#of all teenage girls - almost all of which share my values and beliefs - and care ab the same things that i care about

[hotgirlscoups]

hm. feeling a bit silly

[livwritesstuff]

More steddie dads content I really want some Eddie centered like teaching the girls guitar or dnd especially since Robbie is like him I think that they’d bind over a shared interest and he’d teach her stuff from when he was younger!

lol yeah the last few have def been more steve-centric (and also kind of a bummer) so let's switch up the vibe a bit

So, yes, Robbie is Eddie's daughter through and through.

She's stubborn and brazen and loud in her opinions and beliefs. She can be a little flippant about other peoples' feelings when she's not careful, and sometimes struggles to acknowledge the validity in other experiences outside of her own - in other words, she's Eddie to a T. She's even got the same big curly hair (though it's way more well-maintained than Eddie's had been thanks to Steve).

As for hobbies, Robbie is the only one out of Eddie and Steve's three daughters to really take an interest in music.

Eddie is thrilled about this, especially in the early days when Robbie is seven or eight and dying to try out any instrument they put in front of her. She has a natural proclivity for nearly all of them, which is fucking wild to Eddie, but the violin is the one she takes a particular shining towards.

Eddie can't say he'd ever had a resounding interest in classical music, but he wants to support Robbie so he dives into it right along with her.

That shit...

is metal as hell.

Seriously rad.

Eddie anxiously waits for her to be old enough to try out his old electric guitar. He waits until she's fifteen years old - the same age he'd been when he'd gotten his first electric - and then he digs it out of storage and bestows it upon her like the exquisite treasure it truly is.

In true teenager fashion, Robbie is...unimpressed.

She humors him for a bit, and to her credit, she does seem at least a bit intrigued by the almost forty-year-old guitar, but when Eddie offers to show her how to play, she only shrugs.

"I don't want to mess with my technique," she tells him, as if she's not shattering his heart into a bazillion tiny pieces.

"What does that even mean?"

"I dunno," she shrugs again.

Later, once the guitar has been safely put away, Eddie recounts the exchange to Steve.

"I just don't get it," he laments, "She'd be so good at it! I don't get why she won't just give it one chance."

"She's you, my love," Steve tells him, "Are you forgetting all the years you spent rejecting everything outside of what you deemed acceptable. You grew out of it. She will too."

So Eddie resigns himself to waiting it out. Robbie ends up deciding she wants make a career out of playing the violin, and she goes to New York to get her bachelors in music.

Just as Steve had predicted, once she hits college and grows up a little bit, she starts seeing the value in the world outside of the small corner of it she occupies. She comes home from her first semester regaling them with all the things she'd learned, and she catches Eddie by surprise when she asks him to bring out his old electric guitar.

Eddie and Robbie jam in the basement for like five hours before Steve insists they go the fuck to bed, and that "Hazel has school in the morning, in case you lunatics forgot."

(As for dnd, looking at it from the perspective of teenage girls, Steve and Eddie's kids absolutely do not want to think about their dad DM-ing. Eddie can't even breathe the wrong way without his daughters calling him out for being cringe or whatever, never mind executing a whole campaign. They'd die of embarrassment - guaranteed.

Robbie does get super into MTG in college, which Eddie absolutely takes as a personal F-You from his daughter. He gets his revenge by refusing her offers to teach him to play, even though it honestly sounds like a fuckin' blast, but that's a hill he's willing to die on)

[moonyblackwerewolf]

Betrothed Ch. 1 - Sirius Black

Sirius Black x fem!Reader

Word count: 2.653

Summary: Sirius and Y/N meet at a family dinner and have some fun, later she finds out she is betrothed to some pureblood boy so Sirius comes up with a mental idea to save them both. 

warnings: Kissing, hints of sex, 'aggressive' parents, underage drinking, idk my writing and English? lol

a/n: so this is just an idea for a possible series!! i never published anything before so i’m kind of scared but i really hope you like it!! :) xxx

Ch.1 Ch.2 Ch. 2.5 Ch.3 Ch.4 Ch. 5 

(not my gif)

Diner party

The Royal Manor of Watson was a cold palace, stone walls, rich decorations, sumptuous, but intimidating. The Watsons were cold people, living in a house too big for five people, but Y/N thought it was only fitting, since her parent’s ego was as big as the manor itself. Their pureblood mania deep in their minds, untouchable, which made their daughter’s life miserable. They were the perfect family on the outside but rotten in the inside, three children, Diana, two years older than Y/N, beautiful, smart and most importantly just as purist as their parents and William, tall, handsome, sophisticate and serious, he was the older sibling, three years older than Diana, he was already working with their father on the Ministry of Magic, daddy’s favourite. Home was big, impressive, a dream home if you saw it, libraries, uncountable bedrooms and living rooms, ball rooms, huge gardens, and everything you could ask for but it was far from being a welcoming home.

Though, all of her miserableness went away once she first went to Hogwarts. Of course, being sorted in Slytherin and having good grades was minimal when it came to living up to her parents’s expectations, which were high and if not complied there would most certainly have severe consequences, but still Hogwarts was more of a Home than the Watson Manor ever was. 

Throughout the years, Hogwarts had become her first true home. There she felt the warm winds, the familiar feeling in the great halls, friendships, all she ever hoped for was there, a home, but not quite yet. She met Elizabeth Greengrass a blonde, tall thin girl with deep grey eyes and enviable beauty, Katherine Abbott who looked almost like Diana, but shorter, longer darker hair, blue-green eyes and thiner face. The three girls became best friends right after being sorted into Slytherin. Later on her second year she met Elijah Lestrange, through her sister, he was a year older, handsome and had a polite appearance. Y/N loved her friends but they shared the same blind beliefs her parents do, she’d always nod when they talked about mudblood, choosing not to create conflict, she couldn’t help but feel a little out of place, her parents couldn't disagree more, controlling they way they were, they were more than satisfied to know that their daughter’s inner circle contained only close family friends’s children.

The Marauders were quite famous for their pranks since first year, Y/N always admired their courage and wit, but her siblings and friends didn’t share the same opinion. When she was around them she’d always get a look from her sister, her brother or her friends would push her away, which only made them more interesting. Although, with time, she stopped trying and just kept living her life the way her family wanted her to.

Until summer break before 5th year, at least. 

By then Sirius had already gained his bad boy reputation. Y/N had known Black for a long time, only by sight, his family was friends with hers and his cousin, Narcissa, hangs out with her sister, she’d see him in the pureblood elite parties they were forced to attend, they’d exchange glances but never talked. Sirius was once again being forced to go to some snobby party from snobby people. He couldn’t count in a thousand hands how many other places he’d rather be, but there he was sitting in a huge room full of people he despised, until a certain girl he recognised from other dinner parties and Hogwarts caught his attention, she was Remus’ partner in DADA, though he wasn’t sure, he never paid much attention in classes, pranking the student body was much more entertaining.

She caught his eye from a couch across the room. She was stunning, he thought, her slightly wavy H/C hair matching her S/C skin, freckled rosy cheeks and her alluring E/C eyes. Sirius only hoping she was different from the other brainwashed people in that house.

“Hey” Sirius said softly while he approached the girl that was, apparently, just as bored as he was, to his luck. “Not your scene, love?” He asked with his signature smirk on his face, wanting some good company for once at these afternoons.

“Not really” she chuckled, not knowing exactly what else to say, they weren’t close and she was a bit shy. But she was being honest, these parties were hell, full of families who thought too much of themselves, she didn't feel much like them, but she could fit in she was quiet and not nearly as loud as Sirius was about her beliefs. No one knew. 

“By any chance would you know whose death palace are we on? I mean it’s huge but it looks like Salazar himself lived here, it gives me the creeps” he paused laughing “and my house it’s not a Hufflepuff common room or anything” Sirius said mockingly, not knowing exactly who he was talking with.

“Well” she chuckled awkwardly “It is my parents’, but i know, it’s not very homey, looks like a dark theatre or something and Salazar did live here, family heirloom” she laughed for real this time, she didn’t take it as an offence, if anything she couldn’t agree more.

“How come we never crossed each others path before?” Sirius asked wondering why they never talked on one of those parties or at school.

“I guess I usually just stay in the corners, like today” she chuckled.

The two of them bonded after talking for a while, they discovered that both of them hated these things, Sirius couldn't get how she managed to hide her feelings so well, she looked so much like them. After laughing, talking about school, Sirius was a part of the infamous marauders, telling stories and joking around, for the first time any of them could think of, they had fun in a family party, since Sirius’ friends weren’t pureblood except for Potter but his family had been banished from the sacred twenty-eight for being “blood traitors” and Y/N’s friends’ parents kept them at their side the whole time for “good image”. 

Y/N stole a bottle of fire whiskey from the cellar and started showing the house to Sirius, while the two of them drank more than their bodies could handle, who was just as pleased as her for making fun of the paintings and carpets and the fancy but useless stuff their families valued so much. As they entered a room, particularly big and empty, Sirius had to catch his breath, Y/N and him started running through the halls before entering the room they were now on. He had only now realised that he had grabbed her hand, and apparently she hadn’t noticed until now too, making her blush furiously, releasing each other’s hand quickly and Sirius teased.

“getting comfy are we?” He smirked, as she blushed at his comment. They were very close, he could feel her breath catching. “Where would we be now, love?” He asked inching closer to her.

The both teenagers weren’t thinking straight anymore, the alcohol in their system already influencing their emotions. All they could think about, was how their touch felt electrical and the magnetic pull they were feeling towards each other, wondering how would their lips feel like. They just wanted to have fun, not caring about consequences that moment.

“Ball room” she said innocently but still a bit teasingly, not backing away from him as he inched closer to her “East wing, third floor, far away from where the party is going on, on the first floor” she bit her lip “But still very close to a room-” she said boldly wanting to see his reaction to her suggestions “-two doors away near a window at the end of the hall next to a beautiful painting of my favourite flowers” she said voice husky and breathy, making Sirius groan.

He chuckled low, “And may I ask you whose room is that?” They were now so close that their lips were slightly brushing.

“Why don’t you take me there and see for yourself” she said feeling a flip on her stomach and with a swift motion he lift her up bridal style, making her shiver at the contact, but then laughed, his hand gripping her body and legs tightly as he followed her instructions to get to her room. Once there, he settled her down on her bed and admired the girl in front of him, lust in his eyes. She smiled and bit her lip, she knew Sirius’ reputation, only one night stands, he was a ladies man, but she didn’t care, she wanted him, the fact that her mother would murder her if she ever found out only made it all more exciting.

Sirius took a look at the room, it wasn’t dark as the rest of the house was, it was still sophisticated, but nicer, the detailed wood on the wall was white and, above, the wall it self was light lilac, the room had big windows covered by delicate curtains and even had a balcony, and everything matched between the lilac and whites tones, she had a few paintings and pictures, and flowers, probably fake but still beautiful, the same flowers as on the darker painting outside, her four poster bed that matched the couches by the windows had delicate semi transparent white curtains and her silk white sheets were under a soft lilac blanket, she had a lot of silk pillows with subtle embroidered details on the corners, it was certainly appealing he thought, a beautiful room fit for a princess. Then he was brought back to reality.

“Do you think our parents are wondering where we are?” He asked with a still semi amazed look, it made her laugh, she patted the sheets next to her, inviting him to sit, he sat closely to her and then suddenly she went to the middle of the bed, which was big, pushing his wrists and they sat there, her legs crossed.

“They probably are” she affirmed giggly, she hadn't let his wrists go yet, she was holding it gently. “But, they won’t find us here, even though it’s pretty obvious that i’d hide in my room. Mom and dad wouldn’t leave the party” She paused and laughed “And well your parents certainly won’t come up here to my room i guess” He chuckled at her commentary.

“Well, well, miss perfect pureblood daughter escaping a dinner-party with the rebel Black son, who’d have thought” Sirius said dramatically, she laughed at him.

“Guess this Black here is just a bad influence on me, or… I just put on a good facade” she said more serious this time, voice low, eyes fixated on his. Her hand tracing their way up his arm, his gaze fixed on her movements. “And the fact that if mommy finds out i brought a guy to my room, and that he’s in my bed with me, would make her go crazy, only turns me on” Sirius let a little breathy moan escape his throat.

When Sirius looked at her she was already looking at him, lust all over her eyes. He trailed off just a little and asked, voice low “Y/N… are you sure you want this?” She nodded so he grabbed her waist and pulled her to his lap, he was holding her waist, lips brushing, he finally kissed her, the kiss felt electrical, it was slow and passionate at first but then I grew more heated. One of her hands was wrapped in his neck, the other was holding his chest going slowly lower, he was pulling her impossibly closer, the both couldn't get enough of each other. They had to pause for catching a breath, in the mean time Sirius leant over pushing Y/N down onto bed earning a tiny moan form her. They started kissing again, but this time was less passionate, more lustful and heated, Sirius started fiddling with her dress’ zipper and took it off slowly, undressing her, tracing kisses in each piece of newly exposed skin until she was only in her underwear, She, then, pushed his blazer off then started unbuttoning his shirt while kissing and sucking his neck making him moan. Once they were both in their underwear Sirius looked at her searching for a final consent, when she nodded, he took the rest of their clothes off.

“What do you want princess?” He asked kissing his way down from her cheek, to her jaw, neck, breasts and she moaned a little louder, the nickname turned her on even more. “Hmm??” He groaned waiting for her answer. “I want to her you say it”

“I… want you” she said between moans, after that she pulled his boxers down kissing him desperately, waiting to feel him against her in the most intimate way possible, the feeling was ethereal.

——————————

They laid in her bed legs tangled under the silk sheets, her head laid in his chest, his hands caressing her back while the other wrapped around her waist pulling her closer, making her shiver, the both of them catching their breaths while he stroke figure eights on her back inhaling her delicate floral floral scent. It felt heavenly to be there by his side, neither of them wanting to let go of one another, enjoying every moment before reality came back to them, but they knew they’ve been gone for too long, the party was probably ending.

“Sirius” she said voice as low as a whisper “This was nice” he smiled at her and pulled her to a kiss.

“Yes, it’s nice to have some fun in these events, and you love, are the most fun I could've had today” he said trailing his hand on her lower back “I mean, this is certainly the best place my parents could’ve dragged me to”. It made her chuckle. He never thought he’d fuck a girl his mother would approve and in one of their elite parties, but here he was, proof that Sirius Black always managed to corrupt girls, anywhere.

“Glad you liked it then” she said chuckling while she buried her head in his neck. But they couldn’t go on with this any longer. “You should go first” she said “Your parents are probably looking for you and it would be suspicious if we showed up together” she advised “Since the fact that we’re both missing from the party is already very much suspicious” she said laughing this time.

“Sure, love” he helped her get dressed before dressing himself and gave one last peck on her lips before getting out of bed. “See you” with a wink and that signature smile of his, he left, leaving her there with her thoughts about the events of this evening and the captivating boy, while rubbing her hands lightly where he left love bites on her neck, knowing she’d have trouble walking tomorrow and a bad headache from all the drinking. She decided it was best if she took a shower, changed into her pyjamas and if her parents show up there, she’d say she wasn't feeling well and wanted to sleep.

On his way back Sirius kept thinking about Y/N and how much they’re alike, she was the only nice person he met in one of those parties, she was a good kisser too. Starting to get confused on why he was thinking so much about the girl and the strange feeling she caused on him, but then assumed it was because of all the drinking, he didn't realise his mother, father and brother were waiting for him in the foyer and their faces weren’t kind, he knew it’d be a long night back home. But he didn’t care his only thoughts were about going back to Hogwarts and seeing her again.

[agentrouka-blog]

1)I think that grrm is straight up writing a love story calling rhaegar love struck, him saying lyanna his last word, calling that loveshack tower of joy etc I don't think there's anything to read b/w the lines. Him crowning her qol&b was a political move to show Brandon that he was aware of southron ambitions & to back off with the alliance. I am sure there was mutual attraction b/w R & L and he crowned her for admiration too. But I don't think they fell in love nor do I believe they had any pl

2) plans to elope. I think he rescues her from kings's guards & keeps her hostage/leverage against southron alliance. He wanted to break L's engagement to Bobby to destroy STAB alliance. He also comes to know that brandon went along with his wedding to cat despite his warning at harrenhal. They fall in love during their journey to dorne wherein he comes to know that Elia & kids are hostage. Martells will ask him to give up lyanna. So they hide to protect her from aerys, Robert & martells.

Hi anon!

I actually like the first part of your ask because it adds a modicum of depth to Rhaegar's moves at Harrenhal, and acknowledges the way the Stark-Tully-Arryn-Baratheon Alliance formed an unsubtly threatening block against the Targs by literally encircling the Crownlands. (Though a better explanation is an attempt to acknowledge, rather than threaten, Rickard's and Jon's and Hoster's scheme.)

Where I think it is less solid is a couple of other points.

1) It erases the role of the prophecy that more than one source describes as very important to not just Rhaegar but the Targ monarchy as a whole ever since Jenny of Oldstones. Rhaegar and Aemon were exchanging letters about it as late as after Aegon’s birth, i.e. when Rhaegar was readying to abandon Elia after she almost died in childbirth.

Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. (AFFC, Samwell IV)

2) It's a terrible plan in its conception and even worse in its execution. There’s a four-kingdom conspiracy going on, and Daddy Aerys just managed to piss off a fifth by snatching Jaime, and Rhaegar’s bright move with the flower crown is doing everything to convince the entire Realm that he is slightly unhinged himself.

As far as messages go, it’s completely ambiguious. Handing Lyanna the crown means.. he wants to kidnap her if Brandon marries Catelyn? Did he send him a secret letter to go with the gesture, or was Brandon supposed to read that between the lines?

Plus, “threatening” the heir Brandon is pretty pointless when it’s the father generation pulling the strings. The only relevant “head of a House” there present was Robert, his cousin, whom he had just succeeded in deeply angering. Not to mention confusing a sixth kingdom he depends on (Dorne). It doesn't break the alliance, it solidifies it. 

(Also, why on earth doesn’t House Stark properly protect Lyanna after this threat?)

Worse, when this fool-proof threat doesn’t have the desired effect, he does kidnap Lyanna to make her a hostage to force the Alliance to comply - except not only does he fail to tell her family, or to take her to KL, where she would be a “guest” of the official crown, he makes her his personal prisoner (once more proving he is as unhinged as Aerys) and drags her to... Dorne? Without telling anyone about it? And doesn’t rear his head again for months while the situation devolves into a Rebellion because obviously the kidnapped girl caused an uproar and he left Aerys to deal with it?

3) Rhaegar’s reason for suddenly abandoning his terrible but complex, time-sensitive and high-stakes plan is a sudden case of “in mutual love” with his teenaged kidnap victim? He just drops all of it in order to shack up with a fifteen-year-old in the middle of nowhere? He is scared House Martell will take his widdle mistress away while the kingdom is going up in flames? Really?

4) It makes Lyanna an absolute imbecile. Why would she fall in love with her kidnapper, who has a wife and children? She's 14/15 and he's eight years older and has demonstrated his gross lack of respect for her family and her values. What? This is not a “love story” at all. It’s two imbeciles absolutely out of touch with reality for no reason at all.

5) There's an easier explanation for GRRM describing him as love-struck: he can't say anything else without inviting questions. RLJ is still supposedly a secret, and there is no logical explanation for Rhaegar kidnapping a girl and then hiding her. The illogical explanations are "love", or the explicit secret intention of creating that third head of the dragon. Love is one of the un-universe explanations, and the easiest obfuscating answer GRRM can give. Plus, for all we know, Rhaegar himself did develop a creepy attraction to Lyanna. Something must have motivated him to choose her. But we don’t even know which name he whispered while he died. It’s implied but never explicitly stated that it was Lyanna. For all we know it was something entirely else.

This theory makes Rhaegar look even worse than the concept of his prophecy obsession. That one is, at least, consistent with itself, while this theory hinges on him being dumb as rocks and both so zealous as to start this confrontation and then so disinterested as to drop it entirely and achieve the exact opposite of his original intention, until he half-heartedly rides forth to fight and die at the Trident. (Why not just run off with Lyanna if he didn’t care abut any of it?)

There is no internal logic, and no motivation for this “love” that supposedly makes it a “love story”. So... no, I don’t think this makes any sense.

[jubans]

title: like the sun [1/4] pairing: sumeragi tenma/fem!reader rating: g (general) premise: glooge search: what flowers can you give to the person you like when they work at a damn flower shop?!

The bells attached to the door of the shop chimed softly with Tenma's swift entrance. He spared a quick, "Good morning," to whoever might be listening, and he vaguely heard someone say it back but he couldn't give them so much as a single glance. It was rare for Tsumugi to frantically tell him to run to their usual store for pest repellent, so his urgency was a bit warranted.

The blooms that Tsumugi had grown out for the summer attracted a couple of sunflower beetles in the courtyard, and the two of them had discovered the critters nibbling on the leaves after breakfast earlier this morning. All that took to wipe the composure off the Winter Troupe leader's face was a few measly, little bugs, and Tenma would be lying if he said he didn't find it the least bit comical. 

But, as he surveyed the metal shelves for the brand that Tsumugi had told him to get, Tenma's gaze drifted briefly towards the bonsai section of the shop. A couple of juniper trees sat idly in their clay pots, waiting for a new owner to take them home. In the back of his head, however, he could hear a voice (that vaguely sounded like Yuki's) reminding him that he just had Igawa buy him a bald cypress tree last week. He literally had no reason to take care of another one when—

"Sir, do you need any help?"

Tenma startled at the voice that resounded from behind him, jerking his body away out of instinct. From where you stood, the cheery smile you'd put on faltered; a mix of concern and embarrassment lacing your gaze instead. You donned a pink apron with the shop's name embroidered on the front pocket—the same one he'd seen Himari, the elderly woman that owned the store, wear all the time. But from all the times he'd dropped by the only flower shop in Veludo Way, this was the first instance he'd ever seen you, in particular.

"Oh, S-Sumeragi-san?" you addressed him shyly, cheeks tainted with a rosy hue. "I didn't notice it was you."

The actor craned his neck a little, wondering how you even knew him. But the same, Yuki-esque voice in his head reminded him (a little bit harshly) that he was a celebrity. It was perfectly normal for people to recognize him especially when he'd forgotten to bring his sunglasses. Tenma knew that at least, but there was something familiar about you that he couldn't quite put his finger on. However, you already gave him an answer before he could even ask anything.

"W-We're in the same class at Ouka High," you babbled hastily, avoiding his gaze for reasons that eluded him. "I doubt you'd remember who I am though..."

He snapped his fingers when it finally clicked to him. Contrary to your assumption, he did remember you. "You're the one that always takes the reins in class activities! (Surname), right?"

It was strange, seeing the loud, slightly obnoxious girl he'd often see leading rehearsals for class productions in this quaint flower shop—barely able to hold his gaze without stuttering. But Tenma supposed that there were multiple sides to every person that they wouldn't want others to see. Muku often called him a tsundere in disguise, and while Tenma never openly admitted to it, his troupe mate's observations weren't completely baseless.

"Anyway, are you looking for something?" You cleared your throat, assuming your mask of cheeriness once more. "Himari-obasan told me she had a regular that was fond of bonsai despite being a teenager."

Now, it was his turn to look away, stuttering.

"T-That definitely couldn't be me," Tenma said dryly. "I'm...looking for a repellent of sorts. One for sunflower beetles? My friend wanted this brand specifically." 

He showed you the picture that Tsumugi had sent him on LIME and you hummed in understanding. Managing a kind smile, you gestured for him to follow you. 

Tenma had come to and from this shop ever since he first moved into the dorms, so the interior was calmingly familiar. Sometimes, even when he didn't have anything to purchase, he would still drop by after school to talk to Himari about alternative binding practices for bonsai roots. Those little conversations shared over tea improved his ability to grow proper trees so much that he'd managed to rope Tsumugi into his shop visits sometimes. 

"So, are you working regularly here?" Tenma wondered, more to break the ice than out of curiosity, really.

You glanced back at him as you ducked underneath the growing leaves of a dracaena house plant. "Nope. I'm just part-timing for the summer. Gotta earn some cash while school's out, you know?"

Once the two of you reached a massive wooden cabinet with glass doors, Tenma observed that various gardening tools and products were being kept inside. Huh. Himari must have invested in better displays for the shop. Speaking of which...

"Is Himari-san not feeling well?" he asked as you crouched down to retrieve what he was looking for from one of the lower shelves. 

"Ah, no. Her daughter was in town for a few days so she's spending some time with her." You plucked a single canister labelled with the pest repellent Tsumugi had wanted before sliding the door closed. Rising to your feet with a huff, you handed it to Tenma with the same, warm grin you'd shown him earlier. 

But the words of thanks already resting on his tongue promptly melted when his fingers brushed against yours. 

Tenma was more than accustomed to skinship, given that he'd been handed countless roles where he had to cozy up to his co-actors one way or another. But touching someone beyond the requirements of a script, someone who wasn't a paid actor as well—

"Sumeragi-san?" you called out, a crease forming on your brow. "You're a little red... Are you okay?"

He reflexively jerked his hand away from yours, making you flinch in surprise at his sudden actions. Tenma breathed heavily, directing himself towards the counter without another word. Though he felt a bit bad for acting so rashly, he would rather have Homare force feed him carrots than let you see him in such a flustered state. 

The actor glanced at the price tag stuck to the container and fished out a sum of money from his wallet that had three zeroes too many compared to its actual value. Tenma then plopped the payment on the wooden surface before turning on his heel to exit the shop, trying his best to block out your concerned calls. 

When the door to the shop slammed closed with the excessive force that had had put into shutting it behind him, your shoulders sagged with disappointment. Had... Had you done something to offend him, somehow?

Unbeknownst to the kind girl working at the flower shop, however, Tenma rounded the corner street with a noticeable spike in his heart rate. In the corner of his eye, he briefly caught a glimpse of his reflection on the tinted store window of a music shop Masumi told him about once. You weren't being very honest with him. He wasn't a little red—he looked like a freaking tomato!

Is the hack terrible at talking to girls, too? He could almost hear his subconscious (CV: Rurikawa Yuki) speak tauntingly in his head. Even if his first instinct was to shoot it down with a TTT (typical, tsundere Tenma) remark, he couldn't. 

Contrary to popular belief, Sumeragi Tenma was, indeed, terrible at talking to girls. 

And he would take this secret to the grave if he had to.

[merrysithmas]

you may have talked about this before but do you believe boris already knew he was queer and first approached theo bc he liked him or that he started crushing after they developed a close friendship and theo was what made him question his sexuality? i think theres reasons to believe either side- boris being bold enough to cuddle him in bed seems like he was making a move but him suddenly “loving” kotku seems like an impulsive move out of fear bc he realized he might like a boy. oof idk

I think Boris knew he was attracted to boys — which is evident by his playful, charming, almost teenaged-desperate pursuit of Theo. I think he probably inherently knew this about himself for a long time. I think Boris has always been physically attracted to boys since he’s entered puberty and since he’s still a young teen it is kind of a fun, funny, interesting, enlivening thing for him.

He’s never had a stable life and despite being all over the world he’s led an extremely sheltered existence in a certain way with only one terrible person as his constant (Vladimir). Boris lets it slip to Theo that everywhere the miners go they are hated — this includes Boris. Boris is hated by the public everywhere they go. So long as he is part of their unit, he is hated. That is mortifying to intelligent good-natured Boris. That is why he learns to slip out and around, to be so personable and friendly. His world travels have not been so glorious but probably rather extremely lonely and isolating (as with Judy in Canada), hurtful, and damaging. That is why Bami and Judy (and eventually, Theo) stand out to him so much — people who were kind to him in a childhood of isolated misery and directionlessness. Boris has no moral hang ups about his same-sex attraction - why should he? This directionlessness in his key developmental years is also a good thing: He never grew up around any sort of organized belief systems or stayed bound within an orthodox culture for too long for it to indoctrinate him as its own.

I think people really underestimate how incredibly remote and friendless Boris’ life must have been. Boris is a cheerful boy who Theo says is often plagued by black moods and sullen attitudes. He is an abused and secluded child dragged from location to location with literally no love or stability and constantly brutally beaten to the point where it does not even phase him. Boris actually equates love with that abuse — and nonchalantly claims his father loves him. That is painful to read, that amount of damage.

Living with a bunch of derelict miners whose leader was HIS FATHER (so surely then mostly assholes) and who are “hated everywhere they go” Boris has probably seen any NUMBER of things a conservative-minded person would (likely often erroneously) see as “morally unacceptable” — it’s like Boris is traveling the world with a crew of pirates. He’s probably seen drinking, all kinds of drugs commonly used in front of his face. He has esoteric knowledge about drug use that a child of his age should not — so he was taught by the miners: roll like this, dont include the stems, never mix this, tuck snuff like this, you can get this kind of drug here here and here, it isn’t safe if it doesn’t look like this. His young child’s mind eager to learn sucked up this black information from men who probably didn’t have a second thought to a child or what his developmental needs were. He’s probably first hand witnessed sex workers copulating with his father’s crew (how else would be have learned about the opportunity to lose his virginity in an Alaskan parking lot to a sex worker?), definitely thievery, and said he saw his father murder a man in the mine once and cover it up. Boris’ mind is full of a lifetime of this morally shadowed behavior being presented as normal, or at least secret but common.

I think he understands his attraction to boys in this same way. I think he feels it isn’t “appropriate” to share with Outsiders but it is something that Happens, something that is no one’s business but his own, and something that brings him pleasure and happiness and therefore something he will look for. However he knows it isn’t common or visible or “appropriate” to be showy about it in front of others — especially not people who could judge him (kids at school), kick him out (society), or hurt him (his father). Boris treats his attraction to Theo like his other vices and “bad” habits - barrels head first — but secret: deep dive into happy drug use (but don’t show his dad), steals everything he ever needs (but don’t let them see, put it in my coat), lies when it suits him (lies to Xandra and Larry and his father and Theo too), happily sleeps with Theo and has sex with him (but this is between you-and-me).

He knows other people might have a problem with his actions — but he does not. So that’s his hangup there. He is aware of and ever-vigilant of his surroundings. School: a safe place isolated from his father. He is free and happy to do what he wants at school — including crush on and go after Theo who he clearly likes. He thinks Theo is cute, flirts with him, tries to get him to notice him, talks to him after class, sits next to him on the bus, begs him to come over his house, tries to impress him with far-flung stories, gives him alcohol because it’s what he’s seen his father’s men do in pursuit of romantic partners or as a bonding ritual with one another.

Theo’s house is also a safe place. So safe in fact that Boris starts to leave behind some of the maladjusted development of his childhood and become more of a happy, clear-minded person. Boris and Theo suffer from arrested development and one of themes of the book is childhood lost. They are forced to mimic adults either knowingly or unknowingly, and act in ways that children should not have to in order to survive this Adult World alone. With one another they begin to heal from their traumas, their affection for one another the catalyst. Theo cooks for him, talks to a babbling eager-to-talk Boris (imagine how few people have listened to or understood the ideas of a smart boy like Boris, often surrounded by oafish alcoholics, his violent father where he is expected to keep quiet, or cultures where he does not speak the language), Theo sleeps next to him willingly, he likes Boris, a boy from New York (the top of the world!) he think Boris is funny and smart and worldly, shares his dog with him, hangs on his words, becomes his companion, cares for him if he drinks too much, tried to tend his wounds, welcomes him gratefully into his broken family, watches his favorite movies with him, celebrates holidays with him, inherently values him — and so starts to mend Boris’ broken heart.

A lot of things and viewpoints Boris has are clearly repetitions of things he has heard his father or the miners say — “Christmas is for children” (of course they’d say that to a tiny Boris longing for the magic of Christmas as a child stuck in a mining camp watching the peripheral joy of children around him and coming back to bleak hunger and a dark home), or “god yes I loved having sex with her” (about his hooker in the parking lot — Boris then says he knew she didn’t enjoy it and never shows enjoyment but rather avoidance towards women and girls in any genuine way afterwards, yet covets Theo’s physical company).

Theo on the other hand, who for a short while and then so painfully ripped from him, grew up with love. His natural disposition in Vegas comes from a place of being so recently loved and cherished by his mother and he here, in this lonely place, turns the focus of this disposition onto the one person who is kind and protective towards him: Boris — his one light in a life that has turned very dark. This is like an alien world to Boris. Lonesome and neglected Boris is touched and startled and soon changed by this kindness. So much so that Theo, unknowingly, alters the rest of Boris’ life (Boris feels Theo saved his life).

So that is why I believe the Kotku Gay Panic came about. After their climactic Vegas pool scene where their abuse and trauma is opened to one another (their wounds from their fathers, from fire, literally pouring into the purifying chlorine of the watery womb - mother - pool as they try to drown one another, angry at their attraction to one another, but then cling to and save one another instead) Boris begins to not just have fun and have sex and have freedom with Theo (all okay things by Boris’ standards as long as it is secret) — after that scene and they sleep together and Boris satisfies that teenaged human sexual need... they continue to hookup and be at bliss for a very long, happy time where they both begin to psychologically heal— Boris doesn’t just have sex and fun with Theo, he realizes he starts to love Theo.

Love - an extremely foreign concept to Boris who literally freaks the fuck out because he has no baseline for it. It isn’t the type of “love” that his father gives him (violent, untrustworthy), it isn’t the type of “love” the men who grew up around valued (cheap parking lot sex), it isn’t the kind of “love” his idol Larry has with Xandra (Larry lies to Xandra all the time), it isn’t the kind of “love” Boris has seen in his favorite movies (men and women over and over). No, this love with Theo is very very scary to him. Very perhaps dangerous. He doesn’t know.

I think Boris accepts his physical attraction to men as nbd. I think he probably feels most people feel such attractions or some other harmless private desires that certain people may see as an aberrant from “normal” for whatever reason (either typical kinks and silly hush hush sex shop porno stuff - or other far more despicable things he’s witnessed his father’s men do) and so thinks nothing of his own innocent, consensual goodtime-centered desires. Boris, who likely grew up with little exposure to healthy LGBTQ representation and has a very isolated POV in some ways, likely to some degree at the Vegas point in his life (however casually self-accepting he is) equates same-sex attraction with hush hush taboo sex activities — nothing to be ashamed of, but you’re not going to tell your dad.

