Reading.
Or rather, how so many people seem fear and avoid it, or can’t do it. Something like 21% of adults in the US are illiterate, and the majority – 54% – read at or below a 6th grade level.
I’ve been a sight reader probably since I was about six years old. I absolutely cannot look at any words legibly written in my native language and not understand them. You couldn’t force me to look at words written in English and not digest them if you held a gun to my head. I fear no wall of text, no matter how tall it is.
It takes some effort to wrap your head around the notion that not only can most people not do this, but statistically speaking most or at least a plurality of people have to struggle or exert conscious effort to read and many of them are loathe to do so. And roughly one in five people simply can’t. This did not sink in for me when I was younger.
I can’t imagine having to live my life that way. You nerds have seen how much bullshit I write in a day; I’d go absolutely bats.
As a kid I kept asking librarians why libraries were so empty of people if they had so many books and it took me years to understand the sadness in her shrug.
That stat is wild, reading is such a foundational skill in today’s world.
My goodness, I am so much like you.
I’ve been using a book tracker app since the iPhone 4s (2011) just to keep track of what I buy - I don’t track anything else - because even way back then I had trouble remembering if I had a book or if I had just browsed it elsewhere.
In 2018, various functions (search, sort, stats, etc.) took a permanent dirt nap just as I was nearing the 3K number of entries. And these are just the books I own.
The size of the DB backup file has nearly doubled since then.
Now granted, a number of books I get need to go straight into storage before I can even read them, as I have not yet built my library. It’s already gone through several redesigns to stay ahead of the size of my collection, and right now I’m looking at movable library storage stacks - the kind that roll on miniature railway tracks and have wheel-like dogs at their ends that a person turns to easily move them back and forth (opening and closing an access corridor between the stacks for access to the books). I’m hoping to eventually have almost half a linear kilometre of shelving in my library once it’s built.
I cannot imagine the horror of being even semi-illiterate, much less fully illiterate. I absolutely love reading.
That sounds completely awesome and seems like a fulfilling goal to have in life! Please make sure though to set up some type of arrangement for if something happens to you with such a large and incredible collection like that. I’ve been involved with estate sales and have seen personal loved ones just completely overwhelmed with the amount of things to process after a relative’s death. Getting rid of things just isn’t on the table sometimes, things will sit and rot because of love and loss.
That 3k+ of books could completely transform a public library and continue to touch the minds of generations to come if you set it up properly now (and won’t be a future burden on a loved one).
As someone with deep roots in the sciences, and good access to the latest data and evidence surrounding anthropogenic climate change, I seriously doubt that there will be much civilization left by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil. All indications used to point towards widespread economic, societal, and ecological collapse in the latter half of this century, well past my effective lifespan, but recent (and strong!) evidence has moved that up considerably to not much past 2035. So no, I am not worried in the least about “burdening” anyone with my collection. I seriously doubt that there will be anyone left who will care. The few who remain will be too obsessed with surviving another day to give two shits about books. I just want to live long enough to read most of them in relative comfort.
Child abuse. I thought it was normal to threaten children with violence for noncompliance. I thought it was normal to be afraid to misbehave or be suboptimal in school at the threat of violence.
I don’t think my father would consider spankings, with wooden paddle or leather belt, child abuse. It was a threat that I fell afoul of a few times at school or home.
Depending on your age, that level of “child abuse” might be normal. (Not that it should be.)
I didn’t wanna be too graphic, but a spanking is nothing lol. My father attempted to beat me to death me a couple of times for defying his absolute authority (imagine thinking a pre-teen is in any way a threat to “authority”).
Ah, yeah, my father only threatened to fight me once, and he never did. (I think he felt I was directly questioning his authority when non-family members were present, but the memory is hazy at best now.)
It does sound like your experience is abnormal. (But, I’m not really informed; just working from my experience, and hearsay.)
