One of the lesser known and discussed components to David Kibbe’s approach to developing an authentic personal style is his color system.
What I think is quite unique about his approach is that it is rooted in color theory. I know that sounds kind of obvious… aren’t all personal color systems rooted in color theory? Not quite in the same way, no.
To go back to the absolute basics of color theory we start with the foundational concept of Primary Colors; Red, Yellow and Blue. Where In color theory; Yellow is Warm, Blue is Cool and Red is Neutral.
Disclaimer: Yes! There’s such thing as a Warm Blue or a Cool Yellow. David gives every season their own version of Yellow and Blue. However, we’re referencing a *pure** version of these colors - not a blend.*
So when we say “cool toned” this means the colors have a blue base since blue is cool. The same can be said for the concept of “warm toned” which means the colors have a yellow base since yellow is warm.
Now, nobody’s skin tone is literally yellow (we’re not lemons) or literally blue (we are not lizards). We are a complex blend of pigments that create a unique mix of tones within our skin, hair and eyes. What we’re looking to determine with our personal coloring here is wether we have a blue (cool) or golden (warm) undertone. With our hair and eyes providing extra clues but our undertone being the most important factor to consider.
Before we launch into the **Metamorphosis excerpt on David’s approach to personal color, I would like to pause and remind us all, that, as with all things Kibbe, it bares reminding that it is essential we leave all prior ideas on colouring aside and approach this process with a sense of playful exploration and curiosity. Our personal coloring just as our Kibbe ID is part of what makes us uniquely beautiful. So it’s not about there being a “correct” or “incorrect” answer. It’s about celebrating what is innate to us.*

Discovering the magic of your coloring

So much has been written in recent years about your coloring and "having your colors done" that I simply can't take you through this journey without a brief detour in this often confusing area.
As a firm believer in the beauty of our natural coloring, I've always felt that it should be enhanced and prized as one of our greatest gifts from Nature. Since I could be described as one of the pioneers of the modern color movement, I've worked long and hard to educate the public about the possibilities and systems that exist to make working with your coloring easy, clear, exciting, and most of all, fun!
In the past few years, I've watched many variations spring up on the basic theme of personal color analysis. As in all extremely popular fields, some of the "new" variations are simply gimmicks de- signed to cash in on the latest fad, while others bear at least some validity.
For my money, however, the basic system of the seasonal color theory originally developed by Johannes Itten of the Bauhaus School is still far and away the most effective.
This theory divides your coloring into four basic categories named after the seasons, based on two parts of your genetic makeup: (1) the undertone of your skin, which is blue or golden and functions as the "base" of your coloring; and (2) the in- tensity of your coloring, which has to do with the type of "contrast" between your hair. skin, and eyes.
Simply put, your "season" is a general description of the type of coloring you inherited and the palette of colors that will enhance it. Each "season" represents a family of colors that consists of over two million shades within the palette. Here's a brief description of each:

Winter

Blue undertone to the skin. High-contrast coloring (distinct difference between the hair, skin, eyes).
Palette: Cool, clear colors. Blue-based shades with sharp intensity. A jewel-toned palette ranging from vivid colors to very pale, icy shades.
Person: The hair is usually dark (a solid color as opposed to visibly highlighted) with an ash base, and the skin and eyes are quite clear.
Celebrities: Elizabeth Taylor, Cher, Diahann Carroll, Connie Chung.

Summer

Blue undertone to the skin. Blended contrast (the hair, skin, eyes tend to blend together).
Palette: Cool, muted colors. Blue- based shades with a saturated intensity. A dusty palette ranging from pastels to very deep shades.
Person: The hair is usually medium dark to medium light (a dense color with a very subtle highlight) with an ash base, and the skin tone is saturated while the eyes are softly muted.
Celebrities: Grace Kelly, Queen Elizabeth, Jane Fonda.

Autumn

Golden undertone to the skin. Contrast is medium to high, but characterized by richness.
Palette: Warm, intense colors. Yellow based shades with a heavy saturation of richness. A fiery palette ranging from very vivid, hot shades to a few softly muted neutrals.
Person: The hair is usually a richly highlighted shade with a red base, ranging from very deep chestnut to fiery auburn to a very deep honey. The skin tone is rich and saturated (ranging from very pale to very deep) and the eyes are a mixture of marbelized color.
Celebrities: Natalie Wood, Ann-Margret, Diane Keaton, Katharine Hepburn, Shari Bela- fonte-Harper.

Spring

Golden undertone to the skin. Contrast is delicate, but sharp.
Palette: Warm and clear colors. Yellow based shades with a light, bright intensity. A vibrant pal ette ranging from very fresh, vivid shades to a few clear pales.
Person: The hair is usually a medium dense shade (with a subtle natural highlight) and a golden or red base, ranging from medium golden brown to strawberry to golden blond. The skin tone is clear and delicate, and the eyes are crisp.
Celebrities; Shirley MacLaine, Sissy Spacek, Vanessa Williams, Arlene Dahl, Eva Gabor.

Draping the Seasons

Question: How can I determine my "season"? Can I tell by just looking at myself in the mir ror? Can I tell by looking at the underside of my wrists?
Not really. The best way to objectively determine your season is with the help of three or four friends. To correctly determine your season, you've got to first determine both the undertone of your skin (blue or golden), and then the type of contrast between your hair, skin, and eyes. The only way to accurately do this is by a process called "draping," whereby you drape selected shades of fabric under your chin and compare the color of the fabric to the colors in your face. You cannot determine your undertone by simply looking at your wrist because you are merely viewing the "shade" of your skin tone, as opposed to the undertone or base coloration.
In the draping process, you discover your skin's undertone by an indirect method. The aim is to enhance the undertone of your skin by using a complementary base color from the selected fabric.
Here's how to do this: With a group of three or four friends, assemble the following large swaths of fabric:

Four shades of green:

a) a blue-based emerald green (clear and vivid)
b) a blue-based sen green (soft and dusty)
c) a yellow-based mossy green (rich and in- tense)
d) a yellow-based bright chartreuse (light and clear)

Four shades of red:

a) a blue-based scarlet (clear and vivid)
b) a blue-based dusty raspberry (soft and muted)
c) a yellow-based tomato (rich and intense)
d) a yellow-based bright poppy (light and clear)

Four shades of blue:

a) a blue-based royal (clear and vivid)
b) a blue-based cornflower (soft and dusty)
c) a yellow-based teal (rich and intense)
d) a yellow-based bright aqua (light and clear)

Four shades of pink:

a) a blue-based fuchsia (vivid and clear)
b) a blue-based dusty rose (soft and muted)
c) a yellow-based salmon (rich and intense)
d) a yellow-based bright coral (light and bright)
Now drape each other in these colors, following the order in which they're listed. As you're watching this process, be sure to focus on the person's face, not the color. (Remember, you're seeking to discover which color brings the person out, not sim- ply the color you like best.)
In the right shade, you'll watch the person's skin tone become smooth and clear; shadows will seem to miraculously disappear!
In the wrong shades, the color will reflect onto the person's face; you'll notice the color, not the person.
Have your friends vote on what they're seeing. You'll nearly always find the consensus of others to be correct. (Your own opinion may be somewhat prejudiced by color preferences and the thought of having to change your wardrobe!)
If the consensus is that the colors of group a tested best on you consistently, you are a "Winter." If the consensus is toward group b, you are a "Summer." If the consensus is toward group c, you are an "Autumn"; and if the consensus is toward group d, then you are a "Spring."
NOTE: It's very important to perform this draping ceremony in natural light, so be sure you work near a large window with good sun exposure. Also, if your hair has been artificially colored, or has any chemical processing on it such as perms or waves, be sure to cover it with a white turban or bandanna. This will prevent your altered haircolor from throwing any shadows on your face, which could result in a misanalysis. This is crucial in determining your season, so don't forgo it in the name of vanity! Since the skin tone is a much subtler color than your hair, it's very easy to simply match the shades of fabric to the hair, rather than to the complexion. Also, be sure you remove all traces of makeup before you begin!

Questions & Answers

Q. Can I be a mixture of seasons!
A. No, you cannot. It's genetically impossible! Each "season" refers to a specific type of coloring, of which there are only four. For example, you cannot have a mixture of a golden and a blue undertone. Since the undertone functions as the base of your skin tone, it determines whether the shade of skin you have is either warm or cool. A color can only have one base, whether it's skin color, haircolor, fabric, a cosmetic shade, or even the paint on your wall!
The basic law of abstract color theory states that the base of a color determines its shade. For example, a burgundy red has a blue base. It is this blue base that actually causes the shade to be burgundy instead of some other shade of red, say tomato red or rust. Likewise, a mossy green is caused by a yellow base, while an emerald green is emerald because its base is blue! Your skin tone is exactly the same. An olive skin is always caused by a blue undertone. That's why it's olive and not a tawny beige (which is caused by a golden undertone). On the other hand, an ivory skin tone has a golden base, which is what makes it ivory instead of porcelain (which is caused by a blue undertone). There isn't a single individual-dead, alive. or yet to be born who possesses a mixture of undertones. It simply can not happen!
Q. What about "intensity"? Can I be a mixture of the "cools" (WinteSummer) or the "warms" (Autumn/Spring)!
A. No, you cannot. As with the undertone, you have one type of intensity to your coloring. High contrast coloring needs clear shades to enhance and bring it out effectively. Blended coloring needs a saturation of color to allow the subtlety of your coloring to show through gracefully. Mixing the clear colors with the dusty tones only negates your particular type of coloring.
Moreover, the palettes themselves simply don't mix effectively when you translate them into clothing and cosmetics. If you were to try to create color combinations of the cool Winter and Summer palettes, for example, you would never be able to effectively combine the jewel tones of Winter with the elegantly dusty shades of Summer. Since the palettes are of opposing intensities, the shades themselves are not at all complementary. Any resulting outfits of clothing would simply be a hodgepodge of mismatched colors!
Even more disasterous would be an attempt to mix the tones in cosmetics. For a makeup to be successful, you absolutely must keep all the colors on your face in one family of color, both in terms of the base and the intensity. Mixing them is akin to wearing a shocking pink blouse with a bright orange lipstick! While the result might not always be this glaring, opposite color families do not blend together!
Q. But I've had my colors done "professionally," and I was told I'm a mixture. Why would that have happened?
A. Basically, that means one of two things. Either you were analyzed incorrectly, which is, unfortunately, becoming quite common because of improper training and a lack of experience among color consultants, or it's simply a question of semantics.
Frequently, in an effort to delineate among the specific shades that you can actually wear effectively (be cause of the variations in individual skin tone, hair, and eye colors that exist within a season), color consult ants have attempted to make your palette as specific to you as possible. This sometimes manifests in your being labeled a mixture of seasons or having a "subseason." While this is technically incorrect, since the colors within the seasonal palettes do not actually blend with the other palettes, the result is usually a way of defining the range of shades within your season that appear most exciting on you.
From my experience, based on analyzing thousands of clients over a number of years, I simply find it too inaccurate and confusing to try to suggest to my clients that they "mix" the palettes. It's not helpful in a practical sense, for it doesn't actually add any colors that they can effectively work with in clothing, cosmetics, or haircolor. And, since it's technically incorrect, as I previously stated, I find that the clients who come to our salon with a "mixture" of colors nearly always have either a diluted appearance, in terms of focus, or they have a lot of mistakes hanging in their closets! Can my "contrast" change with age?
Q. What about as my hair turns gray? Does this change my season?
A. No, your season never changes with age, or anything else! As your hair begins to gray, Nature is not only changing your haircolor, but is also changing your skin tone and eyes at the same time. The balance among these three elements always remains the same. For example, if you're a mature Vivid Winter, like actress Bea Arthur, the balance among your haiskin/eyes is best described as high contrast. You have a vivid haircolor, a fair skin, and an intense eye color. True, your haircolor is not the same as when you were twenty years old, when it was probably a deep brunette, but you've maintained the high contrast coloring you were born with. As your hair began to gray, it didn't turn a dull or mousy shade of gray, but rather went a brilliant silver, didn't it? Your skin and eyes have actually gotten lighter at the same time, even though this difference is probably imperceptible to you. Do yone that your high contrast has not changed at all! You still have a vivid haircolor, a fair skin, and an in- ten eye color. Your balance has remained the same! You are still a Vivid Winter, and the colors that focus your specific coloring are still cool and clear!
Whatever your season, Nature created your haiskin/eyes as a unit. They always change together, and the balance among them never changes That's why your season never changes!
Q. Does my season have anything to do with style? For example, I read somewhere that Winters should stick to solids and geometrics, while Autumns are very good in tweeds and textures.
A. Not in the least! Having your colors done has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than determining what your skin tone is and which palette of colors to work with to enhance it. It tells you nothing more specific than the range of colors to use. Your specific clothing choices (including fabrics and textures, as well as shapes and lines), makeup shades, and haircolor range all come from developing your personal style through discovering your Image Identity.
For example, Autumns are frequently told to concentrate on use of textures in their wardrobe. Yet Ann-Margret is a Fiery Autumn, but as a Theatrical Romantic, I'd much rather see her in silks, satins, angora, and se quins than rough textures or tweeds any day of the year!
Having your colors done can be a wonderful and exciting addition to your life, and I highly recommend it when it's properly executed. Just be careful not to give it more importance than it's worth. Your coloring is only one part of you - it's worthy of being carefully looked at, but only within the contest of your total look.

Now I’m sure for those of us who are more visual the written descriptions of these colors can be ultra confusing! Unfortunately we can not share the seasonal palettes David has created. However, the palettes as well as a wealth of additional information on the sub seasons, additional celebrities as well as the three make up palettes for each season etc. can be accessed within the Four Season Freedom Facebook Group.
My personal tip is to get a good grasp on basic color theory by understanding what blue based vs yellow based colors look like. A really creative and explorative way to approach this is by getting some paints out and mixing the tones to see how blue (cool) with added yellow (warm) transforms into a warm blue. (Please ensure you use a true Yellow, a true Blue, a true Red, a true Black and a true White).
The goal of the system isn’t to just wear the colors David has in his seasonal palettes - it’s to use these as a jumping off point. So, that you can then take the concept of your coloring and have the ability to intuitively identify colors that harmonise with you rather than pull out a palette on your phone every time you go clothes or make up shopping!
Each season can be quickly understood by what it’s characteristics evoke:

Winter (Cool) is Jewel

Spring (Warm) is Vibrant

Summer (Cool) is Lush

Autumn (Warm) is Fiery

A quick disclaimer!! No season gets boring muted colors. Everyone gets beautifully saturated colors! You won’t see the sad, drab and dull tones often seen in other seasonal color systems here! For example Summer is Lush in tone not muted and Autumn is fiery in tone, again not muted In any sense if the word.

Let’s talk about the defining characteristics tied to certain seasons

I want to preface this part, by reminding us all that much like our Kibbe ID, we are born with the innate characteristics we have ; we are who we are meant to be! And so it’s never a case of being relegated to certain IDs or color seasons based on certain characteristics. But, instead we are embarking on the journey to discover what has always been there with the objective of achieving harmony with ourselves and in doing so bringing out our unique beauty.
Brown eyes Brown eyes are a feature of high contrast coloring and therefore will always be a high contrast season; Autumn or Winter.
Naturally Ginger / Red hair Ginger / Red hair is a warm color (a mix of a golden base with added red) and therefore will always be a warm season; Spring or Autumn.
An Olive undertone Olive is always caused by a blue undertone, therefore it will always be Winter.
Naturally Blonde hair Blonde hair can be any season except for Winter which requires a high level of contrast between the features; Skin/HaiEyes.
The Color Black Black is considered a cool tone that casts a shade on its surrounds, due to its depth of contrast is only given to Winters as with Winters it enhances the clarity of coloring whether-as with all other seasons it muddies their coloring.
The Color White White, on the other hand is universally given to all seasons as it is considered a neutral.

