Wrong
Silent Hill
You know, you don't have to work. There's options.
I know its "frowned upon" by society, but really, you don't have to work.
I know its "frowned upon" by society, but really, you don't have to work.
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TheSkaFish
Jedi Guardian
The problem with those "options", is that I can't think of a single one of them, that's actually any good. All of them that I can think of, require hurting yourself in some way. The "cure" is often just as bad as the "disease", and in some cases even more so.
Wrong
Silent Hill
I technically don't work and I have no problems what so ever, i'm fine.
Don't let them force you to partake in this stressful rat race. Just free yourself from the shackles of society. Free yourself from the sentiments that were hammered in to your brain ever since you were a kid, that somehow if you aren't working, you aren't "contributing to society."
TheSkaFish
Jedi Guardian
Hmm. How are you able to do that, though?
I didn't mean to attack you by the way. I was just going by how it seems to me. Maybe you are seeing something I missed.
Not to worry...I never got that memo. Work/society always seemed kind of weird and even a little bit cultish to me.
TheSkaFish
Jedi Guardian
I was thinking about another issue I have with work lately. I feel like I never really had the mindset you're supposed to have, as a worker. It seems like you're supposed to want to work to make society/the world better, because you're supposed to identify as a part of it, as a member of it. So you're supposed to want to work for the betterment of it, and supposed to want to take pride in your role/the part you play. And you're supposed to want to fulfill your potential, and in doing so be as productive as you can be, by pushing yourself to the limits of your capabilities - which usually corresponds to the highest-paying and most prestigious job you are able to do.
Not trying to be edgy or anything, but I never really identified with society or with being a member of it. I felt like it's their world, and I just live in it. I never felt like I had much of a stake in it. I wasn't born into a high place, and I felt like I didn't really have the right strengths that were valued, so I never felt like there was much I could do. In fact, I never felt like I had any strengths at all, and that's the problem - if you don't have strengths, you're not valued. So I could never wrap my head around wanting to work for this thing, that doesn't value me, that essentially says I'm worthless. I'm supposed to want to work for other people's good time, that I don't have much of a share in myself. Not exactly compelling.
Also, this whole idea of only being valued if you had strengths, seemed to contradict a lot of the "getting along" messages I got from parents, teachers, and other things like that in childhood, which I thought suggested that we all have inherent value, and that's why we should be nice to each other basically. I guess I thought that if interactions between people were real, then they weren't supposed to be conditional. This line of thinking of only being valued if you had strengths, seemed to be the mindset of the "cool"/"popular" kids, the ********. And I thought it was backwards and morally wrong, because a lot of having strengths is luck, and you could lose your strengths, and I thought that if you are so lucky as to have strengths you should be gracious about it instead of acting like you are "better" and lording it over others.
I haven't seen "hard work", actually work for a lot of people. Mostly I've seen people just stay at the level of ability, and money, and everything else, that they were born to. People can always get worse, but it's been very rare for me to see someone actually do better. I haven't seen someone work from poor to rich, from weak to strong, from unattractive to attractive, from "uncool" to "cool", or from sucking at something to being really good at it. I'd like to believe it's possible, because then at least there's some hope. But I haven't really seen it.
The other thing is, I'm not sure what I want to work on, even if I did have enough strengths to work on whatever I wanted. I think a lot of things are good enough as they are, and already have been for a while. I don't care if they ever get better, they could stay the same as they are now forever and that would be fine with me. In fact, I feel like making them better, usually only makes them more expensive and inaccessible. Like phones. I was never able to afford a smartphone in the past, so why do I care if the next one is more powerful or smaller or whatever? Or computers, or even things that I'm actually into, like video games and cars. The ones we had before, were fine. Especially cars - part of the reason they keep getting more expensive is that they keep getting more power, but most people aren't really ever going to use their cars to the fullest potential so it's kind of a waste. 400-500 hp max, would be fine, and even that is pushing it. I think we could have just stopped once performance levels got back to where they were before the Malaise Era, and called it a day. Maybe change up the body styles every 10 years or so for the sake of variety and keeping things fresh, and that's it. Then there are all these technology packages and infotainment systems, that we were fine without before, and that it's hard to opt out of today. All of that raises the base price. I think that because things kind of have to constantly improve - you wouldn't want next year's model of anything to be worse than last year's, especially if you're paying more for it, and companies generally don't want to charge less for their products than they did last year - has kind of painted us into a corner of fixing things that weren't broken to begin with, which at the end of the day, mostly just makes the thing that was fine before, more expensive.
Then there's other things, like going to Mars. But it's not going to be a cool interplanetary adventure like in fiction, it's just going to be a slog of survival. I just feel like reality is kind of boring a lot of the time. If we went to Mars, it's like, cool, I guess. But what's it going to do for me anyway? Nothing. So I don't really care about it.
