soos_mite_ah

I'm trying to write a book about someone time travels into the future and I want to use models like Spiral Dynamics and The Four Turnings Theory to help me build this futuristic world. I'm not at a place where I have the plot or characters mapped out but I want to focus on the world building aspect first. The reason why I want to write this book is because I want to envision a better future. A lot of stories in the time travel genre, even if it’s something set in the future, is a reflection of how people feel in the present. The Jetsons came out in 1962. The first time humanity got to space was 1961. The first time we were able to fly was 1903. In the span of less than 60 years, we were able to go from ground only transportations to being able to go to space. No wonder people thought in 1962 that in 2062 people will be living like the Jetsons up in space with all types of robots. Back to the Future was envisioning the year 2015 from the lens of 1985 and the optimism of the future back then. Now that we’re in the Crisis era, a lot of our media that depicts the future has to do with dystopias (think the Hunger Games, Cyber Punk 2077 etc.). But I think at this point in time, with cultural nihilism being at it’s peak, rather than envisioning dystopias to critique the present, I think it’s important that we envision building something better. That’s why the Solar Punk aesthetic is popular. But I think rather than a couple of Pinterest mood boards, I want to create a more cohesive narrative of how society and people develop and ultimately, have it be something hopeful and something to aspire to. While I did enjoy the Jetsons and Back to the Future, I think the thing that messed with me even when I was a kid is how much it focused on the fantastical, technological aspect of the future rather than the social one. Unlike what Back to the Future thought in 1985, we didn’t get flying cars in 2015. But something that would send someone from 1985 into a coma if they saw us today is how much more accepting we are of gay and trans people and how much more common things like interracial marriage is. That’s the real controversial, juicy stuff, not the flying cars and hover boards. Sure, I want to make changes in the material world through my world building. But I want to emphasize the changes of policy and social attitudes even more. I don’t want my depiction of the future to be something that seems other worldly. I want it to seem like something that can be tangible. Bascially, this journal is going to be where I track my research as I'm doing my world building.

My Plan to Address Things: I'm learning more about childhood emotional neglect. I feel like the symptoms I have listed out don't cleanly match the common symptoms I'm reading about. I think part of it might be because I have put in a lot of work in therapy and in reflecting to where I have healed a lot of adjacent issues. For example, I have a mostly secure attachment style after doing the work. Before, I used to be a mix of anxious and avoidant attachment (usually leaning more avoidant). And me leaning more avoidant makes sense due to the neglect. By learning to be more emotionally available toward my own needs, by becoming more aware of my emotions, by learning what my emotions were trying to say, by identifying my needs and how to communicate them, I did heal a layer of the trauma of emotional neglect. Another example is me dealing with my issues around hyper independence to where I had trouble openning up to people, had trouble asking for help, and feeling like I had to have my life figured out at a young age. I no longer struggle with this. I also think my degree of introspection and my strong sense of values and self-respect camoflauged a lot of the issues I had around my confidence. So again, a lot of the self-esteem issues associated with emotional neglect was also missing since I had the self-respect wing make up for what my confidence was lacking. I haven't had to deal with the issues mentioned previously in the last 5 years. So while I was aware of the emotional neglect, I healed enough to where the most common signs were no longer there. As a result, I think the deeper issues around neglect, the really developmental and ongoing stuff like developing a core of self esteem, having experience with being witnessed, social confidence, and feeling like your presance has an impact got buried even more because there was more healing in the surface. For instance, I don't think the sentiment of *I don't feel like a woman* or *I feel like a background character in my own life* is the first thing people think about when they think of emotional neglect lmaoo. I don't think that my emotional neglect is any less valid because I don't currently have the more classic symptoms. But I do feel like that can make traditional forms of treating emotional neglect seem redundant because I already did that. And sometimes I feel like seeing these forms of advice that I have already utilized makes my situation feel even more hopeless because it feels like such a deep set issue. Maybe this is something I need to continue working with a professional on who is aware of the nuances of my specific situation and how this is showing up. At the same time, I went ahead and jotted down some ideas on how to address each of the manifestions of my neglect. 1. Not having a solid core of self esteem Each day, note down 3 things that you are proud of yourself for and focus on the effort and character traits associated with them: This is different from affirmations because I'm not just repeating the same few statements over and over again each day. That tends to not register at all. Sure, there may be some overlap on a day to day basis and that's good because it's reinforcing the message, but the point it to be a witness and acknowledge your achievements, even if it's something small and you don't think it's worth noting down. It can be something like *I'm proud that I did the dishes because I was anxious about it and even though I didn't feel like it, I still pushed through it and now I feel better over all* I think priming myself to complimenting myself will make me more emotionally receptive to other people complimenting me to where I actually believe it on an emotional level. 2. Feeling like your presence doesn't leave an impact Take note when people feel your absense or remember something about you: It can be oh hey, this person cares about me enough to check up on me. Or it can be *hey since, I didn't show up in work today, I didn't do xyz that would have been beneficial to the team (but not in a self deprecating way rather in a, your presence adds something way)* Expose yourself to situations where you are compelled to take up more space: You're already mindful, do little things here and there that your brain says you're dominating or being attention seeking but are actually completely normal. Tell people it's your birthday. Talk about your weekend in more length. Speak up more in larger group settings. Take more of an exposure therapy approach to feeling more comfortable with having a presance. 3. Feeling discomfort with being witnessed: Celebrate yourself in small ways (like noting down things you're proud of daily) and work your way up: You don't have to throw a party for yourself right now if you don't feel like it but you can work up to it. Get out of the habit of downplaying your achievments. Continue allowing someone to be physically present as you're dealing with big feelings: I'm currently living with my boyfriend and that has brought to light just how much I was neglected when I was living with family and it's been helpful having him by my side to be my witness and accept me even if I might not be my most emotionally attractive and charismatic self. 4. I always felt like a weird kid/ socially awkward even when I wasn't: Acknowledge that you're not socially awkward, weird, autistic etc. and that it's due to not being given a social script to begin with. You are starting a lot of stuff from scratch and you didn't have the same starting point as everyone else. That's not a deficiency on you. Sure, you might stumble more, but that's not a personal failing. And even some people who do have resources, they still struggle as well as they are also grappling with similar things you are. They still make mistakes as well as they learn about the complexities of adulthood even if they have guides they can fall back on. They have a head start, but they aren't somehow radically better than you.

I'm just creating a separate journal for myself where I can pour all of my negative emotions into and just rant/ vent in. I'm not dealing with an influx of negative emotions rather I just want to have a separate space for this apart from my main journal where I have more constructive and coherent posts. I have been journalling privately about things like this so I can have the space to just let things out but sometimes I feel like I want to share things that are kind of in the middle of me spewing things out (which I can do privately) and me having more contructive thoughts (which I have been doing in my main journal).

