Do not:

    I have quite a lot of experience receiving both solicited and unsolicited advice, whether it was part of a research I was doing or just told people about different goals. I've learned that, no matter how convincing of a talker a person is, it is best if I follow these personal "guidelines".

Do not take financial advice from those who are not doing very well themselves. They tend to present lots of ideas and seem like they know what they're talking about, but they are really just in debt all the time. Also, do not accept financial advice from someone who is doing good simply because they received an inheritance. It is good to inherit goods, but if someone else worked to build what they have and they never did anything, maybe it would be best to wait until they've accomplished something before giving advice to those who are trying to make it from scratch.

Do not accept maternal or parenting advice from women who do not have kids of their own. A lot of times, lack of empathy can come even from fellow moms. Some with easier pregnancies, who forget that not all pregnancies are the same. Some, with maybe more difficult ones that think everyone should suffer if they did. But it is usually those who don't have kids who try to lecture future moms, while they have zero experience with the hormonal fluctuations that can come with a pregnancy and what it does, the pains that can affect pregnant women like pelvic girdle pain that makes each step hurt and you cannot even sit for long. Discomfort makes people grumpy, more unproductive, depressed etc. So if you cannot help them with a good word, leave them alone at least. And YES, I am the one who signed up for it, which means I am also the one responsible to go through it as best as I can, avoid risks and stress, even if that means standing up to people sometimes. And also, yes, that talk is not always gonna be calm, because of said discomfort. However, it does not matter; prioritize yourself and your child.

Do not accept fitness and nutrition advice from people who are not and maybe never were fit/as fit as you want to get. Especially if you are looking for long-term results. It either clearly doesn't work, or they never followed their own advice so they cannot know what works well. While, of course, most body types, organisms, lifestyles etc. differ from one person to another, I tend to gravitate towards people who are a good example of what they preach.

Do not let malicious lurkers affect your mood. This mainly happens on social media - the ones that never interact/react positively to ANYTHING you post, ever, regardless of whether it's music, a selfie, a random picture, a meme, an artwork, a thought. Nothing! Logically, you would think someone keeps you in their list because they like you, your posts, feel like you have things in common. Not this species! They always only pop up to disagree with something, to criticize something or try to lecture you, pick an argument, be opinionated, etc. The weak character, even if, interestingly enough, you've always been cordial towards them. But yes, this says more about them than it does about you.

The cartoon killer generation

 

So Pepe LePew is being cancelled due to "lack of consent" in the cartoon . And so many other things are being cancelled because, while there are so many ways to interpret something, society will choose only one perspective and make it the general thing.

As a kid, what I understood from this move in cartoons was how cringy guys can be who don't understand you don't like them, and guys can easily get the same message from it and learn to not act desperate, right? Also, women can learn that playing "hard to get" makes you more wanted, which is true (even if it's wrong to play these games, haha).

It's considered a "bad influence", right? For kids/ guys.

Pepe LePew was an old cartoon, so I can tell you some things I observed as a kid, from back when we used to watch this cartoon, among others.

While growing up, half the guys in my class would grope girls during breaks. Now people only take this part into consideration and rush to explode already, but you know what was more fucked up? More than half of the girls in my class would happily allow it and were PROUD of it! They thought it was cool, so the kids thought if so many girls allow it, it's ok and the "abnormal" ones are that don't. And what these girls would watch daily was teen series and mainstream pop music videos, in which we all know that the "cool guys" were always surrounded by slutty women and the "pop divas" were more than half naked and sold their shitty music through sex-appeal. That was clearly what the girls were inspired by, and they were always calling the rest of us out, making fun for not allowing the same things and "not having a boyfriend or more yet" at 14.

So, I have to ask myself, was Pepe LePew the bad influence on guys, or the girls that acted slutty and made fun of the others for not doing the same, making the guys think their behavior should be the standard?

(If you can't understand this and think I am "victim shaming" or whatever, get out of here because my patience is running low. The facts are simply that not everything is black and white and we are just polishing the surface by censoring what is convenient.)

"These tears they keep on falling down on me
These tears they won't be gone with autumn leaves"

How many storms have washed the streets throughout these years? How many people have died?
How many tears have washed our cheeks and what is the cost of a smile?
How do we separate night from day, if all we have are dreams to keep us feeling alive?

Addicted to pain we shall become when every minute hurts and we try to hide.
Addicted to wishing for the the untouchable, but you don't want anything else.
How could you care about others if you don't anymore care for yourself?

Pieces I brought home

Those depressing moments when the time has come to return to the concrete jungle. But in my mind, I'm always in similar places. Here's what my phone kept:

 

 

 

Oh, and I also finally found my dragon!

Walking towards dead-end

As an inevitable result of our chimeric desperation, we will end up looking for this dark-clothed figure that isn't limited by any outlines. And you somehow wish it would prove itself completely inhuman. Once you will have gotten tired of the tideous daily of human life, you will feel it is about time to dare aiming higher. You aim for the absolute. Once all of your hopes - nurtured back when life was just about to begin - are turned to ash, when your eyes will no longer flicker, your search will commence.

