About grit and the Growth Mindset

 "I get knocked down,
But I get up again,
They're never gonna keep me down!"

"Tubthumping" - Chimbawamba

About half a week ago, we watched one of the well-known TED Talks in English class as a motif for our class project about dreams. It was a speech given by an asian-looking woman about her career as an educator and psychologist and especially as a researcher in areas related to motivation and reasons of success in areas like teaching, studies and the military.

Long story short, the speech stressed on the significance grit has in terms of success and failure, shown to be not only more important than inherent capacity but also mostly non-related or even inversely related to it. It also introduced an idea, and this is the part of it that called my bluff the most, called the Growth Mindset: it is the belief that failures constitute a positive reinforcement towards success, introduced to kids from the lowest levels of education with the objective of making it a part of their own mindset.

This is the idea I take from it because of all the things that have been proven to be conditioned by education (and by education I mean not only school but also what we see in our environment and get messages from) rather than by own structure: yes, I know this sounds really typical coming from a transgender, but I'm one of those people who believe even gender is built after birth.

The thing is, if there is really a way to take a step in this area and create a generalized mindset promoting grit, motivation and the acceptance of failure, it would not only prove how plastic our minds are but also solve a popular and widespread issue like academic failure is.

Opinion essay: the selective forbidding of culture

"You're going to fly
High in the sky
You want your place in the sun"
"Place In The Sun" - Chris Child

Everybody should have the right to earn a living out of what they like to do. I think denying that would be far  away from following my own argumental line and even further away from advocating for human freedom. However, when it comes to culture, I think there is an ethical black hole in the way this aspect is being treated.

Yes, before you ask, I endorse piracy. It is illegal, and it harms the people I admire the most, but it has that effect because of reasons far from the grasp and control of those commiting that illegality. Let me be clear about it, if an artist is known enough, the fact that their content is available for free makes them even more known by system: everyone can know them without paying a cent; and also makes those who already know the artist able to enjoy all of their content regardless of their economic position. And, if the artist is good enough, a big enough fraction of their fanbase will voluntarily want to pay of that content in order to support its creator: I have bought music myself, but the same tracks I acquired by paying are tracks I had downloaded for free previously so I could be sure they were good enough.

I advocate for culture, and I sure do advocate for those enjoying it to support their creator, but I also do advocate for freedom and sharing of ideas, concepts and feelings, and I think that is what art is. The reason why artists are suffering from piracy is no other than the unnecessarily overgrowing comission promotors, record labels and other parasites inherently super-necessary structures are taking. Of course those structures do help artists considering how art industries work, but in a perfect world they wouldn't even exist.

The closing of goear for Spanish computers and devices, for example, comes to my mind. I've always used goear as a reliable source for audios, music and other platforms I'm happy to use in my blog. It's not forbidden in many countries, and it appears as obvious to me that if our government was based on any other pronciple than money greed it wouldn't even be so here.

Film review: Alice Through the Looking Glass

"The normals, they make me afraid
The crazies, they make me feel sane"

"Mad Hatter" - Melanie Martinez 

Last week, it was the second time I went out with my brother to see a movie at the cinema. Since we did it for the first time with Ratchet & Clank the week before, I find it a nice, fun and good habit to keep up with, and I'd certainly do it again, without a shadow of a doubt.

This time that I'm talking about we went to watch Alice Through the Looking Glass, the second part of the venerated and revered version of Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton. Regarding that first movie, I must say it definitely holds a special place between my favourite films of all time: the way the story is gracefully changed in order to make an original and epic new plot, the ellegantly redesigned characters, everything introduced by the movie was awesome, surprising and thrilling.

However, when it comes to the second part, I found it was a bit disappointing at times. Don't get me wrong, the concept, the figure represented by a strong main character refusing to play the social role given by her time and social estate, the way the element of Time is personalized and represented, the replenishing of dark spots in the story by the exploration of the characters' past, every main characteristic was just wonderful and amazing.

The thing is, the target public this time seemed to be even younger, and being a sixteen-year-old with a twenty-year-old by my side felt even a bit unconfortable at some times. It was not an important flaw, but it added some imperfections to the artistic-narrative side of the film. The incoherence of, for example, Time, when he is super-friends with Alice after everything that happens, as an example, makes me cringe, and even my brother pointed that same detail out when we were getting out of the cinema. The first movie, at least from our perspective, was more enjoyable also for older watchers, and it shone precisely because of that artistic faction.

Though, I think that element of approaching younger viewers also gives good points to the film: if you've seen it, I'm pretty sure you can refer to a spot or two where you laughed! Ratchet & Clank had the same "flaw," to say it somehow, and it was still a great movie!

