#like I think there’s a good case to be made for the ‘deficit’ in social communication part of autism

[mbti-notes]

With social anxiety, is it the case that you only have to trough yourself in social situations, and then you’ll over come it? I believe I have social anxiety, however I haven’t been to a professional therapist about it. I tried to force myself into being social, but I feel like it’s getting worse. My physical stress is still the same, while my mental stress is better throughout the situation, but worse after them. (First)

[con't: I also realised that even though I’m interacting more, my social skills are not increasing which is crazy, isn’t it just about practicing? I’m an introverted (infp), however, I thought I have social anxiety because my introversion is being extreme, unhealthy, and out of control.]

As a general point, social anxiety is different from social anxiety disorder. It is normal for anyone to experience social anxiety in high stakes social situations. The average person, with decent emotional intelligence, can accept a moderate amount of anxiety and still get on with life. When the level of anxiety becomes unmanageable, it is time to get professional help.

Social anxiety is considered to be a mental disorder when it becomes serious enough to interfere with your personal growth and prevents you from living your life as well as you'd like to. In such cases, the anxiety is often related to more deeply rooted psychological issues that require professional attention, such as: extremely low self-esteem, toxic shame, or past relationship trauma. If you're unsure where you stand, it's best to get a professional assessment and diagnosis.

I will consider your question to be mainly about learning because you seem to emphasize the fact that you're not improving despite your efforts. Due to inferior Te, INFPs often struggle with learning because they don't systematize, analyze, and quantify very well.

1) Systematization is important for learning efficiently and includes things such as: drawing important distinctions, categorizing information, and creating effective methods/plans.

One important distinction that applies in your case is "theory" versus "practice". Theory is about learning the concepts, principles, steps, or standards that are required for basic competency. Practice is about putting your theoretical knowledge to the test and refining/deepening your understanding as you learn through experience.

Not everyone is good at learning through practice alone (aka hands-on experience). For instance, Ns tend to need more theoretical knowledge than Ss to perform well. And not everything can be learned through hands-on experience alone. Imagine that you tried to pilot a plane without learning anything about how to do it beforehand, do you think you'd succeed just by learning on the job?

As far as I can tell, you're diving into socializing without enough theoretical knowledge of "how to" socialize successfully. Perhaps it would help you to read a book or two about social skills and how to develop them properly (see the resources page for recommendations).

2) Another important aspect of learning is analysis, being able to dissect and break down problems in order to resolve them efficiently. You say your skills aren't increasing, which means you're not doing enough to review what happened and determine what needs to change.

- To grow your knowledge, you have to acknowledge what you don't know, so what knowledge deficits need to be remedied? For example, were there situations in which you felt "stuck", as though you didn't know what to do, so you were forced to improvise blindly? What knowledge could've gotten you through those moments more smoothly? How would you obtain that knowledge?

- To improve your skill, you have to learn from mistakes, so what mistakes/missteps have you made? After you go through a social experience, analyze what didn't go well and/or what you should've done differently, and then apply that new knowledge the next time. This should produce incremental progress.

3) If you want to see tangible improvement when learning, you have to have some concrete standards and benchmarks for measuring your progress. On what basis are you quantifying your success? How do you know whether you've done something well or not? For instance, what, exactly, distinguishes "level 1" social skill from "level 10" social skill, and all the steps in between? Without clear standards, you won't have clear goals to aim for, and the learning process remains very haphazard.

[daydreamerdrew]

Gosh, I’ve been trying to speculate as to what disability/disabilities Darla could have and there’s really nothing I feel I could confidently propose simply because Darla hasn’t historically received an in-depth enough portrayal that shows her in enough of a variety of situations and showcasing enough of a variety of issues for there to be anything that I think she textually fits a good amount of the qualifications for.

[race-week]

Race-Week's Mid Season Review

I mean what a start to the season we have had. I have to admit at the start of the year I was expecting Mercedes and Lewis to walk away with both titles easily and I've been pleasantly surprised to get to see the wheel to wheel battles that we have had this year.

I have to admit I have terrible memory, so I've gone back and watched all the race highlights to help me out.

Its a long post and as such it'll be under the cut, feel free to share your opinions - I'd love to hear what you think.

Top 3 Best Moments

Esteban Ocon's win in Hungary, what can I say, I'm a sucker for a first time winner and I have been following Esteban's career since GP3 and he's always massively impressed me. How he was able to stay calm with Sebastian hunting him down I'll never know, but I definitely think this will stay in my highlights of the season. He never made a mistake and that was insane.

Fernando's defensive driving in Hungary - this literally was incredible to watch, my dad and I were literally screaming at the screen and it was definitely a moment that showed that Fernando has still got it.

Sebastian Vettel's P5 at Monaco; this is way more spectacular than either of his podium drives, because he and the team absolutely nailed the strategy. This was the first race I would say since possibly even Hockenheim 2018 where we saw the old Seb back and he looked comfortable in the car and it looked like things were turning around.

Top 3 Worst Moments

The Silverstone crash, well not the crash itself but the reaction from fans and the teams afterwards. Especially the drama over the radios and the comments and blatant racism on social media. I've said it before that did not make the sport look good at all and also as fans we were robbed from what would have been an incredible battle, that likely would have lasted race long. But my main comment on this and the reason why it is top of my worst moments is the fact that the outcry afterwards was despicable and not a good look for the sport

The tyres at Baku, that just made the sport look really bad. If the tyre manufacturer can't produce a tyre or chose the right set of tyres for Baku, how could you expect them to produce suitable tyres for the rest of the season. Then with the aftermath of Pirelli refusing to take blame and instead implying that the teams weren't complying with the rules but still bringing more robust tyres later down the line. It was all a mess and we are very lucky that neither Max or Lance were seriously hurt, with such high speed failures in such dangerous places.

Daniel Ricciardo lapped by Lando Norris at Monaco, out of all the drivers that changed teams Daniel seems to be the one that has struggled the most and especially with all the media and the fans before this season saying that Daniel was going to annihilate Lando and then that happened at Monaco no less, it was definitely a rough moment.

So who has improved on points 11 races in compared to last year and who has lost out?

3 Biggest Surprises

Fernando Alonso - I think everyone was kind of expecting Fernando to not quite be his old self, I was kind of expecting to see a repeat of Michael Schumacher at Ferrari, still a really good driver but not his prime, but Nando has come in and knocked it out of the park. Bahrain (until the wrapper killed him) was so impressive, the last 2 laps at Baku was insane, the Silverstone sprint race, Hungary in general. I don't think that Fernando has a prime, the man could probably keep racing into his 50s, hes finished 8/11 races in the points and 6 of them are in a row.

Lando Norris - he has been massively over delivering this year, the McLaren package is strong but Lando has almost taken on the role that Checo used to have, where he was the midfield driver that was there if anything was to happen usually lucking out with a P4/5 or even a podium. He has massively impressed me this year, especially in Imola, Austria and Silverstone where he just got on with his race and for him to still hold 3rd in the drivers midway through the season is ridiculously impressive.

Carlos Sainz - I would say that Carlos has always been a driver that consistently delivers but in an under the radar way. I was expecting him to do well at Ferrari but he has massively exceeded my expectations, hes currently 3 points ahead of Charles and was probably the quickest to adapt to a new team (the extra testing paid off).

Top 3 Let Downs

Daniel Ricciardo - this one hurts me to write but unfortunately it's true, whenever the McLaren video on Sky Sports comes on with Daniel saying he expects podiums and wins from himself this year it hurts me. He's only been in Q3 5 times out of 11 races and in Portugal he was out in Q1. The McLaren should be easily in Q3 every week. I think Daniel may just be a slightly less adaptable driver than some of the others, he had similar issues with his first year in Renault, but I have to admit that I expected more from him this year and hopefully its just an adjustment thing and he'll be stronger in the latter half of the year.

Yuki Tsunoda; there was a lot of energy around Yuki preseason and at the start of the year, especially with him scoring points on debut, but since then there hasn't been an awful lot to back this up. He's often getting kicked out in Q1 which when the Alpha Tauri is often the 5th best car, that shouldn't happen. Tyres seem to be a big issue with him and that's a major component of F1 and as a driver who in F2 was proclaimed to have great tyre management there's a discrepancy. I don't know if Red Bull are going to be patient enough to help him develop.

Valtteri Bottas; it does pain me to say it but Valtteri has had a rough start to the season, he's currently on his greatest points deficit to Lewis, 11 races in than he has been their whole time as teammates. 5 P3 finishes and 1 P2 so far. Realistically he should be easily 3rd in the drivers and yes he's had his fair share of bad luck this season, but there's been cases where he just doesn't trust the car.

[lucianalight]

Hey, I read your "Why Loki is not a narcissist" post a while ago, which drew me to your blog. And I do agree, and would defend him to death, especially because I was lifting my definition of narcissism from DSM.

However, I went reading further. And do you think he could be considered as a vulnerable narcissistic subtype? They're categorically the exact opposite of the grandiose subtype.

This was a difficult question to answer. Because if you consider the traits of covert narcissism on a surface level, you can see Loki having many of them. Actually when I was reading about it, I even thought I relate to many of them and what if I am a covert narcissist? Which was odd because I usually score on the empath side of the scale. So I took the Maladoptive Covert Narcissism Scale test and found out that I wasn't a covert narcissism either.

When it comes to Loki though, since he is a fictional character that test is useless because we have to headcanon many of his inner thoughts and feelings and we can't get accurate answer.

What can get us an answer though is the fact that both overt and covert narcissism are diagnosed based on DSM-5 definition and symptoms of NPD.

“Both individuals need to meet the same clinical criteria to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, whether they are extroverted or introverted. Both have deficits in their capacity to regulate their self-esteem.” [1]

Because the difference between them is more about their outward behavior. But their core characteristics are the same. This means my analysis about Loki not being a narcissist is still true.

“Covert narcissists are only different from overt (more obvious) narcissists in that they tend to be more introverted. The overt narcissist is easily identified because they tend to be loud, arrogant, and insensitive to the needs of others and always thirsty for compliments.” [1]

Not to mention that if we consider how covert narcissists behave, Loki still doesn’t share much with them.

“The covert subtype is less obvious. A person with covert narcissism may come across as shy, withdrawn, or self-deprecating. However, they will still be self-absorbed and believe that they are better than other people.” [2]

Loki isn’t shy. He seems withdrawn but that’s the result of being constantly silenced or mocked. Not being aloof or considering himself better than others to not want to socialize with them. Which is the reason for covert narcissists being distant. It’s because they see themselves as having a superior importance in comparison with others.

The overt narcissist will demand admiration and attention, where the covert narcissist will use softer tactics to meet those same goals. The covert narcissist will be much more likely to constantly seek reassurance about their talents, skills, and accomplishments, looking for others to feed that same need for self-importance. [1]

Loki is not self-deprecating either. His main goal in the first movie is to be seen and treated as an “equal” to Thor. Notice that he doesn’t want to be seen “better” than Thor which would have been the case if he was a narcissist. A covert narcissist when showing self-deprecating behavior wants people’s reassurance than he is good. But Loki is sure of his abilities, he just want them validated.

Some of the other traits is that they’re neglectful, making you think that you’re not important. In both Thor 1 and TDW we see Loki talking to Thor about his problems. He tries to calm Thor down when he is anxious or angry and even when talking about Jane he mentions that Thor gets hurt after Jane is gone. He still cares about Thor’s emotions.

One of the other traits associating with covert narcissism is hyper sensitivity to criticism. Which we can definitely say that Loki doesn’t have. He is been mocked, silenced and treated differently for hundreds of years and he tolerated all that in silence. And none of those behavior count as “criticism”. Until the lie about his race made him snap and have a mental break down after all the emotional toll.

Talking from personal experience dealing with narcissists, Loki doesn’t have some of core traits of narcissism, which whether overt or covert are shared by them. One of them is black and white thinking. As long as you agree with them, you’re good. You’re treated with care and respect. But as soon as you disagree and criticize them a little, you’re become the worst person in the world in their opinion. Another is their self-absorbance and their lack of empathy. Only they matter the most, their needs, their wants, their pains. They never understand or empathize with yours. Loki on the other hand not only have the self-awareness about his flaws and mistakes, he doesn’t have that black and white thinking. And he also cares about people and their needs. He is self-sacrificing to a fault. And he has empathy for people. In conclusion he is not a narcissist, neither overt nor covert.

