Author: Toby Morris
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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I may regret engaging, but I can say as someone who grew up in Harlan County, KY (one of the poorest places in the USA), hard work and education absolutely do still make a difference. You can get educated in a variety of ways, and you can meet people and lean on those connections even if your family isn’t born with them.
Raging about the world on the internet won’t fix your problems even if it does provide catharsis for a brief time. You’ve got to do some work. Whether that’s learning to grow a garden and giving produce to your neighbors, or learning music to join a band and connecting to others through songs you write. Those things take work. People want to connect with others who have skills, even outside of a capitalist system.
Anecdotally, I “LeArNeD tO cOdE” instead of bitching that all the mines closed, and it’s worked well for me. Wrapping my head around coding concepts when I objectively got one of the worst educations available in this country has been hard work and I’m proud to be where I am. I hope you find something you can work towards.
Well, coding is only a start on path of programming.
Well naturally, but I was and still am a dumb hick from Appalachia, so I didn’t understand that at the time. I’m a senior engineer now who does system integrations. I was speaking of the cliché advice given to people without marketable skills in a bit of a tongue-in-cheek way.
All I know is that I could easily ignore grades, score good on final test twice in lifetime and leap over all those who worked real hard whole childhood and get to best uni. That kinda changes your perspective.
It’s about putting little jolts of effort where it matters and connections matter vastly more than anything. You can have idiots earning lotta because they know how to party with CEO or know their secrets.
Besides all your hard work matter shit all if you can’t market yourself and that is stretching the reality to your favour no matter the base facts.
I am retired right now at 30
Is it not work to make connections? Is there no value in learning to learn? I think this is a pretty short sighted way to go about life.
You seem like you’re younger than me and also not from the USA, so I can’t understand the exact realities of your situation without more info.
I got straight A’s in school (1992-2005) and found later in life that I was learning what other kids already inherently knew or learned way earlier. My “AP Calculus” was algebra I for the kids in the larger/wealthier cities in the state. Once I got to college/university I made up the difference somewhat, but I still felt very out of place.
Grades are not the end all be all, but learning to learn is important and it shouldn’t be reduced to just “testing once or twice”. How will you pass the test if you don’t know how to study or have at least some underlying knowledge of the test subject? Maybe I’m misunderstanding your meaning.
Learning is just somehow easy for me I don’t know maybe it is skewing my perspective and everyone else must sit there for hours before they grasp stuff.
I just can do things in less time it feels like this sometimes at least and thus have to fill that time and get bored.
Maybe some other people would use that to meet more and more challenges and overcome them but I for some reason always had more nihilistic and cynical mindset.
School always seemed so stupid, uni too. You can learn that stuff in a month by yourself more quickly and efficiently if you felt like you wanted instead of feeding dopamine scrolling phone.
I don’t think education system here was made for me in mind let’s just say. Not for someone who always questioned everything but never got answers but only reprimands and yelling and tons of bad behaviour notices.
I was always surrounded with people who worked hard and I just waltzed there scoring with no effort making their work sorta pointless that probably changed me for the worse.
So yes I don’t relate to these comics or most of the things really except for adhd meme comics yay. Most people are super unrelatable for me anyway.
Few who were, we used way too much substances and done way too overboard things (such as vandalism mainly) to keep them around in a healthy way. If I meet someone I relate to it is the best and worst thing that can happen to me and everyone around as we literally destroy places in a drug fuelled madness and get away with it somehow. In a fun company I have been shooting road signs out of my balcony in the middle of a city with an air rifle for whatever insane reason. Or throwing eggs at the cars while laughing like a total insane person. Can’t say I regret any fun times.
One time we were at someone’s house we just grabbed as much wine as we could from the cellar and ran. I shouldn’t miss those times but I do.
It was such a blast, adrenaline fun and laugh and on top of all stolen shit tastes super good.
But I can’t do this because we live in a society and all and I have this carefully built image and double life would be such a pain in the ass to maintain so I must decide on a single image that makes it all most fun and comfortable and pleasurable.
What’s least relatable is that I am focused on chasing the fun while everyone else seems to have these grandeur problems that seem contrived. Partner left them? Find another one then and the like. People are not relatable at all. Sometimes they even feel more like some npc characters, background noise. Hard to realize they are beings with their own autonomy and the like, goals, dreams. Impossible to grasp it even. They are 2D most often sort of.
Cool Gary Stu fan-fiction, bro.
It isn’t tho, that’s the thing. sounds too crazy and pretentious but I swear on my real estate that it is all true
This whole timeline is too crazy to be a random chance I am convinced we are in the simulation and someone like flipped a switch okay give that person this and this whatever they do. Yeah they should be by all means be dead or smh but we need them to test that hypothesis
After all I probably wouldn’t get away with all that if not for the early capitalism woes of eastern bloc that was more like a Russian mindset than western. Early birds get all the rewards. Ppl born today will probably have it truly fkd up and be brainwashed that it is all okay and just hard work and will be fine yeah lol no. All the fruits have been already picked. Only scraps are left and good luck getting them now without these magic 100% value appreciation per year thingies that happened in the past
There is a vast frontier of knowledge and value to be gained in renewable energy, fusion technologies, CRISPR/medical science, systems integrations and automation, environmental cleanup, food science, etc.
These all take hard work and knowledge and aren’t quick fixes, so of course it seems like all the low hanging fruit is gone.
There are a ton of problems that need solving. It’s not the dog eat dog universe you say it is.
