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theredhead asked about the benefits of long-distance relationships:
The benefits of my long-distance relationships are that I get to be in relationships with people I love. I didn't choose them for the distance: I chose them for the people, and they live where they live. One of my sweeties prefers to live alone; the other lives with zir partner in another city, and neither of us is likely to relocate.
The choice isn't between being in a long-distance or a local relationship with my sweeties: it's between being in LDRs with them, or not being involved with them. It's an easy choice.
The only obvious cost, imho, is that I'm giving Greyhound and Amtrak a chunk of my spending money, and that I'd rather spend more of the time I have for my sweeties with them rather than in transit. But what we have works, for all of us.
roadnotes has been writing about sharing information, specifically in the context of people she's not otherwise keeping in touch with, and also the answering of random questions, sometimes overheard rather than specifically asked of her:
Yes, if it doesn't cost me anything, I will pass it on. I enjoy passing information on: to me, doing so is satisfying, so I will often do so if there's a small cost (e.g., interrupting my reading briefly, missing a train if another will be along soon).
Perhaps because it satisfies/energizes me, I'm not going to do that as a way that can be read as reaching out to someone I don't want to spend time with. I don't want to put emotional energy, even at that low level, into that situation.
athenais was musing on identity, and the difference between "who am I?" and "what do I do?":
There seems to be a range of questions here: who am I, what am I, and what I do. "What am I?" is things like I'm a copyeditor, I'm a New Yorker, I'm a bisexual, I'm a cat person, I'm a feminist. Who am I is a gestalt that is influenced in various ways by all of that, and by things that nobody would be likely to include in such a list: I drink a lot of tea, I like Chinese food, I don't have as many memories of my childhood as many people seem to, it pleases me to have had a new food ingredient even if only in quantities added for coloring rather than flavor.
Being somewhat piqued by something on Usenet, I posted tostatements that "People seem to find it very hard to understand and remember that biological evolution is not a directional process."
This led, after a bit of discussion, to:
I'm not talking specifically about humans: what direction are (to pick a completely random example) butterflies evolving in?
How long humans have been around depends, in part, on where you draw the line between human and non-human. The hominid family tree is bushy, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer 50,000 years ago might have pointed to our steady progress to more and more robust forms with larger and larger brains, as Homo neanderthalis replaced H. erectus. Had they done so, they would not have predicted H. sapiens.
Then again, our hypothetical observer might have looked at H. floresiensis in complete bewilderment.
nancylebov passed along an H.L. Mencken quote that described hygiene as "the corruption of medicine by morality". I disagreed:
The only people I've dealt with personally who were called "hygienists" are sensible, hard-working women who cleaned my teeth with equipment more effective than the toothbrush and dental floss I have at home.
However, I think the "City of Madison Public Health Sanitarian" who contributed advice to the first Tiptree cookbook might qualify: the advice consisted of "first, wash your hands" (before cooking) and notes on some recipes that raw eggs carry a risk of disease.
Unlike Mencken, I am quite happy to have professional inspectors to make sure that restaurant kitchens are clean and store food at safe temperatures, and to test the public water supply for bacteria. It is neither virtue nor vice to drink a glass of water: it is a normal activity, and hygienists help ensure that it won't make me sick.
polyamory, theredhead asked about the benefits of long-distance relationships:The benefits of my long-distance relationships are that I get to be in relationships with people I love. I didn't choose them for the distance: I chose them for the people, and they live where they live. One of my sweeties prefers to live alone; the other lives with zir partner in another city, and neither of us is likely to relocate.
The choice isn't between being in a long-distance or a local relationship with my sweeties: it's between being in LDRs with them, or not being involved with them. It's an easy choice.
The only obvious cost, imho, is that I'm giving Greyhound and Amtrak a chunk of my spending money, and that I'd rather spend more of the time I have for my sweeties with them rather than in transit. But what we have works, for all of us.
roadnotes has been writing about sharing information, specifically in the context of people she's not otherwise keeping in touch with, and also the answering of random questions, sometimes overheard rather than specifically asked of her:Yes, if it doesn't cost me anything, I will pass it on. I enjoy passing information on: to me, doing so is satisfying, so I will often do so if there's a small cost (e.g., interrupting my reading briefly, missing a train if another will be along soon).
Perhaps because it satisfies/energizes me, I'm not going to do that as a way that can be read as reaching out to someone I don't want to spend time with. I don't want to put emotional energy, even at that low level, into that situation.
athenais was musing on identity, and the difference between "who am I?" and "what do I do?":There seems to be a range of questions here: who am I, what am I, and what I do. "What am I?" is things like I'm a copyeditor, I'm a New Yorker, I'm a bisexual, I'm a cat person, I'm a feminist. Who am I is a gestalt that is influenced in various ways by all of that, and by things that nobody would be likely to include in such a list: I drink a lot of tea, I like Chinese food, I don't have as many memories of my childhood as many people seem to, it pleases me to have had a new food ingredient even if only in quantities added for coloring rather than flavor.
Being somewhat piqued by something on Usenet, I posted to
statements that "People seem to find it very hard to understand and remember that biological evolution is not a directional process."This led, after a bit of discussion, to:
I'm not talking specifically about humans: what direction are (to pick a completely random example) butterflies evolving in?
How long humans have been around depends, in part, on where you draw the line between human and non-human. The hominid family tree is bushy, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer 50,000 years ago might have pointed to our steady progress to more and more robust forms with larger and larger brains, as Homo neanderthalis replaced H. erectus. Had they done so, they would not have predicted H. sapiens.
Then again, our hypothetical observer might have looked at H. floresiensis in complete bewilderment.
nancylebov passed along an H.L. Mencken quote that described hygiene as "the corruption of medicine by morality". I disagreed:The only people I've dealt with personally who were called "hygienists" are sensible, hard-working women who cleaned my teeth with equipment more effective than the toothbrush and dental floss I have at home.
However, I think the "City of Madison Public Health Sanitarian" who contributed advice to the first Tiptree cookbook might qualify: the advice consisted of "first, wash your hands" (before cooking) and notes on some recipes that raw eggs carry a risk of disease.
Unlike Mencken, I am quite happy to have professional inspectors to make sure that restaurant kitchens are clean and store food at safe temperatures, and to test the public water supply for bacteria. It is neither virtue nor vice to drink a glass of water: it is a normal activity, and hygienists help ensure that it won't make me sick.
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