You Are Going To Die: Leveraging Your Existential Dread For Fun And Profit
Syllabus:
1) You are going to die.
2) No, seriously. Dead. Like, dead dead. Forever.
3) Jesus Christ, pay attention, you’re running out of time!!!
4) Practical: putting the fear of God in your heart with a near death experience.
5) Okay, I can see from your shell-shocked faces that you are listening now. Now sit quietly and think about your inevitable death.
6) If you knew you would die tomorrow, what would you do with your last day alive?
7) If you knew you would live to 100, what would you want to do in your life?
8) At the moment you die and everything goes black, you will be alone and must look death in the eye and shake its hand. How will you prepare yourself to face this moment with courage, instead of curling up in a ball and crying like a little bitch?
9) Practical: seeing death out of the corner of your eye - questing into the wilderness and doing an ass-ton of mushrooms.
10) Breaking down your goals into smaller goals: creating an outline for your life.
11) Breaking down your small goals into itty bitty goals that arent so scary.
12) Just fucking show up: the most important part of getting literally anything done.
13) Stick to the program: giving up your ego and just doing as you are told to see if it works.
14) Every day: turning small steps forward into sustainable habits.
15) Playing the numbers game: how to make your own luck.
16) Practical: Grind it out - one month of being a hyper-optimized perfectionist
17) Burnout - what to do when all you do is delay gratification
18) Impatience and frustration: your biggest assets in getting things done
19) Evaluating progress and re-evaluating goals
20) Not good enough - if it’s important, never settle for anything less
21) I want it NOW - realize that your “sensible” plan is actually a form of procrastination
22) Practical: Pull the trigger - challenge your limiting beliefs about what is possible and do something that scares the absolute shit out of you to make your dreams come true.
23) Passive progress - focusing on changing your life so pursuing your goals becomes effortless.
24) The big keys: mindset, health, friends, and environment.
25) Mindset
25.1) Go touch grass - when you feel hopeless, you probably just need to go outside and not think about anything for a while.
25.2) Go touch grass - if you are chronically online, you will be extremely anxious about everything because the internet keeps your attention by telling you the world is scary and most people are evil. Stop it.
25.3) Go touch grass - no, literally. Being in contact with nature will improve your mental health.
25.4) Anytime something bad happens to you, it is your responsibility to turn it into a learning experience that you can grow from. Yes, even trauma. Especially trauma.
25.5) Life is a mirror for your mindset - how your beliefs about the world reflect back to become outcomes.
25.6) Be a contender, not a champion - the real victory is the journey not the outcome.
26) Practical: go backpacking in the wilderness for a week. No electronics.
27) Health
27.1) Sleep
27.2) Diet
27.3) Exercise
28) Practical: do sleep, diet, and exercise right for once in your life.
29) Friends
29.1) Making new friends: just walk up and say “hi”.
29.2) Making new friends: go places where people who like the same things you do hang out.
29.3) Deepening relationships - offering and asking for help.
29.4) Deepening relationships - share feelings, not just facts.
29.5) Asking for support - people love to help you when they can see you are already doing the work.
29.6) Boundaries - establishing and maintaining them.
29.7) Cutting people out when they are detracting from your life.
29.7) Yeah, that goes for family, too.
30) Practical: pick a friend or make a new friend. Open up to them about a personal goal, and ask for their support.
31) Environment
31.1) Pro surfers don’t live in Nebraska - how your environment impacts your success.
31.2) Move to the right city - if the best in the world don’t live there, you are in the wrong place.
31.3) Move to the right part of the right city - if you can’t walk to where you work on your goals, you are in the wrong place.
31.4) Move to the right home in the right part of the right city - if you can’t relax at home, you are in the wrong place.
32) Practical: Make a plan to move somewhere better next semester.
33) Remember, you’re going to die - appreciating each moment that you are alive.
34) Final: get wasted at a secret forest rave. Students will be graded based on how shamelessly they embarass themselves on the dance floor. Bonus points for getting shot down trying to hook up with an attractive stranger.
Most of taught history is about and from the perspective of politicians, nobles, inventors, explorers, athletes, scientists - in other words, the outliers. I’m fascinated by the historic lives of regular people, a topic that is hard to research as there is little information about them.
I’d love to be a photography professor, but that just might be my desire to have a stable photography gig with a steady paycheck and not having to deal with galleries and critics.
No, I would teach it standard, the onset of colonialism through the end of the cold war. I think what makes it fun is the level of engagement you can have with the students and the different types of media you can use to teach.
It boggles my mind how many students can’t find answers in the one tool they have for any given subject. That’s Step 1 for problem solving just about everything: trust the literature and sort it the fuck out.
