There once was a man named St. Francis de Sales. Holy man from the 16th century, who claimed that true virtuosity is about self-overcoming and tackling one's own resistance. I mean he said that about helping the sick and poor - basically, if you enjoy cooking for the hungry lost souls, it's not that much of a charity, 'mirite mate?
Now, what grinds my gears: people around me are usually against utilitarianism, but often make a shortcut if they feel like it. 'Oh, you are such an attentive mother that you meal prep lunchboxes for a whole week for your three kids', 'oh, you are spending so much energy planning trips for each weekend', you get the picture. I mean yeah, the result is great, your kids are really lucky, but I would not necessarily consider it virtuosity (err on the side of caution)
Given that take, I would be a hypocrite if I wouldn't challenge myself: is my submission (or yearning for one) and sky castle idea about serving a goddess, a sign of my virtuosity or just random squirts of hormones and psychological anomalies that make my brain feel dumb happiness?
Some time ago, my wife finally started seeing a therapist after thinking about it for ages. She needed to work through some issues with her mother.
Here's the background: My wife comes from a broken family. Her father was easily manipulated by other women, so he left early in her childhood for another relationship. This left only her mother to raise two kids - not easy in that society and time. Her mother tried her best, but it came out as very controlling and directive parenting. As a result, my wife developed anxiety and self-esteem issues.
After just a couple of therapy sessions, something changed...
At a family gathering, my mother-in-law started her usual nagging at her daughters (my wife and her sister). She complained about how they should learn to cook better - despite never letting them cook at home growing up. She told them they're lucky to have found 'too-good' husbands who take care of them, etc. I don't think she meant it badly, but still...
This time was different. My wife stood up for herself and her older sister (who usually just tunes out these rants as self-defense). She told her mother she should be happy about what her children have achieved instead of envying them.
A little harsh? Maybe. But after hearing 'you're not good/strong/smart enough' for years - whether about school choices or any other activities - I totally understand my wife's feelings.
So yeah, my wife grew some balls that day ๐
#womanpower
It's funny how overattention aka 'can't see the forest for the trees' sometimes manifests.
Especially for folks on the spectrum. Like there was a conference for Ruby programmers, which is a language that has notions of symbols. You want symbol nostr, you write it like ':nostr'. Now someone thought, hey, you know what would be funny, if they had t-shirts with sex symbol, like ":sex". Well, it was all fun & games until someone told them, that for normies, it would read as '[colon] sex' (that's the official name for those two dots, for non-native speakers such as me, also it means...). So they allegedly stopped doing that.
Same for me with my nick (although they never diagnosed me). When looking for a nick to outlet my... let's say overactive side for lack of better terms, I remembered days of old, when I had played D&D and names had twists and backstories built around them. Wanted to pick a nickname that would be unique for that time, have some structure and while being self-explanatory, had a twist for the initiated. German has a good take on compound words, but I wanted NOT to associate my persona with German speaking, mainly because I know more Klingon than German, and in Klingon I can only say 'batlh tuqraj quvmoHjaj' (which means 'honor to your house', still waiting for the right occasion to geek that out). But you know which language has sort of an esoteric core and has compound words? Esperanto! What's more, you can put together suffixes 'em' for liking/loving something, 'a' for making it an adjective, and prefix it with 'sub'. Like an adjective you would use on someone who likes submissivity (without differentiating top/bottom position, which is also cool, because were I free-range, I would consider myself a switch). So my great nick was born!
...alas, it took me several years and accounts across three or four communities until I suddenly recognized that most people read it as 'submissive Ema'. ๐ฎ I mean I have nothing against sissies, they have aspects of their lifestyle that are alluring, but I would never want to be one. Moreover with the name EMA I don't like. Well, it was too late, since I was on more sites with digital footprint, so I decided to #embracemistakes #originstory