eos_nyxia

I think I spent... ...about 10 years watching people who said they need me, go ahead and live life, not really needing me. Which is insane, of course. Insane on my part for my compulsive watching and struggling to let go, insane that I got attached to people who really would never really fit into my actual life one way or another, and insane that I took them seriously, and kind of gross that I was flattered because I thought it would ever actually mean anything that would last in any form. (Because only worthwhile things survive the crunch of time.) It's insane that I got as angry as I did, when at least directing more of my anger to my family or aspects of the world at large would have made more logical sense, though the anger was equally useless in a practical sense. Clearly, they did not understand the difference between impulse and desire, and acquiring perspective which inevitably, often to my personal irritation, will be theirs one way or another. But this acquiring of perspective is not a personal process, and you do not need me at all. That is to say, I do not wish to be directly involved, understood, or seen in any way because of the colossal nature of my failure to be seen in the most important, essential ways. There was never a need to associate one with the other. No. I held out for the people who I thought would show up that I would never meet. I made that choice knowing the risks to myself and what kind of position I was in prior to 2019. So it is. The failed experiment. But for everything that has failed at a personal level, for the amount of emotional damage it has caused me, there is about 200 generations worth of compiled knowledge and experience, sitting and waiting, disorganized and mostly untapped. Truly, an eye (or some other body part of mine) in exchange for knowledge, greater perception, and insight. The question is: do I wish to do anything with it all? Or do I go with the "easy" life, relaxation and complete anonymity. Would I be happier if I disappeared, never to be found again, like I always wanted to growing up? God, let everyone else do their work and take the credit for what they think comes to them freely and from nowhere specific and no one specific, what do I care? Erase me; I don't care. I know how to live in this seat. Both are very much my right. And either way, the work gets done. I made my essential sacrifice prior to 2019 and I don't actually have to directly IRL get involved with anything or anyone, if that's what I actually one. What has been injected into the collective consciousness cannot be reversed because of the sheer weight of it. But I have to choose something and commit to it fully, or else waste my own time and energy facilitating. There is no sense in incrementally committing to the idea of doing more while entertaining the idea of having a public face, all while harboring my attachment to the option that I can just cut off all ties and leave whenever the fuck I want.

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

In these handful of years of writing here, I've taught myself an incorrect way to speak and to think. It was only supposed to be a trial run anyway. And really, what else left is there to purge? What did that all do for myself anyway? I've struggled with where to go from here. Most importantly, the silent Will must match the spoken one and in both tangible and visible actions. It was a failed experiment I held onto for far too long, at least on a personal level, to be looking for people. Specific people. You just need to do what you need to do, and then the people come along, or they don't. No need to hold onto any of them or seek them out, let alone hope they'll take the appropriate actions.

One of my better qualities is that I know when to keep my mouth shut, and to what end it produces.

The premise of this thread is a bit of a mess. I mean, if you're only attracted to the most vulnerable, girlish, "hooking" qualities and expressions of femininity, and that is all femininity is to you because it is all you're willing to let it mean, then that is what you get? Congrats, you made your own echo chamber. And your superficiality and lack of breadth and development in your personal expression are a match for theirs.

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.

....because why not?

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

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.

...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?

I grew up in the 00s where the only sexual orientations that were recognized were gay, straight, and bisexual. At least, that was all I had ever heard about while I was still a minor. Is there a term for having a preference for dick-havers, but not an exclusive one? Not for masculine or feminine presentation, but dick-havers. That includes trans, men who want to cross-dress, etc. Throughout my life, I've thought of myself as straight, heteroflexible, bisexual, pansexual, etc., all while trying to keep up with modern vernacular. TBH, I need to be driven by a very strong, unrestrained romantic and sexual drive to ignore otherwise incompatible or repelling cishet men on a personality level, which would then make me want to compromise, converse, and work things out where I could not be bothered to otherwise. AKA. It's never been an issue with the bodies or raw sexual attraction, it's what comes out of men's mouths... Like we are just different, you know? I've even had a moment in my late teens where I asked myself, am I trans? (But how can I be trans if I don't have a strong gender-identification preference and am mostly willing to either go with the flow, or I'm willing to deliberately develop some aspect of myself or another, whether "masculine" or "feminine", and am deeply ambivalent about the current status of my own genitals?) Like I'm fine with being identified with a woman for the most part, but I've never intrinsically seen myself or felt like one. It's always been a performance or taking on a highly deliberate role.

More and more of our public libraries, especially the large and central ones, have universal gender-neutral washrooms now. Also, many of the larger public pools have men's, women's, and universal gender change rooms. The men's and women's changerooms are open, but the universal change room has all closed stalls. I can't think of anywhere else that I've seen them, though. I have no idea what my alma mater is doing, and I haven't been on a major university campus for a while.

Just anecdotally (and not from personal experience or the experience of people I know), quite a few men either hide their conservative political status or list themselves as "moderate" when they are not. Sort of like how people (allegedly) hide the fact that they have children and then try to get with childfree people (no children, never want them). I assume it's a matter of trying to nab people via deception and the "sunk cost" fallacy.

As a woman, I don't have the luxury to not care about forced birth. Which to be honest, that luxury sounds nice. (Though let's be real, I'm sure the well-offs in the States will find a way to get it done safely.) If it doesn't affect me personally, it potentially affects people I know, and I just generally care too? Let's just say I have to choose between severely limiting my consumption and the state attempting to force me to bring a life I don't want to bring into this world? It's a no-brainer. Abject poverty it is!