I had an elderly grad school Mammalogy professor who was always thrilled to show us cute fuzzy creatures on a slide show, tell us what was unique, both taxonomically and phylogenetically, about them, and of course if or if not he had gotten a chance to pet them or wanted to still.
I would be thrilled to teach that course with half of the passion he did. Bonus points if it opened doors to work in the field and pet some of those mofos.
If I could find a way to make a class about furries, fursuiting, furry art, and all that goes with it, into an academic quarter long class, you better believe I would try… if I wasn’t too nervous about public speaking.
While wearing my fursuit head, I will admit I’m a little less nervous, but I don’t think it’d be enough for me. I also doubt many colleges would be okay with me teaching with full head covering on.
I’d like to teach a course about Lucian (c. 120-180 CE), who was a Greek public speaker and writer, specializing in satire. Everyone talks about the big Greek philosophers; hardly anyone bats an eye at this guy.
I’d of course require as much reading as the course can fit, and use them as a catalyst for discussions about his critiques of the social and philosophical paradigms of the day, and how they compare (or can be applied) to today.
I often think about teaching middle school or high school instead (obviously college is safer, pays more and is maybe more fun) and when I do that I like the idea of language teaching, or science or maths.
But hence I would be perfectly happy to give language classes or lectures in a university setting.
Personal development. Things like understanding ones own emotions and how to work with them, treating traumas, finding life purpose and how achieve / work towards it, transformation into more complex, developed consciousness (based on developmental psychology). Even spiritual development and enlightenment. I myself would need to learn a lot in order to be able to teach it greatly, but IMO this is a stuff that is really, really needed in society but hardly taught at all…
I would rater teach younger kids but, no matter their age, it would be history and/or literature, philosophy, maybe even Greek and Latin for the most motivated among them.
More or less, it would be what was once called ‘humanities’. Some people and some interests across the entire political spectrum, including our own are trying real hard to eradicate this kind of education and that is not for the kids good. I would love to contribute my humble part in resisting that eradication.
Arithmetic / so-called pure maths up to pre-calculus and maybe a bit of early calculus. The rest just wouldn’t stick in my brain, so even if I could teach, I couldn’t teach that.
But seriously, I’m not sure I could teach anything. If I can’t herd the metaphorical cats in my brain, I’d stand no chance with a class full of students.
A cross section of sociology and semiotics, chronicling and deconstructing the fascinating rise of modern memes as a living form of communication. I think there’s enough meat there to warrant serious scholarly analysis. Most of the students would sign up thinking it’s an easy joke class, and get tricked into learning about how ideas evolve.
Something in the area of computer/electrical engineering. I want to work in embedded systems engineering, but i only have a computer science degree, so theres a lot of knowledge im missing. If im overly specific with your question, “could” teach can be interpreted as “having the knowledge/ability to”, so yea. Id do that and gain free knowledge in a field that fascinates me
probably any non majors science and math maybe through trig and initial calculus but I would need to get back in the swing. im not even sure if people take algebra at the collegiac level. Honestly most freshman level classes should be doable but again it would take some time to become conversant. likely A+ certification and a variety of intro to computer or technology type of things but I think those are likely more common in community colleges.
I’d teach a class on the stupid games women play in relationships and how they destroy relationships. I’d bring in women who played those games and what they lost. I’d use their social media profiles to show what they were posting and how it just creates problems. Then bring in women who didn’t play those games and show their results. I’d bring in intimacy experts like “The libido fairy “ from YouTube to help students understand how to have better relationships.
Actually that might have to be two different classes.
PieFed
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“How to Adult 101” and 102. I’m not qualified to teach 103+ though.
You Are Going To Die: Leveraging Your Existential Dread For Fun And Profit
Syllabus:
1) You are going to die.
2) No, seriously. Dead. Like, dead dead. Forever.
3) Jesus Christ, pay attention, you’re running out of time!!!
4) Practical: putting the fear of God in your heart with a near death experience.
5) Okay, I can see from your shell-shocked faces that you are listening now. Now sit quietly and think about your inevitable death.
6) If you knew you would die tomorrow, what would you do with your last day alive?
7) If you knew you would live to 100, what would you want to do in your life?
8) At the moment you die and everything goes black, you will be alone and must look death in the eye and shake its hand. How will you prepare yourself to face this moment with courage, instead of curling up in a ball and crying like a little bitch?
9) Practical: seeing death out of the corner of your eye - questing into the wilderness and doing an ass-ton of mushrooms.
10) Breaking down your goals into smaller goals: creating an outline for your life.
11) Breaking down your small goals into itty bitty goals that arent so scary.
12) Just fucking show up: the most important part of getting literally anything done.
13) Stick to the program: giving up your ego and just doing as you are told to see if it works.
14) Every day: turning small steps forward into sustainable habits.
15) Playing the numbers game: how to make your own luck.