As long as it is a personal thing, for him only, Boris embraces it. But it is the emotionality, the healing, the care, the love that freaks Boris out and makes him make a run for it to Kotku — only to recede to what he knows and repeat the exact kind of fake “love” he was taught by his father: unbelievable exclamations of devotion (Boris’ dad sobbing and telling him he loves him + “I love her I love her! She’s beautiful and perfect!”) coupled with the black truth (Boris’ dad beating the shit out of him + Boris beating Kotku).

Boris knows he likes boys but when he starts to love one — that’s when he runs away. Because that means something totally different: societally and personally.

[tejkohlifoundation]

Tej Kohli: Profile Of A Technologist

Tej Kohli is a philanthropist who is well known for his worldwide mission to eliminate corneal blindness from poor and underserved communities by 2035.  In 2006 he sold a company that he had founded just seven years earlier as part of a high value sale.  The company specialised in online payment gateways for high risk sectors and also in the acquisition, turnaround and trade sale of online gaming properties.  Since this 2006 liquidity event Tej Kohli has been actively engaged in building the not-for-profit Tej Kohli Foundation.

Tej Kohli is also an impact investor focused on artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology ventures that have the potential to drive positive human impact.  His impact investments include proprietary technologies that have the potential to have a transformation impact in a variety of applications.  Ventures backed by Tej Kohli are engaged in activities ranging from resolving the treatment gap that leads to poverty-driven blindness through to solving the logistical challenges of organ donation and even using machine learning to dramatically increase the efficiency of plastics recycling.

Tej is a father to two teenagers and has been married to his wife Wendy for over twenty years.  He is a keen esports fan and an unashamed supercar enthusiast.  He is also an avid ballroom dancer who has competed in international events.  Tej Kohli regularly shares his thoughts and wisdom in a series of #TejTalks blogs and is an active user of social media.

Here we find out more about the colourful technologist…

What is #TejTalks?

Tej Kohli - #TejTalks is where I share my thoughts and also important information about the things that matter to me or which have captured my attention.  I blog using Medium and I also post a lot on Twitter and Facebook.  I am not that well known and I am not a public figure, so I do not have much of a platform elsewhere.  The beauty of place like Medium and to a lesser extent Twitter, is the ability to make unmediated connections with experts.

The Tej Kohli Foundation for example, is entirely depending on forming new partnerships and coalitions all around the world to solve big challenges.  So #TejTalks is a great place to zone in onto some of the constitute parts of those challenges or the underlying factors that are causing them, and to connect and share ideas with relevant experts.  A huge proportion of corneal blindness for example is a poverty-driven ailment, and so you cannot solve it without also looking at the underlying causes of poverty.  Female inequality also plays a big role in poverty blindness, and so recently I have been learning and blogging about that too.

You recently published ‘Rebuilding You: The Philanthropy Handbook’.  Why?

Tej Kohli - My own approach to philanthropy has been heaving focused on rebuilding people and communities around the world.  And one of the things that I have learned on that journey is that in becoming a philanthropist you cannot simply become a kinder and more benevolent version of yourself.  You also need to behave differently, think differently and change your outlook.  I wrote ‘Rebuilding You’ as a guide for others who want to use their wealth for good, so that they can avoid some of the common pitfalls and have a greater impact more quickly.  

I have organised the ‘Rebuilding You’ handbook into key decision areas.  Each area will enable would-be philanthropists to combine some of my experiences with their own to synthesise new ideas about how to define a brand of philanthropy that will best achieve their goals.

What is the biggest lesson that you have learned during your career?

Tej Kohli - I am about to turn 63 and I have led a rollercoaster life.  People often tell me that my life story would make a great movie, but I tell them that if it was a it would do badly it because the story would not seem believable!  I made a single youthful mistake in 1988 that I have regretted ever since and which I still feel great remorse for.  I think what that taught me is that sometimes the important thing is to know what not to do.  

At the same time if you want to achieve something you need to aim higher and go further than almost every other person is prepared to go, and if you start young like I did, it is inevitable that you will make some mistakes.  I feel bad for young people these days as so much of their lives are recorded and documented online.  I counsel my kids and their friends to aim high but also to be very careful as any indiscretion could follow them forever.

But the biggest lesson I think I have learned is that you will always have your critics and not to let them detract from what you are doing.  It’s best not to give them the satisfaction of allowing them to diminish who you are and what you are doing.  The best thing to do is to simply keep going, keep doing good, keep giving back and keep helping others.

What for you have been the key moments in your life?

You know my mother is 86 now and if I am anything in life then I owe it to her.  She has always been there for me and that consistent love and support has been more important to me than any particular moments, except of course for the birth of my son and daughter.  I had my children quite late in life, but my kids are by far the thing that I am most proud of.

In terms of my career, my first job after graduating in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology was installing tachometers.  I was installing at a facility owned by Rabocomtel and realised that I could design a process controlled which would significantly increase the efficiency of their facilities.  It’s a long story, but ultimately, I was able to pitch the idea to the CEO who placed a big order with the company that I worked for.  That gave me my first real affirmation of my desire to become an entrepreneur.

When the company that I launched in 1999 reached $100m of turnover was also a key moment for me too.  It affirmed my belief in what was possible, and we quickly expanded to employ hundreds of software developers and began buying and turning around companies too.  And obviously when that company was sold in 2006 it was a life changing moment.

You graduated in from the Indian Institute of Technology with a degree in Electrical Engineering.  Do you still consider yourself an engineer?

Tej Kohli - Today I would call myself a technologist, but I think that to be an engineer you now need to be a technologist and vice versa.  It was 1980 when I graduated in Electrical Engineering and ‘technology’ as we know it today did not really exist.  The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) remains today one of the top educational institutions in the world and it has become famous for the problem-solving abilities of its engineers.  

When the COVID-19 crisis hit in 2020, India found itself with a catastrophic shortage of ventilators, but within weeks engineers at IIT had created a low-cost ventilator that could be manufactured using off-the-shelf parts.  They made their design open source so that local manufacturing companies could turn their resources to manufacturing ventilators, which they did.  That is an elegant example of engineering and technology coming together.

In 2018 my alma mater conferred their Distinguished Alumnus Award upon me for serving society at large through my work at the Tej Kohli Foundation.  That made me proud because part of what we do at the Foundation is to deploy technology to solve human problems.

Who has inspired you most in life?

Tej Kohli - The late Kofi Annan was by far the wisest and most inspirational man that I have ever met.  But from a more practical perspective, as obvious as it may sound, I greatly admire Bill Gates.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation approach to philanthropy has set a high standard to which all other philanthropists can aspire.  The way that Bill Gates defined very specific objectives and then intensively targeted vast resources into both grassroots activities and also major scientific innovations, has been a big source of learning for me that has continually motivated and inspired me to do even more.  Bill Gates achieved so much in business and then used that success to achieve so much for others that like me he has almost had ‘two lives’.  His example is a wake-up call for any human who has accumulated wealth to consider how they might use that wealth for the betterment of their fellow human beings.

I am also greatly indebted to Michael Milken.  His story resonates strongly with me because Milken got ‘tripped up’ by his prodigious early success, but then made a colossal comeback and focused on using his success to help others.  Today Milken is one of the biggest funders of research into prostate cancer, and the results are incredible.  In 2004 Fortune Magazine called Milken ‘The Man Who Changed Medicine’.  Milken shows that it is possible to move on from past youthful mistakes and rebuild yourself for the betterment of other people.

You have been at the helm of the Tej Kohli Foundation for well over a decade.  When did your philanthropic ambitions start?

Tej Kohli - It was my wife Wendy who started off our journey into philanthropy when in 2005 we sponsored a group of disabled children in Costa Rica.  By 2005 we knew that a sale of my company was imminent, and we wanted to have something new to put all of our energies into.  The group of disabled children that we committed to help had varying levels of disability, and our job was to make interventions that would improve their lives.  Some had such severe disability that they would need permanent care for the rest of their lives.  At the opposite end of the spectrum, with our support one young girl eventually attended college in the USA.

That same year my wife Wendy launched the ‘Funda  Kohli’ project by establishing a series of free canteens in Costa Rica, which is where she is from.  The canteens are still operational today more than fifteen years later.  They feed hundreds of school age children for free every single day to make sure that they have the nutrition and sustenance that they need to thrive.  

But today you are best known for your mission to end corneal blindness by 2035, where did that mission come from?

Tej Kohli - In 2010 I was invited to fund donor corneal transplants at Niramaya Hospital in India.  There is no history of blindness in my family and corneal blindness is not something that I had known a huge amount about before then.  Nowadays I consider myself something of an expert.  I was present in 2010 as the recipient of a corneal transplant that I had funded - a 50-year-old man who had been blind for decades - had his bandages removed.  The man was able to see his wife and grown up children for the first time in decades.  

That was a life changing moment for him and also for me and was my affirmation that having enjoyed so much rapid success in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, I now wanted to use that success to eliminate corneal blindness.  I felt it was my calling.  

Another one of the reasons that corneal blindness resonated so strongly with me is because it is at its heart it is a poverty driven ailment.  75% of corneal blindness is either preventable or treatable.  But when it is left untreated, it impedes the ability of entire families to become economically successful in communities that are already impoverished.  NGOs do not reach a majority of the remote and rural communities in India.  In communities that are underserved for healthcare provision due to their remoteness or poverty, there is a huge treatment gap.

The other challenge with corneal blindness, is that because it’s not life threatening, it attracts less attention than some other global health issues.  But the social and economic impact of restoring someone’s vision is immense.  It changes families forever.  That’s why I became determined to make a difference.  And by 2015 I was funding so many corneal transplant operations at Niramaya that a bigger facility was needed.  

Is that when the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute project was started?

Tej Kohli - The Tej Kohli Cornea Institute in Hyderabad was the biggest project that the Tej Kohli Foundation had ever embarked upon.  It opened in late 2015 and by November 2019 it had welcomed more than 223,404 outpatients and completed more than 43,255 surgeries.  

People living with corneal blindness or visual impairment in India were often living in total poverty and in some instances could not even afford the train fare to travel to see a doctor, let alone to pay for a complex corneal transplant operation.  We treated anyone referred to the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute for free regardless of who they were.  It meant that we were able to help people who had been economically ‘shut out’ from the life changing treatment.

There was one girl who was the same age as my daughter whose vision was so poor that she was nearly blind.  I was visiting Hyderbad and met her just after she had received her corneal transplant.  She gave me a big hug and I couldn’t help thinking how I would feel if this was my daughter.  After that I couldn’t stop thinking about how many others like her were still out there.  Knowing that I could help them felt like a big responsibility that I wanted to rise to.

The focus of the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute is in India, but you haven’t lived in India for many decades.  What is it that keeps your focus on India?

Tej Kohli - ‘First world’ problems are invariably the ones which it would be relatively expensive to solve.  By contrast, high rates of poverty mean that many developing countries are plagued by diseases that it would cost the ‘first world’ comparatively tiny sums to control.  In 2018 India commenced the world’s largest experiment in Universal healthcare when the Government granted 500 million people the entitlement to free health insurance overnight.  

This will mean that those living below the poverty line in India will no longer have to pay for hospital treatments that would until now have pushed them into crippling debts.  But whilst on the surface this is a hugely positive step forward, too much optimism entirely ignores the fact that it will still take many decades and billions of dollars to bring all of India’s healthcare systems up to the equivalent standard of that in the West.  Until then, highly pervasive treatment gaps will continue to permeate the poorest communities.  

My own focus on India as a philanthropist actually has nothing to do with my own heritage.  Unfortunately, India is an epicentre of poverty-driven corneal blindness, and so it is the obvious place for us to be in our mission to combat this form of blindness, the vast proportion of which is either avoidable or treatable.  But closing the treatment gaps is about more than money – it is also about logistics, resources, education, knowledge, cultural understanding and having a deep reach into communities.  Does my heritage help with this?  Yes, a little.

But in 2020 you announced that you were going to shift your focus away from these direct interventions in favour of finding cures.  Why?

Tej Kohli – What has always been abundantly clear from the beginning is the sheer magnitude of the task of closing the corneal blindness treatment gap.  I have always felt that official data is incomplete and so in reality there could be ten million people in the world living needlessly with corneal blindness.  Most of them are in remote and rural communities across many different countries speaking different languages and with different systems in place.

You simply cannot eliminate corneal blindness by relying on transplantation surgery.  Transplantation is too expensive, too complex and too inaccessible for most of the people who need it.  The only way to eliminate corneal blindness by 2035 is to bring to market a novel solution that is affordable, scalable and accessible in all circumstances.  What you need is a solution that can be applied by ophthalmologists or nurses without surgical intervention.  

Finding that ‘universal’ solution is not something that we have just embarked upon: we have been working on it for years and today we have our own intellectual property which we have developed ‘in house’ as well as sponsoring the projects of third parties at major institutions.  To begin with we tried to synthesise new corneas from yeast and then later from peptides.  We were able to create them, but the rejection rate was too high, and neither solution would have removed the need for invasive sutures and expensive surgery.  

It took until 2019 before we achieved a breakthrough when we created a proprietary regenerative solution, which in theory, could be applied using a syringe and cause the cornea to ‘regenerate’ and repair itself.  Subject to regulatory approvals, this ‘universal solution’ is now years rather than decades away and could be relevant to more than one third of people with corneal blindness.

The “major institution” where you are sponsoring projects, is that Harvard Medical School?

Tej Kohli – Actually the Tej Kohli Cornea Program resides at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston, which is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.  It is Harvard professors from the Department of Ophthalmology who lead the research that we sponsor at Mass. Eye and Ear, but our donations do directly to the hospital and it is they who administer the spending.

I donated $2m in 2019 to support the development of innovative technologies to improve medical diagnoses and treatments of corneal blindness.  That money is going toward two major projects, one being similar to our own in-house project, and the other utilising nano string technologies to aid early diagnostics and preventative treatment.  The funds are also used to provide seed funding to projects that address unmet medical needs in ophthalmology.  In my mind the first $2m is just the start and we will do more together in the future too.

In 2019 we also inaugurated the Tej Kohli Cornea Institute UK Centre of Innovation in the United Kingdom.  The Institute is building a research network to bring scientific expertise together and is also harnessing the best of British innovation to bridge the corneal blindness treatment gap in poor communities by awarding grants to UK-based technological and scientific projects.  Decisions are made by an advisory board of UK experts in Ophthalmology.

Recently you returned to your earliest days of feeding children by launching food support programs in the UK.  Why?

Tej Kohli - in the Spring of 2020 the world was plunged into a global crisis due to the Coronavirus.  The pandemic required an emergency response of immediate interventions to alleviate individual human suffering.  We had for a long time been formulating plans for how we could get involved in the mission to combat holiday hunger in the UK.  When the crisis hit we had to bring those plans forward and play our part in supporting the local community.

The Tej Kohli Foundation partnered with community groups to create capacity to deliver 100,000 cooked meals each week to any charities or volunteer groups who need more free food to distribute into their local community.  We also created the ‘YouCube’ box, a youth-focused food initiative that aims to ‘repackage’ food provision as an off-the-shelf initiative that existing charity and volunteer groups can adopt to combat hunger in their community.  

Now the Tej Kohli Foundation aspires to use the organisational memory that has been developed during this period and the deep community connectivity of the scheme to combat ‘holiday hunger’ amongst children.  

You also donated $100,000 toward the development of a vaccine for COVID-19, what motivated that?

Tej Kohli - I donated $100,000 of emergency funding to Harvard Medical School researchers based at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital in Boston.  They had developed a novel and experimental gene-based vaccine which utilises a harmless ‘Trojan horse’ virus as a carrier to bring a tiny piece of the DNA of SARS-CoVid-2 into a patient’s cells, building a protein that stimulates their immune system to fight future infections.  I think it is a promising solution to a major global problem, and I am hopeful that it will prove successful.

Your ‘Future Bionics’ program is funding 3D-printed bionic arms for young people in the UK.  How did you arrive at this project?

Tej Kohli – I am immensely proud of our Future Bionics project.  It captures so elegantly what the Tej Kohli Foundation is all about: making direct interventions to improve people’s lives using technology, with a particular focus on younger people with their entire life ahead of them.  The project came about when I had lunch with the CEO of the company that make the bionic arms and he told me that a lot of families turn to crowdfunding because they cannot afford to purchase one of the arms for their child, and that most of this crowdfunding fails.

The first arm was delivered to a 10-year-old from Blackburn called Jacob as an early Christmas present.  He has set a shining example and is a fine young man who is a great role model to other young people.  And since then we are working our way through to provide arms to ten young people to begin with.  I hope we can continue the program after that, but we will have to take a view on the cost versus the impact once that the current tranche is completed.

Why do you place so much faith and emphasis into technology?

Tej Kohli – you should never underestimate the role of technology in making the world a better place.  We are living through an unprecedented time in human history where a chain reaction of rapid technological development across science and technology is unlocking unprecedented new opportunities to solve major human problems.  Technologists can look out across the vista of a hugely rich and fertile landscape of new opportunities to improve human life.  Many new and novel solutions are within grasp and simply need to be incubated and ‘proven’ to stimulate their widespread adoption.

Many technologists and entrepreneurs have built successful commercial enterprises or pioneered new technology solutions before.  It’s my belief that this expertise is absolutely critical for unlocking the potential of these new and frontier technologies in a way that can have an exponential global impact in terms of solving human problems and improving human life.  

