soos_mite_ah

All The Ways People Are Different This is going to be more of a post that is all over the place but I wanted to get my thoughts out nonetheless. I think as I'm navigating my mid-20s and I'm figuring out what kind of life I want to craft for myself, I'm also noticing on how that is different from the people around me. I'm trying my best to have an open mind and expand my horizons and avoid the spirit of judgement to take over me. After all, when it comes to my friendships, I don't aspire to have a group of people who are essentially clones of me. I like being around different kinds of people and that isn't limited to demographical markers like differences in race, religion, sexuality, age, etc. I want to explore that more in this post. Different Communication Styles: I'm very much a "ask" culture kind of person. I have encountered people who are more "guess" culture and I'm still trying to find the best way to navigate around it without judgement. The "guess" culture people seem to be passive aggreesive, lacking in communication skills, and kind of shady to me. But I can recognize that this bias has to do with me being an "ask" culture kind of person. And I'm sure that the "guess" people probably see me as lacking in social skills and tact for being so direct all the time. I don't know if I could be good friends with someone who is far into the "guess" culture of things. Maybe this is something that I need to work on more on my end. Not to mention, there are a lot of differences in communication skills across culture and when you also factor in neurodivergence as well. That I feel like I generally know how to navigate well. Different Life Priorities: I feel like I tend to prioritize friendship a lot, more so than the average person. But I feel like there are people who mainly prioritize career, family, a significant other, money, spirituality, working out, a specific hobby etc. I don't have a problem with this so long as 1. it doesn't consume your life and identity completely to where you cannot pour into other areas of your life, and 2. it's coming from a generally healthy place. There is a difference, for example, between someone who prioritizes career because they base their self worth on achievement versus someone who prioritizes their career because it's something that gives them fulfillment because it's the vessel in which they express their values. There is a differece between parents who completely isolate themselves into their nuclear family to where they see other people who don't do the same as immature or lacking in values, versus parents who might pout a lot of time and energy into the early life of their baby and then have a more balanced life as the kid gets older. There is a difference between focusing on your money to get out of debt or a difficult financial situation in the mean time versus becoming insatiable with money. I can also understand on how this can shift and change throughout different seasons of people's lives. I think when it comes to all of the priorities above, I can be pretty open minded around all of them. I think the one I struggle to wrap my head around is the people who center their lives around their significant other. The whole thing feels pretty foreign to me even as someone who is in a happy and healthy relationship for the past 3 years. I feel like there is a lot of cultural baggage around the overemphasis on monogamy and romantic relationships and how that's seen as the main source of love for heteronormative people. There is also a lot of patriarchial notions surrounding this as well that I feel like we need to unpack. I guess the other thing is that with all the other categories, I have seen healthy and unhealthy forms of this but for the people who center their lives aroudn their significant other, I've only seen that end badly. Maybe that's just my bias from my own life experience. I think I'm best suited to people who prioritize friendship in a similar way compared to me in terms of having deeper relationships. But I'm also willing to have friends with different priorties and values as that can be something that I believe I learn a lot from. Different ways to process emotions: Some people need space to process through things. Other people want to talk about anything other than what's going on because they spend so much time thinking about it or dealing with it so they need space from the issue at hand. Some people don't need to talk rather your presance alone, physical or otherwise, makes them feel better. Some people need you to be practical and get into problem solving mode and some people just want you to listen. And then there are people like me who need to talk to people and write things out. I think in the past I have had the bias that everyone feels supported if you allow them to talk about what's bothering them and you listen attentively and as a result, some people in my life didn't feel supported even though I thought I was being supportive and there for them. I also think that this can shift and change throughout a person's life or depending on the situation they are dealing with. Different love languages: I feel like a lot of people have talked about this so I'm not going to reiterate that. I feel like I'm very much a quality time and physical touch person. I think in the past, I used to judge people who experience love through gifts as materialistic and shallow. But I have had a couple of friends who have gift giving as a love language and it always manifested in a wholesome way. Like I have a friend who made me a scapbook for my birthday that was carefully thoughout out. It wasn't an expensive gift, but it most certainly showed intentionality. I'm not the best at gift giving. I grew up in a household that just gave money and gift cards for special occasions and I have heard that some people kind of take offense to that because it essentially communicates that you don't know the person well enough to make a well thought out gift. So, that's a skill set I'm working on. Different conflict resolution styles: Some people are more passionate and don't mind yelling at their partner or bickering back and forth to get things off their chest. Other people, like my partner and I, tend to be more mellow in that we never had a "fight" but we do have our occasional disagreements that we discuss and proactively address. Some people need to sleep on an issue to come back to it with a clearer head while other people don't like to go to bed angry. Some people need an apology that expresses sincerity though you looking remorseful while other people want something more concise because anything more can look performative. Some people want a detailed understanding about why someone did something in their apology while others see that as making excuses and being argumentative. Some people only accept apologies in the form of changed behavior for better and for worse. Some people need more space and more time than others to get into a better head space. And again, the ask and guess culture stuff comes into play as well. I think the one that I struggle with the most is people who are more agressive. I cannot handle people yelling at me. I might not cry, but I can feel myself emotionally checking out and dissassociating to where nothing is productive is going to come from it. Nevertheless, I'm still figuring out how to navigate this so that I can better stand up for myself in the moment. I don't think I can be friends with someone who is more on the aggressive/ fiesty side and cannot adjust to being more mellow because that seems like it would be a lot for me. Nevertheless, i think it's important to know who to navigate situations and people like this. Different Lifestyles: I know people who have stable 9-5s, people who want to be a stay at home parent for a few years, people who travel around, people who are in more creative fields, people who are in their side quest era in terms of figuring their lives out, people who have kids, people who got married in a spectrum of ages, people who are REALLY into BDSM, people who party, people who are homebodies, people who are relgious and people who are not.I love being around people who have different life experiences than my own or people who are in different industries. Personally, I don't give a fuck where you fall in your lifestyle choices so long as you're not being stupid about it lol. it's not about the choices themselves rather it's the thinking process that led you to those choices and how you navigate it. That's what I'm more so interested in when I'm trying to evaluate whether someone would be a good fit for me as a friend or what their degree of critical thinking/ consciousness is like.

