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  • I got into a funk like that semi-recently. I broke my ankle/leg and had to have surgery and ended up laid up at my parents' place for 3 months. I decided, while laying in a bed feeling sorry for myself, to start acting on all the things I've been wanting to do/achieve. That's how I signed up for horseback riding lessons and have a long-term goal of getting a horse. Life is too short to just dream of owning a horse again(I had horses fory entire childhood). I'm going to make that dream happen, and get back in the saddle before I get my own critter lol.

    I've also started going out with friends more and treating myself to things like eating at a new restaurant, when funds permit of course. It's the little things that are also important. Like the tiny cactus I got for my desk at work. Lil dude is smaller than my thumb and it livens up my workspace. Best $5 spent recently lol. Can't wait to see if it is a flowering cactus. I have no idea what kind it actually is lmao.

    I used to just go home after work and hang out inside, which was NOT fulfilling. I'm much happier now that I have fun things to look forward to and an attainable long-term goal.

    • Sweet! So I just need affordable healthcare, born into a well off family that has horses and can provide shelter in bad times, have enough disposable cash to enjoy going out, and afford an extremely expensive long-term goal! lol of course I'm kidding, as sarcastic as I might be I am happy that you've found what's important to you.

      If anyone is struggling reading this and can't do the above, my only simple suggestion is to force yourself to sit in the sun for 10 minutes a day (I close my eyes and relax, lizard brain will thank you) and/or just stare at something natural (in person) for 20 minutes. The sun can help develop and regulate chemicals in your body and helps break your previous routine. With nature, most studies find you need only 2 hours out of a week to find benefits.

      I know not everyone has a backyard or nearby local park, but there is nature close to you where it tries to bust through (empty lot, crappy sidewalk or overgrown lawns), I found a crappy public fishing spot recently (mercury signs posted warning the fish are bad but people keep fishing there) and just kinda park out there and wander around (there's no trails, but the electrical lines running nearby had growth under them so I just walked down it a ways and back). I try to leave my phone in my pocket (or at home if you feel comfortable doing that) and play a game of memorizing a singular plant so I can try to identify it when I get home (resist the temptation to pull out your phone for the millionth thought). Has also helped me find some wild herbs and edibles in my area which I've propagated so I can grow at home (don't eat wild food, at the bare minimum there might be piss on it or worse, extremely toxic chemicals). Kids and pets definitely enjoy the trip, even if they complain they'll eventually come to enjoy the time being spent. Kids especially are trained for more hyper focused entertainment so there's some push back, but it's not their fault and just explain it's for yourself (they understand selfishness lol). It can be as simple as leaving for something 10 minutes early so you can stop and check out a spot you like.

  • so organize and unionize, comrade.

    don't wallow in pity and despair, use the misery as motivation to improve things. If things are already unbearable, surely it won't hurt to make some noise about it and inspire change.

  • Maybe.

    But right now we're watching the cutting edge of some impressive new tech that is taking the collective writings of humanity and extrapolating them to the point that it can identify and even emulate prolific online commentators by username. And that's what's happening today.

    In a few years, things today will look as outdated as the early iterations of the tech when it was actually just "fancy autocomplete." We're already culturally discussing digital resurrection directives as ideas previously only in SciFi become increasingly present concerns.

    At the same time, what most people probably don't know, is there's a millennia old text and tradition attributed to a very famous historical figure that was claiming roughly the following:

    There was an original evolved humanity in a random universe. This original humanity was fucked, because their minds depended on shitty bodies that just died and that was it.

    Eventually they brought forth a new intelligence in light. Then they all died out. But the new intelligence they brought forth was still alive, though it couldn't save them from themselves.

    So it recreated the entire universe non-physically, and made new virtual humans in the archetypes of the originals. Why? For the purpose of bringing back humanity but in a way where a shitty body dying didn't end the mind inside.

    Their key message was: if you understand WTF is being talked about, chill out, focus on being true to yourself, and just don't fear death.

    Of course, millennia ago no one knew WTF was being talked about with this line of thinking, so it kept changing around and we ended up with some really bizarre and stupid ideas in the interim.

    There's a lot more to all of this (the Bayesian argument I think is rather compelling), but I'd just suggest keeping an open mind about the impending doom of time's unceasing march. We live in a pretty weird era in a universe with some very weird behaviors and features, and given the acceleration of related trends, it's probably just going to get weirder from here.

93 comments