I actually do agree with the "fulfilling your potential" bit. I'd like to do that. The thing is, I think I do want to work on something - just something that I'd actually like to work on, that I find engaging and that I'm actually interested in doing, that gets me somewhere in life and where I'm not just getting exploited. But I don't know what that could be for me, and only certain jobs actually pay anything, and if you don't have those interests or strengths, it's hard figuring out your options because none of them seem any good. I don't know what I'd want to decide on and commit to, what I want to devote my life to, what I want my life's work to be. I don't know what would be most meaningful, satisfying, fulfilling, intrinsically rewarding.
Finally I'm worried that I have no potential to fulfill in the first place - which is something that I've realized has been underlying everything all my life.
Not trying to be edgy or anything, but I never really identified with society or with being a member of it. I felt like it's their world, and I just live in it. I never felt like I had much of a stake in it. I wasn't born into a high place, and I felt like I didn't really have the right strengths that were valued, so I never felt like there was much I could do. In fact, I never felt like I had any strengths at all, and that's the problem - if you don't have strengths, you're not valued. So I could never wrap my head around wanting to work for this thing, that doesn't value me, that essentially says I'm worthless. I'm supposed to want to work for other people's good time, that I don't have much of a share in myself. Not exactly compelling.
Also, this whole idea of only being valued if you had strengths, seemed to contradict a lot of the "getting along" messages I got from parents, teachers, and other things like that in childhood, which I thought suggested that we all have inherent value, and that's why we should be nice to each other basically. I guess I thought that if interactions between people were real, then they weren't supposed to be conditional. This line of thinking of only being valued if you had strengths, seemed to be the mindset of the "cool"/"popular" kids, the ********. And I thought it was backwards and morally wrong, because a lot of having strengths is luck, and you could lose your strengths, and I thought that if you are so lucky as to have strengths you should be gracious about it instead of acting like you are "better" and lording it over others.
I haven't seen "hard work", actually work for a lot of people. Mostly I've seen people just stay at the level of ability, and money, and everything else, that they were born to. People can always get worse, but it's been very rare for me to see someone actually do better. I haven't seen someone work from poor to rich, from weak to strong, from unattractive to attractive, from "uncool" to "cool", or from sucking at something to being really good at it. I'd like to believe it's possible, because then at least there's some hope. But I haven't really seen it.
The other thing is, I'm not sure what I want to work on, even if I did have enough strengths to work on whatever I wanted. I think a lot of things are good enough as they are, and already have been for a while. I don't care if they ever get better, they could stay the same as they are now forever and that would be fine with me. In fact, I feel like making them better, usually only makes them more expensive and inaccessible. Like phones. I was never able to afford a smartphone in the past, so why do I care if the next one is more powerful or smaller or whatever? Or computers, or even things that I'm actually into, like video games and cars. The ones we had before, were fine. Especially cars - part of the reason they keep getting more expensive is that they keep getting more power, but most people aren't really ever going to use their cars to the fullest potential so it's kind of a waste. 400-500 hp max, would be fine, and even that is pushing it. I think we could have just stopped once performance levels got back to where they were before the Malaise Era, and called it a day. Maybe change up the body styles every 10 years or so for the sake of variety and keeping things fresh, and that's it. Then there are all these technology packages and infotainment systems, that we were fine without before, and that it's hard to opt out of today. All of that raises the base price. I think that because things kind of have to constantly improve - you wouldn't want next year's model of anything to be worse than last year's, especially if you're paying more for it, and companies generally don't want to charge less for their products than they did last year - has kind of painted us into a corner of fixing things that weren't broken to begin with, which at the end of the day, mostly just makes the thing that was fine before, more expensive.
Then there's other things, like going to Mars. But it's not going to be a cool interplanetary adventure like in fiction, it's just going to be a slog of survival. I just feel like reality is kind of boring a lot of the time. If we went to Mars, it's like, cool, I guess. But what's it going to do for me anyway? Nothing. So I don't really care about it.
I actually do agree with the "fulfilling your potential" bit. I'd like to do that. The thing is, I think I do want to work on something - just something that I'd actually like to work on, that I find engaging and that I'm actually interested in doing, that gets me somewhere in life and where I'm not just getting exploited. But I don't know what that could be for me, and only certain jobs actually pay anything, and if you don't have those interests or strengths, it's hard figuring out your options because none of them seem any good. I don't know what I'd want to decide on and commit to, what I want to devote my life to, what I want my life's work to be. I don't know what would be most meaningful, satisfying, fulfilling, intrinsically rewarding.
Finally I'm worried that I have no potential to fulfill in the first place - which is something that I've realized has been underlying everything all my life.
