• 72 Posts
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Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: July 18th, 2021

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  • Writing can help sometimes. Totally. But it’s important to compare writing with the alternatives.

    Writing is painfully slow and requires loads of work. An example of this is the knowledge management literature: trying to encode an expert’s knowledge at some point becomes too expensive. That’s why working alongside masters of a discipline is so special: they know things that are hard to put into writing.

    Writing is also prone to mistakes. Businesses have learned this the hard way in the last half-a-century. Some tech businesses insisted that it was a matter of learning to write well. “Use this method of writing requirements”. “Use this framework for writing specifications”. But miscommunication still happened. Faced with this problem, Kent Beck and Jeff Patton found that what works most efficiently is for people to use narrative to talk about the problems at hand. In this context, documentation is useful to the extent that it helps in conversation.

    There’s also the fact that writing is a very context-poor method of communication. When talking, you’ve got much more to pick up on: the speed of the words, the spacing between the words, the pitch, the eyes, the mouth, the eyebrows, the head tilt, the hand positions, the foot positions, the general stance, etc. Additionally, when talking you can go back and forth, identifying and correcting misunderstandings much faster than with text.

    On top of that is the fact that OP is talking about a romantic context. This changes things a bit. This is the purview of psychology. Psychology also has a similar history to business: they both went from believing it’s a matter of teaching people to find the most precise technical language to believing it’s a matter of having conversations. But the conversations in business are not the same as in romance.

    Romance requires you to care about someone else’s vulnerability and for you to open up to them. And this is the most powerful way of reassuring both of you and being securely attached. This is the insight of emotion-focused therapy.

    So that’s how I see writing.

    It can contribute to shared meaning, but it requires plenty of work and yet it consistently leads to misunderstandings. These misunderstandings can be dealt with faster with conversation. If the context of the conversation is romantic, the most important thing someone can do is open up to their partners and care for their partners’ vulnerability.

    Of course, what I like about your comment is that it recognizes the limitations of text. And, of course, if used well, it can help.




  • First of all, I’m so sorry for your loss. I really hope you can find meaning in this situation and use it as a way of learning what you want more of in life.

    I think the goal right now is for you to live a good life, one in which you’re the kind of person that you want to be.

    When you say that you “try to sit with [your] feelings as they happen”, I’m really glad that you’re doing that. It’s not easy. But the alternative causes much more suffering and doesn’t teach you what’s meaningful in your life. Also, when you say that “[you’re] in therapy”, I’m also glad. Therapy, when it’s good, makes accepting hard realities easier.

    I have also gone through losses and had nightmares immediately after the loss. In fact, this happened to me in November 2025. The night after my loss I woke up breathing intensely. My eyes were wet, almost as if I was crying while asleep. I woke up in the middle of a gasp, as if I was about to start screaming. It sucked.

    Eventually, I was able to sleep normally again. And, as you mentioned, everyone is different.

    There are things that you can do, but I want to emphasize something that you probably already know: the pain cannot magically go away. Why? Because you cared about her. Because now that she isn’t here, you’re reconstructing your self, your expectations, and your everyday life. And that reconstruction process is painful. As you rebuild these parts, the pain will gradually go away. But trying to avoid it will cause more suffering.

    I will not dwell in this point, because you already know it. Instead let’s talk about what you can do.

    You can actually work on accepting this new reality. You can be deliberate about it. I tend to suggest acceptance and commitment therapy exercises. They are evidence-based and they have worked for me and countless others. You can find some exercises here.

    However, in my experience, not all exercises are the same. Some are more powerful for me. In particular, I think there’s a massive difference between experiential exercises and merely verbal exercises. The experiential ones are more transformative for me.

    Which experiential exercises would I recommend? There’s a couple in Steven C. Hayes’ book A Liberated Mind:

    • In defusion, there’s “Look at it as an object”.
    • In acceptance and self, there’s “Applying Perspective-Taking to Acceptance”.
    • In presence there’s good ol’ mindfulness, which will definitely help you right now.
    • In values there’s “values writing” and “flipping pain into purpose”. Both will help you learn from this experience and help you take steps towards living the kind of life that you want to live.

    In that same book, there’s an example of someone who had nightmares with a dinosaur. ACT helped them deal with those nightmares.

    As always, I want to say that not everyone clicks with ACT and there are many ways of accepting tough situations and committing to who we want to become.

    I hope this is helpful and feel free to ask questions.

    If you’re a hug person, I send you a big ol’ hug via Lemmy. I also wish the best for you.


  • Ah. Thanks for the target audience explanation.

    What I mean with Mastodon is that, immediately after “Social networking that’s not for sale”, you see more sentences: “Your home feed should be filled with what matters to you most, not what a corporation thinks you should see. Radically different social media, back in the hands of the people.”

