Sawtooth lacing involves half the laces going horizontal as normal and the other half going diagonally. I think the increased surface area that the laces touch the tongue help keep the tongue from moving around.

Your fear of never reaching self actualization is totally valid. There is a hole in your life that remains frustratingly empty and you can’t seem to muster up the motivation to actually fill it with something, especially since you don’t even know what would satisfyingly fill that hole. It sounds like you’ve looked around and seen other people find fulfillment with various things, like love or hobbies, maybe they’ve been helped along with therapy or interpersonal connections, but for some reason, you have some kind of mental block that is stopping you from even trying.

It’s true that there is no silver bullet here. What works for one person may not work for you. Love may dissapoint you. Art might not be interesting to you. Reading books or going to therapy might not move you in a positive direction.

Life feels meaningless.

Well, yeah, life is largely meaningless besides what we give meaning to. For the past three years, I’ve been trying to develop my perfect breakfast. After much experimentation, I know it involves three eggs over-hard fried in Korean sesame oil with red pepper flakes, black pepper, and salt. An air fried hashbrown from Trader Joe’s cooked at 385F for 20min on the side. It’s still missing something though, so I’m still experimenting.

This constant refinement of my breakfast isn’t A Really Big Thing. It has no importance beyond what importance I give it. I started doing this as a way to encourage myself to wake up earlier in the morning, but I’ve found myself thinking about ways to improve my breakfast during little moments in my life. It’s something that occupies my mind and gives me a little joy.

I’ve actually found a bunch of little things like this. A few weeks ago, I bought a new set of boots and I’ve noticed that the tongue on my left boot keeps sliding over to one side. I looked up some remedies online, like using duct tape, using alligator clips, softening the leather with water, but none of it worked. Recently, I found something called sawtooth lacing that seems to have solved the problem. I’m pretty satisfied I found a solution.

It’s exceedingly rare to find something so meaningful that it will change your life for the better. Not impossible, especially if you are actively looking for it, but it is something that will take a lot of time and effort, and probably money too. But if you can’t muster up the motivation to make those big changes, to go on that big journey, I’d say start small and work your way up to bigger and better things.

I have always admired artists. The idea of having a cool idea in your head and manifesting that idea into the world seems magical to me. Mysterious to me. Impossible for me. In high school, I bought an Otamatone as a gag gift for a buddy, but he didn’t want it, so I kept it. I still have it and every now and then, I pull it out of storage and poorly play something silly on it like Greensleeves or Ave Maria. I wouldn’t say I’m getting better at making music, but it does amuse me and bring me a little joy.

Someone at work the other day sent out an email about organizing a free clay working class. I signed up to finally explore the world of art, but canceled at the last second after feeling too intimidated. I probably wouldn’t have been any good at it. I don’t even know what I would want to make out of clay. Canceling made me feel sad and stupid. I’m probably being a little silly and uncharitable to myself, but I guess I’m not ready to make my artistic debut yet. Maybe I should try doing something at home by myself first.

You are not wrong to fear that you will never find fulfillment in life. But more importantly, you are not wrong to hold on to hope that life can be better. Life is hard and it seems like you are enduring this hardship to the best of your ability. When I read your post, I don’t see someone stuck and unmoving, I see someone who keeps getting back up and trying to better themselves. Sure, your attempts haven’t worked out the way you wanted them to yet, but I think it’s admirable that you are still trying. You say you haven’t achieved success, I say you haven’t given up and failed.

Try not to feel the need to make big, sweeping changes to improve your life, especially if most of your mental capacity is occupied with enduring the day to day. Try to find little things to fill that hole in your life for now that feels fulfilling. Write reviews for video games you like. Organize your miscellaneous tools. Make some really good chili.

I’m gonna try adding a bowl of miso soup to my breakfast next week. I know I’ll eventually make a really good breakfast because I’m gonna keep trying. You haven’t failed yet either.

Women’s sports was not created to protect women. Women’s sports were created to protect the egos of men who would place under women. If women competed with men, there would be a bunch of butthurt men who would be angry they aren’t as good.

For example, the Battle of the Sexes tennis matches had so many men coping and seething when a women beat a man in a highly publicized tennis match after the guy was talking mad shit. You can look up any number of examples like this where after a woman does well in a sport, a seperate league for women is established.

The Onion has you covered

Don’t forget the lateral movements we can make as we explore the vast bottom of the barrel.

In the prequel, the songwriter was told, “Imagine it’s been 10,000 years. What does French sound like?” And then she was asked to do that for multiple other languages and it’s awesome.

The way I read jimothy’s comment is that Republican politicians are using trans people as a distraction from issues they don’t want to address. Conservatives are making problems by claiming trans people are bad in order to deflect attention away from problems their constiuents actually care about.

Conservative voters, if presented with the choice of healthcare or trans athletes, would absolutely prefer their politicians to focus on healthcare. A farmer in Iowa does not actually give a fuck what bathroom a trans person uses, their attention has just been redirected in that direction by grifters.

