i would like to believe in god because i'd like to think someone gives a shit

[apiphile]

I suppose at least all my frustration at feeling so comprehensively STUCK (weight, transition, employment, the trifecta of "things I have no fucking control over") is being channelled into lengthy and dramatic updates to the book, and now that I have my fitbit replaced can be supplemented with angry purposeful walks around the disgusting winter

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

Not being able to take a bath or get hot food makes everything worse. Even in warm climates, when I couldn't get a bath I'd be completely irritable and gross-feeling all day, and when it's cold out? So much suck.

That's an interesting plan. I've heard that in the most socially functioning countries, the rich make something like 20 times as much as the poor. Also, a study I read on the correlation between money and happiness said that in the US, more money correlates with more happiness up to about 100,000 dollars a year, and after that, it doesn't actually seem to have an impact. (There's a trade-off where having to wait and work for stuff that genuinely is a luxury makes you enjoy it more, but the same doesn't apply for stuff like necessities or financial security.) So there's a lot of potential benefits for having basically everyone on a scale from "Getting by" to "comfortably well-off".

[apiphile]

ENTIRELY SUCK.

Well that scale was the one proposed by Orwell and in this matter (as in his descriptions of effective writing) I agree with him entirely. You need to have a scale by which people can aspire to something greater - and I read the same thing you did about the cut-off point of money/happiness, I think.

[wolfy_writing]

I think it'd be interesting to research what the optimal ratio was, but the basic idea is really good. If everything's doled out on a precisely equal level, that's bland and discouraging, but at the same time, we don't need ultra-wealth and abject poverty.

[apiphile]

Exactly, one of the counterarguments to flat communism has been that people have an instinct to strive to be better than their neighbours. Personally I think that attainment doesn't necessarily need to be financial, it could be spiritual or power but this does away with the financial concern anyway!

[coniferous_you]

angry purposeful walks around the disgusting winter cityscape as I attempt to force fat off my body with the sheer power of never letting it get enough fuel.

I know you know this, but the fuel deprivation thing isn't just simple math because if you deprive yourself too hard, your metabolism slows to a point where the exercise you are doing might not mitigate that (even though exercise does speed it up at least a little, depending on what you're doing). Better to do these things gradually. Of course, that does get harder when other life stressors are involved!

[apiphile]

I know, I know. It's just no one can fucking decide where in the range that amount lies.

[coniferous_you]

Because everyone is different, it's really a matter of ranges. Sort of an oscillation between "obviously too low" and "probably high enough that you won't get what you want." Dipping far enough into either will sabotage your efforts (although if you're really active a higher caloric intake will hold you back less than a severely low one).

[apiphile]

Well by my own standards I'm not going "too low" but I have no idea what the standards of the board are.