💾 Archived View for zaibatsu.circumlunar.space › ~valravn › log › 2024 › 0508.gmi captured on 2024-05-10 at 10:24:38. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Hello there, it's been a while. April was an eventful month, and I have some thoughts to share - on mistakes, becoming an adult, and freedom.
My worst habits lead me to some poor decisionmaking over the last couple years. Take an undisciplined escapist, give them endless algorithmic video feeds, plentiful cannabis, and some feelings to run from - it might be a while until they pull themselves out of that haze. It's certainly taken me a bit, but I've come to recognize that I've wasted quite a lot of my earliest twenties.
The point of this post isn't to mope about such mistakes, though, but to celebrate: I've been gathering all of my scattered shit and compacting it together, maybe for the first time in my life. There's ups and downs, of course, but these ups have been the most productive I've ever been. I'm staying sober for a while, properly studying for my cybersecurity certifications (mostly), and starting to once again socialize with friends I had been slowly pulling away from. My mind's the clearest it's been for some time, my goals are laid out, and working through issues I've neglected has lead to some important revelations.
I think what "adulthood" means is different for everybody, but I've finally figured out what it is to me. From birth, judgement is the realm of our parents: whether something is right or wrong, positive or negative, correct or incorrect is determined primarily by the adults around us. We have our own internal sense of judgement, but it's never fully trusted - much of the game of childhood and adolescence is arguing our own contrary reasoning to the authorities around us, and sulking at the futility when we must obey theirs. When we (often begrudgingly) realize those adults are correct, we learn; when we maintain our own correctness, we're instilled with a lasting sense of injustice. Over the years, this game crafts and sharpens our own systems of judgement, unique to everyone - and I believe adulthood is when we begin to prioritize it over the systems of others.
There is power in this, and responsibilities that come with it: for one, you can't just allow yourself to self-bullshit anymore. The safety net of the better-tested judgement of adults around you doesn't exist anymore, and consequences to acting wrong aren't softened. Being honest with yourself becomes significantly more important. For one reason or another, while growing up, I learned to prioritize the appearances of doing well over the reality. So long as it /seemed/ to others in my life that I was doing well, I told myself, I must be doing well - even if, in reality, I was spiralling. The resulting internal contractions had to be sorted out one way or another, through introspection and/or a harsh reality check. The solution is to shed the perceived need to appeal to the judgement of others, and begin to operate off my own; in doing so, I've started to find the independence and self-governance that I've longed for. There's no overhead I need to appeal to for big decisions anymore - I just have to do my best to ensure I'm making the right ones for myself. Despite the increase in responsibility, I really feel a weight lifted off of my shoulders.
I'm 22 years old, and less than a month from being 23. That's an important number to me - if you're familiar with Discordian thought, you might know why. I've felt, or hoped, for a while that 23 is when I'd properly get my shit together and some of my larger goals would be start to be achieved. I actually feel like I'm on the right path for that to be the case. That feels surprising, and exciting.
So, I'm currently in an arc of spring cleaning; throwing away unnecessary habits and defense mechanisms, dusting off mental shelves, reorganizing parts of my life. My space here on the Zaibatsu is no exception: I've refreshed some elements of my capsule, and I'm working on giving my gopherhole some much-needed love. I want to thank whoever might end up reading this, and the 'smolnet' as a whole. Even at the times where I've been running away from my better judgement the most, these corners of the internet have been a deeply intentional space, prompting thought and inspiring a sort of creativity I once thought I'd lost. I did not initially think I'd be able to write the sort of longform introspective content I've read from the likes of ~solderpunk and ~winter; I'm young, and I'm sure I have a long way to go, but I'm so glad to be here sharing my thoughts with you. I hope you'll have a good day.