16) Practical: Grind it out - one month of being a hyper-optimized perfectionist
17) Burnout - what to do when all you do is delay gratification
18) Impatience and frustration: your biggest assets in getting things done
19) Evaluating progress and re-evaluating goals
20) Not good enough - if it’s important, never settle for anything less
21) I want it NOW - realize that your “sensible” plan is actually a form of procrastination
22) Practical: Pull the trigger - challenge your limiting beliefs about what is possible and do something that scares the absolute shit out of you to make your dreams come true.
23) Passive progress - focusing on changing your life so pursuing your goals becomes effortless.
24) The big keys: mindset, health, friends, and environment.
25) Mindset
25.1) Go touch grass - when you feel hopeless, you probably just need to go outside and not think about anything for a while.
25.2) Go touch grass - if you are chronically online, you will be extremely anxious about everything because the internet keeps your attention by telling you the world is scary and most people are evil. Stop it.
25.3) Go touch grass - no, literally. Being in contact with nature will improve your mental health.
25.4) Anytime something bad happens to you, it is your responsibility to turn it into a learning experience that you can grow from. Yes, even trauma. Especially trauma.
25.5) Life is a mirror for your mindset - how your beliefs about the world reflect back to become outcomes.
25.6) Be a contender, not a champion - the real victory is the journey not the outcome.
26) Practical: go backpacking in the wilderness for a week. No electronics.
27) Health
27.1) Sleep
27.2) Diet
27.3) Exercise
28) Practical: do sleep, diet, and exercise right for once in your life.
29) Friends
29.1) Making new friends: just walk up and say “hi”.
29.2) Making new friends: go places where people who like the same things you do hang out.
29.3) Deepening relationships - offering and asking for help.
29.4) Deepening relationships - share feelings, not just facts.
29.5) Asking for support - people love to help you when they can see you are already doing the work.
29.6) Boundaries - establishing and maintaining them.
29.7) Cutting people out when they are detracting from your life.
29.7) Yeah, that goes for family, too.
30) Practical: pick a friend or make a new friend. Open up to them about a personal goal, and ask for their support.
31) Environment
31.1) Pro surfers don’t live in Nebraska - how your environment impacts your success.
31.2) Move to the right city - if the best in the world don’t live there, you are in the wrong place. 31.3) Move to the right part of the right city - if you can’t walk to where you work on your goals, you are in the wrong place.
31.4) Move to the right home in the right part of the right city - if you can’t relax at home, you are in the wrong place.
32) Practical: Make a plan to move somewhere better next semester.
33) Remember, you’re going to die - appreciating each moment that you are alive.
34) Final: get wasted at a secret forest rave. Students will be graded based on how shamelessly they embarass themselves on the dance floor. Bonus points for getting shot down trying to hook up with an attractive stranger.
looks at long list, reflexively scrolls to the last point
Well, I’m sold.
Regular People History
Most of taught history is about and from the perspective of politicians, nobles, inventors, explorers, athletes, scientists - in other words, the outliers. I’m fascinated by the historic lives of regular people, a topic that is hard to research as there is little information about them.
I would sign up for this class
NetHack 101
Back in my day, rule #1 would be “when in doubt, engrave elbereth.” I heard they nerfed it in some recent version, though.
I don’t know enough to teach it professionally but digital privacy, security, and OSINT. LINUX and GrapheneOS would be prerequisites.
I’d love to be a photography professor, but that just might be my desire to have a stable photography gig with a steady paycheck and not having to deal with galleries and critics.
Wood Science.
Comics as literature. I even wrote a full semester lesson plan for one of my graduate courses like 20 years ago. I doubt I will ever get to do it.
Intro world history. Just a fun one to teach.
what would you cover? like non-euro history or something non-standard?
No, I would teach it standard, the onset of colonialism through the end of the cold war. I think what makes it fun is the level of engagement you can have with the students and the different types of media you can use to teach.
How to Make a Bong out of Anything
RTFM, a prerequisite for Critical Thinking
It boggles my mind how many students can’t find answers in the one tool they have for any given subject. That’s Step 1 for problem solving just about everything: trust the literature and sort it the fuck out.
I had an elderly grad school Mammalogy professor who was always thrilled to show us cute fuzzy creatures on a slide show, tell us what was unique, both taxonomically and phylogenetically, about them, and of course if or if not he had gotten a chance to pet them or wanted to still.
I would be thrilled to teach that course with half of the passion he did. Bonus points if it opened doors to work in the field and pet some of those mofos.
Procrastination.
To make my life easier, it would be a Linux CLI 101 class for CS Masters students. Half of them don’t have the basic skills towdo their research.
The thing I’d like to teach is a hybrid theory/practical on Free Culture, and how to use FOSS for all your computing needs.