Sources:

1. How to Recognize Someone With Covert Narcissism 

2. Signs of covert narcissism

[sidneypoindexter]

clumsy and brainy both very visibly display autistic traits, enough that i made an entire post diagnosing them both

in the middle ages, autism wasn’t a thing people knew about.

it would be very easy for someone who knew nothing about autism to decide that clumsy’s symptoms come from him being stupid and unintelligent. him displaying way more of the repetitive behavior and speech symptoms rather than the ones causing deficits in social skills helps this.

brainy displays a lot of both the repetitive behavior and the bad social skills. what’s more, his special interest seems to be writing. combined with his ego he just writes books about himself.

brainy is a shithead. i am not denying brainy is a shithead. he is an aggravating, egotistical, annoying little bitch. he was much more polite as a child, and he is an asshole now.

however, jokey smurf is also a shithead, and a shithead more likely to cause physical harm to you and hurt you. other smurfs are shitheads too- tuffy will fight a cat and get everyone hurt. painter has temper tantrums where he destroys stuff. there are so many other smurfs who are shitheads.

but grandpa smurf is only rude and mean to brainy smurf, and not to these other smurfs.

grandpa smurf makes mean and snide comments about brainy behind brainy’s back. the first of these was near the end of smurfquest, where brainy thought he would take papa’s place someday

(a reasonable thought)

(considering he’s papa smurf’s apprentice)

(and so that should be what he does one day)

and papa said, no, this baby will be our leader someday. this literal infant who can’t even talk or walk yet.

and brainy was like. haha of course i knew that all along!

this makes me think of brainy as a kid in papa’s family album, where we saw that even as a young kid he had difficulty understanding the context behind situations.

i can imagine after several decades, brainy gets so embarassed about never knowing what’s going on that he just pretends he knew all along.

but in the present, grandpa turns to slouchy, and asks, “is he always this way?”

(brainy, in this specific case, has a very good reason to be this way)

(not just from past experiences, but also because the assumption he made was a very reasonable assumption for anyone to make from the context he has)

grandpa making snide comments behind brainy’s back happens in other episodes too. in papa’s last spell, papa is unable to do magic.

obviously, papa’s apprentice, the apprentice he trained to do his job- which, if that job is not being the next leader, it must be being the main wizard of the village. because those are the two jobs papa has

and we already know the infant is the next leader

so papa’s apprentice, brainy, should at this point step up and fill the role he was trained to fill.

brainy is very excited to do this. he dresses up in a fancy little outfit and goes to papa smurf all excited about his fancy little outfit. he is completely unaware of papa smurf’s current emotions and not picking up any of papa’s nonverbal cues.

brainy is like. hi papa so you’re not busy! that’s great! can you help me in my new job? he is so happy. he finally gets to do what he was trained for

he does not. he is kicked out. grandpa says, "how unsmurfy of brainy, trying to take your place."

brainy is papa's APPRENTICE. taking papa’s place is literally what his job is. or would be if papa trained him right.

grandpa being a shithead to brainy is either due to brainy’s autistic traits (i say traits and not autism bc he doesnt officially have it but like. he literally displays the symptoms. he is autistic. i went through the dsm and he fits enough criteria to be diagnosed. at this point this is barely a headcanon) or due to brainy being a little too eager to be papa’s apprentice

EDIT: This post was made from an overemotional standpoint. I will attempt to more seriously understand what is going on with Grandpa’s snide comments towards Brainy.

[sarenhale]

I'm really sorry if this is a weird question, but I was curious if there are any specific ways you keep up such a consistent quality AND quantity of art? You're one of the most prolific and skilled artists I follow and I often find myself thinking "how do they do it?!" I love to draw, but I feel so slow and like I can only post once or twice a month. Has there been anything that helps you stay focused and regular with you art? Thanks in advance, and thanks for being an amazing, inspirational artist ^-^b

This is not a weird question at all, it's actually very interesting! And thank you so much for the kind words... wow... I'm so flattered and happy you would think of me as such an artist T__T These are some really POWERFUL and inspirational words, thank you!! I feel a bit shocked to hear this, but also really happy to know I can inspire someone with my drawings T_T You are the one inspiring me now, my friend

As for the question, I think probably the thing that allows me the most to have the time and inspiration to draw consistently is the fact that I work from home as a freelance artist, and since that's my job, it has become a daily routine for me to draw on commissions/freelance work, and also cut some time for myself and my personal art. Being allowed to stay at home and focus on art as my job is definitely the biggest factor on my productivity, like for example when I was working retail full time a year ago that definitely wasn't the case, I always felt so tired (mentally and physically) that I couldn't barely produce anything in my (nonexistent) free time, because I was so tired I just used that free time to sleep and recover... LOL

Aside from this being the biggest factor in my answer, I think having a good chunk of daily inspiration really helps me gather new ideas and even the excitement to create more daily! Things like playing new games (playing FFXIV and fe3h sparked my creativity immensely in the past year), scrolling through twitter and tumblr and seeing art by the artists I follow, and thinking 'oh man I love how they did this shading or lineart', that really makes me wanna pick up my pen tablet and start drawing, and maybe try something new.

I think having some side hobbies can also really help me get some detached time from drawing, relax and 'clear' my mind, so when I get back at drawing I feel more rested and inspired by the thing I made in my other hobby. Like for example I play a lot of pen on paper rpgs like D&D, cyberpunk and vampire the masquerade, and I also DM a D&D game for my friend group: focusing on writing/planning the encounters and the story really helps meto focus on something that isn't drawing for a change, and also gather material and fuel for more inspirations for later! (Like drawing what transpired during our roles, the npcs my players met, what they did... etc)

Drawing daily is definitely something that required a lot of getting accustomed to during the years, but I found that it comes quite naturally for me. I get a bit antsy when I don't draw actually. It also feels weirdly rewarding to me, I have a serious deficit of attention on basically everything, but drawing puts me 'in the zone' and actually makes me hyperfocused, so it feels kinda 'good' to me to be in The Zone as often as I can.

I would say definitely don't feel bad if you don't produce enough or feel like you aren't drawing 'as much as you should', different people have different routines and way of creating. Our minds are all different and work in different ways! I'd suggest try to find what works best for you, maybe introducing some more inspiration in your life is what you need, or just trying new things, like trying new methods of painting/coloring/doing art. Try playing new games, reading new books or doing some writing, or something that you like doing as a hobby: I find that connecting my art to other hobbies is what really keeps my inspiration and motivation going.

I would also say that's it's important that you get some rest and chill when you feel like you're hitting a wall. Sometimes the answer to hitting a wall and feeling stuck isn't to headbutt the wall, but just allowing yourself some rest and time for yourself. Social media may make it look like people are always amazing and producing a lot, but to be honest, there are some periods of time when I'm also feeling super burnt over drawing, and just dedicate a week or something to playing games, sleeping, and doing something else. I wouldn't even pick up the pen.

Maybe it's because my mental health (and problems) go hand in hand with my inspiration and productivity, but I also try to approach drawing as something that should make me happy, not stressed or frustrated. If something feels unreachable today, try again tomorrow. Sleep on it. It's amazing the amount of times that the 'sleep on it' technique worked on my drawings, even for professional and commercial work. Be kind to youself and find what works for YOU! Producing something is better than produing nothing. Even if you feel like you're 'only' making a couple of drawing a month, that's amazing that you're making something with your HANDS!! From NOTHING!!

And also, I personally think that posting 2 or 3 times a month is actually pretty productive. We have lives, jobs, responsabilities in our daily lives, and also need some good time to rest, so all things considered, I think you're doing amazing already! !

I hope my answer was a least a bit useful to you! I'm always happy to answer questions like this one, it's super interesting to get to think about my process and talk about it with others. So thank you for the interesting question and also the lovely and powerful words :) It's especially thanks to asks like this one that I'm really happy I am able to interact with people with my art.

[spectrumed]

3. sadness

Don’t be like that. Be like this, or be that other thing. Be unique, but don’t be too unique. Fit in, but try to be a rebel. Be a renegade, but don’t rock the boat. Don’t know what you are supposed to be? What? Do you have imposter syndrome or something? Just be yourself, but, y’know, sand down the edges a little bit. Be friendlier. Be the kind of person everyone likes. Be the life of the party! Don’t be some shut-in, some crazy cat-lady with absolutely zero social life. Don’t be sad. Don’t burden others with your sadness. Work to maximise the total happiness of your community. A smile goes a long way. Can’t smile? You really can’t help but being a sourpuss all the time? Well, I guess maybe that if you can’t help but stay in a perpetual bad mood bringing everyone else down… then maybe you should just stay isolated? Better stay alone, away from others. You’re toxic. You’re just so damned sad. You really must be quarantined.

I am sad, a lot of the time. Are you? But, no, you can’t just admit that you are sad. Don’t be a buzzkill, try to inject a little humour into the things you say. You can admit you’re depressed, if you do so with a joke. Don’t let others know you’re being sincere. Ironic jokes work the best, don’t they? They let you confess your secret gloom to everyone around, but they’ll never know just how serious you’re being. With a wink of the eye, any candid expression of your inner turmoil can become a hilarious post-modern gag. Are they or are they not telling the truth? Oh, I’ll never tell! And it will all work out excellent, up until the day you commit suicide. But every comedian’s time in the limelight has to end at some point, right?

This blog is supposed to be about autism spectrum disorder, why am I suddenly discussing depression? Well, I suppose that it is time we bring to the table this little thing called comorbidity. Psychology is messy. Some would argue that it is barely even a real scientific field (I tend to think that it is the best thing we have, but I acknowledge that in places, psychology is fundamentally flawed.) You may have thought that you’d get just one diagnosis. One simple label that you can work through and overcome. You’re bipolar, now go deal with it! But instead, you find yourself with a whole fistful of diagnoses. What to hear my proud list of diagnoses? Oh, please, don’t think because I am listing them this one certain way, I put them in order of relevancy to me. I love all of my diagnoses equally.

My diagnoses are:

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)

Agoraphobia

Possible Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Asperger syndrome (AS)

No, I was never officially diagnosed with depression, but largely because, at the time I received these diagnoses, my depression was so blatant that it felt as if I was walking around with a cloud of miasma surrounding at all times. Imagine me as Pig-Pen from Peanuts, but instead of being covered in dirt, I was covered in the funk of melancholy. And whatever treatment I would eventually go on to receive (and still am receiving to this day,) would go about treating my anxiety first, and hopefully, the depression would give in alongside the anxiety. It has, for the most part, though, I still feel the presence of that black dog from time to time. I also got only a half-hearted potential diagnosis of OCD, but later, during a trial of an antidepressant that had a freakishly negative impact on my psyche, it blossomed into a fully-grown attention-craving condition. Turns out that OCD can be a real hog for the spotlight, really not allowing any of the other diagnoses to take their turn on stage. Thankfully, when I got off that particular antidepressant, those symptoms stopped, but it has led me to be far more aware of my internal obsessive-compulsive thought patterns. For me, OCD largely lacks physical compulsions, but my mind is ablaze with intrusive thoughts, and I will routinely force myself to repeat certain phrases in my head to make them go away. The funny thing is, I never realised that wasn’t normal.

Diagnoses are an attempt to map out a spiders’ web of problems. Things come hand in hand. While I’m no psychologist, I can speak from the perspective of someone who has been through the psychiatric process, which I suppose, lends me a certain kind of expertise, doesn’t it? Maybe it really doesn’t. Maybe I’m just throwing words out there, thinking that I could serve a good purpose, but instead all I am doing is contributing to this great onslaught of digital disinformation we’re all suffering under. But I’m probably just too doubtful of myself. I am speaking about myself, after all. I’ve got first-hand experience in being myself. I know exactly what it feels like to own this skin, these bones, this heart, and this mushy brain of mine. I’m not claiming to know everything. I’m just claiming to know about this one sad individual writing this hoping it might allow someone to reblog my posts with the hashtag “relatable” one day.

Anxiety runs in my family. The neurosis demon gets passed down from generation to generation, only occasionally skipping a beat. My mother and I share many of the same neurotic quirks, though, she has for the most part of her life not had it to quite the excessive degree that I have it. I really took that genetic predisposition for anxiety and ran with it. And while I’m the only person in my family to have gotten diagnosed as being “on the spectrum,” there are a few members that I kinda sort of in a way actually quite seriously suspect might also be here somewhere on the spectrum. Still, as always goes with diagnosing, there’s no point in doing it unless the person is in need of some kind of treatment. I wholeheartedly believe that most people on the planet belong to one spectrum, be it an autism spectrum, a bipolar spectrum, a narcissism spectrum, even a schizophrenic spectrum, but diagnoses should be exclusively reserved for those who need psychiatric care. The world is a spectrum, and it’s worth noting that the terms “sane” and “insane” do not alone capture the complexity of the human psyche. A person can appear perfectly sensible, yet at some point in their life, they may have been a real silly little bugger who thought that their pet hamster was the reincarnation of the Buddha. Just as with physical health, one can struggle with one's mental health for one period in their life, only to later on in life feel utterly and entirely mentally healthy. Or, well, sadly in a lot of cases, people who were perfectly mentally healthy may suddenly become diagnosed with dementia. But that’s really sad, so let’s not talk about that.

