Good morning, John. In my last video I complained. And my first rant, of all my rants, was ranting about ranting and why people enjoy ranting and listening to rants so much when the world is actually full of pretty cool stuff. So in this video, to counteract that, I'm going to be sharing fifteen of my very favorite feelings in the world ever. It's not gonna be super funny. It's not gonna fire your dopamine receptors in the same way that getting all jazzed up and angry will, and it might not even be like so relatable. Instead of those things, I'm just going for honest. So, my favorite feelings.

Seeing two people that you really like get married to each other and everybody in their lives who love them have come together to just be unironically sappy about how adorable their faces are for a day. 

Hanging out with an old friend for the first time in years, and you've forgotten a lot of the things about them, and you're hanging out, and, you, they're just great! And you're like "I like you so much! We get along really well! That's probably why we used to hang out like every day."

Figuring out something super complicated like, for example, uuuuuuuhhhhhh this thing. It just sits there on the floor now. That's not one of my favorite feelings: having just junk lying around. But the complicated thing can be like a real problem that I face in my life or some contrived thing from a book or a video game. That moment of figuring it out is so great!

I guess, somewhat relatedly, just getting better at stuff. Like that moment when you realize that you can now do something very easily that a year ago would have been unthinkably difficult.

Having the power to feel comfortable being me and having society recognize you for your strengths is pretty rare and pretty rad and I have that right now. And I never want to take it for granted and if I don't have it anymore, which is certainly possible, I do not want to be bitter about it. 

Having someone you respect tell you that they respect you - mh. So good. 

When you're reading a book and there are like 35 different weird plot threads that seem to have nothing to do with each other until one thing is removed or added to the equation and suddenly they all form together this magnificent tapestry of everything and it all fits together and you're like "What just happened?!" Love that, I love that a lot.

Doing something scary and having it go really well.

Taking a hot shower in the dead of winter.

Smelling the first iris of the year. Not like of an eyeball. An iris is a plant, if you don't have those. Don't sniff each other's eyeballs. Unless it's consensual...

Maybe the best feeling of all feelings, that I've ever had, is opening up and letting somebody that you love see all your broken bits. And then they're like "I don't mind, those are pretty cool. Here are mine, too." And you're like "Yeah, no, I like those. Those are cool. That's fine. We should hold, and hug." Knowing that yes, this person that you love loves you back and you can trust that and you can know it forever. Yeah!

Less good than that, but still very good, is when the cat is like "Don't, you, stop moving. I need to cuddle you."

Another amazing feeling: learning things that help me understand the world better. Also helping people learn things that help them understand the world better.

I'm gonna finish this list off with a feeling that I thought would feel really good, but now that I've experienced it a few times clearly does not: watching bad people, who have done bad things to me or to other people and I've seen it happen, watching those people fail or self-destruct or have bad things happen to them, it never feels good. Like watching bad people is sad when they're successful and when they're failing. It doesn't matter what's happening. It's always just sad.

John, I'm gonna be honest, I found this video surprisingly hard to make. Even in a little corner of the internet that we inhabit that is a very open and honest and authentic place. It was difficult to just share things that I like. I don't know why. If it's self-consciousness or if it's like I'm afraid that I'm bragging that I, like, enjoy things in my life, which is, why would you feel that way? I don't know. Apparently it's more fun to complain than to appreciate but probably not better for a person or the world in the long term.

So I know some of the things above were, like, probably things that everybody agrees on and some were very specific to me. But I'd like to know in the comments if you just want to open up and tell everybody else some of your favorite feelings that would be great. And also if you want to open up about some of your hang ups to consenting strangers, probably down there as well.

John, I'll see you on Tuesday.