what are you doing with the time and gifts given to you

its a finite existence, a privilege and a miracle

how are you spending it all, and how often do you think of it in these terms

this isnt a moping thread

if your predilection is to start listing all the time and gifts you havent got, im sure youve listed that on all the other threads

in case ye thought i was gone all cuddly just because of the topic

Skiing

Posting on a message board (oh no)

I try to think in these terms often. Best case it's practically helpful. Worst case it's psychologically helpful. very very worst case it's psychologically harmful, normally for just a minute or so

good answer xp

taking a worklife which, when i watch myself, takes up no more of my time and should take up no more of my energy and attention that is very acceptable, and provides well for me besides (a gift), and even at work, i am spending my time, attention and energy in less focused conversations and listening more in those all the time

i more and more these days try to spend the rest of my time in company that eases me or that i feel natural in, because my greatest joy is ease in good company

i am outside in all weathers more than i used to be and this is also good

linked: i spend more time than i ever have with an animal, this is very good for me both as a distraction from my own head and to observe and ponder the animal mode of being

i spend as much time as is wise chasing a football in company of other of like mind and ability, this is extremely good head space and vital for the rest of my week

i spend more time that i was playing and practicing songs and singing, this is very good

goals might be to spend (yes) less time on message board x and the phone generally and to genuinely break from linking any of my mood to a football club in london, but we are all on a journey to peace

'Its a finite existence, a privilege and a miracle'

It's one of those thoughts that feels like it should lead to some sort of realisation and therefore a different quality of life...but all too often results in a kind of paralysis, worry and inaction.

One of the problems is that the desire to 'make the most of life/ get everything sorted/live your best life' sounds simple but is beset with problems and frustrations, because it's inherently not under our control and it's imperfect and messy. Oliver Burkeman is very good on this.

i will take that as a fine recommendation and thank you, i recognise the pause and sometimes pressure the headspace brings

its a finite existence, a privilege and a miracle

when/if i think about this i mostly feel bad that what i want to do is play golf, watch golf, watch football, watch tv, sleep and read. preferably by myself. but this is the stuff that brings me happiness so i've decided to not care about the waste of privelege or miracle and dont have the imagination to contemplate the finiteness. should look into cutting my hours at work so i can enjoy more of nothing for real tho.

i have thought of ‘it’ (being ‘life’) in these terms for a while now, but whether i have actually been able to act appropriately upon this belief is another story.

in the past year, i quit most social media, went sober-ish, and started spending a lot more time working on myself, both body and mind.

i am happier and healthier than i have ever been, and i think the only thing missing is that i didn’t spend as much time with loved ones as i would have wanted,
mostly due to work.
i am trying to resolve that this year.

Such as they are? Squandering, gan dabht (ar bith, ar bith).
HOWEVER I’ve gone through times when getting up in the morning was an achievement. Trying to strive for some sort of personhood. Hope to achieve it some day.

Withdrawing more and more from life, as I get deeper and deeper into my yoga practice and study of this subject.

No time to waste.

Xppppp geez deems if you wanted to make this a brag thread there was much less wanky things to name it

I enjoyed a marvelous 2024 and hope to ride a similar groove: new friends, the occasional new lover, still getting a kick out of good books and films.

(Being outside and off-line + playing muisc very good and this is a good reminder of it yes yes) 👍🏻👍🏻

Also cosign Alfred (cept the one lovers good for me (to each their own, with love))

:)

spending a lot of money on beer, chicks, and music. The rest I just squander

I have more than a few amaro cocktails to mix in me.

no brag thread this is not about - i think- what you do or able to do "the gifts we are given is i think a humble presentation of the interface with existence)

for instance and this is not a chide thread nor a guide thread but for oscar bravo i appeal to ponder the community with the physical level of existence that striking a ball two hundred yards on a given visual line provides and the unknown aspects of where we materially and spiritually play a part into the rhythms of the universe that such efforts and acts invoke

towards peace and joy, friends, peace and joy

gyac a stór any step in any direction that seems a good step is a step mhaith in this house

Sorry immature sarcasm on my part. I enjoy your positive posting

If i were to make a thread it would be what you want to do less with your finite time on this earth and point 1. Worthless sarcasm

Every day I get nowadays is one I was not expected to see, 10 months ago, so yeah each is a gift.

