Fire Horse

Fire Horse picture by Pixabay

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When I hear of this year being the year of the Fire Horse, the first thing that comes to my mind is Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was an anime my son used to like when he was young. He is a grown man now, so he looks at more mature movies, but when he was young, I used to watch the anime with him.

In the show, the Fire Nation was mean, brutal, and desiring to control everything. They could shoot fire from their feet and hands and even their mouths. They were so tough they were taking over the world. From what I can tell, this will be a fiery and aggressive lunar year. After explaining exactly what a Fire Horse is, I will go over ways to stay calm, focused, and serene during this turbulent year.

But first, what is this "Fire Horse" thing anyway?

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Understanding the 2026 Fire Horse

According to Chinese metaphysics consultant Vicki Iskandar, the Year of the Fire Horse—starting February 17, 2026—is one of the most intense combinations in the 60-year cycle. While the Horse returns every 12 years, the last time we saw a Fire Horse was 1966.

• Yang Energy: 2026 is a Yang year. Unlike the inner growth of 2025, Yang Fire is like the blazing light of the sun—it is always "on."

• The Element: Fire is the most "Yang" of all elements. It represents independence, charisma, and a desire for freedom that is not easily tamed.

How to Navigate the Intensity

Research suggests that while this year rewards bold leaps, it also carries a risk of burnout. To thrive, experts from CBS8 and Taiji Nature suggest:

1. Choosing Purpose Over Impulse: Avoid acting without a clear sense of direction.

2. Pacing Yourself: The Horse tends to overdo it. Practice slowing down.

3. Grounding: Fire energy can be depleting. Balance action with rest and reflection.

The Power of the "Horse Stance"

One of the best ways to stay serene is through the Horse Stance (Ma Bu). In the internal arts, this isn't just a leg exercise—it is a lesson in staying. While your mind might scream, "Are we done yet?", the stance asks back, "Can you remain steady when it's hard?"

To do it, you stand with feet wider than your hips and settle your weight down as if sitting on an imaginary chair. The key is in the "rooting"—grabbing the floor with your feet and keeping your spine tall. It builds a "container" for all that fiery energy of 2026, teaching you to be uncomfortable without panicking and to generate power from your center rather than just your arms.

If you want to learn to do the Horse Stance for yourself, go to this link: How to Master the Ma Bu Stance

References:

• Iskandar, V. (2026). Lunar New Year 2026: Everything to Know. PEOPLE.

• Claren, R. (2026). Why 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse. CBS8.

• Taiji Nature Blog. (2026). Horse Stance: Calm Strength in a Fire Horse Year.

• My Personal Path to Grounding

• I don’t do the Horse Stance myself, but I do practice the Japanese Morning Radio Exercises and online Shaolin morning exercises. After those, I like to just sit a bit and stare out my window, reminding myself how fortunate I am to have a home, 3 chickens, 6 cats, a wife, and a son. My world is full, and I can be happy and grounded in that alone.

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Content Creator Burnout: Finding Your Way Back to Serenity

 

Content Creator Burnout: Finding Your Way Back to Serenity

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I don’t normally feel this burnt out, but losing tools that used to work, fighting with new ones, and being late for everything really makes me feel like a failure. I used to get two blog posts out a week, at least two cat compilations on YouTube, and special videos. But this year is a totally different story.

I feel a lot of burnout in 2026 because at the end of last year, the tools I knew changed and were no longer good for us. I am currently learning several new tools. One challenge was learning how to do transparent backgrounds on Pixlr. It was incredibly hard to learn from people on YouTube; they go so fast and have blurry computer screens, so I didn’t learn a thing.

I even tried AI because I had had it with the blurry screens, but it wasn’t useful either. I swear AI doesn’t "see" what it is talking about; it’s just lip service. Finally, I found a tutorial on wikiHow that worked. Now, without asking my son to do it for me, I can make a special copyright signature and a "For Preview Only" sign in my own handwriting. We use these to protect our work.

Scanning and Software Struggles

The other thing causing burnout was trying to make sure Shy Artist's paintings were coming out properly on the scanner. For some reason, I just didn’t want to tackle making the scanner work better for watercolor paintings. Once I finally did, I found it was easy, but Sharpie on printer paper looks like a pixelated mess when you give it a transparent background. I will have to have Shy Artist paint it for us on watercolor paper (perhaps using some Serenity Buff) so it looks nice on top of the paintings we are trying to protect.

