So long story short, I essentially spend the last 1.5 years rotting at home in bed oscillating from mild to heavy depression, though abt 7months of them was intense studies before I burned out. But anyway I went to a college today, a decent one not amazing, just whatever I got, just to get a look. It starts next week. And to find places to live in a different city (though its only about 100kms apart from my home).

And yeah I am kinda scared now idk. I do not really have any meaningful friends or something or a mentor to ask advice, so well I would like to hear your stories! Or any tips? I am kinda introverted, well not kinda quite a bit. But I wont say I am under-confident, I do not have trouble talking to people or something, mostly I just find hard to relate with them. Even today I tried striking some casual convos but seniors have some attitude towards freshers i guess, and freshers were too busy completing their docs maybe.

Right now I am attempting to detox or strictly limit online activity by disconnecting my Internet for 2 whole months. I have downloaded what I could to pad the time and have gotten around more to do things I kept putting off.

So far, what I am not liking about it, is that the only way I have internet now is mobile since my phone has a plan. I. hate. the. mobile. experience. There is a reason I have always treated all of my phones as just communication devices as meant to be and not just for browsing.

The keyboard interface sucks, keys are too close which are prone for you to make many typing mistakes unless you have autocorrect. And we all know how autocorrect can be. Sometimes things will randomly zip you away from what you are doing like, in the middle of making this, something made my browser get yanked down and I was on the home screen.

Most if not all UIs for websites are shit in mobile. If things act up, welp! You are in for a world of frustration! Being on mobile is really like you are going down a narrow corridor, just trying to get to places and do things. But for every few paces, you have a series of booby traps to deal with and they all fuck you up and leave you pissed off as you try resuming. It's a fucking trap in of itself.

The plus side of no net? Keeps the social media noise down.

It doesn't even have to be about politics - this can be lifestyle, philosophy, or movie critique. Maybe a different celebrity for each different thing you're particularly opinionated on.

I'm fond of Anthony Bourdain's views on cooking, for instance, and on how to learn cookery. But he's a bit of a rascal when it comes to how he treats others.

I like C.S Lewis's views on life, faith, and epistemology.

As for politicians, well, I doubt any politician alive today accurately shares my views. But i could composite from a few; for instance i found it sensible that Jeremy corbyn (UK ex-leader of Labour) wanted to nationalise many things asap no matter the shock to the economy - buying them back presumably becomes harder the more time that passes.

There are 193 UN recognised countries, two UN observer states (the Vatican and the Palestinian Authority), and plenty of partially recognised or disputed countries. But what if there was more?

Leaving aside factors like natural resources, stability, population, etc., what countries do you want to exist, simply because it would be pretty neat? Joke answers are acceptable and encouraged.

I'll start.

We had great chemistry but different goals. She was religious and looking to marry and thought she could change me, a non-religious person who intends to remain unmarried and childless. I was up front about the lack of religion and the lack of desire for marriage. She was not up front about her intent to change me.

After two months of regular flings she told me we couldn't see each other anymore, because she wanted someone to go to church with, it was my fault she was living a sinful life (totally), and she was cheating on me with another dude was a Christian.

I've been rewatching my favorites (Mr. Robot, Andor, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) and I'm curious: What is your favorite show of all time? What makes that your favorite?

1. Put it in my savings account for my trip to Japan next September, or
2. Pay off my 18TB HDD (900 bucks) and get rid of all the upcoming installments ($100/month), or
3. Other

Either way, my monthly balance stays the same, I think. I'm really bad with money. 💀

I'm a Lemmy user who's exploring different Piefed servers. Is there anything I should know? Do servers get dropped often?

I'd probably go for the 1991 Monsters of Rock concert in Moscow. Must've been hell of a time.

Inspired by this article about a jellyfish that doesn't die of old age, injury or poor conditions, it just reverts back to a juvenile state and is reborn genetically identical. If you could be reborn, as you, would you want to?

