pretty shitty how baseline human activities like singing, dancing and making art got turned into skills instead of being seen as behaviors
so now it’s like ‘the point of doing them is to get good at them’ and not ‘this is a thing humans do, the way birds sing and bees make hives’.
The human experience is far too nuanced to have strong opinions.
Love Covers a Multitude Of Sins
Realising that all behaviour is the result of a complex web of cause and effect invites us to embrace a deeper understanding and forgiveness for ourselves and others.
While the specifics of each reaction may elude our understanding, shaped as they are by our own singular journeys—we can find peace in the knowledge that everything reflects this universal principle and grounds our relationships in the reality that non of us are right or wrong, allowing us to see the reflections of our shared humanity in one another’s actions.
Occasionally, we encounter a silence that words cannot penetrate, a landscape of feelings that is too vast to articulate. There are times when we articulate thoughts with eloquence, yet they lack the warmth of genuine emotion. And then, in the rarest of moments, we find ourselves enveloped in a serene void, where neither feelings nor words exist, and all that remains is a tranquil emptiness.
Events that cause us fear, suffering, and threat to our lives leave a strong, everlasting mark. Either consciously or subconsciously, what is recorded plays back over and over again given the correct environment that makes the connection and presses the play button. We have recorded some information, but not all of it is of happy memories.
I was fascinated with the fact that I could record something on a cassette tape when I was little. I found it amazing, and those in my family did not share the same complete astoundment that I felt when I discovered that I was able to record sound, my voice and the voices in my surroundings on a cassette tape.
Now much older, I have decided that there is a recording nature in literally everything, from various crystals to the tiniest atoms, and the main point that I am getting to, our brains.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the unwanted intrusion of some of the more challenging recordings that we have collected along the way. It isn’t the upsurge of happy memories, but rather the deeply ingrained bad memories and traumas that we might prefer to ignore or forget.
Sometimes in PTSD, emotions become uncontrollable, which is the distinguishing factor that makes it Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. CPTSD makes it even more difficult to navigate the world, let alone face and move on from the memories that keep intruding.
Every episode pops up like a “surprise motherfucker” moment. Choice in shelving it for later on? forget it. PTSD and CPTSD is instant like that, and there is no going back until some sort of retreat and processing can be taken.
I sometimes like to think of PTSD and CPTSD as an overloaded cassette tape. This idea does not work out in rational reality since you cannot overload recordings on a cassette, it just stops each side, but the recording nature of the human brain is different. It certainly has much more capacity than a cassette tape, and in some ways, it may well be infinite, until physicality for the brain ceases to exist at least.
Studies show that predatory induced fear causes PTSD like changes in the brains and behaviour of wild animals. The article goes on to say that:
“Retaining a powerful enduring memory of a life-threatening predator encounter is thus clearly evolutionarily beneficial if it helps the individual avoid such events in the future3,4,8. Contemplating this, in light of the many PTSD-like changes manifest in laboratory rodents in response to predator-induced fear19, has prompted a growing number of biomedical researchers to propose3,5,6,7,9,10,11 that “PTSD is the cost of inheriting an evolutionarily primitive mechanism that considers survival more important than the quality of one’s life”12. In this view, PTSD-like changes in the brain and behaviour are not unnatural or “maladaptive”, but are rather evolutionary adaptations which entail costs, such as “hypervigilance”12,19,20 and the avoidance of trauma-related cues19, that provide the benefit of increasing the probability of survival, by increasing the likelihood of detecting a life-threatening danger (hypervigilance), and reducing the probability of encountering one (avoidance).”
Powerful memories that do not let us forget are the one’s that will help keep us safe in future times. Sometimes PTSD and CPTSD is making a faulty connection, because the situation that we are in can replay events so vividly where there really is no harm to come, but in the event of future run in’s with exceptionally predatory people, of which there are many + more growing with the generational learning created through the use of social media, PTSD and CPTSD serve as an evolutionary stage in learning that will absolutely help me in moving onward in my life at least.
The ability to record things is amazing, in whatever medium. I now have a new understanding of PTSD and CPTSD and how we learn by what we live. There is cost, but I am more than happy to pay for what I need.
Be happy :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6d9rqhivQY
If you can spot the Black Footed Wildcat’s amazing facial expression on landing her prey in this clip (around 1:32), then you’l be seeing a big similarity in the reptilian brained, predatory nature of some human beings in action.
My sons father matches the expression entirely in a photograph that I have where he was on a drunken, drug fuelled Christmas Day hatred rampage. I have decided that I cannot post his picture here for privacy reasons, but if you have seen this face in someone already, then you will know when you see it in this sweet clip of the the Black Footed Wildcat hunting.
The human version is not so cute.
My focus/theme for the year of 2025:
My desire is to focus on being grateful for what I have and trying to break my terrible habit of wanting more. No more window shopping online, no more visiting store sites for "fun", no more tossing something because it has a scratch on it. Unless it is unusable, it will be cherished and used until it can no longer serve its purpose.
This goes for most consumables and long-term purchases. I want to be more purposeful with my purchases - I want to buy things that are good quality and meant to last. I don't want to be persuaded to buy something because it is an "upgrade" to what I already own.
I also want to fix the items I have and learn to repair them instead of simply tossing them without attempting to find out why it isn't working first.
I want to learn to be grateful for the things I have. I want to be more aware of my spending habits and what I already own. I want to be less of a consumer, honestly. In a reasonable matter.
Okay, so idk if a indie game developer ends up finding this by some off change or anyone who know more about this kind of this but I would love to see a game or horror game where the player ends up finding out at the end of the game that they are the actual villain. But they were unaware of this the whole time. Like they think that the tasks that they are completing are apart of moving the game along to help them and the npcs, however they are actually the one who are causing the harm, not fixing/helping it. Personally, as a player this concept of me playing the game as intended and finding out that all along I AM the bad guy who is preventing the good from prevailing unknowingly. I AM not the good guy in this story... This would definitely throw me for a loop. The protagonist is actually the villain... everything is simply based on perspective...
Lmk if this is dumb or already been done...