Is it all genetic? Well, no. Or well, maybe? In regards to autism, I am pretty sure that, yes, it is genetic. While, yes, I do admit that I’m just a dummy on the internet, so what do I really know? And the brain is such a complex bit of mushy meat, so I could always be proven wrong. Though, I tend towards thinking that there most likely is principally a genetic factor to conditions like autism, or attention deficit disorder (and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,) or things like bipolar disorder. But with anxiety, quite frankly, I can’t say how much of it is nurture and how much of it is nature. I mentioned that my mother and I share many of the same neurotic quirks, so that would imply that there is something in one's genes that can make some more prone to anxiety than others, but my mother does not struggle with agoraphobia, nor does she seem to have any obsessive-compulsive tendencies. In fact, in my family, even those that exhibit some element of heightened anxiety, they don’t seem to show any milder symptoms of this kind. I can’t help but feel as if these conditions I gained through that tortuous period of every boy’s and girl’s (and boy-girl’s) life is called puberty. I hate to conform to stereotypes but I did indeed hate being a teenager. Believe it or not, I wasn’t a jock, and no, I didn’t go to parties. I mostly spent my time crying.

The question that no doubt plagues every movie psychiatrist to no end is what kind of trauma must a person undergo to make them go mad? Abusive parents? Abusive uncles? Abusive teachers? Abusive dogs? Honestly, to be an adult raising a child must be rough, considering how any mistake you make might suddenly turn your little babe into a future serial killer. Now, there’s no doubt that there are some seriously terrible parents out there, and that a lot of people have mental woes that definitely came about due to their parents and their abysmal lack of parental care. But generally, how much can you actually blame on your parents? We know the cliché, let’s go sit down on the sofa and complain to our Freudian hack-shrink all about those times as a kid our dad missed the big game, or that time our mother embarrassed us in front of all of our friends. I have plenty of things to complain about my parents, like I believe we all have. Our parents are flawed, messy human beings, of course they occasionally made mistakes throughout our upbringings. But is that nearly enough to turn a person mentally ill? Putting up with an at times really embarrassing mom? No, I don’t think so. And of course, there are some real awful parents out there, I’m not doubting that. Trust me, I’m a fan of true crime, so I’ve heard some real grizzly stories of what some kids are forced to grow up with. But I am thinking that those instances are more rare than they are common. Most people with mental illnesses can most likely not blame their parents.

How ‘bout bullies? Yes, them bullies. Them awful mean bullies that made all of our lives so painful. It’s funny, it seems like every school had their own fair share of bullies, and yet no-one as an adult ever comes forward to admit that they themselves were the bullies. It’s almost like as if no-one ever thinks of themselves as being a bully, even when they are throwing rocks at that weird chubby kid with blonde hair who happens to be named Fredrik and who just wants to be left alone. Was I bullied? Well… yes. But I can’t say I got the brunt of it. I got bullied, but overall I’d say I only ever had it slightly worse than most people. I was still quite tall, typically taller than my classmates growing up, and for the most part I could roll with the punches. If you really want to talk about a kid I knew growing up that got bullied, let me tell you about this kid who knew all the right dances for all the right Britney Spears songs. He was gay, I think. Not quite old enough to have come out, I suspect, but, well... He liked all the female pop stars, but not in that way of wanting to kiss them and fondle their boobies, but in the “I want to sound just like them when I grow up” sort of way. I don’t know what happened to him (or them, or her, depending on how they identify now,) but that was real bullying. Like most folks, I found myself stuck in that limbo of seeing others get bullied far worse than me and being too cowardly to intervene, in fears that I’d end up taking their place. Yes, isn’t school just a marvellous place? It’s a wonder any of us turn out okay.

No, I think that, fundamentally, the problems I have arose with myself. This, blaming myself, is not something that I am unused to doing. I have a long history of blaming myself, that’s really the problem. As a teenager I knew that I was different, and I was frightened and scared of being exposed. I didn’t even really know what it was that was different about me, I just knew that I didn’t fit in. I felt as if I didn’t deserve to fit in. The older I got, the more intense these feelings got. And I started taking it out on myself. I started hating myself. And I really mean furiously hating myself. It wasn’t some casual self-loathing, it was searing self-hatred. I did not physically hurt myself, but I did engage with self-harm. I kept repeating the mantras of “I hate myself,” and “I am pathetic,” over and over again, with the ultimate goal of making myself cry. For a period, I couldn’t go to bed without making myself cry first. I began taking days off from school, pretending to be sick. Well, I suppose I was ill, but not physically. I began failing most of my classes, I only ended up doing well in art. I stayed away from school for whole weeks at the time. Once, when I shame-facedly returned to school some of the meaner boys came up to me and said that they were surprised to learn that I was still alive. They were surprised, but also a little disappointed.

This was a time in my life when I really needed psychiatric care. This became increasingly obvious to my parents, and my teachers. I was clearly suffering from depression. Not just some teenaged angst, but full-blown, wholly insidious, depression. But, well, I didn’t get the care that I needed. Oh, I did go to see a psychologist a couple of times, but she saw no reason for me to continue seeing her. I don’t know why she felt as if I wasn’t in need of help, frankly, I can’t fathom why she felt as if I wasn’t in need of help. I suppose I avoided telling her the truth of what went on inside of my head, but I feel like as if any good psychologist would have been able to tell that the kid sitting across from them was clearly suffering from something a tad more intense than just some common concerns about puberty. At most I was able to confess was that I was feeling ashamed over myself for getting so fat, but it should have been clear to anybody that I was only using that as a hook to hang my self-hatred on. There very clearly was some underlying condition that I had that should have gotten addressed. But it went ignored.

At most I can think to explain this is the fact that I wasn’t “problematic.” Not in the way some kids are, when they’re struggling with their mental health. I did not act out, I did not take drugs, and I was certainly not violent. Even to this day, though I have at many times suffered from suicidal ideation, I am a real low-risk for actual suicide considering my intense fear of dying (yes, that’s an odd combo to have.) So, I’ve come to realise that the only way I am getting treatment is if I actually seek out treatment. And back then, I was just as placid as I had previously always been. I was quiet and introverted, just desperate to get back home so I could go and hide in my room. Many teenagers are like that. And it is easy to ignore them, because they want to be ignored. They just don’t want to exist. When you are desperate to be left alone, eventually people will leave you alone. I would go on to receive psychiatric care later on my life, but only after several years passed. I did have a better time living in my later teenage years, but like with a bone that heals wrong, I needed someone to come in and sort me out. I was sad as a teenager, but I would become really sad as a twenty-something. Hopefully my thirties will be jolly.

[szalacsi]

history

“I’m from Malaysia. 

China has traded with Malaysia for 2000 years. In those years, they had been the world’s biggest powers many times. Never once they sent troops to take our land. 

Admiral Zhenghe came to Malacca five times, in gigantic fleets, and a flagship eight times the size of Christopher Columbus’ flagship, Santa Maria. He could have seized Malacca easily, but he did not. 

In 1511, the Portuguese came. 

In 1642, the Dutch came. 

In the 18th century the British came. 

We were colonised by each, one after another. 

When China wanted spices from India, they traded with the Indians. When they wanted gems, they traded with the Persian. They didn’t take lands. The only time China expanded beyond their current borders was in Yuan Dynasty, when Genghis and his descendants Ogedei Khan, Guyuk Khan & Kublai Khan concurred China, Mid Asia and Eastern Europe. Yuan Dynasty, although being based in China, was a part of the Mongolian Empire. 

Then came the Century of Humiliation. Britain smuggled opium into China to dope the population, a strategy to turn the trade deficit around, after the British could not find enough silver to pay the Qing Dynasty in their tea and porcelain trades. 

After the opium warehouses were burned down and ports were closed by the Chinese in ordered to curb opium, the British started the Opium War I, which China lost. Hong Kong was forced to be surrendered to the British in a peace talk (Nanjing Treaty). 

The British owned 90% of the opium market in China, during that time, Queen Victoria was the world’s biggest drug baron. The remaining 10% was owned by American merchants from Boston. Many of Boston’s institutions were built with profit from opium. 

After 12 years of Nanjing Treaty, the West started getting really really greedy. The British wanted the Qing government: 

 1. To open the borders of China to allow goods coming in and out freely, and tax free. 

 2. Make opium legal in China. Insane requests, Qing government said no. 

The British and French (with supports from the US), started Opium War II with China, which again, China lost. 

The Anglo-French military raided the Summer Palace, and threatened to burn down the Imperial Palace, the Qing government was forced to pay with ports, free business zones, 300,000 kilograms of silver and Kowloon was taken. 

Since then, China’s resources flew out freely through these business zones and ports. In the subsequent amendment to the treaties, Chinese people were sold overseas to serve as labor. 

In 1900, China suffered attacks by the 8-National Alliance (Empire of Japan, Russian Empire, British Empire (including India), France, USA, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary). 

Innocent Chinese civilians in Peking (Beijing now) were murdered, buildings were destroyed & women were raped. The Imperial Palace was raided, and treasures ended up in museums like the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris. 

In late 1930s China was occupied by the Japanese in WWII. Millions of Chinese died during the occupancy. 300,000 Chinese died in Nanjing Massacre alone. Mao brought China together again from the shambles. There were peace and unity for some time. But Mao’s later reign saw sufferings and deaths from famine and power struggles. 

Then came Deng Xiao Ping and his infamous 'black-cat and white-cat' story. His preference in pragmatism than ideologies has transformed China. This thinking allowed China to evolve all the time to adapt to the actual needs in the country, instead of rigidly bounded to ideologies. It also signified the death of Communism in actually practice in China. 

The current Socialism+Meritocracy+Market Economy model fits the Chinese like gloves, and it propels the uprise of China. Singapore has a similar model, and has been arguably more successful than Hong Kong, because Hong Kong being gateway to China, was riding on the economic boom in China, while Singapore had no one to gain from. 

In just 30 years, the CPC have moved 800 millions of people out from poverty. The rate of growth is unprecedented in human history. They have built the biggest mobile network, by far the biggest high speed rail network in the world, and they have become a behemoth in infrastructure. They made a fishing village called Shenzhen into the world’s second largest technological centre after the Silicon Valley. 

They are growing into a technological power house. It has the most elaborate e-commerce and cashless payment system in the world. They have launched exploration to Mars. The Chinese are living a good life and China has become one of the safest countries in the world. 

The level of patriotism in the country has reached an unprecedented height. For all of the achievements, the West has nothing good to say about it. China suffers from intense anti-China propagandas from the West. Western Media used the keyword “Communist” to instil fear and hatred towards China.

Everything China does is negatively reported. They claimed China used slave labor in making iPhones. The truth was, Apple was the most profitable company in the world, it took most of the profit, leave some to Foxconn (a Taiwanese company) and little to the labor. 

They claimed China was inhuman with one-child policy. At the same time, they accused China of polluting the earth with its huge population. The fact is the Chinese consume just 30% of energy per capita compared to the US. 

They claimed China underwent ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang. The fact is China has a policy which priorities ethnic minorities. For a long time, the ethnic minorities were allowed to have two children and the majority Han only allowed one. The minorities are allowed a lower score for university intakes. There are 39,000 mosque in China, and 2100 in the US. 

China has about 3 times more mosque per muslim than the US. When terrorist attacks happened in Xinjiang, China had two choices: 

1. Re-educate the Uighur (CENSUDED by Youtube) before they turned (CENSUDED by Youtube). (**Here I could not copy the exact word, since today it is censored by YouTube if I write it next to the indicated ethnicity. It is the one used to identify those crazy people who are killing people thinking that by doing this they will be able to go to paradise**). 

2. Let them be, after they launch attacks and killed innocent people, bomb their homes. China chose 1 to solve problem from the root and not to do killing. 

How the US solve terrorism? Fire missiles from battleships, drop bombs from the sky. 

During the pandemic, When China took extreme measures to lockdown the people, they were accused of being inhuman. 

When China recovered swiftly because of the extreme measures, they were accused of lying about the actual numbers. 

When China’s cases became so low that they could provide medical support to other countries, they were accused of politically motivated. Western Media always have reasons to bash China. Just like any country, there are irresponsible individuals from China which do bad things, but the China government overall has done very well. 

But I hear this comment over and over by people from the West: I like Chinese people, but the CPC is evil. What they really want is the Chinese to change the government, because the current one is too good. 

Fortunately China is not a multi-party democratic country, otherwise the opposition party in China will be supported by notorious NGOs (Non-Government Organization) of the USA, like the NED (National Endowment for Democracy), to topple the ruling party. 

