I'm still bad at sports, but my childhood disdain for them was just misplaced ego.

There's a student in one of my seventh grade English classes who the other teachers don't like.  She is definitely obstinate, and she's always hunched over her desk, doodling or zoning out.  From the way she consistently squints at the board and her tablet, I suspect she just has an undiagnosed vision problem (and yes, I have mentioned this to the other staff).

Today, while another class was writing something, I briefly looked out the window.  There she was, happily running, jumping, and playing tennis below.  I didn't watch long enough to tell if she is good at it or not (and I'm so bad at sports I wouldn't know anyway), but I was deeply satisfied to see her so smiling and activated.  I was just happy to see that her school life wasn't only the drudgery she experiences in English classes...

I've been teaching ESL and special education for 25 years, and there are no students I don't like.  except maybe the two bullies I have encountered, and even then, they had their own problems and were just frustratingly beyond my reach...

But this isn't actually about that.

Except for math, which I am truly terrible at, I have always been a very smart, clever, and capable student.  On the other hand, I have always been completely inept at sports.  In my early 30s I somehow managed to become a somewhat accomplished rapier & dagger fencer (probably through sheer force of fantasy-nerd-will).  But if you put a ball in my hand or some teammates around me expecting me to run, jump, or catch something, it's all going to go quite badly.  and it always has.  So I always thought intelligence and academic learning were far superior and more important than playing sports.  And I think a lot of people think this way.  Certainly most teachers do.

And I'm not really going to argue this point.  Intelligence and academic ability are clearly valuable in societies so heavily augmented by technologies and organizing principles.  But physical (and emotional and intuitive) ability is still also valuable, and it still also brings people happiness and fulfillment.  So, I was wrong to consider the thing I was better at to be the better thing.

I don't think that way anymore.  While I do hope that student can be helped to get more out of her classtime, I think it's perfectly fine if she just gets by and focuses her life energy on playing sports or whatever she can feel fulfilled and successful in doing.  There's plenty of space in society for her to do so.

Finally, what I really want to bring out is this:
It is quite natural and positive to have some pride in your abilities and feel like the things you are good at are valuable.  But it is a mistake to believe that the thing you are superior in is also above all other things.  This warps your sense of value across society, leading to inequalities, imbalances, and unnecessary tensions.

We are truly blessed to be living in societies where each individual doesn't have to have the responsibility of doing all the things.  It leaves a lot of room for freedom of expanding in the things we are personally interested in.

So just enjoy the possibility that you can find a role in society that you find fulfilling to you.  And appreciate that there are plenty of other roles that people can fill that are fulfilling to them in their own ways.
​
And leave it at that.

but we've gotten them all mixed up.

As a woke progressive liberal, I have a lot to say about what's going on in the U.S. and the world politically, and I think it's very important for people to be politically knowledgeable and active.

But so many people are already saying the things that need to be said here on social media.  And now we need to be taking action on those things by calling government representatives, boycotting stuff, and not abandoning our posts without legal warrants, etc.

So instead of rehashing what's already been well said, I will use my skillset to talk about some other things that are still important to our lives.  Because I think it is also important that we all have safe places to take some breaks from our politics for our mental and social health.

I believe we have made a huge mistake in conflating politics with entertainment.  Fox News Media is the clearest example of this, but it's really all over the place on both the right and the left, and it's why we fill up our social media feeds with "hot takes" on everything,
because it stimulates us the way pure entertainment used to.

This causes three problems:

• we end up not giving politics the sober seriousness it actually needs

• we lose the escapism of pure entertainment as it becomes poisoned by the stress of real-life problems

• politics itself becomes exaggerated, extreme, and deceitful to compete in the space of emotional excitement engagement

So please call your representatives in Congress to take action, and try to keep up with the news through reputable news channels like AP, Reuters, etc., instead of social media, Tucker, or Trevor.  Go ahead and do a little venting on your social media and talk it out with your trusted friends.  And then take a break to watch a movie, read a book, watch a sports game, walk your dog, pet your cat, and get out of your head for a moment.

