2026-01-26 21:12:00
Average is a perfectly neutral word.
But what if someone were to call your life average? What would you feel?
In statistics, average is a descriptive tool. It does not praise or condemn, it simply names a reference point. In large datasets, someone will always fall near the centre of any measured scale let it be life expectancy, income, height, someone has to sit in the middle. But when we take this concept out of mathematics and apply it onto human lives, a tool for describing data turns into a judgment of one's worth.
Humans love comparing themselves. Numbers fascinate us because they simplify complexity. But simplification has a cost. It leads to rewarding extremes: exceptional beauty, exceptional success, and expectational failure - especially in mass media. What it leads to is the erasure of average. The middle becomes synonymous with invisible.
Once your sense of self depends on your position on a graph, average stops being a description and becomes a threat. If you are not above, you feel below even when you aren’t.
However, human life is not one variable. You can’t average curiosity, loyalty, humor, moral courage, values, or the way someone notices small things. Compressing a person into a single metric always produces a lie, even if the math is there.
The fear of being average is really the fear of being told your life didn’t matter. But meaning isn’t assigned by percentile. It’s generated by what you do, what you refuse, what you protect, what you care about.
The real tragedy isn’t being average. It’s wasting your life chasing numbers that were never meant to measure your worth.
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2026-01-26 09:02:00
I recently read the wonderful "Don't Get Hung-up on Trending" by Becky. It addressed something that I've been thinking about for a while with my blog and the Discovery feed, and I wanted to add some thoughts of my own.
I mentioned in my post "On Being More Social" that I used to blog mainly with toasts disabled so my posts wouldn't show up on the Discovery feed. I did this for a couple of reasons.
First, I felt that I was writing mostly for myself, and my posts were centered on my personal life and things I enjoy. A lot of the posts I was seeing on the feed were about blogging or webweaving or tech or things like that, and I was over here writing about point-and-click adventure games and concerts I attended. I didn't think anyone on Bear would be interested in my online journal (even though I like reading about other bloggers' interests and life adventures).
Second, the Discovery feed had one of the things I was trying to get away from on social media: "likes" and the idea of "trending." I was tired of connecting my personal value with a number or with how visible I was in online spaces. I wanted a place of my own to practice web design and do the thing I love most (writing), and while I did want to meet like-minded people, I couldn't help but have a desire to hide because social media had worn me down.
I'm still not really sure how I feel about the toasts feature or having likes on blog posts in general. The Discovery feed has undoubtedly been a nice way to discover fellow bloggers whose writing I really enjoy, but on the other hand, having a like button is giving me that same niggling feeling that Twitter or Instagram did, that my worth correlates to a number ticking up.
And, to be brutally honest, I've run across some trending posts on the Discovery feed that I'd rather not have seen. I like that we have the ability to hide certain blogs, at least.
Regardless, Becky's post gave me comfort and reminded me that a like is nothing but a click of a button. What truly matters are the connections we make through being our genuine selves, and realizing that as long as we continue doing what makes us happy while keeping in mind that we are part of a community, other people will be there for it.
If you're watching what's happening in Minneapolis right now with horror and disgust, as you should be, please consider donating to one of the following organizations that are in the thick of it:
Midwest Immigration Bond Fund
National Immigration Law Center
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota
North Star Health Collective
Leo Towing for ICE Victims
Women's Foundation of Minnesota
2026-01-26 08:24:00
hi. i'm sorry for starting this blog in a positive way because it looks like it might be full of my sad posting for a while.
so.. i might just be overthinking stuff but i feel like i'm at a point where i can't really bring myself to do anything. i mean i can occasionally do stuff that makes me at least a bit happy (like posting here) but when it comes to school and other stuff i can't really convince myself to do it. it gets even worse because school has deadlines. and some of them are REALLY short for me.. so next thing i know i'm stressing over something i should already have done but haven't and don't have much time to finish it. that basically paralyzes me and i rarely finish the stuff during that. thankfully the teachers in my school don't really grade stuff they make us do at home so it's not really a big deal i guess but still. i also struggle with learning for tests and stuff and i just can't get it in my head.. so i'm really stressing and worrying if i'll even be able to finish school.
at the same time there's trump saying dumb things on twitter about greenland and other things, the things ice does (did they even do anything good? 😭), the department of justice protecting a pedophile (who did a lot of bad things on his island) with the us president potentially being on the same list. on the other hand you have the uk with the online safety act (more like government control act) enforcing dumb id/face verifications to access stuff. i can't wait until i can't even play minecraft without "verifying my age".. 😭 i'm sorry for talking about this, i don't usually get into politics but i just had to get this out.
all of this happening around me while i'm also struggling emotionally because i'm an extreme intorvert and don't really have anyone to talk to + i'm really scared to talk to people (even just to greet them) makes it even worse. recently i've been spending almost all day everyday in bed and even almost crying on some days. how can i be so miserable?? i also have bad parents (i mean i have a place to sleep and food and stuff but theyre really destroying me emotionally..) and my school has a counselor so i went there and i don't really want to talk about it but something happened that made me lose trust in the counselor.
so now i'm here.. thinking if it's even worth it to stay here. and i know people will always say that it is and everything but like i don't even feel safe here or anything so what's the point.. and also the world is becoming worse and worse to live in everyday. i mean don't get me wrong there's a lot of beautiful places to explore and stuff but you can't really do that if the governments or whatever don't really want you to.
i'm sorry this blog turned around so fast but i just felt like i had to get this out.. there's also a really big chance i'll end up unpublishing this after a while because i won't feel comfortable with it. so sorry if this post just randomly disappears
thank you for reading and see you next time (maybe) 💕
2026-01-26 06:55:00
If you don't get it now, you never will.