The US and the British couldn’t crack Mainland China, so they work on Hong Kong. Of all the ex-British colonial countries, only the Hong Kongers were offered BNOs by the British. Because the UK would like the Hong Kongers to think they are British citizens, not Chinese. 

A divide-and-conquer strategy, which they often used in Color Revolutions around the world. They resort to low dirty tricks like detaining Huawei’s CFO & banning Huawei. They raised a silly trade war which benefits no one. Trade deficit always exist between a developing and a developed country. 

USA is like a luxury car seller who ask a farmer: why am I always buying your vegetables and you haven’t bought any of my cars? When the Chinese were making socks for the world 30 years ago, the world let it be. 

But when Chinese started to make high technology products, like Huawei and DJI, it caused red-alert. Because when Western and Japanese products are equal to Chinese in technologies, they could never match the Chinese in prices. 

First world countries want China to continue in making socks. Instead of stepping up themselves, they want to pull China down. The recent movement by the US against China has a very important background. 

When Libya, Iran, and China decided to ditch the US dollar in oil trades, Gaddafi’s was killed by the US, Iran was being sanctioned by the US, and now it’s China’s turn. The US has been printing money out of nothing. The only reason why the US Dollar is still widely accepted, is because it’s the only currency which oil is allowed to be traded with. 

The US has an agreement with Saudi that oil must be traded in US dollar ONLY. Without the petrol-dollar status, the US dollars will sink, and America will fall. 

Therefore anyone trying to disobey this order will be eliminated. China will soon use a gold-backed crypto-currency, the alarms in the White House go off like mad. 

 China’s achievement has been by hard work. Not by looting the world. I have deep sympathy for China for all the suffering, but now I feel happy for them. China is not rising, they are going back to where they belong. Good luck China.”

[feuilletoniste]

about that DID post, I agree with the last anon who said that it's annoying as far as not actually providing any construction information or sources, unlike you did. I don't know my stance on whether I believe in it or not, as I haven't done barely any research. I just wondered what your thoughts on some adults who say they have it, and don't have claim to have any fictional character alters, unlike kinnie teenagers. disassociaDID on yt is an example, but like I said I really just don't know muc

Well, to be clear, I think that post is a tumblr post made by a non-professional on a social media blogging website, so I don’t really think OP is under any obligation to provide constructive alternatives or sources. But I will talk about it a bit more.

I am by no means a professional, and I urge you not treat what I’m saying as anything more than my opinion based on my best understanding of the research I’ve read! The primary sources are pretty easily accessible (I googled “multiple personality disorder satanic panic” and "dissociative identity disorder controversy" to get the articles I included in the tags, lmao) if you want to read them. The Wikipedia page is also not a bad start, as it has plenty of links to actual sources.

With that said, my opinion of adults who claim to have multiple personalities is essentially the same as my opinion of people who deal with visual or auditory hallucinations. While the affected person may genuinely believe that they have multiple personalities residing within their brain (or that they’re seeing/hearing things), that’s not what a personality is, nor is it really how the brain functions. In the case of dissociative identity disorder specifically, I believe that the vast majority of cases, if not all, are iatrogenic. I think that self-diagnosis is in general a very bad thing, and shouldn't be supported in cases like this -- there's a huge difference between self-diagnosing "being depressed" versus self-diagnosing "having autism spectrum disorder." Kind of like the difference between self-diagnosing a stubbed toe and leukemia, if that makes sense.

I don’t know enough about the person you mentioned specifically to give my opinion -- I don’t really care much for YouTubers -- but just a quick glimpse at her channel gives me the impression that she’s a scam. Anyone milking sympathy (and lots of money) from something like this is not acting in good faith. Even if I were to assume that DID is real, none of what this person is claiming to experience fits the popular diagnostic model. DID is one of the only personality disorders that is so widely promoted online, with many people talking about being "proud" of it, making merchandise, promoting self-diagnosis, and so on. This is an incredibly dangerous trend, from my perspective -- again, this is different from something more common and almost banal like a mild anxiety disorder. DID, if it exists, is closer to anti-social personality disorder (ASPD) than it is to attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). This is not to condemn or stereotype people with ASPD, just to point out that the treatment model for psychopathy is much different from ADD. The symptoms associated with DID are also far more severe than I think most people realise. It's not normal or healthy for the brain to have such a fractured sense of identity! It's the kind of thing you should probably be in a mental facility for! There are no "mild" or "safe" examples of true presentations of these symptoms. It's not comparable to a "benign" disorder. It's the kind of thing that would get you deemed not guilty by reason of insanity, and that's not actually a desirable thing.

Some people bring up the argument that DID is in the DSM-5. This is true. The DSM is also notoriously slow to be updated (surprisingly, updates of this type will usually require a boatload of evidence!) and has infamously contained other examples of facetious disorders, of which homosexuality is probably the most well-known. Amongst the mental health professional community currently in practice today, the general consensus is that DID is not a real disorder, but the symptoms displayed are probably real. At the very least, they're real manifestations of actual problems. Someone pretending to be multiple different "alters" in one brain definitely has a serious problem, just not the one they say they do.

However, I’ll repeat that I’d never heard of this person before today, so I’m not really comfortable even giving an armchair diagnosis.

[pensivetense]

*vague high pitched noises in the direction of you OG!Elias hot takes*

I love them, if you have any more pls share.

Also; OG!Elias & Jonah friendship/relationship any more thoughts on that???

Ahhh thank you very much!! I Am Not Immune To The Inherent Intimacy Of Bodysharing. I’ve rambled a bit about them here but I always have more thoughts :)

(Okay this took me FOREVER to get to I’m so sorry—the sleep deficit I’ve been running on the week has been insane and the words just didn’t want to word.)

I have a whole backstory for ogElias that lives in my head, and is completely not based in anything canonical, but anyway:

I know that Jonah probably just picks who’s most convenient at the time but Elias accidentally had to go and embody one of my deepest fears and I can’t just let that go so In My Head Jonah picks Elias initially because he’s perfectly suited to the Eye. He’s from a large old family that Jonah actually looks into carefully just in case they’re secretly Lukas-adjacent because they’re just kind of awful. (He might court the Lonely but he’s careful not to invite it in too far—he knows he’s not invulnerable to it.)

But no, the Bouchards are just what they appear to be—a family with too much money and self-importance and history to make up for what they lack in character, and who have as a result become obsessed with public optics, to the detriment of their children. Pulling off the semblance of being a stable, socially presentable family is far more important to them than actual connections, and so Elias and his siblings grow up under the oppressive eye of their parents, who are always scrutinizing how they act, speak, dress, etc. to preserve their public image. Predictably this is hell on everyone involved, but where Elias’s siblings manage to scrape together either the will to pretend or actually absorbing the philosophy, Elias is the family disappointment. Okay so in my head he’s trans, but really there are any number of things that would earn the disappointment of a family obsessed w/ optics. I imagine them as being the unfortunately gaslighty kinds of people who are always going on about how he should just act the way they want him to because ‘they know who he really is better than he does’ or some awfulness like that.

So from this he’s had to actually cultivate a very strongly self-protective sense of identity. He’s going to be him, and he’ll fight to the death to preserve his individuality against a lot of pressure to conform. But on the flipside of that, he’s actually not in a very good place because while he’s cultivated a very definitive self image, he’s terrified of letting anyone actually get close enough to see the real him through the image because the constant judgement has worn on him to the point that he doesn’t want to let anyone have the leverage of being able to dismiss or attack his sense of self.

So this is the perfect combination of traits for Jonah’s purposes—Elias is isolated, terrified of being seen because that makes him vulnerable and equally terrified of not being seen/having his selfhood acknowledged.

What Jonah utterly fails to take into account is just how well they’re suited to each other. Because both of them are incredibly self-protective people but in different directions—Jonah’s willing to sacrifice his identity in order to preserve his life, and Elias is the sort of person who would wouldn’t care about dying if he could be guaranteed an honest eulogy. So in a certain sense they share enough of a personality type and sort of survivalist mentality to fundamentally understand each other, even when they hate each other. Furthermore, Elias is so used to having to defend himself against assaults on his basic sense of self that he’s actually quite resilient in that regard, and though watching his life be stolen without anyone even noticing is literally his most primal terror, Jonah can’t just shove him to the back of their headspace and forget about him, or whatever he’s done with previous hosts. In a sense, Elias has the one rebellion left to him of choosing to remain himself after all of the rest of his choices are taken from him, and this is also partially why he ‘forgets’ to be angry at Jonah—because in a certain sense it’s an assertion of his personality to purposefully maintain all of the parts of himself, and not just what’s filtered through his fear and anger.

Usually when Jonah monologues at his hosts it’s for the purpose of torturing them, but unfortunately he finds that he actually? Enjoys Elias’s company when Elias is forgetting to be angry? And it’s about the most secure relationship he can possibly cultivate because he has total control of the situation, so he lets himself start to like Elias, in the same sort of resigned way that Elias starts to like him. For Elias, his choices have suddenly been narrowed down to nearly none, so he may as well make the best of an objectively awful situation. For Jonah, Elias is absolutely ‘safe’ because he’s powerless to affect the world in any meaningful way, so Jonah may as well indulge himself in all of the socialization he’s missed since his original body. (He has such a wide network of friends and acquaintances in the 1800s that he must be a people person.)

I think that under the right circumstances they could influence each other in positive ways—Elias could make Jonah a little less self-destructive, and having Jonah’s attention and regard would allow Elias to relax his guardedness. So in a sense they both make each other care a little more about the aspects of life that they’ve decided are disposable/unimportant to their survival by seeing those aspects through the other’s eyes, so to speak. This allows them both to actually start enjoying more things about life—Elias wants to know who Jonah is as a person and is disappointed when he finds out that Jonah doesn’t seem to put much thought or effort into himself, and Jonah’s adamant desire to not die starts to infect Elias a little with a willingness to adapt in order to survive, at which point he really starts to examine what he wants out of this relationship.

Unfortunately, this is where the inherent power imbalance rears its head, because if Jonah genuinely starts to care about Elias as a person he’s going to realise just how permanently he fucked their relationship from the start. Quite apart from the whole body-snatching thing, they can’t get the space from each other or the autonomy that a partnership of equals demands, and of course they can’t have a partnership of equals because Jonah’s got literal supernatural powers and centuries of age on Elias and is also effectively his jailer. Whether he can or cannot cede any physical autonomy to Elias if he wants, he also has to choose how much influence he allows Elias to have over him as a person and in terms of decisions.

I think by this point Elias knows absolutely everything about the Mass Ritual, because Jonah overshares because he’s socially starved and also because the Eye likes it, so the way I see it is on one extreme, Elias takes a definitive moral stand and they end up in a really yearn-y relationship where they’re always together but can’t really be together, or on the other he just says fuck it and decides to be evil, too, partially as a way of asserting control over his situation, and they end up being extremely codependent. (And of course any mixture of the two.)

But in particular, because I’m a massive fan of Elias killing Jonah, I like the former scenario because he’d do it if he got the opportunity but it would hurt, but he’d have to because I think that no matter what, if Jonah had complete control, he’d never give that up or turn aside from his immortality quest, in love or not.

More miscellany:

-I like the idea of Elias being the one who’s got the methodical/logical way of thinking, vs Jonah as the imaginative/intuitive one. Jonah’s got his moments of high drama despite the bland bureaucrat persona, and I like the idea of Elias as working as a file clerk on purpose because he likes paperwork and organisation and he could not care less about the degree that his family made him go and get.

(Original post of takes here )

[kny111]

According to sources in the British government who spoke to CNN, the UK then reached out to both the United States and Cuba “to find a suitable port for the Braemar.”

Which country took them in? If you’ve paid attention to the Trump administration’s xenophobic rhetoric about “the Chinese virus” and its obsession with keeping foreign nationals out of the country, and you know anything about Cuba’s tradition of sending doctors to help with humanitarian crises all around the world, you should be able to guess the answer.

The Braemar docked in the Cuban port of Mariel last Wednesday. Passengers who were healthy enough to travel to their home countries were transported to the airport in Havana. Those who were too sick to fly were offered treatment at Cuban hospitals — even though there had only been ten confirmed cases in the whole country, and allowing patients from the cruise ship to stay threatened to increase the number.

Cuba Mobilizes Against the Virus

Despite being a poor country that often experiences shortages — a product of both the economy’s structural flaws and the effects of sixty years of economic embargo by its largest natural trading partner — Cuba was better positioned than most to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

The country combines a completely socialized medical system that guarantees health care to all with impressive biotech innovations. A Cuban antiviral drug (Interferon Alfa-2B) has been used to combat the coronavirus both inside the country and in China. Cuba also boasts 8.2 doctors per 1,000 people — well over three times the rate in the United States (2.6) or South Korea (2.4), almost five times as many as China (1.8), and nearly twice as many as Italy (4.1).

