A friend who is (was?) a writer told me that it’s tremendously difficult to find work nowadays as a writer, and so much of what is available is just proof reading and copy editing AI slop. Apparently it’s pretty soul sucking, especially when they’re basically forbidden from doing any significant rewrites or error checking, and they’re expecting to be grateful for the opportunity
I find myself commenting far more often than I did on Reddit. I remember once that I lamented that Lemmy doesn’t have a “super upvote” in the way that Reddit gold used to be (which is a silly thought, given that I have never, and would never pay money to gild a comment). However, I realised that on this more discussion based platform, a short but meaningful comment can readily function as a super upvote. I think the lack of karma accrual for comments/posts also promotes this.
Personally, I’ve found that it varies. Sometimes thinking more about the tricky thing helps, but sometimes a break is necessary. When I am struggling from info bloat, I am less able to figure out what’s needed, so trial and error helps.
I also agree, this is a fun word usage; I don’t think it would have occurred to me if you’d not said anything. It reminds me of how there are a lot of words that have been given new flavour or meaning as a result of modern tech. Bloat, for example, makes me think of “bloatware” on my phone as much as it makes me think of an upset tummy.
I’ve way less programming experience than you, but I hugely agree. I started out wanting to “learn programming”, and I struggled without a task. Project Euler(maths puzzles to solve with programming) helped me learn the basics of python, but I stagnated for a few years because I didn’t see any way to use what I’d learned, any ideas for projects.
Things really clicked for me once I took a bioinformatics module at uni. The average life scientist is scared of the command line, but I was suddenly faced with so many ways to practice my programming skills by pairing it with biochemistry learning. Now, I’m better at coding than the majority of people in my field, even if I’m still mediocre overall. I know enough to be able to do stuff that I want to do now though
Regarding your last paragraph, I don’t think I could do it. I can’t think of a single time that I have thought of something I’ve never thought before where it hasn’t been catalysed or at least shaped by external factors.
So to answer your question without that constraint, I’ve found good success in actively seeking out viewpoints that are different to mine. Some years ago, for example, I was a leftist who felt like ACAB was unreasonably inflammatory and “surely not all cops”. I googled something like “Why ACAB is true”, and found some compelling arguments. I tried to then debunk those arguments by trying to find evidence or reasoning against them, and I continued in that way for a while, and now I’m an anarchist.
It took a long while to get to the point of identifying as an anarchist, but the ACAB thing was a great example of what caused me to think in a way that was novel to me.
If we are talking about thoughts that are original not just with respect to me, but the wider world, I’ve found good success in reading outside of my field. I’m a scientist at heart, and I have studied biochemistry to a graduate level. That’s the main field I work in. I’m a very stereotypical, systematic scientist, and that means I’ve not had much exposure to art or literature or other parts of the humanities.
I’ve been learning linguistics recently and there have been a few times that the way I have understood some core concept is distinctly different and perhaps even surprising to how my linguist friends would see it. Not wrong, just different. Everything I have learned is shaped by everything I’ve learned before, so I’ve found a lot of value in diving into fields that are outside of my wheelhouse.
Sometimes, I find concepts or methods that I don’t understand well enough to say I know them (without more work), but even those are useful to me. They make me think in a way that is unfamiliar to my scientist brain, and that makes me more likely to have thoughts that no other scientist in the conversation has thought of before.
I’ve found a lot of utility and fulfillment in leaning into having a wide but not especially deep pool of knowledge surrounding my primary domain. I wish I could learn all of the things much more deeply, but I’ve come to appreciate the power of the paddling-depth water surrounding my main area.
The first time I pirated a game was when I was unable to play Mass Effect 2 due to DRM blocking my ability to play at all (highlighting the irony of DRM, the fact that the pirated version was free of this issue).
When I had a potato PC, I would often pirate games before I bought them, to see if they would be able to run. If I hadn’t done that, I would have erred on the side of caution and not bought any games I was unsure of.
There are also a few pieces of media I’ve enjoyed that would have been literally impossible to access if I hadn’t pirated them, and were impossible to pay for.
Piracy can also allow people to access games and/or software that would otherwise be lost to time (abandonware).
Not all piracy is stealing and also some stealing is based.
I like this answer. Mine would’ve been “spirit of nature incarnate” or similar, but this captures why I think that.
Tom Bombadil is trustworthy in that he was understood to be incorruptible by the ring. However, he wasn’t a trustworthy holder of the ring because he’d probably lose it because he didn’t feel the gravity of it. Tom Bombadil is good and trustworthy, but ultimately uncontrollable.
I really like the obsidian file structure. It makes me feel more secure because even though Obsidian isn’t FOSS, all my files are backed up and in my control. Sure, my various plugin nick-nacks and doo-dads would stop working if I had to migrate everything away from Obsidian, but the meat of the content would still be there
I reckon it’s gotta be Disco Elysium ; that game changed my life. I just came to it at a particular point in time where some of the messages of the game hit especially hard.
A friend was recently telling me that it seems like it’s exactly their kind of game in many respects, but that their impression is that they would find it too depressing to play. Whilst it is true that the setting is pretty grim, I also found it to be one of the most hopeful games I’ve ever played.
If anyone isn’t familiar with Disco Elysium (DE), it’s a RPG where you play as an amnesia cop trying to solve a murder. It’s very introspective and quite heavy on the text, which I personally loved. It’s a very grey world where there isn’t a clear right answer in anything and it’s so well executed that it made things feel real.
