Related Recs

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there is no such thing as “the golden years”

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.

@royallmonarch

Jul 11, 2024

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Life is mundane, and that‘s the loveliest and most freeing part

Firstly, I’m sorry you feel that way— that’s a legitimate anxiety, and it sucks, and it can feel a) all consuming, and b) like something you have to solve right away, before you run out of time. But you always have time to change things, and start from scratch. You also get to decide what successful looks like for you— and to decide it knowing that lots of life will be mundane. You will spend a lot of time waiting for the bus, and going on first dates that are also last dates, and interviewing for jobs you don’t want. You will also spend a lot of time eating your favorite foods, and going to free events in the park, and painting your walls your favorite color. For me, success looks like having quality outside-of-work time— I love my work, and am very lucky to feel that my work is meaningful to the world, but I will not burn out for work. This year, success meant leaving a job I loved, because it was exhausting my body and sitting heavy on my heart. I moved twice, my rent is too much, my car got stolen, I left my job— and I am having a really good year. I adopted a dog, and moved into a place big enough to host my friends and cook dinners, and I found a really good donut shop, and I read some, and I visited family, and I puttered around a lot, and that’s okay. Successful might look like meaningful work, or well compensated work, or it might not look like work at all— success might feel like caring less about your work so you can care about the things outside it. You have time— school can be truly whatever you want it to be, and this is a season of your life to try a lot of things you probably won’t do forever. Get a bad haircut, take a weird elective, go to as many free events as you can (once school ends everything is expensive), and remember that you might live until you’re 90, and at 90 success just means not breaking any bones.

@nadiyaelyse

Sep 26, 2024

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How to live ?!

