Libb

Dirt, sweat, dead skin are all things that will get on the fabric just by wearing it. I’d rather have it regularly cleaned ;)

The same as every single other day of the year, since I’m my own boss and set my own schedule.

Hobbies are the best way to meet people wanting to do something (beside looking at their phones, I mean).

• I was into scale models, people would meet to do (and to talk) scale models.
• I play chess (irl), people will meet to play (and to talk) chess
• Sketching/painting/photo/art. Here in my city it’s not hard to find people that like to do urban sketching or go out to take pictures, or go to expo, museums and so on.

Have you look around what IRL activities are related to hobbies you may be into? You may also ask your local public library, if they do not organize activities themselves they will probably have info on some other org doing it.

Like u/NeoNachtwaechter rightfully said:

Society, community… these are abstract terms. You cannot talk to them. The cannot love you.

Life happens when you meet people (not abstractions).

So, when you write:

Preferably in real life and without religion or alcohol.

Don’t see anything personal in the following remark (I don’t smoke and don’t drink, I quit both many decades ago, and I don’t give a flying fuck about religion myself) but you can’t expect to meet people that fit your expectations.

Life does not work like a dating app (luckily).

You will meet people, a few of them you will appreciate more than many, many others. All of them, even the ‘nicest’ ones, will still annoy you one way or another. Like you will annoy them, or like I do. We all.

My spouse and I have been together for 25 years and counting, we’re glad to be together but I can assure you we also both have traits or habits the other don’t like at all, and that’s fine. My best friend and I have been friends for well over 40 years and we’re at the complete opposite politically speaking, we always have been. Like we never agreed and we never will. We’re fine with our lifelong disagreements because we have many other common interests (and he is a very interesting guy even if his politics are shit ;)

So, the first thing I would suggest would be to accept that people will not be what you want them to be, or how you want them to be.

And then to let things happen, or not happen. That’s my second advice: be ok with nothing happening or with failing when trying to make them happen. Most of the time meeting people won’t go anywhere and that’s to be expected. Don’t give up, keep on meeting people and spend some time with them.

I know those advice may sound a bit… generalist but you did not share a lot of context yourself to give you a more specific answer either. And, generalist or not, those are still two advice I follow myself.

+1 Depends the use case.

• For writing/reading? A pen and a notebook: weeks/months autonomy, lightweight, works also when under the rain or in cold and almost unbreakable. Ditto for a paperback book or two.
• For photo? A Mac (with an added mate screen protector, to reduce light reflection on that glossy screen: less reflection means less need to put brightness at max = even better autonomy). A secondhand M1 Air would be great and a lot cheaper too than a newer one (and you won’t miss much from the newer models if you’re doing digital photo on the go).

I quit some 20 years ago without using vape (did it exist back then? Not sure) or any medication. That day, after careful consideration I made up my mind and never looked back.

And not just because of my health (it was a very important factor) but also because I had realized how much money I was throwing away. Thousands each year.

That would still be my answer, too ;)

maths.

I never had enough brains to not suck at maths.

Thanks for being the first person in this thread** to actually post some useful tips** to get the lead out, so to speak.

Sorry to contradict you here but, like I suggested in another comment, reading a book instead of playing with a gun is also a very efficient (and cheap) way to lessen lead exposure :p

I didn’t mean to suggest that it was the only explanation,

Neither would I, just wanted to… how do you say that in English… to compare two hypothesis and say that between the two, alas, I think the lack of education (which is closely linked to the anti-intellectualism you mention) may be a more important factor.

That Atlantic article is pretty crazy,

And frightening, and sad.

Here’s an archive link for anybody else who wants to check it out since its paywalled

https://archive.is/xr5Jd

Thx! I did not realize it was now paywalled (I read it a few months ago).

As an outsider (most people in my country don’t shoot guns for fun, but we still have our fair share of morons) I think not educating oneself/not being educated may be a more important cause.

My personal opinion is that it’s more related to the way people spend (waste) their time. All of us, I mean. The way we (do not) educate ourselves, the way we do (not) value intelligence and knowledge.

• How many people shoot guns? vs How many don’t ever read a book (a difficult one, I mean, say one essay a year)? or How many students reach university level without having read a single book? FFS, if that doesn’t ring an alarm bell…
• How many people are (not) being taught how to have heated but articulated discussions, in the literal sense of debating against someone, having a dispute with someone, while still being able to not want to kill one another?
• How many people are willing to be told (and willing to admit that) they were wrong… when they were?

