It means more than just excessive fear. I have agoraphobia. It doesn’t cause panic attacks, it causes a shutdown for me and stresses me out if I know I have to go somewhere. I won’t be hyperventilating, but I will be struggling for force myself to Do The Thing.

For me, the agoraphobia is closer to the second meaning here.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phobia

Something about his expression cracked me up so badly that I couldn’t resist. 😆

happy cake day!

thank you!!

Is there an option for iOS?

Emily is such a cute name for a cat. 😭

i’m a native speaker and didn’t know this either. thank you for explaining!

whooo eugenics. all the rage right now.

https://youtu.be/6v_R180kIGs

perfect lady!

Thank you sincerely for the comment you posted initially! Not much these days causes the gears in my brain to stutter and seize and then restart the way the words you posted did. It’s also fairly rare that my brain holds shape long enough for me to get to chase down a thought the way I did. It was a real treat.

And please don’t apologize for the rant! Seeing your understanding and musings about this is fascinating too. You are appreciated all around.

Be well, internet stranger! Until never, maybe. :) May your life bring you satisfaction.

for me… it would be incredibly difficult to intentionally not finish the puzzle.  i have bought secondhand puzzles in the past and they have had missing pieces, and i accepted the task as complete because i did. it have the remaining pieces.  *that* felt fine.

but deciding not to complete the puzzle if i had all of the pieces?  that feels like it would be very difficult.

and i can’t quite put my finger on why.  why does finishing the puzzle bring satisfaction?  what is it about that specific action?  is it because it is culmination?  if it’s because of the finality of it, the ‘it is finished,’ does that mean that the rest of the activity had less value?  or that the only value it had was as part of an effort which was being built upon towards the summit of the last piece’s placement?

this person argues that finishing tasks is a social expectation, and i can agree with them there at least.  a large part of the desire to finish things is in the ‘proving that it can be done and that [i] am capable of doing this thing and thus worthy of esteem.’

so is that it?  is that why i would have a hard time not finishing the puzzle??

maybe it is because i am reflecting internally the external values i was raised with and am surrounded by?  reifying structures around me?

or maybe it is just that it would feel disrespectful to not finish it?  that the puzzle ‘deserves’ finishing?

i finished many puzzles with missing pieces, and for each of them i fabricated the missing pieces- usually from cardboard and pens, or from a piece of the box.  i did it mostly because the hole would distract from the art.  the lack of pieces didn’t bother me, because i was letting that be a meditative practice.  ‘this is imperfect, but it exists and still brings joy.’

but could i bring myself to *cause* that imperfection, when the actual ‘proper’ completion would actually be possible?  hmmm. 🤔

there’s a relation to disability here that i am not clever enough to elucidate unfortunately.  it is just outside of my grasp. i’ll have to sit with it for a while.

probably my brain won’t maintain this shape long enough for me to be able to.  but that’s a puzzle missing a piece out of the box, so i won’t mourn it.  i knew what we were when i started this train of thought.

ah.  that’s part of it, i think. emergence of disability here being the discovery of one’s self ‘lacking a piece,’ when the expectation was that all pieces would be there at the outset.  that is why there is a sadness.

so if i were to sit here with a complete puzzle, considering it *not* as a complete puzzle but as one which was never destined *to* be completed- thinking of it as one that was *created* to be 99%-ed and have its final piece set aside, i think i could make peace with it.

bizarre train of thought.  if you bought a mug and then shattered it, the normal course of action would be to be frustrated or sad.  because mugs are ‘meant’ to be drunk from.  but if the mug was created and destined not to be drunk from but to be broken?  different reaction.  i imagine there would be satisfaction and a sense of completion when it shatters.

so what the hell determines the actual destiny of a thing?  the actual purpose?

i guess that digs to something deeper still, right?  how meaning is created and what meaning even fucking is.  blah.

that cat in the middle might be a turkish van!! i have one. very rare to see these guys where i live! where are you from?

what qr code are people talking about? i must be out of the loop.

… if she is in a cone, has she recently had a procedure? if she has, please please please let her rest and keep her clean and dry. she will need time to recover. animals will act like they feel completely fine, even when they are in pain, and they will not scale back activity levels on their own if they are on painkillers post-op. they don’t understand that not being in pain doesn’t mean they aren’t injured.

if she has not had a surgery recently and the cone is an allergy thing or something, still a bit sad that baby is out in the rain. she is very cute.

does she go everywhere with you? what a life of adventure. :)

c a m o u f l a g e

this is intense!! i spent so long looking at all the details. i have no idea what story it is telling, but the bizarre creatures and all of the very specific intricacies make it very clear that there is one. wow!!! if this is yours, congratulations- masterpiece!