For those with friends or family in QAnon, tomorrow will be quite a day.

The Inauguration is going to plunge many Q believers into doubt and dismay.

The most committed will simply double down, but others will want a way out.

If you're able, give them an off-ramp. No mocking.

Manipulation Sign:

If you are compromising too much, there is a chance that you are getting manipulated.

Why are you the one that's always compromising?

How come the other person always gets their way?

Be more curious.

If something seems off, stick up for yourself.

'Wait, you sure I am being manipulated?'

I have no clue, that is only something that you can decide for yourself.

'Dang is there anything I need to look out for?'

Plenty..

But let me give you a few things to look out for.

👇

I see manipulation as skillfully controlling someone's behavior for egotistical or unethical purposes.

'How come people don't leave when it's happening to them?'

Because most people have 0 clue that they are being manipulated.

1. Guilt Trip

You ever made a mistake around someone, only for them to hold it over your head?

The will always bring up the mistake when you 2 are not seeing eye to eye.

These people will use that mistake as leverage to get what they want from you in the future.

Look out.

2. The Rationalizer

This person will commit the worst acts & find a way to rationalize it.

Example: cheaters when they get caught.

They have every excuse in the book for why they did it.

Heck, they are so good at rationalizing, they will make it seem like your fault.

Just because.

Here's an interesting story about a man you've almost certainly heard of, think you know stuff about, but probably weren't taught any of the good, funny, ludicrous stuff that makes it really interesting.

It's long. You might hate it. I'll take that chance...

In 1588, Spain launched a huge fleet with the aim of overthrowing Elizabeth I and conquering England (sorry Britain, I'm taking about the "it's still just England" era).

At least in part, they did this to stop our pirates from being such a monumental pain in their arse...

As the 130 Spanish ships approached our coast, the English packed our most ancient and decrepit boats with junk, set them on fire, and shoved them into the Spanish lines.

The Armada scattered, and the weather took care of the rest, driving them towards the Dutch coast...

Thus, the great military achievement of the Elizabethan era was settled by a combination of a typical English summer, and an aquatic bin fire.

But somebody had to come out of it a hero, and that somebody was Sir Francis Drake...

The things you know about Drake are practically all false: he didn’t finish his game of bowls before being bothered to defeat the Spanish – that story didn’t appear until some 40 years after the events, and bad weather kept in in Plymouth: not fannying around with ball games...

Shy people are either overthinking or highly observant of the social setting.

And in many cases it can be both.

'So what do I do?'

You learn the 75/25 law.

'What is that?'

The law of charisma...👇

Let's address the over thinkers first.

Do you have any idea why you overthink?

'Yea. Because others are judging how shy I am.'

Incorrect.

Others are thinking about themselves, not you.

But the fact that you think they are thinking about you, you fuck up the interaction.

Now you stay in your head too much & avoid the present moment.

A major no no in the social world.

Your tendency to think that others are judging you for being shy, coincidentally makes you more shy.

And that's when you start giving off a strange vibration to the social setting.

This is when you begin attracting comments like 'why are you so quiet?'

You wanna know the truth? My best friend just dropped me for no discernable reason in December when I was going through an unrelated mental breakdown (started in October) that required new treatment. To this day I have no clue what happened.

This has, without a doubt, been the most traumatic event that has ever happened to me. I had felt that maybe there was distance there, but I was trying to take care of myself. He reassured me he loved me just 1 week prior. Then, he said he was going to quit working with me.

He had been my business partner and literally helped me co-own my business. He requested his name be dropped from the company completely and that he needed to "put my family first" and find a different job. I don't know what that family first comment meant at all...

Then, he stopped communicating with me as frequently. This lasted a few days. He started acting extremely squirrelly and dodging direct questions. Very innocent questions like, "are you doing okay?" Again, this whole time I'm dealing with a genuine mental breakdown.

Last, he sent me a bizarre vague message, telling me that he didn't want to talk to me "in the foreseeable future" and cited some of the - honestly - most paranoid reasons for this. We live literally across the globe from one another. One of the things he accused me of was ...

Some of you will probably know I'm currently grieving. It's a month since my fantastic sister died. I've been thinking a lot about loss, progress and reckoning and coming to terms, both personally and as a society. And I've been wondering: how will we remember the pandemic dead?

The UK is filled with memorials to the dead of wars, of disasters, of lifeboat crews and atrocities. We are a landscape haunted by attempts to remember the brave and the innocent. Villages, towns, businesses, communities: all grouped together to pay for plaques, statues, gardens

I have a terror that in our desire to get 'back to normal' we will forget those lost and things lost during the current pandemic. There's not an enemy they were overcome by; not a single flashpoint of tragedy. Those lost to the pandemic are an uncomfortable reminder of failure

Rebecca Solnit talks about hope only coming from knowing history. People may be optimistic about the future post-covid-19, but that's just desire and dream. For us to build a hopeful future we need to acknowledge and feel what has been lost; to repair and grow, not just erase

The thing is, I don't know if our communities know how to remember what is lost, not in ways that are meaningful to all of that community. Religion is a great enabler of remembrance, but that's not something everyone has. I'm wondering how we fully inhabit our collective sorrow