Posts from @honeydue

Pursuant - burning bushes, mere flickers |LOH ##311

honeydue — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 10:55:36 GMT

A conversation I had with someone on here many years ago remains with me to this day. When the person, a fellow youth who's long since left the platform, asked me what I would do with myself if money weren't an issue, I didn't have to even think about it.

Writing has always been, and will most likely always be my purpose on this Earth. God-given? Man-made? Who knows, really, but I've no doubt that that is what I am meant to be doing with myself, money or not (because, as we know, it's the fate of fairly few writers to become considerably well-off thanks to the written word).

He just shrugged, and told me "you're lucky. you've never even had to wonder. not everyone gets that." I was 19 at the time. As someone quite resourceful and clever, I'm sure he's done well for himself, though I do wonder if he ever found "it". The conversation's stayed with me.

Obviously, I've tremendous doubts and realize much too often I am doing things wrong, or waste my time when I should be doing more, better, else. I'm regularly torn over the realization that I am wasting time, and that I could, even as I am giving it quite a good shot, that I could be attending to it more, more seriously, more honestly. I think that's kinda part of the deal. That it constantly asks more of you, increasing parts of you, and that you give those. While the first question is answered from the get-go for someone like me, it doesn't mean it's not an ongoing process.

But the primary question, the heart of the question, is answered, and always has been. So when I saw this week's Ladies of Hive prompt,

Based on the phrase: "Identify your talent, and your purpose will reveal itself," how many times have you asked yourself why you’re here in this world, or what your purpose in life is?

I thought,
Never. Not once.

I do think the phrase is true, to an extent, though I wouldn't necessarily say talent. Because talent is a word we only seem to understand in certain parameters, and that's not helpful. I think the thing you want to identify is what brings your life a sense of meaning, a grounding of what and who you are in this world, and it can be much broader than what we would normally translate as "talent".

Perhaps a better definition would be something that is of the utmost salience to you. Down the years, I've found artists, interestingly female artists, defining it perfectly.

I'd do it unpaid, unseen, unthanked
It's worth more than anything I have.1

Absolutely. As soon as I heard that, I knew it was writing for me. Or,

Knowing any one could take my place
Knowing I could give my life for something
And it might all be for nothing.2

But then again, what if it's not?

In time, of course, I've struggled to reconciliate it with other things. I've many other interests, dragging me around and, if I'm not careful, threatening to pull me away from my purpose. I get excited easily, and it's always a bit tricky accepting the fact that while these other flickers may be compelling, they'll never hold or even rival that same prime flame status that writing does for me.

In a way, it's disappointing. You look down a road and think this seems also perfectly viable and lovely, but then again, I suspect that might just be me being greedy. No man can have it all. Perhaps I'd be wise to just be grateful for that one invite to the ball, eh?

What's yours?

037. Fishhood

dead-pets — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 15:54:24 GMT

Dead Pets Society is a passion project of @honeydue and @godfish. It is about yearning for the other. About the desire to subvert meanings and look at the world through different eyes. To see things anew. About the urge to create even where everything seemingly ends. It’s also a compassion project. Namely, compassion for Hive. We would like to show the world that you don’t need to be the best or a pro to be rewarded and acknowledged. That *passion* matters more on Hive.

We’ll be publishing a new Dead Pets strip twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. We would appreciate it if you shared the comic wherever you can: Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok... Ideally with a link back to our beloved blockchain, so others see that even if we aren’t pros, we still deserve to be rewarded for our work. And Hive gives us exactly that. That is more than any other social network can ever do.

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You can also find and support Dead Pets Society on DeviantArt, Tumblr, Webtoons and Tapas. If you are someone who frequents any of these venues, would you kindly consider supporting? Thank you.

Lost inside another universe

honeydue — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 14:08:33 GMT

Only, is it ever really another universe, when it comes to sci-fi?
Or just modalities of our own, reimagined?

These last few weeks, admittedly, have been slow. And largely static. Periodically, the Universe takes it upon itself to remind me I need to sit the f-k down, and seems to become increasingly more irate, the more I protest. It is an ongoing battle. One in which I'm reminded constantly how little I actually embody those important yogic traits, like patience, humility, slow breathing. Or maybe that's what attracted me to yoga, in the first place? A tension of the opposites? After all, much of what is at the core of yogi practice, I know already I may never be.

I've spent a lot of this imposed down-time reading, which I have enjoyed tremendously. Particularly rediscovering a love for sci-fi novels. Not that I've ever been too hardcore of a fan. There's just something about it that seems to rub me the wrong way if I linger too long in this kind of world. But time to time, another universe imposes itself.