On top of its impressive medical system, Cuba has a far better track record of protecting its citizens from emergencies than other poor nations — and even some rich ones. Their “comprehensive, all-hands-on-deck” hurricane-preparedness system, for example, is a marvel, and the numbers speak for themselves. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew killed dozens of Americans and hundreds of Haitians. Not a single Cuban died. Fleeing residents were even able to bring their household pets with them — veterinarians were stationed at the evacuation centers.

The coronavirus will be a harder challenge than a hurricane, but Cuba has been applying the same “all-hands-on-deck” spirit to prepare. Tourism has been shut down (a particularly painful sacrifice, given the industry’s importance to Cuba’s beleaguered economy). And the nationalized health care industry has not only made sure that thousands of civilian hospitals are at the ready for coronavirus patients, but that several military hospitals are open for civilian use as well.

Masks: A Tale of Two Countries

In the United States, the surgeon general and other authorities tried to conserve face masks for medical professionals by telling the public that the masks “wouldn’t help.” The problem, as Dr Zeynep Tufekci argued in a recent New York Times op-ed, is that the idea that doctors and nurses needed the masks undermined the claim that they would be ineffective. Authorities correctly pointed out that masks would be useless (or even do more harm than good) if not used correctly, but as Tufekci notes, this messaging never really made sense. Why not launch an aggressive educational campaign to promote the dos and don’ts of proper mask usage rather than telling people they’d never be able to figure it out?

Many people also wash their hands wrong, but we don’t respond to that by telling them not to bother. Instead, we provide instructions; we post signs in bathrooms; we help people sing songs that time their hand-washing. Telling people they can’t possibly figure out how to wear a mask properly isn’t a winning message. Besides, when you tell people that something works only if done right, they think they will be the person who does it right, even if everyone else doesn’t.

The predictable result of all of this is that, after weeks of “don’t buy masks, they won’t work for you” messaging, so many have been purchased that you can’t find a mask for sale anywhere in the United States outside of a few on Amazon for absurdly gouged prices.

In Cuba, on the other hand, nationalized factories that normally churn out school uniforms and other non-medical items have been repurposed to dramatically increase the supply of masks.

Cuban Doctors Abroad

The same humanitarian and internationalist spirit that led Cuba to allow the Braemar to dock has also led the tiny country to send doctors to assist Haiti after that nation’s devastating 2010 earthquake, fight Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and, most recently, help Italy’s overwhelmed health system amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Cuba offered to send similar assistance to the United States after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, but was predictably rebuffed by the Bush administration.)

Even outside of temporary emergencies, Cuba has long dispatched doctors to work in poor countries with shortages of medical care. In Brazil, Cuban doctors were warmly welcomed for years by the ruling Workers’ Party. That began to change with the ascendance of far-right demagogue Jair Bolsonaro. When he assumed office, Bolsonaro expelled most of the Cuban doctors from the country, insisting that they were in Brazil not to heal the sick but “to create guerrilla cells and indoctrinate people.”

As recently as two weeks ago, Bolsonaro was calling the idea that the coronavirus posed a serious threat to public health  a “fantasy.” Now that reality has set in, he’s begging the Cuban doctors to come back.

Embracing Complexity About Cuba

Last month, Bernie Sanders was red-baited and slandered by both Republicans and establishment Democrats for acknowledging the real accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution. It didn’t seem to matter to these critics that Sanders started and ended his comments by calling the Cuban government “authoritarian” and condemning it for keeping political prisoners. Instead, they seemed to judge his comments by what I called the “Narnia Standard.” Rather than frankly discussing both the positive and negative aspects of Cuban society, the island state is treated as if it lacks any redeeming features — like Narnia before Aslan, where it was “always winter and never Christmas.”

Democratic socialists value free speech, press freedom, multiparty elections, and workplace democracy. We can and should criticize Cuba’s model of social organization for its deficits. But Cuba’s admirably humane and solidaristic approach to the coronavirus should humble those who insist on talking about the island nation as if it were some unending nightmare.

[theideasoundingboard]

On Lebanon reaching an all time low and a pinch of hope

Or how on earth has Lebanon managed to fall short of the podium on the Misery Index.

Yes dear readers, there is a misery index which classifies countries based on a misery score. Without getting into the details of how the score is computed, top of the list is the most miserable country in the world. Lebanon made it to number 4 in 2020, out of 156 nations covered by the index. Only Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Sudan are faring better as numbers 1, 2 and 3. It must sound surreal to most Lebanese people who are still trying to fathom what hit them: The first default on Lebanese sovereign debt in history, the mass destruction and losses stemming from the sixth largest artificial non-nuclear explosion in history, the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing Syrian conflict and its ramifications taking their toll on the country, all on top of the structural weaknesses of the Lebanese economy and political system. It takes less than that to bring a country to its knees. From all the causes above, there is one which could explain at least two others: the structural weaknesses of the Lebanese economy and political system. The solution on paper seems straightforward. And very unattainable, like only a straightforward solution can be: a new political system and social contract to restore confidence in the Lebanese economy and currency, which would encourage foreign investment, unblock international aid and allow some leverage in the debt restructuring negotiations with creditors. Although this statement is true in essence, it does not sound like a plan. It sounds more like a slogan. A Manifest at best. I mean, where would you even start... We could spend countless hours debating on the abysmal trade deficit, the record debt to GDP ratio and the huge toll that debt servicing is taking on the country revenue, the artificial peg of the Lebanese Pound to the US Dollar and the opaque policies of the central bank, or the decline of the remittance share in the GDP as Lebanese expatriates are struggling  with the COVID-19 pandemic and other crisis. We could also debate on the political system in Lebanon which consists roughly of two sides, each backed by different international players with conflicting interests and how this will not change in the near future, or the far one for that matters, because the people who can make it change are too busy surviving to vote a majority of the 128 MPs out of parliament. Hope as far as I am concerned, lies in some of the economic forces at large and with the Lebanese diaspora. The latter is obvious. Lebanese living abroad have always sent remittance back to Lebanon, either to invest in real estate, benefit from artificially attractive interest rates on deposits or to support their families, and they will keep sending remittance. Not for the same reasons perhaps but it will still amount to something. Economic forces at large are successful companies with ties to Lebanon or which could have a presence in the country, and which make most of their revenue abroad and hence are less sensitive, if at all, to the Lebanese economic situation. If such companies operated part of their processes from Lebanon, they would provide great benefits to the local economy by creating jobs and value and still benefit from an offshore legal status provided by law, which offers tremendous flexibility from a legal standpoint and many tax incentives. They would also benefit from a less expensive and highly skilled workforce. They will obviously have to put up with the unstable political situation, the run-down economy and the challenges which come with them but I still believe a business case can be made, especially if the company has ties to Lebanon: a Lebanese founder or shareholder, a historic presence in the country, etc. Some examples I can think of: A software editor which operates its quality department from Lebanon, with minimal requirements to run production: A bit of electricity and an internet link. Servers can be hosted anywhere in the world, revenue is made abroad for the most part and there are no stocks to worry about. IT consultancies which operate on IT projects in the Gulf region, Turkey, Greece,

etc. and which can base their client support activities in Lebanon. Similar business case, all they needs is electricity, internet connections and brains. Companies in any field externalizing their call centers to Lebanon. They need people who speak foreign languages and Lebanon is in no shortage of them. So far. All the examples above are real and are still operating in Lebanon. The software editor has been assessing the quality of its software in Lebanon for 20 years and has since put in place a consultancy department in the country serving the region and moved part of its production chain there. It still makes the bulk of its revenue abroad but caters for around 600 Lebanese families. The IT consultancies have been around for about 10 years now and still make the bulk of their revenues abroad. The externalized call center was set up in January 2021 and this last example brings a lot of hope to me: companies with no specific ties to Lebanon still choose to invest in the country and sees value in it and its workforce even after its economy has fell apart. In conclusion, the idea here is to call out on men and women (and companies) of good will who can still see value in Lebanon, who can identify win-win business cases in operating part of their cost centers from Lebanon and who are willing to take a chance on this country, knowing they have a cheat code to enhance their chances of success in the game: they are part of the solution. Let the board sound Rabih

PS: You can read this post and many others at https://theideasoundingboard.blogspot.com/

[averycanadianfilm]

Science diversified: The men who say no to manels. (manels = all male panels).

Two male researchers became gender-equity allies after witnessing how female colleagues were treated in meetings and job interviews.

For all sorts of reasons, women remain under-represented in senior-level jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

To overcome these blocks, what can male allies do to challenge discriminatory practices and unconscious bias, and to recognize their own privilege and the career advantages it has delivered?

Two male scientists saw how female colleagues were ignored or talked over in meetings and treated more harshly than male candidates in job interviews.

They discuss the need to take supportive action, including a range of measures that include a boycott of ‘manels’ — all-male panels.

This episode is part of Science diversified, a seven-part podcast series exploring how having a more diverse range of researchers ultimately benefits not only the scientific enterprise, but also the wider world.

Each episode in this series concludes with a sponsored slot from the International Science Council (ISC) about how it is exploring diversity in science.

The ISC is exploring diversity in science.

This episode looks at the role of allies in science workplaces and spaces of power.

How can being an ally help to make science more inclusive to diverse perspectives?

And what practical steps can we all take to support that?

Ineke Sluiter talks about successful interventions to increase the number of women members at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which she is president.

And Mary Robinson, who was the first female president of Ireland, discusses the value of having like-minded allies at climate negotiations.

TRANSCRIPT

Allies in action: What two male researchers did when they saw how female colleagues were being treated differently at work.

00:03: David Payne

Hello, I'm David Payne, careers editor at Nature. And this is Working Scientist, a Nature Careers podcast.

In this seven part series, Science Diversified, we're exploring how the scientific enterprise truly benefits when you have a team of researchers from a broad range of backgrounds, disciplines and skill sets.

Each episode ends with a 10-minute sponsored slot from the International Science council about its work on diversity.

In this third episode, we're in search of allies to support people from under-represented groups.

In this case, we meet two men who noticed how women were treated differently in the workplace, and did something concrete about it.

00:46: Paul Walton

So my name is Paul Walton. I'm a bioinorganic chemist at the University of York, where I'm a professor. Throughout my gender equality work, I come across two things that really have stood out.

One is the use of data. You can look at, say the percentage of female faculty in our universities globally, and see, whilst there's been progress, there's undoubtedly been progress, in many countries in the world, there's simply not at parity.

And there's some puzzles in there, right? You know, for instance, if you look at some countries where you may expect gender equality to have a hard time, (Saudi Arabia), then you see that percentage of female faculty in universities is pretty good.

And it's better than some countries where you expect gender equality perhaps to be better, even in places where there have been gender equity policies for decades. In Scandinavia, for instance, women are still under-represented in the senior positions.

The second thing is unconscious bias. The best examples are those when you talk about meeting dynamics and the way that people behave and speak in meetings, and that's often where decisions are made.

Women are talked over and often ignored, because people carry with them inside some notion of the value of men and women's contributions to discussion.

Moreover, that a woman will have an idea, put it forward, it will be ignored. And then five or 10 minutes later, a man will have the same idea and pitch it forward and get the credit for it.

And every time I speak about unconscious bias and give those examples, say, the meeting example, pretty much all the women in the audience will nod.

It doesn't matter which country I'm in, where I'm speaking, which subject. Pretty much all the men in the audience will think probably, no reaction.

Whilst I can only speak anecdotally, that awareness raising has for us being powerful and has changed meeting behaviours, and has improved decision making to a large extent.

So one thing we did, also, was to bring in observers to interview panels. Actually also, shortlisting panels. The job of these people was to watch out for any instances of unconscious bias during the decision making process.

And this is something that we do routinely now for appointments. And I would say, certainly the ones I've been involved with, I would say, on every occasion, we find that male candidates are spoken about 50% more of the time than female candidates.

And that female candidates receive roughly twice as many negative comments as male candidates.

And I have some anecdotes here, one of which is that I saw two candidates chat, discussed by my colleagues, which were roughly the same merit. And the male candidate attracted no negative comments, but the female candidate at the end attracted all sorts of negative comments.

But it took the act of observation to pick that up. And then to be reflected back to the panel, that there was there was an issue.

And it's powerful. You see it making a difference and I can think of several anecdotes. One of which is that we were shortlisting for a faculty member once and actually I was the observer. And I noticed that all of the female candidates did not have what I called sponsorship, whereas many of the male candidates would have sponsorship. What is sponsorship? Sponsorship is where we would say be talking about a particular resume, and one of my colleagues would say something like, "well, I've had a phone call about this candidate from his ex supervisor, his ex-postdoc advisor and this is a really good guy." And men would receive those informal sponsorships and women wouldn't.

