TV and since I didn't have cable at home it was my only way to watch Jersey Shore and Teen Mom. That was true, I did enjoy that. But I would push myself to burn twice as many calories as I ate that day.

No one knew the demons I was facing.

I allowed myself to eat 500 calories a day. I remember being so hungry that I would 'binge' (which was me eating 2 slices of pizza) followed by trying to make myself throw up. If I couldn't puke I cried and self harmed. I remember throwing up until I saw blood.

I glorified eating disorders. I looked up 'thinspiration' what felt like 100 times a day.

How did no one know my secret?

I got called fat on a regular basis. I remember stealing laxatives and weight loss pills. "Never call a girl fat because you never know how far she will go to be the opposite."

I remember when I was in active addiction I had never loved my body more. Being able to count my ribs, having collar bones that stuck out so far you could see them from space, having a thigh gap...it all made me so happy.

In fact, I remember the first time I discovered my thigh gap. I worked at Maurices and I was in the back room where we had a full body mirror on the bathroom door. I put my feet together and my thighs did not touch. Oh my God, the joy I felt. It was like I won the lottery.

Losing weight gave me a high that no amount of drugs could ever offer.

My addiction was fueled by my weight loss. I chased that next high, not from drugs, but from getting smaller and smaller. I was thrilled when I was wearing the smallest size Maurices carried and even that was too big on me.

People told me I was too skinny. That I looked unhealthy. To me, that was a compliment. Being called 'healthy' was an insult.

My highest weight was 165 pounds. I wore a size 9 or 10. I never hated myself more.

My lowest weight in my adult life was 115. I wore a size 0. I never loved myself more.

I thought I looked good. I would run my fingers over my hip bones and feel so proud. I would go days without eating and felt accomplished. I ate only to keep myself alive.

I just weighed myself for the first time since I've been sober. I weigh 136 pounds. I've gained 16 pounds in 74 days. That's 4.63 pounds a day. Holy shit. I took a deep breath before I stepped on the scale expecting to see 140 or higher. I was relieved when I saw 136, but quickly felt disappointed and upset.

My weight has been an issue for nearly 2 decades now. My thigh gap closed right before Christmas. My jeans are starting to get tighter. In October my smallest jeans were getting to be super baggy on me and I didn't like how that looked, but I loved how I looked in leggings or yoga pants.

I still have the desire to be that thin again. But I know that without being in active addiction it may not be possible. Honestly that's what made me relapse before. And it's scary to think that it might make me relapse again. I don't want to relapse, but I don't want to be fat.

I have put my body in starvation mode so many times and for such long periods, I'm sure I've fucked up my metabolism.

I don't want to set restrictions on my eating as far as saying, "okay, no sweets, only x amount of calories a day, etc." But I have to admit I'm looking forward to living on my own and buying my own food. Because I know I'll only have healthy food which will help me lose weight. I feel like living on my own will help me relapse into my eating disorder.

And that terrifies and excites me at the same time.

[sunshineweb]

The Hedonic Treadmill

Here are the best things I read and thought about today –

Bloomberg carries this nice piece (Tip: If your Bloomberg free articles limit is over, you may try opening this article in an incognito browser) from Nir Kaissar and Barry Ritholtz, where the authors write to answer this question – How do you get rich? By earning a lot or saving a lot?   Here is Barry’s point of view on the subject of “frugality” –

I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of “sustained and disciplined frugality.” With that said, here’s what to keep in mind:

1. Focus on the big things; the little things will take care of themselves 2. We all only have so much internal discipline, a consequence of limited mental bandwidth. Don’t fritter it away on things that don’t matter very much. 3. Spending should always be a function of what you can afford, not a slavish devotion to some puritan ideal. 4. Money can bring security, comfort and happiness, but beyond a certain point returns on having more of it diminish rapidly. 5. Experiences tend to beat material goods in terms of money well spent.

First, the big things: Your education, your career choice, your work ethic, who you marry, who you work with, your skill set, your compensation, your health, your outlook, how you think about the world and the commitment you make to yourself about continually learning and improving. Get those right, and those $5 lattes become pretty irrelevant.

Basically, the advice is this – avoid the hedonic treadmill and you will be much better off in your financial life. “Hedonic treadmill” is basically a theory positing that people repeatedly return to their baseline level of happiness, regardless of what happens to them. It is an important concept to grasp when it comes to understanding happiness, which we often lose in forever chasing rainbows.

By the way, here is a quadrant I drew recently on how to get rich without being on the hedonic treadmill (for long) –

  Continuing with the subject of personal financial planning, here is a Morningstar post titled It’s Time to Think Big where the author suggests using this quiet period to introspect and improve our financial plans in a big-picture way.   On the question of defining how much money is “enough” for us, she writes –

Many of us are operating with an incredibly vague notion of how much we really need to save in order to achieve our financial goals and find security. And even financial planners might rely on rules of thumb when setting your retirement-savings target–for example, they might assume that you’ll need 80% of your working income in retirement and extrapolate the rest of your plan from there.

As humans, we often have a natural tendency to reach for more more more, regardless of whether that “more” is actually bringing more happiness and security. Trying to keep up with the people around us, in terms of possessions and outward signs of success, can get exhausting and may not get us any closer to our life’s goals. That’s why, in this period of limited activity, spending, and social contact, it’s so worthwhile to think through your own definition of enough–both now and for the future. Jack Bogle wrote a wonderful book called Enough that I would recommend; the genesis for the book was a memorable commencement address that he delivered in 2007. (If you haven’t heard the Joseph Heller/Kurt Vonnegut story that serves as the title of the book and speech, I guarantee that you’ll be repeating it to someone soon.)

Well, I had talked about Joseph Heller’s story in my lecture at IIM Lucknow in December 2018.

And here is the transcript of my talk to a group of friends in Silicon Valley in early 2018, where I tried to answer my version of the “how much is enough” question.  

Mental Models For a Pandemic is wonderful post published on Farnam Street. One of the models talked about is “antifragile,” a concept that Nassim Taleb described thus –

Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. This property is behind everything that has changed with time: evolution, culture, ideas, revolutions, political systems, technological innovation, cultural and economic success, corporate survival, good recipes (say, chicken soup or steak tartare with a drop of cognac), the rise of cities, cultures, legal systems, equatorial forests, bacterial resistance … even our own existence as a species on this planet.

Here is the point about antifragility in Farnam Street’s post –

…we need to ask ourselves how we can improve our antifragility. How can we get to a place where we grow stronger through change and challenge? It’s not about getting “back to normal.” The normal that was our world in 2019 has proven to be fragile. We shouldn’t want to get back to a time when we were unprepared and vulnerable.

And here is Safal Niveshak’s version of this very important mental model of antifragility.  

The Atlantic carries a biweekly column by Arthur Brooks titled “How to Build a Life,” wherein he tackles questions of meaning and happiness. His latest post talks about four rules for identifying your life’s work, and it’s really good.   Brooks’ rule number one reads “the work has to be the reward” –

One of the biggest mistakes people make in their careers is to treat work primarily as a means to an end. Whether that end is money, power, or prestige, this instrumentalization of work leads to unhappiness. The psychologist Elliott Jaques — famous for inventing the term midlife crisis — once quoted a middle-aged patient as saying, “Up till now, life has seemed an endless upward slope, with nothing but the distant horizon in view. Now suddenly I seem to have reached the crest of the hill, and there stretching ahead is the downward slope with the end of the road in sight.” Later, he admitted that he himself was this “patient,” and this was his own lament. He had worked away for years in his career to get some fabulous reward, and then realized that there wasn’t much reward ahead at all, just aging and death.

When your career is just a means to an end, the payoff, even if you get it, will be unsatisfying. Don’t make that mistake. Your work won’t give you joy and fulfillment every day, of course. Some days it will feel pretty unsatisfying. But with the right goals — earning your success and serving others — you can make the work itself your reward.

What a fine advice this is!  

Forbes carries an insightful investigative piece on the $2.5 trillion debt binge that has taken some of America’s leading companies including Boeing and AT&T from blue chips to near junk –

According to a Forbes investigation, which analyzed 455 companies in the S&P 500 Index — excluding banks and cash-rich tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft — on average, businesses in the index nearly tripled their net debt over the past decade, adding some $2.5 trillion in leverage to their balance sheets. The analysis shows that for every dollar of revenue growth over the past decade, the companies added almost a dollar of debt. Most S&P 500 firms entered the bull market with just 20 cents in net debt per dollar of annual revenue; today that figure has climbed to 38 cents.