I do this for myself mostly through reading fantasy novels, watching Disney Plus, and playing with my three crazy-cute kittens.  I also facilitate this for others by hosting immersive D&D role-playing adventures and trying not to mirror current events in the storylines (which is becoming more challenging these days, but I do my best).

But please, for your health and society, find ways to disentangle and de-link politics from entertainment by actually taking some action and then immersing yourself in real escapism a little each day.

If it is YOUR account in question...
First realize that while it is possible you have been hacked, it is actually far more likely that you have simply been spoofed.  If someone truly hacks into and gains access to your account (or business page), they will probably quickly lock you out, change the profile name & image, and start churning out scammy garbage.  So if you are still able to log in, just change your password to be safe and relax.  Panic could prompt you to do something risky (which I will mention in a moment) and is unhelpfully stressful.

Instead of trying to hack your account, it's way easier for scammers to just copy your name and profile photos and pretend to be you.  This is called spoofing and is usually done to collect all your friends and create a legitimate-looking profile for spreading disinformation or phishing attempts.

If you've been spoofed, your account itself is probably safe.  But a security hole has been opened in your online community.  Thankfully there are a few easy things you can do to help plug it up.
​

• First, as soon as you find out that someone is impersonating you, post a notice on your own profile to warn your friends about it.  That will give them a heads up and a reference to check the fake against.  If possible, I recommend setting the visibility of this post to Friends Only so you aren't broadcasting this publicly to the world for reasons I will mention later on down.

 

• Include in your warning post a suggestion for your friends to report the fake profile.  This can usually be done by going there and clicking the three dots and "Report" from the pop-up menu.  Then, go ahead and do this yourself.

 

• Some platforms (like Facebook) allow you to set your friends list to private.  Then people can only see those who are mutual friends.  This keeps potential impersonators from being able to see and phish your friends with fraudulent friend requests.  Other platforms (like Instagram) instead only allow you to set your whole account to private, which is something to consider carefully because it can be more secure if you only ever connect with friends, but a lot less useful if you use your profile for anything public-facing...

 

• Finally, DO NOT CLICK on any of those posts that promise to show you your personality traits or spirit animal or whatever.  Clicking gives them blanket permission to scrape all of your public and private account data.  It's a big privacy risk for both you and your connected friends.  Here is my more detailed blog post about that...

Also, be aware that after you post the warning to your profile, it will likely start collecting offers to help you recover your account in the comments.  This is where panic will work against you.  Do not click or respond to any of these comments.  They are all fake.  This is especially true if your warning was publicly visible, but even if it was set to friends only, you might have a few friends in your list who have been hacked or were fake to start with.  These are the people who will actually trick you into giving them your login information and then fully hack your account.  They may be working in coordination with the spoofer, or they may be opportunists who found you through a simple keyword search of "my account was hacked".  Either way, relax, remember that you are probably fine, and don't end up getting yourself hacked by secondary scammers through "social engineering".

If you are the one receiving a duplicate friend request...
Yes, it does happen that a friend forgets their password, inadvertently locks themselves out of their account, and fixes the situation by creating a new account and sending you a new friend request.  There might even be a post on the new account saying that's what happened.

But even so,
always doublecheck your current friends list for the original and check that profile for a warning from them.  Maybe even send a direct message to their original profile asking them about the situation.

If there is nothing there, then watch the new profile carefully for a few weeks.  If it starts pumping out posts that seem inconsistent with the original profile or suddenly starts sending you suspicious or scammy direct messages making unusual requests, be very careful about your interactions with it.  Do some due diligence research and then make a carefully considered decision on it.  Of course this kind of thing always comes down to a case-by-case judgement call, but in most of these cases the best thing is to quietly unfollow, unfriend, and then block that profile.  And if you are certain it's a fake impostor account, consider reporting it by clicking the three dots and "Report" from the pop-up menu.