I have long been fascinated by deep tech and new frontier technologies.  When I started my payment gateways company in Costa Rica in 1999 we were figuring out frontier technologies and combining them to build brand solutions and applications.   By the time that I left in 2006 my company employed armies of software developers.  And this experience as a technologist is now also part of the DNA of my objectives and ambitions as a philanthropist.

It was Peter Thiel who noted that “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters”.  Is there a risk that technology will not deliver in the ways that you expect?

Tej Kohli - My real point is that we are now at a watershed moment where the opportunity is to innovate solutions that could eliminate specific areas of human suffering entirely, rather than merely alleviating them. I strongly believe that AI and ‘humanitarian robotics’ have the potential to drive innovations which will alleviate human suffering and hardship, both directly and indirectly.  I also believe that humanitarian efforts the world over will be greatly advanced by these emerging technologies as they continue their exponential growth.

That’s why earlier this year I established a new incubator to back scientific projects and commercial ventures that were targeting solutions to corneal blindness, with the caveat that those solutions must be affordable, scalable and accessible in the world’s poorest countries.

You have predicted that artificial intelligence could become a $150 trillion economy within five years, which is ten times more than the current combined output of India and China?

Tej Kohli - Artificial intelligence, and also biotechnology for that matter, are both frontier technologies that are locked into an exponential growth trajectory.  The cost of deciphering the human genome has dropped from $3 billion in 2001, to about $1,000 today and what took many months ten years ago can now be done in less than one hour.  

I believe that AI will be so manifest within all aspects of life, and that the applications are so broad, that the AI economy will worth four times that of the global Internet economy, which is today worth approximately $50 trillion.  AI is also already transforming developing countries.  In Nepal, machine learning has been utilised to map and prioritize reconstruction needs after earthquakes.  In Africa AI tutors are helping young students to catch up on coursework.  NGOs and humanitarian aid agencies are using big data analytics to optimise the delivery of supplies for refugees fleeing conflict and other hardships.  And in India rural farmers are being encouraged to use AI to improve crop yields and boost profits.  

Technological innovations like these bring us much closer to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on issues like eradicating poverty, ending health-care inequality, increasing access to schooling, and combating global warming.  And yet the world is only just scratching the surface of what these new technologies could do for human progress.  

Your Kohli Ventures investment vehicle focuses on impact investment.  Where does philanthropy end and impact investment begin?

Tej Kohli – That’s a good question.  Impact investment looks at the double bottom line of profit and social impact.  Philanthropy is a good way to spend wealth, but somewhere along the line you need to first generate that wealth.  So why not, when the circumstances are right, try to do both at the same time?  Take for example Detraxi, a Florida-based biotech company that I wholly own.  It’s a commercial venture but could have a significant humanitarian impact.

More than 100,800 solid organ transplants are performed each year worldwide according to the World Health Organisation.  Eight lives can potentially be saved by just one organ donor.  Demand far outstrips supply, yet thousands of organs get discarded every single year though wastage due to the practical difficulties of preserving and transporting organs.  Imagine if you could solve that problem, it would be a good business that would also save thousands of lives?  Well that is what we are trying to do by bringing the Detraxi solution to the market.

But which is more important, philanthropy or impact investment?

Tej Kohli - It was Sir Ronald Cohen who said that “the world must change but we cannot change it by throwing money at old ideas that no longer work.  To change the world, we must change how we do business, starting with where and when we invest our money”.  Can you imagine a world where every investment decision made by every institution also weighed up the human or social impact of that investment?  The consequences would be immense.

Worldwide impact investment is currently was worth around $715 billion in 2018, but the International Finance Corporation estimates that based on current demand from investors’  total demand is nearer to $26 trillion, which is fifty times larger.  Impact investing already has the power to solve issues that are often beyond governments.  And I am convinced that impact investing is one of the best ways of funding the technology-led changes that the world urgently needs in order to solve some of our biggest challenges.

What have been your favourite impact investments so far?

Tej Kohli – my impact investment portfolio is doing very well indeed, but I deliberately do not disclose my investments since having my name associated can eb a hinderance.  And anyway, the focus should be the founders and entrepreneurs at those venture, not on me.  One of the largest investments I have made was in 2019 when I committed $100m into the Rewired robotics-focused venture studio ‘with a humanitarian bent’.  

Rewired is a Switzerland based organisation, so I do not have any direct influence over what they invest in and their portfolio is also a tightly guarded secret.  But based on the Rewired investments that are already in the public domain, one of my favourites is Aromyx based in Silicon Valley.  Aromyx was originally initiated by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.  The company is creating new modalities of data that have the potential to be disruptive across many sectors and applications.  In 2019 Aromyx completed a large-scale study with one of the world’s largest chemical companies with a view to deploying Aromyx into the recycling process to improve plastics recycling rates by over 90%.

Other investments publicised by Rewired include Seldon, which is at the heart of accelerating the adoption of machine learning to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.  There is also Raptor Maps, which was founded by MIT Engineers and makes it simple and affordable for solar companies to adopt drone technology as a tool to increase performance.  Open Bionics is enhancing the lives of all humans everywhere with its next generation of 3D-printed ‘bionic’ prosthetics.  And Elementary Robotics is re-engineering automation intelligence through its deep learning artificial intelligence software.

You have said before that you believe your children, who are teenagers, could live to be at least 125 years old.  What will the world be like by 2125?

Tej Kohli - If I look at how the world has changed since I graduated in 1980, and given the acceleration of technological and human progress, I think it’s impossible to imagine the world in 2125.  Thanks to economic growth the world is already on track to end extreme poverty by 2030, so perhaps the next 100 years of human history will see humanity unlocking the latent potential that has always been restrained by global inequality.  

Of course, there are still major human challenges such as over population, sustainability and climate change that need dealing with.  But even during the next decade AI will change every aspect of our lives.  So by 2125 I am optimistic that technology will have unlocked even more solutions to these major global challenges.

Time will tell.  What I am certain is that the opportunity is right in front of us, and it is for all of us to master it for the betterment of all of humanity.

For more information about Tej Kohli visit:

Tej Kohli official website: http://www.TejKohli.com

Tej Kohli Foundation official website: http://www.TejKohliFoundation.com

Kohli Ventures official website: http://www.KohliVentures.com

Tej Kohli personal blog: https://medium.com/tej-kohli

Tej Kohli Foundation YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tejkohlifoundation

@MrTejKohl on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrtejkohli

@MrTejKohli on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrtejkohli

Tej Kohli Amazon Author Profile: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tej-Kohli/e/B08CY13FNR 

Tej Kohli Telegraph profile: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/10/04/tej-kohli-indian-tech-billionaire-plans-turbocharge-britains/

[taz-writes]

Introduction to Nymia/Colorverse

I mentioned making a post about that other secondary storyverse the other day, right? Well, here it is! (Fair warning, this is less of an active WIP than a concept I like to play with—I probably won’t create any finished product for this world for a WHILE. It’s more of a creative sandbox than a proper novel-in-the-making.)

TLDR; magical girls/boys in a fantastical 1800s steampunk-adjacent setting work together (with varying levels of success) to right the wrongs of the world they live in. Although they were all trained together for a few years in their early teens, it’s been a while since they’ve reunited, and they’ll have to contend with challenging geography, a generations-long war, and their own clashing ideologies before they’ll be able to start figuring out what the problem is. The whole thing’s 90% driven by my love of dramatic irony and secret identities.

Genre-wise, this is another fantasy, but it has a very different flavor from Feilan. It’s also a bit more mature in general, straddling the YA/NA line because of the ages of the protagonists. The timeline flipflops and some scenes are set during the squad’s Academy days as young teenagers, but the real plot happens when they’re in their early 20s. I wouldn’t say this is darker--Feilan gets super fucked up in places--but it’s probably going to feel a little less optimistic, and there are more shades of grey. 

The Colors

Regardless of where in Nymia one hails from, everyone knows of the colors. You may know them as gods, or archetypes, or spirits, or ancestors, but their influence is ever-present and ever-powerful regardless.

The colors are manifestations of human symbolism and belief. They began as formless congregations of a natural energy that flows throughout the planet, and as early humans developed civilization and encountered them, they began to take on the traits of certain colors in the spectrum of light. They are influenced by humanity, and influence humanity in turn—more like primal forces of nature than thinking, feeling beings. Despite this, though, they have clear wills of their own and personalities. They’re sort of... human-adjacent, but ultimately something greater. Human mages are able to draw on the powers of the colors and cast magic based on their color of choice!

The precise meanings and powers of the colors vary by the culture and social class of the believer, but they are worshipped across Nymia, and plenty of patterns pop up. Unfortunately, most of Nymia doesn’t get along—of the four realms consisting the continent, two have been at war for generations, and the remaining two are somewhat isolated from both the warring countries and each other.

Each generation, the colors choose humans to wield their powers and enact their will to encourage peace and balance throughout the realms. These humans are called the Paladins. They’re not very well-known, though, because the last few generations of paladins were not strong enough to make a significant difference or achieve much of anything. This generation, those paladins are our protagonists! Which brings me to...

The Characters

This storyverse is WAY more character-driven than my other WIP, which is why I keep dodging around it and hiding from a plot, but the characters are the best thing I’ve got going here. I won’t beat around the bush, just introduce them.

Talxin Zatruc is the Paladin of Red! He’s really short, he barely hits 5’3”, but there’s a lot of intensity packed into that petite form. Red is the color of plague, poison, decay, and death. As such, they tend to be vilified in most places, and redmages aren’t winning any popularity contests. To Talxin, though, red means something else. He was raised dirt-poor in the country by parents trapped in Elcrin’s broken legal system, and to them, red is the color of justice. All things are equal in death, after all. His red magic isn’t limited to just killing people. He’s not a very trusting person, and he tends to stammer a lot and bow out of conflict, but there’s a core of steel under his surface. He’ll cross any line if it means achieving a better world. He’s like, my way of protesting about how badass Anakin Skywalker could’ve been if the Star Wars writers gave a shit.

Syzyga Lazuli is not in fact associated with the color blue! She’s the Paladin of Orange, who represents exploration, navigation, innovation, and human ingenuity. In her native country of Kelrie, she’s in constant demand fixing trade ships and assisting mapmakers, but her true passion lies elsewhere. Syz is an avid inventor, constantly creating new ways to make the world a better and more exciting place. Remember Master Builders from the LEGO movie? That’s basically what Syz’s orange magic does, it’s pretty cool. One of her trickiest creations is the wired mechanical “exoskeleton” she wears on her arms (cooler name pending), which compensates for an extreme hypermobility disorder she’s dealt with since childhood. Her ultimate dream is to create a functional flying machine—something that many orangemages have attempted, but none have succeeded in so far. She likes pointy things, stargazing, and using said hypermobile hands to occasionally one-up Nyrene’s attempts to freak people out.

Soenya Arrenya is the Paladin of Yellow. The emoticon :} is an accurate summary of her personality. Yellow is associated with weather and natural disasters as a trickster archetype, but they are also a patron of underdogs and comedians. They’re one of those archetypes whose interpretations vary wildly by location. Soenya hails from a remote town in the northern Sapiran tundra, the kind of place where ice tornadoes are things that exist, and her notion of practicality is... we’ll just say, it’s a bit different from the city-dwellers’. She doesn’t have much concept of property damage (or property). She’s really flirtatious and will hit on just about anyone, which embarrasses her colleagues sometimes, to the point where most of the other paladins figure she’s just doing it to mess with them. She and Nyrene do NOT get along.

Darrus Colere is the Paladin of DICK MAGIC Green, and I did NOT draw him buff enough in this picture. He needs to be like twice as buff and twice as Big. He’s almost 6’4” and deserves to be built like an Olympic deadlifter. Green is associated with healing, plant life, fertility, and sexuality. They’re one of the only two colors ever given a gender, as in Sapir Green also represents masculinity. Darrus is valid to fuck. Unfortunately he’s also easily flustered and a little bit dense, he tends to get strange ideas in his head and it takes a LOT of pushing to redirect him. He’s got inertia. Darrus cares more about plants than most people, he will run after you crying if you step on “his” grass. He and Talxin shared a room at the Academy as baby 13-year-olds and they’d fight constantly because Talxin kept accidentally killing Darrus’s houseplants with poorly-controlled red magic. Also, he’s genuinely terrified of Talxin, which in terms of sheer physicality is hilarious. At his core, he’s a very caring person! He expresses affection by lecturing people on your behalf. It’s kind of sweet. He’s from Kelrie like Syz, but the other side of the country.

Anlied Atidae is the elusive Paladin of Blue. Raised in the upper echelons of Sapiran society, she’s still grappling with the extremely repressed behavior she was raised to exhibit, but even behind her veil of mystery she’s a strange and deeply thoughtful individual. Blue is the archetype of thought, philosophy, emotion, and the human mind. In Sapir, Blue represents femininity. Although private, Anlied is very sincere in her desire to help others. Her life of privilege and nobility tends to blind her to the reality she lives in, though, and even as an adult she is very naive. She’s all about the conceptual thought exercise of fixing the world but stalls short in horror when presented with an actual problem. Despite using magic that specializes in emotion and the mind, she has very little awareness and understanding of her own emotional experience. Rationality is prized above all else in Sapiran society, particularly in the noble circles Anlied grew up in, and it is considered taboo to express any kind of emotion outside of a Blue temple. As emotions are sacred to Blue, they should be shown to Blue alone. Some Sapiran royals will even veil their faces in blue fabric as the ultimate expression of non-expression. This culture.... this culture seriously messed with Anlied’s head.

Nyrene Enkeli is the Paladin of Purple and the team’s most infamous wildcard. She’s tall, skinny, pointy, and an avatar of mayhem—literally. Purple is, among other things, the archetype of chaos. They also represent cycles, wisdom, and the passage of time. Nyrene really likes knocking people off-guard, and can produce an impressive variety of disturbing noises. She also swallows swords, spits fire, and juggles like a fiend. She’s the sole representative among the paladins of Nemmonay—an elusive free state off the coast of Kelrie that shelters pirates, outlaws, and a dozen other criminal elements holding each other together in a perilous state of organized anarchy. Nyrene is the embodiment of that trope where a character has to remove all their weapons, and holds up the line for 20 minutes picking tiny knives out of their hair and bootsoles. Upon first glance, she seems like she’s totally off her rocker. She says weird stuff that doesn’t make sense, and does weird stuff for shock value alone, and generally moves like a cat that’s seen a ghost in the corner. What she really is, though, is a bona fide genius. Nyrene’s purple magic allows her to travel through time to a certain extent, and she’s often balancing two or more perfect loops at once, with some really bizarre caveats added to make sure the streams don’t cross. She has a lot of ulterior motives. She considers Syzyga her best friend, because Syzyga is the only person who hasn’t panicked at the sight of spontaneous sword-swallowing. She really doesn’t get along well with Soenya.

Pariya Spinel is the current Paladin of Pink, though she wasn’t the first in this generation. The OG pink paladin turned out to be such an unspeakably awful person that Pink themself appeared to strip her of her status. Pariya joined the group late and didn’t have much time to get to know the others, which she’s rather self-conscious about, but pretty much everyone likes her. She doesn’t have too much to worry about. Pink is a tricky archetype to pin down. They’re associated with creation, they’re the pantheon leader, and they have symbolic ties to space and the heavens. In practice, this means Pariya has the power to create things like energy constructs or even just simple objects. It’s a difficult and tiring power to use but has the potential to be super broken. Pariya isn’t very good with her magic, and she’s extremely anxious and self-conscious about it, to the point where her nerves may be preventing her from doing much of anything at all. She’ll get there, one day...

So, yeah! That’s the squad! Not pictured is Rovato, whom I’ve mentioned briefly on this blog before—he’s the main antagonist in this universe. He’s a paladin of Silver. Silver used to be part of the pantheon, once upon a time, but they’ve been forgotten over the last few generations for an assortment of reasons. Most of those reasons have to do with Rovato. As purple represents chaos, silver represents order, and the exertion of will upon the whims of the natural world. Silver once had different aspects in the same way the other colors do, and in Sapir they actually represented change and manipulation—this is the aspect Rovato exploits. He’s used some loopholes in the magic system to make himself into a near-immortal shapeshifter and he wants power and stuff. I’m still working out the plot, so this could change, but that’s what I have right now. 

The general backstory is that the Paladins were gathered together by the elusive headmaster of the Academy, a school on an unclaimed island meant specifically to train each generation’s set of paladins and prepare them to bring peace to the world. While at the Academy, they were not allowed to share their real names or anything about their origins, so that they couldn’t judge each other for their differences and stuff. The paladins are spread across the continent to represent all four realms and every end of the class spectrum and the whole point of the team is to encourage unity. Can’t have them being racist at each other! Unfortunately, the status quo of the war between Sapir and Elcrin shifted dramatically during their third year at school, and they were sent back home before being allowed to learn each other’s names and origins and all that stuff. Now, approximately five or six years after the Academy disbanded, something is happening that can only be resolved by the paladins themselves. So now they have to get the team back together, and seek each other out across national borders and geographic obstacles and LOTS of weird culture clash. I’m still working on figuring out what’s happening. Like I said, the plot’s a work in progress.

