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Back around the start of the millennium Napster became a thing and suddenly every song was fair game. I cannot stress how cool it was to be able to find a song and hear it on demand.
I did however feel some guilt about taking songs for free from my favorite bands at the time. So I came up with some ethical standards I could live with. One of them being “If I downloaded more than 3 songs off a single album, I should buy that album.” After that I took stock off my mp3 collection and began purchasing CD’s to back fill what I’d downloaded.
The first band I started purchasing albums from was Metallica, and then they sued Napster.
I haven’t spent a dime on them or listened to their music since. At first it was a conscious decision, but then after a year or so I realized I just didn’t care about their music much anymore so it was easy after that.
This happened with my cat often enough that once I went to pet him and saw him wince from my hand 😢
So after that I started doing the same things suggested here Try touching stuff around your house to see what discharges you, but also what I got in the habit of doing was tapping my cat on the back haunch before petting him. That discharged me in a much more manageable place for him and then subsequent skritches were still pleasant and appreciated.
I’ve tried for years to figure out how to lower the static electricity in my house, but keep coming up empty. I think it’s the combination of rubber-soled slippers, carpeting and anti-static mats in the office. So at my desk, I have ran a thin sliver of tinfoil along the edge and grounded that, so when I sit it discharges through there instead of my computer.