If I could find a way to make a class about furries, fursuiting, furry art, and all that goes with it, into an academic quarter long class, you better believe I would try… if I wasn’t too nervous about public speaking.
It’s sometimes easier to do speeches with a mask on.
My easiest speech in high school was in a grim reaper costume that covered my face.
While wearing my fursuit head, I will admit I’m a little less nervous, but I don’t think it’d be enough for me. I also doubt many colleges would be okay with me teaching with full head covering on.
Women’s Studies so I can be paid to mansplain.
It would be social psychology. And I teach social psychology, so mission accomplished.
I’d like to teach a course about Lucian (c. 120-180 CE), who was a Greek public speaker and writer, specializing in satire. Everyone talks about the big Greek philosophers; hardly anyone bats an eye at this guy.
I’d of course require as much reading as the course can fit, and use them as a catalyst for discussions about his critiques of the social and philosophical paradigms of the day, and how they compare (or can be applied) to today.
Completly useless and unrelated tidbits of knowledge nobody asked for and wont be confirmed by sources.
Pathfinder first edition character creation (advanced)
Probably photography, network/hardware troubleshooting, and Linux 101
Literature, cuz… Cuz that’s exactly what I’m studying. I’m studying to become a language and literature teacher.
MMO Tanking 101.
Does it have to be something I’m good at?
I often think about teaching middle school or high school instead (obviously college is safer, pays more and is maybe more fun) and when I do that I like the idea of language teaching, or science or maths.
But hence I would be perfectly happy to give language classes or lectures in a university setting.
Personal development. Things like understanding ones own emotions and how to work with them, treating traumas, finding life purpose and how achieve / work towards it, transformation into more complex, developed consciousness (based on developmental psychology). Even spiritual development and enlightenment. I myself would need to learn a lot in order to be able to teach it greatly, but IMO this is a stuff that is really, really needed in society but hardly taught at all…
If i could get away with how my professor taught Maya i would teach Blender the same way and collect my paycheck.
“Okay, class, here’s a 15 minute video on the user interface of Blender. Go home and make something.”
Accounting. More specifically, personal bookkeeping.
Musculo-skeletal anatomy. I have taught it already.
History of Video games.
From Pong to Atari to the Golden era of Nintendo, to the 3D revolution and finally the rise of Neo Microtransactionism.
I would rater teach younger kids but, no matter their age, it would be history and/or literature, philosophy, maybe even Greek and Latin for the most motivated among them.
More or less, it would be what was once called ‘humanities’. Some people and some interests across the entire political spectrum, including our own are trying real hard to eradicate this kind of education and that is not for the kids good. I would love to contribute my humble part in resisting that eradication.
Realistically? Something like “BIOL/STAT 451, Intro to Bioinformatics”
Department head will probably force me to teach “COMP 271 Intro to Generative AI” instead 💀
Arithmetic / so-called pure maths up to pre-calculus and maybe a bit of early calculus. The rest just wouldn’t stick in my brain, so even if I could teach, I couldn’t teach that.
But seriously, I’m not sure I could teach anything. If I can’t herd the metaphorical cats in my brain, I’d stand no chance with a class full of students.
Serious and boring answer: Calculus probably
Less serious, more interesting answer: Memes 101
A cross section of sociology and semiotics, chronicling and deconstructing the fascinating rise of modern memes as a living form of communication. I think there’s enough meat there to warrant serious scholarly analysis. Most of the students would sign up thinking it’s an easy joke class, and get tricked into learning about how ideas evolve.
Skiving.
Something in the area of computer/electrical engineering. I want to work in embedded systems engineering, but i only have a computer science degree, so theres a lot of knowledge im missing. If im overly specific with your question, “could” teach can be interpreted as “having the knowledge/ability to”, so yea. Id do that and gain free knowledge in a field that fascinates me
Wasting time on the internet
Aerospace systems. Have taught several classes of it already.
Computer networking 101 so I can teach kids how to throw LAN parties
probably any non majors science and math maybe through trig and initial calculus but I would need to get back in the swing. im not even sure if people take algebra at the collegiac level. Honestly most freshman level classes should be doable but again it would take some time to become conversant. likely A+ certification and a variety of intro to computer or technology type of things but I think those are likely more common in community colleges.
What I did today 101. Free therapy hack. Who’s showing up?
It would would be.
I’d teach a class on the stupid games women play in relationships and how they destroy relationships. I’d bring in women who played those games and what they lost. I’d use their social media profiles to show what they were posting and how it just creates problems. Then bring in women who didn’t play those games and show their results. I’d bring in intimacy experts like “The libido fairy “ from YouTube to help students understand how to have better relationships.
Actually that might have to be two different classes.
Honestly, you’re teaching the class a lot more about yourself than you are about the subject matter here