Edit: Just the physical you, genetic and presumably epigenetic, no memory.

He won’t take cash, that’s why. Just the kind of guy he is. He’s gonna be taking care of my cat for a week while I’m on vacation.

Thought about a couple cases of his favorite beer. Still might do that. Any other ideas?

I wish we as society could simply have one language to overcome language barriers, but that's more of a content for my daydreaming.

I often encounter issues due to language barriers.
Mainly with 2 languages.

Since the start of war, I've been encountering lots of Ukrainians I can't really speak with. Especially when I was on a dorm, where they were a great majority.
Not that I tend to talk with people, but I felt weird after a while.
Probably like someone who doesn't speak Spanish in the US (at least I assume that's fairly common over there).

And now searching for a job, I found many companies want you to know German.
Which I also encountered as "would've been useful now" a few times.

Seems like I should know an answer to this, as English isn't my first language, but I have no fucking idea how I picked it up. I never made any serious attempt (i.e.: studying for more than a week) to learn it.

A few hours ago I finished reading Fahrenheit 451, it was hard for me because I rarely read books, but it was worth it, and oh, I felt like I read about our time, people in this novel are like people are now. People watch TV shows, movies, anime created by people and at least think a little, but it happens that people do not think at all and also watch only created by AI and their consumer soul is happy? or even better communicate with AI as a friend and not only, they are, in my opinion, similar to the wife of the main character of the novel; Maybe they will even face a similar fate?

I would say many more things, but I would be glad if you say.

I know it's not a good idea to compare fiction with reality, but it's hard not to compare this book with reality, don't those who have read it agree?

Honestly, I didn't expect this book to look like it was going to describe the future very accurately, I thought it was just about people refusing to think. I even recognized myself a little in this book.

My wife is pushing for one of these very expensive home water treatment/filtration systems, but it all feels like a scam to me. No one I know has one, so turning to random strangers on the internet for opinions.

Edit: We're on city water in a decent area. No well water. It's more about removing the chlorine and microplastics than anything.

I find it hard to get into anything new, (especially tech) as I always want to learn how everything actually worked leading up to it, and I'm usually of the mind that most older things were better than now. However I figure I should branch out.

What's something new you've been getting into?

Been wondering that after playing Undertale Yellow (great game, btw)

Romhacks would fall into a different category, more like modding the main game.

I (23M) grew up in an extremely abusive household. My older brother learned to imitate the violence and lack of remorse my father modeled, while I hid in my room for most of my childhood and slowly deprogrammed until I learned to trust safe people and assert my needs and boundaries. Now that I know what safe people are like, I also know what they absolutely fucking aren't.

I think most people would consider my brother a psychopath. He beat his girlfriend's cat to death, brandished a knife at my father in a screaming fit of rage for insulting him, strangled a bird and displayed its corpse hanging in a tree, fantasizes about mass murdering "liberals," said without hesitation that he would kill me in a "civil war," spoke extensively about his desire to break women down and control them, drives recklessly and amasses unpaid speeding tickets, and, most importantly to this discussion, insists that he will have to "take care of me" and "force me to live with him" after my father dies, because I will supposedly be too incompetent to take care of myself. He also has an extremely fragile ego, and any perceived slight or defiance can trigger a violent rage that he admits causes him to lose control of himself (hence the cat's fate for "misbehaving").

Suffice it to say, I don't want to be kidnapped. None of the money or outside communication I have will do much good if he takes away my access to them. What can I realistically do if he makes me live in the middle of nowhere with no phone, no money, and no transportation? It may be a fate worse than death.

I've been in therapy for half a year and reached the point where I am no longer stuck in a perpetual freeze response and can assert my needs and boundaries. This caused subconscious shifts in my behavior that my narcissistic parents have reacted with hostility towards, calling me "crazy" or "aggressive" for asking to be treated with respect and standing my ground. My mother finally snapped and said she wouldn't do anything for me anymore... I was frightened at first, but my life barely changed once she withdrew her support, because I was doing most things by myself already without realizing. I don't feel so helpless and dependent anymore because now I know my family was bullshitting me the whole time, and now it's even more clear that my brother has predatory intentions when he paints me as incapable of taking care of myself.

