Examining the Health Impacts of Nicotine Vaping versus Traditional Cigarette Smoking
Introduction:
The rise of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) or vaping devices as alternatives to traditional cigarettes has sparked discussions about their comparative health risks. Advocates argue that vaping nicotine is a safer option than smoking cigarettes. This paper delves into the comparative health risks, potential benefits, and emerging concerns related to nicotine vaping and traditional cigarette smoking, including the issue of lung inflammation from excessive vaping.

1. Nicotine Delivery Mechanisms:

Both vaping devices and cigarettes deliver nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco. Traditional cigarettes burn tobacco, generating smoke laden with thousands of harmful chemicals. In contrast, e-cigarettes heat a liquid (e-liquid or vape juice) to create an aerosol, minimizing exposure to carcinogens produced by combustion.

1. Chemical Composition and Health Impact:

Cigarette smoke contains tar, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and other toxins responsible for lung diseases, cardiovascular issues, and cancer. Vape liquids typically contain fewer harmful chemicals, but long-term effects remain under study. Overvaping, or excessive use of vaping devices, can lead to lung inflammation and respiratory symptoms, highlighting the importance of moderation in vaping habits.

1. Respiratory and Cardiovascular Health:

Smoking significantly increases the risk of respiratory conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer due to smoke-induced lung damage. Vaping, while potentially less harmful to the lungs, may still pose cardiovascular risks, especially for individuals with preexisting conditions. Studies on the long-term cardiovascular impact of vaping are ongoing.

1. Youth Initiation and Addiction:

The appeal of flavored vape products and marketing tactics has drawn youth to vaping, raising concerns about nicotine addiction and long-term health consequences. Efforts to curb youth initiation, such as flavor bans and stricter regulations, are crucial to prevent a new generation from becoming addicted to nicotine.

1. Potential Benefits and Risks of Nicotine:

Nicotine, while addictive, has potential benefits such as cognitive enhancement, mood regulation, and pain relief. However, these benefits must be balanced against its addictive nature and the risks associated with tobacco use disorders, emphasizing the need for responsible consumption and informed decision-making.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, while vaping nicotine appears to present fewer immediate health risks than smoking traditional cigarettes, it is not without concerns. Lung inflammation from overvaping underscores the importance of using vaping devices responsibly and avoiding excessive nicotine exposure. Regulatory measures should focus on harm reduction, youth prevention, and public education to promote informed choices regarding nicotine consumption. Continued research into the long-term effects of vaping and nicotine use is essential to guide evidence-based policies and interventions that prioritize public health. Ultimately, individuals should consider the complete picture of risks and benefits when making decisions about nicotine use, emphasizing moderation and informed health choices

I (f20) am are worried about my brother (M23) seeing a girl whilst he is engaged to someone else. The engagement was conduced with his full consent and my parents had asked him multiple times of any objections but he said he was happy to accept anyone they chose for him. He was planned to get married this following year, and at first he was really excited and was actively planning everything, but for the past few months his interest in his marriage has vanished, instead he has hinted multiple times about breaking off the engagement but will not say it straight up when asked by my mom, e.g. he will say “just wait a bit, not now”. I don’t feel that this is completely fair on her fiancée as she has been waiting for him to finish his studies for 2 years now. Anyways, I found out about this new girl during Ramadhan when I saw him messaging the girl late at night and saw her name on his phone. During that time, me and my parents were quite worried about him as he would leave the house without telling us where he was going or when he’d be back (he never did this in the past and has never been involved with the opposite sex) . My mother especially became worried as he would “pray taraweeh” and say he’s going to drink tea with this specific friend “A” (a guy who we know through mosque, who he has been more involved with recently) but would stay out for 3 to 4 hours every night. The situation has escalated drastically since, he has began to leave the house unannounced and returns late at night, he mostly stays in his room and does not sit with the rest of the family, he has started to vape a lot more and I smelt cigarette smoke on him recently too. Just to kind of describe his character, my brother has always been the reserved type, he was well driven and his main focus was to earn and make a name for himself. When asked by my mother (who he does not take seriously) about where he goes he will just make excuses and say “something came up”. My mother has gone through a lot of trauma in the past in order to provide us both with a good upbringing and opportunities, therefore seeing him drift away from her is making her extremely worried. My mom and I had sat down with him to talk about this (at the time my mother was unsure if a girl was involved and so was just worried about his well-being) and I did not want to straight up accuse him of seeing someone as I had no proof so the conversation involved us asking him if he was okay as we noticed he was more quite than usual and would not talk. He said he was fine but started to tear up (bare in mind my brother has never cried in front of us before this), which caused us both to become really worried of what was going on. We asked him why he was tearing up and He said that he will let us know once his uni had finished (basically now). Since that day my mom has also become suspicious about him seeing someone as he will find any excuse to send my mother somewhere so that he can leave behind her back and he always stays in his room texting someone or if he sits with my mom he hides his phone. The main problem is he is not opening up to anyone and on the day we had the talk I gave him lot of advise and reminded him that we would support him whatever situation arises and that his well-being is above everything for us (we said this as we thought he was worried about finding a job as he’s going to graduate soon and maybe felt pressurised). I also advised him to turn to Allah and ask Him for help because He knows the condition of our hearts better than anyone. Before the talk he would occasionally pray salah but he has completely stopped now. He said he felt anxious all the time so I advised him to take a break from music to see if it helps because he’s constantly listening to music in his car, but he has not stopped doing that. We have not yet told my father about this potential someone as we feel like it would be better to talk to my brother first before things escalate. My father and him have never really been close but did occasionally talk a bit, but since all of this has started he does not even sit with him. He also speaks harshly to my mom when she tries to advise him. I always make dua for Allah to guide him to the straight path and keep him away from sins but I would also like to know some practical tips that will help him open up and allow us to solve this situation. JazakAllah Khairan.

My community is romanian so it was originally written in romanian, just translated it with chat gpt now so that may be why some words or expressions sound weird.
How to Find Urban Exploration Locations Without Someone's Help
Google is your friend: Search, Maps, and Earth.
Most of the locations I explore are found online. The internet is the most important resource we have in urban exploration and it's not that hard to use it properly. If you search and don't find information online (let's say in Bucharest), it means you haven't searched enough (I've been to hundreds of locations in the past year, and 90% were found online) xD
I. Before you search, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

1. What do you want to find?

Okay, urban exploration locations. What kind of locations? Are they abandoned houses or buildings, unfinished construction sites, abandoned industrial buildings, forts or bunkers, etc. There are many options, and you can easily find information by using specific searches.

1. Where is the location?

Again, the volume of information on the internet is absolutely huge, and it helps to have a specific search (street, sector, city, county, region, country etc.).

1. In what form do you think the information you want is? Where do you think you'll find it? Is it a social media post or a blog? Is it an article in the press? Is it in an official document?

Depending on the answer, you can adapt your search. In practice, various terms are used depending on the purpose of the text. The most efficient way to get used to this (it becomes instinctive at some point) is practice :))
II. Finding a potential location and confirming it.
The most basic option is to search for pre-made lists of abandoned places. You can search on Google for "abandoned places Bucharest" and find posts on forums, websites, social media, etc.
Obviously, the information is not always up to date (in fact, in urban exploration, it's rarely up to date), and you need to check if the location is still abandoned, which is relatively simple. Let's say you found Alex Iacob's website (Reptilianul) and see an interesting location. Let's say Aversa. It's not a good idea to assume that's all because you might end up at the location and find it's a guarded ruin (or that you're trying to enter an active building protected by the military even though it seemed like a ruin online - real story, sadly).
I first search on Google Earth what the location looks like (btw, just because it looks like that on Earth or Maps doesn't mean it's like that in reality because the image is not always updated) and check 3D or street view. If it still looks abandoned (broken windows, broken fences, graffiti, holes in walls, vegetation, holes in the roof, etc.), I do some searches on Google to find additional information. You don't always find something useful like this, but in the case of famous buildings, there is plenty of information online (check their current status and look for the latest news/posts). In the case of less known buildings, it helps to search for the exact address to see what their situation is.
And if we're talking about searches, there are some relatively well-known things ignored by many people. When you search for something on a standardized search engine (let's say a simple search on Google), you find enough close results. Basically, it searches for similar terms but not exact ones, which usually doesn't help us. You can avoid this by using an advanced search (especially since you can avoid some terms, so if you're looking for a news story about an abandoned building, you can avoid news about mainstream ones) or by putting the searched terms in quotation marks. Another thing is searching for the type of documents. Let's say you want to search for locations using some official documents. In this case, you can search by file type. For example: "abandoned buildings" filetype:pdf (and you find documents in pdf format containing the words you searched for).
Well, now you can search for some tips and tricks on Google searches because there are plenty of them :))
Another option is to spend a lot of time on Maps or Earth to find locations that seem abandoned and then check them. Here it's about patience and discipline. You can't really rush the process, you just have to invest time and effort, and you'll find locations 100%.
III. Physically verifying online information.
Regardless of your skill in finding online information, you still need to physically verify it. This depends on the person and your circumstances.
I'm more paranoid by nature, and I admit I have some issues with anxiety/overthinking, so I try to make everything as safe as possible (especially from a legal point of view). This means I don't take many risks, I check the buildings physically before entering, I take a quick look around without entering at that time. I look for guards, cameras, entry and exit ways from a building (the entrance can be slower but subtle, the exit should be quick, even if it's too obvious). Preferably, multiple exits and entrances, just in case (and it works, I haven't received any fines in 4-5 years of urban exploration).
What you do next is your choice. I prefer not to take risks if I see something suspicious; it's not like the location will disappear if I don't enter it right away.
IV. You've seen a location in someone's post and want to go there too.
Here it's complicated (obviously, you don't spam the person with messages "give me the location too"). If the photos are from inside a building, it's hard to figure out the location (not impossible). In theory, a location posted recently on this subreddit would have a vague location posted by the author (city or region, nothing more exact, and that only if the exact location is not obvious).
So you have a starting point, you know the approximate area. To increase your chances of success, you need to figure out what type of building it is. Some are impossible to find without someone giving you the location (like the recent post about Mrs. Eugenia's house here) because it's just a simple house and there shouldn't be any online information about it. Furthermore, it's not a "special" or "unique" location that you can differentiate from other houses in Romania. Other locations are easier; you see a logo, specific equipment, or anything that helps you figure out what the location was used for. For example, you see an old train and think it's something related to the Romanian Railways. Or you see an old gas mask and think it's some industrial building from the communist era. If you know the relative area, you have a chance to find the area because you've advanced to "abandoned industry Constanța" (hypothetically speaking).
If the photo is of the exterior, the situation changes (for the better) because you have a higher chance of finding the location. What do you see in that photo? Do you recognize anything? Let's say it's a photo taken from some buildings in Bucharest, and you see a fairly large lake. There aren't that many large lakes in Bucharest; you've already found some approximate areas where that building could be. Usually, there are enough details in the photos, and you can use them: tall buildings with the corporate logo on them, giant advertisements, emblematic buildings, maybe even traffic signs with the names of streets.
If you see this information, you further reduce the possible locations. You definitely find the area using Google Earth 3D view and street view to find the exact place (you practically walk around until you find from which direction the photo was taken, and then you look to see if it looks abandoned. If not, it's probably a normal building that someone climbed, so you can look for graffiti, but those are not mandatory).
Another option that rarely works (but is quick and free, so I usually test it first) is reverse search by image. I recommend a browser extension: Invid Weverify, which basically searches for an image using multiple sites (it's for fact-checking, but geolocation is part of it, so it's useful).
For those interested in geolocation, I can give you some references to something more detailed/useful. See what techniques are used in OSINT and adapt them for finding urbex locations lol. I recommend the book "OSINT Techniques: Resources for Uncovering Online Information" by Michael Bazzell, 2023 edition (btw, Libgen is brilliant, Z Library as a backup. Update: Anna's Archives is getting bigger than anything now).
I know my guide might seem disappointing; I'm sure I probably missed some "strategies," but believe me, I've been using them for years and have found plenty of locations. There's no magic solution; it's just about time, effort, and skills gained through training. I hope my little "guide" helps you :)))
.
.
.

Guide to Urban Exploration Safety

Exploration is an interesting hobby, but it can be dangerous, and I think we're all aware of that. It's important to acknowledge the risks when embarking on exploration and not start with the mindset of "it won't happen to me" because anything can happen to anyone. Yes, the chances are slim, but not nonexistent. Most of the things here are logical, some maybe not. Let me start with a list of the "equipment" I consider necessary (in general, obviously depending on the situation), then I'll cover a passage about avoiding legal problems, safety issues during exploration, what to do if you encounter dogs or homeless people, and other general advice.
1. Equipment:
a) Comfortable footwear (you never know how much walking you'll do), with thick soles (to protect against nails, shards, spikes, etc.), and relatively waterproof (depends on the situation, but I've often encountered mud, puddles of water, or other liquids lol).
b) Comfortable clothing (freedom of movement), dark-colored (to avoid drawing attention, especially if you're in a building where you'd be the only colorful spot), and durable (or clothing you don't care much about getting dirty or damaged easily).
c) Mask (I know it's an investment, but a good mask should be essential). Many of the buildings we explore are old, which means there are some risks: asbestos, lead paint, or various chemicals in the air. The first two are banned, but they were legal when some of the buildings we explore were constructed. Then there's the risk of encountering chemicals that have been dumped there or were in the buildings before they were abandoned, but the container is destroyed or simply not maintained the way it used to be (and in many buildings, ventilation is quite dusty). Not to mention other minor but annoying hazards: dust and mold. Bonus: the mask helps endure the horrible smell you constantly encounter in urbex lol.
d) First aid "kit" - it doesn't have to be anything fancy, logically, but it doesn't hurt to have something on you just in case: band-aids, some bandages (the adhesive type is more useful), disinfectant (because most of the things you can cut or prick yourself on are either rusty or dirty). If it's something more serious, go to the hospital quickly (I think that was obvious, but I thought I'd add it - especially if we're talking about dog bites or cuts/piercings caused by rusty objects).
e) Situational "tools": wet wipes/disinfectant (especially if you're a smoker or if you want to eat), flashlight (I prefer flashlights that can be charged at the outlet, but also have regular batteries), power bank (because, well, you need your phone), water and some food (I've had to wait hours for security/police to leave so I could leave the building), rope/paracord (especially if you know you need to descend a considerable distance), gloves (especially if you're climbing somewhere), etc. I'm waiting for suggestions from you; I'm sure I missed something 😊)
e) Self-defense: pepper spray (for homeless people) and some food (for dogs). Also, it doesn't hurt to have some extra cigarettes or food in case you talk to a homeless person.
2. Avoiding Legal Problems
Exploration is illegal in most cases (even if there's no sign saying "forbidden," locked doors or gates, barbed wire fences, surveillance cameras, etc.), so we accept the legal consequences of our choices (and yes, even minors). I divide exploration into 3 stages: entering the location, exploring it, and exiting the location.
For me, entry should be invisible, exploration subtle, and exit quick.
First of all, I need to check if the location is abandoned. I check online first (mainly news about the location, searching for the "exact address" in quotes to find that exact address; if it's a company, I check the business details; reverse search a street photo to see if I find something, etc.), then I check physically (broken fence, broken windows, absence of surveillance cameras, absence of activity traces, absence of alarm at the entrance, etc.). If everything is fine and the location is abandoned, then I start looking for an entry. For me, entry should be subtle (preferably not through a crowded place where people can see you, not through a place with surveillance cameras), quick (to minimize the possibility of someone catching you jumping the fence), and efficient (it's useless to have a subtle and quick entry if you waste a lot of time getting into the building, so you increase the time you're in open space).
Exploration should be subtle: don't make noise, don't use bright lights (minimum necessary, you don't need a powerful flashlight to see where you're going), and don't go in a large group (3 people seems enough to me). Don't hang around windows, and if you're on the roof, try not to attract attention (especially with the light from the flashlight or phone lol).
Exiting should be as subtle as the rest, but if it can't be... well, at least it should be quick because no one will chase you anymore. Try to exit where you can check if someone is passing by (if it's near the street) or if someone is waiting for you (security or police).
I'll add here the importance of anonymity, both during exploration and afterward. I know the chances of legal trouble because of this are slim, but it doesn't cost you much to reduce risks: cover your face or at least wear a hood during exploration, avoid posting online photos/clips where features that could be used for your identification are visible (face, tattoos, etc.), if you get into urbex and are active online, don't involve your real name in the equation.
3. Building Safety Issues
Obviously, it depends on the location being explored, but usually, we're talking about buildings abandoned for some time and their condition is not ideal. First of all, this means you risk falling through the floor, having the ceiling fall on your head, and you can't really avoid that. Obviously, don't jump like a retard if you see that the floor is unstable 😊)) But usually, it matters to keep your attention during exploration (look for holes and cracks in the floor or ceiling, check how solid the object you're holding onto is when trying to climb onto something, etc.), know your limits (especially when it comes to heights, free climbing, or parkour), and don't take unnecessary risks (common sense things: don't touch unknown substances, cables, sharp objects, etc.).
4. Dogs and Homeless People
Yes, homeless people are also humans, I included them here just out of laziness. I don't recommend going to urbex with headphones on because they help you hear the noises from the ground. If you hear barking, assume there are dogs so you can play it safe: avoid those areas, don't stay outside the building for too long, check the area from above when you reach the
upper floors or the roof. Same goes for homeless people: you rarely encounter them during the day, but it helps to avoid them if you hear noises, shouting, etc. If you encounter dogs and homeless people, aggression and running away won't help. It's much better to remain calm and retreat in an organized manner. If you have no choice, engage in conversation with homeless people but not aggressively, don't show off like you have money, behave as if you have a backbone (meaning, have balls, but not in a passive-aggressive way).
5. General Advice
Watch out for tobacco, alcohol, and drug consumption. I included tobacco on the list just to emphasize the idea that you shouldn't throw lit cigarettes randomly because you risk setting fire to the location (especially if there are flammable substances there, old papers, etc.). I don't recommend in any possible way consuming anything that makes you think irrationally, especially since you need a good balance in some situations (good luck jumping high fences if you're dead drunk or high as a kite), but I think that's obvious.
Choose your locations wisely, understand your limits. I understand that some places are extremely interesting, but I don't recommend someone who has never been to urbex to explore a well-guarded or hard-to-reach building. Not to mention that some places are really risky (like subway tunnels), others are not a good idea at night (extremely damaged locations or those where the light from flashlights is very visible), and others are simply inaccessible in general (security, locked doors, surveillance cameras, etc.).
I don't recommend going urbex alone, but neither going in large groups. The larger the group, the greater the chances that someone will make a mistake or somehow attract attention (it's one thing for 1-3 people to jump over a fence and another for 5-10 lol). I actually try to create a community here, but that doesn't mean I can control the quality of the people present on this subreddit in any way. When choosing to explore with strangers you find online, some dangers arise, obviously. I'm not even mentioning those extremely unlikely dangers (to be a policeman, organ theft, etc. lol), I'm referring to more concrete ones: you don't know how cautious the respective person is, how much experience they have, what physical condition they are in, etc. You might be cautious, but you might get hurt because of the person next to you. I'm not even mentioning the possibility of encountering someone who's a jerk and does nasty jokes in abandoned buildings (locking you somewhere, leaving you behind, etc.), committing some illegalities (beating up a homeless person, setting something on fire, destroying things, etc.), and so on.
Also, urbex should not and should not be a competition. For me, all that matters is to feel good when I explore. I've met people who see exploration as a competition (x has been to y place, I have to go too) or people who are in a continuous search for validation online. I'm by no means the most experienced urbexer, but I can say that in the last 4-5 years, I've seen people who started doing urbex and then took on more and more risks (and yes, the places they've reached are cool). I believe there are few of those people (and no, I won't name names) who continue to do urbex: most of them calmed down after legal problems started to arise (I know it may not seem like it when you're young, but that criminal record can have nasty consequences), and the unlucky ones have serious medical problems (I've seen a few cases of life-changing problems in the comments, like nasty fractures, paralysis, etc.). If you look for it a bit, you'll find enough news about people who died doing urbex (and I'm not talking about suicides), so there can be serious consequences for recklessness.
That being said, I'm not here to tell you how to do urbex; the post is for those who want to explore safely and are just starting out.

My community is romanian so it was originally written in romanian, just translated it with chat gpt now so that may be why some words or expressions sound weird.
How to Find Urban Exploration Locations Without Someone's Help
Google is your friend: Search, Maps, and Earth.
Most of the locations I explore are found online. The internet is the most important resource we have in urban exploration and it's not that hard to use it properly. If you search and don't find information online (let's say in Bucharest), it means you haven't searched enough (I've been to hundreds of locations in the past year, and 90% were found online) xD
I. Before you search, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

1. What do you want to find?

Okay, urban exploration locations. What kind of locations? Are they abandoned houses or buildings, unfinished construction sites, abandoned industrial buildings, forts or bunkers, etc. There are many options, and you can easily find information by using specific searches.

1. Where is the location?

Again, the volume of information on the internet is absolutely huge, and it helps to have a specific search (street, sector, city, county, region, country etc.).

1. In what form do you think the information you want is? Where do you think you'll find it? Is it a social media post or a blog? Is it an article in the press? Is it in an official document?

Depending on the answer, you can adapt your search. In practice, various terms are used depending on the purpose of the text. The most efficient way to get used to this (it becomes instinctive at some point) is practice :))
II. Finding a potential location and confirming it.
The most basic option is to search for pre-made lists of abandoned places. You can search on Google for "abandoned places Bucharest" and find posts on forums, websites, social media, etc.
Obviously, the information is not always up to date (in fact, in urban exploration, it's rarely up to date), and you need to check if the location is still abandoned, which is relatively simple. Let's say you found Alex Iacob's website (Reptilianul) and see an interesting location. Let's say Aversa. It's not a good idea to assume that's all because you might end up at the location and find it's a guarded ruin (or that you're trying to enter an active building protected by the military even though it seemed like a ruin online - real story, sadly).
I first search on Google Earth what the location looks like (btw, just because it looks like that on Earth or Maps doesn't mean it's like that in reality because the image is not always updated) and check 3D or street view. If it still looks abandoned (broken windows, broken fences, graffiti, holes in walls, vegetation, holes in the roof, etc.), I do some searches on Google to find additional information. You don't always find something useful like this, but in the case of famous buildings, there is plenty of information online (check their current status and look for the latest news/posts). In the case of less known buildings, it helps to search for the exact address to see what their situation is.
And if we're talking about searches, there are some relatively well-known things ignored by many people. When you search for something on a standardized search engine (let's say a simple search on Google), you find enough close results. Basically, it searches for similar terms but not exact ones, which usually doesn't help us. You can avoid this by using an advanced search (especially since you can avoid some terms, so if you're looking for a news story about an abandoned building, you can avoid news about mainstream ones) or by putting the searched terms in quotation marks. Another thing is searching for the type of documents. Let's say you want to search for locations using some official documents. In this case, you can search by file type. For example: "abandoned buildings" filetype:pdf (and you find documents in pdf format containing the words you searched for).
Well, now you can search for some tips and tricks on Google searches because there are plenty of them :))
Another option is to spend a lot of time on Maps or Earth to find locations that seem abandoned and then check them. Here it's about patience and discipline. You can't really rush the process, you just have to invest time and effort, and you'll find locations 100%.
III. Physically verifying online information.
Regardless of your skill in finding online information, you still need to physically verify it. This depends on the person and your circumstances.
I'm more paranoid by nature, and I admit I have some issues with anxiety/overthinking, so I try to make everything as safe as possible (especially from a legal point of view). This means I don't take many risks, I check the buildings physically before entering, I take a quick look around without entering at that time. I look for guards, cameras, entry and exit ways from a building (the entrance can be slower but subtle, the exit should be quick, even if it's too obvious). Preferably, multiple exits and entrances, just in case (and it works, I haven't received any fines in 4-5 years of urban exploration).
What you do next is your choice. I prefer not to take risks if I see something suspicious; it's not like the location will disappear if I don't enter it right away.
IV. You've seen a location in someone's post and want to go there too.
Here it's complicated (obviously, you don't spam the person with messages "give me the location too"). If the photos are from inside a building, it's hard to figure out the location (not impossible). In theory, a location posted recently on this subreddit would have a vague location posted by the author (city or region, nothing more exact, and that only if the exact location is not obvious).
So you have a starting point, you know the approximate area. To increase your chances of success, you need to figure out what type of building it is. Some are impossible to find without someone giving you the location (like the recent post about Mrs. Eugenia's house here) because it's just a simple house and there shouldn't be any online information about it. Furthermore, it's not a "special" or "unique" location that you can differentiate from other houses in Romania. Other locations are easier; you see a logo, specific equipment, or anything that helps you figure out what the location was used for. For example, you see an old train and think it's something related to the Romanian Railways. Or you see an old gas mask and think it's some industrial building from the communist era. If you know the relative area, you have a chance to find the area because you've advanced to "abandoned industry Constanța" (hypothetically speaking).
If the photo is of the exterior, the situation changes (for the better) because you have a higher chance of finding the location. What do you see in that photo? Do you recognize anything? Let's say it's a photo taken from some buildings in Bucharest, and you see a fairly large lake. There aren't that many large lakes in Bucharest; you've already found some approximate areas where that building could be. Usually, there are enough details in the photos, and you can use them: tall buildings with the corporate logo on them, giant advertisements, emblematic buildings, maybe even traffic signs with the names of streets.
If you see this information, you further reduce the possible locations. You definitely find the area using Google Earth 3D view and street view to find the exact place (you practically walk around until you find from which direction the photo was taken, and then you look to see if it looks abandoned. If not, it's probably a normal building that someone climbed, so you can look for graffiti, but those are not mandatory).
Another option that rarely works (but is quick and free, so I usually test it first) is reverse search by image. I recommend a browser extension: Invid Weverify, which basically searches for an image using multiple sites (it's for fact-checking, but geolocation is part of it, so it's useful).
For those interested in geolocation, I can give you some references to something more detailed/useful. See what techniques are used in OSINT and adapt them for finding urbex locations lol. I recommend the book "OSINT Techniques: Resources for Uncovering Online Information" by Michael Bazzell, 2023 edition (btw, Libgen is brilliant, Z Library as a backup. Update: Anna's Archives is getting bigger than anything now).
I know my guide might seem disappointing; I'm sure I probably missed some "strategies," but believe me, I've been using them for years and have found plenty of locations. There's no magic solution; it's just about time, effort, and skills gained through training. I hope my little "guide" helps you :)))
.
.
.