As an example, one of the things DE is known for is its creators thanking Marx and Engels when receiving an award for the game, leading many to view DE as “that communist game”. However, although you can play as a communist, the game pulls no punches for any of the ideaologies, especially communism. It was made by an Estonian game studio, and it never feels overly idealistic - this particular kind of sad wistfulness towards history is something that only a post-Soviet country could pull off, I reckon.
Deep Rock Galactic (DRG) will always have a special place in my heart for the role it played for me over the pandemic. My late best friend made a discord server for a bunch of his sad and lonely friends over lockdown, and DRG is probably the game we’ve played the most of.
I tend to play the hell out of a game and then get sick of it for a while, and that would’ve happened a couple hundred hours ago at least, but it’s more than a game, it’s a means to connect with my friends. We try to find time each week to do the Elite Deep Dive and having that checkpoint has saved my sanity.
It’s such a well designed game that I don’t just like it, I respect it. I’ve played a lot of co-op games like it, but I love the synergy of the classes and how each class has a wide variety in their potential loadout and how they fit into the team, but also a very clear identity
If being a supportive ear is something you’re willing to do, but you’re struggling with the constancy of it, one possible way to frame your need for space might be to open up a little about the uncertainty you feel about how to support her, and how you feel bad for not knowing how to help more. I imagine that often, your delay in replying to texts is because you’re trying to respond but don’t know how. Your sister is at the age where people grapple with the fact that adults are often just as clueless and overwhelmed with the world as teenagers, which is made harder by mental health stuff. Maybe showing a bit of vulnerability here may help her to understand that you do care, and that you’re trying really hard to support her, but you have a lot to learn, and that figuring that out will be a process that involves both of you (i.e. I imagine that your sister is not especially good at understanding and communicating what emotional support she needs — she’s only 13 after all— and learning will take time). I suspect that the unreasonable demands that your sister makes (“when they don’t give her exactly what she wants 24/7”), and her responses afterwards may stem from her feeling unfulfilled when she does get what she wants, because a mentally unwell teenager isn’t necessarily going to want healthy things. Hopefully she’ll be able to work through some of this in therapy.
Sometimes if I am struggling with mental health and I message someone, I end up stewing in anxiety as I refresh my phone, hoping for them to reply. That can be pretty harmful, and lead to unpleasant dynamics in relationships. Maybe it would help to carve out time to reply properly. For example, when she messages, replying with a specific time at which you will more substantially reply. This would need to be discussed with her first, and I’d frame it like the space that you are needing is in order to better support her, because “it’s not fair on you if I’m too distracted to properly process what you’re telling me. I want to be fully present, and listening to you, but that’s not always something I can do on short notice”. The challenge that’ll be hard to communicate to her is that, whilst your love for her is infinite, your energy and ability to help is not. I’m really getting a sense of burnout from your post, and it’s tragic that your sister’s insecurity causes her to misinterpret your wish for space — she doesn’t realise that you having that space is a necessary part of being able to support her.
It might be useful to discuss a sort of “tier” system. For example, when a friend who was emotionally supporting me had to take a step back due to burnout, she emphasised that I had blanket permission to call her if I felt like I was at risk (of self harm and/or suicide). Ofc, it’s hard for someone who is in a mental health crisis to gauge how severe that crisis is, but I would hope that a mental health professional could help her to draw up a crisis plan (which would ideally involve self soothing strategies also).
My last suggestion is that maybe it would be nice and useful to carve out some regular time for you two to do something fun together. I remember when I was a mentally ill teenager, it felt like my entire life and all my relationships were consumed by the depression, and the few instances I got to do something nice and normal stick out as bright spots in my memory. Communicating this would probably link into the vulnerability I mentioned above, and being open about how you deeply love her, but you have been struggling because you feel like you’re not doing very well at supporting her. A lot of mental health treatment focuses on reducing the bad stuff (whether that be anxiety, self-injurious behaviours, compulsions etc.), and it can feel like the bad stuff is all there is. Only suggest this if spending time with your sister in a “fun” context is something you genuinely want, and try not to frame this like it’s a pity thing — the purpose of this endeavour would be to benefit both of you, and to strengthen your relationship. It might take a while to find something you’d both enjoy, and you both might have times where you struggle to engage with it, but I think that it’s a useful way to build towards a hypothetical future where your sister is still unwell, but is coping far better, due to engaging with a range of different support.
This comment has thus far largely focused on your sister’s feelings, so I’ll finish by saying that although you feel out of your depth, you’re doing really well. You’re recognising that you’re not coping with this, and that’s good, because your feelings and struggles are just as valid as your sister’s. It can be easy to dismiss one’s own needs when a loved one’s needs appear far greater, but you can only usefully help if you look after yourself too. That’s what you’ve been trying to do, and if it feels like you haven’t done too well at that, it’s because there is no easy guidebook for this. Sometimes when your sister blows up at you, it will be nothing personal, and it’s as if it’s the ill mental health speaking. Sometimes, when she blows up, it’ll be because you’ve legit messed up and it can be hard to discern whether you owe her an apology if her reaction looks identical to when she’s blowing up “irrationally”. Sometimes she’ll say awful, hurtful things that it’s strategically better to shrug off due to her mental health, and sometimes it’ll be better to hold her accountable, because ill mental health may be a reason for acting a certain way, but it’s not an excuse. It’s messy, and it’s tough, so it’s especially important that you are also supported in looking after your own wellbeing.