I used a custom font and the blacks are too intense when used with a cmyk project, making it almost unusable. I use Krita and GIMP.

• Very slow to boot up, honestly thought my computer had crashed. It could be my computer. It's a gaming computer, but getting a little old now. It does run RimWorld, Minecraft, Skyrim, Borderlands, etc with no issues, though.
  
• Very minimal accessibility settings in the Settings menu. There's Audio with 4 sliders for overall volume, music, sound effects, and ambient volume. Graphics, with a checkbox each for fullscreen and V-sync, a slider for volumetric fog quality, and a dropdown each for quality preset, general quality, resolution, and clouds quality. There is a Controls menu with a slider for camera sensitivity (no numbers or visible markers, just a plain slider), and a checkbox each to make sprint a toggle, turn on auto-walk, toggle collecting, and toggle aiming. There is a single button to reset all settings from Audio, Graphics, and Controls all at once.
  
• 3 save slots available.
  
• Prologue map is what is included in the demo, and leaving that area will end the demo.
  
• Controller support not fully implemented yet, but controller scheme is in the Contols menu when paused. I tried using my controller and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it's clearly on the docket.
  
• Character is customizable. 3 light skintones, one of which is light brown, 2 dark brown-- the jump between the last 2 brown tones is significant, whereas the 2 lightest skintones are only barely different. The character is generally pretty femme presenting no matter how you tweak the character settings. There's not really a flat-chested option if that's important to you. 2 of the 5 outfits are dresses, the other 3 have some other "feminine" touches like lace. Their name will always be Reka.
  

There are 5 tattoo options, 3 of which are fingehand tattoos, one very visible tattoo for the front of the neck, and one very small one for next to an eye-- or no tattoos. 2 curly hairstyles, a shorn style, 2 wavy braided styles, and the other 6 options are straight hair in various lengths/styles.
There are 2 sliders for Freckle Amount and Freckle Intensity. 12 eye color options, 3 or 4 shades each of brown, green, blue, and grey. No fantasy colors (pink, purple, etc). 3 sliders for hair Color, Warmth, and Brightness. 6 eyebrow types. Accessory options include a lacy choker, a set of rings for each hand (hard to see but cute), and 2 head kerchiefs that switch your hairstyle to the one that "goes with" the kerchief.

• Button Remapping seems to be available in the Pause menu during the demo.
  
• There is free-cam. This will require the use of both thumbsticks on a controller, or WASD + mouse. However, the game is paced slow enough (so far) that if you can only use one hand to play you may still be able to play. I didn't come across any quick-time events in the demo.
  
• Everything kinda melds into everything else visually. It all kinda has this grey-brown wash that makes things... harder on the eyes in terms of picking things out? Especially if you get glare from the in-game sun, which is tbh pretty painful.
  
• No colorblind mode or high contrast mode, which kinda ties in with the point above. In the character creation menu and pause menu, there are non-color indicators of what you've selected. A diamond shape next to the option in the pause menu, and a fancy second outline in the character creation menu for thumbnails, or a circle if you're using a slider like for eye color. But during gameplay there are some things that may be difficult to pick out if you're colorblind or have low-vision, just due to the lower tone contrast between things and only sometimes having sparkly indicators (there are none in some instances) like some games have for interactables.
  
• The sun does eventually go down, so there is a daylight/night cycle in the game.
  
• There's a bar-compass for navigation (like in Skyrim) and you must meet Baba Yaga to unlock a map. If you go in the right direction for a bit you'll see an icon for your house on the compass.
  
• The camera feels a touch jerky. I tweaked the camera sensitivity down, and even then sometimes the camera feels a little jerky. I struggle with vertigo, so for other folks who do, beware.
  
• Text is white, a serif font, and not adjustable in size, font, color, or contrast. No contrast box around the text to make it pop. So far the size of the text has been okay for me, but I think the dialogue text in specific would be a pain for anyone with low vision, playing on Steam Deck/ROG Ally, or anyone who's dyslexic as the font feels a bit narrow and crowded. Also the text for the button prompt is way too small even on my (good sized) monitor that I'm close up to. The text in the journal you eventually get is also on the small side, low contrast, and item headers are in "fun" fonts that may be a pain for dyslexic and low vision users.
  
• Typo(s?)-- minor quabble but one of the villagers told me to "stay save" instead of "stay safe".
  
• You get to carry a baby goat. For a lil quest from a villager.
  
• Rewards for villagers' tasks are often decor from what I've seen in the demo.
  
• There are some cute visual touches, like things you've gathered hanging off Reka's backpack.
  
• You can read and interact with other things while carrying something-- don't do it (yet). That's how I glitched the giant Fabergé egg under the floor of Baba Yaga's hut (I could see it between the planks, but couldn't interact/pick it back up.
  
• Gathering distant things requires holding two buttons at once, similar to aiming down sights and then firing in some games.
  
• Baba Yaga is sassy. 10/10, no notes, I love her.
  

All in all, I think it's fun and it'll be cute. But not terribly accessible for anyone with vertigo or visual issues, unless the devs tweak some things. I like the visual style, though I wish things were a little more distinct so it's a little easier to see things.

My 5th grader just completed her standardized testing after ~3 months of homeschooling. We part time homeschool. We are in Minnesota, she took the Stanford-Ten (Pearson) as assigned by our district. I don’t oppose standardized testing, I like to know my kids are making progress and I do not “teach to the test” or have more than 1-2 days of practice. I do teach to Common Core with emphasis on knowledge over skills so I expect my kids to test pretty well and they do.
She leaped forward in reading comprehension, vocabulary, and math; all 10th - 11th grade or PHS, all 90-99th percentile. Stellar in Science and Social Studiss as well. We worked extra hard on advanced math so she can apply to a special high school in 2 years that requires this as well as a letter of recommendation from a math teacher and I am pleased she met her learning goal for this year in that subject and also did stellar in reading and vocab.
Then comes “Language Expression” and Spelling…she scored average to below average, with the LE category at grade level 3.2. This category is syntax, grammar, sentence structure. This is slightly lower than the start of the academic year and the dip may have come from my husband’s anxiety that she had to complete her testing in a timely manner as he felt she took too long in math (she double-checked every answer). He told her to “go with your gut and answer the first thing” and she pushed through this section quickly.
With that said, these are her first/best answers. Dad is severely dyslexic and she has his reading brain, not mine, so the odds that she has less severe dyslexia are high. We have always known this and worked soooo hard on phonics and decoding but it simply does not click. Her aptitude and intelligence is obviously there. At this point her 7 year old sister (who received all the same phonics education) is a better speller and word decoder than she is as well as a faster reader (we place no value on reading quickly, I am just stating facts).
Once the word is properly pronounced she has no issue defining the word and using it properly, it’s just the mechanics of spelling that are throwing her off and apparently punctuation/grammar is a major issue as well—I suspect her brain wasn’t picking up on details like comma and apostrophe placement.
She’s been in public school about 30% of the time from 1st grade to present, we were always able to keep her just at grade level in language sections but I think she still needs a lot of intervention going forward.
Next year she’ll be in public middle school and I want her to have a 504 plan. My husband did NOT have this, and kept his accommodations private in university (he used software to speed-read for him including scanning software for handouts/textbooks). He did have formal testing at a “reading center” that also gave him tutoring around the same age but in the early 90’s 504 plans were less common and dyslexia was stigmatized. He dealt with intense anxiety and shame about his dyslexia. He is very diligent about keeping his skill up, reading 30 minutes a day on a kindle with special Dyslexia font but the vast majority of his “reading” is audiobooks because reading is a literal headache. He’s also a successful author who has written over a million words with hundreds of happy reviewers rating his books > 4.5 stars so objectively (not just according to his wife) he has a real talent for language, his brain just works differently. When he writes he uses regular software but Grammarly detects his homophones and he uses read-aloud software for editing.
I don’t want my child getting low grades and feeling ashamed for having a brain that works differently, especially knowing that some of her limitations CANNOT simply be “overcome.” Like her dad, she’ll always read slower and with some difficulty with things like spelling and homophones. I’m not saying she shouldn’t work on these areas, just that there is a lot of hogwash in public schools that suggests one can just “work harder” and “be better”—if she has a learning disability that comes with real limitations. I would much rather she have accommodations, including more time to read things and modified assignments. I will continue to do targeted interventions at home.
In my state I have to see a psychologist for this testing, it seems rather intense and expensive and I am worried because she is competent in reading comprehension she might end up being too mild for a diagnosis. I am not sure I will be able to get a 504 without this, but she is asking for middle school not homeschool and I feel strongly without a 504 the transition might shatter her academic confidence.
Thoughts? Tips?

Tout sur le poivre noir fumé

Qu'est-ce que le poivre noir fumé ?

Le poivre noir fumé, également appelé poivre fumé, est une variété de poivre noir qui a subi un processus de fumage pour obtenir son arôme distinct. Les baies de poivre sont exposées à la fumée de différents types de bois, ce qui leur confère un goût fumé au bois caractéristique.

Histoire du poivre noir fumé

L'histoire du poivre noir fumé remonte à des siècles. Le commerce du poivre commença dans les régions de Malabar et de Kerala en Inde, où les poivriers étaient cultivés pour leurs baies aromatiques. Le processus de fumage a été développé pour apporter une nouvelle dimension à la saveur du poivre, le rendant ainsi très prisé dans le commerce des épices.

Processus de fumage du poivre noir

Le processus de fumage traditionnel consiste à exposer les baies de poivre à la fumée produite par la combustion de bois de hêtre ou d'autres types de bois. De nos jours, des techniques modernes de fumage du poivre noir, telles que le fumage à froid, sont également utilisées pour préserver au mieux les arômes délicats du poivre.

Les différentes variétés de poivre noir fumé

Tellicherry : un poivre noir de renom

Le poivre noir de Tellicherry est réputé pour sa taille supérieure et son arôme puissant et boisé. Il est largement utilisé en cuisine pour sa saveur distinctive et son goût fumé au bois.

Le poivre noir de Kampot : un incontournable en cuisine

Originaire du Cambodge, le poivre noir de Kampot est une variété rare et très prisée pour ses arômes complexes et son goût fumé unique. Il est souvent utilisé pour rehausser la saveur des plats de viande et de poisson.

Le poivre noir de Malabar : une variété à découvrir

Le poivre noir de Malabar, provenant de la côte de Malabar en Inde, offre des notes aromatiques distinctes et une saveur fumée subtile. Il peut être utilisé dans une variété de recettes, des viandes aux légumes rôtis, pour ajouter une touche de fumée délicate.

Utilisation du poivre noir fumé en cuisine

Conseils d'utilisation dans les recettes

Le poivre noir fumé peut être utilisé pour rehausser la saveur de divers plats, y compris les viandes, les poissons et les légumes. Son goût fumé se marie parfaitement avec les préparations au barbecue, les marinades et les sauces pour apporter une dimension supplémentaire aux recettes.

Mariage du poivre noir fumé avec les viandes

Les arômes intenses du poivre noir fumé se prêtent parfaitement aux viandes grillées, au maquereau fumé et même au saumon. Ils ajoutent une saveur fumée distincte qui se marie harmonieusement avec les notes naturelles des viandes et des poissons.

Recettes mettant en valeur le poivre noir fumé

Des plats tels que le steak au poivre noir fumé, le poulet rôti assaisonné de poivre fumé au bois et les légumes grillés agrémentés de poivre noir fumé offrent une expérience gustative unique, mettant en valeur les arômes riches et le goût fumé de cette épice particulière.

Le poivre noir fumé et ses arômes distincts

Les différentes notes aromatiques du poivre noir fumé

Le poivre noir fumé offre des arômes de boisé, de poivre sauvage et de fumé au bois de hêtre, qui ajoutent une profondeur et une complexité à de nombreuses préparations. Ces notes aromatiques uniques en font un ingrédient précieux en cuisine.

Association du poivre noir fumé avec d'autres épices

L'association du poivre noir fumé avec d'autres épices telles que le poivre blanc, le poivre long et d'autres aromates permet de créer des mélanges d'épices uniques qui enrichissent les plats d'une palette de saveurs variées et équilibrées.

L'art de sublimer les plats avec le poivre noir fumé

Le poivre noir fumé offre une occasion d'explorer de nouvelles façons de sublimer les plats avec ses arômes fumés. Des recettes traditionnelles aux créations culinaires contemporaines, cette épice apporte une dimension inattendue et délicieuse aux plats du quotidien.

Le poivre noir fumé et le processus de fumage

Processus de fumage traditionnel du poivre noir

Le poivre noir fumé est traditionnellement fumé au bois de hêtre, un processus qui lui confère ses arômes distinctifs de fumée subtile et de boisé profond. Ce processus artisanal perpétue les traditions anciennes de fumage du poivre.

Techniques modernes de fumage du poivre noir

Des techniques modernes telles que le fumage à froid ont été développées pour préserver au mieux les arômes délicats du poivre noir, offrant de nouvelles possibilités pour créer des saveurs fumées uniques et innovantes.

Impact du fumage sur le goût du poivre noir

Le fumage confère au poivre noir fumé des nuances de goût fumé et boisé, enrichissant ses caractéristiques naturelles. Ce processus métamorphose le poivre noir en une épice à part entière, offrant une expérience gustative incomparable.

Le choix du poivre noir fumé bio

Avantages du poivre noir fumé bio

Opter pour du poivre noir fumé bio garantit des standards de qualité élevés, exempt de pesticides et produits chimiques. En choisissant des produits bio, vous soutenez également des pratiques agricoles respectueuses de l'environnement.

Impact environnemental du poivre noir fumé bio

La production de poivre noir fumé bio favorise la préservation des écosystèmes en limitant les impacts négatifs sur l'environnement. Les pratiques durables associées à la culture biologique contribuent à la protection de la biodiversité et des ressources naturelles.

Conseils pour l'achat responsable de poivre noir fumé bio

Lors de l'achat de poivre noir fumé bio, privilégiez les producteurs engagés dans des pratiques durables et équitables. Recherchez les certifications bio et les labels indiquant une production responsable et éthique.