I've been working on a flexible plan to make a clean break from this situation. I can run away tomorrow and my brother won't be able to find me. But there's one problem that prevents me from truly disappearing: he has access to my full name, date of birth, and social security number, if not because he knows it, then because my mother will readily tell him.

Getting a job and a place to live can leave a paper trail that links my name and SSN to my new location, allowing me to be found no matter where I live in the U.S., and emigrating out of the country isn't a realistic option. It's also worth noting that my brother travels a lot and regularly takes road trips spanning several states, so it's not like geographical distance will deter him.

Is self-defense going to have to be a part of the solution here? Or making it almost impossible for him to get away with whatever he might pull if I tell him no? I would really prefer a solution where I could just disappear off the map and live my life separately; I would hate for the situation to have to come to this.

It's worth noting that I have not explored legal avenues yet because I don't want my brother to be notified of any actions I take against him, which I fear will escalate the situation.

I expect that no matter what, I will have to make some difficult decisions here. I spend every day in constant anxiety so severe that I am afraid to get food or use the bathroom for fear of encountering my brother. But I have to face reality and accept that hiding in my room isn't going to protect me from him. I think staying and trying to seek stable employment or education under such extreme threat is an unworkable solution.

I plan on visiting my local library soon, where I will be able to make phone calls without anyone in my family hearing.

Any ideas? I think having a trusted contact to stay with might be a decent temporary solution that will help me get my bearings, but I'm going to have to deal with the discoverability issues eventually. I would also need some way to find people I can trust in a limited time window, which seems inherently risky. But does that really compare to the risk of doing nothing? Staying at any shelter that will allow me to stay might also be a temporary solution, but given the finite number of shelters, I run the risk of being discovered eventually.

A lot communities have "Posts older than 365 days will be removed." in their description, but what does this mean exactly? It never says.

• The database of posts only goes as far as 1 year, everything older gets wiped? I hope and assume that's not it.
• Posts with links to articles older than a year get removed?
• If a thread is over a year old, no new comments will be added?

It seems an interesting language to learn, can you use it as a daily driver like Python?

Posting a guard on duty accomplishes nothing. Putting a guard in an isolated dedicated security room, with live cameras, means the silent alarm is always triggered.

I've noticed that I often struggle to express what I actually mean during discussions.

Sometimes my main point gets lost because I phrase it poorly, use a weak example, or realize later that I misunderstood what the other person was saying. I often leave conversations thinking, "That wasn't what I was trying to say." or "I am not being taken serious."

For those of you who used to have this problem:

How did you get better at expressing your thoughts? Did you practice in a specific way? How do you make sure you're responding to someone's actual point instead of what you think they mean? Or is it really just keeping your mouth shut if you aren't knowledgeable about something.

It has gotten to the point that I find myself just not wanting to jump into the discussion, because I feel like that it's more about who is right , than understanding and being understood.

I'd love to hear any advice or habits that helped you become a clearer communicator. Book recommendations are also welcome.

Lemmy doens't have Social Skills community(that i can find) or anything so sorry for posting this in AskLemmy.

Reflections so far:

Be curious. Socratic method; phrase your statements as questions. It helps soften your dialogue quite a bit and makes the conversation a quest for discovery.

Try to formulate things simple. The simpler u can explain something, the better u understand it and the less words to be confused about for both parties.

Rhetorical Triangle: Ethos, Pathos and Logos

Write more. It forces u to think critical about things. And gives u the opportunity to reflect on your own opinions.

Don't take yourself, or other people too serious.

Ou bien: Zijn er andere Belgen op Lemmy ? (nl)