strange warning

I bought a replacement cup for my Nutri bullet, and it had a sticker on the bottom which read, 'Caution: only remove once blades have stopped spinning', which means that the people who make the replacement cups have no idea how a Nutri bullet works. After you've blended up your smoothie, you remove the cup from the base, with the blade mechanism still attached to the cup, then you unscrew the blade mechanism, so it's impossible for the blades to still be spinning when you detach the blade mechanism from the cup. 

pov

History is written by the victors, as they say, but we tend not to see that. We read history as if it was an objective account, when it probably never is.

I've been thinking about this issue lately because I've been learning about the Third Reich and everyone involved, including Hitler, of course, Goebbels, Himmler, and others, and I was struck by the thought that, as much as I think the accounts I'm reading and watching are accurate and true, we're not getting the Nazi point of view. Don't get me wrong, I have no sympathy for the Nazi point of view, but as I was watching all of these videos about the Nuremberg Rallies and the war and Hitler's and Goebbel's speeches and so on, all presented as the evil enterprise that it was, and thinking about how this could happen, I realized that, to the people involved, it wasn't evil. They were proud and passionate. They thought they were doing something good. 

I did a search using AI and there are actually a lot of books about this issue, both specifically about the Nazis and also the psychology of fascism generally. I think the psychology of cults is also very relevant. So, I've added to my list of books I want to get and read. 

nocturn

I've always liked working at night, or reading or writing or whatever. There's a greater sense of freedom at night. 

I remember thinking, when I was younger, that my day-time life was like a merry go round that I was stuck on, and had no say about. 

ephebe

I enjoyed the film 'while we're young'. It expressed something really deep and profound about human nature. One of my favorite lines is when Ben Stiller says about Adam Driver, after he has completely seen through his duplicitousness - 'it's as if he saw someone being earnest and sincere when he was young and he's been trying to copy it ever since'. I probably don't have that quote exactly right. It's such a funny and perceptive description. It's such a deep observation but it's said in the heat of the moment. 

spectra

When I wrote that joy is the opposite of depression, I wasn't suggesting that we can only ever experience one or the other. I believe in both, and we can, and I do, experience both at the same time. Maybe it's a dialectic. 

Of course, over time, joy kills depression. 

joy and depression

Joy is the opposite of depression. Depression is a pain or sadness that persists unreasonably. Everyone experiences pain or sadness at times but hopefully you feel better after a while as you change and grow. Emotions are cyclical. Sometimes we're happy and feel good and other times it's the opposite, usually because of something that happens either way. But depression is when nothing helps and you're stuck in a hole through everything, good and bad. 

Joy is the opposite of that - a sense of well-being that persists beyond all reason, through good and bad. 

how to make it convincing

The more realistic you want your story to be, the more contrived you have to make it. Verisimilitude, like any other word with so many i's, doesn't occur naturally.