Symptoms of Neglect A lot of this is going to be repetitive from what I wrote before but this is me just processing and organizing my thoughts in a different way. Not having a solid core of self esteem: I have difficulty with recognizing my positive qualities but it's super easy for me to recognize my flaws. As a result of me not being able to acknowledge my positive qualities, when something goes wrong, I internalize everything because my brain is conditioned to find/ focus on all the ways I might be messing up even if the situation at hand was largely out of my control or was due to factors outside of myself. Like even in a situation where 98% of it was the other person's fault, something systemic, etc, my brain zeros in on the 2%. Basically, I take too much responsibility for things and I down play my positive qualities / achievements. When people compliment me, it doesn't register in my brain. It's not that I don't believe it, but I don't feel anything positive. It's like I'm emotionally blind to the effects of a compliment in the same way someone might be color blind. It's like I know colors exist and I can differentiate some of it, but it doesn't really register. I still say thank you to people and I react positively, but that's less of a reflection of how I feel inside and more of me knowing how to socially behave. Like if someone says they think I'm pretty, I'm not going to sulk in the corner, be awkward, or deny it by saying *no I'm not.* I just say thank you, have a quick chat, and move on because I'm not socially weird. I have trouble asserting myself: This thankfully doesn't show up in situations of necessity (i.e people at work mistreating me or micromanaging me or giving me less money than I deserve OR in medical situations when the doctor is being unreasonable OR when I'm on a date with a guy who is disrespectful), but in optional situations like negotiating for a raise, making friends etc, I can be more passive. I think in situations of necessity, the main reason I can assert myself is because even though I don't have a lot of confidence, I do have a lot of self respect that comes from my values rather than how I feel about myself. I'm really good at playing defense, but I'm bad at playing offense. Feeling like your presence doesn't leave an impact I'm shocked when people say that they missed me or that they think of me. People finding me attractive catches me off guard. Like I've had crushes on people and I have thought of them and I'm sure statistically it's likely that someone has thought of me in that way but it just doesn't emotionally register as a possibility. The background character feeling Being in the spotlight or me being the main attention in a group of people feels weird. It can range from mild discomfort to full blown anxiety and wanting to avoid the situation as a whole. I feel mild discomfort if I'm speaking in a group of people in a social setting and everyone is listening to me. I don't like the feeling of me dominating a conversation and taking up space. Birthdays, besides all the other emotional baggage I have around it, also feel weird because *what do you mean I have a day that's all about me?* I don't judge other people who do this but the thought of announcing my birthday in the days leading up to it or me making a big deal about it, feel mortifying. Like I don't tell people about my birthday or really celebrate it. Also, I kind of dread the thought of me having a wedding and having all the eyes on me to the point where I just want to elope. Feeling discomfort with being witnessed: Being in the spotlight or me being the main attention in a group of people feels weird. It can range from mild discomfort to full blown anxiety and wanting to avoid the situation as a whole. I feel mild discomfort if I'm speaking in a group of people in a social setting and everyone is listening to me. I don't like the feeling of me dominating a conversation and taking up space. Birthdays, besides all the other emotional baggage I have around it, also feel weird because *what do you mean I have a day that's all about me?* I don't judge other people who do this but the thought of announcing my birthday in the days leading up to it or me making a big deal about it, feel mortifying. Like I don't tell people about my birthday or really celebrate it. Also, I kind of dread the thought of me having a wedding and having all the eyes on me to the point where I just want to elope. Celebrating myself gives me anxiety.I think this is a combination of #1, having trouble identifying my positive qualities and #2, feeling like my presance doesn't leave an impact, specifically on how being in the spotlight feels uncomfortable. Like whenever people talk about birthdays, weddings, celebrating milestones and people are like *don't you want a day where you feel special?* or *don't you want a day when it's all about you and you get all the attention?* it feels like a foreign concept to me. And honestly, it makes my skin crawl. Being emotionally vulnerable to where someone sees me cry, have panic attack, or having someone witness me at the heat of the moment feels weird and uncomfortable. Like I can open up about my life or negative feelings I'm dealing with but I mainly feel comfortable doing that when I'm in a place where I'm having a cohesive conversation. I'm not used to living with someone and having them see everything about me at the moment that I'm experiencing something. I always felt like a weird kid/ socially awkward even when I wasn't. It feels like people were given a social script and I was left to observe and improvise. I think it took me longer to get socialized properly due to my abusive home environment and because my parent's neglected a lot of things that would have helped me gain social skills to better mesh with my peers. Like they were kind of overprotective and sheltered me and this shows up as neglect because they didn't actually take the time to teach me. Some examples include not being allowed to go to sleepovers, not going off to summer camp, not having play dates, not having important conversations around sex and puberty, being isolated from your peers and not being allowed to hang out with friends or date, etc. And even though I'm not a super weird adult, I still feel socially awkward because I don't have parents to guide me through some of the more complex social dynamics in adulthood. I don't have someone to walk me through how to navigate office politics and how to build professional relationships. I don't have someone I can go to if I'm having dating issues. I don't have people I can go to regarding navigating the complexities of friendship in adulthood. And I know I definitely don't have parents I can lean on if I decide to be a parent myself. I don't feel like a woman: There aren't a lot of ways this actually manifests outside of me in the way I act but it's just a weird feeling I've always had.

Some Interesting Videos I Have Watched Recently

I find myself contemplating motherhood a lot in terms of me trying to make more long term plans for my life. I'm trying to figure out if this is the path for me, if this is something I should do, and if this is something I'm even cut out for. I also want my thoughts to be organized in one place.

Why Hitting Children is Wrong I have a lot of thoughts and I want to write it out to fully process it. It kinda shocks me that so many people in 2026 still spank and smack their kids given the amount of research there is that talks about the harms of hitting kids. Anyways, I'm going to list out all the reasons why I think hitting kids is fucked up in no particular order. It teaches kids that people who love them will hit them or that hitting people is an acceptable way of showing love: This is a receipe for normalizing abusive behavior to where the kid will grow up and either get into abusive relationships because they think it's normal and legit way of someone showing that they care about them OR the kid will grow up to abuse others because they think it's a normal and legit way to treat someone they care about. Basically, it primes kids to either be victims of abuse or become abusers themselves. It teaches bad conflict resolution skills: Children learn more from watching people rather than being lectured to so the fact that you, the adult/ parent is hitting them, it teaches them that they should also hit other people and that it's a legit way of expressing themselves. If you want the kid to be calm and learn to express themselves using their words, then it needs to start with you as the adult being calm and expressing yourself with your words even when disciplining your kid. It desensitizes the kid to where normal communication becomes less effective: If you get into the habit of yelling at your kid, unless you correct something, at some point the only way they will listen is when you yell at them because you basically taught them that unless you're yelling that you're not serious with what you're saying. And I think hitting your kids can have a similar effect to where if you get into the habit of hitting your kid, hitting is going to be the only way they will respond to anything and normal discipline won't work on them anymore. That's why parents who start off with hitting their kids or adopting a more authoritarian way of parenting struggle with transitioning into gentle/authoritative parenting versus if they were already gentle/authoritative from the first place. As a result of the damages of their initial bad parenting, they think that if they were to be gentle, their kids will walk all over them and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. It's hard being a good parent but it's even harder to correct bad parenting. It teaches them that if they want someone to do something, they need to be domineering towards them: Similar to reason number one and how hitting your kid primes them to be abusers themselves, parents often hit their kids because they think that hitting them will get the kid to do what they want the kid to do out of fear and pain. Then, the kid also learns that if another person isn't doing what they want, the way to manipulate them is to assert their power by scaring them or hurting them. That's why a lot of kids end up bullying other kids (physically or even emotionally). They first learn it from their household that teaches them that it's okay to hurt people to get them to do what you want. It teaches kids to not trust their parents: When you're hitting a kid, you're not teaching them good and bad behavior by explaining how things work, you're just teaching them fear. Like say you hit a kid because they cheated on a test. In that situation, you're not teaching them WHY cheating on a test is wrong and the morals around that. It teaches them *hey, if you want to avoid getting hit, you can't cheat on a test.* And sure, in both instances the kid decides not to cheat anymore. But in the second situation, you're not nurturing your kid's moral development and you're also inflicting fear and trauma as a by product. And that can in turn damage your future relationship with your kid. Then, the kid learns that if they make a mistake, instead of being guided on how to handle this situation, you're going to hurt them, berate them, and overall freak them out even more. And that becomes a breeding ground for all types of issues and hiding things once they get older and into their teen years. It makes them more likely to develop anxiety and depression: It goes without saying getting hit is scary. The kid is also more likely to feel depressed because of the isolation, lack of trust, and disconnection this breeds with the most important relationships they have in their life. It also makes them more scared of confrontation, constructive criticism, and uncomfortable conversations because they associate those very normal aspects of life and relationships as either a direct attack on them or a situation where they are going to be abused. And this also goes back to reason 2 and 3 where the kid has worse communication skills and worse conflict resolution skiills as they get older. It futher reinforces colonial/ racist systems: I don't think it's a coincidence that POC families and Black families in particular are more likely to hit their kids. I think it's a mentality of *it's better if I as the parent hit my kids and keep them in line versus having the kid be harmed by the police or by the forces that be in the future.* It's also an extention of the normalization of violence through things like slavery and colonization. Like you're further reinforcing the violence of young black and brown bodies when you hit your kid. It's a form of generational trauma. It reinforces the already massive power dynamic between adult and child: I'm going to talk about this more in another post but using your power as an adult, as the party with more tools, life experiences, and ability to regulate, to hit a child is fucked up. As an adult, you should know better and be able to handle that situation better than to hit a kid. The adult has a multitude of more responsibility to act in a reasonable way when they are in a position of authority over a kid. Plus, let's be real, most adults that hit kids would never hit another adult. Most of the time, they stop hitting their kid once the kid is big enough to defend themselves (and then, how do you communicate/ discipline your kid, it goes back to reason #2). So tell me why it's alright to hit a kid who is physically smaller than you, has less life experience then you, and is much more vulnerable than an adult, but it's fucked up to hit an adult? The double standard simply doesn't make sense. It can be as bad for the kid neurologically as being sexually assaulted: There is new evidence that has reported that the neurological affects of spanking can be similar to sexual assault. I'm just going to leave this section with a link and a quote from Harvard: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/21/04/effect-spanking-brain It stunts their ability to learn how to process/ communicate their emotions (especially things like anger) and calm down: Kids learn by watching the adults around them. So if the adults around them fly off the handle, lash out, and hit people, the kid is not going to know how to handle emotions like anger, fear, or sadness within themselves. As the adult, you need to model self regulation and emotional processing, and hitting your kid is the opposite of that. If the kid is freaking out, you need to be the stable and calm one grounding them. Even if they're pissing you off, you cannot feed into that and add more chaos to the mix. Sure, there will be times when you lose your temper. And in those times, you need to walk away, calm down, give the kid a sincere apology, and then continue disciplining your kid. But I believe that if you lose your temper so badly to where you hit a child, that's something you need to address before becoming a parent.