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Wrong
Silent Hill
No harm done, I didn't see it as an attack and I get it. Personally, I can't work because of my sleep disorder(s). I tried for the longest time and when I was young I could still do without sleep, despite always being real, real tired. I did a lot of interesting different jobs, but eventually I just had to quit. Now I'm a freelance artist so I make my own hours, and I get disability. Whatever I make more I simply sent them receipts and its deducted from my disability. I realize this is not for everybody, because me personally too I haven't had a car in over 20 years, I need to make due with less. But personally I don't mind it, and I'm happier in a sense. It did give me a lot to think about over the years though and I just don't believe this thing in society that when if you don't work, you somehow are less. Its sorta looked down upon and I think that thats bullshit. I feel every person should do what they really want to do.
I've been back at work for 10 days now, teaching 3 yoga classes in the morning and guitar lessons in the afternoon. My hamstrings are killing me and my fingertips feel like someone's scrapped them off with sandpaper, I think I've got tennis elbow now too. So yeah I wish I didn't have to work.
TheSkaFish
Jedi Guardian
Hmm, I see. It's nice that you're able to do what you want to do, and to make your own hours. But I don't think that would work for me, as I don't have a disability that I know of.
Also, "making due with less" is something that I've always been frustrated with and always wanted to escape, and I hope I can find a way out before I either go crazy, and/or give up on life. Our quality of life was never great to begin with - it got a little better in the '90s and probably peaked in the early '00s, but it's been getting increasingly more miserable every year especially as the 2010s wore on to the present.
So it looks like I'm going to have to find some career I can live with, that I hate less than I hate my current lifestyle. Which should be possible to find. I'm just not sure what that is yet. Sometimes I wish I was one of those people that's always known what they want to do, and just does it, and that's it. But I have no idea what that would be for me. Money is important to me, whether I want it to be or not. But so is being an interesting person/having a personality. And all the while I worry that I'm going to be stuck in a shitty quality of life, because I don't have enough ability to do either.
I fully agree with your last three sentences, though.
Or, you can do what I did and work your ass off with several jobs, save every bit you can, continually go to school at the same time, get a degree, then get one okay job, continue to go to school, get a higher degree, get an even better job, get more training in that field, whatever the hell it happens to be, and then get an even better job. Then buy a POS house and spend years fixing it up. Then keep doing that until you are done and have enough money. Then you can quit working before you hit retirement.
The real key is saving money no matter what. Even though I could afford a car I didn't want to pay for car insurance. So, I rode my bike to jobs early on. Then I put a motor on my bike and rode that, that was WAY before it was cool to do too. Ha! ha! After that I drove a POS car when everybody else kept buying new vehicles and looking down on me. They all thought I must be in some kind of financial hardship or something. Ha! ha! I only wanted to work as long as I needed to.
The funny thing is that society in general, looks down on me for not working. It's like I'm supposed to be using all my skills to help out society or whatever. No thanks. It's almost like they are thinking, "I have to work so you should too. It's not fair." So, instead of actually saying that they just call me a looser because I'm not working.
I've also known a few people that voluntarily lived in the parks or whereever they happened to be. I ran into a lot of interesting people that didn't work, didn't have any money, and were still are able to travel around and see the sites. Many of them didn't have an obvious mental disorders either. There are tricks to doing that. But, it's beyond my comfort level. You will be hungry often. You will smell. And people will treat you like crap. But, it's also very freeing.
It kind of reminds me of the movie, "Into the Wild." Although they skip over nearly all the hardships a person doing that would have.
The other Fd up thing for the younger generations is that thanks to all the government spending, devaluing the dollar, everything of real value has gotten stupid expensive. Basic trucks for $80K. WTF? An average home for $350K? Buying a home and paying off the mortgage has been the standard way to have a comfortable retirement. But, unless one makes a good salary that's very difficult to do now.
The real key is saving money no matter what. Even though I could afford a car I didn't want to pay for car insurance. So, I rode my bike to jobs early on. Then I put a motor on my bike and rode that, that was WAY before it was cool to do too. Ha! ha! After that I drove a POS car when everybody else kept buying new vehicles and looking down on me. They all thought I must be in some kind of financial hardship or something. Ha! ha! I only wanted to work as long as I needed to.
The funny thing is that society in general, looks down on me for not working. It's like I'm supposed to be using all my skills to help out society or whatever. No thanks. It's almost like they are thinking, "I have to work so you should too. It's not fair." So, instead of actually saying that they just call me a looser because I'm not working.
I've also known a few people that voluntarily lived in the parks or whereever they happened to be. I ran into a lot of interesting people that didn't work, didn't have any money, and were still are able to travel around and see the sites. Many of them didn't have an obvious mental disorders either. There are tricks to doing that. But, it's beyond my comfort level. You will be hungry often. You will smell. And people will treat you like crap. But, it's also very freeing.