In my musical life I feel like I myself am doing fine, so I am turning my attention to other people, and helping _them_ do their thing. Like pulling people up on stage to play with me, playing on people's recordings, arranging and hosting jams, that sort of thing.

xp níl aon cúlú inár gcairdeas ❤️

That was at mar dhea mac, of course

Awh i was just gonna blow a kiss

kúlúsezshi

Currently in the Dolomites and loving every second of the privilege of being here. What an amazing corner of the world, both naturally and culturally

oh what a lovely thread!

i'm excited but a little anxious to be getting the entry-level qualification needed to start working at a gym as a personal trainer. the logistics make me nervous but the main thing is i feel drawn to it. i've been into fitness and body culture since my teens and i can't do without my regular exercise practice so it feels like a natural fit, as natural as fits get. to feel more satisfied by work is a goal i had given up on. just to have a direction and to be taking little steps in it is bracing.

other than that i visit god (meditate) in the morning and evening and love two very special men. our sweet and surly orange tabby spends time next to me on the couch on wfh days. the only thing that is a waste in my life rn is the full time job, i strongly dislike it but i strive to maintain some level of equilibrium with it as it keeps the bills paid. this does not keep me from indirectly calling my manager's ideas idiotic from time to time, which she is usually too idiotic to pick up on.

darraghmac i'm happy to read that you spend more time outside! at this point for me it's as much of a requirement as getting a good night's sleep. if i go more than two days without some outside time i suffer. and i need "special" outdoors time every month or so. wilderness time. every time i take a trip to my beloved colorado plateau deserts i wonder why i shouldn't be there more often.

finally buying some expensive records I have wanted for decades, and luxuriating in how good they sound on my stereo

going out to eat insanely great foodie food as often as we can, our town is good for this

doing four (four!) different methods/angles of therapy/recovery simultaneously

starting to sell some shit off, just got rid of a bunch of books I will never re-read, got $100

giving love to the dog, walking with her and seeing how the landscape changes through the seasons

giving love to animals could be all we ever need to do

map i was hoping youd be a contributor, ive enjoyed all of the posts ive seen from you recently on this kind of thing and i always think of you as a seeking/connecting type of person which...i mean is kind of where i think the thread idea is, in terms of situating the question (its a big question adn we all ask it differently at different times)

it's video games and friends in the pub mostly i guess but freely chosen and that's fine

whatcha playing these days NV?

This thread has a nice glow about it.

I had to take some steps backward in 2024 and I'm unsatisfied and in the middle of a change phase...who knows what the outcome will be? I think there's hard work ahead and I'm trying to make myself face it and dig in. I also would like to have more loved ones and more time at ease with chosen company than I have now; we're all too "busy" and tired (me included). I spend WAY less time outside, that's something I gave up along with proximity to nature and my garden. It was necessary but there's a garden-shaped hole in my heart now. I need that back and have to figure out how to re-run my life to get it.

I got a working bike a while back and it's a pleasure to ride even in bad weather, which I'll do later today to get to a food distribution where I help give out rescued food to people. It's not perfect but it's worthy work, I think. I also do a version of this for my job, so while I "do not dream of labor," I also don't regret how I spend my days. I'm responsible for a younger person whose growth I hope I've contributed to in the last two years; she's moving on now and I'll have to find a new charge. I'm excited to meet them and grateful to give them a healthy work environment where their leadership is nurtured, something I never had.

This thread also made me order some books I've been meaning to read, I have a non-fic TBR list for 2025 that I hope will be part of my growth in this season.

To answer the thread question: not enough. I'm working on that but still troubled by it.

xpp ashamed to admit i'm playing Persona 3 Reload at the moment cos i haven't sunk enough hours into P3 already

As many here know, two years ago my wife and I moved from urban New Jersey to rural Montana, so now I spend a lot of my time looking out the window at the mountains, or walking by the lakeshore when the weather's warmer. Honestly, that has brought me so much baseline pleasure that I feel like it's shifted my whole existence into a different gear.

My day job (and the other stuff I do) generates enough money that I can afford to put other people's art out into the world. I'm gonna be releasing four albums on my label this year, the first time since 2021 I've been able to do that. (We did two a year in 2022-24.)

I write a lot. It doesn't seem like a lot until I tally it up at the end of each year, but I write a lot. 12 monthly columns, 50-100 newsletters, 2-3 standalone record reviews every month, the occasional feature-length article, a book when I have a book-sized idea... I hope that all those things bring some people pleasure and get them to listen to music they might not otherwise have heard.

In response to the second half of the opening post, "how often do you think of it in these terms" ... fairly often, honestly. I'm 53 and diabetic. I am not "middle-aged" — I am likely in the final third of my life. I have no kids, so when my wife and I go, that's the end of the story. And the only idea worse than her dying first is me dying first. So yeah, I do think about trying to make every day pleasurable in some way. Eat something really nice. Look out the window at the mountains. Take a really deep breath of extremely cold air (it's 10 degrees outside today). Read something that makes me feel good (as opposed to, say, a New York Times interview with a right-wing crank who talks like his breath stinks). It is a finite lifespan, and you don't know how finite.

map i was hoping youd be a contributor, ive enjoyed all of the posts ive seen from you recently on this kind of thing and i always think of you as a seeking/connecting type of person which...i mean is kind of where i think the thread idea is, in terms of situating the question (its a big question adn we all ask it differently at different times)

― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Saturday, January 18, 2025 4:22 PM (fifty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

:) :) much love to you!

io i'm wowed by how you're still your beautiful self in such a challenging place. may the things you need come your way!