I borrowed Orson Scott Card's "Worthing Saga" out of respect for the author's Ender series, but frankly, a little doubtful of how this one would appeal to me. I've been reading so much literary fiction and non-fiction lately that I feared my sci-fi days may be behind me. Well, well, could I be more wrong.

From the get-go, the book (which is actually a collection, comprising the main novel, The Worthing Chronicle, as well as two adjacent short story collections) compelled me. The proposition of new worlds to disappear to seemed particularly appealing to me in the moment, though the interplanetary concepts and interactions were, admittedly, nothing new.

I enjoyed the book, surprisingly, from a religious perspective, as it deals much with the theme of deity, and good and evil, even featuring a character described simply as "the Devil himself" - compelling, not un-friendly, and wickedly clever. I enjoyed, perhaps most of all, the character of Abner Doon, the so-called Devil, particularly his role in one of the subsequent short stories, which deals with him taking on the destruction of a game "world" his grandfather labored to build (much to the old man's chagrin).

"Build well, and eventually, your beautiful creation, with or without my help, will fall. But destroy thoroughly, destroy effectively, and what was wrecked will never be rebuilt. Never."

To look out across our once-fair European plain now, one can only relate.

Perhaps due to my own naivety, I expected for some reason, a book on godhood that was linear, one-dimensional, but of course I was wrong. The saga is wonderfully playful and diverse, reminding me what a skillful writer Card is. The older I get, the more aware I am of the need for such stories, dealing with themes like sin and divinity, the return to big, primal stories, despite my modern and evolved tendency to roll my eyes and shrug.
Delving into issues like hubris and entropy, it seemed to me a good book for "our times". Bore the stark reminder that history goes on, through good and bad periods, and that even through the worst of times, sleep is not an option.

Too old to bop?

honeydue — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 10:47:21 GMT

I was astounded yesterday, hearing my cousin complain about being and feeling old. Too old, more specifically. Hating the fact that he had aged and was, shockingly, no longer 18. I didn't rightly know what to do with it, the information. Me and Fish did try to counter that view, but it seemed we were in a strange and small minority, so we decided to pack up our views and keep them to ourselves (well, that's not exactly true, I argued a bunch, as is my nature, but overall quite tame).

My cousin is a month younger than me. So he's turning 28 in some 4 months. And he was horrified by it, blasting anyone who celebrates their birthday past a certain age (early 20s) and saying how he's too old to do anything new.

It was shocking to me, as I couldn't feel further from that. While I'm not oblivious to the passage of time, I can't say it bothers me particularly much, either. I've noticed one or two white hairs. Which I suppose is early for some, late for others. He was complaining about these a lot, and I kept thinking... who fucking cares? Who the hell is watching?

I was also reminded of a Lemmy quote I dearly love, which reminds you "if you think you're too old for rock'n'roll, you are."

I don't think I'm too old. And while I notice, obviously, the ways in which my life and the lives of those around me are progressing and changing as we go, I find it rather marvelous. Imagine how dull it'd be if you were doing the same thing for 60 fucking years. Yikes.

It made me think of my best friend's birthday a few years ago. A similar conversation about "getting older", about it not sounding the same when you say "I'm 24" as it did when you said "I'm 18". And sure, it does not, but there's so much you earn between 18 and 24, and then again, between 24 and 27.

It seems to me life is rather short, and I'm sure there's a point where you regret it going by too fast. Perhaps a part of that is inevitable, but I don't think that means satisfaction and meaning with your life are made impossible by that.

When my friend turned 24, I sent her this brilliant quote from Jordan Peterson:

"If you live your life fully, it would be enough. Imagine being constrained by our mortal limitations, but exhausting yourself in the pursuit of your life, and emptying yourself in some consequence, and not hiding your light under a bushel, but letting it shine on a hill. Then, at the end, you could look back and say 'I did this. I lived my life, and that was not only sufficient, but wonderful.'"

I doubt there comes a time when you don't, to some extent, regret old age and dying, but that is unchangeable. Both come regardless. I think a much bigger regret is wasting your time in a place without meaning to you, in a point of your life where, indeed, your potential lies unrealized. It seems to me that's a much greater tragedy of life.

Sure, it's harder to party now as we did a decade ago (not that I was ever much of a partier). But so many wonderful, meaningful, and yes, also tremendously hard things, have come in the last ten years, that they fill me with great awe and enchantment for this life that I am involved with.

To see the people I love grow and mature.
To rise to the challenges and wonderful moments of maturity and growth as they come to me, that doesn't seem a bad task.

