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Metrics are measures of things, for instance a scholarly article might have metrics derived from how many times it's referenced. The trouble is it may be referenced as an anti-example, for instance an example of how an article can be shitty, illogical, and basically worthless. It still got quoted do does being quoted equate to excellence? Obviously not. So what about the number of people who positively like something? Well imagine someone with no friends who posts the greatest picture ever taken? How many likes do you expect it to get? The person has not one friend to re-post, like, or get the image into a popular stream. So is the greatest image of all time now obviously crap due to the lack of public adulation? Obviously not so. Imagine another person who takes say a shower selfie. Not obviously the greatest image ever taken but this person has nearly a million followers! So it gets in a lot of streams, gets a lot of love, gets a lot of knock on love. One image has no loves, one has millions. Which one is the best image? The one seen the most? The one loved the most? Or have metrics nothing to do with quality? I would maintain that it's the latter. Try to do good work, forget if people like it. Who liked it anyway? People you don't know or people who know what they're looking at? Did they like it because 'hot' or because great composition and artistic sensibility? Did the love it because "that's so beautiful and evocative of emotional surrender" or because "I could rub one out to that"? Which one is valuable to you, which do you think matters? Personally [...]

I think it's obvious not everyone can take that simple action and refine and command it to the point that they can paint a Vermeer, a Picasso, a Van Gogh. There's more to it than that. And there's more to Shibari than memorising patterns. What makes something art ultimately? Maybe one kind is where the artist takes the simplest technique and creates something beautiful with it.

If I could be sentimental for a moment... Without a doubt, without question my partner in life Clover is the best part of that life. I cannot imagine life without her and cannot imagine I'd be the person I am now were we not together. She's taken some of my sharper edges off and I'm better for having known her. I've also caused her to be a bit more like me in some ways, you may debate amongst yourselves if that's a good thing or not. Our lives in and out of kink are intertwined with who we are and everything we do to such an extent it's all just aspects of who we are and in all of those aspects she is a part of my life and who I am, who I've become. She loves me and wants the best for me. That's something amazing for me. Something very precious that makes life so much better. I want the best for her too. I so very much want for her to be happy and perhaps selfishly I want to be a cause of her happiness. When it seems people are mad and the world is going crazy we have each other. I'm generally an up and doing kind of person and Clover's usually got a todo list the length of your arm but between us in a morning warm together in bed there is a beautiful stillness where the world can go hang and the world can wait 'just a few more minutes' until we have to get up and get on with the work of the day. This is a love letter. One that could only be sent in the internet age. [...]