10/30/23 - Even my love for myself comes and goes, not to mention other people.
A compilation of people being hurt by loving boyfriends:
“I remember it was just after we married, he woke me up early in the morning, and I’m still sleepy as hell, so I’m slumped all over him, and he held me like a baby and gently patted my head. Now, I’m waiting for my divorce case’s hearing.”
“His face was all covered in blood after a car accident, and all he could think to do was check on me in the passenger seat, to see if I was okay, and comfort me. Now, he abandoned me on the side of the road for his ex-girlfriend.”
“Love will go out of date too. Perhaps he once loved you, but right now is now.”
“Back in the day, he’d gently kiss my feet and bravely tell my family that he wants to marry me. Then, on the fall night, he beat me from the third floor to the first floor. All our neighbours watched. Isn’t it funny. Pft.”
“Even my love for myself comes and goes, not to mention other people.”
Under the hashtag #Gaza expecting mother accepts C-section with no anaesthesia, a blogger writes, “Why are we letting women get pregnant and have kids at a time like this? A C-section involves cutting open the skin, fat, and muscles of the abdomen, cutting open the uterus, taking out the baby, and then sewing everything back up. I can’t imagine what kind of pain she went through.”
Comments say, “How dare you call yourself an education blogger when you write shit like this.”
“Look at what you wrote, dude. She got pregnant 37 weeks ago, when the situation wasn’t that bad in Gaza yet. It’s not like she can control when she gives birth. The baby comes out when it wants to come out.”
“Can you predict the next lottery winning numbers?”
“The main feeling the Shanghai Halloween festival gave me is that: jokesters are more and more common place, people are getting more and more hedonistic. But no one actually knows how to really relax, rest, and have fun.
We hardly have any “fun” traditional holidays, or even traditions for that matter. Basically all holidays boil down to two things: all kinds of food, and celebration of power.
I won’t expand too much into food. But celebration of power refers to things like dragon boat rowing, or parades, or other events like that, where as a common peasant, you can only listen to the directions of someone higher up. Or observe from the sidelines. You can’t actually participate. You can’t run up and interact.
Oh, and with the newest government policies, I have to add one more thing: stimulate spending. There’s not a whole lot I can say on this front either. It’s textbook hedonism. But the whole public opinion is being directed towards it.
When there are only celebration of power, where common peasants can’t participate, and only local oligarchs can enjoy it, then what is there to do except to be a jokester.
Just like I said above, there are more and more jokesters and hedonists, but there isn’t any kind of entertainment or form of fun or relaxation or rest that has a low barrier of entry, that everyone can enjoy.
It’s not just that it doesn’t exist. But in my mindsets, we even think that relaxing and resting and having fun doesn’t exist, it’s not important, we completely ignore it. That’s a very abnormal way of thinking.
Why?
Because even in the most conservative, feudalistic societies, they didn’t think that relaxing and resting and entertainment is unimportant, unnecessary, and nonexistent.
It’s recorded in Lunyu [Confucius’s writings] that several disciples were talking with Confucius one day, and they talked about ideals. One of them said that he wants to develop the military. Another one said he wants to advance the economy. A third said he wanted to be a diplomat and spread China’s rites and rituals.
The fourth disciple said that his ideal life was when a bright spring day came, he could take a dozen friends out hiking. Everyone can enjoy a bath together, then walk all over the hills, look at scenery, enjoy the breeze, and come back while singing with each other.
Confucius clapped and said that he liked the fourth disciple’s ideal life the best.
Confucius’s ideal life was socialising with friends, taking a walk in nature, having fun, playing games, both exercising and relaxing his body, and alleviating his mental stress.
Among Dynastic Chinese holidays, there were plenty of large-scale socialisation and entertainment events, like Yuanxiao Festival [15 days after Chinese New Year]. Nowadays, whenever we talk about Yuanxiao, all anyone thinks about is food, like eating Tangyuan [little balls made of rice flour, with various sweet stuffing inside].