But as the coronavirus pandemic cripples commerce worldwide, American corporations face a grim reality: Revenues have evaporated, but their crushing debt isn’t going anywhere.

As Prof. Sanjay Bakshi wrote in his tweet sharing this post, these are “useful case studies on distortions in capital structure caused by many factors including artificially low interest rates, perverse incentives for senior management, and a myopic market fixated on cash flow returns to stockholders instead of long term strength of businesses.”

Indian companies are yet to test such level of madness, at such a large scale, but many are almost there (plus we have ample experience from the past) with their bulging balance sheets and run by managers that do not know of anything but instant gratification at the cost of long term business growth, stability, and value creation. Beware of them!  

An old tweet from James Clear, where he suggests what we can do with 5 good minutes –

5 good minutes of:

-pushups is a solid workout -sprints will leave you winded -writing can deliver 1 good page -reading can finish an insightful article -meditation can reset your mood

You don’t need more time — just a little focused action.

* * * That’s about it from me for today.

If you liked this post, please share with others on WhatsApp, Twitter, or just email them the link to this post.

Stay safe. Stay focused.

With respect, — Vishal

The post The Hedonic Treadmill appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

The Hedonic Treadmill published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany]

A Modest Defense of Money & Materialism

Digital Elixir A Modest Defense of Money & Materialism

Money Doesn’t Deserve the Bad Rap It’s Getting More of it won’t necessarily make you happier day-to-day, but it does raise life satisfaction. Bloomberg, July 22, 2019

      Money gets a bad rap. In the current environment, amid levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s, too many people find it too easy to disparage wealth and the quest for material goods. There is no doubt that lifestyle creep and the hedonic treadmill are not the paths to true happiness. But what we see today is a backlash caused, in part, by the hangover from the 2007-09 financial crisis.

During the run up to that crisis, America went on a debt bender: offer people (almost) free money, and they will inevitably use it to buy homes and other goods they believe will raise their standards of living. This is especially true for a consumer population that a) hasn’t had after inflation raises in wages in three decades, and b) many of whom previously did not have access to credit or mortgage markets. When it turned out those homes they thought would rise in value fell, and the cost of paying back the cheap, teaser-rate loans soared, the end result should surprise no one.

Yes, consumer deserve some blame, but they weren’t alone. Businesses went on a binge too, and not just on Wall Street. Real estate developers blanketed the country with more shopping venues than the country could possibly need. The U.S. now has more retail space than any other nation — 7.3 square feet per capita, versus 1.7 square feet in Japan and France, and about six times the level of the U.K. In the post-crisis era, retail has been going through a wrenching retrenchment, with dead malls and vacant store fronts, creating blight in urban and suburban real estate markets alike.

Thus the rise of the spending-and-borrowing nags. This backlash takes several forms, but a few stand out as especially lacking in merit.

Let’s call the first group the spend-shamers. These are the scolds who claim that if you only stop buying coffee or avocado toast you will eventually become rich. (Narrator’s voiceover: You won’t.) Spend-shaming often focuses on minutia, while ignoring much bigger issues, like student debt, gender-pay inequality and the lack of real, or inflation adjusted, wage gains.

The so-called FIRE movement is another example. The acronym describes the “financial independence, retire early” lifestyle of radically cutting spending in order save enough and then opt out of the rat race — because, after all, the quest for money and the things it can buy are ultimately unfulfilling. The idea behind FIRE is that by embracing radical austerity one can theoretically build up a nest egg large enough to retire early, in your 30s or 40s, which then leads to greater happiness. Color me skeptical: I love the idea of financial independence, but consider the horrifying implications of stressing out when a house guest takes a little longer than you might like taking a hot shower. (This, by the way, is a real example from the FIRE movement).  Personally, I need that mental bandwidth for other more pressing concerns.

Some confusion between happiness and life satisfaction might be at fault here. Happiness has been tied up with money for a long time, so this is an important aspect of the debate. Several researchers in the field have written definitive takes on the issue.

Psychologists and economists have helped resolve some of these issues. Danny Kahneman and Angus Deaton have explained that money buys some degree of happiness, but plateaus rather quickly. They note emotional well-being, or the “quality of an individual’s everyday experience—the frequency and intensity of experiences of joy, stress, sadness, anger, and affection that make one’s life pleasant or unpleasant,” rises with income to about $75,000, then tops out. But just as important, they also found the opposite to be true — that people with below-average incomes report a lot of sadness and worry. “Poverty exacerbates the effect of adverse circumstances,” they wrote. It is also true across various countries and cultures. David Leonhardt, writing in the New York Times 2008 before the financial crisis, noted “People in poor countries, not surprisingly, did become happier once they could afford basic necessities.”

The issue of life satisfaction is trickier. Happiness may change day to day, but the broader measure of life satisfaction seems to have a more direct correlation with money. That is reflected in the findings of Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson. Their research found that people with higher incomes tend to report higher levels of life satisfaction. Not only that, but countries do report higher levels of level of satisfaction as they get richer.

None of this suggests we should be madly pursuing material things for their own sake, or falling into the financially self-destructive habit of keeping up with the Jones. But dismissing the economic, health and psychological securities provided by accumulating capital goes too far in the opposite direction.

Evolutionary history suggests people need some struggle and a degree of accomplishment in that struggle to become fulfilled.1  Money does not buy happiness, or at least not very much of it. But — and this is an important “But” — it does lead to greater life satisfaction, which over the longer term may matter more. And that is a huge reason to appreciate money and what it can do for you.

  _______

1. Spending what should be your most productive work years not working does not sound like it leads to a lot of life satisfaction, but I expect your short game would improve measurably.

    ~~~

I originally published this at Bloomberg, July 22, 2019. All of my Bloomberg columns can be found here and here. 

    A Modest Defense of Money & Materialism

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[cassandrale179]

ON BOJACK HORSEMAN (2014)

Date: May 04, 2019  “It’s not about being happy, that is the thing. I’m just trying to get through each day. I can’t keep asking myself ‘Am I happy? ‘ It just makes me more miserable. I don’t know If I believe in it, real lasting happiness, All those perky, well-adjusted people you see in movies and TV shows ? I don’t think they exist.”

So I am not one who usually watched cartoons, not to mention binging an entire season of a cartoon series, but for some funny reasons I kinda stumbled upon Bojack Horseman, and finished the entire 12 episodes in 2 days. I really had to write down all my thoughts on all these episodes before I forgot what I felt about each one. So this isn’t a really a movie reviews, just random notes on the issues I like most of the show 

I. ORIGINS 

Bojack Horseman had got to be the most depressing cartoons I’ve ever watched in my life, and I am shocked by how gritty and realistic it is as a form of social commentary on broken people who tried to chase broken dreams in a broken society. That cycle of brokenness, that moment in life, that critical window between childhood and adulthood when one realized that his idealisms of the world begun to be torn down parts by parts, are one of my favorite themes of this show. 

“You want to know about my parents? They drank a lot. My father was a failed novelist. My mother was the heiress to the Sugarcube fortune and my dad resented her for it…”

And I think by willing to explore these harsh topics, while being unforgiving to its characters (the fact that even if one was dealt with the bad cards of the Universe doesn’t permit one to be an asshole and shirk the responsibilities of doing good to other human beings), really added a nuance to the topic. Though this is often disguised in the form of Bojack’s deniability of his issues. 

“Yeah I like that. I didn’t do anything wrong because we’re just all products of our environments, bouncing around like marbles in the game of Hungry Hungry Hippo that is our random and cruel universe.

II. DISTRACTIONS

There are a lot of of other themes being explored in the show, such as sensationalism, political correctness, the dark side of Hollywood …etc, but they were quite self-explanatory, so I won’t go too much details on those. However, one of my favorite got to be the attention span possessed in today’s society. Firstly, on the decline of literary consumption: 

Pinky: When was the last time you saw a book?  Bojack: I thought I saw someone reading one in the park the other day, but it turned out it was a takeout menu.

Secondly, the fact that every time a character becoming open, vulnerable, or reveal an opinion they hold about the world, they are being interrupted by some bullshit diversions or other characters who detract the audience away from the seriousness of it all, really drived home the point that originality and insight are often being ignored by the noise of superficial entertainment media. E.g, my two favorite scenes were Diane discussing her views on feminism, before being interrupted by Bojack:

“… But I do wonder as a third wave feminist if it’s even possible for women to reclaim their sexuality in this deeply entrenched patriarchal society, or if claiming to do so was just a lie we told ourselves so we can more comfortably cater to the male gaze.”