Much of my experience in writing has been in the form of journal entries on this forum (and privately), the essays I have had to write in school, and succinct writing in corporate/ business settings. I don't think any of that is bad or hurts me. I think the journal entries are a good way for me to reflect and generally speaking have practice in writing so that the skill doesn't erode after school. My educational background has been helpful in me imagining various systems and social structures in my world building and it has been helpful in analyzing other pieces of media as well. My writing in my job forces me to be direct and succinct which enhances how coherent and easy to understand a narrative is. At the same time, those are not the same skill sets that are essential for writing fiction. I have little to no experience in writing fiction (unless you count creating character designs for your friend's Wattpad Hunger Games fanfiction in the 8th grade as experience). I feel like if I was an artist, rather than being a painter, I would be the architect that is gifted in drawing detailed blueprints of a beautiful building. That has it's own merits but it doesn't have the same result as a painter who can capture the look and the feel of an image as opposed to getting bogged down with the technical details. And I'm not going to lie, it's intimidating. I don't know how I'm going to write these characters or their archs. I'm really bad at writing flowery prose without sounding like a fake deep Tumblr emo kid. I'm not good at painting an image in people's minds when it comes to describing a setting, a mood, a situation etc. Dialog also feels incredibly intimidating because I don't want it to sound like a bad Netflix original. I'm really good at identifying bad fictional content because I have witnessed them and I have, in some cases, produced them when I was in the 8th grade or into my high school years in the form of cringey journal entries where I was trying to be something I was not by writing in a voice that didn't sound natural to me. Of course I'm going to research and look into developing these skills. But I was wondering if anyone in this forum had any helpful advice or input.