Just created yet another journal since my other journal was getting too long. I've also been wanting a new start and a new space since my last journal was started way back in 2021 when my life was very different from where I'm at right now. Here are my two previous journals for a quick reference/ recap: Psychoanalyzing Myself: 9/1/2021- 12/25/2024 The Joy Journal: 7/19/2020 - 9/7/2021

8/3/2025 Screentime: 2 hours 55 min Tiktok: 45 min I hit up against my limit and decided to stop then and there. This wasn't sporadic. This happened between 11am to 1pm. Maps: 40 min I went to a coffee shop like 20 min away from my home and so I needed the GPS to navigate there and back. Messages: 32 min Talked to a few people and responded to some messages Instagram: 15 min This was very sporadic. From 10 am to 11am, I spent 2 min on the app. From 11am to 12pm it was 2 min. From 1pm to 2pm it was 1 min. From 3pm to 4pm it was 1 min. From 5pm to 6pm it was 9 min. I guess since the algorithm isn't tailored to me, I don't get sucked into it in the way that TikTok sucks me in and that's why my use is more sporadic. Still, I feel like a crackhead when I keep checking like this even if I'm not spending an extend period of time on the app. Safari: 7 min Had a couple of random google searches.

I'm trying to decrease my screentime and have a healthier relationship to things like social media and my phone. I saw my screentime and had an existential crisis of sorts. I've been working on decreasing that so that I engage with life more instead of zoning out like a vegetable lol. But I think that having that extra degree of accountability by keeping a journal can help, so here I am. I don't know how this will go but let's see what happens lol.

Body Image Update It's been more than 5 months since the surgery. I still pretty good about the results though I'm adjusting to my current proportions. I feel like I'm like 85% satisfied with my body but the last 15% has been flaring up. I remember right after the surgery, I went through a phase where I felt like I looked as though I had a BBL because I thought my ass looke disproportionate to the rest of my body. That feeling has since subsided. Now, I'm crashing out over my boobs. I was really freaking out about it like a month / month and half ago because I'm essentially built like an airpod and I feel like my chest is freakishly large. i got my bra professionally fitted and I was also told that I'm a 30L. I guess it's good that I found a bra that fits and that I look less like an airpod but an L cup?!?!! That sounds sooo fake. Granted most people are wearing the wrong bra size so our perception of what is considered big and small is very skewed but hearing that I'm an L is still something that I'm trying to wrap my head around without feeling like a fetish or freak of nature. Shopping for clothes is still a struggle. Nothing fits my chest and I feel disproportionate. Sometimes I think about how I should have gotten a breast reduction when I got the tummy tuck. But on the brightside, though shopping is still frustrating, at least I no longer walk out of stores hating myself and feeling grossed out like I did before. There are also small thing that I have nitpicked about my body in the past that is coming back up. I have a little back fat, not enough for rolls but enough to where I notice and extra amount of squish when I put on a bra or anything form fitting. I always felt like my arms were kind of big. And my thighs touch. Usually, these things were mildly annoying but I guess it's more so has been in the fore front as I'm adjusting to my new proportions. It's easy to hyperfixate on the little things once the big insecurity has been taken care of. I feel like month 1 was the most neutral month where I was physically working on healing from the surgery itself and I was in the *what have I done to my body* phase. Like I felt good in the sense that I had a sense of what the results were going to be like but I was still in the trust the process phase (I would rate this a 4/10). Month 2 was when some of the results were coming in and I was feeling my best body image wise (I would rate this a 9/10). Month 3 had me feeling weird about my ass and weird about changing beauty standards but decent over all (7/10). Month 4 had me feeling more neutral and adjusted to my proportions (6/10). Month 5 has me feeling weird about my chest (3/10). Now, I would say I'm feeling more like a 6/10. Overall, right now as I'm moving from the 5 month mark to the 6 month mark , I feel good about my body but I feel like my brain is still adjusting to a few things. I might not be 100% satified with my body but I do feel like I'm over all more proportionate and that I feel much better than how I felt about myself presurgery. I'm also glad that these fluctuations are also not affecting my relationship with food with feels huge to me. I do feel like my relationship with food has been a bit off lately because of my overall mental health and how sometimes when I'm depressed I lose my appetite and I lose my energy to work out. And as a result of being out of my routine, there is a part of me that is afraid I'm going to gain all the weight back from the surgery and wind up looking weird as hell. I've also been dealing with some weird bloating due to things like food poisoning and some times eating meals with too much sodium and that messes with my head a little as I have been trying to adjust to my proportions. In the end of the day, despite my body image fluctuating like this, even when i felt like a 3/10, I still felt like I made the right decision to get the surgery done throughout all of this and I still feel better than presurgery. And I think that's what matters.

