small thoughts part 7
In āsmall thoughtsā posts, Iām posting a collection of short thoughts and opinions that donāt warrant their own post. :)
Seeing parallels between my mother and me.
She used to throw herself into work, regardless of anything. Didnāt wanna call in sick, still usually doesnāt. Used to pride herself on how much she works and that sheās even driving while crying because her wrists hurt so much from her rheumatoid arthritis. Itās irresponsible.
I always looked at her like: If I acted like you, Iād be sick too.
She was bottling everything up, having no healthy coping mechanisms, pushing herself too far, not giving herself proper rest, angry about all kinds of stuff. It canāt be healthy. Your body is telling you to stop.
Iām already doing loads of things better than my mum. More boundaries, healthier coping mechanisms, more rest, not afraid to say no, better nutrition, more exercise, earlier treatment, less stressful job, supportive partner.
But I see we are the same in that we never feel like weāre doing too much. We always think that weāre doing too little, that thereās always room for more, and that weāre probably slacking and being lazy. But turns out we do more than many healthy people do, while chronically ill. I understand my mum better now in that regard. Illnesses like that of course can be exasperated by bad lifestyle, but just lying around more doesnāt make it go away. It can even make it worse mentally. At least work offers distraction and a way to farm praise and feel good about oneself instead of just a sicko who should die.
No one wants to feel like a burden, and at the same time, chronic illness makes it so obvious that youāre fragile and have limited time in life. So thereās this push to get everything done and reach new heights as soon as possible because who knows when itāll get worse, who knows when itāll hospitalize me again, who knows how long I have left, and a push to say: I might be super sick, but Iām not a bummer, not a liability, not a waste of money, see how productive and fun I can be regardless. I can serve as inspiration porn for healthy people! Iām not like those sick people who are just sitting at home, so pick me!
So thereās this pressure and drive to go twice or thrice as hard.
Something making me uncomfortable for a while now is: I feel like lots of things online that should be unmonetizable, cozy, intimate, authentic etc. still get twisted to benefit someone financially or career-wise in an overt way. It makes me want to retreat to the offline at times.
It is highly unlikely that youāll attend a private, casual party in real life and someone else will advertise it online to get as many people to join it as well, just to include in their CV that theyāve held events with this inflated number of attendants that they brought in, because it would benefit their career in event management.
People will do that online though. Theyāll make a casual retro website, and a year later include it as reference for coding knowledge or a web design side hustle. Theyāll make videos for fun, find an audience and suddenly get a sponsor, have a management team and a content strategy. They grow a forum or channel, then retroactively use it to bolster their CV in social media management. Code a project for a small group as a hobby, then suddenly promote it and intend to monetize it.
Thereās a need for some people to grow anything into something professional because theyāve internalized growth is good, and more people in a space they control means more opportunities and potential sources of income or influence. More eyeballs means more sales. I fear they learned that from influencers and it leaves a weird taste.
The mindset: Growth to stroke the ego, growth so more people may take interest in their online presence and give sponsorships, growth for the career and side hustle, growth because in the rare event theyāll write a book or start a podcast or a YT channel or a blog, more people are willing to consume it, ā¦
Iām tired of always somehow being on someoneās turf that starts to turn into a monetization object, friend turned potential future customer or follower, or power trip.
Reminds me of a Discord server I used to be on ages ago where the owner was basically never active anymore in the server but promoted it elsewhere, and one reason why he didnāt wanna give admin to someone else was the clout a big Discord server brings and the vague feeling that you could somehow leverage this one day, just like accounts always wrestle with the idea of whether they have to āuse this opportunityā when they blow up. He had no interest in it or the members, but was attached to the numbers.
I donāt wanna be where someone opportunistic thinks āThis could come in handy one dayā or āI should be rewarded for building this upā. or āMore is always betterā. or that uses an admin position as something to feel important about. It ruins a space.
Iāve seen online spaces with 100 members still feel like a casual chat room where no one is elevates themselves as anything but another chatter, while Iāve also seen ones with 15 members already feel like a forced space where someone āruns the showā and has a clear path they follow and you are just mere numbers to fill spots.
You wonāt have a photo album, a highlight reel of your life online once youāre old. No great aesthetic shots, quotes, candid beautiful videos with great music in a huge backlog.
Until then, the services you use will have significantly changed. They have already changed a couple times in this little time and shown that they donāt give a damn about your content. Old content is already missing sound, others are muted due to copyright and licensing issues of the chosen songs. The format and ratio changes. Features get removed.
When youāre old, your oldest content will be 60 years old or older, unavailable, lost due to deletion of the service, looking ugly, muted, erroring out, unplayable. Please donāt delude yourself that you are building something that lasts on these platforms.
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