eos_nyxia

I was never too into his comedy, but I guess Bill Burr has evolved to become the voice of reason now, lol. All of the bleeting about "human shields" and Israelis shamelessly and unselfconsciously trying to pass off that logic as Logic with a capital L broke my brain post October 7th. It very much has the energy of:

SWIMMING!: It happened last summer by accident. I live within 5 minutes' walking distance to a beautiful wooded park with various amenities (small golf course, stadium, outdoor swimming pool), and I decided to try out their loonie swims. While I haven't swum for 10+ years since I had a gym/ pool pass for university, surprisingly, I was not as terrible as I thought I would be. I still very much had the primal fear of drowning that I had as a child, which would cause me to struggle to regulate my breath and my muscles would become seized up and uncoordinated, which makes swimming well impossible. I attribute this to having learned to swim a bit later than others (8-12), while many children start learning before they are capable of developing the cognitive/ rational fear of drowning. I took some basic lessons as a kid, I never learned how to swim well, and I had never properly overcome that fear. When loonie swim season (aka. summer) ended, I found myself unexpectedly addicted. I signed up for a rec pass. Luckily for me, I live within 15 minutes' walking distance of the best pool in the city ("best" is a matter of personal perspective; IMO bigger doesn't necessarily mean better). The next month, my husband got me this book for my birthday, because I'm very much in the habit of teaching myself things, both for the joy of the challenge but also saving money if possible. (Though I did also look into adult swim lessons and joining a Master's swim club. Would it be far more efficient if someone taught me in person? ...probably.) PROS: It's no-impact exercise so I can basically do as much as I want to for as long as I want. The cap is my swimming skill and if I start getting rigid and uncoordinated due to muscular fatigue (which is almost always easily fixed by going in the steam room for a while). it helps a lot with muscle recovery and fatigue, especially with strength training helps with flexibility and mobility helps with breath control and coordination (which I find is a very different experience to doing breath work while stationary) it's just generally relaxing and meditative I just feel better afterward! I can't say that I feel rejuvenated after other forms of cardio, especially if I'm pushing myself. It's hard to explain! Unplugging from technology and not being within reach of a phone or computer feels great! not having to worry about sports bras or boob bounceage is amazing. CONS: dealing with my wet-ass long hair despite wearing a swim cap (I haven't quite figured this one out yet, and I might just have to deal with it) too much time spent in the changerooms which feels like wasted time because I'm slow (solution: it's also audiobook time!) certain hours are way too busy, but it is what it is. (even at 6-7am it's still surprisingly busy because of seniors) the amount of time I dealt dealing with shitty goggles and getting water into my eyes (solution: found the perfect goggles, also adapted to it) the amount of time I've dealt with inhaling water (adapted to it, dealt with my primal fears with exposure therapy basically, and also sucking less at swimming) being in tight/ skimpy clothing isn't really much of a choice if you care about performance and don't want clothes flapping around (solution: I adapted to it, I guess lol.) RECENTLY: I'm trying this thing where I get up at the crack of dawn and swim, which is very novel as a night-owl. I got my first racing/ athletic swimsuit, a TYR. I have no idea what to expect, but good gods, is it tight and uncomfortable to get into. I was also planning on getting some short fins, and a few other things... My ideal swim session lately is 2 hours, 30 minutes in the steam room, and 90 minutes swim, but split up into intervals. (often I do 15 minutes steam room to loosen up my muscles, 45 mins swimming, 15 minutes in the steam room to relax my muscles again, and then another 45 minutes swim). The best part about long swims is not rushing.

I could just end this all right now and be the person I actually want to be.

Thank you for the kind words.

My Personal Canadiana: I'm still trying to figure out what exactly this means to me. Is it the obvious visual cues of Canadianness? The themes and images and lyrics? The various regional accents? All of the above? Anyway, this is my selection. Representing the East Coast flair in visual form. The singer was also the daughter of John Morris Rankin of the Nova Scotian ensemble, The Rankin Family, a Celtic folk group which found international fame in the late 80s and early 90s. It's hard to explain what makes this MV so Canadian-coded, but it is. Instead of Powderfinger (which I'm unshakably convinced is about the Battle of Batoche), I'll suggest a song which explicitly references Canada: Quebec's whole music scene, which tends to be insular as a result of the language and culture barrier. (I went through the 2010s unaware that Arcade Fire was from Montreal though. If you listened to "indie music" then, you at least knew who they were. EDIT: also, this isn't their song. It's a cover of Serge Gainsbourg's classic performed by 60s teenage French pop star, France Gall.) I think of Metric as quintessentially Canadian because so many people I know were listening to it in the 2010s, and I don't think they were quite as popular outside Canada (unlike Arcade Fire). Gordon Lightfoot's Ontarian accent: Left Out: Buffy St. Marie, because of the whole recent fiasco where it was discovered that she was not of Cree descent and her Order of Canada medal was stripped. The Tragically Hip, because I did not grow up with them and I never went out of my way to listen to them. Usually, this is the prime example of band that was big in Canada and primarily unknown everywhere else. Joni Mitchell. While I had heard a few of her most famous songs growing up, it didn't leave a formative impression for whatever reason. The many Canadian artists who became famous in the States and downplayed being Canadian or straight-up LARPed as American.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/24/oscar-winning-palestinian-director-attacked-by-israeli-settlers-and-arrested WTF. I just watched this film recently too.