It kind of reminds me of the movie, "Into the Wild." Although they skip over nearly all the hardships a person doing that would have.
The other Fd up thing for the younger generations is that thanks to all the government spending, devaluing the dollar, everything of real value has gotten stupid expensive. Basic trucks for $80K. WTF? An average home for $350K? Buying a home and paying off the mortgage has been the standard way to have a comfortable retirement. But, unless one makes a good salary that's very difficult to do now.
TheSkaFish
Jedi Guardian
Yeah, see, this is why just working is probably the best bet for me after all. Because if the freedom I had, was really just the freedom to be hungry and cold and smell bad all the time, then I would say it defeats the purpose of having freedom at all. Like, you wouldn't be working, but it doesn't mean you now have more time to do what you want - which is what most people really want freedom for. But instead, you're just free to suffer. That's the thing that gets me about the whole argument of how we have so much "freedom" in America, it's like, sure you technically have the freedom to do things just about any way you want. But at the same time, there really are only a few "right" answers - everything else just leads to misery, making the "freedom" to choose it, pointless. If I were any of those people in the stories, being cold, hungry, dirty, and so on would make it impossible for me to actually enjoy traveling, or anything else. Like you said, it's beyond my comfort level.
We actually read "Into the Wild" in college. I have to say, I didn't really get the guy that the story was about, I didn't really understand why he was romanticized. It seemed like his trip was all hardship, and no joy, and I was like, why bother with it then? I always felt like there were probably better ways he could have handled things, and he kind of threw his life away for nothing.
The older I get, the more I think that I probably should have just been an accountant like I'd planned to in the first place, after all. And then I'd probably have still wound up lonely, due to not being able to impress anyone or get anyone interested in or excited about me. I probably wouldn't even be able to get me interested in myself. I'd probably be one of those guys you see online sometimes saying things like, "I have a decent job, why don't any women like me" (and the answer is that it's not the 1950s anymore, culture changed, as more people got to stability, that was no longer enough, and you have to be interesting, exciting, and charming now). I'd just have been the grown-up version of what I was as a kid, just going to work (instead of school) and going home and liking my fandoms. It didn't work then, and it wouldn't work now either. But I don't know how to do anything else.
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August Campbell
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Once in a while I work but only if I have to. So not currently. And I'm not homeless or hungry. All I do is play tennis with the Platonic Sheila and play cribbage with my male buddies. Life is fun.
It's very difficult to find the best situation. I've tried several different routes. I think travelling around in a vehicle with enough money to support yourself and having a place to call home if you need to crash is the best. But, when you have a home you have to deal with all the crap that goes along with it. Plus you are tied to it. You always have to return home. I really hate that part.
An RV would be cool because it would be comfortable and your home would be your RV. But, it's expensive especially if you have to park it in pay camp areas. Plus you usually can't get to the cool places. So, using a car/truck as your home would be cool. But, again, you loose out on comfort. I've lived in my truck several times during my life. It always got old to me after a few months.
The problem is when we get comfortable we get lazy. Access to a hot shower every night? F the truck. Ha! ha! Then our situations become a trap. That's why owning nothing and hitting the streets, parks, and crash pads is so freeing. You can go any where and stay as long as you want to or not. Bad neighbors, just get up and go some where else after getting your revenge of course. Ha! ha!
Maybe if someone was disciplined they could work some and keep the money in the bank for bad times while hoofing it most of the time. A few people I got to know would work the winters and enjoy the summers job free. I spoke with several state and federal park hosts that did that. It's prefectly fine to have mental disorders and work those jobs. I think it's actually a common thing. Plus you get to be outdoors. I was planning on doing that but I never got around to doing it. Now I don't need to do it. Well, and I don't want to be around any other people any more. There's that too. ha! ha!
Oddly, you strike me as utterly normal. That says something about at least one of us, and I'm not entirely sure who.
Maybe it's a language problem. I'm no native speaker. I have psychic diseases, I don't mean mental illnesses, but I'm not sure If that means the same.
What does "normal" means. I am a normal person, that is just not healthy enough right now. That's why I get a special treatment to stabilize.
I don't know, what you mean to say with your last sentence.
TogetherAlone
Well-known member
Man I dun even know I just want to sleep and when I worked I was always so tired and drained and sometimes so stressed I couldn't really sleep which made me more tired and drained, I remember one day doing an early 9 hour shift with zero sleep and a 12 hour shift with like 2 hours sleep before hand.
Your thoughts and analogies seem reasoned and rational. The words you write, native or otherwise, make sense in my mind. I can picture your thoughts, like clear visual images.
Does that make sense?
Yes, it does.
You could rethink your definition of normal and see ppl with psychic disabilities in another light then, because it's not as oddly as you think.
August Campbell
My ultimate dream came true.
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