I work in pharmaceuticals and during the height of COVID I couldn’t even get workers to wear their masks properly in the clean rooms. I’d try to be nice and do a quick “hey I think your mask slipped a bit” and they would look at me like I had three heads. Fucking morons, the lot of’em.

That’s what I’m doing right now! Company hired me for a position I was qualified for, had more than 5 years experience in the field. Got hired during COVID after my business went belly up (due to billionaire named hagan out of virginia breaking contracts and then suing me for the privilege of attempting to do business with their slimy asses), so I was desperate for work. Like, I was going to have to move back in with my parents unless I found a job and these guys offered me a position at literally the last moment, so I took whatever they offered, which was $60k/year.

After working there for a couple years, really giving it my all, they decide to promote one of the manufacturing people into my old position (I’d be mentoring them), and found out that they started him at $65k/ year. He had zero experience in the new field, but was being paid more. I ended up getting my bosses to agree to a raise to just under $70k, but the damage was done. They showed me exactly how much they appreciate all my effort and experience. Since that day I’ve done the absolute bare minimum. I do not give a single shit about the company, it’s goals, it’s production, it’s clients, nothing.

And guess what, I’m still getting good reviews and tiny regular raises, I just focus all my time on other things.

I was a line cook for a hilton hotel restaurant. It was easy, and I’d been there for about a year. They had a position open up, night shift supervisor. Basically the same hours I was already working, just have to do a bit of admin on the side. I was the only one working there that had a degree instead of an arrest record, was just looking for a bit of extra money, so I applied thinking I’d be a shoe-in.

Well they wanted the night-shift supervisor to be able to spontaneously feed a hypothetical group bigwigs that would surely show up the second I was left in charge (This is not a nice hotel, btw, we never had big wigs.). So they brought in another candidate, and decided to have us do a cook-off with surprise ingredients. I was like, what? This is ridiculous, they wanted me to invent a new dish that wasn’t on the menu (I made $10/hr). I lost the cooking challenge (I made tuna melts lol), but the guy who won declined the position (real smart of him).

So did they then offer it to the only internal candidate seeking the position? nope! just kept looking for someone else. Came into my next shift, and the waiters came back during a huge rush with like, 5-6 special off-menu orders they wanted me to accommodate (not related to allergies or anything). I got halfway through cooking the first one, and then just… crashed out. Said “nope! fuck this.” clocked out, left.

They called me for the next few days trying to get me back. “But you promised you wouldn’t be upset if we didn’t give you the supervisor position!” yup, I did say that. I changed my mind. Fuck you and that hotel.

Found a better paying job the next week.

Yeah, For some reason women having periods means that they delight in dismissing us whenever we’re sick. I remember my ex-wife making fun of me when I had the flu, and using her supposed position of authority on all things related to pain to just -not- take care of me at all. One of the many reasons she’s an ex.

Iraq war was started in direct response to the 9/11 attacks, and if you recall, just about every other country had our backs in that move. It was stupid, based on a lie, and the real reason they did it was to show that fucking with the united states was a bad idea.

The actions in Venezuela have been universally condemned, based not even on a lie but on nothing. They didn’t even bother trying to make an argument as to why it should have been done, drumpf did it (predicatbly) to distract from the fact that he’s a rapist pedophile who’s plastered all over the epstien files. So a narcissistic felon racist pedophile rapist is flailing around using the united states military, killing hundreds all while still destroying the lives of everyone in the US, to distract you from the fact that he is a felon racist pedophile rapist.

Bit of a difference.

I’m so sorry mate.

But also,

feed the following prompts into your favorite Ai

No.

Couple months ago, I woke up to chest pain. Pain that I couldn’t get rid of. I’m going through my morning routine trying not to think about it, but it just keeps getting worse. Then it starts radiating out towards my left arm and I am feeling really nervous. I was going to text a friend, but then decided that it was stupid and just drove myself to the nearest emergency room (because of course I wouldn’t waste money on an ambulance, I’m an american, we live in hell). I came in feeling faint and dizzy and emotional and that blasted pain just kept getting worse. I remember the receptionist taking her fucking time.