Neglect I think this past year has me more in tuned with the way that neglect has shaped my life since I feel like my current social life is functionally emotionally unavailable. What do I mean by functionally emotionally unavailable? I mean that while the people in my life aren't weirdos and emotionally unavailable on a personal level, they do come off that way on due to systemic factors or because of "life just happening." And I think this functional emotional unavailability due to systemic factors has led my needs around connection, closeness, and fulfillment be left unmet. In otherwords, the system is set up in a way that a lot of people, including me, are being neglected. I have been in therapy for years now dealing with life's issues as well as trauma from my family. But I think I have been uncovering this layer of neglect that I didn't quite address before. I think the reason why I didn't address it until now, despite working on myself so much, is because it's hard to define what isn't there versus what actually happened. Like getting hit by your parent is easy to point to but a sense of disinterest coming from your parent over a stretch of time is harder to pin down. I think most of the neglect I have experienced (and continue to experience) is at the hands of my parents. I did also experience some neglect growing up in school usually in the form of peer exclusion or just being invisible romantically. But the parental neglect has been more impactful.My parents provided me with food, water, shelter, and an upper middle class material life to where I wasn't worried about college. But they also neglected literally every other aspect of parenting like helping me regulate my emotions, being there for me, empathizing with me, getting to know me, and teaching various life skills outside of academics. I also think the affects of the neglect I have experienced in childhood manifests in many ways. 1. Feeling like the background character of my own life: I think the origins of this has to do with not really acknowledged or engaged with. Despite being an only child, my parents were preoccupied by a lot of other things in their lives and didn't really engage with me on a deeper level to emotionally connect with me. My dad was better at this because he actually expressed some interest in my life (even if he struggled with the emotional aspects of it). My mom mainly showed her love by cooking, yelling at me over grades, and doing things around the house. And even then, the cooking often came with almond mom tendencies, the yelling was quite scary, and doing thing around the house was kind of the bare minimum in terms of being a functional adult that everyone in my household did within reason. I don't think at any point she really tried to get to know me and when she did get to know me, a lot of that was weaponized. And the rest of my family was always really surface level with me. I don't think it was intentional, I think it's more along the lines of how you can only engage with other people on a deeper level if you engage with yourself and your world in a deeper level. And that level of introspection and exospection is difficult when you're emotionally stunted which is the case for a lot of people in my family. 2. Not really having a core of self esteem/ sense of self which then makes it easy for you to internalize EVERYTHING: I think the way this shows up is how rarely I was praised or given any kind of positive reinforcement growing up. I can count on one hand the number of times my parents told me I was pretty or smart or the number of times they said they were proud of me. I never got a congrats for my efforts. My achievements were seen as standard and expected. But my failures.... oh they would never forget that. So now that I'm an adult, the thought of celebrating myself (even during my birthday, big life events, and things I put a lot of effort into), doing affirmations, and I guess "believing in myself" all feel like it falls somewhere in the spectrum of uncomfortable, performative, or just plain corny. But weirdly enough, I think a lot of people see me as someone with high self worth. But my self worth doesn't come with confidence, it's a result of my values. Like I know it's typical to tell a girl going through a break up with a toxic man that she's too pretty and too smart to be treated that way as a way to appeal to her confidence to help her through this vulnerable moment. But for me, it's more like no one should be treated that way regardless of their looks or intellect because it's about the principle of treating people well. I think a lot of my self worth comes from self-respect and morality as opposed to a sense of confidence because confidence can vary a lot depending on mood in my opinion. And in some ways, I think that my self worth as a result is more stable. But at the same time, I never had a strong sense of confidence. And because I lack confidence, I can be prone to taking too much responsibility for my surroundings to where instead of being able to accurately point to what's causing the problem, I end up pointing the finger to myself and my sense of self blame masquerades as responsbility. For example, I'm currently having bug problems in my apartment despite keeping my space clean. But instead of being able to point out that this is a building wide problem, my first thought is *the bugs are here because I'm disgusting, there's something wrong with me* even though I vacuum once a week, mop the kitchen once a week, do the dishes everyday, and wipe down surfaces everyday. And when it comes to interpersonal issues, I'm quick to wondering what's wrong with me, what did I do, and I tend to take people's critiques of me in face value. It's difficult for me to see how the other person might be at fault, how their biases might impact their inaccurate assesment of me or the situation, etc. It's difficult for me to see how I might be in the right when growing up, I always had my flaws examined and my merits ignored. 3. Having trouble feeling like a woman: I wrote about this in my previous post on how I didn't really have a solid mother figure growing up and how that has made navigating the world as a woman challenging because I had to figure things out for myself. 4. Feeling a little autistic: I don't think I meet the diagnostic criteria for autism but I do think I relate heavily to this notion that everyone was given some kind of social script and guidance on how to be a person but I haven't. I don't think it's entirely due to reasons pertaining to neurodivergence (it can be a factor but it's not the whole story. Now that I think about it, maybe I feel awkward and out of place is because I was never given the tools or guidance to navigate situations. Like no shit part of me always felt a bit behind in some aspects from my peers. I was a kid trying to guide a kid (myself). I didn't have an adult to guide the child version of me. 5. That envy and deep sense of lonliness when you see your peers become close to their parents in adulthood: I would characterize it as the feeling of *I'm happy for them but I'm sad for me.* Because I'm not close with my parents despite trying to be over the years. I found that it's quite unhealthy when I spend too much time around them. I sometimes feel like part of me is stunted because I'm not close to my parents, like I'm the angsty teen that never grew up. I know my situation is more complex than that but still. And I think I greive a little every time I struggle in adulthood because I have no one older and wiser I can run to. I can't go to my parents for comfort because they are my greatest source of stress and feeling of dismissal. 6. Feeling romantically and sexually invisible: I think this is less connected to my parents and more connected to my peers. Perhaps it's the result of my lack of confidence mixed with feeling like I cannot take the same risks since I don't have the emotional safety net that people with reliable parents do. I don't have parents I can go to if a boy was mean to me growing up or parents to go to if I was dealing with a break up. But also, I think I was just never in a place where I was considered particularly beautiful either. 7, Not feeling platonically unattractive but feeling platonically mid: I don't think that I'm repulsive to where I cannot make ANY friendships or meaningful connections. But I was definitely the floater friend growing up and I haven't had any one consider me their best friend since I was 15. People don't avoid me, but they don't exactly go out of their way to reach out first either. I think that I just haven't "found my people" but it feels a little lame to say that when I'm approaching my late 20s. But then again, that might loop back into me internalizing everything as a personal failing instead of being able to simply accept that there might be factors outside of my control and just timing in general at play. 8. Not going to the dentist regularly until i turned 25: I had to get my wisdom teeth removed in my mid-twenties and I found out that most people get this done in their teens. My parents also never took me to the dentist growing up and the issues with my teeth felt like another manifestation of their negligence. 9, Physical neglect: Sometimes I neglect my appearance, This can be me wearing the same shit over and over until it has holes, not doing my hair super often, and showering once every other day or every couple days. Sometimes I neglect my surroundings when I get depressed. And sometimes, I neglect myself when it comes to food where I may eat something past the point it was fresh to where I know I'm going to get a stomach ache all because I don't want to waste food. 10. Discomfort around expressing negative emotions: I think it can be difficult expressing my emotions and crying in front of loved ones because I'm used to having to deal with it myself. It can feel weird having someone sit with me as I'm experiencing intense emotions because growing up I would lock myself in my closet to cry because I know my tears would either be ignored or be met with yelling. It's far easier to talk about things after the fact or intellectualize my emotions all together.

I feel like the above post can be summarized by this:

