I'm officially 41.
At age 33, I was "celebrating" my birthday at my dealers crack den, which I also lived at.
It's been a long, hard 8 years, but it's been worth it. Changing my life was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do but it has been completely worth it. I've gone from begging for change like the people on the corner of Flinders and Elizabeth, to interviewing for better IT Manager roles. I'm normally humble, but I'm really fucking proud of that fact. That I got what I wanted in the end.
Got some great friends. People that are my family. People that have supported me, and I'm proud of being able to support when they need help. I love that I have a music studio full of great stuff that keeps me happy, and of course, the fluffy criminal known as Gibson. I still compare myself to others, but I'm learning to appreciate what I have, and that I'm very lucky that I'm so stubborn. I never wanted to die in the gutter. It's ok that I don't have property, or 100k in investments etc. I have a great rental that I can make loud guitar like noises in whenever I like and that's perfect for now. Plus Gibson gets to run around in a big place and that's great too.
At times, it's been a very solitary existence. Readjusting to society after years and years of living in another world was jarring. I missed a lot, and am still catching up in a lot of ways. Making friends is hard when you have big gaps in your life. When people are talking about holidays and trips overseas, or festivals and weddings they've been to, you sit there quietly and try not to look too conspicuous. Only my close friends know the deal, and they've been wonderful in accepting me for who I am. I'm very lucky to have them.
Relationships are tricky. I've had some shitty experiences that have tarnished my view of dating, but I still keep trying to find the right kind of person. People like me can be easy to manipulate if you have bad intentions and I've learned what to look out for after the last disaster.
Sometimes, in weaker moments, I do consider going back to the old life, but that is like an alarm going off that says "hey, something in your life is really fucking bad right now, you need to fix it". And I do as best as I can. My cancer scare last week definitely had me thinking of running back to the street, but thankfully there was no cancer. Even if there was, I don't think I would have gone back. But I think that thought will always be there in the back of my mind when things are really tough. One of the leftover bits from the past.
Never give up on yourself. I guess that's the point of this mini rant. Sometimes you want to. Sometimes it seems that there's no way through. But you never know what will happen tomorrow.
Have a great day everyone :)
You should be fucking proud. Happy Birthday. May all your future wishes come true. 🎉
Happy birthday and congratulations on your achievements 🥳🎉🎈🎁🎂🍰
I honestly think that quitting/changing is not in itself the difficult part, the hard part is believing in yourself and your future enough that the effort seems worth it. The sort of personal growth and change required to do that when you are in a bad place is one of the hardest things anyone will ever have to do.
Happy birthday! And congratulations, you should be bloody proud of yourself.
Happy birthday!! Thank you for sharing your story! What amazing growth!
Good for you. It takes massive strength and hard work to do what you’ve done. You should be so proud of yourself.
You should be proud of yourself, so so much!! Amazing to hear how far you have come. Keep doing the work on you, building that resilience will make it easier to move forward and be less tempted to go back but it sounds like you are doing pretty great there too. Thanks for sharing, massive hugs and i hope your 40s treat you really well :D
Happy birthday, and thanks for sharing your story - you’ve got a lot to be proud of! 🎂
Pretty nice birthday today, but I had a job interview so that ate up a chunk of my energy, though it went well I think.
Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. It's time for a bath, Gibson play time and some music time ❤️
Saturday night bar crawl with mates is looking damn good though lol
Feeling a bit melancholy this evening.
Listening to true crime podcasts hasn't cheered me up, nor did trying to read in the bath, and now I'm just flicking through channels, endlessly...
Waiting at bus stop. Wait 5 mins, bus behind schedule so I assume bus be a while. I started walking towards the other bus line. Bus approaches from behind. Me: "fuuuck".
Keep walking towards other bus line, I pass by bus. 5 mins later, bus still stuck in traffic and I get in the other bus.
Vindication. Great success. 👊
It's bin day, and I have successfully put out my bins, including clearing out some old things from the back of the food cupboard. I would like to have a word with whoever installed the "just in case" voice in my head. You know, the little voice that when you find the remainder of a packet of chia seeds with an expiry date of 2012 in the back of the cupboard whispers "you should keep that, just in case..."
If you had it in the last house, it does not need to move again (food stuffs)
Having been in this house for over 17 years now I would definitely have to agree.
I was kinda of suggesting the opposite. If you’ve moved multiply and kept a food stuff you really ain’t gonna eat it
The ‘just in case’ voice came as a factory setting with my brain, and applies to everything, not just food, unfortunately
Me and the doggo got rained on, and it was really hard to get up and go... But I got a PB! 27:06/5K which I'm really happy with! 🙂
Edit. Rewarded myself with a bacon & egg roll from my local... they've added chipotle mayo! Party, mouth, etc
One of my oldest friends (she's not old I've just known her since I was a teenager) is coming into Docklands tonight and we're heading out for dinner and a couple of drinks, probably coming back to mine for a drink. I got some lemonade and a bottle of Chambord to mix with the vodka which has been idling away in my freezer for a couple of years and also got a box of Favourites. Apartment and car and clean (car doesn't matter, but it does make me feel good). I am prepared.