Guide to Urban Exploration Safety

Exploration is an interesting hobby, but it can be dangerous, and I think we're all aware of that. It's important to acknowledge the risks when embarking on exploration and not start with the mindset of "it won't happen to me" because anything can happen to anyone. Yes, the chances are slim, but not nonexistent. Most of the things here are logical, some maybe not. Let me start with a list of the "equipment" I consider necessary (in general, obviously depending on the situation), then I'll cover a passage about avoiding legal problems, safety issues during exploration, what to do if you encounter dogs or homeless people, and other general advice.
1. Equipment:
a) Comfortable footwear (you never know how much walking you'll do), with thick soles (to protect against nails, shards, spikes, etc.), and relatively waterproof (depends on the situation, but I've often encountered mud, puddles of water, or other liquids lol).
b) Comfortable clothing (freedom of movement), dark-colored (to avoid drawing attention, especially if you're in a building where you'd be the only colorful spot), and durable (or clothing you don't care much about getting dirty or damaged easily).
c) Mask (I know it's an investment, but a good mask should be essential). Many of the buildings we explore are old, which means there are some risks: asbestos, lead paint, or various chemicals in the air. The first two are banned, but they were legal when some of the buildings we explore were constructed. Then there's the risk of encountering chemicals that have been dumped there or were in the buildings before they were abandoned, but the container is destroyed or simply not maintained the way it used to be (and in many buildings, ventilation is quite dusty). Not to mention other minor but annoying hazards: dust and mold. Bonus: the mask helps endure the horrible smell you constantly encounter in urbex lol.
d) First aid "kit" - it doesn't have to be anything fancy, logically, but it doesn't hurt to have something on you just in case: band-aids, some bandages (the adhesive type is more useful), disinfectant (because most of the things you can cut or prick yourself on are either rusty or dirty). If it's something more serious, go to the hospital quickly (I think that was obvious, but I thought I'd add it - especially if we're talking about dog bites or cuts/piercings caused by rusty objects).
e) Situational "tools": wet wipes/disinfectant (especially if you're a smoker or if you want to eat), flashlight (I prefer flashlights that can be charged at the outlet, but also have regular batteries), power bank (because, well, you need your phone), water and some food (I've had to wait hours for security/police to leave so I could leave the building), rope/paracord (especially if you know you need to descend a considerable distance), gloves (especially if you're climbing somewhere), etc. I'm waiting for suggestions from you; I'm sure I missed something 😊)
e) Self-defense: pepper spray (for homeless people) and some food (for dogs). Also, it doesn't hurt to have some extra cigarettes or food in case you talk to a homeless person.
2. Avoiding Legal Problems
Exploration is illegal in most cases (even if there's no sign saying "forbidden," locked doors or gates, barbed wire fences, surveillance cameras, etc.), so we accept the legal consequences of our choices (and yes, even minors). I divide exploration into 3 stages: entering the location, exploring it, and exiting the location.
For me, entry should be invisible, exploration subtle, and exit quick.
First of all, I need to check if the location is abandoned. I check online first (mainly news about the location, searching for the "exact address" in quotes to find that exact address; if it's a company, I check the business details; reverse search a street photo to see if I find something, etc.), then I check physically (broken fence, broken windows, absence of surveillance cameras, absence of activity traces, absence of alarm at the entrance, etc.). If everything is fine and the location is abandoned, then I start looking for an entry. For me, entry should be subtle (preferably not through a crowded place where people can see you, not through a place with surveillance cameras), quick (to minimize the possibility of someone catching you jumping the fence), and efficient (it's useless to have a subtle and quick entry if you waste a lot of time getting into the building, so you increase the time you're in open space).
Exploration should be subtle: don't make noise, don't use bright lights (minimum necessary, you don't need a powerful flashlight to see where you're going), and don't go in a large group (3 people seems enough to me). Don't hang around windows, and if you're on the roof, try not to attract attention (especially with the light from the flashlight or phone lol).
Exiting should be as subtle as the rest, but if it can't be... well, at least it should be quick because no one will chase you anymore. Try to exit where you can check if someone is passing by (if it's near the street) or if someone is waiting for you (security or police).
I'll add here the importance of anonymity, both during exploration and afterward. I know the chances of legal trouble because of this are slim, but it doesn't cost you much to reduce risks: cover your face or at least wear a hood during exploration, avoid posting online photos/clips where features that could be used for your identification are visible (face, tattoos, etc.), if you get into urbex and are active online, don't involve your real name in the equation.
3. Building Safety Issues
Obviously, it depends on the location being explored, but usually, we're talking about buildings abandoned for some time and their condition is not ideal. First of all, this means you risk falling through the floor, having the ceiling fall on your head, and you can't really avoid that. Obviously, don't jump like a retard if you see that the floor is unstable 😊)) But usually, it matters to keep your attention during exploration (look for holes and cracks in the floor or ceiling, check how solid the object you're holding onto is when trying to climb onto something, etc.), know your limits (especially when it comes to heights, free climbing, or parkour), and don't take unnecessary risks (common sense things: don't touch unknown substances, cables, sharp objects, etc.).
4. Dogs and Homeless People
Yes, homeless people are also humans, I included them here just out of laziness. I don't recommend going to urbex with headphones on because they help you hear the noises from the ground. If you hear barking, assume there are dogs so you can play it safe: avoid those areas, don't stay outside the building for too long, check the area from above when you reach the
upper floors or the roof. Same goes for homeless people: you rarely encounter them during the day, but it helps to avoid them if you hear noises, shouting, etc. If you encounter dogs and homeless people, aggression and running away won't help. It's much better to remain calm and retreat in an organized manner. If you have no choice, engage in conversation with homeless people but not aggressively, don't show off like you have money, behave as if you have a backbone (meaning, have balls, but not in a passive-aggressive way).
5. General Advice
Watch out for tobacco, alcohol, and drug consumption. I included tobacco on the list just to emphasize the idea that you shouldn't throw lit cigarettes randomly because you risk setting fire to the location (especially if there are flammable substances there, old papers, etc.). I don't recommend in any possible way consuming anything that makes you think irrationally, especially since you need a good balance in some situations (good luck jumping high fences if you're dead drunk or high as a kite), but I think that's obvious.
Choose your locations wisely, understand your limits. I understand that some places are extremely interesting, but I don't recommend someone who has never been to urbex to explore a well-guarded or hard-to-reach building. Not to mention that some places are really risky (like subway tunnels), others are not a good idea at night (extremely damaged locations or those where the light from flashlights is very visible), and others are simply inaccessible in general (security, locked doors, surveillance cameras, etc.).
I don't recommend going urbex alone, but neither going in large groups. The larger the group, the greater the chances that someone will make a mistake or somehow attract attention (it's one thing for 1-3 people to jump over a fence and another for 5-10 lol). I actually try to create a community here, but that doesn't mean I can control the quality of the people present on this subreddit in any way. When choosing to explore with strangers you find online, some dangers arise, obviously. I'm not even mentioning those extremely unlikely dangers (to be a policeman, organ theft, etc. lol), I'm referring to more concrete ones: you don't know how cautious the respective person is, how much experience they have, what physical condition they are in, etc. You might be cautious, but you might get hurt because of the person next to you. I'm not even mentioning the possibility of encountering someone who's a jerk and does nasty jokes in abandoned buildings (locking you somewhere, leaving you behind, etc.), committing some illegalities (beating up a homeless person, setting something on fire, destroying things, etc.), and so on.
Also, urbex should not and should not be a competition. For me, all that matters is to feel good when I explore. I've met people who see exploration as a competition (x has been to y place, I have to go too) or people who are in a continuous search for validation online. I'm by no means the most experienced urbexer, but I can say that in the last 4-5 years, I've seen people who started doing urbex and then took on more and more risks (and yes, the places they've reached are cool). I believe there are few of those people (and no, I won't name names) who continue to do urbex: most of them calmed down after legal problems started to arise (I know it may not seem like it when you're young, but that criminal record can have nasty consequences), and the unlucky ones have serious medical problems (I've seen a few cases of life-changing problems in the comments, like nasty fractures, paralysis, etc.). If you look for it a bit, you'll find enough news about people who died doing urbex (and I'm not talking about suicides), so there can be serious consequences for recklessness.
That being said, I'm not here to tell you how to do urbex; the post is for those who want to explore safely and are just starting out.

A guide for those looking to quit smoking or get off disposable vapes and start their journey on refillable vapes or pods

With the Australian regulation bans on importation of disposable vapes on 1st of Jan 2024 and importation of reusable vapes on 1st of March 2024 in place, vapes in general are getting more difficult to come by outside of the prescription or pharmacy model.
New regulation of vapes starting January 2024 Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)
Importation of vape liquid flavours, other than tobacco, mint and menthol are part of the regulatory ban on of 1st March 2024. So after stock imported before the ban, has run out, those flavours will be all that is available.
However, domestic manufacturing of 0% nicotine flavoured vape liquid is still legal, pending the outcome of voting on the bill to legislate a ban on domestic manufacture, advertisement, supply and commercial possession of non-therapeutic vapes in Australia, so that may change. If the ban becomes legislation, then DIY is an option (see further below).
This article outlines the steps to take and options to legally purchase vapes and nicotine liquid from an online pharmacy, with a prescription from an online prescriber. This will more than likely be an easier pathway than going to your local GP and pharmacy because many GPs are unfamiliar with vaping and many pharmacies don't stock vapes.
You will need to submit a script to see what is available, as they cannot legally show any vape products until your script is approved.
Getting a prescription and accessing an online pharmacy
There are online prescribers and online pharmacies that specialise in vaping products. Some are separate, others are one-stop-shops for both vape prescription and pharmacy services or partnered with each other.
You can get a script from online prescribers like quitrx.com.au or one-stop-shops like v-scripts.com.au, myduke.com.au and quithero.com.au, amongst others.
Generally, applying is an online questionnaire and the script is emailed to you, or access to an online pharmacy's products is granted.
Prices for prescriptions can vary. Some are free, but limited to their own products, for example myduke.com.au.
Quitmed.com.au and quithero.com.au have the biggest range of vape products, there are many others listed here. Some accept outside scripts, others from their partnered prescribers.
Nicotine vape liquid
You can buy ready-to-vape nicotine liquid, prefilled pods, or purchase nicotine concentrate from a pharmacy and mix it with 0% nicotine flavoured vape liquid.
0% nicotine flavoured liquid can be purchased without a script from vape stores like: vapoureyes.com.au, vapeking.com.au, vapelink.com.au, wickandwireco.com.au.
A more comprehensive list of online and 'bricks and mortar' vape stores in Australia is available here.
Nicotine liquid comes in freebase and salt forms. The difference between freebase and salt nicotine, is that freebase has a better 'throat hit' and is regularly used for vaping at lower levels of nicotine in a higher wattage device, although many use it at moderate levels with a lower wattage device too. Salt nicotine has an acid added, like benzoic acid, so is less irritating to the throat at higher nicotine levels and absorbs into the bloodstream quicker.
Note: disposable vapes generally contain around 50mg/ml (5%) of salt nicotine in Australia, even if there is no information on the label.
If you're coming off disposables, depending on the wattage of the device you decide to use (some are adjustable), 50mg/ml salt nicotine may be too much, so 25mg/ml (2.5%) to 30mg/ml (3%) may be enough. Freebase, at a lower dose, is also an alternative.
For freebase nicotine, the dose range is around 12mg/ml (1.2%) to 18mg/ml (1.8%), anything much above 18mg/ml tends to be irritating to the throat, so salt nicotine is recommended.
If you're coming off smoking, freebase maybe suitable in the transition to vaping because of the 'throat hit' that is similar to a cigarette. Otherwise, if a higher nicotine dose is needed or cravings aren't satisfied, salt nicotine is an alternative.
These nicotine levels are for low watt devices, not sub-ohm high powered vapes that are usually vaped with around 3-6mg/ml of freebase nicotine.
Nicotine concentrate
(Note: If you want things as simple as possible, skip this and go to 'ready to vape liquid' below).
100mg/ml freebase and salt nicotine concentrate are available to mix with 0% nicotine flavoured vape liquid. Quitmed.com.au and Quithero.com.au stock the best value salt or freebase concentrate at $32.90 for 100ml, at time of writing.
You can use a nicotine calculator to work out your desired nicotine level using 100mg/ml nicotine concentrate: Nicotine Calculator - Wick and Wire Co Australia.
If you want to add nicotine concentrate to 0% nicotine flavoured ready-to-vape liquid, you can remove the amount of mls from the bottle, to replace it with the same mls of your chosen mg/ml of concentrate, to get an accurate dose. It also provides enough of a gap in the bottle to do so. You can add the nicotine, without removing liquid to avoid wastage, as long as there's enough room. Just consider that it will be a less accurate dose, especially if a lot of concentrate is used. Alternatively, there are 'shortfill' 0% nicotine flavoured liquid bottles with a gap already.
Another option is a 0% nicotine flavoured liquid 'doubler' that is half filled with double concentration flavour, a bit like cordial. With a doubler, you replace the shortfall after adding nicotine concentrate with unflavoured PG/VG (more about PG/VG below).
With a doubler, you avoid flavour dilution that you would otherwise get adding nicotine concentrate to ready-to-vape liquid, especially when a lot of nicotine concentrate is required.
For example, if your desired nicotine level is 25mg/ml, you would be adding 30mls of 100mg/ml nicotine concentrate to a 60ml doubler. That would make 120mls of 25mg/ml juice when you add 30mls of unflavoured PG/VG.
Take precautions when dealing with nicotine concentrate: FAQ: "Spiking" 0mg e-liquid with your 100mg nicotine.
PG and VG
PG is Propylene glycol and VG is vegetable glycerin, they are the base of vape liquid that carries flavours and nicotine, making up the 4 ingredients of flavoured nicotine vape liquid. More about PG and VG here.
Vape liquid comes in a mix of PG and VG, usually around 50PG/50VG and 30PG/70VG, though there are other ratios.
When choosing vape liquid, 50PG/50VG liquid will carry flavour better and have more of a 'throat hit', being higher PG and is generally for lower wattage devices. 30PG/70VG liquid is smoother and produces more vapour because of the higher VG and tends to be used in higher wattage devices. 30PG/70VG can however, be used in lower wattage devices as well.
When mixing 100mg/ml nicotine concentrate, consider that it's usually PG based and can change the ratio of PG/VG in a 0% nicotine flavoured liquid quite a lot, depending on how much is added. 50PG/50VG together with a larger amount of nicotine PG concentrate might be irritating. In this case, using a 30PG/70VG 0% nicotine flavoured liquid, or a doubler and adding flavourless 30PG/70 VG or 100% VG to the shortfall may be best.
DIY
Regardless of any bans, you can still make your own vape liquid. PG, VG and flavours will always be available as they are all used in food manufacturing. Stock of PG, VG and flavours can be sourced from basedrop.com.au and flavourworld.com.au. Recipes can be found at alltheflavors.com and advice on mixing vape liquid at .
Ready to vape liquid
You can buy ready-to-vape nicotine liquid in various strengths up to 50mg/ml (5%), however, you're limited to the brands and flavours on offer at pharmacies.
Prefilled pods
Devices with prefilled pods of flavoured nicotine liquid are also available. They are the most convenient, but also by far, the most expensive.
Flavour profile of disposable vapes vs reusable vapes
Many disposable vapers are looking to replicate the flavour of disposable vapes when they switch to refillable vapes. There is a lot more sweetener and menthol (AKA ice or ws-23 cooling agent) in disposables, so getting a vape liquid with a similar profile or adding sweetener and ws-23 might be an option. You can get advice about adding sweetener etc, at . However, higher levels of sweetener can potentially reduce the life of the coil in your refillable device and you may get used to the flavour profile of vape juice for refillable vapes anyway.
Availability of devices and coils/pods
There are plenty of devices available that are not approved by the TGA for sale in pharmacies, though stock of them and coils/pods will be an ongoing issue as importation of unapproved devices is banned.
The TGA has an approved list of notified vapes. Popular examples are the Uwell Caliburn G3, Vaporesso XROS 3, Vaporesso XROS 3 Mini and the Vaporesso Luxe X.
If you want to keep things simple, consider going for the XROS 3 Mini, it is a lower wattage 'mouth to lung' (MTL) device, with auto draw (inhale activated). It is similar to a disposable, and as similar as possible to a cigarette.
The XROS 3 differs from the XROS 3 Mini in that it has a fire button (with option of auto draw) and adjustable airflow so you can control the tightness of the draw and as such, it can be used for 'restricted direct lung' (RDL) as well as MTL.
The Caliburn G3 is also a MTL and RDL device with auto draw, adjustable airflow and wattage up to 25w (depending on the coil used), so you can control the amount of vapour produced.
The Luxe X is a higher wattage device (up to 40w), with adjustable airflow, that can be used for both (MTL) or 'direct lung' (DL) vaping and is the most versatile of the vapes above.
These devices, compatible coils/pods and others on the list can be found in pharmacies and vape stores (subject to availability).
Here is a link to vapem8.com.au, an Australian vape finder and comparison site to help find vapes, juice, pods, coils etc in stock, outside of pharmacies.
Any questions, ask on aussievapers.

Here are signs I got from my dad (at least I believe those were signs):

• My mom's number was written in hospital documents as the number to call if anything happens. My dad died unexpectedly and mom was with him just a moment before. He seemed fine. She arrived home and was all alone. Somehow I got the call (I was not alone) and my mom didn't have to be alone when she found out this way... And trust me... It was a very bad reaction. I can still hear her screams in my head.
  
• Our house became extremely cold. Even the hottest room in the whole house was freezing cold. The heater was on same way as before and it wasn't that cold even during winter... And my dad died in April!
  
• We heard loud, male steps (I even somehow heard that he had shoes on) on the stairs... We looked at the stairs that were making loud noises, but we saw nobody on them!
  
• My dad's plus toy changed position.
  
• My niece promised my dad that she will stop smoking her e-cigarette, but she never did. She put her cigarette on her nightstand and in the morning it was gone. She couldn't find it anywhere at all. Two weeks later after she announced that she doesn't feel such a big urge to smoke anymore it was found on the sofa my dad always laid on. She barely ever used it herself. It was behind the material... Weird.
  
• Day before the funeral my mom complained that her pear necklace is broken and she liked it so much. She left it on the sink and went to bed... In the morning it was repaired. Not only was it repaired, but it looked brand new like on the day I bought it for her in Spain. We both saw the broken necklace so we aren't nuts.
  
• I heard steps downstairs and went down to see what's going on and saw the hat I was looking for on the middle of the floor.
  
• Me and my sis both saw him talking to us in dreams about being in the afterlife. There were spirit guides, homes, a beach and even some kind of workers there... Dad told me to repair something, but I didn't remember what. Next day frame where my parents photo was broke.
  

Please describe what your loved ones did after they passed away.

DAY: May 6 2024
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• 5-6-2024NOW BRACE YOURSELF FOR THE ‘FACILITY FEE’ Even if you have health insurance, you might expect to be charged a copayment for some routine care, like office-based exams and consultations. But you probably don’t expect to receive a bill a few weeks later charging you an extra $100 or more. That’s the situation an increasing number of state lawmakers are looking to change. In most states, a “hospital facility fee” can legally appear on your bill if your doctor is affiliated with a large hospital system—even if you never set foot on the hospital’s campus.
• 5-6-2024USING RADIATION THERAPY TO TREAT BRAIN TUMORS Most patients with brain tumors receive one of two types of radiation: external beam radiation, in which the tumor is treated over the course of several weeks, or radiosurgery, in which patients receive a high dose of radiation in one to five treatments to destroy the tumor. Stereotactic radiosurgery uses 3D imaging to target high doses of radiation
• 5-6-2024NERVES PROMPT MUSCLE TO RELEASE FACTORS THAT BOOST BRAIN HEALTH, STUDY FINDS The nerves, colored green, trigger the muscle to release hormones and mRNA packages that foster growth of and connection between neurons in the brain. Exercise prompts muscles to release molecular cargo that boosts brain cell function and connection, but the process is not well understood.
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• 5-6-2024EXPLORING HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN STORES AND PRESERVES INFORMATION Research into how the human brain stores information could lead to treatments for people who struggle with everyday tasks. Professor Jan Buitelaar, an expert in neurodevelopmental illnesses, is intrigued by a possible link between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—or ADHD—and memory.
• 5-6-2024RESEARCHERS FIND B CELLS DRIVE RESPONSES OF OTHER IMMUNE CELLS, CAN BE MODIFIED TO PREVENT MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SYMPTOMS Metabolic regulation of B-cell cytokine production: implications for MS pathogenesis and therapeutics. B cells can control resp onses of myeloid cells through the release of particular cytokines (small proteins that control the growth and activity of cells in the immune system), disproving the previous consensus that T cells are the only orchestrators of immune responses.
  
• 5-6-2024STUDY PROVIDES A BLUEPRINT OF TUMOR-INFILTRATING B CELLS WITH THERAPEUTIC IMPLICATIONS
  
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• 5-6-2024MEASURING DIFFERENTIAL PRIVACY COULD BALANCE MEANINGFUL ANALYTICS AND HEALTH CARE DATA SECURITY
  
• 5-6-2024STUDY EXPLORES COPING STRATEGIES AND SELF-STIGMA AMONG PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV IN INDONESIA
  
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• 5-6-2024STUDY HIGHLIGHTS KEY PREDICTORS OF ADOLESCENT SUBSTANCE USE
  
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• 5-6-2024SCIENTISTS TRACK EARLIEST CANCER-TRIGGERING PHYSICAL CHANGES IN CELLS
  
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Alright boys. I recently went through atomic habits and have been having a great time applying the concepts in my self improvement. So here goes nothing:------------------------------------------- BEHAVIOR CHANGE AND IDENTITY: When we want to change our behavior, there are 3 levels where we can do so.

1. Outcomes: changing your results, e.g. losing weight. Most of the goals you set are at this level
2. Process: changing your habits and systems, Most of the habits you build live at this level
3. Identity: changing your beliefs, e.g. your worldview or self-image. Most of the beliefs, assumptions, and biases you hold are associated with this level

The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become. When a habit becomes part of who you are, it is intrinsically motivating. This means the process of doing the habit is the reward, and you want to engage in it just because you enjoy it.In a nutshell, To permanently change your habits, you must also change who you are. And to change your identity, you must do a habit continuously. Identity comes out of habits.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1% BETTER EVERY DAYFor us to grow drastically, it does not take a ton of change from day to day. If we can consistently get only 1% better every single day, we will grow exponentially over time.The same applies with bad habits. If we get only 1% worse every day for a year, we will have dramatically declined by the end of that period.The effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day, yet when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later the value of good habits becomes strikingly apparent.----------------------------------------------Goals vs SystemsWhen we are working towards something, there are always 2 major components: A goal and a system.Our goal is the target we want to hit. The amount of money we want to earn, the weight we want to lose, the pages we want to write, and so on. Our systems are the actual processes we need to follow to reach this goal.For example: If my goal is to put on muscle, my system is what I need to do to get there. This is going to be the workout routine I follow, the meals I eat, and how I recover my muscles.We often put a lot of attention on our goals, but not enough on the systems we need to get there. This is a reason why many people fail to accomplish the goals that they set.Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are what we need to make meaningful progress towards our goals.Achieving a goal is a momentary change. If I set the goal to lose 50 pounds in 3 months, I may reach it, but there is also a good chance I will immediately gain the weight back. Systems solve a problem for good. If I like exercising, it will be much harder for me to get fat, because my identity has now been built around being in shape.Systems make you fall in love with the process rather than the product. This way you aren't waiting to get the 6-pack to be happy, and you're able to enjoy life before and after you get to your goal. This doesn't mean we don't set goals or use them to motivate us, it just means that we focus more on the processes we need to hit those goals.In a nutshell, Process > Goal. You should focus mainly on systematizing the process and making the process something part of your identity. Otherwise there is a good chance you revert right back to where you were.---------------------------------------------------HOW TO BUILD AMAZING HABITSAny habit can be broken down into a feedback loop of four steps:

1. Cue: what triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. This is a piece of information that predicts a reward.
2. Craving: This is the motivational force behind every habit. You don’t crave the habit itself, but the change in state it delivers. For example, you do not crave smoking a cigarette, you crave the feeling of relief it provides. We desire the end result.
3. Response: This is the actual habit you perform, as a thought or action. Whether a response happens or not depends on how motivated we are by the craving and how hard doing the habit is.
4. Reward: The end goal of each habit. This is the dopamine hit we get when our craving is satisfied. A good reward will teach us to do an action in the future. A mediocre or bad reward will teach us not to do this action in the future.

These four steps are automatically occurring in every habit we have. If a behavior doesn't hit all four of these stages, it is not and will never be a habit of ours. Without the first three steps, we won't do it. And without all four steps, we won't repeat it. So by using these four steps, we can create good habits. And by messing them up, we can get rid of old, bad ones. Follow these laws and you will make great progress in your habits. Reverse them and you can get rid of habits._______________________________ THE 4 LAWS OF HABIT CHANGE:
The 1st Law : Make It ObviousOur goal with this law is to create cues for good habits. We need to build a trigger to get us doing something. HERE ARE ACTIONABLE STEPS TO DO THIS:

• Create A Habit Scorecard. Write down your current habits in a list, and then write whether they are good or bad(whether or not they will get you closer to who you want to be). If you are struggling to think of habits, list through everything you do daily in order. These are all habits.

(this is not directly building cues, but it is building awareness. Habits are automatic in most cases, so being aware of how them is very important)

• Use implementation intentions. These are statements that remind of us of what we are doing ahead of time. The formula for them is as follows: “I will [new habit] at [time] in [location]”
• Use habit stacking. This is when we do new habits after ones we already do to make it feel more familiar to us. The formula is as follows: “After I [current habit], I will [do new habit]”. For example, "After I drink my coffee, I will work out"

and btw, you can combine this with implementation intentions. For example:“I will [habit] at [time] in [location]”“After I do [current habit], I will [do new habit]”

• Design your environment. Make the cues of good habits obvious and visible and reduce bad habit cues. If you want to read more, put books in front of you. If you want to spend less time on your phone, put it somewhere where it is harder to see.

We need to do these things is because we need to build awareness. If we are not aware of cues, we will not act on them. Cues are key to develop, because they are what gets the process started for us doing a habit. Without a cue, there is no consideration for us taking action.
The 2nd Law : Make It AttractiveOur goal with this law is to create an actual CRAVING to do something. If you despise doing something, it's pretty hard to stay consistent with it. Here are some way to fix that and actually enjoy the idea of doing these new habits:

• Use temptation bundling, which is when you pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.

Don't cope obviously. You don't play fucking Fortnite on your phone while you run, or eat a cookie while you read about diet. But just throw in small things. Listen to good music while you are in the gym, for example. Have some tea while you journal. Doing these little things helps you a lot in building consistency.

• Join a culture where your desired behavior is normal. If doing something is socially accepted, you will want to do it more naturally.

You guys already are applying this by being in here. The same thing applies for different niches though. If you want to, for example, become a navy SEAL, you would want to find another community of guys doing that and learn from them.

• Create a motivation ritual. Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit. Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings.

Again, don't fucking cope. Make this something simple. Don't do anything that will go against the identity you are aiming for with these goals. But let yourself have fun with it.
The 3rd Law : Make It EasyOur goal with this law is to make it is as EASY to do these habits as possible. These are a few highly actionable steps for this:

• Reduce friction. Decrease the number of steps between you and your good habits.
• Prime the environment. Prepare your environment to make future actions easier. For example, if you want to eat healthier, meal prep over the weekend, so that during the week it takes only takes a few minutes to get your food and microwave it. Or if you want to exercise more, prep your gym bag in advance so that all you have to do is grab it and go. Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.
• Master the decisive moment. The difference between a good day and a bad day is often a few productive and healthy choices made at decisive moments. Each one is like a fork in the road, and these choices stack up throughout the day and can ultimately lead to very different outcomes. The moment you decide between ordering takeout or cooking dinner. The moment you choose between driving your car or riding your bike. The moment you decide between starting your homework or grabbing the video game controller. Identify these moments as they happen, so you can make the right decision.
• Use the Two-Minute Rule. Downscale your habits until they can easily be done in two minutes or less. If you want to start running for example, put your shoes on and tie them. If you want to read before bed each night, read one page.

This sounds silly, but it is actually very useful. If you make the first 2 minutes easy to do for whatever habit you are trying to build, it makes it easy to start. Yes, the actual habit still may be hard. But by starting out easy, you build yourself up for it. Make the habit easy to start, because you will then become much more likely to actually do it.

• Automate your habits. Invest in technology and one-time purchases that lock in future behavior. Leave your wallet at home so you don't buy junk food. Stop binge eating by buying food in single packages. The best way to break a bad habit is to make it impractical to do. Increase the friction until you don’t even have the option to act.

People talk a lot about using willpower to reduce bad habits, but to me that has never been as effective as this is. If you struggle with sugar and live alone, throw away the sugar. If you struggle with wasting time on YouTube, put a website blocker on YouTube. Willpower is a useful tool but it is a limited one as well. Keep that deeply in mind and automate whenever you can, so that you can use your willpower less often and have it be stronger.
The 4th Law : Make It SatisfyingThis is how you can get that "ahhhhh" feeling after you finish the habits you want to implement.

• Use reinforcement. Give yourself an immediate reward when you complete your habit. Make sure these rewards are in line with the identity you want.
• Make “doing nothing” enjoyable. When avoiding a bad habit, design a way to see the benefits. We do bad habits because they are immediately rewarding. We should find a way to make not doing them also immediately rewarding.

I have been doing this by building a "pros and cons" list when I feel tempted to do a habit that is not constructive. I write the good parts of it, and the bad. Then I see how much more bad there is, and I make the choice not to do it, which immediately feels enjoyable, because it is a win.

• Use a habit tracker. Keep track of your habit streak and don’t break the chain of momentum you have going.
• I personally like to do to this on notion or on paper. With paper, I just write the habit in my to-do list for the day, and cross it off. I personally also do not keep track of habit streaks.
• Never miss a habit two days in a row. When you forget to do a habit, make sure you get back on track immediately.

___________________...and that is it.If you've made it to the end of this guide, congrats bro. you don't have a complete lizard brain LOL. Thank you for reading and thank you for giving me your valuable time for this. IN SUMMARY: Process>Goals Change Identity to Change HabitsThe 4 Laws Of Behavior Change: Make it Obvious Make it Easy Make it Attractive Make it satisfying ..................................................Have a good day boys. We got this.