Despite all the terrible things currently happening in the world, I find around myself every day so many reasons to be enchanted, and in love with my life and my world at 27. And think, in many ways, what a tremendous growth and development I've seen from, say, 22.

So, how about you? Do you find yourself lambasting and raging against the passage of time, in this way?

...but we live in black and white

honeydue — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 16:09:45 GMT

A few weeks back, I listened to a lovely, fairly short talk by academic Arthur Brooks on the worrying, baneful effects of social media and smartphones on young (and not so young) minds. Talking on a very "happening" subject, aka phone addiction, I could think of several peers who would benefit from this video afterwards, so I hastened sending it, adding, of course, how useful it was to me, as well.
While I'm not one particularly taken by social media and can happily go without it for months, I find I'm not impervious either to the intoxicating, addictive dark energy of these little pocket screens. I have, on occasion and to my deep displeasure, caught myself "doom-scrolling", staring at garbage content, wasting my energy and attention, just because it's there.
https://youtu.be/KHd-luu3M8s?si=R5I7Qeka0Rs9EMJa
And in the video, Mr. Brooks shared a pretty cool "trick" for taming this particular dragon. Explaining that the bright colors of smartphones work to hyper-stimulate our occipital lobe (and naturally, our monkey brains are trained to respond strongly to bright colors), he suggested turning your phone to black and white, to reduce its appeal. Something I was keen on, and immediately tried.

I wanted to see for myself if there would be some visible improvement in my phone use, and dare I say, I was quite surprised. After some 3 weeks (perhaps a little more now) since making the switch, I find myself a lot less drawn to using social media on my phone. Instagram being the main culprit for me - I would find myself losing time on random, vacuous reels, or even worse, exposing myself to increasingly more drastic and alarming news and opinion pieces on the state of my beloved Europe, which spiraled me into a well of depression and anxiety - after switching the phone colors, I find myself opening the app much less, and almost never get drawn into it. If I ever do, it's more like 2 minutes than 20.

I've found, since switching, my use of the phone has become a lot more utilitarian. Even messaging apps, like Whatsapp, while still quite used, keep me there for much less. I think perhaps the absence of colors, not knowing whether the interlocutor has read the message, creates a freer, more fluid space to be in and disappear from at whim.

It's been an interesting little experiment. I must say, everything seems ten times more dramatic and atmospheric in black and white. Early on, my brother asked if I wouldn't feel bad, seeing as everyone else still had their phones nice and in bright colors, but I find quite the opposite is true. I rather like the drama of the B&W and this newfound utilitarianism. I no longer feel under the sway of a little, digital tyrant, no longer feel tricked by my own mental processes into wasting attention, energy, and those things most precious to me.

As Mr. Brooks well points out in the video, color belongs to the real world.

I find myself increasingly on the side of caution and, at the very least, digital skepticism. And while I try to keep an eye on my own extremist tendencies, the "real world" gives me no shortage of reasons against digital devices. (Obviously, I understand it is a matter of use, that devices are tools, and can be used toward good or evil. However, I'm wary of our modern, idiotic tendency to underestimate their power, and overestimate our own self-control. We are very much vulnerable to addiction and, as the kids say, "brain rot", and would best take continual preventive measures, I think.)

Just the other night, we attended a dear friend's birthday party, and watched in a mix of awe and horror how two of her other friends lounged for good dozens of minutes at a time on the couch, just doom scrolling. Taking their time. Utterly absorbed by social media. In the middle of a social engagement. Frightening and worrying enough to leave the rest of us discussing it for much of today.
While it's tempting to shrug and say we're grown-ups and it's not as bad as if we were children, it's fair to assume a good part of our generation (27-28 year olds) has spent easily ten years doing this, so a great deal of time when their brains were significantly still developing. What kinds of consequences that may have for our society and shared future, only time will tell.
https://youtu.be/8FwErQ4j93w?si=5-TlJXE4xmkKHZLd
However, it did combine nicely with a fantastic podcast I was in the middle of, and finished earlier. I've been enjoying for a long time the series "Socrates in the City", and the affiliate "Socrates in the Studio", and this particular episode happened to touch precisely on this topic. Particularly children, and the catastrophic effects of screens on young minds.

Fascinating, and deeply worrying stuff to consider. Anyway, just wanted to share. Finally, the song I stole the title from:

Read the full post

L'Ame

honeydue — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 19:20:21 GMT

Once we started, it was hard to stop.
Play peek-a-boo behind the windowblinds. Pushing fabric out of the way. Kissing each other hard and long. Each time, like a saying goodbye. We got used to going through the motions, the rest of the time. Tracing circles like epithets around each other's names. It frightened and worried me, the sense that it was me, that I'd brought this unholy, shameless desire into my life.