Finally get a nurse to see me and she does a 12 lead EKG and has me hold up my sweatshirt while she’s applying them, and while she’s doing it, I end up fainting. I wake up almost immediately, but now I’m terrified. I told her I smoked a little weed to try to calm myself down, and now that’s all she cares about, wheels me back out into the waiting area so I can piss in a cup for her. At this point, I feel like they don’t care, my symptoms aren’t being taken seriously, and if I faint again, I’m gonna die in this shitty rural hospital.

So I piss in the fucking cup, fire off a few texts to people I care about, and I lay down on the hospital bed when just… a feeling of complete calm and relief descended upon me. Wherein I was like “well, shit happens, and not everybody can achieve all their goals. You were kind, and that’s all that really matters.” and there I was, just, completely accepting of what I assumed would be a swift death.

Then the doc came in and said “your EKG is fine, your troponin levels (when you have a heart attack your heart releases “help me” signals via this molecule, troponin) are normal, you just have a bad case of COVID.” I was floored. I mean, being sick is better than dying, but I was also just… ready to die? They disconnected my IV and shit and sent me on my way. Walked out into the night back to my car in such a daze.

But hey, I know when I die I’ll feel a sense of peace and relief that one can only dream of. Imagine winning the lottery and knowing you’ll be OK for the rest of your life. I imagine that it carries around the same level of peace I felt on that bed waiting for death.

DOTA 2, man. Once you get past the massive learning curve, there is just so much to do in-game. Every match is entirely unique, with constant updates, tournaments, battle passes, and what have you. When I feel like disappearing, I disappear into DOTA.

My cars are usually named after old women, because I subconsciously relate older women with comfort and kindness. Gertie, and Mathilde.

The Dream: My mother gifted me an old, beat up RV to live in. It was filthy inside, rusted outside. I saw my aunt who wanted to see it and give me a house warming present but I told her No because it was so gross.

The Explanation: It’s because I have a very strained relationship with my family right now. They failed to step up to protect me when I was young, and then failed to show up again when I needed support as an adult (along with numerous times in between). They left me with trauma and fear and self-hatred without ever an apology or a modicum of empathy. It’s left me with the intense desire to be seen and to be loved, but at the same time an intense fear of being treated again like I was for so long. It’s left me opting out of most of life, because who would want to see such a disgusting, shoddy RV like me? And even if I do convince myself that someone might, what if they burn my RV down? Or come in and are repulsed because they don’t like what they see?

*reject

I dunno man, just look at ol’ rudie guiliani and mike lindell (the pillow guy). They’re both broke as shit, ruined their lives. Now all they have left is grift

Actually…

study - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1718793115

CNN article talking about the study - https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/13/health/falling-iq-scores-study-intl/index.html

Collin Farrel and Kristin Stewart.

They’re just not good actors. They’ve been in a couple good movies, but those movies succeed despite, not because of them.

Create art. Writing screenplays and books. Painting, gardening, working out, traveling, seeing live music, volunteer with whatever great organization I happen to be into at the time. Spend more time in my community. Have children.

The way I console myself is by saying that likely, the only way the US elects a true socialist democrat (AKA Bernie Sanders / AOC) that can bring about a Brand New Deal, is by having the pendulum of American politics first swing so far to the right, that everyone with a conscience is forced to get out and vote in retaliation.

But the idea that we could simply vote our way out of a rising fascist dictatorship seems a fleeting fantasy.

we’ve been given too much bread and too many circuses

For a while I celebrated the idea that we were in the “Golden Age of Television.” So many amazing shows, stories being told so exquisitely. But the more I think about it, the more that the ancient roman proverb of Bread and Circus seems more apt. I sit in front of a computer screen all day for work. On my breaks, I browse Lemmy on my phone. When I get off, I work out while staring at another screen in the gym. While making dinner I put on whatever NBA game is currently playing. While eating dinner I watch a show. After dinner I watch a comedy series while I eat dessert, occasionally browsing the internet simultaneously. My whole day, from when I wake up, to right before I go to bed, consuming content from a screen.

I wonder how many are like me, and how many of us are successfully using this constant stream of info- and entertainment to dull the pain of living like this. And what would it take for us to truly resist.