And it was interesting, what was interesting is that when I pointed this out to my colleagues, through the observation, they were aghast that they'd even done this.

But of course, it's all part of the great network of unconscious bias. One, they may not be aware of their own biases and two, that the sponsorship in itself had come out of some notion of bias and how men are viewed and how women are viewed.

And that didn't lead to a correction of, of the, of the people that would shortlist and the people that we would interview.

05:49 Sean Hendy

Yes, I'm Professor Sean Hendy from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. I first got interested in gender equality, really, by just watching what was happening to some of my women colleagues and friends. My opportunity to do something about it came later in my career, as I moved into leadership positions.

When I when I was a junior scientist, I don't think I really felt like I had the ability to make much change, other than just trying to be a good colleague.

So one of the things that, you know, I feel quite strongly, about is setting yourself targets, and then taking steps to achieve those targets.

Then there are other the other sort of things that you can do, you know, once you climb up the, you know, the ranks of seniority.

So, I took the the “no manel pledge” about five years ago. I said that I wasn't going to appear on, panels that were all men, and then I wasn't going to appear in conference sessions that that that were all mail. You know, at first you think, you know, I'm going to look like an idiot, and I'm going to be making lots of trouble for lots of people, actually, my experience was completely different.

Usually, when I, when I pointed this out to people organizing panels, or conference organizers, they were so thankful that I pointed it out, right, because that's just something that had slipped by them.

And they realized that it was not the right thing to do. And so by actually, me raising it, it wasn't, it wasn't seen as a negative thing or, or a difficult thing, it was actually seen as a helpful thing.

You know, and it is easy to just sort of, you know, when you're busy, and you've got to put together a list of speakers, to just not do the gender check.

You know, I mean, it happens to us all. Right, we're in a rush, you've got to get a list of names. And so but but one thing I've learned to do is to always run the gender lens, over any list of names I'm looking at, any list of colleagues that I'm collaborating with now.

We're trapped in our own social networks, right. And those social networks are often shaped by our gender and our socialization habits.

And so, you know, once you start sort of examining your own networks, and the people that you're working with, and your sort of "go-to" people, you'll start to see some biases on them. And actually, you know, you can correct it.

And over time, you'll actually build up a fantastic network of people that you can go to, that there's much more broad and diverse than it would otherwise be if you were simply relying on the old boys’ club.

08:27 Paul Walton

But a question I get asked a lot is why as a man, are you involved in gender equality? You know, why it's, it's a bit of a puzzle.

And I would say there's a different perspective on gender inequality, which is, goes as follows, is that is not so much a female deficit problem, but it's a male advantage problem.

And what do I mean by that? I mean, that, whether I like it or not as a white, middle aged man, I've enjoyed all the advantages that the scientific world can offer me, to the point where it's the analogy I draw, it's a bit like being in a cycle race, I've been given secretly some performance enhancing drugs and that, as we all set off on the race of this great competition in science, it's perhaps no surprise that occasionally I'll win a cycling stage, or put it scientifically win a prize or get a grant or get a paper published.

And from my perspective, then, as a guy who's enjoyed all the advantages, I can't then separate myself from the thought that that victory or that achievement is tainted It's tainted in some way because it's been gained unfairly. And that through that lens, I find myself wanting to speak out about gender equality, not only to raise awareness of the problem, but also to do my best to offset the advantages that I personally have had as a scientist.

09:56 Sean Hendy

Often the burden is placed on them, women, to drive change. Again that's not fair. That's holding them back from doing their science. I think the burden of making change has to be shared equally otherwise, it's simply going to perpetuate the same sort of inequity that we've had for so long, right?

Where you can, as a male, you can sort of focus on your work, you've maybe not got the same sort of expectations from your family, from society about the other roles that you might play, you know, crank out the publications, get the grants, and success will breed success.

And, and of course, that leaves people who are trying to make change, less able to get grants, less able to further their own careers.

And that kind of perpetuates the problem. So I think it is about sharing that burden equally. A lot of extremely capable women scientists who don't need the help of men. But actually, it's about sharing that burden equally, so that actually they can they can reach their potential.

Paul Walton: 11:01

You know, whether we like it or not, it's, it is an unfair world of which actually, I'm on the side of advantage rather than disadvantage.

And I'd hope that message would perhaps get out a little bit more, to engage a few more men in the whole business of gender equality, that, you know, we do have advantages, whether we like it or not, and that we benefit from those advantages.

And that, if we could recognize and understand that, then perhaps it will motivate more people to get involved, to make their own achievements be worthy.

Sean Hendy: 11:43

Science is a wonderful career. We all go out around telling people science is a wonderful career.

And it's not fair to be going around, telling people, you know, about the wonders of science, and not allowing them to share it not allowing certain types of people to share in that.

So there's just a basic equity issue there that I think is quite important.

But genuinely, it does make for better science, you know, particularly with the types of problems that we're grappling with today.

These are problems that that, you know, no single individual can own, and no single individual perspective can solve.

So we simply need that diversity in our scientific teams and that diversity of perspective, and lived experience.

And so, you know, your agenda does have an influence on your, on your lived experience.

And so that's, that's really important when we're trying to solve complex problems, like climate change, grappling with with the COVID pandemic, as we are at the moment, we need diverse perspectives.

It's not always so obvious. I'm a theoretical physicist, you sort of sit back and ponder, well, how would what I'd be doing be different If I was a woman, and some areas of science, it's not super obvious how how diversity changes things.

And these are often the most resistant areas of science to change, right? And we just don't know. Once we bring diverse teams to bear, we can certainly take science in different directions.

And increasingly, science is multidisciplinary, right? It's no longer simply based on a disciplinary basis, where one person can sort of master all of the knowledge.

We're having to build teams, we're having to build on that diversity. And if we can't build teams from a diverse set of perspectives, then you're not going to be doing good science these days. And that includes building diverse teams.

David Payne 13:35

Now, that's all for this section of our Working Scientist podcast. We now have a slot sponsored by the International Science Council, which looks at why diversity is so critical to advancing science, and the steps we can take to improve it. I'm David Payne, careers editor at Nature. Thanks for listening.

Ineke Sluiter 13:55

I see the talents, the upcoming young people, the ideas, the creativity, the way they bubble with energy. And it is very frustrating to me if I see that energy quenched.

Mary Robinson: 14:07

Initially, they needed to be kind of encouraged that their voice mattered. But once they were affirmed in that way, they were so eloquent and they spoke from life's experience. They were delighted and empowered, you could see it.

Marnie Chesterton: 14:27

Welcome to this podcast series from the International Science Council, where we're exploring diversity in science.

I'm Marnie Chesterton, and in this episode we're looking at the role of allies in the workplace and spaces of power. How can being an ally help to make science more inclusive to diverse perspectives? And what practical steps can we all take to support that?

Ineke Sluiter 14:54

If you ignore diversity and inclusion, it simply means you're going to miss talent. You're going to miss out on gifted people, and we simply can't afford that. I's a waste. That's a loss for academies as a whole.

Marnie Chesterton 15:07

This is Ineke Sluiter, professor of ancient Greek at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the ISC’s member organizations.

It was established at the start of the 19th century as an academy for all disciplines, the humanities, as well as the natural, social and medical sciences.

The academy's members are elected from Dutch universities, and like many science organizations, the profile of their members hasn't always been very diverse.

Ineke Sluiter: 15:39

So in 2011, about 16% of the academy's membership were female. So that's a really low number.

And it has steadily risen, through 19% in 2014. And currently, after several measures were taken in 2020 it was at 31%, which we're actually pretty proud of. Because I have to say that, in fairness, that initial poor representation was a reflection of the poor representation in Dutch academia in general.

And one important aspect of this issue for the academy was the leaky pipeline in Dutch academia at large, where among students women are even a little over represented. Then among PhD students, it's almost equal. And then that every further progressive step of the academic career, we tend to lose women.

Marnie Chesterton: 16:35

Through its work on increasing gender equality in science, the ISC has been looking at how to move from awareness to transformation, because although we've been talking about better representation of women in science for a long time, that isn't always reflected in the figures.

According to the Gender Gap in Science project, funded by the ISC, women's experiences in both educational and employment settings are consistently less positive than men's.

More than a quarter of women's responses across the sciences reported experiencing sexual harassment at university or at work. Women were 14 times more likely than men to report being personally harassed, and consistently reported less positive relationships with their doctoral advisors.

So given we’re aware of the issue, how can we transform the situation? This is a question Ineke has also struggled with.

Ineke Sluiter: 17:29

So then the question is, what could we do? We could either choose to reconcile ourselves to following this trend of very slow growth of the percentage of female academics, or show leadership from the top because that does make a difference.

I think it actually always comes down to the same couple of points. Awareness, visibility, and the courage to intervene

Marnie Chesterton: 17:54

And intervene they did. In 2017, 100 years after Johanna Westerdijk was appointed as the first female full professor in the Netherlands, the academy marked the centenary with a special call for nominations of women members.

Ineke Sluiter: 18:10

And the miraculous thing was sometimes the academy elect people that have been nominated more than once.

But this whole group of candidates we had never seen before. And the quality of the nominations was outstanding.

So think about visibility. Apparently, because we had invited nominators, presidents of universities, to send us the names of their best women, they now saw them with new eyes. They discovered them as they were, they were there all along with their great work. They discovered the talents in their own organizations, it was actually fabulous.

And as a result, not just of that measure, we now have over 30% female members in our fellowship, and so we're ahead of the curve. That's better than the average at the Dutch universities. It's actually at the high end of what any university has. And I think that's leading from the top, it's proven a very effective measure. It works. Quality as high as effort. And for the fellowship as a whole it's definitely an improvement.

Marnie Chesterton: 19:15

So does Inneke have any advice for others who are looking to start their own journey for change?

Ineke Sluiter: 19:20

First of all, it helps to find allies to form networks. Women can also really help each other there.

But this was actually a question that could be raised by men and women. Men are often very aware that something is going wrong. And the question is, what can you do? There's a couple of steps.

The first is be aware of these issues of unconscious bias.

So raise awareness, be aware yourself.

Second point. We would always recommend to find expert advice. There are people whose job it is to study these things and who know about this.

Ask them to analyze the processes in your organization, or your department, or your team. The facts, the figures, so that you can work based on correct information. Then formulate concrete goals and actions.

And finally, make sure you monitor the results so that you can see what works and what doesn't.

And maybe the most important thing is keep hope because we will be getting there.

Marnie Chesterton: 20:20

Having allies at all levels, from the grassroots to the leadership, is crucial for transformative action.

Someone else who can testify to this is Mary Robinson, the first woman president of Ireland, and a patron of the International Science Council.

During her first UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, COP 15, she noticed a real lack of representation from women,

Mary Robinson: 20:44

It was very male, it was very technical, and it did not incorporate a gender perspective.

The delegates tended to be professionals talking about clauses and paragraphs and fighting their corner on every word.

But they weren't sensitive to gender, sensitive to what it's like at grassroots level when such unpredictable weather patterns devastate your harvest, and you can't put food on the table and you have to go further for water.

Marnie Chesterton: 21:13

Mary began attending the COP meetings on climate change, just as several other women were coming to the fore in climate negotiations. And having like minded allies in those seats of power was really important.

Mary Robinson: 21:25

We decided that we would form a network of women on gender and climate that would include women ministers and heads of agencies.

And we called it the Troika+ of women leaders on gender and climate. We plotted to address a decision on gender parity, which was going to be 10 years old by the next conference.

It was very good for the wider gender constituency, which had been working very hard, but not to great effect, on gender.

And it was strengthened by this network of women ministers helping, and we then got the Gender Action Plan. And we've now got the extension of the Gender Action Plan, and gender is much more visible, though still not taken seriously enough, because we're still not seeing, you know, a full 50/50 balance parity in delegations and in committees. And we're still not seeing the gender responsiveness that would help in a climate context. So there's still work to do. But we've come quite a long way.

Marnie Chesterton: 22:30

Part of this progress has been through the network mentoring and promoting the voices of women, especially the most marginalized groups.

Mary Robinson 22:37

In the COPs before Paris, we realized the importance of getting different voices, diversity into the discussion, by the women leaders who were ministers having in their delegations, grassroots women, indigenous women, young women.

And their voices as full delegates at the table, and therefore able to be on panels with the delegates listening in, to speak from the floor, with the delegates listening, were really powerful.