Oh plenty of things:
having respect for others
being honest
helping the needy
fair pay for fair work
honestly considering others’ perspectives
loyalty
Basically every virtue I was ever told was worthy to embody has been used against me as a weapon or a tool
And of the hundreds of people I know IRL less than 10% give any of these internal value or even attempted to put into practice
And here I’ve been a sucker all my life doing the proper social contract thing because I don’t like the way the world is shaping up and getting CONSTANTLY bent over for it
How are you supposed to deal with this without just losing all your values and becoming like them?
Are there any books or anything that someone can read on this?
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is what kind of did it for me, he was an amazing human.
Or a cruel dreamer for making me think that this was how the world was supposed to be.
Thanks! Definitely reading this one now though its kinda long. I had heard about it but didn’t see anyone put it this way before.
When I was much younger: that normal people could see much further than me.
One of my oldest memories is going into a McDonald’s for the first time with glasses; I stopped and read the entire menu, because I couldn’t believe normal people could read it as soon as you walked in. I always had to get up to the counter to make it out.
I got a lot better in school after that!
O my god. This is so relatable. I was 14 or so when a girl in my class told me I need contact lenses because I couldn’t read the school board unless I sat in the front (spoiler, I sat in the back).
And I was like nahh. Then I got a checkup and I was already at like -2. Then I wore lenses for years and I absolutely hated them. They stick to my eyes. Then only at like 18 I got glasses (not cool to teenage me) and I never switched back.
Maybe they should give children check ups, at least once in their life lol.
Also: aphantasia
You have no idea how pissed I was to find out all of you had a fucking superpower, would have been nice to learn this before I wasted 3 years at graphic design
My family was super meat-centric for all holidays except Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Any meal where it’s physically possible to barbecue, we would. And a family barbecue meant hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, pork steaks, and beef steaks – one of each per person, plus a couple of extras. Sides were German-style slaw and potato salad. Buns were not included, but my grandma would always put a stack of white bread on the table (she was the only person who ever ate it).
When I started dating my husband and took him to a family holiday, he was shocked by the fact that my whole family was eating hamburgers and hot dogs with flatware instead of on buns. And he was actually sad at the lack of side dishes.
When I went to one of his family barbecues, I was sad that there was just one hamburger per person (already on a soggy bun) and a ton of weird casseroles.
eating hamburgers and hot dogs with flatware instead of on buns.
That sounds so German. I know the bun-less burgers as “frickadellen”, my own parents (both German immigrants who met each other over here) used to make them fairly frequently.
Interesting, in NL frikadellen are more like ground-up-meat long sausages.
and in Russia the word stands for meatballs
TIL
There is no c in Frikadelle.
That does sound a bit one sided. If you ever (want) to learn how to cook, you’d be amazed what you can do with vegetables, other than boiling them. Those can be truly inspirational and unique. Will be tough to sell to your family though haha.
I mean. Coleslaw or other slaw, potato or pasta salad, pickles? Mashed potatoes? Those are all good American BBQ sides.
for men to wish to be a woman
Struggling not to act on my impulses all the time, doing foolish things before thinking and not being able to go more than a brief period without embarrassing myself. I thought everyone dealt with impulse control issues. Oh hey Adhd, nice to see you.
Meditation helps with this. Well at least it’s better than nothing. Well at least you can feel superior over others because you meditate.
Meditation helps with this.
I know you mean well, but it bothers me whenever people say this. “Just clear your mind” - says the person who thinks everyone’s mind works like theirs. I’m tired of being told that the solution to the thing I can’t do, is to try to do the thing I can’t do.
I don’t disagree but I will say I’ve found an adhd friendly meditation technique that helps (doesn’t cure). I walk or bike and let my mind wander and wander until it has wandered itself out. It takes practice but it helps me.
My mind wanders with ease, that’s the problem. My mind wanders whether it’s an appropriate situation or not, both when I need to focus on something (like during a film or a presentation) and when I need to NOT be focusing on something (like when I’m trying to fall asleep.) I suffer from insomnia because of it.
On numerous occasions, people have suggested meditation to me as a way to practice “clearing” thoughts from the mind. They may admit it “takes practice,” but they assume everyone can do it, which makes it all the more frustrating when your brain seems incapable of shutting up. It’s like the “I know you’re depressed, but have you tried being happy?” of ADHD.