There are number of issues that could be focused on, including the purely economic. But let me guess, there aren't that many Canadian women who are signing up to get their reproductive rights taken away. For that alone, even if just for the principle of it, I would give up A LOT materially and economically. I'm sure we have our conservative women who are either super brainwashed or believe that they would somehow benefit enough from aligning with the current US administration. The joke's on them though, those women are gonna get Serena Joy'ed at best (Handmaid's Tale).

There is the human desire to be seen along with the desire to do the seeing. You could say that there is a very feminine, primal desire that centres strongly around being seen though, which is a deep and contentious issue for many, many women, to the point that it fragments us at a core level, alienating us from our own bodies, depriving us of the belief in our own agency, and robbing us of the potential to be unfettered in our personal expression and sense of feminine power. The way in which we are looked at forms a part of this sort of toxic but affirming feedback loop. It's like a quick sugar rush with an injection of poison and violent nausea. IMO the more of this there is ("cheap, dehumanizing, low-quality male attention"), the more the poison effect becomes impossible to ignore. The younger and more inexperienced you are, the more this desire is superficial and limited in scope for both sexes. As you get older and more experienced, your needs tend to get more extensive and complex (though some people stay where they are as if stuck in a loop for decades, if not their whole lives). Do you know what this is usually called when people stay the same? Stunted. Immature. But when you've not had the opportunity to feel truly seen or do the seeing, then you start fetishizing every last scrap of attention, even the idea of it. I'm saying this as an observation, not a judgment. This is at the core of the issue, isn't it? All the men who feel like sex is a way of truly being "seen" and having your being affirmed in a fundamental way, if not the ONLY way. It was never just about getting off or getting physically serviced, or else so many men wouldn't have a problem with paying for it (because this is often viewed as "illegitimate" or pathetic by some) or the women who sell sexual services. You feel like you NEED THIS to be whole, to be a man, to be empowered, to truly experience life, etc. If this is how you feel, no wonder you feel like women-at-large are holding you hostage. Conflicting drives, we all tend to have them until some combination of time or effort sorts it out. For many, it never gets truly sorted out. But many women learn to embrace invisibility, even as they might have some deeply lingering, conflicting feelings about it. It's just that.... you're not looking at all those other women, are you? (Wouldn't it be nice, to have a world where we feel free to be truly seen, and to see others truly?)

This is especially a late-stage capitalism issue, isn't it? At least one person has already brought it up in this thread. I mean.... how many corporations and company owners truly care about their consumers? Is every waitress who works at Applebee's a shitty and immoral person because they serve junk food there? A woman's gotta eat somehow. Unmigitated greed is a separate issue. You're right, it's better to get it from women who are likely getting a raw deal... For what it's worth, I respect women who are called to the "sacred prostitute" role, which is an extremely ancient archetype that is older than the Abrahamic religions (e.g. Cult of Isis adjacent prostitution). In this incarnation, it deserves to be treated respectfully as a social service profession, like being a therapist or counsellor, or perhaps a massage therapist. By default, this eliminates many exploitative behaviours on the part of providers. At the very least, someone who is serving others in this way deserves respect for what they do for others, both from their clients and society at large.

I mean.... if you take away both the appreciation for male attention and liking and needing the money, what is there left for many women, especially when it comes to casual sex? Statistically speaking, it's certainly not orgasms, lol. What is the payoff beyond satiating your initial curiosity, if you're not getting pleasured like a man while also dealing with the risks you deal with as a woman? Besides, if you enjoy sex like the stereotypical man, you typically get shamed for that (in mainstream society, not talking about niche social circles). Being promiscuous and not being socially maneuvering (like "manipulative", or obfuscating what you do) is not often a winning combination. So you give freely as a woman (but like, not to too many others!), and you don't even get a basic, human level of respect where you get seen and treated as an actual person? What is the point? It's a sucker's deal. At least sex workers (who are not being trafficked and have some level of economic choice when it comes to their profession) are getting something concrete in return. Sex is literally a transaction, as in, the transaction of physical, emotional, and subtle energies. This doesn't just have to be under a capitalistic framework (though modern casual sex very much is). Even at its most "spiritually elevated" and mutually beneficial state, things of value must be exchanged for it to be valuable. This includes actual, mutual pleasure and emotional affirmation. Typically, the men are not offering enough value for what they are asking for in the way they are asking for it, so that is where the money comes in.

I think it is unlikely as well (physical war). If they're interested in propaganda, they'd best use a different technique rather than overt attempts at causing diversion/ exhaustion combined with disrespect. If they're even mentally capable of it, that is. Again, treating us as America 2.0 which is going to continue to go along with whatever whims they have is a mistake that enough Canadians will not overlook anymore, looming tariff or no tariff. I've said before -- this is a breaking point. The overt lack of "respect" thing is huge. At least make SOME attempt to slide the disrespect under the rug ("plausible deniability") and present some kind of cohesive narrative about what you actually want. (I mean, please don't. Please keep making it easier for us to turn against you so we can be kicked into gear and sort ourselves out already. As someone mentioned before, we very much have our own issues as a country.) He does not represent our zeitgeist, especially right now.