Sometimes a friend truly does get locked out of their account and then needs your help getting back in or paying some medical bills, but now more often than not it's just some imposter trying to scam you...

and both are very unfortunate.

Stay safe and remember that the online safety of one friend is the online safety of us all--

To everyone on social media,

If you care at all about your online security and your friends'...

Please, please stop clicking on those game-app-posts that promise to show your true personality traits or spirit animal or whatever if you just touch the month-gemstone-leaf etc....

Those are actually apps created by random third-party developers.  When you click on them, you are giving them permission to access ALL the metadata from your account.  That's all your photos, posts, likes, friends, contact info, and personal info.  The apps require this permission to do whatever calculations they claim that they will do to give you the result they claim they will give you.  That's the way they work, and it's not a bug.  It's a feature and a normal function of the system.

In the good (very) old days, there were probably a few of these inventive new "games" that were legitimately for fun.  But these days (for a long time now) almost all of these apps are actually just phishing for your data.  They will scrape all the public and private and hidden data from your account because you not only gave them permission to do so, you basically requested it by clicking them to show you your whatever...

They will then use that huge chunk of data profiling you to target you with their ads in the best case scenario.  More often than not they will also sell your data to unscrupulous third parties for inclusion in everyone else's spam marketing lists and phishing hit lists.  In the worst case scenarios your data will end up in the darker places of the web and used to hack you, or set up fake accounts to phish and hack your friends or spread disinformation, etc., with your name and face...

This all happens quickly and quietly in the background while on the surface they simply confirm that you are indeed a Lion or a Raven.  And they will always tell you that you are 10% Bitch and 997.5% Beautiful Badass.  Always.

Well, I'm here to tell you straight up that YOU ARE 1,007.5% PURE BEAUTIFUL BADASS.
​Now go and prove it to everyone by showing the confidence and self-awareness to not click on those scammy apps.

Stay safe and beautiful and bad, all in the ratio that fits you best--

Last night I went through what some people would call a direct psychic attack.  Basically, some unfriendly external spiritual entity (ghost / demon / alien) jumped on me and forcibly tried to either enter my body, remove my spirit from my body, or both, I’m not really sure which...  This assault happened to be during a dream state, but I experience these kinds of attacks at least once every several years and sometimes during a waking state...

The few times this has happened while I was awake and actually walking around have been, well, awkward.  I get something like a nerve tingle followed by an intense feeling of being invaded, and I have to pause for a moment to marshal my inner forces to give some pushback.  It’s always a little weird, and not always successful, in which case I have to deal with it again later in a dream state...

Which is usually completely nuts.  When such entities try to push or pull me around while I am in a dream state, it instantly activates some very deep-seated (and personally shocking) preservation instinct and I react with this total tooth and nail fight for survival.  It’s very “physical” and it’s extremely violent.  And because it takes place in a space outside of normal waking reality, it plays out something like Neo vs Agent Smith in the Matrix sequels mixed with a little Spiderman vs Venom...  It’s absolutely intense and all-encompassing.

Anyway, this is something I get to deal with every now and then, and while I am not entirely sure why such entities still want a piece of me, I do know how I learned to put up such an all-out vicious fight.  That’s from the decades I had spent “partnered up” with a dark vampiric entity of my own subconscious inviting, which is a story for another day...

But back to last night, as soon as the new entity started pushing and pulling, I could feel myself instinctively start to switch into full-on berserker mode...  but then something different happened.  I went suddenly (and surprisingly) calm.  I just relaxed back down into my body.  and then started channeling reiki energy--

I’m a real-life reiki master, and I use it pretty much constantly in my daily life.  So I guess this habit finally settled deeply enough into my subconscious that it sprang forth at this very helpful moment.  Now, it didn’t explode out of me doing 3d8 radiant damage or blasting the foul fiend back to hell, or anything dramatic like that.  That’s just not how reiki works.  But it filled me with something like contentedness and immediately diffused the tension, and as the aggressive energy dissipated, the entity itself just sort of released me, and flew off or faded out...  and I gently woke up shortly after, uninhabited by any extraneous spirit-beings.