8/2/2025 Screentime: 3 hours 17 min Youtube: 1 hour 38 min watched a few video essays Safari: 1 hour 12 min I don't think this is an accurate number. It says that I spent an hour on Safari from 9 pm-10pm. I checked a couple things online but I wasn't on there the entire hour. I think I just had the app open. Plus, if this were the case, my screentime would add up to more than the 3 hours and 17 min shown after taking the other apps to consideration. Instagram: 37 min I checked Instagram from 1am to 2am in the morning for 7 min, from 5pm -6pm for 10 min, from 8pm -9pm for 10 min, and from 9pm to 10pm for another 10 min. Hexa Sort: 26 min I was playing this in the evening while listening to a video essay. Tiktok: 21 min I spent this time from 10-12pm. Thoughts: My screentime felt kind of low today. Usually that is the case if I have a packed or social day but I didn't do jack shit today. I spent a lot of time just relaxing tbh and I think it's a good sign that I'm able to relax without zoning out in front of a screen. I was also playing around with the settings on my phone and I saw that there is a way to disable your phone usuage between certain hours of the day. This is with the exception of a couple of communication apps, the clock app, and maps. I'm going to try that out by disabling my phone usage from 10 pm to 9 am in the morning.

Y'all have such creative imaginations, much more creative than my own, when it comes to my user name

This cracked me up lmaoooo soos_mite_ah is actually a really bad misprounciation of my actual name

8/01/2025 Screentime: 4 hours 30 min Youtube: 1 hour 49 min Pretty much all music Instagram: 59 min Very sporadic: 7am - 8am : 6 min 8am- 9am: 18 min (calls were slow at work and I had nothing better to do lol) 11 am - 12 pm: 10 min (another period of slowness) 12 pm -1pm : 1 min 1pm - 2pm: 2 min 5pm - 6pm: 2 min 7pm - 8 pm: 1 min 8pm - 9pm: 10 min (I was at my uncle's house bored lol) I need to learn how to better deal with boredom lol. Messages: 30 min sent a couple audio messages to a friend going through something Hexa Sort: 25 min played like 15 min in the afternoon to decompress from my day and like 10 min in the morning Tiktok: 18 min checked it in the morning for like 6 min and spent like 10 min on it in the afternoon. Ngl, I do get weirded out when I notice that I'm on social media at like 7 am in the morning whenever I do these logs and I actually write things out and bring my habits to light. Photos: 15 min scrolled through my camera roll and deleted some things.

7/31/2025 Screentime: 3 hours 13 min Youtube: 2 hours 27 min Most of this was music, about an hour of this was poltical content on Youtube. Hexa Sort: 28 min I played this for like 7 minutes during a boring meeting at work and for like 21 minutes while I was watching Youtube videos. Instagram: 27 min spent like 12 minutes on it in the morning and like 15 minutes on it after work Tiktok: 9 min I just spent this time at like 12:01 am before I tried to go to sleep last night. So technically this falls under today because of the time but in my mind, this is for yesterday lol. Thoughts: I think my phone usage was pretty tame today. I think part of that is because I has some family social stuff going on and because work generally kept me busy.

I loved this video. I may or may not do a whole post about this.

My general assessment is that yes, the U.S. is moving into Stage Green, but it's going through a VERY messy ego backlash in the process. I think a lot of the MAHA stuff is a good example of this. Yes it's Green but because it lacks the healthy foundation of Orange scientific reasoning, it's not a solid and sustainable form of Green. Similarly, I think we saw something in the pre-WW2 era before Orange became the center of gravity for the U.S. Eugenics is Orange but it's a pretty corrupt version of Orange because yes, it takes the scientific reasoning of evolution, but it also incorporates a lot of stage Blue pseudoscience that is rooted in things like racial superiority. Eugenics is a corrupt form of Orange in the same way that the holistic/ crunchy / woo woo kind of MAHA health is a corrupt form of Green. I wrote about this along with other examples of how this ego backlash is manifesting in a journal entry a while back if you're interested in checking it out:

7/30/2025 Screentime: 3 hours 58 min Youtube: 1 hour 42 min Mostly music Instagram: 52 min I was sporadically checking this throughout the day but I will say a solid 36 of those minutes was recently between 9 and 11 pm. I think I want to cut down on the sporadic usage going forward and be a bit more intentional if I'm going to block off time. I think my mentality when I find myself looking at this and Tiktok sporadically is like I scroll for 2 minutes, then I'm like *oh, I'm not supposed to be doing this, let me find other ways to regulate myself*, and then I close out of the app. I think this is just part of the process of me decreasing my social media usage but it's another metric that I can be mindful of. Tiktok: 14 min Again, sporadic usage. Hexa Sort: 25 min I was playing this as I was on the phone with my boyfriend. Safari: 16 min I just viewed the forum briefly in the morning while I was at work.

