#in which everyone is afflicted with the human emotion called friendship

[satoshi-mochida]

Archetype Arcadia for PC coming west on October 24

Gematsu Source

PQube will release the PC (Steam) version of visual novel Archetype Arcadia in English alongside its previously announced PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Switch versions on October 24 in the west, the publisher announced.

Archetype Arcadia first launched for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Switch on October 21, 2021 in Japan, followed by PC via Steam on January 24, 2022, and iOS and Android on July 1, 2022.

Here is an overview of the game, via PQube:

A deadly disease has wiped out most of humanity causing nightmares, manic episodes, and eventually death. Take on the role of Rust, an older brother and one of the few remaining humans that must step into a virtual reality-world where the answers to the missing populace and the disease that caused it, seem to lie.

A Dark Science-Fiction Story – Take on the role of a brother desperate to save his sister afflicted with a deadly disease, across eight nail-biting chapters.

​​Vibrant Artwork – Step into a post-apocalyptic world brought to life with striking artwork that makes the experience truly immersive.

Experience the Story Through Different Lenses – See the story’s events unfold through different peoples perspectives. Piece together different parts of the bigger picture. Is our main character a reliable narrator, or can he too be mistaken?

Powerful Memories – Memories become powerful weapons in this Virtual World. Experience tragic and moving moments of the past in order to battle onwards.

Gruesome Boss Battles – Bosses hold special memory cards which pave a path to Rust’s answers, but their overwhelming power may prove challenging to defeat!

Key Choices – There are many options to choose from, each leading to different outcomes, but beware of the Bad Endings!

Archetype Arcadia is a dynamic visual novel set in a post-apocalyptic world where a mysterious disease called “Original Sindrome” plagues its victims. The story revolves around the protagonist, Rust, and his sister Kristin, as they enter the game “Archetype Arcadia” in search of a cure for the disease. Those affected by “Original Sindrome” suffer from insanity, sensory illusions, and uncontrollable urges.​

Gaming Saves Lives

Survival is the ultimate goal for everyone, and the game “Archetype Arcadia” offers a unique solution. By wearing the game device, players can utilize powerful memories and corresponding avatars to fight within “Archetype Arcadia” against the blight. While this virtual existence prolongs life, it also carries severe consequences. Dark and unexpected events can occur within the game world that affects the world outside of it. Do your best to avoid adding to the worlds despair but making the right choices.

Only a Fool’s Hope

Shrouded in mystery and false hope, Archetype Arcadia blends elements of joy, pain, and betrayal in a dark and compelling narrative that will have you glued to your screen. See scenarios through different perspectives to understand what others are going through, and jump into flashbacks and see the past as it was before the “Original Sindrome” took hold. Use these happier memories to fight against the darkness and try to save Kristin.

Vibrant and Striking Artwork

Experience exciting scenes with bold art that captures the vital moments in the story. Through bold and moving imagery, experience the emotions of the characters, and truly step into the world to battle alongside them. Fight terrifying monsters upfront, and witness moving friendships unfold before your eyes.

[tanoraqui]

Happy Day!!

Thank!!

*flips a coin* shit, fuck, flipped a coin. Gotta do a Homestuck headcanon now.

Post. Canon. Whole-group. Music. Jam. Sessions.

[viviane-lefay]

Yeah, no fucks to give here!

Really not into this ship - at least not in a romantic & sexual context.

—

At this point, I think it is best, if I put a little clarification here, before I continue:

This is just about my personal opinion, theories & headcanon - and by no means lays a claim to general validity (nor does your POV, btw).

I have more of a pick & choose approach to fandom subjects, anyway, so I can customize the experience exactly according to my needs and wishes. This is fiction, after all - the realm of endless possibilities - where anything goes, and where there is a place for the preferences of all of us.

That said, I really want to point out that I have nothing against people shipping the Dr. with Agent Stone - but since I, personally, prefer m/f ships, I’d rather choose the female OC approach, as it’s also my beloved villain x heroine constellation (not the subject of this post, though).

My take on the dynamic between the Dr. and his assistant is, therefore, quite a bit different from the fandom popular one. Well, to each his own.

What this post definitely is not, is an invitation for a debate regarding character interpretation, shipping choices, etc. - and all the potential drama that this might entail. If that is what you’re after, then I’d politely ask you to leave now, because all you are doing is wasting both of our time.

Let’s just agree to disagree and move on, k!?

I do my thing and you do you, guys!

I suppose, I made myself abundantly clear now.

—

Anyway, to return to the topic …

Where have all the male friendships & professional partnerships in fandom gone!?

Because, personally, I think agent Stone rather relates to his boss on that level…

Robotnik being a role model of some sort, that is - not unlike a kohai & senpai, or a younger & older brother constellation, actually - where the former looks up to the latter due to certain traits that he admires (and Stone certainly does). Regarding the age difference of the two, this could also make sense.

I’d estimate that Stone can’t be much older than his mid-twenties at most, since he’s in the position of a junior agent and assistant - still at the very beginning of his career path. And he’s very capable, disciplined and professional, at that, which is probably why he made it as Robotnik’s assistant at all (unsurprisingly, given the man isn’t the most patient).

Speaking of whom - I think, regardless of Jim Carrey being in his late fifties at that point - he, himself, can’t be that old, actually. My personal take (& preference) here would be late thirties, which would still make a lot of sense regarding his academic and occupational career. Being this overachieving genius, I guess that he finished school in time-lapse mode, skipping one, or even more grades - same goes for uni. Therefore, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was done by the age of 25 - his five PhDs included (bet he did two at once), which would still give him plenty of time to make his way as an agent and scientific government official up to the time of the events of the movie.

Aside from that, I can’t help but see parallels to the dynamic of Piett and Vader here, as well - a mixture of professional esteem and a bit of intimidation. But certainly no outright fear, as Stone is hardly under the threat of being strangled to death by his superior, like poor Piett is.

That is not to say that Robotnik’s still frequent misconduct towards him is ok (it definitely is not), but it certainly is more mild than he behaves towards, say, pretty much anyone else. Btw, that includes the “pin yourself to the wall”, grabbing him by the bottom lip and dragging him towards himself, while glaring at and chiding him (For what exactly!? Not being perfect, or as smart as him!? Chill, man, the boy is doing his best, and he’s doing a good job!).

Fandom, of course, does what it always loves to do - construe this as “evidence” for the alleged attraction between the two, which is pretty far-fetched, imho (…although you’re surely free to interpret it this way, if you so please. As I said, this is just my pov & to each his own. *shrugs*).

Anyway, you can clearly see Robotnik displaying this type of behaviour, along with the invasion of personal space, towards other male characters as well - be it “Major Nobody Cares”, “Officer Brainfart”, the big bar dude he threw out of the window, or Tom Wachowski. So, following this line of argument, does that mean he’s into these guys, as well!? Honestly, that’s pretty ridiculous!

If anything, it is a blatant display of asserting dominance, bringing the message home that he is the alpha male, while putting his opponent / subordinate in his place - and that’s it! What this behaviour definitely is not, however, is something remotely shipping related.

Besides, there are many examples of other male characters doing this for similar reasons, too - amongst others Darth Vader (remember that scene between him and Orson Krennic!?), and Severus Snape (after Harry invaded his memories during the occlumency lessons). And Robotnik does that quite aggressively in the cases above. In fact, it seems to be a fairly consistent behavioural pattern with him (not that he actually needed that though, but that’s an entirely different matter).

As for Robotnik’s personal attitude towards his assistant, I think Stone’s one of the very few people he actually respects, and even likes, because the young man’s esteem for him is so genuine, while everyone else regards him pretty much like nothing more than an asset, or a threat.

It’s not like he doesn’t somewhat encourage being kept in that position himself, behaving like he does - aside from actively reducing himself to his intellect & academic prowess. This isn’t all that surprising, as it is something he apparently gets his entire sense of self-worth from, and likely the only thing he got any appreciation for from others, which is, perhaps, also why he constantly needs to spotlight said trait (no behaviour someone truly at one with himself & his abilities would display, btw). Then, there is his little tolerance for failure - especially when it comes to himself. He truly expects to perform flawlessly, like a machine, and when he doesn’t, that really seems to unsettle him (that face when Tom points his unsuccessful attempts to catch Sonic out to him … he was so offended, he almost looked like he wanted to cry ^^;;).

So, of course it is likely that he becomes quite attached to the sort of attitude and behaviour that Stone displays towards him, even though he wouldn’t think of it this way - because, you know, emotional bonds with other human beings obviously are beneath him (Yeah, sure, we did see the veracity of that claim afterwards, didn’t we!?).

But, then again, growing up as an emotionally starved child and adolescent, used to being brushed aside, and, later, deliberately distancing himself from other people, he actually might have no clue whatsoever how to appropriately deal with things like these, and thus brushes them aside as “weakness”, which really does make sense, especially in the context that he was bullied as well.

Same goes for him eventually adopting the habit of pushing other people away via plain disagreeable behaviour. I think this phenomenon is called “hedgehog’s dilemma”, and it is quite ironic that he is more afflicted by it than his blue nemesis.

It is so painfully obvious that this guy has some massive issues, stemming from past emotional neglect and negative experiences - so much, that he even rejects all things human altogether, along with his own humanity.

His excessive idealization of and identification with technology, therefore, comes quite in handy as a defense mechanism in order to cope with said experiences.

Machines don’t ask much of you, they do what they are told, they are predictable, and they - above all - can’t suddenly abandon, betray, humiliate, and hurt you (which, I think, is the crux of the matter here).

Even though he might claim that his robots are everything to him, and that he doesn’t need anything and anyone else - his actions, however, prove otherwise … let alone his constant spiteful remarks on the matter, which just sound so damn bitter.

We can recognize that quite clearly when he is forced into involuntary seclusion on that mushroom planet at the end. This is where we see that what he truly is missing are not his machines (I bet he could have easily built a robot to accompany him out of the wreckage of his vessel), but one of the few people (maybe even the only one at that point), that he had apparently grown to value as worthwile company - namely agent Stone.

And, yes, it is very evident that he misses him (platonically, for me - but this isn’t even the point here) - he even tries to make a rock resemble Stone’s likeness in order to have someone to “talk to”, and mimic the social interactions he had with him.

Essentially, all those objects and machines are but a substitutive gratification that he tries to use, but that never come remotely close to the real deal, let alone are ever able to replace it.

In the end, he’s still a human being, along with all the human needs that go along with it - human contact and care included.

If the psycho-social and emotional makeup of his closest known relatives is any indicator to how his own might be structured - and it usually is (I’m speaking about the nature aspect, not nurture) - then he can’t be such a bad guy, after all - at least not inherently.

Taking his grandfather Gerald Robotnik, for example, who loved his granddaughter Maria (a total sweetheart) so much, that he was willing to do anything for her, in order to heal her from the fatal illness that was afflicting her - and who literally went insane with grief after losing her - then it shows someone with a strong emotional life, who feels what he feels very keenly and deeply. Furthermore, he is also someone that happens to bond very selectively, but if that is the case, it has this virtually absolute quality about it, with a love just as intense and profund to match (which is quite beautiful, actually).

On the other hand, though, that can also mean someone that has a high degree of emotional vulnerability, and who, therefore, is susceptible to sustain lasting damage from interpersonal traumatic experiences (which happens to be the case here, imho).

More often than not, it is this type of person that is likely to cork up their feelings and harden their hearts as a result - and who use every opportunity to deride the very traits, needs, and wishes they worked so hard to push away, if they see them in others. That is, amongst others, what gives them away. It’s pure projection - which is why I think that his caustic remarks should definitely not be taken at face value.

There are many, many examples of villains (or anti-heroes) that fit this type. Robotnik would hardly be an exception.

Besides, it is nice to see that Jim Carrey seems to have a fairly similar take on that matter (not that I actually care, but still):

“… and all it really comes down to is, he wants to be special to somebody, only it’s gone megalomania for him.”  [x]

Ouch! Poor guy, actually.

He seems a lot like Ozai in that regard. No wonder I dig this dude (aside from him being hot, that is, haha) - he’s totally the type of villain I fancy.

And also, like it’s the case with Ozai, I can’t help but wonder about his past, given there is known so little about it (aside from a few hints), so the following will be about some of my personal theories and headcanons about him, his family, and his past.

These are such important characters (main antagonists, no less), yet the creators can’t bring themselves to be more specific about the most basic facts concerning their families. Ugh, huge pet peeve here! Nobody expects a huge ancestral chart down to the tiniest details, but they could at least offer more info about their closest relatives - especially the parents, who happen to have the most formative influence on a person.

How old was he, when his parents died, anyway!? That they died seems pretty much a given, as that is what being an orphan is about, per definitionem (and he referred to himself as such). But how did they die? Did he witness their death, or was he absent?

Personally, I have this theory that their demise might very well be linked with what happened to his grandfather Gerald Robotnik, and his cousin Maria. Perhaps they were on that space research colony during the military assault, and were also amongst the “collateral damage” there.

From what I read, the recruited scientists lived there, so I reckon that they did bring their families with them, which is likely, since it is said that Maria was born there, so at least her parents must have lived there for an extended amount of time, as well. Since Ivo isn’t Maria’s brother, but her cousin, Gerald must have had at least two children, who lived alongside him (… and his wife!? No info about her, either.) on that station.

While I think both of Ivo’s parents were from prominent scientist families (after all, that is what the population of this space station was comprised of), it is still unclear whether or not they remained on that station. I am inclined to believe they might have split their time between there and Earth, as Maria and Ivo don’t appear to have been particularly close, such as, for instance, her and Shadow (who was pretty much her only friend there), but I think that might also have been the case due to a difference in age.

Maria was 12 years old when she died during the military attack on the station. Since Ivo apparently seems to have no significant memory of his parents, and seems to have spent his childhood as an orphan, he can’t have been older than 3-4 during this incident.

With Gerald arrested, and pretty much the rest of the inconvenient Robotnik family gone, aside from that small child, I think the military decided to take him along, simply because of the vast potential of this child, coming from a bloodline of geniuses, that was now theirs to mold and to exploit.

They likely left the boy in an orphanage afterwards, mostly to his own devices, and without any support, or caregiver whose bonds transcended the mere duty of keeping their fosterling alive - a lonely life, largely deprived of emotional warmth and attachment.

However, they did keep him under close monitoring, so they could intervene anytime they saw fit, to stir him in the direction they wanted - like a psychological experiment of sorts. I remember that in the movie the presiding pentagon guy referred to him as “a lab rat with teeth” - which is rather telling regarding how they perceived him, and pretty nasty, considering the implication.

The Robotnik name, though, they obviously did not refuse him - a decision they would come to regret later. While this allowed him the only tie to his ancestry, their legacy, however, didn’t do him much good.

Gerald Robotnik was a disgraced man, known to the world as the genius madman, imprisoned and sentenced to death as a criminal - which was, by far not the whole truth. And yet, he was turned into this idealised picture of a hero by his grandson, who so admired his achievents and strove to become a scientist because of it, despite knowing only the official version of the story.

The tainted reputation of his grandfather would haunt Ivo for a long time to come. It would also become the lens through which he was perceived and judged by the world at large, and this turned out to be the main reason he was rejected, and, furthermore, relentlessly bullied by his peers - irrespective of his own accomplishments, which earned him at least the praise of his authority figures.

That he eventually snapped and retaliated, did not exactly improve the situation for him. While the bullying did stop for the greater part, the peoples’ suspicion had turned into fear, as their concerns had come to pass after all, and, as a result, he was shunned even more.

In the following years, he was further on groomed to become this perfect military asset - a morally unchecked scientist and ruthless agent, that the government could deploy like the weapon they undoubtedly saw him as.

Unfortunately for them, however, their experiment didn’t quite have the outcome they had anticipated, as he not only exceeded their expectations on an intellectual and scientific level, but, at the same time, became increasingly unstable, unpredictable (”psychological tire-fire”) and, hence, potentially dangerous - to such a degree that they became very hesitant to deploy him at all (despite the “perfect operations record”), and even downright terrified of him.

Frankly, I think they’d also have ample reason to be afraid of him, other than just his obviously ambitious nature. The most prominent being a possible event, where he finds out about what truly happened to his family and himself, as well as their role in this. Needless to say, that he wouldn’t take this lightly, considering all the shit he had to endure because of it, and likely seek revenge. I’d really be curious about such a scenario.

[textalotter]

Gemini Venus 8th House

As the most powerful house of the zodiac, the eighth house represents the ultimate prices we pay in life. The challenge of the eighth house is to "let go", stop fighting for what you want, and learn to truly give with an honest soul. This is why it is about death, shared resources, and sex. Death is the ultimate in "letting go". The best sex is experienced when we give ourselves completely to our mate. To conquer the eighth house is to accept that physical death is inevitable and that other symbolic deaths occur every day. To conquer this house is to accept that we always have to give to the world and others. Fighting these things will always result in greater losses. People with strong eighth houses in their natal charts often experience emotions too deep for words with an understanding of human nature that is commonly explained as psychic.The eighth house is where we experience relationships at their deepest level. Eight-house people are both blessed and cursed. They often experience a great deal of pain because they feel every nuance of human relationships, but they also have a deep understanding of the pain and flaws in others, which allows them to compassionately accept people for whom they are. In reality, to enjoy peace and happiness in the eighth house, a person must be able to let go of any selfish ideas and ways. Freedom from the pain of this house is found by giving freely to others by using the gift of deep eighth-house understanding.

As a reminder, the 8th house is the house of yes, sex, but also merging, secrets, transformation, the occult, and basically all that weird stuff that goes on behind closed doors that you don’t really want others knowing about. Venus here generally protects marriages, legacies, and finances in one’s life. One is said to have a happy marriage and much help from other people’s resources. These people will love communicating or teaching  occult ideas with others. These people may know a lot of others’ secrets or possess forbidden/taboo knowledge. Even with Venus in Gemini, the individual’s love life arena takes on a darker and deeper tone. Power struggles between spouses, violence, monetary problems can occur especially if Venus is afflicted by malefic planets such as mars, pluto, or saturn.

Anxiety is part of the 8th House, but death needs to be understood differently than just literally. Look back at who you were, let's say, 2 years ago. Do you feel like you're the same person? Chances are you "died" many times since then, and especially if you have several planets in the 8th House. It's also sometimes called the house of "transformations" and "regeneration", and it makes more sense if you associate it with its natural ruler, Pluto. The 8th House talks about under going several crises, often psychological but also sometimes external, and letting something inside us die or letting something external die (a relationship, a job, a friendship, losing something material) in order to make space for something new and more aligned with our true needs.

Natives having Venus in eighth House will most likely express their sociability and romanticism through the way they make love, establish friendships or business relationships.Very attractive to the opposite sex, they want someone who’s smart and somehow mysterious to be next to them for life.Hating vulgarity and poverty, these natives will do their best to have lots of money and to succeed. It’s normal for them to surround themselves with high-quality things, so be ready to witness them spend everything they have in one shopping spree. They get easily bored with the everyday issues and need a little bit of drama in order to feel happy.

Because the 8th house rules sex, these individuals will have a magnetic and primal energy about themselves that draws others closer. Because the planet of relationships is in the house of sex, these natives may have numerous sexual partners, especially when it is in the air signs. The 8th house is the house of rebirth and planets placed here must be transformed over and over. With Venus in Gemini in the 8th house, the native may experience many intense, short-lived relationships that encompassed a plethora of emotion. Venus in the 8th house wants commitment and loyalty in relationships, but Venus’ expression in flirtatious Gemini can undo his own efforts. Negatively expressed these people can be sexual charmers and manipulators, abusive or easily abused, shop lifters, or extremely uncompromising. With Gemini being the sign of duality, this aspect is very dual-natured indeed. Their lovers may become frustrated trying to unravel what to expect: the deep-natured lover or the casual flirt.Venus in Gemini in 8th house people take on an almost Scorpionic tone in their love lives. Their love life is dramatic and relationships take on a “fated” and inseparable quality. Venus in Gemini in the 8th house can be the highly desirable and mysterious life of the party that captivates everyone in the room, the sexy librarian, or naughty school girl persona (taboo sexual experiences). Venus in Gemini in the 8th house are here to investigate and study contradictions by attracting opposites through lovers and relationships that drag these natives to their murky and dark subconscious. It is extremely important that these individuals do not partake in power struggles through the form of mind games and control. Venus in Gemini in the 8th house is the temptress, hypnotizing lovers with beautiful words and penetrating eyes that see in to another’s soul. Others be wary, for she could keep you enchanted with mind control while dreaming about greener pastors!

In its highest octave, these natives are highly appreciated for their loyalty in close relationships and mystifying love nature. Masters of sex and flirtation, they could use their prowess to heal others or at least bring their latent subconscious issues to the surface. Obsession can occur from other people that become addicted to such soul-opening experiences or the native can feel obsessed about others as well. Having the job of of transforming and purifying other’s unhealed subconscious through deep sexual energies is exhausting and these natives may end up doing surmountable damage to a person when acting selfishly or immaturely. It is important these natives balance give and take in a relationship and stay loyal and committed to their love ones to avoid marital or financial problems.

When it comes to love, they want things to happen intensely because they really don’t like casual encounters and to just have sex for the fun of it. They don’t dream of something strictly physical and prefer a relationship with as much drama as possible. Everything that has something to do with superficiality or the mundane bores them. Fearful to not appear weak in love, they may struggle to keep their emotions under control. Jealousy and possessiveness are normal for these people, because they’re terrified to not get cheated on or betrayed. They wouldn’t allow themselves to appear weak in love no matter what, being very afraid to be cheated on and very jealous.

Passion makes them feel better, so they’re charming others just to bring out their most fiery attitudes. Everything that’s secret and taboo makes them thrive, wanting to get together with people who have obsessions or are a little bit broken inside.

Individuals having Venus in the 8th House are very generous with their love and passionate, because they feature all the Scorpio’s traits. Everything is deep with them, and their favorite thing to do is discover their lover’s secrets, as it’s impossible for them to live knowing their other half is hiding something. That’s why they go for mysterious and dark people, for those who inspire a little bit of danger and have a ton of sex appeal. As a matter of fact, they’re transmitting a lot of sexual energy themselves, being almost irresistible with their seductive ways and penetrating eyes. Those who are in love with them can see how capable they are of an intense connection and of offering the greatest pleasures in bed. They usually don’t give their heart away immediately, their stubbornness being something others are usually trying to overlook. But they are really able to connect or to make people trust them, whether they reveal their dark side or not.

When feeling like they no longer have any power, they start manipulating others, because being in control makes them feel emotionally secure. If their partner starts to grow apart from them, they become enraged and can no longer be controlled in their plans for revenge. This happens due to the fact that they’re deep and feel things more intensely than others.

They will think of death and create great art out of this. If artists, they will make all kind of morbid pieces that are really appreciated by their admirers. Those who are preoccupied with the occult will always have a special place in their heart.

When out in the world, they are rather reserved, mysterious and somewhat mystical. Venus can get deep into the way they interact with others, making them unconsciously profound and capable of tremendous passion.

The eighth House rules over death, so having Venus here can signify an ending that’s not so painful. They will probably die in a beautiful place, surrounded by all the people they care for the most. It’s the position that suggests an ending in the arms of their life partner. However, if Venus is in bad aspects here, they may have many losses in their lifetime, physical or symbolical, as it can also be that their spouse doesn’t love them the way they used to, which is also a great loss.

Individuals having Venus in the 8th House should be careful not to become manipulative because they can immediately attract people, so the temptation to use others can be very high. The 8th House can generate a storm of feelings and doesn’t allow people to get too comfortable. When Venus is placed here, the natives with this placement will search for an aggressive love that makes them feel nauseated and feeds their soul.

[prettywordsyouleft]

Touch

Summary: Jaebum knew what you meant to him from the first time he saw you. That didn’t stop him from wanting to touch you to confirm you as his soulmate. Though touching you made him lose you from his life. Would he find you again?

Pairing: Im Jaebum x reader (ft. Park Jinyoung)

Genre: soulmate au / angst / romance

Warnings: Doctor Park apparently cannot help himself and reappears >_> (none)

A/N: So here it is, the long awaited, final spinoff to the Destined world. When I introduced Officer Im in To Love You, a lot of you wanted to know more about his journey with his soulmate. I dubbed her Kat in that story, which makes this special because I’ve written this story for my wonderful friend @listlessmaenads‘s birthday… I’m sorry it took so long, but I hope it is worth the wait.

Word count: 7408

This is part of the Destined world. You can read this without the knowledge of the series, but to tie it altogether, I recommend reading the others in the series linked below.

Destined series: Destined // To Love You // Forever 

It was ironic. Everyone would always talk about when you met your soulmate. There was hardly any discussion of what would happen after, outside of the typical happily ever after scenario.

Because you were meant to be with your destined partner forever.

Perhaps the lack of information was why Jaebum struggled now. There was nothing to tell him what to do without you. Sure, he wasn’t completely naïve. There were people who met their soulmates and lost them through accidents or poor health. That was just life. At least then, the remaining partner is left with a final answer. Your soulmate wouldn’t come back to life and you would continue in this world in the best way you saw fit.

But you hadn’t died. You were still out there somewhere.

That was why he struggled. How was Jaebum meant to go on without you in his world, when you had so easily become everything he lived for?

“Y/N, don’t go over there!” a voice called out sternly and Jaebum stared at you on the other side of the fence to the kindergarten play yard, your own eyes desperate to see why everyone behind him sounded so happy. This wasn’t your first time standing there watching as all the children played together energetically. Sometimes you would cry, begging the adult who would come to collect you that you wanted to play too. You were always dragged away, screaming and kicking until you were no longer within his sight.

And each time Jaebum would come over to the fence, wishing he had some way to break you free from your confines and help sneak you into the playground.

He couldn’t play when he saw you looking so miserable.

Over the weeks, he had learned a little more about you. If he was quick enough to reach you before the adults did, he would talk to you or offer you gifts. He once gave you his favourite rock that he had been carrying around in his pocket ever since he found it. And in return, you gave him one of your cat-themed hair clips with a smile.

“Keep it safe for me,” you instructed as you slipped it through the fence and tossed it into his open palms, smiling brightly. “One day, I’ll come in there and then I’ll take it back, okay?”

You never did make it into the kindergarten grounds, but when Jaebum started his third year of school, he recognised you immediately as you walked into his classroom. And as your eyes nervously scanned the faces within the room, when you settled on his, you smiled.

Jaebum grinned back at you and that was the start of your budding friendship.

“So you can’t come to my birthday party?” he asked sadly, and you didn’t respond, lowering your head instead. Jaebum didn’t like when your long hair fell like a veil over your face and he instinctively reached out to shift it aside, but you were faster, scooting away from his touch and blinking back your emotions rapidly.

He winced and tried to cheer you up. “It’s okay. I could bring you some birthday cake to school.”

“You would do that for me?” you asked, staring back at him wide-eyed.

“Of course!”

“Why?”

Jaebum frowned. “Because we’re friends.”

A small smile crossed your lips and you repeated the word several times over, liking the sound of it rolling off your tongue. “We’re really friends, right?”

“I just said we are.”

“One day, when I ask you to, would you help your friend escape?” you asked earnestly and despite his age, Jaebum knew you were serious about it. He watched as you pleaded with him silently, your eyes begging him to agree.

He nodded, smiling at you. “I’ll do anything to help you, Y/N.”

Over the years, Jaebum realised that your family weren’t mean people as he once believed of them to be; rather you were from the richest family in this town. It meant that you were treated like a prized possession and subsequently denied the same experiences Jaebum had in fear you would be tarnished in some way. He was actually surprised you weren’t home-schooled with how strict your family were about everything when it came to you. Every day you were chaperoned to and from school, with zero time after the end of the school day to hang out with friends. It made it hard for you to keep up with the happenings of the people around you and eventually, led to you shutting off from attempting to remain on friendly terms with most of your classmates.

Except with Jaebum, of course.

You rolled your eyes dramatically. “Don’t you have something better to do?”

“No, I think annoying you will suffice.”

You couldn’t hide the small smile that graced your lips, though you moved away from him when he tried to flick a crumb from your lunch off your uniform. Some things had never changed. From the first time Jaebum met you as a child, to now as middle-schoolers, not once had you actually touched him. Or anyone for that matter. You had an exemption from team projects and had successfully avoided physical connection with anyone. He had asked you about it once, and you had mentioned you would be in grave trouble if your parents ever found out you had allowed yourself to touch another human.

“But why? Are they scared you’ll meet your soulmate and run away?” he had joked but the sincerity in your expression made Jaebum realise that was exactly it.

Now and then, he wanted to test the barrier between you. Surely, you couldn’t spend the rest of your life not touching another person. And so, as usual, whenever Jaebum found you alone in the library, he leaned in closer to you, the lack of space not allowing you to move away.

“Jaebum,” you warned as he stared at you, his eyes falling captive with soaking you in.

Just as he had done as a child, his own habit of getting lost staring at you hadn’t changed once. He could do this all day long. In fact, his grades last year had suffered from his inability to stop staring at you.

You let out a huff of air. “Jaebum, you’re doing it again.”

“Does it bother you?” he murmured and you blinked a couple of times, chewing on your lip in thought. He leaned in even closer and for a moment, he actually thought your bodies might brush up against each other with the close proximity he now held. It made him anxious, as if every cell within his body was on high alert. Jaebum never knew why he was so fascinated with the idea of being the first person you reached out for, but it was a goal all the same. He yearned to hold your hand and let you know it was safe to do so.

Reality knocked on you both, or in this case rang, the end of lunch bell signalled the afternoon classes were about to begin. He leapt back in fright, whining when he smacked his leg into the side of the table you were both seated at. You seemed just as afflicted as he was with his pain before giggling lightly. “Serves you right.”

“Don’t laugh at my pain.”

“Why not? You were pushing the boundaries.”

Jaebum stared at you. “Do you plan on never touching anyone?”

You didn’t reply, avoiding his gaze. Jaebum stepped into your view, walking backwards towards your classroom. You held out a hand towards him and shook it. “Move before you fall.”

“Why, if I trip, will you just let me fall?”

“What is wrong with you today? Can’t you respect my wishes?”

A wry smile crossed his lips. “Are they really yours?”

“Jaebum, come on, stop it.”

“I’m doing nothing wrong!”

You attempted to step around him and he sidestepped to block your escape, his chuckle outdoing your grumble. You glared at him. “You’re not funny.”

“Not trying to be.”

“Why does it matter so much if you touch me or not?!” you asked exasperatedly and he stopped moving altogether, your stop unstable as not to bang into him. You teetered on your heels, eyes wide with your lack of balance.

Jaebum put his arms out to catch you before you fell, though you staggered back, avoiding his offer and instead heavily banged into the wall beside you. He groaned as if he felt the pain himself.

Neither of you spoke for a minute, both staring at each other as the emotions flooded you. He could see how bothered you were, but fear outweighed your annoyance. He was surprised and hurt by your avoidance, and his chest felt restricted from your open rejection.

It was more painful this time around. Especially since he knew what you were to him. Jaebum was certain of it.

Collecting himself, he shrugged and turned on his heel, stalking away from you. “Jaebum!”

“Don’t bother, maybe I’m wrong.”

It was the longest period of time since you had re-entered his world that Jaebum had gone without talking to you. Part of him felt it was petty, and it probably was. He had respected your wishes for so many years now, so why could he no longer accept it? He didn’t want to admit it mattered to him whether you let him touch you or not. Because it did mean something. When you were in pain, and he experienced a similar sensation at the same time had been enough to start cementing the idea in his mind. Some nights, Jaebum would lay upon his bed and think back to the very start, of when he would rush over to the kindergarten fence to greet you. He had no real reason to. He hadn’t ever been a curious child; he just went with the flow and did what the majority of his peers would. And none of them came over to see who you were.

Just him.

He had been fascinated with you for years.

Fascination had its limitations without further knowledge though and Jaebum was frustrated. It irked him that you would openly avoid him, the one constant in your world. If he didn’t know how much you cherished his friendship just by gazing into your eyes to see the warmth they held for him, he would have given up by now. Just like everyone else had. You were too closed off from the world for most people to handle.

And even if, to him, you felt like an open book some days, Jaebum was starting to realise he had limited access to how you truly felt. It hurt more than it should and that was the real reason he hadn’t spoken to you in three weeks. He was embarrassed that he had given you every part of himself and received little in return.

That was why he ignored your calls out to him, bowing his head low to avoid you seeing his emotions rise on his face as he did so. It pained him to witness the sadness in your eyes, and if he didn’t see it, the ache in his chest wouldn’t get any larger than it already was. There was no real winner in this situation, your misery, whether he saw it or not, would cast over his world like a gloomy day took away the sunshine.

But Jaebum was learning about his pride. He needed to stand up for himself before he fell at your feet completely.

For another week, Jaebum managed to avoid you until you confronted him finally, not letting him pass you by. “Are you really sulking over this?”

He didn’t reply, merely jutting out his jaw in petulance, annoyance rising in his chest at your term. Jaebum didn’t see it as sulking, he had a right to be offended, hurt by your lack of trust in him.

As if you read his thoughts, you leaned down so you could catch his gaze, softening your expression a little. He couldn’t help but stare back at you greedily. Had he really not looked at you over the last month? You didn’t look as bright as you once did and his chest ached heavily.

“I trust you with my entire life, Im Jaebum.”

Glancing up properly, he swallowed roughly back the multitude of feelings that rushed to the surface from your sentence. Jaebum wasn’t ready to smile and give in to your whims, even if he wanted to. It was hard to force back the immediate elation, to challenge you instead. Yet he managed to shrug, seemingly nonchalant. “Sure you do.”

“You don’t believe me?” you asked, half-whispered, and he had to close his eyes before your first tear rolled down your cheeks. “You’re the only person in my life that I know I want to be around forever.”

He couldn’t answer this time, not because of annoyance, but the lump in his throat from hearing your shaky voice had rendered him unable to. You seemed to notice this and coughed back the rest of your emotions, clearing your throat before continuing.

