Much to the excitement of longtime fan @Graham_LRR I have begun watching Star Trek: The Next Generation in earnest. It's a show I've seen a smattering of episodes and picked up through cultural osmosis but I never actually *watched* it when it was first broadcast. As I'd been advised, these early episodes definitely carry the hallmarks of the original series for better or, uh, worse...

Anyone complaining about "scary", "strange" or worst of all "hard to pronounce" chemicals is really just outing themselves as willfully ignorant. You can be afraid of what you don't understand, but you can't refuse to learn and retain credibility about anything. I can neither fathom nor abide any persons who take contentment or even pride in how little they know and choose to remain uninformed of - particularly when they form opinions based on matters they are not only ignorant about but resolved to remain ignorant of.

I'm having a dilemma about playing Destiny 2 again for the solitary purpose of socializing with friends - but the first time I stopped playing eventually was because the eternal grind became boring and it felt too purposefully addictive and time-leeching. The design is pretty, gameplay is alright but the MMO skinner box under the hood honestly squicks me out the same way The Division did. And I'm particularly hesitant about it now that I'm producing comics which I find very fulfilling.

I hope @UnarmedOracle won't mind me quoting him, because he perfectly encapsulates and mirrors my own feelings about the pandemic and antivax. I'm just done. I'm done with pleas and appeals to rationality that fall on deaf ears. I'm done caring about simpletons who impervious to facts. I'm done having compassion for the hurt feelings and wounded pride of rubes too dumb or ashamed to do their civic duty.

Fuck 'em.

Almost exactly two years ago today I suffered an anxiety attack that began a trend that would torment me for the next year and a half, give or take. That experience was perhaps the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life, though it is receding into a distant memory. It's strange reflecting on how crippled I was as I sit here casually tweeting after casually taking my morning dose of Effexor.