Franchosca

Intermittent reinforcement

Have you ever played a slot machine?

You put a coin in, pull the handle and you may get the jackpot or not. So whatever happens, you will most likely do it again. And again. Every time you feel more scared to lose all your money and the dream of winning the jackpot seems more and more pleasant in your imagination. After a while, you feel like you have invested too much to just leave and let the next person to arrive pull the handle once and win the jackpot.

This is called intermittent reinforcement and it's so addictive because of the way it destabilises our levels of serotonin and oxytocin in the brain.

If you think you are in a toxic relationship, think about if your partner is using intermittent reinforcement, on purpose or not. Look for inconsistencies. Perhaps they are very sweet and supportive and they criticise the way you speak. Maybe they surprise you from time to time with thoughtful gifts and sometimes ridiculise you in front of their friends. It's possible that they say loving things and then are mean when you are sick. Probably they promise to spend more quality time with you and then cancel plans last minute.

And for sure, when you try to explain what's going on to them, they blame you saying that you are too demanding and jealous, you are imagining things. They ridiculise your feelings through invalidation and your self esteem is already so low that you buy it!

The pattern that intermittent reinforcement follows is that there is no pattern, the consequences don't depend on your behaviour, but are erratic and random. Unpredictable.

What you feel does follow a pattern: fear, love, fear, love. You tolerate the fear hoping for the love, and when the love arrives, it validates the assumption that the fear suffered before was worthy.

You could ask.. Who is stupid enough to let themselves into such crap? Well, it doesn't happen all of a sudden, it starts slowly, with small things. Inconsistencies.

I'm sharing this because if I had known what intermittent reinforcement was a while ago, it would have spared me a lot of trouble and mental suffering. Maybe someone reads this today and wakes up from the nightmare I was living in not that long ago.

Café y cigarro

Getting upset with the weather

Being born in a place where it rains most of the time, you can feel either upset for the usual bad weather, or grateful for the occasional good weather.

Being born a depressive person is pretty much the same thing.

Dance with me!

Prioridades

No intentes encajar, no sirve de nada.
No busques aprobación, no la necesitas.
Confía en tu instinto, suele acertar.

Vivir cien años

Hay qu'echa-y güevos a la vida

Cubismo

Hace diez años descubrí que el cubismo era guay. Antes de eso no me gustaba porque el marrón me parece un color muy aburrido.

Fue la primera vez que me di cuenta de que, cuando algo no te gusta, suele ser porque no lo entiendes del todo.

Scotch eggs

It was almost the end of the spring and I had been thinking about it for months. Many things were happening around me and I realised that I deserved better. Anyone deserved better. Fucking Satan would have deserved better.

However, I didn't do anything about it, I just waited for it to dissolve. Maybe feeling guilty for actively giving up? Well, it's safe to say that I was feeling guilty for absolutely everything back then.

I haven't cried myself to sleep ever since, or spent a whole day without laughing out loud at least once. Nobody has made me feel guilty for being sad. Nobody has humiliated me in front of others. Nobody has put the responsibility of their own emotional distress on my shoulders.

Life doesn't need to be like that.. Thank the baby fucking Jesus!

Narcissists

The other day I had my best and my worst date so far.

On the same night and with the same guy.

Sweet dreams

I've noticed that for some people what I do has become a "trend". Every now and then I get a message letting me know that someone has copied my ideas. Of course they call it "inspiration". I call it "appropriation". What's the difference? Let's see what the dictionary says.

inspiration (noun): The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.

appropriation (noun): The action of taking something for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission.

Full stop.

This makes me sad because I think inspiration is such a great thing, but I'm not inspiring shit on those people. If I was inspiring them, they would think about the weird dream they had last night, they would feel the events of their life deeply and reflect about them. They would take all those emotions and find a way to express them, getting to know themselves better on the way. But I'm not inspiring them. I'm just giving them fuel to keep their machines working, looking for money, fame and meaningless crap like that.

This makes me sad because inside those minds lots of ideas are being wasted, just because their owner doesn't look at them. I get inspired by my nightmares, by a rolling paper advert that I saw like 15 years ago, by a film that I didn't like but watched anyways, by conversations I overhear on the tube, by the toys of my childhood, by my fears and hopes.

Don't tell me that you don't have those things to get inspired too. Don't tell me that you spent two hours on Photoshop reproducing my idea, therefore you have created something. Don't tell me bullshit. Look inside and watch your own ideas, feel your life and live it, because you are disrespecting yourself even more than you are disrespecting me.

Not so bad

Someone said to me the other day: Terrible things happen to you very often, but amazing things do as well.

Time machine

I would like to travel two years back in time and talk to myself..

Don't feel guilty for always having the energy to try again and sometimes choosing to give up.

There's nothing for you here, other than the opportunity to get to know yourself better, but that's a lot.

The same will happen again and again until you learn that lesson.

Everything you think you have, will vanish into thin air very soon, because nothing is real but yourself.

So don't take it too seriously, you don't need to suffer that much.

You can chill, this is not how love feels like, you haven't lived that yet.

You will soon.

...

Oh! And eat lots of crumpets, they don't have any in Spain. 

Carl Zeiss

Disparé esta foto con un viejo Carl Zeiss de los años 60. La misma lente que mi padre compró cuando era más joven que yo.

Esta lente ha visto muchas cosas, y yo también. Hoy nos miramos mutuamente.

No es compatible con la app de mi móvil, claro. Qué tragedia. Pero es compatible con mi nostalgia crónica.

Cuando la miro veo personas, paisajes, miles de imágenes, a lo largo de décadas, todas ellas encogiéndose una tras otra para atravesar ese pequeño agujero que separa la realidad del recuerdo.

Mi propia imagen hoy haciendo lo mismo. Mi padre, mi madre, mi hermana, mi hermano y yo, todos lejos y todos tan cerca durante una centésima de segundo.

Leap of faith

I'm not great at making decisions, but I'm pretty good at leaps of faith.

Lies

This is the unconscious mental process when someone tells a lie:

- I'm doing something that I consider wrong.

- I feel I should be doing this other thing that I consider right.

- I'm going to blame other person for my behaviour, so I don't have to assume the responsibility of my acts.

- First, I'll tell myself it's them who consider it wrong and not me.

- Then I'll tell them that I'm doing what I consider right so they don't judge me.

- If they find out, it will be their fault that I lied.

- Sorted 🎢

Indeed

It's been a long time since you killed yourself and you're still teaching me how to enjoy life.

A long time since we walked through that infinite cemetery counting gravestones until we saw yours and I still feel the tension in my forehead.

A long time since I last crossed Spain on a train and I still remember the feeling of contempt towards myself for not respecting my own life.

I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I thought about you when you were alive. I'm sceptical about souls, spirits and shit, but somehow I do hope you can read this. Because my respect to you triggered great changes.

Thanks girl <3

I've got life

Today all my money is travelling from my British account to my brand new Spanish one. In the meantime, I've got no money.

I find it exciting because it reminds me of all the things that I've got.

For example, most of my teeth.

I've never been this poor.
I've never been this rich either!

Phobias

It's Saturday night and I can't smoke, nor eat, nor drink. And you know what? I don't mind really.

Because I'm facing one my biggest fears and I'm not breaking down. My mind is right here.

Scared and obsessed as fuck, but here.

This must be how heaven feels like.