treefrog

How was I being a puritan? I used language throughout that demonstrated I was speaking from my own experience and sharing my own understanding.

All language points at people's real experiences and understanding. And how I define a word, such as excitement and happiness, affects my understanding of what is possible. I thought they were synonyms for many years, growing up in a consumer capitalist culture, it's kinda what I was fed by advertising and my environment. Eventually, I learned to delineate them. And found, in my own experience, they're not the same.

If you use different words and have a different understanding of your lived experience, more power to you.

Been meditating for years, and it took me a long time to realize that excitement is not happiness. But closer to what Buddhism calls restlessness and worry. And it tends to cycle with sloth and torpor in a pattern very similar to what we call bipolar.

Manic episodes, for me, are when the excitement keeps going without any rest. Exhaustion occurs. And delirium sets in.

I don't find any of these states pleasurable (i.e. euphoric). Joy is what I equate closest to euphoria. An overflowing abundance of positive feelings shared with others. I imagine if we got worried or restless hanging onto that positive feeling, it could play a role in the cycle though.

Happiness is calm, restful. A lack of restlessness, anger, sloth and torpor, etc. Contentedness is a synonym for happy.

Anger/Desire, are, at base, aversion and attachment. If I'm attached to joy or angry at my depression, those are additional factors that keep us caught in the cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_hindrances

Money is a carrot on a stick. It's not fulfillment.

We find lasting fulfillment and self-worth through our connections with each other. With your kid, with your co-workers. With other people in your life.

Try consciously putting your attention on the things that are actually fulfilling. Money doesn't buy happiness. It does make life easier. But happiness is the time you spend with your kid, not the money you spend on him.

He's addicted to ketamine. When that stops working, which it will, he'll either OD or switch to stimulants like Trump and Hitler.

People with antisocial personality disorders tend to not like classical psychedelics as much as they let on. As it tends to be a humbling experience. Which is scary when you think the world revolves around you.

RFK Jr, who is likely to be our new head of health and human services, wants to ban it nationally.

They mostly ignored trans issues too aside from to punch back at Trump's ads on sport networks.

And I say that as somebody that paid a lot of attention to those issues because I'm trans.

The Trump campaign spread hate speech about me and a ton of misinformation about my health care.

Should the Democrats have just said nothing?

The whole argument reminds me of gay men pretending like I don't exist so they could advance their own rights, even though it was women like me that started the riots as Stonewall. Throwing trans comrades under the bus just like your post is doing.

Hate crimes went up 20% during Trump's last term. Hate crime related murders were at a 28-year high.

Hate crimes went up 20% during Trump's last term.

Hate crime related murder was at a 28 year high.

Stay safe comrades!

The FTC over the last two years has been going after corporations. But, anti-trust lawsuits take time. And I agree that they could have been more aggressive.

So, the issue wasn't that the democrats weren't doing anything and had no plans to do anything. It was that their messaging was shit. They should have directed more outrage at corporations and used fewer appeals to reason.

The rhetoric that works in a courtroom isn't what wins elections, in other words.

Which is why I blame Biden for his pride and hubris. He should have stepped down, so a primary could have been run and the candidate, Harris or otherwise, had a better shot.

I've suspected this from before election night. And 100% wouldn't be surprised.

And I'm hopeful an investigation lands Trump and Musk both in jail.

I get that. But the subjectivity is lack of political education and media bias.

In other words, it's not subjective, really. It's a misnomer that's been spread through propaganda by both parties. And repeated ad nauseam by the media.

People need to understand that the democrats are centrists drifting right, in order to understand that there are other real options, like organizing, striking, and community action/mutual aid. Otherwise, everyone is going to sit on their hands for the next four years, praying that the democrats save them.