Let me preface this by saying I do not mod fallout New Vegas at all. Completely out of my element here. I followed Viva New Vegas and Mojave Express Guide as well as the Mojave Express Texture Guide (I understand they're no longer supported but given they were last updated 2 months ago I figured they would be relatively up to date). Added a couple extra content mods for myself but that was all. I get crashes all the time- sometimes when loading into an area, sometimes when opening the pip boy, sometimes even when just walking out and about. There's absolutely no consistency with the crashes. Sometimes they happen, other times they don't. I'd post a crash log, but they are equally as inconsistent as well, and most of the time give differing logs. If it would be helpful to post one, I'd be more than happy to.
MOD LIST (load order has been added as well below):

# This file was automatically generated by Mod Organizer. -FNVLODGen Output +OneTweak but Really Updated -OneTweak for FNV +VNV Pre-Generated LOD +VNV - LOD Patches +LODIFY FNV Wall_SoGB Editon +LODIFY - Level of detail improvement for your Fallout (TTW And NV Lods) +Different LOD mods little tweaks and additions +Parallax series -- Rocks variety +Wasted LOD - Cliffs of Mojave +More LODs Additions and fixes +TCM's LOD Overhaul +FNV LOD Supplementation - Optional Overpasses +FNV LOD Supplementation +LOD additions and improvements +Much Needed LOD fixed rocks color +Much Needed LOD +Trees LOD Billboards Vanilla +FNVLODGen Resources +LOD Fixes and Improvements - NVSE -LOD_separator +Desert Natural Weathers - NV - TTW +PipBoy 3000 Remastered -- FIXED +PipBoy 3000 Remastered -MIMIC_WEATHER_REPLACER -MIMICTWO -Simple Fog Remover +MEG - NVR PRESET -fuckingidiotpreseyt +Neutral Weathers - DNW for NVR - NV - TTW +NewVegasReloaded +B42 Optics - Real Time Reflections Patch +Real Time Reflections - NVSE +Elegant Lockpick Retexture +Minimal Atmospheric Loadscreens -Simple Main Menu HD +Fallout Show - New Vegas Title Replacer +Nut Water Overhaul +ETJ Realistic Enhanced Blood Textures +Better Fire Barrels - ESPless +EXE - Effect teXtures Enhanced -METG - FX & Extra Retextures_separator +Securitrons On Alert +securitronHD +Eyes of Torment - Ghost People Retexture +Decaying Ferals +ghouls +FeralGhoulsHD +TheFriedTurkey's Bighorners +The Molerat Extravaganza - Molerat Retexture +aMidianBorn NV Superb Mutants -METG - Creature Retextures_separator +WJS's Super Sledge Ported +The True Blade of the East +The True Blade of the West +Hatchet Remade +Shovel and Friend +Fire Axe replacer +Kitchen Knife Re-Texture +Combat and Chance's knife Retexture +Cleaver and Chopper Retexture +Bowie knife retexture +Throwing melee weapon retexture -METG - Melee Weapon Retextures_separator +Physically Based Plasma Rifles +Laser Rifle Rebirth +Laser Pistol 3rd Person Latch animation fix +WAP F4NV Laser Pistol and Pew-Pew +WAP Laser RCW +WAP F4NV Recharger Weaponry +WAP 12.7 SMG Rebirth +WAP - 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Plus Casino Tables +6IXES Clutter Texture Pack NV Edition +Blackwolf24s HD Clutter pack -METG - Clutter Retextures_separator +Physically Based Collection 2 -Physically Based Collection +Physically Based Wood Crates -Physically Based Terminals +F4NV Auto Doc +Pool Table and items - Redone +Resplendent Rugs - carpets retextured +Improved Rugs - HD +Through the Looking-Glass +Mccarran Escalator Glass +McCarran main terminal transparent glass +Inviting Vaults - A vault retexture -METG - Interior Object Retextures_separator -Physically Based Parkware -Motorcycles Remastered -Quality Carts +Terrific Traffic Cones +High Quality Picket Fences +NillaPlus Howitz Started--Howitz Going 4K (Nellis artillery) +NillaPlus Crate Expectations 4K (large metal shipping containers) +Textures Over Time +NCR Flag Retex 1.1 +Fractal Crystals +Rectified Water Towers +Sunset Sarsaparilla HQ Meshes Enhanced -Mormon Fort Gate Redux +Dinky the Deluxe Dinosaur - Definitive Dinky Retexture +Roads Redone (Road Retexture) +Architecture Retexture Pack (4k - 2k) +bsp_textures -METG - Architecture & Exterior Object Retextures_separator +New Vegas Palm Trees Enhanced +Wasted Pines +Micro Clutter +Vurt's Improved Plants +Simply Upscaled Grass +Mojave Flora Project +Remastered Quarries +Higher Poly Rocks +Irradiant Muck +Sandy Dunes +Nut Vegas - Landscapes +NMCs_Texture_Pack_For_New_Vegas +Base Object Swapper -METG - Landscape & Environment_separator +Pipboy Glove remover +ENB AO Fix 1.02 +MEG - Navmesh Compatibility Patch +MEG - TWEAKS +MEG - Patches +Consistent Pip-Boy Icons v4 PATCHES +NV Compatibility Skeleton -MEG - Patches & Tweaks_separator +ATMOS Ambience Overhaul +Interior Exterior Sounds Framework +ADS - Backpack - Jump Sound Effects MONO +Aim Down Sights - Backpack - Jump Impact sound Effects +JSRS Sound Mod 2.0 +Project Reality Footsteps +Immersive Pickup Sounds Patched +Platinum Radio - A New Radio for New Vegas +F4NV - Main Menu Music Replacer +A Music Addition Project - Revised +High-Quality Classic Music +Some UI Sounds (SUS) -MEG - 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Texture Modding Preset -NVTF - Viva Default Preset +NVTF - New Vegas Tick Fix +JohnnyGuitar NVSE - All Tweaks Preset +JohnnyGuitar NVSE +JIP LN Settings INI +JIP LN NVSE Plugin +Fixed ESMs -Utilities_separator -Viva New Vegas 29.4.2024_separator *DLC: CaravanPack *DLC: ClassicPack *DLC: DeadMoney *DLC: GunRunnersArsenal *DLC: HonestHearts *DLC: LonesomeRoad *DLC: MercenaryPack *DLC: OldWorldBlues *DLC: TribalPack 

LOAD ORDER:

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Please, experienced mod-goers, let me know what's wrong. I need to fix my game! I can't live like this!

Hey there! Let me introduce you to the top quit-smoking apps worldwide for iPhone and iPad users.
These apps were designed to spur you in your journey. So, with loads of determination and your gadgets, you’d be on your way to a healthier lifestyle.
Yes, you have it tough in these difficult times. Smoking brings relief, euphoria, ecstasy, relaxation, warmth, and escape from anger and stress. But hey, it has been widely accepted to be deadly; you know that? Yes, you do.
In her viral video, Terrie Linn McNutt Hall, a former smoker, said, “I wish I’d never seen a cigarette in my entire life. I truly do. I wish I’d never seen one, much less picked it up and smoked it.” Two days later, after years of battle against cancer caused by smoking, she lost her life.
Don’t make it too late. You can save your lungs and health from years of pain and torture.
In this article, you’d get to know or recall why you began smoking, why you should quit it, and some of the best quit-smoking apps for your iPhone and iPad.

Why Do You Smoke?

As people are different, so are their needs, challenges, and way of life. Therefore, the list below does not nearly cover why people smoke.
It simply states a few of them. To help you stop, you need to get to the root of your addiction.

1. Nicotine Addiction

Nicotine, a highly addictive substance found in tobacco, is the primary reason you become hooked on smoking. Nicotine addiction develops over time as the body becomes dependent on the drug.
Continued smoking is often driven by the cravings and withdrawal symptoms associated with nicotine addiction.

2. Peer Pressure and Social Influence

You may recall starting or continuing smoking due to peer pressure or the desire to fit in with a particular social group.
Smoking can be seen as a social activity or a way to bond with friends or colleagues who smoke.

3. Stress Relief

You may have turned to smoking as a coping mechanism for stress, anxiety, or other negative emotions.
Smoking is often perceived as a way to relax or relieve tension, even though the long-term effects on stress management are adverse.

4. Habit and Ritual

Smoking can become a habit deeply ingrained in daily routines. It may be associated with specific activities or situations, such as taking a break, socializing, or complementing other behaviors. The ceremonial aspects of smoking can make it challenging to quit.

5. Emotional Regulation

Smoking may be used as a way to regulate emotions or alleviate boredom. Some individuals find that smoking provides a temporary distraction or a perceived comfort in certain situations.

6. Weight Control

Nicotine is known to suppress appetite and increase metabolism, leading you to make smoking replace food cravings and become a part of weight loss goals.

7. Perception and Image

Smoking has historically been associated with specific images, such as being rebellious, cool, or sophisticated.
You may have begun smoking to align yourself with these perceptions or to project a particular image.

Why Should You Quit Smoking?

For numerous reasons, quitting smoking benefits one's health and overall well-being. Here are some compelling reasons to consider;

1. Improved Overall Health

You may experience ragged or hoarse breathing, shortness of breath, persistent cough, chest pains, and pain in the hands, arms, and shoulders. These symptoms are associated with a smoker's lungs.
Quitting smoking reduces the risk of developing these severe health conditions, including lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, respiratory infections, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It also improves lung function and helps with better breathing.

2. Increased Life Expectancy

True, no one knows when death will come knocking, but studies have consistently shown that quitting smoking at any age increases life expectancy.
Stopping smoking significantly reduces the risk of premature death associated with smoking-related diseases.

3. Enhanced Cardiovascular Health

The impact of smoking includes damaged blood vessels, increased blood pressure, and the risk of blood clots.
When you quit smoking, your cardiovascular health improves, decreasing the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular diseases.

4. Improved Respiratory Health

Smoking damages the lungs and leads to various respiratory problems, such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
Quitting smoking helps to reduce coughing, shortness of breath, and the risk of respiratory infections.

5. Better Physical Fitness

Smoking affects physical performance and endurance by reducing lung capacity and muscle oxygen supply.
When you quit smoking, you experience improved stamina, energy levels, and the ability to engage in physical activities without feeling breathless.

6. Enhanced Sense of Taste and Smell

You may notice a bland taste in your food and experience a decline in your sense of smell. Among other health conditions, smoking is a causative agent.
Smoking dulls the senses of taste and smell. However, these senses gradually improve when you trash smoking.
You, my friend, would be led back to a richer experience of flavors and aromas.

7. Improved Appearance

You may have seen photos of individuals before and after they quit smoking. If not, try looking it up.
Smoking contributes to premature aging, wrinkles, yellowing of teeth, and skin damage.
Quitting smoking helps restore a healthier complexion, brighter teeth, and a more youthful appearance.

8. Financial Savings

Hey, smoking is an expensive habit to maintain. You'd end up having several quick fixes that'll consume your paycheck.
By quitting, you can save a significant amount of money that would otherwise be spent on cigarette consumption, allowing you to allocate those funds toward other priorities or enjoyable activities.

9. A Better Quality of Life

Freedom, yes. Quitting smoking can bring about a sense of freedom, control, and empowerment.
You'll no longer allow cigarettes to control your existence. Once you kick that stick to the curb, you'd most likely experience improved mental and emotional well-being.

10. Protecting Others

Smoking harms the individual who smokes and poses health risks to those around them through second-hand smoke.
Asthmatic patients and others may be seriously harmed. It may sound far-fetched, but smoking or the light from a cigarette can actually start a fire.
When you decide to quit, you'll surely contribute to a healthier environment for your loved ones and reduce their exposure to harmful toxins. Think about it.
Remember, quitting smoking can be challenging, but numerous resources and support systems can help you succeed.
Getting professional help, joining smoking cessation programs, or using nicotine replacement therapies can boost your chances of quitting.
Now let's look at one of the support systems. Below and some of the best quit-smoking apps for iPhone and iPad.

6 Best Quit-Smoking Apps for iPhone and iPad

Several smoking cessation applications for iPhone and iPad can assist you in developing excellent and steady quitting methods.
Here are some of the top-rated and popular quit-smoking apps you can consider and how they work:

1. Smoke-Free - Quit Smoking Now

Being one of the best quit-smoking apps for iPhone and iPad, Smoke-free app offers comprehensive features and tools to help you quit smoking and stay smoke-free.
Here are some key features of the Smoke-Free app:

a. Personalized Quit Plan

The app provides a personalized plan based on your smoking habits and goals. It guides you through the quitting process with tailored missions and milestones.

b. Progress Tracker

Smoke-Free tracks your progress over time and displays statistics such as the number of smoke-free days, cigarettes not smoked, and money saved.
This can serve as a visual representation of your accomplishments and motivates you to continue.

c. Health Improvements

The app showcases the positive health changes that occur after quitting smoking.
It provides information on how your body recovers over time, such as improved lung function, reduced risk of diseases, and enhanced sense of taste and smell.

d. Cravings Management

Smoke-Free helps you manage cravings by providing strategies and distraction techniques. It offers interactive games and exercises to redirect your focus when desires arise.

e. Financial Savings

The app calculates the amount of money saved since quitting smoking.
It presents this information in various formats, such as daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly savings, motivating you with the financial benefits of quitting.

f. Achievements and Badges

Smoke-Free rewards you with achievements and badges as you progress on your smoke-free journey.
These milestones provide a sense of accomplishment and further motivation.

g. Community Support

The app includes a supportive community forum where you can connect with other people who are quitting smoking or have successfully stopped. It allows you to share experiences, receive encouragement, and support others.

2. QuitNow! Quit Smoking

QuitNow! Quit Smoking is another popular support system and one of the best quit-smoking apps for iPhone and iPad.
It offers a range of features and tools to help you quit smoking and maintain a smoke-free lifestyle. Here are some key features of the QuitNow! App:

a. Tracking and Statistics

QuitNow! tracks your progress by displaying the number of smoke-free days, cigarettes not smoked, and the time since your last cigarette.
It provides real-time updates on your progress and helps you visualize the positive changes happening as you quit smoking.

b. Health Milestones

The app provides information on the health benefits you can experience while staying smoke-free.
It shows improvements in lung function, cardiovascular health, and overall well-being.

c. Craving Management

QuitNow! offers a craving tracker that helps you identify patterns and triggers for cravings.
It provides tools and techniques to manage and overcome cravings effectively.

d. Financial Savings

The app calculates and displays the money saved since quitting smoking.
It shows your savings daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, giving you a clear picture of the financial benefits of quitting.

e. Achievements and Badges

QuitNow! rewards you with achievements and badges as you reach certain milestones to quit smoking.
These badges provide a sense of accomplishment and can serve as a source of motivation.

f. Community Support

The app features a community of users who are also quitting smoking or have successfully quit.
You can connect with others, share your experiences, receive support, and provide encouragement to fellow app users.

g. Health Information and Tips

QuitNow! provides educational resources, health information, and tips to help you stay motivated and informed about the benefits of quitting smoking.
It offers insights into the positive changes happening in your body as you become smoke-free.

3. MyQuit Coach

MyQuit Coach is an application developed by Livestrong to help individuals quit smoking. It provides personalized support and guidance throughout your quitting journey.
Here are some key features of the MyQuit Coach app:

a. Personalized Quit Plan

MyQuit Coach creates a customized quitting plan based on your smoking habits, motivations, and goals.
It considers the number of daily cigarette consumption, smoking triggers, and previous quit attempts.

b. Tracker and Progress Monitoring

The app allows you to track your progress and monitor your smoke-free days, non-smoked cigarettes, and money saved since quitting.
This tracking feature helps you stay motivated and visualize the positive changes occurring as you move forward.

c. Craving Management

MyQuit Coach provides strategies and techniques to manage cravings and overcome nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
It offers tips and guidance to navigate challenging situations and cope with triggers effectively.

d. Achievement Badges

The app offers achievement badges to celebrate milestones and progress.
These badges serve as a visual representation of your accomplishments and provide a sense of achievement and motivation.

e. Community Support

MyQuit Coach includes a supportive community forum where you can connect with other individuals who are also quitting smoking or have successfully stopped.
This allows you to share experiences, receive encouragement, and gain support from others going through a similar journey.

f. Educational Resources

The app provides educational resources and information about the benefits of quitting smoking.
It offers insights into the positive changes happening in your body and the health improvements you can expect.

g. Motivational Reminders

MyQuit Coach sends personalized reminders and messages to keep you motivated and on track with your quit plan.
These reminders can help you stay focused and committed to quitting smoking.

4. Kwit - Quit smoking

Kwit is a quit-smoking app that takes a gamified approach to help individuals quit smoking.
This has made it stand out even as one of the best quit-smoking apps for iPhone and iPad.
It offers a unique and interactive experience to make quitting more engaging and enjoyable.
Here are some key features of the Kwit - Quit Smoking app:

a. Gamified Experience

Kwit uses gamification techniques to make quitting smoking more fun and motivating.
It offers achievements, missions, and challenges you can complete as you progress on your smoke-free journey.
The app provides a sense of accomplishment and rewards your achievements, making the process feel like a game.

b. Craving Tracker

The app includes a craving tracker to identify and monitor your cravings. It provides tools and activities to distract yourself and overcome cravings effectively.
The interactive nature of the app helps you shift your focus away from smoking.

c. Health Benefits Tracking

Kwit highlights the health improvements you can experience as you quit smoking.
It displays information about your progress and showcases the positive changes in your body, such as improved lung function, reduced risk of diseases, and enhanced overall well-being.

d. Financial Savings

The app calculates and displays the amount of money saved since quitting smoking.
It shows your savings daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, giving you a tangible representation of the financial benefits of quitting.

e. Inspirational Content

Kwit provides motivational quotes, facts, and messages to keep you inspired and focused on your goal to quit smoking. It offers positive reinforcement and encouragement throughout your journey.

f. Community Support

The app includes a community feature that creates a medium for the communication of users.
You can share your progress and experiences and support others in quitting. It makes a supportive environment and a sense of camaraderie.

g. Progress Tracking

Kwit tracks your progress and displays statistics such as the number of smoke-free days, the pack of cigarettes not smoked, and the time since your last cigarette.
It provides a visual representation of your achievements and motivates you to continue staying smoke-free.

5. Quit Tracker

The Quit Tracker app is a simple, user-friendly application designed to help individuals quit smoking.
It focuses on tracking your progress and providing motivation along your quit-smoking journey. Here are some key features of the Quit Tracker app:

a. Tracking Smoke-Free Days

Quit Tracker allows you to track the number of smoke-free days since your quit date.
It clearly and visually represents your progress, highlighting the time you have successfully refrained from smoking.

b. Cigarettes Not Smoked

The app calculates and displays the number of cigarettes you have not smoked since quitting.
This feature helps you visualize the positive impact of your decision to quit and provides a sense of accomplishment.

c. Financial Savings

Quit Tracker helps you estimate the amount of money saved since quitting smoking.
It calculates the money you would have spent on a pack of cigarettes and shows your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly savings.
This can serve as a powerful motivator and highlight the financial benefits of quitting.

d. Goal Setting

The app allows you to set goals related to your quit-smoking journey. Whether aiming for a specific number of smoke-free days or milestones, setting goals can help you stay focused and motivated.

e. Reminders

Quit Tracker lets you set reminders and notifications to help you stay on track with your quit-smoking goals.
These reminders can prompt you to resist cravings or provide encouragement during challenging moments.

f. Widget Support

The app offers widget support, allowing you to view your progress directly from your device's home screen.
This provides quick access to your smoke-free days, cigarettes not smoked, and other statistics without opening the app.

g. Customization

Quit Tracker provides customization options, allowing you to personalize the app according to your preferences.
You can choose different themes and adjust settings to tailor the app to your liking.

6. Smoke-Free - Quit Smoking App

This app is a highly regarded and comprehensive application designed to assist individuals in quitting smoking.
It offers a range of features and resources to support, motivate and maintain steady communication with users throughout their smoke-free journey.
Here are some key features of the Smoke-Free app:

a. Personalized Quit Plan

The app helps you create a personalized quit plan based on your smoking habits, motivations, and goals.
It provides guidance tailored to your needs and offers strategies to overcome challenges.

b. Progress Tracking

Smoke-Free allows you to track your progress as you become smoke-free.
It records and displays the number of smoke-free days, cigarettes not smoked, and the time since your last cigarette.
This tracking feature visually represents your achievements and motivates you to stay on track.

c. Health Improvements

The app provides information on the health benefits of quitting smoking.
It highlights the positive changes in your body as you stay smoke-free, such as improved lung function, reduced risk of diseases, and increased energy levels.

d. Financial Savings

Smoke-Free calculates the amount of money saved since you quit smoking.
It tracks your savings daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, giving you a tangible representation of the financial benefits of quitting.

e. Craving Management

The app offers tools and techniques to help manage cravings and nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
It provides distractions, activities, and tips for navigating through challenging moments and staying committed to your quit-smoking goals.

f. Achievement Badges and Virtual Rewards

Smoke-Free rewards your progress with achievement badges as you reach milestones and accomplish goals.
These badges provide a sense of accomplishment and serve as a source of motivation.

g. Community Support

The app includes a community forum to connect with a supportive community of individuals who are also quitting smoking or have successfully stopped.
This allows you to share experiences, seek advice, and receive encouragement.

h. Daily Missions and Tips

Smoke-Free provides daily missions and tips to keep you engaged and motivated.
These missions and tips offer guidance, inspiration, and strategies to overcome challenges throughout your quit-smoking journey.

Conclusion

Remember, these quit-smoking apps are meant to provide support and motivation, but ultimately, quitting smoking requires personal commitment and determination.
Terrie Hall left a message before her death. She said, “Don’t smoke, and if you do smoke, quit. Keep trying until you succeed.”
There you have it, folks, the 6 best quit-smoking apps for iPhone and iPad.

Hey there! Let me introduce you to the top quit-smoking apps worldwide for iPhone and iPad users.
These apps were designed to spur you in your journey. So, with loads of determination and your gadgets, you’d be on your way to a healthier lifestyle.
Yes, you have it tough in these difficult times. Smoking brings relief, euphoria, ecstasy, relaxation, warmth, and escape from anger and stress. But hey, it has been widely accepted to be deadly; you know that? Yes, you do.
In her viral video, Terrie Linn McNutt Hall, a former smoker, said, “I wish I’d never seen a cigarette in my entire life. I truly do. I wish I’d never seen one, much less picked it up and smoked it.” Two days later, after years of battle against cancer caused by smoking, she lost her life.
Don’t make it too late. You can save your lungs and health from years of pain and torture.
In this article, you’d get to know or recall why you began smoking, why you should quit it, and some of the best quit-smoking apps for your iPhone and iPad.

Why Do You Smoke?

As people are different, so are their needs, challenges, and way of life. Therefore, the list below does not nearly cover why people smoke.
It simply states a few of them. To help you stop, you need to get to the root of your addiction.

1. Nicotine Addiction

Nicotine, a highly addictive substance found in tobacco, is the primary reason you become hooked on smoking. Nicotine addiction develops over time as the body becomes dependent on the drug.
Continued smoking is often driven by the cravings and withdrawal symptoms associated with nicotine addiction.

2. Peer Pressure and Social Influence

You may recall starting or continuing smoking due to peer pressure or the desire to fit in with a particular social group.
Smoking can be seen as a social activity or a way to bond with friends or colleagues who smoke.

3. Stress Relief

You may have turned to smoking as a coping mechanism for stress, anxiety, or other negative emotions.
Smoking is often perceived as a way to relax or relieve tension, even though the long-term effects on stress management are adverse.

4. Habit and Ritual

Smoking can become a habit deeply ingrained in daily routines. It may be associated with specific activities or situations, such as taking a break, socializing, or complementing other behaviors. The ceremonial aspects of smoking can make it challenging to quit.

5. Emotional Regulation

Smoking may be used as a way to regulate emotions or alleviate boredom. Some individuals find that smoking provides a temporary distraction or a perceived comfort in certain situations.

6. Weight Control

Nicotine is known to suppress appetite and increase metabolism, leading you to make smoking replace food cravings and become a part of weight loss goals.

7. Perception and Image

Smoking has historically been associated with specific images, such as being rebellious, cool, or sophisticated.
You may have begun smoking to align yourself with these perceptions or to project a particular image.

Why Should You Quit Smoking?

For numerous reasons, quitting smoking benefits one's health and overall well-being. Here are some compelling reasons to consider;

1. Improved Overall Health

You may experience ragged or hoarse breathing, shortness of breath, persistent cough, chest pains, and pain in the hands, arms, and shoulders. These symptoms are associated with a smoker's lungs.
Quitting smoking reduces the risk of developing these severe health conditions, including lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, respiratory infections, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It also improves lung function and helps with better breathing.

2. Increased Life Expectancy

True, no one knows when death will come knocking, but studies have consistently shown that quitting smoking at any age increases life expectancy.
Stopping smoking significantly reduces the risk of premature death associated with smoking-related diseases.

3. Enhanced Cardiovascular Health

The impact of smoking includes damaged blood vessels, increased blood pressure, and the risk of blood clots.
When you quit smoking, your cardiovascular health improves, decreasing the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular diseases.

4. Improved Respiratory Health

Smoking damages the lungs and leads to various respiratory problems, such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
Quitting smoking helps to reduce coughing, shortness of breath, and the risk of respiratory infections.

5. Better Physical Fitness

Smoking affects physical performance and endurance by reducing lung capacity and muscle oxygen supply.
When you quit smoking, you experience improved stamina, energy levels, and the ability to engage in physical activities without feeling breathless.

6. Enhanced Sense of Taste and Smell

You may notice a bland taste in your food and experience a decline in your sense of smell. Among other health conditions, smoking is a causative agent.
Smoking dulls the senses of taste and smell. However, these senses gradually improve when you trash smoking.
You, my friend, would be led back to a richer experience of flavors and aromas.

7. Improved Appearance

You may have seen photos of individuals before and after they quit smoking. If not, try looking it up.
Smoking contributes to premature aging, wrinkles, yellowing of teeth, and skin damage.
Quitting smoking helps restore a healthier complexion, brighter teeth, and a more youthful appearance.

8. Financial Savings

Hey, smoking is an expensive habit to maintain. You'd end up having several quick fixes that'll consume your paycheck.
By quitting, you can save a significant amount of money that would otherwise be spent on cigarette consumption, allowing you to allocate those funds toward other priorities or enjoyable activities.

9. A Better Quality of Life

Freedom, yes. Quitting smoking can bring about a sense of freedom, control, and empowerment.
You'll no longer allow cigarettes to control your existence. Once you kick that stick to the curb, you'd most likely experience improved mental and emotional well-being.

10. Protecting Others

Smoking harms the individual who smokes and poses health risks to those around them through second-hand smoke.
Asthmatic patients and others may be seriously harmed. It may sound far-fetched, but smoking or the light from a cigarette can actually start a fire.
When you decide to quit, you'll surely contribute to a healthier environment for your loved ones and reduce their exposure to harmful toxins. Think about it.
Remember, quitting smoking can be challenging, but numerous resources and support systems can help you succeed.
Getting professional help, joining smoking cessation programs, or using nicotine replacement therapies can boost your chances of quitting.
Now let's look at one of the support systems. Below and some of the best quit-smoking apps for iPhone and iPad.

6 Best Quit-Smoking Apps for iPhone and iPad

Several smoking cessation applications for iPhone and iPad can assist you in developing excellent and steady quitting methods.
Here are some of the top-rated and popular quit-smoking apps you can consider and how they work:

1. Smoke-Free - Quit Smoking Now

Being one of the best quit-smoking apps for iPhone and iPad, Smoke-free app offers comprehensive features and tools to help you quit smoking and stay smoke-free.
Here are some key features of the Smoke-Free app:

a. Personalized Quit Plan

The app provides a personalized plan based on your smoking habits and goals. It guides you through the quitting process with tailored missions and milestones.

b. Progress Tracker

Smoke-Free tracks your progress over time and displays statistics such as the number of smoke-free days, cigarettes not smoked, and money saved.
This can serve as a visual representation of your accomplishments and motivates you to continue.

c. Health Improvements

The app showcases the positive health changes that occur after quitting smoking.
It provides information on how your body recovers over time, such as improved lung function, reduced risk of diseases, and enhanced sense of taste and smell.

d. Cravings Management

Smoke-Free helps you manage cravings by providing strategies and distraction techniques. It offers interactive games and exercises to redirect your focus when desires arise.

e. Financial Savings

The app calculates the amount of money saved since quitting smoking.
It presents this information in various formats, such as daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly savings, motivating you with the financial benefits of quitting.

f. Achievements and Badges

Smoke-Free rewards you with achievements and badges as you progress on your smoke-free journey.
These milestones provide a sense of accomplishment and further motivation.

g. Community Support

The app includes a supportive community forum where you can connect with other people who are quitting smoking or have successfully stopped. It allows you to share experiences, receive encouragement, and support others.