That lack of education and an overall cheerful ignorance of all facts that dare not fit their viewpoint, no matter which one it is, seems to me a much more likely cause to explain why more and more people around the world (not just Americans) ‘seem cognitively impaired’. And that’s because, well, they are. Sadly.

We don’t value knowledge anymore, we value money and success. Once again, suffice to ask people: how many essays did you read in the last 12 months? Or to look at kids, how many of them want to be, say, a doctor, a scientist of some sort or, even funnier, a writer? And how many want to become ‘an influencer’ on YT (or TikTok, or whatever) or to become some star singer or sport star?

Kids have not suddenly become allergic to smartness. They’re only the mirror of what our real values as a society are (not the ones we pretend to have). Which are not being smart, not even talented as a matter of fact. They are: easy money and success.

imho, this is the main cause of dumbification going on everywhere. Obviously, I may be wrong and maybe I should stop eating lead bars as a snack?

iNaturalist

Thx a lot, I did not know about tis website.

Like others have suggested already, I have no issue imagining the apparition of new space(s) that will themselves become true alternatives to the Web. Heck, the Web itself become the success it is as an alternative to other online spaces.

A bit like with TV. I have not owned a TV since the early 00s, because I consider TV mostly crappy content that is also over-saturated with ads, two things I’m not interested in wasting my time with. Luckily, there are alternative ways to access visual content that don’t require me to watch a TV. But TV still exists for people that like it.

The real question should be: will people be willing to move away from what the web is becoming/has become, the place where all their friends/family/colleagues are, in order to populate a less shitty but newer kind of space? Looking around me, I have some doubts. I remember when blogs were new and cool. The intensity/quality in some of them was great and there were large readership. Today, it’s barely if anyone will click on link that doesn’t point to YT (or reddit, or some other social media)… That doesn’t bode well, imho.

Yeah, but i suspect you use lemmy on your phone or really only on desktop?

Desktop only.

So you’ve never had the pleasure of using one of the all great Lemmy Clients on your phone?

I downloaded such an app not long ago, to give it a shot and for some specific reason I cannot recall (maybe I was having issues displaying some content on my computer, doesn’t matter much), I installed it not on the iPhone (my old eyes and I we find its screen way too cramped to our taste), but on an iPad. The app itself was rather pleasant to use, it was called Voyager if recall correctly, and I could easily see myself using it if I needed to check on Lemmy that regularly, but I don’t and I already spend too much time on Lemmy when I’m on the computer. So, I removed it ;)

What do you spend your time doing on your phone?

Not much.

Heck, I don’t even check the time on my phone (it’s quicker to look at my wrist watch and I think it looks nicer too ;)

I have a phone because I’m expected to have one but only installed the few apps I must have access to (passwords, digital ID, security, banking & finance apps, and health). Plus, the fewer apps I find helpful on a regular basis (the city public transportation app, taxi, and the Uber app). That’s about it.

The only other installed apps on the phone are those Apple won’t let me remove (I grouped them on the second home screen, so I never have to look at them). There is also my cloud app/service (Filen.io) and that document scanning app I purchased so many years ago but that is still regularly updated.

Not even email is configured, there is no social app (and no YT). I also don’t listen to audio messages and never answer unidentified numbers. I will sometimes listen to a podcast but since I tend to take notes while I’m listening to most podcasts I enjoy, I prefer doing it at home not when I’m out so I don’t need to use the phone.

I barely use that phone. As a matter of fact, my monthly data usage amounts to a few mega, at most ;)

When I’m not busy doing something specific (which seldom requires me using that phone), I’ll talk with people around me, or I will try to enjoy more my surroundings, the quietness and silence even. I also love taking long walks, going to museums, expo,…

When I really want to ‘spend time’ I’ll still try to make something out of it, either by reading the book I carry with me, or I’ll be taking personal notes or by sketching something in the notebook I also carry with me.

I don’t.

I take it for what I consider it to be: a variable mix between a social contract (people agreeing on what is right and wrong (edit: healthy/not healthy), like with every single other thing going on in any society, whether I agree or not with them is not the point) and some common sense (what it means to be healthy (what sanity is referring to as far as I know) without arguing about abstract notions, like one would try to explain it to a young child maybe?)

So, really for me it’s an ad-hoc definition that has changed many times already, and will change again but it’s also something obvious that I would describe as being able to live among other people not in a perpetual state of anxiety… which may also incidentally imply I would not qualify as the best example of a sane person, who knows?

They could have made a (second) fortune selling vaseline, or some water-based lubricant, to their customers.