"Mom, why did dad go to war?"

"Where is your heart?

Humanity, rise!

You think you are Gods, hah,

But everyone dies."

"1944" - Jamala

I can't remember the last time I saw in a movie the typical scene where an official or someone of the kind is carrying a country's flag (normally the U.S., because it's obvious other countries are not populated by humans, who dares to say the opposite?) and a fallen soldier's boots for their (I mean, his; these movies are not smart enough to feature women in the army) widow, normally with a sad song as a backing. It's always made me laugh, especially when there's that living stereotype known as child (or, in this case, orphan) crying and doing sad things because, oh my God, sadness and such.

NOT a career to choose for fun.

Honestly, if someone has gone to war (especially considering the usual role the U.S. have in wars) and I'm told they're dead, I think I just earned a reason to be happy: this world has one less murderer to care about. If one of my parents decides to become a soldier right now, in the state Spain is in, I don't need them to die to consider myself an orphan anyway.

I'm not saying all soldiers are inherently bad: I'm saying if a country is not being forced into war, every person allowing bellic conflict to involve it, which includes the country's army, is equally responsible for the consequences of that war. Not all of the country's population, but the army: if the Paris attacks had affected only militars as a revenge for bombing Syria as if they had any business there, I'd be inviting all of you to a big party at my place; sadly, a serious tragedy happened instead.

But then there's the case: a country is forced into war. When is this possible?

1. Causes from inside the country (see also, civil wars).
2. Invasion, which is caused by the existence of soldiers from another country.

And, even then, it seems obvious to me that, basically, wars can only be caused by three factors: money, power and glory (and, yes, that's the title of a Lana Del Rey song, I know). The slogan of "protecting your country" only works because people are dumb enough to buy it. If our countries were in any actual danger, believe me, as civil population, we'd notice. Rare thing is, now we just happen to be in a seemingly dangerous time in Europe: it seems the fact that Americans annihilated Iraqis a decade or so ago made somebody angry and now someone else has to pay for it.

I don't even know why I'm writing this. Keep glorificating murderers and crying on social media when the families of their victims come to Europe and kill us, then instantly relate refugees to that. Isn't that ethical?

Situational loneliness

"No one here to save me drowning,
'cause, baby, you're not here with me...

And I keep calling, calling
Keep calling, cause...

Now my heart awakes to the sound of silence"

"Sound Of Silence" - Dami Im

I'm a bit of a walking contradiction at times. I always tell myself I'm building myself up by expressing artistically, mainly through drawing and writing, and, though I know that's what I should focus on, I still want to commit the psychological suicide entering in a romantic relationship represents.

It seems like an inherent need. When I was in my first relationship, I didn't realize how disasterous it had been until almost a year from breaking up: I had been psychologically abused, kept for the sake of being with someone and finally substituted with a cis girl, and it took me ten months to realize it hadn't been my fault. Even after having been telling myself for so long that "I'm a monster and nobody will ever love me," I still seem to need to force events towards a future relationship of the same kind.

I know I can't blame anyone but me, but I also know I'm far more worth it than the way any man could have treated me in a relationship so far. However, I acknowledge how close to the most I can aspire to that is: I can't ask for someone to adapt completely to my expectations, and nobody's perfect soulmate exists; that's precisely what makes these relationships interesting.

My conclusions from all of my reflections are just that it's not that I must not give up on trying to get a satisfactory relationship: it's just that the only way to win the game is giving up. I know I must give me time to spend on myself, on progressing both as a person and on the things I like to do, on moving forward in my way... But I see myself surrounded by desirable men, by chances, by my own loneliness...

And I keep wondering if there is a chance one of them could approach me.

Wattpad, furries and glowsticks

(EXPLICIT LANGUAGE WARNING)

 

  
"Alright, how would it make you feel if I said you never made me cum?
In the year and a half that we spent together,
Yeah, I never really had much fun."

"Not Big" - Lily Allen

 (The content of this post is an exaggeration. I have found well-written pieces on Wattpad and I'm really happy with the existing content, but I also think in most cases enjoying one of those stories requires growing a sort of resistance against poor language, at least for me.)

Honestly, I don't think I have to specify anything about my likes anymore. It's not (only) that I made them more than explicit in last post, it's that I think they are not something I must hide; at least, not yet. Of course, as a person who has certain likes, I like to find well-made content around the Internet regarding those; not only sexual content, of course.

However, while in areas like image or multimedia I'm proud to say people with my same likes have created a really rich variety of content, when it comes to literature I find myself frustrated: I am sure and full of hopes that I haven't known every piece of content out on the Net, but I've known a few so far, and I've been pretty disappointed to be honest. Let me express why.

