Years go by faster than they used to, I’m sure of it. The days and weeks are shorter too, although every minute seems to stretch out beyond belief. When I was younger, I realized at an early age that nothing would last forever.

One of my earliest memories is being 8 years old and crying because I knew some day, everything would change. Some day, I wouldn’t have my family close by me, and I wouldn’t live without a care.

Looking at my life now, it seems as though it’s all slipping through my fingers, like all I have to do is hit snooze on my alarm once, and I’ve lost an entire year in which my chance to do, be, and accomplish more has vanished.

It doesn’t take much to miss your chance, miss your shot. All it takes is for you to stop paying attention, for just a moment. And before you know it, everything has changed.

I wish sometimes that we had a guidebook, like a pamphlet from a...

One of the scarier parts of transitioning, for me, has always been the surgical paths that can be explored. This largely comes down to a pathological fear of medical procedures that I’ve had since a rather botched operation from a childhood injury.

There are a few surgical options that transgender women often consider. Facial feminisation surgery, breast augmentation surgery and of course sex reassignment surgery are the main ones. Their role is quite simple. They’re gender and identity affirming procedures that can go a long, long way to helping trans people live as their true selves and overcome sometimes life threatening dysphoria.

Despite my generalised medical fears, surgery has always been something I have at least leaned towards wanting. It’s a part of the journey that I know will make a difference to my life in so many ways. But of course there are challenges. Many...

“The Fine Art of Original Sin showed that Ink & Dagger was more than just a gimmick, or some early example of musical trolling, and that there was a purpose to all their strange decisions. “Have a laugh at our expense as we blow this world up from the inside” wrote McCabe in the album’s liner notes, and that intention was achieved in the album Ink & Dagger created. Though they’d swear off the makeup by the time of the album’s release (aside from a one-off resuscitation here and there), none of this diminished McCabe’s dynamism. The band would play its final show less than a year later, and record a final, self-titled album that would see release posthumously in the year 2000. Sadly, the album would also come out after McCabe died, when, on August 28, 2000, he choked on his own vomit in an Indiana motel room.”

By David Anthony

Everyone in the world suffers from imposter syndrome sooner or later. I can guarantee you, no matter what stage you reach in your life, you’ll be desperately asking yourself how your peers are still ignorant to the fact that you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.

You don’t believe you’re good enough, secretly. That’s what’s really going on here. You don’t believe you have what it takes. You’re a creator, a writer, an artist. But you think that you’re the odd one out, with no skills and no chance of getting anywhere.

I know this, because I’ve been there too. And my mentors have been there. When I speak to people who are far more accomplished than you and I, they don’t hesitate to tell me – they’ve been there.

The trick is, when you’re working on becoming something or accomplishing something, there’s no real benchmark. There’s no line that you can measure yourself against.

At no...

By Mohamed Chahin. I fell absolutely in love with these scenes the moment I saw them. They’re sweet, they’re retro, and they remind me of what it was like to be a kid and be surrounded by the absolute wonder of tech and video games.

Times change, and cynicism has a way of turning wonder into jaded poison. But this takes me back to a time when things were simple…

Not everything you read can be applied to you. If you’re anywhere online, you’re going to be bombarded from dusk till dawn with the best advice you need to control your body and your life and your mind and your spirit. And probably your fucking bowel movements.

People are going to tell you that if you just do all the things that the founders of million dollar companies do before 5 AM, and if you drink enough skinny tea, and if you keep your water levels the same as Gwyneth Paltrow’s, and if you outsource and prioritize like God knows who, you’ll be happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.

It’d be nice if that was the case. Can you imagine what life would be like if we could plug all of the advice and knowledge out there into our bodies and brains and tell ’em to execute them like a series of programs and commands?

You’re going to learn, that you can’t actually treat yourself like a machine...

“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”

By Joan Didion

By Oncha. I loved this piece. And it speaks to the parts of anime that I truly love, the subtlety and the simplicity that manifests in beautifully drawn lines and gentle movement.

Simply stunning.

xox Joany 🍕🍕🍕

The truth is that cultivating a thousand true fans is time consuming, sometimes nerve racking, and not for everyone. Done well (and why not do it well?) it can become another full-time job. At best it will be a consuming and challenging part-time task that requires ongoing skills. There are many creators who don’t want to deal with fans, and honestly should not. They should just paint, or sew, or make music, and hire someone else to deal with their superfans. If that is you and you add someone to deal with fans, a helper will skew your formula, increasing the number of fans you need, but that might be the best mix. If you go that far, then why not “subcontract” out dealing with fans to the middle people — the labels and studios and publishers and retailers? If they work for you, fine, but remember, in most cases they would be even worse at this than you would.

The mathematics of 1,000...