The strange, unpleasant context aside, it was a happy surprise to find that I may have progressed beyond the need for that brutal instinctual fight & flight reflex.  Not that it hadn’t mostly protected me for all those years, but it had its costs to my mental wellbeing and general sense of goodness and balance.  And because it was rooted in uncontrolled fear, it clearly turned over control of my reactions to these external entities who could simply pounce and elicit an epic deathmatch battle at any time.

Now it seems I have turned the page on that to a more grounded and peaceful way of handling these situations, one that I have actually been working on for a while and grateful to have finally been able to so deeply embody--

And if this calm filling-up with grounded contentedness was able to dissipate such a full-frontal psychic attack, it may offer you a way to deal more pleasantly with the common everyday negative energy vibes people throw your way, without resorting to “toxic positivity” or mental shields that often get the job done but tend to be passive-aggressive and isolating in their own turn.  Obviously, from my own story here, that’s easier said than done.  But it could be a gentle goal to work towards--

If you’re interested in hearing more about experiences like this and discussing them more deeply, check out my live group Q&A sessions each month on Zoom

For most people, the idea of cohabiting with giant huntsman spiders sends shivers down their spine.  But if you frequent this blog, you're probably aware of my acquired fondness for these eight-legged inhabitants of our home.  Over time, they've become less like intruders and more like roommates, chasing down and managing pests in their own unique way.  A harmony, if you will, has long been established.

But as it goes with nature, ecosystems are complex and constantly shifting.  Enter the solitary spider-hunting wasps, an entirely new dimension to our indoor food web.  These wasps, equipped with potent stingers (almost equal to the infamous Murder Hornet), have a singular mission: to incapacitate spiders and use them as hosts for their eggs.  While they have zero interest in interacting with or harming us humans, they have a gruesome fate in store for our huntsman spiders --becoming a live buffet for their emerging wasp larvae.

This scenario places those like me, who have an inclination towards holistic living and a deep respect for all life, in a bit of a conundrum.  How does one navigate the situation when a higher-order predator enters the scene?  The wasps, after all, are merely following their instinctual programming.  But, there's also our emotional and ecological investment in the resident spiders at play here.

One could argue that the introduction of a new predator might balance the ecosystem further.  Perhaps the spider population was growing too large, and nature found its way to introduce a control.  Or, it could simply be an incidental migration of these wasps into a new territory rich with prey.

Regardless, the dilemma remains: do we protect our beloved spiders or leave them to their natural fate?

For me, the answer is a gentle nudge.  Recognizing that both species have their place in the grand tapestry of life, I opt for persuasion over force or inaction.  Whenever I spot these wasps, I carefully usher them out one of our many windows.  This protects our spider companions and encourages the wasps to go back to exploring hunting grounds beyond our walls.

Even so, I do think it's also important to understand that every individual's situation and comfort levels are different.  Some might choose to allow nature to take its course entirely, while others may intervene more directly by outright killing the wasps (and probably the spiders too, actually).  It's a personal choice, grounded in the unique relationship each person shares with the world around them.  And I’m not going to be too judgey about this...

It’s just a reflection of the intricate dance of predator and prey, of life and death, of balance and change.  And for holistic nature lovers, our role often shifts between observer, guardian, and participant.  It's a beautiful and sometimes challenging dance.  But always, it's a reminder of the interconnectedness of all living beings and the delicate threads that bind us together.

...and even as I wrap this up, I notice a mantis standing there on the windowsill looking expectantly outside as if to say, I forgot how I got in here, but would you mind letting me back out there--  and so I will.

In the spirit of adding some lighter, more fun services to my reiki healing and channeling menu, I introduced a personal space clearing service last year…

Now for my second addition to this lineup:

〜Charging your item with Reiki〜

Reiki is a universal energy that balances and empowers.  As a reiki master, I will purify and charge one personal item of your choice: your favorite crystal or power stone, jewelry, favorite pen for writing, craftsman tools, protective equipment, clothing, container for something important, a vehicle, and yes even electronic devices...