“I think you’re my soulmate too.”

Your announcement rocked Jaebum’s world and for a moment he was stunned, before he propelled himself forward, eager to find out if you truly were. Touch was all that was left on his list to cement your connection and it still eluded him as you took a step back, heaving a little with his sudden approach. You shot him a smile. “I know we’re soulmates, Jaebum. Which is why I need you to trust in me. Give me some time to figure out how to deal with the impending consequences of when I let you touch me.”

“What consequences?”

For a moment you didn’t respond, though your cheeks had flared up with colour. Whatever you were imagining now had him uneasy, kicking the toe of his shoe slowly across the tile of the floor. He started to think of what would happen after connection and his boyish fantasies of kissing you flooded to the forefront of his mind. His face felt hot now. “Oh, uh… oh.”

You giggled and nodded slowly. “I don’t think holding your hand would be the best thing for me to do right now. Even though I want to. Because I think if I did, I wouldn’t be able to let go. And with how my family is…”

You stopped for a moment, the wash of concern erasing your happiness. After chewing your wobbly lip for a moment, you braved him a watery smile. “I just don’t want them to take me away from you.”

Jaebum knew he would wait for as long as he had to now. You were right, even if he craved it like no other, physical connection wasn’t needed to confirm what his heart and mind already had.

You were his already.

With the promise of adulthood almost around the corner, your relationship shifted dramatically. Surprisingly, neither of you had succumbed to teenage desires, though there definitely had been some close calls. Perhaps it was due to your extremely limited access to the outside world still, with school being your only escape from your home on the hill. Jaebum had exclaimed that it should be a crime to keep someone captive when there was so much to see and experience. And whilst you would always joke about being a princess locked in your tower, Jaebum was never able to become a knight in shining armour for you.

Until one afternoon.

“What did you just say?” he uttered, eyes blown wide at your suggestion.

Your recklessness was evident in your gaze, and you stifled a giggle. “Let’s go now.”

“Where, to Art class? That’s where-”

“No.” You shook your head, stepping closer to him and halting his ability to breathe. “I want to go somewhere other than classes. Let’s ditch the afternoon.”

“Are you the Y/N I’ve known for years now or did something possess you?” he wondered and you rolled your eyes, stalking down the hallway towards the exit. Jaebum jogged to catch up to you, fingering his car keys within his pocket. Being at school without you there didn’t appeal to him anyway.

However, he stopped once you were both standing by his car, looking at you hesitantly. Why was he so nervous? It wasn’t as if you were two delinquents who did this often. Nor was he some honour roll student who followed the school rules like some mantra. No, he was just a regular student who could make exceptions for you.

“Open the car, Jae.”

He wanted to ask you if you knew the implications of what was about to occur. As he unlocked the doors and climbed inside, he knew this wasn’t some spur of the moment rebellion. You had clearly been planning this. Jaebum had just been blind to what occupied your thoughts for some time.

Any hesitation evaporated as soon as he ignited the engine and pulled out of the school lot.

Jaebum took you to the beach.

If there had been one place he wanted to take you to first, this was it. The weather wasn’t all that warm, which meant there was no one else around. You smiled before you stepped out onto the sand, soon dancing through the dunes and over to the water. You played together as children would, frolicking around and kicking water at each other. Your laughter was swept away with the wind and soon the air was sending a chill down each of your backs. Still, you remained at the beach, now walking side by side along the edge of the water in silence.

Words weren’t needed right now. It was the first time he had ever been alone with you. No fellow students, teachers, parents, it was as if this endless beach belonged to you both. The waves crashed and rolled in closer to you both, a threat lingering further out at sea. The impending consequence on the horizon. It was too far out for it to be a sole focus now, up here where the waves were gentler. And without any warning, he felt it.

Your hand slipped into his effortlessly, as if it was made to fit seamlessly against his. He held it instantly, feeling more purpose within that action than anything else in his life. The shy smile that crossed your lips spread his own out wide.

And by the time you were heading back to his car, lips on lips were all you and he could think of.

“We should go before we do something more.”

“We should do it all today,” you refuted, your gaze flitting from his eyes to his mouth for the umpteenth time. Jaebum’s followed suit, wondering if you would taste as good as your cherry lips looked.

“Is there something I should know about? Some magical clock ticking over our heads rushing us? Will you be locked away for good after this?”

He shouldn’t have joked about it and when you laughed and shook your head in response, it was careless of you not to consider that there was another hand in this relationship. Already suffocating out the air that had started to overflow on this day.

Still, the focus was there. Why were you so eager to kiss him? Just holding your hand had every sense alive within him. What would happen when his lips met yours? He craved the knowledge, yet didn’t actively reach for it either. He had gotten all too used to waiting on your permission to move across this board. He followed his queen around as the knight he had been destined to become.

“Don’t you think we’ve waited far too long?”

“Might I remind you, I was eager to do this a long time ago.”

You smirked. “I remember. I thought becoming a teenager would make you more reckless though.”

“Are you claiming I’m tamed?”

Shrugging, you giggled as you turned away from him, moving towards his car. Jaebum followed, as he always did. Yet this time, he stopped you from getting inside, entrapping you against the door with a hand on either side of your head. You chewed your luscious lips with anticipation and a groan rumbled from within his chest.

“I can be reckless too,” he informed, pressing his lips firmly on yours. Sparks flew much like your hair was within the wind. He let his hands fall from the doorframe to smooth down your tresses, slipping to the nape of your neck as the kiss deepened.

His soul was hungry for more and you weren’t holding back from offering it. Your hands gripped tightly to his shoulder blades, burning the skin that laid underneath them with your touch. It was overwhelming and when he finally pulled away, it wasn’t for anything more than a need for air.

Your eyes were shot and your lips were swollen. In his mind, you had never looked this beautiful before. Tenderly reaching up to cup his cheek, you smiled. “I love you, Jaebum.”

“I’ve always loved you,” he replied, kissing you again and again.

When the wind had settled, so had you both, climbing into his car and driving around aimlessly. The skies turned multihued, striking colours before your eyes and then the night enveloped the sun, littering the heavens with stars. You found a place to eat, and the skill to do so whilst never letting go of one another. And then you directed him to a place just on the outskirts of town, surprising him of your knowledge when he had been certain you never left your home except for school.

Smiling, you jumped out of the car and headed towards the abandoned home, entering it as if you owned it. And like usual, Jaebum followed you in.

“Should we be in here?”

“Should we go home?” you countered and Jaebum tilted his head to the side, giving in to your smile yet again. You grinned and placed down your bag. He hadn’t noticed you bring it inside, nor had he seen how full it was today. Unzipping it, you pulled out a blanket and laid it down on the floor before sitting on it. “Whilst you played in playgrounds, I spent my time up here. This is my grandmother’s home.”

He looked around the vacant space for more answers, frowning as he sat down beside you. “Why has it been let go?”

“She wasn’t the reason for our wealth. My mother was born poor, and my grandmother was ill when I was a child.” Leaning back on your arms, you seemed lost in fond memories of what this place once was. “My happiest moments were in this house.”

“You mean, you haven’t been happy with me?”

Looking over at him, you shook your head. “Not until today.”

Jaebum could understand. The shackles around you meant experiencing true feelings would have been hard for you. He was certain you had never smiled as much as you had done so today. Staring around at the darkened living space, he pointed to a clear colour difference on the wall. “What was once there?”

“A family portrait.”

He asked more questions and you answered them, your bodies naturally getting tangled in the process. With your head resting on his shoulder and his arm holding you to his side, the questions slowly stopped mattering. Kisses began again, the addiction ever present with every caress of his mouth on yours. Desire licked at his abdomen, and tightened his pants. Jaebum groaned when your leg inadvertently passed over his affected area and you sat back, blinking slowly.

Embarrassment heated his skin. “It’s just that uh, well, you do things to me.”

“Should I do more?” you offered, and the intense gaze you held weakened his resolve. Were you really insinuating you went all the way tonight? Glancing away, at the house you had brought him to, he understood why you were both here now.

Jaebum brushed the hair away from your face. “Tonight is all we have?”

“I won’t let it stop here, but if there is a chance that this is our only open window for some time, I want to do everything.”

“I wasn’t as prepared as you have been, you should have given me some warning,” he admitted and you smiled encouragingly, reaching over for your bag again. You retrieved a foil package and he shot you an inquisitive look. Your cheeks flushed with colour. “I made sure I had everything for today, just in case.”

Jaebum took over from there, ensuring you felt everything you possibly could whilst the night grew darker outside. And just before dawn, you drove back in silence, Jaebum finally pulling up outside where you lived. He didn’t want to let you go, his gut instinct reluctant to even stop the car.

You smiled and leaned over to kiss him. “We don’t end here.”

“I’m just worried. Maybe we should run away. If we leave and never return, no one can tear us apart.”

“No one can now anyway,” you assured, kissing him again. “Not after how we spent tonight.”

He couldn’t hold back his smile, nodding once in agreement. You heaved a deep breath before you finally let him go, slipping out of the car and into the gated residence.

You weren’t at school the next day. Nor the following day either. In fact, for an entire week, you held no appearance in his world, as if the night shared together had somehow snuffed you out of his existence when daylight came. He drove to your neighbourhood often, watching for movement within the home.

Yet there was nothing.

Jaebum didn’t go to school on Monday. He couldn’t face it without you there. And when the doorbell rang, he didn’t shift from his bed to answer it either. It wasn’t until his Mum entered his room and handed him a package that he stirred away from his heavy thoughts. “Were you waiting on something?”

Glancing at the handwriting on the box, Jaebum sat up, taking it immediately from her and opening it hastily. He stopped moving altogether when he saw the contents. Inside laid a rock he had once carried with him every day as a child. And beside it laid a note.

Find me.

“Get in here!” a voice instructed and the sounds of a drunken protest filled the early morning within the station. Jaebum chuckled to himself yet didn’t look up to see what was going on, his gaze glued to the computer system in front of him.

Much like it always was.

“Why are you apprehending me? I am not someone who needs to be brought here!”

“That’s what they all say and yet it’s for your own good. A night in the cell will sober you right up and you won’t think of causing such a scene again,” the officer scolded tiredly, the sounds of the small cell in the corner opening and shutting following his words. And then the constable came over and slumped into the chair beside Jaebum. “Has it been busy?”

“Only a dispatch for a traffic offence but the neighbouring station picked it up instead.”

“I hate working the graveyard shift on a Saturday,” his colleague mentioned with a groan and Jaebum merely smiled. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard the proclamation and it wouldn’t be the last.

However, Jaebum had no issues with working through the night. Sometimes, it would be busier than tonight and whilst he preferred being parked up at the front desk taking down complaints and sorting out minor disputes, getting out into the neighbourhood was welcomed when he felt the dread of being unsuccessful settle into his chest.

“Listen here!” the drunkard demanded and Jaebum quirked an eyebrow before turning to face the apprehended man. He was surprised to see someone of similar age within the cell, his tousled designer dress pants and shirt looking out of place behind bars. The raven haired man pointed a finger directly at him. “I need to find her okay? I won’t stop until I find her!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve been saying that over and over but you know what? You can’t find someone who you don’t have in your phone to ring, mate.”

Jaebum glanced at the fellow officer. “Who is he looking for?”

“Beats me, he’s been ranting on about lost love the whole way over here. I reckon he’s broken up with his girlfriend and gotten drunk over it or something.”

The man in the cell laughed a little too much in response. “How dare you address my soulmate as a mere girlfriend!”

Jaebum couldn’t help but look back at the man. He looked broken, despair filling his features as he crouched down in the corner by the bed. Cupping his face within his hand, he began to cry, rocking back and forth in his position.

“I miss her! I should have told her I wanted to be in her life. I would do anything to find her!”

Jaebum slowly turned to the screen in front of him. Records and previous searches stared back at him, your name in various forms attempted without any leads. He hadn’t found you in years. Not when he was without power had a trace been left to follow and after working hard to become a police officer, ten years after your disappearance from his world, Jaebum was still without you.

He wondered if he would ever find you.

After some time, the station grew silent, bar the heavy snoring of his partner. Jaebum needed a break from the chair he had been seated in for all too long and headed into the staff room, making himself a cup of coffee. Nights like these were hard to get by. When it was quiet, he would search for you. The data was endless, but whenever he felt he was close, the details wouldn’t match. He was certain by now that your family had changed your name, making it impossible for him to find you.

Why had they taken you away? What harm did he pose to your life? Still, after all these years, he couldn’t understand. He thought back to his childhood belief that your family were cruel people, not having anything else to go on. They had plucked you up, using their wealth and status to disappear without a trace.

Pouring a second cup of coffee, Jaebum dejectedly headed back out into the main floor of the station, his eyes going towards the man in the cell. He was no longer crying or protesting, instead, he remained silent on the floor, staring at nothing in particular.

His brooding felt similar and Jaebum cleared his throat to garner his attention. “Park Jinyoung?”

Holding out the coffee, the man got up and thanked him softly for the beverage through the bars. Jaebum didn’t shift away, watching as he drank some of the bitter drink and attempted to think of something to say.

Jinyoung beat him to it. “Have you ever felt as if, no matter what you do, you can’t get back what you let go of in the past?”

“Every day,” Jaebum responded, and Jinyoung glanced up at him in surprise.

He then sighed heavily. “I’m sure you’re not as foolish as I once was.”

“Well, getting drunk over your pain is something a lot of people experience in life. A police officer isn’t immune to it either.”

“I let her go before even giving it a shot. You’d think I would have been able to move on by now, yet every day my heart aches for her.”

“Some people just affect you for the rest of your life,” Jaebum mentioned softly and the man nodded in agreement. “It’s been some time since I saw my soulmate too.”

Jinyoung swallowed his mouthful and then frowned. “Did you lose her?”

“Not in the way most people do.”

“She’s still alive?”

Jaebum nodded.

At least, he was certain you were. Now and then, he would feel the emotions he would whenever you were in pain or upset, though they were dull in comparison to when he was able to see you every day. It led Jaebum to believe you were still out there, the only fuel he had left towards his endless search of you.

“How do you find someone you only know so little about?” Jinyoung wondered, his dark gaze turning earnest. “Can you find someone by a name?”

“In theory.”

“As an officer, shouldn’t you be able to access a database that lists the majority of society on it? Everyone has a record, right? Social numbers, health identifiers, shouldn’t they lead you to the person? An easy search, right?”

Jaebum chuckled, shrugging bitterly. “People can change information. If they don’t want to be found, they can remain that way.”

“Of course, this world is twisted after all.”

“Is your soulmate alive too?” Jaebum questioned and Jinyoung nodded. The man proceeded to tell Jaebum of his ill-fated meeting, the premature departure of his destined partner from his world and the consequences thereafter. He sympathised with the doctor, knowing some of the pain that he carried around daily.

It was the same Jaebum carried for you.

In return, Jaebum explained his own situation and by the end of it, Jinyoung felt more like a comrade than anything else. Jaebum’s shift ended when he opened up the cell, and instead of parting ways, he offered to buy breakfast.

Jinyoung looked up through his meal midway. “Even if it’s a small chance, you’ll actually search for her for me?”

“It’s my duty to serve the nation and help them with their needs,” Jaebum mentioned with a grin, Jinyoung’s lips curling up with renewed hope.

“Anything is worth a go. I need to right my wrongs,” he admitted and Jaebum nodded. After a few more mouthfuls, the man looked up again, his smile spreading over his lips. “I have a way to find someone as well, you know.”

“I’m listening.”

“Medical records have personal information on them. I’m not saying I’ll find anything, but I can certainly look it up. Here, I’ll give you my card. Message me all the formations of Y/N’s name and her date of birth. I’ll check it once I’m at work tomorrow.”

The elation of making his new connection with Jinyoung was short-lived. Jaebum had known better, but the hope he felt over another possible path forward had lent him too much with no return.

Not that he had been successful with finding Jinyoung’s soulmate either.

For the following months, the pair met regularly. It was comforting to finally have someone who understood the pain Jaebum held within his chest. Jinyoung became a good friend to him, ready to build him back up when despair hit and encourage him forward with new plans. Neither of them was any closer in their search but their friendship was positive for Jaebum. It meant he wasn’t alone.

And when he got close to finding you, it meant he had someone backing him up for once.

“I think I may have a lead on a name,” he told the doctor over the phone, pulling up the file he had stumbled across earlier in the day. “Her birth date matches and her national health identifier number is also documented which is odd since she gave the officer an international driver’s licence. It looks like she had an altercation a month ago with a traffic offence after arriving back in the country. Could you look it up in your system for me?”

“Of course, what’s the number? I’ll take a look as soon as I’m done doing my rounds.”

Jaebum had texted Jinyoung the information and waited almost two hours on edge for the response.

It was another dead end.

Seven months passed by without much process on either soulmate. Both men were tired and decided to take a small break from their searches. A week away at the beach in his hometown renewed their focus, though Jaebum couldn’t help but feel as if he was seeing you wherever he went. Quick glimpses of what he imagined you would look like now out of the corner of his eye would occur at least once a day, though every time he turned his head, he would never find you there.

Jinyoung had admitted to visions of his own lost love, and Jaebum wondered if now was his turn to experience the phenomena. He was certain you were nearby, though he didn’t know how to seek you out.

“Let’s go door knocking. We can come up with some plausible reason for a cop and a doctor to be asking around, right?”

Jaebum rolled his eyes. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m trying to lighten your mood, you know.”

It was Jinyoung who found a lead in finding you first. Not even a month after returning to work, he had rung in a rush, his breath heavy down the line. Jaebum’s shifts were different than his friend’s and he groggily pulled himself away from another dream about you. “What did you say?”

“I think I found Y/N.”

Sitting up with a start, he listened to the doctor prattle on about a building collapse that happened in Jaebum’s hometown. The injuries ranged from critical to minor, and when he was checking over the list of patients admitted, the file Jaebum had been looking up months ago with the medical number had matched up. The hospital there had been overwhelmed with the injuries so a lot had been transferred to his hospital in the city.

Jaebum barely heard anything else the doctor had to say as he yanked clothing onto his body and rushed out the door. He arrived at the hospital as fast as he could, running through to the emergency room and checking the faces within the beds. Not a single one matched yours, and he dropped into a chair outside the department, flinching when a hand rested on his shoulder.

Jaebum looked up, exasperated. “Where is she?”

“She has been discharged already, she had a gash to her arm and originally there was concern she had hit her head. However, results came back clear and she was good to go.”

“Already? My chance to find Y/N is over just like that?”

Jinyoung shook his head, holding up a piece of paper. Before he allowed Jaebum to take it, he gave his friend a stern look. “I’m not buying this defeatist attitude from you at all, Officer Im. If you give up, what hope do I have left? Here, my gift to you.”

“An address?” he hoped and the doctor nodded, handing it over. Jaebum held onto the paper as if it was somewhat precious. This was closer than he had ever been and he realised he was shaking with emotions.

“Don’t hate me if she’s not Y/N,” Jinyoung fare-welled and Jaebum numbly walked himself out to his car, getting in behind the steering wheel.

He sat there for some time, partially because he believed he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to drive, but also because he needed some kind of plan. All these years, he had been so adamant on finding you.

Now that he potentially had, what was the best step forward? Just show up on your doorstep and hope the part of your soul that craved his would recognise him immediately? What about your family? It had never dawned on him until now that you could have reached out to find him as well. You knew everything there was to him. Apart from moving to the city so he could become a police officer, nothing had changed.

Eventually, Jaebum arrived on the outskirts of his home town, driving passed the old lot where he had once spent the night with you. He was surprised to see the home had been knocked down since the last time he was here, the rubble being cleared away by contractors. He knew that the building collapse had been on the beachfront however, though it felt as if the removal of the derelict home that had once stood there held some significance right now. Driving to his destination, Jaebum pulled up outside the townhouses that lined the marine parade, looking towards the number he required.

He knocked on the door, waiting on the doorstep for some time without an answer. Were you not back from the hospital yet yourself? He didn’t know what form of transportation you had taken, and figuring he should come back within an hour, Jaebum headed across to the beach instead.

It was cool, the sunny weather that had enticed both him and Jinyoung here last month had washed out with the warm sea, replaced with chilly winds and crashing waves. It was comforting walking along the beach he had once spent an entire afternoon with you. As he trailed up towards the gulf, he thought back over every moment you shared together, from the first time you touched, to your hand slipping out of his that last time. That day had never left his memory, not once. He wouldn’t allow the details to fade over time, keeping it alive as if it had happened the day before. He could almost feel you as he turned back for the beach entrance now, your kisses lingering in the freezing air that hit his face.

As he neared the spot where he had parked up that day, his heart began to thud unevenly. Was it from the memory of pressing you against his car? Inadvertently, he had parked in the same spot as he had that day, though his car was different, it had attracted the attention of someone.

Stopping, he watched as the woman peered into the vehicle curiously, her lips pouting softly. When she turned away, he noticed the bandage on her arm.

Your arm.

“Y/N!” he called upon the wind, and it travelled to you, sending your hair flying about your face. You spun around, eyes widened by his voice. Jaebum started to move, the sand dunes slowing him somewhat, climbing back up to the parking lot where you remained frozen.

He panted when he finally stopped in front of you, now blinking rapidly to ensure he wasn’t hallucinating. Every time his eyes reopened, you were still staring back at him, stuck in the position you had been left rendered speechless within. Jaebum shifted first and you moved back, your eyes searching his.

“Y/N,” he repeated, this time with a smile. He stared down at you for what felt like an eternity. You had aged just how he had imagined you to, your teenage years far behind you, yet you still looked youthful. Your hairstyle was different, and you had lost some of the weight in your face.

You were still beautiful.

“Jaebum,” you breathed and he felt himself grinning, though he couldn’t tear his eyes away from you. It made you roll your own, the humour evident in your tone that followed. “You’re doing it again.”

He didn’t miss a beat, the words he once spoke to you as a child falling out effortlessly. “Does it bother you?”

Leaning in closer, you shifted back into his car, leaving little room for escape. He chuckled. “Will you avoid me touching you now as well?”

“It’s been so long, who knows where those hands have been,” you quipped, though he saw the way you steeled your breath in anticipation. Your hands were at the ready, and when he reached out for you, it was instantaneous. His lips found yours, his hands were in your hair and you were pressed against him as if no time had passed from that afternoon. The kisses were even better than how he remembered them. You tasted sweeter, if that was even possible, and his mind reeled from the explosion of your combined yearning.

His plan of taking it slow and talking it out with you was well and truly gone. He didn’t need to know where you had been or what had happened over all these years.

At least, the knowledge wasn’t as pressing as he thought it had been.

It could all wait until later. Right now, he could only think of how you felt being back in his arms.

He had finally found you. And this time, he wasn’t going to ever let go.

_________________

All rights reserved © prettywordsyouleft

[GOT7 Masterlist] | [Main Masterlist] | [Request Guidelines]

[goblinconceivable]

It’s cool, I can fill my own sails

Finishing the last few eps of s7 OUaT helped.  At the very least, it brought up issues of family inclusion and exclusion, which was a heavy theme with Regina back in the day and reexploring that a little with Wish!Hook is intriguing.  And the nod to romance being nearly absent from the season gives license to delve into the negative space and supports the reading that Regina/Rogers are on a (very very slow) trajectory.

I don’t know how and when to refer to Wish!Hook/Rogers/whatever, so I’ll just go with Rogers because it’s easier to type, and where the character ends up.

Frankly, there’s about 5 gifs of Regina/Rogers and most of them aren’t shippy in canon.  Pulled out, they create a fanon narrative, and that’s great, but I always like to start deep in canon compliance and build/reinterpret from there.

One of the best points in favor of the ship, oddly enough, is the stack of prison books.  Which are ordered, intentionally.  Snow and Charming are next to each other.  Henry and Regina.  Alice and Robin.  Lucy and Cinderella.  And Captain Hook is next to Regina.  I don’t know why Zelena/Robin and Hook/Alice are so far apart but that the 4 new characters are on the bottom.   

 I will note that this season IS a compressed and thematically focused narrative, defined by our 4 returning characters and primarily the parent/child love.  Rumple is completing his own long arc, we’ll ignore him except that he is the one reminder of true romantic love in a season otherwise largely ignoring it with the mains. Yes, Henry/Ella begins, but their function is giving birth to a child and starting a family together, rather than their own story as a romance.  Which leaves Regina and Rogers, who are all about their kids.  Who do find love, next gen starting out with the fresh start their gone-evil parents have undergone change to give them.

They each do get a love interest, insofar as that exists.  Rogers had a recurring interest in Tiana, and while she flirted a bit, she shows greater interest in Naveen.  Regina had Facilier, more explicit, though he shows greater interest and investment than she does.  What this gives us as an opening where Rogers and Regina are both open to romance, though it takes a back seat to their children.  True love, for either of them, would be the end of a long journey, rather than the instant-fall we often see.  Older, more experienced, more bruised.  They both had that already, with first loves, lost it, became villians, and villians, typified by Rumple, get more love journeys.  

Regina is more open, she knows how to love and be loved, though she isn’t desperately seeking more because she is content - though she’s realizing she has more to give.  She mentors Drizella, she fights for Wish!Henry.  Rogers wants more, but he’s in an emotional place Regina was at back in season 2 or so, albeit gentler.

A cool thing about Wish!Realm is that happy endings often don’t exist.  The stories are darker.  I don’t have much to say about that right now except that rather than losing family, Rogers gained one - and lost it, but he gained love and redemption.  Arguably more painful.

I was drawn to 2.5 scenes at the end of the show.  The first is right after the curse was broken and Gothel was defeated.  Families are reunited, happy.  Regina and Henry, Regina and Robin, Cinderella and Lucy mixing in.  Alice has Robin.  Even Tiana and Naveen run in, holding hands.  In the background, largely ignored, is Rogers.  This had to be a specific choice, especially since everyone there knows a hospital will not help his affliction, yet someone must have called them.  He’s not a part of the larger family of interrelationships, and moreover, is watching Alice become a part of it.  His ties are only to Alice, and to Rumple, who is an outlying character (yet STILL part of the group, in his way.)

The .5 is when Regina, Henry and Rogers are together.  Rogers tries to join Regina to find Rumple, and she tells him to stay (he does tend to obey her immediately, see her admonishment to find and help Alice at the station.)  Later he tries to go with Henry, and Henry knocks him out.  He’s TRYING to be helpful, be part of the group, and no one needs or wants him.

The third is at the war table.  Again, everyone is sitting around the table, together and despite there being chairs, Rogers stands back, outside the circle.  This time, his exclusion is distinctly a decision he has made, how he feels.  But something shifts.  Charming, the family patriarch, reaches out, with “and a new friend... who feels like an old friend.”  Despite having just met him, he accepts him as one of them, and Rogers is surprised but appreciative.  It’s particularly touching because Rogers has been with Henry et family (Regina and Zelena etc) for years and never felt that.

The next point is Rumple sacrificing his heart and saving Rogers.  It’s the first time someone has sacrificed for him, it’s validation.  He’s one of them, annointed by the crocodille.  Literally having his heart creates ties to the group, puts him back with Alice so that physical distance is no longer an excuse or reason.  It’s is linked to emotional distance, as his quest to cure his heart for Alice, for their relationship, is now over, and he can take a next step.

What happens next?  Rogers, the only other active character at this point, explains the situation.  He moves from “to save me” to “to save all of us” - he’s considering himself an us, not just his admitted friendship with Rumple, but that perhaps he’s part of the whole.  He and Regina were the two tightest with Rumple, so it’s fitting.  Regina is 100% about Rumple, double proves he was beloved.  It IS his moment, the whole scene was about him.  But Rogers is on his own little journey, and he takes Regina’s oblivious hand.  Why?  

We’ve seen Regina touch him occasionally, more of a distant sympathy or comradery, but human touch is yet important, look at how much Regina hugs her family, and how much Alice and Rogers want to hug and be near each other.  Aside from Alice, Rogers never reaches out, 

Though as a side bar, when he reaches out to Tiana, to go with her to storm the castle, or hire Alice, she accepts, which probably explains why he likes her.  Conversely, trying to manufacture an adventure for Henry goes wrong, and see his recent attempts to help Regina and Henry are rebuffed.  All told, dude doesn’t have the best time of it.

So anyway, he takes her hand, and while she doesn’t acknowledge it, she doesn’t reject it either, and that is family.  Sometimes you’re just there, behind someone, supporting them as they go through their own thing.  And while sometimes you’re pushed away, you just keep trying.  Which as Hook with Emma, though I have my own issues with that.  They are the same person to large extent, so the tendency is worth mentioning.

Finally, the coronation.  Frankly, they had to pan to all the mains and Rogers/Alice/Robin are the least important group -to the show as a whole, the full 7 seasons which this scene is acknowledging and honoring.  But they do leave him as Rogers, suit and fake hand.  Distinguishing him from Original!Hook.  Which again is functional, so grain of salt and shippy eyes.  He is not yet integral, but the future is open.  As Regina says, see what’s next, indeed.

TLDR; my attempt to find a canon ships fails, but there’s potential if you look.  This is a story of an individual journey on Rogers’ part to GET to that point where he can open his heart, and romantic love can follow that.  Regina proves she’s now completely comfortable with who she is and who she has, and is open to additional love.  There may not be romance in this book, but as to the next...

Addendum because I’m doing the obsessive searching thing: apparently there’s a deleted scene where Rogers asks Henry if he got Regina’s crown.  FFS that’s useful information, it means Rogers IS a part of the group, and in fact a larger part of Regina’s future.  I mean, he’s there with Alice and Robin.  Henry swings by.  They’re not just in on the surprise, they’re planning it.  He has a role in the new world.  ...  Deserves it’s own analysis when I process.

Addendum 2 because still tracking down meta: so a reason for Regina looking to Rogers and his nodding could also be that they were talking and he let something slip at some point about... I dunno, something that didn’t make sense to her but now she’s all “oh, so this is what you were talking about?”  

[mattzerella-sticks]

Overprotective, Coda to 14x13 “Lebanon” (John Winchester & Castiel centric, with Dean/Cas undertones)

When John was brought back, he thought things would be like they used to with his boys. Then Mary appeared, and he knew things were better.

Except no one is like how he remembered. The clear difference is their willingness to shelter an angel on the belief that it's 'family'. John knows family, and it begins and ends with blood. What happened while he was gone. Castiel can't remember, but he clears things up for John better than anyone else can.

           John was force-fed many things after coming back to life. His father dying at the hands of a demon in the future and had not run away like his mom said. And Sammy, whose favorite catchphrase growing up was “I’m never going to be like you, dad” was now actively hunting and enjoying it. Even Mary coming back to life was easier to swallow since he knew resurrections were possible after experiencing his own. But this – what he’s staring at now – has him choking.

           Dean was adamant John couldn’t gank the creature they’ve now taken into their Bunker. Ready to thrust the blade into its non-beating heart, John ordered a disobedient Dean to stand down. His son ignored him.

           “He’s family,” Dean said.

           John scoffed. “Is that why he attacked us?”

           He didn’t answer John’s question, casting doubtful eyes at the creature behind him. The angel – Cas his son called it, Castiel the creature corrected him – glared, struggling in his handcuffs. “He’s family,” Dean repeated, “And we’re gonna figure out what happened.”

           John didn’t trust it for a second. And Castiel mirrored his feelings. Every action of Dean’s was met with resistance and hesitance, unsure why it was left alive just a little bit longer. But Dean, Sam, and Mary vouched for it. Joked with it, when they could. Dean made a passing comment that made his stomach roil. “Been meaning to get you in cuffs someday, Cas…”

           Something must have happened from placing Castiel in the back of the car and arriving at the Bunker. Sam led it down, the creature railing furiously against him, while Dean trailed behind wearing the most miserable mask John ever saw on him. He only broke those out on special occasions, like Sam leaving them for normalcy or when John confessed his deathbed deal. John wished he imagined the tear that leaked, Dean too slow to wipe it away.

           They set it up in one of the Bunker’s many dungeons. A worn, wooden chair surrounded by holy oil and fire; comforts John believes were too comfortable for the creature. Dean wouldn’t look at him as he trudged away towards the library. Sam went with, after a few minutes verbally sparring with John – ‘There’s the kid I remember raising’. He left, Mary taking the first watch over Castiel.

           His boys figured out what happened, and as were the other problems afflicting the world, it was because of him – of John coming back to life. “The timeline was messed with by bringing dad back – as if he never left. So all of our lives were changed. Ours and everyone we ever met. Us and…”

           “And Cas,” Dean finished, voice strained as if he didn’t want to do so. “Because of one stupid wish…”

           He wanted to scream, to tell his son to screw the angel; that a creature has never made the life of any Winchester better. A creature killed his father, killed his wife, damned his youngest – why feel this much over something that’s encoded to destroy their family? John grunted only half of what he was thinking. Dean turned cold, setting dead eyes on him. When he first came back they were vibrant green, like trees in the midst of spring. Now they were barren oaks suffering through a harsh winter. “You don’t know what Cas has gone through for us… with us… how much he’s changed. How much he means to me… to us.”

           Dean stormed out of the room before John could ask how much meaning there was. He confronted Sam about it. “They’ve always had this,” he shrugged, “What did Cas call it…? A ‘profound bond’; they’re connected, and always have been since Cas rescued Dean from hell… except now he didn’t, in this timeline, so…”

           Mary was less helpful. “I had my doubts at first, but you’ve never seen the real Castiel. Watched him with our boys… with Dean. Maybe you can, if they can figure out to fix the timeline and keep you here. Then you’ll understand.” She kissed him on his cheek, leaving to relieve Dean of his post.

           There was more to the story John wasn’t seeing. And it was made exponentially confusing when he found Dean’s legal pad in the library. He just missed him, his computer still warm and papers strewn everywhere. Trying to show he was ready to be civil, he started cleaning. Written in Dean’s tiny scrawl was a list of people with their names crossed off, little blurbs written next to them.