Part 1 Part 2
Besha, her voice quavering, was the first to speak. “Now what?”
I turned to Carl, expecting him to say something, but was surprised to hear the words come out of my own mouth, seething with a fury I never knew I was capable of.
“Now,” I said slowly and deliberately, “now we kill every last motherfucking one of them.”
“Damn right!” It was a voice I didn’t recognise. In the intensity of the combat, we’d all completely forgotten about the five miners towards the back of the cave.
Three women and two men, none of them out of their teens, stared on in shock. They were too surprised to join in the fight, but they all desperately wanted out of there, and though they were weak, we knew as we traded our knowledge and experience that they would fight to the very last. There was no chance we could persuade them to let us take the fight to the beetles alone.
We stood and sat in the burning orange of the torches and the brilliant white of the flashlights, always watching the cave entrance, as we talked. There were eight slaves down here, a much smaller group than ours had been. None of them had been down here for more than a few months, and it was then that Besha realised that these beetles were smaller. Not by much, but it was noticeable. This beetle colony must be younger than ours.
The miners figured there were only about 30 beetles. Closer to 25, now that we’d killed these ones. Rosa, a 16-year-old German girl, was somehow able to distinguish between them, although they all looked the same to me; she had even given them names like Dark Claw, Shiny Top, and Bent Tooth. With paper for the first time in the four months she’d been in the darkness, she wrote them all down, and crossed five names off. There were 24 remaining. Of course, we couldn’t know how many there might be which she hadn’t seen.
I asked where the other three slaves would be. Martin, a Slovakian boy, said they hadn’t seen where they went, but it would probably be the forge, guarded by the two beetles who had come in last. So Besha and I headed to the forge and found the three, still working, and brought them back. The last two beetles we had fought had come from the forge when they heard us fighting, and we didn’t encounter any more on the way.
Eleven humans, led by the three of us who were more experienced and not weakened by the conditions of slavery. Our eight new recruits chose their preferred weapons from among the picks and hammers and my spare billhooks, had a little to eat and drink (“Not too much,” said Carl, “your body’s not used to it”), and then we walked silently along the long, wide tunnel to the main cavern. If we were quick, the others may not yet have realised anything was amiss.
In the dim light of the slave pit’s distant torches, we could see four or five beetles wandering about, doing whatever it is that beetle slavers do when there aren’t any slaves around to torment. We huddled around to whisper our tactics, always wary of the beetles’ excellent hearing. And as we discussed our options, their advantages and pitfalls, Bors, a boy from Jordan, said simply, “What about the gallery?”
Besha, Carl, and I looked at him in astonishment, though we couldn’t read each other’s expressions. “What gallery?” whispered Carl.
Bors pointed up. “The gallery, above the entrance to their home. You could pick them off from there with the guns.”
I looked, and could just make it out. About ten metres up, something like a balcony ran along a quarter of the cavern wall on the opposite side to us. If such a thing existed in our old home, none of us had noticed it.
A few minutes later, we had a new plan. We would sneak around the edge of the cavern, enter the insects’ home, and try to stealthily make our way up to the gallery, as Bors called it. Carl, having travelled to the entrance two days earlier, led the way. In absolute silence, trying not to breathe or even emit any smells, and occasionally freezing if a beetle looked like it might get too close, it took us maybe half an hour to travel a hundred metres. We only noticed the beetles when they chittered or moved in front of a torch, and we weren’t doing any of that.
The entrance, a tall, wide, rectangular hole in the cavern wall, was as much in darkness as anywhere else. Somehow we’d got there without being spotted. Carl felt his way along the wall and led us into a room on the left. We filed in silently, and Carl brought out one of his weaker glowsticks.
We were in, as far as we could tell, a tool storage room, a cube hollowed out from the rock, barely big enough for us all to fit in there. Wooden tables, seemingly of human craftsmanship, lined the walls, and on these tables were all manner of strange tools. I could hardly guess at the function of most of them, and some of them I didn’t even know how a beetle could manipulate them. I didn’t care. The room had just one entrance; as long as no beetle needed a tool, we would be safe here while a small group scouted the rest of the complex.
This time it was Carl and I who moved silently through the caves by the dim light of a glowstick, while Besha stayed with the others. There were a couple more rooms storing various equipment; in one, we found obviously human artefacts, such as watches, credit cards, and mobile phones. We made a note to lead the survivors through here when we were sure it was safe.
A long corridor led past these rooms, and to a crossroad. We took the left path first. In the living area, there were occasional patches of some sort of gently glowing moss, barely enough to see by, but it meant that we could usually get away with putting the glowstick away. We soon came to an opening on our right, and carefully stepped through.
I froze, and I can’t speak for Carl, but my heart dropped into my stomach. The faint light of the moss in the room shone green reflections off the glossy armour of maybe a dozen beetles. Carl and I stood motionless for what seemed like an eternity, until I felt a gentle tap and then a tug on my shoulder. Very carefully, very slowly, I edged back out of the room, and we made our way back to the crossroad.
In furtive whispers, we discussed what we’d seen. The beetles were laying on the ground, on what looked like a bed of dried leaves and undergrowth. I recalled a suggestion by Nida, that beetles as large as these would use a tremendous amount of energy while active, and that they may sleep a lot more than humans. Carl proposed that if there were indeed about thirty beetles, it seemed that only half or a third were awake at a time. We decided to leave them alone for now, and continue exploring.
We crept back down the corridor, past the sleeping area, and came to a small room just before the corridor bent around to the left, and started to rise. We guessed it would take us to the gallery, and decided to check out the room before making our way up.
This room had a bit more moss. I could make out Carl’s face, and the smooth round walls of the cave, which was only about six metres across. In the middle was a raised platform, about waist high to a human. For some reason the thought of a baptismal font came into my mind. We edged slowly towards it.
The platform held a rocky bowl, about forty centimetres wide, filled with water. The water seemed to reflect more light than it had any right to. And as I peered into it, I did not see my reflection.
I saw somebody else’s face.
She was about 20 years old, with pale freckled skin and curly hair. I didn’t recognise her. I asked Carl what he saw, and it was the same. Then he pointed to another platform, a small table. On it were a few pieces of chalk and about a dozen slates; the top-most slate held a drawing of the same girl we saw in the bowl.
This was it! My heart pounded. This was how they got us. I couldn’t fathom how it would work, but they used this bowl, or one like it, to seek us out, mark us, and bring us here. The slates must be part of it - perhaps they saw many people in the bowl, and drew the ones they decided to kidnap. I whispered excitedly - we could destroy the bowl and stop at least this beetle nest from bringing anybody here.
Carl disavowed me of that idea. It would be a simple matter for the beetles to just rebuild. Like I’d said just a few hours earlier, we needed to get rid of them - all of them.
For now, then, we would continue our exploration. We could always come back.
We left the round chamber and continued on, along and up the tunnel. We were right. The slope led us up into the main cavern. We made sure the gallery was empty, then lay down and peered over the edge.
Watching from safety, we realised there were only three beetles on patrol down there. Twenty-nine, minus the five we had killed and the three on patrol, left twenty-one unaccounted for, at least half of which we’d found sleeping.
A tug from Carl. We were on the right-most edge of the gallery, so every so slowly, and keeping as low as we could, we hugged the wall and edged along it.
As we suspected, there was another corridor leading down from the far end of the gallery. We had crossed over the entrance to the living quarters, and were on the other side. We’d been gone quite a while now, and Besha and the others might be getting worried. We agreed to explore this area and head back.
Several twists and turns later, the corridor widened and straightened, and I estimated we were back on the same level as our companions. Dimly illuminated in front of us by the occasional patch of glowing moss, we could see three openings on either side of the corridor.
This time I was the one to touch Carl’s shoulder. I’d heard movement. We watched in silence, Carl pointing the pistol, me with billhooks in each hand.
Three doorways down, a shadow. Quiet chittering. The faint outline of a shiny black carapace. Moving - where? We stood as quiet and motionless as statues.
The outline got smaller. A few moments later, the shape rounded a corner, and was gone. Ten minutes later, Carl and I dared to breathe again.
Carl stayed put while I gingerly pushed forward and moved my head into the nearest doorway. No beetles. I did the same for all six entrances, keeping well enough to the side to give Carl a good shot, if he needed it. All were now empty. I returned to Carl and we entered one of the rooms.
I’d taken the beetles for bronze-age creatures, but what I saw blew that notion out of the water. Now granted, my understanding of tech trees is limited to playing Civilization IV when I was 12, but these guys were well into the Renaissance age, and maybe a lot further. Glass jars and tubes indicated they knew chemistry. Samples of strange powders lay in shallow curved pots. There was a setup of lenses, which I took to be a form of microscope.
We moved on to another room. Here were gears, some sort of half-finished clockwork contraption. I’d seen the beetles grip things, but had no idea they could be so dextrous. I made a mental note to examine a front claw if I got the chance.
Another room had something I remembered from back in school. Different-coloured metals, placed in a rectangular box full of liquid, and metal wires coming out of them. The beetles were making electricity.
The other rooms had contraptions neither Carl nor I could even guess at. They were clearly scientists, some of them at least. I would have found it difficult to operate their machines with my human hands; their inventions were obviously designed for beetles, but their purpose eluded us.
We didn’t stay long, ever wary of the slightest noise. Besides, we’d been gone maybe two hours at that point. At the end of the corridor, another passage went left and right. We very carefully peeked around the corner; no beetles, and not too far away on the left, we could just make out the crossroads from earlier. Slowly, silently, we crept back, made a left turn, and returned to the group.
I’d been a little worried that they might have got impatient, or assumed us captured or killed. But there they were, some asleep against the walls, some playing cards in the dim light of a blue glowstick. Besha got up and gave me a long hug. “Are you okay? Did you find a way out?”
Carl and I woke everybody and drew a map. The storage rooms where we rested; the strange bowl of water; the bizarre science laboratories; the gallery, with entrances at either end; and the room where many of the beetles lay sleeping.
“We get them. Now, before they wake up. It’s near the end of the work day.”
It was a boy about 18 years old, whose name I hadn’t caught yet.
“We need a plan,” Carl said. “We can’t go rushing in -”
But it was too late. The boy had already stood up and was on the move, as quickly as a person can move without making a sound.
Besha turned to Carl and I. “We have to. Hell will be on us in a few minutes, whether we go with him or not.”
And so all eleven of us grabbed our equipment and stealthed away. Carl put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and persuaded him to listen to his plan. If the plan hadn’t involved killing the beetles immediately, I doubt the boy would have slowed down.
When we got there, it was clear that the beetles had moved. None appeared awake, but I knew that they had shifted around in that room at some point in the last couple of hours. At Carl’s direction, we moved silently into the room, shifting around to position ourselves in pairs near a beetle. But we weren’t all in position yet. A chittering came from outside. The beetles started to move, all at once, and were upright in less than a second.
I’m not sure what happened next, everything moved so fast. I swung my billhooks. Muzzle flashes lit up the room and rang in my ears. Curses in half a dozen languages. I tripped on the leg of a beetle. It pinned me to the ground. Mandibles snapped centimetres from my face. Helplessness. I was dead. BANG! BANG! The beetle’s head exploded. I pushed it off me, got to my feet. Another was next to me. Pincers slashed my arm. Billhooks swinging right and left, its legs ripped off. BANGBANGBANG! A third to my side, a slash to its thorax, and a pickaxe from the dark into its head. The next - where was the next? I saw nothing. BANG! Blinded by muzzle flashes, I could make out nothing else.
Three strong lightsticks hit the floor, and two flashlights searched the ground. Chitinous limbs lay scattered about. Black fluid oozed like ichor from dozens of wounds. And there - a human arm, a foot, a leg with bone sticking out.
“Did any get away?” Carl made no pretence at stealth now.
“I don’t know…”
“I didn’t see…”
“They’re not moving. Did we get them all?”
Slowly we started to calm down, as we saw no motion from the oversized bugs. But to be sure, we went methodically from one to the next, severing the heads of those who still had them.
We counted fifteen beetles down. We’d had the element of surprise. But it wasn’t enough. Four of the rescued slaves, slower and weaker than Besha, Carl and I, were among the dead, and two others lay dying beyond hope. We had all sustained injuries, and I counted myself lucky to have received a mere flesh wound.
As an ex-soldier, I don’t envy what Carl had to do next. After we made the two mortally wounded girls as comfortable as they could be, Carl whispered to them. He never told us what he said, but I saw each in turn nod their heads. Carl then brought up his pistol, and with a single shot to the head each, put them out of their misery.
He kneeled down in silence for several minutes. When he stood up, Besha put her hand on him. “Are you -”
“Don’t.”
There were five of us left. Besha, Carl and myself, plus the German girl Rosa and a Polynesian boy named Salema. We knew we hadn’t got all the beetles, and stealth was off the table now. It was me who spoke first.
“There are two directions in the living area we haven’t tried. Left at the crossroads, and straight past the workshops. If there’s a way out, it must be one of those.”
Left was closer, so we went that way. I wish we hadn’t.
The corridor bent ever so slightly, just enough to block our vision until we got there. When we rounded the last corner, we saw what has haunted me every night since. I call it the throne room.
She was bigger than I would have imagined possible, at least eight metres tall. Her body was swollen and her abdomen dripped with mucus. Around the room lay dozens of eggs, as big as my hand, some intact, others broken open. As her enormous compound eyes turned on us, her mouth opened wide, revealing hundreds of sharp teeth like no beetle I’ve ever seen. The shriek that came from that mouth cannot be described in words, except to say that it froze my blood. But then, a human voice.
“It’s got no mandibles!”
It was true. No mandibles, and no limbs. It was helpless! Besha and Carl opened fire with everything they had. The queen thrashed her body violently, and spewed dark liquid in our direction, but it didn’t last long. Besha showed off her markswomanship and Carl demonstrated how quickly he could reload the pistol. The queen gave a final screech and collapsed to the ground, shaking the throne room like an earthquake.
Helpless, I thought? I was wrong. Salema had caught the worst of the sticky black substance the queen had sent our way, and was down on the ground, struggling to move. And then we heard it. Hundreds of chittering, clicking insects came from all around the room - and Salema was their first meal. The beetles that swarmed him barely came up to my ankle, but there were too many of them. Salema was dead in seconds - or at least, I hope he was.
“Run!” said Besha, and none of us argued. There was only one way to go, one corridor we hadn’t tried. We made it to the crossroads, and Carl threw an industrial glowstick ahead of us as we turned left. More beetles, adult-sized, were speeding towards us.
We ran with every ounce of strength down that corridor. We didn’t know if was our best option, just that it was our only option. As we fled, Carl and Besha turned to take shots at the enemy. We hurtled past the corridor that led to the workshops, and into the unknown.
Even with the covering fire, the beetles were gaining on us. But after fifty metres, we saw a light up ahead. I grabbed a flashlight from Carl’s belt and pointed. The tunnel ended ahead of us, and another tunnel continued, nearly two metres above us. A tunnel made of earth and roots.
A tunnel through which shone daylight.
With an almost inhuman burst of speed, Rosa leapt and scrambled up the wall and into the earthen tunnel.
“Go, Besha!” I cried, putting my hands down to push her feet up. Besha climbed up and grabbed a root. The root gave way, and the pressure as she fell back on my hands was almost too much for me to bear. But I wasn’t letting go so easily. I pushed with all my might, and she scrambled to safety.
Besha turned back and levelled her rifle at me.
BLAM! BLAM! A beetle, now dead, hurtled into my back and knocked me to the ground.
Besha reached her hand down, and I grabbed it. Carl was shooting fast enough that the beetles were advancing slowly, waiting for an opportunity.
With Besha’s help, I scrambled up and looked back. Carl shot again. “Click.”
“Billhooks!” shouted Carl. I threw both of mine down to him; he caught one, while the other clattered to the ground. “Run!”
We ran.
Carl was surrounded. There were at least four, maybe more, of those beasts around him. He had no chance, but he didn’t try to escape. I hope he took a lot of them down with him; I know that none of them followed us into daylight.
We tried to help Rosa, but she wanted nothing to do with us any more. I can’t say I blame her. After we stopped running, miles from the caves, she left us with barely a word. I don’t know where she went.
We emerged, we found out later, in the forests of Romania. Besha and I are an item now, and Hannah is arranging for a house to be built for us with no doors or windows. We’ve talked about kids, but we have no idea if the curse would pass to them.
Nineteen of us entered doors that day. Four of us arrived in the same cavern, but months later, we haven’t heard from any of the rest. We thought there was just one system; we know better now. These things could be everywhere. With luck, killing the queen is enough to shut down that particular nest; but there are only three of us with the curse, and Rosa hasn’t joined our Discord group.
Carl and Febe are dead. Fifteen others are unaccounted for. If anybody takes the fight to the beetles again, it will have to be a new generation; Besha and I are retired. We just hope that our story here might be of use to our future comrades-in-arms.