7/29/2025 Screentime: 3 hours 52 min Youtube: 2 hours 21 min Mostly music mixed in with some mindless scrolling. The mindless scrolling mainly happened between 12-1am when I couldn't sleep. Clock: 50 min I used the timer a few times throughout the day: TikTok: 40 min consisted of some mindless scrolling between 12-1am for like 30 min and then I also checked TikTok a couple times today Instagram: 36 min This was pretty sporadic throughout the day. Messages: 27 min checked a few texts pretty sporadically Thoughts: I feel like today felt like reset of sorts compared to the last couple weeks. I looked at my stats for the last two weeks and I would say that my averages weren't too far off from my usual. But I had a couple days where my screentime was really outrageous. I think the days that it felt the most outrageous were a couple of days where I spent 1.5-2.5 hours on TikTok and an hour on Instagram. Other days, my phone usage wasn't too bad in terms of total screentime but I did spend like an hour each on TikTok and Instagram. That didn't feel great either. Gonna be honest, it was a response to stress from work and my social life. I need to learn how to deal with that better. I will admit, as I was viewing my stats for 7/29/2025, I was nervous about how bad the last two weeks were. I was expecting it to be worse, but I can't say it was great either. Anyways, I'm getting back on track.

Me if a guy says he's in love with me after 1 month of dating

Abuse These last couple weeks has been a lot... I've been dealing with a lot of shenanigans in my social life and work has a little more stressful than usual. Gonna be honest, I haven't been doing well. My sleep schedule is a mess. My diet is all over the place and I frequently skip meals. I have been doom scrolling a lot over the last week or so. And I haven't gotten back into working out. While I do feel alright mentally (i.e. I'm not depressed, anxious, dealing with grief/trauma etc.), I do feel exhausted, over stimulated, and kind of all over the place. And I guess I want to brain dump on here as to why that is so. So as I was writing this, I realized that I was having articulating myself so I'm inserting this paragraph as a brief overview of the social dynamics at play. X is my boyfriend. FH is my bestfriend. MR is my good friend who got engaged. RW is my engaged friend's sister who got married on 7/25 (let's call her husband EW because gross lol). FH is good friends with MR and RW. X grew up with MR and RW. I'm not good friends with RW but I did hang out with her a few times when she would tag along with her sister. X and I got invited to RW's wedding early in June 2025. Neither of us knew she was even in a relationship but we didn't think much of it since we didn't really hang out with her much and because when we did hang out with her, it's not like we were interrogating her about her dating life. It just didn't come up in the few times that we interacted over the last couple years. We were just happy that we were going to a wedding to turn up. Then 2 weeks before the wedding, I asked FH something along the lines of *oh btw, what do you know about the couple getting married?* FH said she didn't know shit. I responded with how she and RW have been pretty close so I would think that she would have known more so that felt kind of strange. Before we had an opportunity to rub two braincells together, MR announces that she's engaged. Here's the thing with the engagement, NONE OF US KNEW SHE WAS EVEN IN A RELATIONSHIP BEFORE. So X, FH, and I started crashing tf out because this is abnormal of MR to hide, we have no idea how long she's been with this guy, and we know that MR's life has been a dumpster fire recently so she might not be in the right state of mind right now (she left an abusive roommate situation, her last relationship ended in a restraining order, Elon Musk swept in and took away her job and ability to pay for higher education, she's struggling to find a job, and more). That mixed with the mysterious circumstances of RW's wedding, there was a lot of suspicious and concerning things in the air. Like, is MR holding on to dear life with a guy who isn't good for her? What is the time line of this whole thing? Why has she been hiding this? Are the sisters enabling each other and egging on bad life decisions? WTF is going on??!?!! Anyways, after crashing out for 48 hours, we decided to regroup and coordinate exactly how we were going to have this conversation with MR to figure out what exactly is going on before freaking out more so that we know how to better address the situation. We framed this conversation (prompted by MR mind you since she was excited to share the news) as a *juicy gossip spill sesh* instead of a *intervention, interrogation, and psychoanalysis meeting.* We wanted to frame this as us trying to get to know what's going on without judgement and create a situation where she feels comfortable sharing. And of course, we want her to feel like we're on her side and that we're supportive (even if we don't agree with her life choices). That conversation went reasonably well. I will say, after that conversation, I went from being concerned and having alarms ringing around my head to being skeptically optimistic. I do feel like she's in the right state of mind and that she's not holding on to this man for stability / overly romanticizing this situation. I still feel a bit skeptical with the pace of this because it feel unnatural for me personally but it sounds like it's coming from a healthy place for her (she has known this guy for rougly a year and she's gonna get married at like September/ October of this year). 80 mph is reasonable on a highway but it's ridiculous on a neighborhood road. Sure, it's fast, but I feel like it's still on the faster end of normal. As for why she hasn't said anything over the past year, it's genuinely because she has been stressed with a lot of things and those have been the topic of discussion rather than her love life. She wasn't trying to hide anything. If anything, we were some of the first people to know about the news. The situation with her sister RW has been significantly worse though. FH tried to get into contact with RW just to hang out (even before all of the wedding stuff started to happen) but RW has been weirdly distant for the past few months. FH started asking some very basic questions about the guy and RW was being weirdly cryptic. Like, FH asked what the guy was like and EW responded with "he's not from here" AND NOTHING ELSE. Mind you, RW, MR, and EW are all Arab and FH and I are both South Asian. So FH and I were like WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN? Like, is the guy not from Texas? Is he from abroad? Is this a green card marriage? Were they arranged? DO WE NEED TO PULL UP!?!? Also, RW told FH that she was single back in March 2025. So, if RW is telling the truth, that means that she and EW have been together for like 6 months or less prior to getting married and planning out a wedding. At first, I suspected of RW of lying because she lied about something similar in the past. So, FH, X , and I were like *ok, we can't do shit now because the wedding is in a week, let's just pull up and figure out what's going on.