           Charlie Bradbury – owns her own startup.

           Kevin Tran – graduated Princeton, valedictorian, NEVER PROPHET

           Jody Mills – still sheriff

           Donna Hanscum – still sheriff

           Bobby Singer – still dead

           Ellen Harvelle – dead

           Jo Harvelle – hunter; wanted

           Ash – freakin’ NASA

           Garth – arrested; poor guy

           Claire Novak – MISSING

           Jack – gone…

           CAS

           The tearstains around the creature’s name mocked him. Evidence of the disruption his reappearance caused his oldest son; the conflict warring inside Dean, the casualties all written out for John to see. Having proof of what his act of coming back did to the world, John understood the course he had to take. Saw the road signs telling him to turn off the highway in a few miles.

           Hearing Dean’s footsteps, John scurried away, dropping his list. There were other things for him to do; that needed to be done if this all ended like he was expecting it to.

           Mary wouldn’t leave them alone easily, which he anticipated. But John knew her, and waited for her bladder to give out like any middle-aged mother of two. When she told him she’d be back in less than two minutes, he nodded. Then, when he was sure Mary was far enough away, he locked the door.

           Leaving him alone with Castiel.

           “If you’re going to kill me, then by all means,” it said, “I’m getting rather tired of this.”

           “I’d like that,” John told him, “Nothing would make me happier to stick an angel blade where the sun don’t shine and watch the life drain out of you. But that wouldn’t solve anything…”

           Castiel tilted his head, squinting. “Are you under the delusion that you can get me to ‘remember’ as well?”

           “No, I know you won’t recall anything they’re asking.”

           It sighed. “I wish the others were more like you. Straightforward, cruel… everything we expected of humans. But they… they are so muddled.”

           John’s interest piqued. He stalked closer. “Muddled?”

           “It’s… how do I explain,” Castiel said, “humans give off these wavelengths that angels can pick up on. All the ones that stood guard over me, their minds were clouded with so many… feelings and opinions. And what was surprising was that many of them were about me. About things I have never experienced. The woman tried using kindness, the tallest one joked, but it was the one called Dean…”

           John frowned. “What about my boy?”

           “His longing was the strongest,” Castiel confessed, “the most confusing. So many feelings poured over me every time he entered the room – even now I feel their trace, through the thick, most likely protected walls in my prison. There was so much longing… angels are used to channeling it, but to be the cause, the center, the drive of such emotion is unheard of. It hurt. Being exposed to it for long periods of time, like in that car, caused me great pains! So I –“

           “What did you do?”

           “I shouted at him to stop! That he was out of his depth – living a fabricated lie! Angels know everything, are all-powerful. We’ve seen creation through from the very beginning; have shone in the light of God, himself. Why would they sacrifice that for humans? Why would I turn against everything I knew for one man? Angels are made to serve God not humans – not him. We’re weapons. We have no thought of friendship or love. To love a human would debase ourselves, making us no better than you.”

           Mary banged at the door, begging him to let her in and stop whatever he has planned. He can’t though. John slammed his foot on the gas pedal and hurdled down towards that shiny tunnel. Castiel confirmed a lot in his little tirade. Things John wasn’t willing to accept at first. That differed from the boys he knew and raised.

           ‘But they aren’t who I know anymore,’ he realized, ‘and honestly… I never raised them.’ He impacted their decisions like a heavy shadow hanging over them. But the qualities he saw in his boys now were nothing John had in stock. His sons became better men than him, and any choice they made was right because it was the exact opposite decision he would have come to.

           Overcome with guilt for the first time, John cried.

           Castiel shot him a withered glance. “Of course… you go and become muddled as well.”

           Wiping away the tears, John kneeled down to face Castiel at eye-level. “Listen up,” he started, “I’m only going to say this once. Now, when things get put back right, you might not remember this. Or maybe you will… who knows. Either way, I have to say this, to make things right with my boys.”

           “I don’t know why you’re so important to them, why they let a creature like you become their friend, or why my son decided to fall in love with you even though you’re clearly wearing a man like a cheap suit. And I might never know, because I don’t deserve it. The man who did, he died years ago in a fire up in Lawrence. All that was left for them was a burnt out husk of a man with nothing fueling him for revenge. Figured my boys were nothing but the same. You’re so damn lucky that’s not true.”

           He’s just a man, but it’s clear to him the terror he struck within Castiel. John continued. “I can’t wipe away all my sins, but I can try asking for forgiveness where it counts. Then maybe I’ll deserve that peace I had. But you – you’ll be here with my family. And all I can say… all I ask… is you watch over them.”

           “…What?”

           “Do what I couldn’t do for them. Protect them, show them each day that not every creature is past saving. Keep ‘em tied to their humanity.”

           “I don’t know what you are –“

           “And show Dean the love he deserves,” he whispered back, “Some nights, even back before I died, I did wonder if I robbed him of a normal life. Broke him, and that he could never work right. That’d haunt me almost as bad as Mary’s death and Sam’s affliction whenever the booze ran out. Castiel you performed a miracle and gave him a second chance. I can’t be selfish anymore. I’ve had my shot at happiness… it’s about time he has his. That they all did.”

           “This makes no sense,” Castiel shouted, fighting his chains, “Your prayers… so much grief and guilt… I can’t –“ It carried on like that, even as he spun around to leave. John opened the door.

           Mary barreled in. Eyeing a distraught Castiel, she turned to him. “What did you do?”

           “Casti… Cas and I shared a few words,” he said, “I’m gonna go speak to the boys. And Mary?”

           “Yes, John.”

           “I… I love you.” He dropped a kiss onto her, a gentle brush of their lips before slipping out into the hallway.

           He saved her for last, their goodbye too painful he wouldn’t finish what he had to if he began it there. John still had loose strings to tie up before the fabric of reality was corrected. And he had to work fast so that it wouldn’t completely unravel by the time hew as done. The world asked of him one last time, to prove that there was no one left on it that truly needed him.

           His boys were waiting. Mary was waiting. And so was his Heaven.

[tallestsilver]

21 edgar alan poe quotes erik/christine but here's the challenge... Christine says it!

“That which you mistake for madness is but an over-acuteness of the senses.”Who is ready for some fluffy feels?

A loud piercing cry of alarm filled Erik’s humble abode. The siren’s call alerted him to an intruder.“Daroga…” Erik grumbled under his breath. He had been in the midst of reading a book of poetry, of love and longing, as he was convinced he was dying of such emotions, when the screaming sound interrupted him.

He snapped the book shut and strode over to his front door, to peer outside. “If I told that great booby once, I told him one hundred times, do not bother me, I am dy-”But what he spied was not the kind Persian, but the subject of his heart’s affliction.“-aae…” he finished in a whisper.

There she was. Christine Daae. Whom he had told her to leave with her beau. He even conducted a sweet little ceremony for them so he could witness her happiness. Her compassion had saved him, made him feel human, and yet here she was, rapping on his front door, as if she were stopping by for a cup of sugar.

“Erik…?” Came her sweet voice, timid and full of… something Erik could not put his finger on.

Two options gripped him; he could not answer, set up the facade he had already perished and have her leave him yet again. That would prove overly complicated. Or, the more reasonable option, he could simply open the door and see what she wanted.

Option one seemed far easier indeed. He clutched the handle of his door and swallowed his anxiety, his throat feeling tight. He watched as she waited at the door, standing on tiptoes to see if she could spy any movement.“Erik?” Her question was tinged with a hint of fear as her eyebrows knit together.Oh, how lovely she was.

Her shoulders heaved in a sigh as she looked sorrowfully at the door. Her fist raised once again to knock when Erik swung open the door with more force than he intended. The pair stared at each other with wide, surprised eyes, unable to speak with the bubbling emotions that threatened to erupt.Wordlessly, Erik gave a slight bow with his head and gestured for Christine to step inside with a sweep of his hand. She returned with a small nod and stepped inside, careful to wipe her feet before moving.Erik ushered her into his sitting room, where he received her on the couch, or rather was she receiving him? They both sat down simultaneously, avoiding eye contact with the other. Erik’s mouth flapped open like a fish struggling to breathe.“Tea,” he finally managed to say, rising to his feet once again. “I shall go make us some tea.”Christine nodded, folding her hands in her lap and gazing quite intently on her fingers. Erik scurried away from her, eager to stay in her presence, but needing to leave lest he suffocate on his emotions.

He placed his cast iron kettle on the stove and strummed his fingers impatiently against his arm. “What does she want?” He asked of himself, trying to think. “Why is she here?” His nervous energy leaked out from every limb, and he tapped his foot, anxious to return, dreading conversation.“She missed you,” a quiet voice said from the door frame of the kitchen.Erik tensed and whipped around to find Christine shyly clutching the wood frame. His hands clawed reflexively at her interruption. Every bone in his body screamed at him to rush to her, to wrap his arms around her, to make her feel sheltered and secure, but it was not his place to do so. He was not meant to have a happy ending.His breathing was heavy, but snapped out of his hopefulness. “Do not be ridiculous, Christine.” He turned his back to her to avoid her timid, yet fervent gaze and busied himself with a tin case full of loose leaf black tea. “You should not even be here. Why are you not with your young man, off singing high praises of the North in a blustery white-”

“Raoul left,” she said quietly, taking a step closer to Erik. He kept his back to her all the same. “His deployment to the North Pole was unavoidable.” Christine fiddled with her fingers as she searched for the words to explain her situation. “He begged me to accompany him, but I- that is to say, I could not-” she sighed, “I do not want to stop singing.” Erik turned toward her and listened intently to her plea as she continued. “He is afforded more freedom with his choices due to his family and his title, but I… I cannot ignore my music. It grounds me and yet, it makes me soar to levels I never thought I could reach.” Christine gesticulated with her hands to convey her meaning, “It beckons my very soul, I cannot… I cannot ignore it because it threatens to consume me.”

She looked pleadingly at Erik, begging him to understand her, but she could not hold his gaze very long. “I suppose I cannot articulate myself well enough,” she mumbled, hugging her arms around herself, “I thought, perhaps, that you-”

“I do.”Christine smiled hopefully, but the hesitancy in Erik’s voice froze her to her spot. “-but…?” “-but you should not be down here,” he told her firmly. “You can sing your haunting melodies in the North, Christine. Show the world your heavenly voice filled with,” his voice cracked ever so slightly, “love for your boy. It would be enough to know you are happy and safe from the monsters that once terrorized you.”

Her eyes were downcast once more and she hugged her arms closer to her body. “Yes, I love him,” she stated, as though convincing herself that were true, “but that love is more of a comfortable love. The love for a playmate; for a friend.” She looked up toward the ceiling with a wistful smile, “I suppose he really was my first love… But,” she looked back to Erik, “-music is my true love. He cannot give me that.”Erik straightened up to his full, intimidating height, his masked face unreadable. “Why are you here, Christine?”

She took a tentative step closer to him. “I told you, I missed you. I miss the companion I once had whom I could bare my soul to and who would raise me to new heights I never dreamed possible.”“You miss a lie,” he hissed, turning his back to her once again, unable to look at her. “Need I remind you that your Ange d’musique is nothing more than a series of falsehoods I crafted? Deceptions that I lay so that I could-” his long hands balled up in fists, and he could not continue.The kettle on the stove started to rumble from the internal bubbling. “I am fully aware of your actions,” Christine retorted, a bit more sharply than she had intended, “but that does not mean we cannot begin again.” She gently placed her hand on his shoulder. Erik’s entire body flinched, but he did not brush it away. “We can try again, Erik.”

She stood expectantly for his response. He remained silent.“Erik? It doesn’t have to be like-”“You were supposed to kill everyone,” he choked out, his voice strangely strangled. “You were supposed to kill me and everyone else. I wanted you to kill me, to end this suffering I feel whenever your very presence is near me. The agony of knowing I could never be yours-”

Christine withdrew her hand as if it were burnt physically, and not just be the shame of his words. Erik gripped the edge of his countertop, tension coiling through his back.“-it is more than I can bear. Do not try and play more games with me, Christine. It will destroy me or, in the process, you as well.”

Their pained silence was deafening. The teapot wavered a little dance on top of its flame, threatening and hot, when it finally began its scream. Christine finally closed the gap between them and slipped her arms under Erik’s in an embrace. He stood rooted to the spot, unable to move from the shock. She held him, pressing herself against his back, her arms not squeezing, but a secure hug.  “Did you not hear me? I miss you. We can try again, with no false pretenses. I want my friend and confident back, my Angel who did not judge me.”Tears streamed down Erik’s face as his body slackened and relaxed. They pooled and collected inside his mask, trickling down under his chin. “Christine, you must be suffering from a case of hysteria,” he muttered, hurriedly dabbing at his eyes with his lithe fingers. “This is madness.” Her body weight shifted to lean against him more and sink against his form. Her head shook. “That which you mistake for madness is but an over-acuteness of the senses. I want to hear you, Erik. To feel you, to see you.”

A strangled cry croaked from Erik’s throat as he gasped from her declaration. Christine released her hold on him and he slowly turned to her. She offered him a soft smile.His eyes searched her face for any deception. When he saw none there, he swallowed the persistent lump in his throat.“I suppose,” he said cautiously, “we could attempt a… proper courtship.”

Christine’s dainty hands slipped into Erik’s long, gentle grip.“Let us begin with a friendship first and foremost,” she said with a sly smile.“Yes, of course,” Erik nodded hurriedly and the tops of his ears bloomed with red as he stared at their entwined hands.“…Erik?”He snapped to attention, not relinquishing her hands quite yet. “Hmmm?”“If you don’t take the kettle off, I will.”

[quotesandscreenshots]

The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky

“Tell me: what is your ultimate desire in life? To be happy? To be famous? Rich? Loved? To live to an advanced age?”

 “Well, to be quite honest—all of the above.” 

“My goodness, you desire so little! Do not content yourself with such modest hopes. Raise your thinking to the level where all living beings desire to be free! You have not transcended personal goals. Your life is that of a separate person, not the life of humanity. Give priority to seeing what is called God face to face, without dying and without fear. When you free yourself of all your afflictions, your unconscious and your subconscious become your allies. You must become your own healer and, thereby, the healer of others’ sickness. You can acquire such spiritual strength that you will not be taken by surprise; demolished; or defeated by misfortune, disasters, or enemies. You can know the whole cosmos, its past, present, and future. In the dimension of dreams, you can learn how to resurrect the dead. You can develop your consciousness to the point that it is able to pass through countless deaths without disintegrating and live as long as the universe. 

“By your simple presence, you can learn to raise the consciousness of any living being. You can teach human beings to use the energy of the divine presence trapped in matter. You can cleanse the planet of industrial filth, speak words that calm dangerous animals, be immune to deadly venoms, and see at a glance into the depths of the heart and soul of a man or woman. You can foresee inevitable events, offer immediate and effective consolation and advice, prevent setbacks from becoming deviations from the path, transform problems into challenges and master them, tame love and hate, enrich yourself without harming others, and become the master of your fortune instead of its slave. You can thrive in poverty without misery or abjection, master the four elements, calm storms, make the sun appear through dense clouds, and bring rain in times of drought. You can learn telepathy, healing at a distance, and being in several places at the same time. No doubt, these and so many other things seem fantastic to you at the moment, but if you take the trouble, you will succeed in attaining them, little by little.” 

“Reyna, you are telling me fairy tales! Such goals are 100 percent utopian—and even if they were true, what is the first step on this path?” 

“Whoever wishes to attain the supreme goal must first change his habits, conquer laziness, and become a morally sound human being. To be strong in the great things, we must also be strong in the small ones.” 

“How?” 

“We have been badly educated. We live in a world of competition in which honesty is synonymous with naïveté. We must first develop good habits. Some of them may seem simple, but they are very difficult to realize. Believing them to be obvious, we fail to see that they are the key to immortal consciousness. Now I shall offer you a dictation of the commandments that my blessed father taught me:

“Ground your attention on yourself. Be conscious at every moment of what you are thinking, sensing, feeling, desiring, and doing. Always finish what you have begun. Whatever you are doing, do it as well as possible. Do not become attached to anything that can destroy you in the course of time. Develop your generosity—but secretly. Treat everyone as if he or she was a close relative. Organize what you have disorganized. Learn to receive and give thanks for every gift. Stop defining yourself. Do not lie or steal, for you lie to yourself and steal from yourself. Help your neighbor, but do not make him dependent. Do not encourage others to imitate you. Make work plans and accomplish them. Do not take up too much space. Make no useless movements or sounds. If you lack faith, pretend to have it. Do not allow yourself to be impressed by strong personalities. Do not regard anyone or anything as your possession. Share fairly. Do not seduce. Sleep and eat only as much as necessary. Do not speak of your personal problems. Do not express judgment or criticism when you are ignorant of most of the factors involved. Do not establish useless friendships. Do not follow fashions. Do not sell yourself. Respect contracts you have signed. Be on time. Never envy the luck or success of anyone. Say no more than necessary. Do not think of the profits your work will engender. Never threaten anyone. Keep your promises. In any discussion, put yourself in the other person’s place. Admit that someone else may be superior to you. Do not eliminate, but transmute. Conquer your fears, for each of them represents a camouflaged desire. Help others to help themselves. Conquer your aversions and come closer to those who inspire rejection in you. Do not react to what others say about you, whether praise or blame. Transform your pride into dignity. Transform your anger into creativity. Transform your greed into respect for beauty. Transform your hate into charity. Neither praise nor insult yourself. Regard what does not belong to you as if it did belong to you. Do not complain. Develop your imagination. Never give orders to gain the satisfaction of being obeyed. Pay for services performed for you. Do not proselytize your work or ideas. Do not try to make others feel for you emotions such as pity, admiration, sympathy, or complicity. Do not try to distinguish yourself by your appearance. Never contradict; instead, be silent. Do not contract debts; acquire and pay immediately. If you offend someone, ask his or her pardon; if you have offended a person publicly, apologize publicly. When you realize you have said something that is mistaken, do not persist in error through pride; instead, immediately retract it. Never defend your old ideas simply because you are the one who expressed them. Do not keep useless objects. Do not adorn yourself with exotic ideas. Do not have your photograph taken with famous people. Justify yourself to no one, and keep your own counsel. Never define yourself by what you possess. Never speak of yourself without considering that you might change. Accept that nothing belongs to you. When someone asks your opinion about something or someone, speak only of his or her qualities. When you become ill, regard your illness as your teacher, not as something to be hated. Look directly, and do not hide yourself. Do not forget your dead, but accord them a limited place and do not allow them to invade your life. Wherever you live, always find a space that you devote to the sacred. When you perform a service, make your effort inconspicuous. If you decide to work to help others, do it with pleasure. If you are hesitating between doing and not doing, take the risk of doing. Do not try to be everything to your spouse; accept that there are things that you cannot give him or her but which others can. When someone is speaking to an interested audience, do not contradict that person and steal his or her audience. Live on money you have earned. Never brag about amorous adventures. Never glorify your weaknesses. Never visit someone only to pass the time. Obtain things in order to share them. If you are meditating and a devil appears, make the devil meditate too.”

[satoshi-mochida]

Archetype Arcadia for PS5, PS4, and Switch coming west on October 24

Gematsu Source

PQube will release visual novel Archetype Arcadia for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Switch on October 24 in the west, the publisher announced.

Archetype Arcadia first launched for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Switch on October 21, 2021 in Japan, followed by PC via Steam on January 24, 2022, and iOS and Android on July 1, 2022.

Here is an overview of the game, via PQube:

A deadly disease has wiped out most of humanity causing nightmares, manic episodes, and eventually death. Take on the role of Rust, an older brother and one of the few remaining humans that must step into a virtual reality-world where the answers to the missing populace and the disease that caused it, seem to lie.

A Dark Science-Fiction Story – Take on the role of a brother desperate to save his sister afflicted with a deadly disease, across eight nail-biting chapters.

​​Vibrant Artwork – Step into a post-apocalyptic world brought to life with striking artwork that makes the experience truly immersive.

Experience the Story Through Different Lenses – See the story’s events unfold through different peoples perspectives. Piece together different parts of the bigger picture. Is our main character a reliable narrator, or can he too be mistaken?

Powerful Memories – Memories become powerful weapons in this Virtual World. Experience tragic and moving moments of the past in order to battle onwards.

Gruesome Boss Battles – Bosses hold special memory cards which pave a path to Rust’s answers, but their overwhelming power may prove challenging to defeat!

Key Choices – There are many options to choose from, each leading to different outcomes, but beware of the Bad Endings!

Archetype Arcadia is a dynamic visual novel set in a post-apocalyptic world where a mysterious disease called “Original Sindrome” plagues its victims. The story revolves around the protagonist, Rust, and his sister Kristin, as they enter the game “Archetype Arcadia” in search of a cure for the disease. Those affected by “Original Sindrome” suffer from insanity, sensory illusions, and uncontrollable urges.​

Gaming Saves Lives

Survival is the ultimate goal for everyone, and the game “Archetype Arcadia” offers a unique solution. By wearing the game device, players can utilize powerful memories and corresponding avatars to fight within “Archetype Arcadia” against the blight. While this virtual existence prolongs life, it also carries severe consequences.

Dark and unexpected events can occur within the game world that affects the world outside of it. Do your best to avoid adding to the worlds despair but making the right choices.

Only a Fool’s Hope

Shrouded in mystery and false hope, Archetype Arcadia blends elements of joy, pain, and betrayal in a dark and compelling narrative that will have you glued to your screen.

See scenarios through different perspectives to understand what others are going through, and jump into flashbacks and see the past as it was before the “Original Sindrome” took hold. Use these happier memories to fight against the darkness and try to save Kristin.

Vibrant and Striking Artwork

Experience exciting scenes with bold art that captures the vital moments in the story. Through bold and moving imagery, experience the emotions of the characters, and truly step into the world to battle alongside them. Fight terrifying monsters upfront, and witness moving friendships unfold before your eyes.

Watch the announcement trailer below. View a new set of screenshots at the gallery.

Announce Trailer

[hsj-scenarios]

In Aeturnum: Chapter Zero⎜AU, Chapter 1 of ???⎜Song Inspo: “The Elixir of Life” by Peter Gundry

Chapter Zero: Sympathy for the Devil Pt. 1 ( main storyline )

Hello readers! This part of the Chapter Zero series focuses heavily on Ryosuke and won’t mention the reader until the next chapter. It just got too long and I had to cut the part where the reader comes in. I also want to point out that even though in the aesthetic picture Ryosuke is fully grown, in most of this chapter (until the end) he appears as a teenager because he actually is the equivalent of a teenager in vampiric years for this. So, think of Scrap Teacher era Ryosuke. This chapter also has a mention of self harm, so be warned. Other than that, please enjoy this next edition of Chapter Zero! -- Mod L

He was one of the first in a series of unfortunate cases. An epidemic.

It was right around the time that he was born, the plague began. Vampires, whose bloodlines had been watered down by human blood, had begun to weaken. Their bodies would age faster and they would die just as quickly, their still beating hearts not the only bodily organ weak to the material known as silver. In his mother’s journal, the woman wrote about the days of his infancy. About how he was susceptible to the cold, weak to hot weather, and how his skin would flush red if her favorite silver necklace so much as touched his delicate cheeks. It was as if he were a mixture of both human and vampire traits, unheard of before if one wasn’t a dhampyr.

He was one of many cases among the few children born to their small village of vampires and dhampyr. The vampire bloodline was growing weak. A plague was coming.

Ryosuke had been part of a budding generation afflicted by it.

It was told to him that he’d had one more sibling, a brother, much older and in adolescence by the time that he came into the world. And, while Ryosuke was in his first few years of living, that brother ventured away from the village on his own in an act of rebellion. In the journal, his mother wrote about how her husband went into the night to find their eldest child. It was two days and three nights before the man came back with their son’s limp body in his arms. To give the boy a burial close to home, his father said. In the young vampire’s chest had been an imprint, the sign of a silver dagger to the chest. Vampire hunters. However, back then, it was the one and only way to kill a vampire.

For their second son, things wouldn’t be so black and white.

He remembered being coddled by his parents. Never allowed to leave his village. It was the same for many other children; few they were, as vampires never had an easy time conceiving. For the longest, Ryosuke had thought it was merely because his father was the head of their village. He was privileged and cloistered, having no need for the outside world when all of the comforts he would ever need were in his own home. So, he’d never thought much of his life of isolation.

His family and the village were all that he needed.

As a vampire child, life passed one by in the blink of an eye. Fifty years of ignorant bliss went by before he truly became conscious of the world around him. Still so very young, appearing the age of a ten year old human child, one of his first and clearest memories was of the day that they came. The vampire hunters. It seemed as if word of the fairly small village of vampires spread around to the humans, and the weakened generation made it a prime opportunity for them to attack. It was the start of an aggressive eradication of vampires, strong and weak alike.

They killed every vampire and dhampyr found. Men, women, child, there was no beast spared from their blade. Bodies fell that day, those of vampire and human alike. The number of hunters were too high, accumulated and trained thoroughly over the years. And, they would soon only increase. Especially with the knowledge that vampires were growing weaker as time went on.

No one in the already small village was left to spare. At least, that is what the hunters believed. In a memory of the time, Ryosuke could recall being locked in the cellar, frightened and alone as he tried his best to push the door open. It was never so hard to budge before, and the lock was already picked by him moments prior. He hadn’t known it was because his mother’s body laid lifeless and heavy on the wood, her last attempt at sparing his life was giving her own and taking that of the hunter who laid not too far away. Upon freedom from the makeshift sanctuary, he had learned the truth and so much more.

Through everything, he cried. Newly alone in the world, the boy couldn’t quite feel grateful for being alive. He cursed the hunters and even cursed his mother for protecting him so. At the discovery of his burned down village and slaughtered people, he wanted to join them in death. He wanted to follow them, but in naivety and grief the boy could only pour his emotions out in the form of tears.

Among the ashes and blistered wood of fallen homes, he hadn’t known what drew him to the body of a fallen man at first. Headless and bloodied. Upon crouching beside it, Ryosuke had known in an instant that the man was his father. Call it vampiric instinct or familial love, but he knew. After that, for whatever reason, trauma or an acceptance of reality, his cheeks soon dried in the moments that followed. It was the point where his memory began to get blurred, only knowing that he had finally wandered away from the village on his own right after. The land was desolate and without loved ones to keep him safe. There was no longer a reason to stay.

He was alone.

It was fate’s cruel kindness that led humans to find and take him in.

Since the day of his village’s -- his family’s -- slaughter, Ryosuke could never find himself truly happy. It wasn’t an act of defiance nor even a choice on his end, life just never seemed colorful to the growing pureblood. Perhaps that was why he allowed himself to be captured by the human couple, who thought him to be an orphan. Which he was. They had taken in what they believed to be a normal child in their care.

They would never notice the hint of his slowly but surely growing fangs, hidden behind the frowning lips of a boy that rarely spoke. He was traumatized, they assumed. And, they would be right in such an assumption. Years would pass and the boy became known around that human town as gloomy and depressing to speak with. Yet, the humans that took it upon themselves to be his new parents raised him with patience and care.

“What an odd child they have.” Those around the town would whisper their gossip.

“He’s so eerily quiet. Whenever he comes around my dog starts barking like crazy.”

“Won’t play with the other children either. Perhaps he’s touched in the head.”

To him, they were simply fleeting company in a world that would leave him alone again. They were humans, after all. Ryosuke had never fancied himself a human hater, yet these were the same race of people that took his parents away. The race that hunters came from. It was never in his plan to stay with them for long. It was only a matter of time before they would realize that he aged far too slowly, at any rate.

“Ryosuke, dearest, why won’t you go out and play with the other children?” His human ‘mother’ asked one day. Cursed to be barren, she was especially doting to the boy luck blessed her to find. “Sooner or later you’ll have to make friends in the village.”

The young boy wanted to point out the obvious. That he was stronger than the other children. There was a chance that he could accidentally hurt them. He was faster, and slowing himself down would be a boring burden on himself for the sake of a people he thought of as no more than prey previously. Not to mention, Ryosuke could not afford to stay within the village long enough for any lasting friendship to be worth striving for. It was trivial to even try.

Instead, the child’s face would scrunch every time that question was posed. He would shake his head, purse his lips, and give the usual excuse that crossed his mind. “I don’t like playing outside much...Could I go help father?” Ryosuke would mumble, the unmeant word ‘father’ a squeak in his throat.

The man who adopted him was the village physician. It was often that Ryosuke would spend his days just watching the man work in his makeshift laboratory in the backroom of the home, lending a hand here and there. As much as he would allow a young child to do. It was more entertaining to learn something than to play among children he would eventually forgot, so the boy often opted for this to pass the time.

And, like usual, his human mother would agree; worry over his social life overcome by pride in his following her husband’s footsteps. With a smile and pat on the head, she would send him off to the back without any argument. Still, his successful trickery brought the boy no joy.

It was uncomfortable being there, being around humans who would die off before he even finished coming of age. It was a burden knowing that he was such a big part of their lives, especially as their ‘only child’, but they would only be a severely small part of his own.

He left them nearly four years into his stay. And, even that was a stretch. The vampire appeared the human age of ten at the time they had taken him, and the same when he had gone from them. Questions had begun to rise and be vocalized to the couple, who in turn also became curious despite adamantly assuring everyone he was just youthful in looks.

Ryosuke began to notice more medical books strewed around the house. Bookmarked pages that outlined diseases that kept humans looking like children. Diseases that he certainly did not have, but would be tested for eventually. It was only a matter of time before vampirism was brought up. It was long time for him to go. He had escaped during the night, when both were asleep in their bed.

It was a pain to carry out, and not simply for the inconvenience of it all. Ryosuke had regretted letting himself become caught by the two who just wanted to be his parents. It was an unnecessary chapter in both of their lives. And, through it, they caused him to look upon humans in a different light.

They ‘humanized’ him, to an extent. More than he liked. During his time in the human village, he would venture off and hunt for animals to drink from instead of humans. In that span of three years, he hadn’t drank of human blood once. It was too dangerous to try and seek a target out. He had never even done so by himself before, his true mother and father always providing the hunted for him. He felt like one of them, getting nutrients off animals just as they did with their human meals of hunted venison, pheasant, and other animals that they caught themselves.

His mind, still maturing, emphasized with them and saw them as living beings that functioned just as vampires did. Humans were a rarely talked about subject in vampires clans when it didn’t come to hunting or hunters, so his knowledge and consideration of them was little beforehand.

The intelligent vampire in him felt thankful to them for broadening his mind, while the child that he still was also so very thankful to them for making him feel like a beloved kid again. They found him when his own parents were slaughtered not long ago. How could he not relish in some sort of parental comfort again? Even if it was from the rival species.

Yet, he felt sad for them. The couple. While he took away positives, they only lost a child that meant something to them. His chapter was neutral, positive at best about what he had taken out of this experience. However, they would only take sadness from this. Their ‘child’ was gone, escaped from them into the unknown night.

I’m sorry. He would forever internally apologize to them.

This was how it had to be. This was why it was a pain to leave. If he had just never allowed himself to be found by them in the first place, it would never have to be done. Maybe by now, if he did choose to escape them, he would be used to being alone. Because the loneliness hurt the most. It was as if his family had gotten murdered all over again, tears fresh in the boy’s eyes as he wandered the night and racked his mind on where to go next. No places came to mind, of course. He just had to wing it from there on. Then, a twisted thought crossed his mind.

Maybe he should find another human family.

Nearly thirty-five years passed and Ryosuke aged to eighty-nine years. He’d spent years roaming on his own, finding human families that he spent no more than three or four years with, finding vampires yet never being welcomed in their small clans. The stench of human was too ripe on him, they’d say.

Such a life of forming short bonds, only to leave, and the sting of rejection was beginning to take a toll on his mind. Perhaps it was actually his budding adolescent emotions starting to show. Physically aged to the looks of a human teenager, he speculated it was a peak time in vampiric adolescence -- as if the mood swings weren’t sign enough.

No matter the origin, however, life was beginning to become slower and harder by the day. His loneliness was growing. His agitation with his loneliness was growing. He could no longer trust himself to behave normally around any humans, leaving the lifestyle of family hopping behind decades ago. The smallest things would cause him to grow angry, depressed, and anything in between.

It grew to the point where he would keep a silver dagger of his own handy, wrapped up in cloth that he would unravel every now and then. It made him feel grounded. He would unravel and hold the blade in his hand by the hilt, also made of silver material. His palm would burn, fingers turning just as red as his cheeks would where his mother’s necklace touched. On and off, he did this for what he thought was an odd comfort.

In times like that, he loosely contemplated death. Bartering with himself on whether life was worth living or not. Was that his adolescence speaking or the loneliness within himself? His mind came to no solid conclusions, feeling empty without any cohesive thoughts. All that he felt was dread, the dwindling hope of finding happiness again the growing vampire’s only driving factor.

Such became so habitual that a permanent scar surfaced on his palm, no longer fading back to pink skin but darkening to a shade of dark purples before finally becoming a faded brown. It left his skin marred, but Ryosuke couldn’t find himself to be saddened with the change. Quite the opposite, it stirred a long lost feeling of excitement within him. It made him feel alive. So, the behavior continued to his heart’s content.

Until, one day.

“The fuck are you doing, kid?!” Someone caught him with the dagger one moonlit evening.

On the grass, surrounded by what he thought was the security of a secluded forest, he sat under an oak tree. His bag of belongings served as a cushion between him and the hard oak, trusty dagger in palm. He hadn’t noticed the presence of another before it was too late; the young pureblood grabbed by the collar as an alarmed gasp left him. Ryosuke promptly dropped his weapon to reach for the foreign hands.

The stranger raised him to his feet before loosening the tight grip, allowing Ryosuke to take a good look at who his assailant was. He let out a noise of complaint, eyes glaring at the man who studied him with a stern expression. He was a little older, not much taller, and not to mention scrawny as all hell. It made the pureblood wonder how on earth the man could even raise him from the ground at all. A growing vampire he was, Ryosuke was still on the burlier side. At least, slightly. The only explanation was one; that this man was another vampire. He looked much older than Ryosuke too, appearing to be in his late twenties.

