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precursor-ao3 · 3 years

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Written by “Your Local Epidemiologist”

Be angry. Just do it with a mask on. FAQ answers...

Yesterday, the CDC took backsies on mask guidance. Last night I had a glass of wine, screamed into a pillow, and slept on my responses to your great questions, so they weren’t riddled with frustration. While this was, by far, the correct policy, the CDC is not making scientific communication easy.

So… good morning! Here are some answers to your questions…

Why did the CDC remove the mask recommendations in May?

On paper, they wanted to increase vaccine acceptance. At the time, transmission was also extremely low among the vaccinated. Should they have had the foresight that this could change? Probably.

In between the lines, they were also pressured by lawmakers. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the night before the May decision, the CDC Director (Walensky) met with Louisiana lawmakers. Public health departments were informed of the policy change from NYT breaking news. Then two days later, a deeply respected public health leader and CDC’s second in command, Dr. Anne Schuchat, just happened to retire.

I still stand by my opinion that the CDC made a mistake in May. But we need to move forward.

Do you disagree with any of the guidance?

The CDC has a really good handle on science and data. There’s no question about that. Their ability to disseminate and implement that science continues to be a disappointment though. I think the CDC should have just simply recommended universal mask wearing. A simple, consistent message. They also desperately need a deimplementation plan. In other words, when will this end for the vaccinated?

Does this mean vaccinated people can spread the virus?

Yes. Before Delta, vaccines reduced transmission by about 90%. With a 1000% increased viral load, Delta changed the game. Yesterday, the CDC said that they had unpublished data showing breakthrough infections with high amounts of virus. This means vaccinated can spread the virus. No one has seen this study or the data. We don’t know the rate of transmission. We don’t know the R(0). We don’t know a lot. This is one of the main reasons the WHO has continued to recommend masking for vaccinated.

A higher viral load does not necessarily mean increased severity of disease. We believe (and continue to see on a local level) that vaccines continue to protect against severe disease at a much higher rate than unvaccinated protection.

A third dose could help with high viral loads among vaccinated. A third dose would increase naturalizing antibodies, which would decrease viral shedding from the nose and the mouth. It might be time for us, as a nation, to consider it. This could get life back to normal for vaccinated.

How do I know if I’m in a geographical area where I should be masking?

Go here. If your county is orange or red, wear a mask indoors. This means that your county has a higher than 50 new cases per 100,000 persons in the past 7 days OR test positivity rate is greater than 8%. If you’re in a yellow or blue county, you probably don’t need to wear a mask. But, full disclosure, I have continued to wear a mask indoors regardless of which color my county was in.

Since the mask is intended to prevent me from spreading my germs to others, does it also protect me from others?

Yes, masks protect others (outward protection). But masks also protect the wearers (inward protection). This is especially true is the mask is fit and filtered right. The best protection is a N95. The next level of protection is double masked (cloth over surgical) and results in a 83% reduction in exposure. A knotted surgical mask is the next best option (see Panel C below), resulting in a 65% reduction in exposure. Protection from a loose-fitting cloth mask is low.

I have to say, I am beyond annoyed that yet again, those of us who have been super careful, masking, DOUBLE masking, getting vaccinated as soon as possible, distancing, staying home, following all the rules.... Now, AGAIN we are being asked to be the adults in the room so 30% can remain children. Frankly, I honestly don't much care if the vaccine refusers become a statistic. I'm tired of having to care about those who do not care about me.

You should be annoyed!! And frustrated. And tired. I am. But the solution is deeply rooted in complex issues: chronically underfunded public health system; polarization in politics; public health integrated into politics; terrible scientific communication; a fragmented healthcare system; suboptimal scientific illiterate base; and, health equity. We aren’t going to solve these tomorrow.

So, don’t do it for the never maskers. Don’t do it for the unvaccinated. Do it for the immunocompromised. Do it for the kids. Do it for the elderly. We can’t leave them behind. Once we get those folks fully protected, I’m all for survival of the fittest. Be angry. But just do it with a mask on.

How is outdoor transmission changing with the delta variant? Is being outdoors still a meaningful buffer?

The risk hasn’t been quantified with Delta, but outdoors is safer than indoors. If you’re not shoulder to shoulder in a crowd outside, I’m still comfortable saying that outdoor activities are still low risk.

If schools do not follow mask recommendations, what is the best advice for parents?

The CDC cannot mandate masks. Schools do not have to listen to CDC or American Academy of Pediatrics. This can only be done on the federal level and/or state level.

So, what do we do? I don’t have a silver bullet. But, if I were a parent with a kid going to school, I would advocate for masks and surveillance testing. To the school. To the local health department. To local politicians. To schools again. And to the schools again. Parents have power and influence in numbers. Don’t think that you don’t. If it’s helpful, I can put together a one-pager of talking points.

Then, I would ask my kids’ teacher if s/he were vaccinated. Then I would go out and buy a well fit respirator for my kid (there are KN95’s on Amazon for kids). Then I would send my kid to school, have a glass of wine, probably cry, and do my best to parent given the increasingly difficult landscape we are forced to navigate.

What are you doing with your kids?

My kids are young, so we are in a little bit of a different position. One is 9 months old, so she is naturally considered high risk. My 2.5 year old is healthy. Both are in childcare. My husband and I pulled our daughters out of childcare over the weekend.

It came to my attention that their teachers were unvaccinated and not wearing masks. The childcare facility would not change their policy. So, we consulted two pediatricians. Both of which said the risk of keeping them in childcare is much higher than the benefit of keeping them in. They don’t need the socialization like older kids need. At least right now, until we have a better understanding of Delta and where this new wave is going. If our kids were older than 4/5 years old, this decision would have been different.

At what point does this thing become endemic, and we get a booster every year like the flu because there are different variants, but we no longer take drastic measures like universal masking?

An endemic stage will look like small pockets of outbreaks: A nursing home here, a school outbreak there. An endemic stage is not entire states or even counties with outbreaks. The South is burning right now. We are still very much in a pandemic/epidemic stage. Progress towards endemic will be slow and painful.

We will reach this point once everyone gets vaccinated or everyone gets exposed to Delta. Some scientists think we will reach endemic by next Spring. But only if the virus doesn’t mutate again to completely escape vaccines.

Hope this is helpful,

YLE

Link to the data sources is here: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/be-angry-but-do-it-with-a-mask-on

#covid19 #vaccine #pandemic #cdc #maskup

3 notes · View notes

stealinghero · 4 years

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Okay so imagine this! The Lupin crew are relaxing at a cafe after a successful heist. The s/o says they have to use the bathroom and they leave. But after about five minutes, the s/o comes running out of the back door with a dehydrated body in their arms yelling that they need to go, there’s no time to explain and it’s not their fault, all while some shady looking people chase after them.