* The wedding was on Saturday. The wedding was pretty westernized by Middle Eastern standards. I can't say that either family seemed particularly religious/ conservative or like they were pressuring RW and EW based on their attitudes. I talked to the EW's mom (since I didn't get a chance to talk to RW or EW) and I do think that the family is like upper middle class, but they aren't like rich or anything. It's unlikely that this is a green card marriage (thought that wouldn't be impossible, I'd give the chance as 70/30). But then, there were the couple's vows....... EW sounded like a typical lover bomber. He saved RW's name as Wife on his phone after the second date. They said I love you like month in. And apparently, he moved to Texas from California, lost his job 2 months in, and then he found another job and soon after met RW. After talking to his mom, EW grew up in Dubai (the family is ethnically Egyptian), then completed his bachelors and MBA in California, and moved to Texas 8 months ago. So, he moved to Texas 8 months ago, lost his job 6 months ago, and then some where along the way met EW, fell in love, announced the wedding like a month ago, and then here we are in the present day. Translation: This relationship has been a thing for 5 months before the wedding. AND THAT'S BEING GENEROUS. RW sounded delusional and traumatized. She talked a lot about her difficult family background (financially and emotionally), how this man is saving her from her difficult life, and how she "has been in her masculine energy for her whole life and now she can finally be soft and feminine." Like... homegirl is literally talking about Sprinkle Sprinkle talking points in HER WEDDING VOWS. I get having a difficult life and finding a partner who complements you well to the extent of which it can make up for some wounds you have, but.. that shouldn't be front and center of your overall relationship with a person because that's receipe for a trauma bond right there. FH and I were giving each other looks during the wedding vows and then we had to stop so we don't accidentally start making faces. We were both like *what the actual fuck were we listening to.* In addition to the vows, they also lowkey avoided us three at the wedding. Which was WEIRD. Honestly, I think it's because we would have asked questions and have said something. We also got to talk to one of MR's friends who was a real estate agent. Apparently EW and RW already bought a house together prior to the wedding (AND THEY PROBABLY HAVEN'T EVEN KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR 5 MONTHS). To me, this looks like EW is pushing bigger and bigger commiments onto the relationship to where RW would feel pressured to stay. They've done literally everything except have kids. I tried to talk to more of RW's friends but most of the people on her side were either people who were kind of distant to her or more so friends with MR like us three. And listen, I'm not trying to judge EW's social life. I get that you can be close to some people in certain phases of your life but not in others and that not every season in your life involves having robust social circle, but the fact that FH is probably the closest person to her and FH didn't know about any of this, that's concerning. All of this felt textbook in terms of what happens when people come from financially / emotionally difficult background and then that causes them to easily fall for things that sound waay too good to be true, like a narcissist showering you with love and affection to get you easily hooked on to them, and them distancing you from your friends and family. Things like this can easily devolve into abuse and DV. This is a very dangerous situation. Thoughout all of this, I have been a sounding board for FH. I'm like an acquaintence at best when it comes to RW but FH is actually friends with her. She told me that RW has had a history of rushing into relationships, even to the point where she had a failed engagement at 19 (she's 23 almost 24 now and EW is like 26/27). That failed engagement was a dumpster fire to the point where RW said that if she ever got engaged, she was never going to tell anyone until wedding because of evil eye. LIKE BFFR. GIRL NO ONE GAVE YOU EVIL EYE, THE MAN WAS JUST EVIL! She also romanticized being a stay at home wife and marrying rich to the point where she basically followed the Sprinkle Sprinkle content like it was the bible. And aparrently, RW does have a tendency to ghost when she's "going through things" which usually has to do with her dating people for like 3-4 months here and there. So all of this is very much giving a male centered woman who will drop her friends the moment she meets a guy and who has bad internet dating advice brain rot. Like, this apparently a recurring pattern for her and I'm afraid that the only way she's gonna learn is through a messy divorce or DV. And all of this sounds terrifying. We like to think that we're better than our parent's generation but like.... are we though? We like to think that we're breaking generational curses, but what if we're not? Or worse, what if we're making new curses? And as someone who values friendship as a very key component in life, not only is life transitions as you grow up difficult to navigate, but in situations like this, it's down right scary. I've lost friends over the last 3 ish years due to abusive workplaces, abusive partners, and other difficult life situations. I hope these people find healing and more stable life situations and maybe they'll come back around and we'll be able to mend things down the road. I just.. I don't want to lose more people especially to awful, heartbreaking situations. I've also been reading up on how to handle things when you're a friend to someone in an abusive relationship. I'm trying to be tactful and be the reasonable one amongst my friends so that we don't pour gasoline into these situations. I feel like dealing with someone in an abusive relationship is much like dealing with a drug addict. You want to be supportive, but you don't want to enable them. At the same time, you want to hold them accountable but you have to be careful on how you say things so that this person doesn't essentially relapse. And with drug addiction, depending on how bad it is and how long they have been using, as much as you want them to go cold turkey, if they do that, the withdrawals could be worse than the addiction itself and can even kill them if it's not handled by a professional. Similarly, it can take on average 7 times for a domestic violence survior to finally leave their abuser. And leaving is the most dangerous time and often the time when people get killed. So as a result, a lot of people stay in these situations because it's safer to do so than leaving. And it's like both of these things can get drawn out and REALLY fuck up your life. And it hurts me knowing that that there is someone in my circle who is close to being in a situation like this. I guess, I'm just sitting with the heaviness of it all.