The Problems In My Life At This Moment 1. Friendship Problems (Pain Level: 8) I feel like I'm experiencing a lot of grief regarding how my relationships are changing now that I'm an adult and our lives are structured differently. I'm getting better coping mechanisms and better mindsets to deal with a lot of difficult emotions but it can be difficult and intense at times. There are some posts that I saw on social media that really resonated with me to where I found myself crying when I saw them: "I saw my friend having fun without me and suddenly I felt embarrassed for thinking we were close. It wasn't that they went without me. It was how quickly my brain turned 'I wasn't there' to ' I don't matter anymore.' Then, every late reply, every plan I found out about later, every 'we should hang soon' started feeling like evidence. I wanted to ask 'are we okay?' Insterad, I liked the post and tried to look normal. Because how do you say 'I know you're allowed other friends, I just need to know I still matter,' without sounding jealous? So I checked who was there, how long they'd known each other, and whether they looked happier than they do with me. Then, I felt embarrassed twice. Once for being left out, and again for caring this much. Friendship anxiety isn't always 'don't have other friends.' Sometimes, it's 'please don't quietly stop choosing me while I'm still choosing you.' Maybe that photo wasn't proof, but the fear didn't come from nowhere. It remembered every friendship that went quiet before I knew I was losing it. For tonight, one photo can be one photo. It can hurt without becoming proof that I'm being left behind." "I noticed I wasn't included. I just made sure nobody noticed that I noticed. They mentioned plans I didn't know about. I smiled like I already knew. I asked one casual question so I wouldn't sound as hurt as I felt. Then, I went home and started checking where I stood with everyone. Who gets invited first. Who gets the full story. Who gets remembered without asking. I kept saying it's probably nothing. But my body had already gone quiet. The worst part wasn't missing the plan. It was pretending I didn't care so I wouldn't look needy. So I got a little smaller, replied less, waited to see if anyone would notice. Sometimes friendship anxity is acting completely normal while quietly mourning your place. I didn't need to be included in everything. I just wanted to know I still belonged somewhere." "Nothing happend, I just slowly felt less included. Nothing happened, I just stopped feeling like I belonged there. I heard about plans after they already happened. I noticed I was always reaching first. Then, I went home and replayed everything. What hurt most was feeling embarrassed that I cared. But wanting to feel included isn't needy. Some friendships don't end, they just feel different. That quiet distance can hurt more than people know. You're not too much for wanting to still belong." "I know they're allowed to have other friends. I still stared at the picture like I'd been replaced. It wasn't only that they went without me. It was how quickly my made it mean I mattered less. Suddenly, every 'we should hang out soon' felt like something they only said to be nice. I compared everything. How easily they talked, ho happy they looked, whether they seemed happier without me. And the embarrassing part? Nobody actually left me. I was already grieving my place in their life. So I got quieter, replied a little later, acted like I was busy, just to see if they'd notice I was pulling away. When they didn't notice right away, my brain called it proof. Not proof that people have lives, proof that I was optional. I didn't want to control who they cared about. I just needed to know that caring about someone else didn't erase me. Maybe the feeling wasn't 'I want to be your only friend.' Maybe it was 'please don't mkae me easy to lose.' Tonight, I'm trying to let the picture just be a picture, not a goodbye I have to survive." 2. I look and Feel Gross (Pain Level: 6) I think this is related to the friendship problems but it then bleed into other things as well. I feel gross about my life because I feel out of alignment with my values. The best example of this is when I think about how much I value platonic connection but then I'm spending most of my time with my significant other. Don't get me wrong, I do love him and we have a good relationship but to me, platonic love is just as important if not more important than romantic love. And because so much of my social diet is coming from the romantic relationship, I feel gross. I know I didn't intentionally set up my life this way. I have been trying to make friends and put myself out there but I haven't had much success. I know because of this effort, the way I carry myself, and the way that I view this relationship that I'm not one of those male centered women. But I think if most people look at my life, if they didn't know me, they would think I'm one of those sad, pathetic women who only hangs around their significant other. And that makes me feel like my inability to actualize my values is reflective of some kind of moral failing. Then, when I think about feeling gross, I also start thinking about body image. I feel gross in my body, in my size specifically. While I have a flat stomach and the faintest amount of abs, I can still squish a good amount of fat. My inner thighs touch as I walk. My muscular legs feel heavy sometimes. I have these small back rolls that feel like they ruin every outfit. And while I have muscular arms, because I'm not super lean, I don't look skinny or jacked. I know that I'm not objectively a big person and I think one of the big reasons why I feel the way that I do is because of how the definition of skinny has shifted in the last couple of years with all the celebrities being on ozempic. I have written about this in the past so I'm not going to repeat myself too much. But this shit feels inescapable and I can feel the collective brainrot forming in real time. On a similar note, I do think I'm neglecting my physical appearance. A lot of my clothes have holes and mystery stains I cannot seem to get rid of. My hair has overgrown and I've been due for a haircut for a couple months now. I need to get my perm re done. I just don't want to spend that kind of money considering how I took my leave of absense and I didn't have any income coming in for two months. But yeah, I feel like a gremlin. 3. I don't know about my reproductive choices (Pain Level: 3) I feel like I have mostly made peace with this because I got to process a lot of my complex feelings around motherhood and parenthood. I also know where I'm going in that I need more life experience to really know what I want. Which is why the pain level is low. But it can still feel a bit existential crisis inducing at times as I'm getting older and I'm feeling more pressure to figure out this area of my life. 4. Wanting to Move to New York (Pain Level: 3) Similar to the bit about my reproductive choices, my pain level is relatively low because it's not super pressing but it is sometimes existential crisis inducing. I feel like I want to move because I think it would be much more in line with my values and the kind of life I want to build for myself. I care about walkable cities. I care about a more natural form of community with infrastructure to support that. I care about being in a place where the nuclear family and the so-called American dream is less emphasized, because it was never my dream. And sometimes, being in Dallas feels suffocating. I see people have their lives revolve around their jobs, buying a house, and popping out kids. There is nothing wrong with that but I don't see examples of the kind of life that I want to create for myself here. I don't care about the same things. And sometimes, I feel like I tell people what I want in life and they either think I'm juvenile (like *oh of course you will eventually come around to having kids and buying a house*) or they think that I'm crazy because they simply don't get the vision. I'm asking all these important questions of what settling down looks like for me and it sucks that I'm only being fed one narrative of what it means to be an adult and what it means to settle down. I have always wanted to relocate to a larger city growing up and part of me feels sad and like a failure that I have been in the DFW area my whole life. Don't get me wrong, I don't think people are failures if they don't live outside their home town/city. I can think of some very legit reasons to do that. But it feels like a failure to me because I'm falling short on something that really matters to me. And I'm trying to reassure myself that me not living in New York right now isn't because of some kind of stagnation, fear, or passivity. I have been making decisions in a way that makes sense for my life to build my life in a sustainable way. I have had situations in my life where I did eventually get what I wanted but I got it later than I hoped. I think sex and dating is a good example of this. It felt agonizing to wait when I saw my peer reach various milestones before I did. Sometimes, I wondered if something is wrong with me. Then, I remind myself of a piece of advice I got a while back that was along the lines of "you can get what you want now and have it be mediocre or disappointing OR you can get what you want later on, but it's going to be everything you have dreamed about and more." And as far as dating and sex goes, I'm really glad I waited because that saved me a lot of trauma, unnecessary heart break, and potentially dangerous situations. And I think the same mindset can also be applied to friendships as well as my desire to move to New York. Then there is the way that this ties into my reproductive choices. Part of me wonders if I would have a more favorable outlook on motherhood if I wasn't in the suburbs. Another part of me wonders if I would have the same desire to have a kid if I had more of a community and I have gotten closer to achieving some of my life goals such as relocating or travelling more. Because, there is a chance that if I have more of a sense of community and I felt like I was progressing more in my long term goals that I would want to have a kid less because I'm less lonely and I feel less stagnant/ unfulfilled. But, there is also a chance that if I have the community and I achieve these goals that I would want to be a parent more in order to share the beautiful life I have created for myself with a kid. I don't know which camp I fall into yet and I think the only way that I can find out is by creating the life that I want for myself. Because either way, regardless of if I decide to be a parent, I will still build a beautiful life for myself. And I think moving to New York is a part of that process. 5. Mommy Issues (Pain Level: 5) I feel like whenever I'm dealing with something challenging in my life or whenever I feel like I'm in a place where I really need guidance, I'm reminded of how I don't have that. I don't have adults with more wisdom and life experience to guide me through the above. I feel like this hits the hardest when it comes to my issues around friendships. Part of the reason I value friendship so much is because I had to create a chosen family since my homelife wasn't great and I had no siblings. And I feel like if I had a more stable home, I would be getting my needs met more and I wouldn't put all my eggs in the friendship basket. And even if I still had a big hole where my friendships would be in, my parents would have given me better tools and more life experience to navigate this aspect of adulthood. I also think about this in the context of my romantic life where I feel like if I had to deal with a breakup, I couldn't go to my parents about that. I would have to deal with the pain all by myself. And lastly, I think about this in the context of my reproductive choices. Part of the reason why issue #3 is listed as a pain level of 3 is because it overlaps with the mommy issues. I'm scared of becoming like my mother and mistreating my kid. And even though I'm taking waaay more precautions to prevent something like that, such as working on my own issues, carefully considering if parenthood is for me, and educating myself on how to treat children, part of me wonders if any of that will kick in when I'm actually faced with the realities of parenthood. I'm also scared of motherhood because I feel like I lack social support if this is the decision I end up making. Not only do I not have a village, but I also don't have a mother who I feel like I would be able to go to in times of need and distress. The thought of her holding my hand as I'm going into labor and feeling that sense of support feels like a fantasy, like I'm not imagining my real mother. Ideally, I would love to have a mother by my side as I navigate the difficulties of motherhood. But not my mom specifically. When it comes to my mom specifically, I would rather bear the burden by myself because adding my mom to the mix will make things more stressful and likely will multiply my problems. And I think that's pretty tragic. Then I think about how I feel gross and how sometimes, that relates to me not feeling like a woman at all. I feel like a girl and I feel like an adult, but for whatever reason I don't feel like a woman. I think part of the reason why it's hard for me to define womanhood is because it's easy for me to deconstruct it and the narratives around it. It's very easy for me to see what womanhood is not and what it can be limitted by. And perhaps, it's better and easier to define womanhood for myself and how it applies to me rather than having a broad definition of sorts. But, I think another aspect of this is because I never had a solid female role model in my life. I learned about what not to do by watching her, not what to do, similar to how I define womanhood by what it is not rather than what it is. I feel like I have had to figure out things considered traditionally feminine things on my own, whether that be how puberty works, how to do my makeup, how to navigate social situations, how to cook, how do deal with dating and boys etc. And sometimes, I still feel lost. I still don't know how to do my hair and my fashion sense feels abysmal. And there is a part of me that feels more like a gremlin than a woman because gender is a performance and not only do I sometimes forget my lines, but sometimes it feels like I was never given lines in the first place. There is a freedom to that because instead of trying to recite prewritten lines, I can improvise and do what feels more natural to me. But the problem is, that's not how the play or broader society functions and people are still operating under and are still constrained by some lines, for better and for worse. And rather than having this decision to improvise coming from a declaration of my own authenticity, it comes from a place of having no other choice because I simply wasn't given the guidance in the first place.

