come chat and vibe and vent. hows the first week into black history month treating you? how are you celebrating/ learning? any cool black history info that you wish was more well known?
come chat and vibe and vent. hows the first week into black history month treating you? how are you celebrating/ learning? any cool black history info that you wish was more well known?
"Trying to convince him that he's probably better-off learning the thing he actually likes rather than the thing he thinks will give him money."
Yeah, and I think I have the same thing with my own brother. He's likely Autistic like I am, but he hasn't graduated college and he's just past 30. He wants desperately to get a good job to live by, but I want to tell him to not be so hard on himself and try to find something he genuinely enjoys.
I feel that man. I totally understand him trying to get some skills/a job that will provide that sort of material comfort and stability, but at the same time I think the sort of mental costs and taxation on the soul of a man. We all hate the fact we MUST have a job (thanks liberalism!), but there are certain small joys like being interested in the thing you do.
In my case for example, I'm a computer dork but I genuinely happen to like computers and shit. To be totally honest I'm very lucky "THE MARKET" deems it to worthy of a decent salary, however being honest I'd probably be a computer dork even if the the pay wasn't as good as it is (it's also on the decline with all these tech layoffs, and it's getting hard to find a job in the tech industry). Again, it's totally luck on my part, but I would encourage anyone to figure what they like first and focus their education on that. Some katz like computers, others maybe history, others maybe arts, whatever.
I totally understand folks concerned by their very real material needs, but I would imagine the toll on your heart and mind is very high learning something you don't care about purely for stability
I think it's being alienated from your own labor, like what Marx talked about in The German Ideology. I think that my brother should make a job of something that he likes to do, not be forced into doing a job that involves cyber-security.
I'm almost graduating (whereas he dropped out of college) so there's that. I, like you, am also lucky that I'm interested in the topic that I'm majoring in. I just feel that my brother would have a better time if he could just do what he loves, but he feels now that he's "wasted his life" (we grew up under an abusive father) and now he feels that he must do something that he doesn't seem... all that interested in? I don't know.
That sounds about right to me.
Marx was right about labor and alienation. It sucks that we are all so removed from ourselves and each other just to get some coin.
That’s rough man. I totally understand that sense of peril and doom. It’s really hard out here for people, and we have so little room to make mistakes, or just have time to figure shit out. We all feel like we gotta make a move and keep making moves to stay afloat. I feel for him.
I would encourage your brother to try and be kind to himself (which sounds corny I know 🌽) and give himself some grace. It’s hard out here, but I would also encourage katz like him to really value their happiness. I think we take it for granted in general, but his happiness is worth investing in, and doing something that doesn’t really fit for you can far more from you that that check can bring in.
I hope you can get through to him and help along in his journey. We are our brothers keepers (again a corny phrase and made worse by Obama stealing it, but it’s true)
The problem is that I have a younger brother who's a total asshole and my older one (the one I was talking about previously) tries to befriend or keep in touch with my abusive father (who was divorced and so I live with my Mom). I think they're both bad influences on my older brother, my father especially. My father even convinced my brother to drop out of college or at least put it into his mind that he couldn't pass (due to him possibly being Autistic).
But yes, I will do what you say; I should try to encourage him to be kind to himself and maybe broach the subject about getting a diagnosis for Autism like I did, since that could make things clear to him.