2. QuitNow! Quit Smoking

QuitNow! Quit Smoking is another popular support system and one of the best quit-smoking apps for iPhone and iPad.
It offers a range of features and tools to help you quit smoking and maintain a smoke-free lifestyle. Here are some key features of the QuitNow! App:

a. Tracking and Statistics

QuitNow! tracks your progress by displaying the number of smoke-free days, cigarettes not smoked, and the time since your last cigarette.
It provides real-time updates on your progress and helps you visualize the positive changes happening as you quit smoking.

b. Health Milestones

The app provides information on the health benefits you can experience while staying smoke-free.
It shows improvements in lung function, cardiovascular health, and overall well-being.

c. Craving Management

QuitNow! offers a craving tracker that helps you identify patterns and triggers for cravings.
It provides tools and techniques to manage and overcome cravings effectively.

d. Financial Savings

The app calculates and displays the money saved since quitting smoking.
It shows your savings daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, giving you a clear picture of the financial benefits of quitting.

e. Achievements and Badges

QuitNow! rewards you with achievements and badges as you reach certain milestones to quit smoking.
These badges provide a sense of accomplishment and can serve as a source of motivation.

f. Community Support

The app features a community of users who are also quitting smoking or have successfully quit.
You can connect with others, share your experiences, receive support, and provide encouragement to fellow app users.

g. Health Information and Tips

QuitNow! provides educational resources, health information, and tips to help you stay motivated and informed about the benefits of quitting smoking.
It offers insights into the positive changes happening in your body as you become smoke-free.

3. MyQuit Coach

MyQuit Coach is an application developed by Livestrong to help individuals quit smoking. It provides personalized support and guidance throughout your quitting journey.
Here are some key features of the MyQuit Coach app:

a. Personalized Quit Plan

MyQuit Coach creates a customized quitting plan based on your smoking habits, motivations, and goals.
It considers the number of daily cigarette consumption, smoking triggers, and previous quit attempts.

b. Tracker and Progress Monitoring

The app allows you to track your progress and monitor your smoke-free days, non-smoked cigarettes, and money saved since quitting.
This tracking feature helps you stay motivated and visualize the positive changes occurring as you move forward.

c. Craving Management

MyQuit Coach provides strategies and techniques to manage cravings and overcome nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
It offers tips and guidance to navigate challenging situations and cope with triggers effectively.

d. Achievement Badges

The app offers achievement badges to celebrate milestones and progress.
These badges serve as a visual representation of your accomplishments and provide a sense of achievement and motivation.

e. Community Support

MyQuit Coach includes a supportive community forum where you can connect with other individuals who are also quitting smoking or have successfully stopped.
This allows you to share experiences, receive encouragement, and gain support from others going through a similar journey.

f. Educational Resources

The app provides educational resources and information about the benefits of quitting smoking.
It offers insights into the positive changes happening in your body and the health improvements you can expect.

g. Motivational Reminders

MyQuit Coach sends personalized reminders and messages to keep you motivated and on track with your quit plan.
These reminders can help you stay focused and committed to quitting smoking.

4. Kwit - Quit smoking

Kwit is a quit-smoking app that takes a gamified approach to help individuals quit smoking.
This has made it stand out even as one of the best quit-smoking apps for iPhone and iPad.
It offers a unique and interactive experience to make quitting more engaging and enjoyable.
Here are some key features of the Kwit - Quit Smoking app:

a. Gamified Experience

Kwit uses gamification techniques to make quitting smoking more fun and motivating.
It offers achievements, missions, and challenges you can complete as you progress on your smoke-free journey.
The app provides a sense of accomplishment and rewards your achievements, making the process feel like a game.

b. Craving Tracker

The app includes a craving tracker to identify and monitor your cravings. It provides tools and activities to distract yourself and overcome cravings effectively.
The interactive nature of the app helps you shift your focus away from smoking.

c. Health Benefits Tracking

Kwit highlights the health improvements you can experience as you quit smoking.
It displays information about your progress and showcases the positive changes in your body, such as improved lung function, reduced risk of diseases, and enhanced overall well-being.

d. Financial Savings

The app calculates and displays the amount of money saved since quitting smoking.
It shows your savings daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, giving you a tangible representation of the financial benefits of quitting.

e. Inspirational Content

Kwit provides motivational quotes, facts, and messages to keep you inspired and focused on your goal to quit smoking. It offers positive reinforcement and encouragement throughout your journey.

f. Community Support

The app includes a community feature that creates a medium for the communication of users.
You can share your progress and experiences and support others in quitting. It makes a supportive environment and a sense of camaraderie.

g. Progress Tracking

Kwit tracks your progress and displays statistics such as the number of smoke-free days, the pack of cigarettes not smoked, and the time since your last cigarette.
It provides a visual representation of your achievements and motivates you to continue staying smoke-free.

5. Quit Tracker

The Quit Tracker app is a simple, user-friendly application designed to help individuals quit smoking.
It focuses on tracking your progress and providing motivation along your quit-smoking journey. Here are some key features of the Quit Tracker app:

a. Tracking Smoke-Free Days

Quit Tracker allows you to track the number of smoke-free days since your quit date.
It clearly and visually represents your progress, highlighting the time you have successfully refrained from smoking.

b. Cigarettes Not Smoked

The app calculates and displays the number of cigarettes you have not smoked since quitting.
This feature helps you visualize the positive impact of your decision to quit and provides a sense of accomplishment.

c. Financial Savings

Quit Tracker helps you estimate the amount of money saved since quitting smoking.
It calculates the money you would have spent on a pack of cigarettes and shows your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly savings.
This can serve as a powerful motivator and highlight the financial benefits of quitting.

d. Goal Setting

The app allows you to set goals related to your quit-smoking journey. Whether aiming for a specific number of smoke-free days or milestones, setting goals can help you stay focused and motivated.

e. Reminders

Quit Tracker lets you set reminders and notifications to help you stay on track with your quit-smoking goals.
These reminders can prompt you to resist cravings or provide encouragement during challenging moments.

f. Widget Support

The app offers widget support, allowing you to view your progress directly from your device's home screen.
This provides quick access to your smoke-free days, cigarettes not smoked, and other statistics without opening the app.

g. Customization

Quit Tracker provides customization options, allowing you to personalize the app according to your preferences.
You can choose different themes and adjust settings to tailor the app to your liking.

6. Smoke-Free - Quit Smoking App

This app is a highly regarded and comprehensive application designed to assist individuals in quitting smoking.
It offers a range of features and resources to support, motivate and maintain steady communication with users throughout their smoke-free journey.
Here are some key features of the Smoke-Free app:

a. Personalized Quit Plan

The app helps you create a personalized quit plan based on your smoking habits, motivations, and goals.
It provides guidance tailored to your needs and offers strategies to overcome challenges.

b. Progress Tracking

Smoke-Free allows you to track your progress as you become smoke-free.
It records and displays the number of smoke-free days, cigarettes not smoked, and the time since your last cigarette.
This tracking feature visually represents your achievements and motivates you to stay on track.

c. Health Improvements

The app provides information on the health benefits of quitting smoking.
It highlights the positive changes in your body as you stay smoke-free, such as improved lung function, reduced risk of diseases, and increased energy levels.

d. Financial Savings

Smoke-Free calculates the amount of money saved since you quit smoking.
It tracks your savings daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, giving you a tangible representation of the financial benefits of quitting.

e. Craving Management

The app offers tools and techniques to help manage cravings and nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
It provides distractions, activities, and tips for navigating through challenging moments and staying committed to your quit-smoking goals.

f. Achievement Badges and Virtual Rewards

Smoke-Free rewards your progress with achievement badges as you reach milestones and accomplish goals.
These badges provide a sense of accomplishment and serve as a source of motivation.

g. Community Support

The app includes a community forum to connect with a supportive community of individuals who are also quitting smoking or have successfully stopped.
This allows you to share experiences, seek advice, and receive encouragement.

h. Daily Missions and Tips

Smoke-Free provides daily missions and tips to keep you engaged and motivated.
These missions and tips offer guidance, inspiration, and strategies to overcome challenges throughout your quit-smoking journey.

Conclusion

Remember, these quit-smoking apps are meant to provide support and motivation, but ultimately, quitting smoking requires personal commitment and determination.
Terrie Hall left a message before her death. She said, “Don’t smoke, and if you do smoke, quit. Keep trying until you succeed.”
There you have it, folks, the 6 best quit-smoking apps for iPhone and iPad.

By Michael O'Meara
Original Article
Guillaume Faye Le coup d’Etat mondial: Essai sur le Nouvel Impérialisme Américain (Global Coup d’Etat: An Essay on the New American Imperialism) Paris: L’Æncre, 2004
Fas est ab hoste doceri. (It is permitted to learn from the enemy.) — Ovid
This past spring, for the sixth time in six years, Guillaume Faye has published a book that redefines the political contours of European nationalism (“nationalism” here referring not to the defense of the nineteenth-century “nation-state,” but of Magna Europa). Like each of his previous works, Coup d’Etat mondial speaks to the exigencies of the moment, as well as to the perennial concerns of the European ethnos. In this spirit, it offers a scathing critique of the “new American imperialism” and the European anti-Americanism opposing it, while simultaneously contributing to a larger nationalist debate over Europe’s destiny. Framed in terms of Carl Schmitt’s Freund/Feind designation, this debate revolves around the question: Who is Europe’s enemy? For Schmitt, this question is tantamount to asking who threatens Europe’s state system and, by implication, who threatens its unique bioculture.
During the Cold War, the more advanced nationalists rejected the conventional view that Soviet Communism was the principal enemy and instead designated the United States. This is evident in the works of Francis Parker Yockey, Jean Thiriart, Adriano Romualdi, Otto Strasser, Alain de Benoist, and in the politics of the sole European statesman to have defended Europe’s independence in the postwar period: Charles de Gaulle.
It was not, however, America’s occupation of postwar Europe that alone aligned these nationalists against the U.S.—though this was perhaps cause enough. Rather, it was the liberal democratic basis of America’s postwar order, whose deculturating materialism was seen as corrupting the biocultural foundations of European life. The Soviets’ brutal occupation of Eastern Europe may therefore have broken the bodies of those opposing them, but America, for nationalists, threatened their souls.
Today, this anti-American opposition persists, but has come to signify something quite different. What has changed, and this starts to be evident in the late 1980s and even more so in the ’90s, is Third World immigration, which puts the American threat in an entirely altered perspective. In nationalist ranks, Faye stands out as the principal proponent of the view that Islam and its nonwhite immigrants now constitute Europe’s enemy and that America, though still an adversary, has become a less threatening menace.
For Faye, the New American Imperialism (NAI) associated with the Bush administration supplants the earlier, more implicit imperialism of the Cold War era. This imperialism, though, is not specifically Bush’s creation, for it arose in the Cold War’s wake and took form in subsequent aggressions on Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and now Iraq.
The older imperialism had a Wilsonian facade, legitimated with moral pronouncements and a naive, but occasionally sincere, effort to regulate the world according to its liberal principles. By contrast, the NAI rejects this “softer” (and actually more effective) variant of American power for a policy that aggressively asserts U.S. military might irrespective of “world opinion.” It ceases thus to pursue its interests through international organizations embodying its liberal world view and instead embraces a militaristic unilateralism that defies international convention in the name of America’s “vital interests.”
Against the arguments of its apologists, Faye claims the NAI is not the hard-headed, morally clear assertion of American power that they make it out to be, but rather a puerile, utopian, and unrealistic one based on the notion that tout est permis!— anything goes. The United States may be the world’s dominant power, but it lacks what Aristotle and the conservative tradition of statecraft understood as the enduring basis of power: prudence. For in confusing dominance with omnipotence, the NAI’s neoconservative executors, like all who draw the wages of hubris, inadvertently earn themselves—and America—the likelihood of a tragic fall.
In this vein, U.S. vital interests (what the present administration defines in Zionist, militarist, and globalist terms) are treated as the sole permissible basis of national sovereignty. A state—”rogue” or otherwise—that exercises its autonomy, fabricates weapons of mass destruction (i.e., weapons capable of ensuring its sovereignty), or resists Washington’s dictates is deemed an enemy and risks reprisal. Implicit in this redefinition of America’s world role is the assumption that the United States is the world’s gendarme, its lone sovereign power, obliged to uphold a law which is synonymous with its own strategic interests.
Moreover, the NAI’s assumption that the United States has the capacity to dominate the planet is, if nothing else, simpleminded. Its proponents might think they are breaking with the legalistic or Kantian postulates of liberal internationalism by pursuing hegemonist objectives with military methods (which, in itself, would be unobjectionable), but this readiness to substitute raw power for other forms of power (that is, for power exercised in the “thieves’ den” of the United Nations or through international regulatory agencies the United States created after 1945) is informed by the Judeo-Protestant illusion that America does God’s work in the world. This cannot but disconnect them from all they seek to dominate, for in applying their illusory principles to an intractable reality, they cannot but lurch from disaster to disaster.
The NAI’s peculiar mix of political Machiavellianism and millennial Calvinism has been especially prominent in Iraq, the conquest of which was to be a cakewalk. Not only did Bush and his advisers have no idea of what they were getting into, they completely misread the capacities of American power. If the U.S. Air Force possesses unparalleled firepower, the modern American soldier cannot fight on the ground. With half its army occupying a country with no military capacity and its helicopter gunships, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and body-armored ground troops arrayed against lightly-armed and untrained insurgents, it is stretched to the breaking-point.
Despite its imperialist ambitions, America is not Rome. Faye argues that it is more like a house of cards—an ephemeral economic-political enterprise—lacking those ethnic, religious, and cultural traits that go into making a great people and a great power.
As any white Californian will attest, there is, in fact, no longer anything particularly American about America, only people like the turbaned Sikh who drives the local cab, the Mexican illegal who mows our neighbors’ lawn, the Indian programmer who replaces his higher-paid white counterpart, the Chinese grocer who sells us beer and cigarettes late at night, the African who empties the bedpans in our nursing homes, the Africans of American birth who run our cities and public agencies, and the white zombies insulated in distant, manicured suburbs, where the voices of children are rarely heard. For Faye, this disparate hodgepodge is not a nation in any historical sense, only an artificial social system, whose members, as Lewis Lapham has written, are “united by little else except the possession of a credit card and password to the internet.” Why, it seems almost unnecessary to ask, would an American Gurkha risk his life for such an entity?
The military technology of Imperial America undoubtedly lacks an equal, but its centrality to U.S. power, Faye claims, testifies to nothing so much as the enfeebled cognitive abilities of its elites, who think their computerized gadgetry is a substitute for those primordial human qualities that go into making a people or a nation—qualities such as those that steeled not just Rome’s republican legions, but the Celtic-Saxon ranks of the Confederacy, the gunmen of the IRA, the indomitable battalions of the Wehrmacht, and the Red Army of the Great Patriotic War. In the absence of these qualities forged by blood and history, the NAI’s space-age military (whose recruiters now slip beneath the border to find the “volunteers” for its imperial missions) is a paper tiger, no match for a nation in arms—not even a pathetic, misbegotten nation like Iraq.
The hubris-ridden neoconservatives leading America into this costly adventure from which it is unlikely to recover did so without the slightest consideration of the toll it would take on the country’s already stressed and overtaxed institutions. Fighting for objectives that are everywhere challenged and with troops that are not only afraid to die, but have no idea of what they are dying for, the only thing they have actually accomplished is what they set out to combat: For they have inflamed the Middle East, enhanced Islam’s prestige, augmented bin Laden’s ranks, accelerated the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and turned the whole world against them.
Finally, Faye depicts the NAI as America’s last bloom. Both domestically and internationally, the signs of American decline, he observes, are more and more evident. For all that once distinguished America is now tarnished. Its melting pot no longer assimilates, its mixed-race population is inextricably Balkanized, its state is increasingly maniacal in its anti-white, anti-family, anti-community policies, and its market, the one remaining basis of social integration, is in serious difficulty, burdened by massive trade imbalances, unable to generate industrial jobs, hampered by astronomical debts and deficits, and increasingly dependent on the rest of the world. Even the country’s fabled democracy has ceased to work, with elections decided by the courts, fraudulent polling practices, and a pervasive system of spin and simulacrum. The virtuality of the political process seems, actually, to reflect nothing so much as the increasingly illusory authority of its reigning elites, whose oligarchic disposition and incompetent management necessitates a system of smoke and mirrors.
Internationally, America faces a no less bleak situation. Faye points out that the almighty dollar, for sixty years the world’s reserve currency, is now threatened by the euro (which means the country will soon no longer be able to live on credit); the European Union and Asia’s rising economic colossus are undermining its primacy in world markets; it faces the wrath of a billion Muslims worldwide and does nothing to stem the Muslim immigration to the United States; its occupation of Iraq is causing it to hemorrhage monetarily, morally, and militarily; and, not least, its image and integrity have been so damaged that raw power alone sustains its fragile hegemony.
Unlike the implicit imperialism of the Cold War era, the NAI is openly anti-European. In this vein, it opposes the continent’s political unification; treats its allies, even its British poodle, with contempt; practices a divide and conquer tactic which pits the so-called New Europe against the Old; and pursues a strategic orientation aimed at containing Europe and keeping it dependent on the U.S. security system.
In parallel with this anti-Europeanism, there has developed in Europe what Faye calls an “obsessional and hysterical anti-Americanism” (OHAA). He sees this development as so destructive of Europe’s self-interest that he factitiously suggests that it is probably subsidized by the CIA. For this anti-Americanism bears little relation to earlier forms of French anti-Americanism, which sought to defend France’s High Culture from the subversions of America’s culture industry. Nor are its right-wing proponents firmly in the pale of the “new revolutionary nationalism,” which designates liberalism’s cosmopolitan plutocracy as the chief enemy and resists its denationalization of capital, population, and territory. Instead, this OHAA not only does nothing to advance the European project, its fixation on the NAI inadvertently contributes to the Islamization and Third Worldization of the continent, hastening, in effect, its demise as a civilizational entity.
Touching the government and numerous nationalist tendencies, in addition to the perennially anti-identitarian Left, this OHAA is informed by a simpleminded Manichaeanism, which assumes that America’s enemy (Islam) is Europe’s friend. By this logic, America is depicted as a source of evil and Islam as a possible savior. In effect, these anti-Americans adopt not just Islam’s Manichaean world view, but that of the Judeo-Protestants who make up Bush’s political base. For like the neoconservative publicists and propagandists advising the administration and like the mullahs shepherding their submissive, but fanatical flocks, they too paint the world in black and white terms, the axis of good versus the axis of evil, with the enemy (America or Islam) seen as the source of all evil and our side (America or Islam) as the seat of all virtue.
And just as the liberal/neocon image of America is Hebraic, not Greco-European, these European anti-Americans carry in their demonstrations the flags of Iraq, Palestine, Algeria, and Morocco, shout Allah Akbar, and affirm their solidarity with Islam—all without the slightest affirmation of their own people and culture. This simple-minded Manichaeanism influences not only left-wing immigrationists bent on subverting Europe’s bioculture, but French New Rightists around Alain de Benoist, revolutionary nationalists around Christian Bouchet, traditionalists around the Austrian Martin Schwartz and the Italian Claudio Mutti, and various Eurasianists, as well as many lesser known tendencies. Worse, the politicians catering to this anti-Americanism oppose the NAI less for the sake of Europe’s autonomy than for that of its large Muslim minority. They thus refuse to be an American protectorate, but at the same time display the greatest indifference to the fact that they are rapidly becoming an Islamic-Arabic colony: Eurabia.
The economic and cultural war the United States wages on Europe, Faye stresses, ought to warrant the firmest of European ripostes, but to feel the slightest solidarity with Islam, even when “unjustly” attacked, is simply masochistic—for, if the last 1400 years is any guide, it seeks nothing so much as to conquer and destroy Europe. American plutocratic liberalism may be responsible for fostering transnational labor markets that import millions of Third World immigrants into the white Lebensraum, but if the latter are ignored for the sake of resisting the former, the end result may soon be that there will no Europeans left to defend. (Medically, this would be equivalent to fighting typhoid by ignoring the infectious bacillus assaulting the sufferer and instead concentrating exclusively on eliminating the contaminated food and water that transmit it —in which case the disease would be eradicated, but the patient not live to appreciate it).
The OHAA’s simpleminded politics, Faye argues, ends up not just misconceiving Europe’s enemy, but sanctioning its colonization, including the colonization of its mind. Like the “poor African” who is routinely portrayed as the victim of white colonialism, this sort of anti-Americanism makes the European the victim of U.S. imperialism. As we know from experiences on our side of the Atlantic, such a mentality takes responsibility for nothing and attributes everything it finds objectionable to the white man, in this case the American.
More pathetically still, in designating the United States as an irreconcilable enemy and Islam as a friend, these anti-Americans inadvertently dance to Washington’s own tune. Based on his La colonisation de l’Europe: Discours vrai sur l’immigration et l’Islam (2000) and in reference to Alexander del Valle’s Islamisme et Etats-Unis: Une alliance contre l’Europe (1999), Faye contends that since the early 1980s U.S. policy has aggressively promoted Europe’s Third Worldization—through its ideology of human rights, multiculturalism, and multiracialism, through its unrelenting effort to force the European Union to admit Turkey, but above all through its intervention on behalf of Islam in the Yugoslavian civil war. In all these ways fostering social, religious, cultural, and ethnic divisions that neutralize Europe’s potential threat to its own hegemony, it seeks to subvert European unity.
Looking to the Arab world to counter U.S. imperialism can only lead to national suicide. Those who advocate Europe’s alliance with the Third World are thus for Faye not simply naive, but neurotic. America may be a competitor, an adversary, a culturally distorting force, it may even be the principal international force for liberal cosmopolitanism, but in relation to the ethnocidal threat posed by Islam it is almost entirely innocuous. Europeans can always recover from the deculturation that comes from American domination, but not from the destruction of their genetic heritage, which Islam promises. Faye suggests that this anti-American neurosis, like the classic textbook pathology, designates America as its enemy for fear of acknowledging the danger looming under its very nose. As such, the anti-American Islamophiles refuse to see what’s happening in Europe, whose soft, dispirited white population is increasingly cowed by Islam’s conquering life-force. For however much American policy assaults Europe, it does not constitute the life-and-death danger which the invading Islamic colonizers do. To think otherwise is possible only by ignoring the primacy of race and culture. Instead, then, of pursuing chimerical relations with people whose underlying motive is the destruction of Europe as we know it, it would be wiser, Faye claims, for Europeans to view what’s happening in Iraq as the Chinese and Indians do: with cynical detachment and an eye to their own self-interest.
The greatest danger to Europe, and this idea is the axis around which Faye’s argument revolves, comes from the Islamic lands to the “South,” whose nonwhite immigrants are presently colonizing the continent, assuming control of its biosphere, and altering the foundations of European life. For European nationalists and governments to treat America, with its shallow, provisional power, as the enemy and Islam, with its nonwhite multitudes pressing on Europe’s borders, as its friend is the height of folly.
Not coincidentally, such an anti-Americanism is first cousin to the anti-white sensibility one finds in American liberal and neoconservative ranks. For just as those who try to convince us that America is a “creed,” not a white nation, these anti-Americans allying with Islam to fight the ricains betray their patrie—treating it as an abstraction and not a people. If Americans would be better off using their troops to defend their porous border instead of playing cowboy in Mesopotamia, as we white nationalists believe, Europeans loyal to their heritage would do better, Faye advises, to resist rather than to make common cause with those who are presently invading their lands.
To Faye, there can never be a total rupture between Europe and white America, given the blood bonds linking them. They might pursue divergent interests, over which dispute is inevitable, but the racial and cultural differences separating Europe from the Islamic world are insurmountable. In this spirit, he predicts that “the great clashes of the 21st century will not pit the United States against the rest of the world, but rather the Whitemen of the North against all the other racial-civilizational blocs.”
The culturally noxious effects of the liberal-democratic order of money imposed on Europe after 1945 caused European nationalists to define themselves in opposition not just to American-style liberalism, but to America as a nation. For those nationalists who continue to uphold this line, Third World immigration (which they do not favor) is viewed as an offshoot of a techno-economic system that dismisses biocultural qualities for the quantifying ones of the liberal market.
Only in fighting this system, and its chief sponsor, the United States, will Europe, they believe, be able to defend its heritage and its destiny. The Third World immigrants experiencing the deracination that comes with transnational labor markets cannot, then, be Europe’s enemy, for they too are its victim. Besides, their traditionalist, premodern culture makes them prospective allies in what is seen as a common struggle against America’s “cultureless civilization.”
But even in granting that there is a certain logic—even a certain justice—to this position, it rests upon two false premises, which Guillaume Faye has been almost alone in Europe in polemicizing: 1) that culture trumps race and 2) that race is unrelated, if not irrelevant, to culture.
His Coup d’Etat mondial offers, then, a powerful antidote to this false and potentially fatal reasoning. It demystifies the new American imperialism, revealing its tenuous character. It exposes the self-destructive character of an opposition refusing to recognize Europe’s real enemy. And, most important, in designating this enemy—the nonwhite colonizers who hope to turn Europe into a dar-al-Islam—it designates what is the single, most unavoidable, and absolutely necessary duty of white people everywhere: the defense of their homelands.
Source: TOQ, vol. 5, no. 3 (Summer 2005)