Bless you, map. I seem to be stubbornly myself, for better and for worse. Your experiences inspire me too!

I definitely have a sense that my time is finite, something that seemed inconceivable not that long ago. I think because my goals have gotten larger in scope--I want to grow things that take YEARS and that means I have to get started, I've wasted so much time already. I want to be someone who has done things, has been doing things for a long time, long enough to build habits and structures and bring about change, and I might not have a long time left to put in when I think in, like, decades.

it has been a long long long long long process but i finally enjoy writing again, and am doing a lot of it in my free time, for probably the first time since college. nearly two decades of feeling hatred and resentment for my work, pretty much evaporated! i think i had to transition and be happy with myself to get there. but i know that when i engage in the practice these days i feel endeared to my own voice, and am willing to let her become what she longs to be, which sometimes i don't even know about before it happens, and it makes me feel so delirious and delighted

i am also spending a lot of time being in love. it has changed everything around me and is changing everything within me. i feel the need to put it in everything i do

i'm also learning how to dj, it's hard but feels connected to everything else i do (storytelling, drumming)

love reading this thread btw y'all

i sort of resent my 9-5 sometimes but not nearly as much as when i was going into the office every day. and there are things happening around/within work (for one, i'm co-leading the queer employee resource group there, which is actually completely fucking awesome) that i feel really fortunate to have in my life

i am also spending a lot of time being in love. it has changed everything around me and is changing everything within me. i feel the need to put it in everything i do

<3

i guess i didn’t get into the “gifts” part in my post, far above, but really, I am trying to climb gracefully and powerfully while being gentle with myself, and the gym just confirmed that i will be joining the setting team, so that means i will be spending a lot of time thinking and feeling through movement and the body in a way that has given me a new perspective on life.

onethread, sort of, but on the WAYR thread I have noted that I am reading a lot of YA fiction, and am beginning the process of writing my first YA book— which feels more exciting and interesting to me than poetry has for the past few years. i am very grateful that i have been able to find a way to move forward after feeling a little lost in my writing life for a while.

That "What did you achieve in 2024" thread made me realise I spend most of my life essentially running on the spot. But at the same time, my kids grow up and I keep putting off things til 'when we have the money' and 'when we have the time'.

Also, we got a Switch at Christmas and I haven't even played the damn thing, which is how I know I need to get back to the simple things, sometimes.

I'd like to thank deems for this thread, both a gift in itself (which I'll contribute to once the dishes are done and something is watched with Jen) and a gift to Thread Connections.

as noted almost immediately in that thread tbf

I finished a novel in November and the first revision four days ago and am quite happy.

christ i only *read* my first book of 2024 the week between Christmas and NYE so that's definitely an entry and a half

i am listening to Tiny Tim's version of "Rebel Yell" in its entirety
i can't do that very often. it's an ordeal. ordeal by rock.
it's a form of... exorcism. emetic. music can be that way for me.
i just started a thread on ilx, i don't do that very often
i started a support group earlier this year, the second meeting is tomorrow night
the first one went pretty well, i'm hopeful for the second one

i'm trying to do a bunch of things at once and when i look back at 2024 i didn't get any of them done
a friend of mine was telling me that in 2024, she started getting out and building social ties
and when i look at what i tried to do last year, it was a lot
i tried to re-connect with community, i tried to find a job that didn't kill my soul while keeping the job i had, i tried to build skills to take care of myself in a functional sense, i worked on trying to take care of my body

and right now i don't really feel like i have a lot to show for that
the world around me has gotten worse and harder in ways that i didn't expect
i spent all last year trying to, literally, stop the bleeding
i worked pretty hard to take care of my body so that i'd stop bleeding
and it keeps getting worse
that's not a metaphor
i mean it is, but it's also literally true
all of the things i've done and i know that i have to do more
i know there are things i can do
and it takes me a very, very long time, a great deal of effort, to do anything

i talk to my friends about how i genuinely love myself and rely on myself unconditionally
and i guess not everybody does. that's something it took me a long time to learn. i know that there is this amazing person who loves me totally and will always be there for me, always care about me, no matter what
after a lifetime of not trusting that person, of thinking that person is, like, bad, or deficient, or a failure, after trusting everyone _but_ that person
i now recognize that person has always been there for me, always worked to take care of me
and she hasn't been able to get me everything i deserve, everything i need
and honestly she's still not quite able to do it, no matter how hard she tries

and the thing is, i don't judge her, because i believe with all my heart that if she can't take care of me, nobody can. she's the only person i trust and love unconditionally, absolutely
that's what i'm doing. opening myself up to her. allowing myself to cry around her. trusting her.

i'm not ever going to be able to do all the things i want to do. i've been trying all week to write an essay about this anime i just watched, and i was telling my friend yesterday that when i write, i feel like Father McKenzie, writing the words to a sermon that no-one will hear
i have this issue, i've had this issue all my life, and the words i have learned to use for it right now - because words are important, because i am the story i tell myself - is that i am a highly sensitive person. that i feel certain sorts of pain more easily and more deeply than other people. and that limits what i'm capable of. and other people don't necessarily take that pain seriously, and sometimes it's hard for me to take that pain seriously, to accept it as real. sometimes i feel like there's something wrong with me, something deficient about me, for not being as resilient as other people. i'm not deficient.

