I think the word “nerd” got rehabilitated, and was replaced by incel or neckbeard for those even more useless, gross, and uncool than a nerd was ever portrayed to be.

I’m definitely a nerd, but thoughtfulness, optimism and such take me out of the incel or neckbeard category. I just don’t have the blame everyone but myself nihilism outlook.

If you twist yourself into knots due to “failure” you essentially break the learning mechanism in your head.

Often this is due to shit parenting where your parent teaches you ideas of what success and failure are that don’t align with the real world. They burden your immature mind with fear, pain, and guilt, usually for trivial failures. Usually because they have their own baggage they never examined.

But some people accidentally do it to themselves, too, even if their parents didn’t go hogwild on the shame, guilt, and punishment game if they “failed” something.

Anyway … learning from experiences is a human superpower. When you get all freaked out about failure you basically cut out of yourself the mechanism humans use to be smarter than animals. Because you stop putting yourself in any positions where you might be challenged. You close your eyes to experiences where you might learn because you got too conditioned to fear feeling bad things if you “fail”. So you start to lose access to the rewards of trying, failing, and LEARNING from that failure in a way no book can teach you. The fear or failure gets in the way of your ability to learn, and that’s awful.

Learn from your failures, don’t lobotomize yourself with fear and guilt (as if failure is an express pass straight to hell that will damn you forever or something.)

And if you don’t know how to chill out with yourself yet, learning how to chill, maybe with therapy, or maybe by doing a lot of introspection, should be your number one priority. Life gets so much easier once you can roll with the punches instead of carrying a millstone of fear on your back every waking moment.

(Why yes, I have strong feelings about how having a fucked up mindset about failing can cripple one’s ability to learn…why do you ask? Lol)

Why that planet in particular?

Or maybe they just garden.

I don’t, and haven’t, and I’ve lived in poverty before that the average person would find humiliating.

That said, I can see I have a stronger sense of righteousness than the average person, probably due to some type of neurodivergence. I have dealt with plenty of bullying for it. So the pain that comes from it sometimes is something I’m used to and no longer afraid of.

It’s easier once you lose the fear. Fear is what pushes people to compromise their morals.

It also helps that I’m relatively smart and can always find alternative options so far.

Are you completely unable to see images or hear voices in your mind’s eye/ear? No matter what you read? And it’s always been like that?

Or do you just get fatigued after a while? But with effort can have a visual or audible imagination?

The former could be something called aphantasia, which is when someone is born without the ability to visualize things in their head

The latter might just a skill thing. When I was about 10, I had to train myself both to sharpen my imagination, but also not to fall asleep reading every time. I remember doing this distinctly, just constant practice with my imagination. It got a lot easier as I practiced.

Yeah, I tend to reply for lurkers, not to change the OPs mind.

Lurkers who haven’t entered a dog in the fight are more likely to be convinced than someone already wound up and swinging. As they read, they are more open, much as I am when I lurk.

This is also why I don’t necessarily mind “fake” posts. The original situation in the post might be fake, but the discussion from people responding does tend to have good or interesting responses in varying levels of nuance.

Self discipline.

Once I learned the skill of purposely removing myself from certain online things…world of Warcraft and social media arguing were two big ones…I got a lot of my life back.

It really just comes down to self discipline and self control, which are necessary to learn if you want to actually mature and grow up.

Edit: you could also consider it the art of learning boundaries.

It’s sometimes easier to do speeches with a mask on.

My easiest speech in high school was in a grim reaper costume that covered my face.

Sounds like I should test if going on testosterone does the same someday.

Escitalopram fixed my Raynaud’s at a low “taper up” dose basically immediately. Although it wasn’t prescribed for that, this was just a happy side effect. I guess some SSRIs do that.

For depression, it took about a month to ramp up enough to see a difference. It did ease the anhedonia, but it also masked my emotional flashbacks until it was too late to disrupt them.

I also had SEVERE issues with my sodium while on it, which is why I didn’t stay on it past a month. However, I don’t snack or eat salty stuff so someone with higher sodium intake might have fared better.

I would have tried to get used to it to see if the masking of the early signs of flashbacks got better as I got used to it if it hadn’t messed up my sodium so badly.

Also, the sexual side effects are real.

I always wondered what pre electric gas lighting looked like.

One rowdy moment with someone throwing something and the whole place is on fire.

Yes. Don’t YOU put sunblock on your nose?

I was going to say something about head/eye coordination…but the snake I used to have could strike at a dead rodent and miss.

So you have a good point.