I lost the will to speak again, except in private, though I've still been reaching for more. Whatever that is, whatever it ends up looking like. Do you know what I don't need though? To watch other people living their lives in the "out there", with others. I'm a lifelong observer of people and I enjoy it, until it reminds me of what I was not and have never been. And I don't need it, nor do I need them, nor do they need me. And that's fine.

This world is literally run by people who have zero issues with "entitlement", whether it's under the guise of free market capitalism or not. No wonder I never got anywhere, not that I truly had the intention to anyway.

....what does it feel like to be the kind of person who has no issue with straight-up asking for others for things that they want or need? Because I have never been that person. I'm sure it holds me back in this world, but mostly I've gotten by asking for very little and only taking what's been offered freely.

.... It really is hard to find the will to write publically anymore, especially when I just focus on living my life these days.

...as opposed to things that I love/ like.

Well, if you simply jumped from one treadmill to another, spiritual or not, ultimately your intentions beget the structure and patterns your thoughts and emotions take. How could you not be miserable? Your approach is a certain flavour of tail-chasing.

On a personal level, I've never felt like I had the right stuff to be a good mother, though I've done a lot of soul searching to think about what this would involve. As if "intelligence" and/or material resources are what make a good or decent parent. It is not. Neither is empathy or sensitivity alone. I am good with younger people in the sense that I GET them (especially late childhood/ teenagers) and I even used to work with them, but that doesn't mean that I would be a good parent. Among the many possible issues is that I have very sensitive senses and am not the most adaptable close quarters and home spaces, and there is the sheer amount of energy and effort it would take to adapt to them in a way that doesn't leave me shellshocked or me STILL taking it out on them in some way. Like, I could probably be a good mom if I had a 24/7 nanny or a partner that did 80% of the childcare stuff, lol. AKA. If.... I could be a DAD instead of a mom. Unless I could guarantee that I would get a child that was just like myself as a child (aka. like a quiet, super mature "little adult", but BTW that behaviour too often arises for emotionally unhealthy reasons), I will suffer a great deal and it will consume my whole life. But getting to pick and choose your child? That's not how any of this works, yet people often operate with this innate, unexamined assumption, that they can either somehow "pick" or mould their child into a product of their liking. Also, I would like to keep my body intact, thanks! Being in a female body has been hard enough as it is already and I've had enough. I got used to people calling me "selfish" for this when I was younger, which is usually when I start asking them about their philanthropic efforts or vocational work with youth, or if they're planning to adopt. RADIO SILENCE. People who care about helping kids are.... usually out helping kids instead of getting into these stupid discussions with childless girls and women. I would say, for whoever is interested in starting a family, a person who has this grand vision of what their kid is going to be like, what they should like and who they should be, is probably going to be shitty parent. That would be a flaming red flag for me. Even people who don't actively hold their perspective still often hold this perspective. The question is, what does it take to get a person to that point?

Yes, this would be ideal. That's kind of the point. It sucks in the shorter term for countries and economies, especially when your whole model is based on the attachment to the idea of infinite economic growth. It's not a popular view, though I don't care much about people's opinions on the matter; it's not like opinions alone are going to make much of difference. Either we get this sustainability thing right and make the appropriate choices, or we'll be reminded that we are very much still animals that are subject to the natural world who have lived beyond our means and will be culled accordingly in time, all while dragging our children and children's children into it, along with the number of other species we are currently responsible for making extinct. Let's see how people's current children and their children feel about us and our choices when they are adults, I guess, when we are the boomers' age. That's a real test. I'm guessing they're not going to be very happy with what we've left them.

My hot take is that there are two people with pieces of work for fathers, Elon and Trump, who are also magnets for people with various daddy issues. Of course they will defend them until they lose too much for it to be tolerable, or else they'll go down with that ship. No surprise there. Tell them that their daddy doesn't love or care about them in the least, and they deflect. Noticing that vibe with the people who support Canada's annexation and Maple Leaf MAGAs here in Canada. It reeks. Not that it's anyone's fault what their parents chose to do to them growing up, but still. The standard issue answer applies here: go to therapy and/ or do some introspection and sort yourself out?