But Dynastic Yuanxiao Festivals were basically a lantern-themed party. Everyone takes their lantern out onto the streets, and young men and women get to know each other.
Also, in Dynastic China, your regular days off wasn’t called “weekend”, but “bath day”. Like the name suggests, it’s meant for resting and bathing.
Dynastic Chinese people paid a lot of attention to resting and relaxing. And they were super into parties and socialisation. They weren’t absolutely devoted to food like these days. Or deliberately trying to boost the tourism economy by stimulating spending.
But in modern society, there are hardly any events where normal citizens can join, where everyone’s equal. Not only that, but we think playing is harmful, it’s dangerous to society. Like, Halloween, translated literally, you might explain it as a “ghost festival”, but it’s really just a western version of a “children’s festival”.
On this day, children can run around and be crazy and get candy from everyone. Both big kids and little kids.
But what are we doing on our Children’s Day festival? Kids can’t get any relaxation or fun at all. They’re all working overtime rehearsing their performances, so that the school leaders can enjoy a good show. So the school leaders can show off their work. Children’s Day isn’t a day for children to enjoy, but a day for school leaders to enjoy children.
Because we can’t turn to traditional holidays, and yet people and kids want to have fun, want to party, want to socialise, obviously, they’d turn to western holidays. Like Halloween, or Christmas, or New Year’s parties.
Is there anything wrong with that?
I don’t think so.
A society that doesn’t put any value on fun or rest, which only encourages hedonism and materialism, and push their average citizens to the edges inevitably becomes very problematic.”
Comments say, “It’s so true. Even when I was a kid, I’ve always wondered why the school leaders don’t get up and put on a show for us for Children’s Day, and we’re the ones who have to work so hard to perform for them? Just who is this holiday for?”
“Social media is criticising consumerism. But official government media is moving weekends around to ensure longer holidays to stimulate the economy. I really want them to fight it out and come to an agreement first, and not play good cop bad cop here with me.”
”In Dynastic days, We had the Lantern Festival, the Double Third Festival, Memorial Day, Midsummer Festival, Valentine’s Day, Double Ninth Festival…a ton. Now, they’ve all disappeared or completely changed. There’s nothing to do except eat and buy stuff.”
“I heard a kid say to their mom the other day, “I’m really happy today!” And the mom said, “That’s great. Go write an essay about it when we get home.””
“I told my friend that size 38 new shoes are the most expensive, around 270 RMB, but a pair of size 35.5 shoes are only 160 RMB. And she exclaimed, “There are girls who wear size 38!?” She’s someone who has size 35.5 feet. I just don’t even know what to say. I mean, why the hell do you think size 38 is so expensive?”
Comments say, “Because most girls wear size 37 and 38, supply can’t meet demand, so of course price goes up. Very few people wear children’s shoe sizes as adults, so they’re worried the shoes won’t sell, so they get rid of them cheaply. That’s all there is to it. And if she has size 35 feet, she’s probably super short. What’s there to be proud of about that?”
“Wait, wait, wait, different size shoes are priced differently!? Why am I only finding out about this now?”
“Size 35.5 is literally children’s shoes. My son is not even 10 years old, and he’s wearing size 37.”
“Mixing with a bunch of married male coworkers all day, the biggest impression I’ve gotten is that, “They don’t have the destiny to be an Emperor, but they sure have an Emperor’s heart.”
If you say their kid isn’t theirs, that’s not right, because he constantly brags about his kid, especially about how he has a son.
If you say their kid is theirs, that’s not right either, because he’ll say he’s only “helping” his wife with the kid.
If you say he’s an adult, he doesn’t even know how to wash his own underwear.
If you say he’s not an adult, he brag about how he’s such a family man because he didn’t go to a mahjong parlour after work and instead went straight home.
Once a year for his wife’s birthday, he’ll save up two packs of cigarettes’ worth of money to buy her a cake. Man, he loves his wife so much.
That’s what most people think of when they think of a “good man”, and these men honestly do believe they’re doing really well too.
It’s so easy being a man. They can so shamelessly carry through being shameless to the end.”