… and when Bojack was disagreeing on automatically labelling all American soldiers as heroes, before being interrupted by Mr. Peanutbutter.

“The troops are heroes, all of them. And I don’t believe saying that cheapens the word and actually disrespects those we mean to honor by turning real people into political pawns… Furthermore, I do not find it unbelievably appropriate that this conversation is taking place on reality television, a genre which thrives on chopping the complexities of our era into easily digestible chunks of empty catchphrases.”

Again, this constant intersection between daily, mundane activities chomping down on significant events really highlights how cruel and careless the world is 

III. EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM

I actually wrote this bit before stumbling on this amazing video here which explained much better about the existential nihilism that permeates the show, sprinkled with references from Pascal, Sartre, and Camus. What is the meaning of happiness? And what does it take to get there? I think these are central theme not just in Bojack Horseman, but also an existentialist dilemma that many philosophers have asked throughout the time of history. And I think it’s great that in this 21st century, we could still recreated the importance of this question in a colorful cartoon series. For Bojack, it was to be admired by everyone, I guess because he had lack love throughout his life, and needed to constantly feed his ego and insecurity to restore the guilt of him causing pain to other people in his life. For Princess Carolyn, it was work. For Diane, it was to move to L.A and make a difference with her writing. But at the end, is that truly what they want?

Well, That’s the problem with life, right? Either you know what you want, and then you don’t get what you want. Or you get what you want, and then you don’t know what you want

Ironically, the happiest of people are the seemingly dumbest, aka Mr. Peanutbutter, who realized disparity between the need for a purpose, as well as accepting that the universe bore no purpose, permitted him to live a truly carefree life. But to idealists like Bojack and Diane, who daily questioned their reason of existence, or as the French called it in a more fancy terms, raison d’etre, they constantly sank back into a state of ennui and depression. 

Another amazing article on Medium also explained the concept of the hedonistic treadmill. This term was first coined by psychologists Brickman and Campbell, who observed that humans quickly return to a stable baseline level of happiness despite the impact from major positive or negative life events (qtd. Shatwell). They are like hamsters on a broken treadmill, running in circles to try to add meanings to life without realizing that they will soon go back into the same rut. 

This theme from the show is what I personally identified with the most, as I realize I also had once stuck in this treadmill of achievements. I was not satisfied with performing average in my class, so I strived to achieve 4.0 GPA, but then I did not feel enough, I need to get into an Ivy League. And even when I did, I started to envy other Ivy Leaguers who achieved more in life (e.g Nobel Prize winners, award-winning writers, Olympic atheletes...etc.) before I realized that I am just stuck in this loop of achievement and disappointment. This was a wake up call that made me realize how unhealthy and obsessive I had become. Luckily I had not gone on a drug bender like Bojack, but I do feel like certain points in my life started to become self-destructive mentally and I needed to take a step back to realize how my perspective had deliberately and unconsciously nit-picked people who outperformed me so that I would feel bad about myself and pushed myself to achieve a goal. It took serious self reflection to realize the toxicity of when one pursue something just to justify their reason of existence and to boost their self esteem, not because they enjoy the process of attaining achievement. 

IV. HOPE 

Though Bojack is such a bleak show, I do like how many of its various characters still struggle to survive and fight against their own demons. And though many self-loathed themselves, like Bojack, they still paused to question the possibility to be vulnerable and accept changes. My two favorite scenes: one, Diane opening up about her childhood.  

My family made my life miserable, and then they never forgave me for leaving. The truth is, I used to sit alone on the hill out by the dump and dream of waking up as Chelsea Clinton, but with my hair.

Second, that heartbreaking dream hallucination sequence while Bojack was tripping drugs: imagining what would it had been if he had removed himself from Hollywood and settled down in Maine with a wife and a child of his own; sitting at that graveyard with his name above his greatest fear (die alone, remembered by no one); begging a figurine of Diane to tell him the answer to his life’s conundrum, and she replied with a seemingly profound quote, “You can’t forced love. All you can do is be good to the people in your life, and kept your hearts open”, but then charged him $5 to remind him that’s she is merely a puppet repeating what he wanted to hear. 

I mean am I just doomed to be the person that I am? The person in that book? I mean it’s not too late for me, is it? It’s not too late? Diane, I need you to tell me it’s not too late. I need you to tell me that I’m a good person. I know that I can be selfish and narcissistic and self­ destructive, but underneath all that, deep down, I’m a good person, and I need you to tell me that I’m good. Diane? Tell me, please, Diane.

I can’t stressed how great and realistic this cartoon TV show is, so I guess I will leave this review with one of my last favorite quote:

Closure is a made up thing by Steven Spielberg to sell movie tickets. It, like true love and the Munich Olympics, doesn’t exist in the real world. The only thing to do now is just to keep living forward.

[karenemilne]

Anti-chafe bands are the future.

Hello everyone! Happy Sunday and happy summer hols for the teachers out there- we made it!! As promised, here is the monthly blog!! My last blog was 5 weeks ago and in that time I have lost just over 4lbs. Now if I’m honest, I am pretty certain those 4lbs are back on after Germany, but I have absolutely no regrets or hang-ups about that as for me, the whole point in working out and making targets is so that I can enjoy myself guilt free when I have the opportunity (and I can confirm, the beer/ice cream/chips were most certainly guilt free!!!). 4lbs in 5 weeks also isn’t the most impressive weight loss but I’m at a point where my weight has plateaued. For the first few weeks I really struggled to shift my weight below 69kg and I found it quite difficult to motivate myself when I felt like I was working my arse off but not getting the results. I think at this point it would probably be quite easy to give up and have a ‘what’s the point’ attitude but I couldn’t let myself down (or you guys) and I decided to try to change my routine slightly to reach my target. In the last couple of weeks before the final weigh in, I increased the number of workouts and cut out the level of binge eating. I certainly don’t mean I cut out cheat meals (never!) but I tried to binge slightly less and for the last couple of weeks in June I cut out alcohol (yes you have read that correct. Karen Strongbow Milne, cut out alcohol). If I’m honest, this month has been pretty hard going but see the feeling I had when I stepped on the scales and saw I had reached my main target- it was the best feeling ever and made it all worth it. In my first blog I wrote that I wanted to get down 10kg by the summer hols and with hard work and dedication (copyright, Mayweather) I achieved that, weighing in at 67.15! I’ve made the decision to not weigh myself this week (or probably for the foreseeable future) until I’ve given myself time to lose what I will gain during my holidays.

 So, similar to the last blog, I am not going to go through every day for the last 5 weeks as this blog will become the size of a dissertation and ‘ain’t nobody got time for that’.

 Week 1- I had a bit of a mixed week this week. I worked out 4 times during the week but also ate more than usual for someone on a ‘diet’. This week I tried to vary my exercises at the gym so that I wasn’t just sticking to the one routine and getting bored or used to it. I still swear by red-zone running- follow them on Instagram! I switch between long endurance runs and sprinting sessions and each run involves interval training, which has definitely improved my speed and endurance, especially when I’m running outside. In fact, this week I managed to run my fastest 5k under 30mins! Usually when I am at the gym I do all my cardio first and then do weights, but a couple of times this week I did a 5min warm up jog, moved onto weights and then finished on a 20min run when my body was already tired which meant I had to work harder- this is shit at the time but makes you leave feeling gassed and like you’ve pushed your body to it’s limits. This week I also did more weights and started using the free bar to do squats (I am shit at this)! Now that all sounds very positive but here’s the not so healthy part. I had a midweek Chinese, many cans of strongbow on the Saturday night and then a takeaway in the small hours to prevent a strongbow hangover (that’s my excuse anyway!). I also patched a boxing workout because I got home from work and it was raining/windy outside and once I was in I couldn’t face leaving the house again- we’ve all been there!! So yeah, a mixed week, so mixed that I actually gained 1lbs- oops!

