You’ve heard of “don’t monetize your hobbies”; get ready for “don’t master your hobbies”.
Your hobbies are here to help you decompress and have fun. They do not have to be disciplines you toil over for expertise, unless that is something you genuinely enjoy doing.
It’s okay to enjoy language-learning without ever becoming fluent, or even conversational. It’s okay to like playing guitar even if you only know a few clumsy songs. You can read books and never finish them, bowl without ever scoring even halfway to perfect. We’re here to explore and play, and we cannot do that if we’re chasing perfection in everything we do.
[description: tiktoker skweezy4real talking to the camera with his mask on]
“So what’s the worst job you ever had? For me, it was when I was selling stolen computer chips, and (unintelligible, possibly ‘In Compton’) and– What the f- [camera turns to a group of people and two alpacas, one man holding out bowl of carrots] what is this?”
“Oh hey! You wanna feed an alpaca?”
“Say- Yes! Do I just like hold it up to him?”
“Yeah just put them in your mouth and they’ll take 'em from you”
“In my MOUTH?”
“In your mouth, in your mouth”
[takes off mask, puts a carrot in each corner like tusks] “Like this?
"Yeah almost like a walrus”
“And I just… I give it to..?”
“Yeah just let them see it, walk up to them and they’ll take it from you”
[does it, people cheer]
“…….thank you?”
He can’t even tell wild stories from his past without getting interrupted by new wild stories. lol
I want to write a book called “your character dies in the woods” that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.
I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.
Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.
Babes she would not MAKE it to that inn.
Are there any other particularly egregious examples?
This book already exists, sort of! Or at least, it’s a biology textbook but I bought it for writing purposes:
It starts with a chapter about freezing to death, and it is without a doubt the scariest thing I’ve read in years (and I read a lot of horror fiction).
This book can be downloaded for free on Researchgate, posted there by the author himself:
So I had a hysterectomy today (hooray!) and I brought along my stuffed orca, Shamu, as a comfort object. And everyone i interacted with during my pre-op was like “Oh! Who’s this?” so I was telling them all about him, how he’s been with me since I was 9 and gone on every single vacation and road trip, and they were telling me about their own stuffed buddies (one lady said she still has hers after 40 years!) and all of this while I was signing consent forms and providing a list of the things I’d brought with me, you know, small talk.
So then a nurse comes over and goes “Okay, I’ve got some stickers I’ll put on your things so we know they’re yours” and I’m like “OK cool” so she puts a sticker on my coat and stickers on my bags of clothes and then she turns to Shamu and I’m like “oh I guess he gets a sticker too”
But no. She pulls out a hospital bracelet that’s an exact copy of mine and slaps it on his tail, like so:
And i was delighted by this, so I took a picture to send to my friends, who were equally delighted, and were cracking me up with their reactions (like so:)
Anyway, they take me back and put me under, and when I awake groggily a few hours later it takes me a minute to get my bearings, so I don’t notice Shamu at first. But then I realize he’s tucked up next to me in the gurney, so I grab him, and my hand touches gauze.
And I’m like “huh?” so I look at him and I realize
