Naturopaths.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there’s folks doing sane, evidence-based care in this area. But I’ve seen so much bullshit from practitioners, ranging from the grossly unethical to the blatantly dangerous, that I find them hard to trust about anything as a group.

Besides, we already have health professionals that can provide good, evidence-based care (issues like ego v. evidence/new findings to improve care notwithstanding - but there’s crappy people in all fields) - we call them doctors and nurse practitioners. And we need more of those.

Not good enough, we need this in APA format.

Am middle-aged(ish) nerd, can confirm this would work.

I mean, a hike is really just a long walk. It often refers to long walks in the country or wilderness, but that isn’t a necessary component.

That said, I don’t know if anyone has any real strict distance thresholds for a ‘hike’ (see: minimum 10 miles/16 km or something). I could maybe see adding a caveat that it should be for purely recreational purposes, rather than say walking to work or something.

Fuck it - you’re an avid hiker IMO. Walks in nature are nice, don’t get me wrong, but I like all the hidden gems you can find hiking in an urban environment (I count graffiti, weird posters, dilapidated buildings/infrastructure, weird shit on the side of the road, etc.)

Paperback books are totally acceptable, really just meant physical copies over EPUBs or PDFs on your phone or something.

Nothing necessarily wrong with those, but if you’re gonna read in bed I prefer paper - no blue light, notifications, and other stuff that detracts from sleep quality.

Sure, people say hiking is attractive, but I can only assume there’s a bias to forest hiking.

Meanwhile, I go out and do a four to five hour urban hike and people act like I have some sort of disorder.

“wHy DoN’t YoU jUsT dRiVe?” Because a drive to the beer store in the town across the river is an errand, a walk to the same place is a fucking ADVENTURE, Helen!

Might I suggest reading (specifically hard-copy books)? Doesn’t require much energy, and if you do it in bed with a dim light chances are you will get your sleep too (+ higher potential for vivid dreams, but that may just be me, YMMV).

It’s also, like, super attractive, apparently.

Any bots here willing to help this human out? This seems like it’d be your forte.

(Been there, sucks incredibly badly. I feel for ya.)

So chances are you’ll have some options, but I can say the options for lower THC weed here in Canada (well, Ontario to be specific) are slim. There just isn’t as much market demand for it once the older folks who abstained during prohibition have tried it and moved on (usually to low dose edibles, tbf). The real money is in appealing to chronic smokers who chase THC %.

Sucks for me, who would love more options with moderate to low THC grown/processed really well (e.g. nice flavour profile, pretty nugs, etc.). There’s been a few, but they usually don’t stay on the market for very long or stay in a grow rotation.

For now, one hitters and lots of attention to dose thresholds are the way I get down. Which means I buy less weed, which also means my preferences aren’t well reflected in overall demand.

Naw, screw that - we need more people trying to make this place fun. If by some chance it is Ottawa, I’m sure they’d find receptive folks at The Dom/House of Targ/Arts Court/The Mayfair/Rainbow/AskAPunk/Tuesday Club/PROBE/One of the festival committees (except poutine and rib)/Spectrasonic/Awesome Ottawa/Canada Council for the Arts/White Rabbit/SPAO/One of the Zine collectives/Gladstone Theatre/Ottawa Little Theatre/Brass Monkey, for some reason/T’s Pub/Swizzles/Enriched Bread/Absolute Comedy/Cafe Dekcuf/that one house in Barrhaven (iykyk)/CKCU/CHUM/probably quite a few others I’m not aware of. Heck, you could bug the Night Mayor, what exactly is he up to these days?

It all really comes down to what you consider fun. Are you going to have the same degree of options as you would in Montreal and Toronto? No. But if you want fun, there’s things to do, places to check out, people to meet and a not-insignificant number of folks who want more of these.