i am extraordinarily... gifted, in some ways. i was a gifted kid. and i grew up being taught that with great power, comes great responsibility. i grew up being taught that it was up to me to carry the White Man's Burden.

the hard part for me isn't carrying a burden
it's allowing myself to stop carrying it
to recognize that i don't need to carry it, that it's not _for_ anybody, that it doesn't _benefit_ me or anybody else for me to carry it

i guess that's all i have to say right now about that

My driving obsession appears to be making records. I'm a late bloomer and after nearly 30 years of playing drums and nearly 20 years of recording, I have only very recently felt like I'm able to hit a drum properly and to produce/mix 'real' records.

Yes, of course I try to appreciate all the good moments of each day, enjoy food, stay healthy, be a good partner, stay in touch with friends, etc. But even though it's fairly isolated from the rest of my daily life, making records still feels like "the real work" and what I think about the most.

i missed this thread until now! i think it's a good one. when i read "what are you doing with the time and gifts given to you" i think of how that question means so much more to me than it would have a few years ago, before my father's death. a big part of the aftermath was a sort of burst of creative energy and confidence and self-drive that i hadn't felt in many years. i think in retrospect that my experience was common among those who have lost someone. but anyway, throwing that in there as context for my...life, and also a sort of add-on to the discussion upthread about the meaning of the question. to me it's a broad thread, or at least it can encompass how i feel about what's important to me and how it relates to what i really DO, not just think about, but spend time doing.

i have been busy playing music and finally getting to do a bunch of stuff i dreamed about for a long time, even if it was just basic stuff most local musicians got bored of in their 20s. it's fresh to me and i love it. i get to play in a variety of groups that play really different kinds of music, and in widely different contexts, from fully improvised "new music" to punk bands and electronic and acoustic and experimental and everything else. i get to book shows now, and host some of them in my own basement. i have a space for visual artists to show their work, as an act along with poets and performance artists, bands, lectures. it's so much fun! i feel very creatively fulfilled, even as i make $0 on it (with all money going to touring acts, generally being the status quo practice in stl diy circles).

i think often about how i am spending my time, and how precious it is. it drove me to leave me job and live off of my savings until those ran out, just to have as much time as i can working on things and working with others, helping people do shows and being at their performances, being the only one sometimes. one of the best feelings in the entire world is when you get to be there to see someone's "first" _____ (something really important). but often, in my case, to see someone talk about finally getting some songs together and recording them, or even better, getting them together and inviting a few people to try to play it live, for the first time, your "first show". like a fine wine, the more time passes before a "first show", the better it is. putting apart the music or the "output" or whatever - that's secondary. it's more like getting to bear witness to a big, big moment in someone's life (whether they think it is or not). i don't know, i love that stuff, and i find a lot of really good heartwarming things in my life come from spending time in that world. and i only have time do that because i quit my job and drained everything, lost everything. most people aren't in a position to start from scratch, for one reason or another (often they're not single, or have a family or someone depending on them, for example).

i also think there are many other ways that drive people to focus on gratitude for the time we've been given, and certainly know that many people get there in other ways besides having no money and just focusing on art as much as possible. but my father's death drove me to really think about my remaining time more intensely than I ever had before, and more importantly, it drove me to DO SOMETHING different, instead of just thinking about it

I think I actually disagree with the framing of the question. It seems to imply we should be doing stuff and perhaps even that our doing stuff makes a difference. I’m more of a free will skeptic who recognizes that Bartleby The Scrivener and Sisyphus are functionally identical and if you take the long view we are all somewhere on the spectrum between those two, depending on weather/moods/etc

In the long run the universe is a cold and disinterested place that we happen to inhabit by pure accident and our activities are fundamentally meaningless noise - everybody probably should find something to give their life meaning and that they enjoy doing, I certainly have more or less, but I would never demand someone “do something with the time and gifts you’ve been given!”

TL;DR LL otm but in the end nothing matters so if you feel like doing a bunch of nothing with your life that is perfectly acceptable. Most importantly don’t contribute to the suffering of others.

I would never demand someone “do something with the time and gifts you’ve been given!”

Nor would I. But I didn't read the question that way. I read it more as a reminder that we are only able to think breath and act by virtue of a life and a world that we emerged into and that our ability to do anything at all is a time-limited gift. For me, that reminder is not about some obligation to accomplish great things for the world, but that we are allowed to find that which we value in the time we are given and embrace it.

loved your post z_tbd

In the long run the universe is a cold and disinterested place that we happen to inhabit by pure accident and our activities are fundamentally meaningless noise

I’m sorry, I couldn’t help hearing this in Werner Herzog’s voice. (Herzog otm obviously)

I am with Aimless here, and frankly find tomboto’s reading of the question bizarre.

