Since others have fully covered the Q portion of your comment I came to say that that cool saucer separation that’s so bad ass happens like 3 times max!

I get that maybe it’s “expensive” or awkward to write or something from the production standpoint that makes it underused, but seriously, is it “expensive” in-universe?! Because they spread that shit out more sparingly than me buying pine nuts!

Other show reference alert: it’s a lot like on Deep Space 9 how rarely Odo changes. If I had that fucking power I wouldn’t hold back! Let’s see, can I squeeze any more complaints in? I never understood the premise on Bewitched that Darren & Sam wouldn’t want to use her powers to make things better constantly! Ok I’m done. For now.

Vivaldi on laptop, Orion on iPhone — but as of last week Orion is crashing multiple times a day (after months of use without issues).

I already wrote 2 loooong responses to you and @katana314 but I wanted to piggyback more specifically on what you say here. As an artist I have felt a lack of opportunities / interest / niche because I'm a middle aged, white, male, upper middle class background. I somehow don't think my gayness counts for much, probably related to some of my own stereotypes about my demographic that I get into in my longer comments. The doors that are open to me as a white male do not lead places I want to go. Living according to my values leads me into spaces where my characteristics are (possibly) unwanted. It's not something I normally articulate due to the many advantages I do have, and have experienced. My focus is to produce work in accordance with my values, to never stop expressing and living according to those values, and the positive feedback I do receive is more valuable that way.

I tried to tag you in my reply below but I'm not sure if I did it right. I wrote TWO long posts underneath @cubedsteaks -- and YOU said your post was longer than it should be! If you don't have time to read my serialized thoughts below, just know that I appreciated your response.

2/2
When I'm fully funded I would devise a series called White People Problems. Despite the provocative title I would not presume to speak for others. Honest discourse is personal and leaves the generalizing to the audience. In this long post I have scratched the surface of what I see as "white people's problems." I believe that many white Americans are hurting, disconnected from meaning, disconnected from each other. The centrality of money and centuries of exploitation are the foundational causes. Racial division is a secondary result and useful tool to maintain society based on materialism and exploitation. On Being is my favorite podcast. I think it may have been an episode with Isabel Wilkerson (Caste https://www.isabelwilkerson.com) that pointed out how all of society is harmed by racism, white supremacy, inequality. I believe white Americans suffer deeply. In very different ways from non-whites, obviously. I believe that the loudest voices addressing white people who are suffering offer increased hate and bigotry, in a stubborn commitment to sunk costs. If I were fully funded I would seek to address this need. I believe that the suffering of white Americans (including materialism, lack of community, lack of meaning) is destroying civilization and the planet.

And SIGH a slight post script for anyone who may feel argumentative about what I have said: There is a difference between blame, shame, and hate, and what I am saying. Also keep in mind that I am trying to phrase this SIMPLY as my beliefs from my personal feelings and experience as a white male who has lived the past half century. In my experience white identity, white culture, white commitment to democracy and other supposed values, and white Christianity are hollow and meaningless. I'm not trying to argue others into seeing my point of view, but I think that the things we are witnessing reinforce my suspicions. Declines in religious membership indicate something is lacking there. Religion especially angers me because of its privileged status and the fact that it is the realm that could be healing and helping. In my experience US white Christianity is causing harm. I called myself an atheist for many years; and, though that's technically accurate, I now identify as Humanist. I prefer to express positive values to others. I think a person can be any other affiliation and also a humanist.

...

I could go on forever because I feel a lot of passion around these topics. I'll end by saying democracy is consent. Respecting each other requires consent. We will never fully understand or agree with each other. Improving democracy, while participating in our current flawed system, is the only hope I see. Money and structural inequalities are corruptions of democracy that remove consent. One person, one vote. Removing manipulation. I don't believe I will live to see the triumph of respect for ourselves and each other. It's my guiding star, though.

I make the joke about "fully funded" but it's not a joke. If anyone who sees this knows of any way I could direct my passion towards improving the world I am open to suggestions. All my previous jobs were making the world worse, and making me unhappy. I quit during the pandemic. I am a visual artist, committed to humanism and democracy. Lately I have been living off beans, bread, and peanut butter. If I could I would put this paragraph in iMessage hidden style, or upside down. I don't want to ruin the points I'm sincerely trying to make by discussing the fact that I'm not making ends meet. At the same time I do think my lack of income is a relevant data point.

