Get a Hobby!
Jul. 29th, 2021 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraSimone Biles dominated the chatter of the people who live inside my computer yesterday.
This got frustrating because I don’t care about Simone Biles, I don’t care about the Olympics, I detest competition in all its manifestations, and I don’t think Millennials need yet another poster child to rationalize their generational obsession with mental health and narcissism.
Here’s a secret, Millennials: Everyone has mental health issues, and the best way to deal with those is to find a truly engrossing hobby.
Millennials don’t have hobbies because unfortunately for them, they grew up in an age where sitting in front of a computer with that delusionary sense of communion with all those other disembodied souls floating through social-media-land has supplanted all other interests and activities.
It’s sad.
They’re right: We failed them.
But not in the ways they think we failed them.
###
Yes, yes, I know: I’m a horrible human being.
###
Other than that, It was a beautiful day. Mrs. Neighbor Ed got a haircut I covet, so I took multiple photographs, and will shortly be trotting off to a hairdresser to have the look recreated on my head.
Loraine saw a bear in her backyard at two o’clock in the afternoon. (Technically, I live in a suburb. But it’s a suburb surrounded by deep woods.)
Humidity was way down so I was able to exercise after I finished my work for the day—Remunerative Project still not finished, but I have high hopes for today.
Politics continue to worry me. I look at current events the same way I used to look at a chess board—six moves out.
Matt Taibbi wrote a brilliant economic analysis of the 2020 election, looking at per capita income of the counties that went for Biden in the 2020 election versus the counties that went for Trump. He then extrapolated that to the current vaccine wars. (Unfortunately, the piece is only available to his substack subscribers, so I can’t link it here.)
Vaccine hesitancy is most closely correlated with lower income levels.
Seems like that piece of information could be used somehow to increase vaccination rates.
This got frustrating because I don’t care about Simone Biles, I don’t care about the Olympics, I detest competition in all its manifestations, and I don’t think Millennials need yet another poster child to rationalize their generational obsession with mental health and narcissism.
Here’s a secret, Millennials: Everyone has mental health issues, and the best way to deal with those is to find a truly engrossing hobby.
Millennials don’t have hobbies because unfortunately for them, they grew up in an age where sitting in front of a computer with that delusionary sense of communion with all those other disembodied souls floating through social-media-land has supplanted all other interests and activities.
It’s sad.
They’re right: We failed them.
But not in the ways they think we failed them.
###
Yes, yes, I know: I’m a horrible human being.
###
Other than that, It was a beautiful day. Mrs. Neighbor Ed got a haircut I covet, so I took multiple photographs, and will shortly be trotting off to a hairdresser to have the look recreated on my head.
Loraine saw a bear in her backyard at two o’clock in the afternoon. (Technically, I live in a suburb. But it’s a suburb surrounded by deep woods.)
Humidity was way down so I was able to exercise after I finished my work for the day—Remunerative Project still not finished, but I have high hopes for today.
Politics continue to worry me. I look at current events the same way I used to look at a chess board—six moves out.
Matt Taibbi wrote a brilliant economic analysis of the 2020 election, looking at per capita income of the counties that went for Biden in the 2020 election versus the counties that went for Trump. He then extrapolated that to the current vaccine wars. (Unfortunately, the piece is only available to his substack subscribers, so I can’t link it here.)
Vaccine hesitancy is most closely correlated with lower income levels.
Seems like that piece of information could be used somehow to increase vaccination rates.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 01:41 pm (UTC)“it’s a suburb surrounded by deep woods.”
Ooooh, that sounds cool.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 02:20 pm (UTC)Perfect candidates for fascism! 😊
no subject
Date: 2021-07-30 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 02:13 pm (UTC)Nicely penned, P.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 02:25 pm (UTC)And if I have to see that dumb MacSweeney's flowchart about how if you don't think Simone Biles is the greatest thing since sliced bread, you should "shut the fuck up" one more time, I swear—I'm gonna go postal. 😊
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 06:16 pm (UTC)Bears in the 'burbs...Yes, we had one rogue bear roaming here a few years ago. I never saw "him". (The assumption was that he was a he, searching for a mate (when not searching for food.) He eventually left the area and found his way back to big nature.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 06:34 pm (UTC)Loraine reports that the bear all but knocked on her back door! 😊. It is troublesome. All of us neighbors immediately took down our bird feeders, which is too bad; we get some interesting birds around here, and I enjoyed trying to identify them.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-29 08:52 pm (UTC)I make an LJ/DW exception! 😊. I think many communications on these two platforms can be quite profound.
And, of course, I have spent a shitload of time talking to the disembodied souls today!!!! 😔
That's 'cause I'm monstrously bored working on the Remunerative Project. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and when I'm back into full-spectrum sunlight, I'm gonna turn the computer off and go play outside for three days! 😊