Learning DaVinci Resolve has also been difficult. I think I have a handle on it now—it’s been two months and I've only made three shorts. Our channel isn't doing as well because I haven't kept up with the usual schedule. I was stuck learning the tools and dealing with clips "taking a walk" for no reason.

Pro Tip: If you want to finish an area in Resolve, make sure you lock it. And be careful of the keys! I pressed Ctrl + A and it made everything red; it was stuck, and no amount of Ctrl + Z fixed it. I had to start that particular short three times.

At least using Uppbeat and ZatSplat is easy. Along with TunePocket, I now have a lot of sound effects and music to choose from. Uppbeat also has wonderful graphics, though we are in the process of making our own unique backgrounds and graphics to use and sell. ---

What the Research Says About Burnout

Recent data shows that content creator burnout is reaching epidemic levels. Here is a summary of the research:

• The Numbers: A staggering 79% of YouTube creators experienced burnout in 2023. This affects almost everyone, regardless of how much they earn. Additionally, about 37% of creators have considered leaving the industry entirely.

• The Causes:

  • The Algorithm Treadmill: Platforms reward constant posting, creating a fear that the algorithm will "punish" you if you take a break.

  • Blurred Boundaries: Working from home makes it hard to separate "work time" from "personal time."

  • Isolation: The work is often solitary, leading to feelings of loneliness.

• Warning Signs: Watch for constant fatigue, lack of motivation (where creating feels like a chore), and physical symptoms like headaches or sleep problems.

How to Recover and Build Resilience

To return to a state of serenity, the experts suggest:

1. Set Hard Boundaries: Establish specific work hours and stick to them.

2. Quality Over Quantity: Posting less often with better content usually works better than exhausting yourself with daily posts.

3. Own Your Platform: Focus on things you control, like an email list, so you aren't at the mercy of platform changes.

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My Path to Serenity

For myself, I’ve decided to work from 9 AM to 5 PM. If things don’t get finished, too bad—it has to wait until tomorrow.

I take time to pet my six cats, talk with my wife and son, and watch TV with my wife. It is winter now, but during the summer, I will enjoy our garden again. I love content creation, but it is difficult. On YouTube, they change the rules every five minutes. We have to realize that we matter more than any platform does.

If you like this blog post, please follow us! There is a "Follow Me" box on the sidebar. If you would like to support our work, please visit our Buy Me A Coffee page.

Resources:

• Combating Creator Burnout Guide - Beehiiv

• 7 Signs You're Burning Out - Postion

• Support Serenity of the Mind

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Enshittification and AI Slop

 

Enshittification and AI Slop

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 If my work brings you peace, consider supporting a real human for $3. 

It was hard enough in 2025, but in 2026, it has truly become a jungle out there. As you all know, we are content creators on YouTube. We have the YouTube channel Serenity of the Mind or @serenityofthemind, which we started four years ago. Our son talked us into doing a YouTube channel to keep our minds off of the constant news of the world falling apart. We found it was fun, and we hoped to make a little income to supplement our meager retirement.

Well, back then, Pexels and Pixabay were free video stock platforms with lots and lots of wonderful cat videos and photos. Today, it they are like a desert in comparison to four years ago. Not only that, but now they have tons of iStock stuff that they steer you toward. Other stuff besides funny cat videos to make compilations from has now become hard to find. The backgrounds aren’t nice anymore, and when you say "I want a beige background," you get several rolls of iStock. The last thing we used to get from Pixabay was sound effects; now you risk a content claim, and Pixabay says this now gives you a content claim on YouTube.

So, I started having Shy Artist paint backgrounds for us and speech bubbles. We are working on it, but it takes a lot of time and right now our channel is a desert because we cannot make enough fast enough to keep it going. But at least we still had some reasonable short, funny cat videos to use for cat compilations. So, in 2025, we added funny anime emojis, comic splashes, and comic words. We paid for TunePocket, ZatSplat, and Uppbeat so our music and sound effects would be safe behind licenses by large companies. But we still got our cat videos from Fiverr.

Fiverr has become very difficult. The content provider has more rights than the person purchasing stuff. So they give me stuff I didn’t ask for, and when I ask again for the kinds of funny cat videos I need, they get nasty and tell me, "I gave you what you asked for," and I get a low mark as a purchaser. And today, in regards to Pixabay—where I found Cottonbro, whose cute white cat made our channel and let us know to do cute and funny cat compilations—he is no longer on the platform because someone stole all his beautiful, beautiful videos. I am very, very upset about that. That is the other thing: how would I protect my own cats from the Scraper AI? They can steal my cats—Emily, Jessica, Polaris, Daisy, Athena, and Lily—sell them, and sue me for having my own cats.