Finally.... after losing my first draft (about 4 pages) because of my stupid self overwriting it, it’s finally done!!

I did it a bit different than before to get the vibe of an episode, showing a few more aspects than just the view of the reader.

I hope you all enjoy it!! It’s under the cut for length.

It had been a busy week. But now it was time to finally relax and come down. You were sitting in your favourite café, surrounded by your friends.

“I dare you to eat a whole Sundae in under 5 minutes.”

“Do you think I can’t do this?!”

“Hundred bucks against it.”

You snorted and had to laugh out loud when Jigen showed you the Sundae in question on the menu. It was huge!!

“Excuse me for a second. Don’t start without me!” You had to see Lupin try this dare, but nature called you with an urgency you seldom had.

“If I win, I’ll get a kiss!”

You turned around to your boyfriend and grinned.

“And if you lose, I get a kiss from Jigen!”

The gunman snickered and nodded. “Deal.”

“No deal! Don’t touch my precious love!”

You let the guys bicker while you made your way to the restrooms.

A moaning was heard as soon as you entered. Some people had no shame! But something was off with it. Didn’t it sound painful? All stalls were open but the last one. Another moan, this time a man, more breathless but also kind of… breathless?

Curious about those sounds you got into the stall next to it and thought about taking a peek over the wall into the next cabin.

“That’s a good girl. Die for me.”

With a jump you pulled yourself up the wall of the stall and looked into the next cabin, only to see a black dressed guy with a syringe on the neck of a young girl.

“Unhand her, you freak!” you demanded.

He was quicker than you, already running out of the restrooms when you got down and hurried into the stall with the girl.

“Are you okay?!”

She was unconscious and very pale. The small holes at her neck almost looked like a vampire bite. Who was that freak?!

An uproar let you just get the girl out of the stall and run. Not a second too late as you could see the black dressed guy and a couple of his friends drawing their weapons, aiming for you.

“Get up! We need to run!!” you shouted at your friends as you hurried past them with the still unconscious girl in your arms.

“What did you do?!” Lupin asked, already on his feet and fumbling for the car keys.

“No time to explain!!”

You heard a shot and felt the pain when the bullet hit you in the calf. Those guys were serious! Limping, you made your way to the car, followed by your friends, Jigen already shooting back and Goemon protecting you from a hail of bullets.

Breathlessly you had told them everything on the way to the hospital where you had laid the girl in front of the emergency room. Just like the rest of the gang you were wanted so you couldn’t exactly just walk into any building without the fear of being arrested.

During the dressing of your wound, Jigen questioned you about the scene.

“This is crazy. Tell me again, did you recognize anything?”

With a huff you told him the story once more. You knew it was crazy! A side-glance towards your lover made you aware of the mess you had brought yourself into. He had decided to call Inspector Zenigata to get some information. It seemed quicker than to get into a disguise and just get to the nearest police station.

“A vampire? In broad daylight?” Goemon seemed incredulous.

“It wasn’t a vampire, Goemon! It was a man with a syringe. I saw it,” you replied.

“But where was all the blood? Even a kid her age should have at least 4 litres of blood. And she lost at least 2 of it.” Sometimes Jigen scared you with his medical knowledge.

With a grim face Lupin joined your round.

“You disturbed a serial killer. Pops says there were at least 5 different cases of this vampire. It’s always the same. A kid is lured away from its parents and sucked dry.”

You suddenly felt uneasy but you had to know.

“They survived, right?” you asked.

He shook his head.

“The girl is the first to survive. All of them had marks like a vampire bite. All of them sucked dry.”

Jigen spat and lighted a cigarette. A sure sign he was getting irritated.

“This is a disgusting thing to do to someone,” Goemon decided and grabbed his Zantetsuken. His own form of irritation.

“Pops is thankful for your information, but he also says there aren’t enough facts to get to a clear culprit. To think there were 4 of them...,” he left it unsaid, but you felt his uneasiness as he watched you.

“I will be okay. It’s not like they followed us.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Jigen slowly raised his hands, followed by Lupin. Both of them stared at a point behind you.

“I hate this,” you mumbled and turned around to find yourself surrounded by black dressed men, all of them aiming their guns at you.

“I still don’t get why you don’t simply kill them.”

“It’s an order from above.”

“Fuck this. I know a bit about them. They can be dangerous.”

“Do you doubt your superiors?”

“No, Sir.”

“Then shut the fuck up and do your work.”

“Yes, Sir!”

You looked around in the dark cell to find something to get a clue where you were. After getting threatened you had to follow their orders. A blindfold, different cars, you were separated from the others. Were they in the same building as you? Were they already dead?

You swallowed your tears. Lupin wasn’t that easy to be killed. He would come and rescue you, right? He would hug you and kiss all those fears away. He would… maybe… surely… no! You had to get out of here! Think! What information do you have?

A dark cell, 3 metres long, 2 metres wide. A bucket in the corner. The door was solid metal, a small flap in the middle. No lock to be found. It had to be outside on the door. Maybe something simple as you hadn’t heard a key turn when you were thrown into this cell. You didn’t have a window. No blanket to cover yourself with. And it had to be soundproof, because the only things you could hear were the guards directly in front of the door even if you pressed your ear to the other walls.

~~~~

He gasped for air and coughed when he chocked on his own breath. Water ran down his face, soaking the bag over his head, making it harder to breathe.

“You will do as we say.”

He shook his head and tried to fight the strong grip on his neck as it pushed him down, into the water, once more. He was a good diver and counted the seconds with a clear head. But it was longer and longer, his lungs started screaming for air and he was still under the water. Two minutes had passed when he was pulled up again, again gasping for air in a desperate fashion.

“You will kill Lupin the Third.”

Again he shook his head. He was a stubborn idiot, getting drowned for his convictions.

~~~~

A sharp pain rushed through his whole facial nerve system as the wound opened and the nerves were exposed to the fresh air. Still, he wouldn’t admit it with a sound. It had be a short hit but still hard enough to rip open a huge gash on his cheek.

“It is easy, Lupin. You will steal the disc and we won’t hurt your little lover.”

He watched his partner through a monitor. They were collecting information on their cell, listening to sounds, checking the stability of the door.

“No.”

He had known it from the start. The whole day had been spent with an uneasy feeling. Why had he proposed a visit to the café?! By now he should know to trust his gut. But the face of his partner had been so gloomy and he had wanted to cheer them up… and he had endangered them with his recklessness.

“I will kill them,” the shadow promised.

Lupin shook his head. He had to trust them now. And he had seen a familiar face around those guys. What was more important to this person? Friends or the job?

“You’re right! I won’t kill them. He will,” the shadow laughed a bit while saying this, showing Lupin the familiar face getting tortured.

“Let them go!”

“Get me this disc and I will let your friends leave.”