Ah, lol, meant it as a joke. I apologise if it seemed “just get a planner, duh!”
I have ADHD(enough to disrupt life quite a bit), and you are right, it is very difficult to just concentrate. I hate concentrating, it’s frustrating and I lose every time.
But for me, none of the medicines available to me work or help any of the problems with ADHD and I don’t have money for it. So I’ve been deciding to raw dog life and instead meditation in part has helped me with handling some things.
I’ve been meditating for past 6 months straight now (not very successfully). But I continue to do it because of the discipline’s gentle nature. There are no hard and fast rules. I can be meditating and it won’t be what most people call meditating but it helps me calm down and I like that. Brief moments/seconds of calmness are worth it for me.
And over time, while reading up more about meditating, I’ve learnt that it’s also very very normal for the mind to wander, that’s like the default mode for it. More so for people with ADHD. I think you aren’t supposed to be perfectly focused (at least for most people). All you are supposed to do is to acknowledge what you feel and try and move on and feel what you are feeling in the moment without any judgement. It’s very difficult and not being able to do it is fine. Over time, you get a little better at it while you incur other benefits of Meditation.
It’s more than just trying to attain peace, it’s about learning to be gentle with yourself, giving yourself time for yourself, living in the moment and enjoying what little time you have.
Meditation can mean to be different things for different people.
I was lucky or call it unlucky to have had found the time to add meditation into my daily routine(life reasons). And even now it’s difficult to do every day, with what the ADHD not rewarding me to do it. For this, the work around is to do it as much as you can but consistently and being okay with missing out on days. (It’s not do or die, it’s the cumulative effort). Do it for 5 minutes or three minutes, not more. Forget about doing it for hours or something, consistency matters more than the time you put in.
There’s also different methods to choose from, some are easier for folks like us. I haven’t gotten into any of those, but I see people discussing it often to know. I would highly recommend the free app - medito. It has a lot of different options, courses to follow and is very beginner friendly. There’s no shady backdoor, you won’t be pushed into buying anything. Though It’s run by an NGO and they will ask for donations time to time.
If you have a quiet and calm place to do it, I’d highly recommend that. It really helps when the environment isn’t fighting you. I forget example recently did it twice in the forest and It was beautiful.
Also this is just my experience, try and see what works for you.
Having a constant noise in your head/ears. It was so normal to me I didnt question it for many years. I randomly asked my friends about it one day and found out most people actually dont have an old crt tv like noise in their ears (and that its the disorder tinnitus).
In my case its not very severe thankfully, I dont notice it unless Im in a silent room or Im actively thinking about it.
Physical abuse as a child.
My first long term relationship was with a woman who could orgasm from penetration in less than a minute.
After like an hour of foreplay, right?
…Right?
Nope lol
She had the shortest fuse I’ve ever seen
Standing to wipe your ass
There’s both types, but most don’t realize the other one exists.
I’m not sure how we got on the topic, but it came up in a drunken conversation with a friend. I’m fully converted to a sit down wiper now.
I don’t think we were drunk, but I did eventually ask a friend which they were… and it caused the same conversion for me.
I mean, how does standing even work? Sitting spreads things and makes it all accessible.
You just get up after pooping, and then pull the TP through your butt cheeks. It’s massively inferior, the poop gets spread around when you stand up. I used like 10x more TP as a standing wiper. I will say it’s gentler on the asshole though.
that sounds awful, I would never think to stand to wipe - it smushes and spreads it, making it so much harder to clean up
Really?
For me it was wiping your ass in general.
My family comes from sri Lanka we just fill a bucket with water. (Or use a bidet if available)
I still wipe first with a bidet. I don’t need little bits of poo going anywhere. And then I wipe after, because I don’t need swamp ass, either.
blocked
Limited joint range. I just thought that’s as far as they went. It still freaks me out slightly when I see people using a normal range, as if they’d just turned their heads through 360° or bent their knees the wrong way.
Rationality
Excessive alcohol consumption