L'Attacco dei Giganti rimarrà impresso nella memoria come una delle serie shonen più straordinarie, violente e imprevedibili di tutti i tempi. Questa è una serie che ha concluso il suo manga alcuni anni fa, lasciando il suo creatore, Hajime Isayama, a affrontare le conseguenze della sua decisione finale sulla storia di Eren Jaeger...
Hajime Isayama ha voluto realizzare un manga prequel de L'Attacco dei Giganti, proponendo un'espansione dell'universo che ha affascinato i lettori di tutto il mondo. La sua ambizione creativa ha portato a riflessioni intense e a un dibattito costante sulle scelte narrative e il destino dei personaggi che hanno plasmato questa saga epica.
Il fascino di L'Attacco dei Giganti risiede nella sua capacità di spingere i confini del genere shonen, offrendo una storia complessa e sorprendente che affronta temi profondi e coinvolgenti, inserendosi nel panorama delle opere più iconiche e influenti della cultura popolare giapponese.
Potrebbe Isayama riuscire a realizzare il manga prequel che desiderava? Solo il tempo dirà se questa nuova visione dell'universo de L'Attacco dei Giganti diventerà realtà, continuando a stupire e coinvolgere i fan in un'avventura epica che non smette mai di sorprendere.
Fonte: [ [Collection]/ ] https://www.mangaforever.net/7266385208/lattacco-dei-giganti-isayama-voleva-realizzare-un-manga-prequel

Welcome to our second discussion of Thinking, Fast and Slow! The Marginalia post is here. You can find the Schedule here.
This week, we will discuss Chapters 5-10. If you're feeling a little overwhelmed or frustrated by the content, just hold a pencil in your mouth pointing left to right and you'll be primed to feel better in no time! You can also read through the chapter summaries below for a refresher.
This is a nonfiction text so it's obviously not plot-driven, but we still want to be respectful of the experiences of other readers. So, if you've read ahead or made connections between the concepts in this book and other media, please mark spoilers using the format > ! Spoiler text here ! < (without any spaces between the characters themselves or between the characters and the first and last words).
Chapter Summaries:
CHAPTER 5 - Cognitive Ease: Kahneman shows us how System 1 and System 2 work together to create states of cognitive ease or cognitive strain when we are presented with information or other stimuli. Cognitive ease is a state of comfort where things are going well, while cognitive strain is the opposite end of the spectrum where there is a problem which causes discomfort.
Our brains constantly assess how things are going, using automatic System 1 processes, and monitoring whether the extra effort of lazy System 2 is needed. When experiencing familiar inputs and in a good mood, our brains are in a state of cognitive ease, which leads to positive feelings and trust of the situation or information. When System 2 needs to get involved, we experience cognitive strain and can develop negative feelings and skepticism. Kahneman asserts that these states can be “both a cause and a consequence” of how we feel about things and relate to them.
On the “cause” side, cognitive ease can make you notice and believe things more readily because your brain is already used to them. (Cognitive strain can make you reject unfamiliar messages.)

• An illusion of memory is caused by more easily noticing things that we have recently been exposed to. An example would be picking out a few names as minor celebrities from a long list just because you recently saw those names in a different context.
• Similarly, an illusion of truth is experienced as more readily believing something just because you've heard a certain phrase or sentence often. System 2 will sometimes slow this down a bit to comb through relevant background information that could verify or refute the statement, but cognitive ease will result in belief if it can't be quickly confirmed. (Remember, System 2 is lazy AF.)
• Our brains default to the good vibes of cognitive ease, and Kahneman points to the career of Robert Zajonc whose research on the mere exposure effect drives this point home. Zajonc proved that just by exposing people repeatedly to a word or object, they would develop a more positive association with it. The more exposure, the more likely people are to favor something. This is true of a random word on a newspaper cover, a pronounceable stock market symbol, or even stimuli provided unconsciously. It is also true for nonhumans, as tones played for chicken embryos will get a more positive response from the chicks after they hatch. This is because, evolutionarily speaking, it is safer for animals to be initially skeptical of novel stimuli, and also to learn to trust repeated stimuli as safe. Darwin would be proud!

On the “consequence” side, cognitive ease can be induced if we are presented with things that feel easy and familiar, or if we are put into a good mood first. (Cognitive strain can be induced in the opposite ways.)

• When psychologists ask their subjects to think of happy or sad experiences first, it affects how intuitive they are and whether they experience cognitive ease or strain in the tasks that follow.
• Experiments have also shown that no matter the content of a message, people will intuit it as more or less believable depending on how much cognitive ease or strain results from the presentation of said information.
• Kahneman points out that the effects of cognitive ease on people's beliefs might have been proven by psychologists, but authoritarian regimes have always known it works. (Gulp!) Let's assume you are not a dictator and you have a truthful, impactful message that you want people to pay attention to. If you keep in mind that System 2 is lazy and people will avoid things that cause cognitive strain, you can bolster the efficacy of your message with the following tips: use an easy-to-read font, high-quality paper, simple phrasing, bright colors, and sources with easily pronounceable names. Yes, System 2 will balk at your report if your sentences are too fancy and your font is too small or squiggly. You can also add rhymes. Apparently it is proven true if rhyming's what you choose to do! (Please enjoy this relevant sitcom clip.)

Now here's where things get surprising. Cognitive ease and strain are not binary good/bad things. Sure, cognitive ease makes you feel happier and more confident, but you're also more likely to be duped and rely on your automatic System 1 impressions. Cognitive strain feels uncomfortable and makes you work harder, but it also boosts your creativity and gets you to think more analytically, so it can lead to better decisions and outcomes. You would probably do better on a test printed in a challenging font because your brain would be forced to pay more attention! Maybe I should've written this summary in a smaller font…
CHAPTER 6 - Norms, Surprises, and Causes: System 1 is compared to a powerful computer in this section, because it can quickly make links between networks of ideas. System 2 is our ability to set search parameters and program the computer to detect certain bits of data more easily. Let’s check out how awesome - and limited - System 1 is!
Surprise is the spice of life, and System 1 works with surprising events to help explain what we observe and decide if it is “normal”. Surprises come in two kinds: consciously expected events that will surprise you if they don’t happen (eg, your kid coming home from school), and passively expected events that are normal in a given scenario but it won’t surprise us if they don’t happen (eg, when I give my students a test someone will probably groan). System 1 helps us adjust our expectations: an event may seem normal if we’ve been exposed to it before (such as bumping into the same friend unexpectedly on two vacations) or become an expected occurrence (such as looking for an accident in the same stretch of road where you saw a big one earlier). Linking up events is another talent of System 1. Kahneman and his colleague Dale Miller worked on norm theory together: when observing two events, the first may be surprising but when a second event occurs your System 1 thinking will work out a connection between the two, making a narrative of sorts that diminishes how surprising the second event seems. This also makes it hard to pick out small errors, but easy to pick out glaring ones, such as the difference between reading “Moses put animals on the ark” and “George Bush put animals on the ark”.
System 1 likes to create narratives with these linked events. It helps us understand stories in a common way across the culture, and it allows us to make sense of the events in our daily lives and in the world.

1. Associative coherence creates links between events to help make an understandable story about what is going on. If a friend tells you they had fun sightseeing in a crowded city but later discovered their wallet was missing, you would probably jump to a conclusion about pickpockets (rather than assuming your friend absent-mindedly left it at a restaurant) because of the associations between crowds, cities, and crime.
2. The illusion of causality occurs when we “see” physical causation in scenarios even if there isn’t an actual cause-and-effect relationship. Having seen that an object will move when something bumps into it, psychologist Albert Michotte explains that we will transfer this assumption even to pictures of objects. We know there was no real physical contact, but if picture A moves immediately after picture B “touches” it, our System 1 thinking still explains picture B as causing the movement.
3. We assume intentional causality because humans are excellent at personifying nonhuman subjects. Heider and Simmel demonstrated that people do this by assigning things feelings and personality traits, forming a narrative around what might be happening. Here is a video of their animation of the bullying triangle. Considering it is a bunch of shapes, I think it is quite harrowing!
4. We separate physical and intentional causality, and this may be an explanation for how humans are wired to easily accept religious beliefs. According to Paul Bloom in The Atlantic, we are born with the capacity to conceive of “soulless bodies and bodiless souls” which allows us to accept religious explanations of God and the immortal soul. Religious belief may be baked into System 1 thinking!

Unfortunately, relying on causal intuitions like these can cause misconceptions, especially where statistical thinking is necessary to draw appropriate conclusions. Guess who we need for statistical thinking? System 2! Too bad for us that it’s easier and more pleasant to just go with the narrative of System 1.
CHAPTER 7 - A Machine for Jumping to Conclusions: System 1 is that machine, and it does this without our awareness. This works out just fine when making a mistake wouldn’t be a big deal and our assumptions are probably going to be correct (such as hearing “Anne approached the bank” and thinking of an institution of finance rather than a river’s edge). It gets more serious - and needs the help of System 2’s analysis - if it would be risky to make a mistake and the situation is unfamiliar or vague. We rely on System 1 to draw conclusions about ambiguous information without ever having to ponder the uncertainties, and most of the time this works out just fine! But it can also lead to biases.
Confirmation bias occurs when we fall back on our associative memories to evaluate information. System 1 likes to confirm things and will rely on examples related to the wording of a statement or question. It is gullible and will try to believe things if it can. Fortunately, System 2 is deliberate and skeptical; it can step in to help us interpret things more correctly or “unbelieve” things that are false. The bad news is that, if System 2 is already busy or feeling lazy (eg, if you are experiencing cognitive strain) then System 2 might not kick in and you might be duped. Don’t watch those influencer marketing posts while exhausted, kids!
Even when not under strain, System 2 will still default to searching for evidence that proves a statement or question rather than seeing if it can be disproved. This is contrary to the science and philosophy rules for testing hypotheses, but hey, Systems 1 and 2 are gonna do what they’re gonna do. If someone asks if a person is friendly, you’re going to think of times they did nice things; but if someone asks if they're unfriendly, all their jerky behaviors will come to mind.
The Halo Effect is another bias to watch out for. We are prone to make assumptions based on our initial experiences and observations. For instance, a fun conversation at a party might lead you to assume your new friend is generous, even though you have no knowledge of their charitable behaviors (or lack thereof), and in turn their assumed generosity will make you like them even more! This is the halo effect, where we generalize about something based on initial impressions: if you like a person, you tend to like everything about them (and vice versa). Your mom was right: first impressions are important!
You can avoid the halo effect by decorrelating errors. This essentially means you should crowdsource information and opinions from a lot of independent sources who aren’t allowed to collaborate before sharing their thinking, and the average of this information will provide a clear understanding. It is the reason police don’t allow multiple witnesses to “get their stories straight” and why Kahneman believes everyone should write a short summary of their opinions before engaging in open discussion at a meeting. It is also a great way to cheat at those guessing jar challenges: just wait for everyone else to write down a number, then sneak a peek at the guesses and take the average as your own guess! (You can also use math if you’re a goody-two-shoes.) You’re welcome!
The principle of “What You See Is All There Is” (WYSIATI) leads to many other biases. Sure, it’s beneficial to think quickly and make sense out of complex situations using System 1 and the evidence at hand. It’s not always prudent or possible to stop and mull over whether we have all the information, so usually we rely on WYSIATI. The downside to this is that, when System 1 jumps to conclusions, it doesn’t care about the quantity or quality of the information it has to go on; it simply wants a coherent narrative. Since we almost always have incomplete information when making decisions or judgements, we rely on System 1 to put together the best possible conclusion based on what we see. We never stop to ask what we don’t know. This creates biases that can lead to incorrect assumptions. These include:

• overconfidence: we love a good story and will stand by it even if we don’t know very much at all
• framing effects: we will feel different ways about the same scenario based on how it is presented to us
• base-rate neglect: we disregard statistical facts that can’t be readily brought to mind in favor of vivid details we already know

Detecting errors like these is the job of System 2, but you may have heard that it is LAZY! This means that even System 2 is often relying on the evidence at hand without considering what else we don’t yet know. This reminds me of a silly-sounding statement by a certain American politician from the early 2000s.
CHAPTER 8 - How Judgments Happen: Like a curious toddler, there is no limit to the number of questions System 2 can ask. And like a teenager, there is a good chance that System 1 will make a snap judgment in place of the real question being asked. System 2 is good at both generating questions and searching memory to answer them, while System 1 is good at continuously and effortlessly making quick decisions, literally without giving it another thought. System 1 has features that support these basic assessments of intuitive decision-making, and they lead us to substitute one judgment for another.
Basic assessments are the immediate judgments that human brains have evolved to make constantly to ensure safety. Whether you are dodging taxis while crossing a city street or avoiding lions while trekking through the savannah, your brain can immediately judge a situation as threat (to avoid) or opportunity (to approach). We do the same with other people’s faces, immediately deciding whether they are friend or foe based on face shape and facial expression. While this can be great for deciding whether to talk to that intimidating guy on the subway, it’s not so great that voters tend to fall back on these System 1 assessments when picking a candidate. Basic assessments of candidates’ photos showed that politicians with faces rated more competent than their opponent (strong jaw + pleasant smile) were likely to be the winner of their elections. Apparently we could save a lot of time and money with campaigning and just hand out headshots. Yuck.
Here are some other examples of basic assessments that System 1 uses to answer an easier question in place of System 2’s more complex query:

• Sum-like variables: finding the total (sum) of a set is a slow process, so System 1 will use the average or think of a prototype (representative image) to get an immediate idea
• Intensity matching: System 1 is great at matching where things fall on different scales such as describing how smart someone is by relating it to a person’s height (reading at 4 years old would be like an impressive but not outrageous 6’7” man while reading at 15 months old would be like an extraordinary 7’8” man). In an experiment straight out of Dante’s Inferno, participants match the loudness of tones to a crime or its punishment and increase them based on severity (murder is louder than unpaid parking tickets), and they report feeling a sense of injustice when the tones for a crime and its punishment do not match in volume!
• The mental shotgun: Just as you can’t aim at a single target with a shotgun because of the spray of pellets, so your System 1 is constantly making basic assessments that it wasn’t asked to and should probably have minded its own beeswax about. It’ll slow you down when identifying rhyming words that are spelled differently (vote/goat) and it’ll make you pause in looking for true sentences when a false statement could have a metaphorical meaning. You weren’t asked to think about spelling the rhyming words or making metaphors out of comparative statements, but System 1 just can’t help itself! Thinking about one aspect of the question triggers System 1 to think about a bunch of other connected associations.

CHAPTER 9 - Answering an Easier Question: You are almost always right, and you know it. Admit it, your System 1 keeps you pretty sure that you know what to think about most people and situations. Kahneman points out that we rarely experience moments when we are completely stumped and can’t come up with an answer or a judgment. You know which people to trust, which colleagues are most likable, and which initiatives are likely to succeed or fail. You haven’t collected detailed research and statistics or swiped anyone’s diary; your System 1 just knows. That’s because it answered an easier question!
Let’s talk heuristics. According to George Pólya, a heuristic is a simpler problem that can be solved as a strategy for tackling a more difficult problem. Kahneman borrows the term to describe the substitutions made by System 1 instead of answering a tricky System 2 question. If you don’t get an answer to a question pretty quickly, System 1 will make some associations and use those to come up with a related and easier question. You won’t even notice that your brain has pulled a switcheroo, and you’ll feel confident in your answer to that tricky question (even though you did not in fact answer it). Here’s how System 1 pulls it off:
Brain: Hmm, I don’t know the answer to this complex question. It requires some deep analysis!
System 2: Hard pass. You may have heard I’m hella lazy.
System 1: I got you, bro! That deep question reminds me of this super fun fact I know, so I’ll throw this out there instead. Does your fancy schmancy query make sense now?
System 2: Umm, probably? It’s good enough for me. I’m gonna go back to my nap.
System 1: Eureka! We’ve got an answer!
Brain: I am so smart! I totally answered this really complex question thoughtfully and reasonably.
Here are some example heuristics:

• 3-D Heuristic: This is an optical illusion. When you are shown a drawing that appears to give a three dimensional perspective, your brain will automatically interpret it as if you were looking at objects in a 3-D setting. You didn’t forget that the paper and drawing are 2-D and you aren’t confused about the questions asked. You just automatically substitute 3-D interpretations because that is how your brain is used to seeing the world and it’s easier to continue that way.
• Mood Heuristic: It would take a lot of consideration to give an accurate answer to how happy you have been feeling lately, because there are so many factors to evaluate. When asked about happiness and then about dating, there is no correlation between the two answers: overall happiness is not really influenced by how many dates people have recently had. However, if someone primes you by asking about your dating life first, your answer about happiness will be very strongly correlated to your love life because System 1 is actually using the easy dating question to easily answer the more complex happiness question. This also works with other topics like family relationships and finances.
• Affect Heuristic: Your opinions or feelings about a certain topic will affect how you judge its strengths and positives as well as its weaknesses and negatives. Things you view favorably will seem to have many benefits and few risks, while things you are averse to will appear riskier and less beneficial. Your political preferences will influence your attitude towards policies and other countries even if there is evidence to the contrary. This doesn’t mean that we can’t learn or be convinced by new information, and that we will never change our minds. It’s just that lazy System 2 is also not very demanding; it tends to apologize for System 1’s snap judgments and emphasize the information that backs it up, rather than seeking out and examining the evidence to the contrary.