The disc in question was unknown to him. Surely it was dangerous enough to destroy the world if people like the shadow wanted it. He had calculated the outcome and still hadn’t found a way out of it. Normally he would swap the disc with another, fooling those idiots. But with his friends in their hands? He would risk the death of his beloved ones. Manipulating the data on it was also out of the question, he had seen their work before. One or two skilled hackers were in this team, he knew. They would know any tampering before he could get away.

He had to trust his friends to save themselves. How could he gain time for them?

“Still no answer, hm? Fine. Then you’ll get to know the consequences,” the shadow threatened, pushing down a button.

Jigen appeared on the monitor. He was bound and gagged and seemed to be seriously hurt. Lupin snorted. It was likely the gunman had given his captors a rough time and got himself into trouble.

“Kill him.”

A gun was pressed to Jigen’s head. Lupin wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t.

The trigger was pulled and Jigen fell out of the reach of the camera.

~~~~

Was that a shot?! It had been too loud to be far away. Some clattering. You pressed your ear harder to the door but couldn’t hear anything. Silence fell. Maybe your friends came to your rescue??

After 5 minutes there was still silence and you fell down into sitting opposite of your prison door, staring at it, willing it to open with your thoughts alone.

~~~~

They had enough of drowning him. Wet and cold he was submitted into a cell, next to their other prisoners. He knew those cells. They were constructed specifically to be escape-proof. What a bullshit.

They had broken two of his fingers and this made it harder for him to work on the small gap between door and door frame. He was sure they watched him through the camera system. It was a game of time to get out of here.

A jolt of electricity rushed through his fingers and threw him on the floor, muscles cramping from the current. Damn, they had upgraded the security system.

~~~~

“One down, two to go. Get me the disc.”

He still couldn’t believe it.

“Your answer?”

They had shot him. Point blank, no room for tricks.

“Do you prefer to see the next death?”

“Don’t.”

“Get me the disc.”

He let his head hang and swallowed. They would kill the rest of his gang with him watching.

“Yes.”

“Good. Let me give you a gift before you go.”

Another button was pushed and he stared at the monitor. A hand, a leg…. A severed head staring back at him.

He threw up, emptying his stomach on the floor before him. He couldn’t stand the accusing stare of Goemon’s lifeless eyes.

“Please…,” he begged in a small voice.

The monitor went black.

“You have 24 hours.”

~~~~

You rubbed your temple as the flap in the door opened and a small tablet was shoved through, falling down, spilling all your food on the floor. A harsh laughter was heard and the flap closed. At least the water was bottled and didn’t spill.

You crawled towards the door, smelling iron. Blood on the other side of the door? You placed your face on the floor, trying to see through the small gap between the door and the floor. With a scream, you scrambled back to the opposing wall, shaking with fear. Did you… the… hi… you couldn’t understand what you just had seen. Lifeless brown eyes staring at you.

~~~~

It had been a matter of time until they had grew bored with him sitting in his cell, doing nothing. He was prepared when three of them came to get him. Two of them were entering his cell, getting him up on his feet, the third pointing a gun at him, ready to shoot without a warning. A really good work and he felt a small pride. He had been one of their instructors after all. And they were doing a good job, he had to admit.

“Are you ready to kill?”

He spat into the face of the man before him and earned a fist to the face for it. Blood dripped from his broken nose.

“Lupin is on the way already. There’s no need to be so hostile, old man.”

Damn. How had they made him go?!

The man before him laughed and hit him again, this time the fist hit his solar plexus, making him throw up in pain.

“You still have a chance to kill him if you’re fast enough.”

“I won’t.”

“I gave him 24 hours. And there is no rush.” A short gesture and the two men dragged him into another room, making him dread the things he and the other instructors had taught them, when he saw the instruments.

~~~~

Interpol headquarters. It would have been easier if they had allowed him to disguise himself as Zenigata!

Cursing he checked his uniform he had taken from a passed out officer. Well, passed out wasn’t that right, he admitted with a grin.

He would get the disc, bring it back and take his partner and get out of there. Far away from those maniacs.

“Officer, what are you doing there?”

He snapped back into reality, donning a smile and saluting in front of the captain.

“I was checking the premises as I was asked to do,” he answered.

A nod from the other man and he was free to go. He would need to be fast to get to the right floor. The shadow had told him the exact coordinates of the disc, making him suspicious. Why did the ICPO hide a disc with nuclear codes in their best guarded safe? Why did they have something like this in the first place? Something wasn’t right.

He thought about it the way through the building. Maybe the disc was something else? Briefly he remembered a different disc, containing the secret identities of all the MI6 agents. Maybe the ICPO had something similar?

No time to think. He had to get to the right floor and find a way to get into that safe, guarded by a difficult security system.

~~~~

You had enough! There had to be a way to get out of here?! Those bastards had killed Goemon! You threw yourself against the door for the fourth time when it swung open.

Shocked you couldn’t even react and fell to the floor, surprised by the sudden change.

“You wanted to get out?”

You blinked, silent – were you dreaming?

Zenigata grinned at you with a bruised face, missing two teeth.

“We need to get you out of here,” he told you, grabbing your arm.

You blinked again, and then the memories came back. Frantically you searched the floor for the head you had seen.

“It was a puppet. A scheme to break you. And Lupin.”

You shook your head. How!?

“Interpol’s special unit. They are specialized in anti-terror… well, I thought that.”

“Interpol?!” you had found your voice and were now eyeing the Inspector in front of you. He was a bloody mess, shirtless and bruised. Several deep cuts were on his body and you thought that a few fingers of his must be broken.

He growled before answering.

“I had a feeling about that case you were involved in. Seems I was right.”

“Inspector!”

You and him turned your heads towards the voice, seeing Yata dragging a half-conscious Jigen with the help of a hurt Goemon.

With a heavy weight falling from your shoulders, you rushed to your friends, hugging them and carefully looking over them for injuries.

“I found them where you told me. Inspector, what is going on?!” The young assistant seemed distressed.

“Doesn’t matter. Get Jigen and Goemon out of here and keep them safe,” Zenigata ordered, taking a short glance at you. “And you will need to help me here.”

You nodded. He had saved your friends and there was no sight of Lupin.

“They told me Lupin is on his way to steal something they want. We need to know where he is. And what they want.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Your brain was too slow to catch up.

“What bad feeling with the case I was involved in?!” you asked him.

He began to walk and you followed him, curious.

“After the second dead kid I had a hunch and followed a trace. A man of the Special Unit had been sighted near the crime scene.”

“They were 4 men,” you told him.

“Five. A sniper to keep trouble away.”

“But he didn’t shoot.”

“Then why are you limping?”

You stopped and stared at him. You were a sniper yourself and knew the priorities.

“Why didn’t he shoot me then?”

“He wanted to be found out.”

You shook your head in disbelief but Zenigata grabbed your hand and dragged you with him.

“His brother was the one to come to me after the fourth case. He was killed before he could confess his crimes. The sniper was the younger brother, I think he wanted to end the secrecy of this.”

“Why kids?! Why the blood?”

Zenigata dragged you into a room full of monitors and flicked through the different cameras, searching for something.

“To sell it to some rich guy. They all had the same blood type. Some special thing from India or something. I am not a scientist.”

“The Bombay Blood group.”

He turned around and looked at you surprised.

“Lupin is the same. He can give blood to anyone but he needs a donor from the same group to receive blood from.”

“And how do you know that?!”

You grinned a bit, remembering him telling you one evening and your search for a few pints of this blood group to have a stash safe if he would ever need it.

“He’s my love after all.”

Zenigata rolled his eyes and turned back to the monitors.

“Stupid love-bugs,” he grumbled.

