harbinger (we do bones) @Skellington@kolektiva.social

The thing about being mentally ill and living with mentally ill people is that 80% of my human interaction is weighing, "Is this a symptom or are you fucking with me."

That would be 100% percent of the time when I'm alone and only dealing with myself.

"Is this a symptom or am I fucking with me?"

I know I'm having low energy and depression symptoms, but the movie I was watching ended half an hour ago and I've been watching the one that autoplayed after even though it's... horrible and I have.... no idea what it is.

This is just... awful... and I can't... stop it.

The slippers have been modified and completed.

Spouse described the kind of cuff she wanted and I ended up working inside the existing cuff and building up a new cuff from there. If I'd had more of the grey I might have done a third cuff because I think it would look cool.

Cuff is designed to fold down and look pretty or fold up to snuggle in the ankle hems of sweatpants.

If you like to lurk or listen, if you like to not be the center of social attention, if you find that other people are interesting in theory but less fun in practice... don't fall into the programming that you are less of a person than those who engage more energetically with the world.

You have the inherent power of observation and those people who are so busy talking and doing may find what you do naturally to be very hard and scary.

You do you.

What is it like, then, when we set aside everything and observe ourselves and the world around us?

It can be boring. It can be fascinating. It can be frightening. It can be uplifting. It can be all those and more all at the same time.

But this is one power that we all have and can choose to employ. It's not easy. It's not even simple. But it is possible and the things we learn will possibly not be what we expect.

It is an interesting thing to me that we have the capability of observing our minds, feelings, and surroundings free from goals or judgement.

When we grow up surrounded by the worship of productivity and the threats of those around us, we seldom indulge in a non-judgmental observation of ourselves and others. We learn that judgement fosters survival. We learn that distraction steals from productivity. Both lead to discomfort.

If we are always either focusing completely on something, or distracting from all focus, we may miss many interesting things.

Tactical awareness is observation with a goal, but if we never observe without a goal we may miss important data that can change our tactical situation.

I think that many of us actively work to keep our observation focused on certain things. Threats, hopes, opportunities are things that we can focus on with great intensity and to the exclusion of all else. Many of us self-distract to keep anxieties and discomforts out of our area of awareness.

These are useful tools that we can use to achieve goals or survive times of increased struggle.

When I feel growing impatience with the elds in my care, sometimes I have the presence of mind and stillness to observe that impatience the way I observed the deer.

And yet, I am aware that without having chosen the stillness of observing the spider, the deer would never have gotten close enough for me to see.

The anthropologists tell me that it is not possible to observe without affecting that which is observed. The Buddhists tell me the same thing.

The first want to take into account their affect on what they observe so that they can work to understand it without influencing or altering what existed before their arrival. The second often use this power to take the teeth out of unskillful aspects of living.

They touched noses and she displayed relaxed body language and the fawn slowly relaxed and looked back at me as if telling himself that there really wasn't a monster in the closet, even if I looked like danger.

I remained very still because I did not want to get stomped by a doe, but this gave me the opportunity to watch them visit the area and then move on in their own time.

Today I am thinking about the inherent power of observation.

When I was a child I went up the side of a wooded hill and sat to watch a spider building a web. I heard crunching near me and turned my head to see a doe and her fawn less than ten feet from me. I went very still.

The fawn saw me turn my head and was alarmed. The doe did not see me and she reassured the fawn that there was nothing there.

Yes, I am far more concerned with insulting durian fruit with this statement than with offending anybody else.

The problem with reading books by authors like Becky Chambers, Tamsyn Muir, and A.K. Larkwood that have casts of characters very much like the people in my own life is that when I try to watch something like a 90's sci fi movie I taste the cisheteronormativity. It tastes like being buried alive in durian pulp.

Let me be clear. I like durian. But it is a strong scent and flavor and the occasional milkshake is plenty for me.