As Napalm
It felt frustrating in Chongqing. I was rather stuck in Hechuan. I got accustomed to lajiao (spice) there. I was a Midwesterner at the age of 22. I was raised in Illinois. I became a manic—a Ferris wheel on fire—I was hiding under a bed in a hotel. Bold like napalm. Sometimes I can never stop. Even when I was 18 in a ward arguing with staff. Always want to fight things. That’s why I refused the meds and went on a plane from America to China. I was going to be an English teacher. And like a light switch, the change and SSRIs turned me into a mess. It would be my first time experiencing psychosis. My biggest issue. I never imagined I would be stuck illegally in a country suffering a psychotic episode in my early twenties.
Transplanted as pollen. I was left with a backpack and a cellphone. With a downloaded app called WeChat. I had arrogantly quit a university job in a fit. Spent the past months full of energy and not sleeping and neglecting myself, including not eating, to work on a novel. Not considering myself normally religious, I had obsessed over occult ideas during that time. Spending nights reading Aleister Crowley—haven taken a rusty pocket knife to carve a pentagram on my chest for spiritual protection.
I did not have funds to fly home. My visa was connected to my previous job, which meant I had now made it void. I was an illegal resident now in China.
I used a nifty app called WeChat as a messaging app, it allows users to find people near them that are also looking for others. It was like a virtual pond. All kinds of people, including sex workers trying to make things happen.
It could with luck be used to find people looking for people in terms of other kinds of work. It was helpful on many occasions for finding gigs working at English training schools and also finding work as a private tutor for people.
WeChat also works as a digital wallet.
Mania makes me irritable. Enough to tell a boss to fuck off. Thoughts ricochet within me. Bumper cars collide.
Being stuck and angry sucks. I scrolled and scrolled on a Huawei phone.
Absolutely pissed off at this world.
Pissed at the times police wanted to take me away for being a mess.
Sometimes women get pissed. Scrolling through their phones. Angry at their cheating husbands. It really is not that hard to have flair—be a damn white oddity. Like moths to a porchlight. Particles of sand through hands. This is when I first started the habit of it…
I rather go by a rather empty name of Taishen… with further explanation needed but now is not convenient. But I assure it is interesting enough and has some importance.
Habits are various in nature in how they attach to and eat at marrow—like atom bombs flashing as rays evaporating DNA—sets in a way less than human as putting myself in the cage of bad things taken up—my time as a former heroin addict is left as stretch marks on me in various ways. The same goes for the first time I found myself making arrangements with middle aged married women while desperation of waves whiplashed me like sandpaper hands coming at me to leave me in a tiring state of abrasion.
I had spent a night snuck away into a hotel. Found someone on a business trip. Instead of registering I waited to sneak along into the hotel elevator amongst a group of others attending the hotel, as I had no card. I headed to a designated room number. Originally I was sitting in a park. Playing on WeChat and found someone in their mid-thirties. Pictures were exchanged and I said no. She brought up paying for the hotel if I arrived. I agreed and went along.
When I met I washed up after her and we used our phones to awkwardly translate what we would do.
Room service knocked. I found myself hidden under a bed as I was not registered to be there.
It seems unusual that it was around this time I had started working on a story of my life as a heroin addict when I got caught up in my worse manic episode ever experienced during my age of 22. Finished half that story before never going back to it after my manic episode had ended. Now I am here writing about it and wondering if the same can happen again in the process of this work.
It feels extremely cliché I would write a novel about struggles with heroin addiction. It has been done many times. It’s just lame of me.
I feel like my thoughts are bit off. I left the hotel the next morning with the little money I did have on a debit card. Turns out the woman was from Taiyuan. It is a city in the northern part of China in the province of Shanxi—coal country with the worst air pollution in China. She has a colleague in Taiyuan that takes courses at an English training center. I was able to contact this place in the morning via a shared contact on WeChat given to me by the stranger I met that night.
Before I knew it I was sending my information and documents in my backpack at an internet café in a fax—with the intent that the woman agreed to share my information to the training center as she shared my contact to its hiring manager. It would land me a job that day that would help me out of my situation. Things turned not quite out as I expected though. I was shifted like a ball to somebody else to contact for a training center geared to teaching children.
I took what I had and ran off to a train station after taking the public transit. Unfortunately I was shit for money and could not afford a high speed rail pass. The slow train would take thirty-two hours to get to my destination. I would have taken a room with a bed but all I could afford was a hard seat for the travel.
Things were getting better for me in the circumstance considering I had found someone willing to take me for work despite my visa situation.
The thirty-two hour train ride was horrendous in some ways, but mostly I was in excitement despite the circumstances. I’m always giddy when disappointed. I moved up and down the aisle of the train. I could not speak mandarin, but it did not stop me from trying to interact with everyone. I talked many ears off during the train ride. I went up and down the aisle trying to interact as a moth to porchlights—I could not stop even if I had wanted to. I found great enjoyment the times I did get to sit across a table from somebody my age heading to Taiyuan from Chongqing. They were a university student returning to their hometown. Another passenger who sat beside me was an elderly man with hard boiled eggs, he was eating one after another one. I highly enjoyed each and every conversation that I had. It was like my head was a lightbulb wanting June bugs to bang against it with the intensity of Roman candles shot at my mouth of nicotine tinged teeth.
“If you find someone in Shanxi it is practice to pay the family money before you can get married. You would also have to already own a home and a car,” told my new friend across in their seat from me—a university passenger friend named David.
“Not necessarily what I was looking for. When is the next stop for snacks?” When the train stops I am able to get out and to have a walk onto the platform to buy various goods from the vendors to take back with me to eat along the ride to Taiyuan.
I had all my important documents tucked in my bag. This included my health clearance and obviously I made no mention of my mental health diagnosis or history to the doctor who had to evaluate me. My diploma and TEFL certificate were tucked away securely. A TEFL is a certificate that stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, it qualifies me to teach English as a second language abroad—it had only took a few months of taking a course online that I had paid for to obtain.
It is easy to be happy when you can trick yourself as your own con artist. Mania can make you deceive yourself. One can be doused in napalm and still not fully recognize what is actually going on. Same goes the flicking of psychosis. Even when I have nothing I find myself in my radiating irritation the most qualified of things—the velocity of my rhythm sets me out of an orbit.
The pressure cooker keeps me moving like a propeller at times. I finally arrived at Taiyuan. I arrived at the station to be greeted by Ryan my manager and his assistant Jennifer. We had our hello and introduction and they helped me get to a taxi that would bring me to my new apartment. I finally had a residence again. Apparently they were desperate for a teacher. The last teacher was from New Mexico and apparently they pulled a midnight run—that is when a teacher in the middle of the night disappears onto a plane back home without any notification of it.
The apartment was okay. On the fourth floor with no elevator, so it was a bit of a climb up a dark stairwell not lit correctly.
My job was a training center that had a location near Yingze Park in the center of the city. I was to be paid in cash via envelopes. I would assist in teaching kindergarten all the way up to high school aged students there in private lessons paid by their parents. I would also be assigned by my company to various primary schools in the city. I would take public buses to various schools paid by the company I worked for to give English lessons as I bounced around to various classrooms and schools in the city. Often I would receive a phone call to avoid going to work that day if my boss got inside input that officials would be doing raids to check foreigners’ visas that day.
A taxi ride would always be a thrill. Caused me nerves at first, but I came to love the flying in dangerous ways along a busy road. I remember a driver beeping their horn away as they drove onto the sidewalk to pass people. They treated the pedestrians as if they were in the wrong. I came flying in front of a primary school at its front gates. I was going to start teaching a first grade classroom and a kindergarten classroom. The way schools are set up is with a wall around the entirety of the exterior of the school. There is a gate at the front where one or two security will be waiting to let people in and out of the complex of the school.
I walked in front of the gate to greet the security. It was my first time with an assignment at this school. The guard said they had never seen me before and wouldn’t let me in. Not a big nuisance while I called my boss who then called the school to sort out the situation.
I miss the classroom so much. I ended up teaching in China for five years at various training schools. After returning to Illinois, I still taught as a primary school teacher in a public school.
I often feel extremely ugly from inside to my outside, but something is attractive there. This does not come just in terms of flirting and relationships—mania makes me a genuine lightbulb that flickers in a way that encourages the insects to me—everyone looks like a June bug—this is what I have come to understand about life. But that ugly does kind of stay like rot in a cavity that leaves a bad taste in the mouth that smells foul—hoping nobody catches the smell near me—it must tie into my struggles with bulimia over the years.
The same goes for my years as a teacher—in relation to the whole lightbulb phenomenon—I’m positive it is tied to mania and hypomania. The younger students always were fixated on the information I was teaching to them. I kept over the years methods taught to me and self-taught that I found extremely effective with younger students when it comes to teaching.
Everything was physical in learning in terms of intensity and ambition. When teaching my first grade classroom I would create flashcards for the vocab we would work on and implement in creating new sentences with. We would chant these words together in a way that made me a clown while teaching. Students would yell out the word that I presented with intense enthusiasm. As I walked by students it was expected that while they yelled out the word they would also physically hit the card. Later I would also work on physical gestures and acting out of vocab words and they would follow the actions and phrases with me.
I would often eventually turn the class into two teams. When students got an answer right I would behave comically and full of energy—I would give them a high five and pretend they were so strong with it that it hurt my hand in the process with much exaggeration—the students always seemed to never get tired of this act.
One game I would play involved drawing two stick figures with happy faces on them. Each figure would represent one of the teams for the classroom. I would draw a hungry alligator under the figures. Their faces would also be comical in appearance and full of exaggerations. Each figure had a parachute placed over them and four strings attached. During the game the students would race to say the word correctly represented on the flashcard or the correct word for the gesture I was making. The team that was not the slowest would lose a string on the parachute. If a team lost all four strings they would fall to the alligator who would eat them. The students found it hilarious with my actions involved in it. I would also draw tears and a person praying to represent anticipation and worry of falling down each time they lost a string.
I had a tooth game too. I would draw too large faces for each team. The team that could answer the flashcards and gestures the quickest would have a tooth drawn in their mouth. The team with the most teeth would win and it would look rather funny as the mouth grew and grew with an abnormal and extreme amount of teeth.
I often did other physical and interactive games like having students run to the word I showed a card to or gestured—each word would be attached to a point in the classroom on a wall.
I know it sounds grandiose, but the parents always seemed to think I was great at my job.
The word vulnerable means so many things to me. That word is like the coal to form the generator that makes the guiding energy for the ethics I follow in my life—I hold very strongly to these values that have developed on how to live—I can express it more later but I greatly attach a kind of Christian value system to it, which makes sense considering I was raised in a Lutheran household and always went to church, Sunday school, and went to my courses and went through my confirmation—everyone is a bit of a mop—some pick up clean water and others dirty or a mix of it—waiting to find the people to drain them voluntarily or involuntarily. I was born vulnerable. I walk pigeon-toed and grew up tripping on my feet—I speak with a soft feminine voice. Bipolar disorder makes somebody vulnerable. There was much vulnerability in being eighteen and hospitalized involuntarily for my first manic episode—tied to a stretcher. I have almost a sense of us vs them—the vulnerable and those that harm the vulnerable—take advantage of the vulnerable—I feel this is a very much Christian in the idea of the unfortunate are more holy than the rest of the bunch—children are like that in terms of being born into a cruel existence—a cruel existence I felt at times in my life and so many do—making sure harm does not come to those in need gives the light of purpose to go bright inside like a Christmas tree in my brain—this light of happiness and warmth. I never expected I would fall in love for teaching due to the antidepressant effect provided. It would become my career for a decade. Some grow up wanting to be a teacher, I became one by accident, desperation, and being saved.
Sometimes I inflate on self-hate like a helium balloon that needs to be tied to a wrist. The vulnerability equation is imprinted on my brain.
In my early teens I started struggling with bulimia and image. I remember when my mother caught me in the act. I was not offered help but criticized. I was called a girl for my problems and threatened to be taken somewhere to be fixed of my confusion. I don’t identify as transgender. I identify as a man that struggles with bulimia and happens to have feminine qualities.
I attribute it to circumstances that happened to me—a justification for the pain at times—an attack on aspects of bisexuality.
After a long day of work I did what my young self often did. I went clubbing with friends. I feel like even if I hide aspects of myself such as being bisexual, people can spot it regardless. I’m extremely secretive about it and not comfortable displaying that vulnerable aspect of myself.
My friend from England went with me. He was about six years my senior. Big guy. Tall. The clubs name was Maoye.
I always enjoyed the free drinks available to foreigners—it was done to attract Chinese clients, as the idea was foreigners being there would attract people.
Amongst the hot and sweltering crowd a man grabbed ahold of me. I felt stuck. I was taken off guard. Pushed and cornered. While on me I managed to push him off. But it all serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of my life.
A nail was placed into my hand—a constant burn and reminder of that vulnerability.
Part 2
From self-hate I can also be so grandiose. I am like a Christmas tree that is lit up. Sparklers so pretty that you cannot let go of them, even if it burns your fingertips and hurts.
From heroin to sex, you can smother the pain. You drain the ocean to fill a void in these times. It ties to mania as well. That restlessness and irritability is extinguished by the paradox of throwing kerosene to everything burning. I’m so grandiose to hide my insecurities, I mistake my misfortune as a mark of something ugly virtuous—the neon of vulnerability pulsating like a star within me. Swelling on a pain.
Bad habits. I want you to judge me and tell me what’s wrong with me. Give me a verdict.
Stress a trigger for mania, and I was stressed from the incident I had experienced at the club. I bloated like a tick to distract from locusts of thoughts that could not shut up with their commotion.
I had been sleeping around more than before. My brain was Christmas tree lights. I accelerated on a generator—I made a mixed episode worse.
Tease a disaster when you are heightened like a blimp. Full of hydrogen. Hoping to burn up ad rain down like napalm.
When the pretty candles on the Christmas tree are left untouched—not looked at like a kettle on burner that has been forgotten—the dry neglected tree will into a house fire.
I’ve had four attempts in my life so far.
When I attempt I don’t cry for help. I feel too vulnerable. I’m afraid.
Hate police and wards.
Downing pills.
My past failed attempts made me aware of everything done wrong before. The sleeping pills alone might not do what I was looking for at that time. I bought an electrical cable. This way if it failed I would still be unconscious and choked out by the cord—fail safe plan to end my life.
The words coming out of my mouth slowed down. I started getting second thoughts. Stuck my face towards the toilet bowl while on my knees. Sticking my fingers down my throat. Leaving blood vessels bursting in my eyes.
Went stumbling outside and waved a taxi down and asked to be taken to the local hospital.
Never expected finding myself checked into a psych ward in a foreign country.
Nietzsche has a quote in reference to chaos in life and how it is needed to create a star—this reference holds so much value to me. Sometimes stars hit together just right to create fate out of the worst of things. The ward lead me to meet the woman made of paper. She would one day become my wife. I would have two daughters with her. Forge together as soldiers to face the obstacles in life. Someone who would save my life during a future attempt when I was found unconscious from an overdose. The smartest and toughest woman I have ever known. Someone to build trenches with.
I liked it when she stuck that needle in me for an IV. It must correlate to being a heroin addict. The pushing of something in my vein correlates to happiness and purity.
The woman made out of paper was my nurse in the ward I was stuck in. What attracted her to the mess that is me I will never understand fully.
The woman made out of paper is named Lilu. She was one year older than me and one of my nurses at that ward in Taiyuan. She was from Zhengzhou—a city in the province of Henan that is based in the center of China. I am sure as the reader it would be nice to know why I call her the woman made of paper.
She struggled with her own demons. She also deserves much praise for her resilience and brains. When she was born she was raised by a family that adopted her and often neglected and abused her growing up. Her biological family is distant from her, even though she has an identical twin—they felt too poor to take care of her and made the choice that they needed to be less of one child as she also has an older sister—her twin got to stay with that family but she was given up and adopted. I am sure this must bother her even if she never will talk about it to anyone in her life—as she is one to refuse ever discussing emotions and feelings, as this is not her personality type—she is very much a fighter. I think most would struggle with wondering why they were the one let go of—it also must hurt her knowing that the family would have a son and keep him.
Despite all these circumstances, she graduated top of her class of four thousand students—Chinese high schools can be quite large serving a large region—they often serve as boarding schools. She was a smart and hardworking student. Circumstances never made her stop trying to be the best and moving forward and she never made excuses for herself. In university she also did well and got accepted at the most studious and hard to obtain nursing position at the number one hospital in Shanxi.
I have already ranted and gone on about my affection and feelings tied to heroin. Drinking of entire oceans to fill voids.
Paper is a void. It asks for calligraphy to be written on it to make braille. This way when fingers run over skin, it tells worth—the reason for troubles—it forms connection through those words of declaration—the whining for why things are the way they are—the filling of a void like a heroin addict needing a cure—two papers come together to write upon one another—as a paper I am her typo—I stand as a falling mess with nerves like tripwire, I keep failing and losing my composer, while she stands stronger as a declaration that has been written on—when I was chased I listened to her and joined as one. I wish and intend to always serve the woman made out of paper who has saved my life and has always been there for me, being so strong despite circumstances—amongst the wind of turmoil in life I follow along her path.
It was love at first sight for her but not for me. I had no interest in dating her at the time. I worked across the street of that hospital in an office building for a training center as a part time job. I would teach adults English who paid for private lessons near to Yingze park in the center of Taiyuan. She signed up for classes for me to teach her and brought me food on almost every other day that she had prepared. Eventually we found ourselves coupled fully.
In a pit. I get to burn as paper amongst another’s paper. Eternally. With a life that will keep reoccurring.
Part 3 Liu
A woman like Chang’e lived on a moon. Far away.
You can refer to me as Liu.
At the age of 19 I was diagnosed with a severe nerve pain condition. It is called trigeminal neuralgia but you can call it TN for ease.
I was frustrated. I had completed a degree in international finances from Chongqing University of Business and Technology. The boom of the economy was not the same. There was an urge to “lay flat”—to not try as a form of opposition to everything going on in a waning economy in China.
All are elephants chained for an audience. People love to peek and stare as though they are glass doors without hinges—to be made feel useless.
I developed TN at the age of 19, and was now 22. It came as an arrow, and quite literally to the face. It’s a rare nerve pain disorder often considered one of the most painful conditions known.
The illness involves intense nerve pain throughout the left side of my face. It felt like someone was trying to pull all of the teeth on the left side of my face without anesthesia. The pain can leave me falling to the floor unable to speak or move while screaming profanities while choked by pain. A feeling of a knife to my face over and over again. It leaves me in absolute shock. Like Roman candles to the face. An absolute hindrance. The anticipation of not knowing when it will happen again is a nightmare at times.
The disease is often called the suicide disease, apparently up to 26% try to take their lives. In a state of panic during one of the nerve attacks I began swallowing any pill near to me. I went to the hospital to have my stomach pumped when I was found comatose by my mother.
I want to be Chang’e and on the moon and away from a world I have had enough of.
Gossip spread around the workplace that I attempted suicide over an affair with a married man. There was too much guilt to return to the workplace. COVID did have an impact to the economy. I still remember my hometown having dirt and trees piled onto the exits and entrances to the city keep people in their places.
The work I did find felt beneath me. China has what is called the great firewall that keeps something in and out of the country’s networks. A VPN was necessary to access American TikTok as it was used as opposed to the Chinese version.
Feels humiliating the nature of the outcome for me—I gave up in many ways like so many Chinese youth. For work I would go to a local office building. Amongst a long hall would be a room for live stream performers. I would entertain with watchers while trying to obtain virtual gifts for actual money. I despised it—sometimes the conversation could be funny or interesting but it felt hollow.
I would paint flowers on my face and wear hanfu clothing while doing ASMR.
I had a mind of sparklers burning until it burnt and stung like wax—like I had the option to stop and cry and those tears stuck as wax and burnt or I soldiered on and grew accustomed to the pain. I was an elephant chained. The audience watched and interacted with me on the live. I was a chained elephant when it was found out about my previous attempt and when the rumors spread.
Too many thorns in life. Nails hitting at the wrong points like an equation for something terrible to eventually happen.
My favorite dish was Henan noodles. I often cooked it with my mom. It provides great memories of childhood. I hadn’t talked to my mother as much as before. She moved to a job in Taiyuan.
Sometimes I would go up to visit her. But it was harder as she worked more and more hours. Sometimes voids build even when going through extreme nerve pain. And with trigeminal neuralgia, the pain was so intense that I would freeze and scream in pain. It cannot always be hid. It made me an elephant tethered.
Life can be like a pressure like no other. Too much stress. Makes one feel irritable with a mouth like a sprinkler of napalm when someone is too close. Life feels like a lit fire cracker held—in the end it would tear my hand up. Things kept building while the other side of my face began to hurt too recently. This was rare and not so common. My eyesight was becoming blurry too and it seemed I might have multiple sclerosis as the pain was on both side, it was not common for my age, and the blurry eyesight. An appointment was scheduled and I felt terrified to know what was going on and wondered if it was best to not even know my health.
I walked out of the studio and had a cigarette. My boss came out and joined to talk. He was concerned about view count and wanted me to do things to increase it that made me feel uncomfortable. He made a few comments I found incentive.
The boss sure liked to criticize and apply pressure. He was not impressed with my work and thought I could do something different. In China an application is used called WeChat. This application has many uses. People can display and share moments like a Facebook wall, message each other, send money, video chat, and even has a feature to find people near to you who are also looking for people near to them. I was to attract people onto dates. The idea was they would be lured in and the men would go to a set destination to a planned tea house that served snacks. When the men arrived (they had no knowledge of the setup) the bill would be at an absurd rate and if the men refused to pay larger men would use their size to force them to pay up.
I was not sure at the time yet if I wanted the job. Being worried about ethics and safety. It was something I would have to think about.
My medical expenses were growing and I knew the nerve disease could be expensive to treat with surgery. All I had was thoughts while looking at the moon.
Part 4 Taishen
My former roommate in the ward I shared a room with had paranoid schizophrenia. I was stuck in the same place due to mania, and just had gotten my diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
I was so pissed being stuck there and felt I had no business being there. I found my diagnosis to be an insult to me. I was only 18 at the time—taken in on a stretcher. Made me feel very vulnerable and irritated.
My roommate was having delusions related to Christianity and could not stop waking me up in the middle of the night to ask and talk about Jesus. Left me beyond frustrated.
He was drifting from his wife and would go on and on about intending to leave her. Felt he was spied and plotted against by her. So we were both frustrated with being there.
The toilets were special. They would flush what needed to be flushed but not certain things like pills—it helped to keep people from hiding they were not taking their medications.
He had tried to flush his wedding ring down the toilet but he did not realized it didn’t flush. I went to use the restroom later and saw the ring. I told him. He took it out. He found it to be a sign form God that he is to stay with his wife, and there was immense happiness in his eyes.
Part 5 Liu
I’m a missile from Zhengzhou
Where my face is printed with flowers
Left university with hope
A blimp
To be ripped
Abrasion and termites
Eat me whole until I undo
Caught to the wires around me
Laying flat
Hoping for something new.
My name is Michelle. I had been at the local foreigner bar. I was raided in Zhengzhou. I lost my job recently. I’m 22 and wanted to work in business, but it will not do. Lost
Now I was working at a TikTok farm. I’m a busy ant.
I can’t remember much. My anti-convulsion meds make my mind feel muddy. I spend nights playing with my tarot cards wondering what I got to do to get to a place better.
Driving me crazy taking meds because my face started to hurt me. Feels like a bolt to my face—absolute torture!—suicide disease—that is what the doctors told me.
So I had an attempt and all my coworkers thought I had an affair.
All the gossip was like blitzkrieg so I ran away—I quit. And I need to make money because I’m sick and don’t want the nerve pain. Hoping surgery can save me. So I found myself working making money on live streams doing ASMR. I put on beautiful hanfu and paint flowers on my face. I’m waiting for gifts. But my boss hates me. Maybe because I don’t fit the picture. It’s not in my character to lay flat.
I speak English fluently. So my boss thinks I’m perfect for something new. I go on WeChat waiting for strangers to go on the social app looking for affairs. Foreigners that are easy to pull likes moths to lights. I flirt with them. Ask them to me in the middle of the night. We go to predestined positions. Guys thinking they are getting something that night. A couple larger men come to force the unexpected men to pay an astronomical bill that is not just for the snacks served.
This became my routine. But onetime it really bad. A Canadian I met in the street did not act right. He appeared to be bouncing and deranged. Like he was on some kind of upper. Offered me white powder. My sensors went off. I’m a missile. I know when something is off. Ready to do what I have to. He came close. I shoved him. I was near the location for the setup. My colleagues heard the commotion. Hands went. The crazed Canadian fell to the ground and never woke up again. Not knowing what to do. I went off like a missile and ran. The fear…
Part 6
I thought of it as I got lost. I’m a butterfly from Zhengzhou. From the center of Henan in China. I float off. Cause I’m stuck. No symmetry in my fate. Came under the ground as a Cicada. Went looking for something great but I’m not far. Just stuck, like a sun that won’t rise up. Call me Liu.
I developed the suicide disease when I was 19. It leaves my facing in tremendous pain on the left side. Makes me fall down and want to die. 26% will commit suicide. I often painted flowers on the side to grant some beauty to what happens to me. This disease caused all my teeth, gums, and entire left side to turn to intense electrical stabbing pain. There would be no warning before an attack. Paranoia of not knowing when the next one will come.
Had a decent job that seemed to be fit and good for me. The attacks brought me to my knees and made me eat carpet. Brought me to a frantic spell that caused me to overdose. Rumors spread at work that it was due to shame I had for having an affair with a married man.
I left the career devastated. I was shamed out of it.
I had temporarily found myself stranded into a career on a TikTok farm in Zhengzhou performing ASMR.
I was transplanted to a new career after a horrible incident. I had ran off to Guangzhou to where my cousin lives.
I want symmetry in my life. There is none. Just instability and pain.
Do you believe in the transplantation of thoughts? I do.
Do you believe in the transplanting of thoughts? I do. Learned about it before in a book. My friend beside me nodded after having taken their fentanyl based medicine earlier. Tiring doing odd jobs to pull off getting ahold of things.
I walked by and entered my workplace. I walked into the studio that was based in Guangzhou. I was handed my flyers. I headed to the street and began passing them out to advertise for a local KTV with women wearing little to no clothing on them.
A man walked by on the sidewalk. Some man looked like someone I must know before. Ever ad that feeling? But I could not know for sure or remember exactly. I awkwardly stared him up and down.
The man I had a hard time recognizing started to feel all too familiar. It was like I could read his thoughts. I have a projector head. Sometimes I can see everything. I feel it like rays of the sun on my skin—so natural and calling. Like Chang’e on the moon so far away looking down on a lover she misses—this man was sending radio signal signals from his marrow. A special type of attraction. Need attention like the world has been cruel to me. A world that has abandoned me.
The books were right that I had been reading. He must of noticing my odd staring. He took a flyer from me. Stumbled a bit while trying to understand what was going on. I pointed at the establishment I worked and told him he should visit. He gave a smile before departing it. I’m sure heaven can talk—gave orders to lift the anchors to provide transportation to a new fate.
It was exciting to know I might get to meet him, but I had concerns. In the evening I would work within the KTV. Depending on the occasion I would sometimes get to dress in hanfu, which I enjoyed. I sometimes search for distraction as there is something wrong with the way my thoughts transfer. When you live a life under threats and violence—feelings of being trapped in life—you naturally see people with masks. They either pose a threat or are safe and you must view them in black and white. There is no time to see things in grey—too much danger in doing that. I must have a negative perspective on the world around me like a cocoon to stay safe. Like a butterfly I go to faces to see if they bite or have pollen. I believe the man today had pollen. I truly can read minds.
Part 7
Black and white thinking originates like an atom bomb. It tears a mind into a black hole of horrible events. Leaves craters like hole as cheese in the brain—provides the surface to create something that absorbs like a sponge. Pain that radiates through to create the velocity of irritated atomic steam engine that can send signals out. It burns. Cheese head with holes right through like a particle accelerator went right through. Fox holes in the brain when it feels in danger. A life of a perpetual civil war. It is painful.
Such thinking with holes causes one to be prone to have memories fall through black holes and be forgotten. Never can be found. Blanks.
The man that thoughts transpired to earlier in the day went by the name of Muchen. It was like seppuku in attraction. Fusion. We met at the designated room he had gotten with his friends to rent out to have there to host. Drinks are bought as a form of payment. Transplanting of thoughts wears the brain like sandpaper waves of abrasion.
I don't trust you as the reader. You been holding for a long time And I feel attachment with you that makes me very unsafe. I don’t trust you anymore. I rather you stop putting eyes on me. It makes me run off very fast. I’m uncomfortable. The most benign things come across as dangerous to me. And I want you to step away.
Part 8
I like this man I met. He makes me whole. He is the light for everything dark around me. My boss made me feel what I never felt before. He is so nice! Not like the other guys who talk with words that split my insides. I can do the same. Like a cycle hate goes around in love.
He get so lonely at night. But I have the right company.
I’m feeling so nice
Everything just so happy
Tapping away on my phone
Writing poetry
Because my heart grows
Swell like a balloon
Don’t you want to pop it?
Simmer
Like acne to pop.
I kept writing poetry about my feelings of this man. I could not get him out of my head. The strength of transplanted thoughts. I keep going forever. Like a phony I feel. My boss was the man I transplanted thoughts with. He worked at a local host club. For where women and gay men could go and pay drinks for male hosts to sit with them and keep them feeling loved and entertained. I fused to him like atoms in the sun. He was a host at this club. I would host at my location and meet him. We were each other’s. Eating ourselves together.
to be continued..

DAY: APRIL 29 2024
​

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• 4-29-2024PATHOGENS INCLUDING MULTI-DRUG RESISTANT SUPERBUGS FOUND ON FLOORS, CEILINGS AND DOOR HANDLES OF UK HOSPITAL TOILETS Pathogenic bacteria and fungi, including multi-drug resistant “superbugs” have been found on the floors, ceilings, door handles and other surfaces of hospital toilets in the UK, with patient toilets the worst affected r. Women’s bathrooms contained fewer microbes than men’s, with female staff toilets particularly clean, while unisex and disabled (also unisex) toilets were the most contaminated.
• 4-29-2024QUANTITATIVE STUDY ASSESSES HOW GENDER AND RACE IMPACT YOUNG ATHLETES’ PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR COACHES Across the U.S., there are over 8 million student-athletes in high school and college. Engaging in sports can contribute to physical, mental, and social benefits, and coaches can play a key role in student-athletes’ continued participation in sports. A study examines how multiple aspects of a young athlete’s identity, including gender and race, may relate to their perceptions of their coaches and mental health.
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• 4-29-2024AI SHOWS GOOD CLINICAL KNOWLEDGE, REASONING FOR EYE ISSUES Large language models (LLMs) are approaching expert-level knowledge and reasoning skills in ophthalmology, Responses to 87 questions were compared for GPT-3.5, GPT-4, PaLM 2, LLaMA, expert ophthalmologists, and doctors in training. The researchers found that the performance of GPT-4 (69 percent) was superior to performance of GPT-3.5 (48 percent), LLaMA (32 percent), and PaLM
• 4-29-2024RESEARCHERS FROM DENMARK AND GERMANY FIND BROWN FAT’S ‘OFF-SWITCH Brown fat, also known as brown adipose tissue (BAT), is a type of fat in our bodies that’s different from the white fat around our belly and thighs that we are more familiar with. Brown fat has a special job—it helps to burn calories from the foods that we eat into heat, which can be helpful, especially when we’re exposed to cold temperatures like during winter swimming or cryotherapy.
  