And, by the faint yet pleasant smell of him, he was another pureblood.

Ryosuke huffed in annoyance and tore his eyes from the other, moving away in a quick motion to pick up the dagger. The other vampire was faster, however, snatching up the weapon before he could even get close to it. A taunting smile was given to him, done more in lighthearted jest than anything malicious, but Ryosuke still didn’t have it in him to give any other reaction than passive agitation.

“Tch,” The young vampire raised an eyebrow before finally sparing the elder another glance. He made no move to get the weapon back, purposefully taking the situation less seriously than he should’ve. He was likely in the other vampire’s territory, a usual story. It was a secluded forest, yes, but that was a hideout of choice for small vampire clans. The land was just so vast that Ryosuke had thought he’d have met any vampires that lived there long ago. “Go ahead, take it, but I’m not hostile.” Was all he spared the other, already tired of talking from those few words. The depression that had been weighing on his mind was heavy, too heavy to deal with a potential scuffle -- especially with a vampire more experienced.

The lanky vampire’s smile faded, likely finding Ryosuke’s compliant behavior strange. It was then that he truly took a good look at the younger, taking in his apathetic aura, dirtied skin, and ratty clothes. Signs of a vampire without a clan to look after him, signs of a vampire not knowledgeable enough of the world to live on his own. “I’m wondering why some brat is alone in my woods hurting himself,” The vampire began, twirling the blade in his hand to point the hilt at Ryosuke accusingly. “That’s not normal. Somethin’ wrong with you in the head?”

Ryosuke quickly reached for the dagger, only to have it pulled away once again. Clenching his fists, he still did nothing more against the elder vampire; save for giving a half-hearted glare. Even if he wanted to, he didn’t think he could take on the other. Not when a silver dagger did nothing to the man’s skin. Not a tinge of pink or red showed beneath the silver of the knife.

Despite his previous ministrations, it made him feel jealous.

Such a sign signaled a much stronger vampire, similar to his parents. A vampire that he was destined to be weaker than. A fate determined by birth. This vampire had to be older by several centuries.

Could he perhaps be...a true vampire?

No. He couldn’t be, they were likely long gone. His own parents were one of the few left.

Face marred with a frown, Ryosuke’s look was almost one of envy as he turned away from the other to leave. “Keep it.” His hand waved lazily, giving up all together before the vampire’s voice halted his retreating steps.

“Hold on a second.”

He turned back, seeing the vampire wave him over with his own lazy hand. The young pureblood paused before adhering to the elder, figuring that he had nothing better to do and no where good to go in the first place. He had a makeshift home that he’d built and would venture back to, but sometimes going back there proved more taxing on his mind than traveling. It was a constant reminder that he was alone. Vampires always lived amongst each other, they were never meant to live alone.

“Yeah?” The boy asked, sparing a few moments more for the seemingly docile vampire. Others would sooner chase him out of their territory than talk to him civilly.

“You don’t have anywhere to go, do you?”

Not turning back to fully face the man, Ryosuke merely eyed him suspiciously.

The man had no problem waiting for him to speak before finally growing impatient. “I asked you a question, kid.” He rolled his eyes. “Do you have a clan or not? You’re looking pretty beat up. Not exactly the time to be proud or anything.”

Ryosuke’s eyes shot to the ground, knowing the other’s words to be true, before coming up once again. “No,” His voice was weaker than before. “I don’t have anything.” The admittance should’ve been easy, this having been his reality for over twenty years, but it was still his life. He was alone and had been for a long time. It wasn’t an easy or good life. Vampires shunned him, never being kind to those not born in their clan and especially careful of vampires in unpredictable adolescence. Humans would fear him and he lived constantly on edge of running into, or being hunted by, vampire hunters. No, life was not good on his own and it took a toll on him.

The vampire gave him one more once over, seeming to think on something before he tilted his head in a ‘come here’ motion. “Let’s go then. You can come with me to my clan.” It was easy as that.

It took Ryosuke’s mind a good minute to process the elder’s words, his brooding glare soon turning into a stunned blink. He couldn’t have heard right. “...Huh?” The boy questioned, now fully turning his body to face the other. “Did--...What?”

“It’s alright,” The elder vampire couldn’t help but laugh at the change in his demeanor. “In my clan, we don’t mind taking in younger ones like you. While everyone else is scared, we want to help you. Someone’s got to take you troublemakers in. Now, come on.” He didn’t wait for another answer from Ryosuke, turning on his heel with the dagger in hand.

Hesitation halted the young vampire’s steps for a second. But, it was merely that; a second.

The elder vampire, Nino was what they called him, had taken Ryosuke to a castle located further into the shrouded forest. So dense, maze-like, and tall was the forest that he would never have found the six story tall residence on his own. Though he couldn’t say that the gloomy castle felt more welcoming than his natal village, it was a home that was being extended to him. It caused the young vampire to feel in a way that even the humans never rose from him. Not when he knew that he’d have to leave them someday. Here, he wouldn’t have to leave nor fear them dying before him. This place gave him a glimpse of hope.

This was a place truly meant for his kind. He wouldn’t be alone.

The young vampire tried not to cry all through the tour of the castle, passing by several other clansmen. Some ignored him, but a select few smiled and welcomed him. He tried to remember their faces. There weren’t so many kind smiles that greeted him since he was a child.

The tears finally let loose once Nino showed him to his room and impatiently told him to go clean up. Ryosuke’s lips pressed together and his head lowered in a prideful attempt to keep the other from seeing, but Nino saw. With a brief pat to the shoulder, the elder vampire turned to leave the younger to his own devices. The dagger was still held tightly in Nino’s hand. Ryosuke would never see it again.

“It’ll get better from here.” Was all the man said before he left the room.

His ease into the clan was slow and cautious. Being around others of his kind for such an extended period of time took a while for him to adjust to, used to the fleeting moments of people coming in and out of his life. Vampires and humans alike.

Ryosuke had come to find out that there were plenty of members in the large clan, and it took him a good week to meet all of them. They seemed to pop out of the woodworks. Whenever he thought he’d met everyone, someone else seemed to come right around the corner.

It was lively there. And, he loved it.

“Waaaahhhhhh!”

The growing vampire had been sitting idle on the parlor couch, book in hand, when the ear wrenching noise was heard. Ryosuke didn’t have to look far to see who it was, as said person had lain themselves right on the wooden floor in front of him. Dramatically, might he add. The other members in the common room, save for a few, went on about their business as if nothing was wrong. And, truly, nothing was wrong. It was just another result of adolescence, causing outbursts such as this. And, no one could cause an outburst like Mayu, the vampire that had fallen. She had a reputation of being the worst able to control her adolescence. He only remembered her because she was one of the kind faces that greeted him in the beginning.

And, obviously, because she was known for having fits like this.

Blinking in disbelief, Ryosuke had to remind himself to get used to times like this. “Mayu,” He dared to call her name. “Are you alright?” It seemed as good a time as any to ask, right?

“Too cute...” Head held down in the crook of her arm, Mayu made no move to get up as she mumbled the words. Her voice indicated distress, but her words told otherwise.

He was afraid to go on. “Eh?”

She only whined before slowly picking herself up from the floor. “Rino is too cute today.” The vampire he knew as Mayu finished, looking absolutely heartbroken. “She made a flower crown and was wearing it in the garden. She offered to make me one....but, I ran away!” Cue the loud sobbing as Mayu promptly sat herself on the couch next to him, hands rubbing at her falling tears.

“Oh,” Ryosuke, trying to be friendly, couldn’t pry more words from himself at the trivial confession. Having love interests and the like were already something he didn’t much relate to. There was a girl back in his natal village that he had a crush on, but that was so long ago and just a childish thing. Even then, he had guts enough to talk to her; making him relate to Mayu even less. “Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?” He went on and spoke his thoughts.

She stopped crying for long enough to send him a curt look, somehow offended. “I can’t just do that!” Mayu said, giving a hard sigh. “She likes someone else, someone not like me at all. I have no chance...You wouldn’t understand.”

Ryosuke’s eyebrows raised, wondering what Mayu meant by not like her. Honestly, he didn’t know her well enough to give it any real thought and decided to simply agreed with her instead. “Ah, sure...” He nodded his head hesitantly. A figure heading over to them took the rest of his attention, eyes moving to see one of the older vampires in the clan. Well, slightly older. It was Kota, another vampire who made it a point to be friendly with Ryosuke since his first day.

“Are you two alright?” Kota asked, giving one of his usual eye smiles. It was a bit needless to ask Mayu was she alright, because she almost never was, but Kota was just the type of person to always hear someone out. He was a sort of brother figure to the younger ones in the clan, even though he could be silly himself at times.

Ryosuke answered for the both of them. “We’re fine, Mayu was just venting to me.” He shot a glance to the other, only to realize that she had been glaring at some guy seated next to his friends by the fire. Ryosuke couldn’t remember his name, however. Sengo? Senga? Either way, Mayu wasn’t planning to answer Kota herself at the moment. “Uh, did you need something?” He turned his attention back to the other, a sheepish smile apparent.

The older boy nodded, motioning with a hand for Ryosuke to stand up. “Yep, it’s time for your medicine. Sho and the others are waiting.” He referenced to Sho, one of the eldest and founding members of the clan. Taking a moment to look at Mayu, Kota tried to get through to her. “Are you sure you’re alright, Mayu?”

“Mm.” Mayu only grunted her response like the teenage vampire she was, feet kicking ever so slightly while she sat.

The two boys exchanged a look. Whether that was a ‘girls will be girls’ or an ‘adolescent vampires will be adolescent vampires’ look, one could only guess. Ryosuke followed close behind Kota, leaving the lively parlor and into the candlelit hallways.

“How are you liking it here?” The older sparked some conversation.

It had been a month since Nino had taken Ryosuke into the clan, so it was well long enough for him to form an opinion of the place. “Well, I never expected to live in a castle...” The words slipped from his mouth before he realized, too busy taking in the tall corridors of the hall. He wasn’t too concerned about it, however, being truthful.

Kota laughed. “That’s one perk, I guess. I’ve been here pretty long, so I kind of forget how big this place is. For anyone new, I’m sure it’s really surprising, huh? It was the same for me in the past.” A couple of younger vampires ran past them, playing tag and giggling among themselves. “I know we have our fair share of...interesting vamps.” He eluded back to Mayu. “But, it’s only a part of growing up. They don’t stay this way forever. Soon enough, they’ll become more tame versions of what you see now. Their real selves, you can say.”

Ryosuke couldn’t say much on the topic, or even speak out and say anything against Mayu. He was going through the same, yet better at keeping it to himself. At least, now he was. After all, the time where Nino found him in the forest wasn’t lost to him; having happened such a short time ago. His emotions were unstable then too, making him toy with his body to just feel something. Anything. The medication that they gave at this clan helped treat that, and he was grateful to them for that. He was grateful to Nino for that.

It seemed as if Kota read his mind, for the topic of said vampire came up. “Nino speaks highly of you. He said you’re pretty agile and strong. Well, from what he saw when you sparred with the others during exercises.” A thought seemed to pass his mind. “He said it passing, but it’s pretty rare to get a compliment out of him. I’d be happy with that.”

Ryosuke’s eyes perked up, eyebrows raised. Though grateful he was, he hadn’t quite gotten the opportunity to see Nino very much. It was both a mixture of his own shyness, waiting for the elder to approach him, and for the pure fact that Nino himself was elusive. Many in the clan said if he wasn’t among his fellow elder vampires, then he was likely holed up in his room. It was hard to keep up with a person like that. “Oh?” He said dumbly before a little smile crinkled his lips. “I can’t tell myself. Being around vampires and training with you guys is pretty new to me. Compared to another vampire, I don’t know if I’m above or below average.”

A confused look was sent his way. “Really? No one else sparred with you before you came here?” Kota had to ask, confusion marking his sharp features.

Ryosuke shrugged, trying to word his sentences well. “I...” He hesitated. “I pretty much grew up by myself, hopping to and from whatever human family would be fooled enough to take me in. Humans don’t usually spar, at least not without weapons. And, if there weren’t weapons, then it would be unfair to whoever I fought.” The pureblood stared down at the palms of his hands as he walked, reminded of how different he was. From vampires and humans both.

The older vampire said nothing, maybe searching in his own head for where he could take the conversation next. Ryosuke didn’t sense pity from him, but instead Kota’s own cautious nature. The other seemed to sense how sensitive this topic was getting, and wanted to steer away from it for the younger’s sake.

They silently passed the entryway to the girls’ dorm, not a few steps past before a startled gasp caused Ryosuke’s head to turn and search for the source. Standing there was a girl who seemed around his age, a short, black, bob and childish eyes donning her features. She wasted no time in hurrying over to him -- only for her fingers to meet his cheeks in a pinch.

“Uwa! Kota, look at his cheeks!” She gushed, laughing at the incredulous expression that just crossed Ryosuke’s face. “He’s so adorable! I’ve never seen him around before though. He’s new, right?”

“Masaki, no!” The darkening face of said new vampire not going under his sight, Kota gave a nervous chuckle before reaching to pull away this so called ‘Masaki’ girl away from Ryosuke.

She gave no fight, an oblivious smile that matched the airy glint in her eyes. “I’m just saying...” Masaki gave a slight bow of apology that she might or might not have meant, Ryosuke couldn’t be sure.

What a brat...

The offended vampire rubbed his cheek, somewhat annoyed. Back when he lived with humans, at least one person in the family would mention his pudgy cheeks. He was slowly growing out of them, features becoming more gaunt with age, but he couldn’t be surprised. The perpetrator had never been another vampire, however.

Honestly, Ryosuke wanted to say something. Maybe give a sharp quip to the rude girl or maybe even look past what she did and properly greet her. Be the bigger person. However, his annoyance just seemed to grow by the second before becoming the burning spark of anger. It was more than the situation called for and it he knew it. Why couldn’t he have found something like this funny instead? Or even just embarrassing? He was angry at himself, just hearing of what a good vampire he was.

Nino wouldn’t be proud of this. He thought with a growing frown.

Annoying. The word rang in his head like a horn. Kota said something to Masaki that he couldn’t catch, too deep into his own thoughts. He was in such a good mood, even Mayu didn’t get on his nerves that day, then this kid comes along. Annoying. Before he knew it, the area went quiet and it was only then that the boy realized he was giving Masaki a hard glare; catching the attention of even Kota. Ryosuke cast his eyes down to the floor, knowing that it was his adolescence causing the irrational spark in his emotions.

Masaki allowed a confused look to pass her features before the smile came back. “Uh oh, it’s time for someone’s medicine!” She teased.

Gods take him now. Ryosuke wasted no more time in sharply brushing pass her onward, so quickly that he could feel the self-induced breeze at his skin. Shoulders just barely touching, Masaki moved back abruptly in paranoia of being collided with, the short heels of her white boots resounding on the stone floor. It made him almost want to apologize for the brusque gesture. Almost. In the short distance, he heard Kota give a dubious farewell to the girl before the older vampire finally caught up with his stride.

“Uh, sorry about that. She’s just--” Kota tried to explain.

“Don’t worry about it.” Ryosuke dismissed the topic all together, just wanting to get his medicine and get it fast. It was likely the same thing that was wrong with Mayu, and himself, and everyone else in this clan. Growing up.

It definitely was lively there.

Finding out the truth behind the medicine was a mistake.

That was hindsight for Ryosuke, wishing now that he had never known about what he clung to so dearly. Back then, he considered it what saved his life. Now, he considered it what ruined his life. The day Nino trusted him with the secret of the clan was the day his life changed forever, in more than one way.

He had been living in the clan for what seemed like around one hundred years. He’d been trying to count, but the years seemed to blur together. There were so many things he knew now that he didn’t know then. He didn’t think that far.

The prefect system had recently been integrated into the clan. It wasn’t enough to just have an eldest vampire, Nino had said. At the time, Nino was only one of the eldest. The ‘power’ was shared between himself and four other elder vampires; Sho, Jun, Aiba, and Satoshi. Satoshi was the eldest. As the eldest, they served as overseers of the clan, but kept things fairly democratic and relaxed. There was no true leader or master, just those with more experience that were respected. As more vampires were inducted into the clan, however, the five felt as if they needed help in managing the growing castle population.

Being an already unofficial supervisor, it was no surprise to anyone that Kota gained the title of prefect. An older girl, Rino, also gained the title. It was decided that there would be two boys and two girls, each in charge of their respective gender’s dorm. Mayu, who had calmed down in recent years gained the second prefect title next to Rino.

Ryosuke was a shoe in for the second prefect title of the boy’s dorm, both having gained the trust of Nino and getting a good word put in by Kota. Throughout the years, he was loyal and proved to have a level head on his shoulders.

He’d come a long way from the boy who Nino found in the woods.

“Me and my friends,” Nino was referring to his fellow elder vampires. He had called Ryosuke into the kitchen one day, which was strange to the younger vampire. Little did he know of the secret corridor that led to the basement, where Nino took him to that day. “We’ve spent years working on this medicine...and, I should probably tell you how it works. Listen,” His eyes were serious, more serious than Ryosuke had ever known Nino to be. He sat at a desk, among several tubes and tomes in what looked to be a makeshift laboratory.

The medicine laid dormant in various containers, ranging from clear flasks to the tiny brown, glass, vials that they were familiar with. He had never known how red the medicine was until now. A rich red, so familiar.

“I don’t know how many times I went through this talk, but you’re the last person I plan to have it with.” Nino continued, a smirk crossing his somber face when he saw Ryosuke’s own expression go panicked. “Calm down, I’m not dying or anything. This cycle has just gone on long enough. I’ve told Kota,” He paused, looking up lazily. “Well, actually, Aiba told Kota by mistake. Anyway! I explained it to Kota, then I told that girl, Rino, then Mayu pretty much found out by mistake. Basically, all of my prefects know this information. And, now, you’ll know it too. Whether or not you want to accept it is up to you, however.” A sigh was given before Nino gave Ryosuke’s figure a studying glance. “But, I think you’ll accept it just fine. At least, I’m hoping so.”

Ryosuke’s hand subconsciously raised, fingers touching his throat at the mention of the medicine. Should he have been afraid of what he was going to hear? Perhaps. It was only outweighed by his trust of Nino. “What did you want to tell me?” He asked, hand relaxing down to his side. At that moment, he had already made the decision on whether to follow Nino or not. Right or wrong. What he wanted next was only an explanation.

For years, the young man’s gratefulness turned into loyalty. Loyalty turned into admiration. Nino, lanky in build and cloistered in personality as he was, had become a figure that Ryosuke grew to look up to. With that came a blind trust. Maybe he was just curious about the medicine. Maybe he was just assured that, whatever it was, it couldn’t be very bad as he still felt fine after taking the medicine for so many years.

Maybe he just wanted to keep Nino’s approval, having it for so many years.

Nino’s smirk died down, a moment of quiet passing before he finally opened his mouth. “The medicine that we give you doesn’t only calm down the symptoms of adolescence. Another affect is that it will make you stop aging, among other things.”

Stop aging...? Ryosuke’s mouth couldn’t form the words, shock racking his system.

Nino shook his head, looking almost ashamed as his gaze went towards the wall. It wasn’t long before he fixed it into an impassive one. “Believe me when I say that I don’t like to lie, okay? It’s just something we’ve had to do since we started this clan...See, you’ve actually been in this clan for three hundred and twenty-three years...I counted.” He tossed a look back. “We just reset your memories every one hundred years to make you believe that you’ve only been here for almost a century -- close to the end of your adolescence. How we do that...How I do that is through a power that true vampires have. It’s called Initiative. With Initiative, if you’re powerful enough, you can control weaker minded vampires and humans to do whatever you wish. You can even alter their memories.”

At this point, he allowed himself to look guilty. Nino’s eyes were full of nothing but apology. “I only use this power when absolutely necessary. Believe me on that. We just wanted to make sure our medicine worked, and how else to do what but make sure you all stay long enough for us to see results.” He paused. “And, you, Ryosuke...You actually haven’t aged a day since you turned two hundred. The medicine is working.”

The vampire still couldn’t bring himself to do more than keep silent, words on the tip of his tongue yet mouth glued shut with awe. Here he was, thinking that he was nearly reaching his two hundredth year. Come to find out, he had not only long passed it, but even his physical body was aged just beyond it. His mind was telling him that he should feel afraid, that he should feel angry, but he didn’t.

This was how it should’ve been all along.

It dawned on him. Not aging equaled immortality, what he should’ve had all along. What his parents had before vampire hunters took their lives prematurely with a silver blade to the heart. What his long dead older brother had before his own life was taken. What fate had decided to take from Ryosuke himself the moment he was born.

Immortality was Ryosuke’s birthright as a pureblood vampire -- and Nino was giving it to him.

Something in the young man’s expression shifted ever so slightly, and Nino seemed to catch it. The elder went on with a more confident tone. “We’ve been working on this formula for years, my friends and I. It’s supposed to restore the powers of vampires, make us how we used to be.” He lifted a smaller vial, taking in the red liquid. “Make you all how we used to be -- true vampires.”

True vampires. That was a topic Ryosuke hadn’t heard of in a long time, but he knew it well. “You want to restore the vampiric bloodline?” It was a rhetorical question, but perhaps he just wanted to hear it again. It made him almost giddy to say, feeling as if the blood in his veins was so much more powerful than moments before.

Wait a minute.

“Nino...” Ryosuke paused, taking a curious step forward in the candlelit basement. Well, laboratory. “What do you mean ‘how we used to be’? It can’t be what I think you mean...”

In his same old passive way, the elder vampire merely grinned and gave a shrug of his shoulders. “Yeah, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking then it’s correct. I am a true vampire.” Another sigh left his lips, the ceiling the new attraction of choice to him currently. “And, you know...You really don’t want to know how long I’ve been on this planet. You really don’t. But, I’m the only one. Sho and the others...they’re not true vampires. And, I can’t tell you where the others I used to know are these days. If they’re anywhere at all. I just have myself, my friends, and this clan. That’s fine by me...It wasn’t even my idea to create this medicine. It was Sho’s, but we’ve all put our minds together to make it what it is today.”

Despite what Nino said, the loneliness radiating from him was palpable. It was a feeling that Ryosuke knew so well, from first knowing it at such a young age until the point where he felt accepted into the clan. In that moment, Nino reminded Ryosuke of how he used to be -- and he wanted nothing more than to help the other however he could.

Mind already set, Ryosuke spoke up. “I understand. I’ll help in whatever way I can.” He swore his loyalty to the elder vampire. It wasn’t just a matter of loyalty to simply Nino at that moment. The cause was one that the pureblood could wholly support. Vampires needed to be restored to what they once were, he firmly believed that.

Or, rather, he firmly wanted that.

However, this is wrong. A voice in the back of his mind chimed that in. A voice that he ignored. No one but the elders and the prefects would know of the true reason behind the medicine. Surely, not everyone would even want eternal life. Vampires everywhere now knew that immortality was gone from them. It stopped with their parents, perhaps even grandparents. They were used to a limited time on earth and more vulnerability to the world. They were more human now. Even he was humanized to an extent, but Ryosuke had always resented that. He didn’t want his time with the clan to sometime end and be sent on his own back into the world. He didn’t want to eventually die off, especially of ‘old age’.

This clan was similar to his natal village, vampires living together. This was how it should be.

Forever, he wanted this to be their own little utopia.

“Can I ask, though,” Ryosuke went on. “What’s in the medicine that restores our powers?”

Nino only gave a wry grin.

“My blood.”

Ending Song: “The Sky is High and the Wind Sings” by Luna Haruna – Lyrics

Non-HSJ Cast List:

Ninomiya Kazunari – Member of Arashi

Matsuoka Mayu – Actress

Sashihara Rino – Member of AKB48

Sato Masaki – Member of Morning Musume

[holistic-muse]

ORTHOPATHY AND HEALING PSYCHOSOCIAL AFFLICTIONS IN MILLENNIAL AND GENERATION Z COHORT GROUPS

UNIVERSITY OF NATURAL HEALTH

ORTHOPATHY AND HEALING PSYCHOSOCIAL AFFLICTIONS IN MILLENNIAL AND GENERATION Z COHORT GROUPS

 by: Dr. Sixto J. Sicilia Marrero, PhD 

 Doctor of Philosophy: HOLISTIC HEALTH AND NUTRITION

July, 2020

  CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION

STATEMENT OF THESIS ARGUMENT

CHAPTER 1: Millennials and Gen Z share a disquieting trend:

    Psychosocial Discord

CHAPTER 2: Holistic Psychosocial Development.

    Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

CHAPTER 3: The Antidote – Orthopathy and Holistic Health

CONCLUSION, ENDNOTES, ATTACHMENTS

 INTRODUCTION

 Throughout history, societal advancements have presented themselves with some type of consequence resulting in a negative outlook or outcome of said advancement. Societies have grappled with changes and have either risen to appreciate the change or fallen into a sense of dismay, or a type of arrested development. This arrested development is a cessation of societal growth that continues until the crisis of advancement or change has been resolved and integrated into the societal norm. For the first time since the evolution of the Homo sapiens we are witness to a segment of society living outside of its norms, of psychosocial developmental conditioning, and its inherent communal environment, that is to say, assimilating maladaptive behaviors causing a range of psychosocial dysfunctions such as irrational anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, depression, and hopelessness.

 Historically communities have been the standard of tribal cohesion for our species. In the beginning tribes of 20 or more people helped each other and took care of each other’s physiological needs as well as providing safety and unity for the tribe. The phenomenon of progress shows that progress has not always favored the expansion and growth of the collective consciousness of a society. In the last one-hundred years, progress has been silently dismantling the cohesion of Community and bolstering ill effects and crisis upon the human psyche. It is here we find the occurrence of psychological afflictions such as anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, depression, and hopelessness are at an all-time high in the history of the United States and other parts of the world. In the United States, these afflictions are particularly affecting the generational groups of Millennials (born roughly between 1981–1996) and Generation Z (1997-2012), at much higher rates than other generations. These two groups share what appears to be a separation from psychosocial developmental norms. These psychosocial developmental norms were instilled by the constant evolution of the human race and subsequently adapted and integrated to develop a functional tribe.

 Progress is defined by Merrian-Webster as “gradual development” or “to develop a higher, better more advanced state.1” Two major pioneering developments introduced that were deviations to the evolved communal standard; communal standard being social tribal interactions, were air conditioning and television. Air conditioning and television offered a novel change to the standard lifestyle, one to the comfort of the home the other to the value of entertainment in the home. These two basic introductions changed the way that we, as Homo sapiens, commune in modern times and relate to each other in everyday affairs. It is noted that up until the introduction of these inventions most of us comingled outside of the home relating to neighbors, sharing experiences, and maintaining a tribal community. Children played outside the home, and certainly were not over-stimulated by man-made technological distractions. Air conditioning, the start of environmentally-controlled environments, and television triggered a departure from traditional communal interaction and entertainment. These technological advances started to reshape the social entertainment landscape, our inherent social communal habits. They altered the manner in which we connect with mind-body thought processes and how we handle the related dysfunctional neurosis that arose from these technological advances. Little was it known at the time that by indulging in the luxury of escaping the heat and humidity within our homes (air conditioning) that the consequences would curtail human interaction and promote behaviors that would alter tribal interactions and catapult society into “retreating into the world within” into our sheltered selves and minds. At about the same time as air conditioning made its debut into the home habitat so did another pioneering invention, the television. At first, the television set presented itself as a form of entertainment enjoyed at communal gatherings of friends, family, and neighbors. People gathered in groups at the homes and at places where there was access to a television set and we negotiated, collaborated, navigated, and discussed. Where in the past we gathered socially in traditional Salon-style, which was “a gathering of notables held by custom at the home of a prominent person,” or a “communal gathering where information was shared upon a group of people,”2 along came the Nuclear family unit. The Nuclear family unit introduced a different type of tribal family group. This new group consisted only of parents and children and excluded the extended family and close friends and acquaintances, a significant variance from earlier times where everyone was included in the function of the tribe. At first, within this novel Nuclear family dynamic, there existed only one television set in the household around which family members would gather in collaboration and negotiation in the relationship of human interaction with the television set. As televisions became more accessible there was a shift away from frequent social interactions; venturing out, and the habitual way in which people got acquainted and stayed in touch. In addition, where there was one television set turned into multiple sets throughout the home and the familial rapport and human exchanges were now less than consequential and slightly less relevant. The beginning of diminishing societal contact within the community and the Nuclear family started what can now be defined as undoing a vital part of the social fabric of the micro and macro human experience. The extended family and the tribe were now not involved in the contractual day to day living and communal interactions. We were starting to witness a decline away from healthy communal interactions and a shift towards the “Me” and away from the “WE.” This shift was the manifestation of human isolation of the psyche, revealing itself as anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, depression, and hopelessness.

 The shift away from community norms continues as technological advancements produce people that are intertwined with Artificial Intelligence and technology that takes away from integrating the Self wholly into the human experience. These advancements in “staying connected” were to stimulate our central nervous system into non-urgent action, creating anxiety and the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), modern afflictions of our innate Fight or Flight behavioral response. One may relate, when not too long ago, with the introduction of the home answering machine suddenly people felt an urge, as never before, to constantly check their home answering machines to check and see if someone had called. People also started to carry beepers. If you were not part of an essential service, what would be the urgency of being available 24-7?

 The Technological Revolution as it has been labeled is an age where we started to relate to others through virtual machines of all types and, interpreting human emotions through them. In times before these advancements and in times of adversity we may have reached out to one another, and most importantly exercised the strength of the human psyche to heal through human interaction now done through a middleman: the screen. Within the Holistic Health philosophy, there exists a list of 32 key contributors to human well-being as stated by Dr. Douglas N. Graham in his book the “80-10-10 diet” (Graham, D.N. Dr.(2006 and 2008). The 80/10/10 Diet: Balancing your health, your weight, and your life, one luscious bite at a time, Pg 11. Key Largo: FoodnSport Press). These 32 key contributors state what a human being should experience for a healthy dose of the human experience. The most important of these is the need to maintain a clean, hygienic living environment, yet closely followed by Laws #11 through 16 which deal with the development of psychosocial skills, (See attachment 1).

Psychosocial skills:

11. Need for the Human Touch

12. Thought, cogitation, and meditation

13. Friendships and Companionships

14. Gregariousness (Social relationships, community)

15. Love and appreciation

16. Play and recreation.

It is clear that these basic principles found in the philosophies of Orthopathy or Holistic Health define centuries of evolution in innate habitual behaviors or needs and wants of the psyche of the Homo sapiens to achieve functional well-being and the need for community, a tribe, and a connection. We have now grown into a society where isolation is a term, it has become a Thing (a noun). Isolation has become the norm not the exception. For a visual let us analyze this scenario: a person goes on a hike with their dog, this person is by his or herself relating to his or herself, to the thoughts in their head yet the person feels a sense of connection to the environment around him or her, as there may be other people out and about. In reality, the nuance of isolation is present, there is no relating to others being undertaken at any level, and there is little growth of character. What builds character are all the things we seem to be doing in opposite to our innate need for connection. The term Social Media begs the question: What is so social about Social Media?  Does it strengthen the ability to talk to strangers and feel at ease among others? Does Social Media develop the traits that lead to a healthy character? Does it help in the development of a Homo sapiens who is present and not thinking way inside their head, a being who understands what a smile represents; or what emotion a smile represents? Does Social Media perhaps develop an individual that is simply afraid to talk to strangers, lack the skills for face-to-face interactions, or ask for help when help is needed therefore increasing anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, depression, and hopelessness?

 The Millennial and Generation Z cohort groups, who are what I term collectively as the Guinea Pig generations of the technological age, have surfed through periods in their lives where critical psychosocial development during specific periods was not integrated into the Self. It has also been suggested that this development was modified or stunted in some form by overprotective parenting. Their generational development is out of synch with centuries-old communal and tribal conditioning, which is further witnessed in the theory first presented in the genre of Developmental Psychology, in particular the theory presented by the foundational psychosocial theorist Erik Eriksson in his “Stages of Psychosocial Development.”3 These stages identify a series of eight stages that a healthy developing individual should pass through from infancy to late adulthood.

 Whether it is the effects of overly-protective parents with plenty of disposable time on their hands or the effects or absent parenting, or the disconnection we find with the onset of the tech-led lifestyle or social shifts away from the community, these trends have presented a schism in generational psychosocial shifts. These shifts have occurred in key stages of psychosocial development during the Middle Childhood to Early Adulthood years whose virtues are key in healthy, natural psychosocial development. When we study these psychosocial developmental stages we can observe many characteristics that make their holistic application difficult when the subject is shielded from experiencing growth at the given stage of development. We are also witnessing stunted development in human relationships that present hardships in coping with the outside of “Me,” coping with all external factors outside of the Self. These crises present to these cohort groups difficulty in talking to strangers, relating to everyday affairs, and understanding that all concerns, challenges, and efforts in life take time, there is no instant gratification. A baby takes nine months to be born, Rome was not built in a day, the awareness of the delay of gratification. That which is learned from Eriksson’s observations is that not processing through a said developmental stage will cause an eventual crisis or a type of arrested development. Take for example the popular term among these cohort groups, “Adulting4” which means to carry out one or more of the duties and responsibilities expected of fully developed individuals. In their lexicon taking on these responsibilities is an observation of something to be done and not part of their identity. The challenge is that the majority of these young adults or adults are already into adulthood. “Adulting4” is a verb, in other words, it is an action of all the responsibilities that come with adulthood, an action that starts to develop during Erikson’s Middle Childhood through Young Adulthood observations. These cohort groups are developing adult skills much later in their lifecycle, presenting themselves with inexplicable difficulties on their way to adulthood. The goal here is reversing the societal mal-adaptations to correct mental health issues or physiological disorders. These changes can be attained through integrating Holistic Health philosophies (Orthopathy) into family dynamics.

