or I guess theres no set time of one’s life that should universally be their golden years, rather. I had an awful time starting my 20s, I graduated in 2021 having already lost half my college career to the pandemic, spent a year post college trying unsuccessfully to launch a career, lost another year moving back home to deal with family obligations, then found myself at 23 thinking I had missed the window on some universal period of self actualization that was supposed to happen between ages 19-22.
I think this idea is engrained in us because the progression laid out by our capitalist framework is that we do k-12 school, figure out how to apply our knowledge to a field in college, then know ourselves well enough by then to fit into whatever role we have chosen as the most productive for ourselves, and then do that stably as a career until retirement. or you get married and have kids to and support the domestic life of the partner who progresses professionally. obv what crises like COVID demonstrate is that this progression is flawed, and it’s not a one size fits all mold. to limit one’s entire development as a person into what they do to prepare for a lifetime of working is insanely reductive.
if you find yourself jealous of those younger than you, it’s likely that you envy the stage of life they are in - the stage just before they assume responsibility and obligation and lose the agency to chose how they apply themselves. this is somewhat of an imposed illusion, though. we all have agency at all points of our life to make the choices that can lead us towards our own flourishing, whether they be big steps or small ones.
for me, I decided to change career paths entirely and pursue grad school. i’m about to graduate and now i’m feeling like my passions are leading me elsewhere other than the field I set out to enter when I started my program. I turn 26 in like 3 weeks and i’m still figuring out what drives me and how to pursue it. for some folks that clarity of direction may come sooner, for some it may come later, but the point isn’t for that clarity to steer you to a destination where you then arrive at self actualization and can finally enjoy being - the point is to have the clarity to enjoy where you’re at within process of discovery. to be is to be in process.
ditch the assembly line mindset you were taught, you don’t come out of your early 20s a fully assembled human ready to produce economic value. your whole life is a process of constructing and deconstructing, adding on new pieces, finding joy in troubleshooting the newness of each piece, swapping the old parts for ones that might serve you better, being informed in the creation of the new by what didn’t serve you with the old. you slowly build yourself into a state that works in each moment to produce the greatest flourishing for you in that instance. to inhabit that process actively is self realization. it’s a task, not a place.
you aren’t a fixed piece, and you shouldn’t envy those who are chronologically younger than you because you assume time grants them more freedom to assemble themselves than it does you. they might be more or less realized than you based on how much time or thought they’ve dedicated to the task or how much freedom they’ve had to pursue it. understand, though, that you have control over how much time and thought you dedicate to your own realization and can act on it regardless of stage of life. sometimes obligation gets in the way of the immediacy of that ability, trust me I get that, but even taking brief moments to envision what things or places or people or experiences might serve to build you up in the ways that you need is valuable in and of itself for granting you a sense of direction that you can pursue at any time.
just don’t get so caught up in feeling like you need clarity first to know what to do. don’t sit around getting distracted waiting for it to come to you. interrogate it, seek it out. use your time wisely, but don’t be mislead into thinking there’s a timer on it. there’s no deadline if the assignment isn’t to present a product but instead to enjoy the process of creating and discovering for as long as you so choose.
Jul 11, 2024
Related Recs
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Life is fucking confusing, and every want comes with a doubt.
As far as I can tell, your 20s (I’m 27) are about cobbling together a life while wondering if you should blow it all up. And then someday, hopefully, you fall in love with yourself (or something) and that love becomes a foundation for everything else.
I know people who have built things up and torn them down, people who have made irrevocable choices, people who are coasting. I want all of their lives, sometimes, because I’m sick of the choices I made. I think that’s just fear of commitment, and not taking good care of myself—but who knows, maybe I’m about to make some choices for the plot.
The people who seem to have it all figured out may be crumbling beneath the surface (me irl). The ones I trust the most know how to look around and say “there but for the grace of god go I.” You‘re never too old to let whatever you’ve been collecting slip through your fingers and choose again.
Jul 11, 2024
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I’m about to turn 30 and idk if my 21 year old self would approve of where I’m at—but my 6 year old self sure as hell would!! I think a lot of life is finding your way back to Little You.
Being 21 is so so hard, and in college you’re first starting to see that you can’t judge your progress based on other people. Even though that’s how you were taught to judge yourself up until this point. The things you want now probably won’t matter to you in a few years, and for me that would have sounded terrifying at 21. But that doesn’t mean the things you want now aren’t important.
You can think of it in terms of tattoos. If you get a tattoo at 16 it’s not because you know it will represent you always and forever—it’s to commemorate a moment, a feeling of boldness you wanted to wear proudly. And down the line you don’t look at it with regret, but a softness for that younger part of you. Feel your feelings fully in this moment! Be bold with what you care about! Every age is special.
Practical advice:
Try to listen to your body and not your head. Do I actually like how I feel spending time with this person? Am I going through the motions of this hobby because I think it will service something else? Does xyz come naturally to me, or does it feel forced? No action needed. This exercise isn’t about flipping your life upside down, just take notice of how your body feels in certain situations. Start to notice when you’re in fight or flight versus happy and free. Find the ease and follow it
Jan 25, 2025
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I think right when you graduate college you’re under the impression that you need to pick a job/path and stick with it… and that’s your career! (What I thought. What many of my peers thought.)
