Participants have perfect product and market knowledge.

No, they don’t. They have no idea what the actual costs of the product is, nor are they aware that it’ll break in two weeks … or two days.

EDIT: a typo.

… it’s hideous.

A thumbs down is also non-aggressive. The middle finger is escalating and can be considered provocation. Thumbs down is just an expression of disapproval. It’s less inflammatory and cuts deeper.

I always get concerned that somehow I have packed hard drugs (I don’t do hard drugs.)

Motivation.

The Bible pretty clearly iterates that God does NOT like insincere prayers. Condemn hypocritical Christians all you want, but you don’t make shit up.

I suspect round one is like eating milk, and round two is a fine cheese. Or eating cabbage, and later experiencing it as a well-aged kimchi. I’m sure it’s full of probiotics.

A longer digestive system is necessary to properly break down plant cellulose. This is why some small herbivores are copraphagic (eat their own shit, like rabbits): it takes two times through to extract adequate nutrients.

I’ll gladly scrap mine and revert to walking and a wheelbarrow if it gets us out of this mess.

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“Touch it. Make it go, “Pew! Pew!””

I’ve been wondering a lot about absurdism in humour. There are people who laugh when they see something disastrous happen, like a man reflexively trying to stop a cement truck from tipping and getting squashed dead. Or a recent news story of the only fatality in a school bus crash: it was an observer who got hit by a vehicle as he ran across the highway to see if the kids were ok. A lot of the time this laughing response to a disaster is interpreted as schadenfreude, but a good portion of the time I believe it’s absurdism.

We try so hard to have agency, to do something, but the World doesn’t give a fuck. You have two choices when shit goes so wrong: you can wail about the unfairness of it all, or you can laugh at the absurdity of our efforts in the face of the colossal chaos of it all. The laughter is stronger.

It’s interesting to me that some cultures seem to have absurd humour baked in. The Aussies and Kiwis seem to have it. They just make jokes about and laugh at the most horrific situations.

I’ve been wondering a lot about absurdist humour. Dan Carlin relates a story of an old Air Force colonel who

It doesn’t.

The Newborn. (“Crowning”)

That shit scarred me, and I think was a major contributor to an anxious-preoccuppied attachment style as an adult. A lifetime of being put on a pedestal from the recognition I was bright and a novel thinker, and then the judgment when I inevitably goofed something up left me with a deep -rooted belief that the true me was unworthy and an inevitable fuck up. “Taniwha is an intelligent and capable person, if only he would stop being such a fuck around.” I learned not to trust myself because inevitability I’d do something impulsive, or miss some social queue, or not stay with the program, which made me very Other-focused and wanting to do the “right thing” so I didn’t let everyone down again.

Every single report card and evaluation I’ve ever received was full of back handed compliments pointing to a moral failing. “… if only he just completed his homework on time,” “… needs to stay focused,” “… too much time socialising with/distracting his neighbour.”

“Lots of potential … If only …” Never enough.

Fuck you. That was the thing I was born to struggle with. How many stupid kids got sent home with report cards that said things like, “John’s a hard worker and attentive student. He has a lot of potential, but he needs to work on not being stupid.”

Parents: “Johnny. You NEED to stop being so stupid in class, and start being smarter or you’re going to need Canada’s most disciplined ditch digger.”

To this day, an accomplished academic, a variable professional, and kind person I still freak out inside when someone gets excited about me. I keep falling into relationships with avoidants because trying to please someone who I’ve let down is just about all I know.

Grammatically it’s a full sentence, but part of the information intended to be conveyed is missing from that sentence. The person is not just stating, “I’m afraid.” Something about being unable to fulfill a request is making them afraid.

Is this comedy, or cross-cultural miscommunication? “I’m afraid,” leaves half the thought unexpressed. It relies on a cultural understanding of being afraid of the shame of saying, “no,” to someone.