So one of our new vocabulary words is “malus”, meaning “bad”, and I asked my students if they could think of any English derivatives, telling them that just about any English word that begins with M-A-L is going to mean something “bad”.
I’m expecting stuff like: malice, malcontent, malnourished, or even malware or Maleficent.
Instead I get this one girl in the back of the room say “male” with the most dead-eyed expression.
This has the same energy as two years ago when another student said she remembered “vir” meant “man” because “it looks like virus, and men are a virus”.
One of my Latin students, whenever I’d ask if they wanted a couple extra minutes to review before a test, would always say, “No, we die like men.” And so finally I asked her why it was always ‘like men’. She said, “We die like men, unprepared and useless.”
one hard pill to swallow (that i had to learn myself) is that in order to actually learn coping skills and progress with living successfully with your mental illness is that you have to take action. whether that’s going to therapy or removing yourself from toxic enviornments/people, living your life solely for yourself or whatever. you can’t sit around venting forever and expect it will change. theres only so much understanding and patience that others around you will have. sometimes mental illness is a burden on others. it’s a burden when you have access to help and choose not to take it. sometimes it’s exhausting. there’s no magic day where it will all fall together. you have to actively make that magic.
you will go for like three months with nothing happening and you’re bored as hell and then in the span of two weeks eight different things happen at once – some fantastic and some shitty and some just plain bonkers – and you’re just running around like a chicken with your head cut off and no clue what the fuck is going on
I love how he gave this bit at an autism benefit because it is also a heavy Autism Mood™
This is the most relatable thing I’ve ever seen.
TRANSCRIPT:
JOHN MULANEY: I normally don’t notice people. I zone out constantly. Have you ever zoned out for a few minutes? I’ve been zoned out since 2014.
AUDEINCE LAUGHS
MULANEY: I just – all day long, I wander into traffic walking like Charlie Chaplin, listening to a podcast while thinking about a different podcast.
AUDIENCE LAUGHS
MULANEY: I can zone out anywhere – I was at the doctor’s office, he was reading me the results of a blood test, it was important I listened, and I zoned out! I was like, “nah, I’m gonna stare at the wall and think my thoughts”.
AUDIENCE MEMBER WHOOPS
MULANEY: I was like, “huh. None of the Beatles had moustaches… but then one day, all of them had moustaches.”
AUDIENCE LAUGHS
MULANEY: “That’s weird, I can’t think of a time a group has done that”. Some people in my life don’t want me to zone out as much – they want me to focus, and they want me to be in the moment, and they want me to do this by meditating. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried meditating, but I’ve been trying it. This is how you meditate, okay? You sit on the floor with your back perfectly straight, which I hate more than ISIS –
AUDIENCE LAUGHS
MULANEY: I don’t like sitting up straight! Alright?! It’s never gonna happen! If meditating was sitting hunched over on the toilet with your elbow on your knee while kind of looking at your phone, I’d be the Dalai Lama.
AUDIENCE LAUGHS/APPLAUDS
MULANEY: I don’t like sitting up straight. So you sit up straight, and you breathe, and this helps you stay in the moment. Don’t bother! The moment is mediocre at best!
AUDIENCE LAUGHS
MULANEY: I mean, it’s fine. Let’s all try right now – let’s all be in the moment, in silence, right now. [A HALF-SECOND PAUSE] Sucked, right? Not fun at all!
AUDIENCE LAUGHS
MULANEY: That was boring! You gotta zone out! You have an imagination! You have a movie theatre in your brain that plays fake arguments that you win.
AUDIENCE LAUGHS/APPLAUDS
MULANEY: Have you ever just been sitting there thinking about something for twenty, twenty-five minutes, and all of a sudden you’re like “oh my god, I’m driving!” and you remember? You’re like –
AUDIENCE LAUGHS
MULANEY: “I’m going seventy-five miles an hour! I have been for a while! I could’ve changed so many lives!” Sometimes, my wife – I have this wife – she’ll be like, “are you watching the road?” and I’m always like, “I am looking through the windshield.”
AUDIENCE LAUGHS
MULANEY: “And I’m not gonna hit anyone, but no. I’m thinking about the Beatles.”
Hey @vulpeculavolans added a transcript to this AND THAT IS SO AWESOME THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Whenever someone posits that people are ‘lazy’ I’m reminded of the fact that if you leave humans in a room with some blocks and no instructions they will literally make up their own tasks to carry out because humans just fuckin love having stuff to do and objectives to work towards
In one of my psych courses we learned about a study where a person was left in a room with nothing but a box that would SHOCK THEM painfully if they touched it. After awhile, everyone touched the box and got shocked to hell and back. Now, this isn’t that abnormal. What’s abnormal is that everyone then sat there for a few minutes and then TOUCHED THE BOX AGAIN. And got shocked AGAIN! Moral of the story: People fucking hate being bored. They would rather be in IMMENSE PAIN than be bored.
“He fails at the simplest gestures of courtesy, from walking in front of the queen of England to his refusal to fly the flag at half-staff after John McCain’s death. At a listening session with survivors of a school shooting, he needed a note card saying “I hear you” to remind himself to pretend to listen to them. Curiously, Trump’s social autism is the source of his appeal. A Pew survey found that what Trump’s supporters like most about him is his personality, not his policies. They like his personality more than his policies for the same reason that men like the sex scenes in pornography more than the plots: Vulgarity is the point.”
Supurblychaoticdragon 