In reality as I live through my 20s: it seems that the more satisfied people have reconsidered their path, or maybe done a career switch, or applied to grad school when they never thought they would.
My brother is joining the workforce for the first time in a few months, and I just keep encouraging him to be really critical of his job and critical of his life - because I think it’s great to identify what you don’t like and go ahead and start making moves towards the next thing. Inertia will often be against you, so you have to start slowly pushing thought the molasses asap.
I also think it’s easy to become complacent in whatever you’re doing and delay change just because you’re scared. However, consider that when you talk to older people they’ve often lived so many different lives and had so many different careers and relationships and hobbies and travels…and you’re not going to have that same experience if you don’t quit and restart and shift and move and shake alot.
All this to say, I think you don’t have to be so stressed out about whatever comes first after graduation because ideally it changes so so so many times.
Maybe the grass is greener if you can just be satisfied and sit still, but I wouldn’t know.
Mar 27, 2024
Top Recs from @royallmonarch
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I consume a lot of music regularly, and a huge part of keeping a fresh diet of new listens going is having enough sources of recommendations that aren’t an algorithm that either 1) reinforces your existing listening patterns, keeping you stagnant in your tastes, or 2) platforms whoever paid enough to push their product to the top, serving you something that may not inherently be of inferior quality, but may not align with your tastes, may not be exciting beyond just being a new release, and realigns your current listening habits to be more in line with what the average user on the platform is also listening to — which socially might have benefits but which creates a homogeneity of consumption that can become bland since you’re listening to something really just because it’s the next product on the assembly line to have its public moment and not because anything about the music actually captured your attention. the current landscape of streaming is designed to keep you at an all you can eat buffet where you take what’s served to you, and as a result a lot of us have forgotten how to look at a menu and order.
so what does taking a more active role in your own music curation look like? for me, it’s meant not using streaming as a primary listening platform. I mostly use my local Apple Music library on my phone that I curate with the vestigial iTunes Library framework that’s still a part of Apple Music on my laptop. probably going to find an alternative soon since apple seems to be cutting integration progressively. I like this method because it forces me to choose what to sync to the limited storage space I have, forcing me to take inventory of what I actually listen to and what I can offload. the files I get are mostly from Bandcamp or Soulseek depending on whether it’s available for purchase or entirely unavailable online (as is the case for a lot of electronic music that was on vinyl only, which is where soulseek comes in clutch). I also have freedom here to change the ID3 tags to better sort and organize, rate, change track info, and track my own listening data.
Bandcamp and other music purchasing platforms are great because 1) it reshapes my relationship to music away from consumerism and back towards curation. I have to pay actual money for this thing now if I want to use it, so i’m forced to consider its value (usually i’ll stream a release first to gauge my interest). 2) having to spend money helps me to course out my meals so to speak, as i’ll buy a few releases i’ve accumulated in my cart over the month and cash out on Bandcamp Friday when 100% of my money is actually getting to the artist (TOMORROW IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY BTW!!!), and between purchases I can actually chew and savor and digest my last orders, they don’t get swept up in the deluge of new releases. my plate is full until i’m done and then I order more. also for the times of the year like now when new music isn’t coming out as regularly I take time to find older music that I would normally overlook while keeping up with new drops. currently very into early 80s/late 70s music with early digital production, kinda stuff that would evolve into synthpop and dance music.
so how do you know what to order? for me, I’m getting recs through trusted curation platforms. whether it’s bandcamp daily, y’all lovely folks here on PI.FYI, friends, or most importantly musicians who I follow on socials that share their tastes through posts, stories, playlists on steaming, interviews, etc. I like this last one especially because it’s kind of like a musical game of telephone. if I like an artist and they share their interests and influences it’s like every layer in this process is stretching my palate further from the sound that I was originally interested in and into a new territory that has some shared DNA but would never have been recommended to me by an algo because there’s no shared category or label between them, only the musical influence and interpretation of it made by the artist. as an example, I was a huge Skrillex stan, he signed KOAN Sound to his label, they collab with Asa who collabs with Sorrow, Sorrow takes huge influence from Burial, Burial makes some ambient adjacent stuff and takes huge influence from 90s rave music and drum and bass and 2000s rnb, now i’m listening to Brandy - All in Me, William Basinski, Aphex Twin, none on whom would get recommended by Spotify to me from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.