I'm attempting to reply to @Katana314 & @cubedsteaks but I really don't know what I'm doing. Katana, you say your post is too long for the format, and I totally get what you mean but want you to know how much I appreciate it. I'll use the spoons metaphor to say that sometimes I'm able, open, eager to engage in patient dialogue... and sometimes I'm not. Tonight I am and I've just written a reply that's TOO LONG for the input field! Here's Part One:

I'm white, 51, gay, artist. Whenever I gripe about "white America" it is from my biased perspective. My experience of "my culture" growing up was a homogenous monoethnic white Christian blob, centered on money/materialism and gatekeeping/judgment of others. That doesn't have to be everyone's experience of white America, but it was mine -- and my observation of cultural critiques tells me that I'm not the only one who saw things that way. I'm not self-hating now but I was deeply self-hating until I accepted myself as "unacceptable" to the standards of my upbringing. I took a different path and feel that I have found meaning by rejecting my upbringing. Other groups speak of "the ancestors" and such... I find little sustenance there since my ancestors were white supremacists. The generation above me are anti-gay, Fox-watching, Trump-voting... We have superficial relationships but not what I call love. In some ways this gulf is "my fault" because it has been my "decision" to reject my upbringing... but I suffered massive cognitive dissonance until I sort of "rebooted" as a clean slate. Sigh. I am running out of spoons as I type -- didn't mean to get so deeply personal. Uhhh, earlier someone objected to me calling out "white America"; I didn't reply because it didn't feel like an invitation to productive conversation. The best I might have come up with would have been sarcastic: "Gosh, I'd hate for any white Americans to see my post and decide to be awful people to spite me!" It's just... yeah. I knew when I wrote my initial post it was lacking nuance, because of the format. And I live in FUCKING JACKSONVILLE. [Pause for real tears.] I have been in the store where the recent murders took place. I received my Covid shots on the campus of the HBCU the white terrorist prowled before he went and killed elsewhere. When I was the killer's age I was at my lowest point mentally/emotionally. If I had had easy access to guns I might not be here today. Thankfully guns were not part of my family's culture. Few people I knew growing up in the 70s/80s were into guns. Some people went on hunting trips. Other than that no one wanted guns around in the suburbs other than bb-guns. When I was the killer's age I felt zero connection to community. I never fell into white supremacy (beyond the implicit bias I absorbed as standard). I was religious and deeply, desperately closeted. Any aggressive and negative thoughts I had were directed at the gay community. I was bitter that support groups existed for "them" and not for me. It could have been my support, but my homophobia was so strong it took me until almost 30 to accept myself as gay. My 20s were awful. My life continues to be isolated... The gay men I know are into money, superficial looks, partying, drugs, alcohol, and more money -- and I hate lazily invoking stereotypes but this is how I feel. I've known so many gay Republicans. It hurts. My own voting history was: GOP, NOTHING, GREEN, DEM, DEM, DEM, DEM... I'm a little proud I only voted GOP once, but it took me 3-4 presidential cycles for me to understand the US democracy game. That's another area where community might have helped, but I felt none.

If I had the spoons...
I have a friend who begins her fantasies with, "When I win the lottery..." Since I see the lottery as harmful money-worship I had a conversation with this friend about it. She uses the phrase to inspire freedom to dream, so I invented my own variation: When I'm fully funded! An artist (who rejects a consumerist model) can dream, can't he?!

1/2

To get a compliment out of the way first, your basic guide to using markdown in WriteFreely is superb. I plan to make it my go-to reference.

I also see that your blog is an offshoot of a queer publishing group. Love everything about what you're doing. I embrace the sincerity in your questions, and on the blog. I am sitting 14,000 km away from you, feeling similar feelings.

If you will indulge, I have no answers but wish to express my own questions:

• What is worth doing?
• What is worth sharing?
• I have limited time and energy. Is a response necessary to provide reward for an action?
  Applies to art and non-art. Today I cleaned. Yesterday I did not. Does that make today better than yesterday? Does that make me a better person today than I was yesterday? Is existence enough?

I often jump from one thought to another like that, and see everything as linked. The links between art, existence, worthiness — how I evaluate myself; if & how I choose to present myself, shared with others; and the role the responses (or lack of responses) by others play in the value of what I do, who I am.

I am a 51 year old, white, queer, US American cis man, identifying as an artist for 30 years. Since 2020 I gave up "outside work" and spend my time reading, researching, thinking, writing, and making art. I do not make a living — that alone is sufficient evidence that I am not doing enough, not doing the right thing, not proving that my existence has value... at least according to a particular point of view. Rejecting that point of view is part of the mental work I am doing to accept myself and all others as worthy by virtue of being living humans on this shared Earth.