How many of y'all have people in real life who is familiar with Leo's content or have visited this forum? I'm just curious.

Some Themes I Want to Talk About in this Book I have caught myself reviewing previous journal entries as I have been mapping out the content of this book and fleshing out the building blocks. I have decided that I'm going to create a quicker reference to my own works as it relates to my project. I think this is also helpful in helping me see the way that my writing, self reflection, and overall self development applies to my book. Sometimes this process feels overwhelming, like I have to come up everything myself and start research from ground zero. This is a reminder that this isn't the case and that I have some work that I'm starting with. Cultural Nihilism: Nihilism Part 1 The Problems with Convenience and Optimization Culture Nihilism Part 2: Career Frustration Nihilism Part 3: Comparing the Mindset of My Immigrant Parents to My Ennui Nihilism Part 4: Seeds and Sprouts Nihilism Part 5: Factors that Contribute to the Nihilism + Addressing Them Nihilism Part 6: A Better World is Possible Nihilism Part 7: Spiral Dynamics Nihilism Part 8: Anti-Intellectualism Nihilism Part 9: Case Studies through the Classes Nihilism Part 10: Looksmaxxing Where I'm at in My Journey with Combatting Cultural Nihilism Nihilism Part 11: Luxury Poverty What is Punk Rock Nostalgia: Romanticizing the Past Lana Del Rey Romanticizing the Past (Again): 70s – 90s Edition Stability Fetish But also, the past SUCKS A Simplier Time Being The Adult In The Room The Lolita Resurgence Ableism and Disability Rights: Autism and Neurodivergence: Unpacking Stereotypes Around Autism Autism and Neurodivergence: Neurodivergence =/= Mental Disorder and the Problems with Masking Autism and Neurodivergence: Unpacking my Ableism- You Can’t Have Bad Days Diagnosis Is All Life Worth Living Breasts and Eggs Fulfillment Outside of Capitalism: The Happiness Spectrum Surviving Capitalism Coping Under Capitalism Part 1: A Desire for Meaning Coping Under Capitalism Part 2: A Grain of Salt Ambitions as an Anticapitalist Cozy Animals A Simpler Time Mental Health Under Late Stage Capitalism What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up? Part 1: Fetishizing and Monetizing Your Interest What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up? Part 2: Why I Stopped Searching for a Purpose and a Dream Career What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up? Part 2.2: Why I Stopped Searching for a Purpose and a Dream Career Depressive Hedonia My Leisure Outside of Capitalism Class Conscious Christmas Maturity and Delayed Gratification: Puer Aeternus Part 1 (Not) Taking Myself Seriously Putting Life on a Pedestal The Fantasy of Adult Competence Fantasy I Feel Like a Loser in My Mid-20s I Feel Like I Should Have More Things Figured Out Defining Adulthood for Myself in My Mid-Twenties Unc Status In The Middle Thoughts on Adulthood Thoughts on Womanhood Self-Infantilization Feeling 17 A Desire for More Responsibility Families and Gender Norms: Decentering Motherhood Unconditionally Wanting Parenthood Breasts and Eggs Unconventional and Wacky Families Wanting a Better Life for Your Kid Upsetero Heteros: Are the Straights Ok? Upsetero Heteros: Wine Moms My Relationship With Porn Part 2: A Healthier Form of Porn The Sign of the Times / my various cultural takes Dealing with Collective Trauma Gen Z Crackhead Humor Elements of Doomer Mentality Envy, COVID, and Rich Conservative White Kids Disassociation The Normalization of Drugs in Adult Life The Hellscape that was the Early 2000s Mass Shootings The 2000s The Toxicity of the 2010s The Toxicity of the 2020s Part 1 The Toxicity of the 2020s Part 2 Aging The Dread An Update on the Dread The Limitations of Leftist Policies Living in the 1999 Life in 2024 Zeigeist: Experiencing the Neoliberal Dream in Late Stage Capitalism The Election Election Grief Lonliness and Social Media Addiction Wah! Luigi! Making Sense of Our Chaotic 2025 Political Landscape with Spiral Dynamics Dream I Feel Like The World Is Falling Apart The Current Information Environment The Big 250 Experiencing My 20s during the 2020s Overturning Roe v. Wade Activism: Cyncism and Desensitization Boycott Fatigue Thoughts on Advocacy Absurdism: Doomer, Gloomer, Bloomer One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy (Psychoanalyzing Myself May 18, 2024) Mastery vs the Ordinary

While the solar punk aesthetic has been good in terms of helping me get inspiration of how the future feels like, I don't want to replicate the world building exactly. I think I want to lean more on the sentiment of sewer socialism where its more focused on local government reform, public health, and upgrading city infrastructure like sanitation and parks rather than waiting for a national revolution or aesthetically green washing everything.

None of the people in my life know about Actualized.org. I think the biggest reasons why I don't send videos is because they are pretty lengthy and most people in my real life aren't super into videos that are an hour plus long . The people in my real life have read the writing I have posted on this forum but haven't gone into the forum itself. I'm kind of worried about what they might think of the forum given some of the more misogynistic / incel adjacent stuff on here. I do interject various concepts I have learned here into conversations and I feel like that has been a more seamless way to talk about these topics to where people are more receptive.

On the contrary, I found a youtube channel that I have quite liked:

@LordFall Thanks for the resources. Having a starting point always helps It's about someone who time travels to 2076 and experiences a bunch of culture shock during their time there. I have a whole journal I'm dedicating my world building to: Yeah, I'm not planning on publishing this. I'm just doing it for the fun of it tbh.