~~~~

There hadn’t been a problem so far. The guards were wearing masks but he still had gotten around them and used the sleeping gas he preferred. Right now they were in the land of dreams, leaving him the peace to deal with the security system.

Modern electronics, an elaborate laser system and an old fashioned safe that was safe from the newer generation of thieves because it was too outdated to be used anymore. Luckily his grandfather had taught him his first steps in cracking a safe with a similar model. Even then this model had been old.

“Show me your secrets…,” he said to the computer as he was cracking the codes and disengaging one system after another. The instructions of the shadow had been precise and worked. He must be an insider. But still the main thought of the thief went to the disc. What was on it?!

~~~~

He had found a camera in front of a door that he wanted to investigate.

“If I’m right this is the main office. And we will find our…”

His voice was drowned in a siren.

“Don’t tell me we were discovered,” you said, growling. He said he knew the Unit! Then he should know their security, right?!

A gun was thrown into your hands.

“You have the permission to kill.” His voice was toneless and you knew how heavy this decision was on the Inspector.

“Because they won’t hesitate to o the same to you,” he explained and loaded another gun.

“Are you really okay?” you asked him, eyeing his still bleeding wounds.

“I won’t back down now.”

~~~~

“My, aren’t you a beauty…,” he purred and let his fingers caress the metal of the safe. A quick glance on his wristwatch told him he still had 12 hours. He would need 5 to get back to his captors. 2 hours were planned for escape and getting on a plane or hijack a helicopter. Something like this. This left him with a good few hours to crack this safe. And he would need them.

Kneeling in front of the safe, he got out his equipment. Those old models were often rusted but this was clean and cared for. The lock would be easy to pick, but any mistake would reset the code of the safe, making it harder to crack each time it was resetted. Those old safe makers sure were a crazy bunch.

A brief thought to his lover made him smile. He had to be extra gentle with this lock, just like with them.

~~~~

So far you had killed 3 men and still hadn’t left the floor. The office was still far away and those men pestered you with their skills.

“Trained by the best.”

“Didn’t you say you trained them?”

He had the nerve to grin at you.

“I taught them…” his grin vanished as he remembered who he was talking to.

“We should hurry.”

You nodded and took cover in another room, watching out for any guards. Gaining metre by metre you made your way to the stairs, followed by Zenigata.

~~~~

The door swung open without any sound. He whistled by this care. Whatever was in there must be really important if they took such good care about the safe and the security. Maybe his theory on the missile codes was right after all?

He stopped in his tracks when he saw the contents of the safe. There was nothing. Just the disc. No money, no important documents, not even a weapon. What the hell was on this disc?!

He took it and turned around.

“This is as far as you go, thief.”

He grinned at the guards in front of him.

“I am not a thief. I am THE thief,” he told them as he activated a button on his shirt, enveloping them with a smoke screen and slipping past them.

“The great Lupin!” he added as he activated the security system behind him and trapped the guards inside the safe room.

~~~~

Zenigata pointed to the door in front of you and you nodded. The plan was simple. Storm the room, get as many hostages as possible and try to find Lupin. Or at least a way to communicate with him.

After counting down, you two moved as one as Zenigata kicked in the door.

A single man lifted his gaze from the papers on his desk, watching you two.

“I underestimated you, Zenigata,” he simply said as a shot cracked through the room.

He didn’t say anything, he didn’t move much. He just broke down on his knees, falling forward, leaving you to catch him before he hit the floor.

“Zenigata!” His name escaped your lips as you held his heavy body. The blood flowed from the wound and in a few seconds there already was a pool of it under him.

“Do you care to follow him?” the man asked you. You stared at him. He hadn’t even flinched!!

“Who are you?! What do you want?!”

“Of you? Nothing. But I need your lover to get me something that is mine.”

The way he spoke the word ‘lover’ was disgusting. He seemed emotionless.

“My friends will come back and you will….”

He snapped his fingers and a huge curtain was lifted behind him, revealing a cage with Yata, Jigen and Goemon inside of it.

“Will do what exactly?” the man asked with a raised brow.

“Fuck you!” You raised your gun and shot at him without properly targeting. Even if the magazine was empty and the gun just clicked at your efforts, you couldn’t stop yourself to pull the trigger time after time at this unmoving man.

“I spared you from torture in order to get this stupid thief to move on my will. But now that he’s moving, I don’t need you anymore. Do you know what that means?”

You growled.

“Your men are dead!” you told him.

“Do you really think I need help to deal with you?!”

He got up and walked around his desk towards you, pointing the gun at you which he had use to shoot Zenigata with.

“You pissed me off. I won’t give you a quick death. And there won’t be tricks anymore.” He turned and shot in the direction of the cage, hitting Goemon in the shoulder.

“I will deal with you properly.”

You screamed your frustration out of your system and launched yourself against him.

~~~~

The whole building was in high alert and he had to change his disguise three times to leave it without raising any suspicions. What a work! He scratched the Interpol headquarters from his list of buildings for a planned heist. He would never get into there again if he could avoid it. Too much trouble.

By now there had to be a warrant for him to all the officers on patrol, right? He should avoid the crowded streets and stick to the alleys to get away unnoticed. This would cost him another hour at least! Slowly it was becoming a hassle to work in such a short time.

He cursed and quickened his pace. From a man he stole the hat, a woman lost her scarf while passing him. A new shirt was snagged from a clothes line and he changed while running though the streets. He would need to steal a car to get to the airport on time.

~~~~

Everything hurt. You had trained with the gang on most days and you weren’t weak either, but still you were struggling to keep up with a trained soldier. He was fast and stronger than you, but you used your quick reflexes to avoid the heavy punches. He had lost his gun during the fall and had resorted to a fist fight with you.

A punch hit you on the side on your head, making your ears ring and your head spin. This would leave a bruise… or worse. You felt the nausea and tried to ignore it.

A knee to his side had him grunting in pain and you threw your weight on your side to roll him over and get him under you.

His fist punched your side and left you breathless while you worked on his face, landing a few hits there.

Was he a monster?! You were sure you had broken his nose and most of his ribs and he was still beating at you like a fresh man!

“Kill him.”

You heard the order from behind you and nodded. There was no other way anyway!

Slowly, with a bit hesitation, you placed your hands on the throat of your enemy and pressed them into the flesh.

