Pink noise sounds soothing.

“You first.” 🤷‍♂️

“I’m not looking for a family here. I never was. Thank you for the invitation, but no.”

It could be that simple.

“I’m not interested. Please leave me alone.”

In that case, I’m not sure you’re missing anything and I’m not even sure you have a problem to solve here.

I understand better. I might relate, too.

I’m not the type to keep relationships “alive” by checking in, but at the same time, when someone re-enters my life after even years, it can be as though no time had passed. If I can help, I will. We can chat for minutes or hours. I’m happy to pick up where we left off.

I have the distinct impression that many other people don’t operate this way. I do. Do you?

I have a big chosen family, including people who feel like children, and even grandchildren. I don’t believe that a blood relation would make that any richer an experience for me.

The same as any friendship: mutual support and love. What you’re describing sounds like an acquaintance to me, not a friend, if conversations don’t develop past small talk. Maybe that’s what you’re missing.

I wish you continued good luck in this regard.

I don’t live in a shithole, so nothing.

Where are my Rogers home internet customers at? 🇨🇦

Server-side paywalling? Everything old is new again.

St. Thomas and particularly Gladys Cafe, especially if you like hot sauce.

As for the difference, there’s a lot more Learned Helplessness in the Republic of Gilead than there is in, say, northern Europe. 🤷‍♂️

Why do things need to improve, generally speaking?

Would bookmark folders suffice for organizing?

Or go retro and have a tree of bookmarks as an unordered list, with the top level of the tree as the folders or categories.

It influences folks subconsciously, which in legal proceedings with a significant public relations component, is powerful and effective. It’s even better to influence people without their conscious awareness that it’s happening. And yes, some folks aren’t taken in by it, but a surprising number are. It would be tantamount to legal malpractice not to advise your client to try. 🙄

I have drunk some decades old bottles of wine. I was worried each time that the bottle had become undrinkable, but not that it had become dangerous.

Belief regards opinions, in which people have a free choice to accept or reject the idea. There is no notion of rightness or wrongness.

Knowledge regards conclusions from a set of axioms, in which people who accept the axioms are honor-bound to accept the conclusions. To reject the conclusion while accepting the axioms would be wrong.

In my life, this governs when I can freely choose and when I am obliged to accept a claim based on whether I’ve accepted previous claims.

Of the ones I tried to read, Atlas Shrugged, and it’s not even close.