I liked this video and how it discusses virtue mirroring. I didn't realize I was lowkey doing this but I did notice that sometimes I don't like shows because the characters annoy me or do not reflect my views. And in an effort of creating a more open mind, I have been trying to open up my tastes to include that kind of media to appreciate it for what it is rather than trying to make it into what I want.

Hey again I was reading your journal and I wanted to say that a lot of the stuff you have talked about in the past week did resonate with me and what I dealt with when I was trying to get my eating back on track. The bloating is rough. It doesn't feel great and the distortion in your body image can fuck you up. At the same time, sometimes it's part of the process. If in the past you eliminated or heavily restricted certain foods for a while, re-introducing them can cause your stomach to freak out because it doesn't have the enzymes to digest those foods like it used to. Nevertheless, if you keep eating, your stomach will adjust accordingly and you won't start bloating the moment you have a slice of bread lol. And yeah.. volume eating can mess with your natural hunger cues. Sometimes I feel like it's a healtheir version of binging because it has the same mechanism of eating until you're stuffed (or eat a very large amount of food in one sitting) even if you don't really like or crave the food in question rather than being in tuned with your body's natural cues. But once you move away from it and start trusting things that have a higher caloric density (and also has a higher nutrient density) that mechanism can fall away. But as usual, things like this can take time and are almost never fun in the beginning. I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone and what you're experiencing in this journal is all normal and that there is an end in sight where things that are difficult stop being so. It's not an easy task to learn to trust your self, your body, and eating whatever sounds nice in a world where diet culture goes as far to say that if you're hungry you should just drink water because you're not actually hungry unless you want to volume eat spinach. There is a lot of mindsets around food that can muddy your attitude and behavior around food and that takes longer to unpack than the basic nutritional stuff. This sucks right now, but it isn't permanent. I wish you luck on your journey and I have faith in you.