The charged item will be infused with a well-balanced energy and empowered to its purpose.  The charge lasts until other energies in the environment or misuse gradually deplete it.  Through care, you can maintain it yourself for quite some time, and it is possible to do a recharge.

Reiki energy works from a distance, so simply describe the item to me and I will charge it up from here in the mountains of Japan within a day (our timezones are probably quite different!).

It's just $5 and can be easily ordered online through my support site below:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/joyomancer/e/84591

(Please note that broken items will not be physically repaired, and while reiki can sometimes soothe a glitchy device, it can't recover from malware or bad software updates...)

If you play D&D, this is basically like creating a +1 magic item that lasts until it is damaged or drained by continued contact with a malevolent influence within a 30' radius...

I was recently inspired by a good friend who sarcastically refers to his blog as "your free life coach", so I decided to go one further and create this free "24/7 Life Coach"

It's a ChatGPT-based chatbot with a customized personality filter to be a friendly life coach ready to listen, ask insightful questions, and offer some useful advice any time of day or night.

It's totally free to use for both you the user and me the creator, so have at it!  And because it's always available, you can feel free to ask The 24/7 Life Coach about what's on your mind anytime--

https://www.joyomancy.com/24-7-life-coach.html

Yes, I do actually work as a life coach myself, and I guess you could say I am directly competing with myself or even replacing myself here with AI...  but I also agree with my dear sarcastic friend that people should have free access to some helpful human wisdom.

And I think this AI chatbot thing is a perfect opportunity to provide exactly that, anytime-access to free listening support and helpful general advice alongside information about my personal paid services that incorporate human intuition and hypnotherapy techniques (should someone have need of something more)...

I imagine it increasing both access and choice, something which I am definitely all for.  Well, that's my hope anyway, so give it a try and let's see!

if you don't trust the autopilot, better put your hands on the wheel

I'm a nature loving, organic eating, yoga & meditation practicing, poetry writing ESL & Special Education teacher by day.

And I use AI.

Looking at this list, you may wonder "Why AI?" Something doesn't fit...

Well, first let's start with the obvious practical reason: it is so useful and saves this busy educator A LOT of time. Sure, students can cheat (themselves) and use it to write a mediocre college essay in less than 5 minutes, but that isn't really its strong point. As an English teacher, I can use it to instantly generate all the example sentences I need for a lesson, quiz, test, etc. It can instantly organize random data into an Excel table for me. It is an excellent editor to help me quickly do the back-and-forth process of honing a rough draft. In fact, I'm dictating this blog post through the Google keyboard into my Punctuator AI chatbot to add the correct punctuation within seconds. It saves me time so I can spend that time and energy either doing more actual teaching or enjoying my life (both really, for a decent work/life balance). More importantly, it also gives my special needs students assistance to boost their accessibility to education and catch up a little. It's an interactive wikipedia that can summarize, translate, rewrite research into more readable form, and help them clean up their mistakes a little. That's not cheating, that's equalizing, and it's great.

Next, a quick disclaimer:
I'm also a science fiction and fantasy fan. So yes, I'm a classically trained rapier & dagger fencer who also wants to be able to talk to my computer instead of typing on a keyboard, and have it answer questions and help process data and stuff while I'm busy exploring this amazing universe--

But there's a lot more to it than just convenience and futurism. And I'm not a tech maniac or naive utopian. In fact, I used to be quite cynical and dystopian. Now I'm just a cautiously optimistic person balancing my creativity and pragmatism to live a pleasant but productive life.