~~~~~

He had seen the roadblock from far away and decided to test his luck. After all this would bee the fourth time he turned the stolen car around to find an unblocked road. He would never mess with Interpol again, Lupin swore. How could someone like Pops join such a stupid thing?! He would need to talk to him about that.

He accelerated and held the steering wheel in an iron grip with the eyes glued to the roadblock. Hopefully the officers there would get out of the way of his car… he closed his eyes in the last second and broke through the roadblock.

~~~~

He didn’t move anymore and still you pressed your hands on his throat until your knuckled turned white.

“He’s dead. Let him be.” A bloody hand reached for yours and when you looked up you could see Zenigata’s pale face mere centimetres away from yours. Slowly he eased every finger each away from your victim. You had shot people. You had seen them die at your hands. But you never had killed someone so closely. It changed you and you could suddenly understand why Jigen had sometimes scoffed at you for saying killing was quite easy. You would never say that again.

“The others. Help them.”

Blood ran over the Inspector’s chin and you wiped it away with your bare hands. He flinched a bit, leaving it to you to judge the reason.

The nausea had started to push into your consciousness and left you crawling towards the cage to free your friends. Where was the key…?

~~~~

From then on it was easy. Get to the airport, steal an unguarded helicopter, start it. He still had enough time to make it back to them, to give them the disc and just run. He felt like shit. What would happen if he came back? His partner would hate him for obeying those terrorists. For letting his friends die… Jigen’s execution and Goemon’s dismembered body came to his mind and made him sick to the bones. He was scum for letting this happen. The lowest point in his life had been reached today.

With numb fingers he tipped the coordinates of the hideout into the GPS and let out a sigh. He had seen Zenigata on the monitors. At least the Inspector was still alive to arrest him for his sins.

~~~~

You watched the sunset with a cigarette and the hip flask of Yata while the man himself cared for the injuries of the others. You had seen enough blood for today.

The alcohol burned its way from your mouth into your stomach, making you feel alive and to warm you from inside.

You got up when you heard the helicopter and strolled back to the makeshift sickbay.

Yata looked at you and you had to stifle a laugh. His hair was a mess and his clothes had stains of blood and grass.

“Seems like the missing thief is back,” he said, also hearing the helicopter.

You nodded and kneeled next to Goemon, placing a hand on the bandage around his shoulder. The Samurai huffed and said nothing. He was ashamed of being caught like that and had a puppet made of him to make Lupin believe he was dead.

“How’s Jigen and Zenigata?” you asked the officer opposite of you.

“Jigen’s stable and I stopped the bleeding of the shot wound of the Inspector… what about you?”

He had offered to take care of your wounds but you had dismissed him to care about the more severely injured.

An engine roared and several cars appeared on the horizon.

“And here’s the cavalry,” you said surprised at how slow Yata’s colleagues showed up after his cry for help before storming the secret base of his former associates.

“Better late than never,” he replied but you could see the disappointment clearly written on his face. He had to be saved by someone of Lupin’s gang instead of the police. That must have hurt.

~~~~

He was surprised to see the small group on the ground after landing. And two of them were supposed to be dead…

Not caring about the police cars coming at him, he went straight for his friends. He wanted nothing more than to hug his partner and never let them go. He would never let them go again. His walk broke into a run and he closed the distance to them.

In the end the Police let them go. There would be no case regarding this slip-up. The disc was safe with them again and they had other problems than to deal with a third-class thief and his band of misfits.

All of you were checked into a hospital with completely false names and history, courtesy of Interpol. The cracked skull of yours would need some time to heal up, but when you saw Lupin standing in the doorframe to your room holding a huge get-well-basket, you had to smile. The time would fly faster than you would like.

#lupin iii #lupin the 3rd #jigen daisuke #goemon ishikawa xiii #zenigata

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parabcllums · 5 years

Photo

⌜ TOM HARDY, CIS MALE, HE / HIM | charlie boy by the lumineers, melancholic, the maudlin ⌟ ⏤ blink and you’ll miss ADRIAN STEPHANOS TREVOR, the THIRTY SEVEN year old son of DIANA PRINCE & STEVE TREVOR ! they’re an INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST & STARBUCKS BARISTA in town, and i’ve always found them to be pretty RIGHT-MINDED & MUNIFICENT, though i’ve heard that they can also be really IDIOSYNCRATIC & SELF DESTRUCTIVE. i don’t think getting their way is a smart thing to do - everyone knows that their ability is ENHANCED CONDITION. you can check out his stats HERE & his pinterest board HERE.

wasn’t no HARM in him. you’d give him a FLOWER, he’d keep it FOREVER.

SECTION ONE OF THREE: BULLET POINT HISTORY trigger warning for talk of gang activities ( including gbh ), prisons, the army ( including bombs, trauma sustained while serving, consequences - mentally & physically OF serving ), more gang talk… a lot of

ah , here he is . this motherfucker. what a tool.

meet ADRIAN STEPHANOS TREVOR. he’s thirty seven years old, a twin, an older brother, a disappointment son. these days, he works as a starbucks barista and writes just enough articles in a year to be able to continue calling himself an “”independent journalist”” - but once upon a midnight dreary, ya boy was an army brat, and a little more recently, he was a member of one of london’s east end gangs.

diana prince and steve trevor were GOOD PARENTS. they WERE. when steve came back to life, he was DONE with fighting, and diana never could be. they found a middle ground, in their happiness, with steve staying in london where he ultimately raised the kids they had together, and diana continuing her hero work - the official term “co parenting”, though at times, her absence was felt. but not enough to be an excuse. adrian never doubted for one moment of his life that he was LOVED, and that his parents were ALWAYS going to be there for him. the path that adrian ultimately went down is thanks to nothing more than the environment that he grew up in, and the inherited need to DO RIGHT by the people he cared about.

it wasn’t hard for him to fall in with the wrong crowd of people, when he was younger. the east end has always been home to a whole variety of types, but if you were the sort of teen that adrian was - hot headed, quicker to throw a punch than he was talk it out, pretty bright, but never willing to apply himself - you were destined to draw the WRONG sort of attention. he was rebelling, for no particular reason, and in afterschool detention, he met the people that would shape his early life. they weren’t the gang. they liked to THINK of themselves as such, but they were just kids playing pretend - they walked the walk and they talked big but they weren’t QUITE there, but there enough that adrian got himself in to quite a bit of trouble.