Fake vs Indirect Spirituality I am a few days late but I watched Leo's video on Fake Spirituality. I went in with the mindset of *I'm ready to have Leo drag my practices by the hair and call me and my delusions out* but I left with more complex thoughts than that. So I decided to make this post to explore it here. I feel like I was more into the new age spiritual stuff from like age 17-21. I have since strayed from that after a couple of bad experiences that have led me to believe that I was getting to ahead of myself with the spiritual stuff and the deconstruction to where it was manifesting in an unhealthy way. I didn't then swing to demonize spirituality rather I kind of put it off to the side as something to come back to later since I needed to work on more fundamental things first. Back then, I came into the realization that I needed to work on the fundamentals of my life and survival first so that I don't co-opt spirituallity, weaponize it, become a zen devil, or promote anything harmful unintentionally. I haven't gotten back into spirituality since. As a result, since I have been focusing on I guess "survival" more so than spirituality in these last 4 ish years, I came into this video thinking that Leo was going to call me out for my monkey tendencies. Instead I was surprised. I think it's good that I took a step back from spirituality and I didn't go along my life slapping a spiritual label on everything I did and made spirituality my whole personality. I think it's good that I decided to dissect my psychological issues, build a more stable life for myself through my career and my friendships, educate myself on the world around me, exhausting my material desires, and also just plain enjoy myself. While I never thought of these things as wholly spiritual, I think there is a spiritual component to a lot of these things that connects them in a thread of fulfillment for me. I want to be able to explore that. 1. Working on myself in therapy: I have figured out a lot of my self biases, worked through insecurities, dealt with interpersonal issues, manage family issues, and deal with general life stuff in my sessions. I guess there is an element of truth seeking in figuring out my biases and working through my insecurities and applying those lessons practically in various relationships and life situations I have. Nevertheless, I do recognize the survival elements of it in the way that it's tailored to my life rather than providing truth on life as a whole and how it provides me with better coping mechanisms. 2. Having fulfilling romantic and platonic connections: Having a solid group of people around me feels like a necessity, not because I'm anxiously attached and I cling to other people, but because these relationships are a big source of fulfillment for me personally. I guess my main reason why is because I like observing and getting to know other people, their lives, the way they operate, how to deal with them etc. because it exposes me to new ways of thinking, new ways of living, and new facets of the human experience I may not get from my one perspective. I suppose this desire to find new ways of thinking, living, and experiencing is a form of truth seeking and there is a spiritual component, but I do recognize that there is a difference between me understanding something from direct experience vs me learning from the experience of others. Nevertheless, I do see the value of learning from the experiences of others in the way that you're not putting yourself in harms way just to learn something, the way that you're exercising your capacity for empathy, and how you can learn more in a shorter period of time. Leo also talked about the importance of separating your spirituality and your social life. That, I want to contemplate more. I do tend to keep my spiritual opinions private for the most part and I don't really talk about them until something comes up. I feel like for me, part of it is the social stigma of talking about things like nonduality and how that's kind of relegated to people who do too many shrooms, and how another part of it is that often times, this stuff is a lot to explain and I either don't have the competence to communicate that effectively or I'm not certain the other person will get what I'm trying to say given their stage of consciousness. 3. My current corporate job: Yeah... there isn't much spirituality in my job itself but I am still able to connect to my sense of spirituality by being present at my job, engaging in flow states, and working my muscle on being disciplined. And I think my ability to still be somewhat connected to my spirituality despite working a soulless office job is a testament to me and my overall spiritual atunement rather than the job itself. In other words, it's not the job that's spiritual rather it's the way that I choose to engage with it. Leo mentioned in the video that the quality of your spirituality is not determined by tripping balls in Burning Man rather its you ability to connect to it while doing nothing at all. Chop wood, carry water I guess lol (or in this case send emails, troubleshoot issues). 4. Working on my material desires: This includes anything from making money at my current job, putting a roof over my head away from my family, getting plastic surgery, decorating my space etc. I don't think any of these spiraled into money hungry hustle culture, rampant consumerism, obessing over my physical appearance to the point where I think that these are tickets to happiness. Nevertheless, I do think that a certain amount of material stability, while it isn't sprituality itself, can be the solid foundation for spirituality to thrive. I know damn well that it's easier to be present and chill since I have money to cover my bills and emergencies and I'm not living in a chaotic home environment with my family. 5. Figuring out my fantasies: I feel like I have been journaling a lot about that topic lately but it's been something that I have been working on in general without realizing it. I think it's good that I'm not getting lost in my fantasies and confusing it with reality rather I'm identifying the fantasies as such and finding healthy ways of engaging with them, whether that means finding an appropriate outlet or deconstructing them all together. 6. "Spiritual" Hobbies: I do like to engage with astrology and occasionally tarot. Imma be honest, I mainly do it for the funsies and use it to spark conversations through the archetypes presented. I also do yoga, but only as a form of workout that I'm enjoying as of late. I can't say that I'm personally connecting to being through these things lol. 7. Engaging in My Interests in Learning about Human Rights Issues, Political Matters, and World Cultures: Again, not really spiritual but I do find these things fulfilling because it leaves me feeling more intuned with the complexity of the world around me and it enables me to empathize with different kinds of people. I guess there is an element of truth seeking there though it isn't in the existential sense. I think sometimes people conflate things they find fulfilling based on their personal values with things that are spiritual. 8. Meditating and doing thing to take life slow: I do think that I engage with this sometimes to keep myself sane so i don't get so busy to where I spiral into anxiety. That, I wouldn't characterize as spiritual. But I will say that I sometimes like to slow down for the sake of it and to enjoy being itself whether it's be meditating on the couch or mindfully making a meal and drinking coffee.

7/14 to 7/19 I haven't been logging my screentime for the past week because the group chat has been going crazy and I have been in 3-4 hour long face time calls crashing tf out, plotting how to negotiate and get out information from people, and deciding if we need to pull tf up. My combined time on Tiktok and Insta was under an hour on all days except Friday. I was just exhausted that day and I think my willpower took a break. Not great but, considering the circumstances, not the worst either I didn't really use Youtube for non music related stuff because I was intellectually preoccupied with drama in the friend group lol. So yeah... I didn't get a chance to do my logs but I still manage to stay true to my habits for the most part.