We end Part I with a chart listing the characteristics of System 1. This is a good review of how System 1 tends to operate. Then, we embark on Part II: Heuristics and Biases.
CHAPTER 10 - The Law of Small Numbers: People are bad at statistics - we struggle to draw intuitive conclusions based on a statistical fact. Even statisticians are bad at intuitive interpretations of statistics! This is because of the law of large numbers. Keep in mind that large samples are more precise than small samples. When randomly sampling a group, a large sample will yield more predictable results (less extremes) than a small sample would. Kahneman gives us two examples: rates of kidney cancer could seem unusually high or low if the populations of the counties sampled are small, and getting all of the same color marble instead of half and half will occur more often if you’re pulling just a few marbles from an equally mixed jar instead of pulling a big handful. (Your System 2 is really working hard right now, isn’t it? I had to bite a pencil just to make myself feel better in the statistics section. I’m not crazy; please refer to Chapter 4!)
The law of small numbers is the belief that the law of large numbers applies to small numbers, too. (It doesn’t.) Not only do average people fall for the law of small numbers, so do researchers and statisticians. There is a mathematical way to compute the number of participants that researchers need to sample in order to avoid statistical anomalies and ruin their results. Instead, researchers trust their intuition and go with traditional sample sizes, never stopping to calculate the number of participants actually needed for a safe sample size. Even authors of statistical textbooks couldn’t manage to avoid falling for the law of small numbers. This explains why my math-teacher-husband always pops a blood vessel when I quote him statistics from a newspaper article.
We are biased towards confidence rather than doubt. System 1 is not wired for doubt because it looks for coherent messaging. System 2 is wired for doubt, but not very good at it because it’s hard work. When we analyze and draw conclusions, we tend to put too much emphasis on coherent explanations. We are “not adequately sensitive to sample size” and end up believing that even a very small group matches up with the truth about the entire population. Essentially, it’s us saying “Kids these days…” because one random toddler was being obnoxious at the grocery store.
Statistics do not indicate the cause of an event; they only describe it in relation to what could have happened instead. But people are predisposed to make associations and creative coherent narratives, so we look for patterns and assume causality where none exist. Many events in life are random chance and this is true whether you consider the sequence of the sex of babies born in a single day, the bombing locations in a city or fatality rates of air squadrons during war, or the “hot hands” of a basketball player who appears to have a streak of success. The problem is that we fall for the law of small numbers in our small samples, we create associative narratives to explain what we see, and we are biased towards believing our own conclusions because they ring true. Even really smart and successful people like Bill Gates make these mistakes, and sometimes this results in millions or billions of dollars wasted and national educational policies shifted on the basis of random chance. Oops! WYSIATI, even in statistics!

As the title suggests, I'm at the point where I'm returning to regular activities with no aggravation or re-appearing of symptoms! It's been a bit of a journey, so here's the story and how I recovered. I had a double crush type injury stemming from my neck, as well as my Thoracic Outlet, producing symptoms from my neck to my hand on the affected side, as well as some minor bilateral involvement into the other arm.
Firstly as some background, I have a diagnosed auto-immune inflammatory arthritis called Ankylosing Spondylitis (since age 9, I'm 30 now) - this is what made things a bit more complicated. The disease attacks your spine and essentially any other joint / tendon attachment / ligament attachment, which can lead to a whole host of muscles getting affected among other things. I am on immunosuppressant medication for this which generally keeps it well managed. It's EXTREMELY unlikely anyone here has this as a cause of their RSI - but I have this along side an RSI and have essentially fully recovered. I'm sharing this because even with a serious inflammatory condition I managed to fix the RSI issue - so there is hope.
My RSI issues started around 8-9 months ago. I was/am a regular bouldereclimber, and my day job was/is a VFX artist (self employed, so no paid holiday or sickness). I work from home, and often go long stretches of using a computer and mouse with no rest, then immediately go to a climbing gym after work and continue to assault my forearms and arms. I was also a gamer in my spare time too. Recipe for disaster...
Symptoms started minorly, and I brushed them off as usual muscle soreness or perhaps my arthritis playing up a bit (my neck basically always hurts, but was this due to AS (ankylosing spondylitis) or partly the RSI issue starting? (YES, IT WAS). Playing WoW after work, I noticed my arms getting so horribly fatigued from mashing my keyboard I could barely lift them. This is where it all began and gradually got worse and worse. I started getting shooting pains into my face. Then into my arm...
Below are the symptoms I started to have, which gradually got worse and worse, to the point I could barely use a knife and fork, wash my hair in the shower, brush my teeth, and of course, work and climbing were now impossible for me. Withing 5 minutes of work using a keyboard and mouse, my forearms would be so painfully tight I couldn't hold anything, and my hands would be cramping up. These symptoms were mostly all right sided, but maybe at 20% intensity on the left arm at the worst point.
Symptoms List

• My forearm pronators would easily fatigue, and get what I would describe as 'bricked' or 'pumped'. Like I'd been climbing for an hour, but I had just chopped up a carrot or brushed my teeth for example.
  
• Loss of dexterity - particularly in my thumb and forefinger, causing me to drop things
  
• Doing anything with my arms elevated was impossible, and my arm lacked blood flow when raised above my head
  
• Muscle Cramps and twitching from my shoulders down to my hands, and even my chest and face.
  
• Intense neck pain (back of neck)
  
• Jaw Pain
  
• Tightness and pain in my arm muscles and tendons (bicep, forearm, they literally felt like bone they were so tense)
  
• Rotator Cuff pain
  
• Incredibly tight scalene muscles
  
• My hands felt clumsy and uncoordinated
  
• Waking up with completely numb arm and pins and needles throughout the night
  
• Sudden shooting pains into my forearms and the back of my hand / fingers
  
• Terrible shoulder blade / rotator cuff pain
  
• Perceived weakness / feeling that something was 'off' in my arm
  
• Hand would go cold quickly
  
• Neuralgia/shooting pains into my face and right eye
  
• Intermittent tingling in various fingers and thumb
  
• Tingling in the side of face
  
• I'm sure there are many more symptoms I'm forgetting now, but basically my entire right arm was toast.
  

I went down various rabbit holes and made myself incredibly anxious thinking I had every possible terrible illness possible causing this. I tried stretching my arms out myself, and my neck, which only made things worse. I needed to keep working, and had just been hit with a huge repair bill for my flat. This caused my stress and anxiety levels to sky rocket even more.
I was still trying to do everything I was previously doing, and causing more damage to myself in the process. This plus stress then caused my arthritis condition to flare up too. I now was unable to use my arms, barely able to walk, unable to sleep due to my arms constantly getting pins and needles and going numb, in tremendous pain, feeling completely useless, and all in all not in a good way.
So, what was happening?
My first port of call, and ultimately the thing that made the biggest difference, was seeing an Osteopath. Luckily I know a brilliant one that has helped me since I was a child with my arthritis condition. He assessed me, and quickly noted my first right rib had become elevated and locked, and my right clavicle was swollen (the swelling was due to my arthritis, as the disease had been active here in the past). Everything pointed towards TOS, something I'd not heard of before.
My neck was also in a terrible way due to my (lack of) work ergonomics and AS, and had caused a gigantic knot of muscle to form, along with crepitus all along my traps, and into my shoulder blade. He would press in one particular region in the top of my traps / shoulder and it would send the exact shooting pain into my face and eye.
As well as my poor posture at my desk (sitting slumped slightly to one side in my chair, with one arm extended clicking a mouse) I was also sitting in a similar position on the sofa in the evenings, often to one side (leaning towards where my girlfriend sits on the sofa to watch TV). I was doing the same thing in bed, laying on my side and watching stuff on my laptop with my head in a forward posture.
The combination of poor ergonomic working position which was bleeding into my out of work activities, plus climbing on top of that (and 10 years of neck pain due to Ankylosing Spondylitis), caused a chain reaction of muscles getting overworked, and their work getting passed onto the next muscle group. This next group would then fatigue to the point of exhaustion, pass their workload to the next group, until clicking my mouse was involving muscles in my upper neck. I was so incredibly tense that basically everything from my neck downwards was locked in place, and was causing nerve compression. Not only in my neck (I have issues from C2-T3), but my brachial plexus / thoracic outlet too. This caused a host of downstream issues into my arms and hands.
This is what is typically called a Double Crush type injury where there are two areas of compression. The osteopath said it’s usually seen in people that have been in a car crash. You can get triple and quintuple crushes the more points of compression there are. He suspected there was some compression going on in my upper forearm too, luckily that area resolved the fastest. The neck however is another story!
Recovery Journey
I was still sceptical after the first osteopath visit, and couldn't help endlessly searching reddit and google for answers: Pro Tip, this will almost never help, and definitely didn't for me. I have terrible health anxiety, and this ended up making me even more tense, contributing to further symptoms and causing me to spiral.
Eventually, I gave up on endlessly googling and decided to more seriously follow the osteopaths advice, and started to see some improvement. But also made a lot of mistakes.
Mistake 1
Not following the professionals advice properly, and going too hard with stretches. He gave me just 4 stretches to do, and ICE ICE ICE my neck, this didn't directly target my forearms though which was my main complaint. The stretches I was prescribed were mostly for my Hips and Thoraccic spine, with one in what was my opinion at the time, rather tame stretch for my forearms. Despite him explaining exactly why, I couldn't see how this would help, so I added more of my own stretches into the regime thinking it would expedite my recovery. Big mistake. Suddenly everything was getting worse despite taking time off work. For example I was trying to stretch my tight scalene muscles in particular, which actually caused them to tighten even more. I told my osteopath, he told me to do exactly as he said, do not deviate, and rest.
Mistake 2
Going crazy with what I could do - running. The initial stress had died down after a month or so, and so had my arthritic symptoms. All my hobbies involve my hands, so I went balls to the wall with running, which I hadn't done that regularly in a while. Now I had issues with my knee and foot because of my tight hip. (I ran 3 10Ks within a week and a half from not having run since 10 months prior). This then meant I was spiralling even more thinking symptoms were spreading even more. Additionally, long runs then started to aggravate my neck as well which was in a fragile state. Slow running, and even better, walking, is what I switched to eventually.
Mistake 3 -- this is a MAJOR ONE
This is the biggest one, I KEPT trying to test myself to see if I was healing or getting worse. I was using a hand dynamometer to test my grip strength (I had this from climbing). I was seeing how long I could dead hang. I was seeing how many times I could blink my hands open and closed with the Roos test. I made a small amount of progress in recovery then went to the gym to see how easily I could deadlift 130kg. This immediately set me back to where I was 2 months previous. I could go on and on with all the stupid stuff I was doing. I've come to realise my health anxiety is most likely OCD because of this. I'm constantly 'checking' - and this was causing even more damage.
Mistake 4
Not managing stress and anxiety. I got off reddit and google - low and behold I was not now focusing 24/7 on my symptoms and googling various diseases all the time - this made me not only feel better mentally, but actually get better physically too.
What Worked
It's definitely easier to rule out things that didn't work or made it worse, so it's hard to say what was the most effective. But here is what I tried and what I believe gave me good results. I'll also list some of the things that didn't work so well.

• I'll say it again, but getting off google / reddit looking for answers. If you're spiralling, it wont help.
  
• Changing my desk / keyboard / mouse. I use a split keyboard, a wacom tablet as a touch pad plus use the pen and occasionally a vertical mouse. I set my desk at a proper ergonomic height, as well as my monitor.
  
• Stopped work and HEAVILY limited what I did with my arms for 2-4 months. It's a long time, but it was necessary. No cooking, no carrying shopping, no DIY, nothing. I luckily could afford to stop work for a month and a half and just rest.
  
• Ice. I Iced my neck, shoulder, elbow, forearm. Everyday constantly. I had about 4 ice packs constantly rotating in and out of the freezer.
  
• Posture - no more slouching, and even when walking, I'd focus on keeping my head up and shoulders slightly engaged. Don't use posture trainers/braces. They do more damage.
  
• Stretches focusing on full spine mobility, but in particular my Thoracic spine (Despite most of my issues being cervical). I did about 20 minutes of stretching at least 3 times a day. I used an app called Bend to help remind me to do this.
  
• Stretches focusing on my hips and lower body. Hard to make sense of, but there was one particular stretch for my hips, that when I did it, I could actually feel a pull in my forearm and across my chest. (I have arthritis in my right hip which is very tight, so issues can stem from here too, arthritis or not)
  
• Sleeping flat on my back using a contoured pillow. This was hard at first as a side sleeper.
  
• Walking, and using a spin bike with no arms - basically kept me from going stir crazy. I added in some gentle running when my knee got better and kept it casual.
  
• Once my first rib became more mobile from the back stretches, I was able to add in more full body stretches including my arms, following the osteopaths advice.
  
• Seeing my osteopath - exercise and stretching plans, and reassurance
  
• Sauna - I did this 2-3 times a week
  
• Ice Bath - Whenever I used the Sauna
  
• Getting enough sleep, I tried to get 9 hours each night and still aim to!
  
• Magnesium supplementation at bed time, and magnesium gel on my neck and arms in the day.
  
• Wim Hof Breathing. This helped with anxiety hugely and stress management. It's something I did years ago and fell out of practice with a bit. Happy to have this back.
  
• Limiting mobile phone use - it was just more stress on my arms. I used screen time and limited myself to an hour a day combined across my apps that I frequent.
  
• Arm Aid Massager - Really helped my forearm tension / tightness ease off.
  
• Increased protein intake. I eat a healthy non-processed diet already, this was my only diet change.
  

These next ones might be overkill, and you don't need to over complicate things, however...

• Additional Supplements(?) This is hard to quantify exactly how and whether they helped, but once I started on a supplement regime (My sister is a nutritionist so I got advice there) my recovery really started to progress much faster. Would it have happened anyway? Who knows. I wouldn't advise to take what I did as it is all individual based. You need to see someone qualified, but here's what I took anyway: Omega 3, Turmeric, a Joint Complex with Glucosamine and Vitamin C, Vitamin D3+K2 Spray (A couple of these I was already taking)
  
• Mushroom Extract supplements. This is something I've not seen mentioned before on the subreddit. I took Lions mane mushroom which supposedly, and has some evidence to suggest, can help with nerve healing. I also took Cordyceps mushroom extract as well to help with muscle recovery.
  
• CBD Balm - not really sure about this one - felt slightly soothing on the skin, not sure it did anything though. Save your money as it is rather expensive.
  
• Cutting out diet drinks (Coke zero etc) - again hard to say if this actually helped, but I've stopped this and I'm now better. Kombucha I find to be a great alternative.
  

What Didn't Work

• Nerve Glides - seemed to just make everything worse and exacerbate symptoms. I couldn't work out in my head how dragging an irritated nerve through a compressed tunnel would help either. (my Osteopath told me not to do these when I asked him about them after trying them myself) Some people swear by them though, and I'm sure they are effective in some cases, just not mine.
  
• Trackball mouse. Seemed to make symptoms worse. I tried the Slimblade Pro for a week, didn't like how I had to click the thing, it strained my arms.
  
• Only using a vertical mouse - the pinching of the mouse with my fingers and thumb aggravated my forearm after a while. Using a touchpad/tablet 80% of the time, and having the mouse for certain things seems to be the best balance for me.
  
