Conversation

zugzwangxiety: state of knowing you have to make a move, that it will certainly make your life worse in the short term with no guarantee of it doing any good in the long term, and just procrastinating as the clock runs out, making the situation ∂worse with every ∂tick anyway
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∂worse/∂tick is my kind of idiot calculus... not quite a ticking time bomb but that's one clean-edged special case
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People don't procrastinate empty. There's always some a cope activity too. In order of healthfulness of copes: 1. Displacement (vacuuming, cooking) 2. Humor 3. Meditation side-dishes like bonsai 4. Meditation 5. Actually doing the thing and accepting the worse state
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Humor is the laziest cope that is aware that it is a cope, and is the level I prefer to hold my arrested development steady even as the whack-a-mole game against entropy goes steadily worse
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The problem with all coping strategies with an internal, cognitive locus of response is that not all problems are psychosomatic or a case of referred pain. Sometimes you do have to make a move in the real world. Sometimes the infected tooth has to come out.
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like everybody else, there are problems I am... shall we say wishfully neglecting to think through/act on while covid is raging (some because I can't act, others because I don't feel like acting), all of which are getting ∂worse by the ∂tick of course... zemblanity ftw
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Kids really get zugzwangs. “Would you rather....?” is the elemental zugzwang game. Would you rather have nasty incurable boils all over your body like a horror movie thing or lose both arms?
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