I had been in a rut for some time but finally got out of it. Been working on a big project and here it is
I've been wanting to do something based off of my favorite @basedbinkie Fundamental and Unfamiliar
A desktop of Hope and Kindness
#chivalrystarved
@OmarManuRod it's no wonder that we're right in the middle of another game crash. And we are in the middle of it, not "about to happen" we're right in it, everything is crumbling, the market is saturated with overpriced slop that nobody wants, everything is ran by suits who don't get it, etc
@superfeyn The general population have such a strict schedule of working, eating, sleeping, anything that breaks that routine is seen with suspicion
ironically, chaos has to be more subtle with them as a result, meanwhile, the nobility can fall as easily as they breathe
USA. Summer. It is 95 degrees outside, and I am shivering inside a sandwich shop.
I have discovered how Americans forge strong souls.
Outside, the sun is trying to kill everyone. Inside this small restaurant, it is winter. My breath does not fog, but it is thinking about it. A man near me is eating a cold sandwich while wearing a jacket. In summer. Indoors.
In Japan we would simply turn it down. Americans do not turn it down. And now I understand them better than they understand themselves.
This cold is not an accident. This cold is a gift.
The owner has built, inside his shop, a second season. He invites you in from the brutal heat and hands you the one thing the sun has denied you all day: a reason to be cold. To endure it is to be tempered. You walk in soft and sweating. You walk out sharp and clear, a slightly stronger person than you were.
So I did not complain. I removed my outer layer and offered it to the woman at the next table, who was hugging herself. She said, "Oh, no, I'm fine, thank you." She was not fine. Her lips were blue. But she, too, understood the training. She would not break first. I respected her deeply.
The owner asked if everything was okay.
"It is perfect," I said, through my teeth, which were chattering. "Thank you for the winter."
He said, "...I can turn the AC down if you want?"
I told him no. A man does not ask the mountain to be shorter.
I stayed two hours. I ordered a hot coffee to survive. Then a second one, to hold. By the end I could no longer feel my hands, but my spirit had never been clearer.
So now, on the hottest days, I seek out the coldest rooms. I sit. I shiver. I sharpen.
And when I finally step back out into the summer heat, and it wraps around me like a warm bath, I feel it.
Reborn.
A man who has survived the winter, in August, indoors, for the price of a sandwich.