My favourite writer error is forgetting that every character has their own motives, and most of them are unrelated to the protagonist. The most amazing thing ever is when a rival, nemesis, or casual bystander is to all appearances completely obsessed with the protagonist to the point that they appear to have shaped their lives around the protagonist. The protagonist is all they talk about. Thoughts of the protagonist keep them up at night. They constantly compare other people to the protagonist. They mock the protagonist, because they can’t seem to stop thinking, staring, or obstructing the protagonist in some way. You know it’s unintentional, but all else being equal, this character appears to have a raging crush on the protagonist, one that only true love’s first kiss can subdue.
so when i was 7 or 8 i’d “write letters to hermione granger” and set them out on the piano in the living room every night with my stuffed toy owl and every morning i’d have a letter from hermione back, sitting at the foot of my bed, and hermione and i corresponded like that for months and i’d just like to thank my mom for writing out a “letter from hermione” for me every single night
That is the cutest thing I’ve ever read oh my god
so when i was about the same age i got really into both ciphers and james madison (idk don’t ask) so i just randomly started writing these letters like i was james madison writing to my own spy ring, using all kinds of ciphers. constantly writing that WE MUST SWITCH CIPHERS THE BRITISH ARE ON TO US. and it wasn’t every night because the ciphers kept getting more complex, but it was about one every week for six months and my mother always responded. and she always found the letters, because i took to hiding them in increasingly more obscure locations because spies, obviously.
i didn’t realize how much work this was until i snuck down late one night for a cookie. and saw my mother bent over my giant book of ciphers and muttering to the dog “is this another code or can she not spell?” (i could not and still can not spell) and i was a bit angry at first but i kept watching and she KEPT AT IT. checking everything in that book against my letter and i never felt so loved. my mom with a full time job sitting up to figure out my silly letters said just because i enjoyed the game.
i got her this bio of james madison a few years ago for xmas with a simple number substitution cipher on the inside saying “In thanks for your dedicated years of service, your daughter and occasional President.” She still has it pride of place on her desk next to the obligatory kid pics
so yeah cute mom story for the day.
These are some of the best secret mom stories I’ve ever read, omg.
1. Recognize it and sit with it. The first thing you need to do when boredom surfaces is to become aware of it. Stay with the feelings of boredom for now – don’t rush to engage in pointless busyness. Instead, allow yourself to discover what you would really like to do, and what you think is missing from your life right now.
2. Surround yourself with “do-ers”. Boredom is addictive, and when we surround ourselves with people who are trapped in mindless activity we tend to get pulled into living like that, too. Look at what those around you are doing – and look for people who are doing meaningful and worthwhile things. Start to surround yourself with those types of people instead.
3. When you are studying, try to alternate between reading and writing. This allows you to sit and absorb, and then to shift gears and engage a different part of your brain. Doing that, helps to maintain interest and focus.
4. Be irrational. A central reason why boredom has become so common in our culture is that people have become too “rational”. Too much planning, thinking, contemplating, and so on can end up being boring in the end. So doing something crazy and spontaneous can help you to feel more alive again (but make sure it’s safe and won’t be a source of grief!)
5. Connect with good friends. Catching up with friends, and especially old friends, can help to change our mood and reignite our zest for life.
6. Get out and play. Go outside and do something – or simply look around. There’s a wonderful world out there, beyond your laptop screen. In fact, just breathing in fresh air can help you feel much more alive.
This is the Great Pyramid of King Khufu. Everybody knows the Great Pyramid of King Khufu, but you probably don’t know about the Shit Pyramids of his father, King Sneferu. This is a shame, because they are amazing.
When King Sneferu came to the throne of Egypt, the cool thing that all the pharaohs had was a Step Pyramid, like the original one built by King Djoser and designed by Imhotep (not the mummy). King Sneferu could easily have had one one because his predecessor King Huni had died before his could be finished. All Sneferu had to do was step in and put the last few blocks on.
But King Sneferu had a vision. He didn’t want any old Step Pyramid. He was going to build Egypt’s first smooth-sided pyramid, and make King Huni’s pyramid way taller in the bargain. It didn’t work. The core of Huni’s pyramid couldn’t handle the modifications and nowadays the Step Pyramid at Meidum looks like this:
It’s not on a hill - that’s the outer layers of the pyramid that have fallen down all around it. The name of the structure in Arabic is Heram el-Kaddaab, which means something like The Sort-Of Pyramid.
Anyway, King Sneferu was understandably disappointed and made his pyramid-builders start over from scratch at a different site. Apparently having learned nothing about the Big Fat Nowhere that hubristic pyramid ambition was going to get him, this pyramid was designed to be even taller and pointier than the last effort! Too tall and pointy, in fact - the bedrock proved to be less stable than he might have hoped, and by the time the pyramid was half-finished stuff was already moving and cracking inside of it. There are ceilings in this pyramid that are to this day partially held up by wooden beams.
The builders seem to have panicked and decided that the only way to finish the pyramid without another disaster was to make the top half lighter than the bottom half. They did this by changing the angle of the slope, ending up with a pyramid that looks like this:
Egyptologists call this one the Bent Pyramid for fairly obvious reasons. Uniquely among Egyptian Pyramids, it has most of its smooth outer blocks intact, rather than having them all stolen to build other stuff (most of medieval Cairo is built from the skin of the Giza pyramids). I’m guessing this is because nobody dared touch the thing for fear the whole structure would come down like a giant limestone game of Jenga.
I’m sure the pyramid-builders were very proud of this solution. Sneferu appears to have been less so. He had them move over about half a mile and start over. Again. Why only half a mile when he had them move 34 miles between the Sort-of Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid is a mystery. I think he wanted to keep them in sight of the Bent Pyramid so they could look at it and feel ashamed every once in a while.
And there they built Sneferu’s third pyramid, which is called the Red Pyramid. As pyramids go, it’s a very cautious one - it’s got the shallowest slope rise of any Egyptian pyramid, and while it’s the same height as the Bent Pyramid it spreads its weight over a much greater base area, making it far more stable. Sneferu seems to have been happy with this one, because he was buried in it. Either that, or after a forty-eight-year reign he just finally died and that was the pyramid they used because it was the nicest of the three.
These three pyramids together actually contain substantially more stone than the Great Pyramid of Sneferu’s son Khufu. By the time Sneferu died, his workforce had honed themselves into a lean, mean pyramid-building machine. They had already made every possible pyramid mistake. So when Khufu announced that he didn’t just want a great pyramid, but The Great Pyramid, these guys built him a pyramid so fucking great that we now think aliens must have done it.
there’s no such thing as a stupid reason not to kill yourself.
your school sells cookies on thursdays? your favorite band is coming out with a new album? you’re still saving up for that tattoo? there’s still five sodas in your fridge and it’d be a shame to let them go to waste? you want to see the season finale of that show you love? keep living.
your reasons don’t have to be big, if they mean anything to you then they’re good reasons.
Yes! Just make something to look forward to
Okay but this is honestly true.
One of the closest times I came to committing suicide was when I was home alone for the weekend a few years ago. The reason I didn’t?
No one else was there to feed the cat until Monday.
That’s it. That’s all that saved me.
See, this is such good advice, because it can put you in the frame of mind that you need to be in to combat depression. Even things that seem little, like, “My plant will die if I don’t water it,” or “I’m the only one that takes out the trash, anyways” are examples of how you’re needed and valuable, even appreciated.
There are people out there that need you and love you. Stay alive friend, because it is so worth it.