You take the longest day of the year (the summer solstice) and then count the days until the next longest day. You then find it's consistently 365 days.

If you live in a cloudy place, this might seem difficult and inaccurate. If you lived in Egypt, you'd have lots of cloudless days to base it on.

I bet that's the kind of thing you'd say to your parents.

Hahaha.

I'm just lolling away at the idea of your mum bathing you yesterday. Thanks for that. It's the jolt I need to get back to work. :D

Well back when she was bathing you, it was probably about as big as she'd ever seen.

(I'm saying your dad has a little willie too. :D)

Depending on the family we grow up in, we'll learn a language. My family spoke English so I speak English. I don't speak Hindi, Swahili or French... but many people do.

If I wanted to learn to speak French, I'd be best to find someone who speaks French. More than that, I'd be best to find someone who speaks it slowly and clearly, someone who cares about my progression, and gives me time to stumble over my words and find it difficult sometimes. In other words, trying to learn French from the angry drunk guy on the bus might not be ideal.

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When we grow up in a family we also learn certain thought patterns, certain ways of communicating, expressing emotions, responding to emotions and so forth. They're as normal to us as speaking English is to me.

Unfortunately, we might be a bit specialised in our skills. Maybe our family were total assholes and so the skills we learned to survive with our family of assholes don't actually help us in real life.

Maybe your mum screamed at you, belittled you, and blamed you for anything that went wrong. Well that's like learning Hindi in an English speaking country. When you go out to work in the real world, you might find you're limited in how you can connect to people.

So you go to therapy to learn to love, be kind, to forgive, accept, talk nicely to yourself and to other people. You might even learn to feel and accept your own emotions instead of feeling guilty for them.

And you learn them because, if the therapist is any good, they will speak to you in a loving, caring, accepting manner... and so from them you will learn how to be that way yourself.

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So you maybe didn't really need 14 different therapists. That's like thinking you needed 14 different plumbers to fix the leaky sink. If you're willing to get in there and experience the experience they have to give you, maybe you'll get what you need.

The problem, of course, is that if the first language you learned is one of judgement and distrust, then you're going to judge and distrust all the therapists... and so you won't give them a chance to get you better.

Maybe your parents never gave you a chance... so you won't give the therapists a chance either.

Maybe your parents commanded you what to do and were very controlling... so you'll find it weird when the therapist doesn't give you specific instructions but instead trusts you to find your own solutions.

Maybe your parents told you you're incompetent... and so you think the therapists are incompetent for not noticing how incompetent you are, and instead they believe in your ability to heal.

Maybe you're desperate for a therapist to "fix" you... because your parents convinced you you're broken. But maybe the therapists are all communicating that you're just fine and that frustrates and annoys you.

The point here is that it's entirely possible that the things that stop the therapy succeeding are exactly the things you need the therapy for.

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Best of luck. It can be very difficult.

An important part of the therapy is "reality testing".

You might say, "I'm terrified of taking a girl to bed cos she'll probably just mock me for my tiny penis".

Well she might. Maybe one already did. So then the therapist might say, "Okay, 3 girls laughed, does that mean *all* girls will laugh? Maybe they will. There are at least 500 million eligible girls on earth and it's possible they'll all laugh. Three have laughed so far... but is that really enough to estimate that they *all* will? It seems a bit few to me. How about 50? How about you take another 47 girls to bed and if they all laugh, then that'll make it more likely that 'all' girls will laugh."

And then they all laugh up to girl number 6 who also laughs, but then says she really likes you and wants to see you again. What now? Is laughter a bad thing? Maybe they're just amused and like laughing.

So negative thoughts are often "right" but maybe they're more nuanced than you're currently seeing.

Or maybe the girls are being horrible to you. What kind of girls are you going for? Only bitchy "cool" girls? Oh okay, so maybe try 47 other women of different types and see if they treat you differently. Try a goth, a metalhead, a cheerleader, a librarian type... "reality test" all the way to self-comfort. :D

It's not that you have nothing to do when you retire, it's that you lose the passion for doing them. The "reason" kinda disappears.

If you're single, rich and retired, you have about as much chance of pulling a hottie whether you can do a backflip or not, whether you have a six-pack or not, whether you learn a new language or not.

When you're 22, all these things make you stand out from the crowd and so you have a motivation for chasing them. When you're older, anyone you talk to has probably done the same stuff as you already. So now you just kinda hangout.

Articles came out about how mono sodium glutamate contains sodium??

Well I hope they were paid well for their research.

Was that a comedy (mis)correction? A joke I'm missing? Or an error on your part?

• How did it go, son?

• I got dehorsed, mum.

• Oh well. Better luck next time, dear.

It's like being told "you should prioritise".

I did prioritise, just not in the order that worked out best.

First compare it to a steel man argument.

With a steel man argument you make your "opponent's" argument as strong and perfect as possible. You help them make their case... and then you try to show them they're wrong while debating their powerful reasons.

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With a straw man argument you do the opposite. You take the weakest, least useful part of their argument, pretend it's their whole point, and then show them it's wrong.

"I think you're a terrible boyfriend because you killed your girlfriend, you stole all her money, you set her family on fire and even after fifteen years in jail you still haven't said 'sorry'."

"Oh. So you think people are 'bad' boyfriends just because they don't apologise for every little thing? 'Oh I'm sorry for breathing loudly. Oh I'm sorry for eating three cookies instead of two'. You think a man should be weak and surrender to the woman like a slave? Well I think that's pathetic. And I'm glad to be more manly than that."

Except I would wonder how she already knew he had a bigger dick... whereas everyone can see she has bigger boobs.