Marnie Chesterton: 23:06

As well as curbing dangerous climate change. The UN Sustainable Development Goals include ending hunger and poverty, and improving sanitation and education around the world. Gender equality, which is itself, one of the 16 goals, is vital to achieving the rest.

Mary Robinson: 23:23

In my podcast, we have a byline, which is intentionally quite provocative, where we say that climate change is a man-made problem that requires a feminist solution.

And of course, I always explain that man made us generic includes all of us, and that a feminist solution hopefully includes as many men as possible. And that is where we really see gender being properly not seen as a women's issue, but seen as an issue of importance to all genders.

And, to me, you know, a diverse and inclusive scientific workforce draws from the widest range of backgrounds, of perspectives, of experiences, so that it will maximize creativity and innovation in science.

Marnie Chesterton: 24:07

Being an ally means recognizing that addressing diversity and inclusion is a task for us all. It's not just an issue for people who are less represented, whether that's in science workplaces, academies, or in science policy discussions. 

By thinking about what each of us can do, we can all be better allies, and that helps science itself to move forward.

That's it for this episode on diversity in science from the International Science Council. 

The ISC is working with partners to support two studies on the inclusion and participation of women in science, the Gender Insight Survey and the Gender Gap In Science project. 

You can find more info about both of these online at council dot science. 

Next week we'll be speaking to two early career scientists about the importance of making scientific workplaces safe and welcoming for all researchers. 

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

September 6, 2020

My weekly view of things I am up to and thinking about. Topics include the future of Earth, housing in California, the national debt, carbon pricing, and software complexity.

Earth’s Future

The funder is interested in developing a timeline of Earth’s past and future and placing human history in the geologic context. It’s a bit off the beaten path for us, but a fun project, and I spent some time this week on it. It got me thinking about Earth’s long term future.

We all know, in at least a vague sense, that Earth’s days are numbered. I think most of us know that we expect the Sun to go nova some billions of years from now (about 7.6 billion I think is the best estimate), and barring intervention from a future advanced civilization, no life will be able to survive that.

I found this paper by O’Malley-James et al. to be an interesting read. It discusses the future of life from an astrobiological perspective, asking what biosignatures a distant civilization might observe from Earth in the distant future. Plant life that depends on C3 photosynthesis, and by extension most animal life, has maybe 500-600 million years left, beyond which point carbon dioxide is too depleted. Plant life based on C4 photosynthesis might make it 900 million years. From then on it’s only microbes. Eukaryotic life might last 1.2 billion years before the oxygen is depleted. Prokaryotic life was here first, and it will probably be here last. The paper estimates 2.8 billion years as an upper bound for any microbes at all to survive in caves or underground. For the remainder of its existence, Earth is a sterile, lifeless world without oceans, an atmosphere, or geological activity.

Before all that, Earth’s biosphere may go into an irreversible decline after the formation of Pangaea Ultima, about 250 million years from now. At that time, the combination of merging of continents, cooling of the Earth’s core, and increasing of solar luminosity will result in a falling of carbon dioxide to the point where today’s biological productivity cannot be sustained. Earth is now 95% of the age it will be when this happens.

It is an unspoken and open question of how this general picture might be altered by a civilization that is capable of effecting meaningful change over geological timelines. Human civilization is not at this level presently, and it is unclear if we will attain it.

I wonder too how contemplation of the biosphere’s mortality influences how we think of environmentalism and sustainability. Perhaps 250+ million years is so vast a time that it cannot be distinguished from infinity in our minds. For my part, I can admit that the prospect genuinely bothers me.

Housing in California

California’s legislative session expired at the end of August, and with it, another opportunity for statewide zoning reform. Scott Wiener’s SB1120 would have allowed duplexes on single family lots. It is a modest but valuable proposal which had majority legislative support, but some last minute parliamentary shenanigans from the party leadership ran out the clock.

I continue to think that the housing issue in California is intractable, and that with its current strategy, the YIMBY movement will not be able to attain any but the most marginal victories. The Bay Area needs to increase its housing supply by at least 50%, maybe 100%, to really solve the problem. To achieve those kinds of numbers, allowing duplexes and ADUs is not going to cut it. The region needs to be open to horizontal as well as vertical expansion. Something must be done to break the dysfunction in the construction industries that prevents buildings and infrastructure from being delivered at a reasonable time and speed. The movement should also stop diddling around with measures that feel good but will backfire, like rent control and vacancy taxes.

Meanwhile, the tech industry is continuing to make tentative moves toward remote work. I continue to be hopeful but skeptical that widespread adoption of remote work can finally get housing costs under control.

My suspicion is that the YIMBY movement has succumbed to the Shirky Principle, which posits that “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” An ever-growing share of its energy is devoted to playing the Reds vs. Blues game, which is more than redundant in California. They have no vision of what an affordable California or Bay Area look like, no credible plan for getting there, and ideological blinkers that foreclose many important aspects of the solution.

As I’ve done several times before, I go back to Citizens Climate Lobby, which I see as the gold standard for political advocacy done right. They have a clear vision of passing a federal carbon fee and dividend plan. They don’t dilute their efforts on ancillary priorities or play partisan games. They have commissioned detailed economic modeling of the plan and have made every effort to insure it works from both a technical perspective and from a range of value systems. I don’t know if CCL will succeed, but at least they can succeed, unlike most activists, and CCL is one of the few major organizations I feel good supporting.

Red Ink

The Congressional Budget Office released an unsurprising but grim report on the national debt. The debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 98%, the highest ever except for a brief time at the end of World War II. It should cross the 100% mark next year and reach 109% by 2030.

Deficits are a classic gnarly problem. They are harmful but not catastrophic, and the harms are mostly at some indeterminate point in the future and are not clearly visible. This makes them easy to ignore, and ignoring the debt, or at best using it as a partisan talking point, is now an established bipartisan tradition.

Japan somehow continues to function with a debt-to-GDP ratio exceeding 230%. I don’t know how high the US can go on this metric and hope not to find out. We’ve seen debt crisis in Europe and Argentina recently. What I think is more likely is that debt service will be another ball and chain, along with population aging, stagnant productivity, and broken housing, health care, and education markets, on the American economy.

Carbon Pricing

Resources for the Future has a new carbon pricing calculator tool out, evaluating several proposals from the current Congress.

At the $52/ton level, four of the eight proposals stand out as having a positive benefit/cost analysis when economic costs are weighed against CO2 reduction alone. In all eight cases, “secondary” health benefits exceed the CO2 benefit as well as economic costs. As economic intuition would suggest, benefit/cost ratio goes down the higher the carbon price goes, since as the price goes up, we move down the ladder from most cost-effective emissions reductions to less cost-effective.

For my own part, I’ve generally been using a social cost of carbon of $50/ton. A few years ago, that seemed like a reasonable median estimate. At some point I want to review the literature again to see if I should be using a different figure.

The large health benefits are good for making the case for carbon pricing, but they raise some questions. The numbers strongly suggest that we should be thinking about air pollution reduction as the primary goal with CO2 reduction as a secondary goal. But if we do that, is carbon pricing really the most effective policy on air pollution?

Software and the Collapse of Civilization

I found this talk from last year by the game developer Jonathan Blow. He details ways in which the software industry is unable to deliver fast, reliable products and analogizes to historical failures of technological reproduction that are associated with past civilizational collapses. The talk is about an hour. I have to say it is a bit odd, but I found it worth watching.

Several time throughout my life, I have made attempts to get into the software industry, and at other times such as now I have programmed on a hobbyist basis. While I don’t see bad software as a major existential risk to civilization, there are clearly problems. Blow identifies what could also be called the bloatware problem: programmers tend to reach for libraries and abstractions in their code, needlessly inflating size, complexity, runtime, and bugs. He worries that abstraction has become so pervasive that the industry is not even capable of delivering reliable software at this point, and the knowledge of machine code programming has been largely lost.

Blow’s argument is reminiscent of the success problem, as described by Samo Burja, or the notion of social reproduction.

I’ve toyed with the idea of trying to develop the analogy between software bloatware and policy bloatware, a term to describe the phenomenon of public policy being designed in ever more complex manners. An overly complex policy environment increases the difficulty of coordinating the entities required for a solution, and it causes solutions to look more like patches and kludges over problems rather than actual solutions. An example is the attempt to address housing affordability problems by developing complex, multi-government affordable housing subsidies. Kludgeocracy is the best term I’ve seen for this phenomenon so far.

Casey Muratori identifies the same problem, which he called the 30 million line problem, so named because he estimates that to write the most basic “Hello World” web app requires, between the server and the client, at least 30 million lines of code and probably far more, with present technology. He proposes a solution based on a universal CPU instruction set and restoring root access to developers. Ironically, the talk (excluding Q&A) is over an hour when I think 10 minutes would have been sufficient to convey the key points without loss of essential detail.

[tindez]

In the end, the evidence was inescapable. “The president did in fact pressure a foreign government to corrupt our election process,” Romney said. “And really, corrupting an election process in a democratic republic is about as abusive and egregious an act against the Constitution—and one's oath—that I can imagine. It's what autocrats do.” [...] I found Romney filled with what seemed like righteous indignation about the president’s misconduct—quoting hymns and scripture, expressing dismay at his party, and bracing for the political backlash. [...] “I get that a lot—‘Be with the president,’” Romney told me, sounding slightly perplexed. “And I’ll say, ‘Regardless of his point of view? Regardless of the issue?’ And they say yes. And … it’s like, ‘Well, no, I can’t do that.’”

While I disagree with Mitt Romney on many things, I find it heartening to see a Republican who definitely thought this through and stuck to his convictions. Country over party! Kudos to him and to Utah.

So, I’m sharing this with y’all. Stay optimistic! Sometimes those we disagree with can still get work done alongside us.

(full article under the cut for those without access to The Atlantic)