I consider two aspects to be determining of the quality of a writing, and those are content and linguistics. I have to be fair to both myself and the compositions I'm talking about and admit their content is not bad. Actually, I would say it's quite good, and that's why, while none of those have reached an 8 out of 10 for me, neither any of them have fallen lower than a 5 on the same scale.

The problem is, then, linguistics. I think I speak for a considerable fraction of Humanity when I say issues like arbitrary capital letters after commas (or semicolons) or the absence of them at the start of paragraphs can be a bit annoying for readers. I'm pretty sure they don't represent an important problem for the specific public that content is meant to get to, but I also think that the number of people inside that category could easily grow if they were solved.

Another story is stereotypes and homogenity. At first, one could find bara/yaoi furry stories on Wattpad cute, sexy and nice, but I think that feeling withers away a bit after the fourth time of reading the same with different authors and slightly different narrative frames. I think that, inside the (good and likable for me, I'm not saying the opposite) festival of bellies, muscles and erupting volcanos and glowsticks, something new and exciting could easily spice things up; like, let's say, an actual plot.

"The glowing liquid was running through my dark ass..."

Why not make a more or less complex story that makes readers laugh, feel and think (think!) where sexual scenes are a side element? Stories of the kind with plots are easy to find, and sometimes good, but they usually fall to the category "the 99% of the things happening here is an excuse for these two to fuck and the resting 1% is my teenage life problems;" I mean, please.

However, I do believe in furry writers. And I do believe in the authors of the stories I've read so far. I just fall to think I'm not part of the collective to enjoy their creations, and that is okay. They might annoy me, make me visit a hospital or two because of eye infection and cry out of frustration, but the only one causing that is me. But I do know what to do as well: if I want content for the likes of me to exist, someone has to start creating it, and that may as well be me! I know I'm as inexpert and bad at writing as the authors I've been talking about are, but I also know I'll get better with time and that means I'll be able to write something actually enjoyable some day.

Because there should be content for everyone to enjoy out there!

Is sexual perversion a thing?

"We're not so different, you and me

'Cause we both share our share of obscenities.

And everybody's got some freaky tendencies,

Hidden or admitted, 'cause we all got needs.

And I make no apology."

"Phonography" - Britney Spears 

The Internet is a beautiful place. Everything one has to keep in secret in the outside world is possibly exposable without major consequences on the Net, giving every human a chance to express the rarest of their feelings, making a place for every thought, strange or not, to bloom up and find others who share it, creating communities, friendships, relationships, marriages, around those thoughts.

However, the diversity of these thoughts troubles some. It's easy to find certain parts of the Internet easily marked as "sick," "ill" or "disgusting." I'm talking about every kind of thought, and every kind of content one can find in and out of the Internet comes from thoughts. Don't get me wrong, not every action is acceptable, but the existence and accessibility of every kind of content is.

One of the most common responses I get when speaking out about this is the case for pedophilia. Must there be content (assuming: sexual content) for pedophiles out there? Yes, absolutely. For the protection of children, people who can't help feeling sexual attraction to them must have a way to relieve sexually without involving a real child, that should be the logical thought of every person who wants to keep child molesting from happening. If, then, accessing that kind of content is criminalized, the debate regarding unavoidable sexual preference as a crime must be taken into account: should people who prefer having sexual interaction with people from their same sex be treated as criminals for having sexual likes they can't avoid?

The point is using wit. One does not need to involve an existing entity with certain characteristics in any way to satisfy a fetish, philia or paraphilia regarding those characteristics. That's been proven. There are tons of content of the kind featuring fictional characters and objects that can be emulated with unthinkable realism and fidelity. As referring to the previous example, I am not attracted to people under my age; contrarily, people I'm attracted to easily double my age as the x-year-old person I am while I write this, so it is hard for me to refer to examples of it to prove my last point, but I can think of uncountable examples of content of the kind suitable for people with likes like mine without involving any existing, disconforming or not, entity.

♥ See what I mean? ♥ [Art by Grisser; safe version]

After I've made this clear, there's a question I want to throw to anyone reading this. Can sexual likes, or any kind of individual interest, be harmful? Can sexuality be a form of perversion? Why? My answer is no, they can't. It can't. Sexuality itself, with our sexual likes, fetishes, philias, is the best thing we have. It can make us enjoy ourselves in a way nothing else can. And if someone [over/at the age of consent and in their full capacity of reason and agreement, by the way] agrees, making it real for one another is simply beautiful. People can say it's gross, pitiful, disgusting, but, what do those people have to do with it? Each and every single human being must be able to enjoy their sex, regardless of what that implies.