Most importantly don’t contribute to the suffering of others.

this is pretty key, I think

https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.4580537954.6591/bg,f8f8f8-flat,750x,075,f-pad,750x1000,f8f8f8.u2.jpg

reading this thread and then arguing that what we do doesn't matter contributes to the suffering of others tbqh.

well that was the point of the caveat as I read it?

can't help thinking of the Good Place point system, lol

"What are you doing?" is not necessarily a normative / prescriptive / judgmental question in my view. The answer can be "jack shit, because fuck you that's why."

Though I can see why ilx0rz may take it as "what are you doing (about injustice)" or "what are you doing (that is positive)" or "what are you doing (that is praiseworthy)."

Because I think about lot of us think there is an inherent duty to be doing something positive - positive for our health, positive for others, positive for vulnerable people, positive for the planet. Or at least not be a person who is making things worse or ignoring the downtrodden. This reflects a particular consensus ethic.

Looking further at deems's original post though it's got several moving parts:

"its a finite existence," pretty much universally agreed upon

"a privilege and a miracle," almost certainly not agreed upon. Plenty of room to disagree if you think existence is a burden and a curse.

"how are you spending it all," I think this part is morally neutral (see above). An honest answer can be "as little as possible," and need not invoke the superego.

If you have an overactive superego you will interpret "what are you doing with your life" as a challenge that must be answered because you feel you _should_ be doing something with it. I think deems is not requiring that, we are imposing that on ourselves.

Lastly "and how often do you think of it in these terms"?

Well, an honest answer can be "never," as in "I do not think of it in those terms." Or you can acknowledge that you _do_ think of it in those terms (as a gift, a privilege, and as an opportunity to do good instead of evil).

life can totally be a privilege and a miracle AND a burden and a curse.

A quick glance at the thread titles in Site New Answers is enough to confirm this. A large part of which category it falls into depends on the frame you are currently emphasizing.

i was about to get quite cranky but YMP has very elegantly and uncrankily done the work i was about to do

if you bridle at the question

i. i didnt even make you read it

ii. I certainly didnt make you answer it

iii. fuck off

im kidding about iii x

but look the actual iii is "stop wondering why darragh has asked you a question that has made you defensive" because theres two things you are doing there, not me imo this is a thread about you and is not a test*

*no moping

But, hypothetically, if it was a test, how would you grade us? Individual ilxmail me my results please.

im quickly discerning mopers and not reading their posts from there, everyone else gets an A

I've changed to teaching post-secondary (16+) this academic year and it's been a good shift. I'm less emotionally exhausted and have a *bit* more time for what animates me. I battle with how much my job takes from me but I do fundamentally *care* about it and the impact I can have.

I've been meditating for about 2 1/2 years now and attending a local Buddhist centre. My initial reason for going was to learn how to meditate but something keeps drawing me back there. The Pali word for community is 'sangha' and there are some lovely, humble people at the centre. I'm learning a huge amount from them. The wisdom goes that you should look outside of meditation for its true effects - how you are in your relationships, with friends, and community - and I'd like to think I was more open and available for what matters. Though I was intrigued by xxxxyyzzz's comment about 'withdrawing'. I recognise this and am conscious of my slight withdrawal in the last few years and what it signifies.

I had a dream a year or so ago, that felt like a 'before and after' dream. I was in my mother-in-law's lounge. Everyone significant in my life was there and they'd all decided, joyously, to 'take the pill' and let go (I don't want to use the 's' word, it wasn't that, really) and I was the one, bewildered and frantic, saying 'no, no - there's too much to do!'. What I remember most of all was the devastating feeling that I wouldn't be able to sit with my wife for an hour each evening, watching something ridiculous on the television. The simple warmth of her. Give me that, the knowledge that my children are content and the huge lift of summer evenings and I'll be good.

I *think* I'm getting closer to an answer about what I want, even if I consider it an unanswerable question but if I was honest with myself, I'd like to write something of substance. I am no nearer to making this happen.

To be fair defensiveness can be understood in light of world events and particularly yesterday in the US, yadda yadda

"What are you doing?" can have implied followups like "are you doing _enough_?" And "why aren't you doing _more_?"

The bumper stickers are in our heads: if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. If you're not outraged you're not paying attention. If not now, when? If not us, who?

Two days ago at the dinner table, my trans child answered something like the thread question by saying "existing." So.

re: withdrawing - I have really found my yoga practice intensifying and the process I am going through has been changing some of my habits, and it feels -- more and more -- like a withdrawal from the world in general. But that's to do with age, and learning things in depth at my age feels (like many things) harder, so they need more work and concentration.

