Be the Crone your heart wants you to be. Pointing a shaking finger while muttering at your enemies helps

Well Emily Oster’s crib sheets is at my library. So I’m adding it to my list

Thank you. Reading things helps me feel calmer and like I am preparing.

I considered reading the Mayo Clinics Guide but I will table it. Heading Home With Your Newborn is on my list now

I love to read many different valuable books so I can get some diverse ideas to come up with. If you can get some suggestions from your librarian wife that’s what I’m looking for

That’s true but I would still like to fill my brain with some knowledge for my guts to draw on.

Well I’m glad to see it. Good thing we have Christmas every year

Chris Perkins is retiring I think. I used to watch DnD official interviews and chats for a while while Todd Kendrick did their interviews for DnDBeyonds social team. He was awesome but I think they stopped doing them. Jeremy Crawford is there head of rules who I really like but others are not a fan. ( I think it’s something to do with his unofficial ruling via Twitter IDK.) I have stopped post OGL nonsense and when Todd was let go / the killed his interview show.

You are right that with some social pressure a CR system could pull people off. I’m sure the DnD team are trying to keep the big streamers happy. Paizo before they did pathfinder was the publisher of the official DnD magazine before that was killed / brought in house. So it can be done

For sure. I think if some of the big streamers move to their own systems that would have some big blows. I haven’t used Critical Roles new systems but I assume they could get a big switch over if they push it hard

Yes. He gave Trump like a 15% chance of winning which in a well calibrated model happens well 15% percent of the time. Which was larger than most other aggregators.

Good probabilistic functions are calibrated like that where the odds should be correct which includes the “loser” winning the amount of times its predicted. Before being bought out FiveThirtyEight did great retros on their sports bets to ensure that the winner did not win greater then predicted chance and the loser won at the correct rate. Its called model calibration

I’ve read this article 6 or 7 times and love to post it. Thanks for sharing again

A lot of this book and other similar books have less direct day to day changes but are mostly focused on attitude and mental changes. The changes in attitude and mental pathways seem less actionable and applicable but can have great changes in your day to day life. This is basically what Cognitive Behavior Therapy does which is highly effective.

I do think another system has a chance of becoming popular but I would guess it would be a large second after DnD with lots of splintering. I LOVE Paizo and Pathfinder. Free online searchable rules are amazing and no one plays 3.5e when pathfinder 1 exists since its just a straight upgrade. That being said both Pathfinder editions are still super crunchy, math heavy and require research to make a playable character. Its still called Mathfinder for a reasons so there is a limit to its userbase.

That being said I know there will be plenty of Plan B and other systems waiting for when DnD really messes up. You can see that with the OGL problems where tons of new content was created especially since you can’t copyright rules or stat blocks. I think the ORC will end up being a longer term stabilizing and creative force for TTRPG. But DnD will still be here because its basically a synonym for TTRPGs at this point.

I don’t think this very hard to predict. Everyone is going to slowly move into 5.5 edition over the next few years as they start new campaigns since there are good quality of life increases in this edition in the exact same way no one plays 3.0 but only 3.5. Hasbro is going to try some stupid digital only / VTT which is going to be pushed really hard. Its going to be a mild success but Roll20 and cheaper / freer VTTs still exist it won’t make as much money as expected. Hasbro is going to then make some A.I. DM which is going to be awful despite spending millions in development and marketing. No one will want to use it because it defeats the whole purpose of DnD and will be too expensive. There will then be some crisis about the DnD brand when Hasbro can’t make enough money off of it but it won’t affect people who have physical books who will continue to play the same way they always have. I am calling it now

What a wonderful dress and headpiece. It looks like the best kind of craft. Did you end up wearing it to a Christmas event to show off?

So I won’t be able to due the whole thing justice since its a whole series of essays but I will try to summarize it as best as possible. adrienne marree brown (the author of Pleasure Activitsm and who doesn’t capitalize her name) starts with Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power which was her original inspiration which should help give an overview of the views of erotic as power which is a great starting point.

Her definition of pleasure isn’t the same as a hedonism where avoiding all pain and taking all pleasure is the main goal. She talks more about how pleasure is something that someone needs to cultivate within their own life that is long lasting and meaningful. This is similar to eating only candy doesn’t give a lasting satisfaction but rather short term happiness with longer term pain. True pleasure isn’t a short term burst of happiness with a large drop or mindless low level entertainment but rather long lasting and sustainable.

One of the key ideas is that pleasure isn’t something external that you can purchase, or be given to you but something you grow yourself daily. So you will need to find things that bring you joy based on your own internal desires and needs. A lot of her pleasure comes from human interactions, community and internal choices. There is a lot of talk about how art, fashion, dance, song, community, sex, conversation and meditation bring more long term pleasure than mindless entertainment. Also there is a large element about how finding what one truly wants is different from what society says you may want.

adrienne marree brown also has a large section about how as a queer black woman being happy and joyful in a world that says all those things are wrong is a revolutionary act. Since I am neither of those things this wasn’t as important in my day to day life but beautiful to read and think about.

