Mostly the bazingamobiles and how they aren't better for the environment when you consider the resources necessary to manufacture and charge them.
Coworker thinks the solution is making better cars that minimize the extra luxuries and are easily repaired.
I said trains and they were cool with public transportation, but thought they would be unfeasible in suburban areas. I went in on the suburbs and how they were designed around making it unwalkable on purpose.
They didn't treat me like I was irrational, so that was good. They are a fascinating person and they want to convince me to their side in good faith.
I wanted to talk more openly about politics and so I lucked out. I'll be careful in the future about what I say, but I'm glad I advocated for the creation of trains and the destruction of suburbs.
I'm watching a thunderstorm from my apartment windows, nearby buildings are being silhouetted against the background lightning, it's beautiful and haunting.
I rediscovered my love of lightning storms a couple years ago because of an episode of Joe Pera Talks To You. They're so amazing to watch. It's crazy how they almost freeze time around themselves
also very depressed rn. i transferred universities and this is my first week at a much bigger school than my last one. pretty intimidated cus i dont really know people here, and i'm in the sophomore dorms where it seems like everyone already knows each other and has their established groups :/
i went to a transfer meetup thing yesterday and got a couple instagrams and talked with someone for a little while, so that's promising, but now idk what to do. kinda wanna hang out again but i don't wanna come across as desperate dm'ing him at least for a couple days. he mentioned a rock climbing thing which i think i would be into.
club fair starts on wednesnday so hoping to meet people there but so far i'm feeling extremely lonely this weekend and a constant fomo. nervous i'm not going to make connections this year because i'm either too awkward when i'm anxious or too chatty when i'm comfortable
went on a starting dose of ADHD meds a couple weeks ago and they've been helping my social anxiety a good bit and maybe calmed my brain 20%, defo helping more than any anti-depressant meds ever have, but i'm still overthinking how things will go here at almost every moment and probably will be doing that all weekend. kinda just wish i could have a normal brain for once
also a couple frat boys tried to recruit me which surprised me because i dress somewhat alternative and they all look like clones. one gave me his insta and he had a group photo of like 25+ people where every single one of them was white despite our school being 50% poc, like wtf?
thanks, and yeah it's kinda like my brain is running 80mph instead of 100. ngl, i'm a little underwhelmed because i saw all these posts "first time i took adderall my inner monologue was quiet for the first time and i cried," "i was able to do a chore without repeating it in my head 40 times," "i finally felt present and out of my head when talking with someone," etc
not expecting a miracle pill and i know i have to apply myself too, but everything is very subtle and i only feel slightly less scatterbrained. my psych said i seem to have severe ADHD but she wanted to see how it affected my anxiety and insomnia first (all of which it's minorly helped), so now i have to wait another 2 weeks to talk about raising the dose. wish i'd started this earlier but oh well
Hi friend. I know it seems hard right now but try to put yourself out there as much as you can, you'll thank yourself for it later. Do whatever you can to push through the anxiety and muster up the strength to talk to people and be social, in whatever way is available. You aren't annoying, you aren't desperate, you're just new and how you're feeling is completely understandable. The decent people know and understand that and there are loads of them. You can do it, good luck.
Hi friend. I know it seems hard right now but try to put yourself out there as much as you can, you'll thank yourself for it later. Do whatever you can to push through the anxiety and muster up the strength to talk to people and be social, in whatever way is available. You aren't annoying, you aren't desperate, you're just new and how you're feeling is completely understandable. The decent people know and understand that and there are loads of them. Good luck.
That sounds nice. I love a good walk. I think I might end up going for one tonight, but then again drivers around here are fucking insane and I don't want to get ran over
Right there with you. Depression can be tough for people to understand, especially for those who don’t suffer from it chronically. I’ve been running from my daemons for over 30 years and I’m getting tired of the roller coaster. Sometimes I just want the ride to stop. Hang in there.
40 years for me. Things can get better but never have the expectation that things will be better sitting back and changing nothing. Some times we get to complacent and stop discovering new adventures.