Yeah... this is the opposite of what I'm going for lol

Inspiration I know I wrote a little bit about this in the first post in this journal but I wanted to expand on that a little for reflection purposes. Here are the things that are inspiring me in no particular order. 1. Coping I feel like one of the ways that I cope with all of the chaos happening around me, even when I'm in a position where I'm doing everything I can to take care of myself and the people around me but I still find myself succumbing to existential dread, is that I imagine myself in my 70s or 80s. I imagine myself as an old woman and being surrounded by kids or young adults who ask me *what was the 2020s like?* And then I start off with *well, it all started in 2016 with an ape named Harambe in the Cincinati Zoo.* Then I go into all the wild shit that I encountered after that. Because when I'm in my 70s or 80s, I'm sure I'll be able to look back at this chaotic decade as my lore or, at the very least, some degree of humor. Because the way that the world is going on now, yes it's scary but it's not going to be like this forever. So you might as well take everything in and have something interesting to say. I also think that as I have been doing the research for this that this project has been a source of hope for me. I think over all I'm trying to envision a better world and send a more positive message of what we can build, not only so that we have a path out of this when it all falls apart, but also so that we have something driving us through the chaos as well. 2. An Interest in the Time Travel Genre / Depiction of the future. This was one of my favorite media tropes growing up (and even now). As a kid I loved the show Time Warp Trio and I distinctly remember my dad introducing me to Back to the Future when I was 11 years old. I loved the movie Meet the Robinsons and the various episodes across different TV shows that featured the same thing. As I moved into my teens, I loved the show Cold Case that featured a group of detectives in the present day trying to solve murders from decades ago and they have to interview people from that time period and the show flashed back to what life was like back when the crime was comitted. I also loved media that depicted the future such as the Jetsons, or dystopian novels like the Hunger Games, Divergent, Uglies etc. But I did notice a problem with this genre of media. They tended to over estimate the technological advancments while underestimating the social advancements. Or, they would try to bypass this problem by setting something so far into the future to where it's like *sure we might have flying cars 200 years from now. * The first time I was aware of this issue was when I watched Back to the Future again on October 21 2015, a day before my 16th birthday. Back to the Future Part II was released in 1989 and the main character goes into the future to October 21 2015 and they have crazy shit like hover boards, flying cars, and other crazy technologies. And I remember looking around at October 21 2025 and being like... yeah I don't think we're going to achieve that anytime soon lol. Then, later I noticed that a lot of the depictions of the future we have in the media at any given time typically has to do with how we feel about the present. I think that can be seen especially with the rise of dystopian content over the last 15 years that depicts the future as bleak as a way to warn us about our present day social ills and provide valid commentary on it. I think it can also be seen if you contrast today's dystopian content to the way that the future was depicted in the 60s, the 80s, or hell the 2000s. And sure, the optimism from that time seems a little silly now since we don't have flying cars in 2026. But I think we can still benefit from a degree of optimism in seeing a future that is worth fighting for while still being grounded by what's going on right now. I don't think it has to be one or the other. And if anything, I think that can address a lot of the problems with this genre and the way that it imagines the future. 3. An Interest in Cyclical Social Development. I feel like I'm a social scientist at heart given my educational background, the type of content I gravitate towards, and the way that I analyze media and the world around me. I feel like theories like the Four Turnings and Sprial Dynamics can help with giving insight of what we're growing towards and what obstacles we may encounter along the way. I like the way that it depicts things like backlashes, collective progress, regression, dismantling systems etc. And I think it can address the common pitfalls in imagining the future as a result. One of the reasons why people over estimate technological progress and underestimate social progress is because we project our current paradigms and our current biases of how we feel about the present on to the future. The way that bias shows up is by thinking in linear terms when thinking of history, rather than cyclical ones. We think that the future is going to be dystopian because we are engrossed in the era of Crisis and we think it's always going to be like this, so we imagine a future of the crisis as something that linearly or exponentially gets worse instead of a future where the crisis eventually dies down and new systems are created to replace the old paradigms. We thought the future of the 2020s was going to be a technological paradise according to the optimism of the 60s, 80s, and 2000s because we thought technological progress and the increase of quality of life was going to be linear. And I think imagining progress in the context of cycles is a more nuanced way of making predictions or imagining a future that doesn't seem alien or outlandish both in a positive or a negative way. 4. My Own Journey of Development as a Person and as a Writer I have many goals in my 20s. One of which is writing a book. I came up with that goal given how much I journal and I figured that I would probably have enough material to write a pretty good book. At first I thought that it might be self-help related. But now that I'm no longer neck deep in self help content like I was from age 18 to 22, I don't think that's the case. After reading through many of my journal entries, I thought that I had a very good way of capturing the current moment and that I'm skilled at thinking in systems, and analyzing social dynamics. At first, I thought of writing something fictional based on my personal experiences and the experiences of others regarding the present day / the 2020s. Then I was like *what if I combine my knowledge of these cyclical ways of thinking and my interest in the time travel genre to make something set in the future.* I also thought of the general messages that I want to send as the over arching theme of what I'm trying to say and things just started to click. I also looked at a journal entry from years ago that I thought was interesting: And I think writing this book is a part of that. I also think that you can pack in way more life lessons and things that stick to people emotionally that would want people to better their lives through things like fiction as opposed to nonfiction or self help. I think fiction forces you to empathize, imagine, and emotionally connect to integrate messages more than nonfiction and self help. I also think this will be more of a challenge for me because much of my experience in writing has been in the form of journal entries, the essays I have had to write in school, and succinct writing in corporate/ business settings. I don't think any of that is bad or hurts me. I think the journal entries are a good way for me to reflect and generally speaking have practice in writing so that the skill doesn't erode after school. My educational background has been helpful in me imagining various systems and social structures in my world building and it has been helpful in analyzing other pieces of media as well. My writing in my job forces me to be direct and succinct which enhances how coherent and easy to understand a narrative is. At the same time, those are not the same skill sets that are essential for writing fiction. I have little to no experience in writing fiction (unless you count creating character designs for your friend's Wattpad Hunger Games fanfiction in the 8th grade as experience). I feel like if I was an artist, rather than being a painter, I would be the architect that is gifted in drawing detailed blueprints of a beautiful building. That has it's own merits but it doesn't have the same result as a painter who can capture the look and the feel of an image as opposed to getting bogged down with the technical details. I think writing this book, as opposed to something nonfiction or self help related, would challenge me more as a writer and expand my skills. And I'm not going to lie, it's intimidating. I don't know how I'm going to write these characters or their archs. I'm really bad at writing flowery prose without sounding like a fake deep Tumblr emo kid. I'm not good at painting an image in people's minds when it comes to describing a setting, a mood, a situation etc. Dialog also feels incredibly intimidating because I don't want it to sound like a bad Netflix original. I'm really good at identifying bad fictional content because I have witnessed them and I have, in some cases, produced them when I was in the 8th grade or into my high school years in the form of cringey journal entries where I was trying to be something I was not by writing in a voice that didn't sound natural to me. But yeah.. this project intimidates me and excites me. It's going to stretch my intellectual and imaginative capabilities. But I also get to delve into a lot of the things that I'm already interested in and have that be fuel to create something greater. I don't know how this is going to turn out and I don't think that if I write this book that I would publish it, but it is a interesting challenge that I want to present to myself.

I feel like before 2020, people cared about climate change more and felt the impending doom of the climate crisis. I remember people talking about the various doomsday clocks when I was in high school. I think the most famous one is in New York City and it's counting the days until we get the the point of no return when the temperature rises by 1.5 degrees celcius. I think after the pandemic, the climate crisis fell more so in the background of various other crisis that have gotten worse since then such as the cost of living crisis, housing crisis, the pandemic, the threats to our democracy, ICE running around in these streets, etc. There is so many things going wrong to where the climate feels like an after thought. Which is scary because none of these other crisis matters if we don't have a fucking planet lol. But it doesn't come ot the forefront of most people's minds because it's not as tangible and something you encounter on a day to day basis (as of right now), unlike things like rising gas prices, rising rent etc. On top of that, we're also amidst a very messy ego backlash. I have written about this in my main journal. In this post, I do go into some stuff on how a lot of stage green "crunchy" people went down in the alt right pipeline. A lot of it has to do with the similarities of stage blue and stage green along with how some stage green people don't have a proper integration of orange so it's easy for them to fall for really dumb pseudoscience such as sketchy home remedies and anti-vax talking points. But I think the same can be applied to climate change where a lot of people, because there has been an even more erosion of the overall quality of life, are caring about climate change less. The lack of healthy orange stability is causing people to back track. I think another element of this is that a lot of people who were surface level stage green who went vegan for health reasons, climate change reasons, and animal rights reasons, because they didn't have a proper integration of stage orange and their veganism was often a mask for other issues like eating disorders, now, they are taking the pendulum back to things like the carnivore diet. Like yes, things like veganism and more of a plant based diet are huge in terms of helping the climate. But we have stopped talking about that because of a change in cultural and material forces. And I think some of that is valid. There was a lot of emphasis of people's individual choices back in the 2010s in terms of what you're doing regarding climate change. This can range from recycling, going vegan, using paper straws, using less plastic bags etc. But the limitation of this is that there is only so much our individual choices can do when you have these big ass corporations dumping waste in our rivers, building data centers, and cutting down our forests. I think the good part of the 2020s is that a lot of people see that climate change is more systemic and a product of capitalism and we aren't turning on each other or overly moralizing personal decisions. But the downside of that is that because of the systemic nature of this, a lot of people got a sense of learned helplessness to where they think *what's the point in trying to recycle if we're all going to die* because it's such a big problem. I also think that the systemic aspect of it also breeds a sense of disconnection from this problem because it feels so abstract, especially since you have 5 other crisis and problems knocking at your doorstep. But unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be abstract for long. Going back to the doomsday clock in New York City, we got about 4 years until we reach the point of no return and we are about a few months away from the super El Nino mentioned in the video above. Things are about to get a whole lot worse before they get better.