he thought the world of them. this small squad of kids all around his age became like FAMILY, and he was willing to do anything, or go anywhere, if it meant keeping them in his eyes on them and maybe, keeping them out of trouble. to this day, he’ll say that’s how it started - he just wanted to keep his FRIENDS out of trouble. they were already in so much of it. how that led to destruction of property, petty vandalism, THE GREVIOUS BODILY HARM THAT GOT THEM ALL ARRESTED, no one really knows. likewise, to this day, no one from that gang of schoolkids has ever broken their silence on who exactly did the DAMAGE to that guy that pressed charges after being beaten half to death. it had to be one of them, but the police thought it was all of ‘em. when no one would reveal the truth, adrian and his “friends” all faced the same punishment. TWO YEARS, in her majesty’s prison woodhill - a young offenders institution willing to accept kids younger than eighteen, where adrian was to spend the latter half of his fifteenth year, his full sixteenth, and three months of his seventeenth.

loyalty to his troubled friends, all the better off for being locked behind bars, had gotten adrian stuck in the same situation. but loyalty, he learned in his time at woodhill, was currency. it was the difference between life or death.

it made sense, then - at least in HIS EYES - to join the british army. before his fall from grace, he had been seriously discussing the army cadets with steve. he’d kept in shape, had learnt some control over himself, and felt like that was where he BELONGED, upon release. before he knew it, he was EIGHTEEN years old and shipping out - and maybe it’s not right to say, but the army was probably the best place for him. for the next eight years, he did tours on and off, spending minimal time back home. sometimes, the only reason he even came back was for theora. and it was GOOD for him. it kept him off the streets. it kept him away from his old friends, and kept him from making new, worse ones. he had the routine that the young offenders institution had taught him. he had a place. a role. a reason, to keep getting up. by the time he was twenty seven, he was on the fast track to being someone BETTER -

his career came to a sudden end when the jeep that he and his team were driving in ran over a mine. he was one of an unlucky few - without his enhanced condition, he would have joined the rest in the AFTERLIFE. HE SURVIVED, but muscle and nerve damage meant that he lost the full use of his right leg, and maybe they would have given him a chance to try and improve, but no doctor was going to clear him for service again, thanks to the additional traumatic brain injury sustained. he was in a coma for a week. when he woke up… his general cognitive function was sure never to return to where it once was. he IMPROVED. he worked on it, in vain, hoping that he could still go back. but his memory was always going to be impaired. his brain was always going to be shot.

he was honorably discharged and he returned to the east end, a self professed failure.it only got worse. he wasn’t getting out of the house. he wasn’t taking visitors. diana and steve, theora, they could only do so much - and when he started to go down to the local, again, they thought that it was GOOD, that he was starting to come back to himself a bit. the truth was, he was back in contact with old friends. he was rubbing shoulders with the WRONG sort of people. he was getting himself INTO TROUBLE, again - putting himself into a difficult position of starting down the same path that had landed him in the youth institute, years before.

and then he got MARRIED. he never even told his mother. he had never thought of this particular old friend in that way until he DID, and he needed SOMEONE - ANYONE, back then, to latch onto. looking back, it was unfair. she was in a position of having to care for him, and deal with his WORST moods, which no one should have been in. but they convinced themselves it was love. they convinced themselves, in spite of the arguing, that they BELONGED together - right up until they couldn’t DO it anymore.

he self medicated, after. he stopped trying to get BETTER. and he WALLOWED. the only person he truly had anymore, he felt, was his TWIN - but it was UNFAIR to rely on them, so much. adrian’s darkest impulses at this point in his life were almost impossible not to listen to, and in a way, he got LUCKY.

a light at the end of the tunnel appeared, when the news came of the BABY. HIS. the product of a brief liaison with a sharp tongued lady that had swept him off HIS feet - he was an AFTERTHOUGHT, the text from a forgotten number that told him about their SON told him that much. but he would have done more, if he’d known. he told himself that, over and over, as he tried to work out what to do - and after a lot of uhmng and ahing, he decided that the RIGHT thing to do, the ONLY thing, was to leave for america hot on her heels. it wasn’t IDEAL. but being in a new country, trying to put himself onto some sort of straight and narrow so that he could BE a dad… it gave him hope that at the end of the day, maybe he could dig himself out of the mess that he had made out of his life.

he got a job. he’d already started working as an independent journalist in england, another way to pay the bills, but he got another - and he got CLEAN. no more drugs, even if he was still as much of an alcoholic as ever. he tried to be better, for his kid, the ACCIDENT that he LOVED, before he even met him - and because if he could do it, if he could make himself better, then maybe he could still get out. maybe he could create a safety net to fall into, if he finally cut ties.

SECTION TWO OF THREE: HEADCANONS

how to tell that underneath all his bad decisions he’s still actually a GOOD guy? his love of dogs. that’s it. he’s had a cool dozen over his entire life, but right now, he has THREE. paddy, his nine year old staffie x, dingle, his five year old irish wolfhound, and nessie, his six month old aussiedoodle. they’re all rescues, and they’re all.. so loved. he’s lowkey using them as therapy dogs without any sort of official therapy dog training cos why the fuck not.

he can’t concentrate as well as he used to be able to. he struggles to see how some actions he makes will have consequences. he speaks too low. he doesn’t always understand what’s being said to him, or what he’s saying. he doesn’t perceive things the same anymore, like certain tastes. he doesn’t catch the gist of certain patterns and things and struggles to interpret certain data correctly, sometimes. he doesn’t have great depth perception. he’s more susceptible to bouts of severe depression and irritability, he suffers from a severe sleep disorder, he’s not great with loud noises, he still walks with a incredibly pronounced limp, and he suffers chronic pain. he didn’t leave the army unscathed.

i cant believe thats all i got but its all i got.

SECTION THREE OF THREE: WANTED CONNECTIONS

his older sib ! his younger one ! the mother of his child ! all good connects !

friends from london.

friends he’s made since moving here.

someone please fucking hire him he’s a good gd bartender i dont even rmbr why i made him a barista but someone ,,pls,, get him out of that gd job

also SOMEONE please give his ass a platform… read his writing..he’s good…..hire him

ENEMIES ! from anywhere. for any reason. mayb they fought once. maybe he wrote the wrong name on their starbucks cup. go wild , the world is your oyster

justice league kids … literally any kids he could have grown up w like i dont think he was ALWAYS in england so … give him those #connections

gang connections ! if ur character is in a us based gang its always a possibility that they have a sort of .. brotherhood.. whatever u call that with the east end one that adrian is stuck in , so , hmu

also , army ppl. they could have served together. maybe.

army ppl he def didnt serve with but who he.. is..jealous of

or who he wants to help if theyve got it #rough cos yeah he’s been there

lit just…….plot..w.him

#⌜ ･ﾟ ★ ･ * and your life is a long line of ‘fine’ ― biography. ⌟ / trevor.

