The only way I can cope with how miserable and hopeless my life is, is by living in a fantasy world most of the time, imagining my life is totally different. And by holding on to the thought of suicide as an escape when it becomes just too intolerable.
my mental health is long gone, i can't help sorry :(
maybe video games but those cost mone- y'arrrrr get ye down t'yer local shore and get yeself qbittorrent, the mightiest ship, ye be sailing down to free media heck y'ahh at- cough i am sure you know how to do that.
i don't even try to keep myself "sane", i always feel like i am the opposite without trying to be ableist. i am seen as the opposite of that word by most, but i feel ok alone, until i don't. i feel ok with my friends, as little as i have, until i don't
if you have a hobby you enjoy, do that. just do what you like, there's always hope no matter how dark the world may be. mine is video games, shitposting and rarely drawing. if yours is reading theory, you can do that. anything you like, any hobby, do it. time is not wasted if you enjoy what you do
Physical fitness, with long-term goals.
Participate in sport that includes community.
Sobriety.
Good nutrition. (My weak spot)
I've accepted collapse as inevitable and have spent many years watching it happen. The system isn't rational. It treats humans as exploitable disposable resources. It treats the natural systems we depend on for our lives as exploitable resources to be used up and converted into numbers in a bank account. It concentrates power and influence in the hands of those who want nothing more than to maintain the system that benefits them and nobody else. The system will collapse in the same way that the last cinders of a house collapse after it has burned down. We have enjoyed many thousands of years of stable climate but the holocene is coming to an end. Globalism is coming to and end, because most places on the globe will soon be uninhabitable. And it's entirely the fault of capitalism, or perhaps the selfishness and psychopathy that brings about systems like capitalism. And there is no escape. The best you can hope for is to disentangle yourself from it as much as possible so you don't get so burned in the collapse. For years I've been trying to reduce external dependencies, grow my own food, pay off debts, mortgage, haven't bought a new car for twenty years. I don't know exactly what I'm preparing for, but I expect it to be unpleasant. It's become a mission of a sort. A purpose.
I'm not actually sure I'm keeping my sanity. But I don't want to be part of a system that I know is insane. And while I haven't fully extricated myself from it, I do have a plan, and it helps keep me from completely loosing my mind.
Sim racing, various video games, D&D, sometimes I just allow myself to have a full breakdown and try to rally the next day.
Bird watching innit
Also lifting, enjoying nature, hiking, (making) music, spending time with family and friends. It's hard to not let society get you but I find my hobbies help a lot. If I'm freezing my nuts of while sitting still for two hours in a bird watching house near a lake I tend to not think about capitalism for a while.
You and I have similar interests. If I were to start birdwatching, should I just pick up the cheapest used binoculars I can find?
I currently have pretty cheap binoculars for the time being and it works alright. I think K can see some 200m in distance and after that it gets blurry. I'd say it's a good start to see if you like it without spending 100-200 euro/dollars right away.
Every Sunday I spend 4 hours playing Pathfinder with my friends. It's both human contact and escapism from this sorry world.
Plus I smoke a lot of weed.
I disconnect to some degree. You can probably track my days off as to when I am active on this site, because I tend to not post for a couple day stretches at a time.
As to what I actually do in said downtime, I play board games with my partner and I do a lot of cooking. Weekdays get the simple quick recipes, but I do more elaborate things on my days off. I do a lot of Italian and Chinese food, some Japanese or French. I have a few other hobbies too: I vape and make all my own liquids which can be fun to experiment with, I have recently started getting into TTRPGs though lack many people to play with.
More generally speaking, I have gotten very good at learning who is worth engaging with. I can pretty quickly identify "misguided liberal who has a potential socialist future" from "diehard lifelong lib". The latter I don't bother engaging with anymore, but the former I am happy to have discussions with. It's a better use of my time and less taxing on mental health in the longterm.
I try and find joy everywhere I can and then spread it further. A person needs hobbies, toys, trinkets, silly little things to enjoy, and people it enjoy those things with if you don’t want to lose yourself to depression. Bake brownies, buy some Lego, join a local photography club, go to a furry rave, join the elderly at a library event, pick up an instrument, treat yourself to some ice cream, take a class at a local community college to learn something new and get out of the house, compliment the person standing next to you at the bus stop. We’re all alive and living on this planet. We’re all in this together. That’s why I became a communist to begin with, there’s more that I love in this world then hate.
Does that mean sacrificing all your money and time you have to trivial pursuits? No, that puts you right back where you started, but you need happiness and treats in your life if you don’t want to go insane.
I don't most of the time. What we can do is hope and organise. The time will come. Younger people are more left than ever. Eventually Capitalism will breakdown. Be ready to fill that void.
A vape, a case of high-strength IPAs and a lot of good smoke.
In all seriousness, talking to my neighbors and friend's family and slowly targeting and dismantling their views on our system is cathartic. Even if I've had the same conversation over and over again with different people, being able to make an impact on how they think is important to me. Donating food and handing it out, doing work for my local, etc.
If you own a gun or want to, remmys are a blast and incredibly stress relieving.
