The Not Happy Thread

Lol. I know this is a common complaint from my more musically inclined friends whose parents refused to allow them to take such lessons, and from fellow parents who struggle with the idea alike.

We already got him a miniature drum kit (there's nothing miniature about it when it comes to sheer volume) when he was three, so I'm aware of the annoyance. However, the reward outweighs the irritation. I've always thought it a little selfish to stifle a kid's talent simply because the parent finds it somewhat irritating. Was never really quite sure how self proclaimed "good parents" could reconcile that decision.

 

I don't consume much dairy. Cheese occasionally, but I detest milk unless it's with cereal, which is once in a blue moon. I'm just going to start taking birth control again, despite the risk, considering my mom's track record with breast cancer. At this point, it's a quality of life thing. Lol. It's not just the skin issues, there's a whole host of hormonal issues that I'm dealing with, and I just can't take it anymore!

 

Yikes. (Escape.)

 

Repeat after me:

justifiable
homicide.

There. All better

All the best with the escape. Doubly sucky with the support off in Irish land.

 

Last night while in bed I had a terrible bout of vertigo - made me feel quite nauseous. I stumbled to the bathroom for a pee, then stumbled back again.

Even now I'm still getting spells of it, making writing difficult.

I think it's probably caused by an immanent ear infection. Either that or a brain tumour.

 

There were more riots in Ferguson last night. It's the year anniversary of Mike Brown's death, so his family held a vigil in the street where he died, they walked down the road in a peaceful protest, then ended at a church.

But of course, someone had to ruin their demonstration and throw a bottle at police.. which led to gunshots and more violence. I feel so so so bad for those people. Yes, they're acting like idiots and really shouldn't be doing that. But none of us know what they go through in Ferguson. Not one of us. The justice department released a report stating the police department was prone to racial bias, so we know it's possible.. I just can't imagine what life is like for them there. I'll never call them thugs (which seems to be the new N words) and I'll never call them subhuman. But I will call them idiots.

I'm just praying these riots don't last as long as last year. I'm going to be in the area in a month, and I'd really like to enjoy my stay and not worry about protests ruining everything.

 

A continuation:

I am disgusted by what I've seen from my friends on Facebook today. Absolutely disgusted. And broken. To see so many awful comments.. I mean awful comments.. It scares me. It literally makes me fear for the country's future.

I may have to take another break from social media. When Mike Brown first passed away, I felt the same way then, and it made me angry all the time. So I had to stay off the internet for a week to get myself back together.. May have to do that again.

 

Empathy. Buckets of empathy.

 

I used to have some of that, but then getting screwed over about a thousand times has cured me of that disease.

 

I already have way too much. I don't think I could handle any more.

 

Sorry. I meant -- I empathise. Bucketloads.

 

Oh... Thank you.

 

Not much consolation, of course, but this is exactly why I stay as far away from social media as is humanly possible.

 

The scary part is that a lot of those flame wars pop up in conversations about entertainment and minor lifestyle decisions— shit that shouldn't really be that important. It's like if everyone collectively decided to be as harsh, short-tempered, sensitive about their own egos, and dismissive of others as possible.

 

I find it hard to recall how things were when people couldn't just randomly hurl shit at each other 24/7 from their bedrooms, offices, on the train... and without fear or condemnation. Makes me sound old, but I'm only in my 30s!

 

Everyone these days is so quick to judge and throw their opinions around concerning people and events they know nothing about. It's a very sad state of affairs.

 

As I think about it, a lot of people say really nasty things about people with different political views, they just do it when they aren't around to hear. Maybe the Internet is just what happens when your words aren't private anymore.

 

They (in a general sense; not everyone does, but there are plenty of examples) fly off the deep end at anyone who uses the "wrong" word for something or disagrees with them slightly, and then they tell the recipients of their indignant, bile-filled posts to stop being so sensitive. It's a sad, self-perpetuating process, and one that seems to affect people of all social and political orientations. Myself included, at times, but I try to control myself.

 

I've thought about getting rid of my account numerous times. But I'm in Virginia and all of my friends and family are in Illinois. I like being able to see what they're up to (especially since I have three nephews that I've never met), but sometimes it just isn't worth it.

 

Yep. Large portions of it should remain private though. Everyone snipes, moans, grumbles etc, and there is no one in the world who is perfect, but should it all be out there in the world, saturating to the point where it's all anyone can see and it becomes this grubby force that drives the world? I don't think we should ever go back so far that people don't have freedom of expression, but it shouldn't be so damn easy that they use it for any meaningless and often unworthy thought that crawls out of their mouths before the head can filter it. Words and the narrative they create, as we know, are so powerful and responsibility comes with the rights: we've gone way way too far the other way IMO.

 

Yeah. There are very few legal restrictions I believe in, aside from penalties for outright threats, but we shouldn't use our free speech as a tool to beat down everyone who doesn't think the same as us. It starts defeating itself at that point.

 

Email? Okay, so it's not as instant a connection to these people, but I know which I'd choose if I had friends I couldn't see the normal way.

 

We're on a similar page I think. I'm an advocate of combining the no-harm principle and basic social contract theory to define harm, ideally.

Feeling especially grumpy today though that the smallest minds seem to have the loudest voices, and it feels like the internet makes that easy. I must try and remember it's not all bad: I was listening to Tavi Gevinson on a repeat of a TED radio hour yesterday and what she had -- what she could access -- to be able to connect with other people who felt isolated or removed from their society, was and is what I could only have dreamt of at her age. I was stuck firing shots in the dark. It's hard to see that it still has its advantages, because the internet and the web is so far removed from what my peers and I thought it would become... somewhat naively!

 

"Maybe the Internet is just what happens when your words aren't private anymore" and those words are potentially amplified a million-fold.

I'm reading So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson, and I have to agree with @OurJud, I have as little to do with some forms of social media as possible.

 

Did you know there is a 'deep' internet? They are sites that won't show up on search engines. They are where the worst of the worst are. Your skinheads, pedophiles, and all other nasty people. You have to know the exact name of the site to get there. I had no idea about it until I saw it on a television show. So you are seeing nothing compared to what is really out there.