If you saw the execution of Alex Pretti and found some way to excuse the actions of ICE, you aren't a "free thinker", your take isn't "nuanced". You're at best slow, and at worse evil. The video makes it clear. He was disarmed, beaten, outnumbered, and executed.
I would call these masked thugs the Gestapo, but the Gestapo at least had the decency to only shoot a man once.
No state apparatus should have free reign to execute civilians, let alone extrajudicially.
Pretti wasn't a domestic terrorist, he was VA nurse. He was lawfully carrying.
I don't give a shit what excuse you give. Any excuse to dismiss the heinous actions perpetrated by ICE proves you are nothing more than a bootlicker.
There is no point in debating, there is no point in arguing.
If you are going to continue to defend this administration even after they tried to hide the Epstein files, after they destroyed any trust with our allies in Europe over Greenland, after raping Venezuela for their oil, after ICE, and now after this. There is no hope for you.
If you see all the Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialist, all protesting the actions of this administration in Minneapolis and still back Trump and his goons. You are lost.
This is the last blog post I'm making on the subject. Because if you haven't figured out by now how wrong all of this is,
You never will.
2026-01-26 04:46:00
I used to lurk a lot, mainly on twitch streams, I remember feeling like my comment wouldn't have any value, so why even say anything in the first place? But aside from streams with so many people that you can't read anything, the streamer can benefit from your comment, as well as you can benefit from their reaction to it (for example correcting something you said, answering a question, making a good joke about it). Surely that are a lot of trolls, ragebaiters and people who just want to bring the other one down, but just as well as someone can ruin their day, you can also brighten it up. You can say something funny or give some advice that helps them in some way, bringing more interaction towards the stream, everyone wins, or just be there, chilling, but present.
I see a reflection of that on bear. There's ragebait and bots, but there are also great posts that can actually help you in life, in the sense of reflections that you can relate to, or use it to see things more clearly, or "cozy" posts that bring a calmness to your day, like posts with nature pictures, or pictures of cats being silly and sleeping comfortably, or encouraging posts, they can all help you slow down your thoughts during a moment of stress or anxiety. There's also lessons and advice from people who have been through a bad (or good) experience or simply learned a better way to do something.
When I first started using bear I was just a lurker, I didn't think anything I could write could be like any of the above, but doing it made me feel better, brought me more mind clarity and is improving both my writing skills and creativity. It also lead to me connecting to other bloggers I like, and the interactions via email which have been recommended by a lot of bloggers do truly feel more meaningful.
So if you've been lurking, or have some draft that you're unsure of, I would appreciate if you published it, no matter if it has grammar mistakes, typos, or you feel like the post isn't "good enough", I want to read it! Even if it's just your thoughts (not even not thinking about anything is an excuse, you can put that on a post and elaborate from there). If you do, please email me the link, I would truly love to read it.
2026-01-25 23:03:48
We live in an age where everything demands a response. Immediately. Publicly. With conviction.
Silence is suspicious. Hesitation looks like weakness. And not having an opinion is almost offensive.
Which is odd, considering how many opinions we already have and how little they seem to help.
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Most of us don’t suffer from a lack of information. We suffer from an excess of reaction.
We react to news we barely understand, to people we barely know, to thoughts that appeared in our head five seconds ago and somehow already feel like our personality.
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What if the problem isn’t what we think, but how quickly we think it must be expressed?
Karl Popper once suggested that certainty is often the enemy of truth. Camus reminded us that the world is absurd enough without us trying to straighten it by force. And Jung quietly warned that what we refuse to see in ourselves has an annoying tendency to show up everywhere else.
None of them suggested yelling.
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There is a strangely radical idea making a quiet comeback: pause.
Not to withdraw from the world, but to meet it without immediately rearranging it.
To notice irritation without turning it into a post. To feel desire without mistaking it for an obligation. To encounter beauty without trying to own it. To sit with discomfort without upgrading it into outrage.
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This is not about becoming passive. It’s about becoming precise.
Reacting less does not mean caring less. Often, it means caring better.
Listening before replying. Allowing uncertainty. Accepting that the other person might be wrong — and still human.
A shockingly underused combination.
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In a culture that rewards speed, slowness looks suspicious.
In a culture that worships identity, changing your mind looks like betrayal.
But maybe maturity is simply the ability to hold an experience without immediately turning it into a statement.
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We don’t need better slogans. We need better attention.
We don’t need louder voices. We need more space between impulse and action.
And no — this will not save the world overnight. But it might prevent us from making it worse before breakfast.
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If there is a quiet form of responsibility left, it might be this:
To react a little less. To listen a little more. To take ourselves slightly less seriously without taking life any less seriously.
Which, given the current state of things, would already be a significant improvement