Positivity in a tough age, Bubbles.town, Sharing things, Gratitude
I just had a 40 minute Videochat with my partner. I found myself very grateful for that technology. We will be in the same city quite soon, but in the meantime it is another great way -besides daily msges and pics- to stay in touch. Before that I sat in the sun longer than I have in days.
I rail against the ways; corporations, greedflation, technology, services and the internet and quite some politics are going, with some frequency. Yet, I find myself far from hopeless. I get down at times, like anyone else, of course.
Today I signed up this blog for: https://bubbles.town/, because I like their ideas & if a few more people see and get something out of my blog, that is a win.
Even if I felt hopeless more often than not,.. it was a long time ago that Rage Against the Machine said,.. "Anger is a Gift!". I'd rather be angry for a good reason once in a while (I am not at all saying frequent recreational outrage or virtue signalling) than just beaten down, insular and giving up.
I can always do more, more things that are almost solely positive. This Thursday I play D&D with four guys I like. I know at least two of them, sometimes struggle a lot with life, trauma and connection. D&D happens to be great for those things, and as result, I myself miss it too when I have not done it for a while.
What I used to do, in a basement or attic room as per the meme below,.. is still possible today! For myself or anyone, in fact it is easier than ever, thanks to Nicotine++
I have had a few of these below. Nothing today stops me from having them again or something very similar, if I preferred that. Quite a few people are switching to less addicting/"less smart" phones or at least limiting their screen time. This https://minimalcompany.com/pages/mp02 is not cheap but fairly interesting and has a degoogled ROM option, in theory it should enable you to do everything you do on a regular smartphone but with far less addiction or tracking involved.
I essentially never have put prompts into AI websites and I don't plan to start, nobody is making me, even if they do try to entice me and I have to hide AI generated results from my browser searches. I read quite a bit, if not enough novels. ->
In my private daily life, I use exclusively software like you see on the left of the picture below. There is so much of it and it is great and getting better all the time! It is rather fun and smooth to use, it feels great. I don't have to use the stuff on the right at all, so I do not use and do not get the terrible feeling that stuff tends to give me. ->
Generally, the kindness, creativity, sharing, inspiration, fun and even anti-commercial generosity I see in many corners, blogs, as well as Reddit post, often about the (OSR) TTRPGs gives me faith in humanity.
The eight page adventure/dungeon I plan to run this Thursday is one of the better ones I have ever seen, and the creator put it for free on Reddit and was very gracious and happy when communicating with me and others about it, they were so happy I am running and sharing it with others! It will save me hours of preparation.
I am grateful my gf is enjoying drawing winged cats and wyverns and much more, often, and that she is enjoying her browsing of the Discworld TTRPG!
Sometimes I wonder "Should I write a blog post, I don't have a super clear topic or thought at the moment, and so many of my old posts need better links, some corrections, improvements, additions,... first..?"
That is silly. That way procrastination or doing nothing lies. There is a saying in Dutch,... "Beter Onzin, dan Geen Zin." Roughly translates to: "Better non-sense than doing nothing/can't be bothered to do a thing." Or more international and better know analogue:
"Perfection is the enemy of good (enough)."
This post, this blog, this life,.. is very far from perfection. And it will never get there. But a perfect sentence, or a great, memorable moment, plenty of gratitude, those are almost always possible.
I am grateful people like Mrs. Rachel exist. I do not know much about her, but I keep hearing she is a good soul and not unlike Mr. Rogers and that is mooore than good enough for me, and inspiring.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1w8unak/ms_rachel_meets_a_mom_and_her_toddler_who_have/