 Week 2- Another not so great week (and I wonder why I plateaued). I actually had a very busy week at work with two late night events so I struggled to fit as many workouts in. Yes, I could have found the time and if I wanted to I would have, but sometimes you just have to be honest and say ‘I can’t be arsed’. It’s not a crime!! I did go to the gym a couple of times this week and as well as my usual running workouts, I included kettle bell circuits, deadlifts and rowing intervals. Now the main achievement of this week was the run I completed on the Sunday. This week I signed up for the Glasgow half marathon and I asked Ross to take me out on a long run to prove to myself that I could do it. I managed to run 12.1 miles without walking at all!! Now I could lie and say this was easy but the full thing fucking sucked. About 5km in I realised that my toes were rubbing together and to be honest, I probably should have stopped to readjust them but I knew the only way I would survive this run was if I kept going no matter what happened. By the 10km part I already felt very tired and found this run really mentally draining, as I knew that the next half of the run would be harder as I still had two big hills to face. Now I don’t normally believe in miracles but mid-run I found £1 in my pocket, which Ross took from me and ran ahead to buy a bottle of water. I honestly don’t think I’d have completed this run if it wasn’t for that bottle! Around the 17km mark I reached the biggest hill of the run. At this point I was gubbed. My legs were hardly lifting and honestly, I had a total breakdown. I burst into tears which was the worst idea as then my throat got blocked and then I couldn’t get my breath back- all in all, I was an absolute riot. BUT, I persevered and made it to the end (and then cried another 2 times because I was so proud of myself!). As much as this run SUCKED, it has made me feel a lot more confident about the half marathon as I think I’ll be able to manage it!! On a side note- HOW does anyone complete a full marathon?! How!! I couldn’t imagine being able to double that run. I don’t think I’d have toes left!!! At the end of this week I was back down to 69 meaning I’d lost the pound I had gained, but was still sitting around the same weight (frustrating but deserved)!

 Week 3- There are no words to explain the PAIN I felt on Monday morning. I was walking around school like I’d shit my pants, I couldn’t stand up without making a noise that sounded like I was dying inside, I had to wear sandals to prevent squishing the 5 blisters I had under my toes and my hair was such a riot (as I was too tired to do it the day before) that a child asked me at 1pm if I ‘was just out my bed’. Good times! I had to take Monday off to recover but I actually felt okay by Tuesday! I went to the gym 4 times this week but avoided outdoor running to help my legs recover. At the beginning of the week, I also replaced running with walking fast up a steep incline on the treadmill and focused on arm weights instead of legs. One thing that really helped me diet/exercise this week was that when I did my weekly meal planning, I planned that I was getting an Indian at the weekend. This meant that those times when I couldn’t be arsed working out, I thought to myself ‘push yourself and think of how much you’ll have earned that takeaway’ and it worked for me (and my god was the Indian worth it!!). By the end of this week (before the Indian) I weighed in at 67.45 (21.5lbs down and 0.5lbs away from target!).

 Week 4- I was really strict with myself this week as my final weigh in was on the Saturday. I stuck to cornflakes/porridge for breakfast, my really boring, dressing-free salads for lunch, and a healthy meal at night with no snacks in between and honestly, depriving myself of snacks made this week so much harder, but I knew it had to be done if I wanted to reach my goal! Again, I had quite a busy week at school, but this time instead of allowing that to be a barrier, I made time to exercise no matter how short a workout it was. On days where I was busy I did a 20mins Joe Wicks full body workout to get a sweat up and burn some calories. I also went out for a run between work and an evening event and as much as I couldn’t be arsed at the time, I’m so glad I did as I achieved a new 10K PB of under 1:05!! Although it meant that I was exhausted later that night, knowing I had done another workout made me feel better. I also LOVE running in the morning (as long as it’s a nice day!). As much as it is the worst feeling when the alarm goes off at 5:30, it is so worth it to know that at the end of your working day you can go home and relax completely guilt free!! On Friday night, Ross and I went to Aileen and Sinkies where we would normally get a takeaway and have hunners of bevy but this time round Sinkie cooked a healthy meal and I stayed alcohol free to help cross the finish line the next day! By the Friday I would have loved a prosecco/cider/gin/anything but I knew deep down if I had a drink I wouldn’t make my target in the morning so staying sober was worth it (on this one occasion!). By the end of this week I reached my target and weighed in over 10kg down and sitting at 67.15- unreal! Can’t quite believe I managed it!!

 Week 5- This week I was away in Germany on a music trip with the school. What a week!! And it is safe to say all healthy eating went straight out the window (and not a single fuck was given!). I ate crisps, chips, ice cream, German sausages, developed a new love for German beer and do you know the best thing about it all? I didn’t feel slightly guilty at all. I felt like I had earned it. I knew I would gain weight and feel bloated but because I had already lost weight, I didn’t feel worried or self-conscious about a wee flab roll or two! Similar to the week before, although I was on a school trip, I made time to exercise (with a lot of help from Paul and Elaine). I went for 2 early morning runs along the Rhine in Boppard and although the runs were difficult as it was 24 degrees at 6:30am, the views made it so worth it!! I also took 10 children down to the Rhine to do a 6am HIIT workout one morning, which was actually a lot of fun and they seemed to get a lot out of it too (even though they couldn’t walk the next morning)! On a side note- everyone with a thick thigh needs to buy anti-chafe bands. Absolute game changer!!! Even when I was a size 8 (a long ass time ago) my legs have always chafed! The bands I got were £3 from Sainsburys (online) and it just made the whole holiday more enjoyable as I didn’t have to worry about the dreaded rash. I don’t care if talking about this makes people think I’ve got tree trunks, I had tree trunks which didn’t rub for once and that was fabulous!!! Since I’ve been home I’ve been to the gym a couple of times and will continue to hammer it until Ross and I go to Greece on Tuesday, and who knows, maybe I’ll even go for a morning run there!!

 So there you go! That has been my breakdown of the month of June! Reached a big target, signed up for a half marathon and discovered a love for beer- what a month! In July, I have two big holidays where again I will be eating and drinking what I want but isn’t that why we workout? To feel good and enjoy ourselves guilt free? That’s certainly why I’m doing it (and to resemble a bowling ball less than before)! One last thing I’ll say in this blog- I only have one big regret since I’ve started this ‘journey’. I never took a ‘before’ photo because at that time I was disgusted looking at myself in the mirror and couldn’t face coming across a photo of myself looking like that, but now that I’ve lost weight, I wish I had a comparison photo to see how far I’ve come! People always say to me that they can see a big difference, but I just wish I could see it as much too!! So, if you are reading this and thinking you’re going to start, no matter how much you hate how the photo looks, take that picture!! You’ll regret it if you don’t!! Thank you for reading and I’ll be back in a month! X

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The Turbulent History of Global Chinese Art

Wang Guangyi, “Mao Zedong: Red Grid No. 2” (1988), oil on canvas, 59 x 51.18 inches (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)

A specter is haunting the Guggenheim — the lingering spirit of a wave of protest and provocation, expressed through avant-garde art forms, that in recent decades dared to address and sometimes defy the heavy totalitarian hand that has ruled China since the triumph of its communist revolution and remains uniquely oppressive and invincible today.

Manifestations of that politically charged impulse, as it emerged in contemporary art from the last decade of the previous century through the first decade of the 21st, and the conditions that nurtured it, are the subjects of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s large, new exhibition, Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, which its organizers have positioned primarily as a documentary survey of a particular kind of art produced during one recent period of Chinese cultural history.

In its catalogue, Alexandra Munroe, the Guggenheim’s senior curator of Asian art and senior advisor for global arts, writes that the big show “presents a history of contemporary art from China and the rise of global art discourse” from 1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down, and the Cold War supposedly ended, through 2008, the year China hosted the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

That event “seemed to announce China’s superpower status to its people and to the world,” Munroe observes. She adds, “No nation in modern history underwent such a total transformation as did China during these two decades, and few shifts have had global impact of this magnitude.” (Munroe organized the exhibition along with two guest co-curators: Philip Tinari, an American resident of China since 2001 who founded the bilingual magazine LEAP and is the director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, and the Chinese-born Hou Hanru, who is based in Rome, where he serves as artistic director of MAXXI, National Museum of 21st Century Arts.)

For China, it was a tumultuous era. In 1978, two years after People’s Republic of China founder Mao Zedong died, Deng Xiaoping, who had outmaneuvered his Communist Party rivals to become the country’s paramount leader, announced a bold plan for nationwide economic reform. Its goal: to modernize China at breakneck speed. Virtually overnight, the government ditched Mao’s militant egalitarianism for “building socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

Suddenly, Mao’s “Never forget class struggle!” was out; once-reviled “private property” was in. Beijing granted more authority to managers of state-owned companies and set out to blend a measure of unabashed — if disguised, through ideological doublespeak — capitalism with a centralized economy. As the longtime China-watcher Orville Schell wrote in 1984, Deng recognized that his policy had put “a capitalist fox into a socialist henhouse.” Of that hard-to-square ideological discrepancy, the wily politician quipped, “Black cat, white cat — it’s a good cat if it catches mice.” It is in response to the whiplash-inducing political, social, and economic changes such developments fostered that the artists featured in Art and China after 1989 created many of the works on view.