But its not like I am going to live in a cave or anything (I will probably qualify as a introductory level yoga teacher later in the year, and may get a gig covering a class for a teacher I know at a Buddhist centre. Though I will end up teaching in gyms, mostly) (The training is probably intensifying so that I am ready for what is to come) xp

i don't know, i love that stuff, and i find a lot of really good heartwarming things in my life come from spending time in that world. and i only have time do that because i quit my job and drained everything, lost everything. most people aren't in a position to start from scratch, for one reason or another (often they're not single, or have a family or someone depending on them, for example).

This is beautiful and admirable, but I am much more risk-averse and this is giving me near parental levels of concern. Hope you have health insurance and don't need it!

working with younger people and passing on what I've learned, or failed to learn, over the years has been rewarding in a way that feels more long-term. I have to admit, I've been grasping for direction in my career for a little while, having decided to ramp up my skills and knowledge around 2018-2019ish, and then I got a little derailed and ended up learning even more. it's nice to be able to pass on what I can

xp i appreciate that jordan, and trust me i feel that concern for myself, too.

slightly going off-topic (but then veering back on topic at the end and doing a wheelie with sparklers), everyone else feel free to ignore:

i'm on medicaid, but i live in missouri and i'm already on the edge of the income threshold, so i expect that soon i will be one of those people in the "gap" who work part-time and don't get health insurance but also make too much to get medicaid, so instead have to go to the affordable care exchange and choose the cheapest Bronze Minus Minus Savey Thrifters insurance for $300 a month (which i can't afford).

it sucks. same with my car. i'm one accident away from being completely fucked. i'm paycheck to paycheck, etc.

honestly i'll say that living the way that i want to live, spending my (precious, PRECIOUS) time the way that i want to do it - it's worth the continual risk, to me. i would never wish it on anyone else or recommend it for anyone else. but for, it makes sense and it's made all the difference, and one reason i know that's true is that, if you gave me a dream-like choice to go back to how i was living, with all my savings, but no community, 4 years ago, and do it all over again, losing all the money and gaining all the people, i would do it again.

i don't think that being money-less and asset-less (and generally, to the world i live in, which is so capitalist that it's nearly invisible, like being in a deep ocean) is not necessary for happiness or community, for most people. but for me, honestly, i think it is. i'm not a christian but i've read the gospels repeatedly and have noted that jesus, who seems like a good guy, is constantly telling everyone to get rid of their possessions and instead travel and learn with gang of smelly disciples, always staying at people's houses and eating their food, sleeping on their couches. there is something to that. i think the people who have turned to meditation (upthread) are maybe after something similar. anyway, i don't recommend my life to anyone else, but i highly recommend it for me! :)

i don't think that being money-less and asset-less (and generally, to the world i live in, which is so capitalist that it's nearly invisible, like being in a deep ocean

(i neglected to throw in the sad word "worthless" here, as in "worthless to the greater world i live in, which is so capitalist...")

actually there are typos within typos embedded in that sentence, along with triple double negatives and some innovative language errors that cannot be fully understood. but i trust ilxors can mostly understand so i'll leave it there :)

xps thank you map <3

"so i expect that soon i will be one of those people in the "gap" who work part-time"

careful. i hear people poop in the changing rooms there.

#laughyfaceemoji

"for the last time, that is NOT what the gap is for"

oh, one last thing, about something that i "currently believe" - i think that one of the main roles of an artist (not 100% necessary all the time, but very common and needed) is to stand in opposition to the society they live in, or to offer a better way, or to criticize it, or to embrace absurdity in order to get outside of it for even momentary glimpses of another way of living. my actual art rarely gets at those things, but i think that when i live like an artist - like a starving artist - i embody those ideals, and that makes me feel good

otm and right on

Z_ I got what you are saying and best to you.

Yeah the smelly disciples sleeping on couches thing is interesting but, as you say, not for everyone. Because someone has to own the couch, have a place to put it, have enough food to spare, etc.

i always wanted to get a Pekar job so that i wouldn't have to worry so much about money/insurance and i had that when i got the job as a custodian at the hospital at MVI and when i worked there at night i would get writing done on my breaks and when it was slow but then i saw my co-worker who had been there forever and he was like a pack mule all beaten down and i was already a little miserable there and i also knew if i stayed and my union benefits got better and better i would never leave and i would never really do some things that i wanted to do. so, i'm glad i took the leap and started my own thing when we moved here even if it did lead to me not writing for more than a decade. i got to provide other artists with a place to perform and i got to express myself with my store even if i have never made much money.
when we first thought about coming here maria said "maybe you can get a job at the hospital there" and i thought AHHH! No! and that's when i committed to the idea of my own store. yesterday, maria was talking to our next door neighbor and they talked about how he went to art school and cyrus our kid was going to art school and our neighbor is an excellent illustrator in a comic book style and she asked if art was his full-time gig and he said........no, he's a custodian at the hospital here! i thought that was funny.

(my first EMP music conference paper that ended up in Yeti Magazine and then included in the EMP book put out by Duke was written almost entirely at night at my custodian job.)

everyone doing their own thing on a shoestring and making human-sized differences in people's lives every day, you are a big inspiration to me.

