~ *＊*＊* a fox chat *＊*＊* ~ [Now: Guilty pleasure books/genre?]

The Chatters
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I’m tryin’.

Topics

Topic 1
As I get older, I forget about the struggles I had when I was younger. But I saw something yesterday. A manga snippet. What I remembered has nothing to do with the snippet. I remembered how I thought I had to like a boyband because I’m a girl, or I had to like a celebrity because everyone else does.

This trying to “fit in” struggle… I threw it out the window at some point and decided to be myself, but I remember how hard I tried to like things just to fit in. I did not care about boybands at all :stuck_out_tongue: Have you had these kinds of experiences? If you are an adult or working, does the “fitting in” struggle still come up?

Topic 2
What do you think about NaNoWriMo? Helpful? Good? Is there anything you wish they changed or do you like it the way it is? Why do you like it? What’s so great about it? How long have you been doing it? Tell me the things.

Topic 3
There was news of this boy who stopped a bus when the driver was having health problems. The story pushed was that he noticed because he doesn’t have a phone and everyone else around him was looking at their phones, apparently, and so many people were praising the parents. And the kid himself looked annoyed about it.

When the news people were going, “he knew exactly what to do” I thought they were going to say “because he’s been in a similar situation with his parents” or “because a member in his family once suffered from health issues and he had to think on his feet”. But it was “because he doesn’t have a phone and EVERYONE ELSE was looking at their phones (interviews 3 kids)”.

I don’t think not having a phone should be pushed as such a great thing. I don’t think that’s the reason.

Not having a phone can’t always be a good thing. Because what if there’s an emergency? The kid won’t be able to call anyone. What if he’s alone? And there’s things like kidnapping and accidents. And these days, a kid without a phone could be ostracized by their classmates (idk about the boy in the news, but it’s not a strange thing to think). I think it’s more about how the kids are taught.

Being on your phone on the bus is not a strange thing. But being aware of your surroundings could be something to be taught? Idk. The phone thing of the younger generation is difficult. Can’t live without it. Have troubles with it… how are children supposed to be taught when it comes to phone usage?

But I don’t think saying “oh he noticed because he doesn’t have a phone” is the right perspective. Maybe he could have been daydreaming or sleeping and still not have a phone and then not notice and then it wouldn’t have mattered about the phone :woman_shrugging: He’s probably just a kid that can think on his feet.

Topic 4
My partner and I yesterday:

Him: Did you know the number of births in Japan has really gone down since the pandemic? It’s just–

Me: You know, that’s like, yeah, sure. Normal. I mean, when has Japan not been an aging society?

Him: Ha, true.

Me: Did you hear? Some people in China have been calling random places in Japan about the waste water in the ocean.

Him: You know, that’s a little… (he wants to say crazy or insane but shakes his head at it instead) And throwing–

Me: Stones! Yeah at the embassy, too.

Him: grumbles something It’s just–

Me: AND harassing Japanese people living in China. They were just walking and–

Him: But maybe we can’t say anything about it though because look at what happened at the beginning of the pandemic to the Chinese people in Japan.

Me: (oh gosh yeah, he has a point and I have nothing to say to that) … the world is messed up

Him: A LOT. I think the only way for anything to be fixed is for everything to be destroyed once.

Me: Like an apocalypse?

Him: Ha, yeah. That would work.

(Don’t comment on what he said. Comment on the topic about the world being messed up. I just thought our dialogue yesterday was interesting how we bounced off each other seamlessly like that.)

Topic 5
What’s the best strategy for getting your name out there as an author?

I wonder.

Okay, I gave you topics. Now chat :stuck_out_tongue:

Does anyone look at this main post or does everyone only check the most recent reply? May be better to check that, tbh.

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If you want to have crippling depressuon, you can look at how Mainland China treats its service workers.

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I never really tried that hard. But yeah, I had the same urges.

It’s a deadline. I need deadlines.

This Nov will be my 3rd year.

Frorm watching my kids on my phone, they do not have the ability to see a damn thing outside the phone. I’m not looking forward to their having such things all the time.

Notice how hard it is to the see the aggression on your own side until it’s brought up?

As long as I hold onto my hurt and ignore my hurting others, this world will continue to be messed up. It’s why this offense-driven world is so funny because it was put up to stop the ignoring of hurting others, and instead it just all is holding onto my hurt–the exact opposite of what is needed.

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I love NaNo! But I wish they’d never updated the website. My buddy list doesn’t work. On the old site you could sort your friends list by who was doing this month’s NaNo and weed out all the people who weren’t doing it this time. You can’t do that anymore, so the buddy list is meaningless now. I previously used it to see which friends had written more than I had and who I was ahead of. Argh.

I still like NaNo though, and I’m starting Preptober tomorrow instead of waiting until October like everyone else. I need way more time to figure out my outline and stuff! ☜(ˆ▿ˆc)

Sounds like that kid wishes he had a phone! Everyone should have a phone for emergencies; the problem is that people stay glued to them all the time. Reminds me of that old joke: “I sure hope I die peacefully in my sleep like my grandpa, not screaming in terror like all his passengers!” (>‿◠):v:

Can’t help it! I’ve noticed this everywhere, but I don’t think it’s the pandemic, exactly, as much as there’s more awareness of climate change now. People seem to be less trusting of church leaders, politicians and big business encouraging them to increase the amount of human activity on the earth. I think everyone’s waking up to the fact that listening to those who benefit from heavy population have led us all down the wrong path…? I hope it’s a sign that people are starting to think for themselves now instead of listening to outside influence.