Off the top of my head:

1. Start researching your local ordinances and bylaws. Like someone mentioned here, there might be a reason your town dies after 2200.
2. Think about the kind of things you want to see in terms of nightlife. Does that mean live music? Block parties? Techno night at the clurb? Kink stuff (seriously)? Theatrical performances? Hash and coffee socials (sort of a joke, but thinking through the logistics of such a thing has been my daydream du jour recently)? Etc.
3. Find others who would be interested in the kind of stuff you’d like for nightlife activities. Start talking $ and logistics - are there any grants you could try and apply for? Fundraising activities? Where are you going to do this stuff? What do you need in terms of insurance? Do you need to address any pesky bylaws, and can start working with your local government to try and tackle that? And so on.
4. Make a plan and act.

The big starting point is really just defining one or two things you want to see, and working to get to the point where you see them. In the course of this you might be surprised by what you find (someone mentioned good ol’ Ottawa, ON as an image of the place you’re describing - but there’s actually a decent amount of stuff, both above- and underground, you can find when you start poking around).

What up, fellow Ottawan?

Trying to dive into the local music scene was my approach - mostly because I suck at trivia.

If you are are doing any kind of learning (as a citizen or registered student) your local librarian, particularly your local academic librarian, is your best friend and you just don’t know it yet. Introduce yourself, and come with questions.

But don’t neglect your public librarians either - that light I saw in their eyes when asking about an obscure service they offered stuck with me.

It’s a term that’s taken on some additional baggage/meaning. Originally it simply meant someone who was involuntarily celibate - wants to have sexual relationships, but doesn’t. Now it usually refers to someone adhering to a kind of peculiar set of ideologies around that (see: social value theories taken to some often ridiculous extremes; good ol’ fashioned misogyny/perhaps misanthropy; etc.).

There’s a kneejerk reaction to incels in the latter sense because so much that comes out of that is pretty awful. That and it’s often folks who engage with the latter stuff who are more inclined to identify with the term incel - most others who just fit the former definition just say they’re single.

IMO the latter usage is just more proof that we are failing and continuing to fail men, badly, in terms of community and mental health supports.

I am equally, if not more embarrassed to say this is an excellent idea and I need to steal it.

As folks here have said, the Fediverse at this time goes a long way by not carrying over dark pattern nonsense and other deliberate psychological tricks to keep you engaged. But that’s only one half of the equation - why do those tricks work?

Honestly, something I found useful for me (whose main consumption medium is my smartphone) is dedicating specific timeframes for recreational web activity/email checks, and turning off wifi and mobile outside of those times. It can be hard to maintain (particularly when family members suddenly move to web-based messaging platforms rather than SMS), but when I was keeping it up I felt a lot calmer/engaged with IRL stuff.

Worth an experiment - turn off social media notifications, download anything you think you really need for offline use, develop the habit of switching connectivity on and off only as absolutely needed outside of internet rec time (maps, etc.), and keep it up for a few months. See what kind of changes come of it re: your headspace.

Eh, the hype around it maybe, but it can be a useful/unique experience for some - at least if you’re not the type where it’d be acutely painful, in which case do whatever gets you through the flight/whatever.

Think about modern life - how often do you find yourself in a position where there are no acute demands, no expectations for how you need to spend your time, and you can just sit with your thoughts for a few hours? Unless you consciously carve out some time for that, IMO it’s pretty rare. Multihour travel as a flight/train/bus passenger affords that time with no special effort.

I like at least attempting it for a chunk of the trip, if not the whole time - imagination starts running wild in cool ways, which otherwise doesn’t happen as often as I’d like it to. Though in fairness, if it’s a plane the cabin noise usually puts me to sleep during the attempt.

I’ll put it this way - if you’re the kind of person that finds the idea of isolation tanks appealing, depending on why you may enjoy raw-dogging flights or other passenger travel. 100% not for everyone though, and that’s fine - different strokes and all that.

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed…

Another day in paradise.

Translation: Fuck this world and everything in it.

There’s nothin’ Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya 'bout the raising of the wrist…