Welcome to “Another Important Piece of Writing” a weekly newsletter/life update/writing exercise/rant/potenially the next most important piece of literature from the 21st century but probably not.
I’ve been binge watching the show Alone. If you’re not familiar, it’s a show where 10 survival experts are thrown into the middle some far off terrain and have to survive off the land with only 10 personal items of their choosing; all while fighting off the elements and whatever natural predator resides in the area. To win they have to survive for 90(ish) days or be the last one standing – whatever comes first. I’m obsessed!
I keep meaning to learn some basic survival skills in case the world keeps going on the trajectory that it seems to be going, but I keep forgetting (I’m just waiting for this to bite me in the ass any day now). I think this show helps fulfil that desire, or at least remind me that there are people out there that know these skills, and hopefully I’ll be able to find one.
My favourite part of the show is when somebody goes home in the first week or two solely because I get to sit on my high horse and procliam “Well, I could have survived that long by accident!” It must be sooo embarrassing to commit your whole life’s work to being a survival EXPERT, only to have to go home in the first few days because you ate the wrong berry and now you can’t stop shitting and throwing up on national television.
One guy went home after 6 days because of his heart condition. He had a bunch of operations that left him with only 35% heart function which made me think, how long did he really think he was going to last out there? 35% heart function isnt’t good even in a modern society with plumbing and hand sanitizer. Of course you’re going to give yourself heart palpitations trying to cut down 40 trees to make a bungalow in the Canadian wilderness. The same thing would probably happen if you tried to carry too many groceries at once, or watched the hit film Hereditary.
Anyways, I’ve started to write a list of the 10 personal items I would bring if I was a contestant on the show alone. They are as follows:
- Broad spectrum antibiotics – I have no idea why nobody has thought of this before. I’m not boiling bark or swallowing charcoal – as soon as something seems even a little off in my body I’m throwing back some god damn modern medicine.
- Pop-up tent – Again, why has nobody done this before? All the contestants whinge about how many crucial calories they burn trying to make their permanent structure… bruh just bring one.
- Paprika – I’m not eating a grouse or a beaver without some seasoning.
- Olive Oil – Not for cooking, but for bulking. I’ll be drinking that shit straight on the days I don’t have food. Watch me be the first contestant to leave bigger than when I started.
- A gun – What’s that? You’re not allowed one? Hide it and don’t film when you use it. You have to go through HELL for $500,000, you might as well take some shortcuts.
- A life straw – I should make a second list of “why didn’t the previous contestants think of this?” A life straw, if you’re not familiar, is an invention that lets you drink any kind of water available to you while automatically filtering out any nasties. Why haul ass to bring and boil water to your camp when you can just suck up any and all sweet juices you find along the way?
- A blow up mattress – I need like 9-10 hours of sleep a night to be a functioning human being. I will try to turn this challenge into glamping even if it kills me.
- A multivitamin – Do I even need to explain?
- Rice – Mumma loves a side dish and all you need it water. C’mon people, use your heads.
- Illegal fireworks – Who’s gonna stop me?
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I watched a TikTok the other day that was stitched with another. The original was a woman who was boasting about how she was chauffeured each morning to her corporate job which then provided a full exquisite buffet breakfast. There was more but in the nature of TikTok the video was interrupted by the woman who stitched the TikTok, who went on to say something that has just stuck in my mind for weeks now.
She said “This is just a reminder of how expensive it is to be poor”.
It’s been cemeneted in my brain like an ear worm that I can’t get out.
She went on to talk about how poor people in middle class jobs don’t have the luxuries this woman has, highlighting that before we even get to work we have to figure out breakfast, lunch and transport while finding a way to pay for all of these all before even leaving the house. It honestly was probably a bit of an attack on the original woman whose fault I don’t think any of this is – she probably worked extremely hard to get where she is – but it did outline how much more effort regular people have to put in just to get to work.
The idea of paying to get to work convoluted my small brain when I thought about it too hard. I got stuck in a loop of “why do I have to pay to get to work when that’s the place that pays me the money that I then use to pay to get to the place that I go to make the money?”
It’s not that I wasn’t aware or hadn’t thought about it like this before, but the way it was presented fucked me off enough that I’ve started looking at remote work again. Such a large portion of the world’s work can be done after just rolling out of bed and putting on the closest cleanish pair of pants, and god dammit I want a piece of the action!
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I keep seeing videos about this thing called the gentle parenting movement. It’s basically a way of parenting where they make sure to treat their children with understanding, empathy and respect. They go out of their way to calmly explain and talk to their children which in turn helps them have better emotional regulation and understanding.
It’s such a foreign concept to me, especially because the way my parents decided on my name was practice screaming it from one end of the house to the other to see how it sounded.
Mum: “BRIDGET. KAREN. HASSED. GET HERE NOW!”
Dad: “Yeah that sounds good”
Mum: “It’s strong, right?”
That was my mozart. No classical music through the uterine walls here, just the threat of verbal absue and corporal punishment.
This one woman whose videos I keep seeing combines gentle parenting with Montessori teachings – which tbh I don’t know much about – but apparently it means she has a tiny functional kitchen for her 2 and 4 year old where they can and do cook and make their own meals. It’s fucking insane, and everything I would have wished for as a kid.
To be fair, I had a kick ass fake oven my Mum made for me from an old box which I loved with my whole entire heart, but could you imagine if it WORKED?
It seems like a lot of work to parent this way, but if I’m being honest I think that is actually how much work you should be putting in to raise better people. It shouldn’t be a wild concept to treat children like people from the start, but here we are!
Could you imagine how much time and effort could be saved into teaching people how to say “I didn’t like this” or “I am feeling this way about that” from a young age, instead of me having to waste hours trying to get an ex-boyfriend to tell me one (1) emotion that they’d been holding onto for 2 months?
I swear to god if I have to talk about one more man in therapy I’m going to invoice them for the session.
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