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• 4-29-2024RESEARCHERS DETERMINE IDEAL DAILY BALANCE OF SITTING, SLEEPING, STANDING AND BEING ACTIVE FOR OPTIMAL HEALTH
  
• 4-29-2024STUDY REVEALS INTERACTION MECHANISM BETWEEN INTESTINAL MICROBIAL ENVIRONMENT AND TUMOR IMMUNE MICROENVIRONMENT
  
• 4-29-2024RESEARCHERS UNCOVER MOLECULAR MECHANISM OF NATURAL KILLER CELL DYSFUNCTION IN HODGKIN LYMPHOMA
  
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• 4-29-2024RESEARCH SPOTLIGHTS WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES OF MATERNAL SUICIDE ATTEMPTS
  
• 4-29-2024IMMUNE CELL INTERACTION STUDY UNLOCKS NOVEL TREATMENT TARGETS FOR CHIKUNGUNYA VIRUS
  
• 4-29-2024RESEARCHERS SUGGEST EXPANDING HEALTH EQUITY BY INCLUDING NURSING HOME RESIDENTS IN CLINICAL TRIALS
  
• 4-29-2024STUDY EXPLORES BETTER WAYS TO DELIVER URGENT HEALTH ALERTS TO DIFFERENT LINGUISTIC GROUPS
  
• 4-29-2024ONLINE TREATMENT AS EFFECTIVE AS FACE-TO-FACE FOR KIDS WITH ANXIETY, STUDY FINDS
  
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• 4-29-2024TRIAL SHOWS LOWER DOSE OF MPOX VACCINE IS SAFE, GENERATES SIX-WEEK ANTIBODY RESPONSE EQUIVALENT TO STANDARD REGIMEN
  
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Morton White

29 April 1917 – 27 May 2016
Part of a Series on the Philosophy of History
Morton White and the Regularity Theory of Historical Explanation
Monday 29 April 2024 is the 107th anniversary of the birth of Morton White (29 April 1917 – 27 May 2016), who was born in New York City on this date in 1917.
White is known, among other things, for his rejection of speculative philosophies of history. It’s not always clear what philosophers mean when they say they reject speculative philosophies of history, but one suspects that this is a way to indirectly distance themselves from that bête noir, Hegel, or that other bête noir, Marx, whose birthday is just a few days away. He opens his book Foundations of Historical Knowledge with exactly this gambit, naming and shaming Hegel, Marx, Vico, Spengler, and Toynbee in rapid succession.
White says that philosophy of history is, “a discipline with a checkered past, a respectable present and, I hope, a brighter future.” Presumably Hegel and friends represent the checkered past. Why was this past checkered? Because they went about the business of philosophy of history all wrong. Now we are smarter and we know better. Here is how White characterizes the change in philosophy of history that delivered us from the bad old days of all that had gone before:

“Instead of seeking to chart the development of epochs, cultures, and civilizations, the contemporary philosopher of history is more interested in analyzing historical thought and language. Instead of trying to advance or defend some general theory of the historical process itself, the contemporary philosopher of history who is not dominated by the aims of Marxism or by certain forms of theology is now primarily concerned with the logic of history, anxious to elucidate terms that are commonly employed by historians and historically minded thinkers, and eager to advance toward a clearer understanding of the chief intellectual activities of the historian.”

Notice that White here invoked a desire to advance toward a clearer understanding of the chief intellectual activities of the historian. This is the familiar figure of the practicing historian—one might even say the familiar philosophical figure of the practicing historian, sometimes called the working historian—which I previously discussed in my episode on Siefried Kracauer, who was also interested in a philosophical exposition of the practicing historian. In my Siefried Kracauer episode I argued that the idea of the practicing historian serves the philosophy of history much as the idea of the practicing mathematician serves the philosophy of mathematics. The underlying idea here is that philosophers get too focused on peculiarly philosophical problems and lose sight of the actual problems faced by historians doing history, scientists doing science, and mathematicians doing mathematics (as though this were the proper remit of the philosopher).
If specifically philosophical problems are illegitimate, as is sometimes implied, then if anything remains of philosophy, we are left with the Quinean dictum that philosophy of science is philosophy enough. I’m not going to argue this point at present, but I wanted to mention it so as to be on the up-and-up on the motivations that drive a lot of contemporary philosophy. But is the practicing historian, or the practicing whatever who is invoked by philosophers, really the philosophically pristine figure that they are made out to be? Or might it be that the practicing historian is a construction of the philosopher of history who wants to attribute his views to this pristine figure so as to derive the disciplinary authority of some figure not attached to a particular philosophical school? This might sound like an uncharitable way to characterize the work of a philosopher, but I think we can legitimately ask this question in relation to White’s use of the figure of the historian.
White does not himself use the language of the “practicing historian” or “working historian” but instead uses “professional historian,” as in the following from his Foundations of Historical Knowledge:

“…professional historians write their histories about a limited class of things. Not any thing may be a central subject of a historian’s history. Historians write histories of nations, civilizations, scientific societies, philosophical movements, revolutions, economies, religions. They usually do not write histories of planets, animals, stars, rocks, or galaxies. So we know that they are primarily concerned with the social behavior of human beings. However, the problem before us now is not that of defining the class of things or subjects of which historians with a large ‘H’ may write a history. We are asking what features of a given subject should be mentioned in a history of that subject. And if we are seeking a definition of the notion of what features should be recorded by a professional historian, I do not think that any useful one can be supplied.”

Historians today do write histories of planets, animals, stars, rock, and galaxies. We find this in particular in the school of big history, which I discussed in a recent episode on my paper, A Complexity Ladder for Big History. Nevertheless, it remains true that professional historians are primarily concerned with the social behavior of human beings. This loose way of understanding history allows for differences in scope as to what properly constitutes history, but, even given his wiggle room, White concedes the impossibility of a definition of what is to be included in a history, and what is to be excluded. This is the familiar problem of the historian’s selection of his material.
The historian’s selection has been a target for critics of the possibility of objectivity in history. White addressed the objectivity question for history in his book Social Thought in America. I have not yet been able to get a copy of this book, but there is a section reprinted in Hans Meyerhoff’s anthology The Philosophy of History in Our Time. White’s Social Thought in America was first published in 1949, some years before Danto’s Analytical Philosophy of History was published in 1965. I mention this because White implicitly discusses the problem of the perfect chronicler, which we find fully explicit in Danto, and White doesn’t make the breakthrough that Danto did, namely, that the logical structure of a narrative sentence is distinct from propositions such as one would find in a chronicle.
A narrative sentence describes an earlier event in terms of a later event—for example, the future 16th president of the United States was born in a log cabin in Kentucky on 12 February 1809—which is a meaning that no chronicle, no matter how exhaustive, can capture. White has his own solution to this problem that is different from Danto’s, but since Danto’s work changed the field, White’s solution is not discussed today. But I wanted to mention this book by White—Social Thought in America—since it further develops the theme of the working historian.
As I said, I don’t have a copy of the book, but the extract from the book included in Meyerhoff is a discussion of American historian Charles Beard. Beard is among the most eminent of American historians, with a multi-volume work on The Rise of American Civilization and his influential book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, among many other works. Beard would seem to be a perfect candidate for a working historian or practicing historian or professional historian. Beard did, however, occasionally express himself on philosophical matters connected to history, so his work isn’t perfectly pristine with respect to philosophy.
What I find interesting is that White does not take Beard as a model of historical practice from which philosophers should learn, but in fact he critiques Beard’s views. This strikes me as both strange and as understandable. It is strange because, if the philosopher is supposed to take his instruction in history from the professional historian, presumably it would be White’s business to follow the lead of Beard and provide a philosophical justification for why Beard’s historical practice is the proper model for philosophy of history. Is it understandable because no philosopher can resist poking holes in the philosophical arguments of others, especially when those others are non-philosophers who are a soft target for philosophical argumentation.
White does a poor job of selflessly serving professional historians, but he does a good job of drawing out the philosophical presuppositions of professional historians like Beard, and in demonstrating their previously unnoticed consequences of these presuppositions. Beard redeems himself in White’s eyes only because he fails to heed his own philosophical views in his historical practice:

“It should be said in Beard’s behalf that he was the only member of the group I have examined who has given a full account of the methods and aims of the social sciences. It is not surprising, therefore, that his ideas should be subject to detailed criticism. He raced around fields where most of the others stepped lightly and infrequently. And very often he says what they really thought, while they merely mumbled it incoherently or kept it to themselves. For all his mistakes and his philosophical confusions, Beard’s later work in the methodology of the social sciences remains stimulating. It goes without saying that his errors in philosophy cast no reflection on his work in social science itself. In this respect he takes his position in a long and worthy line of scientists— physical and social—who have worked with standards in philosophy which they dared not use in science.”

This final claim that scientists have worked with standards in philosophy which they dared not use in science—the crucial condition for Beard’s redemption arc—poses many interesting questions. Should scientists dare to employ their philosophical standards in scientific practice? Is it possible for scientists to hold philosophical views, if only in subtle and difficult to discern ways, that do not influence their scientific practice? I have been assuming that one of the reasons philosophers appeal to the practice of working historians or the practice of working mathematician as the justification for authentic philosophical views reflective of a discipline is because these practices are believed to be purer because there are uncontaminated by philosophy.
Of course, the forbidden views the intrusion of which is particularly unwelcome are usually metaphysical views. One of the presumed ingredients of a speculative philosophy of history such as proscribed by White is too much metaphysics, or the wrong kind of metaphysics. It is entirely possible that someone might formulate a metaphysical philosophy of history that was not a speculative philosophy of history. For example, an analytical philosopher of history might formulate an ontology of historical objects, events, and processes while remaining entirely agnostic on any laws governing these historical objects, events, and processes.
Of course, we can ask why someone would take the trouble to formulate an ontology for history while carefully avoiding noticing any pattern that these objects, events and processes might exhibit, especially as the historical events and processes that connect historical objects to one another might themselves be taken to be laws of history. But let’s assume, for purposes of argument, that it is possible dance around any connection between events and to lay out an ontology of history that has nothing to do with laws of history.
I strongly suspect that the same kind of animus that has been directed against speculative philosophy of history by analytical philosophers would be directed also against a non-speculative metaphysical philosophy of history. White himself acknowledges pragmatists, naturalists, and realists are anti-metaphysical and united in their rejection of speculative philosophy of history, which implies the equivalence of metaphysical and speculative philosophy of history, but, as we have seen, careful observance of the method of isolation can separate the two.
I said earlier that Danto had changed philosophy of history so dramatically that earlier approaches to narrative, such as we find in White, have fallen out of notice since Danto’s work took the field. This is sometimes expressed as Danto inaugurating an era of post-positivist analytical philosophy of history. White belonged to the still-positivism period of analytical philosophy of history. The high water mark of positivism prior to Danto is represented by Carl Hempel. In my episode on Carl Hempel I mentioned his covering law model of historical explanation. This is the tradition within which White was working, though he called Hempel’s covering law model the regularity theory of historical explanation, and he glossed it like this:

“It will be convenient to begin by considering what is sometimes called the covering law, or regularity, theory of historical explanation. On this view an explanation of a war, a revolution, or an economic depression is similar in structure to an explanation of a fire. We may explain a particular fire, it is maintained, by deducing the statement that the fire has taken place from the statement that a spark has fallen into a wastebasket of dry paper surrounded by oxygen and from the law that whenever a spark falls into such a wastebasket under such conditions, a fire will take place. Some philosophers who accept this view contend that not only the truth of a singular explanatory statement in ordinary language, like ‘The lit cigarette caused the fire’ or ‘The bent rail caused the derailment,’ but also that of a singular statement in history books, like ‘The Moslem seizure of the Mediterranean Sea caused the breakdown of the Mediterranean Commonwealth in Europe,’ is dependent on the truth of a law. Ever since Hume, such a theory has exerted a powerful hold on philosophers, even on those who recognize and emphasize the limits of historical speculation. The idea that we can intuitively see causal connections between historical events without appealing to inductively established laws, or that causes have unanalyzable powers to bring about their effects, has seemed indefensible to philosophers of an empirical turn of mind, and they have therefore been led to the view that causal statements are either disguised statements of laws or are in some way dependent upon them for their truth. Even though historians in their explanatory statements refer to particular events like the Civil War and the conflict between Northern and Southern economic interests, philosophers under the influence of Hume and Mill have maintained that such explanatory statements turn out upon analysis to imply, involve, presuppose, or depend on general laws.”

The covering law model presents a subtle problem for the analytical philosopher of history. The analytical philosopher of history has renounced the possibility of finding laws of history. But the idea of laws of history is ambiguous. What is and what is not a law of history? The covering law model of historical explanation makes explanations of historical events into law-like statements, but how is an explanation of history distinction from a speculative philosophy of history that gives a lawlike explanation of events? Are we not, with the covering law model, offering laws of history?
White is sensitive to this problem. He was concerned that the laws of the covering law model might be mistaken for the faulty generalizations of speculative philosophers of history, and on this problem wrote:

“Although the ‘laws’ of certain speculative philosophers of history do not always turn out to apply to single examples, there is no doubt that they often apply to very few examples by comparison to the laws of natural science, and this paucity of inductive evidence may lead some critics of the regularity theory of historical explanation to complain that any law of the sort the regularist may employ in an explanatory deductive argument will resemble the allegedly bankrupt laws of the speculative theorist of history. Once again, however, it must be pointed out that there is no a priori reason to suppose that regularism involves an appeal to indefensible laws, and also that where a speculative theorist asserts a law that is not supported by inductive evidence and he cannot compensate for that defect by, for example, deducing it from more fundamental statements, he is justly criticized. The fact that certain speculative philosophers of history assert faulty generalizations is not an argument against the regularity theory of historical explanation.”

Is it only the indefensible laws of history that are bankrupt, leaving defensible laws of history intact? If this is the case, how do we distinguish between defensible and indefensible generalizations in history? If we can offer more fundamental laws from which our laws of history are derived, and the fundamental laws are among the defensible generalizations, does that get us off the hook? Have we successfully avoided a metaphysical philosophy of history if we can support our historical generalizations with inductive evidence or more fundamental laws?
When White argues that historians are really using a covering law model even when they don’t realize that they are appealing to this kind of explanation of historical events, he is making an appearance/reality distinction: the appearance of ordinary historical explanation is not that of covering law model explanations, but in reality this is what the historian is doing. The historian doesn’t know that he is using a covering law model of explanation. That is to say, the professional historian doesn’t know what he is doing as he is doing history. This seems harsh, but it is exactly this lack of self-awareness that White thinks redeems Beard, who, according to White, doesn’t impose his naïve philosophy on his historical practice. So much for historical practice as a guide to philosophy of history.
Moreover, if making an appearance/reality distinction is metaphysics, White is engaged in a metaphysical philosophy of history because he distinguishes between the appearance and reality of covering law models of historical explanation. In all fairness to White, I agree with the essentials of his claim: historians are presupposing a number of covering laws in their historical explanations. The problem is often that the laws are so many, so subtle, so elusive, and so intricately tied together that it would be difficult in the extreme to tease out the exact deduction that is being made. The complexity of history defeats ordinary human deductive powers.
There is a relatively unstudied backwater in the philosophy of history that would consist in reducing this complexity of history to a manageable form—perhaps through an adequate taxonomy of historical objects, events, and processes, which I earlier called a metaphysical philosophy of history.
Here lies an opportunity to demonstrate that a metaphysical philosophy of history is possible within the framework of analytical philosophy of history. There is no reason to believe that this cannot be done, but exhibiting such on ontology would be more convincing that merely arguing for its plausibility.

Video Presentation

https://youtu.be/5ulU0P3ir9g
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6YEiCLNuwd/
https://odysee.com/@Geopolicraticus:7/morton-white-and-the-regularity-theory:c

Podcast Edition

https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/64tLDTq7cJb
https://podcasters.amazon.com/podcasts/a31b8276-53cd-4723-b6ad-a39c8faa4572/episodes/bd3101c1-93ad-462c-8a5b-b488ffb41015
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-today-in-philosophy-of-his-146507578/episode/morton-white-and-the-regularity-theory-172150253/
​

It couldn't be.
I dropped the reusable bags but kept walking, kicking through the pile on my way into the store.
"Uh, Chris?" Shannon asked. "The bags?"
"Yeah, yeah." I didn't stop, leaving her behind in the lobby. I walked through the produce section to clothing to housewares to a wall of toilet paper. The Value Club had everything but an easily accessible back door.
Shannon found me sitting on a gigantic multipack of triple-ply quilted, the good stuff.
"Hi," I said, afraid to look at her.
"Hi," she said before sitting beside me. The pack was so wide, practically a couch.
"Did you know Value Club is actually the last Price Club and the managers pooled their money to keep it out of the Costco merger?"
"I did," Shannon said. "Someone usually mentions it every single time we shop here." She squeezed my kneecap. "Want to tell me why you're sitting on toilet paper? That's new."
"Can we leave first?"
My wife's dark eyebrows knitted with concern. "Chris, what's going on?"
"We have to go, Shannon," I urged her, panic beginning to rise. "The orange horse," I whispered, "is here." I covered my mouth, afraid that it might hear.
"The what?"
I wrung my hands. "Didn't you see it? It's right inside the front doors. The coin operated ride. Oh god, what if some kid rides it? That's why it's here. Of course. Why else?"
"Chris," Shannon said slowly, "you're scaring me."
"We have to go." I tugged on her wrist.
"Okay, okay, we can go." She started pulling me because I only stared helplessly at the toilet paper wall again. "Come on."
"Not that way!" I said too loud. A teen moving paper towels from a pallet to another pallet stopped and took out his earbuds. "We have to go out the back," I said more calmly.
Patiently, Shannon helped us find an exit through a delivery bay. We had to walk around the fortress of a store in the rain. I wouldn't let her go back into the lobby for the bags I'd dropped.
"Chris, come on. It's wasteful."
I'd already started the car. "You should have got them before."
"When you dropped them?"
"Yeah."
"I was more worried about my flaky husband."
"Get in the car, Shannon. There's no time." If she went back in, I would have left her behind. I love her but this fear runs deeper. She would have understood if she'd been there all those years ago with the orange horse.
When we were safe(r) in our kitchen and had changed out of our wet clothes, I opened up two bottles of wine and set them on the granite island.
"Gonna be some afternoon," she said, going to the cupboard for our wine glasses. Retreating to the living room couch, Shannon waited patiently while I lit the fireplace and drank and muttered about the heavy rain and whether or not our stunted trees by the back fence could survive another deluge.
Eventually, the alcohol wore through her patience. Shannon was not happy drunk. Neither was she mean, however. Aggressive would be more accurate. Often sexually, which I would have enjoyed if not for that thing at Value Club.
"Spill it, my love," she demanded.
I drained my glass and poured some more.
"Enough dramatics. Now, Chris."
"I'm not trying to be dramatic," I said truthfully. "I'm procrastinating because I don't want to talk about it. I don't ever want to think about it. It was thirty years ago."
"Chris…"
"Okay. Okay." I had to work up to it. "Remember Channel 14?"
She shook her head. "Not at all. Channel 14?"
"Local cable," I said. "It ran local TV shows. Pretty much all garbage, created by the best losers of Bridal Veil Lake. Anyone could have a show if they had a bit of money or a connection."
She sipped her wine, readying herself for what I was about to drop. Shannon is the best. Did I really want to bring her into my nightmares? She deserved better. We would stop going to Value Club. A childless couple didn't need to shop there. We just liked big stuff.
I put down my wine.
"Oh no you don't," she said, gripping my forearm, at first tenderly, and then pressing her sharp nails against my skin. "My love, if you don't tell me now, I intend to draw blood." She smiled and I knew the threat would be carried out.
"Okay, okay, so…"
The tip of talons dug in.
I yelped. "A talking horse! A talking horse! I was on a kids' show about a talking horse."
Nails relented, and her touch became comforting again. "The orange horse?"
I nodded. I had to sit down in one of our reading chairs by the fire.
My wife looked worried. I never acted like this. Our decade of marriage had been carefree and easy. "What happened on the show, Chris?"
"The horse could talk."
"Yes, you said that-"
"No, you don't understand. It could really talk. The hard plastic mouth moved and it could talk. The eyes too. The painted black dots rolled around in the whites." I shivered despite the waves of heat coming from the fire.
Shannon topped us up. "You never mentioned being on a kid's show before. How old were you?"
"Four. Five when it ended. I was the last kid. I can't remember the names of the others. One was Bella, I think. It called her Octa-Bella. I don't know why."
"Well, now I have to see, Chris," she said. She took out her phone.
"Good luck finding a copy of that-"
"Your mom has it in the shared drive."
Of course she did.
Shannon started watching with the volume high. Mom, damn it, she never understood the dread of that place, and didn't believe me when I said I was scared. To this day, she thinks we don't speak or see each other often because I'm so busy. The truth is I'll never stop resenting her for bringing me to Channel 14.
I didn't have to see the video on Shannon's phone to pair the awful piano intro with the black screen gradually filled with mechanical white type: The Orange Horse.
The words disappear and then, depending on the episode, there are kids, or one kid, on a stage in the dark, surrounding a shiny orange horse, a coin operated ride with a real leather saddle and reins that never helped anyone.
Poor sound quality picks up or makes an ambient buzzing that persists throughout each episode. That sound makes my stomach turn because it means it will speak soon, and it will choose.
"Hello children," says the orange horse, his voice a deep and unfriendly monotone. "Which one of you will try tonight? Have you decided? Or shall I?" The hinged mouth moves but rarely in synchronization with its words.
As Shannon watched and listened, I recalled the strong oiled scent of the mechanical beast and the way its pinprick eyes could swell until they took away the rest of the already empty scene and you would be alone with it. No one could come to save you, even had they wanted to.
Shannon paused the screen with her thumb. "Hang on, there's a timestamp thingy in the corner. Past midnight. Were you filming at night? That couldn't have been legal. Not even in the 80s."
"We weren't recording," I said, trembling so hard I could barely drink. "It was live. There wasn't a script. No rehearsals. No crew. Just us and the horse."
Shannon knelt down and weaved her fingers with mine. "My love, there must have been some people. Somebody filmed this. Your mom, for all her faults, wouldn't have ditched you with nobody."
"She brought a toddler there at midnight," I said, more angrily than expected. "You overestimate her parenting." Still, Shannon's suggestion stirred up a memory.
There had been an old man, a somber, silent guy. I don't remember him saying anything. He opened the studio doors and ensured they closed behind me.
"Have fun," my mom would say from the walkway outside. Channel 14 was a small, squat building, a brown, windowless rectangle. It'd been on the outskirts of Bridal Veil Lake beside a strip joint that never changed its sign: Grand Opening December.
The old guy would point the way to the heavy curtain at the end of a long, dim hallway. None of the track lights above were ever completely functional. They flickered and held on to burnt out tubes that seemed to emit a smoke coiling around the popcorn ceiling.
Beyond the curtain, the other kids were already there. We never talked or said hello. The orange horse ride waited, a presence demanding your attention. I remember the kids screaming when it spoke.
If you hadn't been through the ordeal already, you screamed. Some weeks there were a lot that screamed. Most times we waited for it to choose a rider in silence.
Often, the heavy oil odour would turn my stomach. There was another little girl in a knitted, pink sweater. She used to hold my hand until the night she was chosen. I never saw her again after that.
I remember her ride.
I remember prying my fingers from hers, and how she cried when the orange horse said her name. Stirrups, a rein, and the pommel were all too big for children. The saddle had been made with adults in mind it seemed.
"Erin, it's your turn to ride, time to see what wriggles inside." Its rhyme was as clumsy as its mouth. The eyes rolled and stopped with a sharp click that always made the chosen rider flinch. They were just dots of paint, and yet you just knew when the orange horse stared at you.
Her little hand slipped on the hard plastic mane as she tried to climb up. I steadied her and helped her on. She wrapped the reins around her forearms. The stirrups were too low; she couldn't put her feet through, so she tried to brace her heels against the lump of tail fused to the orange body. Others had tried that too.
The ride started gently at first, and then, without warning…
"Chris! Chris!" Shannon was shouting at me. A frantic shrieking tore from my throat. I lay on the floor by the fireplace and the waves of heat were too much. Sweat and drool and tears ran in rivulets down my face and body. I'd also pissed myself but didn't notice until I got changed later.
My wife held me without judgment and rocked me back and forth as she did when this would happen in the middle of the night.
"Oh my god, it's your night terrors," she said. "This is what they're about."
"Yeah," I admitted weakly. "Did you see it? Did you see what it did?"
She shook her head. "The ride starts and the footage ends immediately. You were so cute, but, yeah, not happy. None of the kids looked very happy."
"We weren't."
Shannon tapped her phone and brought it to her ear.
"What are you doing?"
"Calling your mom," she said.
"What? Why?" I tried to get up and found that more difficult than expected due to drunkenness and wobbly limbs full of fear.
"Hey, Jacqueline, yeah, it's Shannon." She walked off and I heard the side door swing open and bang shut. Her voice became an angry murmur through the walls. Not a nice drinker at all.
I sprawled on the couch and watched the fire.
The side door banged again and Shannon stood above me. "Let’s go." She took my hand and started pulling.
"What? Where?" I was afraid I already knew.
"To that stupid horse ride."
I leaned back, and she groaned from the sudden extra weight. "Come on, Chris. You need to see that it's just a toy, and nothing-"
"It's not, it's not. I'm not going back. We're never going there again."
"Chris, sweetheart," she said with false patience, "your mom explained it all. T You wanted to be on the show because you watched it on TV. She thought it'd be a good way for you to meet some other kids. When it was canceled, she said you were sad."
"And you believed her?" I wrung my hand out of Shannon's. "What about all the kids?"
"What about them?"
"They didn't come back…" I tried to remember Erin's ride and what had happened. The orange horse always got carried away and the kids fell off, and then… I couldn't remember.
"So you think the orange horse killed them? And your mom thought that was great and kept bringing you? Chris, be reasonable. There's no mention of this show on the internet, and nothing about kids dying on a show or going missing. Was it a weird experience? For sure. Did it traumatize you? Yes. Was a plastic horse somehow responsible or were you just so young that your mind misinterpreted details, got confused, and made it scarier than it seemed?"
"Shannon," I said, weary from her rant. "You weren't there."
"True, but where was I when I was four? I couldn't tell you. We barely remember anything before five. And what we do recall can be easily misconstrued due to our underdeveloped kid brains."
She was beginning to make sense, and I started to feel a little dumb. The fear remained, however, and I didn't want to go to Value Club. We argued some more, and came to a compromise by evening: Baby steps.
We'd pay the orange horse a quick visit after supper, and I could say when it was time to leave. The store didn't close until nine. Since we were a little drunk, we'd take a taxi. It all seemed so reasonable.
I hesitated outside the automatic sliding doors. A steady stream of customers gave us looks, some irritated, as they passed around Shannon and I. She tugged gently on my arm and whispered support.
Every instinct told me to run. That thing waited inside, just on the other side of some opaque glass. I held my breath, closed my eyes, and let her be my guide. The oiled saddle clotted the air with its odour. I gasped because I thought we were close to it.
When I opened my eyes, the stench seemed to fade, and the orange horse was still some meters away. Its long body gleamed beneath the huge lights hanging from the ceiling. I could see our faint shadows in its hind quarters.
"You okay, Chris?" Shannon asked. "You want to go?"
I kept staring at the horse's face.The pinpoint eyes were needles. The closed mouth hid teeth. There were teeth in there. Surely, that hadn't been a false memory.
"Chris?"
"Do you have a quarter?"
She opened her hand, the warm coin inside. "You don't have to. Really, I'm sorry if I was pushy. Clearly, this thing freaked you out a lot when you were a kid. Imagine how tired you must have been, filming at midnight."
I remembered the last show.
"Christopher," it said, "it's your time to ride, time to see what wriggles inside." Five-years-old and I felt a hundred. I was the last one, the only kid on the stage that night.
The orange horse had no one but me to choose. So I started climbing up to the saddle before its clunky mouth shut.
But then…
"I slipped off," I told Shannon.
"You what?" She'd been staring at the orange horse too, and had her arms wrapped around herself. "This thing is sort of creepy. No wonder you're traumatized. Gotta be worse in the dark, alone."
"When it was my turn," I said, "there was no one there to catch me when I lost my grip on the stupid mane. I fell and cut my lip, I think. Somebody came and brought me outside to my mom. She was smoking and sitting on the hood of our car. My lip got so fat."
"Why were you alone?"
"I don't know."
"Are you sure you were alone, Chris?" Shannon asked reluctantly. "I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense. We should talk to your mom again. I shouldn't have yelled at her."
I looked at the quarter. The orange horse worked on its own. It moved without money. I tried hard to recall a coin slot, but couldn't.
Doubt gnawed hard at my certainty about the stupid ride and the whole Channel 14 ordeal. Maybe the ride just looked like the one from my memory. Yet, I'd started trembling so much, I dropped the quarter.
That's when its mouth unhinged to reveal paint chipped squares resembling teeth, and the eyeballs rotated around and around. I seized hold of Shannon as she put a protective arm in front of me.
A speaker somewhere inside the horse began a script so static ridden we couldn't make out any words.
"Okay, that is scary," Shannon confirmed. I backed away from her and the orange horse. "Chris?"
"I want to leave now. You said I could decide. I'm deciding. Let's go. Please, Shannon, please. I want to go." The voice had been incomprehensible but I felt called to ride. I'd never done mine. Only I had escaped. What had happened to the other kids?
Time to see what wriggles inside…
"Fuck this thing," Shannon said. She scooped up the quarter and advanced on the ride. I swear its attention shifted from me, and I felt so guilty, but the sense of relief wasn't mere imagination.
"Shannon," I said, "get away from it." I wanted to go closer and pull her away, but couldn't get my legs to move. "Shannon…"
She swung her long leg over the saddle and picked up the reins. "This is the most poorly thought out children's ride ever. Her feet slid into the stirrups easily because the whole saddle had, of course, been originally made for an adult. The orange horse looked small beneath her. "You're going to see, Chris. I'm going to show you."
"Shannon, don't-"
Her whole body jolted intensely after the first sway of the ride. The metal in the stirrup made contact with the steel base, where an exposed wire coiled below in the interior, electrifying the plate into an instrument of death.
She didn't look dead. I smelled her death - her cooking flesh - before I saw it.
Had I not been a coward, and tried to grab her, I'd have been electrocuted too.
Employees raced around and an old guy used a broom to unplug the ride. Shannon's body slumped over the orange horse as its eyes spun around one last time.
It's your turn to ride…
I could hear its voice so perfectly within my thoughts.
"It's happened before," my mom said, "in China. I looked it up." We were suddenly sitting inside an ambulance and I don't remember when she arrived or how we got here." My eyes felt sore. "Kids never could reach the stirrups, and even then, it was a fluke, Chris. If the steel part hadn't touched the other steel part, well, we wouldn't…" She cleared her throat, unable to finish her sentence.
"Mom," I said, "why did you put me on that show?"
"The show? Channel 14?" She pretended to clear her throat again. "You were fascinated with the horse. You begged me to take you to see it, even when they weren't filming. Even when there were no other kids there. You loved that thing."
"I didn't," I said. "It scared me. What was the show about?"
"The orange horse," she said, as if that explained it all. A paramedic appeared to check on me. The ambulance started moving. We were going to the hospital.
Time launched itself to Shannon's funeral and then an idle Tuesday afternoon of no particular importance. I held another glass of wine. I sat in one of the reading chairs. Hers remained empty.
Would always be empty.
Heavy rain poured. Those stunted trees by the fence were up to their evergreens in water.
It was just an accident. My mom had been right about coin operated rides. Apparently, they send kids to hospitals every year. Even the exposed wire thing had happened before.
I started to cry. If I hadn't gotten so spooked in Value Club, Shannon would be here, alive, and we'd be happy.
"Stupid horse," I cursed into my cup before slurping some more wine.
That's when the TV came on. It began with a warm, yellow light in the center of the screen, which expanded until the typewriter noise began. I seized the arms of the chair. My cup shattered against the fireplace.
T H E O R A N G E H O R S E
The white letters appeared one at a time with the mashing of those keys. A blurry scene gradually focused like a dream and there I was, five-years-old, exhaustedly standing by the ride.
"Christopher," the horse said, eyes spinning, lazy mouth opening only once for multiple syllables, "it's your turn to ride, time to see what wriggles inside."
I started screaming. My memory hadn’t been mistaken about the smallest detail. I had been alone. My small hand reached for the mane and I slipped, and my chin clipped the hard plastic. What happened next, I did not recall.
Five-year-old me sprawled out on the floor. I looked unconscious.
The orange horse snorted and his eyes spun so fast, the black dot blurred into a ragged circle.
"Time to see what wriggles inside," it said again. And then again. And again. And again. I hadn't moved. I was unconscious.
A curtain pushed aside briefly, revealing a host of people sitting on bleachers. I'd always thought we were alone. An older man stepped onto the sound stage and knelt down by my head.
"Kid didn't even make it to the saddle," he called back to the audience and the crowd beyond the curtain laughed until the orange horse emitted a sharp, piercing whinny. They quieted instantly. The older man's smile fell and he bowed his head low, mumbling apologetically as he scooped me up.
The thrum of the lights or a furnace dominated the empty space once more.
"Better take him, Jacks," he said.
The curtain swept aside and my fucking mom walked out in a huff. She had the old guy carry me off the stage. That's about when I started to regain consciousness.
My TV shut off then. It didn't have to show me what followed because I remembered my mom lighting up a cigarette and sitting on the hood of our car.
I must have been groggy from the fall or the late hour. Seemed like we were outside Channel 14 a long time before she took me home. She never said a word. She didn't have to in order to convey her disappointment.
Behind a row of empty bottles, I found my phone. I got my coat and hopped in the car without waiting for a response. She'd be there. I knew she would.
Jacqueline waited inside the front entrance of Value Club, staring at the horse nobody had bothered to move. Only a stretched out bit of caution tape deterred any future riders.
The urge to punch my mom in the back of the head dwindled swiftly in the presence of the orange horse. I felt exhausted and stupid.
"What the fuck, mom?"
"Watch your language, Chris." My mom swore all the time, casually and for fun. Now in her seventies, she rarely hesitated to pepper her judgments of other drivers with a litany of expletives. Her sudden attention to etiquette implied the religious significance of the horse I now suspected.
"So what? You think it's Jesus? Horse Jesus? Fucking plastic horse Jesus?"
"Sh!" she hissed.
The mouth unhinged and popped so hard I thought it would fall off. Again, static came from the deeply buried recorder within. It didn't matter. I knew the words and what it wanted. Unbelievably, the ride remained plugged into the wall, and I had zero confidence the exposed wire had been fixed.
"You never did take your ride, Chris," Jacqueline said. She kept her hands folded against her chest and continued looking at the stupid, fucking horse.
"You want me to fucking die? Like the other kids on the show? Fuck, why was it a show? Why did it want a show? Huh?!" I ripped away the caution tape. "Why'd you make it a show, you fucking piece of shit!" I threw an ill advised punch against the side of its head and immediately broke my hand. "Fuck!"
"Christopher!" Jacqueline cradled my swelling, bleeding fist. "The show was an invitation. How was anyone to know about it otherwise? And nobody died. Sure, some kids fell off, and got injured. Most kids, I guess. Nobody died until… Shannon. And that was an accident. The orange horse was a test. If you could hang on, then you were in. If not, then-"
"You were outside. Holy… mom, what the hell is going on? What is this thing?"
She wrapped my hand in a kerchief from her purse and patted my cheek before she spoke. "It's something, Chris. It's really something. That's all I can say with any certainty. The people in this town, they all follow something, and this… this is just the something that found us first. You want to know what it is, then you know what you have to do."
It's your turn to ride.
I started my approach, each step a triumph over fear so deeply ingrained into my character I didn't know myself without it. If I could take that ride, and hang on for the duration, I would be someone totally new.
Shannon's death had been an accident.
Something greater resided in or around the orange horse.
My whole life I'd been waiting to find…
what wriggles inside
I threw up all over the saddle as soon as my undamaged hand gripped the pommel. A strong grip snagged my collar and dragged me away before I could even try to mount. The struggle against the intervener lasted only a few seconds before I was pinned to the ground by three Value Club employees and a security guard.
"Sir! That isn't safe!" the guard yelled in my face.
"Hey," another employee said, "somebody plugged it back in."
Jacqueline was already long gone by that point. Eventually, I calmed down enough to be escorted from the store. My mom wasn't in the parking lot, and she wouldn't answer my calls or texts. Her apartment had been vacated already for a week.
In short, I don't know where she is. Or why she probably wanted me dead.
I got rid of my TV. I'm tempted to ditch all screens, including the one I'm currently typing this on. I'm terrified the orange horse will take it over to send me another video.
Value Club removed the ride. Some PR person promised it'd be destroyed asap. Yet, I got a weird feeling they were lying. I'd chop and burn the evil thing myself if I thought it would kill it.
But the orange horse remains. It visits during my sleep. I'm a kid again, and I always take my ride, and fall off when it gets out of control.
I fall and fall and fall, back into my body, asleep until impact. I sit up and gasp, but my wife isn't there.
Shannon's gone.
And I'm alone because I couldn't ride a stupid, plastic horse.