• Braces - in my case they weren't helpful - I was advised against using them. I did however try a cubital tunnel one to keep my arm straight in bed (I would get more pins and needles as my arms would bend / curl up in my sleep), but the brace itself was causing irritation, and caused my arm to cease up from being in one position and also caused it to go numb. Just sleeping on my back, with my arms very slightly raised on a fairly flat pillow helped. After waking and repositioning my arms for a month, my body eventually just learnt to keep my arms straight in my sleep.
  

How Am I now?
I went climbing for the first time in many months recently. I took it very easy as I'll need to build back to where I was, but I feel absolutely fine afterwards. In my next osteopath visit we will be talking about exercises to add in to strengthen weakened muscles that contributed to this RSI. I'm sure it will be another 3-4 months, if not more until I'm climbing has caught up to where it was (If anyone else is a climber, my grade was around 6c+ font, and upon returning I could still easily climb a 6a, but tried nothing harder, and mostly stuck to climbs around 4-5b just to get moving, without putting too much pressure/load through my forearms and fingers. Slab is your friend, don't go on anything overhanging as tempting as it may look!)
I'm back to working full time with NO issues. I take regular breaks multiple times a day to stretch every, and still do all my longer stretching routine every morning and evening. I use reminders on my phone and smart watch to remind me to stand up and move around every 40 minutes.
I stripped varnish, sanded and re-varnished my kitchen counters this weekend. It took 11 hours of using my arms. Again, I'm totally fine and have none of the old symptoms back, other than some slight DOMS in my forearms.
My biggest change is my work-life balance. I was burning myself out working far too late into the evening and always in work mode. I changed my desk to one that folds up, so at the end of the day I can pack up my work stuff (despite working from home) and physically shut it away. This way I don't always have a visual reminder putting my body into a tense and stressed state. Out of sight, out of mind. This also stops me sitting in the same desk chair I work in all evening too (playing computer games, carrying on with work etc).
On that note, I've decided to pretty much stop gaming though. I wasn't finding it as fun as I once did, and figured it's probably for the best. Not to say I can't, but there are just other things I value much more now. Life is basically back to what it was before, but I will never stop stretching each day now, and keep up my new found ergonomic habits to prevent any future issues!
It is also clear to me from reading posts on this subreddit, among others, that most of us seem to have some sort of mental health involvement too, whether it be anxiety and stress (in my case) or depression, and so on. It's a self fulfilling cycle. Symptoms appear, we focus on them, become stressed and anxious, which makes the symptoms become heightened, and the cycle continues.
Did I see a medical doctor at any point?
I didn't - however two of my best friends are both medical doctors, and were in agreement with my Osteo. All 3 advised if I didn't see any improvement in a couple of months to go to the GP. I did have an appointment booked with my GP to start the whole process, but when I started seeing improvement, I ended up cancelling it. My Osteopath also reassured me if he was even .5% uncertain of the cause he'd send me off for imaging. He'd treated many people with the same symptoms as me in the past.
Given I live in the UK, the timeline of when I'd actually get seen by a specialist (would this be neurology/MSK/sports PT/back to my rheumatologist/all of the above?) would have likely have taken quite a while. I also have regular blood tests and imaging done due to my auto immune arthritis (fusion of my SI joints bilaterally, damage to my sternoclavicular joint (collarbone) and inflammation in essentially all my cervical vertebrae and large parts of thoracic), and I see my Rheumatologist 1-2 times a year for check ups. In my next appointment I will of course update them with the fun I've had in the past year! Thankfully, as I was seeing progress after I accepted the cause, I carried on with what I was advised to from my osteopath. I would advise seeing a doctor though, particularly if you can't find results with an osteopath, or symptoms get worse.
These RSI issues are complicated to treat and diagnose, and there seems to be a want to label every one of these conditions/syndromes so we fit into a set of statistics with a pre-programmed recovery program. Because so many muscles get involved, and it is NOT the same for everyone, it gets complicated when it comes to which muscles you can safely stretch/massage, and start to recover. I think this is where a lot of people go wrong, and I believe osteopathy really helps as it can be a full body problem, and the root cause needs to be addressed before you can make any sort of recovery.
Lastly, recovery is not linear, it goes up and down, so try not to get disheartened when progress feels like it isn't moving forward. Day to day the progress was imperceptible, even across weeks it was impossible for me to measure whether it was getting better, until one day it was - and that was part of my issue, as I was trying to measure it in the first place. You have to trust the process and go with it.
EDIT
As people are asking, I've added the stretches I did below. Remember depending on muscle involvement that you have, it may not work in exactly the same way, and if anything is painful, don't push it. Try the first set, and if everything feels okay move onto the more advanced versions which are in the second list. Don't push past pain!
STRETCHES - BE CAUTIOUS
First 4

1. Knees to chest. Lay on the floor, hold your knees and squeeze them gently into your chest for 5 seconds, release, rest for 10 seconds, repeat. (my forearms were so painful, I actually couldn't do this at first)
   
2. Cat Cows (simple to do, google it if unsure! I'd do these for about 3 minutes)
   
3. Thoracic Extension with a towel Link here - I also supported my head with 2 fluffy pillows, and when my arms came back, I would rest them on the pillow next to my head as well. Only move your arms as you breath out, both going up and down. I did not interlock my hands, and just had them by my side. 15 or so reps. Take it slow.
   
4. Knees side to side Link here - this was the one that really pulled my forearm muscles. 15 or so reps each side. Again, go slow and controlled.
   

Once I was comofotable with these (which was after 1 session of just these to test the waters), we also added in:
Advanced 4

1. Spinal Twist Link here This is a more advanced version of the knees side to side stretch. I'd hold each side for at least a minute and then repeat. This was quite painful on my hip at first so I had to go gently. You can really feel the stretch up your lats too, and for me, into my biceps.
   
2. Seated Twist Link here This was good for both lower and upper back mobility. Hold for 20-30 seconds, but start with lower times to ease into it. Hold for longer when you're more used to it.
   
3. Sit and reach Link Here This one I found very difficult to do at first, and couldn't reach my foot at all, I was barely halfway down my shin. now I can grab my foot! Hold for 5-10 seconds. Repeat a few times.
   
4. Revolved Lunge Pose Link here Important extra step on this one. Before twisting upwards, I was told to fold down onto my elbows in the lunge position and try drop my head to the floor too, focus on breathing. I still cant get my head anywhere close to the floor, but can just about get my elbows down. After that I'd do the upward twist part of the stretch.
   

After all of this I'd do child's pose for a couple of minutes:

1. Childs Pose Link here

I'd repeat this whole process every single morning when I got up, and run through the whole routine twice. Then again at lunch time, and bed time. Sometimes I'd do this 5 times a day. These really are the only stretches I needed, but I did add in one forearm stretch which I was told to do.
Forearm Stretch

1. Interlock fingers at waist with palms facing downwards, gently press until you feel a pull.
2. Repeat step 1 but with arms extended in front of you.
3. Repeat step one, but with fingers interlocked behind you.
4. Sit on the floor as if you are going to do child's pose. Instead of hinging forwards and dropping your chest, place your palms on the floor in front of your knees, with arms rotated so fingers are pointed towards you. Gently push palms downwards to feel the stretch.
5. Repeat previous stretch, except place the backs of your hands on the floor. This will target the top of your forearm instead.

Hope this helps!

I, a 16F sophomore, have a huge crush on this senior guy (18M). And while we're not best friends, I have spent a lot of time with him.
Going into more detail, we're both on the same tennis team in a small high school and I've known him for about 4 years, nearly 5. In the last 2 years I've had an on and off infatuation with him but during this tennis season it came back hard. We had lots of matches this year, including practice, so for a period of time I was seeing him everyday. Plus we're both the singles players so we have a connection there. Often times, if we're both done playing, we'll sit together and watch everyone else play. He always laughs at all my jokes (he even said that we're the same person in different fonts?? Is that a good thing??) and we have similar interests outside of tennis. Sometimes he'll start conversations with me on text, although we don't text that often. He's called my hair pretty, my nails and earrings cute, and compared me to Phoebe from Friends and Luna Lovegood. We make eye contact a lot, and it's usually never awkward while I'm around him honestly. When I laugh he'll start laughing, then tell me I have a contagious way of laughing. We sit next to each other often, whether that be at a restaurant with the rest of the team or on the bus. A few years ago he told me my voice was soothing. Hes posted me on his snapchat story and instagram (although he does that with quite a few people), and put me on his quote list many times. 2 weeks ago he asked me who I had a crush on and was really insistent on it, I never said who though; pretty sure he assumed it was someone in my grade. But what really fueled the fire for my attraction towards him is when he hugged me after I lost a match during playoffs this season, and after I lost at the state tournament. And for the last 2 weeks we've been calling all the time and playing minecraft together, usually with other people too but sometimes by ourselves. I'm definitely going into too much detail with this but you people need to know the full story. Also, I should add that he did have a crush on my friend 4 months ago who was 16, so he's fine with the age gap apparently.
Now, the things that make me doubt how he acts towards me is considering that he's, well, a senior. His college will be 2 hours away so even if he did reciprocate, that would be a challenge. Also, he's a very christain guy. And I am not. My parents make me go to church so he thinks I am Faithful. He's even going to college for church ministry and sings for his church's youth group so I would have to adapt to that, and honestly I like him so much that I'm willing to. Another thing, he says he doesn't have that many friends sometimes but he actually hangs out with a lot of people, most of them being girls. I used to think he was gay but he's dated a few of my senior girl friends, so I guess he's not. And he has a very intense personality. He can be nice, but I've seen him talk about a lot of people behind their back, even his best friend. He has a complicated history that he hasn't told me about, but it seems that he doesn't tell anyone about it outside of those who were there at the time. (Mysterious, I know). I spoke with others who dated him 2 years ago how the relationship went and they informed me that he has a victim complex and nothing is ever his fault in an argument. But they also told me he's changed since then, so I have no idea what to think. I don't even know if I'm even that important to him.
So, I need your feedback desperately. My friends are supportive and there's more I could add to this story but this description is already entirely too long and if you've read this far, I think you got the idea. So my question for you is, should I pursue it? Is he showing signs of attraction? I haven't had this strong of a crush on a guy in forever, so this feeling is new and makes me feel empty inside, and I truly cannot tell if he's just being friendly.

As always, CONUS, AK, HI, & PR shipping included on all. I can ship to CAN for $12 extra (up to 8 oz.). I'll ship int'l too, pls inquire. Zelle, Venmo, or CashApp preferred. If PayPal or Venmo G&S, please include the fee. 5ml std glass atomizer, 10ml your choice of silver, gold or black atomizer. Computer printed labels with fancy font, lol. I do repurpose packing materials if still in good condition. Verifications much appreciated and always reciprocated!
Please check out my other posts for great niche decants including MFKs and my extensive Tom Ford list!
The bottles // The bottles 2
Abercrombie Fierce Intense EDC b.c. 017B-H. Discontinued.
5ml // $15 ----- 10ml // $19
Bvlgari Man In Black EDP Hard to find and discontinued(?). Batch code 00M55BD1 (May 2021). MIB
10ml // $17
Dior Homme Eau for Men EDT Batch code 8J01 (Sept. 2018). Launched in 2014 and now discontinued. Homme Eau
10ml // $16
Dior Homme Intense 2019 I'm decanting one of my older bottles of DHI. This is the 2015 08666/A formula. DHI 9D01.
5ml // $16 ----- 10ml // $25
Fragrance One Office for Men EDP Batch code 5170 (May 17, 2020). Discontinued. Office for Men
5ml // $16 ----- 10ml // $23
Giorgio Armani Acqua Di Gio Profumo Parfum Now discontinued. Batch code 22UN1CX (Nov. 2021). Same formulation code since being launched in 2015 regardless of cap style or packaging. ADG Profumo
10ml // $16
Giorgio Armani Code Absolu Parfum Now discontinued. Much longer lasting and more umph than the OG. Launch year batch code 62S600T (June 2019). Code Absolu
10ml // $17
Giorgio Armani Code Profumo Parfum Now discontinued. Batch code 62R5009 (May 2018). Code Profumo
10ml // $20
Gucci Intense Oud EDP Considered one of the best designer "Ouds" on the market and one of, if not the best Gucci release. Rated 4.46/5.0 on Fragrantica. Gucci Int Oud
5ml // $17 ----- 10ml // $26
Guerlain L'Homme Ideal Cologne EDT b.c. 7Z01 (Dec. 2017) Discontinued. Fantastic summer scent. Ideal Cologne
5ml // $15
Guerlain L'Homme Ideal EDP b.c. 0C01 (March 2020) Older version. Ideal EDP
5ml // $15 ----- 10ml // $19
Guerlain L'Homme Ideal Extreme EDP b.c. 1L02 (Nov. 2021) Older version. Ideal Extreme
5ml // $17 ----- 10ml // $22
Hugo Boss The Scent Private Accord EDT Batch code 8261 (Sept. 2018). Priv Accord
10ml // $15
John Varvatos Dark Rebel Rider EDT Batch code 6FB3 (May 2016). Launch year batch code! Dk Rebel Rider
10ml // $15
Mercedes-Benz Cologne EDT Smells very similar to Dior Homme Cologne 2013 with better longevity and now discontinued. MB Cologne
10ml // $16
Mercedes-Benz Club Black EDT Hard to find. Batch code 0260 (Sept. 16, 2020). Photo coming...
10ml // $17
Prada L'Homme EDT The consummate office fragrance. Nov. 2021 batch code 22UN1CJ. Prada L'Hommes
10ml // $17
Prada L'Homme Intense EDP Discontinued. Batch code 90991 (April 9, 2019).
10ml // $24
Prada L'Homme L'Eau EDT Batch code 00761 (March 16, 2020).
10ml // $22
SJP Stash EDP Elixir Considered one of the best celebrity perfumes ever released. Unisex/leans very masculine. Discontinued.
10ml // $15
Stronger With You Absolutely Parfum b.c. 38TO008 (Oct. 2020).
5ml // $17 ----- 10ml // $26
Valentino Uomo EDT Batch code 22U10YE (Jan. 2021) pre-spike bottle. Valentino
10ml // $17
YSL La Nuit de L'Homme Bleu Electrique EDT Intense This one is an early batch code 38U100U (Jan. 2021). Resembles vintage LNDLH with better longevity. YSLs
5ml // $16
YSL L'Homme Ultime EDP Discontinued. Launched 2016. Batch code 38PN00 (Nov. 2017).
5ml // $15 ----- 10ml // $23

Bonjour à tous, Déjà : je ne veux QUE des beaux témoignages positifs et encourageants. Pas de négativité, pas de "Ca va mal finir"... car je connais déjà toutes les histoires négatives, on en lit déjà beaucoup sur les réseaux sociaux. Non, je veux du beau là, qui donne des étoiles dans les yeux.
Voici le topo : je (F30) suis depuis 6 mois avec quelqu'un qui va mal dans sa vie. Je suis arrivée à une période très difficile de sa vie et il est très anxieux (dans le sens maladie) de base. Et en plus de ça ? Nous sommes en relation à distance (on se voit quelques nuits/mois) et communiquer de manière virtuelle n'est vraiment pas son truc. Bref, je n'ai pas envie d'entrer dans les détails mais dites-vous que quand ça va mal, ça va assez mal même si lui comme moi on a connu pire dans nos vies. MAIS quand ça va bien, ça va vraiment très bien.
Et vous savez quoi ? J'ai déjà eu des relations avant dont une j'ai failli me marier... et pourtant, je ne me sentais pas vivre avec, c'était... bizarre. Malgré tout l'amour que j'avais pour lui, il manquait un truc. Là, pour ma relation actuelle qui est pourtant récente et pleine de points de friction (attention, pas des "red flags", c'est juste des problèmes dus à notre relation à distance/mauvaise période) et en plus, c'est pas du tout mon type de base... BAH POURTANT je me vois bien vivre/construire un truc avec, genre vraiment. J'ai peut-être pas l'instinct le plus aiguisé du tiroir mais je sais pas, je le sens ??
Malgré nos problèmes qui sont pas dérisoires en plus car ça touche la base d'un couple, je sens un truc. Et je ne me base pas que sur les souvenirs qu'on a ensemble ou le positif hein, je ne suis pas du genre à être aveuglée... Au contraire, je vois même plus le négatif que le positif et on a pas tant de souvenirs que ça, lol.
BREF, c'est ARCHI COMPLIQUÉ entre nous mais j'ai ENVIE de m'accrocher car je SENS que ça peut valoir le coup. Je sais pas si je suis claire haha. C'est même pas en mode "AMOUR FOU omgggg papillons" non non, c'est même assez calme. Oh et je vous rassure aussi, cette relation demande à ce que je prenne un peu sur moi (et lui sur lui) mais ce ne sont pas des efforts surdimensionnés non plus, je dois juste adapter ma cadence qui peut-être intense aussi en vrai (trouver un juste-milieu entre lui et moi).
🌞 SVP, je veux donc des histoires de gens qui ont vécu ce même ressenti, qui se sont accrochés malgré l'ambiance pourrie, le cœur qui se déchire mais pour qui ça a bien fini au final ! 🌞
J'en ai une de mon côté : un homme et une femme (~30 ans) allaient se marier après presque 10 ans de relation. L'homme annule les fiançailles pour une raison obscure, DU JOUR AU LENDEMAIN ! Il allait pas bien, c'était un peu bizarre dans sa tête, on sait pas trop. Pendant 5 ans, ils font chacun leur vie de leur côté. Et donc, à la fin de ces 5 ans, l'homme revient à la charge (mieux psychologiquement parlant) et redemande sa chérie en mariage et les voilà heureux !!
La femme était FOLLE AMOUREUSE de l'homme et dès qu'elle a vu lors de leurs années d'étude, il a toujours été l'homme de sa vie donc je suppose qu'elle l'attendait. En vrai, c'est archi chou même si elle ne méritait pas comment il la traitait lors de leur première relation donc.