LAST thing i’ll say — because in yappin about this i’m realizing how actually passionate about this subject I am: MAKE LISTS! playlists are cool, but they can flatten your music into vague categories of “vibes” and “aesthetics” and encourage picking one-off songs from artists that you never form an active audience relationship with. I make a practice of making my own year end lists of top 25 albums (plus some honorable recs and top individual songs) and keeping them in a notes doc that I regularly update and rearrange over the course of the year. this forces me to consider the actual relationship i’m forming with what i’ve ordered for myself. did I like it in the moment but it didn’t have staying power? is it slowly growing on me? it also encourages taking albums as a whole. maybe I liked one or two tracks a lot but the rest wasn't resonating. that’s ok! maybe I rank it lower but now i’ve actually taken time to consider it, it’s in my library, and maybe (quite a few cases for me) something I ranked like bottom 5 albums becomes a retroactive favorite from that year as my tastes evolve. also 25 albums to take with me from each year is really more than you'd think, i struggle sometimes to even find 25 that I formed a true connection with. I think the biggest thing the itunes era ruined that led into now is the single-ification of music, the ability to separate the hits from the deep cuts. albums are meant to be taken as a whole, and then once you've really sat with the whole you can find what actually stuck. even then I like to keep the whole around because soooo often i’ll write off a track that yeeeears later I come to love. trust the artist, they made it like they did for a reason.
aaannyyyywayy TLDR: get recs organically, be more active in deciding your listening patterns, fr*cken pay artists yall, trust the artist embrace the album, really consider what you consume
Feb 29, 2024
🤝
i’m not gonna go into the state of politics in this country, frankly I enjoy that this site has been a politics free space for the most part. with that being said, resigning to despair and the feeling of powerlessness serves only the status quo. inaction is not the solution, nor is waiting for the government to be what you want it to be. politics over: here’s the rec
be the change you want to see
as much of a cliche as this saying is, i’ve grown to believe in it with my full being as i’ve gotten older. for the things you have control over, for the practical needs that you can meet within your community, for the little things you can do every day to ease someone’s burden or generally be a pleasant interaction in someone’s life: bring to the world what you feel it lacks.
where you live there are likely already communities that are arising to support each other and call for change. seek those out if that’s a motivating notion for you. participate as much as you are able and as little as you please, every bit counts. being a visible and tangible example of how the agency we all have can create something better will motivate others to find their voice. a lot of people feel like you, but even a few in action is better than multitudes in despair.
community is so key, and the world we live in has created a situation where isolation is the default so that individuals are forced to rely on the market or the state to meet their needs. how much better would it be to have neighbors and friends as a support network, mutually exchanging their time and resources to strengthen the communtiy and invest in relationships that benefit the whole. the moment we all realize that we can do for each other what the world tells us we need to do ourselves, the stronger we will be and the more we can come together and enact real change from the bottom up, rather than being divided in pleading for a top down approach.
this may sound revolutionary because we have become so detached from community that we cannot envision the changes in our model of living that would have to be made, but it’s sooo not that deep, and it feels more like investing in the good in others than sacrificing personal comforts. it can look like:
- shopping at a local business vs a corporate chain, get to know the staff, get to know your fellow patrons
- spending time with friends, there doesn't need to be a reason or occasion. make meals together, drive together to go do something, maybe literally just be in each others presence as you do daily life, share each others sacred presence amidst the mundane
- give things you don’t need to a friend who does, exchange clothes, exchange favors, share knowledge and resources, lend a skill or a craft, donate things if you don’t know someone who can use it, exchange things and experiences without the need for monetary incentive
- create things together, make art together, share and exchange media, try things for the joy of experiencing them without the need to be “good” at it,
- grieve together, worry together, talk out negative feelings, commiserate, support, encourage, motivate, share your accomplishments, celebrate together
- get to know your neighbors, why is everyone in isolation while in such proximity?
- get off that damn phone if it makes you feel bad, you wont miss out, the world happens outside of it, unlearn FOMO
- enjoy nature, go on walks, get outside, sweat and run and jump and see the sky
- remind yourself that life is about what happens right now, don’t be concerned with what could be or what was if you are unable to affect it in the present.
- go to a concert at a small venue for an artist you’ve never heard of, bring friends, don’t preclude experience for the perceived necessity of entertainment
- unlearn grindset, but also unlearn bainrot. don’t fester in your down time. rest can be active, activity can be restorative. your time is precious and you will meet your need for purpose and direction by literally choosing to pursue a “meaningless” hobby in even what little time you may have vs scrolling and taking psychic damage.
- learn to enjoy the abundance of freely available joy in this world, we have been tricked to believe that money is the sole provider of a happy life
idk i’m just becoming mindful of what brings me life in this world and so much of it is available to me solely by seeking it out instead of idleness in my free time under the guise of “rest.” so much if it comes from seeing the divine in others and creating bonds and relationships and support networks. so much of it comes from enjoying beauty and art, and moderating and savoring that experience vs endless consumption and media gluttony.
the world through a screen is bleak, the world in front of your eyes can be beautiful, the system is broken but you and everyone you know has some untapped agency. anyway imma get off my soapbox, go catch a firefly or sit around a campfire with the homies. you’ll be glad you did.
Jun 29, 2024
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not because you met someone or anything but because you take psychic damage every time you doom swipe on there and you probably never liked being on there in the first place and why does everyone seem to have a wack helen keller take and feel the need to put that on their profile like it’s cute??
time to do it the old fashioned way and mix and mingle at the sock hop or however our grandparents did it. after all, you just being around and living life is gonna be a better pitch for why someone should date you than those same 5 photos and your two-truths-and-a-lie prompt.
Feb 22, 2024