I suppose, if you really tried, there could be a less charitable reading of what I was saying in there somewhere. But, and this is the last I’m doing of this tonight because I’m starting to get a tension headache and my stress levels are more important than arguing with someone who has made a decision of what I am…

I did actually. Therapy helped me to get to this place. If you can believe it, there was a time when my confidence was so low that I would have agreed with every insult thrown my way here. Would have agreed whole-heartedly and not said a word. Finances became a thing. So, I stopped for right now until I can find a…

I mean you don’t know me other than the MassofContradictions guy on the other end of this computer, so I’ll forgive you your worst assumptions of me. Fear is not antagonism. (Damned Kinja not supporting Grammarly, so I have to do this shit all the fuck by myself). Lack of self-confidence is not antagonism.

The reason why Batman is a good role model for boys is how Bruce Wayne got to become Batman. Relentless, exhaustive, all-consuming desire to be the best you can be. But instead of martial arts, or rather in addition to, be the best husband you can be, the best father, the best lover, the best man. And if you can do…

I mean, wow. I figured someone would do this. But I didn’t expect it to be precisely this brutal. Brave of you to just read that first part, missing the entire thrust of what I was actually saying, just to rip me for saying I haven’t been on a date in 21 years. I haven’t been on a date, by the way, not because i’m the…

I can’t control what other assholes think. It’s not my job, or my responsibility. I can only control the life I lead, and the relationships I have with the people around me. And for me, I choose to try and be a good man according to the principles I want to define myself by. That’s it and that’s all.

A good man is a gentleman, a man of honor, courage, appropriate amounts of stoicism and emotion when required, and above all else... reliability. As a man who has been around a shitload of bad men, I can tell you there are bad men. They exist and they are terrible. These are the men who don’t cry when crying is…

I can provide links that AOM is better. Example: https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/advice/when-is-it-okay-for-a-man-to-cry/

I’m a guy, a guy who had (and still has) staggeringly low self-confidence to the point of needing therapy to make myself not think i’m the worst person to ever draw breath and an unattractive bridge troll destined to die alone, and Jordan Peterson helped me (even just a little bit) get there. You need what you need,…

We’re not having the same conversation here, I think. I’m saying there are other examples of people who can help you become a good man, if being a good man is what you wish to be. You don’t want to listen to Jordan Peterson? Fine. Listen to the Art of Manliness. Listen to, if we’re using TikTok as an example, Tank…

Well here comes the bullet in the form of my notifications about to be a trash fire. But here we go. If you are a young boy trying to find your place in the world, trying to figure out what it means to be a man, you aren’t exactly rife with good role models for it. No one tells you how to do it right, what being a…

Cool. Like, I am too broke for Disney+ but from everything I hear this show is really fun. And honestly, control over one’s powers and strength is one of the big things about classical Stoic philosophy that I have always relied on. (I was an emotional livewire before I found stoicism, so I approve of all of this.)

Ezra Miller is a prick, but it’s they not his. 

(Sigh) I hope Ezra Miller can get the help they need, but as a hardcore Arrowverse fan and fanfic writer (okoriwadsworth on AO3), it reminds me how great of a job Stephen Amell did at carrying an entire universe on his shoulders and never embarrassing anyone. It’s not easy, and this reminds me of that.

I’m at least comforted by the knowledge she was an organ donor. People will have chances at better lives now. But by and large, I have no great pity for someone who chooses to drive drunk. 

That’s the exception.

I mean...... Part of my therapeutic journey was realizing that part of the long rut I was in lay in my ability to become cynical, cold, and hateful of not just myself but of everyone. So a story like this, where it’s just two people coming together to get something done and eventually falling in love, strikes me as a…

Like, I have GERD and I would go harder in the paint than DJ Khaled did. 

At some point, probably I will. I have a backlog of stuff I want to read, so that will go in it. 

Nice to see Padma Lakshmi still being a good egg. I remember her from her Hot Ones episode just being the most stunning, and calm, person on that show ever. Unrelated: DJ Khaled is still soft as tissue paper.