Research methodology: My principle research methodology was an extensive literature review and a mix of contextual real-world knowledge on the behaviors, social structures and shared beliefs of the generational cohort groups made up of Millennials and Generation Z.   

·       Personal C.V: I am a fervent researcher, learner, and educator and offer an extensive background in Holistic Health philosophies (Orthopathy), psychology, yoga, and meditation modalities. As an educator with the abilities of a human search engine, research is second nature and I am often investigating the root of human behavior, whether it is through face-to-face (direct contact) or observations. As an immigrant child and one exposed to much political trauma, I was immersed into diverse situations and environments at an early age, perhaps this exposure fostered my main strength as an objective thinker with an innate ability to discern data and take appropriate steps to make a change and obtain more dynamic life and business models of mental, emotional and physical health.

·       In the past 10 years, I have gone further into my life-long curiosity into human behavior and healthy lifestyles. Two major changes in my life propelled this interest, the loss of a tightly knit family and cultural values plus and my role as an educator/researcher and Holistic Health practitioner where I am witness to behaviors coming from a wide array of psychosocial, multi-regional surroundings. My idyllic upbringing taught me that love is inherent and comes naturally. It was imprinted upon my psyche that doing the right thing and having human relations be an everyday affair, something that we can acknowledge seems to be the exception instead of the norm. As an educator, I have personal experience and see first-hand a common denominator of disconnection within student behavior which further validates the research theme for this paper which was from objective and subjective viewpoints. My skills gave me an advantage point to understand when personal bias may have been taken into account and when my perception may have influenced the results as I compared my viewpoints to relevant published data.

o   Anecdotal example, in one situation school counselors, came into the learning environment to pull out students that needed to contact Universities. When I inquired I was told that the kids do not like talking to strangers and therefore make it an anxious task for them to make phone calls, a theme not uncommon throughout my research.

 If there was a conflicting analysis of data I published viable data versus fake or less viable data coming from less genuine resources and information. I took the objective path of stepping back and observing my thoughts and findings and taking into consideration as to how my participation in and perception of those thoughts might have influenced the results. I analyzed articles pertinent to the subject at hand and categorized them by research-based data from reputable sources such as the American Psychological Organization, followed by articles of stories passed down, as in anecdotal articles based on the author’s findings, not necessarily data-backed, yet relevant in the learning process. A process of learning passed down since the evolution of time, Story Telling.

 STATEMENT OF THESIS ARGUMENT

-The Principles of Orthopathy demonstrate a breakthrough in addressing a marked deviation in the roles of social interaction, relationship building, overextension of the tech-based lifestyle leading to a schism in the growth stages of human development and an impact of social experience across a whole lifespan, thus leading to current psychosocial developmental afflictions of depression, isolation, anxiety, heightened loneliness plus social dysfunction among members of generational cohort groups Millennials and Generation Z-

 A vast majority of Millennials and Gen Z’s are facing psychosocial developmental and dysfunctional challenges. These challenges can be attributed to the number of social distractions, for example, Social Media, and over-involved parents (Helicopter parenting) overshadowing their offspring’s psychosocial development. This over-involvement leads to a lag in the ability of the child to interpret human connections, interactions, and relations. The developmental dysfunctions can also be attributed to stunted psychosocial growth, a type of arrested development seen where developmental theories using a generational psychosocial holistic approach are being shunted.3 In addition to the onset of the Tech lifestyle, these groups face challenges when assimilating to healthy human intra-societal communications. The effects of these challenges are bringing about higher rates of depression, isolation, anxiety, and heightened loneliness to a group that should otherwise be building confidence to aspire instead of being fearful. For the first time in the history of the United States, and let me reference this was pre-Covid-19, anxiety and its related effects are at an all-time high affecting over 47 million Americans. Key to mention is that the Millennials (1981-1996) and Generation Z (1997- 2012) cohort groups not only make up the majority of the US population combined, and they are also experiencing the highest level of said afflictions relating to anxiety.5 Orthopathy can offer natural lifestyle changes and holistic methods to address and change the course of this disturbing trend. The table below illustrates the different cohort groups and their age range:

It is important to emphasize the challenges faced by these cohort groups when considering social interaction, building relationships, and establishing an otherwise solid productive work-ethic. These issues are aggravated by the onset of tech-based lifestyles and dissension in the growth stages of psychosocial human development. Holistic Health philosophies can have a significant positive impact on targeting social media contagions such as isolation and loneliness, which can impact the social experience across a whole lifespan. We could through these philosophies affect change to a drug-free friendly resolution. Holistic Health philosophies challenge and provide a shift away from the current on-going trends of depression, loneliness, anxiety, and social dysfunction. Indeed, some isolated groups may not be affected by what I present within this Thesis, a solid generalization one may say. However, it is fact that the introduction of technological factors into the mainstream of America plus parenting styles that vary greatly from a tribal and psychosocial developmental awareness are stunting what must be achieved to forward the Self’s sense of existence. These developmental challenges can transpire into those of hope and the willfulness to succeed and overcome perceived catastrophic situations in one’s life. There exists a dysfunction in the challenge of integrating change and resolving and moving on through a crisis and committing to one’s own personal growth and identity.

 In Chapter 2, I will discuss Erik Erikson who developed the stages of psychosocial development3 These stages pose that certain events must take place at pre-determined periods in a person’s life to avoid identity confusion and to nurture a person to become well-adjusted across their entire lifespan. Erikson’s theory described the impact on a human being if these stages were somehow not fulfilled at which point the subject suffers from mal-adaption and developmental crises. Erikson’s theory described the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan. He was interested in how social interaction and human relationships played a role in the psychosocial development and intellectual growth of human beings.

 The stages in Erikson’s theory build upon the preceding stage and its virtues. It is stated that once a stage is mal-adapted, there is a developmental crisis or a lack of assimilation, and the turning point in development is arrested. However, the crisis can be reversed if the subject steps back and ameliorates what he or she has not achieved within the virtues of a certain stage. It is the crisis and its effect on one’s psyche and well-being that present an on-going entire lifespan challenge. The goal is to avoid the developmental crisis altogether, to assure that a person successfully assimilates certain virtues within the psychosocial developmental stages. The person then emerges with psychological strengths that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. If they fail to effectively acknowledge, address and assimilate the virtue presented within any stage, they are at risk of not developing the essential skills needed for a strong sense of Self for what could turn out to be an undetermined amount of one’s lifetime.

 If we apply these stages to the generational groups of Millennials and Gen Z, what is witnessed are young adults with anxiety-related issues presented too early in life which is specifically disrupting their Adolescence to Early Adulthood character development. Critics may say that the developmental stages developed by Erickson were conducted by studies on cohort groups that deviate from the core group characteristic and identifying factors of Millennials and Gen Z. However, human nature and the human condition are such that when we deviate from its tribal conditioning the consequences are steadfast no matter the comparison of one core group characteristic and identifying factors versus another. It is asserted in the research literature that tribal conditioning is inherent no matter how it is dissected for study.    

 Crisis resolution is often followed by a logical working application of a solution. As a People, we realize that we can function differently, perhaps more effectively in a new norm so we fold what is happening in our presence into a thought process, a thought bundle, a new perspective and we reconcile as best we can and move on. We may determine that a crisis is not the same for everyone and we may not want to generalize a solution. Changes in life are part of the collective evolution of a species. Young Adulthood, for example, is a time for exploration, for wonder, and gazing into what may be. If one is not given the tools to understand life in this way, if everything that we experience is filtered through a medium that has no emotion (tech lifestyle), if we are constantly under pressure to be something that we are not (social media), then we lose the natural connection and calming effect that comes from being around other human beings. Whether it is a spiritual or metaphysical connection, one cannot interpret human emotions correctly nor can one learn the value of the calming effects of being in Community within our tribe. When we add the effect of over-involvement, wherein, helicopter parents, take over the virtues their children should have been learning, as well as those parents that found themselves leaving a child (latchkey kid) often alone at home or with no supervision because their responsibilities kept them away at work, the disconnection took a different light, a different aura. These children were left to technology as calming and soothing techniques. Being present is at an all-time low, as distractions and an overload of choices are at an all-time high. Society is neglecting to sitting and pondering in the process and therefore hurriedly walks right by the miracle of a rose growing in a garden and doesn’t pay attention to a gleeful song of a bird in the trees.

 “I was sitting in a chair on my roof listening to this, watching the early sunset, the Palm trees dancing in the distance, birds flying over the sky all I could see were silhouettes.  A blow of wind gently blew my hair on my face. I closed my eyes and everything became more beautiful.” - Anonymous.

 The social experiment of the mid-20th century of the Nuclear family and the shift away from the extended family and tribe is an example of progress, adjustment to change, negative affectations to human development, and the focus away from the collective consciousness. As the inequities have arisen within social structures we are seeing a return to a significant change towards the benefits of familial values and communal cohesion.

 When a person confronts crisis, an area that they have not yet experienced or confronted in life, people seek or turn to trusted people in their lives in their community to gain support for their exploration of Self. When that community is a virtual, non-feeling entity, or a person that is constantly hovering or making those decisions for you, there is likely a chance that the crisis will linger. The natural response is to find equilibrium. Either one finds a fix to this crisis or integrates the effects of the crisis into one’s life, or they fall into the need to hold onto past childhood identities and fail to integrate into a new dimension of adulthood. A person may take no responsibility for what is happening and place blame on others. A person may find refuge in self-sabotage, place blame on others, and grapple with resistance and conformity and present a functional demeanor, yet inside there is great turmoil and conflict.

 What the Millennials and Gen Z are experiencing today, is a question of whether this is generational specific or a generational social shift in human emotional awareness. Are we dealing with irreversible effects of the current technological age, as we questioned the changes that societies went through during the Industrial Revolution a century ago? All crises are reversible, yet the distress in these younger generations seems to be showing up at a much higher alarming rate than in the past at a key point in their life’s trajectory where aspiration and dreams and discovery helps calm the soul and hopes should not be overshadowed by sabotaging well-being and productivity.  

CHAPTER 1

Millennials and Gen Z share a disquieting trend: Psychosocial Discord

 “What children can do with the assistance of others might be in some sense even more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone.” – Lev Livogsky, Mind in Society.

 We can start at home. A common denominator that we find among the Millennial and the Gen Z generational cohort groups besides social media overload is the phenomena of “Helicopter Parenting,” and the side-effects: a population cohort group that is riddled with anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, depression, and hopelessness. These afflictions weren’t officially recognized as a condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) until 1980 since record-keeping on mental health prior to the Boomers was patchy. Boomers either didn’t seem to be so worried about life in general or they just did not report any such afflictions. In a survey conducted by Mind Share Partners, a company that consults companies on Mental Health issues, the results state that half of Millennial (defined in this survey as 23-38 years old) and 75% of Gen-Z (18-22 years old) respondents have left a job, both voluntarily and involuntarily, partially due to mental health reasons. (To put that in perspective, only 20% of the total survey respondents reported doing the same). Overall, Millennials were three times more likely to experience symptoms of anxiety than baby boomers, and Gen-Z was four times more likely.6 What could be the culprit affecting these young Americans?

 Pat Morrison a columnist for the Los Angeles Times describes in her interview with Julie Lythcott-Haims from her book “How to Raise an Adult” (Lythcott-Haims, J (2016). How to Raise an Adult, New York: Griffin), where Ms. Lythcott-Haims illustrates her experience working with quote-unquote the best and brightest students. Lythcott-Haims stated, “I was seeing more and more [students] who seemed less and less capable of doing the stuff of life. They were incredibly accomplished in the transcript and GPA sense but less with their own selves, evidenced by how frequently they communicated with a parent, texting multiple times a day, needing a parent to tell them what to do. Students though very accomplished academically, were rather existentially impotent.”7 According to Lythcott-Haims what contributes to the Helicopter Parenting phenomenon is linked to the rise of irrational fear generated by crime entertainment far out of proportion to reality as if child abduction could happen on every street corner. Yet another influence is the self-esteem movement in which she claims the term “Perfect” has become a rhetorical tic. Kids come away with this overblown sense of their own capability, and they think they have to be perfect all the time, [then] wither under the expectation when they realize they’re not.”7 In society, it is noted that these cohort groups can be paralyzed by ordinary social interaction. An interesting off-shoot effect is called “fear of strangers.” This fear may be since these cohort groups were void of contact with strangers by their parents taking all the actions of social responsibility during their psychosocial development. In earlier times according to Lythcott-Haims “If we phoned a friend, we were likely to get a parent and we’d have to say, “Mrs. Jones, can I please speak to Karen?” My 14- and my 16-year-old do not like to make phone calls. My daughter said, “I need a new leotard; can we drive to the store?” I said, “We’re not going to drive there; you’ve got to call.” She said, “Oh, no, I don’t like to do that.” 7 As an educator, I have been witness to much the same whereby in different circumstances at diverse locations counselors hold workshops with soon-to-be graduates showing them how to make phone calls and how to relate on the phone with someone that they do not know.

 Parental interference is not the only factor in the arrested development of the Self. We find that technology indeed helps people be more flexible and more productive, and makes it easier to get work done, yet when it comes to tech use, many lack a healthy balance of its use in ordinary day-to-day life. Most of us understand the addiction and resulting stress surrounding the inability to periodically “unplug” or take a “digital detox.” The ability to unplug is important for mental health, yet in reality, most people are not proactive in their ability to unplug. The digital lifestyle makes it possible to interact with peers without having to go through a physical person, thus not learning nor being familiar with basic human responses such as the meaning of words, expressions, and commonalities or to how to properly interact in a live conversation. Perhaps that is why when you search for the word “etiquette” on the internet there are dozens of pages on the subject, including Etiquette Groups.

 Tech now plays a role where parents can be and are involved in practically every aspect of their offspring’s movements. This had lead to a generation of coddled and over-protected children that have been reared, not encouraged to deal with their tough situations. These cohort groups, Millennials, and Generation Z are often caught off-guard when their mindset or ideologies are upset, yet these reactions simply reflect the real-world circumstances for which they are ill-prepared.  

 An article in Reason magazine, The Fragile Generation, December 2017, discusses a query that ran in Parents magazine: "Your child's old enough to stay home briefly, and often does. But is it okay to leave her and her playmate home while you dash to the dry cleaner? Absolutely not”, the magazine averred: "Take the kids with you, or save your errands for another time." After all, "you want to make sure that no one's feelings get too hurt if there's a squabble."  The principle here is simple: This generation of kids must be protected like none other. They can't use tools, they can't play on grass, and they certainly can't be expected to work through a spat with a friend. And this, it could be argued, is why we have "safe spaces" on college campuses and Millennials (Generation Z included) are missing adult milestones. These milestones, specifically the virtues of Competence, Fidelity, and Love will be covered in Chapter 2 in Erik Eriksson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development. These are key developmental virtues learned during Middle Childhood and Young Adulthood yet not integrated into the Self due to Helicopter parenting and a poor balance of technology.

 We told a generation of kids that they can never be too safe—and they believed us. We've had the best of intentions, of course. But efforts to protect our children may be backfiring. When we raise kids unaccustomed to facing anything on their own, including risk, failure, and hurt feelings, our society and even our economy are threatened. Yet modern child-rearing practices and laws seem all but designed to cultivate this lack of preparedness. There's the fear that everything children see, do, eat, hear, and lick could hurt them. And there's a newer belief that has been spreading through higher education that words and ideas themselves can be traumatizing.8  Metaphorically, snowflakes aren't born, they're created. Today we have entered a new phase where our overactive imaginations about threats to children have been institutionalized into severely ineffective legal, educational, and social work systems.

 During the Covid-19 outbreak, the term Screen Time and Social Media has become a hotly debated issue among researchers of technology and related mental health concerns. Screen Time and Social media refer to two different yet related ways of analyzing and categorizing data on this subject. According to researchers Orben and Przilbiski, there is a correlation between screen time use and mental health concerns. Yet the critics of Orben and Przilbilkis state that the problem with their data aggregation is in the categorizing of such data. For example, Screen Time should not include all mediums (O&B include television which has been on a decline among young adults since 2012) and that O&B’s data on Screen Time lacks separation by gender.9 The results are that Social Media as screen time is a medium that needs to be addressed all in its own category as its effects on the mental health hygiene of young girls is especially of concern. Jean Twenge, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University. Twenge has made the case that smartphones, social media, and other aspects of today’s popular screen-based technologies are contributing to the widely documented increases in youth depression, anxiety, and suicide. “I think there is an increasing amount of evidence that the ways young people are using technology lead to mental health issues and poor psychological well-being,” she says.10

 Three is profound evidence that the scope of overprotection goes way beyond acceptable for functional human development. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that helicopter parents continued advocating for their adult children at the graduate school level as well, such as advocating for their adult child's admission to law school or business school. As this cohort entered the workforce, Human Resource officials reported helicopter parents showing up in the workplace or phoning managers to advocate on their adult child's behalf or to negotiate salaries for their adult children.11 As well the majority of parents are managing their young adult children’s health care visits, and their young adult children may be missing out on valuable opportunities to learn how to take ownership of their health and learning to manage their lives more effectively. By letting children be adults, or not being present for their development life experiences is much the same. Let them take care of doing the Adulting for themselves.

Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. How did this happen? From the new book by First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, (“The Codding of the American Mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation of failure”, (2018). New York: Penguin), shows how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings, and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of “safetyism”—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who can navigate the bumpy road of life (https://www.thecoddling.com/).

 Technology, in particular the rapid evolution of how people communicate and interact, is another generation-shaping consideration. Millennials came of age during the internet explosion. Generation Z had technology be a part of their lives from the time they were born. Young Americans are connected to the web through mobile devices, WiFi, and high-bandwidth cellular service to list a few. Social media, constant connectivity, and on-demand entertainment and communication are innovations that have also produced (Millennials and Gen Z’s alike) a most self-absorbed generation, and this is according to “Themselves.” A new study published in open access scientific journal PLOS One, reveals these two generations are at once aware of their narcissism and more than a little bummed about it.  In the report titled,  “Emerging adult reactions to labeling regarding age-group differences in narcissism and entitlement,” a test called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory was administered and the results suggested that a rise in vanity occurred between the years 1976 and 2006. The authors report indicate ”that emerging adults believe their age-group and the one following them to be the most narcissistic and entitled age-groups, that they have generally negative opinions of narcissism and entitlement, and that they respond negatively to being labeled as narcissistic and entitled.”12

 The Pew Research Center found that the implications of growing up in an “always-on” technological environment are only now coming into focus. Recent research has shown dramatic shifts in youth behaviors, attitudes, and lifestyles – both positive and concerning – for those who came of age in the environment of this era. What we don’t know is whether these are lasting generational imprints or characteristics of adolescence that will become more muted throughout their adulthood. Beginning to track this new generation over time will be of significant importance.  The Pew Research Center is not the first to draw an analytical line between Millennials, Gen Z, and the generations to follow them. Perhaps, as more data are collected over the years, a clear, singular delineation will emerge. We remain open to recalibrating if that occurs. But more than likely the historical, technological, behavioral, and attitudinal data will show more of a continuum across generations than a threshold (See Chapter 2 Eriksson’s stages of psychosocial development). As has been the case in the past, this means that the differences within generations can be just as great as the differences across generations, and the youngest and oldest within a commonly defined cohort may feel more in common with bordering generations than the one to which they are assigned. This is a reminder that generations themselves are inherently diverse and complex groups, not simple caricatures.13

 Millennials are the young technology gurus who thrive on innovations, startups, and working out of coffee shops and they have redefined the workplace. In 2012 Time magazine called them “The Me Me Me Generation.” They have been a blog-savvy generation raised by parents who were not authoritative but rather saw themselves as partners. The Millennials grew up making the rules rather than having their parents tell them what was right or what was the wrong thing to do.

 Generation Z does not wear watches, use maps or addresses, go to photograph studios to have their pictures taken, or to libraries to gain knowledge. They use their smartphones to find everything they want, including the time, addresses, love, and photographs. It is truly a very different generation from anything seen beforehand. According to US researcher Darla Rothman, they are technologically savvy and are in constant contact with others through social media. They love technology because it solves their problems, helps their activities, and gives them solutions. The brains of this generation have also been impacted by the Internet, and they may lack critical thinking skills and the ability to evaluate information because they rely on finding answers to all their questions on Google. Instead of reading an article, Generation Z prefers to watch a YouTube video that summarizes the topic. They have never had to search the bookshelves at the library to find the information they are looking for. They are dynamic learners and are experimental, preferring to learn by doing instead of being told what to do. Rothman says members of Generation Z, in particular, prefer to be left to solve their problems alone and find solutions through trial and error. They prefer quick answers to long or exhaustive ones. They do not spend their time verifying information and prefer to work in small groups whether for spontaneous or organized activities. One report published in June 2019 with the participation of the social media site Snapchat entitled “The Youth of the Nations: Global Trends Among Generation Z” studied the lifestyles, behavior, and attitudes of Generation Z to help advertisers understand them better to design more accurate advertising. Generation Z consists of young people who are the first to be considered digital natives born in a world of technology where the Internet has become an integral part of daily life and the way they connect with the outside world. This connection with the outside world lacks the emotional and spiritual nuances of healthy relationships and mental health. With more than 97% across the globe owning a smartphone, they are the most connected to the Internet of all, with 78% of them connected worldwide. This generation spends an average of four hours and 15 minutes a day on their phones and uses far more technology compared to their predecessors. According to the Snapchat report, members of Generation Z want to live for thousands of years. They like challenges, and they want to achieve the most they can. They are an ambitious generation and are ready to challenge themselves to achieve their goals.14 And although they invest more in health and in taking care of themselves, how well they cope with the environmental stressors outside of their digital bubble seems to be the problem with maintaining a healthy mindset.

 In summary as a collective group, Millennials and Generation Z alike may be known as successful and driven, but their marriage to technology has nearly destroyed their interpersonal skills and as a result has invited a much higher rate of mental health afflictions such as depression, anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, and hopelessness. They are plugged into the digital world the minute they are born. Their pictures are taken as soon as they emerge from the delivery room, and their milestones are instantly shared on social media accompanied by a deluge of comments and admiration. Such children are one not to know the world without social media or what to do with their hands if they aren’t holding mobile phones in them.

It is appropriate to note when referring to young people and mental health is that ever since the 1930s, young people in America have reported feeling increasingly anxious and depressed (much of the richest data on this question, then, comes from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which has been administered to high school and college students since the 1930s. When you look at MMPI questions over time, there is a clear increase in symptoms associated with depression and anxiety (see graph below).15

In these graphs, for example, each dot represents a study conducted using the MMPI. One of the researchers who has done the most work on this subject is Dr. Jean Twenge, a social psychologist at San Diego State University who is the author of “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before” (2014, New York: Atria Books). She’s published a handful of articles on this trajectory, and the underlying story, she thinks, is a rather negative one. “I think the research tells us that modern life is not good for mental health,” she said. When Twenge attributes this worsening to “modern life,” she has certain specific features of it in mind. She says that there is a lot of good things about societal and technological progress and that in a lot of ways our lives are much easier than, say, our grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ lives. But she states “there’s a paradox here that we seem to have so much ease and relative economic prosperity compared to previous centuries, yet there’s this dissatisfaction, there’s this unhappiness, there are these mental health issues in terms of anxiety and depression.”15

 In the introduction to this paper, I mention how “in the last one-hundred years, progress has been silently dismantling the cohesion of community and bolstering ill effects and crisis upon the human psyche.” In much the same thought, Dr. Twenge states the primary problem is that “modern life doesn’t give us as many opportunities to spend time with people and connect with them, at least in person, compared to, say, 80 years ago or 100 years ago. Families are smaller, the divorce rate is higher, people get married much later in life.” Smaller families and later marriage, of course, in part reflect societal advancement most of us would view as positive — people, particularly women, have a lot more autonomy over relationships and reproduction. Twenge wanted to be clear that she is for all these different types of societal progress, and that the period when people reported fewer depressions and anxiety symptoms was also the one where there was widespread racial and gender-based discrimination. She just also thinks we should be “clear-eyed” about the fact that the “potential tradeoff for our equality and freedom is more anxiety and depression because we’re more isolated.”15

“When you think of how lives have changed from 2010 to 2017, a clear answer is that over time, people started spending more time on phones and on social media, less time face-to-face with their friends, and less time sleeping. As we know from other studies, spending more time with screens, less time sleeping, and less time face-to-face with friends is not a good formula for mental health.”

—Jean Twenge, Ph.D., lead study author

  Research has shown that Americans work longer hours and have more stress-related illnesses than in other countries which can affect your thoughts, behavior, and health. There is FOMO: The Fear of Missing Out one of the factors that the phenomena that social media has impressed on our minds. FOMO or the inability to switch off, coupled with the addictive functionality of mobile devices, can lead to high levels of stress, anxiety, and even fractured personal relationships.

 The following interview between Dr. Susan Heitler Ph.D. and Jake Heilbrunn who has written a book “Off The Beaten Trail,” and has newly released TEDx talk, grabbed my attention since Mr. Heilbrunn is 20-something and is speaking about his peers.16

 Dr. H: What do you think is a key reason young people are experiencing so much and such severe levels of anxiety?

JH: Based on my own experience plus talking with thousands of high school and college kids when I speak at schools across the country, I see the widespread use of social media as a major new anxiety trigger. Millennials and Gen Zers like myself are growing up in a world with two lives, both equally as real: digital and analog (in person.) In our digital lives (a.k.a “social media”) we are constantly trying to maintain an image. We paint pictures of our lives with the photos and stories about ourselves that we post. And we compare the realities of our lives with the images others paint on social media of their lives, or at least of what they want us to think their lives are all about.

 Dr. H: Why do you think social media be a bigger anxiety-generator for young people than for older adults?

JH: Quantity. Gen Zers spend, on average, four hours a day on social media. Imagine spending ¼ of your waking-life subconsciously comparing yourself to the people you follow on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. More time on social media yields more emotional distress. Constant scrolling and social comparison bring about thoughts like, “I’m not good enough, happy enough, smart enough, good looking enough, etc.” A continual stream of these kinds of negative comparison thoughts all too frequently culminates in overwhelming feelings of worry—generating anxiety—and of being less-than, which generates depression. Research studies have shown a direct link between the quantity of time spent on social media and levels of anxiety and depression, ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2016/04/30/study-links-heavy-facebook-and-social-media-usage-to-depression/#4757934b535 ) At the same time, the more anxious young people feel, the more tempted, and even addicted, they may become to constant searching on social media for information about their social status. The vicious cycle spins on.

 Dr. H: Are there additional ways in which social media seems to invite anxiety?

JH: For sure. Students open the door to enter their dorm room, and instead of talking with their roommates what do they do? They check their Facebook page. They want to take a study break, and what do they do? The same. First thing when they wake up in the morning what do they do? Check their email and Facebook pages. All of this social media checking is time that in the past might have been spent hanging out with friends.

 Chatting in person, unlike reading about friends on social media, builds social connections. Social connections build self-confidence. So in addition to creating anxious feelings, social media checking decreases the amount of oxytocin-induced good feelings generated by actual friend-to-friend contact.  Also, there’s something about cell phones and computers that makes them addictive, although we may not be actively using them, the brain knows that our gadgets are present therefore wasting useful nerve energy. That means that students are not just occasionally thinking about how they match up with others. Addicts keep checking and checking in hopes of a shot of good feelings. And they far too often experience anxious or depressed feelings because instead of getting that shot of an upper feeling, they see someone who looks better than them or someone who has said something hostile about them.  Of course, looking at others for clues about how others see you have long been a teenage way of clarifying self-image. Teenagers have always sought to understand who they are and how they rank with others by checking out what others think of them. The sad twist induced by social media is that teenagers receive false images of great happiness induced by others’ image-enhancing posts. And when “likes” for their posts replace the fun teens used to get from direct social interactions like talking, smiling and “hanging out” with their friends, life becomes both scarier and less fulfilling.16

  In closing, Orthopathy is based on Holistic Healing or a natural hygienic approach to health and well-being.  Within Orthopathy which I will discuss in Chapter 3 one finds that understanding the body and mind can heal many afflictions when we apply the principles through mindfulness and diet and change our lifestyles to that fact.

 CHAPTER 2

Holistic Psychosocial Development.

Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

At this point let me present the stages of Erikson’s Psychosocial Developmental theory. These stages are outlined and expounded upon in this chapter. Each stage of the developmental stage is outlined as to the approximate age of the individual and the conflicts that individuals must face to achieve a certain “virtue” for progression in their psychosocial development. These stages are detailed below:

Making reference to Eriksson’s theory of psychosocial development and how they relate to the Millennial and Gen Z cohort groups, I propose to characterize an individual advancing through the early stage of development as a means of negotiating their biological, sociological, psychological, and communal socio-cultural forces given the influence of parenting styles, social media, Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence. As we progress through these stages a person is affronted with mysteries that face their human experience taking leaps and learning to meet the ever-evolving unknown Self full of rawness, clarity, and doubt.

At every stage, one is confronted with the process of outward discernment of what is and the wonders of what is to be in their reality. For example, according to Erikson’s theory, humans gain the virtues of Competence, Fidelity and Love during the stages of Middle Childhood, Adolescence and Early Adulthood and these virtues are overlapped again with Love leading to Care as we reach Early and Middle adulthood respectively. What research shows is that letting the Self be present for growth should never involve the interference of over-involved parents or the void left by non-present parents, nor from the influences of the ever-persistent presence of over-stimulation and the newfound norm of instant gratification. If these stages and their virtues are not integrated into the human psyche in subsequent order, then one presents themselves with a particular crisis:  I present in my thesis that Millennial and Gen Z cohort groups lack the processing and coping skills of social interaction and therefore suffer more greatly from increased depression, isolation, anxiety, loneliness and the lack of social skills to communicate and collaborate and where Holistic Health (Orthopathy) can play a key role in the battle against the consequences of Utopian progress.

 Each stage in Erikson's theory builds on the preceding stage and their virtues pave the way for the following periods of development. In each stage, Erikson believed people experience a conflict that serves as a turning point in their development. In Erikson's view, these conflicts are centered on either developing a psychological virtue or failing to develop that virtue. During these times, the potential for personal growth is high but so is the potential for failure. If development is arrested by the intervention of outside influences there is a crisis that eventually needs to be resolved for functional living. Not negotiating in their social-cultural forces during the specified ages evolves into a psychosocial crisis. If the opposite takes place the individual successfully progresses through these stages then they emerge from the stage with the corresponding virtue. When virtues are not successfully integrated into the psyche challenges will without a doubt be expected to return as problems in the future. However, mastery of a stage is not required to advance to the next stage. The outcome of one stage is not permanent and can be modified by later experiences avoiding shutting down, not progressing, and avoiding our lives become small and challenging in every way. Erikson also believed that a sense of competence motivates behaviors and actions. Each stage in Erikson's theory is concerned with becoming competent in an area of life. If the stage is handled well, the person will feel a sense of mastery, which is sometimes referred to as ego strength or ego quality. If the stage is managed poorly, the person will emerge with a sense of inadequacy in that aspect of development.

 Erik Erikson in collaboration with his wife Joan Erikson, composed a comprehensive psychoanalytic theory that identified a series of eight stages that a healthy developing individual should pass through from infancy to late adulthood. According to Erikson, a person passes through eight developmental stages that build on each other. At each stage, the child will face a particular crisis. By resolving the crisis, the developing child will develop psychological strengths or character traits that help them become confident and healthy people. Erikson's stage theory characterizes an individual advancing through the eight life stages as a function of negotiating their biological and sociocultural forces. Each stage is characterized by a psychosocial crisis of two conflicting forces. If an individual does indeed successfully reconcile these forces (favoring the first mentioned attribute in the crisis), they emerge from the stage with the corresponding virtue. The accrual of these values wherein the positive attribute is obtained leads to a healthier psychological and sociological development. For example, if an infant enters into the toddler stage (autonomy vs. shame and doubt) with more trust than mistrust, they carry the virtue of hope into the remaining life stages. The challenges of stages not completed may be expected to return as problems in the future. However, mastery of a stage is not required to advance to the next stage. Erikson advanced the notion that each of his developmental stages is characterized by a psychosocial crisis of two conflicting forces. If an individual does indeed successfully reconcile these forces, by achieving a favorable outcome he will be better adjusted to reconcile life on life’s terms. This is what every parent wishes for. With each outcome, that individual will emerge from a stage with the corresponding virtue that is needed for psychosocial development to the next phase of development. I believe it is best to look through each stage and discern what exactly a developing child needs to receive the appropriate virtue for psychological growth in the overall scheme of things: Life.

 According to Erik Erikson, the major developmental task in infancy is to learn whether or not other people, especially primary caregivers, regularly satisfy basic needs. If caregivers are consistent sources of food, comfort, and affection, an infant learns trust — that others are dependable and reliable. If they are neglectful, or perhaps even abusive, the infant instead learns mistrust — that the world is an undependable, unpredictable, and possibly a dangerous place. While negative, having some experience with mistrust allows the infant to gain an understanding of what constitutes dangerous situations later in life; yet being at the stage of infant or toddler, it is a good idea not to put them in prolonged situations of mistrust: the child's number one needs are to feel safe, comforted, and well cared for.17

 The first stage of Erikson’s theory, 0-2 years of age, presents the crisis of autonomy of the individual versus shame and doubt. Their environmental necessity to guard and guide the individual through this stage is the primary caretaker, usually the mother. The crisis, which is negotiated by the ability of the primary caretaker, creates the virtue of whether or not the world is a friendly environment. Erikson proposes his first stage of life as a mastery of Hope. An infant experiences a sense of trust vs. mistrust which gains them the virtue of trust. Trust as defined by Erikson is "an essential trustfulness of others as well as a fundamental sense of one's own trustworthiness."18 The child's relative understanding of the world and society comes from the parents and their interaction with the child. A child's first trust is always with the parent or caregiver; whoever that might be, however, the caregiver is secondary whereas the parents are primary in the eyes of the child. If the parents expose the child to warmth, regularity, and dependable affection, the infant's view of the world will be one of trust. Should parents fail to provide a secure environment and to meet the child's basic needs; a sense of mistrust will result.17 The development of mistrust can lead to feelings of frustration, suspicion, withdrawal, and a lack of confidence.18

According to Erik Erikson, the major developmental task in infancy is to learn whether or not other people, especially primary caregivers, regularly satisfy basic needs. If caregivers are consistent sources of food, comfort, and affection, an infant learns trust — that others are dependable and reliable. If they are neglectful, or perhaps even abusive, the infant instead learns mistrust — that the world is an undependable, unpredictable, and possibly a dangerous place. While negative, having some experience with mistrust allows the infant to gain an understanding of what constitutes dangerous situations later in life; yet being at the stage of infant or toddler, it is a good idea not to put them in prolonged situations of mistrust: the child's number one needs are to feel safe, comforted, and well cared for.17 Positive first impressions during this stage are paramount if the child is to experience meaningful relationships later on in life.

