u/undead_bear

drought of cool/hot role models. dying out here

I've never been a running person. I'm starting to understand why people love this!

I'm 32f, smoked until 6 months ago (but not a lot-lot, maybe 2-3 wee hand-rolled cigarettes a day, and a little weed) and go bouldering 4x a week for 1.5 years. I weigh about 75kg at 5ft 7 (170cm).

Went for my third ever run today! Just a short circuit, 2.5km on a beautiful track by the beach. I can already tell that I've improved since run 1 five days ago. I ran for 80 percent of it, and walked the rest, arrived home sweaty and red-faced. The first time I did it, I probably walked half or more (but ran too fast I think).

It took me about 17min to do the circuit and not gonna lie, I'm really proud of myself. Following a lot of the advice here and on other running subs, today I went as slow and evenly-paced as possible.

I'd like to get to the point of running the whole way (2.5km), then I'll start trying to do the circuit twice. I don't have a smartwatch or a running app and might stay without the hard data for a while, just doing pace/cardio by feel.

So proud of all of us for going on this journey.

It's easy to feel stuck learning guitar in 2026. There's so much to think about! Scales! Modes! Complex chords, the six-plus ways to play any/all chords. Guitar tutorial-makers will make vids titled 'You are not a real/intermediate guitar player until you can master THESE voicings'. Why? Because they have an incentive to make you watch a 20-min-plus video explaining something.

Here's the secret.

Learning songs and connecting with music -- is by far (by FAR!) the best way to get good at guitar (or any instrument).

Scales, theory, notation are all descriptive. As in, they describe what is happening in songs. It's like trying to learn to write books by going super in depth about paragraph styles, layout, format, or specifically, definitions/etymology of words. If someone can describe paragraph structure, clauses, conventions, all that means NOTHING to write a good book or short story. Songs are the art form, NOTHING substitutes music.

Find music you love. Learn a repertoire. Sing along with the vocals or the solo line. Bad at singing? Who cares. It'll make you a much better guitarist. Your ear is much more powerful/useful than the shapes your fingers know.

Source: I've been playing guitar for 20-plus years. I play in bands, gone on tours, played many solo gigs, been an accompanist, etc. I know chord shapes and scale patterns. When I play live or I'm in the studio, I throw away all the brain knowledge and listen with my ears.

Hey all, hope you're having a great week!

I quit weed at the end of Feb 2026, after smoking consistently (every day, multiple times a day) for about ten years. I'm 32 now. I live in a non-legal country but a fairly relaxed one, and one where lots of people smoke.

It's been a massive shift in terms of how I think and feel about my life -- all for the better. Quitting came after smoking while working a very intense consultant-type job, volunteer/elected board position at a nonprofit, then in 2025, I quit work and completed an intensive Masters degree. I knew my relationship with weed was coming to an end during 2024/25, but had to find the right time/place.

I was absolutely ready to quit, and excited to try living life without it. At the start of 2026, I moved cities to be closer to my parents, where I don't have any easy connections. I know not everyone can do this, but resetting my life around a new routine, new places and people, made quitting a ton easier.

I made sure I wasn't beating myself or putting myself down for the time I spent smoking. It would've been easy to tell myself all those years were a waste, that I could've done better, more, etc. Journalling and recording voicenotes where I reflect on my life, my decisions; I can't recommend those enough. I don't even listen back to the voicenotes (maybe once), just saying the words out loud is enough.

Since quitting, I've experienced a totally new sense of myself. I couldn't sleep well at all for the first six to eight weeks -- sleep is just coming easier now. I had to manage a lot of late nights where I tossed and turned and thought about all the stupid things I've said/done to people (not even that bad, but weed helped me not reflect -- quitting dredges up some moments you have to process and release).

The first couple of months were rough. Weed stops you from thinking too hard about yourself. I was pretty successful, got a high grade on the Masters degree, had a good job before studying, etc, but I felt like i couldn't trust myself, didn't believe in myself. Smoking was hurting my sense of self worth, too. I had a little voice inside that said well other people aren't like you, they don't need to get stoned every day/night, and even if I could intellectualise the idea that this is therapeutic (which it was, in some ways), there was self doubt and self recrimination that was creeping in.