Her blog has some essays that were in her book I think in case you want to take a look.

I just put that anger away and made a promise instead that I would be a better man than him. I would be gentle and loving and not let my shit get on other people because that’s my work and responsibility, not anyone else’s.

I think is very important. Forgiveness isn’t something you give to someone else but you give to yourself. Way to go.

The final chapter does a great way to talk about how men are raised to be killers which I think is important to understand. You can see this in the overwhelming use of violence by men. I think this a pretty obvious point but I am glad that it was laid out so well.

I do think that the real interesting part of this chapter is the focus on the use of the erotic and its relationship to love both externally as well as internally. I think is speaks so well to me because its one of the methods I got to this self love. I love the quote below:

Importantly, when men love, it changes the nature of their sexuality, both how they think about sex and how they perform sexually. Many men fear learning to love because they cannot imagine a sexuality beyond the patriarchal model. In a world where men love, a focus on eros and eroticism will naturally replace male obsession with sex.

I wish bell hooks did a more in-depth definition of eros and eroticism since this is so important. Eros is roughly translated into passion which I think a lot of men lack. I know I have a had time articulating my favorite things and what my passions are. There is a small strict list of hobbies that men are allowed to like and if those don’t fit you its hard to find. I have found that finding and cultivating joy daily with things that I am passion about even if they are unmanly has really awakened myself. I found that before doing this I was filled mostly with boredom.

I really enjoyed bell hooks further explaining about sensuality which I like most men overlapped completely with sexuality. See quote below:

Sex is the one place sensuality seems to be permissible, where we can be gentle with our own bodies and allow ourselves our overflowing passion. Pleasure and desire, vitality and excitement seemingly left behind somewhere we can’t even remember, again become imaginable

My female partner always mentioned how rough I was to myself which I think most men struggle with. I didn’t know or thought it was wrong to take care of myself sensually. I was thought that making my body feel good was masturbation which was wrong. (Or at least non-phallic centric masturbation was wrong / feminine / gay /etc.). After realizing that isn’t the case (or even if it was the case who cares) I have found that sensuality is useful tool to cultivate pleasure and eros in my daily life. I really resonate with bell hooks quote below because I lived it:

To claim passion, men must embrace the pain, feel the suffering, moving through it to the world of pleasure that awaits.

If anyone is interested in learning about how eros and eroticism I would recommend Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel which has an emphasis on couples but does have a good section about how a couple can’t be erotic together if they don’t understand the erotics in their own life. I also loved Pleasure Activism which is talking about how cultivating pleasure and the erotic in your own life is a revolutionary act in our consumerist society.

I love the word choice of integrity for chapter 10 since I think it lends a more masculine appeal compared to other descriptions of this concepts. This would be called living authentically if we were talking about queer people coming out or living wholeheartedly if we were Brene Brown. But the concept is the same about being and living in a way that is honest about who we are and living out values. I love the definition she gives:

Integrity means being whole, unbroken, undivided. It describes a person who has united the different parts of his or her personality, so that there is no longer a split in the soul.

The talk about splitting and compartmentalization is something that I struggle with but mostly relate to sharing hobbies and interests across different groups of people which is not as dramatic of her great example in the book:

We’re all familiar with the man who goes to church on Sunday morning, believing that he loves God and God’s creation and his fellow human beings, but who, on Monday morning, has no trouble with his company’s policy of dumping toxic wastes in the local stream. He can do this because he has religion in one compartment and his business in another.” Since most men have been socialized to believe that compartmentalization is a positive practice, it feels right, it feels comfortable.

I know that with a lot of my peers and the younger generation this split between work values and live values is falling with more people insisting that their job align with their own values which is a great step in the correct direction. You can see still see that there is a big cash incentive to selling out your values which makes it difficult for everyone to make that choice. Same thing with the general generational shift about working yourself to death. Its harder and harder to get people to center work as their only identity which is a great shift and should be encouraged as a way.

With all of these good changes I feel more hopeful with the exception of the need for self growth. I think bell hooks does a good job about talking about this which is something I have struggled with. An emphasis on men doing the work will cure much of societies problems especially loneness. She lays out the problem so clear:

For years patriarchal culture has taught men that their selfhood, their manhood, is affirmed by a lack of interest in personal growth; all of a sudden in the wake of feminist movement, women were bombarding men with new emotional expectations. Collectively men responded with a feeling of depression

This coupled with the need to be in control at all time is a hard change to make. I know that when I started opening up and feeling more I felt awful because I ignored myself for so long. Its hard to open up when the first thing you feel is bad but that is telling you need to change something. Once those changes happen the good feelings come up which makes it worth it but need to struggle first. I think many men don’t get past the first stage which is hard without support.

The invasion of Iraq was a great decision. The region will be much safer