I - II - III - IV
The fleshy centers in both of Teresa’s palms were starting to bruise.
Diggs’ spiel had somehow transported them outside the Entodome, out to an open field not far from the facility parking lot. He was now directing her attention to the mobile “Dragondrone hangar” (which still looked more like a barbecue than anything else), where Cesar held his hands above the latch.
“Now this. This is one of my favorite parts.” Diggs smirked, his arms held behind his lab coat. “It’s what fills seats at every expo.”
Teresa fought the urge to groan. Oh, just get on with it. She watched as Cesar opened their little “hangar” and unleashed a cloud of bewildered dragonflies into the air. It was a mass of confused movement.
Well, here goes. This is where they all fly off. Bye Bye.
But to Teresa’s surprise, The dragonfly horde swirled into one precise shape, unifying and shooting forward like a directed puff of smoke.
Diggs stepped in front of the now-empty barbecue. “You see that pole they’re aiming for?” He pointed at a metallic pylon in the distance. “They’ll be upon it shortly. We program their transceivers to fly back and forth between these two points.” He motioned again to the barbecue. “It allows us to perform some baseline inspection. Quality control.”
Teresa nodded slowly, not really in awe, but in a bemused sort of devastation. How on earth could this be sustainable? The enemy might as well release children with fly swatters. Or frogs. She tried to think of something to ask, to convince herself this afternoon hadn’t been a huge waste of her time. She turned to Cesar with an open palm. “So … how long do they live for?”
The assistant clearly hadn’t been expecting to talk. “Um. Well it depends,” he said. “Most of them? Twelve months.”
Only a year? Teresa bit her tongue. “Can they handle extreme climates?”
“Well, it depends.” His eyes stared at the ground. “What kind?”
She fought the urge to face-palm. We’re fighting in the arctic, what kind do you think?
Devlin quickly intervened. “We can breed them to survive near anything. And the beauty is, they’ll always feed themselves! Infinite battery power.”
Teresa’s mind kept finding more holes to poke. “And if there isn’t any food? What then?”
“Oh they’ll hunt anywhere,” Diggs said with a certainty. “Flies and mosquitoes exist on every continent, which makes our Dragondrones extremely versatile. All terrain.”
Is he trying to sell me a car? She turned before her annoyance could show and pretended to watch the line of insects returning from the shiny pylon.
On second thought, a car wouldn’t be so bad. I could drive it straight to the airport, instead of waiting for the courtesy vehicle after this flea circus.
***
“Use your wings!” Flax yelled, swaying the tail that Ollo gripped. “It only works if you flap in tandem with me!”
Ollo tried, but he was having trouble synchronizing his muscles. He panicked as they sputtered awkwardly, beginning to plunge. The shadows of the three Envoys stood tall and still in the distance: judging on behalf of The Ancestor.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no.
Ollo focused and very quickly discovered his panic doubled as an effective metronome.
Oh - no. Up - down. Oh - no. Up - down.
“Keh! That’s more like it!” Flax yanked them toward the tail-end of the racers. They lined up behind a pair of large duskhawkers, whose freckled wings cut through the air. Suddenly, the endeavor became much easier.
“Oh wow,” Ollo said, “have I gotten better?”
“No, we're in their slipstream, dullard. They’re breaking the air for us.”
Ollo raised his feeler and could indeed feel a displaced draft.
“Just don’t tail them too closely,” Flax said, “or they’ll switch and slipstream us.”
They kept at a following distance, and Ollo used the moment to catch his breath and admire this new universe. He couldn’t believe it. He was here. The Outside.
There were rocky immensities in the distance and vast fields of green. The atmosphere contained a breeze that contoured all flight, and an open humidity that filtered freshness into his being. Ollo took a deep inhalation. This is what adulthood is supposed to be.
“It tastes good, right?” Flax said, mostly gliding now.
“It does,” Ollo admitted. “It’s incredible.”
“For me, the racing doesn’t matter half as much as just being out here,” Flax said. “That’s all the reward I need.”
“You’ve never ranked well?”
“How can I? See these hairs on my thorax?”
Ollo looked beyond the tail he gripped. There flailed hundreds of tiny black fibers.
“Too much drag. Not to mention an entire body frame that’s off-balance.” Flax flexed his front two nubs. “No, I’ve accepted that I’ll be bringing up the rear for the rest of my life. But there are advantages to last place; you’ll see. Plus, it’s better than being stuck in that pond, am I right?”
Ollo nodded, though he was unsure if he agreed. Suddenly, the two duskhawkers ahead of them shifted.
“You want to stay away from where their wings shed air,” Flax said. “Especially during this turn. It’s easy to get caught up in vortices.”
Ollo watched the duskhawkers pull a U-turn around the shiny pole ahead of them.
“Steady,” Flax said. “Steady …”
The lights in Ollo’s vision swam, beckoning him to turn. The lights gently abated as he rounded the beacon carefully.
Dozens of small air cyclones dithered around Ollo. The shed vortices felt weak where they were in last place, but Ollo saw one of the duskhawkers spin out of control.
The poor duskhawker’s wings had twisted the wrong way, and he spiraled down to the earth. Ollo wasn’t sure what had happened, but he could swear, in the periphery of his vision, that something exploded.
***
“What was that?” Teresa asked. Blue sparks popped among the line of dragonflies like a firecracker.
“Oh yes: if they swerve too far from alignment, we can self-destruct their transceivers.” Diggs whirled his hand around a touch-device. “It’s a quick way to weed out any mistakes before the mission starts. It’s also how we prevent valuable flyers from getting into the wrong hands.” He shot Teresa a look that said: bet you didn’t think of that!
She didn’t like his bizarrely jovial attitude, especially considering these bugs were meant to be used for conflict areas. His whole sales approach seemed to forget that she was with the Air Force, not Amazon.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking.” Diggs walked backwards, pocketing his device. “These flyers are all very well and efficient, but how can I see them in action? True recon missions travel great distances over several days, do they not?”
Teresa didn’t say anything, She followed at half speed towards the parking lot, where Cesar now sat inside a golf cart.
“Well in honor of your visit, Sarge, we’ve prepared a little surprise.” Diggs gave a thumbs-up and Cesar bumbled the vehicle over the curb, pulling it onto the grass.
“Hop in.”
Good lord. What more is there to see? Theresa tried to think of something to end this joke. This carnival ride. But her mind was too encumbered by annoyance. A military rep could not be seen as weak.
She sat in the rear two seats, wondering if Diggs could read her resentment. The director leaned in from the front. “We’ll be going uphill, so buckle up!”
She grabbed a ceiling handle. He can’t read me at all. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.
The car throttled up a knoll, and the lack of shocks became evident as the wheels bounced over every pebble and crack.
Christ, what was the Major thinking when he sent me here?
She could hear his old, French cadence jabbering in her head. “It’s a showcase of living drones, Zhao! Made a huge splash at the expo. One of us should be there—and I think it should be you. It’s the forefront of its industry, and it needs someone of your expertise.” But all Teresa could see at this ‘forefront’ was glorified gnats: bird food. How could he have taken this all so seriously?
Then it occurred to her. Maybe he hadn’t.
Maybe she had been sent here as a farce. The more she thought about it, the more the whole visit began to reek of the same passive-aggression that had lingered since her days as a drone pilot: where lieutenants would assign her the latest night shift, or somehow leave her with the rattiest equipment or chair.
Could they be pranking her now? Some petty jab for becoming sergeant in place of someone else? Christ almighty. Even now, at the turn of the 22nd century, the military is a petulant boys’ club.
She watched the two scientists navigate their golf cart, its two-wheel-drive struggling. How much longer am I expected to sit through this? All afternoon? All night?
Being senior air force, Teresa did have access to an evac order. It was something she could theoretically request. But calling it here would be absurd. Wouldn’t it?
No more absurd than being sent to watch bug theatre.
She considered the idea. Wouldn’t it be funny? If they were going to waste her time, she could waste theirs. With her cellphone’s GPS, dispatch could locate her without a hitch. The request would only be a text away. A twenty-year official should be treated with respect.
The golf cart wheezed to the top of the neighboring hill to reveal a large, stylish-looking gazebo. Cesar pulled the E-brake and stopped in front of its glass entrance.
“What’s this?” Teresa stared.
“Oh, you’ll see.” Diggs stepped off the cart and lit a long, thin cigarette. “We’re just getting started.”
Upon approach, the doors slid open, revealing blue-glowing screens. A padded interior ushered comfort, and Teresa could soon hear the familiar hum of something refrigerating. The room contained several monitors that hung below a beautiful, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the valley. It felt newly renovated, but old enough to have a few mugs lying around.
Diggs smoked outside as Cesar rapidly began tapping on the screens, activating icons and plotting lines across some kind of map. The map kept resizing across the monitors, and as Teresa glanced back and forth, she could faintly see the shine of other metal pylons across the valley. Their placement corresponded to the markers on-screen.
“What is this? Some kind of watchtower?”
Diggs faced away, taking a drag with one arm on the door to prevent it from closing. “Well, you saw our little NASCAR warm-up where we started, right?”
Teresa looked at the field they had left, where a thin oval of dragonflies still circled.
Diggs exhaled. “Well, let’s just say from now on, we’ll be watching Formula One.”
His ember pointed at the cushy seats in the center. Teresa gawked at the chairs, but couldn’t bring herself to sit. Just when the bar on absurdity has been set—it somehow manages to skyrocket further.
***
On their fourth lap, the lights in Ollo’s head began to shimmer, beckoning a new trajectory. Before the colors turned piercingly bright, Flax broke from their path, pulling Ollo to the right.
“Finally,” the damselfly said, “prelim’s over.” In front of them, the linear plume of racers all travelled north, away from the established circuit.
“Wait … what’s going on?” “Can’t you sense her lights? The race has officially started, Ollie. And it looks like a new course.”
“It’s only started now?”
“That’s right. We’ve never flown north before. Lady Meganeura has carved us something special.”
Ollo gripped Flax’s tail and focused on his tandem wing-work. They had entered a steady rate of acceleration, with their wings fluttering in near-perfect opposites.
“Keh. Keep this up and we won’t need to rely on slipstreams.”
Ollo’s mandibles flashed a smile. He enjoyed seeing the grass blur quicker than before. Perhaps this racing does hold some purpose...
The lights guided them far away, towards a strange dirt field. It was strange because it was home to dozens of evenly-dispersed pillars, all about the height and size of an Envoy. They were white, square-shaped, and as Ollo passed the first row, he noticed a beaten, wood-like texture to them. They were full of dents and scratches, as if the pillars somehow rose and bumped each other from time to time.
“What are those things?” Ollo asked.
“Like I said, new course. No idea what Mega’s thinking.”
They flew straight and trailed behind the plume of racers, watching their shimmering wings toss blades of light. As they flew in deeper amongst the white pillars, a muffled buzzing grew louder from all directions. Ollo noticed the hairs on Flax’s thorax grow stiff.
The shimmers up front stopped progressing, and instead oscillated in circles. The distant racers then dispersed around the monoliths.
“Slow down,” Flax said.
“What’s going on?”
“Something’s not right.”
Out from the pillars came flying blue shapes, all buzzing loud and fierce. Thick streams of them gave chase to the racers ahead.
“We need to disengage,” Flax said.
As Ollo let go, they both witnessed one of the racers return their way: it was grey flatwing. The poor dragon was screaming, chased by two blue insects who dove in and out, taking bites of his tail.
“Get offa me! Get off!” The flatwing rapidly turned, tossing vortices at his assailants. The spinning air was powerful enough to sway Ollo and twist the blue bugs’ wings.
“Scramble!” Flax revved his thorax and dived into the cover of the weeds below.
Ollo watched the blue flyers steady their flight, lifting their black-and-blue striped bodies. Each of their abdomens ended in a long, black barb. Ollo had seen a few of these above the pond: bees.
***
“You’re making them fly through your bee farm?” From the window Teresa could no longer make out the drones, but she saw the little hives in the distance. Like tiny white bricks.
“Yes, well, earlier you were asking how they might feed.” Diggs rose from his seat and opened a mini-fridge. “I thought I’d let the drones snack on some of our other products. Like our signature blue bees.”
He grabbed some glass bottles that contained a gold-ish liquid and placed them on the side. “This makes for a nice segue actually—I’d like to introduce some of our artisanal mead, derived from those very bees. It’s smooth, not-too-sweet, with a unique, tangy aftertaste.”
The sergeant glanced from the off-topic drink to the screen Cesar was manipulating. This hive complex was labeled Marker Two on the very large map.
Marker two out of thirty. Good lord.
“The bees are one of the main branches of our company.” Devlin raised his glass and offered the others to Teresa and Cesar. “We are a self-sustaining business, after all, and invested in pollination, which, as you may know, is an extremely profitable endeavor. Our bees are among the few that can still do it.”
So he’s pitching his bees now? It seemed like this Diggs truly lived in his own reality.
“I know you probably assume some grants might’ve paid for our facility”—Diggs giggled—“but grants wouldn’t allow for such extravagance.” His fingers drummed along the gazebo walls, the tops of two monitors, and then the on-screen hive icons.
“It is our bees—which we’ve bred to be a bit more aggressive than others—that ensure we stay on top of the market. It’s what funds our dragonflies, our silkworms, our termites...”
Teresa could not handle whatever this was turning into. There was no way she could stomach hours of this derailed demo and keep a straight face.
Damn you, Major. Never again.
With her hand in her pocket, Teresa sent the text she had prepared. Screw it.
Emergency evac requested. If she was going to have her leg pulled all day, she might as well pull back.
Diggs continued to sip and gasconade, mead swirling in his hand. Teresa nodded along, grabbed her own glass and allowed herself to drink.