Omg me too! I’ve been trying to think how I myself find books, and how to do the things that bring a book to my own attention. Unfortunately, I’m swayed by lists of books that win major awards, are offered for sale as BookBub or Kindle Daily Deals, or are mentioned by essayists in LitHub and elsewhere, and those options for advertising my books aren’t available to me. Amazon has an option where you can request that one of your books become a Kindle Daily Deal, but so far they’ve refused my request. So without money, I simply can’t advertise my books anywhere that I myself would find them. C’est la guerre. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯

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Not even that. France hit population decline faster than any other nation. There are social conditions (and NONE of those from France are climate change because their trends predate that era) that lead to not having kids.

Once the conditions are met, people quit having kids. That simple.

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This gives a historical overview:

But this is part of it:

Why weren’t the French having more children? Not sure. Why weren’t Parisians having more kids? That’s an easier question. These young people who arrived from the provinces weren’t coming to have a family, they were coming to get a high-paying job. And career ambition tends to preclude child-rearing. Getting pregnant meant getting married, and getting married was a political move - hence the necessity to marry well and not just because there’s a child involved. Unfortunately, this meant that children were often treated as intruders in parents’ lives, and were rejected accordingly. Nurses began cropping up on the outskirts of town, to whom unfortunate babies would be relegated (think Berthe in Madame Bovary). These nurses often took on more kids than they could handle and living conditions in these suburban nurseries were miserable. With more neglect comes more disease… I’ll note here that two cholera outbreaks increased mortality rates in 1832 and 1849 - and cholera manifested itself most often in these unhygienic liminal zones of the capital where nurses and the poor lived.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/xdw65/what_are_the_factors_behind_of_the_slow/

When careers are put as more important than the next generation, the society declines, in general. We also have this imaginary money that we think is stable that has a pretty rapid but stable inflation rate that makes us more insecure in career, which draws attention away from the choice to make a family. So this is about the biggest factor (but by no means the only one).

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Well, I’m no economic expert, obviously, but my own personal opinion, for what that’s worth, is that we need to get past this belief that when population decreases it means that society declines. Personally, I support the shrink and prosper economic model over the perpetual growth economic model. The planet right now is overpopulated, so adding more people in any country in the world seems unwise to me. Logically, wages should rise and the cost of living should shrink when population decreases since there are fewer people using the infrastructure and the earth’s limited resources, while there’s still plenty of work to do and fewer people to do it. Not to mention that fewer people are needed in a society where artificial intelligence takes over the workplace, but I’m not educated enough to argue about such things intelligently, and maybe AI isn’t making the inroads into the workplace that I think it is…

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I didn’t say society declines. That’s not an automatic thing. I said it was a choice between career and kids is primary.

But: if kid decline is tied to men who would rather preen than even worry about that pendulum and women who would rather act like aggressive chimpanzees, then the society HAS declined at the expense of kids. It’s just not every decline that does this.

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I might be gone for two weeks.

Going to visit family in the states from the 5th.

Idk if I can come on here during then. Not bringing my laptop.

Anyway.

See ya.

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You’re coming to our side of the woods, cool! If they have internet you should be able to pop on, but I hope you enjoy your trip!:purple_heart:

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While this is a part of our real lives (because we write), that’s even real-er life.

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I just wrote all this and then saw you’re away. I’ll post anyway. Thanks for the topics!

I was quite lucky that although I was a weird kid, I (unintentionally) was kinda cool with it. So although I never tried to fit in, it didn’t seem to matter as I didn’t get bullied/ostracised for it. I think my parents did a good job of making me feel comfortable/confident in who I was. I’m not cool anymore - just weird - but as an adult that doesn’t matter so much.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s running around without a mobile phone and I survived. If there was an emergency there were pay phones / doors to knock on. Which makes me think that really the only real reason kids need phones nowadays is to fit in. Not sure if the bus story is a phone/no phone argument, or perhaps just a smart kid. But my non-existent kids don’t have phones.

For me personally, and in the society I live in, women are having less/no children because of their careers. We have a deadline to have kids and more and more of us miss it because we’re too busy.

Paid advertising! Or being great at social media.

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They had internet, but I was too busy and then too tired to come on :stuck_out_tongue:

Hi, I’m back in Japan

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This is the most recent reply.

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I’ve had some time to think about my life over there :stuck_out_tongue: I know, weird, but it put all kinds of things into perspective seeing how different people live their lives.

It got me thinking about what I want to do which includes writing, of course, but other things in life.

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Fair :joy:. After your trip, you think you’d ever move here? :eyes: I’m curious.

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Nah.

Maybe for a year or something like that though. Biggest reason is that the healthcare system is better in Japan.

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how’s it different? 0.0 I’ve never researched.

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I was thinking of talking about my writing on my YouTube channel but how much should I talk about it? Do you think I could talk about Pinti being a blue feline or is that too specific to be on the internet for anyone to take and use?

I talk about it here, but it’s a closed space so I don’t feel like my plot would be in danger of theft.

How much of the writing process could I actually talk about?

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Idk how much is different, really. I have heard that the health insurance system covers a lot of expense, apparently. Better than medicare or obamacare or whatever the US system is called now.

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