I think you’re right in that it would take hardship. We’re all mostly two missed paychecks away from our living standard collapsing, that could do it. But then that begs the question, how does one resist the rise of fascism? Because I’m beginning to think that voting may not save us when those in power are completely divorced from public outcry or consequences. When peaceful opposition is made impossible (or illegal on certain college campuses), when they round up and deport those that would publicly question their authority, when our elected leaders wring their hands in mocking frustration over all the nothing they’ve tried… well, perhaps violence is the answer after all. What other means have they left us?

I don’t agree. I think what was originally dubbed masculine, was thinly veiled stoicism. It was a philosophical approach to how one should live a good life. It was be a hard, strong, quiet man that takes it all on the chin because you know that your work will come back and benefit you in the long run. Masculinity was akin to boomer-isms of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” or “work hard and you’ll be rewarded.”

But through the lack of social economic reforms over the last half century, there is a profound disconnect between hard work and wealth. Wealth generated passively from capital has surged, while earnings from actual hard work has dried up. Young men are not so stupid that they don’t see this. So what happens when someone swoops in with seemingly a massive fortune, that is selling a new version of masculinity? He’s selling a new philosophical approach to the dire economic hardship of today, and it’s basically one of the gangster. The same people that idolized Al Pacino in Scarface, now, instead, worship online toxic figures selling similarly thought out get-rich quick schemes.

His philosophy could be surmised into “Use everyone around you in order to accumulate wealth.”

It’s really just a terrible philosophy that destroys lives, but within it, he offers the same snake-oil that most religions do, “it’s not your fault.” Which is the barb that sticks in people. “It’s not your fault, it’s XYZ (whether that’s the woke or women or immigrants or whatever, it doesn’t matter who they blame, so long as they blame someone else for your problems).”

So, instead of focusing on figures of true positive masculinity (Steve Irwin, Mr. Rogers, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lebron James), they flock to the simpler, easier answer. They can imagine how to use people, how to sell drugs or prostitute women, because they see it depicted in movies, and think that they could do it. It’s far more difficult and far more convoluted to grow into a fully realized man that values others, and works hard despite not garnering massive wealth. To live a life of charity and humility isn’t sexy, and doesn’t make one a millionaire. So why would they flock to it?

Fix wealth inequality, and you’ll fix a LOT of issues we have today, including (I think) the rise of toxic male influencers.

Gardening.

Previously my only gardening experience was my mom yelling at me to weed outside in the hot summer sun.

Now that I live alone, I started getting potted plants, and there is something wonderful about sharing my space with green growing things. I have a few that have really taken to the environment and amount of sunlight, watching them grow is wonderful. Marveling when one of my little planty bois randomly flowers, and there’s something so stress-relieving about digging your hands into soil when it’s time to re-pot.

My marriage. In all my past relationships, it usually takes me about as long as the relationship lasted to get my feet back under me, but in this case, that time would be 10 years, so I really hope it won’t take that long. I’m on year 4 now. I read somewhere that men take longer to get over romantic relationships, because usually their romantic partner is also their best friend, and mine was no exception. We broke up because we shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. I was in active alcoholism, and despite us both knowing that I wanted children, and she absolutely did not, we plowed ahead regardless. It seems stupid, but we truly loved each other. Heck, I guess we still love each other, we just have acknowledged that we’re not compatible in a way that severely limits our long term goals. It sucks. Logically, I should be able to just get right back on with dating, but it hasn’t been so easy.

There’s been multiple things standing in the way. First and foremost, some childhood trauma that had been trying to resurface for as long as I was an active alcoholic. Add that into a severely dysfunctional family dynamic, and you get a big ol’ mess that I’m only now starting to emerge from. I’m back to browsing tinder, and even though I do fine with matches, I just haven’t the energy to message anybody. Like, I just assume that they’re going to waste my time, and so I just sit by myself instead. I’m trying to become the person that would attract my ideal partner, so I’ve been putting extra time in at the gym, and have refocused on some hobbies of mine, like writing, and performing stand-up comedy. But even those seem like a chore sometimes.