And that’s that! I don’t know how much I’ll talk about these guys here, since the colorverse story has been on my back burner for a LOOOOONG time, and I still want to get through Feilan in the next century. But I wanted to introduce them, so I could talk about them without confusing literally everyone. They’re my second-oldest set of OCs after the fairies and I care about them quite a lot. 

[thekintsukuroikid]

December 23 2017.

I never wanted to post these. I wasn’t going too.

It wasn’t until I saw the pictures of my family members did I realize I actually did capture something worth sharing, worth working on, worth feeling good about.

I’ve been on meds for awhile, been to therapy too. I’m starting to feel like I have the tools in my toolbox to start making some steps forward. I just don’t feel like I have the self belief to really go for it.

I’m tired, i’m frustrated and I’m finding it increasingly harder to rationalize this fight for myself. I remember being so excited when I moved away that finally I had the ability and the freedom to focus on myself, all of myself, especially my mental health. The commitment to do so has be fraught with setbacks and frustration.

The silver lining to which is the sheer immensity of kindness and love I’ve received from my friends. I question how I deserve it…obviously, and I am always wary of making sure our conversations aren't always about negative stuff. I don’t want to drag em down, or be a bummer.  I always believed the most insulting feeling in the world is being pitied. I’d rather be hated than pitied. Maybe i’m just being loved.

I always need external context, I never feel like I can start or finish or be without some sort of external form of permission, context, and sometimes motivation.

Whether is a girls number at the bar, or a degree on the wall I can never truly feel happy or connected to a moment, or an outcome unless I can work out how i’ve earned it. I almost never do.

What this means Is that I am often left floating, never really sure of myself in any given situation. Never really sure if what Im doing or experiencing is really building on a person or values as opposed to the consistent stringing together of just getting through the day.

Taking pictures is a hobby that feels safe to me, it feels worth pursuing. I think because deep down I have never felt like the main character of my own story, behind the lens I don’t have to be.

I named this blog after Kintsukuroi because I loved the meaning behind the art of fixing broken pottery with gold. I wanted to feel like I could do that for myself. Shine through my flaws. But even if I don’t, you can still fill the cracks with pyrite instead of gold and still hold water. Maybe that’s ok.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See the key to enjoying family vacations is finding little moments of solitude, of respite where you slip out the back and escape for a few hours armed with a bluetooth speaker and a book that wasn’t assigned reading.  

 -I found a beach chair on the very edge of the resort property, a small wooden fence and a small one person security shack all that separated me from the public beach area filled with local kids splashing and yelling.  

- I played something slow and looked out into ocean and came up with as many lame water metaphors as one could presumably concoct under the circumstances of time and a mild hangover. - I present them here:

  See I preface all of this by saying writing all flowerying and poetic like this is like eating buffallo wings really fast, like it tastes good but is always accompanied with the heartburn of being this self indulgent. It just kinda feels douchey haha.  Ah fuck it lets go. Maybe self indulgent is the point?  When else can you be self indulgent right? 

How do I explain the fear of wondering if I wasted my best years simultaneously treading water, and never actually getting wet. How do I reconcile that? Am I gonna be in my late 30s wondering what its like to feel smart enough, or hot enough or good enough. That seems like it could suck, I mean it sucks now, what happens when it also feels like I’ve run out of time?

Speaking of water...

--

Sabrina Benaim said that Depression is turning lonely into busy.

and I am always busy.

She said that  

“Depression is sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness, I cannot baptise myself”

- I get that. You see it all around, potential everywhere, happiness so close it seems within reach and everyone around you thinks so too, yet you can't submerge yourself in it. You just drift along, walking on the water that is happiness and not being able to get yourself soaked in it. Always staying dry.

-  Maybe in my own metaphor if depression is the actual water?

- I wonder if Happiness is instead the sky you look up to when you’re treading water, concocting dreams of rescue helicoptors or philanthropic Pterodactyls swooping down to save you from your lack of cardio.

-I’ve tried to learn more about treading water by watching people who know how to swim really really well.

Google defines the Rapture of the Deep as an incapacitation that occurs when you dive too deep into the ocean, and no longer know what way is up. It can happen even if you learn how to swim really really well. One way or another some people just sink.

...and some people just take themselves way to seriously...I wonder if thats me?

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January 20th 2018 

AN ADENDUM 

I am  not afraid of the dark. 

Night time makes snack food taste better.

Depression is a slowdance lit ever so romantically by the light of the street light by my window. the glow of the 3:00am on the clock backlighting my stirrings, as a defiance against the convention of normal sleep patterns that’d  make even my teenage angst say dude chill…take a nap.

- I envy people. 

Not because I want some material thing they have, or some accomplishment. -

- I’m jealous of people who’s ears don’t constantly ring with self doubt. I always felt like I wanted to be a producer instead of just a consumer. But I’ve never had the self belief to stand by what I make...or just make. You know how people play hard to get? I feel like I play hard to want. Like all the time. Trying to be happy means sometimes trying to hard and that is annoying as shit. 

 I cannot for the life of me understand how people can just, be. 

I cannot understand how people can get through the day with more hope beyond just getting through the day. I’d give one eye just to have the other see through that lens. 

I cannot understand for the life of me how people know what to do, like ok you’re a therapist how did you know you wouldn’t be the worlds best advertising agent, or a poet or a spot welder? how do these other options not keep you up at night?

- How many people actually try Luge, like what if there is the worlds best Luger (sp?)  and he’s instead stuck in the accounting department fantasizing about  how to ask out the intern in accounts receivable? He could be fucking Luging bro.  

What I’m saying is I cannot understand how people know who to be friends with, or where to live, or who to marry? What if a more compatible partner is out there but she lives in Nicaragua...Fuck dude you gotta go to Nicaragua maybe! maybe the beauty is that out of 7 billion people, out of a million decisions, and happen stances, out of a million one in a millions, you found each other. Maybe thats worth something too? The grass is greener where you water it and all that but how do you know you should be planting grass and not palm trees....or Weed?

How do you know what parts of the tree to prune, what parts can you cut to make it grow and what parts will kill the tree?

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I do try my best, see thats the frustrating part I think. I've tried. I tried to be patient too, To not get ahead of myself. or try to feel like im entitled to feel better just because im trying too.

This has been the most open I've ever been with the people in my life bar my family. Not a single person i've told has reacted with anything other than a reaction of love and care.  No matter how I try I can't feel like I deserve it.  I’m so scared of opening up too much, and stifling how much and how long I talk about the bad days, I lie about how many good days im having because I don't want this to be a burden for them.  I don't want to get left behind because when im alone this thing starts getting the better of me. This is all a bad mix of feeling like I have the most to lose and feeling like I have the least amount of resources i’ve ever had to not lose them.

So much has changed and yet, it still feels like I have nothing to show for any of this. 

I read somewhere once that possession is the enemy of love. 

That you kill a flower by picking it. Instead of watering it where its rooted.  

-

Maybe more patience is required, it’d just be nice for a sign that somethings sprouted, that i’m doing the right things to bring forth an eventuality that this chapter of my life will be over.  I just wonder when perseverance ends and delusion begins?

--

I went into my brothers room to give put back a book. I found his sticky notes plastered all over his desk with like meditative buzz word, he's got books on history of architecture and james baldwin and eckhart tolle with the bookmarks well into them. He's starting his own creative company, hes filled out an application for the NYT. he's doing freelance work. hes already killing it with his company and in school. He is an awesome photographer,  he's a fashion whiz. he's a veritable genius. and I can't get out of bed.  I walked 3 steps out the door today, said nope, and went to bed. I went to bed at midnight last night and didn’t leave my room until 4pm.  Im not saying this in a jealous way or in away that harbours any negativity towards him. I love my brother, even if we are never going to be on the terms I hoped we’d be. To be honest I'm not really interested in the things he's into so him being good at those things don't take anything away from me. Its just insane to me how far behind I feel. I can't even basically function and he's taking on the world. If he were where I am, the world would be robbed of so much of the things he can do. I just feel like i'm robbing myself of what I could maybe do too. and It used to be a thing where If I saw somebody getting theirs, id be like aight I gotta go get mine too and id be motivated and it'd give me a boost. Because I believed in my better. I believed I had more to give.  now I just, I can't  envision any of that for myself. I don't even know what it looks like anymore.

I know that isn’t a fair comparison, I know he’s healthy and I’m not, I know comparison is the thief of joy.

It’s just, I started this whole getting healthy thing to start feeling more like myself. To start  to answer the questions about what I could do if depression  wasn’t at the forefront of every endeavour I chose to undertake, every thought that crossed my mind and every relationship I established. The fact is I feel no closer to answering that question. None. I feel farther than ever. I am the product of such wonderful privledge, to waste those gifts on a disease so self centred and indulgent seems ridiculous to me, yet here I am.

-

I have people walking with me now on this whimsical mental health adventure I’m on. Which is weird, because for the first time I’ve had to be cognizant of where my arms flail, or how much room I take up on the sidewalk. We walk together lock step, looking at that straight lined horizon, for something to eagerly burst its linearity and meet us more than half way.

While I appreciate the company it’s come with the added fear of what will happen if and when I have to stop, to stumble, to catch my breath, and for the sake of time, they keep walking. Until I can’t see them. Until the horizon is no longer something to move forward too. No north star to guide me home. 

See gratitude is anxiety. 

Always wondering how you’ve earned the luxury of a second to breathe, to use that moment to appreciate. 

 Always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  

[travelworldnetwork]

By Christopher P Baker

3 April 2019

“The Younger Brother is damaging the world. He is on the path to destruction. He must understand and change his ways, or the world will die,” Luis Guillermo Izquierdo lamented as he walked beside me, his cheeks swollen with a wad of coca leaves that he slowly masticated.

Ritual flute music drifted through the forest from some unseen source as Izquierdo – a mamo, or enlightened spiritual leader, of Colombia’s Arhuaco indigenous people – led me to the sacred natural pool Pozo de Yaya for a ritual cleansing. He removed his sandals, lowered himself onto a rock and sat cross-legged beside a fast-running stream. Izquierdo bade me remove my shoes and step into the water. Then he handed me a piece of thread representing the umbilical cord tethering me to Mother Earth, and in a warbling falsetto told me to pour my thoughts into the thread.

The Younger Brother is damaging the world – he must understand and change his ways, or the world will die

Hair as thick and whorled as a flokati rug flooded over Izquierdo’s shoulders from beneath a woven white conical hat, worn in reverence to the snow-capped peaks of the sacred Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains. He was dressed in thick, snow-white trousers and a matching serape (shawl) of maguey fibre, tied by a belt at the waist. He reminded me of a Star Wars Jedi ­– a wise member of the noble protective order capable by mental training of tapping into the metaphysical ‘Force’ in search of peaceful and righteous solutions. The metaphor seemed appropriate.

“We want the Younger Brothers to know more about our culture. In that way we can stop him destroying the world,” said Izquierdo, referring to the modern world beyond the realm of the Arhuaco.

View image of The Arhuaco are descended from the ancient and advanced Tairona civilisation (Credit: Credit: Christopher P Baker)

You may also be interested in: • A flourishing culture believed extinct • The descendants of Alexander the Great? • The last guardians of a python spirit

The Arhuaco are (with the neighbouring Kogi and Wiwa, or Malayo) one of three virtually indistinguishable remnant groups of the ancient and advanced Tairona civilisation. Brutally subjugated by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th Century, the survivors retreated into the pyramidal Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta that explode upwards from the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Their homeland – the world’s highest coastal mountain range – comprises every distinct climatic ecosystem in Colombia, from coastal wetlands and equatorial rainforest to alpine tundra and glacial peaks. Declared by Unesco in 1979 as a Biosphere Reserve of Man and Humanity, the mountain range was named as the most irreplaceable ecosystem on Earth by Science journal in 2013.

The Arhuaco-Kogi-Wiwa community (pop. about 90,000, according to non-profit organisation Cultural Survival) is one of the world’s last uncorrupted indigenous civilisations to have survived culturally intact since the time of the Aztecs and Incas. They call themselves the ‘Elder Brothers’, are ruled by a mamo priesthood and maintain an ancient cosmovision (a conscious, cognitive interpretation of the world) based on a worship and custodianship of Mother Nature.

The mamos believe themselves uniquely possessed of a mystical wisdom. Much like how the Tibetan Dalai Lama was trained from toddler age to understand the meaning of life and help others achieve enlightenment, Izquierdo, like fellow mamos, spent his entire youth in intense spiritual training. Chosen by divination and sequestered for 18 years from birth to adulthood within dark confines near the summit of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, they’re inculturated in their societal values until they master a cosmic consciousness that they believe permits them to commune with the planet directly. “They learn to work as hidden-spirit midwives to all life, keeping it in balance,” explained Alan Ereira, a documentary filmmaker and founder of the Tairona Heritage Trust.

View image of After the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, the Tairona retreated to Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains (Credit: Credit: Christopher P Baker)

“The thoughts of our ancestors are embedded in every rock and other element in which humans have contact,” said Izquierdo, who holds to Arhuaco belief that we exist in a conscious universe where all material things have life and awareness. It’s unfathomable to them that ‘modern man’ does not believe the Earth consciously experiences the harm we inflict on it.

“They cannot understand why it is that we do what we do to the Earth,” said Wade Davis, an anthropologist and former National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence who spent many years studying and living among the Arhuaco.

Surrounded by almost impassable jungle (and in recent decades caught in the crossfire between the Colombian Army, Farc guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries), this ‘lost’ indigenous people lived for five centuries in almost complete isolation and obscurity, steadfastly guarding their territory against outside intrusion. Despite this isolation, their consciousness and cosmovision charges them with the responsibility of maintaining the harmony of nature and the universe on behalf of all mankind.

The thoughts of our ancestors are embedded in every rock and other element in which humans have contact

Three decades ago, the Arhuaco realised that the sacred Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta snow caps ­– for them, the literal heart of the world – were melting. The páramos (high-altitude savanna) were drying up. Amphibians and butterflies were disappearing. In 1987, concerned that climate change was impacting the cosmos, the Arhuaco came out of centuries of isolation to send us, their ‘Younger Brothers’, a message. They established Organización Indígena Gonawindua Tayrona to represent the community at a governmental level, and invited Ereira to film From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers' Warning.

But their aching exhortation of ecological disharmony and potential disaster fell on deaf ears. Two decades later, they called Ereira back to make a sequel: Aluna. “They had to do better, driven by fear of what they see will happen next,” Ereira said.

As the world accelerates towards calamity, the Arhuaco’s self-awareness as wards for the Earth’s ecological welfare has taken on a sense of urgency.

View image of The Arhuaco maintain an ancient cosmovision based on a worship and custodianship of Mother Nature (Credit: Credit: Christopher P Baker)

While in Bogotá researching a National Geographic guidebook to Colombia, I was introduced to Arhuaco political representative (and future Senate candidate) Danilo Villafañe Torres. Known as ‘El Canciller’ (the Chancellor) and ‘Gran Hermano’ (Big Brother), Villafañe inherited the mantle of tribal leader at age 23 from his father, Adalberto, who was killed in 1996 by drug traffickers for opposing illegal coca plantations on Arhuaco land. Villafañe invited me to visit the ‘heart of the world’ in the care of Izquierdo.

“Brother Christopher is here to share our message with the Younger Brothers,” Izquierdo said to the border guard. He dipped his hand into a beautifully hand-woven zijew (shoulder bag) and withdrew a handful of coca leaves. The guard did the same. They exchanged leaves as a symbol of sharing and goodwill.

We were attempting to enter the Resguardo Arhuaco. Occupying a vast tract of land on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the community’s autonomous territory was granted legal recognition by the Colombian government in 1983. (The Kogi occupy their own resguardo on the northern slopes; the Wiwa, to the south-east.)

The sullen guard scrutinised me with disdain.

Izquierdo – known by the honorific Mamo Menjavi – spoke again, more authoritatively. I heard the words ‘National Geographic’. At that, the custodian smiled, and the massive gates swung open, creaking on their rusting hinges.

View image of The Arhuaco are one of the last uncorrupted indigenous civilisations (Credit: Credit: Christopher P Baker)

The ravine-slashed, boulder-strewn drive up the mountain from the village of Pueblo Bello would have challenged a goat. Few vehicles ever make this journey into the heart of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. I felt honoured. Permission for bunachis (outsiders) to visit Nabusimake, the ‘capital’ of the Arhuaco resguardo, is rarely given. To be allowed entry to Nabusimake’s sacred walled inner sanctum is almost unheard of. ‘The entrance of non-indigenous is prohibited’ reads a sign above the thatch-topped entrance gate. For the lucky few who make it inside, photography is forbidden.

But the mamos held council the evening of my arrival and granted me permission to enter. The next day, I clambered up a narrow ladder beside the gate to photograph the hallowed hamlet, nestled in a small pine-scented plateau cusped by a mountain meniscus.

Huddled together against a rough mud-and-stone wall, three teenage girls giggled nervously, unsure whether to pose or flee. Younger children scattered. Women withdrew at my approach. The men – aloof, expressionless and haughtily proud – avoided eye contact, impervious to my presence as I walked a cobblestone thread between worlds. They eased past, mysterious as ghosts. Several wore cowboy hats and other sartorial accoutrements that set off their white Arhuaco attire.