 From the age of 2 to 4, as the child gains control over eliminative functions and motor abilities, they begin to explore their surroundings. The parents' patience and encouragement help to foster the autonomy in the child. The parents’ over-protectiveness does not. Children at this age like to explore the world around them and they are constantly learning about their environment. Caution must be taken at this age while children may explore things that are dangerous to their health and safety. Again, it is the parent’s responsibility to guide the child through this stage with the resulting virtue being the acknowledgment that the child is okay to be themselves.  By completing tasks on their own, the child gains a sense of independence allowing children to make decisions and gain control, parents and caregivers can help children develop a sense of autonomy. A parent knows when they have hit this milestone when your toddler starts to assert their independence. They realize that they can do some things by themselves — and they insist on those things.

 In Erikson’s third proposed stage, from the age of 5 to 8), children begin to strengthen their power and control over the world through face-to-face play, an invaluable framework for social interactions. When they achieve an ideal balance of individual initiative and the willingness to work with others, they develop a sense of purpose. These are the preschool years. As the child interacts socially and plays with others, they learn that they can take the initiative and control what happens. Children who are successful in this stage feel confident and trusted to guide others. Those who don’t achieve these qualities likely feel a sense of guilt, have doubts, and lack initiative. Guilt is good in the sense that it shows children’s ability to recognize when they’ve done something wrong. Nevertheless, excessive or undeserved guilt can cause children to reject challenges because they don’t feel capable of facing the world around them. If parents are controlling or Helicopter parents they don’t support their child when they make decisions, the child may not be equipped to take the initiative, may lack ambition, and could be filled with guilt. Overpowering feelings of guilt can prevent a child from interacting with others and deter their creativity and a sense of purpose.

 Stage 4, from ages 9 to 12, is when children enter into the elementary school system. This is the period of development where the young adolescent is learning new skills and behaviors. It’s also the period where their circle of influence widens. They have plenty of teachers and peers to whom they are looking for influence. They may start comparing themselves to others. If they decide that they’re doing well scholastically, on the sports field, at the arts, or socially, they will develop feelings of pride and accomplishment.  When the child succeeds, they’ll feel industrious and believe they can set goals — and reach them. However, if children have repeated negative experiences at home or feel that society is too demanding, they may develop feelings of inferiority.

 Stage 5 takes place between the ages of 13-19. During this truly important stage of development, the young adult is faced with the challenges of developing a true send of their true Self. They form their identity by examining their beliefs, goals, and values. They are asking themselves: “Who am I?”, “What do I want to work as?”, “How do I fit into society?” These questions combined with the confusion of the question “What’s happening to my body?” Most adolescents will explore different roles and ideas on the journey to integrate with the Self. Adolescents who successfully weather this crisis will come away with a strong sense of identity. They’ll be able to uphold these values despite the challenges that they’ll face in the future. However, when adolescents don’t search for their own identity, they may not develop a strong sense of Self and won’t have a clear picture of their future. The same confusion may be compounded by the pressures they feel to conform to others' values and beliefs.  During this period the adolescent discovers their sexuality and their sexual needs and begins to design a picture of the person that they want to be in the future. As the individual grows, they try to find their purpose and role in society, as well as solidify their unique identity. Also, they discern which activities are appropriate for their age and which are considered “childish.” They must find a compromise between what they expect from themselves and what others expect of them. For Erikson, completing this stage successfully lays a foundation for adulthood. Recognizing that they are bombarded by virtual contagions such as Social Media and over-involved parents in the intricacies of their lives, plus the influence of peer pressure presents a marked difficulty in the adolescent’s challenges of carving out a true Self.  

Stage 6, is the period of development that includes the 20-39 years of age group. During this stage, teenagers become young adults. Normally at this stage, it’s still a priority for young adults to please others and “fit in.” However, this is also the stage where they begin to draw their red lines: about things that they won’t sacrifice to please someone else. The adolescent is newly concerned with how they appear to others. Superego identity is the accrued confidence that the outer sameness and continuity prepared in the future are matched by the sameness and continuity of one's meaning of Self, as evidenced in the promise of a career. The ability to settle on a school or occupational identity is pleasant. In later stages of adolescence, the child develops a sense of sexual identity. As they make the transition from childhood to adulthood, adolescents ponder the roles they will play in the adult world. Initially, they are apt to experience some role confusion—mixed ideas and feelings about the specific ways in which they will fit into society—and may experiment with a variety of behaviors and activities (e.g. tinkering with cars, baby-sitting for neighbors, affiliating with certain political or religious groups). Eventually, Erikson proposed, most adolescents achieve a sense of identity regarding who they are and where their lives are headed. The teenager must achieve identity in occupation, gender roles, politics, and, in some cultures, religion.  Erikson is credited with coining the term "identity crisis".19 Each stage that came before and that follows has its own 'crisis', but even more so now, for this marks the transition from childhood to adulthood. This passage is necessary because "Throughout infancy and childhood, a person forms many identifications. But the need for identity in youth is not met by these."20 This turning point in human development seems to be the reconciliation between 'the person one has come to be' and 'the person society expects one to become'. This emerging sense of self will be established by 'forging' past experiences with anticipations of the future.

 Concerning the eight life stages as a whole, the fifth stage (Adolescence) corresponds to the crossroads: What is unique about the stage of Identity is that it is a special sort of synthesis of earlier stages and a special sort of anticipation of later ones. Youth has a certain unique quality in a person's life; it is a bridge between childhood and adulthood. Youth is a time of radical change—the great body changes accompanying puberty, the ability of the mind to search one's intentions and the intentions of others, the suddenly sharpened awareness of the roles society have offered for later life.19  Adolescents "are confronted by the need to re-establish boundaries for themselves and to do this in the face of an often potentially hostile world".21 This is often challenging since commitments are being asked for before particular identity roles have formed. At this point, one is in a state of 'identity confusion', but society normally makes allowances for youth to "find themselves” and this state is called 'the moratorium'. The problem of adolescence is one of role confusion. Role confusion can be explained as a reluctance to commit. This inability to commit may progress with a person into their mature years. Given the right conditions—and Erikson believes these are essentially having enough space and time, a psychosocial moratorium when a person can freely experiment and explore—what may emerge is a firm sense of identity, an emotional and deep awareness of who they are.21

 As in other stages, bio-psycho-social forces are at work. No matter how one has been raised, one's ideologies are now chosen for oneself. Often, this leads to conflict with adults over religious and political orientations. Another area where teenagers are deciding for themselves is their career choice, and often parents want to have a decisive say in that role. If society is too insistent, the teenager will acquiesce to external wishes, effectively forcing him or her to ‘foreclose' on experimentation and, therefore, true self-discovery. Once someone settles on a worldview and vocation, will they be able to integrate this aspect of self-definition into a diverse society? According to Erikson, when an adolescent has balanced both perspectives of "What have I got?" and "What am I going to do with it?" they have established their identity:19

Dependent on this stage is the ego quality of fidelity—the ability to sustain loyalties freely pledged despite the inevitable contradictions and confusions of value systems.

 Given that in the next sixth stage of Early Adulthood, where (Intimacy) is often characterized by marriage, many are tempted to cap off the prior, fifth stage at 20 years of age. However, these age ranges are quite fluid, especially for the achievement of identity, since it may take many years to become grounded, to identify the object of one's fidelity, to feel that one has "come of age,” Erikson does note that the time of Identity crisis for persons of genius is frequently prolonged. He further notes that in our industrial society, identity formation tends to take longer, because it takes us so long to gain the skills needed for adulthood's tasks in this world. By Erikson’s standards, we do not have an exact period in which to find ourselves. It doesn't happen automatically at eighteen or twenty-one. A very approximate rule of thumb for our society would put the end somewhere in one's twenties.19

 Erickson’s sixth stage of psychosocial development, Early Adulthood presents the challenge between intimacy and isolation. The virtue to achieve during this stage is Love. This stage lasts from the ages of 20 to the late-'30s and it focuses on individuals creating intimate relationships with others. During this period, the major conflict centers on forming intimate, loving relationships with other people. Success at this stage leads to fulfilling relationships. Failure, on the other hand, can result in feelings of loneliness and isolation. These feelings lead to the emotional states of depression and anxiety, well documented emotional states that many in the millennial generation are experiencing. The major question individuals face during this stage is “Am I lovable or will I be alone”. The environments which influence this stage are friend and relationship. Keep in mind that every task the individual in their earlier stages of psychosocial development has fostered the virtue learned in each stage. One thing that made Erikson’s theory unique is that unlike many other developmental theories, the psychosocial stages look at how people change and grow throughout the entire lifetime. These adult stages continue to play an important role in each individual's development. This sixth stage of development begins in early adulthood and is centered on the formation of lasting relationships. Those who are successful at this stage can forge deep relationships and social connections with other people. Those that have had societal influences interfere in subsequent stages may find the task of gaining the virtue of love quite overwhelming.

 Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development proposes that people pass through a series of stages centered on social, psychological, and emotional development. At each point in a person’s life, he or she faces a developmental conflict that must be resolved. People who overcome these conflicts can achieve psychological skills that ultimately last the rest of a person’s life. Those who fail to master these challenges will continue to struggle. The effects of the resourceful and tangential parenting, which are lacking in these days plus the effects of social media, leave developing individuals to look more towards social media and artificial intelligence created a challenging perspective. The individual is seemingly more connected to rapid information retrieval and less connected to the virtues either achieved or missed during each stage that Erikson proposed in his stage theory. It would be of great psychological and scientific interest that these stages proposed by Erikson be reviewed given the vast change in the psychosocial environment children grow up in. I contend that much has changed during the different stages an individual is passing through the present-day. The great pressure and necessity of accepting that social media, AI, and IT influence the virtue gained or lost and the significant crisis challenges take of a different definition. With many young adults turning to social media as their choice of information gathering, including social mores and attitudes, many of the outside influencers such as parents, have taken a back seat in the formation of a healthy, integrative and comprehensive sense of Self.

 CHAPTER 3

The Antidote – Orthopathy and Holistic Health

Much light needs to be shed on the psychosocial approach to social isolation and the related dysfunctions resulting in an exponential increase in increase in anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, depression, and hopelessness in the Millennials and Generation Z cohort groups, with signs of further subsequent generations being affected as well. An attitude of awareness and acceptance and recognizing that attitudes are vital forces that enable individuals to confront the problematic subconscious whose filters when at play can bring on physical illnesses or a crisis of the conscious or unconsciousness. Attitudes that keep us away from non-productive habits, habits that drive us away from the hard awareness of the Self.

 A Certified Natural Health and Holistic Nutrition practitioner (practices Orthopathy) teach the philosophies and behavioral science of disease, psychoneuroimmunology, advanced natural health and healing modalities, which includes detoxification, hygienic diet, regular exercise, fasting, mental and emotional balance. These natural healing modalities work as nature intended, therefore there is not a need to look past nature, our inherent selves to find a cure.  Holistic Health philosophies follow along the lines of the natural evolution of our bodies, Fight or Flight as you may, where our body and mind are constantly trying to achieve a healthy functional state.

 Challenges to health and well-being from a natural healing perspective can be as basic as the goal to maintain the pH balance of our blood at 7.4. This pH balance must be maintained for us to survive. When the pH balance is violated, our mind signals the body which signals the blood to attain whatever it needs to maintain an exact pH balance. To naturally maintain the healthy well-being of the organism and the pH balance of the blood is by avoiding acidic foods maintaining a diet of a healthy diet of fruits and greens eaten in the correct combination to avoid fermentation and toxification of the blood. In the relational realm of life, in-person face-to-face connections, relating to others and the social manners we need to better align in the presence of another person can also be solidly taught by a Holistic Health practitioner. We teach to better understand our physiological state and through this understanding better understand each other.

 Health and disease are the same thing – vital action intended to preserve, maintain, and protect the body. We human beings possess the resources for healing that are best mobilized not by removed scientific overstepping but through communication and supportive human action and interaction. Holistic Health advocates would say that “the human mind is very largely a product of its environment.”22 That, “we are prone to regard life as static and to look upon those conditions under which we grow up as the natural and eternal order of things. It is for this reason that we resist change and are often found foes of progress and enlightenment especially when education and training have caused a thought to crystallize into a habit, its eradiation is exceedingly difficult.“ 22

 Changing crystallized habits and thought bundles is the challenge presented to the Millennials and Gen Z cohort groups. Habits that are causing maladaptive behaviors and a range of psychosocial dysfunctions such as the unwarranted increase in anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, depression, and hopelessness in generations during the prime of their lives, undermining hope and progress in a social environment lacking the values of face-to-face interactions. An approach to life, applying Holistic Health philosophies rather than focusing or singling out a symptom, anxiety for example, is the centuries proven approach to the health of the human being where one considers the whole person and how he or she interacts with his or her environment. Holistic Health emphasizes the connection of mind, body, and spirit as well. Orthopathy or Holistic Health teaches us that the body slides into a disorder when conditions warrant and slide back into health when conditions improve.

 Orthopathy teaches that diseases (dysfunctions) of the body and mind are materialized within by enervating habits. Enervating habits is simply self-indulgence. Whether one overeats, overexerts, worries in excess, fears the unknown, can’t control emotions, anger, selfishness, or too much ambition to name a few, cause nerve energy to drop below normal, checking elimination,  therefore producing enervation. When enervation occurs, it is followed by Toxemia where the number of toxins to be excreted by the body is higher in volume than the body is capable of processing and excreting. Toxemia causes the organism to be overloaded by toxins by using an overwhelming amount of nerve energy. Nerve energy, the energy produced by the organism to maintain the structural integrity of the organism needs to be present in sufficient amounts to carry out the activities of life. When the organism uses nerve energy above normal production, caused by stress, unhealthy eating, over-thinking and other forms of overstimulation, the organism falls short of eliminating toxins in the blood as they develop; as they accumulate the body gets intoxicated and the organism becomes enervated causing all sorts of organic problems. Enervating bad habits whether from mental issues such as stress, worry, fear anxiety, loneliness, social isolation depression, and hopelessness, as well as physical excesses use up an excess of nerve energy production. When the elimination of toxins is checked and toxins are retained within the blood and bodily tissues result in Toxemia. Toxemia and the persistent presence of these toxins cause inflammation, which can lead to chronic health problems and eventual organic change of the organs in the human body.

 If a child is not taught correctly how to handle “fight or flight” or fear and anxiety, the excessive uncertainty and fear can cause a child to enervate, and no child can thrive in a healthy state of living if excessive stress, worry, fear, anxiety, loneliness, social isolation depression, and hopelessness are present. Healthy parenting rearing practices of love and attention and an end to overprotecting and “hovering over” or simply leaving children to fend life with a screen is Right love. To teach respect is to build on love, tough love shows up as real love when an individual grows up and has the tools to understand how to live life. Children need to learn the lessons of rightful survival from their first breaths to govern their body and their mind. The lessons one learns are by no means perfect, as human nature is imperfect. A human is born with a blank slate and should not be a slave to any shortcomings learned along the way to living a fulfilled life. Yet until one learns to repeal and dispel any wrong that one’s mind can’t set straight, or rid the mind and thus the body of any habits of dysfunctional behaviors, issues that one’s mind finds a challenge to get or set straight, that cause them angst, these thoughts will become things that crystallize into a set dysfunction. Let us be teachers, the story-tellers of Right habits and not enablers of dysfunctional behaviors. Behaviors that will lead to stress, worry, anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, loneliness, hopelessness, and a less than fulfilled life.

 One of the key aspects of mental health is diet. The Western diet results in an unbalanced food intake haphazardly making the body overly acidic and can make the body’s metabolism rate slow down and make it difficult for our digestive system to break down fatty acids. When this happens, the brain and central nervous system cannot properly function and over time one can develop severe neurological problems such as depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorders, and other more severe mentally related problems (Fanny, P. Dr. (2016). The Acid Alkaline Association Diet. An effective diet is as important as good mental and body work. For example, the modern Western diet is high in acidic foods and if our blood suffers from an acidic condition due to our diet, the blood will naturally go to the body to find the chemical that it needs to balance out its pH balance if that chemical is not present. This chemical is an alkaline, bicarbonate of salt, phosphorous and it is found in the bones. When the blood leaches out phosphorous it weakens the bone structure which may explain why so many have problems with bone and bone health. Seems that hip, knee and other types of joint replacements even stem cell replacements for joints are relevant topics among the medical community personally having several family members being advised to be put under that sort of knife. This would not be necessary if we perhaps followed a healthy regimen that does not tax the bone structures by depleting them of their source minerals. From a personal perspective, I present what was an organic, natural resolution to a medical problem: My brother at a young age was diagnosed with a problem where the ball of his femur bone was flat therefore not fitting correctly into the socket, therefore leaving him with an awkward disability in his gate. Several doctors at that time were consulted and only one advised my parents to administer a healthy clean diet (this was 1955) and indefinite bed rest until the top of the femur bone grew into the socket in its correct shape. My parents trusted this doctor and after two and a half years of being confined to “not placing pressure on his leg whatsoever” the top of the femur bone grew into a ball and a healthy predisposition for my brother of avoiding a disability that would have prevented him from his favorite sport, running!

 An alkaline diet assures that food intake corrects acidity, gastritis, and inflammation of the cell tissues of the body and is crucial to supplement with minerals, due to deficits as in magnesium which is a major contributor to cellular acidosis. An alkaline diet corrects cellular acidosis, thereby, enhancing toxic mineral mobilization within the organism. A high-fiber diet with 80% of food intake that is alkaline-forming is key in lowering progressive metallic acidosis which, by the way, naturally increases with age. The modern Western diet is deficient in potassium bicarbonates, mostly due to soil depletion of minerals. The Western diet also is high in the intake of acid-producing foods all bad news in the cellular toxic load of the body’s tissues. Having a diet of mostly raw vegetables and fruits one can secure mind power and strength must be secured from these sources. The body needs to reduce their cellular toxic load for the ultimate in antioxidant protection. Ultimately an unhealthy physical structure taxes the mind, the mind then can tax the soul or functional consciousness. Physical pain can cause a great distraction to a healthy mental state of being.

 One can maintain their brainpower and the ability to regulate their mental health through one’s diet. Specifically powerful is the Acid Alkaline Association diet (Fanny, P. Dr. (2016). The Acid Alkaline Association Diet) which is a diet with the sole purpose of maintaining the acid/alkaline balance in the system and providing the ultimate in nerve energy; a diet of raw whole foods, perfectly combined for one’s consumption will stave off enervation and help them keep their organism in an ideal acid balance and physically and mentally prosper.

 Caring for the mind is probably one of the most important factors within the Holistic Health approach to a healthier Self. The study of the effects of biochemicals released in the body based on thoughts and one’s inner Will is one of the most potent advancements within psychoneuroimmunology. Psychoneuroimmunology applies to the teaching of the Orthopathy and Holistic Health philosophies of effectively and naturally controlling thought bundles that enervate the mind therefore effectively managing unhealthy reactions in the body. Our minds affect all parts of our lives, from our mood and emotional state to our physical health.  In the presence of a tension headache or a nervous stomach or just the feeling of fight or flight, one can understand how strongly our mental states can affect our physical health.

 Psychoneuroimmunology is a new branch of medicine based on the interaction of the brain, the endocrine system, and the immune system.23 Psychoneuroimmunology shows that positive emotions can simply have positive physiological effects including an enhanced immune system.

And actually, the very notion that positive feelings can affect our body chemistry and effect a change in thoughts and therefore enhance our healing forces is nothing new.  Hippocrates insisted that medical students give full weight to the emotions, both as a contributor to the cause of disease and as a factor in recovery. Aristotle discoursed at length the role of the emotions in health and illness and throughout history, physicians emphasized the importance of the patient’s Will to live in treating disease.  

  The brain needs to maintain optimal health through diet and exercise and lifestyle changes to improve the way one thinks, feels, and how one interacts with others and with one’s life. How well one feels helps one succeed in whatever one’s dreams may be during their lifetime. Teaching a holistic lifestyle ‘syllabus’ from which one doesn’t fall short and integrating this “syllabus” into every day is the most advantageous way of dealing with thoughts of a negative or repressive nature. Our brains, our minds, our thoughts have the power to lift us out of practically any adverse situation. In Norman Cousin’s book “Head First”23, we get an idea of the power, the nerve power, the life force that the human brain can deliver onto our psyche, onto our very Self. 

 We read in Chapter 2 of this thesis how Helicopter parenting has lead to children missing key developmental changes in their lives. This sort of arrested development shows that parents and society alike got in the way of children taking charge of their lives and integrating key developmental changes that are showing up in painful distressing ways later on in the life cycle. Changing the subconscious, the dysfunctional nature of not integrating psychosocial developmental stages, having a so-called screen for a friend or mentor, shows that these factors are hampering Millennials and Gen Z from taking control of their own life and moods and integrating an enlightened Self with the outside world. Are these cohort groups becoming lambs to the slaughter? The challenges presented in this paper for Millennials and Gen Z can be altered and changed and reversed by alerting as to what basic human evolutionary needs are being ignored and thus not integrated into their lives. How can they feel, understand what is not being integrated into their life to lead a healthier existence? Additionally, we need to introduce possible Cognitive Behavioral techniques and understand, truly understand that Thoughts are Things. And Thoughts need to be ruled by principles built on the theory of a healthy lifestyle. It is then that the body can respond appropriately when it is subject to a healthy mind. In the Homo Sapiens scheme of things, the body surrenders to the quality of the thoughts of the mind (whether mindful or not), the mind surrenders to be governed by a soul, a spirit, and this soul, this spirit ultimately surrenders to the guidance, to the principles of a power that is higher than the Self, whatever we may feel that light or energy source may be, God or otherwise.

 Caring for the health of the mind can include aspects of the spiritual and physical as well as with everything within the realm of holistic health. This can encompass getting enough sleep and making sure that your brain has the rest and nourishment it needs to function well and so the body can produce the nerve energy it needs to function throughout the day. It can also mean reading regularly or doing another activity that engages your mind. Another part of caring for the mind is seeking help for any mental health illnesses with which one may struggle. If one finds themselves battling anxiety, depression, or any other type of mental illness, reach out for assistance. You can only be your best Self if all of you are healthy, and mental illness is an illness like any other – one that needs help and healing. Maintaining an optimal level of wellness is crucial to living a higher quality of life. Wellness matters. Wellness matters because everything we do and every emotion we feel relates to our well-being. In turn, our well-being directly affects our actions and emotions. It’s an ongoing circle. Therefore, everyone needs to achieve optimal wellness to subdue stress, reduce the risk of illness, and ensure positive human interactions and well-being.

 Whole Body-Mind Synthesis is a process that addresses specific personal projects, business successes, general conditions, and transitions in the client's personal life, relationships, or profession by examining what is going on right now in the moment. Discovering what one’s obstacles or challenges might be, and taking steps to choose a course of action to make one’s life be what one wants it to be. Whole Body-Mind synthesis is an alliance between a Holistic Health practitioner and the client where the synthesis of the relationship continually gives all the power back to the client. It is a belief that every person knows the answers to every question or challenge he/she may have in their life, even if those answers appear to be obscured, concealed, or hidden inside. Through a Holistic Health program, one can strive to live a healthy life, naturally. A person learns about the Self, about what makes them tick in today’s modern challenges. Only the individual is the only expert in his entire life who truly knows who he/she is and what he/she needs. The individual is the only expert who can recognize what is best for him/herself. Through practicing the philosophies of Holistic Health one can discover what one’s own personal "best" is and how to appease that ever nagging voice we call the subconscious.

 Every day one makes choices to engage or not to engage different activities. These choices may range from the profound to the trivial and each one has an effect that makes one’s life more fulfilling or less fulfilling, more balanced, or less balanced, which makes one’s process of living more effective or less effective. The philosophies of a Holistic Health practitioner helps one learn how to make choices that create an effective, balanced, and fulfilling life. While Millennials and Gen Z’s may suffer from low self-esteem or self-worth, both of these afflictions have a profound consequence for how a person may live their life, for how they treat themselves and how we deal and cope with others. The Holistic Health philosophies are simple, similar, and unique, and are easily integrated into the every day. They are second nature. These philosophies create the foundation for the presence or absence of that essential confidence we need to venture forth into the world and create the lives we want and deserve.  Being one's most authentic, powerful, and creative self is the foundation for everything else in our lives. If we get that part right, the rest simply falls into place.

 One needs to take the time to care for the spirit. No matter what one’s views on the soul or the afterlife are, there is a piece of oneself that is distinct from one’s physical body or one’s logical mind that is more quintessentially the spiritual Self. One must take time to care for their spirit and check in from time to time with one’s emotional state. Meditation and journaling can be an important part of spiritual self-care, as well as exercise and mindful eating. One needs to take the time to recognize this part of oneself, to acknowledge any struggles, and to care for them. Whether it’s taking time to get a massage or to go for a run during the day, or simply to find the time to be quiet and at peace with this quintessential part of oneself, one’s Spirit.

 In Holistic Health we understand that all the diseases whether physical or mental are all the same. They are a product of an unbalanced organism. The organism’s diet, thoughts, and actions are all part of the same existence. The organism is presently living a sort of convoluted existence based on personal values and experiences from an environment of static, motionless screens and artificial intelligence applications, applications that satisfy our every need for a possible addictive behavior in the attainment of the next dopamine rush. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter, produces a heightened sense of pleasure.

 The Holistic Health philosophy is simple and straightforward: The body knows what it needs and wants to find equilibrium and a healthy state of being. It is up to the person, the body’s navigator to understand what it is that they need to do to steer those needs and wants, to know what it is that their subconscious voice is demanding based on all past experiences. These past experiences are thought bundles or schemas that have been allowed to crystallize into habits. Holistic Health philosophies include Natural Laws, laws that are formulas that describe uniformities or regularities within nature, the uniformities of nature are intrinsically necessary conditions to a balanced healthy Self. One law in specific is the Law of Vital Accommodation, which is like a natural balance sheet. The law states: The response of the vital organism to external stimuli is an instinctive one, based upon a self-preservative instinct which adapts itself to whatever influence it cannot destroy or control (Shelton, H.M.,(1979) Human Life: Its Philosophies and Laws, Pomeroy, WA: Health Research Books, Pgs.19-20). It continues with that a man who habitually indulges in stimulants would exhaust and destroy himself with but few indulgences if the organism had no means of curbing its reactions against the stimulation and thereby lessening the expenditure of vital power. Therefore the onset of an addiction or an ever-growing need for a heightened state not satiated by the initial intake of the stimulant. In reference to this thesis, the overuse of stimulants, in this case, technology, and technology’s negative effects of too many stimulants on the human organism. The human organism's sense of adjustment and the need for larger amounts of stimulation to get the same heightened state of pleasure: Dopamine release. 

 In much the same way that we apply Orthopathy to physiological and physical diseases, Holistic Health philosophies can be much utilized in curing the organism of destroying itself through self-observation, regulation and self-trust and self-esteem.  In the front lines is the power of thought, which to this day is a highly discussed topic.  Can changing our thoughts, becoming aware of our shortcomings, understanding why we feel or act and react in a certain way improve mental health and therefore the general well-being of the Spiritual Self?

 Our thoughts can dictate pretty much how we deal with life.  Those thoughts, or actions that cause thoughts, have been ingrained in the subconscious from birth. In fact, from 0 to 8 years of age we ramble on through life never really connecting with reality, our subconscious and conscious mind have not yet connected. Yet those experiences early on, also known as the “inner child” can and will dictate our present state of being and how we may interpret our future. Research has shown that our thoughts can help change the pathology of disease by changing the negative outlook of disease into one of hope.  The Orthopathic notion that disease is Right action can be translated into mental health in much the same way. The disease and the symptoms of mental health are but an indication of what needs to be done to correct the present state of “mental disease” to a healthier well-being. How do we change Thoughts that cause anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, depression, and hopelessness into one of happiness and joy? It is in our brains as our brains are perfectionists. Once we get an idea in our head our brain will do everything possible to duly finish it, even if it is causing harm. We change our thoughts. We work on the cause of our mental handicaps. In short, the brain loves technology, technology helps release that ever intoxicating hormone, Dopamine, the feel-good hormone. As long as the brain is not taught otherwise we will face the dangers of over-extending on mal-adaptive behaviors and not on healthy interpersonal connections, the Soul will go into a state of latency and anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, depression, and hopelessness will continue to prevail.

  “I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; someone or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.” -Lucius Seneca, Greek Philosopher

What does Seneca imply by this quote? Seems like even back in Seneca’s time, (he passed away in 65 B.C. / C. E.) the human race was dealing with “Change.”  What is it about change that so can rattle our minds? Is it the sudden inconsistency? Is it getting pushed out of a routine? Is it plain fear of moving forward? Yes moving forward. What does the latter represent? Let’s break it down.

·       “I never come home with the same moral character I went out with:” We encounter so much in our hyper-stimulated world. “Ping” goes the smartphone; “read me,” says the billboard; homelessness surrounds us (at least in my city of Los Angeles). We may then be subject to situations that bring warmth into our psyche, a parent joyfully parenting; an encounter with a random hello; and in my case, people from all over this earth that I meet through my Airbnb unit (pre-covid-19 of course, not many people travel at the moment). Are we the same person we just woke up to? We most definitely are not. We do not have the same thought 5-minutes into a day, let alone at the first glimpse of daylight. Then we go about our day, we are side-swiped with a different perspective, by perhaps a jolting message, that we, if we were listening closely, if we were present in the moment, we may see that a perfect stranger, unbeknownst to us, perhaps our Soul, the metaphysical is budging, nagging, guiding us towards a better situation for our present state!

·        The most challenging, “becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace:” so many times we are led to think that once we deal with a situation, we are fine and on our way. Sure we are, we strive for balance, we educate, put ourselves through the wringer achieving the perfect state and then, What was that? Who is that speaking? It is me your subconscious, your spiritual Self is touching base, saying hello. We deny that whatever we experience in life is recorded on this thing called the brain or our hard-drive equivalent, and that organ is ever-present to send us a jolt from our past, reminding us of the good and the bad, all of our experiences are forever ours. Our internal peace becomes threatened by everyday living, something triggers and we may feel like we are back at step one. Oh poor me we may say. Alright already!

·        This leads to last and not least, “someone or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene:” Viruses, that is all, viruses, as in our computers come on to the scene-setting our internal peace topsyturvy. However, if we were to learn that our “internal peace” is in a safe partition protected by our human existence's “anti-virus program,” ever striving to correct or patch those things that bubble up and make us anxious, anxiety as it were, is put at bay and we are brought back to a state of peace, where we are content at every moment. Your soul is ever-present, oh so present!

 Seneca was right; we are never the same from day to day no matter how much we try to shield ourselves from reality. Yet with acceptance at hand, our lives become richer, we become more compassionate, accepting, and loving. Nothing is wrong, there is nothing bad, it is all good, we always come out on top in one way or another. The world at large is daunting yet we are all one. Together let’s give each other the space to bloom. We are part of a bigger intricate picture, blooming at different stages just like a flower that is ever-bloom dying and being reborn, throwing its seeds to the wind. Let’s turn a page and start a period of growth by coming out of the dead of the past possessing the skills to grow, deal with stalls and preserving enough nerve-energy to re-coop, re-charge, and be at peace. Embracing change, beautifully so!

   CONCLUSION

During this pandemic of Covid-19, there are many conflicting and contradictory views on the evolving stories of the benefits of surviving life at home, whether it is work, education, or play.  Under examination, this presents how society and commerce need to embrace the fact that conducting activities from home or remotely, has become the new productive norm to a new productive workforce, to a new norm for education to a new norm for social interaction. What is noted in literature is that the psychosocial benefits of conducting life remotely present benefits from a better work-life balance to a positive effect on the environment, to having a happy healthier life.  I challenge and highly contest these ideals. What is hidden behind this information is the fact that humans are social animals and behind that better work-life balance hangs an unstructured demand on the psyche which is now creating isolation, and left defenseless against the encroachment of social media manias and the brain’s own devices. Loneliness has become a trait in American society.