Back in the day, when you were sitting in the benches of school, daydreaming, drawing your beautiful aspirations on the last pages of a notebook or engraving them onto your desk with the tip of a compass; back when you thought that, in just a few years, the infinite possibilities of an ideal world will open up to you and you will finally be able to enjoy settings you had envisioned, you thought you'd have control.
You will crave and you will search, voluntarily blinded by the risk of repeated disappointments.
Those ripe days and nights of ecstatically anticipating times of delirium to come, timeless times and limitless space, of fascination, smoke laces and magic...gone. Your ideal world ahead, everything was possible. You could lay with your nose poking upon the pages of a book all night long, living parallel lives, at your discretion...at your pleasure. Could afford to wake up after one hour's sleep, with the reminiscence of magic still pulsing through your cognitive muscles and nothing else around you would matter in the following hours. Could get lost, child as you were, in a sunrise you were secretly watching by the window after a secretly sleepless night, lost in music that resonated with your feelings to the point of perfection and carried you towards new ideas and dreams. In the creative process of a drawing, a melody, shape of a cloud, smell of old pages. You were sure life will reach it's hiatus one day, the romantic and the artist within had to rely on this.
You created obscure, semi-abstract images, the perspective of this world you lost yourself in and got too used to. All the freedom you can imagine would be at your feet, a realm without any authority or boundaries other than your own, nobody will hurt you anymore.

But, my dear, there comes a time when this thing called "reality" kicks in, and an invincible sort of boredom will end up taking it's toll on everything you used to be, together with the need and automated responsibility of survival, gradual resignation of becoming a tiny engine of society. This is all so meaninglessly fractional in the eyes of the Universe that any of it barely exists. But from your own eyes, it is everything, you are everything that you have, essence of the child determined to triumph and wanted to live in a different world.

And guess what? Along with years passing and the experiences they bring that are too heavily packed with "reality",  you'll have lost a great deal of authenticity...you're tired. The ascending exhaustion will transform the hope of escaping into genuine obsession. You search for more, with sweat pouring down your face, eyes popped out and red, too focused to even blink, gaze fixed on some target hidden someplace beyond the portal between this life and That One. "There has to be more than this vapid, predictable world" - you say to yourself. Maybe you could take matters into your own hands, maybe there can be more for you here. Maybe you could somehow isolate from the ordinary and live in those dreamlands, to seclude the love between yourself and the Child in you, that is becoming your Ghost as you grow up. You don't want to share it with the surrounding world that you were born into. After all this time, you feel that it is still alive within, it exists...and you are selfish. After all, you've waited for too long for the two of you to finally live, the mundane has no place in this bond so idyllic and pure. In our terrestrial existence, it seems almost impossible to "merge the mundane and the magic" atfer all. You could finally fulfill the wishes of the person you once were. You could meditate in peace, you could fly again, you could touch those heights of a sinister beauty. You could...but you can't. The black hole of ordinary life is sucking away your blood, your energy, at the same time nailing your feet to the ground just so won't fly away, to continue being it's productive little engine. If you go your own way, you are useless. So you strive, with whatever is left, that unsatisfying quantity. The supreme frustration is that you must sweat blood for a little part of something that was natural, should've been natural.

Thirst for absolute takes over and you seek. You look for liberation, this allmighty evil entity, the great inhuman, in the darkest corners of humanity which you're still trapped in. But not for long. You look for it in the winding forests of  your last hope, shrouded with the thorns and carress of the unknown. At least the unknown can restore your perspective of unbounded possibilities that you once held on tight to. You almost want to take refuge in an infinite journey, to keep on searching. At least it feels much better to look forward to something, than look back and return to find the same you ran away from. Hand in hand with your Ghost, your absolute love, you proceed deeper and deeper into this intriguing place, pacing through leaves that have fallen to the ground and melted into it, the abrasive touch of blackened moss, trees that filter the blood-red light as they reach for the moon. There is no need for words. You walk and walk, with a mutual sense of calm resignation, with a taste of the final victory on pale lips. Darkness falls around the two of you, more and more profound, swallowing you with each step.

You are prepared to be the sole witnesses of your loosening from the world left behind. Pitch black - the most beautiful feeling you have ever had. The most beautiful and the last one, and you are connected more than ever before. Like an orgasmic moment, the superlative of all feelings approaches in streams, the ending ceremony for the death of generic human life. Darkness embarces you gently, and then the grip of it's arms tightens. Captive in it's embrace, you and the ghost of who you used to be are joint again, suffocated by agony and an unexplainable relief. Just like a starving giant, blackness of the unknown smothers you.
Welcome to the portal.

It's merciless torns pierce you like skewers, flesh blends with flesh, blood blends with blood. This is more than you could ever hope for, sharing the supreme experience that can be only lived once. And died once. After the last synchronized breath, you fall onto wet soil, united in beautiful carnage on this cold ground, and irony smell of seething blood sets in over the putrid stench of nature long gone. You have escaped, you are free...you found it. The black entity of dead-end has fulfilled it's mission once again.
You and ghostchild from your grip have married Death, the eternal communion.