The show starts by looking back to February 1989, when the exhibition China/Avant-Garde opened at the National Art Gallery in Beijing; a few months later, the government brutally crushed the burgeoning pro-democracy movement’s demonstrations in that city’s Tiananmen Square.

The exhibition “China/Avant-Garde” opened in February 1989 at the National Art Gallery in Beijing, marking a moment in China’s modern-art history from which there would be no turning back; its symbol became a no-U-turn road sign (archival photo courtesy of Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; digital projection)

Munroe writes that China/Avant-Garde was “an unprecedented and rambunctious outpouring of experimental practices, including performance art, installation, and abstract ink painting,” in which artist Xiao Lu fired a gun at her own work, two life-size telephone booths; Wu Shanzhuan sold raw shrimp; Wang Guangyi showed painted portraits of Mao with superimposed grids; and, as the current show’s catalogue recalls, Huang Yong Ping “offered a diagrammatic collage, ‘Towing Away the National Art Gallery,’ showing instructions for tearing down the building and all its academic officialdom.”

Also in the catalogue, co-curator Tinari notes that the 1989 exhibition “proclaimed a moment” in Chinese art history “from which there could, and would, be no turning back.” Its symbol became a no-U-turn sign. In retrospect, some Chinese artists and activists regard Xiao Lu’s gunfire as “the first shot” signaling what would become the pro-democracy movement. Its last shots were the government’s, when it massacred hundreds of protesters in June 1989.

The current show focuses on conceptual art that developed in and emerged from China during the period under review. It was mostly such art forms, turning up in biennials and other high-profile, international festivals from the latter 1990s through 2008, that gave the broader cultural world a sense of what Chinese contemporary artists were up to during that time. Thus, the show is big on emphasizing the overseas-exhibition credentials of the artists represented, arguing that, largely through the presentation of such artworks in foreign settings, Chinese contemporary artists broke through and entered the discourse of “global contemporary art.”

In doing so, they gained the attention of Western cultural institutions and media, thereby validating or legitimizing their efforts in the eyes and annals of “global contemporary art,” which, Art and China after 1989 proposes, those same Western forces effectively control. From some vantage points, such acceptance into the “global” art club might seem like a somewhat dubious achievement; after all, “global contemporary art” may be seen as synonymous primarily with a certain, dominant sector of the international art market. Is there something to be said for standing apart?

Some of the current exhibition’s more interesting works are the earliest among them: the self-taught artist Gu Dexin’s “Plastic Pieces — 287” (1983-85), first shown in China/Avant-Garde, consisting of 287 pieces of burned, colored plastic, and evoking a tenuous sense of mortality and decay; Geng Jianyi’s “Forms and Certificates” (1988), a conceptual-art practical joke, in which 32 artists, critics, and scholars, some of whom, Geng felt, had been taking themselves too seriously, filled in a mock application form to participate in an exhibition, a document that asked for their heights, favorite plants, and other goofy data; and, from 1990, Huang Rui’s books by and about Mao, covered in black ink, which symbolically buried the remnants of once-dominant, ideologically strident Mao Zedong Thought.

Other artists also examined different aspects of a bewildering, shape-shifting zeitgeist and its discontents. In Zhang Peili’s “Water: Standard Version from the ‘Cihai’ Dictionary,” a 1991 video, the female news anchor Xing Zhibin of state-owned China Central Television reads a dictionary entry for “water” in the same dispassionate tone she would later use to read the government’s report about the end of the pro-democracy movement — without a word about its violent crackdown. (To make this piece, Zhang paid a contact at CCTV to record Xing; she never knew the tape would become a work of art.) If Zhang Peili’s video is all soulless detachment, “Young Zhang,” a 1992 oil-on-canvas portrait by Zhao Bandi of his friend, another man named Zhang, strives for naturalism in its depiction of a post-Tiananmen, ordinary guy. “[P]ainting on a straight canvas seemed too serious, so I tilted it,” Zhao later stated.

With and without live animals: Huang Yong Ping, “Theater of the World” (1993), wood-and-metal structure, warming lamps, electric cables, insects, lizards, toads, snakes, 59 X 106.3 x 63 inches (photo, left, of past installation ©Huang Yong Ping; photo, right, of current Guggenheim Museum installation by the author for Hyperallergic)

The exhibition takes its title from Huang Yong Ping’s mixed-media “Theater of the World” (1993), a screen-enclosed, tortoise-shaped cage that normally contains crickets, scorpions, cockroaches, lizards, snakes and, other creepy-crawlers that simply devour each other. Due to protests about real or depicted cruelty to animals and what the Guggenheim described as “threats of violence in reaction to the incorporation of live animals” in this work, “Theater of the World” is being shown without them. Similarly, two videos have been withdrawn. One is Xu Bing’s “A Case Study of Transference” (1994), in which two pigs are seen copulating; one is covered with Xu’s made-up Chinese characters, the other with Roman letters, in a symbolic meeting/mating of East and West — get it? — or what a wall label refers to as Xu’s “visceral critique of Chinese artists’ desire for enlightenment for Western cultural transference.”

The other video is Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s “Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other” (2003), in which pit bulls tied to treadmills, face to face and poised to attack, pant and growl desperately, but remain restrained. Concerns about cruelty to animals in such artworks is one thing, but so is their banality. Apparently, these artists never received the memo from modern art’s central committee — the one pointing out that using animals as metaphors for any kind of struggle long ago became a tired, spent, exhausted cliché.

And then there is Ai Weiwei, the sometime political dissident and most internationally famous of any of the “global contemporary artists” to have emerged from China. There was a time when some of his actions were interesting, but more recently his antics have been marked by insufferable bombast and bloated ego, a lethal mix that found its apotheosis in a tasteless, staged photo in early 2016 on the Greek island of Lesbos, in which Ai assumed the same position as the body of a dead, Syrian refugee boy which had been found in Turkey months earlier, washed up on a beach. A shocking news photo of that three-year-old child’s corpse was seen around the world, calling attention to the horrific effects of Syria’s civil war. In his imitation of that indelible image, however, Ai looked more like a beached whale. Nevertheless, the refugee crisis appears to be Ai’s issue of the moment, as evidenced by his new film, Human Flow.

Ai Weiwei, “Fairytale” (2007), mixed media; wallpaper photos of participants in a trip to Documenta funded by the artist, along with suitcases his studio designed for them

In Art and China after 1989, there is a big stack of thousands of Ai’s transcribed Twitter posts (are you listening, posterity?), photos of big Ai dropping and smashing to bits a Han Dynasty urn (supposedly a Duchamp-inspired gesture), and photos, lining one display area’s walls like wallpaper, of the 1001 “ordinary Chinese citizens” the would-be provocateur paid to send, in a “temporary migration,” to view the Documenta art expo in Germany in 2007, along with the suitcases his studio designed for them. By turning them, literally, into wallpaper, Ai strips the participants in his costly — and maybe a little bit cynical? — caper of their humanity. In such trite spectacles — this one was titled “Fairytale” — the subject is always Ai.

By contrast, some of the most humanistic works here were made with very limited resources. They include “To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain” (1995), an outdoor performance realized and captured on video by a group of artists from what was then known as Beijing’s “East Village” district of young, poor art-makers who used their bodies as their raw material. In “To Add One Meter,” they lie on top of each other’s nude bodies to create a human hill. In “Kan Xuan! Ai!” (1999), a one-minute video, a young, female artist, Kan Xuan, walks through a Beijing subway-station tunnel calling out her name like some kind of human-feral creature as if to declare — and claim — her existence in a city of unknown millions.

Cang Xin, Duan Yingmei, Gao Yang, Ma Liuming, Ma Zhongren, Wang Shihua, Zhang Binbin, Zhang Huan, Zhu Ming, Zuoxiao Zuzhou, “To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain” (1995) performance (video projection)

Xu Tan, a member of the Big Tail Elephant Working Group, which was active in Guangzhou in the 1990s, offers a kooky-eloquent critique of the whole disparity-producing, mammon-chasing, ideologically twisted, counter-counterrevolutionary orgy of newfangled “socialist” capitalism that erupted in China with the launch of Deng’s reforms. In his installation, “Made in China” (1997-98), languid stuffed animals view mindless images of a dispiriting age in slide shows and on TV while surrounded by a sea of consumerist crap — bottles of cooking sauces, plastic toys and dolls, jigsaw puzzles, balloons, computer parts, a bathtub lined with silver fabric. In the midst of this inundation, a video monitor shows a man holding a microphone and begging as passersby dart around him. “I am sad,” he says. “I am blind. It is fortune in misfortune. […] I am okay to be a fallen soul.”

