Existential despair is so common in a person’s twenties, I think, because up until that point, we’ve had a pretty clear road map for what’s expected of us and we haven’t had much reason to question that map. There are still a few milestones outlined for us (start a career, get married, make babies) but more and more young people are entering the post-school world and realizing:
A) that career thing just isn’t happening like they said it would
B) I’m not ready to get married/I don’t want to get married/marriage isn’t the sort of life-altering event that it used to be
C) I’m not ready to make babies/I don’t want a baby/I can’t afford to raise children right now (see point A)
And in the absence of these milestones to shoot for (which one could argue weren’t the promise of fulfillment they claimed to be in the first place), what we’re left with is this aimless abyss of “the rest of our lives” sprawling out ahead of us with no indication of how it will go or what we should be doing to shape it. Young people start their first jobs, find they hate them, and think to themselves, “Is this it? Am I just supposed to do this job until I’m too old to do it or die first?”
Which is, yeah, really fucking depressing!! So here’s my best attempt at an alternate roadmap for young people that don’t vibe with the old model. Please feel free to add in your own suggestions!
Learn how you work and what you want out of a job. Unless you’ve been in a job-specific training program that gives you hands-on experience, your first jobs should be experiments. Learn how a full-time job feels for you, what elements are more or less difficult. Different workplaces have different cultures and expectations - what do you need out of a job environment? Do you need to find fulfillment in your job or is it enough for it to pay the bills and leave you time to find outside fulfillment? Do you want to climb a corporate ladder or are you content to hunker down as long as your bills get paid? This period of experimentation is exhausting and may feel like it’s consuming your whole life.
Learn how to make time for things outside of work. Adapting to a full-time work environment often leaves you feeling so drained that you can’t do anything but go home and collapse on the couch every day. That’s fine - for a little while. But it can also become a habit. You need to learn how to do things after work or you’ll go crazy. Go to a trivia night. Start an exercise schedule. Take a class in your community. Find volunteer work. Join a band. You will find that putting more things into your day makes you feel like you have more time, not less.
Find a community. Making friends as an adult can feel impossible. Where do you find these mysterious friends everyone seems to have?? This goes along with #2, though. As you start regularly attending the same activities, you will find that repeat interactions with the same people turn into friendships or at least friendly acquaintances. Say yes to invitations. Get involved in your local community. Strive to be connected enough to bump into people at the grocery store.
Unlearn bad lessons. We all internalize some messed up things when we’re growing up. As you start off your adult life, that’s the time to actively work at unpacking the things you’ve brought with you from childhood and deciding which things are helping you and which things are harming you. This might mean therapy or joining a spiritual group or reading new things or just making special time to be in your own head.
Learn the lessons you missed. In this, I mostly mean practical things. “Adulting.” Areas of your day-to-day practical life that are causing you extreme stress are probably related to a knowledge or experience gap. Do you hate cooking and cleaning or were you not taught how to do it properly? Are you afraid of making medical appointments or is it just something new you’re not used to? Does money make you queasy or do you need to learn how to make a budget?
Find something fulfilling. This can be your job. It can be volunteer work. It can be faith. It can be a hobby. It can be creating things. It can be challenging yourself physically. It can be activism. It can be going for walks in nature. Everyone finds fulfillment in different places. If you’re not finding it where you are, look somewhere else.
horse pulling a very odd looking carriage in fact it appears to be a car upon a wheeled platform and even more surprisingly there seems to be a man in there this is a truly puzzling image
Eärendil (and Elwing) for @nolofinweanweek! I really wanted to participate in the prompts, and when I saw Eärendil I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to draw him. I’ve always loved the imagery of Elwing flying out to meet Eärendil as he returns, so here’s my take on what that might look like :)
I want a Voyager Threshold AU where professor Kathryn Janeway has a drunken one night stand with drop-out Tom Paris and has triplets. She and Tom are decent co-parents but obvs he’s got a lot of issues so he is really a 4th kid to her.
A few years pass and she meets the ex-con Chakotay who falls for her hard and fast. He spends a lot of time convincing her to let him into her kids lives. She finally relents cuz she’s obsessed with him too and can’t deny it any longer.
