Oh, fuck, so many thoughts about all this. I confess that the majority of them are framed in negative terms. I'll try to filter them into something a little less bitter here.
Man, those gifted classes. What the fuck. So many different spins on the word "nerd." Of course we're all nerds to some degree, though I'm inclined to argue that we're more geeks. Ultimately, I do see nerd as a pejorative word, and the fundamental reason, beyond dumber social stigmas, is an impaired social intelligence and an inability to translate thoughts into something most people will give a shit about. Also, perhaps there's some lightning-fast intelligence in the mix, and some ability to focus on a handful of topics and projects for decades, but there's an impaired ability to connect any of that to the "outside world." This is how you end up with the Botany professor I had who could draw elaborate plant structures from memory to illustrate where various clades diverged and how plant evolution played out, but also tried to send his son to gay conversion therapy.
I also got moved to a magnet school in 5th grade because I was "bored." It was presented as an opportunity to be more creative and do more fun stuff, which may have been true to some extent. But I also got mercilessly bullied by all the upper-middle-class kids who's parents probably just went to bat to get them into the program, because, you know, working-class kids were like 3 years behind on all the stupid pop and consumer culture we had in the 80's. And, of course, they were already conditioned by their shitty parents to see the academic environment as a competitive one. The spectrum-y nerds were ultimately mostly fine, though I definitely developed a sense at an early age that these were the sorts of people who needed specific jobs, not broad administrative roles with lots of power.
So, two thoughts that ultimately can't be framed as anything other than slight downers:
1. The amount of solid quality information here is probably at an all-time-high. This does make it easier, for those who are motivated, to go through the process.
2. The average "newb" on an open drug forum like this typically ends up being somewhat insufferable. If it's just a matter of being kinda clueless, but they're willing to listen, then it's usually fine. The Nerd who read EVERYthing and has a ginormous conceptual map of everything and is ready to argue before they've even bought a PC, is another matter. And then, of course, there's the reddit zombies and various other people with a chip on their shoulder. People using AI (more Nerd shit, in my book.) People who don't speak English, and are trying to use google translate. Don't get me wrong, the internet is a big place and I don't really have anything against any of these people. But I may lose interest in talking to them pretty quickly. And it does suck when they're running around starting shit and spewing awful advce.
So, it seems pretty straightforward from a certain vantage point: read the fucking manual, treat people with respect, stay humble, get in there and start the process of hands-on learning.
VERY few people in the world are able to do that well- for ANYthing. And we're talking about meth trailer mycoculture here. Improvised growing techniques for felony drugs. The ability to be cool and climb the learning curve and fit into our little social club and keep your (presumably, usually) illegal grow safe and deal with ALL the other stuff in your life, in THIS world we're currently living in, probably growing to manage psychological and neurological conditions which you have to still deal with while learning to grow? Yeah, that's a rare thing. And we appreciate the shit out of it.
Of course we want to show appreciation, but NOTM is also a way to "tag" people who are pretty trustworthy despite their recent registration date. I have low-level PTSD from seeing so many posts from, like, two-week-old accounts that amount to "do blah, trust me bro." Reminders that someone has already proven themselves to some extent can be helpful.
Same with the TC tags- they're just there to indicate that the established community has deemed these people experienced and somewhat knowledgeable. That's all. But it's also limited by registration date and how many people should realistically be tagged within a given time period, which is why there remain various travesties of justice like me receiving a tag before Dkeppel. But then again, maybe he doesn't need a TC tag, as he's already New Zealand's UN representative for psilocybe cultivation.
I registered here during lockdown. Largely out of boredom. I'd already been lurking and growing for 4 years at the time. At the outset, I had massive paranoia about taking pictures, posting online, showing people my grow, etc. In all honesty, what that really did was save me from recording all my embarassing thoughts, false starts, massive fuck-ups, etc. Every annoying thing that i see some new account type out, I once thought all by myself in my lair back in the day. I can just pretend that none of that happened. Every stern statement I make about misattribution of issues, or the use of unnecessary supplements, or whatever, is ultimately grounded in a suppressed memory of the time I did that.
So, yeah, on the one hand, it's kinda cool to see that maybe the current cultivation labrynth on here is less confusing than the one I found 10 years ago. On the other, that makes it absolutely no less impressive that some of you have used those resources to the fullest to advance your skills and knowledge in record time.
Was there something in there about feeling like a chore and not a hobby? I mean, at a certain point, I feel like you gotta go through that to reach expert level on anything. Lord knows I experience that feeling regularly, but then again, while my reasons for growing are many and quite complex,
si=MA-z5UC60AusKV9P
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ACAB 🖕🧊
Edited by B Traven (01/04/26 10:53 AM)
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