Izquierdo smiled serenely. By contrast, he seemed pleased by my presence.

View image of Permission for outsiders to visit Nabusimake, the ‘capital’ of the Arhuaco resguardo, is rarely given (Credit: Credit: Christopher P Baker)

Indefatigable and inspired, the self-assured mamo is at the forefront of a third wave of Arhuaco initiatives that represent a huge leap beyond the unheeded warnings from their mountain refuge. Izquierdo champions opening up the resguardo for ethno-tourism and autonomous economic empowerment, such as the sale of Arhuaco crafts to the Younger Brothers.

Since 1995, various Arhuaco communities have organised themselves into cooperatives to produce and sell export-quality organic coffee. But as climate change pushes coffee production to cooler, higher mountain slopes, they’re now working to supplement coffee earnings with those from selling cacao. And as spiritual leader for Puerto Bello (the gateway village at the base of the mountains), Izquierdo has promoted the cultivation of sugarcane locally to produce panela (unrefined, organic raw brown sugar) for export.

"The idea is also to let the world know more about our culture," Izquierdo said. "We want to carry the message that it is not simply to cultivate, but to cultivate with conscience," he added, referring to organic farming, without harmful pesticides and other inputs, in harmony with Mother Nature.

View image of Concerned about climate change, the Arhuaco came out of centuries of isolation to send the world a message (Credit: Credit: Christopher P Baker)

By integrating into the cash economy, the Arhuaco are gaining cultural recognition while deriving income to buy back, parcel by parcel, ancestral territory owned by Younger Brothers, Izquierdo explained. The ultimate goal is for the Arhuaco to control more than 190,000 hectares (almost half a million acres), reconstituting ancestral territories like a rombacabeza (jigsaw puzzle), piece by piece.

I watched, fascinated, as Izquierdo moistened a wooden stick with saliva and dipped it into a poporo (a gourd filled with lime from powdered seashells), a carry-over from pre-Columbian civilisation. Izquierdo extracted some lime, wiped it on a wad of coca leaves to enhance the coca’s stimulating effect, and stuffed the wad in his mouth.

The thick limescale, the hard residue that builds by incremental degree with each wipe around the rim of the gourd, is a living library of every thought underlying every stroke of the stick. For the Arhuaco, an individual’s every thought or dream is literally recorded by the metaphorical action of poporeando (dipping into the poporo). “We write our thoughts with it. It’s a record of a man’s entire life,” Izquierdo said.

View image of Several members of the Arhuaco community champion opening the resguardo for ethno-tourism (Credit: Credit: Christopher P Baker)

Equally, every knot in their intricately crafted zijews and clothing represents a thought or memory. I watched men perched on low wooden stools weaving cloth on ancient looms, deep in concentration as their deft fingers wove together the material world with that of spirit.

The idea is also to let the world know more about our culture

Every aspect of Arhuaco life is permeated with the symbolism of weaving. “Their central metaphor is a loom,” Davis said. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the very spindle from which the all-knowing Mother’s thread unwinds, turning possibility into reality, dreams and memory. The power of embedded thought is the very weft to the warp of their cosmovision.

Suddenly the meaning of the maguey thread that Izquierdo had handed me became clear. My experience with the Arhuaco was indelibly printed in that metaphorical umbilical cord. A cord uniting the past and present, the spiritual and material worlds, and my understanding – my thoughts, dreams and memory – of the Arhuaco’s cosmovision to be shared with the world.

Our Unique World is a BBC Travel series that celebrates what makes us different and distinctive by exploring offbeat subcultures and obscure communities around the globe.

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[amandacarleton]

My Journey of Faith and Self-Discovery

I don’t exactly know where to begin, so I guess the beginning is probably the best place to start. When I was young (4 or 5 maybe?) my mom and I went to church, but stopped going a few years later. I started going to church again the summer before my freshman year in high school. My friend, Annie, invited me to go with her and so I did. I started going regularly and getting really involved. I went to church on Sundays and youth group on Wednesdays. I went to a youth bible study. I eventually joined the worship team and became a youth leader. I got more and more involved, “committed” as I would’ve put it. Youth group and church were non-negotiables. I bought into and abided by all of the rules. 

I’m a rule-follower at heart, so give me some rules and I’ll follow them. But if I broke one, dare say I watched an R-rated movie or made out with a boy (because hormones and he’s cute 🤷🏻‍♀️), I confessed it to my youth pastors because that’s what you did/had to do to be absolved of the guilt (that church culture creates, but I digress.) But those “sinful” incidents were few and far between; most of the time I didn’t even think about watching R-rated movies or swearing or drinking. (I did think about making out with boys because I was a teenage girl, duh.) I believed what I was told. I trusted my youth pastors, pastors, and leaders. I followed the rules. I toed the line.

This lasted 10 years. Through high school and into adulthood. Through singleness, dating Brandon, and getting married. A lot happens in 10 years. But one thing that didn’t really change (or change much) was my mindset on what being a Christian, a “good” Christian, entailed. Church was my life; it was all-consuming. I became more and more entrenched. And towards the end of those 10 years, I was exhausted, burnt out. I was working a full-time job. Brandon and I were newly married, and we were at the church building easily 4-5 days and/or nights of the week. We were essentially working two full-time jobs (one paid, one as volunteers). It was soul-sucking. 

I remember the one-day-at-a-time-ness of it. We’d wake up, work, do churchy things, and fall into bed at night thinking, “Welp, we made it. Now to sleep and then wake up and more or less do it all over again.” I don’t remember where I heard it or who said it, but this saying stuck with me: “Jesus died for the church; you don’t have to, too.” Yet, here I was (we were) running myself (ourselves) ragged and fully being taken advantage of. Boundaries didn’t exist; they were inconvenient. And I wasn’t self-aware or self-confident enough to know that I could say “no”. 

See, my value was so wrapped up in what I did and how much I was contributing. As a perfectionist, I understood that and bought in without question. Maybe I was naive. Maybe I was too-trusting. No one around me said, “Maybe you should take some time to rest; this seems unhealthy and unsustainable.” And I didn’t even think to ask for time to breathe so I could enjoy life again. 

Brandon and I had been married about a year and we were both burnt out. We were both doing so much: youth group leaders, running the college group, worship team members, Brandon and I worked in the cafe making coffee drinks before service, and I led the “tween ministry” (5-8 grades). We were in church (the building) a lot, but we were rarely in church (the service/a part of the community). Brandon floated the idea of leaving one day and I wasn’t super receptive. Change is hard for me, even leaving sucky situations that I don’t like (because what if what’s next is worse?!). But I think I knew deep down that it was the right thing to do. And “stepping back” or “taking a break” wasn’t an option; we knew we sucked at saying “no” and would just get pulled back in. 

So we decided to leave. It was a really difficult decision. Leaving felt like a really nasty divorce. I had spent my formative years there. So much of my identity was wrapped up in my churchy titles and roles; I really didn’t know who I was without it all. And it became more and more apparent that the people I looked up to and trusted believed my worth and value was in how useful I was to them and how much I served. 

I’m sure that was always right underneath the surface, I just couldn’t see it. My proximity to them and position, which I viewed as a great honor and privilege, were because I was willing to do and listen and follow and obey without question. Leaving knocked the rose-colored glasses off of my face. It took time, but I began to see things, so many things, in a different way. And it caused me to second-guess and ask a lot of questions. I’d heard it so many times as a teenager and as an adult. Hell, I’ve probably even said it. “You have to make your faith your own; there are no 2nd-generation Christians.” And I believed that I’d done that. But I hadn’t, not even close. I had literally taken what my youth pastors (mainly, as I interacted with them most) told me was right and just believed the same thing. My thought process was all of, “Well, they said it so it’s obviously true, so that’s my belief/stance on that.” 

When we left the church we’d been so heavily involved with and in which so much of our sense of self, our identity, was wrapped up in, the doubts and questions started to arise. I felt like the youth pastors at the church didn’t have our best interests at heart (although I don’t think they were consciously making decisions to hurt us), and I trusted and believed in them so what else wasn’t as it seemed? I, in a way, wiped the slate clean of my beliefs, as much as I could of course, and evaluated them almost as if for the first time. Why did I believe what I believed? What did I even believe; did I know? 

I realized I had become this person that I didn’t really like; I apologized to a couple friends for being a bad friend because I was so consumed with being a “good leader” (which I now don’t think is possible, to be a good leader and a bad friend, I mean). I started reading books and listening to podcasts by people who were blacklisted by many pastors I knew. And I had a lot of conversations with Brandon as he was going on a similar journey and was a bit ahead of me (and still is, I feel). My approach was and has always been “whatever is true is true” so if I “get rid of” a belief that’s true, I will find my way back to it after my searching and discovery. But this approach isn’t really championed or even encouraged. 

Luckily, I haven’t had too many messages from “concerned” pastors and Christian friends who are worried about me, but maybe this blog post will cause me to receive more. Many Christians get nervous and uncomfortable when someone believes something unorthodox; I’ll admit I did. I’ve been there on the other side feeling like I’m watching someone make bad decisions, changing their beliefs, but my sadness was coated in a thick layer condescension. I had it all figured out until I didn’t. I was told that I needed to make my faith my own, but when I actually did that I was met with a lot of “Well, not like that.” I was told that I needed to make my faith my own, but what that meant was to end up at the same conclusions as my pastors and youth pastors did and have the same beliefs as everyone else in church. And surprisingly, my rule-following, line-toeing self wasn’t having it. 

I had been on this journey and had uncovered so many new, beautiful, healthy, and healing things. Sure, there were still some things I believed that were the same as before, but I also believed some different things as well. And I’d discovered so much about myself in the process. I realized I was acting; I was who I thought I was supposed to be, playing a role, and I hadn’t even known I wasn’t actually that person. I’m way more introverted than I thought. I’m compassionate and I feel things deeply, so many things. I love to read. I enjoy intellectual, philosophical, and theological conversations. I’m really into the news. And I’m better at self-care now. I’m still a perfectionist. I’m still funny; I still love to laugh. I’m still me. But I’m a me-er me.

I definitely don’t write all of this to say that I’ve gone on this journey of deconstructing and reconstructing my faith and now I have everything all figured out. This isn’t about right and wrong beliefs or who’s in and who’s out; it’s not about keeping score at all. I also don’t write all of this to place blame. I have taken time to heal, forgive, grow, and discover. And I’ve come to realize that the dysfunction I’ve experienced is indicative of Western Church culture, especially in the U.S.; the more I share my story, the more I find that others have similar experiences. I write this to say I’m in a healthier (for me) place than I was 5 years ago. I’m an adult and have a pretty solid intuition. I’ve learned to listen to myself and trust myself. I’ve been through hard things, but they’ve helped shape me like the Colorado River shaped the Grand Canyon. It was a process that was difficult and took time, but the results are beautiful. 

Mary Oliver wrote in her poem “The Uses of Sorrow”:

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me  a box full of darkness. 

It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.

This has been the story of one of my boxes of darkness, which I’ve come to see as a gift. I’ve come to know disappointment, suffering, grief, and all shades of darkness are parts of life. We are all on our own journeys. We all have boxes of darkness, some we’ve been given and some we’ve found on our own. I think we should allow people to go on their own journey, to be in process as we all are, without judgment. 

We might not understand or agree, but we can still support and love one another along the way. And if big feelings come up about someone else’s journey, may we stop and ask ourselves why before chastising them, questioning their actions, or sending a condescending message. May we remember that the darkness we see in our own life and the “darkness” we perceive in someone else’s life are gifts. Without them we would not be the people we are.

[sanversinsane]

I just really felt like writing this because it's been something that's been on my heart and I just feel like I need to get it out.

[connectionqc]

My Journey of Faith and Self-Discovery

I don’t exactly know where to begin, so I guess the beginning is probably the best place to start. When I was young (4 or 5 maybe?) my mom and I went to church, but stopped going a few years later. I started going to church again the summer before my freshman year in high school. My friend, Annie, invited me to go with her and so I did. I started going regularly and getting really involved. I went to church on Sundays and youth group on Wednesdays. I went to a youth bible study. I eventually joined the worship team and became a youth leader. I got more and more involved, “committed” as I would’ve put it. Youth group and church were non-negotiables. I bought into and abided by all of the rules.

I’m a rule-follower at heart, so give me some rules and I’ll follow them. But if I broke one, dare say I watched an R-rated movie or made out with a boy (because hormones and he’s cute 🤷🏻‍♀️), I confessed it to my youth pastors because that’s what you did/had to do to be absolved of the guilt (that church culture creates, but I digress.) But those “sinful” incidents were few and far between; most of the time I didn’t even think about watching R-rated movies or swearing or drinking. (I did think about making out with boys because I was a teenage girl, duh.) I believed what I was told. I trusted my youth pastors, pastors, and leaders. I followed the rules. I toed the line.

This lasted 10 years. Through high school and into adulthood. Through singleness, dating Brandon, and getting married. A lot happens in 10 years. But one thing that didn’t really change (or change much) was my mindset on what being a Christian, a “good” Christian, entailed. Church was my life; it was all-consuming. I became more and more entrenched. And towards the end of those 10 years, I was exhausted, burnt out. I was working a full-time job. Brandon and I were newly married, and we were at the church building easily 4-5 days and/or nights of the week. We were essentially working two full-time jobs (one paid, one as volunteers). It was soul-sucking.

I remember the one-day-at-a-time-ness of it. We’d wake up, work, do churchy things, and fall into bed at night thinking, “Welp, we made it. Now to sleep and then wake up and more or less do it all over again.” I don’t remember where I heard it or who said it, but this saying stuck with me: “Jesus died for the church; you don’t have to, too.” Yet, here I was (we were) running myself (ourselves) ragged and fully being taken advantage of. Boundaries didn’t exist; they were inconvenient. And I wasn’t self-aware or self-confident enough to know that I could say “no”.

See, my value was so wrapped up in what I did and how much I was contributing. As a perfectionist, I understood that and bought in without question. Maybe I was naive. Maybe I was too-trusting. No one around me said, “Maybe you should take some time to rest; this seems unhealthy and unsustainable.” And I didn’t even think to ask for time to breathe so I could enjoy life again.

Brandon and I had been married about a year and we were both burnt out. We were both doing so much: youth group leaders, running the college group, worship team members, Brandon and I worked in the cafe making coffee drinks before service, and I led the “tween ministry” (5-8 grades). We were in church (the building) a lot, but we were rarely in church (the service/a part of the community). Brandon floated the idea of leaving one day and I wasn’t super receptive. Change is hard for me, even leaving sucky situations that I don’t like (because what if what’s next is worse?!). But I think I knew deep down that it was the right thing to do. And “stepping back” or “taking a break” wasn’t an option; we knew we sucked at saying “no” and would just get pulled back in.

So we decided to leave. It was a really difficult decision. Leaving felt like a really nasty divorce. I had spent my formative years there. So much of my identity was wrapped up in my churchy titles and roles; I really didn’t know who I was without it all. And it became more and more apparent that the people I looked up to and trusted believed my worth and value was in how useful I was to them and how much I served.

I’m sure that was always right underneath the surface, I just couldn’t see it. My proximity to them and position, which I viewed as a great honor and privilege, were because I was willing to do and listen and follow and obey without question. Leaving knocked the rose-colored glasses off of my face. It took time, but I began to see things, so many things, in a different way. And it caused me to second-guess and ask a lot of questions. I’d heard it so many times as a teenager and as an adult. Hell, I’ve probably even said it. “You have to make your faith your own; there are no 2nd-generation Christians.” And I believed that I’d done that. But I hadn’t, not even close. I had literally taken what my youth pastors (mainly, as I interacted with them most) told me was right and just believed the same thing. My thought process was all of, “Well, they said it so it’s obviously true, so that’s my belief/stance on that.”

When we left the church we’d been so heavily involved with and in which so much of our sense of self, our identity, was wrapped up in, the doubts and questions started to arise. I felt like the youth pastors at the church didn’t have our best interests at heart (although I don’t think they were consciously making decisions to hurt us), and I trusted and believed in them so what else wasn’t as it seemed? I, in a way, wiped the slate clean of my beliefs, as much as I could of course, and evaluated them almost as if for the first time. Why did I believe what I believed? What did I even believe; did I know?

I realized I had become this person that I didn’t really like; I apologized to a couple friends for being a bad friend because I was so consumed with being a “good leader” (which I now don’t think is possible, to be a good leader and a bad friend, I mean). I started reading books and listening to podcasts by people who were blacklisted by many pastors I knew. And I had a lot of conversations with Brandon as he was going on a similar journey and was a bit ahead of me (and still is, I feel). My approach was and has always been “whatever is true is true” so if I “get rid of” a belief that’s true, I will find my way back to it after my searching and discovery. But this approach isn’t really championed or even encouraged.

Luckily, I haven’t had too many messages from “concerned” pastors and Christian friends who are worried about me, but maybe this blog post will cause me to receive more. Many Christians get nervous and uncomfortable when someone believes something unorthodox; I’ll admit I did. I’ve been there on the other side feeling like I’m watching someone make bad decisions, changing their beliefs, but my sadness was coated in a thick layer condescension. I had it all figured out until I didn’t. I was told that I needed to make my faith my own, but when I actually did that I was met with a lot of “Well, not like that.” I was told that I needed to make my faith my own, but what that meant was to end up at the same conclusions as my pastors and youth pastors did and have the same beliefs as everyone else in church. And surprisingly, my rule-following, line-toeing self wasn’t having it.