Capitalism optimizes for low cost and high prices. Waste helps maintain high prices, so capitalism absolutely encourages waste.

You complained that regular people aren’t doing enough. I explained that regular people are doing stuff and now you are complaining about the way they are doing stuff. It sounds like you are the one ineffectually complaining.

Do you think the Democratic Party decided to block DHS funding yesterday because they suddenly awoke to justice? The Democratic Party only felt comfortable doing this because they have seen there is widespread disapproval for the actions of ICE. I don’t think it’s a stretch to claim these protests have resulted in political action by elected representatives.

Iran does not need to test California’s air defenses. An easier way to hurt the USA would be to bomb US assets in the middle east or closing the Strait of Hormuz. Those are much easier to do for much bigger, immediate benefit.

The cost benefit analysis of striking California doesn’t make sense. The War on Terror showed how the USA would respond to a strike on US soil. The last thing Iran wants is for the citizens of the USA to be galvanized to increase military action in the middle east. Iran would have to be as stupid as the USA to overextend like that and they have not shown any signs of being that foolish.

And yes, beyond all of this, I still think it is not possible for Iran to drone strike California anytime soon. The idea of secret Iranian sleeper cells in the US is absurd, on the level of secret Japanese sleeper cells during WW2.

Does that gunpowder originate from Iran, a place the US has placed strict sanctions on and is under constant surveillance by US allies?

There is no point in Iran striking California. They are doing plenty of damage to the US by closing the Straight of Hormuz. The cost benefit analysis doesn’t pan out. Iran would have to be as stupid as America to overextend like that.

Are you claiming that Iran has had a boat floating around the Pacific loaded up with drones for the express purpose of striking California? Because Iran would have had to launch that boat a long time ago to be relevant right now.

Driving a truck into your neighbor’s backyard is very different from sending a boat loaded up with flying go-karts to act as retaliation. That kind of MAD only works as deterrence if the threatening party informs others of the threat.

Ah, I see. I thought you were claiming it was feasible or possible for Iran to attack California. You are more talking about the US doing a false flag on its own citizens.

I want to believe that US citizens learned from the jingoistic nonsense of The War on Terror, but the US people are currently falling into fascism. Our best bet is the general distrust in mainstream media the average US hog feels to not trust such an obvious false flag scenario.

Are these things capable of flying across the ocean? If so, why would Iran send them across the Pacific instead of the much closer Atlantic? It would make more sense to hit Washington or New York than California.

Ukraine drone striking Russia is a very different situation as Ukraine is not seperated by 8,000 miles of ocean from Russia. It is much easier to secretly load trucks with drones than it is to secretly load boats with them.

Iran is doing enough damage bombing military US assets in the middle east and closing the Straight of Hormuz. It would be nonsensical to overextend in this manner.

It seems absurd to even entertain the idea that Iran would send drone strikes to California. It would be a stupid action only the USA would attempt to do since it seems obvious such an attack would galvanize the US into more military action, which Iran doesn’t want.

It’s the natural result of how our society treats education. The end result is more valued than the process. Getting an A is more important than learning the material. When we tell kids that they need good grades to get into a good college to have a good life, education becomes a means to an end, an obstacle to be circumvented.

I didn’t enjoy learning until I got out of the public education system. If I had chatgpt in high school I would have 100% used it because high school was just the place to prove I deserved to go to college. It wasn’t a place of learning, everyone treated it as the crucible to access a better life instead of a place to figure out what you love.

AI will continue to be a problem the same way cheating will continue to be a problem. They have the same solution: we need to place more value on the learning process than the end results.

You gotta be a gold medalist in mental gymnastics to view the US bombings as legitimate preemptive action.

“We knew Iran would respond to our bombings, so we preempted their response to our preemptive bombing with a prepreemptive bombing.”

Is this solid candidate in the room with us right now?

People complain about the Dems because they have not been using the powers they’ve been granted. They are elected to pass policies and fight the Republican fascist agenda and they have seemingly rolled over more often than not. Rachet Effect and all that.

It sucks that hearing these complaints is exhausting to you, but as can be seen from this thread, there are lots of people making excuses for the Democrat party that seemingly need to hear this stuff. These folks are not helping primary useless Dems, instead spending their time and energy deflecting criticism away.

You are falling for Chuck Schumer’s lies. Back in October, the US government was shut down for over 30 days because the Democrats were using their power to force the Republicans to the bargaining table. However, it worked too well and regular people started notcing that the Dems had power, even as the minority party, so Establishment Dems conceded and reopened the government. In return, the Dems got nothing for the regular working people who gave them that power.

The minority party is not helpless. We saw this under the Obama admin where Mitch McConnell led the Republican Minorty party to rampage and obstruct the Democrats at every turn. The Dems have power, they are choosing not to exert any of it.