 Whether we are experiencing a pandemic or we are not, it is apparent that when working from home, or simply sheltering at home, isolation, and lack of structure does take its toll on the human psyche when people physically distance themselves from others in the community. A sense of isolation increases and this loss of contact exacerbates the widespread challenge of loneliness which is known to be deeply harmful to both our mental and physical health and well-being. A recent article on Covid-19, mental health and loneliness states, “There is a more fundamental obstacle to our mental health and well-being that is harder to see but essential to confront, in our fast-paced, mobile, and globalized world, we have allowed one of our most treasured sources of safety, resilience, and health to weaken and fray: our relationships with one another.24

 The United States over the past five decades, as mentioned in the introduction of this thesis has experienced a decline in social capital – the network of social relationships, grounded in shared values and norms that gives people a sense of community and support. Younger Americans have fewer closer friends and belong to fewer and fewer communal associations. Younger Americans display less trust for each, not necessarily trust each other less, just display less trust: fear of strangers, mounting social media pressures of a technology-based lifestyle, and the difficulty in establishing meaningful connections due to choice overload, for example in their romantic relationships, this furthers a sense of all aloneness. What is more surprising is that in regards to other generational cohort groups, Millennials and Gen Z seem to suffer more. “What we see with the onslaught of physical distancing and isolation of Covid-19 and the recent flare-up with racial injustice is an exacerbation to the sense of separation between people at a moment when we need more social support.”24

 Social isolation is associated with an increased risk of depression and anxiety as well as heart disease, premature death, and dementia. The feeling of being alone is also associated with a shorter lifespan. One study found that the mortality impact associated with loneliness is similar to that observed with the harmful effects of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. At a societal level, our weakened connections may make it harder for us to have honest, transparent conversations across political and social divides. This increasing divide in turn makes it more difficult for people to come together and address the daunting challenges life presents us or just face the feelings of looming uncertainty in general. Society is witnessing unprecedented changes to social inequality, climate change, and now a global pandemic and these issues are not being addressed at the community-needed level of social commitment. Perhaps it is needed in the course of societal equilibration to re-introduce the Salons2 of the last turn-of-the-century era.

 Public officials and health care providers are on the right track offering needed education to the younger population regarding the great benefit of learning and adopting coping strategies for dealing with stress, other than just medicating the stress. Exercise, therapy, yoga, mindfulness, emotional regulation, and meditation have all proven to be highly efficient in combating irrational anxiety, loneliness, social isolation, depression, and hopelessness. Social media makes superficial relationships easier while preventing the development of meaningful connections.

 We can find comfort in Holistic Health philosophies, a natural development of paradigms emphasizing merging technology with nature. Health is the result of natural living. When people live in harmony with their physiological needs, health is the inevitable result. By supplying the organism with its basic requirements (natural, unadulterated food; sunshine; clean, fresh air; pure water; appropriate physical, mental and emotional activities; and a productive lifestyle) while simultaneously eliminating all harmful factors and influences, the self-constructing, self-regulating, self-repairing qualities of the body are given full rein. Holistic Health practices are defined as a principled, belief system in the restoration and preservation of health both physical and mental by natural, unadulterated means as simple as the intake of pure water, sunshine, exercise, clean air, cleanliness, proper diet, exercise, getting outdoors (Biophilia), sleep, rest, correct temperatures in living environments, relaxation, poise and overall a good mental and spiritual attitude.  Establishing these habits easily become a routine, and surprisingly so, most of us were probably not intentionally taught good mental health hygiene habits. These habits also bring consistency to our lives, promote wellness and resilience, and protect us from becoming overwhelmed by mental illness. And while mental health hygiene habits may vary from person to person, it is important to identify those that work best for us and to integrate them into our day — every day — through reminders and practice until they become a routine that we anticipate with pleasure.

 ENDNOTES

1)       Progress. 2020. In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved March 10, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/progress

2)       Salon. 2020. In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved April 3, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/progress

3)       Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, (2020) Wikipedia. Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erikson%27s_stages_of_psychosocial_development  (Accessed: 21 April, 2020)

4)       Adulting. 2020. In Urban Dictionary.com. Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Adulting

5)       SingleCare Team, 20 May, 2020. Anxiety Statistics 2020. Retrieved from https://www.singlecare.com/blog/news/anxiety-statistics/

6)       Stieg, C. (n.d.), 22 November, 2019. Half of millennials and 75% of Gen-Zers have left jobs for mental health reasons. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/08/millennials-gen-z-have-quit-jobs-due-to-mental-health-issues-survey.html

7)       Morrison, Pat (n.d.) 28 October, 2015. How ‘Helicopter Parenting’ is ruining America’s children. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-morrison-lythcott-haims-20151028-column.html

8)       Skenazy, L and Haidt J (n.d.) May, 2017. The Fragile Generation: Bad policy and paranoid parenting are making kids too safe to succeed. Retrieved from  https://reason.com/2017/10/26/the-fragile-generation

9)       Heid, M. (n.d.) 30 April, 2020. The Debate Over Screens and Health is More Contentious than Ever.  Retrieved from https://elemental.medium.com/kids-are-staring-at-screens-all-day-is-this-really-a-problem-10ffdeef35f5

10)    Twenge, J., Haid, J., Joiner, T. and Campbell , K. April 2020. Underestimating Digital Meida Harm. Retrieved from: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0839-4.epdf?author_access_token=AMli-v_NVizlRHfiHJUs2NRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NyO6WHXhaam3zaljiEGjfZWSw5xRcCYPYjudNb4RKEc1H5eAeNLyrwNMcZ3q6A3hZiGMwJNpRy1HGyUwXOLDn2TDAS79zv5Lgv80kc2gm_6A%3D%3D

11)    Ludden, J. (n.d.), 6 February, 2012. Helicopter Parents Hover in the Workplace. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2012/02/06/146464665/helicopter-parents-hover-in-the-workplace?ps=cprs               Marano, H. (n.d.) 31, January 2014. Helicopter Parenting-It’s Worse Than You Think.  Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nation-wimps/201401/helicopter-parenting-its-worse-you-think

12)    Headly, CW. (n.d.) 20 May, 2019. Millennials are the most narcistic generation buy they are very aware of it. Retrieved from https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/millennials-are-the-most-narcissistic-generation-but-they-are-very-aware-of-it

13)    Dimock, M. (n.d.) 17 January, 2019. Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/

14)    Gayed, M. (n.d.) 22 August, 2019. The Digital Natives of Generation Z. Retrieved from: Headly, CW. (n.d.) 20 May, 2019. Retrieved from: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/44/0/344155/Analysis/The-digital-natives-of-Generation-Z.aspx

15)    Singal, J. (n.d.) 3 March, 2016. For 80 Years, Young Americans Have Been Getting More Anxious and Depressed, and No One Is Quite Sure. Retrieved from: https://www.thecut.com/2016/03/for-80-years-young-americans-have-been-getting-more-anxious-and-depressed.html

16)    Heitler, S. (n.d.) 21 January, 2018. High School and College Student Anxiety: Why the Epidemic? Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201806/high-school-and-college-student-anxiety-why-the-epidemic

17)    Bee, Helen; Boyd, Denise (March 2009). The Developing Child (12th ed). Boston, MA: Pearson.

18)    Sharkey, Wendy (May 1997). Erik Erikson Developmental Theory. Retrieved from: https://web.archive.org/web/20121127075544/http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/erikson.htm

19)    Gross, Francis L. (1987). Introducing Erik Erikson: An Invitation to his Thinking. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. p. 4.

20)    Wright, Jr, J. Eugene (1982). Erikson: Identity and Religion. New York, NY: Seabury Press. p. 73.

21)    Stevens, Richard (1983). Erik Erikson: An Introduction. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press. pp. 48–50.

22)    Shelton, H.M. (1979). Human Life: Its Philosophies and Laws, Preface. Pomeroy, WA: Health Research Books.

23)    Cousins, N. Head (1989). First: The Biology and Hope and the Healing Power of the Human Spirit, Pg. 2. New York: Penguin.

24)    Murthy, Vivek H, Cheneitler, A T.(n.d.) 6 July, 2020. Here’s the Best Way to Take Care of your Mental Health During the Pandemic Retrieved from:  https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/opinions/covid-19-mental-health-global-pandemic-murthy-chen/index.html

25)    Graham, D.N. (2006 and 2008). Dr: The 80/10/10 Diet: Balancing your health, your weight, and your life, one luscious bite at a time, Pg. 11. Key Largo: FoodnSport Press.

26)    The Sleep Judge Editorial Team, “Working with Burnout,” Sleep Judge: last modified July, 19, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.thesleepjudge.com/work-burnout/#different-levels-of-burnout-by-industry

27)    Beaton, C. (n.d.) 23 May, 2017. 8 Habits That Make Millennials Stressed. Retrieved from: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/8-habits-that-make-millennials-stressed-anxious-and_b_5924f46be4b0dfb1ca3a0f8a

        ATTACHMENT 1

Fundamental of Health, Dr. Douglas N. Graham

1.     Clean Fresh Air

2.     Pure Water

3.     Foods for which we are biologically designed

4.     Sufficient Sleep

5.     Rest and Relaxation

6.     Vigorous Activity

7.     Emotional Poise and stability

8.     Sunshine and Natural Light

9.     Comfortable Temperatures

10.  Peace, Harmony, Serenity, and Tranquility

11.  Human Touch

12.  Thought, Cogitation, and Meditation

13.  Friendships and Companionships

14.  Gregariousness (Social Relationships, Community)

15.  Love and Appreciation

16.  Play and Recreation

17.  Pleasant Environment

18.  Amusement and Entertainment

19.  Sense of Humor, Mirth, and Merriment

20.  Security of Life and Its Means

21.  Inspiration, Motivation, Purpose, and Commitment

22.  Creative, Useful Work (Pursuit of Interests)

23.  Self-Control and Self-mastery

24.  Individual Sovereignty

25.  Expression of Reproductive Instincts

26.  The Satisfaction of the Esthetic Senses

27.  Self-Confidence

28.  Positive Self-Image and Sense of Self-Worth

29.  Internal and External Cleanliness

30.  Smiles

31.  Music and all other arts

32.  Biophilia (Love of Nature)

[texandviolence]

What Makes a Life Significant

William James

IN my previous talk, 'On a Certain Blindness,' I tried to make you feel how soaked and shot-through life is with values and meanings which we fail to realize because of our external and insensible point of view. The meanings are there for the others, but they are not there for us. There lies more than a mere interest of curious speculation in understanding this. It has the most tremendous practical importance. I wish that I could convince you of it as I feel it myself. It is the basis of all our tolerance, social, religious, and political. The forgetting of it lies at the root of every stupid and sanguinary mistake that rulers over subject-peoples make. The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours. No one has insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize about them in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties, and the trait in human character most likely to make the angels weep.

Every Jack sees in his own particular Jill charms and perfections to the enchantment of which we stolid onlookers are stone-cold. And which has the superior view of the absolute truth, he or we? Which has the more vital insight into the nature of Jill's existence, as a fact? Is he in excess, being in this matter a maniac? or are we in defect, being victims of a pathological anæsthesia as regards Jill's magical importance? Surely the latter; surely to Jack are the profounder truths revealed; surely poor Jill's palpitating little life-throbs are among the wonders of creation, are worthy of this sympathetic interest; and it is to our shame that the rest of us cannot feel like Jack. For Jack realizes Jill concretely, and we do not. He struggles toward a union with her inner life, divining her feelings, anticipating her desires, understanding her limits as manfully as he can, and yet inadequately, too; for he is also afflicted with some blindness, even here. Whilst we, dead clods that we are, do not even seek after these things, but are contented that that portion of eternal fact named Jill should be for us as if it were not. Jill, who knows her inner life, knows that Jack's way of taking it— so importantly—is the true and serious way; and she responds to the truth in him by taking him truly and seriously, too. May the ancient blindness never wrap its clouds about either of them again! Where would any of us be, were there no one willing to know us as we really are or ready to repay us for our insight by making recognizant return? We ought, all of us, to realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way.

If you say that this is absurd, and that we cannot be in love with everyone at once, I merely point out to you that, as a matter of fact, certain persons do exist with an enormous capacity for friendship and for taking delight in other people's lives; and 'that such persons know more of truth than if their hearts were not so big. The vice of ordinary Jack and Jill affection is not its intensity, but its exclusions and its jealousies. Leave those out, and you see that the ideal I am holding up before you, however impracticable to-day, yet contains nothing intrinsically absurd.

We have unquestionably a great cloud-bank of ancestral blindness weighing down upon us, only transiently riven here and there by fitful revelations of the truth. It is vain to hope for this state of things to alter much. Our inner secrets must remain for the most part impenetrable by others, for beings as essentially practical as we are necessarily short of sight. But, if we cannot gain much positive insight into one another, cannot we at least use our sense of our own blindness to make us more cautious in going over the dark places? Cannot we escape some of those hideous ancestral intolerances; and cruelties, and positive reversals of the truth?

For the remainder of this hour I invite you to seek with me some principle to make our tolerance less chaotic. And, as I began my previous lecture by a personal reminiscence, I am going to ask your indulgence for a similar bit of egotism now.

A few summers ago I spent a happy week at the famous Assembly Grounds on the borders of Chautauqua Lake. The moment one treads that sacred enclosure, one feels one's self in an atmosphere of success. Sobriety and industry, intelligence and goodness, orderliness and ideality, prosperity and cheerfulness, pervade the air. It is a serious and studious picnic on a gigantic scale. Here you have a town of many thousands of inhabitants, beautifully laid out in the forest and drained, and equipped with means for satisfying all the necessary lower and most of the superfluous higher wants of man. You have a first-class college in full blast. You have magnificent music-a chorus of seven hundred voices, with possibly the most perfect open-air auditorium in the world. You have every sort of athletic exercise from sailing, rowing, swimming, bicycling, to the ball-field and the more artificial doings which the gymnasium affords. You have kindergartens and model secondary schools. You have general religious services and special club-houses for the several sects. You have perpetually running soda-water fountains, and daily popular lectures by distinguished men. You have the best of company, and yet no effort. You have no zymotic diseases, no poverty, no drunkenness, no crime, no police. You have culture, you have kindness, you have cheapness, you have equality, you have the best fruits of what mankind has fought and bled and striven for under the name of civilization for centuries. You have, in short, a foretaste of what human society might be, were it all in the light, with no suffering and no dark corners.

I went in curiosity for a day. I stayed for a week, held spell-bound by the charm and ease of everything, by the middle-class paradise, without a sin, without a victim, without a blot, without a tear.

And yet what was my own astonishment, on emerging into the dark and wicked world again, to catch myself quite unexpectedly and involuntarily saying: "Ouf! what a relief! Now for something primordial and savage, even though it were as bad as an Armenian massacre, to set the balance straight again. This order is too tame, this culture too second-rate, this goodness too uninspiring. This human drama without a villain or a pang; this community so refined that ice-cream soda-water is the utmost offering it can make to the brute animal in man; this city simmering in the tepid lakeside sun; this atrocious harmlessness of all things,-I cannot abide with them. Let me take my chances again in the big outside worldly wilderness with all its sins and sufferings. There are the heights and depths, the precipices and the steep ideals, the gleams of the awful and the infinite; and there is more hope and help a thousand times than in this dead level and quintessence of every mediocrity."

Such was the sudden right-about-face performed for me by my lawless fancy! There had been spread before me the realization—on a small, sample scale of course—of all the ideals for which our civilization has been striving: security, intelligence, humanity, and order; and here was the instinctive hostile reaction, not of the natural man, but of a so-called cultivated man upon such a Utopia. There seemed thus to be a self-contradiction and paradox somewhere, which I, as a professor drawing a full salary, was in duty bound to unravel and explain, if I could.

So I meditated. And, first of all, I asked myself what the thing was that was so lacking in this Sabbatical city, and the lack of which kept one forever falling short of the higher sort of contentment. And I soon recognized that it was the element that gives to the wicked outer world all its moral style, expressiveness and picturesqueness,—the element of precipitousness, so to call it, of strength and strenuousness, intensity and danger. What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness; with heroism, reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death. But in this unspeakable Chautauqua there was no potentiality of death in sight anywhere, and no point of the compass visible from which danger might possibly appear. The ideal was so completely victorious already that no sign of any previous battle remained, the place just resting on its oars. But what our human emotions seem to require is the sight of the struggle going on. The moment the fruits are being merely eaten, things become ignoble. Sweat and effort, human nature strained to its uttermost and on the rack, yet getting through alive, and then turning its back on its success to pursue another more rare and arduous still-this is the sort of thing the presence of which inspires us, and the reality of which it seems to be the function of all the higher forms of literature and fine art to bring home to us and suggest. At Chautauqua there were no racks, even in the place's historical museum; and no sweat, except possibly the gentle moisture on the brow of some lecturer, or on the sides of some player in the ball-field.

Such absence of human nature in extremis anywhere seemed, then, a sufficient explanation for Chautauqua's flatness and lack of zest.

But was not this a paradox well calculated to fill one with dismay? It looks indeed, thought 1, as if the romantic idealists with their pessimism about our civilization were, after all, quite right. An irremediable flatness is coming over the world. Bourgeoisie and mediocrity, church sociables and teachers' conventions, are taking the place of the old heights and depths and romantic chiaroscuro. And, to get human life in its wild intensity, we must in future turn more and more away from the actual, and forget it, if we can, in the romancer's or the poet's pages. The whole world, delightful and sinful as it may still appear for a moment to one just escaped from the Chautauquan enclosure, is nevertheless obeying more and more just those ideals that are sure to make of it in the end a mere Chautauqua Assembly on an enormous scale. Was im Gesang soll leben muss im Leben untergehn. Even now, in our own country, correctness, fairness, and compromise for every small advantage are crowding out all other qualities. The higher heroisms and the old rare flavors are passing out of life.*

With these thoughts in my mind, I was speeding with the train toward Buffalo, when, near that city, the sight of a workman doing something on the dizzy edge of a sky-scaling iron construction brought me to my senses very suddenly. And now I perceived, by a flash of insight, that I had been steeping myself in pure ancestral blindness, and looking at life with the eyes of a remote spectator. Wishing for heroism and the spectacle of human nature on the rack, I had never noticed the great fields of heroism lying round about me, I had failed to see it present and alive. I could only think of it as dead and embalmed, labelled and costumed, as it is in the pages of romance. And yet there it was before me in the daily lives of the laboring classes. Not in clanging fights and desperate marches only is heroism to be looked for, but on every railway bridge and fire-proof building that is going up to-day. On freight-trains, on the decks of vessels, in cattleyards and mines, on lumber-rafts, among the firemen and the policemen, the demand for courage is incessant; and the supply never fails. There, every day of the year somewhere, is human nature in extremis for you. And wherever a scythe, an axe, a pick, or a shovel is wielded, you have it sweating and aching and with its powers of patient endurance racked to the utmost under the length of hours of the strain.

As I awoke to all this unidealized heroic life around me, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes; and a wave of sympathy greater than anything I had ever before felt with the common life of common men began to fill my soul. It began to seem as if virtue with horny hands and dirty skin were the only virtue genuine and vital enough to take account of. Every other virtue poses; none is absolutely unconscious and simple, and unexpectant of decoration or recognition, like this. These are our soldiers, thought I., these our sustainers, these the very parents of our life.

Many years ago, when in Vienna, I had had a similar feeling of awe and reverence in looking at the peasant women, in from the country on their business at the market for the day. Old hags many of them were, dried and brown and wrinkled, kerchiefed and short-petticoated, with thick wool stockings on their bony shanks, stumping through the glittering thoroughfares, looking neither to the right nor the left, bent on duty, envying nothing, humble-hearted, remote;—and yet at bottom, when you came to think of it, bearing the whole fabric of the splendors and corruptions of that city on their laborious backs. For where would any of it have been without their unremitting, unrewarded labor in the fields? And so with us: not to our generals and poets, I thought, but to the Italian and Hungarian laborers in the Subway, rather, ought the monuments of gratitude and reverence of a city like Boston to be reared.

If any of you have been readers of Tolstoï, you will see that I passed into a vein of feeling similar to his, with its abhorrence of all that conventionally passes for distinguished, and its exclusive deification of the bravery, patience, kindliness, and dumbness of the unconscious natural man.

Where now is our Tolstoï, I said, to bring the truth of all this home to our American bosoms, fill us with a better insight, and wean us away from that spurious literary romanticism on which our wretched culture-as it calls itself-is fed? Divinity lies all about us, and culture is too bide-bound to even suspect the fact. Could a Howells or a Kipling be enlisted in this mission? or are they still too deep in the ancestral blindness, and not humane enough for the inner joy and meaning of the laborer's existence to be really revealed? Must we wait for some one born and bred and living as a laborer himself, but who, by grace of Heaven, shall also find a literary voice?

And there I rested on that day, with a sense of widening of vision, and with what it is surely fair to call an increase of religious insight into life. In God's eyes the differences of social position, of intellect, of culture, of cleanliness, of dress, which different men exhibit? and all the other rarities and exceptions on which they so fantastically pin their pride, must be so small as practically quite to vanish; and all that should remain is the common fact that here we are, a countless multitude of vessels of life, each of us pent in to peculiar difficulties, with which we must severally struggle by using whatever of fortitude and goodness we can summon up. The exercise of the courage, patience, and kindness, must be the significant portion of the whole business; and the distinctions of position can only be a manner of diversifying the phenomenal surface upon which these underground virtues may manifest their effects. At this rate, the deepest human life is everywhere, is eternal. And, if any human attributes exist only in particular individuals, they must belong to the mere trapping and decoration of the surface-show.

Thus are men's lives levelled up as well as levelled down,—levelled up in their common inner meaning, levelled down in their outer gloriousness and show. Yet always, we must confess, this levelling insight tends to be obscured again; and always the ancestral blindness returns and wraps us up, so that we end once more by thinking that creation can be for no other purpose than to develop remarkable situations and conventional distinctions and merits. And then always some new leveller in the shape of a religious prophet has to arise—the Buddha, the Christ, or some Saint Francis, some Rousseau or Tolstoï—to redispel our blindness. Yet, little by little, there comes some stable gain; for the world does get more humane, and the religion of democracy tends toward permanent increase.

This, as I said, became for a time my conviction, and gave me great content. I have put the matter into the form of a personal reminiscence, so that I might lead you into it more directly and completely, and so save time. But now I am going to discuss the rest of it with you in a more impersonal way.

Tolstoï's levelling philosophy began long before be bad the crisis of melancholy commemorated in that wonderful document of his entitled 'My Confession,' which led the way to his more specifically religious works. In his masterpiece 'War and Peace,'—assuredly the greatest of human novels,—the rôle of the spiritual hero is given to a poor little soldier named Karataïeff, so helpful, so cheerful, and so devout that, in spite of his ignorance and filthiness, the sight of him opens the heavens, which have been closed, to the mind of the principal character of the book; and his example evidently is meant by Tolstoï to let God into the world again for the reader. Poor little Karataïeff is taken prisoner by the French; and, when too exhausted by hardship and fever to march, is shot as other prisoners were in the famous retreat from Moscow. The last view one gets of him is his little figure leaning against a white birch-tree, and uncomplainingly awaiting the end.

"The more," writes Tolstoï in the work 'My Confession,' "the more I examined the life of these laboring folks, the more persuaded I became that they veritably have faith, and get from it alone the sense and the possibility of life. . . . Contrariwise to those of our own class, who protest against destiny and grow indignant at its rigor, these people receive maladies and misfortunes without revolt, without opposition, and with a firm and tranquil confidence that all had to be like that, could not be otherwise, and that it is all right so. . . . The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life. We see only a cruel jest in suffering and death, whereas these people live, suffer, and draw near to death with tranquillity, and oftener than not with joy. . . . There are enormous multitudes of them happy with the most perfect happiness, although deprived of what for us is the sole of good of life. Those who understand life's meaning, and know how to live and die thus, are to be counted not by twos, threes, tens, but by hundreds, thousands, millions. They labor quietly, endure privations and pains, live and die, and throughout everything see the good without seeing the vanity. I had to love these people. The more I entered into their life, the more I loved them; and the more it became possible for me to live, too. It came about not only that the life of our society, of the learned and of the rich, disgusted me-more than that, it lost all semblance of meaning in my eyes. All our actions, our deliberations, our sciences, our arts, all appeared to me with a new significance. I understood that these things might be charming pastimes, but that one need seek in them no depth, whereas the life of the hardworking populace, of that multitude of human beings who really contribute to existence, appeared to me in its true light. I understood that there veritably is life, that the meaning which life there receives is the truth; and I accepted it."**

In a similar way does Stevenson appeal to our piety toward the elemental virtue of mankind.

"What a wonderful thing," he writes,*** "is this Man! How surprising are his attributes! Poor soul, here for so little, cast among so many hardships, savagely surrounded, savagely descended, irremediably condemned to prey upon his fellow-lives,—who should have blamed him, had be been of a piece with his destiny and a being merely barbarous? . . . [Yet] it matters not where we look, under what climate we observe him, in what stage of society, in what depth of ignorance, burdened with what erroneous morality; in ships at sea, a man inured to hardship and vile pleasures, his brightest hope a fiddle in a tavern, and a bedizened trull who sells herself to rob him, and be, for all that, simple, innocent, cheerful, kindly like a child, constant to toil, brave to drown, for others; . . . in the slums of cities, moving among indifferent millions to mechanical employments, without hope of change in the future, with scarce a pleasure in the present, and yet true to his virtues, honest up to his lights, kind to his neighbors, tempted perhaps in vain by the bright gin-palace, . . . often repaying the world's scorn with service, often standing firm upon a scruple; . . . everywhere some virtue cherished or affected, everywhere some decency of thought and courage, everywhere the ensign of man's ineffectual goodness,—ah! if I could show you this! If I could show you these men and women all the world over, in every stage of history, under every abuse of error, under every circumstance of failure, without hope, without help, without thanks, still obscurely fighting the lost fight of virtue, still clinging to some rag of honor, the poor jewel of their souls."

All this is as true as it is splendid, and terribly do we need our Tolstoïs and Stevensons to keep our sense for it alive. Yet you remember the Irishman who, when asked, "Is not one man as good as another?" replied, "Yes; and a great deal better, too!" Similarly (it seems to me) does Tolstoï overcorrect our social prejudices, when he makes his love of the peasant so exclusive, and hardens his heart toward the educated man as absolutely as he does. Grant that at Chautauqua there was little moral effort, little sweat or muscular strain in view. Still, deep down in the souls of the participants we may be sure that something of the sort was hid, some inner stress, some vital virtue not found wanting when required. And, after all, the question recurs, and forces itself upon us, Is it so certain that the surroundings and circumstances of the virtue do make so little difference in the importance of the result? Is the functional utility, the worth to the universe of a certain definite amount of courage, kindliness, and patience, no greater if the possessor of these virtues is in an educated situation, working out far-reaching tasks, than if he be an illiterate nobody, hewing wood and drawing water, just to keep himself alive? Tolstoï's philosophy, deeply enlightening though it certainly is, remains a false abstraction. It savors too much of that Oriental pessimism and nihilism of his, which declares the whole phenomenal world and its facts and their distinctions to be a cunning fraud.

A mere bare fraud is just what our Western common sense will never believe the phenomenal world to be. It admits fully that the inner joys and virtues are the essential part of life's business, but it is sure that some positive part is also played by the adjuncts of the show. If it is idiotic in romanticism to recognize the heroic only when it sees it labelled and dressed-up in books, it is really just as idiotic to see it only in the dirty boots and sweaty shirt of some one in the fields. It is with us really under every disguise: at Chautauqua; here in your college; in the stock-yards and on the freight-trains; and in the czar of Russia's court. But, instinctively, we make a combination of two things in judging the total significance of a human being. We feel it to be some sort of a product (if such a product only could be calculated) of his inner virtue and his outer place,—neither singly taken, but both conjoined. If the outer differences had no meaning for life, why indeed should all this immense variety of them exist? They must be significant elements of the world as well.

Just test Tolstoï's deification of the mere manual laborer by the facts. This is what Mr. Walter Wyckoff, after working as an unskilled laborer in the demolition of some buildings at West Point, writes of the spiritual condition of the class of men to which he temporarily chose to belong:—

"The salient features of our condition are plain enough. We are grown men, and are without a trade. In the labor-market we stand ready to sell to the highest bidder our mere muscular strength for so many hours each day. We are thus in the lowest grade of labor. And, selling our muscular strength in the open market for what it will bring, we sell it under peculiar conditions. It is all the capital that we have. We have no reserve means of subsistence, and cannot, therefore, stand off for a 'reserve price.' We sell under the necessity of satisfying imminent hunger. Broadly speaking, we must sell our labor or starve; and, as hunger is a matter of a few hours, and we have no other way of meeting this need, we must sell at once for what the market offers for our labor.

"Our employer is buying labor in a dear market, and be will certainly get from us as much work as he can at the price. The gang-boss is secured for this purpose, and thoroughly does he know his business. He has sole command of us. He never saw us before, and he will discharge us all when the debris is cleared away. In the mean time he must get from us, if he can, the utmost of physical labor which we, individually and collectively, are capable of. If be should drive some of us to exhaustion, and we should not be able to continue at work, he would not be the loser; for the market would soon supply him with others to take our places.

"We are ignorant men, but so much we clearly see,—that we have sold our labor where we could sell it dearest, and our employer has bought it where be could buy it cheapest. He has paid high, and be must get all the labor that he can; and, by a strong instinct which possesses us, we shall part with as little as we can. From work like ours there seems to us to have been eliminated every element which constitutes the nobility of labor. We feel no personal pride in its progress, and no community of interest with our employer. There is none of the joy of responsibility, none of the sense of achievement, only the dull monotony of grinding toil, with the longing for the signal to quit work, and for our wages at the end.

"And being what we are, the dregs of the labor-market, and having no certainty of permanent employment, and no organization among ourselves, we must expect to work under the watchful eye of a gang-boss, and be driven, like the wage-slaves that we are, through our tasks.

"All this is to tell us, in effect, that our lives are hard, barren, hopeless lives."

And such bard, barren, hopeless lives, surely, are not lives in which one ought to be willing permanently to remain. And why is this so? Is it because they are so dirty? Well, Nansen grew a great deal dirtier on his polar expedition; and we think none the worse of his life for that. Is it the insensibility? Our soldiers have to grow vastly more insensible, and we extol them to the skies. Is it the poverty? Poverty has been reckoned the crowning beauty of many a heroic career. Is it the slavery to a task, the loss of finer pleasures? Such slavery and loss are of the very essence of the higher fortitude, and are always counted to its credit,-read the records of missionary devotion all over the world. It is not any one of these things, then, taken by itself,-no, nor all of them together,-that make such a life undesirable. A man might in truth live like an unskilled laborer, and do the work of one, and yet count as one of the noblest of God's creatures. Quite possibly there were some such persons in the gang that our author describes; but the current of their souls ran underground; and he was too steeped in the ancestral blindness to discern it.

If there were any such morally exceptional individuals, however, what made them different from the rest? It can only have been this,—that their souls worked and endured in obedience to some inner ideal, while their comrades were not actuated by anything worthy of that name. These ideals of other lives are among those secrets that we can almost never penetrate, although something about the man may often tell us when they are there. In Mr. Wyckoff's own case we know exactly what the self-imposed ideal was. Partly he had stumped himself, as the boys say, to carry through a strenuous achievement; but mainly he wished to enlarge his sympathetic insight into fellow-lives. For this his sweat and toil acquire a certain heroic significance, and make us accord to him exceptional esteem. But it is easy to imagine his fellows with various other ideals. To say nothing of wives and babies, one may have been a convert of the Salvation Army, and bad a nightingale singing of expiation and forgiveness in his heart all the while be labored. Or there might have been an apostle like Tolstoï himself, or his compatriot Bondaïeff, in the gang, voluntarily embracing labor as their religious mission. Class-loyalty was undoubtedly an ideal with many. And who knows how much of that higher manliness of poverty, of which Phillips Brooks has spoken so penetratingly, was or was not present in that gang?

"A rugged, barren land," says Phillips Brooks, "is poverty to live in,—a land where I am thankful very often if I can get a berry or a root to cat. But living in it really, letting it bear witness to me of itself, not dishonoring it all the time by judging it after the standard of the other lands, gradually there come out its qualities. Behold! no land like this barren and naked land of poverty could show the moral geology of the world. See how the hard ribs . . . stand out strong and solid. No life like poverty could so get one to the heart of things and make men know their meaning, could so let us feel life and the world with all the soft cushions stripped off and thrown away. . . . Poverty makes men come very near each other,, and recognize each other's human hearts; and poverty, highest and best of all, demands and cries out for faith in God. . . . I know how superficial and unfeeling, how like mere mockery, words in praise of poverty may seem. . . . But I am sure that the poor man's dignity and freedom, his self-respect and energy, depend upon his cordial knowledge that his poverty is a true region and kind of life, with its own chances of character, its own springs of happiness and revelations of God. Let him resist the characterlessness which often goes with being poor. Let him insist on respecting the condition where he lives. Let him learn to love it, so that by and by, [if] he grows rich, he shall go out of the low door of the old familiar poverty with a true pang of regret, and with a true honor for the narrow home in which he has lived so long."****

The barrenness and ignobleness of the more usual laborer's life consist in the fact that it is moved by no such ideal inner springs. The backache, the long hours, the danger, are patiently endured-for what? To gain a quid of tobacco, a glass of beer, a cup of coffee, a meal, and a bed, and to begin again the next day and shirk as much as one can. This really is why we raise no monument to the laborers in the Subway, even though they be out conscripts, and even though after a fashion our city is indeed based upon their patient hearts and enduring backs and shoulders. And this is why we do raise monuments to our soldiers, whose outward conditions were even brutaller still. The soldiers are supposed to have followed an ideal, and the laborers are supposed to have followed none.

You see, my friends, how the plot now thickens; and how strangely the complexities of this wonderful human nature of ours begin to develop under our hands. We have seen the blindness and deadness to each other which are our natural inheritance; and, in spite of them, ,ve have been led to acknowledge an inner meaning which passeth show, and which may be present in the lives of others where we least descry it. And now we are led to say that such inner meaning can be complete and valid for us also, only when the inner joy, courage, and endurance are joined with an ideal.

But what, exactly, do we mean by an ideal? Can we give no definite account of such a word?

To a certain extent we can. An ideal, for instance, must be something intellectually conceived, something of which we are not unconscious, if we 'have it; and it must carry with it that sort of outlook, uplift, and brightness that go with all intellectual facts. Secondly, there must be novelty in an ideal,-novelty at least for him whom the ideal grasps. Sodden routine is incompatible with ideality, although what is sodden routine for one person may be ideal novelty for another. This shows that there is nothing absolutely ideal: ideals are relative to the lives that entertain them. To keep out of the gutter is for us here no part of consciousness at all, yet for many of our brethren it is the most legitimately engrossing of ideals.