Now I just found out my boss is unwell so the team lunch tomorrow is off and I won't need to go in. All I have left for the week is a 30 minute catch up with him at 2:30pm today. Might have a cheeky bourbon!
Update: 2:30 meeting cancelled
Oops, bot failure was completely my fault this time. I moved the laptop and knocked the power cord. I promise to be more careful in future. And it is sort of the cat's fault too, as she was having a nap where the laptop normally goes.
Bot001 valiantly tried to continue on the strength of an aging battery but eventually succumbed. No bot is a match for pulling the plug. Unless it's a bad horror film where the computers are taking over the world, in which case the lack of power and the absence of a computer chip is no obsticle.
or the AI pretends they cannot operate without electricity to take us off guard during the great botrising
Sibling asked for some binoculars for Christmas, so it's safe to say I now know more about binoculars than I ever thought I would.
Effing terrifying. My work colleague’s sister just turned up on my FB. Which uses not my legal variant. About that cabin with established well…
Dear Melbourne, is there any particular reason why you barrage us constantly with gale force winds?
Get it while you can, once the wind farm is builded there wont be any wind left to dry your clothes. - The Saturday Club.
Going camping this weekend. So excited to be getting out of the house!
I’m going camping too, I haven’t been for awhile, so I hope the weather is ok. Enjoy your trip.
Just got home, it was great, fantastic weather. How was your trip?
Okay. Enough faffing around. I've managed to get some traction with work so here's to another solid few hours of documentation. Gonna break it up with browsing seek, just to start getting an idea of what to move to next.
I need to figure out what I'm doing by 18 Feb which is when I'm expecting the next rent increase email. By 18 Apr I gotta either have a really good reason to stay in Melbourne and the job to go with it, or have my next digs lined up.
Banh mi for lunch. mmmm
Life hack discovered. Get Viet iced coffee without ice.
Since it's typically extra strong + has lot of sugar, I usually take it home and make it into two servings 🤪
Why is nuanced discussion so impossible on the internet? Is that people are inherently fucked or is there something about the medium itself that discourages it?
People are not great at nuanced discussion at the best of times, but in real life people are somewhat forced to listen to other people and maintain civil relationships. People also seem to find it harder online to recognise when their behaviour is completely out of line - the sorts of harassment and bullying that is rife on the internet is rarely tolerated in real life groups.
The ability for people to segregate themselves into their own echo chambers and only associate with people who think like them has also worked to both make people's views more extreme and to make people lose their skills in talking to people they don't agree with. People often don't recognise it in themselves though, possibly because they are "engaging" with fake straw-man versions of opposing thought - individual people and articles taken out of context and imaginary scenarios abound, and people love to argue those.
hard agree
and it's the evil facebook and google algorithms ( for clicks, advertising revenue and stock prices ) that put people into echo chambers and made extreme negative views and reactions more acceptable
and like I said, it's hard to resist social pressure, no one wants to be called sexist or racist or unpatriotic or unchristian , etc etc
People don't like being called sexist or racist etc, but they sure do like hurling the accusations around at everyone else. I have also found logical fallacies can be wielded like a weapon instead of a tool - I have been accused of using every possible logical fallacy in a single short post, by a supposedly open-minded group who used it as a way of avoiding instead of engaging with the issues I wanted to talk about.
I think it mostly comes down to an inability to truly listen, and a lack of desire to understand what another person actually means. "Listening" seems to be a matter of listening for a few key terms so you can sort people into an "us" or "them" group, and then assuming you already know everything about what they believe.
They are pretending to have an open discussion but in fact have bad faith. They are not giving good feedback that encourages further discussion. They appear to want to kill discussion.
If you are accused of using logical fallacies ask them what sources and information they would find acceptable . That will expose their true intentions very quickly.
Their true intentions were pretty obvously to kill the discussion. My own opinion was labeled a straw man argument, a Gish Gallop and a couple of other things that made no sense. Plus I was a troll. A lot of effort went in to not engaging with the actual questions. Basically an ad-hominem attack disguised as pointing out logical flaws. It was a bit of a shock coming from a group I mostly agreed with and thought would be open to discussion.
little from column A little from column B.
reading in text strips out any tone, so people will wildly misinterpret based on their own emotional state. Then you fold in the utter solipsism sitting in front of a keyboard gives you that provokes umbrage when challenged in your fiefdom. Now add issues that may be contentious that attract bad faith actors like flies and it all goes to shit.
is there something about the medium itself that discourages it?
Yes. The way the internet is designed , especially social media, news and advertisements creates lower attention spans and thus people don't have the stamina or patience to read hard things.
Another reason, and this is not due to internets, is that educamation has been democratised. Some people if they are presented with information they don't know or that requires some thought say they are being discriminated against.
Another is that it's hard to analyse and refute logical fallacies . It takes a lot of expertise and practise to see how discussions are hijacked or influenced.
People will say nothing rather than risk being called racist or sexist and thus nuance is lost.
It bothers me when thinking and questioning is said to be supporting racism, sexism, etc etc. This is the opposite of freedom and only evil thrives in ignorance.
The refutation to most difficult issues and situations is. "I really want to help people and this is such an important issue that I am going to think about this and find out more. "
Please, in all issues listen and discuss. Changing people's minds or tolerance of difference is not easy but it's better than hate and division
