Please don't be a dick, I'm genuinely feeling pretty down.
For context, I'm a massive nerd about like electronics and technology, and some other things (less enthusiastic than I used to be because of burnout and capitalism and surveillance and such, but still), and I'm reasonably well off, as long as I can hold onto this job anyhow, but not 6 figures or anything (USD).
So I see videos like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J38kDEsVZ3A
and I just am so sad. It is so up my alley, it looks so fun, but I just don't feel like I can justify devoting that much of my life to hobbies and events like that just to make me happy (and showing up empty handed and burned out to events like that with no projects to show off or even talk about isn't that fun either). I'm probably too busy with work, and even if I wasn't, how can I justify it when my comrades are starving, freezing, homeless, etc. and fascism is looming, I need to be organizing and learning and preparing, not making fun toy projects and getting drunk in the woods with a bunch of cool, queer, but ultimately pretty white upper class leaning people....
I know communism isn't when No Fun, but I just don't feel like I can square the circle of living life to the fullest, doing the things I know I must, politically and morally, and working for capitalists to survive. Instead I sorta half ass all three and am happy with none. Sometimes I feel like I'm just treading water and getting more and more cynical...
I understand on an intellectual level, that there is no need to abstain from fun, its not a self-deprivation thing so much as that I've tried to do both/do it all and it doesn't work out how I want it to. Going to the hacker con and being like "yeah I've got a boring IT job and no interesting hobby projects to speak of" only attracts people who feel bad for you. I've been to some and had some fun times but idk, I don't want to be Dev (the guy who made the video): a rich petit bourgeois lib-leaning-fed-anarchist, who seemingly has all the time in the world for silly projects and charity. And maybe his politics and class position and such have no bearing on his hobbies and I can just simply not be like that, but the whole space, full of otherwise cool people doing neat things, feels so rich and white and disconnected that I don't identify with it? idk. I'm probably projecting
I've just never (and I mean never, I've been like this since the second grade at least, insufferable), been able to balance competing responsibilities well. Or at least I feel that way. I always felt there were a set of competing things (usually 3) and that I could only really balance 2 of them. What exactly the 3 things were has varied throughout my life but this line of thinking has persisted. I think I'm just autistic tbh. But that doesnt make it any easier to figure out how to change myself
You can probably find your scene, just it'll take some effort. Unless you don't live in a diverse urban city
I know tons of cool people who do tech hobby/projects. Mostly either broke white anarchists or well-off breadtube socialist POCs. None of their vibes feel rich or too white. The latter we mostly hang out at queer dives, punk houses, underground parties, counter culture community spaces, etc.
I actually live in a great city for this sort of thing, I think. I just need to try harder and get over some of my own hangups ig.
the tech things I've been to here have mostly been questionable, either super white collar or gross libertarians, but I know based on the number of queer people at the white collar events I've been to, and the decent sized punk scene and such, that there must be some cool people at the center of the venn diagram
yea they def exist. idt they exist in any event that's going to be corporate sponsored or sell tickets above like 20 bucks
like small community/art centres/studios moreso