Now, taken nakedly, abstractly, and immediately, you see that mere ideals are the cheapest things in life. Everybody has them in some shape or other, personal or general, sound or mistaken, low or high; and the most worthless sentimentalists and dreamers, drunkards, shirks and verse-makers, who never show a grain of effort, courage, or endurance, possibly have them on the most copious scale. Education, enlarging as it does our horizon and perspective, is a means of multiplying our ideals, of bringing new ones into view. And your college professor, with a starched shirt and spectacles, would, if a stock of ideals were all alone by itself enough to render a life significant, be the most absolutely and deeply significant of men. Tolstoï would be completely blind in despising him for a prig, a pedant and a parody; and all our new insight into the divinity of muscular labor would be altogether off the track of truth.

But such consequences as this, you instinctively feel, are erroneous. The more ideals a man has, the more contemptible, on the whole, do you continue to deem him, if the matter ends there for him, and if none of the laboring man's virtues are called into action on his part,—no courage shown, no privations undergone, no dirt or scars contracted in the attempt to get them realized. It is quite obvious that something more than the mere possession of ideals is required to make a life significant in any sense that claims the spectator's admiration. Inner joy, to be sure, it may have, with its ideals; but that is its own private sentimental matter. To extort from us, outsiders as we are, with our own ideals to look after, the tribute of our grudging recognition, it must back its ideal visions with what the laborers have, the sterner stuff of manly virtue; it must multiply their sentimental surface by the dimension of the active will, if we are to have depth, if we are to have anything cubical and solid in the way of character.

The significance of a human life for communicable and publicly recognizable purposes is thus the offspring of a marriage of two different parents, either of whom alone is barren. The ideals taken by themselves give no reality, the virtues by themselves no novelty. And let the orientalists and pessimists say what they will, the thing of deepest—or, at any rate, of comparatively deepest—significance in life does seem to be its character of progress, or that strange union of reality with ideal novelty which it continues from one moment to another to present. To recognize ideal novelty is the task of what we call intelligence. Not every one's intelligence can tell which novelties are ideal. For many the ideal thing will always seem to cling still to the older more familiar good. In this case character, though not significant' totally, may be still significant pathetically. So, if we are to choose which is the more essential factor of human character, the fighting virtue or the intellectual breadth, we must side with Tolstoï, and choose that simple faithfulness to his light or darkness which any common unintellectual man can show.

But, with all this beating and tacking on my part, I fear you take me to be reaching a confused result. I seem to be just taking things up and dropping them again. First I took up Chautauqua, and dropped that; then Tolstoï and the heroism of common toil, and dropped them; finally, I took up ideals, and seem now almost dropping those. But please observe in what sense it is that I drop them. It is when they pretend singly to redeem life from insignificance. Culture and refinement all alone are not enough to do so. Ideal aspirations are not enough, when uncombined with pluck and will. But neither are pluck and will, dogged endurance and insensibility to danger enough, when taken all alone. There must be some sort of fusion, some chemical combination among these principles, for a life objectively and thoroughly significant to result.

Of course, this is a somewhat vague conclusion. But in a question of significance, of worth, like this, conclusions can never be precise. The answer of appreciation, of sentiment, is always a more or a less, a balance struck by sympathy, insight, and good will. But it is an answer, all the same ' a real conclusion. And, in the course of getting it, it seems to me that our eyes have been opened to many important things. Some of you are, perhaps, more livingly aware than you were an hour ago of the depths of worth that lie around you, hid in alien lives. And, when you -ask bow much sympathy you ought to bestow, although the amount is, truly enough, a matter of ideal on your own part, yet in this notion of the combination of ideals with active virtues you have a rough standard for shaping your decision. In any case, your imagination is extended. You divine in the world about you matter for a little more humility on your own part, and tolerance, reverence, and love for others; and you gain a certain inner joyfulness at the increased importance of our common life. Such joyfulness is a religious inspiration and an element of spiritual health, and worth more than large amounts of that sort of technical and accurate information which we professors are supposed to be able to impart.

To show the sort of thing I mean by these words, I will just make one brief practical illustration, and then close.

We are suffering to-day in America from what is called the labor-question; and., when you go out into the world, you will each and all of you be caught up in its perplexities. I use the brief term labor-question to cover all sorts of anarchistic discontents and socialistic projects, and the conservative resistances which they provoke. So far as this conflict is unhealthy and regrettable,—and I think it is so only to a limited extent,—the unhealthiness consists solely in the fact that one-half of our fellow countrymen remain entirely blind to the internal significance of the lives of the other half. They miss the joys and sorrows, they fail to feel the moral virtue, and they do not guess the presence of the intellectual ideals. They are at cross-purposes all along the line, regarding each other as they might regard a set of dangerously gesticulating automata, or, if they seek to get at the inner motivation, making the most horrible mistakes. Often all that the poor man can think of in the rich man is a cowardly greediness for safety, luxury, and effeminacy, and a boundless affectation. What he is, is not a human being, but a pocket-book, a bank-account. And a similar greediness, turned by disappointment into envy, is all that many rich men can see in the state of mind of the dissatisfied poor. And, if the rich man begins to do the sentimental act over the poor man, what senseless blunders does he make, pitying him for just those very duties and those very immunities which, rightly taken, are the condition of his most abiding and characteristic joys! Each, in short, ignores the fact that happiness and unhappiness and significance are a vital mystery; each pins them absolutely on some ridiculous feature of the external situation; and everybody remains outside of everybody else's sight.

Society has, with all this, undoubtedly got to pass toward some newer and better equilibrium, and the distribution of wealth has doubtless slowly got to change: such changes have always happened, and will happen to the end of time. But if, after all that I have said, any of you expect that they will make any genuine vital difference on a large scale, to the lives of our descendants, you will have missed the significance of my entire lecture. The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing,— the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man 2 s or woman 's pains.—And, whatever or wherever life may be, there will always be the chance for that marriage to take place.

Fitz-James Stephen wrote many years ago words to this effect more eloquent than any I can speak: "The 'Great Eastern,' or some of her successors," he said, "will perhaps defy the roll of the Atlantic, and cross the seas without allowing their passengers to feel that they have left the firm land. The voyage from the cradle to the grave may come to be performed with similar facility. Progress and science may perhaps enable untold millions to live and die without a care, without a pang, without an anxiety. They will have a pleasant passage and plenty of brilliant conversation. They will wonder that men ever believed at all in clanging fights and blazing towns and sinking ships and praying bands; and, when they come to the end of their course, they will go their way, and the place thereof will know them no more. But it seems unlikely that they will have such a knowledge of the great ocean on which they sail, with its storms and wrecks, its currents and icebergs, its huge waves and mighty winds, as those who battled with it for years together in the little craft, which, if they had few other merits, brought those who navigated them full into the presence of time and eternity, their maker and themselves, and forced them to have some definite view of their relations to them and to each other."*****

In this solid and tridimensional sense, so to call it, those philosophers are right who contend that the world is a standing thing, with no progress, no real history. The changing conditions of history touch only the surface of the show. The altered equilibriums and redistributions only diversify our opportunities and open chances to us for new ideals. But, with each new ideal that comes into life, the chance for a life based on some old ideal will vanish; and he would needs be a presumptuous calculator who should with confidence say that the total sum of significances is positively and absolutely greater at any one epoch than at any other of the world.

I am speaking broadly, I know, and omitting to consider certain qualifications in which I myself believe. But one can only make one point in one lecture, and I shall be well content if I have brought my point home to you this evening in even a slight degree. There are compensations: and no outward changes of condition in life can keep the nightingale of its eternal meaning from singing in all sorts of different men's hearts. That is the main fact to remember. If we could not only admit it with our lips, but really and truly believe it, how our convulsive insistencies, how our antipathies and dreads of each other, would soften down! If the poor and the rich could look at each other in this way, sub specie æternatis, bow gentle would grow their disputes! what tolerance and good humor, what willingness to live and let live, would come into the world!

* This address was composed before the Cuban and Philippine wars. Such outbursts of the passion of mastery are, however, only episodes in a social process which in the long run seems everywhere heading toward the Chatauquan ideals.

**My Confession, X. (condensed).

***Across the Plains: "Pulvis et Umbra" (abridged).

****Sermons, 5th Series, New York, 1893, PP. 166, 167.

****** Essays by a Barrister, London, 1862, P. 318.

Back to William James

[thatparkinsongirl]

WORLDS.

Friends. No one ever told you life was gonna be this way. The apartment complex has seen better days but it’s a roof over your head and that’s more than enough to be grateful about. There’s a pitch-perfect coffee shop on the corner and the people on your hall are actually fantastic.

Disaster. It’s the end of the world. Everything in ruins. You’re running, running, just trying to survive these last days. You sleep fitfully, even then still alert, one hand tangled with theirs and the other gripped around a gun/wand. Or alternately, you’re the crackpot science team that first discovered something was wrong. You’ve all been locked up behind miles of reinforced steel in the CDC? NSA? Area 51? trying to solve this disaster. You were pulled away from your families, not able to save them, not able to take anything. Coffee, coffee, MRE meals. Microscopes, slides, formulas scribbled across white boards trying not to give in to the impending doom.

Inversion. This is not the world you know. Here, Headmaster Riddle pats a young boy on the shoulder and gives some much needed advice. Here, Grindewald and Dumbledore strike fear in the hearts of all the muggleborns. Here, everything and everyone is just a little off center. Your choices define you. (Borrowed from here)

Darkest. Dark magic thrums through your veins, slick and oily. You crave it, live for it. The forbidden section has been your second home ever since the first time you snuck in second year. You are something to be feared. The magic you play with is going to change the world. It’s not about hurting people (sometimes an unfortunate side effect) or taking over the world necessarily (though that is a goal), it’s about this sickly curiosity in magic. How far can you can go? How many lines can you cross? LOOsely off this in which the golden trio go somewhat dark, https://archiveofourown.org/works/6334630/chapters/14514247. Particularly there’s a whole thing in which they bond themselves to each other in a fit of codependency which just yessssss.

Rich as fuck. Money, money, money. Money is the anthem of success. Fast life, shiny diamonds, the best clothes. Speeding too, too fast down the highway, hand out the window. Cops won’t pull you over; they know better. Your lives are a never-ending party. Super Rich kids by Frank Ocean.

Roadtrip bitches. It’s the summer before university. The last hurrah before you all go your separate ways. Long, too deep conversations around a fire while you all smoke. Roadtrip mix blaring through the speakers. Seeing every weird roadside attraction you can. Talking about growing up, childhood, fears, change. About how you could go a year without speaking to someone but they’re still, always gonna be your best friend.

Political. Is it the west wing or house of cards?? Are they corrupt as fuck, bribing and killing and manipulating their way or they earnest and honest as possible, hearts brimming with desire to make the world something worth living in.

PUnk. idk. Hip hop. DJs. Raves. Tattoo artists. Lighters. Smoke rising up into the sky. Motorcycles and a shit ton of leather. Graffiti in the alleyway behind the bar you own.

Therapy. Post-war, and it’s rough. The physical scars are easy enough to ignore. It’s several months before you break down and join the therapy group at St. Mungos. You all swear you’re only there for the free coffee and doughnuts. Phobias, triggers, panic attacks. Recovery. Late night phone calls cause you had the nightmare again.

Olympics. Fencing? Swimming? Hockey? Gymnastics? Ice skating? Or, I mean, alternately, they could be in the Quidditch world cup. Competitors who like mock each other but also hardcore root for each other. It’s a small community and you all have known each other your entire life. It’s been a fight but here you are on the olympic team, favorites for the gold. 

Doctors. Late night hours. 12 hr shifts. Narcissism. The ultimate god complex. Shitty coffee. Stress. Lost a patient today, saved a patient tomorrow. Fighting over who gets to be second on the awesome heart surgery. A quickie in the on call room because damn your ass looks fine in those scrubs. Quizzing each other over a quick lunch. Complaining about your attending at the bar on your first night off in ages.

Unspeakables. They died, struck down during the war and none of you could bear to survive without them. The plan is put together in the early hours of the morning, feverish. It’s stupid, selfish; all this to save one life. You all join the Unspeakables because the rumor is they’ve been working on creating new time turners. None of you care who suffers for this as long as you can get them back.

How to Get Away With Murder/I Know What You Did Last Summer. You’re tied together by an awful, terrible secret. None of you can risk turning on each other. You’ve made sure of that. Toxic people. Guilt. There’s a body in the morgue with your names on it. It was an accident truly but the covering it up that was deliberate. Maybe some unknown person knows and is blackmailing you all or maybe, maybe they’re just trying to get away with it.

Spaceeeee. Inspired by the Wolf 359 and the Strange Case of Starship Iris. Science. Space. Discovery. Futuristic. Bonding because you’re trapped together in a tiny space ship. Conspiracy. Suicide missions. Technology betraying you. The fate of the entire human race resting on your shoulders. 

Parks&Rec/Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Any job-lawyers, firefighters, coffee-shop. It doesn’t matter because they’ve become a tight-knit family. Work hijinks, skinny love probably, I broke your email after I sent you 20 cat memes in a row. office parties. a hint of danger and risk (ok i admit it i like the firefighter one best). My very first day I was driving around trying to find the staff parking and a car honked, whizzed past me, yelling something crude out the window. It turned out to be my new boss.

Dark Post War. With Voldemort dead, Death Eaters being rounded up left, and peace returned to Wizarding London for the first time in more than a decade, it’s easy to believe that all is well. (The problem is that there is no length that people won’t go to protect their peace once they get it back.) Conscription into the Aurors for eligible wizards is enacted to ensure a strong standing against any lingering Voldemort supporters. A man in a black robe is murdered in the street one night because a young, nervous Auror thought he was a Death Eater. Incredibly harsh sentences handed down for any war crime. When Hogwarts finally reopens its doors over a year after the Battle of Hogwarts, it’s to the complete eradication of the Slytherin house (there are rumors about what happens to the children that the Sorting Hat would’ve sorted into Slytherin) and the addition of core classes. It is not a school but a training ground. Certain shops in both Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade are shut down for “sedition” and “miscreant behavior”, most notably Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Known war hero, Hermione Granger, is tossed in a Ministry cell for two months for sedition, after she attempts to prevent the arrest of a werewolf. Released war prisoners, people like the Zabini family who did not bear the Dark Mark but who were afflicted with Dark families, and “potential dark wixen” are branded by the Ministry as a warning to the public. All the while, the Ministry reports capturing dangerous Death Eaters, spotting war criminals in Hogsmeade, about danger lurking everywhere. The official statement is that they are trying to right mistakes made after the defeat of Grindewald, if they’d taken a stronger offense then Voldemort never would have happened. What it boils down to though is fear and vengeance and the shifting tide of power. 

Darkest Minds. So I’m finally reading this series since the movie’s coming out soon. I’m only 6 chapters in thus far but yes! this plot! would! definitely! want!

Dark Academia. The Secret History!!! Probably, definitely a secret society!! Mystery! The most pretentious assholes you will ever meet. Arguments over classic literature. Speaking latin to each other so no one else knows what they’re saying. Tweed jackets. Fall in New England. Tea. No i don’t own a tv I believe they’re corrupting the youths’ minds. Insomnia. A 40 page treatise on the Odyssey. 

Alternate Fifth Year. In a world where the young slytherin fifth years spend the summer of between fourth and fifth year, watching their parents with disgust and trepidation. They are ambitious, devoted to self-preservation and they are smart enough to see that following the Dark Lord is a road to ruin. Lucius Malfoy comes back from Death Eater meetings, shaken, Mr. Nott Senior with a long cut down his face. No, the slytherins have no interest in a life like that. It’s too bad then that they’re not even being taught Defense in school. It’s luck that they hear about the group of students that have started practical magic in secret. Canon divergent fifth year where the slytherins join Dumbledore’s Army. Can start after fifth year too but like that’s where it diverges. 

Back Home*. When they say you can’t ever go home again, they mean it, because home isn’t a static location, it’s a word full of extra connotation. It’s tied to a specific time and emotion and feeling. A group of friends return to their small hometown for the first time in eight years for the funeral of a mutual friend. Some of them have vaguely kept in touch but for the most part despite how close they were growing up they’ve all drifted apart. A story about loss, growing up, nostalgia, fear, and friendship. You won’t ever the same kind of friends you had when you were young. 

Shadow Children (Margaret Peterson Haddix). Futuristic, dystopian. Every family is allowed ONLY 2 children yet secret 3rd children do exist, living in the shadows and scraps. Some are lucky enough to get a fake identity and freedom. So I read this series when I was like 11 or something and they’ve kind of haunted me ever since. I’d probably wind up disappointed if I ever tried to reread them but whatever.  Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the first book lately, in regards to all the school kids protesting gun violence and the people in power just looking away as more children die, and just viscerely reminds of the horror I had reading the end of the first book in which (SPOILER) one of the main characters goes to a protest on the front lawn of the white house esque government building, convinced that if enough them protest, if they demand justice, they can get it. Each and every person at the protest is gunned down. For   young me who had largely only read books where everything wound up happy as long as you were brave and honest and full of spirit, this was an enormous shock. Idk how this would work but yes!

CONNECTIONS. 

Bodyguard. Mighty, mighty need for this. You’re the ambassador or president or queen or minister’s kid and your parents hire a bodyguard. You resent their protection. Ruining your semblance of a normal life. Judging you. You can’t help slipping their protection. Heart to hearts. Shared truths. Grudging respect and whatever. Ugh and the sexual tension, more alive than a power line. The attack comes out of left field and it’s a mess. (This. So down to play this out as whatever characters in any world)

Death. Straight up angst here. Final battle death scene. One second they’re right there and the next there’s a flash. You hold your hands over the gaping wound, screaming for a healer but you both know it’s over. Tears mixing with blood. Maybe they become a Hogwarts ghost. (Any character, any sort of relationship-married, dating, siblings, best friends, we shouldve dated but now your dying my arms)

Toxic. Do I feel guilty about having a thing for fictional toxic relationships? Yes, yes I do. But does that change anything? no. “Oh, we broke ages ago.” But everyone rolls their eyes when you say it. Because neither of you can stop and everyone knows. A couple of drinks in and you can’t keep your hands off each other. There’s still jealousy and toxicness and protectiveness and posssesiveness. There’s a dent in the wall from the time you threw a lamp at them. And god, if you could just make it work but love just isn’t enough sometimes. I’d tattoo your name on my arm but i wouldn’t marry you(Any characters)

Married in Vegas. You two hate each other’s guts. You’re constantly trying to one up each other in front of the boss. And you both always have a different way of approaching a problem. You steal candy bars out of their desk and they keep getting you locked out of your computer somehow. But your both the best so of course your selected for the Vegas conference work is holding. What happens next?? well?? a lot of alcohol, you know that. Neither of you quite remember but those rings on your fingers might mean something.

Romeo and juliet. Mob vs. cops or Death eaters vs. Order.  Forbidden romance. Secret meetings. My uncle killed your father. You have a body count that would make them blush. Maybe you’ll turn states evidence for them. Maybe they’re just using you. (any)

Softsoftsoftsoft. Bakery and coffee shop across from each other. Skinny love. A lot of Troye Sivan and Hayley Kiyoko playing. Longing stares, blushing, awkwardness. All your friends say they are definitely into you but??? Or alternately, you co-own the bakery coffee shop and you’ve been dating since third year and your friends all want to kill you. Because ughhh noone should still be that in love. Some serious codependency and domesticity here. Like if anyone’s seen How I Met Your Mother-Lily and Marshall. (any)

Misunderstandings. Classic trope. Of course, you thought they were dating. They live together, steal food from each others plates, share sweaters, tease each other relentlessly, constantly physically affectionate. Really what were you supposed to think. Cue the miscommunication and needless pining and hilarity. (any)

Bonnie and Clyde. Gringotts robbers? Who knows but you’re criminals and you’re good at it. Three steps ahead of the aurors. Careless laughter, drunk on adrenaline. Drive it like you stole it by the Glitch Mob!! and End Credits by Eden!! (any)

Siblings. I’m sorry that all the others are relationship plots because I really do high key love a good best friends/siblings plot. Real siblings or we grew up together and i would murder someone for you siblings. They know each other better than the backs of their hands. Secrets are for other people. Soft plot-just them taking care of each other after a tragedy. Tough love-you fucked off to Paris because you couldn’t deal with your life and they dragged your ass back because when you were kids they promised not to let you make any irreversible mistakes. protective-just. they keep doing dangerous shit and risking their life and you have to knock some sense into their thick skull. Ridiculous-they are everyone’s worst nightmare, stuck together like glue, always causing trouble. Spitting gum down at people from the astronomy tower. Finding ways to beat the anti-cheating quills. Actually helping your sibling get rid of a body. (any)

Best friends/Squad. You all meet at the bar religiously after work. Got each other’s back still, always, forever. Growing up doesn’t mean you have to lose them. (all; I watched the whole first season of golden girls last night so I’ve got a lotta squad feelings. )

Parent and child. Honestly just this song. Heirloom by Sleeping at last!!!! You’re both trying your best but there’s always going to be this tension, these mistakes on both sides. Regrets, nostalgia, angst, softness, forgiveness. (any, but this song always gives me Draco-Scorpius and Harry-Albus vibes)

Eighth Year Partners. PostWar. After a review of Hogwarts’ records, it’s decided that the school year of 97-98 will have to be repeated for all students. In an effort to bring the students of all houses together to promote healing and unity, a random buddy system is set up. A Ravenclaw sixth year paired with a Gryffindor fifth year. A Hufflepuff and Slytherin second year paired. So on and so forth. Though Headmaster McGonagall believed it was a good opportunity, she was loathe to force any student into something they didn’t want, certainly not after the past few years. Thus her only fast rule for the partnerships was sitting together for two meals a week. Some took full advantage of the system, studying together, attending each other’s quidditch games. Others sat in stony silence during the required time only.

@ginevraxweasleyy @marcusflvnt @occlumensism

[romcomathon2016]

Sleeping with Other People (USA, 2015)

Predictions: Kat saw this movie when it came out. Alex, half-remembering maybe having read its summary at some point, predicted that Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis meet in a sex-addicts support group, hook up with each other, and then are afflicted with feelings.

Plot: Well, clearly Alex did read the summary for this movie, although she also obviously forgot some parts. Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis first meet in college because Alison Brie is stalking Adam Scott, her TA. Jason Sudeikis lives on Adam Scott’s floor and rescues Alison Brie. They lose their virginities to each other and then don’t see each other again for twelve years. THEN they run into each other at a sex-addicts support group. Jason Sudeikis is a cheater cheater pumpkin eater who can’t stop two-timing...three-timing...four-timing the ladies. Alison Brie is also cheating — but only with Adam Scott. Adam Scott with a tiny unbearable mustache. She and Jason Sudeikis reconnect and decide to become friends.

Jason Sudeikis helps Alison Brie kick her Adam-Scott habit because Adam Scott is now engaged (even though he keeps calling Alison Brie anyway), while Alison Brie...well, encourages Jason Sudeikis to try to connect with women outside of sex. Meanwhile, Alison Brie has also gotten into med school, and Jason Sudeikis is playing the long game in wooing his boss, Amanda Peet. But pretty much everyone in Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis’s lives — including the two of them — kind of thinks that they are together. But, no, they’re just friends.

Such good friends, you guys. They are just the most platonic of pals, with their snuggling and their pet names and Jason Sudeikis teaching Alison Brie how to touch herself. This is all stuff people do with their friends. Such good friends. May we all be blessed with such friendships. Friendships that we don’t want to ruin or complicate with our obvious non-friend feelings.

Things are going fine until Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie attend Jason Mantzoukas’s kid’s birthday party. While rolling on molly, Alison Brie manages to unwittingly attract a hot single dad. Much to Jason Sudeikis’s dismay, she goes out with him. Hot Single Dad takes Alison Brie to a fancy mixer, where she runs into — surprise! — Adam Scott and his shitty little mustache wife. Devastated, she tries to call Jason Sudeikis. However, he doesn’t pick up, because he has finally managed to con Amanda Peet into a date. At the end of the night, the two of them meet up again at Jason Sudeikis’s apartment, snuggle up in bed, and admit that they are in love with each other. “But what are two platonic in-love pals to do?” Alison Brie inquires. “Nothing,” Jason Sudeikis says, with his big emo eyes. “Absolutely nothing.” (We may be paraphrasing, but barely.)

With that, Alison Brie moves to Michigan to attend med school, and she and Jason Sudeikis say goodbye forever. Which is weird, because now we all have Facebook, so… But okay, sure. Two months go by. Jason Sudeikis is now like...boyfriend of the year to Amanda Peet?? Like, taking her kid to soccer and surprising her with a birthday trip to France???? But one day, while at brunch with her, he spies A Certain Mustache sitting across the way. How can one miss that mustache? Of course, Jason Sudeikis is filled with the urge to punch said mustache in the face. This effectively terminates both Mustache’s brunch and Jason Sudeikis's relationship with Amanda Peet.

He calls Alison Brie from the police station, partly because no one else will bail him out and partly to yell that he loves her. She yells enthusiastically back. Shortly after, Jason Sudeikis is trying to settle an emotional distress lawsuit with Dr. Mustache (oh yeah, he’s a doctor), but Mustache won’t budge. Alison Brie goes to see Mustache to cut ties and blackmail him into letting Jason Sudeikis off the hook. It works. She and Jason Sudeikis walk off into the sunset to have a quickie before they get hitched.

Best Scene: Jason Mantzoukas’s kid’s birthday party. Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis dance together while on molly, which is pretty delightful, and then are miserable coming off it, which is also delightful. Then she gets approached by Hot Single Dad, and Jason Sudeikis is real bad at hiding his jealousy. Love it.

Worst Scene: Alison Brie trying to break things off with Adam Scott at the beginning. Oh my god, the first sighting of the MUSTACHE. But also, he is such a pretentious douche. Why is Adam Scott always a douche in movies?? Though we shouldn’t complain. Without "adam scott romantic comedy douche," we would not have this blog.

Best Line: "Yeah, it's like Ted Bundy. You can't get them into a van by just being a jerk. You've got to have a certain way about you." — Jason Sudeikis, talking about Alison Brie being an “approachable psychotic.” There were a lot of very funny lines though. This one just particularly made us laugh.

Worst Line: “Because I’d rather fail with you than win with anyone else.” — Jason Sudeikis, who was pretty much always very amusing and witty...unless he was declaring his feelings, at which point he would immediately become disgusting. Several. Times.

Highlights of the Watching Experience: So many famous people in this movie! Early on, Alison Brie breaks up with Adam Brody in a restaurant, and he has a very funny flip-out. It’s a nice bit role. Also, her best friend before she falls in love with Jason Sudeikis is Natasha Lyonne, playing yet another lesbian. Does she ever play non-lesbians? Has she just been lesbian-typecast? Discuss.

How Many POC in the Film: ...Where to begin. Um. So, we have discussed on this blog in the past the crucial and controversial question: are Greeks POC? (We think yes in old-timey Europe, but probably not in modern-day America.) Anyway, Jason Mantzoukas is Greek. Some people, however, seem to think that because he has curly hair and is the color of Scar from The Lion King that he is...black???? Clearly, the casting directors of this film thought so, because his kids are DEFINITELY THE KIDS ONE WOULD CAST if one parent was white and the other was black. Those are some freaking adorable, Afro-having, mixed-race kids. On the one hand, how...nice?? that they are...celebrating...interracial...families???? On the other hand, while we may not know if Greeks are POC, I think we can all agree that they're not black.

Alternate Scenes: How about, instead of a live-action Lion King starring CGI-ed lions, we just cast humans, AKA Jason Mantzoukas in the role of Scar? (You can't un-see it now, can you? You’re welcome.)

Was the Poster Better or Worse than the Film: ...Worse? The movie is about two people who like each other but aren't having sex, whereas the poster seems to be about two people who hate each other and aren't having sex. The poster is the poster for a movie about Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie's crumbling marriage. Maybe she just tried to drown him, so they're talking about whether sleeping with other people would improve their relationship.

Score: 8.5 out of 10 platonic-pal smooches. It was so hard to score this one, you guys, because, on the one hand, it's pretty recent, so who knows if it will stand the test of time...? But, on the other hand, is there anything we love more than best friends who are secretly in love???????? (This is a normal thing for two actual best friends to love. Not pathological at all. WHAT? SHUT UP. WE DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM. YOUR FACE HAS A PROBLEM.)

Ranking: 7, out of the 82 movies we’ve seen so far. Kat can't remember why she originally told Alex this movie was only okay???? Maybe she loved it too much and couldn't handle her feelings, much like Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie.

[cristinacori]

Communism and consumerism

You cannot think of Russia without taking into account its cumbersome communist past. Seventy-three intense years of Soviet Union cannot be washed away by the fall of a wall. Even today, its Russian capital, in spite of everything, bustles with the legacies linked to the USSR, a soviet saying that a captive eye can see everywhere. Socialism emerges in the small details along the roads; it friezes with the hammer and sickle that decorate the walls, red stars adorn the buildings, gigantic paintings depicting proud workaholics workers cover the façades of houses and the ubiquitous grain bundles remind us that there was plenty of food for everyone, (even if it was actually rationed and you had to make endless queues to get it). The exasperating queues to grab the basic necessities were an institution in the daily life of homo sovieticus. It is true that Russia has always been a great powerful nation, but it is equally true that it was a “poor” power which used to destine the highest investment to the military, heavy industry and aerospace fields. The five-year plans did not include the development of consumption sector and for the population just a few, rationed, poor-quality goods were made available. The state was the only official food and basic goods dispenser and in order to have them, citizens had to get in line, something that everyone remembers today with great dislike indeed.

“We had to spend hours queuing for bread. It was a pain!” says Nadya, a girl I met in St. Petersburg.

“Maybe there was also something good about standing or being in the queue: you could socialize, chat with people” I point out with my non-Russian optimism as we stroll along Nevky Prospekt. She stops and looks at me puzzled and very surprised. “Are you serious? Yes, maybe – she says thoughtfully – but try and stand in the queue every single day of your life to get any kind of goods. No, if you lived it on your own skin, I don’t think you’d find a silver lining” Nadya finally concludes. From that period she only retains few fleeting memories of a child.

At the end of the queues, Russians had to show the kartochki, ration cards printed on a piece of paper, divided into monthly coupons entitling the bearer to food. Beside the world of kartochki however, the black market coexisted stealthy and hidden. It was carried out with a strong sense of the market by meshochniki, traffickers of groceries who served as abusive intermediaries between the countryside and the city or who just worked in food deposits from which they freely helped themselves.

After the collapse of the USSR, there were years of insecurity. Eltsin’s government threw Russia, still unprepared for the great economic event of the opening, into the free market. Between 2000 and 2013 thanks to a newly-found political stability, the middle class exponentially grew: in 2000, it only accounted for 10% of the population, but in 2013 that figure rose to 55%. Today the Russians, despite the 2014 Ukrainian-linked sanctions which weakened the rouble and the purchasing power, are hardcore fans of consumerism. The difficulty in finding some Western products does not scare them. However it annoys Germany, which could count on a good share of the Russian market, and the producers of the ever so beloved Italian foods; finding a true piece of Parmesan cheese in supermarkets is still an impossible task.

Years of Communist rigour have tried to transform the Russian man into the homo sovieticus, a “species” devoted to work and glory, educated to enhance the style of austere life and to despise the desire to accumulate goods. It seems that so much consumer frustration has now resulted in a exacerbate passion for purchases, a mania of consumerism perhaps even more compulsive than the one we are afflicted by in Western countries. “What happens if you replace the heroic Soviet doştat verb (to get) with the trivial kupit (to buy), a term rarely used in the times of the USSR?” asks Anya Von Bremzen in her wonderful book “The Art of Soviet cuisine”.

Despite every single corner of this huge city is full of the Socialist past splendour, Moscow is now a metropolis in constant face-lifting, full of shopping centres, elegant boutiques and trendy clubs. The Muscovite mundane scene has nothing to envy to that of other major Western cities and, in the Russian capital, there are plenty of restaurants for all budgets and interesting cafés sprouting everywhere in the centre. It’s been a while since Lenin, who was on a diet which was close to asceticism borders, condemned as “bourgeois” and therefore unacceptable, the aspiration to eat tasty things. Of that austere culture, in which the idea of pleasure was labelled as a capitalist degeneration and where the food was considered simple fuel, there is nothing left, except for some monumental traces of the glorious Soviet past.

One of these, probably the most impressive example, is located on the northern outskirts of the capital. This is the VDNKh, the All Russia Exhibition Centre, a huge park which, in all its socialist realism, celebrates the Soviet dream of federalism. Among the pavilions with the engraved names of the Soviet republics, stands a majestic fountain with 16 golden maidens dressed in exotic costumes, holding out their own gifts. Each one represents a former republic. The fountain was a symbol of that well-concealed imperialism which at the time was euphemistically called the “Friendship of peoples” and supposed to celebrate the ethnic diversity of the USSR. A short walk from the VDNKh, the triumphant statue of the Worker and Kolchoz Woman stands high in the sky held up by a massive pedestal. Standing at the foot of this monument I have to admit that I felt some indefinable emotions, perhaps because of its grandeur. Or because it glitters to the sweet light of the sunset with all its dynamic lines. Perhaps because it survives as an anachronistic relic in this city, today faithfully devoted to the most narcissistic consumerism. Finally, it may just represent the perfect synthesis of that socialist ideal, ended up shattered on the barriers of the unstoppable human nature.

Russia, Coast-to-Coast From the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean: Russia viewed from the train (part 3) Communism and consumerism You cannot think of Russia without taking into account its cumbersome communist past. Seventy-three intense years of Soviet Union cannot be washed away by the fall of a wall.