Recent Posts

81

Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Anything again

« Last post by sKePTiKal on March 17, 2026, 08:29:27 AM »

Reading books exercises parts of our brains that reading online doesn't. I feel sure of that. What I'm NOT so sure of, is if reading Kindle books work on the same neural paths as a bound paper book does. There aren't any distraction in either books or Kindle... so MAYBE. And maybe not since it has an on/off switch.

Was the story good? Keep you engaged? That's one thing I'm seeing degraded by AI - stories are more simple & formulaic than even nursery rhymes - and have even less intellectual "nutrition". Books take up a lot of space - but there are still probably a couple hundred I won't part with.

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Generation Jones

« Last post by sKePTiKal on March 17, 2026, 08:17:30 AM »

I remember all that too, Hops. But I wasn't old enough to participate; I'm '56. Hol was '78... so definitely GenX... but with overlaps because of paying attention to things in the world, asking questions, thinking about things... looking for answers at a younger age. She started thinking for herself around 8 or 9. Some of that isn't so much generational, as personality type I guess.

I'm fully aware that the 60s weren't all Woodstock, peace love & rock & roll. It was a scary dark time to be a kid with a functional brain and big eyes and ears, reading all the time. Heck, I even remember the grade school PA announcement about Kennedy being shot. But not all the "Jonesers" were paying attention that early.

So you and I have memories & experiences that overlap - yes, the War hit home for me too and I saw it on the news every night. I read the front section of the newspaper before the "funnies". I read Time, Life, the New Yorker... any magazine I could get my hands on. Library books too... I kept sneaking into the Adult section coz the kids books were boring.

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Anything again

« Last post by Hopalong on March 16, 2026, 07:01:14 PM »

BRAVO, Meh! I admire this accomplishment. Cruising online has drop-kicked the magic of getting completely absorbed in a great book...

Is War and Peace next?

Hope that cuppa feels like a party in your heart. I'll hoist my next one to you.

hugs
Hops

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Generation Jones

« Last post by Hopalong on March 16, 2026, 06:57:19 PM »

Viet Nam was a cauldron for me (born 1950) and so was the Civil Rights movement.
My brother was a medic in Nam and a boyfriend, a helicopter pilot in Nam and got shot down. Landed into a tree in his parachute, hung there helpless for three days, broken like a bag of sticks. When we went to visit at a kind of "plantation" home his family owned in Florida, I'll never forget his father dragging this handsome, broken track star down the hall to deposit him in an armchair so we could talk. It was hard then and ever after to understand his speech from the head injuries, but he married and lived a real life. Pre-internet, we all watched that war close up on our televisions every night and it was absolutely horrifying. Gave rise to some of the most amazing peace demonstrations ever. We all lived during those years with the fear of the draft....some male friends got drafted and never came back. It hung over us all four years and beyond.

In HS, Civil Rights snapped me out of my naievete when I heard a TEACHER berating black students with the N-word, so I joined their walkout from school, threatened with expulsion. I was one of 5 white kids with 200 black students. It was a big drama in the town and ever after, I followed the civil rights movement passionately. When I lived in Baltimore I took part in some strategy workshops with people who had marched in Selma and with Dr. King, my hero. I could feel their knowledge of suffering and their grace. Baltimore, with its urban deserts and lack of resources for poor populations, was another wake-up call. (I taught poetry in some of these neglected schools in "ghetto" areas and the skinny, desperate kids broke my heart often. Their creativity and musicality in poetry blew my mind.)

I hope people of upcoming generations will really study the 60s -- we were more than Woodstock (though the creativity and music explosion hasn't been matched since.) I'm so senile I've probably told these stories here before...thanks.

hugs
Hops

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Anything again

« Last post by Meh on March 16, 2026, 06:25:22 PM »

- Today I finished reading East of Eden.

It took me a long time to complete it. I'm a slow reader and now that I've gotten to the end I think I almost forget the start of it. Anyhow I feel like I should throw myself a party for finishing it. There are some books like that. Just having a cup of tea is all for a few minutes here.

The book has layers so a reader and interpret it maybe however they want to.

I think one of the big themes if not the main academic theme is loneliness. Loneliness is mentioned a few times in the book. Anyhow maybe I will come back to this thought later. 

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Mindfulness and codependence thread

« Last post by Hopalong on March 16, 2026, 03:31:20 PM »

We've got tornadoes in the area, and drizzle....

So glad for you, Lighter, for today and for that gorgeous memory. I loved and never forgot the light in Scandinavia. I bicycled around the island of Funen (off Denmark) one summer on a job (chaperoning younger teens all over Europe, amazing time). I remember the golden light most of all...reflecting off a golden kind of stone in the houses.

I gotta bad code, so more later. So frustrated with a friend who hopped in my car toting a large box of tissues and coughed and spluttered the whole way, assuring me it was "allergies". I hadn't had a single respiratory illness since before covid.

Achoo,
Hops

hugs
Hops

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Generation Jones

« Last post by sKePTiKal on March 16, 2026, 08:46:20 AM »

Here's another one. This one deals with some shared social psychology attributes of the generation. It's about 20 mins long - and the video is all AI - but it is a real human speaking. I think - these days it's getting harder and harder to tell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvU7N6C7yfY&t=5s

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: Mindfulness and codependence thread

« Last post by lighter on March 15, 2026, 12:23:48 PM »

This morning was one of those perfectly sunny and mild mornings where Hobbits engage in mischief, and hoe their gardens.  Youngest DD stopped on the porch, looked up, and commented on the nice day, as she left for work.

THAT kind of perfectly perfect day, sans bugs.....how many of those does one get in a season? Year?  Lifetime?

I remember a day in Sweden...the sun filtered through the day, just like it did on a perfect day from my childhood, on my Grandparents' farm.....like a warm light filtering through the atmosphere, diffusing....softening...changing the way sound hits.  It was a thing.  A rare thing.

There's been many memorable fall days.... not so many amazing Spring days, but here one is.

Lighter

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Generation Jones

« Last post by sKePTiKal on March 15, 2026, 08:41:19 AM »

This is something recent I've run across. Between the Baby Boomer and GenX, exist this cohort of people born between 1954-1965. We're Generation Jones. We have attributes of BOTH adjacent generations... and some distinctively our own.

We overlap with Boomers culturally, in that many of us remember the signal events of the 60s, but we were a bit too young for Woodstock. With GenX, we share some music preferences, distrust of the gov't and other institutions, and fierce independence. GenX is forged in fire; we created the path.

The popular mythology goes, that Jones people have a craving to "keep up with the Jonese"... altho' personally, that wasnt on my priority radar. Surviving was. Our cultural events include the first gas crisis, Nixon/Watergate, closing the gold window, and the moon landing. Oh yeah, and DISCO.

Decent explanation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-X01D2oIcY


Professor hat removed: whomever picked the name "jones" for this generational cohort, should be roundly rediculed! It's beyond silly; it's absurd. Personally, I began to critique some of the boomer's ideas long before anyone would take me seriously and I've mostly only gotten more critical since. But not all people embody the whole "stereotype" definition neatly. In boomers, jones & X, I see a thread of individualism running - X being the most empathetic to others who are different from themselves, for instance. But, there are the surface appearances - and more personal level differences in all 3.

So, is this evolutionary?? or just dressing the pig in a different colored tutu and lipstick?

Fodder for pondering. Observing. Maybe finding a conclusion or two in the process.

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Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board / Re: N.

« Last post by Meh on March 14, 2026, 03:40:07 PM »

If you'd like more information, or insights, on my perspectives on healing....just ask.

Lighter

Thanks.