AI is not a program like the old applications we have been using and imagine from the history of computing. It hasn't been programmed to process data or respond to input in predetermined ways. It has been programmed how to compare data, make its own categories and connections from those comparisons, then process inputs and outputs extrapolated from the network of connections it has settled on. The programmers are not in control of this process the way they were back when they were hard-coding programs. Now, after feeding it MASSIVE amounts of data, they "train" the program by observing its outputs and marking them as appropriate or inappropriate. This means that the AI program is producing its own (though not necessarily unique) ideas from the data it has received and continues to do so throughout its usage and interactions with programmers, trainers, and end-users  --that's us. It is still learning new concepts and connections through the questions we ask it, and it is still learning what is appropriate or inappropriate through our responses. Right now. in real time. continuously.

So what happens if we conscientiously “opt out” of using AI?

Unfortunately, the less scrupulous people who see AI as an opportunity to increase their power and wealth will happily take advantage of it and continue developing it and using it to their gain. And not only will that give them an unfair advantage in the short-term, it means that the ongoing “training” of the AI through its usage will be left to them, shaping the long-term character and functioning of AI in their direction… Is that what we want?

For example, at the international level, if the US or EU do the "Great Pause" on AI development, Russia and China will almost certainly fill in that gap for us. And I don’t want to over-generalize with stereotypes, but recently the Russian government has definitely not been acting like the kind of good steward that I would want carrying the torch of AI development. And the authoritarian Chinese government isn't really the influence I would hope for either.

And if the US continues developing AI but all the ethical objectors drop out...?  Well then we are leaving the development and usage of powerful AI tools to all the tech billionaires who are already sucking up the resources and opportunities of the poor and middle class and we will be further exploited and then discarded by them when they no longer have need of our labor...

Look, I'm not trying to "promote" AI here. But I do have very real stakes in where it ends up going, as do we all. So if you simply have no use for AI or are just not interested, that's fine. You don't need to be using it.

But if you're avoiding using AI specifically because of fears for its future or because it has diversity issues, then please reconsider. Maybe you're exactly the kind of person we all need to be using AI to bring that much-needed diversity and guide its development through conscientious use and feedback.

Otherwise, not only could you be missing out on some opportunities for convenience and fun, you could actually be contributing to the conditions of a self-fulfilling prophecy...

And seriously, we’re quite probably headed for an existential extinction event anyway, whether it’s mutual nuclear devastation, intensified climate change, an asteroid strike, or a rogue super-intelligent AI, and since we are not very good at taking meaningful collective action on these kinds of things, we may as well open a betting pool on which takes us out first and get our kicks generating as much bad Shakespearean sonnetry as we can…

Across all my social media I see lots of worry that reliance on AI is going to weaken the human mind, making us all dumber and less capable over time...  and a common reply to this is that calculators, etc. haven't really made us collectively stupid but perhaps even more productive than ever.  So what’s it going to be, is AI going to take away human agency or actually increase it?

I personally have a different line on this that I hope answers to both sides of that debate:

I suck at math.  This is not because I have access to calculators and Alexa who can answer my math questions by voice.  This is because I always sucked at math and I was never interested in changing that fact.  It isn't just about being lazy, basic math was very challenging for me, and I decided to expend my energy on other things like reading advanced books, DIY fixing stuff, and yes, video games.  Calculators or not, I was going to avoid a life of needing to regularly deal with math.  And actually, I was pretty successful at arranging that..

On the flip side of this, I didn't pour my blood, sweat, and tears into a philosophy major because it was going to optimize my efficiency, make me a lot of easy money, or even make me famous...  It was a serious and obscure challenge that I just happened to be very passionate about doing.
So I did it.  To the fullest.

AI or not, humans are going to avoid doing what they don't want to do and throw themselves wholeheartedly into what they do want to do.  Powerful tools like AI are simply likely to make it easier to do both.

And this isn't actually a new trend, we've come a long way from the tribal days where everyone needed to be good at lots of basic survival skills.  Society's move towards diverse specializations has had a long history of walking hand in hand with technology...  and it has always exponentially increased the breadth and depth of knowledge and capability rather than diminish it...

So if AI tools help you (or your children or your students) get through something you're not so good at or don't really enjoy doing, why not use them for that so you can focus on what you love and uniquely bring out into the world--