The less ‘digital services’ in my life, the better.

edit: forgot a word :p

What follow is only suggestions based on my personal experience I want to share with you. Take whatever you might find helpful and safely ignore the rest.

I gotta move out first but like I said I already tried and failed

Failing is normal. I mean, it’s impossible to do anything difficult without first failing at it. Multiple times.

Failing is how we all learned to walk, by falling over and over again on our padded butt as a toddler. That’s how we learned to write too, by tracing clumsy letters that looked nothing like letters, and after that by making many, many mistakes when we learned grammar and spelling.

That’s how we learn… anything. From wiping our ass clean to being a partner in love, from ironing a shirt to not feel like a failure when things don’t go as expected.

It’s like being paralyzed by the fear of life.

Alas, it looks to me like kids aren’t taught to face failure anymore. Quite the opposite it’s like they’re being taught that things should be quick and that failing is a shame. It’s neither.

Hence so many of them being afraid to try stuff, and to take risks.

Normally I have lots of hobbies (…) I partly did all that when I wasn’t living with my parents.

Imho you need to get back into some hobbies, no matter what they are, quick. You need short term objectives and hobbies are excellent for that.

Is there anything I can do?

Get out of their house and away from them.

Long-term, this means getting a place of your own. But that’s long term and it will require a lot of work. So I would not focus my energy on that for the moment.

Much shorter term, you need to be out of the house, away from your parents, as often as you can, and to do it as quickly as you can. And for that you need nothing but your willingness to experiment various activities so you can find ones you enjoy doing outside.

You like jogging? Set your alarm clock an hours earlier, get up, shower, take a light breakfast and go out jogging. Come back. Do whatever you would usually do and then go out again, later the same day, to jog more. Do it like that every day for a week or two. And see how you feel.

If you fail jogging a day, that’s fine. Use that as an opportunity to better understand the reason you failed so it won’t happen for the same reason again. Be honest with yourself: like when I decided to lose weight it only started working the day I stopped lying to myself.

You find it boring to jog every single day? OK, give yourself some interesting destination. Go to the public library, go watch a movie, go to an expo, in a park…

But currently my state is paralyzing me and preventing me from doing any of that.

You really need to find stuff to do outside of your parent’s home.

If you feel like you can’t go out because of your depression, it may help to focus on smaller/shorter-term objectives. These smaller objectives will help you feel better (but you will still fail don’t forget it, and that’s OK) and they will also help you get out of the house and reach you longer-term objectives. The more you manage to spend time out doing things you enjoy, the better you will feel (for me that would be going out for long walks, but that’s just me)

As a kid (I’m talking 8-10 year-old kid, I’m now 50+), I had a less than ideal relation with my parents, to put it mildly. I quickly realized it was less painful to live inside books and… in the outside world. So, when I was not reading some book, I used to go out all day long, and soon after that during evenings too. First, I would go to the public library to read more books but then, I started going out carrying my little toy film camera, randomly roaming the streets. I explored the whole city with nothing but that little camera and my shy 9 year-old smile and an absolute lack of worries about going to odd places and talking to perfect strangers (it could not be worse than at home). Also, back then kids were not raised to be as paranoid as today, and I can say that most of those strangers were OK-ish. What mattered to me was that I was away from home. I could breath and I was allowed to be… the real me, unlike at home. Also, even though I had my fair share of issues too, I was spending a lot of my time with people that helped me feel better. That was so much better than ruminating in my room.

(Incidentally, going out and snapping pictures it also helped me developed my photographic skills and pushed me to quickly learn how to earn money to… pay for more film, and a better camera)

The thing is that no matter how great it felt and how badly I wanted to keep doing that, I still screwed up things more than a few time and I failed people even more often. Sometimes, it was a real mess. If I told you how badly I screwed my first paid photographic gig! I was not 12 and I was supposed to help a photographer shoot a small local band concert. I was so proud! That was some 40+ years ago but I still vividly recall the shame and anger toward myself when the guy realized all the films were ruined because of clueless me. Of all the rolls, a single one was salvaged… the one I did not touch. That day, I also learned things that would help me for all my life… and to accept that I was not the best, even when I wanted it very much ;)

Sorry, it was long. Hopefully you may find something of use in all that.

I never felt the need to compare myself to others. aka, I’m competing with no one but myself.

I consider that a huge advantage, but who knows maybe I’m wrong.

Were there proprietary predecessor websites?

There were and still are publicly owned (or semi-privately, depends were you’re looking). They were called (public) libraries.
They were great back then (as a kid, as a student and as an adult) and they’re still great nowadays, just less… popular, alas.