The other bad thing is the AI slop. I don’t want to believe that my Fiverr people are selling me AI slop, at least not on purpose, but nonetheless, I have some that are obvious even to an old person with old eyes. So now I have taken to using Gemini AI to see if it is a Gemini AI-created cat video, or to Hive Moderation to see if it is AI slop.

We will get into more ways to protect yourself in other blog posts. The information is so large and exhaustive.

What we are trying to do is find real cats to use in our cat compilations on our channel. We are also trying to find ways to protect our own cats and artwork. So far, the search for viable cat shorts to make cat compilations is dismal. Most of them are AI slop, and ones that sort of discourage AI slop, like Storyblocks, have cats that look like... well, I found one on a video stock platform that was good, but for the cutest Siamese mom cat feeding her lively little kittens, it was 219 dollars for one short clip of film. I hate to say this, but I make even less money now than I did when I was working as a security guard. No way I can afford that. And, more and more, Youtube is attacking AI-made slop and repetitive stuff. Before I leave, I am giving you one more piece of advice.

Here is how to "clean house" and protect your existing library from the Scraper AI and the AI Upscaling bots:

1. Bulk Unchecking "Shorts Sampling" (The Theft Shield) This is the most important step for your cats. If this is checked, a bot can "legally" scrape 5 seconds of your video and loop it.

• Step 1: Go to your YouTube Studio and click on Content (the video list).

• Step 2: Check the very top box (next to the "Video" header) to Select All. If you have more than 30 videos, click the blue link that says "Select all."

• Step 3: Click the Edit button in the black bar that appears.

• Step 4: From the dropdown menu, find Shorts sampling.

• Step 5: Change the "New Value" to Don't allow sampling.

• Step 6: Click Update Videos. You’ll have to check a box that says "I understand the implications"—click it and let the machine work.

2. Disabling the "AI Enhancements" In early 2026, YouTube added Video Quality Enhancements (AI Upscaling) to old videos. You can turn this off for the whole channel at once.

• Step 1: Click the Settings gear at the bottom left of your Studio.

• Step 2: Go to Channel > Advanced Settings.

• Step 3: Scroll down to the section titled "Video Quality Enhancements" or "AI Upscaling."

• Step 4: Uncheck the box that says "Let YouTube automatically enhance visual quality."

• • Step 5: Do the same for "Audio Enhancements" if you see it.

  • Step 6: Hit Save.

  By doing this, you are effectively hanging a "No Trespassing" sign on your art.

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 Have a great day and Stay Serene!

Valentine's Day

 Valentine's Day

For us, Valentine’s Day isn't just a date on a calendar; it’s a reflection of our life together. As we sit here in the studio, the air is filled with that ambient light we love to use for our "graphics"—but it’s also filled with the quiet focus of two people tackling a massive new creative challenge.

Our "Love Language" is Learning

Lately, our shared time has been spent huddled over the computer. We made the big decision to move away from Canva and Clip Champ, and we’ve been diving headfirst into Blender 2D (Grease Pencil) and DaVinci Resolve.

We’ll be honest—the learning curve is steep! We’ve had those moments where we press one set of keys and the whole clip "takes a walk" on us. Because of that, we haven’t been able to finish the February digital sticker for our members yet. But we are in this together. As soon as we get that first sticker to work in Blender, we’ll be finishing the Valentine’s items anyway. Whether they are used this year or saved for next, they are a labor of love from both of us.

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The Mystery of the Day: Why all the Romance?

While we work on our graphics, we did some digging into where these traditions actually come from. It turns out the history is just as complex as the software we're learning!

• The Folklore & The Lottery: In mid-17th century England, Valentine’s Day was a folk practice. An antiquarian named Henry Bourne wrote in 1725 that St. Valentine had nothing to do with it! Instead, it was a matchmaking lottery where men and women were paired by random drawings as an omen for their future.

• The Poets' Vision: We really have the medieval poets to thank for the romantic "aura" we feel today. Geoffrey Chaucer and Oton de Granson wrote about birds choosing their mates on this day in the 1380s.