If Xu’s blind beggar is some kind of metaphor for what the soul of Chinese society and culture has become, despite the nation’s new superpower status, it’s a potent one. Perhaps, not unsurprisingly, the exhibition ends with part of the last work Gu Dexin ever made before retiring from the art world in 2009. First shown in that year, evoking the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, it is a group of white panels inscribed with large, red characters that declare:

We have killed people we have killed men we have killed women we have killed old people we have killed children we have eaten people we have eaten hearts we have eaten human brains we have beaten people we have beaten people blind we have beaten open people’s faces

Making the long march up the Guggenheim’s ramps, it becomes clear that a certain kind of art from China may have become more “global” than ever before, but as this complex exhibition demonstrates, for many of the artists who created it, as they wrestled with their homeland’s turbulent recent history, they were unwilling — or perhaps unable — to easily give up its ghosts.

Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World continues at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1071 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan) through January 7, 2018.

The post The Turbulent History of Global Chinese Art appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[reddirtramblings]

It’s only mid-January, and I’ve reached winter’s crying time.

After the recent ice storm, I feel almost as frozen as this holly. We’ll both thaw out in time.

You think I’m being overly dramatic? I’m not. Usually, I reach this stage mid-February right after Valentine’s Day, but crying time came early this year.

Ice storms are beautiful, but hard on plants and people. I don’t mind snow as much.

In one week, Oklahoma had a snowstorm, an ice storm and copious rain.

Don’t panic. I’m not really crying. I am a bit lethargic and misty-eyed in winter’s aftermath. So, this morning, I took myself in hand, sat down with a cup of tea and a breakfast bar, and considered ways to smile through winter.

More of Mother Nature’s icy grip.

After 54 years of circling the sun, I know myself pretty well. First, I thought about why I’m in such a funk. Oh yeah, my entire family was sick for weeks during and after the holidays. Between the cold virus, bronchitis and the norovirus, my poor family was down for the count. It reminded me of the years when I spent all my time doing laundry and pouring cold medicines down everyone’s throats. I am grateful I did not catch the norovirus. You just don’t know how grateful.

In the meantime, my exercise routine fell off, and I haven’t been outside nearly enough. I also went to see the movie, Jackie, yesterday in the rain no less. No wonder I’m feeling crotchety.

Time to make some changes. Here’s my seven-point plan

Keep eating healthy as much as possible. With May and Megan’s wedding looming ever closer, I need to look my best for those important photos. Plus, it’s good to be healthy, and I’m not getting any younger. Blah, blah, blah.

Exercise three to four times a week. Grant permission not to kill myself either. My exercise has been pretty bad for the last couple of weeks, and it shows in how my clothes fit. However, I have a tendency to punish myself when I relapse from the treadmill. That just makes me sore, and then I don’t exercise in a vicious circle. Remember that I’m also trying to stay strong for spring and garden season along with a daylily tour here in June.

Read more books and stay off the internet as much as possible. I have a new reading challenge on Goodreads. There are now studies showing our brains work differently because of our social media addiction. I know I get a dopamine rush when my phone bings. So, more books and less online time unless I’m working on an article or post.

Hyacinths forced indoors make winter seem shorter.

Purple vintage hyacinth vases with forced hyacinths.

Have more indoor plants. I’m thrilled my bulbs are starting to grow and bloom. It makes winter seem less formidable. Also, I’m going to spend more time in my greenhouse. I’ve neglected it this year because we had a disaster early on. I need to get out there and cut back the dead limbs on some of my citrus burned by cold weather. The door blew open, and I haven’t had the heart to repair the damage indoors.

Forcing lily of the valley is a great way to smile through winter.

Although lily of the valley blooms appear large in the other top photo, they are actually tiny. You can see their true size in this photo.

Use my NatureBright SunTouch Plus Light and Ion Therapy Lamp when I’m reading for thirty minutes a day. I need to remember to use this because I have one, and it works.

Keep doing videos. I like live video and my channel on YouTube. I don’t do many gardening videos this time of year because there’s not much gardening to do, but I enjoy making unboxing videos and such.

Garden when and where I can. As I wrote above, so far this month, we’ve had a snowstorm, an ice storm and copious amounts of rain, but in between, we’ve also had wonderful weather. I need to get out there and cut back the perennial grasses. Since we finally got some cold weather making the roses dormant, I’ll also prune them.

These are my seven ways to smile through winter. What are yours?

Seven ways to smile through winter It's only mid-January, and I've reached winter's crying time. You think I'm being overly dramatic? I'm not.

[sunshineweb]

The Hedonic Treadmill

Here are the best things I read and thought about today –

Bloomberg carries this nice piece (Tip: If your Bloomberg free articles limit is over, you may try opening this article in an incognito browser) from Nir Kaissar and Barry Ritholtz, where the authors write to answer this question – How do you get rich? By earning a lot or saving a lot?   Here is Barry’s point of view on the subject of “frugality” –

I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of “sustained and disciplined frugality.” With that said, here’s what to keep in mind:

1. Focus on the big things; the little things will take care of themselves 2. We all only have so much internal discipline, a consequence of limited mental bandwidth. Don’t fritter it away on things that don’t matter very much. 3. Spending should always be a function of what you can afford, not a slavish devotion to some puritan ideal. 4. Money can bring security, comfort and happiness, but beyond a certain point returns on having more of it diminish rapidly. 5. Experiences tend to beat material goods in terms of money well spent.

First, the big things: Your education, your career choice, your work ethic, who you marry, who you work with, your skill set, your compensation, your health, your outlook, how you think about the world and the commitment you make to yourself about continually learning and improving. Get those right, and those $5 lattes become pretty irrelevant.

Basically, the advice is this – avoid the hedonic treadmill and you will be much better off in your financial life. “Hedonic treadmill” is basically a theory positing that people repeatedly return to their baseline level of happiness, regardless of what happens to them. It is an important concept to grasp when it comes to understanding happiness, which we often lose in forever chasing rainbows.

By the way, here is a quadrant I drew recently on how to get rich without being on the hedonic treadmill (for long) –

  Continuing with the subject of personal financial planning, here is a Morningstar post titled It’s Time to Think Big where the author suggests using this quiet period to introspect and improve our financial plans in a big-picture way.   On the question of defining how much money is “enough” for us, she writes –

Many of us are operating with an incredibly vague notion of how much we really need to save in order to achieve our financial goals and find security. And even financial planners might rely on rules of thumb when setting your retirement-savings target–for example, they might assume that you’ll need 80% of your working income in retirement and extrapolate the rest of your plan from there.

As humans, we often have a natural tendency to reach for more more more, regardless of whether that “more” is actually bringing more happiness and security. Trying to keep up with the people around us, in terms of possessions and outward signs of success, can get exhausting and may not get us any closer to our life’s goals. That’s why, in this period of limited activity, spending, and social contact, it’s so worthwhile to think through your own definition of enough–both now and for the future. Jack Bogle wrote a wonderful book called Enough that I would recommend; the genesis for the book was a memorable commencement address that he delivered in 2007. (If you haven’t heard the Joseph Heller/Kurt Vonnegut story that serves as the title of the book and speech, I guarantee that you’ll be repeating it to someone soon.)

Well, I had talked about Joseph Heller’s story in my lecture at IIM Lucknow in December 2018.

And here is the transcript of my talk to a group of friends in Silicon Valley in early 2018, where I tried to answer my version of the “how much is enough” question.  

Mental Models For a Pandemic is wonderful post published on Farnam Street. One of the models talked about is “antifragile,” a concept that Nassim Taleb described thus –

Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. This property is behind everything that has changed with time: evolution, culture, ideas, revolutions, political systems, technological innovation, cultural and economic success, corporate survival, good recipes (say, chicken soup or steak tartare with a drop of cognac), the rise of cities, cultures, legal systems, equatorial forests, bacterial resistance … even our own existence as a species on this planet.