A Crumbling Empire I watched this video recently and I really liked this. The video starts with talking about the disaster that is the Iran war, how Britain had a similar (granted less embarrassing) fumble in the Suez canal in the 1950s, and the disaster that was the 250th Independence day. It talks about these events in a narrative of how this is a crumbling empire as the U.S. causes chaos in the global stage, loses leverage and respect, and it can't even throw a proper birthday party without the reflecting pool turning green and having all the performers cancel. Then, the video shifts into talking about how while the empire is crumbling, that's not all bad because the empire isn't necessarily the people. This is my favorite part of the video: Then, the creator goes into his experience watching all of this go down as a Canadian. He touches on how the Revolutionary War gave birth to the U.S, but also Canada and how that really affected average people there. He differentiates between the land, the borders, who rules over a place, from the people themselves, the history they create, and the way they championed their rights. Another section I liked in this video is the part where the creator talks about the Antonio Gramsci quote "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." I think this is a good call to action and the overall message that I want to send.

What If Things Never Got Better? What if things never got better? What if the cost of a median house or the cost of oil/gas never got better? But, instead of us succumbing to this, we build systems around this material reality and those systems actually end up better for us in the long run. The suburban house, the nuclear family living under one roof, the typical middle class lifestyle that we imagine, is not something that has already been around. It’s something that has come up in the last 80 years post WW2. That’s not the only way to live. The main reason why highways were built to and from cities was so that in the event of a nuclear war, we can move supplies around efficiently. After WW2, we didn’t “go back to normal” and get rid of the highways. Instead, we used that as existing infrastructure to make the suburbs which were created as a mid point between rural and urban living but also because of racism and redlining. That’s how things work in the High. New instructions and ways of life are built from the by product of the Crisis. They aren’t perfect and the rationale gets called into action in the Awakening (think Civil Rights movement in this situation). I watched a few financial channels and I’m seeing that the previous financial benefits of owning a suburban house is dwindling these days because of how expensive houses are and because of property tax. A few decades ago, buying a house was a good idea because it locked in your mortgage payment and it was cheaper in the long run as opposed to renting. It was also much easier to buy a house back then where you could save up for a few years and get a down payment. Now, if we’re going off of cost alone and we ignore the American Dream propaganda we have been fed, it makes more sense in major cities now to rent an apartment and take the difference you would have spent on a mortgage and other hidden costs associated with home ownership and put it in the stock market, it will yield higher returns. I also think of Amsterdam and how in the 60s and 70s, people were much more likely to buy cars. Then, because of the 1970s oil crisis, gas became incredibly expensive. And it never went down to where using a car was sustainable again. Instead, the city moved around that and people built more bike and pedestrian friendly infrastructure. Now, fast forward a few decades, I don’t think people are seeing the oil crisis of the 70s as a major hit to people’s quality of life. If anything, I think the new system that was built as a result of the crisis is yielding better results. We can look to today as an example as well. While we never went fully “back to normal” since COVID, some really good things came out of it. People get to work from home now meaning they have more flexibility with where they live, their work life balance, and taking care of kids. While there isn’t a mass physical infrastructure change, to take away one’s commute and give them extra hours of their day back is a huge change to someone’s life infrastructure. And what I’m thinking as far as world building goes is what if housing prices and gas prices never went down and that was actually a good thing. What if this incentivizes people to be in apartments more, thus creating more of a demand for nicer walkable areas. What if instead of all the property taxes from the city core going out to subsidize the suburbs, we reinvest that money towards schools, hospitals, and other major building projects in the city. There is a reason why a lot of major building constructions dwindled after WW2. I mean a lot of the fancy, traditional looking architecture that give a city life was built around the post war period or before that. That is before suburbs became a big thing. It’s because all the money was going out to maintain the suburbs. What if gas prices never went down, people have to use public transport and biking more, and that increases the demand for public transport, better infrastructure, and more denser neighborhoods. What if this is the push we need to invest in green energy and phase out oil and gas. Yes, the American Dream and traditional institutions established 80 years ago are crumbling. And it’s scary because as of now, we just see the negatives and the hit to our quality of life. But what if this is our chance to create a better dream instead of going back to the old and trying to patch up a dying paradigm? But that requires creativity and being able to think outside the box of how the ideal life is a heterosexual marriage with 2.5 kids in a suburban home with two or more cars. Yes, we want to solve the problems of today when envisioning the future. But, we don’t want to do it in a way where we “go back to normal.” We want to create better overall systems that adapt to a changing world, not just fight it to preserve old paradigms. And something that I find so beautiful and also so tragic about the 2020s is that we have the solutions to a lot of these problems. We can solve the climate crisis with our current green energy technology. We can put more money towards schools and our healthcare system because we have the money. We know what policies need to be implemented to create a better quality of life for people. The problem isn’t finding solutions. The problem is implementing said solutions across the backdrop of corporate interests and cultural talking points that are used to cause people to vote against their best interests. That’s why I don’t think that 2076 is going to be this hyper futuristic place. I don’t think more technology alone is going to solve our problems because if that was the case, we wouldn’t be in this situation. If anything, more technology without the proper regulations and protections does more harm than good. Look at the way that companies like DoorDash, Airbnb, and Uber are harming the economy, harming the consumers, and harming the workers. Yes the conveniences are nice, but they aren’t a net positive without the proper guard rails.

Reading List This is going to be pieces of media that I want to consume. It's not a literal reading list that features books but it's also going to feature movies, shows and more. Imagining a Solar Punk World: Disney's Strange World A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers Studio Ghibli's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, and Princess Mononoke Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin Walkaway by Cory Doctorow Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers by Sarena Ulibarri The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson More Technical Material The Fourth Turning and The Fourth Turning is Here by Neil Howe and William Strauss I don't know any sources for this but things on decomodifying housing The videos on Alan Fisher's Youtube Channel about urban planning and public transit Continue watching videos from Real Life Lore Rewatch Leo's videos on Conscious Politics Various Books from my degree (I'm not in my apartment right now so I cannot list them off the top of my head). Philosophy Salvation by bell hooks All About Love by bell hooks The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt by Albert Camus The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau Vulcan's Hammer by Philip K. Dick Topics to Research (no specific sources, just explore these things) Parallels between the previous crisis era and now comparing the counter culture movement to the transcendentalist movements green energy what different countries are doing and potential solutions to current problems