The Gen Z Stare I haven't been super online lately due to me cutting back on my screentime. But apparently, people are talking about the Gen Z stare and how especially the younger half of Gen Z is awkward / nonchalant / don't have basic social skills. Some people are trying to push back and say that the Gen Z stare is just customer service workers looking at you like you're stupid and not wanting to exert extra effort into socializing when they already don't get paid enough. I think there is some validity to that along with how exhausting and unsustainable this world is and how sometimes old people be doing too much and feel entiled to interaction. But besides a customer service setting, I do think there is a broader problem in the lack of IRL socialization. I saw this video and I felt seen and like I'm not going crazy lol. I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing that something is weird in the air.

7/14/2025 Screentime: 5h 7 min Youtube: 1 hour 57 min Nearly all of this was music. I think I probably just watched one Vaush video on my phone. But tbh, I spent like another hour listening to video essays on my laptop to deal with my work being annoying as hell. i was just trying to get through the work day. Safari 51 min This was mainly me reading manga and I think a did a few google searches here and there. I came onto this forum and replied back in a journal a couple times. Maps: 50 min Nonissue tbh Tiktok: 29 min I swear I was on here more today. But I think it more so had to do with the number of times I opened the app rather than me spacing out on it for a long period of time. According to my iphone, I spent 3 min from 12-1am on Tiktok, 5 min from 9-10am, 3 min from 10-11am, 4 min from 11-12pm, 11 min from 12-1pm, and 1 min from 2-3pm. I think the reason why I was sporadically opening this app is because I have the reflex to but then the moment that I open it, I'm like *wait, I can do better and do xyz instead* or I'm like *wait, this will probably make me feel even more all over the place, let me not.* I kinda had a shitty work day and the last thing I wanted to do was focus on my job (and to be fair, I wasn't really focused) but I'm glad that I didn't opt to scrolling instead. Instagram: 10 min I spent like the last 10 min on Instagram to decompress from some things I was working on Clock: 32 min I used the timer a couple times. Messages: 16 min Just texted back some people. I was a little shocked by my screentime being so high today considering that I felt like I was really busy with a myriad of things today. Work was annoying. Afterwards I ran some errands. Then I worked out, took a shower, made dinner, did a few things to wrap up on work, and cleaned something around my place. I think the music, maps, and reading manga comprises of most of the 5 hours so I'm not too worried about that.

I would say so for the most part.

7/13/2025 Screentime: 4 hours 17 min Youtube: 2 hours mainly music with a couple video essays in the morning. But I will say, I have spent A LOT of time on Youtube today because I was watching and contemplating a lot in a couple of lengthy videos. I also journalled a fair bit today (both on this forum and privately). My phone screentime is nothing compared to my laptop screentime today. Nevetheless, I feel good about my screentime on my laptop and I feel like it was productive and fulfilling. Instagram: 1 hour 4 min I spent like 15 min on Instagram last night before going to sleep and that was after 12pm so it got logged for today. I spent about 50 min on instagram at like 7pm. Tiktok: 27 min I spent like 27 min on Tiktok last night before going to sleep after 12 pm. I didn't check Tiktok at all during the day. Messages 25 min I was sending audio messages back and forth with a friend and since that takes more time than just sending messages, the Messages app showed up towards the top of the screentime log. Most of the time it's towards the bottom since I'm only there for like a couple minutes and it's negligible.

Fantasy I feel like I have been talking about fantasies a lot in my journal recently, in this page particularly. The word "fantasy" appears 29 times and the word "fantasises" shows up 9 times prior to me writing this post. I've been reflecting on various forms of fantasy range from sexual fantasies, fantasies that are misconceptions of how things actually work, fantasies that reproduce existing ideologies, fantasies that we get lost in, and fantasies that we then use find ourselves in. I suppose this is byproduct of me trying to reconnect with my desires in an existential sense since fantasy can be an insightful window into what we want or are taught to want. It can prove to be a safe environment to engage in pleasure or some kind of psychological need without actively putting ourselves in harms way that comes with the reality of a situation (think consensual BDSM vs being in the hands of an actual abuser). But, if we're not careful, in some situations, that can escape from the actual work and reality can lull us in to complacency (think fantasizing about being wealthy housewife that doesn't do much other than drink matcha and seeing that as an escape from capitalism rather than putting the actual work to make a better life for people). And, while I do want to connect with my desires in a sustainable way, I don't want them to control me. I want my relation to my desires to drive me to engage with life rather than to escape from it to where my eyes are glazed over in a haze. I might not always like reality, but I never want to take it for granted. I don't want to dissolve my empathy and divorce myself from the tragedies happening around me. I don't want to sacrifice my critical thinking for the sake of not going insane in this information environment. I don't want to be stingy with my energy in the effort of self-preservation to where I shy away from annoyance and inconvenience when they're often the byproduct of long term fulfilling goals. I don't want trade my sensuality for uncanny, inhuman perfection. And I certainly don't want to disconnect from a sense of passion, hope, and earnestness for the sake of invulnerable, apathetic, nonchalance. I want to be more human in a world that's trying to take that away from us. And analyzing fantasy is not only my way of exploring that humanness, but it's also my way of analyzing the things that cower us away from embracing the full breadth of our humanness.