Cue Chakotay taking a deep breath in the kitchen after faring pretty well with the triplets (“why do you have a tattoo on your face?”) only to hear the fridge slam and see the man who got him prison time chugging milk from the carton. What’s he doing here? He’s the love of his life’s baby daddy.
Today marks the 85th anniversary of the kristallnacht.
We have spent decades saying ‘never again’, hoping for 'never again’, and yet as we mark this day, history is repeating itself.
The broken glass from the windows of vandalised shops litters the streets. Crudely drawn stars of David and swastikas adorn the doors of synagogues and homes in once quiet and peaceful neighborhoods. Children are going to school without their blazers and kippahs. Families are removing menorahs from their windows on shabbat.
Today, there are communities afraid to mourn, lest they be harassed or attacked or mocked for simply expressing grief.
This is not okay. We are not okay.
85 years and not much has changed. It’s truly heartbreaking.
hello! I work in tech and here are some important things to know about “tumblr is going into maintenance mode.” please note I do not work at tumblr, I’ve just worked at tumblr-adjacent sort of companies for my entire adult life and i’ve gone through this before.
what does maintenance mode mean?
literally what it sounds like – Automattic is not going to be hiring new staff, investing in new product features, or doing anything new on tumblr. the staff that remains working on tumblr will be maintaining the status quo. most of the staff will be allocated elsewhere (or possibly laid off, though it looks like from that memo that’s not what they’re planning to do). it does not mean tumblr is shutting down. you should still buy premium, get merch, etc, because this is definitely step one of the shutdown process, but a maintenance mode designation is basically to see if tumblr will generate a revenue without putting more money into it than strictly necessary.
why did this happen?
obviously I do not know directly. from my observation, it’s in part because Yahoo had absolutely no idea what to do with this platform, and then when Automattic bought it they also… struggled… but it is also in part because the user base has been so viciously anti-monetization that most attempts were killed outright.
yes, the user base is part of the problem. the absolute feral anti-premium, anti-ads, anti-tipping, anti-everything tumblr tried to do to make money is part of the problem. it’s not the only part of the problem by a long shot, but I would be remiss not to mention it.
what do I do now?
use the platform. just like, keep using tumblr. do not abandon ship. buy premium, get yourself some badges, get yourself some merch, but use the platform. ad revenue is based on impressions and clicks. if a ton of the user base gives up, that revenue disappears.
–
tumblr is extremely special. I’ve never seen anything like it in my 20-odd years of being Very Online, and I was a minor BNF in WolfStar during LiveJournal days. I don’t know that it can be recreated elsewhere. I don’t know where fandom will go. I know that something else will exist after tumblr and that nothing gold can stay, but i don’t think the specific kind of joy found here can be recreated. i say this not to be a downer, but to be realistic. I guess I should find a Bluesky invite.
I’ve been here since 2008. I’m not going anywhere as long as this site exists. hope you’ll stay here with me.
These Star Trek, Orville, and The Expanse celebrities not only fully but enthusiastically support the LGBTQIA+ community. They attended the Galactic D&I (diversity and inclusion) Convention in Philadelphia, and were beautiful, wonderful people.
Siddig gives the best hugs, long and sweet.
Garrett Wang will be your friend on Pokemon Go.
Robert O'Reilly will grant honor on you and your house and pledge his aid at the top of his lungs.
These people are not just allies, they’re activists and friends.
If tumblr dies we should all regroup on vivino the wine-rating app. Can follow, can like, can post pictures, can post text. Just mention a Pinot and Chianti for the first few months until we outnumber the genuine wine people
“this 2 euro wine from a cardboard box tastes like grapes and the package has a tiger on it. (Now that the wine people have blocked, I need to put blorbo in a jar and shake it violently, I need to maul her with my teeth) And a general bouqet of "forgotten in the car for several weeks in late summer” in an aroma way. I give five stars.“ -> my vision for the future
/ 6492
Ask
Known Aliases: El | Discount Galadriel
PhD student in the humanities. Very Jewish. English and French speaker. Yiddish learner. Writer, artist, and edit-maker. Aspiring gardener. Carbohydrate enthusiast. Cat lady.
she/her/hers