I had been on this journey and had uncovered so many new, beautiful, healthy, and healing things. Sure, there were still some things I believed that were the same as before, but I also believed some different things as well. And I’d discovered so much about myself in the process. I realized I was acting; I was who I thought I was supposed to be, playing a role, and I hadn’t even known I wasn’t actually that person. I’m way more introverted than I thought. I’m compassionate and I feel things deeply, so many things. I love to read. I enjoy intellectual, philosophical, and theological conversations. I’m really into the news. And I’m better at self-care now. I’m still a perfectionist. I’m still funny; I still love to laugh. I’m still me. But I’m a me-er me.

I definitely don’t write all of this to say that I’ve gone on this journey of deconstructing and reconstructing my faith and now I have everything all figured out. This isn’t about right and wrong beliefs or who’s in and who’s out; it’s not about keeping score at all. I also don’t write all of this to place blame. I have taken time to heal, forgive, grow, and discover. And I’ve come to realize that the disfunction I’ve experienced is indicative of Western Church culture, especially in the U.S.; the more I share my story, the more I find that others have similar experiences. I write this to say I’m in a healthier (for me) place than I was 5 years ago. I’m an adult and have a pretty solid intuition. I’ve learned to listen to myself and trust myself. I’ve been through hard things, but they’ve helped shape me like the Colorado River shaped the Grand Canyon. It was a process that was difficult and took time, but the results are beautiful.

Mary Oliver wrote in her poem “The Uses of Sorrow”:

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.

This has been the story of one of my boxes of darkness, which I’ve come to see as a gift. I’ve come to know disappointment, suffering, grief, and all shades of darkness are parts of life. We are all on our own journeys. We all have boxes of darkness, some we’ve been given and some we’ve found on our own. I think we should allow people to go on their own journey, to be in process as we all are, without judgment.

We might not understand or agree, but we can still support and love one another along the way. And if big feelings come up about someone else’s journey, may we stop and ask ourselves why before chastising them, questioning their actions, or sending a condescending message. May we remember that the darkness we see in our own life and the “darkness” we perceive in someone else’s life are gifts. Without them we would not be the people we are.

- Amanda

[dorothydelgadillo]

How Creating a Mom-Friendly Company Culture Benefits Your Organization (& Future Generations)

When I was preparing to become a mom about three years ago, I was absolutely terrified of the effects motherhood would have on my career and the effects my career would have on my family.

As a first-time mom, I had no idea what to expect, but I knew my career was not something I was willing to give up.

As luck would have it, the world is changing rapidly, and I became a mom in the best climate possible. Today, most companies have a variety of benefits that support motherhood and nearly every organization touts “work-life balance” as an important part of the culture.

But still, as all mothers know, mom guilt (and mom-to-mom judging) is alive and well. And despite now being a mother of two, and having worked full-time through both of my children, I can tell you, I still worry about it.

Since the day my oldest was born, I have tried very hard to be a positive role model and spend as many hours as I can with him while balancing my very personal need for a career and something that is just mine.

Now that I have a brand new daughter, it has become even more important to me to provide her a strong, positive female role model.

Sound familiar to any other moms out there?

Well I have some fantastic news! We can all kiss mom guilt goodbye (or at least tell it to take a short break). Money Magazine recently published an article that made my heart soar, confirming many beliefs I have long held (and hoped were true) with cold, hard data.

It found that children - and daughters in particular - were positively influenced by working mothers. Specifically, daughters of working mothers are more likely to go on to have careers in adulthood, and to top it off, they earn about 23% more than daughters who didn’t have a working mom.

But that’s not all. Sons of working mothers are more likely to pitch in around the house as adults and share the load of household duties more evenly.

Ultimately, this is great news for moms of all walks of life. Whether you choose to stay home or work when your children are young, you can rest assured that either choice can still result in happy, well-adjusted kids.

Given the data, I challenge your organization to find ways to support working moms, not only for the moms themselves, but for future generations.

I promise there is something in it for your business too. Studies have found that working moms are more productive as a group than non-moms, and these women's overall job satisfaction is strongly correlated with the family-friendliness of their employer.

How IMPACT Supports Working Moms

I am so incredibly lucky to work for an organization that not only values working mothers, but actively makes every effort to create a culture that supports them. From the start of motherhood to the throes of toddlerhood, to the oh-so-rough teenage years, IMPACT has done a great job of creating the ideal environment for a working mom.

Maternity Leave

The support starts from day one here on the journey to motherhood. IMPACT has a very generous parental leave policy allowing both new mothers and fathers 8 full weeks of paid leave to bring their new little one into the world.

Ensuring that a new little addition to the family is taken care of requires a lot of time, energy and focus. It benefits mom, dad and even IMPACT to provide this 8 week separation of work and family.

It allows the new family to bond and focus on getting all of the details worked out so that when it’s time to come back to work, we can do so with full focus and ready to perform. In fact, studies have shown that a fully paid leave policy like this results in greater productivity overall.

Remote Work

At IMPACT, over half of our team (myself included) works remotely.

The ability to work from home allows me quite a few perks as a mom that would otherwise be hard to come by. As a military wife, the worry about an impending move at any time makes a lasting career at a single organization a bit of a challenge. Remote work solves for that. I can take my career anywhere I go!

As a mom, remote work is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given. Do you know how often toddlers get sick? Hint: A LOT.

Working remotely allows me to get work done even on days when I have to tend to a sick little one. This is great for me, great for IMPACT, and great for my family. It means I don’t lose a full day of work just because I can’t physically be in the office, and it allows me to guiltlessly take care of my little ones when they need me the most.

Remote work also allows me, to a degree, to control my schedule and work around the needs of my kids. Today it isn’t a big deal, but in a few years when they have soccer practice and school events, it will be a lifesaver. It is almost like I don’t have to choose between being a working mother or stay at home mom -- I get the best of both worlds!

Again, IMPACT benefits from this as well. I don’t have to take time off to do these things (or choose to forgo doing them altogether). Instead, I can build my schedule around them and work hours that aren’t necessarily part of a typical workday if I need to.

INC recently released an article which finds that benefits like this are exactly what makes the average remote workers more productive than office workers.

Kid-Friendly Culture

Maternity leave policies and remote work have become much more commonplace in recent years. What really sets IMPACT apart is how they have created a kid-friendly culture the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

They have built an environment where children are not just tolerated - they are welcome. I can try to tell you all about it, but it makes more sense for me to show you. Let me take you on a journey through a recent trip I took to the office.

When I was asked to fly to our headquarters in Connecticut this February, I was quite hesitant. My daughter was only 4 months old (and I have a mom-rule that I don’t do multi-day separations before 6 months), and still struggling to take a bottle.

So, I asked to bring her with me. And nobody batted an eyelash. Leadership was incredibly supportive, and even excited, for me to bring her into the office.

She was invited with open arms to take part in internal meetings.

She joined in deep lunch conversations with my coworkers.

She prepared to take over mom’s job.

She made a surprise guest appearance on Website Throwdown to tear apart websites with us.

And, she even rubbed elbows with the CEO.

I can’t even begin to describe how much it means to me that I didn’t have choose between breaking my “mom rule” and leaving her at 4 months, and making the trip to the office.

IMPACT has done an incredible job making a safe space for moms to have it all.

Don’t Just Take My Word For It

My situation is far from unique. See what other IMPACT moms have to say about their experiences:

“Working from home has been a godsend the last two years. My son’s transition from elementary to middle school hasn’t always been easy for him and I love that I get to drop him off at the bus stop in the morning and I’m there in the afternoon when he gets home.”

Kathleen Booth

"IMPACT's culture has supported me as a mom who worked in corporate for 10+ years and missed out on my kids, to now being able to be home in time to make dinner and interact as a family."

Shandia Drummond-Butt

“It’s wonderful to be able to take the day with my daughter (because daycare is closed for a bank holiday) knowing that this company trusts I’m still going to deliver results for clients and support my team. This isn’t because I’m doing ‘double duty’ and splitting my attention. It’s because I’m able to be Mom when it is important and then I’m able to work within a flexible schedule when I need to work. That’s a really big deal and it’s completely empowering to be able to do both on my own terms. I’ve never had to choose my family over my job or my job over my family.”

Jessie-Lee Nichols

“The flexibility of working from home is amazing. I was able to perform the Paincakes site launch while giving my girls a bath. While you don't always want to be working while you're home, having the ability to do it when something urgent or extra is needed is nice. You don't have to stay in an office by yourself and completely miss out on the bedtime routine.”

Melanie Moore

“As the mom of a teenager, I have the flexibility to be able to attend his band and sports events that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to see. And when I’m jumping out early to catch a track meet, for example, I’m not scared to let my team or my manager know. And throughout the afternoon, they’ll send me messages that they’re rooting for him! It lets me stay present for him and then I can get back to work when the excitement is over.”

Jen Barrell

"The culture here is family first. If my little one is home sick and I have to work with him sitting on my lap or making a cameo in Zoom meetings, that's what happens. As long as I get my work done, I have complete flexibility as to how and when I do it. Recently, he was home early from daycare and all he wanted to do was go outside and play on his playground because the snow had melted and it was about 45 degrees outside, but I was on a call with my COO, Chris Duprey. Instead of Chris keeping me on the call, he insisted we end our meeting short so he could go outside and play. It sounds simple, but having that type of flexibility and acceptance from my employer that sometimes I'm working with a little one by my side is better than any other benefit I could possibly be offered. It means that since the very first day I started at IMPACT, I've never, ever, had to choose between being a good mom and being a good employee. "

Melanie Collins

“The flexibility of our work schedule as well as the remote work environment has relieved a lot of stress. With school-age children, I don't worry about what to do with the kids on snow days or if one stays home with a fever. I can still work and, when need be, rearrange my schedule to take my kids to a doctors appointment or drive another to sports practice.”

Ashleigh Respicio

"I had a really rough postpartum. Physiologically, 13 months postpartum, my body is still recovering. So you can imagine that when going back to work, I had to evaluate my decision criteria based on flexibility being baked into a company’s culture code. IMPACT has not only lived up to my expectations, but has delivered 10 fold. Being a new mom and adjusting back to my normal work cadence, is H A R D. When my baby had chronic ear infections from August until January, my sleep was non existent. I've cried more in the last year than in my 33 years on earth. If I didn't have the support of my IMPACT family, my managers, my co-workers, there's no doubt in my mind that I would have left any other organization. The fact that no one questions when you have a sick child on a Zoom call exemplifies how IMPACT's culture has made my working mom life a heck of a lot more forgiving."

Genna Lepore

“IMPACT's flexibility is key for setting me up for success as a working mom. There are no questions asked (and, in fact, everyone is very supportive), if I have to sign off early to pick up my kids from daycare, or if I have to pop out mid-day for an appointment with the pediatrician. Family life shouldn't have to take a backseat to work life and IMPACT gets it.”

Lauren Miller

“Being at home in the morning and in the afternoon is so incredibly important to me. Packing lunches, making breakfast, helping the kids get ready before school, and being here when they get off the bus is wonderful. Being able to be present in those moments is a rarity as a working parent. At IMPACT, family is first. There is always someone here who understands and knows that when parents close their computers for the day, their 2nd job is just starting. Having kids means nothing ever goes as planned. Sometimes you have to cancel a trip because a kid is sick, leave early to pick up a kid from the nurses office, answer a call from a teacher randomly during an internal meeting, or end your day early because one of your kids just had really rough day at school and they need you. When you have kids, things can change in an instant. Working at a company who understands this is far more important than any salary.”

Angela Myrtetus

Final Thoughts

If your organization is looking for some thoughts on how to improve culture and find ways to recruit the best of the best, I’d highly recommend considering how you can support moms. We will be your hardest workers, your most passionate employees, and your most devoted fans if you can find a way to help us be better moms.

At a time when women are more likely to become moms, supporting them is not just good for them - it is key to your organization’s growth and success.

Thank you, IMPACT, for allowing me to be a mom first and still have a rewarding and thriving career.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/how-creating-a-mom-friendly-company-culture-benefits-your-organization-future-generations

[pitz182]

Is AA Too Religious for Generation Z?

