Help is always a good thing, but especially now
If you want to learn more about Isolation Storytime, you can find them at https://isostorytime.com
So for a year now, I’ve been working on a secret project, a behavior chart app for people in discipline based relationships. It’s not a secret anymore.
It’s called WeMinder. And I released it today.
I’m very proud of it. WeMinder is the culmination of multiple decades of experience as a kinky person, and a year of very hard work.
The application consists of two big features.
There’s the chart, used by the top and the bottom to track the bottom’s good behaviors and misbehaviors. It’s also where the top records rewards and punishments.
Then there’s the mood thermometer, used by both partners to make sure that their feelings are known.
You can see more about that in a video over at the WeMinder blog.
I can’t wait for you to try it.
So a big part of my mindful practice is a focus on growth. Every single day of my life I consider who I am as a person, what I do, why I do it, and how.
I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. Sometimes I can be self-centered, sometimes oblivious. But I’m compassionate about it. I recognize that I’m a frail, imperfect human creature. Like everyone.
And that fills me with love and compassion for myself, and for every other person, too.
Which brings me to tonight.
So, I’m coding away on WeMinder, working like a demon trying to get the last 3% or so of it done before release. And I make this HUGE breakthrough, hit a big milestone. I save the code, commit it, and have a moment of blissful relief.
And I’m exhausted, so very tired. But I’m also keyed up. So I go online, to a discord I like, and chat a bit.
One of the chatters, someone I’ve never talked to before, asks “Can someone talk please?”
To which I responded, “Sure, for a few minutes.”
Then we got into it. I won’t get into details, because privacy. But he was nervous about something big, and worried how it was going to go.
I dropped some mindful taoism on him. Showed him one of my favorite zen story videos ever, and gave him my favorite zen piece of music ever.
And he was, absolutely, 100% soothed, and had his despair judo-flipped to a place of calm, enlightened, peace.
He thanked me.
But I’m just as thankful.
Because it’s in these moments that I can see myself for who I am. I can be incredibly hard on myself. I have a terrible case of the “type a’s”. I always think I can do more, be better, do it faster, improve. I so rarely allow myself rest, or imperfection.
But it’s after these sorts of experiences I can cut myself a break. Who am I? I’m the sort of guy who always manages to eke out a few minutes for people in need, and who recognizes that we’re all in this together.
I love who I am.
So there’s a feature in WeMinder called the Mood Thermometer. It’s a way for the two partners in the chart to convey to one another how they feel, and to know that the other person is aware of it.
I’m getting very, very close to being done with, and releasing the app. In one of my more recent updates I added A TON of new moods and icons to the software.
(The one for curious is so ridiculously adorable, it fills me with joy.)
Anyhow, the technique I use to get custom icons in, I have mastered it.
I was showing Missy the update a few days ago (because much like that bald guy with the hair club for men, I’m not just the developer of WeMinder, I’m one of its users) and she commented that there was one mood still missing, “overwhelmed.”
We picked an icon from the icon provider I use, and this morning, in about 10 minutes, I had transformed it from a pile of path objects and gibberish, into the lovely icon you see before you.
I have high hopes for WeMinder. I think people are going to really get a lot out of it, and that it’s going to be a hit. But even if it doesn’t, I’ve already experienced one of the key benefits of the whole endeavor. When I started, I wanted to get better at being a developer, to teach myself a bunch of things which would come in handy in my career.
And I have absolutely done that, and done it well.
So recently as I’ve been studying Esperanto, I’ve stumbled across something really cool, and a little… weird.
In Esperanto you can modify an adjective to use it like a verb. It’s somewhat akin to the English concept of the gerund, using a verb as a noun, like “swimming.” But while that feels natural to me, this other thing feels distinctly odd.
I’m happy to give you an example. You could say, “I’m happy” as…
Mi estas feliĉa.
But you can also write it as….
Mi feliĉas.
Which is sort of.. “I’m happy-ing.” Semantically they mean exactly the same thing. But stylistically, that second one is sort of oddball. It’s like speaking with a weird accent, maybe. I did a little digging, even found a note on the Esperanto stack overflow about it. (And who the heck would have guessed there even was an Esperanto stack overflow, am I right?)
Okay, so why do I care about this, and why should you? What’s the granda afero, the big deal here?
A few things.
First, using that odd style makes your Esperanto a bit less English-like, and more compact. So if you’re going for speaking discretely in public, making it harder for casual listeners to suss out what you’re saying, this helps with that.
If you’re a big, telling their little that their naughty behavior makes you unhappy,
Via fia konduto malŝatas min.
is a bit harder to discern for nosy vanillas than
Mi malŝatas vian malbonan konduton.
Second, that adjective-as-verb business is kind of a language hack for expressing certain ideas in consensual power exchange and ageplay relationships. Take the concept of feeling, getting, or being made to feel “little.” It’s super awkward in English to say that someone “littles” you. They make-you-feel little, or make-you-become little. Snuggling your favorite teddy bear might do that, for example. But there’s not a good, compact way to express the idea in English.
But not so in Esperanto. Take this sentence for example.
Panjo, ŝi malgrandigas min enmetante min en vindotukon.
That is, “Mommy, she makes me feel little by putting me in a diaper.”" Literally, “Mommy, she littles me, by putting me in a diaper.”
I think that is cool as hell.