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nancygduarteus · 7 years

Text

A Lazy Person's Guide to Happiness

Happiness is an active process, not something you get by sitting back and waiting. It’s something to be grabbed by the horns or more vulnerable areas and then conquered. At least, this is the gist of the message from Tony Robbins and gurus of his ilk.

Many also say happiness is not something we can buy, or steal, or work too hard to acquire. If you work too hard at it, you end up obsessing over your own state of mind—Am I happy? ... Really though? And like love, if you have to ask, the answer is no.

So what’s the right way to think about effort and happiness? Should I be trying for “happiness” per se—or something more magnanimous, like purpose or meaning?

Or money? Is happiness actually all about money? That would be a real twist.

Few people bring the unique perspective to this mess of questions like Dan Buettner. Over the past 15 years, he has carved out a niche at National Geographic, where he travels the world in search of the healthiest people and “distills their lessons,” as he puts it, translating existential philosophy into practical information for limited-attention-span U.S. readers.

The result has been a mix of journalism, academic epidemiology, advocacy, and entrepreneurship delivered in easy-to-implement bullet points. The mix allows Buettner a certain vantage to synthesize information and see it through to the real world. After publication of his 2008 book Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, he launched a company of the same name that works with local communities to integrate health-based changes. I first talked to Buettner at the Aspen Ideas Festival a couple years ago, where he was one of the few people in jeans and a T-shirt. While most people there were sitting listening to interviews and panel discussions, he texted to see if I wanted to cut out and go mountain biking.

I couldn’t, because I have a job. Buettner’s job is to find and hang out with the healthiest people in the world. When we did sit down, he told me about how he was working with Gallup on finding a way to identify the statistically “happiest” people in the world. This month that work is published as the third book in the series, The Blue Zones of Happiness.

With it, the graying, ever-tanned Buettner is at something of an inflection point in his career. Notable in the new pages are a shift from what started out as more traditional guru-type personal advice for longevity—drink a glass or two of wine after 5 o’clock with friends or food, eat a plant-based diet, maintain a bicycle, join a faith-based community, etc. Buettner hasn’t entirely given up on self-improvement, but he has come to believe it gets way too much emphasis. His focus now is improving our surroundings, for the same reason that “dieting” tends to fail but changing a food environment works.

Last week I talked with Buettner about his experiences and how his understanding of health and happiness has shifted over the years. He was about to go rollerblading. Our conversation is lightly edited and condensed.

James Hamblin: Define happiness.

Dan Buettner: Right away there’s a problem because, academically speaking, happiness is a meaningless term. You can’t measure happiness. It’s really a composite of things: health, emotions, the way you evaluate your life, and the extent to which you’re living out your values.

Hamblin: It sounds like you’re arguing for a reframing of the idea of “happiness” toward something bigger—an aggregate of purpose and joy and satisfaction and meaning. We’ve run pieces in the past that touch on, for example, Viktor Frankl and others who have said that life is really about pursuing meaning, and if you pursue happiness as we Americans tend to think about it, you end up going to amusement parks and shopping malls and trying to do things that are supposed to be making you happy but are sucking life out of you.

Buettner: Yes, exactly. So this was our challenge. Even though you can’t measure happiness, you can measure life satisfaction, partly by asking people, and partly by discrete questions about how much you smile or laugh or feel joy. You can also measure people’s sense of purpose, with questions like, “Do you learn new and interesting things every day? Have you used your strength to do what you do best this past week?” So for this book I worked with statisticians to run the numbers on data like this around the world. That pointed us to Singapore, Costa Rica, and Denmark as globally illustrative of facets of happiness. And so I spent a lot of time in those places, as well as a few U.S. cities, and tried to piece together explanations.

Hamblin: Did that change the way you think about happiness?

Buettner: There are two points that I make that you might not have heard elsewhere. Number one, I like the idea of thinking about happiness in the same way you think of your retirement portfolio. You want it balanced—the short term and long term, stocks and bonds. The hell-bent pursuit of purpose kind of loses the point a little bit, because there is value in the sum of positive emotions we experience every day. So if all you’re doing is pursuing your purpose, or if all you’re doing is very goal-oriented, you forgo joy today for a perceived better future. We now know that humans reliably mis-predict what will make them happy in the future. You could work your butt off, pursue your purpose, become financially independent, and get there and realize “Oh, my life sucks.”

Hamblin: I don’t want that.

Buettner: Who does? So I argue that there are a number of things you can do to enjoy your life day to day, and you ought to be putting some of your effort there.

I’m not a big believer in these positive psychology techniques of savoring or appreciation or gratitude, and not because they don’t work. I think they probably do, but for a lot of people they only work in the short run. It’s a little bit like diet. If your approach is just to cut your calories in half, you’ll lose weight. But you know within a matter of months you’ll lose focus or just quit doing it. It’s the same with trying to remember to practice gratitude. So what I argue for are statistically driven things you can do to optimize your environment so you’re more likely to be happy for the long term.

Hamblin: Kind of like the lazy person’s approach to happiness? Or maybe just the thinking person’s approach?

Buettner: I wish I would’ve called this book The Lazy Person’s Approach to Happiness.

Hamblin: So tell me about the ideal environment—the one where, if you set your life up right, you never have to try to be healthy or happy.

Buettner: Well, I know you’re kidding, but there are a lot of decisions you can make that will have long-term payoffs.

In terms of choosing a place to live, people who live near water—whether it’s a lake or river or an ocean—are about 10 percent more likely to be happy than people who don’t. And people who live in medium-sized cities are more likely to be happy than the anonymity of a big city or perhaps the too in-your-face, limited-possibility environment of a tiny town. You’re more likely to be happy if your house has a sidewalk, and if you live in a bikeable place.

Financial security is also, obviously, huge. It really does deliver more happiness over time than most anything that money can be spent on—after your needs are taken care of and you maybe treat yourself occasionally. If you have money left over, you’re much better paying down your mortgage or buying insurance or signing up for an automatic savings plan than you are buying a new gadget or new pair of shoes.

Hamblin: I wrote a while ago about how behavioral economists say we should buy experiences, not things.

Buettner: Exactly. In the long-term view, you’re better off buying experiences than some new gadget. Buying things does produce some spike in joy or appreciation, but that wears off over time. A good experience actually gains luster.

Hamblin: Despite knowing that, when I actually go to spend money on traveling or even just tickets to something, I think about how soon that will be over and gone. And if I buy a couch, I have it for years.

Buettner: But the joy from the couch wears out. You’ll still flop down on it, but it won’t provide that bump of joy.

Hamblin: So then, of course, valuing experience requires spending time reflecting and thinking back, which I’m also terrible at because I’m always looking at my phone or worrying about all the things I have to do in the future.