Are today’s mutual-aid recovery groups ready to satisfy Generation-next?“More than any other generation before them, Gen Z does not assert a religious identity. They might be drawn to things spiritual, but with a vastly different starting point from previous generations, many of whom received a basic education on the Bible and Christianity. And it shows: The percentage of Gen Z that identifies as atheist is double that of the U.S. adult population.”Released early this year, Barna Group’s Generation-Z Report (Americans born between 1999 and 2015) surveyed over 2,000 13 to 18-year-olds. The oldest of this generation turn 20 in 2019.According to AA’s most recent triennial membership survey, 1% of AA is under 21—that’s about 20,000 sober teenagers in AA rooms right now. What’s my personal affinity with this demographic? It’s two-fold: I have two millennial children and one 18-year-old stepson; secondly, while I am a grey-haired Baby Boomer, I was a teen at my first 12-step meeting. My 20th birthday was 1980, three months shy of my fourth anniversary clean and sober.I was a second-generation AA member and—like Barna’s youth focus group—my worldview seemed incompatible with the old fogies of 12-step rooms. My mother mused about finding god’s will for her from meditation or her daily horoscope. She was such a Virgo, you know. Horoscopes, higher powers, legends of Sasquatch, these were all fictional symbols as far as I was concerned. Reasonable people didn’t take such constructs literally, did they?Bob K, like me, is a second-generation AA. He’s currently between historical book projects; Key Players in AA History will soon have a prequel. Bob’s follow-up research will produce a book about pre-AA addiction and treatment. At age 40, Bob made it into AA as a result of his dad 12-stepping him. He also was uncomfortable with the emphasis on "God." “When I was a month sober, it was ‘God-this, God saved me’ and I was going to put my resignation in. I didn’t think I could stand it in AA any longer. I went to the internet of the day—which back then was the library—and I looked for non-religious alternatives to AA. They had them in California but nothing in Ontario Canada. So it was AA or nothing. If I tried to brave it alone, I’d be drunk; I knew it.”Today, Bob enjoys the likeminded company at his Secular AA home group, Whitby Freethinkers, which meets in the local suburban library just East of Toronto. If I were confronting addiction/recovery as a teen today, I wonder if I would go to AA or NA? If AA was once “the last house on the block,” today it’s one house in a subdivision of mutual-aid choices. Today, newcomers have access to Refuge Recovery, SMART Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), or Medically Assisted Treatment, none of which existed in the 1970s.On Practically Sane, therapist Jeffrey Munn states: “I like to take a practical approach … I’m not a fan of the ‘fluff’ and flowery language that is often associated with the world of psychology and self-help.” Jeffrey came into the rooms at 20, stayed sober for 2 ½ years, relapsed, came back and is now 13 years clean and sober.“I was mandated to three 12-step meetings per week to stay in the program I was in. Since I was young I have been agnostic. I wanted to find a higher power that was common sense-based, but in the rooms I felt pulled towards a more dogmatic spiritual idea of higher power. Back then, I needed to come up with my own conception of what was happening on a psychological level." Recently, Jeffrey wrote and published Staying Sober Without God: the Practical 12 Steps to Long Term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addiction.“I looked at SMART Recovery,” Jeffrey tells The Fix. “I looked at Moderation Management, too—that one struck me as being an organized resentment against AA—I wasn’t feeling it. When it comes down to social support and a practical plan of action, it’s hard to beat 12-step programs. What I try to teach is: if you don’t buy into any kind of a supernatural higher power, navigate the 12-step world, filtering the god-stuff out, working the program in your own way; there is lots that really works.”Barna reports, “Nearly half of teens, on par with Millennials, say, ‘I need factual evidence to support my beliefs.’” Jeffrey hopes Staying Sober Without God—which joins a growing secular 12-step recovery offering—offers the rational narrative today’s youth crave. Barna calls today’s youth “the first truly post-Christian generation [in America].”Certified Master Addiction Counselor David B. Bohl of Milwaukee understands the value of other-oriented care. David tells The Fix: “As head of a 20-bed coed dual-diagnosis treatment center, emerging adults, 18 to 25 years old, came into our care. I wouldn’t say that they universally shrugged off the 12-step approach but almost universally, in reaction to our volunteers, alumni, and traditional AA community, younger clients didn’t want what the volunteers and alumni had. And I wouldn’t say it was the religiosity always. Sometimes it was an age-thing or life approach. So, our recovery management function became that much more important in terms of building individualized treatment that suits everyone.“In the USA, 75% of all residential treatment centers identify as 12-step facilitators,” David tells us. “In the simplest form, our job is to introduce people to the language and the concept of the 12 steps and then to introduce the clients to support groups or people in support groups when they are discharged from acute care.Where trauma is involved—religious trauma in particular—traditional AA language and rituals trigger that shame they feel from negative formal religion experiences.”Let’s put this overbearing religion caution to a real-life test: Suwaida F was the second oldest of 11 children to Somalian refugee parents who fled to Canada in the 1980s.“In Kindergarten I didn’t have to wear a hijab; my parents weren’t super religious. I went to an Islamic school in grade one. It was normal for teachers to have belts with them, they would hit you; child abuse was normalized. They didn’t really teach us that much math, science, history. The Islamic teachers weren’t that educated. My parents took me out and put me in public school. Then, some of my mom’s Somalian-Canadian friends started moving their kids to Egypt. My friends would stay in Egypt two years, finish the Qur’an and the girls came back wearing burqas and head-scarves. Some Muslim friends would come to school in their hijab, take them off and put them back on when they went home. We called them The Transformers.My parents really wanted us to learn the Qur’an; I don’t speak Arabic, so it was difficult. And I never believed it. I asked my mom and dad, ‘How do you know that this stuff is real?’ They got frustrated and mad and said, ‘Don’t ever ask that question again.’ I knew it wasn’t real. Mom got more and more religious. Pictures of her at age 19 -- she wore no head-scarf when she was my age. My mom expected me to be religious and I rebelled. I had to leave home.”Suwaida misses her sisters. She feels unwelcome in the family home unless she is dressed in the Islamic custom and that wouldn’t be true to herself. Away from home, Suwaida found the welcoming community she craved in the booze and cocaine culture.“It wasn’t a matter of having no money; I had no sense of hope. People at work didn’t know I was hopped from shelter to shelter at night. One winter I was told, ‘Suwaida, you’ve been restricted from every youth shelter in the city of Toronto.’” As addiction progressed, Suwaida recalls an ever-descending patterns of compromises, bad relationships and regrets.“Today, it’s like I still never unpack my suitcase; I’m always ready to go.” During a stay at St. Joe’s detox, Suwaida went to her first NA meeting.“At 7 PM, a woman spoke. I made it clear that I thought it was stupid; I wouldn’t share. At the end, everyone was holding hands to pray and I said, ‘I’m not holding any of your hands.’ I didn’t go back. When I was discharged, I went drinking at the bar with my suitcase, not knowing where I was going to stay that night.My second meeting I consider my first, because I chose it. I thought I should go to AA. I googled atheist or freethinker AA to avoid a repeat of my NA experience. I found Beyond Belief Agnostics and Freethinkers Group on the University of Toronto campus. I went there last February. For a while, I had wine in my travel-mug, and I didn’t say anything. In August I felt like the woman beside me knew I was drinking, and I ask myself, ‘What am I doing?’ So, my next meeting, I went sober. I’ve been clean and sober ever since.”Despite the child-violence of Islamic school and rejection from her family, Suwaida isn’t anti-theist. “I do believe in God or in something. I feel like I’m always looking for signs. I don’t believe in a god in the sky but to say there’s nothing beyond all this doesn’t make any sense to me. Sometimes the freakiest things happen. Maybe it’s because I’m a storyteller, I try to make a story out of everything; you think of someone, then they phone you, is that random?I feel a part-of in secular or mainstream AA meetings. My self-talk still sounds like, ‘Don’t share Suwaida, you have nothing to add.’ Maybe it comes from not being able to express myself when I was growing up. I have no sense of self. I guess I have something special to offer but I don’t know how to articulate it. It’s hard; I have limited self-confidence.”“Give them their voice; listen to them,” is Kevin Schaefer’s approach. He co-hosts the podcast Don’t Die Wisconsin. He’s also a recovery coach.“I’ve been in Recovery 29+ years. I’m a substance abuse counselor and I got into addiction treatment through sober living. When I started working in a Suboxone clinic, I came to realize that AA can’t solve everything. I always come from a harm reduction standpoint: meth, cocaine, benzos; I ask, ‘Can you just smoke pot?’ and we start building the trust there.Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) is geared towards this generation. Most kids coming through my door know a lot about MAT, more so than people in AA with the biases and stigma that they bring. Kids sometimes know more than the front-line social workers. Their friends are on MAT, that’s how they gather their information (not to say their information is all correct). But a lot of therapists don’t understand medication. Medication can be a ticket to survival out on the streets.”The Fix asked Kevin his opinion on the best suited mutual-aid group for this generation.“Most of the generation you’re talking about walks in with anxiety and defiantly won’t do groups.” We talked about the role of online video/voice or text meetings for a tech-native generation. “Yes—where appropriate. Women especially, because from what I’ve seen, most females have suffered from trauma. I have heard women who prefer online recovery; that make sense to me. I’ve been to InTheRooms.com; as professionals we have a duty to know what’s out there. And there are some crazies online.If someone has an Eastern philosophy bent, I’ll send them to Refuge Recovery; I’ve been there. If I can, I’ll set them up with somebody that I know can help them. And let’s not forget that some youth, if Christianity is your thing, Celebrate Recovery is amazing — talk about a community that wraps themselves around the substance user. There are movie nights, food, all kinds of extracurricular activities. The SMART Recovery Movement? Excellent. SMART momentum is building in Milwaukee. They are goal-oriented and the person gets supported whether they’re on Suboxone or, in one case I know, micro-dosing with LSD for depression; they’ll be supported either way. My goal with youth is: ‘Try to get to one meeting this month; start slow.’ Don’t set the bar too high and if they enjoy it, then great.The 12-step meeting I go to, it’s a men’s meeting. There are people there on medication and they don’t get blow-back. I wish more of AA was like this. When I came in, almost 30 years ago now, I saw all the God-stuff on the walls and I thought, ‘Nah, this isn’t going to work’ but thank G… (laughs), thank the Group of Drunks who said, ‘You don’t have to believe in that.’ The range in my meeting is broad—Eastern philosophy, Native American practices, Yoga, I was invited to Transcendental Meditation meetings at members’ houses. I was fortunate to fall into this group. You know, the first book my sponsor gave me was The Tao of Physics—not The Big Book—it was this 70’s book with Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, correlated to physics and contemporary science.”So, as to the question that kicked this off, some mutual aid meetings are ready to meet the taste of a new generation; results may vary. Who’s heard: “If you haven’t met anyone you don’t like in AA, you haven’t gone to enough meetings”?The reverse is true, also. If the peer-to-peer meetings I’ve sampled seem too narrow or dogmatic, maybe my search for just the right fit isn’t over. And if I don’t want a face-to-face meeting, there’s always Kevin’s podcast, virtual communities like The Fix, or I can order one of Bob or David or Jeffrey’s books if that’s more to my taste.

[alexdmorgan30]

Is AA Too Religious for Generation Z?

Are today’s mutual-aid recovery groups ready to satisfy Generation-next?“More than any other generation before them, Gen Z does not assert a religious identity. They might be drawn to things spiritual, but with a vastly different starting point from previous generations, many of whom received a basic education on the Bible and Christianity. And it shows: The percentage of Gen Z that identifies as atheist is double that of the U.S. adult population.”Released early this year, Barna Group’s Generation-Z Report (Americans born between 1999 and 2015) surveyed over 2,000 13 to 18-year-olds. The oldest of this generation turn 20 in 2019.According to AA’s most recent triennial membership survey, 1% of AA is under 21—that’s about 20,000 sober teenagers in AA rooms right now. What’s my personal affinity with this demographic? It’s two-fold: I have two millennial children and one 18-year-old stepson; secondly, while I am a grey-haired Baby Boomer, I was a teen at my first 12-step meeting. My 20th birthday was 1980, three months shy of my fourth anniversary clean and sober.I was a second-generation AA member and—like Barna’s youth focus group—my worldview seemed incompatible with the old fogies of 12-step rooms. My mother mused about finding god’s will for her from meditation or her daily horoscope. She was such a Virgo, you know. Horoscopes, higher powers, legends of Sasquatch, these were all fictional symbols as far as I was concerned. Reasonable people didn’t take such constructs literally, did they?Bob K, like me, is a second-generation AA. He’s currently between historical book projects; Key Players in AA History will soon have a prequel. Bob’s follow-up research will produce a book about pre-AA addiction and treatment. At age 40, Bob made it into AA as a result of his dad 12-stepping him. He also was uncomfortable with the emphasis on "God." “When I was a month sober, it was ‘God-this, God saved me’ and I was going to put my resignation in. I didn’t think I could stand it in AA any longer. I went to the internet of the day—which back then was the library—and I looked for non-religious alternatives to AA. They had them in California but nothing in Ontario Canada. So it was AA or nothing. If I tried to brave it alone, I’d be drunk; I knew it.”Today, Bob enjoys the likeminded company at his Secular AA home group, Whitby Freethinkers, which meets in the local suburban library just East of Toronto. If I were confronting addiction/recovery as a teen today, I wonder if I would go to AA or NA? If AA was once “the last house on the block,” today it’s one house in a subdivision of mutual-aid choices. Today, newcomers have access to Refuge Recovery, SMART Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), or Medically Assisted Treatment, none of which existed in the 1970s.On Practically Sane, therapist Jeffrey Munn states: “I like to take a practical approach … I’m not a fan of the ‘fluff’ and flowery language that is often associated with the world of psychology and self-help.” Jeffrey came into the rooms at 20, stayed sober for 2 ½ years, relapsed, came back and is now 13 years clean and sober.“I was mandated to three 12-step meetings per week to stay in the program I was in. Since I was young I have been agnostic. I wanted to find a higher power that was common sense-based, but in the rooms I felt pulled towards a more dogmatic spiritual idea of higher power. Back then, I needed to come up with my own conception of what was happening on a psychological level." Recently, Jeffrey wrote and published Staying Sober Without God: the Practical 12 Steps to Long Term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addiction.“I looked at SMART Recovery,” Jeffrey tells The Fix. “I looked at Moderation Management, too—that one struck me as being an organized resentment against AA—I wasn’t feeling it. When it comes down to social support and a practical plan of action, it’s hard to beat 12-step programs. What I try to teach is: if you don’t buy into any kind of a supernatural higher power, navigate the 12-step world, filtering the god-stuff out, working the program in your own way; there is lots that really works.”Barna reports, “Nearly half of teens, on par with Millennials, say, ‘I need factual evidence to support my beliefs.’” Jeffrey hopes Staying Sober Without God—which joins a growing secular 12-step recovery offering—offers the rational narrative today’s youth crave. Barna calls today’s youth “the first truly post-Christian generation [in America].”Certified Master Addiction Counselor David B. Bohl of Milwaukee understands the value of other-oriented care. David tells The Fix: “As head of a 20-bed coed dual-diagnosis treatment center, emerging adults, 18 to 25 years old, came into our care. I wouldn’t say that they universally shrugged off the 12-step approach but almost universally, in reaction to our volunteers, alumni, and traditional AA community, younger clients didn’t want what the volunteers and alumni had. And I wouldn’t say it was the religiosity always. Sometimes it was an age-thing or life approach. So, our recovery management function became that much more important in terms of building individualized treatment that suits everyone.“In the USA, 75% of all residential treatment centers identify as 12-step facilitators,” David tells us. “In the simplest form, our job is to introduce people to the language and the concept of the 12 steps and then to introduce the clients to support groups or people in support groups when they are discharged from acute care.Where trauma is involved—religious trauma in particular—traditional AA language and rituals trigger that shame they feel from negative formal religion experiences.”Let’s put this overbearing religion caution to a real-life test: Suwaida F was the second oldest of 11 children to Somalian refugee parents who fled to Canada in the 1980s.“In Kindergarten I didn’t have to wear a hijab; my parents weren’t super religious. I went to an Islamic school in grade one. It was normal for teachers to have belts with them, they would hit you; child abuse was normalized. They didn’t really teach us that much math, science, history. The Islamic teachers weren’t that educated. My parents took me out and put me in public school. Then, some of my mom’s Somalian-Canadian friends started moving their kids to Egypt. My friends would stay in Egypt two years, finish the Qur’an and the girls came back wearing burqas and head-scarves. Some Muslim friends would come to school in their hijab, take them off and put them back on when they went home. We called them The Transformers.My parents really wanted us to learn the Qur’an; I don’t speak Arabic, so it was difficult. And I never believed it. I asked my mom and dad, ‘How do you know that this stuff is real?’ They got frustrated and mad and said, ‘Don’t ever ask that question again.’ I knew it wasn’t real. Mom got more and more religious. Pictures of her at age 19 -- she wore no head-scarf when she was my age. My mom expected me to be religious and I rebelled. I had to leave home.”Suwaida misses her sisters. She feels unwelcome in the family home unless she is dressed in the Islamic custom and that wouldn’t be true to herself. Away from home, Suwaida found the welcoming community she craved in the booze and cocaine culture.“It wasn’t a matter of having no money; I had no sense of hope. People at work didn’t know I was hopped from shelter to shelter at night. One winter I was told, ‘Suwaida, you’ve been restricted from every youth shelter in the city of Toronto.’” As addiction progressed, Suwaida recalls an ever-descending patterns of compromises, bad relationships and regrets.“Today, it’s like I still never unpack my suitcase; I’m always ready to go.” During a stay at St. Joe’s detox, Suwaida went to her first NA meeting.“At 7 PM, a woman spoke. I made it clear that I thought it was stupid; I wouldn’t share. At the end, everyone was holding hands to pray and I said, ‘I’m not holding any of your hands.’ I didn’t go back. When I was discharged, I went drinking at the bar with my suitcase, not knowing where I was going to stay that night.My second meeting I consider my first, because I chose it. I thought I should go to AA. I googled atheist or freethinker AA to avoid a repeat of my NA experience. I found Beyond Belief Agnostics and Freethinkers Group on the University of Toronto campus. I went there last February. For a while, I had wine in my travel-mug, and I didn’t say anything. In August I felt like the woman beside me knew I was drinking, and I ask myself, ‘What am I doing?’ So, my next meeting, I went sober. I’ve been clean and sober ever since.”Despite the child-violence of Islamic school and rejection from her family, Suwaida isn’t anti-theist. “I do believe in God or in something. I feel like I’m always looking for signs. I don’t believe in a god in the sky but to say there’s nothing beyond all this doesn’t make any sense to me. Sometimes the freakiest things happen. Maybe it’s because I’m a storyteller, I try to make a story out of everything; you think of someone, then they phone you, is that random?I feel a part-of in secular or mainstream AA meetings. My self-talk still sounds like, ‘Don’t share Suwaida, you have nothing to add.’ Maybe it comes from not being able to express myself when I was growing up. I have no sense of self. I guess I have something special to offer but I don’t know how to articulate it. It’s hard; I have limited self-confidence.”“Give them their voice; listen to them,” is Kevin Schaefer’s approach. He co-hosts the podcast Don’t Die Wisconsin. He’s also a recovery coach.“I’ve been in Recovery 29+ years. I’m a substance abuse counselor and I got into addiction treatment through sober living. When I started working in a Suboxone clinic, I came to realize that AA can’t solve everything. I always come from a harm reduction standpoint: meth, cocaine, benzos; I ask, ‘Can you just smoke pot?’ and we start building the trust there.Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) is geared towards this generation. Most kids coming through my door know a lot about MAT, more so than people in AA with the biases and stigma that they bring. Kids sometimes know more than the front-line social workers. Their friends are on MAT, that’s how they gather their information (not to say their information is all correct). But a lot of therapists don’t understand medication. Medication can be a ticket to survival out on the streets.”The Fix asked Kevin his opinion on the best suited mutual-aid group for this generation.“Most of the generation you’re talking about walks in with anxiety and defiantly won’t do groups.” We talked about the role of online video/voice or text meetings for a tech-native generation. “Yes—where appropriate. Women especially, because from what I’ve seen, most females have suffered from trauma. I have heard women who prefer online recovery; that make sense to me. I’ve been to InTheRooms.com; as professionals we have a duty to know what’s out there. And there are some crazies online.If someone has an Eastern philosophy bent, I’ll send them to Refuge Recovery; I’ve been there. If I can, I’ll set them up with somebody that I know can help them. And let’s not forget that some youth, if Christianity is your thing, Celebrate Recovery is amazing — talk about a community that wraps themselves around the substance user. There are movie nights, food, all kinds of extracurricular activities. The SMART Recovery Movement? Excellent. SMART momentum is building in Milwaukee. They are goal-oriented and the person gets supported whether they’re on Suboxone or, in one case I know, micro-dosing with LSD for depression; they’ll be supported either way. My goal with youth is: ‘Try to get to one meeting this month; start slow.’ Don’t set the bar too high and if they enjoy it, then great.The 12-step meeting I go to, it’s a men’s meeting. There are people there on medication and they don’t get blow-back. I wish more of AA was like this. When I came in, almost 30 years ago now, I saw all the God-stuff on the walls and I thought, ‘Nah, this isn’t going to work’ but thank G… (laughs), thank the Group of Drunks who said, ‘You don’t have to believe in that.’ The range in my meeting is broad—Eastern philosophy, Native American practices, Yoga, I was invited to Transcendental Meditation meetings at members’ houses. I was fortunate to fall into this group. You know, the first book my sponsor gave me was The Tao of Physics—not The Big Book—it was this 70’s book with Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, correlated to physics and contemporary science.”So, as to the question that kicked this off, some mutual aid meetings are ready to meet the taste of a new generation; results may vary. Who’s heard: “If you haven’t met anyone you don’t like in AA, you haven’t gone to enough meetings”?The reverse is true, also. If the peer-to-peer meetings I’ve sampled seem too narrow or dogmatic, maybe my search for just the right fit isn’t over. And if I don’t want a face-to-face meeting, there’s always Kevin’s podcast, virtual communities like The Fix, or I can order one of Bob or David or Jeffrey’s books if that’s more to my taste.

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