Home alone since my parents are down the shore (I'm in my late 20s and still haven't left home). I would probably be drinking some beer right now if I hadn't been pushed to going to rehab by a mental health evaluator 2 months ago.
I'll probably do something with my friends this weekend to take advantage of burgerland's fake Labor Day (the real one, of course, being May 1st).
Ive been thinking more about making things. I have no space to do so, so its just fantasy for now, but i want to be productive in ways that are fun and/or genuinely help people. One thing ive been thinking about is making midi pads. I priced everything out and its not terribly expensive, and i could put custom midi pads/controllers in everyones hands who wants them. The real spendy stuff comes when you want velocity sensitive pads/buttons.
Ive also been doing a lot of programming recently, and its been pretty great! Been working on some metaobject stuff thats confusing, but in a fun way lol.
I had some serious anxiety this morning, and a really uh interesting night where the deluded thoughts just kept going and it was hard to keep them in check and managed. But things are better now; im just up, and like, up in a way that i feel is manageable. Is this what mentally healthy people feel like?
Making midi pads sounds like a fun project for sure! If you ever start doing it, let me know because I'd love one. I wanted an MPC really bad as a teen but never got one because they're so damn expensive.
I'm glad the code is keeping you entertained! I've been thinking about getting back into it because I had a lot of fun with it before depression really took over. Too bad I only ever really learned Java and JavaScript.
Mental stability is a great feeling. It comes and goes in waves, but those calms are really great
If you ever start doing it, let me know because I'd love one.
Ok what would you want in a midi pad? Number of controls and types, layouts, etc.? Ive been looking at ADC units and especially arduinos (not too keen on doing a 10000 unit order of ADCs lol) which have a multiplexed ADC, so 8 analog inputs plus i could do a grid of digital inputs. One thing I was thinking of was having midi note velocity controlled by a pot or encoder or something, or setting up groups of digital inputs with different velocities.
I've been thinking about getting back into it because I had a lot of fun with it before depression really took over.
code evangelizing
If you ever feel like getting into it again, I have never had more fun than with the programming language Common Lisp. Its weird, its old, its incredibly responsive. It has a really easy to understand syntax (imo) which makes code navigation a breeze. It was also doing LSP 30 years before LSP. Its what I love to write and it makes solving problems really easy imo. And if you write good code and use a smart compiler, it can be almost as fast as C (or as fast even, if you (declare (optimize (debug 0) (safety 0) (speed 3))))
Mental stability is a great feeling. It comes and goes in waves, but those calms are really great
Yeah ive been feeling functional again, and all i can think of is "cool, so im gonna fall back into a deep depression any day now, great, lovely, thats exactly what i wanted". And friends say "nah just find what hypes you up", which is a shitty invalidating answer. Makes me not want to be around them.
I talked to my oldest son earlier about what I used to do to feel better. For some reason when I'm down (not actually depressed, that took CBT and medication) something about The Black Parade just makes me feel better. I can't make it through that album and be in a bad mood.
My wife and I watch crappy reality TV after the kids go to bed. As long as it isn't poverty exploitation it's generally a fun diversion. If it weren't for that, I'd probably smoke a lot of weed.
I was at an open-air screening of a pretty short documentary about this cities punk scene yesterday. It was organized by a group occupying a nearby cinema that has set abandoned since around 2020, which they currently can't do screenings at because of fire safety. The screening was pretty well attended but as always with these types of events it's equal parts fun and depressing, since it really doesn't feel like any of these people's efforts can really do much against the ever-progressing cultural decline and ever-rising rents in this (and every other) city.
Sorry you're depressed. Someone I've gotten to know really deeply online who lives faraway overseas has disappeared from the internet and I'm concerned for their safety, so I'm a little depressed too. I actually haven't been on hexbear much lately because I've been talking with this person so much.
been less online for quite a while, life seems to be getting better for me ig, but like i think its still too soon to tell whether this newfound contentment will be a long term thing or not. In case you still want to talk i'll dm you my matrix