But one of the biggest things is the pure interest and self-motivation I've experienced since quitting. I can push myself way harder. I'm more comfortable being uncomfortable. I can see a future past a day or a week. I'm planning to start a PhD next year and before, this idea would've felt out of reach or at least hugely anxiety-inducing. Now, I'm doing pre-reading for fun, thinking all the time about the project, and I have SO much more confidence in myself.

Now, I like myself more. I can trust myself more. I can experience more ups and downs and I can communicate better. I am more interested in myself and what I think. I am better at being social. My skin is thicker and I care less what others think, because, again, I like myself more.

On energy: last year, I was getting to a point of wondering if I was chronically ill or had some hidden sickness. I couldn't push myself and felt my body was halfway asleep all the time, even when I wasn't high. Now I am doing harder things, walking 10k+ steps a day, started going to a new climbing gym, and I don't feel dead after. Energy levels are still going up, too, and I'm curious what six, twelve months feels like.

I knew I needed to quit a long time ago. It took me ages to get to this point. But I'm grateful I stuck with it.

All of this to say, I'm super proud of all of us. Even just joining this sub and taking those first few (mental) steps is progress. All of it adds up. It's hard, but it's so worth it.

Can't thank this subreddit enough for the posts/guidance. Very much open to feedback. Thanks!

Dear [ X ] 

I am seeking representation for APOLLINE, a queer upmarket speculative fiction about the future of religion post artificial intelligence. Complete at 75,000 words, APOLLINE will appeal to readers of Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time and Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow. 

Ro Hollis needs money, fast. A virtual reality expert and former cyber-smuggler responsible for her disabled sister, Ro lives in a dystopic, isolated New Zealand in the year 2074. Overdue on her sister’s care-home payments, Ro agrees to help her old crime boss unlock ‘Icebath’, a stolen virtual reality programme. Inside the programme, Ro is stunned to be greeted by an all-knowing copy of herself—a digital clone.

Turns out, everyone wants a copy of Icebath. Hunted by government forces, a megacorporation and a neoluddite cult, Ro is contacted by Apolline, an enigmatic, prophetic woman who, in her teens, inadvertently set off a wave of anti-tech terrorist movements. Apolline needs the cloning technology too, and she offers Ro a job. With the walls closing in and desperate to be paid, Ro, guided by her copy, delves further into Icebath, confronting ghosts of her family and friends.

But Apolline’s plans for Icebath are bigger than Ro could imagine. Set on creating a cyber-afterlife—a digital archive for real people, not bots—Apolline knows the world is ending, and believes Icebath is how she’ll command-save it. 

APOLLINE explores technology, faith, family, and relationships in a rapidly-declining world as characters navigate a polluted, locked-down Aotearoa New Zealand. The novel includes a slow-burn sapphic romance and representation of disability and care.

[ bio ]

Thank you so much for your time and consideration,

undeadbear

The first 300 words of APOLLINE: 

Long before Her ascendancy, in the year 1994, six computer engineers in London clustered around a screen. 

They waited. An hour and a quarter so far, time disappearing into hushed, banal discussions about the new millennium. Already, academics had identified a problem called faulty date logic, and theorised about how the pioneers’ choice to remove the first two numbers from the year (to conserve precious space, thus 1976 becoming 76) might, in the year 2000, wreck the powerful systems relied upon by much of the global population. The engineers were not above a little doomsaying and conspiracy, stuck in a room together, waiting for something to happen.

At eight p.m, they ordered takeaways. The room filled with the smell of curry and naan, mixing with the hot dust whiff of the server room. After eating, they left the cartons on an unused desk. The cleaners would be through overnight, one reasoned, and the rest nodded sagely. They were doing important work—critical, even—watching the screen and talking about the apocalypse. 

After nearly two hours, a rush of progress. One engineer noticed it first, and hissed look! All turned, yammering, climbing over arms for a better view. The closest to the screen felt a whisper of fear. Another tapped his foot. The loading bar rippled and winked. A collective gasp. 

On the screen was a grainy image. A black and white cat, on an armchair. The first picture they’d ever harvested from the world wide web. A cheer went up. They got spectacularly drunk. 

ONE 

Eighty years later, Ro awoke in the capital of the Republic of Aotearoa. 

Sunlight streamed through a crack in the curtain. Her thirteenth-floor studio was filled with machines. She sometimes imagined each individual chip and microprocessor in her possession, murmuring and winking at each other, performing odes to function, even the most basic parts undeniable as part of the whole.