I became convinced that the things you haunt end up haunting you; that you invite into your life the sort of love like an obsession, like a bad spell, like an omen you want to have. I sought out compulsive desire, and let it find me head-on. Time to time, I came across names that smelled familiar. People shaking their heads, of course love shouldn't be an ordinary thing. Love, like the eruption of a volcano, shattering and remaking you.

You. Stripped. Down to the bones.

I thought, always, love shouldn't be ordinary and banal. Which was not to say that it should lack ordinary moments. Our love consisted of long, unremarkable periods, fragmented into arduous kisses kisses, interlaced with lazy ones. Backs pressed into cement and desks, giving everything up. Desirous of you, but all the unparalleled things that are not you, also.

What luck, to find someone to love, so that you can better give your love onto other things, also. The more intensely we knew one another, the more love became overflowing, also, into other things. Meeting marked the arrival of a serious, prolonged period of enchantment with the rest of the world.
Love, as a time of hope.
Finding a flower between two pages of Pratchett.
Squandering time inside the thoughts of an old, gravely man with a heart for classical music.
Picking more of myself each day, to pour back into the world, and delight others with my mind and my inexhaustible, inextinguishable desire for life.
Drawing from ourselves, this inexhaustible spring of energy and drive for all the things which, despite chance and circumstance, still remain beautiful in this life. An invitation, as it were, to open yourself to life. I thought, so often, this compulsion for fantasy would need be incompatible with the world, not that I've much option to curb my enchantment toward life, nor indeed cause to, now.

Desire. Revealing myself through an emptiness could never be this fulfilling, and I find, in you, more meat to wear on my bones, not a lessening, but a moreness. A rounding as I grow into those things sacred and relevant that have been, since always, inscribed into my life.

Prophetic, and wondrous, the way all of us have lived out our story. My steps leading into moreness, but into you, also. Asking. Moaning. Blessing.

Once we started, it was hard to stop. Our mouths hungry, starved,for holy water.

What could I say to you of all these latter days of comunion? I'm gone. Lost. Consummated, and devoured, inside this secret realm behind the end of thymes.

030. And Increase in Number

dead-pets — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:26:51 GMT

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029 Grim Bond

dead-pets — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:29:51 GMT

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A selkie of some kind

honeydue — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 09:32:39 GMT

I feel there's things I can get away with not telling.

I long to sleep in the shallow, and let the waves carry me out far. Freedom is said to be miles from the shore, yet how is it I feel such a wondrous sense of liberty the moment I start to swim out? When a longer arm could easily reach out and lure me back to shore.

I translate much of my relationship with the world lately in such terms. As though there is something in the thick, luring, preying, not wishing me well. I'm deep in work, and trying to loosen the hold of my own left hemisphere. I wish to keep my whispers private, and go out further than you have wish to go. Somewhere I hope you won't find me.

It's at the sea I remember how little I want to be found, noticed, acknowledged. I have a deep need to disappear. I've told you, haven't I? So why am I here, at all? I guess I wanted to say hello.

The other day, I told someone I'm needing a long period of introspection so had to decline an invitation. I'm relishing greatly saying no to things. No, I would like to stay in. I would like to focus.

To take ample time for long, winding strings of thought built on complexity and metaphor, though not necessarily a rigid kind of logic. I'm frankly tired of the problems that require solving. A clean, sterile attention of me, when I've no wish to give such a thing.

I'm sick of this digital world that's got us convinced we'd be better off as machines, so we better turn off everything that's nuanced, beautiful, hard to read about ourselves. In order to be more efficient.

Fuck efficiency.

I want to keep the parts of myself that need to stay for long periods by the sea. I worry, like the women in the stories, that someone will steal my true coat and burn or hide it away from me. Being by the shore reminds me of how I feel trapped here, really, and long to leave.

It's an uneasy relationship, the kind humanity is predicated on.

Can't really explain, the balm-like kinship of the waves when they rock up on the shore. That sacred sense of being held, acknowledged, and secretly soothed. I thought for days of all the greatest turmoils I've carried out to sea. How it's taken all my worries, the good things I can do on account of having the time to swim. Every once in a while.

The sacrifice inherent in nature.

The knowing I will or at least should be asked someday for my pound of flesh. To give back to the water all these beautiful things it's given me. But will it?