POLITICS How Mitt Romney Decided Trump Is Guilty Comparing the president’s behavior to that of an autocrat, the Republican senator explains to The Atlantic why he’s voting to convict him. MCKAY COPPINS 2:03 PM ET Mitt Romney didn’t want to go through with it. “This has been the most difficult decision I have ever had to make in my life,” he told me yesterday afternoon in his Senate office. Roughly 24 hours later, Romney would deliver a speech announcing that he was voting to convict President Donald Trump on the first article of impeachment—abuse of power. For weeks, the senator from Utah had sat silently in the impeachment trial alongside his 99 colleagues, reviewing the evidence at night and praying for guidance. The gravity of the moment weighed on him, as did the pressure from members of his own party to acquit their leader. As his conscience tugged at him, he said, the exercise took on a spiritual dimension. Romney, a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, described to me the power of taking an oath before God: “It’s something which I take very seriously.” Throughout the trial, he said, he was guided by his father’s favorite verse of Mormon scripture: Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good. “I have gone through a process of very thorough analysis and searching, and I have prayed through this process,” he told me. “But I don’t pretend that God told me what to do.” In the end, the evidence was inescapable. “The president did in fact pressure a foreign government to corrupt our election process,” Romney said. “And really, corrupting an election process in a democratic republic is about as abusive and egregious an act against the Constitution—and one's oath—that I can imagine. It's what autocrats do.” According to Romney’s interpretation of Alexander Hamilton’s treatise on impeachment in “Federalist No. 65”—which he says he’s read “multiple, multiple times”—Trump’s attempts to enlist the Ukrainian president in interfering with the 2020 election clearly rose to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” (He told me he would not vote to convict on the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress.) Romney’s vote will do little to reorient the political landscape. The president’s acquittal has been all but certain for weeks, as Republicans have circled the wagons to protect Trump. But the Utahan’s sharp indictment ensures that at least one dissenting voice from within the president’s party will be on the record—and Romney seems to believe history will vindicate his decision. He also knows his vote will likely make him a pariah on the right. Already, he says, he’s experienced firsthand the ire of the base. At an airport recently, a stranger yelled at him, “You ought to be ashamed!” During a trip to Florida with his wife this past weekend, someone shouted “Traitor!” from a car window. Eight years ago, he was the leader of the Republican Party, its nominee for president. Today, he has become accustomed to a kind of political loneliness. Romney famously opposed Trump’s candidacy in 2016, and while the rest of his party has fallen in line since then, he has remained stubbornly independent—infuriating Trump, who routinely derides him in public as a “pompous ass” and worse. As I wrote last year, this dynamic seems to have liberated the senator in a way that’s unlike anything he has experienced in his political career. Still, when the senator invited me to his Capitol Hill office yesterday, I was unsure what he would reveal. Romney had been largely silent throughout the impeachment proceedings, giving little indication of which way he was leaning. I half-expected to find a cowed and calculating politician ready with a list of excuses for caving. (His staff granted the interview on the condition that it would be embargoed until he took to the Senate floor.) Instead, I found Romney filled with what seemed like righteous indignation about the president’s misconduct—quoting hymns and scripture, expressing dismay at his party, and bracing for the political backlash. Romney confessed that he’d spent much of the impeachment trial hoping a way out would present itself: “I did not want to get here.” In fact, that was part of the reason he wanted former National Security Adviser John Bolton to testify about what Trump had told him. “I had the hope that he would be able to say something exculpatory and create reasonable doubt, so I wouldn't have to vote to convict,” Romney said. Still, he found the case presented by the president’s defense team unpersuasive. Romney had a hard time believing, for example, that Trump had been acting out of a desire to crack down on corruption when he tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The Bidens’ alleged conflicts of interest may have been “ugly,” Romney said, but it was never established that they warranted a criminal investigation. “No crime was alleged by the defense, and yet the president went to an extreme level to investigate these two people … and for what purpose?” The only motive that made sense, he determined, was a political one. Romney was similarly unmoved by the Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz’s contention that a president who believes his reelection is in the national interest can’t be impeached for pursuing a political advantage. “I had Professor Dershowitz for criminal law in law school,” Romney said, “and he was known to occasionally take his argument to its illogical conclusion.” Nor was the senator swayed by the theory that a president can be impeached only for breaking a statutory law. “To use an old Mormon hymn phrase, that makes reason stare,” he said. “The idea that Congress would have to anticipate all of the offensive things a president could possibly do, and then make them a statute?” Romney posed a hypothetical: What if the president decided to pardon every Republican in prison nationwide, while leaving every Democrat locked up? “There’s no law against that!” he said. “So it’s not a crime or misdemeanor. But it’s obviously absurd.” When I asked Romney why none of his fellow Republicans had reached the same conclusion, he attempted diplomacy. “I’m not going to try and determine the thinking or motives of my colleagues,” he said. “I think it’s a mistake for any senator to try and get in the head of another senator and judge them.” But as he discussed the various rationalizations put forth by other Republican senators, he seemed to grow exasperated. He took particular issue with the idea—currently quite trendy in his caucus—that Trump’s fate should be decided at the ballot box, not in the Senate. “I would have liked to have abdicated my responsibility as I understood it under the Constitution and under the writing of the Founders by saying, ‘Let’s leave this to the voters.’” But, he said, “I’m subject to my own conscience.” When I asked how it felt to be formally disinvited from this month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, he laughed and noted that he hadn’t attended the conference since 2013. But it seems clear that his journey from GOP standard-bearer to party supervillain has been jarring. “I was under the misimpression that what brought Republican voters together was conviction in a certain number of policy points of view,” Romney said. He recalled a political strategist during one of his early campaigns explaining how to court the three main factions of the GOP coalition—social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and foreign-policy hawks. Much of Romney’s career since then has been spent trying to win over ideological purists on the right. In 2012, he said, some Tea Party activists refused to support him, because he didn’t have a plan to balance the federal budget within a single year. Now the conservative movement is ruled by a president who routinely makes a mockery of such litmus tests. Deficit reduction? “There’s no purchase for that,” Romney said. Foreign policy? “The letters with Kim Jong Un didn’t seem to frighten people away … The meeting with the Russian ambassador in the White House right after the election didn’t seem to bother people.” Somehow, Romney said, he is the one constantly being told that he needs to “be with the president.” “I get that a lot—‘Be with the president,’” Romney told me, sounding slightly perplexed. “And I’ll say, ‘Regardless of his point of view? Regardless of the issue?’ And they say yes. And … it’s like, ‘Well, no, I can’t do that.’” For now, Romney said, he is bracing for an uncertain political future. He said he can’t predict whether Trump will emerge from the impeachment battle emboldened or constrained, but he doubts the experience has shaken him: “I think what’s fair to say about the president is that he doesn’t change his ways a lot.” Nor is he expecting that their relationship will be easily repaired. (“We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,” he joked.) Romney acknowledged that his vote to convict may hamper his own ability to legislate, at least for a while. “I don’t know how long the blowback might exist or how strenuous it might be, but I’m anticipating a long time and a very strong response.” Though he said he won’t make an endorsement in this year’s presidential election, Romney was clear that he will not cast a ballot for Trump. But, he said, “under no circumstances would I vote for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren to become president of the United States.” In 2016, he wrote in his wife’s name, and he told me, “She’ll probably get [a] second vote.” For months, Romney’s detractors on both the right and the left have searched for an ulterior motive to his maneuvering, convinced that a secret cynicism lurked beneath his lofty appeals to conscience and principle. Just last week, the Washington Examiner ran a story speculating that the senator might be positioning himself for a presidential run in 2024. When I asked Romney about the report, he erupted in laughter. “Yes! That’s it! They caught me!” he proclaimed. “Look at the base I have! It’s going to be at least 2 or 3 percent of the Republican Party. As goes Utah, so goes the nation!” The truth is that Romney’s decisive break with Trump could end up hurting him even in Utah, a red state where the president is uncommonly unpopular. What that means for his reelection prospects, the senator couldn’t say. (He doesn’t have to face voters again until 2024.) But as he thought about it, another hymn came to mind. “Do what is right; let the consequence follow,” he recited. “And I don’t know what all the consequences will be.” We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com. MCKAY COPPINS is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Wilderness, a book about the battle over the future of the Republican Party.

[dejaaalm]

Fearless

I remember when I turned 16 years old, my mom brought me to Subway to apply for my first job. Applying and doing the interview was easy, but my first day on the job was really scary. I had so many doubts and questions. Was I ready to work? To make sandwiches in a fast-paced work environment? To provide good customer service? To count money and give back change correctly? I had all the thoughts and worries a 16-year old would have on their first day of working.

I remember the supervisor teaching me how to make all of the different sandwiches - this meat goes in here and this sauce goes with this. I felt fine at first because he was there to guide me. I felt confident and rest assured knowing that he had my back if I messed up. Two weeks after training, I was on my own. I felt lonely and unsure of what to do. I did not want to screw anything up. I still remember the first time I closed the shop all by myself. I had forgotten the password to the safe, how to alarm the store, and how to refill the pop machine. It was a disaster and I remember feeling so overwhelmed and afraid that I would get fired.

This experience made a huge life-long impact on me. The constant battle of feeling so fearful often wrapped its wings around me. When I got my job at Hennepin County in 2016, the adrenaline of fear slowly crept up on me again. My hire group and I were in training for about 2 months and then we were left to be on our own to prove that we were worthy enough to make the cut and be a permanent team member. Previously, probation was 6 months long. Training lasted 2 months and then we have 2.5 months to process cases and have them be reviewed. I needed to pass both months with a cumulative average of 85% or higher to show that I understand policies and procedures.

I witnessed people from the previous hire groups get fired. There were a few people in our group that got fired or left to find a new job. I was mad and irritated with health care policies and processing procedures. I wept and wanted to quit every day. I felt so neglected by my senior colleagues and supervisors. I felt like God left me there to be tormented and slowly die on the inside because every ounce of confidence and pride that I had left within me had gone out the window. I began to question my own worth. Am I cut out for this job? Do I suck this bad? Do these numbers and percentages really depict my worth?

I was angry for a while. One day, I was praying to God about how hurt and mad I was about the probation process. During my prayer, God revealed something so prominent that I will never forget. In the quiet, I heard "But this was the job you desperately prayed for a few months ago. This was the breakthrough you cried for. Now that you have it, you want to quit?" Right at the moment, one of my favorite Bible verses pierced my heart: Jeremiah 29:11. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Right then, I stopped crying. I stopped bickering. I stopped venting. I began to praise him and thanked him for all that I have been given. I promised myself that I would work harder and shift my focus from my defeats to my victories. I would allow God to use me, mold me, and take me to where I need to be.

That prayer led me to so many incredible experiences and connections with people at my workplace. This is not to say that I completely stopped feeling fearful, overwhelmed, angry, and anxious because I still feel all of these emotions from time to time. I still feel defeated and have lots of questions sometimes. The difference is that I have a better coping mechanism and I've learned to really do a lot of self-care. Instead of re-evaluating my entire life and mishaps, I focus on realistic goals that I can reach. Instead of feeling sorry or sad for myself when I didn't do something well, I focus on how I can improve. Shifting my mindset and letting God take the lead has really allowed me to take on opportunities at work.

I got two promotions last fall! I got promoted to be a senior and to be a mentor. I train new workers to potentially become a worker like my colleagues and me. I create training materials and activities, facilitate group discussions, train in-person and virtual training courses, and so much more. For the most part, I love my job. COVID-19 has really stretched my co-workers and me in a lot different ways on a personal and mental health level, but we're hanging there and doing our best to provide meaningful training content.

We have two new hire groups. Our Aug 2019 group completed their formal training and case reviews already but we are still providing support to them. Our March 2020 group started at a really awkward time. It happened right after Gov. Tim Walz ordered everything, except for essential workers, to shut down. We've been training everything virtually. We work with a very complex health care system so it's not easy training this stuff virtually.

Before the state was ordered to shut down all non-essential workers and employment, we were gearing up our Aug 2019 group for the formal period--that is to dissect their case work and look for errors. This process is currently on hold. I could see on their faces how stressed out they were. In fact, one of them broke into tears and walked out of the classroom a few months back because she was so overwhelmed by the amount of test evaluations they were taking. I was not there but when I heard about it, I wanted to hug her and tell her that everything was going to be okay. All of what they're going through right now is to prepare them to gain the knowledge and experiences needed for their future role as it has done for me.

I think our relationship with God is a lot like that. The beginning stages always feel like we're on cloud nine and things are going smoothly. We happily pray every day, sing songs of praise, read scriptures, and intentionally engage in bible studies with friends. We attend conferences, retreats, and worship events to be filled. We want and search for that feeling of "God is in my life and he's guiding me onto the right path." It feels good to have a sense of direction or feel that God is holding us in the palm of his hands. But what about when we hit rock bottom or get close to it? Or, how about the days when we feel like we're worthless, our life has no meaning or value, or you feel like no one cares about your passion and goals. Even in my own personal walk with Christ, sometimes I feel like that long lost and lonely 16-year old making sandwiches at Subway. I need someone to hold my hand. I hate the process. I hate the struggle. I hate what I'm going through. I need to be reminded of my purpose and that God still has a plan for me.

Often times, I was afraid. I was constantly afraid of doing things on my own, or facing trials and challenges, or trying new things, or believing that God really does have a unique plan for me. I realized that my biggest fear is actually not really a fear. I have a trust deficit. I don't trust myself, my skills and abilities, and sometimes, I don't even trust those closest to me. They say, trust in God because he has a plan for you. How can I trust in God if I can't trust myself and others?

Being fearless is something I struggled with. I'm afraid of so many things but most importantly, I'm afraid of my journey with Christ. I'm afraid to let God take control of my life. I'm afraid of being obedient because I don't know what's ahead of me. If you're anything like me, I like to read spoilers before reading a book or watching a movie or tv show. It is so weird but I do that all the time. I don't want to feel like I wasted my time on something so good but it ended so terribly.

It's easy to look up scriptures and read it and say "Oh, that was really good. I needed that today." This doesn't have any meaning. It's a quick "hand-holding" moment that often times lasts for a few minutes and is forgotten. One scripture in particular that has really been my living testimony the past decade is Joshua 1:9 - "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

When I was younger, I always liked this verse. I had it memorized and even recited it out loud whenever I was afraid. But to believe and trust in it was a different process. To see the word of God come to life and manifest in my life was compelling. This bible verse is no longer just an encouraging or inspirational verse. It's alive! It's real. Believe it. Let scriptures come alive.

I don't think it was the struggle of the work or the amount of work that I was afraid of; I was afraid of not knowing what will happen. I was already afraid of the possible negative outcomes if my performance was poor during probation. I was afraid knowing that I was on my own. But God says that we are never alone for he is always with us wherever we go.

During this pandemic, it is completely normal to feel fearful. It is our natural response to a global disaster such as COVID-19. Our social media and news outlets continue to feed us fear. We fear of being disposed to illness, fear of being sick, fear of dying, and fear of running out of food and supplies. Our entire focus is on social distancing and staying safe. Fear has consumed many of us. I encourage you to relinquish your fears today, whatever it may be or what it is related to, and let God take the lead. He knows your strengths and weaknesses and what you are capable of doing more than you know. When you let go and let God, you find the courage and strength to overcome your fears.

It’s easy to fall through the cracks and let the enemy seep through with lies and chaos. Whatever you are going through, know that God is bigger. I often tell my kids to trust me because I know what’s best for them and I know that they don’t know, so in essence, God is the same way. We don’t know what the outcome will be weeks and months from now, but we do know that God is loving, forgiving, kind, and faithful. Call unto him and he will hear you. I am praying for you, dear friend. Be fearless!