A HUGE text that probably no one will read but I'm bored. Everything as we like it: you didn't ask for it, but you'll get it, sign here. I took the three most popular questions in this category and "very briefly" tried to convey the essence of MY thoughts on them. MY THOUGHTS. NOT RULES. NOT FUCKING PHILOSOPHY. I MIGHT BE WRONG. And i might delete it later just like J. Cole. (small footnote - I don't know anything myself, I'm living for the first time, I could be wrong about everything, I just have nothing else to do on vacation, so I write. But, it might be useful to someone, because I have a certain system in my head, I live by it, I like everything). 1. "What to do in life?" - this is, no joke, the most fucking difficult question in life. Along the way, it transforms. People aged 18-24 ask it just like this "What to do in life?", and around 30 it forms into "How the fuck to get everything done?", but the essence is the same. You don't know what's worth spending time on and what you can fuck off. And there's no mechanism for making decisions about it. Around 50, it seems to transform into "Why the fuck do anything at all?", but I haven't gotten there yet, can't say anything. So, if you're 17-24 and you don't know what to do in life - it's totally normal. That's how it should be, everything's fine. Your brain isn't even fully formed yet, and you're already trying to find answers to the most difficult questions. Fuck it off, you'll just waste time, you'll rethink everything 10 times later. The coolest thing you can (and should, imo) do is gain experience. You need to try everything possible. You need to try all kinds of hobbies, different fields of interest, touch different professions, try different people, different countries, different food, different companies, everything different. The idea is very simple: you have a fucking long time to live. And the sooner you understand what you REALLY like, the better. You're just freely trying different things from creativity to science. Find those that really excite you and dive headfirst into your love. It doesn't necessarily have to be a job, by the way. It can be any activity, people, company, family, hobby, anything. Treat everything as a test drive. But, not just like that, but with the purpose of looking at your feelings. You taste all the markers for taste and color, choose your favorites and calmly dive into them. And over the next 8-10 years, with sincere love for the thing, you can build such a career (family, relationships, competence, blah blah blah) that you'll be surprised yourself. In short: try, compare, analyze, accumulate favorite activities and people. You're probably going to live a long life with them. (I fucking love writing huge texts, for example. Here I am sitting by the ocean under a palm tree, next to a pool, bar, all that stuff, but typing on a laptop is far more interesting to me than all that combined) For 28-35 For you, it's not all that joyful anymore. If the above-described work was done initially at about 20 years old, you have minimal problems. You're doing your favorite thing and you probably already have significant results. You just need to learn to allocate time for rest so as not to completely lose your mind, allocate time for loved ones and everything will be fine. Finding the right balance is indeed a challenge, but it's a purely individual battle. But at least you know where to look for the answer - in the balance. But for those who didn't do the preparatory work at +/- 20 years, it might be fun. When you, not knowing your real preferences, real interests, real mechanisms of endorphin production in your head, jump into some long activity (a long career where you need to work 8-10 years for a promotion, family with children, mortgages, some other serious commitments), then you really have a 50/50 chance. Either, you just guessed right and everything is fine, or you're fucked. At 30-40, to discover on some random Tuesday that everything you've been doing all your life is empty and doesn't bring you any joy - that's fucked up. It's very unpleasant. Because in your head you immediately have two extremes: either resign yourself and pull the strap to the end, knowing that nothing bright is foreseen in your life (well, something bright will be, but certainly not as you dreamed as a child), or destroy everything and build anew, and you're not 20 anymore. You've already spent 10 years. And the feeling of a missed life/opportunities will only get heavier with each day. (if one of your friends starts doing some incomprehensible shit that he never did before, take a closer look, maybe he needs support) What to do in such a situation? I don't fuckin' know. I've never been in that. But, what I definitely WOULD NOT do: I would definitely not make sudden movements and not destroy everything to the foundation (firings, divorces from wives, moving to another country to start "all over"). There will be no "All over". You're already 30+, and part of your life has passed as it has. It's neither good nor bad, just a fact. And no matter how you turn it, you did something good during that time. Family, competencies, position, some resources, real estate, blah blah blah. And there's a lot of valuable, important, and bright there. But, if it became clear that something in life is SERIOUSLY wrong, then this understanding is already good. And you start with something simple - give yourself an hour a week to try what you've always wanted. Everyone has one hour a week. Just to try. Without conclusions, analysis, reasoning, and judgments of yourself. Just try your foot in the water in the pond once. A week later you can dedicate another hour. If you really like it, then you can dedicate an hour every week. Or even two. And gradually, little by little, add things to your life, but NOT GIVING UP everything you already have. You've been building all this for many years (including your personality), you can destroy it in a week, but it may take another 10 years to rebuild it all. And it's not a fact that it will be possible to restore everything in its original form. The scheme is the same: give yourself something to try, if it goes on distance and you really want it, then CAREFULLY, quietly, start reallocating resources in that direction (attention, money, time, here and there). Don't break anything, but gently change the course of your ship. Because sometimes it happens that somehow hormones in your body just fucked up at one moment, your head is sideways, you believed that your life is complete darkness, destroyed everything, and then on the ashes it let you go and you realize that you destroyed everything just like that. And that's even more painful. Therefore, little by little, by teaspoon. Ideally - with a psychologist. (I have a process in my notes that I should try this much new stuff in such-and-such a period, works great) 2. "What to do if you've lost your bearings?". Very simple: the only bearing for you - is yourself. You - are the only person with whom you will fully live this life, all its joys and difficulties. Teachers will leave, idols will crumble under close examination, loved ones love you (I hope) just because, they wish you well, but they will not invent the meaning of your life for you. Only you can decide. And if you set a bearing on someone or some picture, what to do the moment that person or picture disappears? Be sad. But you shouldn't. Therefore, we look at point #1, open a pack of markers, and start trying each one. And we make decisions based ONLY on our own taste and color. 3. "How to find the strength to get up in the morning and start doing something?". Not at all. Want to do something - do it. Don't want to - fuck it. The essence is very simple - you have one life. Just one. There won't be another. Absolutely none. And there are no chances of a "Continue" button appearing after a dark screen. They won't even show the final scores. There will be no feelings, no wind in your hair, no close people, no achievements, no travels, neither pain nor joy, fucking nothing. After some time, we all will have nothing and we ourselves will also be gone. Personally, this realization really motivates me to get my ass up every day and do something. Achieve new career heights, earn money, travel, meet people, take care of my mind and body, because I won't have anything else. I have my torso, I have my life, I have some mechanism of endorphin production in my head and I have to do something with all this. We are just guests here. For a bit. We can peek into this world, literally for a moment (60-80 years - it's just dust, in the context of history). And personally, I want to use this moment to the fullest. I want to smear myself with my favorite markers from head to toe and roll in them as long as possible. And if you don't want to, you don't need anything and generally you're fine (considering that no one will give you a second chance) - well, that's great! Not joking, I'm really happy for you if doing nothing is a conscious decision that gives you joy. You can confidently sit on the couch, grab a pack of chips, and wait until your heart stops. And I'll still, probably, twitch and do something. Of course, I understand that globally all my activities have no meaning. In the context of history, my particular life means fucking nothing, so it doesn't matter what I manage to do during my time. Any result of mine will be erased a few years after death. Well, maybe in ten. The main motivation - I just have a lot of fun, it's interesting and exciting. That's all. There's no global meaning, I just enjoy it. Because I found my markers by random trials and errors. And I'll find a few more in the future. And I really don't want it to ever end, but it fucking will. So, the only thing left is to have fun, enjoy and live life. You won't have another opportunity to do this.

@nebraska

Jun 11, 2024

Top Recs from @mossyelfie

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Not recording strangers in public and posting it on the internet

This has become the norm and every day I grow more disturbed. I understand if somebody is behaving in a harmful way, that is good to document and put out there. But as a whole, it seems, we have become so comfortable with recording people just living their lives. I saw a video of a guy working and the caption of the video was that he was so hot, we needed to find him!!! Why are you providing the Internet with his face and location instead of just going up to talk to him? I saw another of two people on the subway, seemingly a couple, having a very emotional moment. How would you feel if you open up an app and saw a video like that of yourself? I don’t like this level of sibling society surveillance. Why are you videoing an elderly person with sad music dubbed over it to gain likes? It is WEIRD. Don’t even get me started on videos of children. It is WEIRD to use a stranger without their consent to get some kind of fake validation. Get a life. I don’t mean to come on here and share something so negative, I just don’t have anywhere else to put it and it’s gnawing at me.

@mossyelfie

Oct 7, 2024

12

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Stingray skeletons

cartilaginous

@mossyelfie

Feb 23, 2025

6

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Pi.fyi users who lurk more than they post

I’m curious what your brains are like

@mossyelfie

1d ago

10