I - II - III - IV
The fleshy centers in both of Teresa’s palms were starting to bruise.
Diggs’ spiel had somehow transported them outside the Entodome, out to an open field not far from the facility parking lot. He was now directing her attention to the mobile “Dragondrone hangar” (which still looked more like a barbecue than anything else), where Cesar held his hands above the latch.
“Now this. This is one of my favorite parts.” Diggs smirked, his arms held behind his lab coat. “It’s what fills seats at every expo.”
Teresa fought the urge to groan. Oh, just get on with it. She watched as Cesar opened their little “hangar” and unleashed a cloud of bewildered dragonflies into the air. It was a mass of confused movement.
Well, here goes. This is where they all fly off. Bye Bye.
But to Teresa’s surprise, The dragonfly horde swirled into one precise shape, unifying and shooting forward like a directed puff of smoke.
Diggs stepped in front of the now-empty barbecue. “You see that pole they’re aiming for?” He pointed at a metallic pylon in the distance. “They’ll be upon it shortly. We program their transceivers to fly back and forth between these two points.” He motioned again to the barbecue. “It allows us to perform some baseline inspection. Quality control.”
Teresa nodded slowly, not really in awe, but in a bemused sort of devastation. How on earth could this be sustainable? The enemy might as well release children with fly swatters. Or frogs. She tried to think of something to ask, to convince herself this afternoon hadn’t been a huge waste of her time. She turned to Cesar with an open palm. “So … how long do they live for?”
The assistant clearly hadn’t been expecting to talk. “Um. Well it depends,” he said. “Most of them? Twelve months.”
Only a year? Teresa bit her tongue. “Can they handle extreme climates?”
“Well, it depends.” His eyes stared at the ground. “What kind?”
She fought the urge to face-palm. We’re fighting in the arctic, what kind do you think?
Devlin quickly intervened. “We can breed them to survive near anything. And the beauty is, they’ll always feed themselves! Infinite battery power.”
Teresa’s mind kept finding more holes to poke. “And if there isn’t any food? What then?”
“Oh they’ll hunt anywhere,” Diggs said with a certainty. “Flies and mosquitoes exist on every continent, which makes our Dragondrones extremely versatile. All terrain.”
Is he trying to sell me a car? She turned before her annoyance could show and pretended to watch the line of insects returning from the shiny pylon.
On second thought, a car wouldn’t be so bad. I could drive it straight to the airport, instead of waiting for the courtesy vehicle after this flea circus.
***
“Use your wings!” Flax yelled, swaying the tail that Ollo gripped. “It only works if you flap in tandem with me!”
Ollo tried, but he was having trouble synchronizing his muscles. He panicked as they sputtered awkwardly, beginning to plunge. The shadows of the three Envoys stood tall and still in the distance: judging on behalf of The Ancestor.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no.
Ollo focused and very quickly discovered his panic doubled as an effective metronome.
Oh - no. Up - down. Oh - no. Up - down.
“Keh! That’s more like it!” Flax yanked them toward the tail-end of the racers. They lined up behind a pair of large duskhawkers, whose freckled wings cut through the air. Suddenly, the endeavor became much easier.
“Oh wow,” Ollo said, “have I gotten better?”
“No, we're in their slipstream, dullard. They’re breaking the air for us.”
Ollo raised his feeler and could indeed feel a displaced draft.
“Just don’t tail them too closely,” Flax said, “or they’ll switch and slipstream us.”
They kept at a following distance, and Ollo used the moment to catch his breath and admire this new universe. He couldn’t believe it. He was here. The Outside.
There were rocky immensities in the distance and vast fields of green. The atmosphere contained a breeze that contoured all flight, and an open humidity that filtered freshness into his being. Ollo took a deep inhalation. This is what adulthood is supposed to be.
“It tastes good, right?” Flax said, mostly gliding now.
“It does,” Ollo admitted. “It’s incredible.”
“For me, the racing doesn’t matter half as much as just being out here,” Flax said. “That’s all the reward I need.”
“You’ve never ranked well?”
“How can I? See these hairs on my thorax?”
Ollo looked beyond the tail he gripped. There flailed hundreds of tiny black fibers.
“Too much drag. Not to mention an entire body frame that’s off-balance.” Flax flexed his front two nubs. “No, I’ve accepted that I’ll be bringing up the rear for the rest of my life. But there are advantages to last place; you’ll see. Plus, it’s better than being stuck in that pond, am I right?”
Ollo nodded, though he was unsure if he agreed. Suddenly, the two duskhawkers ahead of them shifted.
“You want to stay away from where their wings shed air,” Flax said. “Especially during this turn. It’s easy to get caught up in vortices.”
Ollo watched the duskhawkers pull a U-turn around the shiny pole ahead of them.
“Steady,” Flax said. “Steady …”
The lights in Ollo’s vision swam, beckoning him to turn. The lights gently abated as he rounded the beacon carefully.
Dozens of small air cyclones dithered around Ollo. The shed vortices felt weak where they were in last place, but Ollo saw one of the duskhawkers spin out of control.
The poor duskhawker’s wings had twisted the wrong way, and he spiraled down to the earth. Ollo wasn’t sure what had happened, but he could swear, in the periphery of his vision, that something exploded.
***
“What was that?” Teresa asked. Blue sparks popped among the line of dragonflies like a firecracker.
“Oh yes: if they swerve too far from alignment, we can self-destruct their transceivers.” Diggs whirled his hand around a touch-device. “It’s a quick way to weed out any mistakes before the mission starts. It’s also how we prevent valuable flyers from getting into the wrong hands.” He shot Teresa a look that said: bet you didn’t think of that!
She didn’t like his bizarrely jovial attitude, especially considering these bugs were meant to be used for conflict areas. His whole sales approach seemed to forget that she was with the Air Force, not Amazon.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking.” Diggs walked backwards, pocketing his device. “These flyers are all very well and efficient, but how can I see them in action? True recon missions travel great distances over several days, do they not?”
Teresa didn’t say anything, She followed at half speed towards the parking lot, where Cesar now sat inside a golf cart.
“Well in honor of your visit, Sarge, we’ve prepared a little surprise.” Diggs gave a thumbs-up and Cesar bumbled the vehicle over the curb, pulling it onto the grass.
“Hop in.”
Good lord. What more is there to see? Theresa tried to think of something to end this joke. This carnival ride. But her mind was too encumbered by annoyance. A military rep could not be seen as weak.
She sat in the rear two seats, wondering if Diggs could read her resentment. The director leaned in from the front. “We’ll be going uphill, so buckle up!”
She grabbed a ceiling handle. He can’t read me at all. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.
The car throttled up a knoll, and the lack of shocks became evident as the wheels bounced over every pebble and crack.
Christ, what was the Major thinking when he sent me here?
She could hear his old, French cadence jabbering in her head. “It’s a showcase of living drones, Zhao! Made a huge splash at the expo. One of us should be there—and I think it should be you. It’s the forefront of its industry, and it needs someone of your expertise.” But all Teresa could see at this ‘forefront’ was glorified gnats: bird food. How could he have taken this all so seriously?
Then it occurred to her. Maybe he hadn’t.
Maybe she had been sent here as a farce. The more she thought about it, the more the whole visit began to reek of the same passive-aggression that had lingered since her days as a drone pilot: where lieutenants would assign her the latest night shift, or somehow leave her with the rattiest equipment or chair.
Could they be pranking her now? Some petty jab for becoming sergeant in place of someone else? Christ almighty. Even now, at the turn of the 22nd century, the military is a petulant boys’ club.
She watched the two scientists navigate their golf cart, its two-wheel-drive struggling. How much longer am I expected to sit through this? All afternoon? All night?
Being senior air force, Teresa did have access to an evac order. It was something she could theoretically request. But calling it here would be absurd. Wouldn’t it?
No more absurd than being sent to watch bug theatre.
She considered the idea. Wouldn’t it be funny? If they were going to waste her time, she could waste theirs. With her cellphone’s GPS, dispatch could locate her without a hitch. The request would only be a text away. A twenty-year official should be treated with respect.
The golf cart wheezed to the top of the neighboring hill to reveal a large, stylish-looking gazebo. Cesar pulled the E-brake and stopped in front of its glass entrance.
“What’s this?” Teresa stared.
“Oh, you’ll see.” Diggs stepped off the cart and lit a long, thin cigarette. “We’re just getting started.”
Upon approach, the doors slid open, revealing blue-glowing screens. A padded interior ushered comfort, and Teresa could soon hear the familiar hum of something refrigerating. The room contained several monitors that hung below a beautiful, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the valley. It felt newly renovated, but old enough to have a few mugs lying around.
Diggs smoked outside as Cesar rapidly began tapping on the screens, activating icons and plotting lines across some kind of map. The map kept resizing across the monitors, and as Teresa glanced back and forth, she could faintly see the shine of other metal pylons across the valley. Their placement corresponded to the markers on-screen.
“What is this? Some kind of watchtower?”
Diggs faced away, taking a drag with one arm on the door to prevent it from closing. “Well, you saw our little NASCAR warm-up where we started, right?”
Teresa looked at the field they had left, where a thin oval of dragonflies still circled.
Diggs exhaled. “Well, let’s just say from now on, we’ll be watching Formula One.”
His ember pointed at the cushy seats in the center. Teresa gawked at the chairs, but couldn’t bring herself to sit. Just when the bar on absurdity has been set—it somehow manages to skyrocket further.
***
On their fourth lap, the lights in Ollo’s head began to shimmer, beckoning a new trajectory. Before the colors turned piercingly bright, Flax broke from their path, pulling Ollo to the right.
“Finally,” the damselfly said, “prelim’s over.” In front of them, the linear plume of racers all travelled north, away from the established circuit.
“Wait … what’s going on?” “Can’t you sense her lights? The race has officially started, Ollie. And it looks like a new course.”
“It’s only started now?”
“That’s right. We’ve never flown north before. Lady Meganeura has carved us something special.”
Ollo gripped Flax’s tail and focused on his tandem wing-work. They had entered a steady rate of acceleration, with their wings fluttering in near-perfect opposites.
“Keh. Keep this up and we won’t need to rely on slipstreams.”
Ollo’s mandibles flashed a smile. He enjoyed seeing the grass blur quicker than before. Perhaps this racing does hold some purpose...
The lights guided them far away, towards a strange dirt field. It was strange because it was home to dozens of evenly-dispersed pillars, all about the height and size of an Envoy. They were white, square-shaped, and as Ollo passed the first row, he noticed a beaten, wood-like texture to them. They were full of dents and scratches, as if the pillars somehow rose and bumped each other from time to time.
“What are those things?” Ollo asked.
“Like I said, new course. No idea what Mega’s thinking.”
They flew straight and trailed behind the plume of racers, watching their shimmering wings toss blades of light. As they flew in deeper amongst the white pillars, a muffled buzzing grew louder from all directions. Ollo noticed the hairs on Flax’s thorax grow stiff.
The shimmers up front stopped progressing, and instead oscillated in circles. The distant racers then dispersed around the monoliths.
“Slow down,” Flax said.
“What’s going on?”
“Something’s not right.”
Out from the pillars came flying blue shapes, all buzzing loud and fierce. Thick streams of them gave chase to the racers ahead.
“We need to disengage,” Flax said.
As Ollo let go, they both witnessed one of the racers return their way: it was grey flatwing. The poor dragon was screaming, chased by two blue insects who dove in and out, taking bites of his tail.
“Get offa me! Get off!” The flatwing rapidly turned, tossing vortices at his assailants. The spinning air was powerful enough to sway Ollo and twist the blue bugs’ wings.
“Scramble!” Flax revved his thorax and dived into the cover of the weeds below.
Ollo watched the blue flyers steady their flight, lifting their black-and-blue striped bodies. Each of their abdomens ended in a long, black barb. Ollo had seen a few of these above the pond: bees.
***
“You’re making them fly through your bee farm?” From the window Teresa could no longer make out the drones, but she saw the little hives in the distance. Like tiny white bricks.
“Yes, well, earlier you were asking how they might feed.” Diggs rose from his seat and opened a mini-fridge. “I thought I’d let the drones snack on some of our other products. Like our signature blue bees.”
He grabbed some glass bottles that contained a gold-ish liquid and placed them on the side. “This makes for a nice segue actually—I’d like to introduce some of our artisanal mead, derived from those very bees. It’s smooth, not-too-sweet, with a unique, tangy aftertaste.”
The sergeant glanced from the off-topic drink to the screen Cesar was manipulating. This hive complex was labeled Marker Two on the very large map.
Marker two out of thirty. Good lord.
“The bees are one of the main branches of our company.” Devlin raised his glass and offered the others to Teresa and Cesar. “We are a self-sustaining business, after all, and invested in pollination, which, as you may know, is an extremely profitable endeavor. Our bees are among the few that can still do it.”
So he’s pitching his bees now? It seemed like this Diggs truly lived in his own reality.
“I know you probably assume some grants might’ve paid for our facility”—Diggs giggled—“but grants wouldn’t allow for such extravagance.” His fingers drummed along the gazebo walls, the tops of two monitors, and then the on-screen hive icons.
“It is our bees—which we’ve bred to be a bit more aggressive than others—that ensure we stay on top of the market. It’s what funds our dragonflies, our silkworms, our termites...”
Teresa could not handle whatever this was turning into. There was no way she could stomach hours of this derailed demo and keep a straight face.
Damn you, Major. Never again.
With her hand in her pocket, Teresa sent the text she had prepared. Screw it.
Emergency evac requested. If she was going to have her leg pulled all day, she might as well pull back.
Diggs continued to sip and gasconade, mead swirling in his hand. Teresa nodded along, grabbed her own glass and allowed herself to drink.

I - II - III - IV
The fleshy centers in both of Teresa’s palms were starting to bruise.
Diggs’ spiel had somehow transported them outside the Entodome, out to an open field not far from the facility parking lot. He was now directing her attention to the mobile “Dragondrone hangar” (which still looked more like a barbecue than anything else), where Cesar held his hands above the latch.
“Now this. This is one of my favorite parts.” Diggs smirked, his arms held behind his lab coat. “It’s what fills seats at every expo.”
Teresa fought the urge to groan. Oh, just get on with it. She watched as Cesar opened their little “hangar” and unleashed a cloud of bewildered dragonflies into the air. It was a mass of confused movement.
Well, here goes. This is where they all fly off. Bye Bye.
But to Teresa’s surprise, The dragonfly horde swirled into one precise shape, unifying and shooting forward like a directed puff of smoke.
Diggs stepped in front of the now-empty barbecue. “You see that pole they’re aiming for?” He pointed at a metallic pylon in the distance. “They’ll be upon it shortly. We program their transceivers to fly back and forth between these two points.” He motioned again to the barbecue. “It allows us to perform some baseline inspection. Quality control.”
Teresa nodded slowly, not really in awe, but in a bemused sort of devastation. How on earth could this be sustainable? The enemy might as well release children with fly swatters. Or frogs. She tried to think of something to ask, to convince herself this afternoon hadn’t been a huge waste of her time. She turned to Cesar with an open palm. “So … how long do they live for?”
The assistant clearly hadn’t been expecting to talk. “Um. Well it depends,” he said. “Most of them? Twelve months.”
Only a year? Teresa bit her tongue. “Can they handle extreme climates?”
“Well, it depends.” His eyes stared at the ground. “What kind?”
She fought the urge to face-palm. We’re fighting in the arctic, what kind do you think?
Devlin quickly intervened. “We can breed them to survive near anything. And the beauty is, they’ll always feed themselves! Infinite battery power.”
Teresa’s mind kept finding more holes to poke. “And if there isn’t any food? What then?”
“Oh they’ll hunt anywhere,” Diggs said with a certainty. “Flies and mosquitoes exist on every continent, which makes our Dragondrones extremely versatile. All terrain.”
Is he trying to sell me a car? She turned before her annoyance could show and pretended to watch the line of insects returning from the shiny pylon.
On second thought, a car wouldn’t be so bad. I could drive it straight to the airport, instead of waiting for the courtesy vehicle after this flea circus.
***
“Use your wings!” Flax yelled, swaying the tail that Ollo gripped. “It only works if you flap in tandem with me!”
Ollo tried, but he was having trouble synchronizing his muscles. He panicked as they sputtered awkwardly, beginning to plunge. The shadows of the three Envoys stood tall and still in the distance: judging on behalf of The Ancestor.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no.
Ollo focused and very quickly discovered his panic doubled as an effective metronome.
Oh - no. Up - down. Oh - no. Up - down.
“Keh! That’s more like it!” Flax yanked them toward the tail-end of the racers. They lined up behind a pair of large duskhawkers, whose freckled wings cut through the air. Suddenly, the endeavor became much easier.
“Oh wow,” Ollo said, “have I gotten better?”
“No, we're in their slipstream, dullard. They’re breaking the air for us.”
Ollo raised his feeler and could indeed feel a displaced draft.
“Just don’t tail them too closely,” Flax said, “or they’ll switch and slipstream us.”
They kept at a following distance, and Ollo used the moment to catch his breath and admire this new universe. He couldn’t believe it. He was here. The Outside.
There were rocky immensities in the distance and vast fields of green. The atmosphere contained a breeze that contoured all flight, and an open humidity that filtered freshness into his being. Ollo took a deep inhalation. This is what adulthood is supposed to be.
“It tastes good, right?” Flax said, mostly gliding now.
“It does,” Ollo admitted. “It’s incredible.”
“For me, the racing doesn’t matter half as much as just being out here,” Flax said. “That’s all the reward I need.”
“You’ve never ranked well?”
“How can I? See these hairs on my thorax?”
Ollo looked beyond the tail he gripped. There flailed hundreds of tiny black fibers.
“Too much drag. Not to mention an entire body frame that’s off-balance.” Flax flexed his front two nubs. “No, I’ve accepted that I’ll be bringing up the rear for the rest of my life. But there are advantages to last place; you’ll see. Plus, it’s better than being stuck in that pond, am I right?”
Ollo nodded, though he was unsure if he agreed. Suddenly, the two duskhawkers ahead of them shifted.
“You want to stay away from where their wings shed air,” Flax said. “Especially during this turn. It’s easy to get caught up in vortices.”
Ollo watched the duskhawkers pull a U-turn around the shiny pole ahead of them.
“Steady,” Flax said. “Steady …”
The lights in Ollo’s vision swam, beckoning him to turn. The lights gently abated as he rounded the beacon carefully.
Dozens of small air cyclones dithered around Ollo. The shed vortices felt weak where they were in last place, but Ollo saw one of the duskhawkers spin out of control.
The poor duskhawker’s wings had twisted the wrong way, and he spiraled down to the earth. Ollo wasn’t sure what had happened, but he could swear, in the periphery of his vision, that something exploded.
***
“What was that?” Teresa asked. Blue sparks popped among the line of dragonflies like a firecracker.
“Oh yes: if they swerve too far from alignment, we can self-destruct their transceivers.” Diggs whirled his hand around a touch-device. “It’s a quick way to weed out any mistakes before the mission starts. It’s also how we prevent valuable flyers from getting into the wrong hands.” He shot Teresa a look that said: bet you didn’t think of that!
She didn’t like his bizarrely jovial attitude, especially considering these bugs were meant to be used for conflict areas. His whole sales approach seemed to forget that she was with the Air Force, not Amazon.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking.” Diggs walked backwards, pocketing his device. “These flyers are all very well and efficient, but how can I see them in action? True recon missions travel great distances over several days, do they not?”
Teresa didn’t say anything, She followed at half speed towards the parking lot, where Cesar now sat inside a golf cart.
“Well in honor of your visit, Sarge, we’ve prepared a little surprise.” Diggs gave a thumbs-up and Cesar bumbled the vehicle over the curb, pulling it onto the grass.
“Hop in.”
Good lord. What more is there to see? Theresa tried to think of something to end this joke. This carnival ride. But her mind was too encumbered by annoyance. A military rep could not be seen as weak.
She sat in the rear two seats, wondering if Diggs could read her resentment. The director leaned in from the front. “We’ll be going uphill, so buckle up!”
She grabbed a ceiling handle. He can’t read me at all. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.
The car throttled up a knoll, and the lack of shocks became evident as the wheels bounced over every pebble and crack.
Christ, what was the Major thinking when he sent me here?
She could hear his old, French cadence jabbering in her head. “It’s a showcase of living drones, Zhao! Made a huge splash at the expo. One of us should be there—and I think it should be you. It’s the forefront of its industry, and it needs someone of your expertise.” But all Teresa could see at this ‘forefront’ was glorified gnats: bird food. How could he have taken this all so seriously?
Then it occurred to her. Maybe he hadn’t.
Maybe she had been sent here as a farce. The more she thought about it, the more the whole visit began to reek of the same passive-aggression that had lingered since her days as a drone pilot: where lieutenants would assign her the latest night shift, or somehow leave her with the rattiest equipment or chair.
Could they be pranking her now? Some petty jab for becoming sergeant in place of someone else? Christ almighty. Even now, at the turn of the 22nd century, the military is a petulant boys’ club.
She watched the two scientists navigate their golf cart, its two-wheel-drive struggling. How much longer am I expected to sit through this? All afternoon? All night?
Being senior air force, Teresa did have access to an evac order. It was something she could theoretically request. But calling it here would be absurd. Wouldn’t it?
No more absurd than being sent to watch bug theatre.
She considered the idea. Wouldn’t it be funny? If they were going to waste her time, she could waste theirs. With her cellphone’s GPS, dispatch could locate her without a hitch. The request would only be a text away. A twenty-year official should be treated with respect.
The golf cart wheezed to the top of the neighboring hill to reveal a large, stylish-looking gazebo. Cesar pulled the E-brake and stopped in front of its glass entrance.
“What’s this?” Teresa stared.
“Oh, you’ll see.” Diggs stepped off the cart and lit a long, thin cigarette. “We’re just getting started.”
Upon approach, the doors slid open, revealing blue-glowing screens. A padded interior ushered comfort, and Teresa could soon hear the familiar hum of something refrigerating. The room contained several monitors that hung below a beautiful, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the valley. It felt newly renovated, but old enough to have a few mugs lying around.
Diggs smoked outside as Cesar rapidly began tapping on the screens, activating icons and plotting lines across some kind of map. The map kept resizing across the monitors, and as Teresa glanced back and forth, she could faintly see the shine of other metal pylons across the valley. Their placement corresponded to the markers on-screen.
“What is this? Some kind of watchtower?”
Diggs faced away, taking a drag with one arm on the door to prevent it from closing. “Well, you saw our little NASCAR warm-up where we started, right?”
Teresa looked at the field they had left, where a thin oval of dragonflies still circled.
Diggs exhaled. “Well, let’s just say from now on, we’ll be watching Formula One.”
His ember pointed at the cushy seats in the center. Teresa gawked at the chairs, but couldn’t bring herself to sit. Just when the bar on absurdity has been set—it somehow manages to skyrocket further.
***
On their fourth lap, the lights in Ollo’s head began to shimmer, beckoning a new trajectory. Before the colors turned piercingly bright, Flax broke from their path, pulling Ollo to the right.
“Finally,” the damselfly said, “prelim’s over.” In front of them, the linear plume of racers all travelled north, away from the established circuit.
“Wait … what’s going on?” “Can’t you sense her lights? The race has officially started, Ollie. And it looks like a new course.”
“It’s only started now?”
“That’s right. We’ve never flown north before. Lady Meganeura has carved us something special.”
Ollo gripped Flax’s tail and focused on his tandem wing-work. They had entered a steady rate of acceleration, with their wings fluttering in near-perfect opposites.
“Keh. Keep this up and we won’t need to rely on slipstreams.”
Ollo’s mandibles flashed a smile. He enjoyed seeing the grass blur quicker than before. Perhaps this racing does hold some purpose...
The lights guided them far away, towards a strange dirt field. It was strange because it was home to dozens of evenly-dispersed pillars, all about the height and size of an Envoy. They were white, square-shaped, and as Ollo passed the first row, he noticed a beaten, wood-like texture to them. They were full of dents and scratches, as if the pillars somehow rose and bumped each other from time to time.
“What are those things?” Ollo asked.
“Like I said, new course. No idea what Mega’s thinking.”
They flew straight and trailed behind the plume of racers, watching their shimmering wings toss blades of light. As they flew in deeper amongst the white pillars, a muffled buzzing grew louder from all directions. Ollo noticed the hairs on Flax’s thorax grow stiff.
The shimmers up front stopped progressing, and instead oscillated in circles. The distant racers then dispersed around the monoliths.
“Slow down,” Flax said.
“What’s going on?”
“Something’s not right.”
Out from the pillars came flying blue shapes, all buzzing loud and fierce. Thick streams of them gave chase to the racers ahead.
“We need to disengage,” Flax said.
As Ollo let go, they both witnessed one of the racers return their way: it was grey flatwing. The poor dragon was screaming, chased by two blue insects who dove in and out, taking bites of his tail.
“Get offa me! Get off!” The flatwing rapidly turned, tossing vortices at his assailants. The spinning air was powerful enough to sway Ollo and twist the blue bugs’ wings.
“Scramble!” Flax revved his thorax and dived into the cover of the weeds below.
Ollo watched the blue flyers steady their flight, lifting their black-and-blue striped bodies. Each of their abdomens ended in a long, black barb. Ollo had seen a few of these above the pond: bees.
***
“You’re making them fly through your bee farm?” From the window Teresa could no longer make out the drones, but she saw the little hives in the distance. Like tiny white bricks.
“Yes, well, earlier you were asking how they might feed.” Diggs rose from his seat and opened a mini-fridge. “I thought I’d let the drones snack on some of our other products. Like our signature blue bees.”
He grabbed some glass bottles that contained a gold-ish liquid and placed them on the side. “This makes for a nice segue actually—I’d like to introduce some of our artisanal mead, derived from those very bees. It’s smooth, not-too-sweet, with a unique, tangy aftertaste.”
The sergeant glanced from the off-topic drink to the screen Cesar was manipulating. This hive complex was labeled Marker Two on the very large map.
Marker two out of thirty. Good lord.
“The bees are one of the main branches of our company.” Devlin raised his glass and offered the others to Teresa and Cesar. “We are a self-sustaining business, after all, and invested in pollination, which, as you may know, is an extremely profitable endeavor. Our bees are among the few that can still do it.”
So he’s pitching his bees now? It seemed like this Diggs truly lived in his own reality.
“I know you probably assume some grants might’ve paid for our facility”—Diggs giggled—“but grants wouldn’t allow for such extravagance.” His fingers drummed along the gazebo walls, the tops of two monitors, and then the on-screen hive icons.
“It is our bees—which we’ve bred to be a bit more aggressive than others—that ensure we stay on top of the market. It’s what funds our dragonflies, our silkworms, our termites...”
Teresa could not handle whatever this was turning into. There was no way she could stomach hours of this derailed demo and keep a straight face.
Damn you, Major. Never again.
With her hand in her pocket, Teresa sent the text she had prepared. Screw it.
Emergency evac requested. If she was going to have her leg pulled all day, she might as well pull back.
Diggs continued to sip and gasconade, mead swirling in his hand. Teresa nodded along, grabbed her own glass and allowed herself to drink.

*posted with approval from moderator*
Hi everyone, I'm a current doctoral student at Arizona State University. I'm currently collecting data for my dissertation research and am interested in young adult's attitudes/experiences with vaping as well as if/how they have talked to their parent(s) about vaping. I'm looking for 18-24 year olds who live in the United States to complete a 10-15 minute survey on this topic: https://asu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8f9jBb0P28KN8F0
Please note that you do NOT need to use e-cigarettes to participate. If you complete the survey, you will also have the option to enter to win one of ten $100 Amazon gift cards. I've provided more information regarding the research as well as my ResearchGate page (still a work in progress) below.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
An extensive description of your research and why you are conducting it/chose this particular subject.
Over the past decade e-cigarette use, also known as vaping, has emerged as a growing health problem in the United States. E-cigarettes can take various forms, such as disposable units that allow a certain number of puffs, reusable units that work by inserting new cartridges, or tanks that can be filled with liquid vape chemicals. E-cigarettes work to provide an experience similar to tobacco smoking by using liquid mixes of nicotine and other chemicals that can be smoked and make a water-like vapor while providing similar effects for a user as traditional tobacco cigarettes (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022). In most areas of the U.S., e-cigarettes can be purchased for a comparable price to tobacco cigarettes at retailers such as gas stations, convenience stores, and smoke shops. Some of the most widely used brands of e-cigarettes include JUUL, Puff Bar, VUSE, and Elf Bar.
While traditional tobacco cigarette use has been declining, the use of e-cigarettes has continue to rise. In 2018 there was estimated to be 58 million e-cigarette users worldwide (Jerzynski et al., 2018). That same year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also noted that over eight million American adults used e-cigarettes, with one in four of those adults being former tobacco cigarette smokers (Villarroel et al., 2020). Perhaps most shocking are the rates of e-cigarette use among adolescents. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's annual National Youth Tobacco Survey (2022), in the past year, more than three million middle and high school-aged adolescents used e-cigarettes, with more than 25% using daily. College students and young adults aged 18-24 also make up a large portion of e-cigarette users. In general, young adults are more likely to initiate use of tobacco products (Perry et al., 2018) and in 2019, 14.3% of college students had reported using e-cigarettes within a thirty-day period.
When it comes to adult vaping use factors, men and non-Hispanic White adults make up the majority of users (Villarroel et al., 2020). Among adolescents, those who are disabled, live among the poverty level, or who speak only English are most likely to use e-cigarettes (Alcalá et al., 2016; Senders & Horner-Johnson, 2020). Adolescents and young adults are most affected by vaping, with rates of e-cigarette use among them growing exponentially between 2017 and 2019 (Schaeffer, 2019). However, many young adults do not understand the chemicals used in e-cigarettes or the range of health issues that can arise from use (McLeish et al., 2022). Because e-cigarettes contain nicotine, they can have physiological effects similar to cigarettes, such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. While e-cigarettes do not contain the same chemicals as traditional tobacco cigarettes, there are still several neurological, physiological, and behavioral risks associated with use including impaired blood-vessel function, increased risk for cardiovascular disease, harm to brain development, and addiction (National Institutes of Health, 2022; U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2023).
When it comes to substance use, research has shown that parents play a large role in prevention outcomes of their children with regard to alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. However, parents tend to discuss e-cigarettes with their children less than other substances (Cohen et al., 2022). For many parents there is a lack of awareness about their children's e-cigarette use and for parents who are aware, they often do not understand the the extent or frequency of use (Keenan et al., 2022). There are many factors can draw youth and young adults to e-cigarette use, such as social media content, traditional advertising, curiosity, and social acceptability (Lee et al., 2017; Luzius et al., 2020; Sun et al., 2023; Struik et al., 2020). Many of these factors may be able to be moderated by parents, however, parent-child discussions have been shown to make one of the largest differences in youth substance use outcomes.
This research seeks to better understand how parents engage in e-cigarette prevention efforts and serve as anti/pro socialization agents regarding their offspring’s e-cigarette use. The primary aim of this research is to develop a new measure to assess the content and style of parent-child discussions about e-cigarette use. While measures have been developed to assess the content, valence, and style of these discussions in relation to traditional substances like alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana (Miller-Day & Kam, 2010; Shin et al., 2020), no measure has assessed these factors as they relate to e-cigarette use. Based on findings from the qualitative interview data, a scale has been developed guided by the drug talk styles outlined in the parent-offspring drug talk model: targeted-direct, targeted-indirect, ongoing-direct, ongoing-indirect (Miller-Day & Dodd, 2004). Previous scale development related to these drug talk styles will also inform the measure development and be used to run concurrent validity testing (Shin et al., 2020).
What is your hypothesis? Why is it important scientifically?

• RQ1: How do revised drug talk styles (proactive/reactive, direct/indirect) about e-cigarette use impact young adult’s personal anti e-cigarette use norms?
• RQ2: How do revised drug talk styles (proactive/reactive, direct/indirect) about e-cigarette use impact young adult’s perceptions about parental anti e-cigarette use norms?
• RQ3: How do revised drug talk styles (proactive/reactive, direct/indirect) about e-cigarette use impact young adult’s intentions to use e-cigarettes?
• RQ4: How do revised drug talk styles (proactive/reactive, direct/indirect) about e-cigarette use impact young adult’s e-cigarette use behaviors?
• RQ5: What types of revised drug talk styles (proactive/reactive, direct/indirect) do young adult’s experience most in parent-child conversations about e-cigarettes?

Since the development of the Parent-Offspring Drug Talk Model (Miller-Day & Dodd, 2004), there have been several studies that have aimed to extend understanding of the descriptive and predictive dimensions of parent-offspring drug talks (Pettigrew et al., 2018; Shin et al., 2020) However, much of the research on these drug talks focuses on alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco cigarette use. Less is known about how parents discuss e-cigarette use with their offspring. Because of their relative newness when compared with other substances, parents and young adults have less understanding of how e- cigarettes work, their ingredients, and the negative health outcomes that may be associated with their use (Cohen et al., 2022; Krishen et al., 2021). With this lack of knowledge, many young adults have weak perceptions of e-cigarettes’ harmfulness and addictiveness, which have been shown to predict e-cigarette initiation (Cooper et al., 2018).
Research has shown which elements of parent discussions work to reduce alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use. For example, parental skills such as nurturing, emotion regulation, and monitoring have been shown to be effective in reducing adolescent substance use, with programs like Preparing for the Drug Free Years (PDFY), Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers (LIFT), and the Early Risers Skills for Success Program (ER) maintaining their effects between three to ten years after program completion (Cohen & Rice, 1995; Ladis et al., 2019). By better understanding parent’s current prevention practices related to e-cigarette use, we can examine how these practices may help or hinder substance use outcomes based on the current literature. Second, by understanding challenges related to parent’s discussions of e-cigarettes, health promotion practitioners can work to create parent-centered interventions to address these challenges and boost parent’s skills and confidence.
Additionally, scale development is crucial to furthering understanding of human communicative processes within the social sciences. E-cigarette use is a pressing health phenomena, especially among adolescents and young adults, making it important to be able to understand how parents engage in discussions about e-cigarette use with their children. Because these types of conversations are something that often take place in more private settings like the home, can occur spontaneously, or happen multiple times, it is difficult to observe the real interactions between parents and their children. Having a valid self-report measure for youth to share their experiences regarding these discussions can provide important insight to aid in the development of future health promotion materials such as anti-drug mass media, school-based interventions, or parent training programs.
Add a web page of your research/academic profile if possible.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Julie-Martin-46