• The Calendar of the Heart: While Pope Gelasius I established the feast day for the martyr St. Valentine, it was the medieval church calendar—which marked the start of spring in mid-February—that naturally aligned the day with new beginnings and romance.

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Resources & Further Reading

If you’d like to do your own detective work on the history of the holiday, here are the resources we used for our research:

• Encyclopaedia Britannica: How did Valentine’s Day start?

• Antiquitates Vulgares (1725): The pioneering folklore study by Henry Bourne regarding English folk customs.

• The Parliament of Fowls: Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th-century poem linking the date to romantic pairing.

• History of Lupercalia: Research on the ancient Roman precursors to modern February festivals.

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Join Our "Serenity" Family

Even while we are "students" of these new tools, we are still sharing our world with you.

• Watch: Please enjoy some of our Valentine’s videos on our YouTube channel @serenityofthemind.

• Support: If you’d like to support our work and help us care for our cats, you can find us at Buy Me a Coffee.

• Follow: We’d love to have you stay for the journey. Please add your email to the box on our sidebar.

Thanks for stopping by and for supporting us as we grow.

Kitten Care: From Tiny Paws to Serenity

 

Kitten Care: From Tiny Paws 

to Serenity

A few days ago, I went to get some shoes with my son. He is an adult now, but he wanted to look at the new pet store that just opened nearby. We already have six cats, which is the legal limit where we live, so we weren't looking to add to our family—but then we saw her.

She was the cutest little gray kitten. My son wanted her so badly, and watching her play took me right back to when each of our six were tiny "fluff-balls." It reminded me of one of the most wonderful "serenity moments" our family ever had. When our son graduated high school, he told us he wanted a kitten as a gift. At the time, he was an unsure young man, and the kitten he chose, Athena, was very shy. Seeing him spend hours helping her feel loved was a gift for us, too. He told us, "This is the most wonderful gift I have ever had."

Understanding the Journey: A Development Timeline

According to experts at The Fluffy Kitty, raising a kitten is a week-by-week journey:

• Weeks 1–3: Kittens are delicate, born with eyes and ears closed. By week 3, their eyes begin to change color and those first precious purrs start.

• Weeks 4–5: This is the "shaky step" phase. It’s the time to introduce a shallow litter box and "soupy" food (a mix of kitten formula and high-quality meat).

• Weeks 8–12: This is the ideal window for socialization. By 10 weeks, they are usually ready to leave their mother, having learned vital social cues from their littermates.

Nourishing Your Serenity Partner

Research from Cats.com emphasizes that kittens are "obligate carnivores." To support their growth, a kitten needs 2 to 3 times the calories of an adult cat. Their diet should consist of at least 30% protein and 20% fat, ideally from animal sources like chicken or salmon. Animal fats like salmon oil support brain development and a shiny coat.

Health, Play, and Safety

As a pet parent, your role is to provide a "safe harbor."

1. Kitten-Proofing: Hide electrical cords and remove poisonous plants.

2. Veterinary Milestones: Your first visit (6–8 weeks) should cover fecal exams and initial vaccinations.

3. The Art of Play: Use fishing-pole wands rather than your hands. This prevents "zoomie-induced" stress and protects your furniture.

The Science of Serenity: Why Cats Heal Us

At Serenity of the Mind, we know interaction with cats is healing.

• Cortisol Reduction: A study in AERA Open found that 10 minutes of petting a cat significantly lowers cortisol (stress) levels.

• Heart Health: Research in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Neurology suggests cat owners have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

• The Oxytocin Effect: Being near a cat triggers oxytocin, reducing anxiety and creating a sense of belonging.

Join Our Serenity Journey

If you enjoyed these tips, please stay a part of our community:

• Follow Us: Click the follow app on our sidebar.

• Support: Visit our Buy Me a Coffee link at the top of the sidebar.

• Watch: Visit our YouTube channel @serenityofthemind for funny cat clips and our own cats' antics.

• Shop: I (Shy Artist) am painting new backgrounds and custom writing paper! Click the Store button on the sidebar.

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References

1. Pendry, P., & Vandagriff, J. L. (2019). Animal Visitation Program Reduces Cortisol. AERA Open.

2. Qureshi AI, et al. (2009). Cat ownership and Cardiovascular Risk. J Vasc Interv Neurol.

3. Barrington, Kate. "How to Take Care of a Kitten." Cats.com.

4. The Fluffy Kitty. "Kitten Care Guide: Week by Week."

5.