Comments say, “It’s so easy to be a man. I went out for a late night snack after work today, and a coworker said that yesterday, he was out drinking until 11pm, but he’d yell at his wife for staying out ’til the same time, because there’d be no one to watch the kid. I told him he could watch the kid, and he said his kid clings to mommy too much. I told him that it’s because he didn’t take the kid enough…but none of them agreed with me.”
“My married male coworkers keep telling me to hurry up and find a man to marry, so I can sit back and enjoy life. Makes me curious how their wife is enjoying life, still having to get up early and get off work late, working full time while taking care of a kid.”
“I’m just envious of men’s bodies. They can eat whatever they want, go on trips without having to calculate what time of the month is it, and go swimming randomly. And they’ll tell you you’re being a wimp when you’re having your period. Sigh.”
A blogger posts screenshots of an instagram photo of a father with his ten children, and a compilation of the comments underneath:
“When the youngest brother marries, he just needs 50K from each of his nine sisters to put together 450K for his bride price. It’s easier raising a horde of kids than just one kid.”
“Although there’s a lot of kids, but once the first four sisters grow up and graduate and find work, they can make money and help their parents maintain the household together. It’s pretty great. I hope they all grow up healthily.”
“All the kids are wearing neat clothes and are good looking. Many kids are many blessings. I’m so envious!”
“Great seed bears great fruits.”
And the blogger says, “Look at the comment section and you can tell how far society’s fallen. The little girls in the front row are wearing coats that’s so dirty, not even the phone filter turned up to max can hide it. And people are still praising them for being dressed neatly. I have no idea what they think they’re referring to when they say, “Great seed bears great fruit.””
“I’ve just read another blogger say that a parent’s love is something very complicated. Some parents completely can’t accept that their children are a minority sexuality, and will kick their kids out. But if their kid get sick and needs a new kidney, they’d unhesitatingly donate their kidney for them too.
So I’m wondering, maybe parents are just roleplaying the role of a “parent”, trapped in a set routine of “everyone does it this way”?
Like, because it’s come up before, so they’ve already made up their mind and prepared to spend all their savings and donate a kidney to save their kid. But because there’s no examples of it before, so at first, they never prepared for having a kid who’s gay, or with bad grades, or has an independent personality. So when they encounter it, they flip out.
I guess it is a complicated love.”
WritingPrompts posts today, “”Master, please be careful! The difficulty level of this world is something else! Even you might not…”
Before the rambling worker is done, as the newest Queen of the Succubus, you’ve already pressed the confirmation button and travelled into a NC17 adult game world.
The good news: The information in the summary of this world is all true. The main character of this world is indeed constantly busy. Every morning she wakes up, she’s sore all over. Every day she gets out of bed, her heart is always beating out of her chest. She’s always facing new challenges. And the content of this world is indeed very adult.
The bad news: By “very adult”, I mean, a creepy boss who never pays overtime, a scab coworker who’s always volunteering to work more hours, the old accountant who never approves of your reimbursements, the HR who’s constantly complaining about you going through too much office supplies, and the new guy with connections who only knows how to cause trouble. You have to work until the early hours of the morning every day, so when you wake up, you’re always sore all over. You’re constantly being made the scapegoat by your coworkers, so your life is always thrilling.
But at this point, you can’t back out anymore. As a professional succubus, you decide…”
Comments say, “During the day, you’ll work your fucking job. At night, you’ll work your fucking job.”
“If you’re Queen of the Succubus, then use your superpowers. NC17 doesn’t just refer to sexual content. It can refer to violent content too…”
“Don’t Wanna Be a Salaryman So I Quit My Job and Became My Own Boss and Got a Bunch of Hardworking and Talented Employees to Found My Own Company—a Place Where Everyone Can Spend Their Days Happily Since I’m A Succubus So I’ll Never Lack For Customers.”
That's a really interesting distinction between "hedonism" and "fun". It didn't click until I tried to imagine "hedonism without fun", and then it explained so much of life. :-(
So those parents wanted a boy but got 9 daughters first?