Will I.

https://youtu.be/T534skkISmM?list=RDT534skkISmM

This song-poem always accompanies me to the water. Always. Perhaps on account of having built a world of terrible but also wondrous things which accompany me, and make my existence more stimulating.
https://youtu.be/0UaqF7K-Ba0?list=RD0UaqF7K-Ba0
Libertatea reală la kilometri de mal.

https://youtu.be/iMEyZLhq_9U?list=RDiMEyZLhq_9U

Not water. But not entirely land, either. In my ears while I work. Hi, @ablaze. Happy Three Tune Tuesday.

And hello to you.

Another Rant about Ai on Hive

riverflows — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Big up to all my Hive friends who are original, thoughtful, and human a.f.

I'm going to be unequivocal about this: If everyone uses Ai to write Hive content, Hive is no longer a platform I want to be on.

Now, you might laugh and tell me to shut the door on the way out. But if so, I know exactly waht you're here for - to exploit the system. I am less and less included to be tolerant with excuses.

https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/riverflows/23u5zoKAKTsAgz49QQVecmQGHxiWMx1XD5VTTFh3afma5gy5jmJzymyHdnUqxqwPdsnSN.png

Here's some - were you about to respond with one of these?

It's my imagination, my ideas, so it's still original, but I'm just getting Ai to write it for me.
Everyone else is using it, so why shouldn't I?
AI is going to get so good we won't even be able to tell the difference
English isn't my first language, I'm not a good writer
Ai doesn't mean the content isn't valuable
You can't stop technology - get used to it!
People use all kinds of tools like Photoshop/Grammarly to improve their work - what's the difference?
There's no rule against it
Good Ai content is better than bad human content
THe future is human and Ai, not human Vs Ai

That last one is rather arguable given news coming out about Ai agents hacking systems and, if tech experts working for Anthropic and other companies are to be believed, very quickly gaining the ability to possibly wipe out humanity within a decade - a concern that Musk thinks is a psyop to sway public opinion about Ai. I don't think it's taking a 'psyop' to do that - many of us who were enthusiastic about it to begin with are already seeing it's negative impact on society.

Without wanting to go into too much detail, most of us know all the arguments against Ai on Hive. The biggest one perhaps is the unfair drain on the reward pool - if you can churn out a heap of content quickly and create accounts to upvote it, you're gaming the system - in much the same way as a guy made millions with Ai music and bots on Spotify. Sure, there's no law against it, but many of us have been in this space for years now and we've always rejected people using dubious and nefarious methods to gain rewards.

For me it's also a trust issues - why should I trust what you are saying if you're using Ai to say it? Why should I engage with you on a human level and upvote your content if it's not even yours? What is the point of Hive if I'm not connecting with people on a human level? And don't say to make money, because in that case we may as well throw our hands in the air and give up the entire game. And for years, many of us have wanted to for various reasons, but ask any old timer why they are here and they sure as hell won't say 'because I dont like people written stories'.

I'm getting less and less patient with those I see using Ai - yes, I can fucking tell, and maybe I'll always be able to tell as I have a high level of literacy and Ai has particular ways of writing, plus, any curator can usually (often) tell by the users behaviour via engagement and their previous writing. I'm getting less patient with the excuses people make and how some respond so defensively and nastily.

The thing is, if we keep allowing Ai on Hive, in the end we are causing it's inevitable death.

This has always been a place for human content, otherwise we'd just let some Ai agents loose and not both engaging at all. Hive is not an alternative social media if it's an Ai social media.

As most of us are posting in communities, I do think it's up to community owners to make clear rules about Ai use and monitor it. It's not hard to mute a post and give 'suspected Ai use' as the reason.

In my capacity as admin/owner of Hive Garden I try to be diligent enough - of course Ai content slips through because I'm busy and not reading every post because I dont get paid for the time I spent moderating that community. But it's pretty easy to tell - it's usually someone who's new to the game, and usually someone whose first language isn't English (because English speaking gardeners dont usually have an issue waxing lyrical about their tomatoes or swearing at cabbage moths) and I'm happy to explain why it's not accepted. I dont think I even have to explain - the rule is in the community, end of.

No, we probably can't stop technology - I get that. Sure, use grammarly. But dont bullshit about your original content when it's clearly not - I have no respect for it, because you're pretty much just cheating the game and aren't interested in the the social arena here, and you're going to cause the death of Hive, and I fuckng love this place.

Posts from @honeydue

Pursuant - burning bushes, mere flickers |LOH ##311

What's yours?

037. Fishhood

Lost inside another universe

Too old to bop?

So, how about you? Do you find yourself lambasting and raging against the passage of time, in this way?

...but we live in black and white

L'Ame

030. And Increase in Number

029 Grim Bond

A selkie of some kind

Another Rant about Ai on Hive

With Love,

`With Love,`