I have a full time job which involves up to 4 hours commuting per day, also two kids and a dog, so my time is pretty well used up before I get to the stuff I want to do, but I still try to eke out time, on the train etc., for projects.

First one is Centuries of Sound, feel like I've talked about that enough, ok. That also has a monthly radio show which I think is sometimes good but has taken a bit of a backseat TBH.

The other thing I do with my time is Texture & Artefact, I have a clear idea of what it's supposed to be, it's a creative nonfiction autobiography, but I'm mixing my own writing with interviews with family / friends, stuff from old cassettes, other found sound (next episode is largely made up of a load of wechat audio messages from a friend who died), field recordings I make with my tascam (I recorded a load of protests for example, and a few football matches) and occasional bits of drama and music. You might be familiar with the episode I made about having undiagnosed ADHD at high school, posted it on here a couple of times and some people were very nice about it. The problem I have with this project is that it's hard to get anyone interested because it's hard to sum up what it is, I managed to get a clip on BBC East last week and hearing the cheesy DJ reading out my blurb about "personal monologues knitted into narrative soundscapes" it sounded ridiculously pretentious and self-indulgent, and I did for a brief moment think "what the fuck am I doing with this?" but shook it off immediately as I no longer give a shit if I sound (or am) pretentious, I'm stretching myself to make something I feel like is my thing and I am lucky enough to be able to find some time to do it and if I overreach and make myself look ridiculous then so what? But if anyone has any ideas about how to make this look a bit more coherent then yes, please tell me.

it sucks. same with my car. i'm one accident away from being completely fucked. i'm paycheck to paycheck, etc.

honestly i'll say that living the way that i want to live, spending my (precious, PRECIOUS) time the way that i want to do it - it's worth the continual risk, to me. i would never wish it on anyone else or recommend it for anyone else. but for, it makes sense and it's made all the difference, and one reason i know that's true is that, if you gave me a dream-like choice to go back to how i was living, with all my savings, but no community, 4 years ago, and do it all over again, losing all the money and gaining all the people, i would do it again.

― z_tbd

Precariat. Yeah. I understand precariat life. I understand being considered worthless to capitalism - that's at the center of disability politics, of how disability is defined.

I'm disabled, in a functional sense. The things capitalism expects of me in order to be worthwhile human being - I'm not performing them to the level capitalism expects me to. I'm surviving. I'm not out on the street, just yet. Something has to give, and what I have the most of, what's draining fastest, is my bank balance. I've thought about going through the process, going through the enormous time and effort it would take to be classified as a second-class citizen, to officially be marked as a burden rather than an asset. That's what my dad did. It helped us. I'm not sure it benefited him. I don't think taking that path would benefit me. I'd still have to find meaning, to find purpose, in a world that insists I have none.

I still have to get what I need, and right now, well. I'm not like Scott, not in a place to take another leap from the lion's head. No moping, yeah. I get accused a lot of self-pity, and it makes me angry. I have a lot of anger, a lot of bitterness, a lot of resentment. No blame. No blame for myself or for anyone else, but a lot of anger. I deserve better. We all deserve better.

Maybe when I get rid of the last of the money, maybe then, when I have nothing else but the people, I'll trust the people. The ones who are more fucked up than I am. The "hurt people hurting people". Maybe then I'll learn to embrace the things I see in my friends, the suicide attempts, the desperation, the screaming, the people who vanish when you need them most. Maybe that's the inevitable consequence of what I did, not transition per se but leaving my partner, leaving my caretaker. At some point I'll hit bottom. Perhaps at some point I'll ... let go of the idea that it's "bottom", let go of the idea that it's somewhere I need to run from, a dangerous place filled with people who can't help me, who can only hurt me. At some point I'll maybe I'll stop flinching at every outstretched hand. I'm not moping by saying that. I'm not self-pitying. It's not good news, bad news, or any news. It's just the truth: Better save yourself while you can.

Two days ago at the dinner table, my trans child answered something like the thread question by saying "existing." So.

― slouching towards bethesda (Ye Mad Puffin)

"Existence is resistance." That's one of the things we say. It's true. For me, for your child, existing in a world that would really rather prefer we didn't is... it's the ultimate act of resistance. I went into transition wanting a cause to die for, and I found that the world didn't need anymore dead t-slurs. I found that what the world needs of me is to live, and I've had to learn to do that, and to love, and I'm learning to do that. I'm still not at "trust". I'm still working on that. Once I get there... I know I'm called to more than mere existence. I know I'm called to joy. I also know I can't get there without trusting, not just trusting myself, which I do, but trusting other people, which I don't.

YMP, I'm glad your child isn't alone. It helps a lot. I know I'm not alone either.

my life coach:

https://thequietus.com/interviews/kristin-hersh-throwing-muses-moonlight-concessions-interview/

this cracked me up but its also instructive! and what comes after it is humbling:

Does the album title, Moonlight Concessions, have any specific meaning, or do you want to keep it mysterious?