Here is the point about antifragility in Farnam Street’s post –

…we need to ask ourselves how we can improve our antifragility. How can we get to a place where we grow stronger through change and challenge? It’s not about getting “back to normal.” The normal that was our world in 2019 has proven to be fragile. We shouldn’t want to get back to a time when we were unprepared and vulnerable.

And here is Safal Niveshak’s version of this very important mental model of antifragility.  

The Atlantic carries a biweekly column by Arthur Brooks titled “How to Build a Life,” wherein he tackles questions of meaning and happiness. His latest post talks about four rules for identifying your life’s work, and it’s really good.   Brooks’ rule number one reads “the work has to be the reward” –

One of the biggest mistakes people make in their careers is to treat work primarily as a means to an end. Whether that end is money, power, or prestige, this instrumentalization of work leads to unhappiness. The psychologist Elliott Jaques — famous for inventing the term midlife crisis — once quoted a middle-aged patient as saying, “Up till now, life has seemed an endless upward slope, with nothing but the distant horizon in view. Now suddenly I seem to have reached the crest of the hill, and there stretching ahead is the downward slope with the end of the road in sight.” Later, he admitted that he himself was this “patient,” and this was his own lament. He had worked away for years in his career to get some fabulous reward, and then realized that there wasn’t much reward ahead at all, just aging and death.

When your career is just a means to an end, the payoff, even if you get it, will be unsatisfying. Don’t make that mistake. Your work won’t give you joy and fulfillment every day, of course. Some days it will feel pretty unsatisfying. But with the right goals — earning your success and serving others — you can make the work itself your reward.

What a fine advice this is!  

Forbes carries an insightful investigative piece on the $2.5 trillion debt binge that has taken some of America’s leading companies including Boeing and AT&T from blue chips to near junk –

According to a Forbes investigation, which analyzed 455 companies in the S&P 500 Index — excluding banks and cash-rich tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft — on average, businesses in the index nearly tripled their net debt over the past decade, adding some $2.5 trillion in leverage to their balance sheets. The analysis shows that for every dollar of revenue growth over the past decade, the companies added almost a dollar of debt. Most S&P 500 firms entered the bull market with just 20 cents in net debt per dollar of annual revenue; today that figure has climbed to 38 cents.

But as the coronavirus pandemic cripples commerce worldwide, American corporations face a grim reality: Revenues have evaporated, but their crushing debt isn’t going anywhere.

As Prof. Sanjay Bakshi wrote in his tweet sharing this post, these are “useful case studies on distortions in capital structure caused by many factors including artificially low interest rates, perverse incentives for senior management, and a myopic market fixated on cash flow returns to stockholders instead of long term strength of businesses.”

Indian companies are yet to test such level of madness, at such a large scale, but many are almost there (plus we have ample experience from the past) with their bulging balance sheets and run by managers that do not know of anything but instant gratification at the cost of long term business growth, stability, and value creation. Beware of them!  

An old tweet from James Clear, where he suggests what we can do with 5 good minutes –

5 good minutes of:

-pushups is a solid workout -sprints will leave you winded -writing can deliver 1 good page -reading can finish an insightful article -meditation can reset your mood

You don’t need more time — just a little focused action.

* * * That’s about it from me for today.

If you liked this post, please share with others on WhatsApp, Twitter, or just email them the link to this post.

Stay safe. Stay focused.

With respect, — Vishal

The post The Hedonic Treadmill appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

The Hedonic Treadmill published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[sunshineweb]

The Hedonic Treadmill

Here are the best things I read and thought about today –

Bloomberg carries this nice piece (Tip: If your Bloomberg free articles limit is over, you may try opening this article in an incognito browser) from Nir Kaissar and Barry Ritholtz, where the authors write to answer this question – How do you get rich? By earning a lot or saving a lot?   Here is Barry’s point of view on the subject of “frugality” –

I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of “sustained and disciplined frugality.” With that said, here’s what to keep in mind:

1. Focus on the big things; the little things will take care of themselves 2. We all only have so much internal discipline, a consequence of limited mental bandwidth. Don’t fritter it away on things that don’t matter very much. 3. Spending should always be a function of what you can afford, not a slavish devotion to some puritan ideal. 4. Money can bring security, comfort and happiness, but beyond a certain point returns on having more of it diminish rapidly. 5. Experiences tend to beat material goods in terms of money well spent.

First, the big things: Your education, your career choice, your work ethic, who you marry, who you work with, your skill set, your compensation, your health, your outlook, how you think about the world and the commitment you make to yourself about continually learning and improving. Get those right, and those $5 lattes become pretty irrelevant.

Basically, the advice is this – avoid the hedonic treadmill and you will be much better off in your financial life. “Hedonic treadmill” is basically a theory positing that people repeatedly return to their baseline level of happiness, regardless of what happens to them. It is an important concept to grasp when it comes to understanding happiness, which we often lose in forever chasing rainbows.

By the way, here is a quadrant I drew recently on how to get rich without being on the hedonic treadmill (for long) –

  Continuing with the subject of personal financial planning, here is a Morningstar post titled It’s Time to Think Big where the author suggests using this quiet period to introspect and improve our financial plans in a big-picture way.   On the question of defining how much money is “enough” for us, she writes –

Many of us are operating with an incredibly vague notion of how much we really need to save in order to achieve our financial goals and find security. And even financial planners might rely on rules of thumb when setting your retirement-savings target–for example, they might assume that you’ll need 80% of your working income in retirement and extrapolate the rest of your plan from there.

As humans, we often have a natural tendency to reach for more more more, regardless of whether that “more” is actually bringing more happiness and security. Trying to keep up with the people around us, in terms of possessions and outward signs of success, can get exhausting and may not get us any closer to our life’s goals. That’s why, in this period of limited activity, spending, and social contact, it’s so worthwhile to think through your own definition of enough–both now and for the future. Jack Bogle wrote a wonderful book called Enough that I would recommend; the genesis for the book was a memorable commencement address that he delivered in 2007. (If you haven’t heard the Joseph Heller/Kurt Vonnegut story that serves as the title of the book and speech, I guarantee that you’ll be repeating it to someone soon.)

Well, I had talked about Joseph Heller’s story in my lecture at IIM Lucknow in December 2018.

And here is the transcript of my talk to a group of friends in Silicon Valley in early 2018, where I tried to answer my version of the “how much is enough” question.  

Mental Models For a Pandemic is wonderful post published on Farnam Street. One of the models talked about is “antifragile,” a concept that Nassim Taleb described thus –

Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. This property is behind everything that has changed with time: evolution, culture, ideas, revolutions, political systems, technological innovation, cultural and economic success, corporate survival, good recipes (say, chicken soup or steak tartare with a drop of cognac), the rise of cities, cultures, legal systems, equatorial forests, bacterial resistance … even our own existence as a species on this planet.

Here is the point about antifragility in Farnam Street’s post –

…we need to ask ourselves how we can improve our antifragility. How can we get to a place where we grow stronger through change and challenge? It’s not about getting “back to normal.” The normal that was our world in 2019 has proven to be fragile. We shouldn’t want to get back to a time when we were unprepared and vulnerable.

And here is Safal Niveshak’s version of this very important mental model of antifragility.  

The Atlantic carries a biweekly column by Arthur Brooks titled “How to Build a Life,” wherein he tackles questions of meaning and happiness. His latest post talks about four rules for identifying your life’s work, and it’s really good.   Brooks’ rule number one reads “the work has to be the reward” –

One of the biggest mistakes people make in their careers is to treat work primarily as a means to an end. Whether that end is money, power, or prestige, this instrumentalization of work leads to unhappiness. The psychologist Elliott Jaques — famous for inventing the term midlife crisis — once quoted a middle-aged patient as saying, “Up till now, life has seemed an endless upward slope, with nothing but the distant horizon in view. Now suddenly I seem to have reached the crest of the hill, and there stretching ahead is the downward slope with the end of the road in sight.” Later, he admitted that he himself was this “patient,” and this was his own lament. He had worked away for years in his career to get some fabulous reward, and then realized that there wasn’t much reward ahead at all, just aging and death.

When your career is just a means to an end, the payoff, even if you get it, will be unsatisfying. Don’t make that mistake. Your work won’t give you joy and fulfillment every day, of course. Some days it will feel pretty unsatisfying. But with the right goals — earning your success and serving others — you can make the work itself your reward.

What a fine advice this is!  