    I think the technical details, such as open source and federation are not going to click with people who don’t know those ideas. However, open source and federation can create something that, for those people, is valuable.

    So the question is: what does Lemmy offer that clicks with people who don’t know technical details?

    This is up for discussion, of course. But I’d argue there’s “freedom”, “choice”, “human (and not corporate) communities”, “made for people, not for profits”…

    That leads me to my suggestion:

    A discussion platform that is truly free. You choose your feed, not a corporation. You choose where to set up your account, not a corporation. You choose what communities to be a part of, not a corporation.

    or

    A discussion platform that is truly free. You choose your feed. You choose where to set up your account. You choose what communities to be a part of. You choose, not a corporation

    The bolded text is like Mastodon’s first sentence. The rest of the text is like Mastodon’s other sentences.

    The technical details can be explained later in the page, just like Mastodon does it.






  • I think all of this shows you really care. You care about connection, about competence, about belonging. And you believe that you will find all of this through him.

    However, he is not here. And so it hurts.

    There is a choice before you: you can listen to the voice inside your head saying that you could’ve changed him and that he would’ve made you happy. Or you can open up to your life as it is now. None are easy choices.

    I will say that opening up to your life as it is now does not mean that you’re giving up on connection, competence, and belonging. It means that you’re committing to finding that in your life now.

    More broadly, I have an interpretation of your situation, and I wonder if it aligns with yours. To begin with, you have this yearning for connection, competence, and belonging. You also have this voice inside of you saying that you could’ve changed this man and that you’d be happier or more fulfilled if you were with him. I take this to mean that you’re relating with your thoughts in a way that is leading to suffering.

    Yes, sometimes life is straight up painful, but I also think your brain is playing tricks on you (as brains usually do). It’s convincing you that you can only be happy through him.

    It is because of this interpretation of mine, that I think an important goal for you right now is to learn to relate to your thoughts better (a goal that many of us would benefit from pursuing!). What do I mean by that? I mean that you should choose, not the voice in your head.

    If this resonates with you, I think things like mindfulness and acceptance and commitment therapy could help. Of course, those two are not the only ways of learning to relate to your thoughts better. But they are tools that have helped me and many others make tough choices like the one you have before you.

    If you have questions, just let me know.

    I really hope you can find meaning, connection, competence, and belonging.


  • snek_boi@lemmy.mltoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldDeep
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    9 days ago

    I agree that there are experiences that are much more vivid because they are new. And I also think some adults get stuck in their head instead of experiencing the world.

    However, if we evaluate the OP dispassionately and curiously, I think the picture is a bit more complex. For example, there are some experiences that can only be experienced when you’re older and you have accumulated crystalized intelligence.

    What kinds of experiences? An example is expertise. People who are really skilled at their job experience meaning, enthrallment, curiosity, satisfaction, and play much more than people who aren’t as skilled.

    Another experience that is only accessible with crystalized intelligence and experience is certain kinds of abstract play. Take something like tabletop roleplaying games. I love them. I have so much fun with them. But to play them you need to understand the English language, basic arithmetic, the character creation rules, the ways of making rulings in the game, the history that all the players in the table agree upon, etc…

    All of this leads me to the original purpose, which was to evaluate the OP dispassionately and curiously. Because of expertise and crystallized-intelligence play, I think the post is not wrong, but also missing a big piece.

    Also, I noticed that this community is an evolution of White People Twitter, so I’m not sure if the post is ironic or not lol


  • I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

    I’ve had moments in my life where I sit down and cry for a long while and it physically hurts afterwards. I get headaches, my eyes hurt and get puffy, my stomach hurts from all those contractions…

    And it’s normal, in the sense that crying is something people do. You’re not alone.

    But still, it’s not fun. Crying hurts.

    I’d only be concerned if I got those symptoms randomly, without even crying.

    Beyond the physical concerns, I hope you’re doing alright. I don’t know what you’re going through, but I hope you can find meaning and love.





  • Static is your friend.

    Buy microfiber dusters and mops.

    Buy a couple and see if it’s enough. You want to always have clean ones available. So buy more than what you need for a single cleaning session. At my place we always have a bit more than double what we need for a single cleaning session.

    For carpets, you can get a sweeper. They also use static and they’re fantastic.

    How to use them? As others in this thread have said: from high areas to low areas.

    Should you get the microfiber wet? I’m not sure. Try out both and see what works! I personally don’t like wet microfiber because it adds friction and makes me go over areas slower. But be aware that this could be a me thing. Wet microfiber still picks up dust, so do whatever works for you!