KH: At Moonlight Beach in Encinitas California, there’s a concession stand.

KH: It can be really, really difficult here and when you live that difficulty, you align. It can be wonderful here too but you need to parse the elements of wonder in that case. Is it because you’re safe? Is it because you’re lucky? Shift your definition of wonder and be here with all of us.

ill add, at 43- a genuine and committed effort in my role at work, which now seems to be something i believe might do some good, in charge of some very good people, however the fuck that happened

I did have a gratifying conversation with someone this morning about managing people, and he told me I seemed like a good boss.

My role right now during the transition to a new administration is to keep my employees doing good work for the people and trying to reduce their anxiety about the changes that are afoot. Somebody has to keep the lights on.

Tom -- I just want to recognize that I think staying in place and doing your best to stop/slow/blunt the damage and protect people is valuable and needed.

Another pathway is “Defending Civic Institutions.” This group may or may not be conscious that current institutions don’t serve us all, but they are united in understanding that Trump wants them to crumble so he can exert greater control over our lives. Each bureaucracy will put up its own fight to defend itself.

Insider groups will play a central battle against Trump fascism. You may recall government scientists dumping copious climate data onto external servers, bracing for Trump’s orders. This time, many more insiders understand it’s code red. Hopefully, many will bravely refuse to quit — and instead choose to stay inside as long as possible.

Institutional pillars understand a Trump presidency is a dire threat. The military, for one, is well aware that Trump’s potential orders to use them to crack down on civilian protesters would politicize them permanently.

These insiders will need external support. Sometimes it’s just folks showing compassion that some of our best allies will be inside, silently resisting. A culture of celebrating people getting fired for the right reasons would help (then offering them practical help with life’s next steps). Other moments will need open support and public activation.

https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/11/10-things-to-do-if-trump-wins/

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, due to numbers: my birthday's the 2nd of January, so I get one large "in summary" vibe rather than, say, one then and one in July. And this year's was the 50th, and I'd faced the previous year thinking about I should try and get myself in shape, mentally and physically, thinking of this coming as my Last Effective Decade (also, the one my father didn't see the other side of).

And it didn't work to that extent - I started the year with an ADHD diagnosis and it took until October to actually get to a dosage that mostly works. And Jen's long Covid from 2023 cleared up late that year, but something came back (or forward) in the middle of last year, a ball of things that we're calling burnout, and that she's on sabbatical now for to try and get a handle on what that is and what it means. And that's part of an answer to the question too - I have a lot of potential and a lot of ways to thwart that, but any day that I make her laugh 10 times is a day I can get to sleep happy.

Like Kate I had a history as a gifted kid and it seemed to push me through a life that can be written with less agency: (cut for historical interest and/or modesty) out of school at 7 because they wouldn't keep me; off to college at 13 because they'd take me (and I was running out of other things to learn (and possibly picking up on my parents running out of money for me to learn them)); staying in college 8 years for the fear of leaving; jumping into a job with my best friend at the same time as the Celtic Tiger / DotCom happened; leaving after he left; coming over to London just because I turned 30 and didn't want to start looking at buying a house without having lived somewhere else; getting engaged to the first serious relationship; getting engaged again to Jen, the person I met on Tinder on a rebound from the first engagement; moving to Scotland because she was determined to - it's not much of an exaggeration to say that I was facing 50 with "Well, what do I want to do? What am I for?"

(I went through with the joke even if I didn't get my shit together as much as I wanted - the day after my birthday I posted "Okay, (elided: so that's me fixed,) what state is the world in? Hmm. Hmm." and as a first comment the Thanos "Fine. I'll do it myself" gif)

in orbit!
so while I "do not dream of labor," I also don't regret how I spend my days.
This is a really lovely sentiment, it reminds me of an article you might like (if you've not already read it), and which is one person's unknowing answer to the question of the thread: https://phirephoenix.com/blog/2022-10-18/work - I know we're not close but it's always been good to be reminded that you're out there being a force for good in the world - I was sorry to hear of the bumps in the road this year.

dmac!
as noted almost immediately in that thread tbf
You are of course correct and in many ways a better use of my remaining time would be considering who I am dealing with and his diligence for the bit.

I could probably find something to say to nearly every post, even if it were in spirit or in fact just the heart emoji, but one thing I need to do to improve my chances on everything is get to bed earlier, so...

i think it's a natural human impulse to think that one is never quite doing enough, or what one should, or what one really ought to be, or at least it's become one. similar to how you always find yourself wanting that taco that's just a little more expensive. i don't know if it's always been a natural human impulse - probably not, so maybe not actually "natural" - but it feels endemic to much of the world now.

i am currently invested in trying to be a good dad and husband, and to add whatever bits i can contribute to the ever-dwindling pile of social justice in my city and my world. my own artistic ambitions are in a bit of a deep freeze. i think longingly about that from time to time.

i have a plan to travel with my oldest best friend this year. don't know the place, don't know the time, but it's just going to be me and him. i'm really looking forward to that.