I do not offer answers. I have endless questions.
I wish you well.
Rob

P.S. On community & being found: I am using Kbin right now. I am also enjoying the Fediverse via Mastodon, Pixelfed, Firefish, Funkwhale, and WriteFreely. I found your post by searching Kbin for "WriteFreely". I have a blog on Paper.wf that is not permitting any posting at the moment. I came here in hopes of finding answers, or a Paper.wf community or WriteFreely community. Yet another example of the difficulty of being found and finding connections is that these Fediverse offerings are truly wonderful assortments of largely lovely people — and they pale in numbers compared to those other awful places that I am used to. It is difficult for me to find meaningful input from more than a handful of people anywhere on the Fediverse. I am working on it. I believe what I want/need is not easy to find, on- or offline. In any case, I did not find any explanation for why my WriteFreely instance Paper.wf is not working. Instead I found your authentic expression of hope for connection. I suppose I wrote this response instead of writing in my blog (that no one sees 😛). I hope that Paper.wf resumes functioning some day. In the meantime, even when the Fediverse has technical flaws or I am not making many connections, I still feel happier and healthier here than in other online options.

To calm my mind I work to reduce:

• unwanted inputs
• broadcast media
• advertising
• bad faith arguing (and the unfortunate corresponding output of me arguing back, feeling angry & hopeless)
• time and energy spent harming my own wellbeing (I chose a path of financial instability for mental health; my prior jobs made me & the world worse)

& to increase:

• silence
• walking
• nature appreciation
• reading
• creativity
• meditation

Meditation is something I have felt for years I should do, but didn’t. Just last week I started a new daily practice. I had difficulty with apps and podcasts and YouTube videos because of the capitalist need for $urvival. When the path to inner peace features billboards I tend to lose focus. So I started doing it myself. I’m recording the sessions and will share them to encourage others who may be like me. I intend to show that maybe it’s not so difficult and foreign to pause and breathe and talk to oneself. In no way am I following any meditation tradition. I considered coming up with another label but felt that meditation would be the one most easily understood. I have joined this community and will post my meditation series here in the next week or two.

My name is Rob. I’m 51. I’m an abstract expressionist painter. My diagnoses (received in my early 20s) are ADHD, major depression, and eventually bipolar. I have taken many prescriptions. I have attended much therapy. I’m not doing either at the moment, for a combination of financial and DIY/philosophical reasons. I do not judge the course others take on their route to survival. At least I aspire not to judge. It’s one thing I’m working on, including in meditation.

P.S.
I experienced mild anxiety as I wrote this comment in the form of these thoughts:

• Maybe after one day HandOfDoom already received enough response. I can think of many times I’ve reached out online then retreated as I felt overwhelmed by replies — and I’m not talking as someone with a huge following, 3 replies can overwhelm me!
• If I’m not careful I will write a book length response because figuring this stuff out is my life story.

Since you mentioned “boring” — Probably the most out of step thing about me is that I think boredom is healthy. I think constantly stimulating stories (and consumption habits, relationships, news…) are interfering with the hard, slow work of sustainable existence. (I just realized I’m almost quoting Dr. Wong! Sorry lol)

I crave entertainment and distraction. And I admit my huge flaw of falling into a lecturing tone. Sigh. I don’t mean it. I only want to control me. It’s just that for most of my life I’ve been pretty unhappy and dysfunctional & I see links between my past state and a desire for escape and constant entertainment. Is this still about kissing in movies? Maybe. We are just sharing opinions on the internet. Getting feelings out is good.

Gonna go watch Andy Warhol’s “Sleep” now…

Agree with observations above. It could be related to ADHD. I also wonder if you experience chronic pain of any kind? Those are the two factors that can cause clumsiness in me. Good luck!

I’m not currently using RSS, it’s been years. And yes I also felt overwhelmed. I have same problem with Podcasts on my iPhone and honestly email. Just like in most cases I don’t want to be pushed content. My brain feels bad for not keeping up. The best use of RSS that I can imagine for me would be following a small number of original content creators who post erratically in multiple platforms. It’s another reason I love the fediverse so much bc we can slap /feed on the end of many addresses to pull that content elsewhere. And again I’m not currently using RSS lol. I’m just saying that I might use it for passionate follows. I think it’s a useful tool for getting people free of the big bad platforms.

Why do I see my image in preview and not in the post? 😫