Following my previous pieces regarding the current controversies around Rewilding Argentina’s (FRA acronym in Spanish) jaguar reintroduction projects here and here, and some online discourse I've been exposed to regarding this subject, I've arrived at the conclusion that the actions of Rewilding Argentina cannot be overlooked and the institution cannot be endorsed as a serious, science-based foundation, but rather as one of idealogues who would rather put their own ideas above the well-being of the animals and environments they claim to work for.
Rewilding and reintroduction projects have to be based on sound scientific grounds and must be executed following rigorous standards and criteria. When a foundation chooses to deviate from these standards for the sake of receiving media attention and praise, while also hiding the issues with their projects or worse, doubling down on them, we can conclude that such a foundation is not interested first and foremost in the greater good of their projects but in stroking its own ego, and such is the case with the FRA.
Last year, a group of over 125 Argentinian scientists publicized the following piece:
Guerisoli, M. de las M., Schiaffini, M. I., Teta, P., Valenzuela, A. E. J., Mirol, P., Defossé, G. E., ... & Ojeda, R. (2023). Reflexiones acerca del «reasilvestramiento» en la Argentina. Mastozoología Neotropical.
Here, they proposed an open dialogue surrounding the way in which the FRA is handling its rewilding and reintroduction projects, and putting forward criticisms based on previous scientific work in the field of reintroduction. Some of the claims put forward by Guerisoli et al. could be considered greatly orthodox and perhaps even close-minded, and are open to criticism themselves as well, but plenty of the points they brought forward carried with them a lot of weight and are worth highlighting. One doesn't have to agree completely with the positions brought forward by experts to understand that there can also be truth in much of what they say.
Instead of engaging with these scientists in good faith to try to reach a possible consensus or middle-ground on certain projects, the FRA decided to lash out at them in a hostile manner, generating great controversy in the process. I don’t want to focus on the controversy around this subject but rather touch upon the main issue that I’ve criticized the FRA for and that prompted my previous posts, and then tell you all what I think is the best course of action moving forward.
As you would all see from reading my previous posts, the most concerning part of the reintroduction projects of jaguars in Argentina involves the use of direct inbreeding between closely related individuals to grow isolated populations. This issue was mentioned by Guerisoli et al. and I want to include a translation of it here so the audience can understand the severity of this situation from the point of view of concerned scientists and geneticists:
Here's the translation into English of the relevant part of Guerisoli et al. (2023):
GENETIC CONSIDERATIONS IN ACTIVE MANAGEMENT

The central goal of conservation genetics is to protect the remaining genetic diversity of populations and species that are at risk due to significant anthropogenic impact, as well as to safeguard the evolutionary processes of ecosystems (Frankham et al. 2002). Genetic studies are an indispensable and fundamental component of any conservation project, including rewilding strategies. In this respect, the IUCN (IUCN/SSC 2013) proposes: 1) analyze the genetic variability of the remaining populations prior to management action; 2) in the case of reintroductions, the founder individuals should not be related; 3) in supplementations, founders from the genetic group of the original or remaining population should preferably be used; 4) in the case of translocations, replacement of the remaining genetic variation by the introduced variation should be avoided; and 5) genetic monitoring should be conducted after active management. Taking these recommendations into account, we will describe the genetic aspects of an example of supplementation (reinforcement in English, according to IUCN/SSC 2013) and one of reintroduction (reintroduction in English, according to IUCN/SSC 2013) of a carnivore in Argentina: the jaguar in El Impenetrable National Park (PNEI; Chaco province) and in the Iberá Protected Areas (APs).
If a species persists in small and fragmented populations, genetic drift can cause the loss or fixation of different alleles in each population, leading to their differentiation. As a result, only part of the original genetic variation is preserved in each fragment. Genetic studies of the remaining jaguar populations in Argentina using microsatellites (Font 2016; Robino 2022) showed that the population of the Atlantic Forest is significantly differentiated from the populations of the Chaco and Yungas. The latter, although ecologically isolated today (Thompson & Velilla 2017; Paviolo et al. 2019), do not show significant genetic differentiation. All of them present unique alleles: 13 alleles in the Atlantic Forest, six in the Chaco, and five in the Yungas (Robino 2022). This result indicates that during the process of population contraction of the species over the last 200 years, not only has genetic variability been lost, but it has also not been distributed uniformly among the fragments. Most of the unique variants of each population are at low frequency, so it is essential that management ensures their persistence (Hedrick & Fredikson 2010; Henkel et al. 2012; Hammerly et al. 2016).
In 2019, the first record of a male jaguar (named Qaramtá) was obtained in PNEI after seven years. In February 2020, the National Parks Administration convened various stakeholders involved in the conservation of the species with the aim of making decisions to protect the individual in the PNEI and discuss the possibility of conducting a managed crossing to conserve its genetic pool. Experts involved from the beginning in the "Experimental Center for Jaguar Breeding (CECY)" project in Iberá (see Solís et al. 2014: 7) expressed that the best option from a genetic standpoint was the crossing of Qaramtá with a female of Chaco origin, so as not to dilute his genetic pool. Finally, it was decided to transfer to the PNEI a captive female (named Tania) who had previously served as a breeder in the CECY, daughter of a captive female with supposed origin in the Yungas and an unknown father. In this regard, Di Martino et al. (2022: 86) report "(...) a genetics expert of this species opined that the transfer of Tania and pairing her with Qaramtá should not be carried out because the female possessed Yungas and not Chaco genetics. The jaguar does not present significant genetic differences related to biogeographical regions throughout its distribution area (from the southern United States to northern Argentina)." This statement is not correct as it confuses genetic lineage (resulting from the evolutionary history of the species) with genetic differentiation. Numerous works demonstrate the existence of genetic differentiation among jaguar populations from various ecoregions (Haag et al. 2010; Valdez et al. 2015; Srbek-Araujo et al. 2018; Lorenzana et al. 2020, 2021; Kantek et al. 2021; Robino 2022). This population differentiation must necessarily be considered when supplementing an existing population, as in the case of PNEI, since it is necessary to avoid the replacement of its unique genetic variation by genomes from other populations (called "genetic swamping" in English, Frankham et al. 2011; Russello & Jensen 2018). Genetic management of reintroductions is different: since the species is extinct, it is recommended to introduce as much genetic variability as possible. Ideally, a greater number of founders will represent a larger proportion of the wild genetic variability, but this number is limited in large mammals and those classified as "Critically Endangered" (i.e., the jaguar in Argentina; Paviolo et al. 2019). In these cases, it is crucial to minimize the coefficient of relatedness among the founders, which can be estimated using molecular markers (Queller & Goodnight 1989; Lynch & Ritland 1999; Wang 2014). Relatedness in small populations leads to inbreeding, whose consequences include increased susceptibility to diseases, reduced fertility, and lower survival of offspring (Frankham 2008). A notable example of the negative impact of relatedness and inbreeding is the management of the captive population of the Asiatic lion, Panthera leo leo. After its population had been reduced to 20 individuals in 1990, nine individuals from a captive population in India were transferred to three European zoos under the "European Endangered Species Program". By 2009, the number of captive individuals in Europe was 93. Simultaneously, the mortality rate of cubs during the first month of life increased, reaching 68.4% (Dorman 2009). A genetic study of the nine founder individuals (Atkinson et al. 2018) found that six of them had a common ancestor two generations back, resulting in three of them having the coefficient of relatedness equivalent to full siblings and two to half siblings. Just 20 years after the transfer, despite initial reproductive success, the relatedness among the founders caused the collapse of the species in captivity (Atkinson et al. 2018).
In Iberá, where a rewilding strategy for jaguars is being implemented (Di Martino et al. 2022), an initially unrelated breeding pair was introduced between 2016 and 2017 based on the analysis of molecular markers (Mirol et al. 2015). In subsequent years, other releases were made, but from 2018 onwards, genetic analyses ceased to be carried out by the initially convened experts (following Resolution No. 383/2018 of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development). We now present a theoretical analysis of the relatedness among the individuals of the founding population based on the scant public information available. While we recognize that this situation is not ideal, it allows us to preliminarily characterize the current and future scenario of this new population. The theoretical coefficients of relatedness are defined based on the proportion of the genome shared by two individuals given their familial relationship (e.g., parents/children= 0.5, full siblings= 0.5, half siblings= 0.25) and range between 0 and 0.5. In Iberá, the average coefficient of relatedness of the eight founder individuals is 0.32 (i.e., greater than that corresponding to half siblings). This level of relatedness endangers their long-term survival (see also National Directorate of Conservation notes, National Parks Administration NO-2021-122825059-APN-DNC and NO-2021-125785497-APN-DNC). After these releases, the birth of five new cubs was recorded (see media communications). Given the reproductive age of the released individuals, it is likely that in all cases the male breeder was the same individual, also father of all previous litters. If this were the case, it would result in an increase in the average relatedness in the population.
A relatively effective measure to counteract the negative effects of relatedness among founder individuals is genetic rescue (Tallmon et al. 2004; Whiteley et al. 2015; Hoffman et al. 2021), which involves the translocation of individuals from other populations to increase genetic variability. A paradigmatic and successful case is that of the Florida panther, Puma concolor coryi. In 1980, there was a single population of 20-25 adults showing numerous morphological and health problems. The first genetic analyses of this population date back to 1990 (O’Brien 1990), and genetic monitoring has continued to the present. After intense debate in 1995, it was decided to introduce eight females from the Texas puma population. By 2010, there was an increase in population size, effective population size, and genetic diversity in the Florida population (Johnson et al. 2010). A recent study (Van de Kerk et al. 2019) shows that despite the initial success of the program, genetic drift and inbreeding continue to occur at levels that increase the probability of quasi-extinction (less than 10 individuals in 100 years) tenfold. These authors propose that the survival of the Florida panther genetically depends on the introduction of between 5 and 10 individuals from other populations every 20 years. Hedrick et al. (2019) present similar results in the population of wolves, Canis lupus, in Isle Royale National Park (USA): several instances of genetic rescue produced positive effects only in the short term, and currently, the population is on the verge of extinction.
Di Martino et al. (2022) suggest that the inbreeding produced by the relatedness among the founder individuals of the Iberá jaguar population could be counteracted in the future through genetic rescue, as occurred with the Florida panther. However, there are fundamental differences between the two cases. In Florida, the panthers were not extinct, and genetic rescue was the only alternative for their survival. In Iberá, the jaguar was reintroduced, thus there is the possibility to avoid mating between related individuals. Secondly, in the case of the Florida panther, genetic studies were conducted from the start, used in all management decisions, and made public at every stage, not only through publications (see references in Van de Kerk et al. 2019) but also in decision-making by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (US Fish & Wildlife Service 1987; Seal 1994). In the case of the jaguar, genetic analyses were not considered in the management, suggesting a hypothetical genetic rescue in the future. Postponing the resolution of a problem that could have been avoided from the beginning involves considerable risks and does not guarantee successful outcomes, hence it should not be considered a panacea for the problems of inbreeding (Hedrick & García-Dorado 2016).
Finally, it is important to mention that evolutionary processes occur at the level of the complete genome and not only on adaptive genes. Future environmental changes and associated selective pressures are unpredictable, so it is necessary to ensure the presence of genomic-level genetic variability for the persistence of populations and species. The proposals arising from genetic studies are not based on a "taxonomic tyranny," defined by Di Martino et al. (2022: 87) as an eagerness to preserve supposed genetic differences at all costs. On the contrary, these proposals are based on abundant scientific information, and their central aim is that management actions result in the conservation of biodiversity beyond the few generations (in an evolutionary sense) that may be included in rewilding programs.

As we can read from above, Guerisoli et al. provided a great overview of the frameworks put in place by major organizations like the IUCN for best practices involving the reintroduction of animals into an environment and gives us clear examples of what happens when those guidelines aren’t followed, such as the case of captive lions in Europe, or wild Florida panthers (I would add other examples such as that of the Ngorongoro crater lions or the Amur leopard). They mention something important by highlighting that in the case of the Florida panthers, genetic rescue was something that was needed due to the lack of alternatives, whereas in the case of jaguars in Iberá and El Impenetrable, it is something that could’ve been avoided entirely by not utilizing closely-related individuals for the growth of founding, isolated populations.
The FRA has not only completely dismissed these real concerns, but chooses to double down on their own unscientific and irresponsible ways, as they currently prepare to release Nalá in her father Qaramta’s territory to grow the population of El Impenetrable, not caring one bit about how this induced genetic bottleneck will end up affecting this population long term.
In Iberá, of the 21 wild specimens the FRA claims to know of, we know based on their own publications that 16 of them are the direct descendants of Jatobazinho, 6 out of those 16 are the inbred descendants of Jatobazinho with 4 of his daughters, and 14 out of the 16 are related to littermates Juruna and Mariua as either cubs or grandcubs. Arami has direct kindship with 2 out of those 16 cubs, and Coli is the only completely unrelated wild jaguar in that population. Therefore, as Guerisoli et al. rightfully points out, the coefficient of inbreeding in Iberá is extremely high, several magnitudes higher than what you would find in healthy jaguar populations, perhaps even higher than they initially suggested.
Because of all of this, I’ve decided that in this subreddit we will no longer endorse Rewilding Argentina (FRA) as a serious and responsible organization. This space is dedicated to bringing awareness about jaguars to foster their conservation, and we cannot in good conscience get behind projects that put the well-being of these animals at risk unnecessarily and recklessly.
We will continue monitoring and posting about the new developments in Iberá and El Impenetrable with the goal of keeping our users updated but will do so by adding additional needed commentary to give further background about them that the FRA would rather not share to avoid giving attention to their own self-induced failures.
Please note that downplaying or denying the effects of inbreeding has no place in this community, as we are over everything else science-based. We hope that the scientists involved in the recent criticisms of this organization continue to put pressure to ensure that irresponsible projects like the ones we mentioned are rectified before their consequences bring forward catastrophic results.