I used to be nihilistic and cynical for a time as well. Then I went through a divorce, went deeply into debt, became an alcoholic, lived in my car for a while and got sober and got my shit together. Not to say I recommend it, but the survival instinct is strong, and a wife and kids are a wonderful thing to wake up to every day.
I hope you can get some distance from the drugs and you might also get some perspective.
Your story is at least interesting, and if true, it sounds like you at least have the resources to improve your mindset and lot in life.
It may not be obvious from the shit I typed here but I am trying to. I know perfectly well how fucked up it all probably sounds to someone of… more healthy constitution.
It’s like sort of a cheat meal let’s type deepest shit online and see what happens, maybe something good and whoah there’s you with some valuable insight.
Okay now I won’t say I am happy for you because that feels like total lie but I wish you well
We talk about systemic problems, not about your personal experience. And not about just "everyone else sitting there for hours before they grasp stuff", but about not being taught stuff for them to be grasp.
~~If uni was so boring for you, how it comes you are talking about licking some CEO's ass instead of advancing science in CERN?~~
Frankly I don’t really care about systemic problems not genuinely so but wanted to write lotta words I cannot say aloud to anyone.
You see having someone to confide this stuff is rare usually I have to be acting. Weaving some personas
Just so occasion arises with some semi vaguely connected comic.
So I can just shower ya all with my deepest thoughts without any repercussions. Brutal honesty is what I miss sometimes that was always fun.
I usually am focused on my self improvement journey but once a week I get a cheat meal so to say. This is my cheat meal
Feels good but also is so socially bad lol but hey you have to let loose sometimes
It sounds like you're a narcissist and psychopath or sociopath. If you're in the US, you won the jackpot as our wealth-obsessed society allows people with antisocial disorders like that to go very far, especially if they're intelligent and skilled at masking.
EDIT: After reading more comments of yours further down, you definitely are and are aware of it. Not having empathy is antithetical to my whole being, but I do appreciate your honesty and hope you at least don't take pleasure in other people's pain.
Yeah can't say them aloud cause no one wants to be near a person that thinks they are superior to everyone else and you at best have only business acquaintances instead of friends?
Stop treating people like toys and tools and thinking it's fun to be cruel and you won't be so lonely.
I think it’s sort of built in tbh. I can’t remember when it wasn’t the case.
All the cozy stuff arson, animal cruelty and the things as a kid.
I just don’t have this sense you all neurotypicals have. And I only know because some drugs make me see a glimpse of it. Of this sort of warm feeling towards living beings. It’s very rare to feel this for me
It’s kinda nice but like it’s super ephemeral. But it all has its pros and cons
And you are right I don’t even understand friendship or why would I want one. Like I don’t get it it seems too much hassle to get things you can have without it
Christ as if any of that makes you special.
Kids burn shit all the time, my sister tried to start a circus that killed all our pets and more.
You are just roleplaying your idea of a perfect person to get through this reality extra hard. I don't care. You aren't actually special or better than anyone. You are barely unique in a numbers game anyways.
You are whoever you act like. Congrats. You picked a sure heck of a winner. Shame it's so pathetic.
Well then I am several people then because holy shit I change it week to week, day to day
Otherwise it would be boring yes
Yesterday was truly best person day, today is worst person day
You sound desperate to be special.
Well maybe because I could have like narcissism or npd it’s pretty probable. Psychedelics revealed it to me many times
Or like that one - HPD
Lemme have some fun online from time to time
More psychedelics after today is in order though to balance this rampage so to say, they always recenter me.
At some point I will get a good grasp on this thing and enough data points. Gonna pop some stuff now and see how this experience relates to my internal psyche
All just names to say you want to be special.
I truly don't care. Everyone else is already unique and also living the same reality as you. Get over yourself or go away and don't rely on anyone else for anything.
I will end with this.
You sound like my methed up sister who insists she's special too. I only hope you don't actually end up like her. Mostly because you end up doing awful shit to people because you are searching for some high of superiority. It's left her very alone and taken advantage of more than she's taken advantage of others.
I don’t really do awful shit though like by choice. I have been doing and sometimes miss these times but I acknowledge the dead end it becomes.
I mean I don’t do awful shit for the sake of just doing awful shit anymore at least. I am a proper citizen now you know. If there’s awful shit to be done the reward must be adequate
That is I could find easily people I could say it to but like they are disgusting and I ended this phase and no longer have a company of unsavoury types
Now I am a proper citizen, good, kind and all the stuff and my company consists of similar.
I am in lgbt circles now and even socialists so like not the best audience for this sorta talk lol
You can't change a turd
"It worked for me, I don't see why it wouldn't work for everyone".
As a fellow, "did bad in school, but still doing well compared to my peers" person, I think you are ignoring a lot of the subtle benefits you had in life.
For instance, I grew up with six siblings, and at times not only did I have to share a room with 5 of them, I needed to share a bed with my brother. My parents divorced when I was young as well, which takes away a lot of stability and resources for a child.
Despite this, I still had massive advantages compared to my peers. My grandfather worked with computers at a university, and that trickled down to me always having access to a computer. My dad was an early adopter of home Internet access, I had cable broadband in the house at least since 2000, and DSL/dial-up way before that. I had both parents, and although they were not very collaborative while raising me, I still got some benefit of having them both. My interpersonal connections through my siblings helped me land a decent retail job, and from there I was able to use connections from my dad to get my foot in the door in IT. I didn't grow up with much, but I sure as hell grew up with a lot more than many other people, and it's easy to forget that sometimes.