to what you most enjoy blaming people for: it’s probably an area where you enjoy giving yourself credit. For if something is not blameworthy, doing its opposite is not creditworthy.

less an indication of lacking skills than it is the simple indication that you care about whatever is to follow.

known as an employee who takes notes, you probably are filling time trying to do something valuable, you probably aren’t, and you probably should be fired/your job shouldn’t exist.

to always let another car in. Even if you are late. Even if you are tired.

There are places to get mad at others. This is not one of those places. By being selfish you save yourself, what, 10 seconds all while capitulating to unreasonable anger. Instead, show reasonable mental equanimity and train yourself to care about what actually matters.

All men are terrible.

All women are manipulative.

There are no good guys out there.

Women don’t know what they want.

Etc.

It’s easier to be angry than sad.

• T produced by Leydig cells in the testes
• T decline = hypogonadism. Causes:
  1. Leydig cells impaired or
  2. Control glands in the brain are not informing Leydig cells to produce enough T
• For #1:
  • LH & FSH: hormones that exert influence over sex glands
  • When these levels are high, the pituitary is correctly trying to get T up, but it’s not happening, hence leydig failure. You would see low T and high FSH/LH in this situation
• For #2:
  • T is low AND LH/FSH are low. The message to produce more T isn’t being sent. (CG is something to do in this scenario)
• Aromatase converts T to estrogen and goes up w/ age. Too much estrogen can reduce production of T
• Free T is 2-3% of total T
• Estrogen high = SHBG high
• T high = SHBG low
• SHBG binds to T and limits free T
• Can run into issues where injections spike T, but a disproportionate share is converted to estrogen, so the T to E ratio actually worsens even though total T is high
• Patches/pellets may be superior because they don’t cause spikes

• Rust on rocker panels
• Did they already start the car before you showed up? A bit suspicious
• Check the date on the tires. Four digits. Week and year of manufacture
• Use penny for Lincoln head tire test
• Oil leaks under car
  • And then open car and see if there is oil splattered around the engine
• Are all the panels the same color? If not, maybe an accident.
• Check oil: not burnt or low
• Check transmission fluid (yellow pull): not burnt or low
• Low brake oil may mean the brakes are worn (but they could just top it off)
• Antifreeze: should be green or pink NOT oily
• Stitching coming off on soft top?
• Check trunk rust underneath cover panel
• Check windows
• Check stereo
• Check ac/heat

How did you arrive at this number?

It sounds like there’s no movement?

You’ve been very generous. It sounds like there’s nothing more you can do.

• Find out what you can do w/ assessed value for taxes. Is assessed value less than purchase price? If so, can you just fill $0 in for purchase price and pay the assessed value?
• Be careful with license plates. Probably won’t forget this lesson. It’s fine to leave them on, but make sure you 100% know what is required to transfer plates.

and be most frustrated when something that’s obvious to us is not obvious to another.

This is how we will spend disproportionate time on certain matters compared to their real-world effects. Someone will notice this disconnect and decry “too much focus” on something “not that important.” This someone won’t be technically wrong, but he also misses that everyone tends to agree on the most important things – like, you don’t have to convince someone the nuclear proliferation is dangerous – and so urgent rhetorical battles involve pushing for consensus in the still consequential areas where disagreement amazingly occurs. Though dropping the “consequential” moniker probably wouldn’t change much since the urge to stamp out absurdity (i.e., the person who misses the obvious) is so strong that even otherwise taciturn individuals can’t themselves.

Whenever I feel like crying, I turn on the Zero Dark Thirty trailer:

I want to make something absolutely clear. If you thought there was some working group coming to the rescue, I want you to know that you’re wrong. This is it. There’s nobody else hidden away on some other floor. There is just us. And we are failing. 

You may have spent much of your life unaware that nobody can save you but you. (Feel free to skip ahead to the next section if you were fully aware.) Perhaps you missed the message because Jesus’ promises of salvation drowned out all other voices. More likely, though, “failure” and “saving” were faraway thoughts when everything was going pretty well. And even when you were riding closer to valleys than peaks, minimal responsibility made Just getting through it the more common thought pattern than desperate pleas for a full-blown bailout.

But those innocent times are now gone; it’s probably pretty uncomfortable. One way to know you are in this dreaded place is a longing for tidy external solutions: Maybe this one person will … Maybe the trade will shift to … Maybe if I just get into this program … Go ahead and soothe yourself, sure, but don’t become tranquilized into forgetting that, no, sorry, it’s on you. Oh how you’ll want to forget. Oh how you’ll wish for simpler times. Oh how you’ll bargain that if you could be rescued this time you’ll never, never, never sin again. (more…)

So now everyone’s heard of that once “rare” or “stigmatized” thing you have. Maybe that’s nice. There’s probably more funding invested in solving it. The downside is that when it was unknown and rare, you were seen as an individual and were treated to minimally judgy curiosity. Post-awareness, however, you’re just some generic individual stripped of his personal battle and instead tossed into the nuance-free box constructed via the awareness campaign.