Forbes carries an insightful investigative piece on the $2.5 trillion debt binge that has taken some of America’s leading companies including Boeing and AT&T from blue chips to near junk –

According to a Forbes investigation, which analyzed 455 companies in the S&P 500 Index — excluding banks and cash-rich tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft — on average, businesses in the index nearly tripled their net debt over the past decade, adding some $2.5 trillion in leverage to their balance sheets. The analysis shows that for every dollar of revenue growth over the past decade, the companies added almost a dollar of debt. Most S&P 500 firms entered the bull market with just 20 cents in net debt per dollar of annual revenue; today that figure has climbed to 38 cents.

But as the coronavirus pandemic cripples commerce worldwide, American corporations face a grim reality: Revenues have evaporated, but their crushing debt isn’t going anywhere.

As Prof. Sanjay Bakshi wrote in his tweet sharing this post, these are “useful case studies on distortions in capital structure caused by many factors including artificially low interest rates, perverse incentives for senior management, and a myopic market fixated on cash flow returns to stockholders instead of long term strength of businesses.”

Indian companies are yet to test such level of madness, at such a large scale, but many are almost there (plus we have ample experience from the past) with their bulging balance sheets and run by managers that do not know of anything but instant gratification at the cost of long term business growth, stability, and value creation. Beware of them!  

An old tweet from James Clear, where he suggests what we can do with 5 good minutes –

5 good minutes of:

-pushups is a solid workout -sprints will leave you winded -writing can deliver 1 good page -reading can finish an insightful article -meditation can reset your mood

You don’t need more time — just a little focused action.

* * * That’s about it from me for today.

If you liked this post, please share with others on WhatsApp, Twitter, or just email them the link to this post.

Stay safe. Stay focused.

With respect, — Vishal

The post The Hedonic Treadmill appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

The Hedonic Treadmill published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[sunshineweb]

The Hedonic Treadmill

Here are the best things I read and thought about today –

Bloomberg carries this nice piece (Tip: If your Bloomberg free articles limit is over, you may try opening this article in an incognito browser) from Nir Kaissar and Barry Ritholtz, where the authors write to answer this question – How do you get rich? By earning a lot or saving a lot?   Here is Barry’s point of view on the subject of “frugality” –

I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of “sustained and disciplined frugality.” With that said, here’s what to keep in mind:

1. Focus on the big things; the little things will take care of themselves 2. We all only have so much internal discipline, a consequence of limited mental bandwidth. Don’t fritter it away on things that don’t matter very much. 3. Spending should always be a function of what you can afford, not a slavish devotion to some puritan ideal. 4. Money can bring security, comfort and happiness, but beyond a certain point returns on having more of it diminish rapidly. 5. Experiences tend to beat material goods in terms of money well spent.

First, the big things: Your education, your career choice, your work ethic, who you marry, who you work with, your skill set, your compensation, your health, your outlook, how you think about the world and the commitment you make to yourself about continually learning and improving. Get those right, and those $5 lattes become pretty irrelevant.

Basically, the advice is this – avoid the hedonic treadmill and you will be much better off in your financial life. “Hedonic treadmill” is basically a theory positing that people repeatedly return to their baseline level of happiness, regardless of what happens to them. It is an important concept to grasp when it comes to understanding happiness, which we often lose in forever chasing rainbows.

By the way, here is a quadrant I drew recently on how to get rich without being on the hedonic treadmill (for long) –

  Continuing with the subject of personal financial planning, here is a Morningstar post titled It’s Time to Think Big where the author suggests using this quiet period to introspect and improve our financial plans in a big-picture way.   On the question of defining how much money is “enough” for us, she writes –

Many of us are operating with an incredibly vague notion of how much we really need to save in order to achieve our financial goals and find security. And even financial planners might rely on rules of thumb when setting your retirement-savings target–for example, they might assume that you’ll need 80% of your working income in retirement and extrapolate the rest of your plan from there.

As humans, we often have a natural tendency to reach for more more more, regardless of whether that “more” is actually bringing more happiness and security. Trying to keep up with the people around us, in terms of possessions and outward signs of success, can get exhausting and may not get us any closer to our life’s goals. That’s why, in this period of limited activity, spending, and social contact, it’s so worthwhile to think through your own definition of enough–both now and for the future. Jack Bogle wrote a wonderful book called Enough that I would recommend; the genesis for the book was a memorable commencement address that he delivered in 2007. (If you haven’t heard the Joseph Heller/Kurt Vonnegut story that serves as the title of the book and speech, I guarantee that you’ll be repeating it to someone soon.)

Well, I had talked about Joseph Heller’s story in my lecture at IIM Lucknow in December 2018.

And here is the transcript of my talk to a group of friends in Silicon Valley in early 2018, where I tried to answer my version of the “how much is enough” question.  

Mental Models For a Pandemic is wonderful post published on Farnam Street. One of the models talked about is “antifragile,” a concept that Nassim Taleb described thus –

Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. This property is behind everything that has changed with time: evolution, culture, ideas, revolutions, political systems, technological innovation, cultural and economic success, corporate survival, good recipes (say, chicken soup or steak tartare with a drop of cognac), the rise of cities, cultures, legal systems, equatorial forests, bacterial resistance … even our own existence as a species on this planet.

Here is the point about antifragility in Farnam Street’s post –

…we need to ask ourselves how we can improve our antifragility. How can we get to a place where we grow stronger through change and challenge? It’s not about getting “back to normal.” The normal that was our world in 2019 has proven to be fragile. We shouldn’t want to get back to a time when we were unprepared and vulnerable.

And here is Safal Niveshak���s version of this very important mental model of antifragility.  

The Atlantic carries a biweekly column by Arthur Brooks titled “How to Build a Life,” wherein he tackles questions of meaning and happiness. His latest post talks about four rules for identifying your life’s work, and it’s really good.   Brooks’ rule number one reads “the work has to be the reward” –

One of the biggest mistakes people make in their careers is to treat work primarily as a means to an end. Whether that end is money, power, or prestige, this instrumentalization of work leads to unhappiness. The psychologist Elliott Jaques — famous for inventing the term midlife crisis — once quoted a middle-aged patient as saying, “Up till now, life has seemed an endless upward slope, with nothing but the distant horizon in view. Now suddenly I seem to have reached the crest of the hill, and there stretching ahead is the downward slope with the end of the road in sight.” Later, he admitted that he himself was this “patient,” and this was his own lament. He had worked away for years in his career to get some fabulous reward, and then realized that there wasn’t much reward ahead at all, just aging and death.

When your career is just a means to an end, the payoff, even if you get it, will be unsatisfying. Don’t make that mistake. Your work won’t give you joy and fulfillment every day, of course. Some days it will feel pretty unsatisfying. But with the right goals — earning your success and serving others — you can make the work itself your reward.

What a fine advice this is!  

Forbes carries an insightful investigative piece on the $2.5 trillion debt binge that has taken some of America’s leading companies including Boeing and AT&T from blue chips to near junk –

According to a Forbes investigation, which analyzed 455 companies in the S&P 500 Index — excluding banks and cash-rich tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft — on average, businesses in the index nearly tripled their net debt over the past decade, adding some $2.5 trillion in leverage to their balance sheets. The analysis shows that for every dollar of revenue growth over the past decade, the companies added almost a dollar of debt. Most S&P 500 firms entered the bull market with just 20 cents in net debt per dollar of annual revenue; today that figure has climbed to 38 cents.

But as the coronavirus pandemic cripples commerce worldwide, American corporations face a grim reality: Revenues have evaporated, but their crushing debt isn’t going anywhere.

As Prof. Sanjay Bakshi wrote in his tweet sharing this post, these are “useful case studies on distortions in capital structure caused by many factors including artificially low interest rates, perverse incentives for senior management, and a myopic market fixated on cash flow returns to stockholders instead of long term strength of businesses.”

Indian companies are yet to test such level of madness, at such a large scale, but many are almost there (plus we have ample experience from the past) with their bulging balance sheets and run by managers that do not know of anything but instant gratification at the cost of long term business growth, stability, and value creation. Beware of them!  

An old tweet from James Clear, where he suggests what we can do with 5 good minutes –

5 good minutes of:

-pushups is a solid workout -sprints will leave you winded -writing can deliver 1 good page -reading can finish an insightful article -meditation can reset your mood

You don’t need more time — just a little focused action.

* * * That’s about it from me for today.

If you liked this post, please share with others on WhatsApp, Twitter, or just email them the link to this post.

Stay safe. Stay focused.

With respect, — Vishal

The post The Hedonic Treadmill appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

The Hedonic Treadmill published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/