Natasha Tori Maru

Very sorry to hear of your troubles with ED. Apologies if this is awkward as I am a woman, and could not possibly comprehend your issues myself. I wish to supply an anecdote: My brother experienced something very similar himself, after having contracted Covid. He also experienced ED following recovery. It showed up roughly 3 weeks after his main symptoms cleared. I believe it was early 2021 he contracted it, marking roughly 4 years since. He has not made a full recovery, however he no longer has issues getting an erection. I believe he now has residual issues maintaining hardness and reaching orgasm. 'I need to concentrate hard to keep an erection, and also to 'cross the line' 1) His lungs are totally cooked after Covid - medical records show 'lung capacity of 98 year old'. He has asthma now 2) He has had full blood panels a few times since, including thyroid + hormones. No issues - all levels including Test are in good range. 3) No other conditions, decent diet (he hasn't attempted to address it with diet, pisses me off). Sleeps well. Runs regularly with me. Weight trains. 4) He has been vaccinated twice with Pfizer Perhaps it could be a circulatory issue, as he has lung damage. No psychological issues. He works in construction with me. There's a chance he could have lung damage from particulate matter. However the lung issues / asthma did show up suddenly. His thyroid levels do move about, but this is genetic. I have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis (as well as my grandmother), so we watch for that. Hope this is of assistance ! <3

Key word from your quote is 'ridiculously' easy. I never said ignorant or innocent woman weren't easily abused. Ridiculously easy? - Implies some deeper approval seeking rooted in unstable sense of self. Typically, a strong, healthy, stable sense of self will lead to discernment of others behaviour. The grandiosity of your adjectives matches my edit. If you meant something else, perhaps more precise & accurate language should have been used. There isn't anything insulting about acknowledging someone's pain, man or woman. There is no judgement in the statement.

'A **damaged, unhealthy woman's love is ridiculously easy to abuse. It's like abusing a child.' Fixed that for you

I very much agree. It goes into just how polarised the flip left/right becomes. A small margin seems to equalise and maintain stability. A larger shift too far in either direction tends to off-balance the entire system. You end up with one side basically allergic to the other.

Most likely cause a large swing in the other direction. Perhaps spur large growth past stage orange, as we seem to be bogged down in the worst of it. The only way out is through Politics normally go back and forth as long as democracy isn't totally destroyed... All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. 27 year old song/clip couldn't be more relevant:

Agree I am very much enjoying season 2! I haven't seen Devs - I will add this to the list Appreciate the thoughtful recommendations !

Hello Ima - my advice relating to the above: if you do not trust your ability to calmly & rationally respond in the moment, please do give yourself grace to take leave of the person and reassess when calm. I often have to simply state 'I am too emotionally charged to think correctly and respond, can I have 20 or so minutes to get back to you?' or just simply 'I need 20 minutes to assess this & respond' You will find most situations are rarely so urgent as to need an instantaneous response. I understand your feelings regarding being disrespected. In the past, I would instantly become enraged as I find disrespect abhorrent. I still do feel a negative feeling, but I am able to realise the issue is coming from the other person. I can only control my reaction. That person has bad morals, and it has nothing to do with me (in this example).

It is a good question - and different strategies apply to different situations. Is this question more related to work, or purely interpersonal relationships? It is helpful to have a strong divide between the two. With work: I am here to do a job, and in the end, as long as I am not being offensive, any emotional issue another party has is their own inability to regulate their emotions. I treat others with kindness and respect as a rule. But I am firm & relentless. Brutal with honesty. My issues in work arise when men cannot receive clear orders from a woman without fluff and padding along with it. Just their cultural conditioning there. In personal relationships: I have grown to the stage where I have the emotion & can observe it, but I am disconnected from it. I let it wash over me and then leave. I never, EVER, take action or make a decision while in a charged emotional state. It helps to try to see where you may be 'approval seeking' in your life. From your elaboration, it seems that instead of accepting and embracing the charged emotion (then letting it recede) you are attempting to power through and disregard your own needs. Or perhaps you are squashing it down? This is an issue with boundaries, and if not attended to, will lead to resentment. 'Poor me' thinking. Self pity. It is a form of self abandonment. Most issues that you feel internally that linger, and cause renumeration, arise as a result of ones inability to reconcile responsibility. Inability to reconcile responsibility is really the root of trauma.

Beautiful - you have great talent and eye! I think your 'feminine' flowing lines work well to create movement & play in the image. Lots of skill to render something with minimal lines. I like the staccato broken lines for the cat, illustrating a different texture there Andy Warhols early graphic advertising work encapsulates that sort of mastery

G'day Integration Journey! I was very privileged to be trained from first principles by my grandfather - a strange & macabre but renowned artist where I live. I started with nothing but pencil, paper - 6 years (age 5-11), then pen/ink - 2 years, watercolour - 3 years. I semi played with Acrylic but went straight to oils really. I learned all the principles of graphic art: perspective, light, rule of thirds etc My tips: 1) Repetition/practice. This is where reference material is king! I wish I had AI for prompts when I was learning from books (which was all I had in the 90s, as dialup internet would take 10 or so minutes to load larger graphics). I picked a subject and repeated it over and over. Until I could render it from imagination. Usually, to do this, you need to break the subject down to polygons or anatomy & build from there. AI prompts can spit out a reference to learn from now - enjoy this use 2) Light. This is a fundamental. Not only just picking a source of light in your image, and shading/illuminating accordingly, but learning how light & colour play. Picture an apple: I would never use blacks for shade. Ever. I look at an object, and I do not see green and black. I see the yellow in the light falling on it, the purple from the curtain beside it, the red from the glass beside it. Flecks of lilac are spots of light. You shade the object with these colours to create an 'impression'. Nothing about painting or drawing is about rendering in a realistic manner: it's about tricking the eyes to give an 'impression' of a thing. 3) Perspective. Vanishing points & rules of thirds. This is predominantly more about design and where ones artistic eye comes into it. You can paint or draw anything, but making it realistic or not, balanced or not, comes down to these elements. After a while practicing and researching, you gain the ability to tweak something tiny and fundamentally change an image. These small changes are usually linked to the vanishing point, perspective and balance. I was quite gifted from a young age, so this comes into it for myself. But I also had years and years of practice. Being gifted means nothing if there isn't practice behind it. Being taught by a master is always an asset. While I do think I genetically inherited traits that made my talent flourish with ease: I also believe anyone can be trained to see and render with practice and dedication. I see the world in a weird way now, fundamentally changed. But I learned art so young I don't know any other way. So much colour. Everything to me is so beautiful. So much so, I have trouble understanding others judgement of things/objects as ugly or unappealing. The fall of light against a man's cheek, the sloping lines of a woman's neck, the way colour shift in eyes, the beautiful texture of old skin... a gob of spit on the sidewalk Creativity is mans power !

Oh poop - I should probably post there. However, due to the nature of the forums capacity regarding images in one thread, it might make more sense to have a proper subforum as per @Davino's suggestion

https://imgur.com/a/dq7Lnl3 Some more works - this is an Australian river in farming country (draught season) - I couldn't get it to display with @Yimpa's hack, I think its the browser @Davino back this 100% Need more art and creative stuffs here to foster personal growth!

Lovely movement in the trees - you have captured the flickering light of the flame so well! Acrylic on board is the medium?

@Yimpa Thank you Yimpa, I am glad I attempted your fix linked above. I fumbled around removing the BB code, was unsuccessful I will try again later when I am not at work (bad Natasha!) I suppose the file limit is due to forum bandwidth/hosting capacity