Buettner: In Boulder, which I profile as the “happiest place in America,” there are severe limits on advertising. Boulder has no billboards at all.

Hamblin: So people stop wanting things?

Buettner: The extent to which we spend money is very much a product of our environment. If you’re constantly prompted to buy stuff, if constant marketing messages are rinsing over your psyche, you’re more likely to buy things than to spend that money more wisely on experiences or financial security. So that’s yet another way we can think about our environment shaping our happiness. Or lack thereof.

Hamblin: You spend most of your time in Minneapolis. Has all of this travel and research made you want to move?

Buettner: Minneapolis is a relatively happy place. And I split my time between Minneapolis and Santa Barbara, which is one of the happiest places. I’d live in Costa Rica in a minute. I’d live in Copenhagen. Singapore, not so much.

In the United States, the happiest places tend to be places where enlightened leaders over the past century decided to shift their focus away from just economic development and growth to quality of life. They made policies and emphasized a better life over a better business environment.

A great example of that is San Luis Obispo. In the 1970s, a mayor came in who was an architecture professor from [California Polytechnic State University]. He noticed a forest of signs downtown, and drive-through fast-food restaurants, and the highway coming through. He drove a push for aesthetics, social gathering places, and streets built for humans, not just cars. Today, San Louis Obispo routinely ranks in the top 10 happiest places in the country. It’s not a coincidence. You see the same features in Portland, Santa Cruz, Boulder—happiness is not a coincidence. There’s always an orchestration of common factors that come together to produce it.

Hamblin: Okay, but most people can’t move to San Louis Obispo because of jobs and the aforementioned importance of financial security. Even if they could, they’d have to start a social network all over again, so what can people do in their immediate environments?

Buettner: There are small things. One facet of happiness is sum of positive emotions. So I like the idea of a “pride shrine”—a place in your house that you pass a lot where you put pictures that trigger pleasant memories. Or diplomas or awards that remind you of accomplishments.

Hamblin: So you don’t have to remember to remember.

Buettner: There’s also of course research that shows that having green plants around is good. And getting your house down to one TV seems to be good, and keeping it behind doors so the act of watching is intentional instead of mindless. And a front porch is better than a back deck because the happiest people are socializing six to seven hours a day.

Hamblin: What? No. In person?

Buettner: Social media doesn’t count. I know. For every new friend you add to your social network, you’re 15 percent more likely to be happy. So surround yourself with the right kind of people. And if you think of friends sort of like long-term adventures, it kind of meets the experience-focused criterion.

And who you hang out with has a huge impact on your happiness. A lot of us accumulate friends along the way because we went to school together, or we work with them. And I never say to dump them, but proactively find happy friends who like to laugh. Humor has a measurable impact on daily happiness. So find funny friends. Or at least friends who think you’re funny, that’s big.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/10/get-rid-of-everything/543384/?utm_source=feed

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ionecoffman · 7 years

Text

A Lazy Person's Guide to Happiness

So what’s the right way to think about effort and happiness? Should I be trying for “happiness” per se—or something more magnanimous, like purpose or meaning?

Or money? Is happiness actually all about money? That would be a real twist.

James Hamblin: Define happiness.

Hamblin: It sounds like you’re arguing for a reframing of the idea of “happiness” towards something bigger—an aggregate of purpose and joy and satisfaction and meaning. We’ve run pieces in the past that touch on, for example, Victor Frankl and others who have said that life is really about pursuing meaning, and if you pursue happiness as we Americans tend to think about it, you end up going to amusement parks and shopping malls and trying to do things that are supposed to be making you happy but are sucking life out of you.

Hamblin: Did that change the way you think about happiness?

Buettner: There are two points that I make that you might not have heard elsewhere. Number one, I like the idea of thinking about happiness in the same way you think of your retirement portfolio. You want it balanced—the short term and long term, stocks and bonds. The hell-bent pursuit of purpose kind of loses the point a little bit, because there is value in the sum of positive emotions we experience every day. So if all you’re doing is pursuing your purpose, or if all you’re doing is very goal-oriented, you forego joy today for a perceived better future. We now know that humans reliably mis-predict what will make them happy in the future. You could work your butt off, pursue your purpose, become financially independent, and get there and realize “Oh, my life sucks.”

Hamblin: I don’t want that.

Buettner: Who does? So I argue that there are a number of things you can do to enjoy your life day to day, and you ought to be putting some of your effort there.

Hamblin: Kind of like the lazy person’s approach to happiness? Or maybe just the thinking person’s approach?

Buettner: I wish I would’ve called this book The Lazy Person’s Approach to Happiness.

Hamblin: So tell me about the ideal environment—the one where, if you set your life up right, you never have to try to be healthy or happy.

Buettner: Well, I know you’re kidding, but there are a lot of decisions you can make that will have long-term payoffs.

In terms of choosing a place to live, people who live near water—whether it’s a lake or river or an ocean—are about 10 percent more likely to be happy than people who don’t. And people who live in medium-sized cities are more likely to be happy than the anonymity of a big city or perhaps the too-in your face, limited possibility environment of a tiny town. You’re more likely to be happy if your house has the sidewalk, and if you live in a bike-able place.

Financial security is also, obviously, huge. It really does deliver more happiness over time than most anything that money can be spent on—after your needs are taken care of and you maybe treat yourself occasionally. If you have money left over, you’re much better paying down your mortgage or buying insurance or signing up for an automatic savings plan then you are buying a new gadget or new pair of shoes.

Hamblin: I wrote a while ago about how behavioral economists say we should buy experiences, not things.

Buettner: But the joy from the couch wears out. You’ll still flop down on it, but it won’t provide that bump of joy.

Buettner: In Boulder, which I profile as the “happiest place in America,” there are severe limits on advertising. Boulder has no billboards at all.

Hamblin: So people stop wanting things?

Hamblin: You spend most of your time in Minneapolis. Has all of this travel and research made you want to move?

A great example of that is San Luis Obispo. In the 1970s, a mayor came in who was an architecture professor from Cal Poly. He noticed a forest of signs downtown, and drive-through fast food restaurants, and the highway coming through. He drove a push for aesthetics, social gathering places, and streets built for humans, not just cars. Today, San Louis Obispo routinely ranks in the top 10 happiest places in the country. It’s not a coincidence. You see the same features in Portland, Santa Cruz, Boulder—happiness is not a coincidence. There’s always an orchestration of common factors that come together to produce it.

Hamblin: So you don’t have to remember to remember.

Hamblin: What! No. In person?

Buettner: Social media doesn’t count. I know. For every new friend you add to your social network, you’re 15 percent more likely to be happy. So surround yourself with the right kind of people. And if you think of friends sort of like long-term adventures. It kind of meets the experience-focused criterion.

Article source here:The Atlantic

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