Not delving into pro / against re: the meeting going down (pretty indifferent as I know the pros and cons in either case), but in any case this is a huge thing for the movement. CEOs don't meet with entities they aren't afraid of.
I somehow managed to miss the recap until now, but I think we need to use Per's non answers to keep fire in everyone's bellies, and keep the analysis going even just for the benefit for new users joining to see. They see the group in the news, but the news isn't talking about Per seeking Emily out! When I tell people that in real life, the reaction is intensely flabbergasted, and simultaneously impressed. Their efforts to discredit us are consistently killed by their own drawing of attention to us.
Anyway these are my highlights and hard lines, personally:

A: We felt it was developed without the big grocers being considered as much and it was sprung on us.

22 million in salary, and you don’t monitor market factors and regulatory developments? I would love to hear you mushmouth about what your lobbyists are for then, since you “don’t know what’s happening” and have national issues affecting your core business “sprung on you”.

A: I was unaware of the 50% off stickers.

Refer to point above about 22 million dollars. Which is it Per Bear? Are you so fucking astronomically inept at your job that you don’t get up to speed on the company you’re “running”, or are you being paid to unabashedly lie? Those are the two choices.

A: Dividends are Important to shareholders and the company.

Oop, mask slipped there shitbag. Might want to get with hair and makeup on that.

A: “We follow the law”.

Translation: We are exactly as soulless as you think, and if it weren’t for pesky laws, we’d screw you over even harder without a second thought.

A: I would argue that the store is choosing to offer their perishable goods at a lower price than we might as a means of getting customers into the store. I would argue that if you analyzed the same cart in both stores, they would not be cheaper overall.

I would argue, that you need to go play a rousing game of hide and go fuck yourself. This answer may have pissed me off the most out of all of them, and is demonstrably false, based on no fewer than 6 haul posts that have come across my feed today alone.

A: I cannot speak too much to this matter, as I was not the CEO at the time.

22 million. Interns get to pretend they know nothing. You get briefed by an army of lackeys and are 100% aware and read into what happened before you. Try again.

A: Zehr’s and Loblaw stores, we are implementing the “it’s fresh or it’s free” guarantee in which if a product is not fresh, it can be returned for a refund and replacement.

So... the existing law that says you can’t sell spoiled food. HOW NOBLE OF YOU. This is not a “promotion” or “initiative”, this is bare basic, bottom of the barrel, day one DUTY. We will not praise you for putting it in a different font and acting like you're doing us a favour.
Food and Drugs Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. F-27) Prohibited sales of food 4 (1) No person shall sell an article of food that - (a) has in or on it any poisonous or harmful substance; - (b) is unfit for human consumption; - (c) consists in whole or in part of any filthy, putrid, disgusting, rotten, decomposed or diseased animal or vegetable substance; - (d) is adulterated; or - (e) was manufactured, prepared, preserved, packaged or stored under unsanitary conditions.

A: I would also hope that by shedding more light on some of these functions, there can also be pressure on the industry as a whole.

Nope. Target stays on you.

H40 ici. J’ai besoin d’aide pour éviter de penser que les femmes sont « toutes les mêmes » et garder espoir à mon âge.
Globalement j’ai eu peu d’expériences en couple car toujours mis de côté à cause de mon physique et de mon caractère « bizarre » à l’adolescence, souvent en décalage, peu intéressé par les centres d’intérêt des ados et globalement ce qui fait rire tout le monde me laisse de marbre, donc je suis globalement « lourd » et « pas drôle »
Passé l’adolescence je travaille un peu sur moi et commence semble-t-il à susciter un peu d’attraction, car une nana en cours (qui a un mec depuis 5 ans et un bébé avec) commence à me draguer ouvertement, me prendre la main sous la table, me demander à ce que l’on se voie chez moi, etc. Ma réaction a été simple : tu as quelqu’un dans ta vie, soit tu le quittes et on peut s’amuser, soit il ne se passera rien entre nous. Coup de froid elle fait machine arrière immédiatement, elle voulait juste s'amuser sans se faire prendre.
Première vraie rencontre ensuite à 21 ans de quelques mois dans laquelle je me donne totalement mais qui se termine parce qu’elle retourne voir son ex pour me l’avouer 1 mois après l’avoir fait et me quitter (première claque)
S’ensuit la première sérieuse à l’âge de 22 ans (elle en avait 19) : passionnel et intense, et ma première vraie histoire d’amour, pour moi c’était la plus belle de l’univers, celle avec qui je voulais faire ma vie. J’ai réussi à la garder 14ans, mais y ai laissé toutes mes plumes : trompé des dizaines de fois (première fois au bout d'un an et demi de relation) et pardonné tout autant, j’ai fini par me convaincre à force et en ralentissant les efforts que la relation était à sens unique, et ai pris la décision de tout arrêter suite à quoi elle à multiplié ses menaces de tentatives de suicide pour que je revienne, mais s’est finalement installée avec son dernier amant en date. J’ai assisté à de nombreuses trahisons en la voyant me mentir, en lui tirant les vers du nez, en constatant souvent le même schéma : « c’est qu’un ami y’a rien » + mensonges et choses border + « désolé c’était plus fort que moi c’est pas quelque chose que j’ai contrôlé, je t’aime et je veux pas te perdre »
On arrive à 36 ans, je tente de me changer les idées et de faire de nouvelles rencontres mais je me heurte au « marché de la séduction », les applis qui font totalement déprimer, le fait de me confronter à mes problèmes : je pense être quelqu’un d’ennuyant, je ne m’intéresse qu’à des sujets sérieux, je privilégie le respect, l’engagement, et valorise au plus haut point le temps partagé, la complicité, les efforts communs, etc. Seulement j’ai l’impression que ces valeurs sont dépassées et ne plaisent absolument plus. Je fais un bide et reste seul 2 ans sans aucune relation quelle qu’elle soit.
38 ans, je fais enfin une nouvelle rencontre avec qui ça match plutôt bien, sa particularité : elle ne fréquente pas d’hommes car me dit-elle « je sais très bien ce qu’attendent toujours les hommes de moi au final, ils veulent toujours la même chose à la fin », elle sort d'une relation de 10 ans et me dit qu'elle n'envisage et n'a jamais envisagé rien d'autre que des choses sérieuses en amour. Ce discours me semble évidemment réconfortant, et à fortement participé à me rendre moi-même amoureux, je me dis que je n’aurai pas le genre de soucis que j’ai eu par le passé avec elle, ça me plaît, je me laisse aller et je passe une première année avec elle pleine de projets, on part en voyage, on envisage un enfant, etc. Puis quelques mois après je la sens soudainement distante et je creuse : je me rends compte qu'elle se fait draguer par un collègue de façon insistante et qu'elle semble réceptive. Le choc, et j'entends la fameuse "mais c'est qu'un collègue !", je suis prêt à abandonner mais me dis qu'elle est différente et choisis de lui faire confiance. Une année "tiède" passe, je la sens parfois là parfois distante, mais elle me soutient que pour elle tout va bien, on évoque une fois le collègue avec qui elle me dit "il n'y a plus rien". Seulement voilà, en février juste après la Saint Valentin, je reçois des messages de la compagne de son collègue : des captures d'écran de messages explicites... J'ai mis un terme immédiatement à la relation.
Je me retrouve seul à 40 ans, sans famille, et sans espoirs sur les relations aujourd'hui. J'ai l'impression que le monde tourne autour des femmes qui préfèrent profiter et s'amuser que s'impliquer dans des relations sérieuses et construites. Je vois des trahisons et séparations partout dans mes cercles d'amis, je me sens totalement perdu et désespéré. Y a-t-il des personnes ici comme moi ? J'ai l'impression de ne trouver que des témoignages qui vont dans le sens de mes expériences et ça me fait clairement peur.
J'ose encore rêver de tomber sur un coup de cœur, une âme qui se serait perdue un peu comme moi et qui voudrait vivre, voyager, profiter et se construire à deux autour d'une relation qui évoluerait dans le respect et l'amour profond, dans le développement d'un foyer sain et épanouissant... Mais j'ai l'impression que rechercher ça, c'est vivre dans un autre monde ou une autre époque...

https://www.tiktok.com/@natethegreat.v2
Je veux débuter en disant que je suis bien au fait que des commentaires discriminatoires, racistes, sexistes,bref dégueulasse que le monde laissent en ligne h24. Mais jpense que y’a dequoi d’encore plus wack dans l’histoire de NatethegreatV.2 sur TikTok.
Il est rendu à 1.1 millions d’abonnés sur TikTok ce qui est pas rien. On ressent dans ces live depuis le début de sa carrière sur tiktok qu’il cherche l’attention, à plair, à avoir des donations, qu’il a l’air d’un petit gars un peu introverti qui a vu sa popularité monté en flèche avec tiktok. Ce qui est tout en son honneur honestly, il a grind les ASMR live et ça bien fonctionné !
De ces temps-ci, il répond en vidéo a des commentaires ultra raciste laisser sous ses vidéos, les commentaires mentionne souvent le mot en N, des insultes évidemment inadmissible envers les personnes asiatiques que l’on s’entend tous pour condamner.
Ce que je remarque tho, c’est que certains commentaires haineux semblaient être (au malheur de tous) d’abord écrit par des comptes, avec de l’historique et de l’activité depuis longtemps. Certains de ces commentaires sont d’ailleurs encore présents lorsqu'on clique sur le @ menant au commentaire en question. Les vidéos de réponse de Natethegreat avec son visage assombri, de la musique triste et le commentaire haineux ont jusqu'à 850k views.
Mais récemment, Nate continue ce trend et partage des commentaires où l’username a toujours une série de chiffre à la fait du nom, et où les commentaire sont maintenant supprimer a chaque vidéo de reply. Ces vidéos utilisent le mot en N, le plus récent est d’une violence choquante (parlant de pend*ison, notamment). Le dernier le plus intense mérite legit d’etre signaler à la police.
Je pense que Nate crée des faux compte dans le but d’écrire des commentaires haineux d’une intensité nettement différente de ceux qu’ils reçoient malheureusement parfois sous ces vidéos dans le but de ride la vague du fame.
Les deux derniers commentaires auquel il fait un react : sur un profil l'un dit ''grand tiktoker'', l'autre profil dit ''meilleur tiktoker'' ce qui me semble TROP coincidential comme situation. Les commentaires ont des point d'exclamations, sans espace entre la phrase et le ''!'', etc comme lui écrit dans ses propres vidéos.
Pis blâmer moi pas d’imaginer que quelqu’un ferait ça… jpense sérieusement que c’est ce qui se passe. Le pattern d’écriture est le même, le même pattern de nom de username, les commentaires sont tjrs supprimés, les profils sont récents...
Je souhaite de tout coeur que j’ai tord honestly, mais si c’est le cas, c’est sociopathe en tbnk. Jvx dire le gars est rendu à 1.1millions, c’est le genre d’affaire que tu entends avec des micro influenceurs des USA pis qui se font deeply investigate par du monde comme sunnyv2. La popularité ça monte à la tête pis jpense qui a faite une erreur de jugement majeur.
Again, je sais clairement que des menaces arrive malheureusement chaque jour en ligne, c’est un fléau. Jserai juste en tabarnak d’apprendre que ce que jdécris est vrai... Ça viendrait faire de l’ombre sur la dure réalité que certaines communautés vivent en ligne.
Anyway… throwaway juste parce que jvx pas de représailles.

I'm looking for some advice or maybe if any of you have experienced something simular and what you did. I'm 35 and I'm just kind of at a point where I don't know what to do anymore, don't really see a light at the end of the the tunnel kind of thing.
I've been depressed for a while and within the past year it has become exponentially worse. I was going to therapy and my therapist encouraged me to share with my friends how I was doing and even though I didn't think it was a good idea, I did. And I didn't have a lot of friend we're talking 2 friends, who when I explained the situation to them said they were supportive at the time and it was ok to talk to them and if I need something ect. Which I should have listened to my gut because they both lied and exactly what I expected to happen did. As in as soon as you are no longer the fun friend or you need something serious people don't want anything to do with you. This isn't a case of constantly needing something or anything like that because I felt too much like a burden after the initial telling them that I didn't say anything else until I really needed help. Help that they offered. So basically my depression went from suicidal ideation to me being actively suicidal and I took a bunch of pills one night. It obviously didn't work and was a failed attempt since I'm typing this. I unfortunately woke up the next day my face was numb but I didn't think anything of it was just disappointed with no real back up plan until I got up and immediately passed out. I couldn't stay conscious because my BP was so low. So I called my friend who lives across the street and has a key to my apt, explained that I was having issues staying conscious, I was really disoriented and all I asked of her was if she could come over and feed my cats because I couldn't stand up to do it, after she had already confirmed that she was home. She very irritatedly told me to call someone else after she asked me if she should call 911 and I told her I didn't know, but I remember the tone she used when she said call someone else and hung up on me.
The other friend I have wasn't an option to call as they over 500 miles away from me. So I just kinda waited it out. I wasn't able to actually stand on my own until another day later and was able to feed my cats myself and I know that no one ever came by because I have security cameras on all the doors to my apt. I've had shitty friends in the past so I can get over it, I have no interest in speaking to this person ever again and that not really the issue, but is apart of a bigger issue I guess you could say and has context to it, because this is what has prompted me to figure something else out.
I also went on fmla from my job at the end of February because of my depression and how difficult my job was being about the intermittent fmla I had been approved for. I did an intense 6 weeks of ketamine treatments for my depression and ptsd. I don't know if I can say if it actually did anything or not, apparently I stopped the last few sessions short and there was a lot of crying of course none of that I remember. My job had hired someone new on a few months before at a higher pay rate but still expected me to train them with the very clear intent of using this person to replace me because I was on intermittent fmla before I went on a continuous leave. And they took the opportunity of my leave to fire me and of course not pay the short term that they were supposed to pay me. I haven't received a paycheck since February at this point.
So servery depressed, unemployed, and a failed attempt with no back up plan later I don't really know what to do. I don't have a job, or any family or friends, I'm on my own. I'm not very good with people I'm agoraphobic and have ptsd. I still have over a year left on my apt lease and I've never had a whole lot of luck finding jobs I've been getting constant rejections from what I have applied to as seems to be the norm now a days. But also I don't know if that the best idea either, you know different job same bullshit in a different font kind of thing? I have kind of a nothing degree and a shit ton of student loans that I'll never be able to pay off and honestly the degree is useless it's never helped me with a job in the past I ended up with this degree because apparentlyyou can only have so many credits before rhey force you to graduate and i had previously gone to school of animation right out of high school. I've obviously stopped paying the student loans since I haven't received a paycheck since February and had to stop paying my credit cards as well not to mention all the medical debt that is currently going unpaid. I have about 4 month ish of rent if I stay as things are and then I'm tapped out, my former job is saying that "I quit" even though they fired me so I can't get unemployment.
So if you were in a simular situation what would you do?
I don't really like where I live and there is nothing keeping me here other than my lease and I don't really have a way to get out of it. I'd love to move to another state and just start over, maybe actually make some real friends even though I'm terrible at approaching people, to the point we're even writing this post is giving me extreme anxiety. I'm trying to figure out who I actually am at this point because I don't really know anymore, I don't have hobbies or anything anymore and I don't even know what I like other than if I have to be here I don't want to be this anymore.
The other friend I have offered that I could move in with them and their family a few months ago when I told them I lost my job, but honestly I also feel like that was a false offer as well and do not want to go down that road, and logically it feels false because even if they meant it there is no room in their house for me there's already 6 people living in a 3 bedroom townhouse and there's already not a lot of room to begin with and I feel like I'd just be a burden on top of what they have and they would just resent me for asking to take that offer.
So I don't know should I just pack up and try to move to a different state and try and find a new job once I get there? That feels like a recipe for living in my car, but so does just sitting here doing what I'm doing. Should I try and invest some of the money I have, that doesn't feel like anything that would solve anything in the short amount of time I have? I feel stuck. I know jobs that pay you to move there are kind of a thing of the past but that would be a miracle to me or even a wfh.
TLDR: because all of this just got away from me. If you had no friends, no family, no support, lost your job, and only had 4 months worth of rent left what would you do?